This afternoon, Diane and I walked over to a new home development near here, Heritage Grove. The builder had a long struggle with the town to get the development approved (it’s on land which used to be an orchard), and once they finally succeeded, they were unable to build as many homes as they’d wanted. So they decided to build expensive homes, just in time for real estate prices here in Los Gatos to skyrocket. When they first opened up the development, they were quoting prices “from the 900,000’s”, but that’s ancient history (at least six months old). They released five homes yesterday, all of which sold immediately, at prices from 1.8 to 2.4 million dollars. These houses are ok — 2900 to 3700 square feet, but they’re not on enormous lots (and there’s no privacy — the back yards are easily viewed from the neighboring home’s second floor), and our recently remodelled kitchen has better cabinetry than these houses do. The smallest house is nearly 50% larger than our house, but somehow the bedrooms felt cramped. Fortunately, we were only looking for decorating ideas rather than actually being in the market, but it was still frightening to see these prices for houses in our extended neighborhood.

Diane says my eye hasn’t changed enough to warrant posting a new picture. I guess that’s good…. But I have posted Montréal pictures and updated the narrative for June 6th. I think that finishes that particular trip.

Happy Birthday, Allison!

I’m not sure if it was jet lag or an after-effect of my concussion, but I slept till 9 this morning. Very unusual. Very refreshing.

After finally getting moving, I made a trip to Costco and spent too much money. Some of it was on stuff I’d planned to buy before going there, but not all of it by any means. And now I have one more DVD in my queue to watch RealSoonNow — Galaxy Quest. Then lunch and new passport photos for Jeffrey (we discovered his passport expired on the day we entered Canada; fortunately, an expired passport is ok for US citizens at the Canada-US border). I’d love to know why the US INS agent at Montréal airport stamped Diane’s and Jeffrey’s passports but not mine — but I followed my rule when dealing with border guards and didn’t do anything to call attention to ourselves. Luckily, I didn’t look like this then. Thanks, Dave Winer, for the get well wishes. Despite the way I look, I am feeling pretty good (it only hurts when I do something which pulls at the Steri-Strips), but I certainly am getting comments from people who see me (tonight the cashier at Sam’s BBQ asked me what I had done, and it actually took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about!). And there is no truth to the rumor that I just did this to have something to write about which would increase my page views.

I finally posted some pictures from Reunion on the appropriate page (June 3rd).