Whammie...

Well the loan company never called me back, so a little while ago, I called them. I asked them "Big Bucks or Whammie?", and they said.. "What?"

After a brief explanation of the old game show "Press Your Luck" (not really, but it makes a better story), I was told that the representative I spoke with yesterday had just stepped out to go to lunch, but if I gave them my SSN they would look up the loan for me. After a brief pause, I got the response, "Yeah, this just came in...!! Oh Sorry, you didn't qualify for the loan." Yeah, right, they had it probably most of the morning, just didn't want to call me and give me the bad news. (sigh)

I asked if I could qualify for a lesser amount, but was quickly told "No," because my credit score was below the minimum value for giving out a loan. I tried to once again express to the representative that most of the bad stuff on my credit was due to "Ex", whom I haven't been married to for seven years, didn't refinance debt "awarded" to her in the divorce settlement. I said that they should look only at the items that were new since our separation, and not the things that I was listed as a co-borrower on before my separation, and they would see that I have paid all of my stuff on time. I tried to argue that the bad credit score wasn't all my fault, and there should be someone alive to review my history other than a computer rating system, but I was told "Sorry, there is nothing we can do."

So basically the 30 minutes I spent on the phone giving my entire financial history was completely in vain, as all they did was pull my credit score, say "No", and move on. (sigh)

So, I guess I am going to either need a lot of baked sale items, or one really, really unique item I can sell on eBay? Any one have a rare old comic book, postage stamp, coin, or other collectible that I could buy cheap? I promise to not return it. :-)

Later Lou

Press my luck...

I spent most of yesterday talking to everyone I knew well enough to ask, how to go about getting "Big Bucks and No Whammies." The results were not great, but they have a little potential:

• Find a loan company that will grant me a loan. A co-worker suggested a company that I called last night. I spent about 30 minutes on the phone giving them my entire life's financial history. The representative told me I would get a call this morning, and I have been waiting all morning for that call... It hasn't happened yet, which leads me to believe from past experience that no news is definitely not good news.
• Ask the head guy at our office, who has a little money, to give me a personal loan. The issue with this is he is my boss's boss. I am saving this suggestion for next to last resort.
• Ask "Sweetie" to get a loan in her name and I make the payments to her in advance. This option sounds good, except that "Sweetie" doesn't want to have anything to do with this house because it involved "Ex", and because she feels that my luck is really bad, and that things aren't going to go as planned, and she will end up having to make the payments. This option is last resort.
• Ask my one of my uncles whom I have hardly spoken to for years, to loan me the money. I wasn't a good kid growing up, so there is a little bit of bad blood there. And to top off the situation, my brother had a similar situation a few years ago, and when he asked to borrow a few bucks, they told him they wouldn't help him. And he was the good kid growing up, so this one is beyond the last resort.
• Hope that money falls out of the sky, or that some lucky lottery winner decides to read my blog and show me pity and send me a small portion of his/her winnings. Yeah, I am dreaming, but I figure it's better than having a crime against my imagination - Right Limpy?
• I could petition the government for a grant... or I could sell them a few of my hammers... I understand they were buying a few for a couple grand each a few years ago. Nah, they would probably arrest me, or worse yet, make me work for them.

OK, so I am rambling... but it's what I do.... I am trying really, really hard to be patient for the phone call from the loan company. But it's only 15 minutes until the morning is over, and they did say they would let me know in the morning... Unless their office is in California, or Hawaii, then maybe I have a little more time...

Later Lou

Good News...??

This weekend I talked with a Realtor and I met with a contractor about the marital home.

Real quick update for new readers:

I separated from "Ex" in January 2000, and divorced in Dec 2001. She got to keep practically everything including the marital home. She lived there with her new husband and my kids until Sept 2006, after she bought herself a new $170,000 home on the outskirts of the school district - good for her. She put the marital home up for sale.

I lived in rental apartments for 7 years until I was able to buy the duplex building I have been living in for the past 3 years. I closed on the duplex in May 2007, and in July I rented out the second apartment.

In June 2007 the "Ex" had not yet sold the marital home, and decided that she no longer wanted to pay the two mortgages on the old marital home, and since I had all this money to buy my property that she would stop making payments on the mortgages. In the seven years of our separation she never refinanced the mortgages, so they were still in my name, and when she stopped paying on them, my credit rating took a nose dive. To stop the credit score "bleeding" I had her sign the property's title back over to me, and I paid the back mortgage payments, and have continued paying the mortgages and utilities since then.

Now back to the present:

My tenant has not been a reliable, on-time rent payer, so I don't have the rent money to offset the new expenses and I have had to use my credit cards more than I would like in order to survive. I have stopped the downward spiral of the credit rating, but in it's place I now have a downward spiral of available money.

So, I have decided to try to get rid of the marital home. This past week I contacted a Realtor who is supposed to be really good at moving properties, even in my real estate depressed area. The Realtor reviewed the property and told me that it could definitaly sell, but that I had to do some repairs to the place to make it appealling to potential buyers. Before this, I had already had a few people look at the place and give me estimates. Just to be sure they were good estimates, I had a new contractor come out this weekend and give me another quote.

The property needs about $10,000 worth of work to make it "sell-worthy". The Realtor said that with those repairs it could be listed for an amount that if it sold at that amount I would would be able to recoup the repair money, and still make a profit. The really good news is that I could accept an offer much lower than the listing price, and still break even or make a few bucks. The Realtor is pretty confident that the property could move pretty easily with the right advertising at the right places. So if the Realtor is right, I could be rid of the drain on my income and get a little extra money to pay off all my credit card debt, and finally get my head above the debt level.

