K Man Life – Page 5

Thursday March 6, 2014

Barbara, the supervisor of the special education department, picked us up around 9:00 and we went to the Government Building for the Cayman Islands. All of the government offices are housed here. Sorta like if you took all of the government buildings in D.C. and put them into one five story building. I met the HR person and filled out a bunch of forms. I’m excited about the totally free medical, dental, and vision insurance for our entire family. I was feeling pretty good at this point. It seemed that the house and car were going to be taken care of today and I officially had a job.

Barbara took me to my office that I report to when I’m not going to schools. I met two of the educational psychologists, Denise and Stephanie, both of whom are from Jamaica. Denise drives a BMW has ultra short spikey highlighted hair and was dressed very stylishly. Denise and Stephanie immediately began grilling me on prices of the condo and car. During this time I received a call from Gigi, the real estate agent, informing me that the owner wanted to put the unit up for sale but still rent it out to us. This means that if the unit were to sell that we would be given 6 weeks notice and would have to move out. Denise, Stephanie, and Barbara all thought this was a good time for me to offer a lower amount. Up until this point I was feeling pretty good about the condo. It was $300 CI under our budget and had everything we wanted. However, my greedy side got the best of me and I followed Denise’s advice and offered $1350 (we originally offered $1700).
I’ve spoken to Gigi since the second offer was made, and she hasn’t heard back from the owner of the condo. We are preparing to go look at more places on Friday or Saturday if we don’t hear back on the condo. Haggling for price seems to be common, particularly in real estate, so I think if we don’t get the place that it will be more because of the availability date of the condo than the low ball price I threw out there.

So Barbara dropped me off at the office and asked Stephanie and Denise to take us home. Barbara had already said up front that there was no reason for me to put in a full day since there was so much that needed to be done. However, I think she intended for me to stay at the office for a couple of hours. The typical IEP file in the states will have reams of paper. While at the office I glanced into one file and there was a 3 or 4 page IEP and an evaluation. The paper work here will be a breeze. Anyway, after Barbara left, Stephanie and Denise immediately said you aren’t staying here, you need to take care of things that need to be done, and they promptly took us back to the hotel. I walked about a mile from our hotel to the LIME store. There are two major cell carries on Cayman, LIME and Digicell. I was able to get a plan with two lines and 200 minutes that we can use to call to the states for $62 CI, our numbers are 936-JENN and 936-N5DX. I think we will probably add a third line when Jennifer gets here so that Katie can also have a cell phone.

We toured Katie’s school and met the counselor there. Apparently prefects and houses are part of the British school system and not just something created by J.K. Rowling. Katie is in the Iguana house and we saw pictures of Year 5 and year 6 prefects around the school. The PTA sells the uniforms and they are only open on Saturday from 10:00 to 12:00. Hopefully they will be open and we can get Katie ready for school on Monday.

The day was pretty disappointing, mostly because of the condo situation. If we can’t find something similar to what we made an offer on then I’m going to look into a short term rental somewhere. The evening was really enjoyable though and made up for the day. Rochelle, a Canadian speech therapist that I will be working with, offered to take us out to dinner. Her husband Shane, who works at PWC accounting firm, also came along. We went to Camana Bay which is like a fancy Branson landing. Rochelle and Shane are laid back and super nice. They said that the $1700 amount for a 3 bedroom was right in the average range and they also thought that the low ball number wouldn’t scare the owner away.

Barbara has offered to let us stay with her, if we don’t find a place in time. Rochelle and Shane are leaving for Calgary on Wednesday and they offered to let us stay in their place while they are gone. I’m supposed to go into work on Friday all day, but I’ve already hinted to Barbara that we may have to go look at more places with the realtor in the afternoon on Friday.

