It’s a beautiful Friday night in Arizona. Tonight at 6:00 PM I called each of our summer camp directors; and told them that the camp website is ready to go. There’s some fine-tuning to be done, but the site is ready to go up.

I have all of the subdomains directing to the correct files on the site. This is handy for each camp to market themselves. They don’t have to say, “Go to camps.lifeteen.com, then click on Covecrest”. They can now say, “Go to covecrest.lifeteen.com.” RockyVine is really lucky because I bought a URL for them so there line is simple, “Go to rockyvine.com.” Then that will direct to rockyvine.lifeteen.com. This stuff matters because I’ve spent seven years telling people about my websites in conversations, and I can always see people bail out when I give them too many instructions. That’s why I got nomoho.com. It’s quick, simple, easy to spell, and hard to forget.

Now that the camps site is wrapping up, I’m getting closer to going part-time. I’ve loaded all 1100 journals into the new database for supafly.com, and that’s most of the work to get the new site up. I have to tweak the CSS and I’ll be ready to go. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to add a portfolio until later. It’s just not a priority right now.

Tonight after work I drove around my favorite neighborhoods looking for for sale signs. I found one scrappy ranch house that was backed up to a huge stand of date palms. It had good lines on the house, but it was in rough shape. My guess that it was 2000 square feet with the addition, and I wanted them to ask $475k for it. But I knew they would want something in the high five hundreds. I was thrilled on the drive home because this could be the one. I was so bummed when I got home and went online and saw that it was listed for $690,000.

Not only was I disappointed, I was embarrassed for the owner and the poor Realtor who’s expected to sell that thing. For $690,000, you can get a nice house close to the beach in San Diego. Why the hell would I buy a rundown ranch house next apartments, small homes, and two miles from the ghetto?

So I kept looking online, and I re-discovered a Tempe home in a neighborhood that I really like. I actually walked through the house a few months ago during an open house, but I ignored it because it was way too big for me. Plus, it was two-stories–which I don’t like–and it had a funny look to it. In the months between then and now, I’ve scoured that area for any home for sale. I mean I watch online throughout the week, and I drive through at least once each week to look for a “for sale by owner” sign. They never go up for sale, and when they do, they are too expensive for me. So tonight, I stared at my computer screen at a house I could actually afford in the neighborhood that I like, and I wondered, “What am I waiting for?”

I drove by and saw it tonight before I went to pick up Candyce for dinner. This house has so much potential! It definitely needs a new look on the curbside, but it has good bones. I think people have skipped over it because it does look so out-of-place in the neighborhood. I’m going to go back tomorrow morning in the day for another look.

Some good news this week is that Amare Stoudamire is back after an injury that has kept him off the court for the past six months. The Suns have done quite well even without him, but its good to have a big man as we head into the playoffs. It’s funny because the day after Amare’s first game back, I was so happy that nothing could bring me down. This is proof that I need more diverse interests. Because when I put all my time, talent, and hope into the stuff at work, I run the risk of getting hurt when things don’t work out.