There is only one road block to this whole scenario... coming up with the $10,000 to do the repairs. I only have roughly $6,500 in available credit, and my savings have been pillaged to purchase my duplex back in May. I am roughly about $4,500 short, and I don't know how to get the remaining amount.

I have already tried my local bank, my immediate family and other mortgage/loan places. No one is willing to loan an amount that small to someone who has the credit rating I have. As a matter of fact, one of my credit card companies recently reduced my "available credit" from $2,000 to $0 because of the dip in my credit rating... Yeah, thanks "Ex" for bailing on the mortgages in May, you were very thoughtful! (yeah, right!)

Anyway, I may have to take Tysgirl up on her offer to start a phone sex company... Or maybe I could have a bake sale?

Later Lou

No Money...

I currently have $0.85 in my checking account... Woo Hoo!! I am wealthy!

I am not really bad at managing my money, it's just that I don't have very much of it to manage... I make a good income, however I don't get to keep any of it. I pay taxes, child support, health insurance, and loans all of which are taken out of my paycheck before I even get it. So, that leaves me to "take home" less than 40% of what I earn. With the remaining amount I pay my car payment, car insurance, 3 mortgages, 3 sets of utility bills, credit card balances and if I am really lucky, I get a couple of bucks for groceries, and gas for the car... phew...

I need a new source of income... Anyone want to hire a used software engineer? Not that I am limiting my abilities to software engineering, because I can learn a new skill.... possibly.

OK I am done whining. There are a lot people with a lot worse problems and situations than me. So, I am going to go back to work, and wait patiently for my 40% at the end of the month.

Later Lou

Nephews...

My brother has three wonderful boys. His youngest was born this past March and is still a baby. My youngest is 12 years old and in middle school, so yeah, I am the older brother.

At his oldest son's birthday last party I had gotten him a duplicate gift, a DVD that someone else had already given him. So I offered to exchange it for any other movie he wanted. He asked me to exchange it for "Meet the Robinsons", which unfortunately didn't come out until this past Tuesday. His birthday was in August, so I had to hang onto the DVD for quite some time to exchange it.

I went last night directly after work to Best Buy, where I purchased the DVD to exchange it. Best Buy is one of my favorite stores. I love to just wonder around the store gawking at all of the "toys" (i.e. TVs, Computers, Stereos, Cameras, etc...) and "games" (DVDs, Software, Cd's, accessories, etc...). Coworkers and I have taken lunch hours just to go to the store and check out the large, wide screen, HD TVs.

As I entered the store I was thinking what a great Uncle I am taking care of this without anyone reminding me, because usually I forget or postpone these kind of things and I have to be reminded a bunch of times, which is a normal guy thing I think (I am pointing out my guy-ness because it was called into question lately).

I walk up to the return counter, and I am as expected immediately waited on and asked how by the man in the blue shirt can he could help me. I said, I wanted to exchange this unopened DVD for another one. He said "Sure, no problem. Can I have your receipt, please." I paused, and said I didn't have a receipt, but that I only wanted to exchange this unopened DVD, and I didn't want any money back. He told me that they could not return or exchange the DVD without the receipt, something about how their computer system wouldn't allow it. He said because he didn't know how much I paid, he couldn't give me a credit. I suggested he give me a credit for the lowest price of the DVD, and he said, "Sorry, but without a receipt I can not process your return."

I stormed out towards the front door, only to be stopped by their "doorman" and told that he was sorry I wasn't happy, but that was store policy. I told him the policy was stupid and continued my rampage out the door.

Right now Best Buy is not my favorite store.

On a lighter note, I got to take my brother's middle son to his soccer game/practice on Saturday. He is only 4, and hasn't gotten the gist of the game yet, but he seemed to enjoy running after the ball and try to kick it in the correct direction. When we arrived at the practice field there were about 2 dozen or so teams of kids playing. It was the first time I had taken my nephew to soccer practice, and I hadn't met his coach or any of the other parents before. So I figured I would just find other kids with the same color shirt. So I looked out onto the field, and they ALL had on the same color shirt, with the same symbol on the front... no help!

We walked around the area about 10 minutes until eventually my nephew started walking onto the field. I was surprised, because he seemed hesitant to walk onto the field everywhere else we had been. I asked him if this was his team, and he nodded his head. I looked up to the coach, and asked "Do you know this little guy?" and he responded "Yeah, that's your brother's middle son." (OK, he didn't actually say "your brother's middle son", instead he said his name, but this blog is public, and I haven't asked permission to give out his name, so I took a little literary license)

They practiced a little and then had a three on three game with another team. My nephew didn't score any goals, but he had a great time, and so did I. I should have gotten my kids more involved with sports when they were young... too late now.

Later Lou

Towed

I had a car towed from my property tonight... and it wasn't mine.

(This photo isn't the actual van, but it's the same make, model and color).

When I brought "Two" home from work tonight, we arrived a little before midnight, and parked on my property was the van that had been parking in front of my garage earlier in the month. "Two's" new car is now parked in front of the garage, so I guess the van driver felt they could park in front of my front door, on my property.

