YEAR 2000 YEAR IN REVIEW
YEAR 2000 YEAR IN REVIEW
THE BLILEY'S OF ROCHESTER,
NEW YORK
Dec. 25, 2000
YEAR 2000 YEAR IN REVIEW
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Dec. 25, 2000 |
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This has certainly been an eventful year. It started with a major upswing in the stock market and I was confident I was headed to instant riches. In the last few weeks, reality had returned to my view of the world as the market plunged. While I am still optimistic, my financial well being will depend far more on my efforts and less on luck. No doubt you all feel the same.
Last Fall I worked on a freelance job that began in September of 1999. It was to be a "short, quick-editing" job. So much for plans. It turned out to be a major job that lasted three months. Believing the job would soon end, I never sent in an in any incremental invoices. By the time it was finished and I submitted an invoice, I was due three month's wages. The date was December 16th. The normal pay cycle was well over one month. I asked if there was any chance of it being paid before the end of the year. The response was, "I will see if that is possible." Then two days before Christmas, I got a call, "We have a check waiting for you. Would you mind picking it up?" Mind? What a blessing! I had some large bills due that nearly equaled the amount of the check. I quickly headed to the bank.
The teller at the bank told me there would be a five-day hold on the funds after I deposited the check. I sighed. I then asked her if she would ask the branch manager to wave the hold. The manager came out and said, "Yes. And have a Merry Christmas."
My Christmas was blessed through the kindness of friends.
I have been investing a great amount of time in family history activities. It has lead to many wonderful discoveries and a few adventures. The product of my efforts resulted in the creation of a Bliley family history site in March. I took out a domain name for the site. www.Bliley.net. The Web site development has been a lot of work and very satisfying. It has added to my list of skills and hopefully provided family members and historians with resources that they have never had before.
As part of the Web site work, I have been supporting the research efforts of the Harbor Creek Township historian in her efforts to write a history of several major families of Harbor Creek in the 1800s. The site continues to grow and so does the list of potential items to be added.
One of the family history projects has been to transform my grandmother Lula Bliley's fifty-two-page family photo album into electronic form. The product of this work has been a major expansion to the family history site and the production of a CD-ROM. The CD is fill to the brim (640 Mb) with scans of the photos and a presentation of the content in several formats. The CD was distributed to family members and several historical societies. In the coming year, I hope to publish a second CD containing more general material of the Bliley family. Both of these CDs will serve as time capsules for our children and grandchildren.
Probably the most exciting news of the year was the accidental purchase of a new house. Why "accidental"? Here is the story.
When we first came to Rochester, New York in 1976 we purchased the third house we looked at. I told Debbie that it would be better to live there for a few months than to pay rent. It was supposed to give us time to do a more thorough search for an ideal home. Time passed as it always does much faster than you realize. After a few years, Debbie started asking me when we were going to find that next house? We began going to home shows and a few open houses. There was little that we could find in common in the houses we saw. Too big, too small, too much wasted space, too much money. The years past and we made house-hunting a part-time activity with outings every three or four months. Over the years, we started to narrow our differences and got to know what each other valued.
Then in July of this year, Debbie came home from her exercise
class at the YMCA and announced the house which she had been passing
by for the last three years was up for sale. "Forget it!",
I said I am under employed. After the next class she come home
and announced that the house was going to be open for inspection
on Sunday. She asked only to look at it to see what the inside
really looked like. Reluctantly, I agreed to go.
We stepped into the house and walked around for about five minutes. We both exclaimed it was just what we had been looking for and it made us feel like we had "come home". (Both of us were raised in a two-story house and we had been living in a one-story ranch house.) It was priced well beyond what we thought we could afford so I suggested that we offer them what we felt comfortably pay. The initial offer was rejected out-of-hand, but it whetted our appetite and a biding war began. A week later, we had closed a deal to by the house as 20% below the initial asking price. It still seemed like a deal to us only it necessitated rolling over some of my retirement funds into the payment for the house. This turned out to be a good investment if you consider the recent precipitous drop in the stock market. My portfolio dropped by more than 25% but the house did not.
The purchase negotiations were completed on our 26th wedding anniversary-July 6th. What an anniversary gift! One that I hope I will not have to repeat any time soon.
The closing was July 31st. When all was said and done, it took nearly two months to move all of our stuff into the new house. We hired professional movers to do the heavy lifting but we did the rest. One mover estimated we had 600 boxes of stuff to move if we did not throw anything out. We did throw some things out, but only about 1/2 of what we should have. We moved or erected a total of sixteen 2' X 4' X 6' shelving units in the basement. And surprisingly, we could use a couple more!
The members of the family put in most of the move effort over a period of many weeks. U-Haul trucks were rented on a regular basis. We took the time to seal and paint the basement floor and walls of the unfinished basement the first week we were here. Fixing up the basement was also a family affair. Tom and Beth Ann painted the walls and floor. Debbie managed to literally paint herself into a corner. :-) Finishing up the basement would never be easier, but the delay postponed the move of many things. I also hired an electrician to install a few outlets and a light for Tom's work area, and outlets for my workshop and ham radio corners. If I had the time, I would have done it myself, but I wanted to get the area in working order as soon as possible.
