COMPUTERS AND YOUTUBE AND PROBLEMS

Although I’m not very knowledgeable about computers or electronics, I can learn. My biggest problem is getting the person teaching me a new skill to slow down…to tell me…literally…every single thing I need to do. In the past I’ve learned how to connect and operate numerous complicated TV/DVD/VCR/satellite systems, and over the years I’ve increased my computer abilities considerable. Realize that when I say ‘considerably’ that doesn’t really mean a lot, since I started out with ZERO knowledge. Instruction manuals would say “do this then do that” and the fact that I had no idea what they were talking about didn’t even matter since these manuals always ASSUME that you inherently know that you have to complete 17 steps before you even get to their starting point.

And so my learning curve has been quite low, with small accomplishments being celebrated with excitement and pride, and problems met with a mix of frustration and anger. Sometimes I think the whole computer world is somehow plotting to keep people like me, people with minimum of knowledge, on the outside looking in. The worst times for me are when something works one day, then suddenly refuses to work the next. Of course I always assume that I’m the problem, that I’ve done something, hit the wrong key, missed a step in the process or that the computer gods are simply choosing to make my life a living hell for their own entertainment.

Several months ago I learned how to make a slideshow out of still pictures, using Windows Moviemaker. Although it was a long, slow and painful process, I eventually put together a slideshow of our house for sale. I was able to zoom in and pull back from the pictures, adding a sense of movement. I even added a soundtrack, an Italian song to set the mood. I tweaked and rearranged until I was satisfied with the finished product, and I prepared to upload it to YOUTUBE.

And then I made the fatal mistake: I deleted the previous slideshow I had on YOUTUBE. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do, but when my new and improved slideshow failed to upload, I knew I’d made a big mistake!

Eventually I was able to load the new slideshow, complete with soundtrack onto a different video website, REVVER. If you go to the blog where I’ve written about the house for sale, the video you’ll see there is the one that’s on Revver. Somehow their site was able to upload my video, while all YOUTUBE
would tell me was the my file ‘failed to convert”....Whatever that meant. If you want to see the new and improved version you can see it HERE.

Today, for some reason, and after numerous failed attempts, I searched the YouTube site for some answers, and I found a help page that seemed to be just what I needed. I copied and pasted the instructions so that I could print them out, ensuring that I wouldn’t skip a step or get confused. Here are those instructions:

“How do I make a video out of JPEG images?

Here are a few steps to convert JPEG images into videos by using Windows Movie Maker.
1. From your desktop, click the "Start" button.
2. Select "Run".
3. Type: moviemk and click the "OK" button.
4. Drag or import the image files to the "Collection Window".
5. Drag the file down to the "Time Line" pane at the bottom.
6. Edit the images until they appear the way you prefer.
7. At the top, select "File" and "Save Movie File".
8. Under the movie selection select "The Web".
9. Click the "Next" button.
10. Name the movie and click the "Next" button.
11. Click the "Show more choices" link
12. If you'd like to use our Single File Uploader, make sure your video is under 100MB. If your file's between 100MB and 1GB, you'll have to use the YouTube Uploader.

Once you've completed these steps, your movie will be ready to be uploaded to YouTube!”


Okay, it all sounded so simple and straightforward, so I began the process. I decided to keep this slideshow simple, mainly because I didn’t want to invest a lot of time and hope in a process that seemed doomed to failure, based on past experiences. Once the slideshow was ready I started on step #7, then step #8, and so on. And then I got to step #11, and I clicked on “More Choices”. But then….what??? The choices had been limited to connection speeds, and the “more” choices offered 2 additional lists of items that didn’t make any sense to me, choices that I won’t even bother list here, but trust me, the choices were many, and confusing, and as you can see from the YouTube instructions, they didn’t bother to tell me what choice I should make, or why. AARRGGHH!!!!

Why do they do this? Why can’t instructions just cover EVERYTHING from start to finish without all the mystery??? If you’re a computer whiz then yes, you could probably skip the first ten items, but for someone like me who needs all the help and reassurance they can get, would it really be so hard to include ALL THE STEPS??!!??

But there is one tiny piece of good news is all of this! Amazingly, the slideshow that I made did somehow manage to get saved correctly and to actually be posted on YouTube!!! Although it’s a simpler, silent slideshow, maybe for someone interested in our house they won’t mind the lack of glitz, even though I AM quite proud of the REVVER VERSION. The new, less improved YouTube version is posted below.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Here we are, back in the gold ole US of A, slightly jet lagged but adjusting quickly. The trip from Italy wasn't without it's moments of drama and excitement, but that's fairly typical for travel these days, don't you think?

My internet access is limited at this point as I try to figure out just what I need to make my laptop WiFi accessible, so posts may be few and far between. For now I'd like to wish every one a very happy holiday season, no matter what holiday you're celebrating...or even if you're not celebrating at all. Best wishes to us all for a healthy and prosperous new year.

