Our Home and Job News

Well, as you know, we were not able to get the home from James. The house was sold so we had to start looking at other rental opportunities. We recently signed a lease agreement for 6 months for another home in Ahwatukee. This house is in a perfect location. It may be a good thing that we are not renting from people we know, so we won't have to worry as much about the care of the home.

The address is:

4518 E. Alta Mesa Ave.

Phoenix, AZ 85044

We are moving in on the night of the 13th and will have cable guys coming over hopefully Saturday morning. This way I can get immediate access to the internet and email as well as cable for OSU football, even though none of the OSU games are going to be on TV there. I will most likely have to pay for them on Pay Per View.

In other news, Tiffany has about 3 interviews set up for the week after we move in and I have meetings being set up with Chase. They are going to fly me to Chicago to meet with my potential manager next Friday I think. And then they will most likely wait until I move to have me go into their Phoenix facility for final interviews. Keep your fingers crossed.

I am still going to be employed by National City through the month of October. They are going to pay me for an extra week of vaca while we move, then to work from Phoenix the next week. Then the following week I will most likely fly back to work with my replacement manager for several days. That allows us a little more security in savings if the Chase opportunity falls through.

Here are some pictures of the house we are moving into:

Moving Update

All,

Our final move date is going to be October 12th. We have not agreed to a deal with any moving companies or self-move services, but we are pretty sure we will be moving ourselves. My friend Craig is going to go with us and Tiffany is trying to see if Erin will go. Craig can ride with me in the moving truck which will help with the drive. It also gives us another person in case we run into any problems.

We will leave early thursday morning and drive all day and evening with a hotel stay that night probably around Oklahoma City, OK. This should split the drive to Phoenix in about half with 14 hrs the first day and 14 the second. Then we would unload the bare necessities to stay the night Friday night in our new place. We are renting James's home for $1200/month.

In other news, Tiffany has a job interview coming up over the phone with a large downtown based law firm in Phoenix. Jean Hilliard was able to get me a phone conversation with the National Lockbox Manager at Chase bank (2nd biggest bank in the US). He talked with me for about 15 minutes. I then had a 45 minute interview with the hiring manager for Chase Retail Lockbox in Phoenix (Chris Lang). This is the largest retail lockbox site in the country. He has an opening for a 1st shift manager that would be in charge of about 150 people (similar to what I have today). This would be a great opportunity to go into a new company. I would be familiar with the dept and the processes so that I could have some sort of comfort level. Hopefully everything goes well. They are setting up two more interviews for next week with the managers that would be my peers. If that goes well, they would fly me down there. Keep your fingers crossed. In the meantime, I am still looking at many different websites for openings.

We are very excited. I am putting in my notice at National City on Monday or Tuesday night.

Possible Rental

This is James's house for rent. He is the long time friend of Tiffany's mom that I met up with for lunch while I was in Phoenix. He was selling this house and they may offer it up to us for rent for the first 6 months of our stay. It would normally rent for more than we can afford, so they would be giving us an awesome deal. Hopefully this would work out. We would not have to fly out to look for a place, sign a lease, or anything. We could just go out with the movers in October and move right in. May not have to put down a security deposit which would save us tons of money. Obviously its way nicer than what we would ever be able to afford. We are hoping for the best.

Beautiful Views and the End of the Day

This is looking South from the most Southern point of Auwatukee. All desert from here. This is the Gila River Indian Community.


A beautiful view of the South Mountains from the I-10 going North. These are the mountains that separate Phoenix from Auwatukee.


Sun getting ready to set.


Wouldn't be that hard to get up and go to work each day if this was your view getting onto the highway.


My only souvenier.

Arizona State University in Tempe

This is coming over the bridge from Scottsdale into Tempe as you go over Tempe Town Lake. Tempe Town Lake is man-made and has an inflatable dam on 3 sides. If there is ever extemely heavy rainfall for days on end, they deflate the dams and let the water flow through the Salt River which normally has a dry riverbed. This is the ASU stadium on the right. This is where the Fiesta Bowl is played each year where Ohio State won the National Championship. Ohio State has played here for their bowl game 3 of the last 4 years.


A closer look.


This is a very nice picture driving up Campus drive towards the stadium and the heart of campus.