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Debbie painting the laundry room in the old house. She painted most of the basement in less than to prepare it for the sale. She is still sore and that is no joke. |
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One of the last maintenance items at the old house was raking up the leaves. The tree on the left was about as big as my thigh when we moved in. Now it is 2/3 grown and the yard had about three inches of leaves covering every square inch. The new yard is nearly void of trees. This scene will not be repeated got another 24 years! |
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Debbie waits in our new dining room for the movers. This is the first house we have had with a formal dining room. |
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Part of the move involved taking out-of-service my amateur radio equipment. While I had been fairly inactive in recent years, it was a difficult thing to do. All of the cabling I had worked so hard to pull through walls and the attic was pulled out. And the tower with its shortwave and two-meter antennas needed to be taken down. It was only a 30 foot tower, but it was nearly 22 years old and the Mosley TA-33 tribander was clocking in at 35 years of in the air service.
Since the new property prohibited antennas and towers, I decided exchange the tower for some manual labor from a fellow ham. I prepared the tower by removing all of the cables and the rotor. When the day came for the decommissioning, it started to lightly rain. We were determined to get it down. As I was about to lower the triband antenna (15' X 32') I heard a honk from a vehicle in the driveway. Out of the car popped my old friend and Hamfest regular, Jim Fitzreiter, from Erie. Jim had helped me put up many antennas and worked on towers with me. (Jim was camping nearby with his wife and made an unplanned visit because the weather precluded doing much else.) What a blessing he showed up. I now had two seasoned people on the ground to help out.
The bolts were loosened and the dismantling began. It went without a hitch. The greatest surprise was after we lowered the tower, the sections came apart without any problem at all. Imagine that! A week later, the local ham and I tried to dig out the old base. After about 30 minutes and managing to dig a only 8-inch hole, we gave up. We cut off the tower stubs below grade and pronounced it dead.
 Chuck on the tower preparing it for removal. |
 Jim Fitzreiter, K3QHO (L) Ron Rambuski, WA2OOI (R) |
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The old house was put on the market October 15th. It was sold within two weeks and the closing was just 30 days later--two days before Thanksgiving. What a blessing! To make things easier for the new owner, I prepared a homeowner's guide to the house. It was intended to answer the simple questions, "Why did they do that?" And "How do you operate this?" After 24 years in the same house, there we a lot of things that I knew that would take years for the new owner to figure out. My lawyer looked it over for liabilities. He said there were none, and he wish he had such a benefit when he bought his house. We have not had a single call from the new owner about a thing! |
Purchasing the new house was not well timed, but it was too strong a pull to ignore. It also gave me the chance to fulfill a 24-year-old promise to pay my loving and patient wife Debbie. The only major downside is there are covenants on the new house that preclude erection of any form of an amateur radio antenna. That was a tough one to swallow, but for 26 years of marriage, ham radio came first in so many things. I decided that I would put up "disguise" antennas or put some wire antennas on the trees that line the Eastern edge of our property. As a last resort, I have been able to made arrangements to put up antennas on the vacant land beside the house. This property has no covenants on it!
The new yard is larger than the old one. The difference means 50% move effort to mow the grass. We have one neighbor to the side. They are nice people, but the husband is a neat nick. He grooms the lawn like it was a golf course. He puts on weed killer and fertilizer. Since I am downhill from them, his fertilizer is washed down onto our property. On the whole that is a benefit, but the downside is my grass grows unevenly and far faster than I care for.
With the extra grass area it seemed like I was compelled to get a riding lawn mower. Debbie thought it would be good for my aging back and keep me out of the hot summer sun. After nearly passing out after cutting the grass in August, I was determined to give it a go if I could get a used mower. While shopping at the local mall, Debbie spotted a used riding lawn mower at Sears. It looked like it was in excellent/like-new condition, but there was a big dent on the rear panel. I am now sure the original owner could not handle the unit. The price was huge, but it was as cheap as a good used unit and they would deliver.
The unit arrived without a manual, and the second time I tried using it, it would not start. The repairman said it was a bad battery, starter solenoid and ignition switch. What else could go wrong? So far nothing, except that no one every told me I would have to keep the old lawn mower to do the edges and tight spots. The riding lawn mower saves me some time, but I was hoping I would be able to eliminate one piece of equipment and save some space in the garage for "more important" junk. I now have less space, more things to maintain, and more things to sweat over. The net gain? Zero. I am seriously thinking of selling the new mower and hiring one of the neighborhood kids to cut the grass on the really hot days. Besides, cutting the grass is a great for exercise and weight management.
