Thursday, February 21, 2008

Reservations are made

Aloha kakou,

Yet another thing I learned from surfing the North Shore, is that I really love surfing. Actually I may have learned that from surfing the South Shore first. :-) Either way - I love surfing so much that I've decided to rent a house with a bunch of my friends and family on O`ahu's Gold Coast this July.

It's happening! I emailed Amelia and officially accepted the house for Sunday July 6th through Sunday Aug 3rd. 29 days in paradise. I'll be sending her a check this week. So, I'll be needing the first of many checks from the rest of you. Here's how I've assembled the first billing:

Security Deposit: $1000 for the house, prorated by your room nights. If you cancel, you'll receive this back *if* we can find someone to take your place. If you go on the trip, you'll receive a prorated amount of whatever we get back, presumably all of it.

Earnest Money: $130 per room (roughly the cost of 1 room night). If you go on the trip this is credited to your account; if you cancel you forfeit it. The reason is that as we get underway with this, any cancellation is going to hit everyone pretty hard.

I've already put the values in the spreadsheet, but it comes out as follows:

Chris H. and Clay: $347.05 each
Bruce and Fred: $230.78 each

Get stoked everybody!

Malama pono,
Chris P.

Monday, February 11, 2008

February 11th Email

Aloha kakou,

One of the other things I learned from surfing the North Shore, is that occasionally it is better to have stayed on the shore than to have paddled out at all. Not because it's too big, but because it's too weird. You can't seem to line up in the right spot, or the swell is out of a strange direction, or maybe you've just got some huge kharmic debt that turns the whole session into something that Hunter Thompson might have concocted.

Amelia, the DHDH owner, just informed me that she has a returning renter who she completely forgot about, who will be in the unit through the 5th of July. We can still have the house from Sun July 6th through Sun Aug 3rd, a total of 29 days. Frankly, my psyche has become too brittle to actually analyze this information so I'm just going to pass it along and mull it over when I'm able.

Malama pono,
Chris P.

Saturday, February 09, 2008

February 9th Email

Aloha kakou,

One of the things I learned from surfing the North Shore is that sometimes the question as to whether or not you should have even started paddling for that wave is rhetorical. You did. If you stop paddling now the one behind it is going to mow your ass down. All you can really do is paddle hard, stand up, and deal with it.

Wonderful parable Chrispy, so what?

I've heard back from Amelia and, contrary to what her website says, her house is 5 BR, not 6. This puts us in a bit of a bind for the last two weeks, in that we've got 6 BRs accounted for, not 5. At this point my plan is to put Aaron either in with the girls or on a couch. I've considered other options, but realistically we're down to these two choices: Take the big house and cope with the potential crowding and expense, or just say "Party in Hawai`i this summer, find a place to stay and we'll all hook up". My inclination is to paddle hard, take the big house, and deal with it. Who's in?

New spreadsheet attached showing the consequences of pulling Aaron out of one of the BRs. Also note that I've added in a spot for a rental car, but not put in a value. A small car for a month will run about $750. Compare that with $20-$30 per person shuttle fees to and from the airport. Also note that the spreadsheet includes the $1000 security deposit, one could reasonably assume that we'll get it all back and it could be $0 for costing purposes.

That's all for now. I'm off to caucus for one local boy.

Malama pono,
Chris P.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

February 7th Email

Aloha kakou,

As promised, here's the latest edition of the spreadsheet. It is pretty altered from the earlier version, as this is what we'll be using to track expenses. Some things to note:
  • The sheet that listed all of the potential properties has been deleted. If this thing falls apart I'm really going to regret deleting it, but that didn't occur to me until I started typing this.
  • The calendar is becoming more important. Start considering your dates. As I mentioned earlier things are getting really crowded at the end of the month. As it is, Aaron may be sleeping on a couch.
  • I'm tracking two different types of expenses on the Expenses sheet. Room and Board. The room based expenses are those associated with with putting your butt in a bed and are per room per night. Board is the all of the groceries and such and are per person per day. So, whenever you purchase groceries for the house, give me the receipt and I'll put it on the groceries sheet. The expense gets spread across the board and you get credit.
Other items:
  • Dan Fitch will be joining us and staying with his dad. He's a surfer so he should fit right in with this crowd.
  • We need to consider whether we want a car. It would add considerable expense to the Room rate but with this many people we will definitely need to be making frequent CostCo/grocery runs. Thoughts?
Malama pono,
Chris P.