DEC-A-9
I MEET THE MANAGEMENT OF D G LIU AND
WALK THROUGH THE SNOWBOUND PROPERTY
AS THE INSULATION IS IN AND THE PLUMBING
BEGUN, WHILE THE APPRAISAL AND MORTGAGE LOAN FLOUNDERS FOR LACK OF “FINISHING;”
I PACK UP AND LEAVE FOR ALB TO DRIVE
DOWN
IN A RENTAL CAR TO PITTSFIELD,
MASSACHUSETTS AND THE BERKSHIRE MEDICAL CENTER
December 11, 2003
I have had the residual of the blustery weather and the self-inflicted wound of sitting in a treestand in the cold wind. This has made for a productive cough, laryngitis and sinusitis. But, I can keep plugging along, and, of course, will I had several appointments made in past weeks to fulfill, and did and will.
First was on Tuesday morning when I was going to meet with Dale Kramer, and DG Liu, the founder and Tim, the Production Manager of the company. I arrived early in the snowy driveway and put some things in the house. I had seen Dale’s truck in the drive and a maroon Denali. I noticed that the insulation had been put up in the ceilings of the breakfast room and had lined the walls. Even the basement had the framing of the walls taken down to which the drywall would have been attached so that the insulation can be attached to the now finished and furnished walls of the basement. When I walked out side, I came up behind a short man in a camouflage suit with a collapsed treestand on his back. I said “Jerry?” He dropped his glove, and in bending down to pick it up he was unaware of where the extended frame of his treestand protruded which hit me with a solid smack on the top of the head which drew blood. We bantered a bit about “assault by a deadly contractor.” Tim Wantz drove up. Tim had visited the property several times but had not met me. Jerry had not been here, but is obviously following events here with interest since, as Tim cheerfully confessed to me as we drove out to Montgomery Village for breakfast at Denny’s later, “This is the biggest project by far we have ever done, even bigger than a few houses we built from the ground up, and much larger than any addition we have ever done in the seventeen years of the company.”
As such, this is their showpiece, and they are proud of it, and it shows. I told Jerry a few things about the property and the previous owner, Lowell Bennett and how he overbuilt a very solid house. They were intrigued by what was here but even more so by what was to come. Dale took Jerry and Tim through the house and I just listened as they looked over various features of “Dale’s baby.” They are very pleased with the design and the progress. The Great Room is insulated now, just only through glimpses revealing the structural steel work. The duct work is all wrapped with insulating layers and I can hear the heat pump from this zone of the addition working in the storage room in the basement. They looked around at the framing, and I could tell Jerry what I thought of the craftsmanship of Jodi and Dale as they had assembled the Breakfast Room and the deck. There are no right angles in the Great Room or Breakfast Room, so almost all of this has to be constructed by eye, with the blueprints giving the specs for measurements.
We managed to escape from the group of subcontractors, the plumbers finally on the scene and the insulation people finishing with a large mound of leftover stuff in the dumpster. The plastic is now taken down from the passthroughs—the open window connecting Great Room and Dining Room and the two doorways now open since the whole house can be heated now that the addition is sealed and insulated. WE got to Denny’s before we started talking about the inevitable topic which occupied us from that point on—the hunts. We compared notes, and they were keen to hear more of the African hunts and the Cape Buffalo stories particularly. But, they also wanted to hear the stories of the Byk Moral and the caribou. I got their email addresses and filled them in on everything from the leopard in the jungle, “No One Here Eats the Horns,” the “Lion Pastor and the Cretin,” and “North to Alaska,” as well as “The Big Five.” It is probably inevitable that we will all be out on the hunt together at some pint in the future, and maybe I can organize the whole group of us to go to the Turkic Republics and pursue Ibex and “just look” at Marco Polo sheep.
