I thought it would be nice to find out a little bit about my neighbors, so I am asking if anyone else is interested in doing a short autobiography. I'll start and see where it goes from there.
I was born in December, 1949 and raised in Davenport, IA, and graduated from West High School in 1968. Shortly after that I left for Colorado with my first real rock and roll band (I play electric bass) where I spent about 5 years around the Boulder/Denver area in places like Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville and finally owning a little place in Pinewood Springs (near Estes Park) with my first wife, 2 dogs and a cat.
I was finally lured back to the road by one of my high school friends and was asked to join his group to tour the midwest and Canada. This ended my first marriage. The band cut 2 albums before we broke finally up. I moved west with one another band member and a woman I had met in the Quad Cities. All 3 of us settled in Marin County, CA (north of San Francisco).
When she got pregnant with our only child, Angela, in 1981, we married and began moving around Marin practically every year (renting) until we eventually split up about 3 years later. I wandered around from place to place and job to job until I got into computers in 1989.
By 1996 I had survived another marriage (and divorce) and finally pulled enough money together in 1998 to buy a little 2 bedroom, 1-1/2 bath condo near the Marin County Civic Center. About a year later, I met Janis and my life changed forever! I can't begin to tell you how great it's been since then, but I'll try.
We decided to wait a year before moving in together. Almost a year to the day we went looking for a place (both of our places were too small), and by that evening we'd made our first offer on the place we are living now. We had 3 chances to buy it, and finally got it on the third try! We've never been happier.
Since then, we've bought and sold several places in Hawaii on the Big Island, still have condo at Kolea (if anyone's interested!) in a beach front community, a condo in Honolulu where my daughter lives and goes to school, and have owned other rental properties. So far, our biggest adventure has been buying in Panama.
At the time I heard about the project, I had been to Central America only once, visiting Belize, Costa Rica and Panama. I loved the warm Caribbean waters, so when I saw the Red Frog presentation at a Wright Thurston seminar in South San Francisco, I jumped at the chance to invest there. My experience of what I had seen in Costa Rica several years earlier led me to believe this would be something special if we got in on the ground floor. I still believe that today.
I know I wrote about my trip to Bastimentos in my first blog post, so I won't bore you with telling the story again, but after several trips and lots of phone conversations with the Red Frog Team, I am still bullish on the project. I am certain their intentions are honorable, though I'm sure they never expected many of the challenges they've (we've) come up against.
Others may see it differently, and in the end, they may be proven right. But in my mind, there is no up side to being negative. I'm in (for better or for worse) and will wait to see what happens. I hope to continue posting to this blog and sharing information on the project. Hopefully the strike will end soon and work will begin again. Let's make the best of it and get to know each other.
Thanks for listening.
Mick @ Lot 83
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