What would make our new year REALLY happy would be to sell our house in Italy, so please feel free to pass on the link to our blog to anyone who might be interested...or who might have a friend...or whose friend might have a friend....you know what I mean! The "House For Sale" link is displayed in the right-hand column of the blog. Thanks, and don't forget to vote for the sunflower photo as well!

SAY A PRAYER, LIGHT A CANDLE,

make a novena, cross your fingers, whatever it is you do for good luck and best wishes, do it now.......someone is interested in our house! Yes, I realize it's a little early, and I hope I'm not jinxing things by writing about it, but I sure could use the power of prayer or the karma of good wishes regarding our house for sale in Umbria!

IF YOU LOVE YOUR HOUSE.....

....why are you selling it? That has to be THE number one, most often asked question we get in emails about our house for sale. Of course I've answered just about every other question anyone could ever think of, but still! I guess if you're thinking about buying a house in Italy you always want to know "the rest of the story"...the stuff no one tells you, the stuff that might make you reconsider. Sure, moving to any foreign country is scary and confusing, but it's also an adventure and a challenge.

So the simple answer to the question is this: we're selling our house because we didn't plan on the dollar sinking like a stone. We're selling our house because we budgeted a set amount each month for our mortgage, and that amount has now increased by nearly 40%. We're selling our house because our plan was to travel, travel, travel once we were in Italy. We though we'd be able to travel without jet lag or security checks . To travel without exorbitant transatlantic airfares and masses of tourists. To take our bottled water or contact lens solution with us. Since we've lived in Italy our travel has been very limited due to the incredible shrinking dollar, and even Art (the optimist) had to admit the things aren't likely to improve any time soon.

Had the euro cost $1.38 when we started our house hunting we would have factored that in, but at the time we were looking, the so-called experts were predicting that the euro and the dollar would eventually settle out about one to one. Oh if only we'd had a crystal ball! But wait! No, I don't think I meant that!

If we'd had a crystal ball we would have said "No, at $1.38 we just can't afford to live in Italy and travel around Europe." I guess in a way I'm GLAD we didn't know what was to come, because if we had, we probably never would have had this experience, never would have met friends who have become so dear nor had the many, many experiences we've had here.

When we made the decision to move to Italy part of our reasoning was that we didn't want to wake up one day and think "Damn, I wish we'd gone to Italy!". We wanted to enjoy Italy while we were both still young enough and healthy enough to do so. Has anyone ever laid on their deathbed and wished they'd done LESS??? I think not.

So, here we are. We curse and moan and cringe every time we look at the exchange rate. We're sad that we'll be leaving the house we've so lovingly restored and the town that's adopted us. But part of us still shouts "YES!!! WE DID IT! WE LIVED OUR DREAM!", and now we know that what lies ahead is simply our NEXT adventure.

We're ready...how about you??? Have YOU lived your dream? Taken a chance? Thrown caution to the wind? What's the worst that could happen? For us, selling our house isn't an admission of failure, but rather a recognition that it's time to move on to the next house in the next place, wherever that may be. Isn't life exciting and full of surprises?

SELLING A HOUSE IN ITALY

We’re still trying to figure out the best way to market our house for sale. It’s trial and error, hoping and praying, relying on the good will of friends and family, seeking advice from those who have done this before.

It’s a strange process, selling a house in Italy. Things here are still so localized, and even with the internet to help us, it’s still hard to know how to best reach those who might be our potential clients.

Italy doesn’t have a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) like we do in the states. Although there are a few real estate franchises, such as TECNOCASA, each office still deals with it’s own specific area. The Tecnocasa agent won’t show houses listed with other companies, which obviously puts the burden on the buyer to find the right property on their own.

Additionally, Italian real estate companies often require an exclusive agreement, which would of course limit the number of people who would see information about our house. I guess if you list with an agency with a good client base and a high internet rating it’s not a problem, but still, it seems so difficult to try to find that one special person who’ll love our house and our town as much as we do.

Italians don’t move nearly as much as Americans do. Houses stay in the same family for generations. Perhaps the younger people are beginning to move away from the family hometown for school or a job, but this is a slow process, still strange to most Italians we know.

When we bought our house it had been the summer home of a man who now lives in Bologna. His brother and sister jointly own the other half of the house, and they too live in Bologna. The family has roots here in San Venanzo though, and this is where they grew up. Coming back “home” to San Venanzo every August is a ritual repeated all over Italy each year.

Because no one in the family was interested in what is now our house, and because no one else in town was interested in it, we doubt that an Italian will buy it. For this reason we’ve concentrated our energies on marketing our house to foreigners…Americans, Canadians, Australians, and of course citizens of the European Union.