‘THE LOAN ARRANGER”
I was supposed to meet with eh Appraiser sent over by the Mortgage Bank for an estimate of the “substantial completion” of the exterior of the project. The last of the siding was being put up on the Parkside façade of the addition covering up the Tyvek, which was an indicator of it not being complete. I had thought that this meant that the construction exterior was complete, since the property is landscaped and seeded, as well as the crush and run has been graded on the drive. But, Jay the appraiser also walked through the interior and was quite impressed with what he saw. We had been scheduled at 9:30 AM on December 18th at Dan Kennedy’s Office to settle on the mortgage Loan on a residential home, but that has now all been thrown into turmoil. The reason is that the exterior of the house is all that they were concerned with as an appraisal, but that was of an addition on a habitable house, defined as having kitchen appliances, cabinetry, and bathrooms, and the mortgage lender Wendy Steinberg said she had no idea that this was a “Gut and Re-do.” So, this might mean that I will have to miss the 12/25 deadline of this approved mortgage loan, and re-apply when the house is habitable, or else pay several percentage points higher for the two months of a construction loan, which hardly seems worth it. The walkthrough for the 8th of January will clearly not be the finishing date, since the plumbers are just getting started now, over three weeks late, and today’s date on the revised schedule had called for painting the interior after almost all the work had been done. So, there will be delays—not that that has surprised me, and cost over-runs—hardly something that has startled me either.
INTERIOR DECORATOR AND DESIGNING
FURNISHINGS FOR THE FINISHED INSIDE
SPACE
I have just got the packet from Sandy Shelor who had forwarded the proposal for the furniture orders for those items that need to be manufactured and upholstered in special custom fabrics, etc to be ready by later February delivery. She has made paint and wallpaper selections and has got quite a number of interior items on firm order now, with the newer dates of late February.
WHAT I NOW KNOW ABOUT KITCHEN APPLIANCES
The kitchen appliances are now on a high priority. As such, I have just returned from the Bray and Scarf appliance showroom on the Rockville Pike to put together a “high end” complete package of “Viking” stainless steel appliances in the Professional Series. This includes a double oven with a warmer drawer as well as the best infrared broiler in the business, generating 18,000 BTU’s as an electrical group of three oven and warmer drawers (I may yet be the king of the social entertaining set, with it all starting when I got the “All-Clad series of Professional CookWare.” In addition and at another site, there will be an LP gas cook stovetop with six burners and a central 12 inch char grill. The whole Professional Series will be Stainless Steel with black knobs.
Now, the high end refrigerator (which I did not know at the time only comes in a side by side in 48 inches width, but has an over/under refrigerator/freezer in 36 inch, and the kitchen architectural drawings call for a 36 inch recessed refrigerator space to the left of where the refrigerator once stood,) is also gong to be Viking Professional.
Well, while we are at it, rather than getting the suggested Bosch dishwasher, we can go Viking too with that appliance, and now we are packaging all of this into a one-brand system, to include a stainless steel hood and exterior fan, etc. I had not yet heard about a microwave, but there is one of those too in the Professional Series—so, it means we can then start up a full restaurant service here! Since the kitchen is not probably gong to be my throne room—it does not take a long time nor a granite counter for me to prepare my peanut butter and jam sandwiches---I will probably just accede to the advise and wish list of others, even though the appliances I had been shown are definitely on the custom high end of anyone’s finished kitchen plans.
Now, wait until you see the interior furnishings list—all carefully coordinated and tastefully complementary and fully customized—just the thing for a peasant prince!
PACKING UP FOR THE LAST VISITING
PROFESSORSHIP
OF THE YEAR,
AND IN A FAVORITE PLACE
I drove the now re-loaded Bronco back in a cold rain which has put down quite a number of people being “under the weather” and has also melted off some, but not all of the snow piled up around Montgomery County. I am heading off very early to DCA to fly to Albany New York, which has its own surfeit of snow, and will be driving a rental car down to Pittsfield for the last lectures of the year and the annual International Night with the BMC residents. I will catch up with you along the way, since this excursion will mark the completion of the Dec-A-series and a brief flurry of meetings in Washington before moving the Audi down to GW for its first stay in the Ross hall parking garage for which I now have it registered, so that I can return to it when I metro in from the IAD arrival on the flight I have purchased on the Saturday night 12/27 in coming back from the Geelhoed party in Grand Rapids. I will saddle up the faithful Bronco and ride off into the Northwoods one more time, heading up to the Elwells on the 18th (if the loan settlement is definitely off) or on the 19th if it is still going to fly. I will regale you with these events during the recounting of the Dec-B-series with which the year will be finishing—all of it but this last segment described to you in the year-end annual reiview-03 you have already received.