This is further up Campus drive. You can see the mountain at the end of the road. This is the mountain that you see next to the stadium in the first picture. It has the Arizona State "A" on its side.


This is in the heart of campus.

Home for Rent in Auwatukee

This is type of property in Auwatukee. This city is almost all residential and is still considered a part of Phoenix. This is on the south side and is separated from downtown Phoenix and the airport by the South Mountains. This is just a part of the mountains in the background right behind this house...the foothills. Very nice homes in this area and it is still close to central Tempe.


This is the house for rent. This rents for $1100 I think. It is very nice on the outside and has nice property. The neighborhood is great. The inside was a mess though. The landlord said there were replacing all the flooring and carpet, but it was very dirty inside. They had paneling ripped off from behind the sink/dishwasher island and it was just a mess. There are also two bedrooms on top of the garage which would be very hot I am sure.


Very nice looking home and property. Auwatukee was a very beautiful area.

Home for Rent in Chandler

This home is for rent in Chandler. Chandler is south of Tempe and is starting to get a little further out. If we were to work in Phoenix, this would be the farthest out we could go. With all the business outside of downtown though, I don't think we would end up having to drive into downtown. This house rents for $1200 a month. It is very nice.


This is the back of the house looking from the corner of the backyard.


Looks are deceiving here. This pool is very small, but the pool maintenance is included in the rent price. The pool pretty much takes up the whole back yard.


This is the view inside the back porch window into the open kitchen. A lot of the houses have an open kitchen like this because it saves space. They don't have to build up a whole separate room. It makes the homes look more spacious too. The bedrooms are off to the side and the hallway is leading to the front living room.

Home for Rent in Phoenix

This is a home for rent about a mile into Phoenix from Scottsdale. This was a decent neighborhood, but this house the the few next to it were pretty run down. The rent on this place is $1050 a month and you can get really nice rental homes in the suburbs for $1200 a month. Again, you are paying for location, but I don't know who wants to live in this shack.

Camelback Mountain 2

Check out the homes going up the side of the mountain on the right hand side. These are huge homes $1 million and up I am sure. The area is beautiful.

Camelback Mountain: 8-16-2006

This is the main road leading around Camelback Mountain. This is considered part of Paradise Valley. Paradise Valley has mostly larger homes with much more land than other suburbs. The only thing that separates it from Phoenix is the mountain.




This house is along the way. You can see there is much more property around these houses.

Scottsdale: 8-16-2006

This is the main highway driving into Scottsdale from Mesa. All of the highways are new, just like this. Once you are up higher on the highways, the views are amazing.


View of Camelback Mountain from the highway. Camelback Mountain is a small mountain that divides downtown Phoenix and Scottsdale. There are beautiful homes around the mountain, which is considered Paradise Valley.


Apartments in West Scottsdale. They have tons of apartment communities all over the suburbs. Most of them are pet friendly, have private entry-ways, and have enormous luxury resort style pools. Most have more than one pool as well.


There are golf courses everywhere. There are probably 20 in Scottsdale alone.


More apartments in Scottsdale.

North Mesa

This is a sample of what I saw in the closer areas of Mesa. There really isn't much to see in this suburb. There are a lot of Pawn shops, some strip clubs, and smaller/run down apartments. We won't end up in Northwest Mesa. The amazing thing is that even the poorer cities are still pretty clean.

Bank of America Operations Center

This is just one of the Bank of America facilities outside of downtown Phoenix. Downtown Phoenix does not have a ton of skyscrapers like other big cities. The city negotiates with companies and offers them incentives to build in suburbs. So you find a lot of corporate headquarters and other large facilities like this all over the Phoenix-Tempe area. This one is in Mesa, the furthest West suburb of Phoenix.

Some Homes in Tempe: 8-15-06

This first home is in North Tempe which is right on the border of Scottsdale. We aren't really looking in this area. The houses are pretty old and the neighborhood is a little ghetto. This house is probably a little under $200,000. I just put it in here for comparison. This one is all about location!


This second home is in South Tempe. A house like this is probably about $250,000 or $260,000. This style home usually has a decent sized backyard. The house is a little older but you are paying for the location too. Tempe is a great area. Notice the green grass.


Check out the green grass here. Some homes have irrigation systems built in.