It's not as if they parked on the street in front of my house or somewhere near my property... No, they parked right smack dab in the middle of my driveway. The street was empty, the parking spot in front of their building was empty, the parking spot NEXT to my garage on their property was empty... but they still chose to park on my property.

Well I didn't even turn my car off, I dialed the police. Well, actually, I called few minutes after I sent "Two" into the house to retrieve the phone book, so I could lookup the regular number for the police department. I didn't want to call 911, cause I didn't think it was an emergency. I asked the police officer that answered what my options were, and he said I could have it towed, and I should call the local towing company, and they would remove it. He gave me the name of the company, but didn't think they would be able to do it tonight.

I called the towing company, and they agreed to come out, so I stood outside my building for the 20 minutes it took them to arrive. I waited outside with my car's four-way blinkers on hoping that the owner of the van would notice me and come out to investigate. However, when the tow truck driver arrived no owner had showed. The tow truck driver asked that I have the police here in case there was any problems, so after a quick call and a few minutes two cruisers pulled up.

I explained the situation to one of the officers, and he officer took down the information, had me sign a document stating that it was my indeed property and the vehicle didn't belong to me, and then he gave permission to the tow truck driver to take the van.

The Ford Windstar Van has front wheel drive, and because it was parked with the front end facing the building, the tow truck driver couldn't just tow it. He had to first pull it out of the driveway, and turn it so he could get to the front wheels. He kinda surprised me at how he managed to get the car out of the spot. He just hooked up a cable, to the back of the van and yanked the van out. Then he connected the cable to the front wheel of the van yanked it sideways to turn it.

I started to feel a little bad, but at the same time there was a intense feeling of "satisfaction" as I saw the minor damage that was being done to the van in order to get it off my property. I mean I didn't do the damage, and yet it seemed somehow a fitting punishment.

The van is gone now, the police have left, and now I am sitting here at 1:30AM unable to sleep for fear that the driver of the van is going to get hostile. I don't know the person. Heck, I never actually met the owner, only a person who said they "knew who the van belonged to." They might be a nice person that just made an honest mistake...

Nah, they were blatantly wrong, and I think I was absolutely right to remove the van from my property. Right?

I wonder where they took the van? Hmmmm....

Later Lou

Sweetie Weekeind

If you haven't read my post "Bringing you up to speed" or my Blogger profile, then what are you waiting for... Do it now! Because I can't continue this story unless you are up to speed...

OK. I am going to assume you are like me and are a little lazy and sometimes "skim" rather than read (no I don't do that to everything I read, just boring work stuff mostly), so I will give you the highlights that are pertinent to this story:

• I am a single father of 4 kids, and the oldest is out on her own. The other three switch between their mother's house and mine. My son spends more time at my place than the girls throughout the week, but every other weekend, I get the kids from Friday through Sunday.
• Sweetie is a single mother of two, with her oldest out on her own as well. Her son alternates weekends between her house and his father's place usually on the same schedule as my kids, so on alternate weekends, we have "non kid" time to spend together.
• Back in September, Sweetie told me she was going to "move on", and it prompted a few days of me sulking at home taking a "mental health day" or two.

If you have been reading since then, you may have noticed that I still talk about Sweetie and it seems as if we are still together... Well, we kinda still are. I didn't want to post about this for fear it would "jinx" it and she would keep on "moving on". Anyway, after she said she was moving on, I stopped calling as frequently, but we still spoke occasionally. She invited me up to a dinner with her family a few weeks later, and we talked some more. I was still kinda hanging back giving her some space until 2 weekends ago. We had a non-kid weekend, and she didn't have any plans, so we kinda just 'hung out' together. We had a great time together, and it seemed to re-energize her. Since then we have been talking at our normal pace, and spending more time together. She has seemed more at peace with herself, and more happy lately, and she was using a lot of "we" words when about talking about things, which I take as good signs for the future of our relationship. So right now I am hopeful we will be together for quite some time, as long as I don't push or pressure her. She has been through two failed marriages, and as much as I want her to be my wife, I don't want to push her into something she doesn't want. I am just glad we are together, talking and spending time together. Who knows what the future will bring.

Later Lou

Cell Phones

A couple of weeks ago Sweetie told me that our state was banning the use of hand held cell phones while driving, and that this ban would take affect in November. I, of course, being the "know-it-all" that I am told her that "I find that hard to believe." I wanted to say "You're wrong", but in order to save face in case I wasn't right, and to be polite to the woman I love, I edited myself. The following day in our local newspaper ran the article: "Cell phone users warned of bogus e-mails." The article mentions that the state legislature is considering a ban, but that's all so far, just considering. Apparently the proposed ban hasn't even gotten out of committee yet and hasn't been discussed on the house floor, and at the time of the article (10/10/2007) , it hadn't even had it's first hearing in the committee yet. Well I had to do a short "I told you so" comment to Sweetie, and she politely told me (thankfully) that she was surprised, rather than kicking me in the 'nads for doing a verbal "touch down celebration dance". Apparently she had fell victim to an Email scam that was going around telling people that the cell phone ban was taking place on November 11th. The fraudulent Email didn't just snag Sweetie in it's trap, it apparently also caught a lot of other people, who got upset and started to call their state representatives who were completely taken by surprise because most of them didn't even know about the proposed ban yet. There have now been at least 2 newspaper articles in our local paper, a blurb on the hourly radio newscasts, and a short story on the evening TV newscast. In all of these stories they described this massive response to the government representatives. They talk a lot about how people were duped, and how people should check their facts before forwarding on Emails. Not one of theses commentators dared to mention the fact that there were a lot of people who apparently do NOT want a ban. So to me, it sounds as if this proposed ban, should be shot down before it even gets started. Now before I go any further, let me say, that no one is banning cell phone use completely, only that they are wanting to restrict it so that if you want to use the cell phone, you have to use it 'hands free'. Hands free means using an Earphone, speaker phone, or one of those BlueTooth ear buds. This of course means that you have both hands free to drive, or at least one hand free to drive, and the other free to gesture with as you talk. I personally believe that the ban is wrong, but by saying that I don't mean that it's a good thing for people to use hand held cell phones while driving. I have been on many conversations with people who have had "near misses" while talking to me on the phone (yeah, Sweetie, that would be you). Once I was on the phone having an innocuous conversation with my youngest sister when all of a sudden I heard an usual noise and then silence. I later found out she had been in an small accident, and fortunately she wasn't hurt. I don't know if the innocuous conversation contributed to her accident, but I have to believe it didn't help her avoid it. I believe the ban is wrong only because I don't think the government should restricting our freedom to do stupid things. If we start banning stupid things, how long before they ban me for talking? Later Lou

