January 20, 2005
Dear Everyone:
My office is in “Pleasant Hill”, but my job is in “Pleasanton”, at least for the foreseeable future. When I’m in “Pleasant Hill”, I can see when a message has been left in my voice mailbox because there’s a light on the phone that comes on when someone leaves a message.
But I can’t see the light from “Pleasanton”. So, on days when I’m working somewhere other than my office, which is about 110% of the time these days, I leave an outgoing message that sounds something like this:
“This is ‘A’. Today is Thursday, January 20th. I will be working in another Company location today, and will be checking my voicemail frequently. Please leave your name, number and a message, and I’ll return your call as soon as possible.” Then I set a reminder on the computer that pops up every 30 minutes to remind me to check my voicemail.
I have “Pleasant Hill” Voicemail on speed dial in the “Pleasanton” office. I quickly punch in my phone number and password. I usually hear the four most beloved words in the English language: “Your mailbox is empty.”
Sometimes there is a message and I call the person back right then. Sometimes the message is so garbled that it becomes detective work to figure it all out.
Meanwhile…
Last Friday, I took a Personal Choice Holiday so that “Jeannie” and I could keep an appointment with an estate lawyer. We had originally made an appointment for the day before Thanksgiving, but “Jeannie” got sick and had to reschedule, and we arbitrarily chose last Friday. Most of the information the lawyer needed we were able to supply immediately, such as a complete listing of all of our siblings and their current addresses.
But one thing the lawyer needed was a copy of the title deed to each of our respective homes. This we didn’t have, but agreed to find and get to him as soon as possible.
This may be hard for you to believe, but I still have the file with all of the paperwork pertaining to my purchase of the condo that I owned before I bought the current townhouse. I also have every scrap of paper pertaining to the purchase of the townhouse. I have multiple copies of all of the CC&Rs for both places. I still have copies of minutes of Homeowner Association Board of Directors meetings that were supplied as a requirement before I could buy the townhouse. I have everything.
Except a copy of the title deed.
I spent several evenings going through all the papers to make sure that none of them was a copy of the title deed. It was definitely not there. I probably never had a copy, assuming that it was sent to the county recorder’s office and filed there. Apparently, you must know to ask for your own copy when you sign all those papers to buy a home.
Whatever.
But one of those “scraps” of paper was the business card of the realtor who helped me buy the townhouse. (I also have her calendar, so even if I didn’t have the card, I was OK. This is why they give us these calendars.)
So this morning, I called her and explained the situation. No problem! She would get the copies and email them to me. She has connections.
Pleased with this turn of events, I called “Jeannie” at home. “Jeannie” was not at home, naturally, so I left a message on her home voicemail. And happily went back to work.
About 30 minutes later, the reminder popped up on
my computer screen. I called
my voice mailbox in “Pleasant Hill”.
“You have one new message.”
It was from “Jeannie’s” cell phone.
Her deposition had cancelled.
So, with time on her hands, she drove over to the county
recorder’s
office and got certified copies of both our title deeds.
And then drove to the lawyer’s office in
At about this time, the email from the realtor landed in my electronic Inbox, with the scanned copies of our two title deeds. So we now have title deed copies up the wazoo. And the ball is officially in the lawyer’s court (no pun intended).
In other news…
There’s a new project going on at work. It’s called Project Pangaea. Apparently, giving projects cryptic names is all the rage these days. Project Atlas. Project Hercules. Evidently giving the project a long name like, “Information Management Program Project” and then calling it by the initials, “IMPP”, has fallen out of fashion.
So what is Project Pangaea? It’s a plan to establish a “service model” and then distribute that model out on a global scale. Pangaea, you see, is the name that geologists gave to a hypothetical land mass which, about 200 million years ago, broke apart into pieces which eventually formed the continents that we know and love today. Knowing that, the project name makes a certain sense.
I have absolutely no idea what Projects Atlas and Hercules are/were about. I just hope Hercules didn’t start out as a plan to split it into 12 impossible little projects.
Mother is doing very well.
She’s out of the hospital and resting in the
Love, as always,
Pete
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