Kitchen Upgrade

I heard someone complaining about their real estate estimates after a $25,000 kitchen upgrade. It seems the homeowner didn't understand pricing.

Let's say that, today, a home is worth exactly $500,000. After tearing out the old kitchen and installing the new one worth $25,000, the home's value does not increase by $25,000. Hence, the home may end up selling for only $515,000, after the upgrade. The reason for this discrepancy is "overlooked" math. After tearing out the old kitchen, the value of the home may have dropped from $500,000 to, say, $490,000. So, in fact, the $25,000 upgrade was added to a $490,000 home since the previous kitchen, that was demolished, still had a value of $10,000. That's how real values are calculated.

My Oldest Friend

Wynne Matheson Trenholme
13 August 1914 – 15 March 2018

A lifelong friend of mine and second father, Wynne Trenholme, passed away this morning at 103 years old.
What a run!

Although it had been several years since I last saw him, we still spoke, from time to time, especially since he turned 100.

He was still sharp as a tack. One of his oldest memories was sitting atop of his father's shoulders while watching a WW I parade.

Stories

I first met Wynne when I was five years old. As a kid, and throughout high school, Wynne taught me about electronics, ham radio, the steam cycle on ships, and firearm & motorcycle safety, to name a few things. He always had great stories from the South Pacific during his time in the Merchant Marines during WW II.

Apollo LEM

Wynne's career highlight, while employed by Grumman, was the work he did on the Apollo Lunar Module program. (The Lunar Module is the spacecraft that landed on the moon, best know for becoming a life raft for the Apollo 13 crew.)

Wynne gave me several astronaut training manuals which I still have. Here's one that I scanned to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing: https://goo.gl/9v8VNo

Wynne Matheson Trenholme
13 August 1914 - 15 March 2018
An amazing man who lead a very long and full life.
He was my oldest friend.

Carpe Diem.

Wynne Trenholme from Joe Moreno on Vimeo.
My previous posts about Wynne: Personal Hero: Wynne M. Trenholme (W2LDK) Wynne M. Trenholme at 96

Augmented Reality in the Bedroom

I need new end tables, next to my bed. The space is small and I don't mind having something cheap. The challenge was getting end tables that were as big as possible, yet still fit in the limited space.


While shopping with the Amazon app, I found some simple end tables. But, would they fit and how would they look? I've used augmented reality apps, over the past ten years, but this was the first time I used it for such a practical purpose.


I almost overlooked the augmented reality feature in the Amazon app since it was benign text, "See how this product fits in your room." But, as soon as I saw that, I knew how it would work. It turns out it worked much better than I expected. Instead of a gimmicky hack, I could move and rotate the end table, in real-time, via my iPhone's camera and the Amazon app to see how it would look and fit next to my bed. It was intuitively obvious and simple. 




Update: Here's the actual end table which fits exactly as expected.