100th post...

Woo Hoo!

Today I am having a celebration of sorts...

I am celebrating a monumental occasion: This post is my 100th entry to this Blog!

Who would have thunk I had that much to write about? Well I don't, actually which is why I just ramble along... and it's taken me almost three years to get here!

Thinking to myself:

Wow. I am good, I just worked the the title of the blog into the post... just like those screen writers work the title of the movie into the script. Maybe I should become a screen writer? Nah, I like my mediocre income and complete lack of fame. Of course if I did write a movie, I would probably be even less wealthy than I am now, and I would be famous only in as much as I was known as the worst movie writer ever... oh wait... I believe that title has already been taken... by _______ (you fill in the blank).

OK back to the post...

I use StatCounter to provide the little "ticker" that shows the number of people who have visited my blog, and another one that counts the visitors to my family's website, that I manage. Even though I have posted 100 times on this blog, I only have a little over 6 times that many visitors, and most of those visitors are me. So if you take away two for each post for my own visits, that leaves on average 4 people visiting per post. Not much of an audience, huh? Oh well, I write for myself anyway. :-) The visitor counter, is not all that StatCounter does for me. It has other less obvious features as well. One of these less obvious features of StatCounter is the additional reports it provides about the Internet visits to the website. Of course some people think this is invasion of privacy, and maybe they are correct, but whether or not it is, I think it's fun information. It's not like the reports provide very much detail anyway, but it does provide a little fun data like:

• The general area the visitor is from (city, state, country). Of course this is only the location of their ISP, not the location of the individual's home or office, but it gives a general idea of where the person is that is reading the page.
• It lists the various pages the person viewed while visiting the site
• And of course it shows the time and day they visited, and if possible how long they may have visited the site.
• The only other information it provides is and what search engine, or link referred them to your site.

This last bit of info is the one that I always find the most interesting.

There are of course the normal expected referring links from my family's website, from one of my kid's blogs, or from my various profiles on sites like Blogger, Yahoo or Flickr. These expected links are the ones I often intentionally plant in hopes of leading people to my ramblings in hopes they would comment, laugh, or otherwise be amused. The unexpected referrers come from the search engines. Now I am not surprised that people can find me through the search engines, but I am surprised at what they are searching on that leads them to me. Now it's extremely possible that they weren't really looking for me, but rather something much more exciting like porn or something... but they stumble across my site and read a little and then skitter away without leaving so much as a whisper that they were here. BTW: There isn't anything on my site that could remotely be considered porn, but then again, what else do people really search for on the Internet now a days? I mean, here it is Thursday, and I am not even doing the HNT ("Half-Nekkid Thursday"). The funny thing is, I actually get thank you notes for not doing HNT. :-) Well let me share with you some interesting search phrases that have brought people here:

1. "hit a rock mower stopped working" (from Missouri)
2. "dream interpretation 1 half slipper" (from Hawaii)
3. "my property is very sloped" (from Florida)
4. My favorite: "old person's rambling" (from Western Australia)

Yes, I have written something about all of those topics, except the "1 half slipper" part, and yes, I am an old person rambling... (well old enough to know I am not quite young any longer...) But what type of person searches for these kind of topics? I don't believe I know or have met any of these people. If you are one of those people that actually searched on those topics I listed, please don't be offended... I am glad you found me, and hopefully you added my blog to your favorites and you visit often... But I have to believe you weren't looking for me when you searched for those things, or were you? If not me, then what were you actually searching for? I think today is a banner day, no matter how people get here... The only thing on my mind now is whether or not I can create 100 more posts before the end of 2008? Later Lou

Traffic violations...

Back at the beginning of September I mentioned I got pulled over on on my way home for speeding, but the trooper ticketed me for an expired inspection instead.

Last week, "Sweetie" did a favor for her cousin and drove her to Pittsburgh to Heinz Field for the Steeler's game. She didn't go to the game because she was expecting guests at her home. On her way back from Pittsburgh she got pulled over for speeding (4o in a 25 mph zone) through a small town a few miles from her home.

The police officer was not the most "pleasant" person she had met. Her apprehension at being stopped and his immediate gruff demeanor, got her so nervious she couldn't extract her driver's license from her wallet. The "understanding" officer told her he couldn't touch her wallet and she had to take it out for him. She started to panic and couldn't get it out.

