I believe we left off with “Bob” trying to evict us. Steve wrote him an email that basically said: you can take us to court, you don’t own the place, you’re going to lose and you’re going to pay our court fees. We haven’t heard from him since then. (If you are not familiar with this story, you may want to start from the beginning - all related posts found here)

As for the condo, the funding company that bought it (RFC) originally hired a realtor to sell it (”Jim” from the first post). That realtor didn’t really do much, so in June they hired a new realtor, Jeff. Jeff is not the type to sit on his ass, he gets things done. He got our lock changed, got our names in the keypad, and finally listed the place for sale.

Also around this time we discovered that RFC hadn’t been cashing our rent checks. Steve had them on an automatic bill payment through his bank and after three months, the funds would pop back into his account if they weren’t cashed. This kind of shocked and worried us. For one, why weren’t they cashing them? Two, are they going to try at some point? Three, what if we get out of this rent free!?!?

Anyway, listing the condo prompted us to get our act together and figure out whether or not we really wanted to buy our current home. After much thought we decided that if it were the right price, we could happily purchase and live in it for several (if not more) years.

We then began the rigorous home buying process and made an offer that the RFC gladly accepted. Which then took us through 30 days of title clearing, appraisals, check writing and such.

At some point during the lending process we had to tackle the rent check problem. Steve finally spoke to someone at RFC who claimed that only two checks had arrived, which was clearly a lie. The woman did more poking around and discovered the other checks. It was an aggravating conversation for Steve, but it all worked out.

Last night our broker came over and we signed 10 million pieces of paper, making us the official owners! …In San Francisco, I never would have thought! All I have to say at this point is, IN YOUR FACE, JERKFACE “BOB”!

Oh, and we get to keep the rent checks! Woo hoo!

This past weekend we went to the SF Outside Lands Festival. It was a three day show featuring about 75 bands on 6 different stages. We bought our tickets months ago when they were only selling them for the whole event. In retrospect, we wish we had waited for the single day tickets, because we would have only gone on Friday to see Radiohead. They are my favorite band (Steve loves them too) and they gave a phenomenal performance, despite the fact that the sound cut out twice!

The festival was pretty nice overall. We got to see some other bands we like such as Primus, Cake, and Wilco. And we found some new bands that we like: Kaki King, The Walkmen, Grace Potter and Sharon Jones.

We rode our bicycles there, which was fairly tiring - especially by the third day. The ride was mostly flat (4.5 miles), but when you add walking around and standing to the mix, that equals one pooped out Nicole. The other benefit to riding though, is that we didn’t have to wait in long lines for cabs or buses. So it was a good choice.

The weather wasn’t that great. When we left our house in the Mission it was nice and sunny. By the time we got to the park it was cold and foggy. We needed several layers to keep warm! Sunday was a little sunny and warmer though.

Usually I have pictures to go with my events, but I didn’t take many. I was hardly ever close enough to the stage for good ones. And they didn’t allow any cameras with detachable lenses, so they wouldn’t have turned out that great anyway. It kinda pissed me off.

I really enjoyed Radiohead, and I can’t wait to see them live again!

I’m a little behind on the blogging… Two weekends ago (Aug 15-17) Steve and I went on the annual Sonoma Wine Vacation that our friends set up. This time there were 14 of us.

We all headed down on Friday. That night we hung out by the pool and hot tub, drank wine and made our own pizzas. It was a relaxing evening, full of catching up and what not.

Saturday the limo picked us up and took us to four wineries. Ridge Lytton Springs, Michel-Schlumberger, Sbragia Family Vinyards, David Coffaro and Locals Tasting Room. I liked Sbragia the best. Unfortunately Steve and I split all our tastings, so we didn’t actually get drunk, which defeats the purpose of having a limo! We drank tons of wine that night though, and ate delicious burgers and sausages from the grill.

Sunday was a very relaxing day. Everyone sort of did their own thing until lunch time. Erica made the prettiest salad I’ve ever seen (pictured above). After lunch we played this game called Caption.

I’ll attempt to explain it. You need at least 5 people. Each person gets a stack of 5 index cards (of however many people are playing - 9 people, 9 cards). Everyone writes a caption on the top card. Then you pass the stack to the left. That person reads the card (to themselves), puts it at the bottom of the stack, and then illustrates the caption. This gets passed to the left. The person looks at the image, puts the card in the back and writes a caption. You go around until the stack gets back to the original person. Then each person gets to read their stack to the group, showing everyone the pictures. It gets quite crazy! We played that game about 6 or 7 times, it was that funny.

We had a really good time, with some excellent food, tons of wine and wonderful friends

Congratulations to Bill for correctly guessing last month’s logo: Continental Airlines. Let’s see who’s sharp enough to figure out the August logo!