Rotator Cuff Surgery
Back in August I had rotator cuff surgery, entering a period and journey of pain, rehab, recovery and fear unknown prior to in my 54 years. To fix a range of motion issue and slight tear that was restricting a bit of range of motion, most telling when trying to throw a baseball, and that type of dynamic shoulder movement.
The shoulder - you don't really think about it that much - but it's an amazing piece of machinery. Move in all directions - not sure anything else on the body has that type of dexterity of movement. And then you have these little thin muscles that weave in and around the clavicle that can get damaged over time through use or injury - and while the group of 4 muscles that make up the rotator cuff may be small, any attempt to repair them if they tear in a minor or major way - is fraught with a recovery process that ranks in the top 10 of most arduous.
I think my only other surgery before my rotator cuff surgery last August was when I had my nose reconstructed when I was about 12 after foul-tipping a fastball off my bat straight to my nose during the New Era Midget Championship game of 1980+/-, which we won. Knocked me out cold. Went to the hospital just for a bit before bee-lining over to Pizza Hut for the after game pizza party. Seeing me and my nose with gauze stuffed up in it, and my duel black eyes might have diminished an appetite or two.
As I was typing that up, I started thinking about how that was all done without texts or phones with minute to minute updates like ‘we’re here’, or “i’m on my way’. I don’t know how life was conducted back then.
My point is I had another surgery, one that because the ‘injury’ was sort of innocuous and caused discomfort only when doing specific things, and the surgery itself was only a few hours long, and it was same day type of thing, I really didn’t think much of it. But I should have, because it lead to maybe the craziest 6 months of my life in terms of injury, surgery and healing.
Little did I know I was about to enter one of the most intense post-surgical rehab, recovery and physical therapy exercises out there. I’m 6 months into it, post-surgery, and I’m still not back to full shoulder strength, and if someone was to tell my life was going to be turned upside down in order to regain 10% range of motion and be able to throw a baseball again, I’m not sure I would have went down this path.
And the pain - wow - as my arm hung lifeless beside my body like a stroke victim, wow, I can say I’ve never felt pain like that before - day in, day out, and then the PT where nothing came free and each and every since ½” of range of motion had to be earned through not just pain, but a completely unfamiliar level and feeling - just a different style of pain. Not cool, not fun, pretty scary, and definitely should have watched youtubes about it before the surgery, not while I’m on the couch 24 hours after.
And I learned some unexpected lessons - which always happens since I'm a sponge for inputs and information regardless of the situation I'm in - I learned the hard way that a highly credentialed NYC best in class doctor on retainer isn't necessarily the end all be all since I really feel I went into this surgery asking the right questions but not getting the right answers. What I needed was a good old fashioned down to earth country family practitioner to give me some real down to earth perspective, not a referral to the best orthopedic surgeon in NYC who works on Olympic athletes. One route is surely impressive, the other one much more valuable. Sure my NYC doc is a lot freer with the prescription pad for my occasional Xanax and more frequent Viagara, and has access to world class doctors and facilities at a snap of his finger, but really, that's so NYC - flash over substance. Access over effectiveness.
Same is true with attorneys. Give me a slow talking common-sense lawyer who mows his own lawn over a paper-pusher 'strategist' any day of the week. I knew this, but everyone can be blinded by the flash at times.
And 6 weeks in a sling like this dude, without the smile.
Saturday Site Inspections
Was talking to a banking colleague who reads the blog - I know, who doesn't? - and he was commenting on what he sees at the thousands of job sites he sees around the Hudson Valley and compared that to mine, and let's say mine sort of set the bar, high. Sounds like an expert witness to me.
My most productive, rewarding and simultaneously frustrating job site visits happen on Saturdays, and sometimes Sundays. On those days, the saws have stopped, the truck and vendor traffic slows, and I can methodically work my way through the homes under construction. In Olivebridge, where we have 9 under construction - some finished now - it’s a source of great pride to me - my efforts, the efforts of others. The stamina, risk, strategy, problem-solving, team-work.
It’s not hard to appreciate all the good and talented work being done on our behalf by small businesses, many of which I have worked with for 16+ years or more. Some of these small guys have grown old with me, and more than a few are starting to retire, or more accurately, scale back. Luckily, it appears I make the cut for those scaling back, and they remain trusted advisors and resources.