While she was struggling, the officer decided to push her nerves to the edge. He started asking her questions like: "Where did you come from?" and "Where were you going?" Even though Sweetie was struggling to keep herself together she still had enough wits to ask why those particular questions were relavant to him pulling her over. He promptly informed her that as a police officer he could ask her anything he wanted. His questioning made her feel like she was living in a 3rd world country, or that she was a criminal. I thought in this country we have the freedom to not answer?

Well I decided to do a little research and found an interesting article about why a police officer may ask questions, and what to do. Click here to check it out.

Eventually the officer let her go, but not after giving her a citation for speeding that will cost her over $100.00. Although no one wants to pay $100, that bothered her far less than how this officer treated her.

A few days later I took her out to dinner and at the restaurant was a table of four police officers eating. She almost had a panic attack thinking that the officer that just pulled her over was there. The host that sat us reassured her that they were from the sherrif's office and didn't do traffic stops, and she relaxed a little. The host then preceeded to share with us a story about him getting pulled over on the same road that I got ticketed on in September, and like me he got pulled over for speeding, but got ticketed for the expired inspection instead. I wonder if it was the same police officer?

I have talked to a few friends, and most people feel that police officers are generally gruff, but that the one that pulled over Sweetie was a little more rough than most. I suppose being a police officer is a stressful job, but putting people on the defensive immediately doesn't seem to be an effective way of dealing with the public... Is it?

I know Sweetie's experience with the police hasn't made her feel any more secure, in fact it has done the exact opposite. She is now going out of her way to and from work to avoid the small town she got pulled over in. If the officer's intent was to keep people from visiting his town, he is doing a good job!

Later Lou

New Dollar Coins

Yesterday as I was heading out to lunch a fellow coworker stopped me to say "Hello". He noticed I had a small handful of the new Presidential Golden Dollars in my hand, which I was going to use to pay for lunch. He hadn't seen them yet, so I showed him the coins. If you haven't gotten one of these new dollar coins, you should stop to your local evil bank and ask for them. The government is going to mint four different $1 coins each year for the next 11+ years. Each coin will have a different president on the front, called the "obverse", of the coin, and all of them will have the Statue of Liberty on the back, or the "reverse". They are a golden color, and even though they aren't real gold, they are cool to look at. This year they have already released coins with George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. Anyway, back to the story... We started to talk about the minting errors he had heard about the new $1 coins. As with all coins there are tons of errors (remember it's the government who makes them) to discuss, but he focused on the new edge lettering. On the edge of these new coins the mint inscribed the words: "In God We Trust", "E Plurbis Unum", and the year of the coin's mintage ("2007"), and the mint mark (usually a "P" or a "D"). They did this to give more room for the presidential portrait, and to make the coin more unique.

One of the most well known errors on the coins is the missing wording on the edge of the coin. At first some people who got the coins thought this was intentional to remove the "In God We Trust" from the coins with all of the political "hay" about religion and government, but this isn't the case. Instead it was a minting error that created some coins without the writing, and they are now being called "Godless coins". Some of the Washington "Godless" coins have sold on eBay for $600, but most sell for around $40-50. The Adams "Godless" coins are rarer and are commanding an higher price. Of course there are a few people trying to cash in on this error by filing off the edge writing and trying to sell the fake "Godless" coins as authentic errors. My friend said that he heard of another error related to the edge writing. He said that the mint intended for the writing to be read correctly when the coin was face up, but some of the coins have the writing face down. I hadn't heard that, and I thought he was pulling my leg, so I kinda dismissed him with a wave, and went off to lunch. Well today, pulled out a handful of my $1 presidential coins and I looked at the edge writing. Of the 20 coins I examined, 8 of them had the writing face up, and 12 had the writing face down. If it's an error, I have a whole bunch of them! Which of course makes it unlikely that the error is worth anything. I did a quick Internet search and found that it is in fact not an error! The mint never intended to control the direction of the edge text. The machine they use to inscribe the edge does not check the direction of the coin before it inscribes, so there is roughly a 50/50 chance of the text being face up or face down.

So if someone stops you on the way to lunch and tries to tell you that $1 coin with the text the "opposite" way is worth money, don't be fooled and wave him (or her) off and continue on to lunch. Later Lou

Cats...

I don't believe I have ever mentioned it here or not, but I am a cat owner. Actually I own two cats, because just like kids, sometimes you get one you didn't expect.

The black cat is "Squeaky Z". He got his name because he used to meow incessantly, and because his tail is crooked, and has a little "z" shape in it. I got him as a kitten and he used to follow me around the house like a puppy dog. No matter where I went, he had to go as well. He would follow me into the bathroom when I took a shower and would poke his head into the shower to make sure I was OK. He stopped doing that when he realized that there was water in there that would get him wet... Now he just stands guard outside the shower. He still follows me around the house, but not as much as he used to.

The grey cat is "Scrappers". Scrappers moved in when my mom was in the hospital, before she passed away, and he was supposed to be a short-term guest. Unfortunately when my mom passed he didn't have anywhere else to go, so he became a permanent resident. He has learned from Z to follow me around the house, so now they both follow me around. Scrappers doesn't stand guard at the shower, but he does jump into the tub after I get out to get a drink from the dripping facet. Scrappers has taken over the sink in my bathroom, and I believe he thinks it's his bed. He is there seemingly all the time.

