December 23, 2007 by David.

We are house sitting in North Lake Tahoe for three weeks over Christmas and New Years. Talk about beautiful! The first night here it snowed about 8″ and then turned to clear, sunny skies. We are exactly 12.2 miles door-to-door from Squaw. We’ve thought about getting a place up here, and house sitting for three weeks is just adding fuel to that fire (or ice to that snow…).

We spent most of three months on 48 acres with four horses 25 miles north of Sacramento prior to this and in the next few months have three San Francisco house sits lined up, all of which have magnificent views, along with a house sit in Piedmont, across the bay.

While having most of one’s stuff in storage isn’t completely ideal, the places we’ve been to and have lined up are wonderful, give a great variety, and the breadth of exposure will definitely play into our ultimate decision when we buy a house. …Not to mention that living for free in really nice places has its own advantages. Our frontal-right brains find the variety stimulating and great fun.

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December 17, 2007 by David.

A couple months ago we were contacted by NASE - the National Association for the Self-Employed. We were presented with what appeared to be a very attractive health insurance policy. Unfortunately what we were told was the annual deductible turned out to be per episode - with a maximum of three payouts per year! In addition, we paid what we were told was an annual membership to NASE (the insurance is under a different organization) but it turned out to be a fee to join with an additional monthly fee.

Fortunately we were able to get this all figured out before the policy started so we cancelled everything. Thankfully, both NASE and MEGA Life and Health (the health insurance arm) were both very cooperative in cancelling and refunding funds paid (other than the initial NASE fee).

So, if you are contacted by a NASE sales person, it may still be good for you, but be aware you may not be given an accurate picture.

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