THE BERKSHIRE MEDICAL CENTER:
DRIVE DOWN FROM ALBANY TO PITTSFIELD
THE INTERNATIONAL DINNER AND KASHMIRI
HIMALAYAN PROGRAM:
THE FULL DAY OF VISITING PROFESSORSHIP
IN THE BMC,
FROM GRAND ROUNDS TO THE CHRISTMAS
DINNER
AT THE BERKSHIRE COUNTRY CLUB
Always a favorite, the BMC is just the apex of the year’s visits as “the Professor” makes yet another appearance in his twenty five year sequence of visiting professorships here. I have watched the changes that have taken place in the facilities (they are about to complete their new OR’s, over two decades in the making) and the staff, as my good friends continue to expand their patient experience and the training of students and residents in the University of Massachusetts program. It is fun.
I arrived in Albany in a driving rainstorm, and rented a car which turned out to be a Suzuki Sedan to drive in the downpour to Pittsfield and check in at the Crowne Plaza. I thought that I might be going out to dinner with the group on Thursday night, but was surprised to re-read the notice of the International Night which identified me as the speaker on Thursday night with each of the participants bringing an ethnic food dish from their nation of family origin. I gave a talk on the medical expedition to the Roof of the World in Kashmir which was well-received by everyone who wanted more of the same. I should save this batch of slides I had culled out to show to the potential participants of this coming year’s trek to Lingshed!
Today, Friday, was a full day beginning with eh Grand Rounds presentation on Tropical Surgery—for which there will now be a text in the :Surgery and Healing in the Developing World”---mothballed for the last three years since completion, but now under the stimulus of WHO apparently will be published by Landes in the of 2004. I have had time to get back to the Crowne Plaza now to check my voice mail and learn that Virginia is also now just checking in to perform tonight at Del Rio, in the first of her Christmas concerts before flying back this weekend to host a brunch for the Hunt Club at Melinda’s house for 60 participants, then to fly back to Chicago to once again get into the Jeep Liberty she has rented at a fantastic internet rate, so that she could leave the Dodge Ram at home as she commutes around Chicago. I will intercept here at the end of next week as I will be returned to DC on Sunday then go through three days of a meeting-dense schedule and then drive on Thursday to upstate New York in the Bronc and drive on to Chicago after visiting the Elwells. So, it is a real winter wonderdlnad outside now, as the snows of this weekend have already begun, making the landscape appear a cheerful white from my hotel window out to Mount Grelock, highest point in Massachusetts---and the image of the “Great White Whael” when seen from nearby Arrowhead—the home and writng loft of herman Melville. I am now off to the Christmas Party for the BMC staff and their guest at the Berkshire Country Club.
AFTER A MULTI-PARTY EVENING ENDING IN A
VIOLIN RECITAL IN CONGREGATION KNESSET ISRAEL,
I LEAVE EARLY THIS MORNING AMID THE NEWS
REPORTS
OF SADDAM HUSSEIN’S CAPTURE, AND AN EVEN
BIGGER LOCAL STORY ABOUT A RAPIDLY APPROACHING WINTER STORM
I am somewhat stranded in Albany airport, having left the Crowne Plaza in the Berkshires early this morning in order to get a head start on the big snow storm everyone knows is coming and has been scheduled to begin about high noon. My flight was not five o’clock in the afternoon, but I thought I should try to leave early and jump an earlier flight to get ahead of the storm. This plan almost worked!