Scrappers is kind of a "brute". He is much bigger than Z so, he has taken over as "head of the household" between the two cats. Z has taken quite a few months to get back to his original disposition. For the first 4-5 months Z became the proverbial "scare-dee-cat", and would go into hiding and wouldn't socialize with people. In the last month or so, he has started to warm up again.

Z is very, very picky about the cleanliness of his liter box, and lets me know when he is unhappy about it. He first starts to whine, a very specific meow, to let me know to take care of things. If I don't do it soon enough, he poops on the floor, right outside of the litter box. Even though I have two litter boxes, they prefer only one. And with the two cats, keeping the litter box clean is a seemingly hourly chore!

Today I decided to move the one litter box, their favorite, to a new location, because I am just tired of the smell. Z was not happy with my decision and let me know by pooping on the floor again, where the old litter box used to be. I had showed him the new location, but I think he was trying to tell me he liked it where it was. Hopefully I win this "debate" and he starts using the box in the new location.

Sweetie told me a story about a lady who had nine cats all living inside her home. I do enjoy my cats, but I can't imagine having nine of them. I am struggling with the two I have now!

Later Lou

Sigh...

Bank Update:

To the bank's credit, they didn't charge me the overdraft fees, as they said they wouldn't. However, I still have a negative balance because an automatic bill payment came out of my account yesterday, and that WILL give me an overdraft charge... So all in all, I lost $105 to the bank in fees this month... (sigh)

Cavalier Update:

Tuesday after "Two's" scout meeting we got the new battery installed. After we brought the car back to the "Ex's" place, and he was backing up in the parking spot, I heard an usual noise from the car. I asked "Two" if he checked the transmission fluid when he was going over the car, and he said he did. He assured me it was checked properly, and had enough fluid in it.

I told him that the transmission sounded bad when he backed up and that he should try a test the next day to see if it was just a noise or a more serious problem. I suggested he drive to the end of "Ex's" drive way, and put the care in reverse and backup the length of the driveway. The driveway has a very slight downward slope, so has he reversed it would be a very slight up hill, just enough to put a little pressure on the transmission.

So this past Wednesday when he got home from school, he did the test. The car didn't pass. It only backed up the driveway about 90% of the way, and then gave out. The car no longer goes in reverse. The optimist in me says, "I am glad we found out now instead of when you were out driving around." The pessimist in me says, "How are we going to come up with the money necessary to fix the transmission?"

"Two" was very upset because the transmission work will cost pretty close to his entire purchase price of the car, and of course he doesn't have the cash now. It will take him about 2½ months to save up the money for the repair.

I am going to take the car to a local transmission shop, and get a proper estimate. The estimate the mechanic gave me over the phone without seeing the car is around $700 for a used transmission or $1,050 to rebuild the existing one. I am hoping that he will give me a better estimate when he sees it. (sigh)

Parking update:

I forgot to move the trash cans I was using as a parking space barrier to the curb. So Thursday morning when the trash collectors came I expected they wouldn't empty the cans... I was wrong, they did... They just emptied them, turned them over, and put them back where I had the barrier setup... SOOOO... I haven't opened up the drive way in front of my garage to see if the neighbor will return... I think after this weekend I will remove the barrier and put the trash cans away... It looks bad with the cans sitting out in the driveway. (sigh)

Bowling update:

We officially sucked as a bowling team last night. Ok, that's just me expressing my extreme displeasure at not winning any games last night. We don't suck completely, just a little bit. The team we played last night was just better than us. Last week however we did win 2 games and total points, so we moved into second place. After this week's loss, I am thinking we will be at the bottom of the list again! (sigh).

Sweetie update:

At the end of the post "Weekend Work...", I said the following:

I am not sure exactly where we "are". We didn't really make up, but we didn't really say we would stay apart... We are somewhere in between.

Well... We are still talking to one another, and planning events and outings together. This upcoming weekend, "Sweetie" mentioned she would like to do something outside like go on a hike or something. Personally I am happy for the opportunity to spend time with her, as I really enjoy being with her, but at the same time I don't want to feel I am forcing her to be with me by my continuing to "chase" her when she has told me she wants to "move on." Maybe this weekend we can have a heart to heart and either decide to try to make a real go of it, or do an actual separation. (sigh) Tenant Update: I still haven't asked my tenants for the October rent... yeah, yeah, yeah... I know I need to be more stern, but I really hate being the "bad guy", or the "mean landlord" and demanding the rent. (sigh) New News: As I was typing this post, my brother just called and told me we finally got a bill for the funeral home. I haven't written about it, but a few months ago, my mother past away. The funeral director was seemingly in no hurry to get his money, and didn't send out the bill for quite some time. Anyway, the bill is for $6,000, and after we use whatever money my Mom had saved, which isn't much, we (my brother, my two sisters and I) have to share the remaining cost. Supposedly my mom had enough money to cover at least half of it so that means I am going to have to come up with about $750. (sigh) Later Lou

I hate banks...