ZF2DX has now gone QRT (meaning I’m off the air). I removed the window screen Monday when we arrived in order to fish my antenna out the window. This afternoon I went to open the window and noticed that the screen was back on the window. Then I went to open the window and it wouldn’t budge. Hotel maintenance installed a bracket that was bolted to the window and the frame around the

window that prevented me from sliding the window up. I could unscrew the bracket and push the antenna out the window, but I think this was the nice way of the hotel telling me to stop playing radio

March 5, 2014 – Ash Wednesday (Day Two)

Since Wednesday was a major holiday, nearly everything was closed except places related to tourism. I met a man and looked at a 1999 Honda Inspiron (the equivalent of an accord). The tags on the vehicle were expired and he said that he would go and get the card renewed for 3 months. I also spent the day running back and forth to ATM machines with the expectation of needing around $4,000 CI in order to purchase the car. Of course buying and selling a car here is not as straight forward as in the states and the government has to approve the exchange so the deal will have to wait.

There was no progress on getting Katie into school and getting a uniform or the house hunting because of the holiday. We took a public bus to cemetery beach. Aptly named because there is a big cemetery next to the beach. Cemetery beach is at the very northern most end of 7 mile beach and it doesn’t have any of the big resort hotels around. The waves were a little choppier than on Tuesday and Katie was less reluctant to get into the water. There was decent snorkeling and I saw all kinds of varities of fish. I probably swam a couple hundred feet out into the ocean. Hopefully I can learn the names of the fish instead of just describing by color or size. Lots of blue fish and schools of yellow fish. One fish that swam on the bottom of the ocean that looked exactly like the sand with its eye on the side of his body looking up into the water.

We should hear something about the condo tomorrow and Ron, the car owner, is supposed to get the car inspected and ready for me to buy tomorrow as well. Things seem to be coming together. Thanks to Jim and Stan, Katie and I watched the basketball game on ESPN 3. Actually, I fell asleep about 15 minutes into the game and slept from around 8:30 to 6:00.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014 – Day One

Unless you know Morse code or are Jennifer then Katie and I haven’t communicated our current situation very well. For the most part, everything is great. The people are very nice and helpful, my boss seems really great and has been invaluable. She offered to let us stay with her if we didn’t find a place before Monday. She even let us use her address to get Katie registered for school.

We looked at a house on the beach yesterday. The water was stagnant and the giant cockroach in the master bedroom was a real turnoff. The rusting refrigerator and dead giant crab in the kitchen didn’t help matters. Definitely not for us. Katie nearly passed out while we were looking at the house due to heat exhaustion.

I went to the bank to open an account this morning. No big deal unless you are in a country that is infamous as a tax haven and refuge for money launders. The lady initially told me to take the application papers homr to be completed and maybe in 5 days the account could be opened. I politely explained our situation and she was quite helpful for the remaining hour and half that I was there. She opened an account, but the bank would not accept the cashier’s check issued from First Federal until a 15 day waiting period was completed.

Luckily I have some connections at First Federal. Jennifer wired some money, which will probably not show up until Saturday or Monday morning. I was still left with trying to figure out a way to purchase a car and pay a security deposit for a place to live. We arranged with the bank to increase our ATM withdrawal to $5,000 a day. Katie and I walked to a nearby grocery store and took three draws of $1,000 C.I. each… all in $25 increments with the Queen’s face on the front.

We looked at 5 properties this afternoon with a realtor originally from Bulgaria (but speaks like she is from Latin America) whose name is GiGi. We made an offer on a 3 bedroom condo that is on a centrally located part of the island, close to my schools and Georgetown, the capitol city. It has a nice view and pool. Just as important, it comes with a King sized bed. There are also a lot of kids around that Michael and Katie can play with. Attached is a picture taken from the small balcony of the unit. It is on third floor, but there is an elevator we can use when needed.

Tomorrow is a national holiday, Ash Wednesday. All of the banks and most businesses are closed. Playing of music in public is strictly forbidden. I am meeting someone tomorrow to look at his car to purchase.

7 mile beach is a 2 minute walk from our hotel. The sand and water are perfect. The water is as clear as pool water. Hopefully we can go to some places with some good snorkeling after we all get settled in.

ZF2DX has made a few contacts with half an antenna sticking out of the window and the other half inside our room. Katie has been instructed to put aluminum foil around her skull to keep the RF waves out and also told to not touch the antenna while I’m transmitting in order to decrease the possibility of RF burn.