The Joget House, Silicon Valley, USA
We started our base in the US sometime 9 months ago (the time it takes to conceive a child), and have since been telling ourselves that we need a better place where our Jogetians can come over and stay for several weeks without worrying about hotel bills … a place where they can just code, train, convert adopters, and do the cool things we only read about (like in US cool companies like Google) without breaking the bank account.
Now how was that going to be possible?
I guess when we found out about how depressed the housing market is and the fact that there are global banks (like HSBC) willing to finance borrowings outside the US, we became very eager to find out how we can work around those two circumstances to let the Joget House happen. After all, we were affording Mike’s rent and the small cubicle in PnP by a whisker!
We soon realized that Mike’s and PnP’s rent put together amounted to the mortgage payments, and with that resolved, we started thinking of how to come up with the rest of the money (for down payment, etc.). It was then that our Angel Investor stepped up to the challenge and said, “Let's buy a house in the US!”
What else can I say or do? We just wanted to make it happen!
There were very few realtors who bothered to show us around once they found out about our situation, and one of them was Lou Honeycutt (I think that's how you spell her name). She not only took us around every time we were in town, but also checked with the banks, authorities, etc., helping make this project a possibility. I would recommend her service to anyone. She also helped us with the IKEA shopping and put Kuang's coffee table together (until she broke her nail), and she spent countless hours negotiating with the contractor to ensure that we got the best deal.
Anyway, today we are officially moving in to the Joget House in Milpitas, California. It's our SOHO and a start to many great things that we want to accomplish in the US. We are already doing work for the big boys, and we’ve also just released v3 beta of Joget Workflow. Everyone's quite excited. I'll blog more with pictures once we get the sofa and Mike’s work desk up. Don't know how Mike could have missed those huge boxes when the delivery truck came earlier. Anyway, we got them at something like 9:30pm yesterday, and now at least we’re almost all set.
Another visit to Fry's today to get our plasma (Sorry Mike, I can only afford to buy returns that they want to get rid cheap. US$500 for a 55-inch unit; can't beat that, guys!), and a couple of box fans as it's summer and central AC will cost an additional 5 gs. And that's in US dollars, mind you.
Written by Chris Chan
Now how was that going to be possible?
I guess when we found out about how depressed the housing market is and the fact that there are global banks (like HSBC) willing to finance borrowings outside the US, we became very eager to find out how we can work around those two circumstances to let the Joget House happen. After all, we were affording Mike’s rent and the small cubicle in PnP by a whisker!
We soon realized that Mike’s and PnP’s rent put together amounted to the mortgage payments, and with that resolved, we started thinking of how to come up with the rest of the money (for down payment, etc.). It was then that our Angel Investor stepped up to the challenge and said, “Let's buy a house in the US!”
What else can I say or do? We just wanted to make it happen!
There were very few realtors who bothered to show us around once they found out about our situation, and one of them was Lou Honeycutt (I think that's how you spell her name). She not only took us around every time we were in town, but also checked with the banks, authorities, etc., helping make this project a possibility. I would recommend her service to anyone. She also helped us with the IKEA shopping and put Kuang's coffee table together (until she broke her nail), and she spent countless hours negotiating with the contractor to ensure that we got the best deal.
Anyway, today we are officially moving in to the Joget House in Milpitas, California. It's our SOHO and a start to many great things that we want to accomplish in the US. We are already doing work for the big boys, and we’ve also just released v3 beta of Joget Workflow. Everyone's quite excited. I'll blog more with pictures once we get the sofa and Mike’s work desk up. Don't know how Mike could have missed those huge boxes when the delivery truck came earlier. Anyway, we got them at something like 9:30pm yesterday, and now at least we’re almost all set.
Another visit to Fry's today to get our plasma (Sorry Mike, I can only afford to buy returns that they want to get rid cheap. US$500 for a 55-inch unit; can't beat that, guys!), and a couple of box fans as it's summer and central AC will cost an additional 5 gs. And that's in US dollars, mind you.
Written by Chris Chan
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