I hate banks... Not the simple piggy banks, or the mattress banks, I mean the buildings with tellers, a safe, and security guards. Yeah, I know they are necessary. Yeah, my brother works for one of those evil places, and he is even a bank officer. I just can't stand it when they take my money, and tell me it's my fault! (ok... it was a little bit my fault... ) I overdrafted my account, and since I check my account online all the time, I noticed my mistake right away, before the overdraft was "officially" posted to my account and they charged me for it. I transfered enough money from one account at the same bank to the one that I had overdrafted, so it wouldn't be negative any longer. So even though I did the transfer on Tuesday, the bank didn't post the transfer until Wednesday... Any other time they post transfers on the same day, almost instantanously... I mean the money is still in their "safe", just being moved from one account to another, so it's not like they have to wait for the check to clear right? Well because they posted the transfer the following day, I got charged 2 over draft fees which were $35 each!... When I transfered the money I didn't transfer enough to cover the unexpected $70 withdrawal from my account, so my account overdrafted again. Today, I looked at my account again, and saw it was overdrafted again and flipped! I have three more expected transactions posted to come out of my account today, and if I didn't do something, they were going to charge me three more $35 dollar fees! For those without a calculator handy, that's $105 dollars, or a two day total of $175 in fees! So in an effort to prevent the additional $105 dollars in fees, I broke my piggy bank and wrapped up $58 worth of coins. I then went to my credit union and withdrew all the money I had in my savings there (which was only $80), and ran to the bank to cover the overdraft. The teller confirmed that if I made the cash deposit today I would avoid all $105 fees. The account balance won't be updated until tomorrow, so I won't know if I was successful at avoiding the fees until then. Even so, I am preparing myself to see some overdraft fees posted on my account tomorrow, because I just know banks are evil and take your money. It always seems they withdraw their money BEFORE they deposit yours, and then tell you "Sorry, you overdafted, and we had to charge those fees to cover our costs." To be fair, since my brother does work at a bank, I know banks aren't really evil, and they don't intentionally adjust their accounting rules so they always win (at least I hope so), but it sure seems like it some times. I mean this whole problem wouldn't have occured if they would have processed the transfer of funds before they processed the witdrawals from my account. I wouldn't have had a single overdraft, and I would be very happy... Instead due to an accounting policy, the bank is $70 richer, and I am very UNhappy! I suppose there are a couple of solutions to prevent this from ever happening again... 1) I could keep more money in the account and never let the balance get that low... 2) I could apply for overdraft protection... or 3) I could just use my piggy bank and pay all of my bills with coins and not use the bank... Yeah, I like that one! Later Lou

Battery

Last night after I picked up "Two" from his weekly scout meeting, we rushed to the nearest Advanced Auto Parts store before it closed so we could get a new battery for his car. On the short drive over we noticed a few things like there is still a considerable vibration from the exhaust, and his emergency brake isn't disengaging completely or properly. When I heard the vibration coming from the back of the car, I asked "Two" if he secured the spare, and stuff. He said that he didn't have a spare... I almost paniced, but then I rememberd that the man who sold the car to "Two" told us he had the spare and would put it in the car before we picked it up... So, hopefully all we have to do is call him and pick it up.

We got to the store in plenty of time for the sales person to install the new battery, and now his car starts without any problems at all. He got a pretty good first car, and with a little care, he should get a lot of use out of it. Check out my previous posts if you want to see a picture of the car, or read "Two's" blog. After we got back home, "Two" transfered to me the money I spent to transfer the title, and pay the sales tax. When we transfered the money, I saw that my account had gone into the "negative" zone, and I had overdrafted slightly. Hopefully the transfer of the money will prevent any bank charges, but I am betting that I get stung for $30. I ran short because my tenant hasn't paid October's rent yet, and I haven't confronted them about it yet... I guess today's the day!

Tomorrow is trash pickup, I am curious to see what happens when the trash cans are moved from the drive way to the curb... Will the Illinois van appear back in front of my garage? If so, I am pretty sure I will have to call the police department and express my displeasure at having someone tresspass on my property. :-) Later Lou

Parking

My new house which is a duplex has a garage on my side of the building. The driveway in front of the house is large enough for another car to park to the left of the garage in front of the house while still allowing access to the garage. The example artwork above is much nicer than my place, but the idea is the same.

When I park, I park on the left side of the driveway that is closest to my front door, which happens to be not in front of the garage. I do this because I use the garage for household storage because the building doesn't have a basement, and because the garage door doesn't work.

The neighboring house has a parking space next to my garage driveway on the right, and the way the cement work is done it appears that their driveway and my driveway are all one large wide driveway. This neighboring house is is divided into 3 or 4 apartments, yet it only has one non-street parking space: the one to the right of my garage driveway.

Recently a new tenant moved into the apartment in the neighboring house that gets to use the spot next to my garage. As expected they started to park their car there, and a few days later after they were completely moved in a second car started parking next to their spot, which happes to be in front of my garage door on my property.

At first, I didn't say anything except to grumble under my breath, because I thought that the new tenants had an out of town visitor. I reasoned this because the license plate on the second car was from Florida. I didn't want to come across as a "nasty neighbor" and since I don't use the garage anyway, I just grumbled and ignored the car. However, after a few weeks, the same car was still parking in front of my garage, and I decided I been a nice neighbor long enough. I walked over and knocked on the new neighbor's door, and told them I wanted to talk about the car in front of my garage. They told me that the car didn't belong to them, and they didn't know to whom belonged.

This new information did nothing but to infuriate me, not at the new neighbors, but at myself for ignorning it for as long as I did trying to be "neighborly". I felt taken advantage of by some unknown stranger, not the new neighbors.