The British pound is quite strong against the euro. For this reason we thought this, and the fact that the Perugia airport is now served by Ryan Air, might bring us a buyer from Great Britain. We advertised in ITALY MAGAZINE but got only a few inquiries. At about $90 an ad, this isn’t something we can afford to do if it’s not going to produce results.

It was suggested to us that we advertise in some of the English newspapers, but my concern is that an ad in something like the THE TIMES would be seen by only those living in the greater London area. Although that might be a considerable number of people, I’m still not sure that it would be the best place to spend our advertising money.

I’ve also considered placing an ad in the THE NEW YORK TIMES, but once again, these ads aren’t cheap, and I know from personal experience that the real estate ads are only published in the New York City area, thus severely limiting the scope of our advertising dollars.

I’ve placed internet ads on several Craig’s List sites, on the SLOW TRAVEL WEBSITE, on various expats message boards like EXPATS IN ITALY, and on assorted other expat internet venues like HOMES ON SALE, ESTAPLACE, THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE and WANTED IN ROME.

Various other sites have been suggested, but most of them are sites I've never heard of or come across during my searches, so I don't think it's worth the bother.

I try to post on the blog regularly so that it’ll come up in internet searches. My sister helped me design a trifold brochure that we’ve passed out, sent to local B&B’s and carry with us, just in case we happen to meet someone who’s “just looking”. Our friends Larry and Jill, who sell their wonderful PHOTOS OF ITALY at the weekly outdoor market in Redmond WA, have handed out quite a few brochures for us.

Additionally we’ve received some nice publicity when James Martin wrote about our house on his WANDERING ITALY BLOG and when Kathy McCabe who produces the DREAM OF ITALY NEWSLETTER wrote about our house on HER BLOG.

We expected it to take a least a year to sell our house. We realize that many people are doing internet searches just like we did, and might be anywhere in the world. We realize that it may take a while for someone who does find our house on the internet or who sees a brochure to actually travel to Italy to see it in person. We know all these things but still….!!!!

I’ve been disappointed that we haven’t had more inquiries, but I’m not sure what our next move should be. Our friend Giacomo will be putting his real estate website on the internet soon, and our house will be listed there, but I’m not sure that as a brand new company the site will be indexed high enough to come up on the search engines.

And so the challenge continues. Maybe we ARE doing what we should be doing and just need to be patient, but it's hard to know for sure. There's a link in the right hand colum of this blog which will always take you to the post about the house.(CLICK HERE)

We’ll keep trying to think of creative ways to market our house, and to talk it up whenever possible. If you have any ideas we haven’t mentioned, we’d be happy to hear them!

YES, THE HOUSE IS STILL FOR SALE!

Someone recently contacted us to ask if the house was still for sale, and I thought the best way to answer was to post here.

YES! THE HOUSE IS STILL FOR SALE. As long as you see the clickable picture in the right-hand column, and as long as the blog is subtitled (House for Sale in Umbria!), then the house is still available. Once we complete the sale we'll remove the link and the subtitle.

We're having an unusually mild winter here in Umbria, so if you'd like to see the house, find a bargain airfare and come on over!

PICTURES OF OUR HOUSE

Just in case anyone's having trouble viewing all the pictures of the house, I've posted them on flickr. All you have to do is click HERE
OR cut and paste this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/artnbarb/sets/72157594446699609

FLOOR PLANS

Is it just my slow dial-up connection, or are the rest of you having trouble seeing ALL the pictures we've posted on the HOUSE FOR SALE blog? Maybe there are just too many pictures on that particular post.

I'm going to re-post the floor plans here, just in case....

As you look at the floor plans you'll notice shaded areas that are marked "Altra Proprieta"....this is the part of the building that belongs to the other house. As mentioned in an earlier post, the building was divided between two brothers to make two houses.

The floor plan by itself or the pictures by themselves might not make much sense, but hopefully when you put the two together you'll come up with some sense of how the house flows. For now here's a brief synopsis:

The front door opens onto a nice sized landing. To your left are the stairs to the upper floor with the living room, bedrooms and two bathrooms. At the top of these stairs is a door that leads out to the backyard.

From the landing going forward are three steps down into the kitchen. The pantry is under the stairs, and the laundry room and bathroom (bagno) are down one step from the kitchen.

THE GROUND FLOOR



Upstairs a long hallway (corridoio) runs along the back of the house. The first room off this hallway is the Living Room. Next is the room we use as a guest bedroom. After that is Bathroom #1, what we call "The Blue Bathroom".

There is a door at the end of this hallway, which allows you to make the master bedroom it's own little suite, and to give you some privacy when there are guests. There are two steps down into another, shorter hallway. To your right is Bathroom #2, also known as "The White Bathroom", and to your left is the hallway that takes you to the master bedroom.

THE FIRST FLOOR