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My first attempt at controlling the savage beast called a "riding lawn mower". Headed West towards our only real neighbor. I managed to return unscathed and without hitting a tree! |
The other liability of the house is it location on a busy county highway. We now know why open houses are held in the middle of the afternoon. Sure, it is a convenient time of day between meals, but it also is the quietest daylight period. We quickly learned that around 500 cars an hour pass by the house during the rush hour! That makes sleeping a problem at times. We are getting more acclimated to it as time goes by.
The heavy traffic also made picking up the mail on the other side of the road a dangerous trip. After five calls to the local Post Office, I got permission to move the box. Debbie was relieved and I learned why they call this Stone Road! Our neighbor took pity on me and came over to help me dig a hole to put in a base for the box. He owned a pickax and is a retired physical education teacher who still has more bronze than brains. But, I will not hold that against him. ;-) I now own a pickax for the first time in 26 years!
Twenty years ago, I set up a small public address system with a speaker in the bush next to the front door of our Wildbriar Road house. I would peek through a small hole in the window of the door and make hopefully scary noises and talk to the kids. It was a roaring success. I continued it for years and eventually gave up when the equipment broke down. Tom enjoyed all of the activity and was about 20 at the time I stopped.
The next Halloween he asked me if I was going to put up the speaker again. When I said, no he said he would decorate the yard. He has done that for the last 10 years. His decorations were much more elaborate than my efforts. He was willing to place some of his favorite Halloween and movie memorabilia outside. He placed a tape player in the bushes with a sound effects tape. He painted his face and got dressed up to answer the door. The neighborhood kids loved this even more. I even had some neighbors stopping me while I was cutting the lawn next summer to compliment him on his efforts.
The new neighborhood was quite different and we are on a busy street with few homes directly on the street. Our new neighbors told us that in the last two years, no one at all stopped by the house. While trick or treating is on the decline, we had averaged between 50 and 75 kids each year. This was discouraging news.
Tom was determined to put up the Halloween decorations, if for not other reason than to please the passengers in the vehicles that passed by each day. He was frequently given an approving honk as he worked in the yard hinging his flying ghosts. In all, he hung five ghosts on clear fish line an average of five to ten feet off the ground. He placed numerous decorations around the front porch. Debbie got into the act too. She loves Halloween.
Halloween Eve was cold and a little damp, but to Tom's delight the kids came. Not in the numbers like we enjoyed on Wildbriar Road, but they came! In total we probably had 25 kids. Not too bad, and I am sure we will see more next year. Tom was delighted with the results. Did I need to say that?
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Tom's ghosts swaying in the front yard. |
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Tom is still living at home and learning to drive. He continues to do his freelance reviews of television programs and films. I am confident this will end up being his career. Moving was difficult for him. He does not like or deal well with change, but it was not easy for any of us. As much as we love the new place, the old one had its benefits. Tom particularly liked watching the wildlife that came to our back door. Seeing 12 deer last Winter in the back yard is hard to beat. We had wild turkeys, fox, opossum, hawks, and maybe even a coyote.
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(a.k.a. Beth Ann)  |
She is teaching special education at a local rural school. Adjusting to the "real world" of a full time job has been a mixed bag. I think it is like most jobs to the extent that there are trials and triumphs on a regular basis. She also made a move into a newer and recently renovated apartment. This took place just one year after we moved her into the other apartment. She has promised to stay put for a few years. |
 May 2000 |
Debbie is still at work putting things away and "cleaning-up" the house. Actually, we are all doing the same thing, she just has a larger domain. We have reserved an area in the basement for her to get back into her artwork. It has been on the back burner for many years. I will add the lighting and storage she needs and she will be on her way. I am looking forward to seeing her work in a decent space. She never had it in the other two houses we owned. She took great joy in decorating the house for Christmas. We finally have a house with outside plugs! She still serves as the loving mother and wife. |
This last year is one that is hard to surpass in many regards. I believe the change in our living quarters will stimulate new ways of looking at old things and provide a fresh perspective on the future. I will continue to pursue my freelance work in technical communications and looking for a full time job that will provide a sound career move. I am seeing what I believe is some age discrimination, but that does not deter me from my goal.
We will invest some sweat equity in improving the yard and the house. We will do the same to relieve ourselves of some of the surplus junk that resides on our basement shelves. I will restart my work on the Bliley Family CD project and enhance the Bliley Network Web site. We will find some time and money to take a trip somewhere just for fun.
We will also do our best to keep in touch with old and new friends. We are blessed in many ways, and having a few good friends is at the top of the list. I also promise not to offer such a lengthy "Christmas Letter" next year.
We will pray that you will be part of our lives this next year and that you are all blessed with good health.
With Warmest Regards,
Chuck and Debbie Bliley
Charles A. Bliley
Deborah A. Bliley
158 Stone Road
Pittsford, NY 14534
Telephone: 585 385-6838
E-Mail: K3NAU@AOL.com
Home Page: www.Bliley.net
Photo and Map to our house: www.Bliley.net/map/