But, it’s actually quite hard to appreciate my Saturday visits because that’s not why I’m there. I’m there to find out what’s wrong, what’s unfinished, what’s back-ass-backwards, what’s dirty, what’s messy, what’s muddy, what light is left on, what heat was not turned down, which window was left open, lumber pile left uncovered to the elements, overflowing dumpster with no alert to office. The things that are wrong or need corrected is endless, and you multiply that by 9 homes and you can really be fricking wound up. Luckily, up in Olive, there’s no cell or text service without a booster, so the endless streams of nastygrams to my trusted vendors can’t go out so I end up just making a list. It’s for the better they can’t go out many times. It would be fun to play a game such as 'what makes Chuck the most agitated in this photo?'
But it’s tough. Even something good can be better. And we aim for better. Always better. Always cleaner, quicker, more thorough, more efficient, more streamlined. More creative. More good-looking. More value.
Seems like the crowd is thinning a bit, a lot of the new players in the new home for sale construction game seem to be dwindling. Lower sales prices, higher construction costs, scarce land, lots of hard lessons leaves only the boldest, and there we are again - standing straight and tall and selling our pants off.
Another quiet morning at the Pinchot mansion in Milford day, organizing books from 150 years ago, with letters, cards, notes, and inscriptions. Today I came across an inscription from T. Roosevelt to G. Pinchot, c. 1905. Right there in my hands.
And I'm Court Appointed Special Advocate for kids caught up in family court, where us volunteers are assigned a case and we just sort of shepherd it through the courts and advise the courts and judges of our opinion of the situations before the courts independent of children/youth services, guardian ad litems, and attorneys who even in the best of times have too many cases.
Here are my 3 kids that are looking good at a dinner date at my home last night, just 12 months out of one of those home-life horror stories you hear and read about. The improvement is hard to put into words.
Another Day, Another Closing - Ranch 65 leaves the building
This was a fun home to build in Narrowsburg. Ranch 65. Like many of our homes, started out an orphan without an owner (spec house, meaning built on speculation) then picked up an owner when about 40% complete. Then we collaborated successfully on the completion of the home, and today they buy it. 20 years, 300 homes, 300 families. Then the resales to new families probably pops that number of over 400. Include the people who stay at our homes via Airbnb and you have literally no joke thousands upon thousands of people who have enjoyed our homes.
Then you start getting into the ROI (return on investment), where families have sold our original designs and made hundreds of thousands of dollars. Back before 2020, we took pride in the ability to sell their houses at all because there was an adage in the Catskills 'buy now own forever'. 2020 onward houses became more liquid, and the values our clients got when selling was gigantic. I think several families made more than $500k on less than 4 years of ownership.
And don't even get me started on all the ancillary people who have made lots of money off my efforts, starting with realtors charging their 6%, but quickly including banks, cleaners, pool installers, retrofit carpenters, and hundreds of other home-centric services. And don't forget about the restaurants that have made their bottomline jingle with the disposable income of our homebuyers. My one client call it the 'economic cross multiplier' - never heard the term before, but oh so accurate. $1000 gets spent in the economy, generating $5000 of economic activity, which gets spent in the community, which then becomes $15k when then becomes $50k and then becomes over 20 years $400,000,000. Only in America.
Ranch 65 -
Killington. Family.
10+ annual trips to Vermont over President’s Day weekend. Always a changing cast of characters, sometimes ballooning past 12 people and sometimes shrinking to two. This year my brother, his 26 yr old son Eli Petersheim, his 20 year old son Marcus Petersheim, and my 15 yr old son, Lucas Petersheim, who can now benchpress 160 lbs and deadlift 315, or so he says. Lucas, heading towards the starting qb role in a year, and dating the smartest girl in class, and a darn nice kid with a good group of friends to boot, has been a grand achievement of mine. Anyone who parents knows there is no surefire guarantee any of the above attributes will turn out the way you hope, aspire, dream and work.
We did Stowe for years, but are into year 3 of Killington, a larger mountain with less bougie aspirations than Stowe. It’s a great big wide mountain with lots of diversity of slopes of all sorts of skill levels and terrain. My son Lucas has become a good skier which is fun to see. Marcus, in his first weekend of skiing ever, sort of frightening to watch.
It’s fun that life is long so things have a chance to work out.
I guess it's been an up and down year for VT skiing, with some snow, then rain. And from what i was hearing over the weekend, this was their best weekend of new snow all year, with 6-8 of new powder on the ground over the weekend. Some good luck is good - cause I get my share of bad luck across 16 job sites on any given Sunday.
Getting ready to close on Ranch 65 - and then will probably knock a sale out every 3 weeks for the rest of the year, +/-.