I went to a series of holiday parties last night, first in Lenox, the home of Tanglewood, and therefore also the tony B & B’s in the area. Grey, the chief of medicine has a beautiful 1840 house filled with antiques, and has bought a barn in Vermont that is being reconstructed in his backyard, which is where this party would have been held if it had been completed in time. It turned out also that the Lionel trains he had as a boy are now put up on a special track by his own sons and that system was going around in circles at the time we arrived. I also admired a Pennsylvania rifle his father had bought as an antique all gussied up with tiger maple stock. We could only be there long enough for “one canapé stop” before we had to move on toe Dick and Kathleen Basille’s Christmas party for the BMC staff. Kathleen was eager to tell me what it was like having a baby at age 43, having already produced a teenager in a prior marriage. But this stop was only half a canapé, since we were scheduled to go to a violin recital by a very talented Boston University freshman who had been a five year old son of a Russian refugee family adopted by this conservative Jewish congregation. Despite the name “Conservative” the “president of the Congregation Knesset Israel is Bobbi Cohn, Mike’s wife, who had been at my earlier international dinner and the other parties of the BMC staff. I was surprised that the “conservative Jewish temple” would have a young woman as a presiding officer, when my sister is still not eligible for ordination, having graduated from the CRC’s equivalent of rabbinical school! The 17 year-old prodigy is an almost average acting Pittsfield high school graduate until he picks up his violin with which he has won quite a few prizes. He is a virtuoso performer, and did several Brahm’s pieces, then ended in what he calls a Polish violinist’s very difficult “show off” piece of virtuoso performance. I finished my formal rounds of BMC parties and receptions by having Geyna’s grandmother’s delicious snacks from Minsk.
And, now, I am here in Albany airport—and I can see nothing but white outside the window from my early arrival in the airport here.
As I went to brunch in the Berkshire Crowne Plaza among the perky waitresses, I got a call to my answering service and heard that the plumbers at Derwood, as late as they are in getting started in the process that has been holding up progress, need to have access to the attic to vent the pipes through the roof to pass the WSSC code. The problem is that the attic is packed full and there is no room to move anything and no light by which to see anything. How to resolve this is not an easy problem to solve, and they are supposed to be ready for inspection by Tuesday.
I had a second call from Virginia which related to Mark, here step-son of Greg’s who is in Ghana, where he has been working for four months and was scheduled to come home, but now is ill, with a question of malaria. By coincidence, I was talking with my former GW student, now a BMC resident, who is from Ghana where his family still resides, and we might have been in a position to help him with local expertise. But, after Virginia called Julia, Mark’s mother, she found out that he was actually better than advertised originally, and just had some GI upset that was getting better and a fever that was being helped with Motrin, having been on Lariam malaria prophylaxis. So, that information was being awaited as Virginia called Julia to see if she wanted my help. While awaiting the return call, I turned on CNN and watched all the details of the capture of Saddam Hussein, and his detention in US custody—not in a palace, but stuck in a “spider hole” with rats and mice. That chapter is now completed and somewhere along the Afghanistan Pakistan border there is a similarly rich and powerful radical, if alive, named Osama Bin Laden, probably watching this fate with interest.
It was time for Virginia to dispose of the Dodge Ram truck and to get to the airport to get to Chicago to resume the program at Del Rio after spending the weekend with the “Horsy Set” of the Hunt Club (wait until she learns more about Michael Korda and his book relayed through Kay Sadighi to us!) I was keen to get on the road also before the road turned white—which it did behind me as I pulled into Albany airport to return the Thrifty Rental car.
I had to wait at the counter, and during that wait the only other flight today by USAir flew out of Albany. I knew that the snow was coming fast with a foot or more promised. There was a call on my phone from the elders of DCCRC saying that church was cancelled because of the snow in DC. So, I have just booked myself an earlier departure from Albany than the %:15 PM commuter flight to DCA. I will try to get the USAir flight to Charlotte at 2:55 PM which at least should get me further south than the storm and then to fly up to DCA at 7:15 PM, by which time the airport should be re-opened. The storm to the south is the one arriving here now in several inches per hour accumulation, so I thought I should cross over it if I could, and that is the pair of bouncing flights for which I am waiting now. This might mean that the “school cancellation” schedule tomorrow (Monday) might make even more over-loaded the Tuesday and Wednesday schedules for next week if I am attempting to leave on Thursday mooring to drive back up to the Buffalo area where the snow might have had a chance to stop falling and the crews to get a well-equipped start on clearing it. This is the “Early Winter” with two major snowfalls before the Christmas time in Maryland and DC, so we will see what this means for my Midwestern road trip top Michigan for the “Northern Christmas.”