I kept an eye out, and I was ready to pounce on the driver when I saw him or her. A few days later, I saw the person getting out of their car, and I confronted them, and still trying to be neighborly, I told them as nicely as possible that they were parking on my property and to not park there any longer. They said they were not aware that the spot in front of my garage was my property, and they wouldn't park there again.

I must stop in my narative and for a second and ask a few reasonable questions. Would you park in front of a garage that wasn't attached to the building you were living in? Isn't it common courtesy to not park in front of someone else's garage door? Personally, I think the only person that would do that is someone that doesn't care, or is someone who is hoping to get away with it. My feeling was this person was someone that didn't care, and I expected they would not respect me and continue parking there.

However, I was surprised in more ways than one. That car did indeed stop parking there, but it was quickly replaced by different car. This time by a van with Illinois plates, and the Florida car was no where in sight. I am thinking this is someone new, so I repeated the process and knocked on the neighbor's door, and they once again said they didn't know who it belonged to. I waited until I saw someone getting in or out of the van and I never saw them. So I decided to start asking anyone I saw on the street near the building, and after a few days I eventually found someone that knew who the van belonged to. I told them to not park there any longer, and they said they would let the owner know. The next day, the van is there again... and the day after that, and the day after that... After about 3 days, I got frustrated, and was tempted to call the cops and have the van towed off my property, but instead I had a brain storm (of sorts).

I thought I would find out who was parking there and send them an invoice for parking fees since the spot was my property. But I felt that I probably wouldn't get any money, and it would just be a wasted effort. Instead, on Friday afternoon as I was getting ready to go somewhere, I noticed the van was not parked in the driveway, and I decided to take action. I decided I would block the parking space so they couldn't park there any longer. I didn't have any traffic cones or anything else, so I moved my trash cans that usually I keep out of sight onto the driveway to block it. I arranged them kind of like barrier at the start of the driveway.

I honestly expected the van driver to move the cans and park there anyway, but he (or she) has so far respected my "barrier". I don't want to leave the barrier up permanently, because it looks lame, and messy, even though it's effective. My concern now is when I take the barrier down, will they think that I am giving my permission to park there again? If that happens, I guess I will have to get the authorities invovled...

Am I being petty over a driveway and garage entrance that I don't use, even though it's my property? Later Lou

Sick...

I am sick and tired... or tired and sick... but mostly sick of the run around. When people don't want to give you good news they give you the run around, or they make you wait by postponing the conversation as long as possible...

What makes me even sicker, is that I do the exact same thing!

I mentioned in a previous post, the one where I write about what I did to my brand new lawn mower, that I had contacted http://www.webuyuglyhouses.com/ in an attempt to get rid of the marital home. Well after 3 weeks, and multiple phone calls I got a final answer from them about whether or not they would buy my ugly house or not. They made me an offer... however, the offer wasn't realistic. They offered around $13,000 less than I currently owe on the mortgages of the house. So if I accepted their offer I would have to come up with $13,000 in addition to the money they would give me for the house in order to close the deal.... If I had $13,000 I would fix up the place, and rent it, or live in it, and I wouldn't need them at all!

The point I am trying to make, even though I am extremely discouraged that they didn't give me a reasonable offer, is that it took them 3 weeks to come straight with me and tell me that they couldn't really help me.

I have noticed recently that this happens a lot when I am dealing with this house. I tried to get the property refinanced through my local bank, and a process that normally takes 2 weeks, took over 5 weeks. After all that time, they said "Sorry, we can't help you, but here's the name of a private investor." I called the private investor, and the last I heard from him after 3 weeks of working with him, was that my credit score wasn't really strong, and he would have to do a little more research on how he could help... He hasn't called back since.

So, I am stuck with the house. I can't get a loan to help me fix it up, and it's not in any condition to live in... but I still have to make the monthly mortgage payments and the yearly tax and insurance payments... In otherwords I am flushing a lot of money down the toilet every month, and I am not even getting the relief of a good, clean lower intestine!

Speaking of sick, "Four" was sick at school on Thursday. The school nurse could not get a hold of her mother (who was at her home sleeping), so she called me. I had to drive 30 minutes from work to the school to pick her up and drop her off at her mother's house (which is about 5 minutes from the school), and then drive back to work. It was a wonderful extended lunch hour. "Four" is fine, and she went to school the next day. I am glad I was able to get her, but I am thinking I need to send her mother a bill for my time and the gas for my car... I think that's fair isn't it? I mean, she asks me to pay her monthly to take care of the kids at her place, why can't I ask her to pay me when I incur expenses for activities she should have done?

Nah, that would probably only increase her feelings of being "sick and tired" of me! :-)

Later Lou

Friend

A friend of mine stopped me at work and asked how things have been going. We hadn't spoken for a week or so, and I asked "Haven't you been keeping up by reading my Blog?" "You have a Blog?" he responded with disbelief, as if having a Blog is a pretty rare thing to do. I wonder if that means I have the Blog disease? Can I be cured? I know from personal experience that it has gone into short term remission, but cured? I told him, not only that, but I have setup a family website. Again, he couldn't believe me, so I told him to Google me. The first entry that came up was my LinkedIn profile which I use to network with other people I know. The second entry was not related to me, but the third entry was a mention of my old BBS from the late 80's that I ran called the "Grand Central Station". The forth entry was my family website: Laughlin's in PA. On the menu of the family website is a list of Blogs including mine, "One", "Two", "Three", "Four" and "Other Two". Yeah, I started all my kids with a Blog. It also lists "Two's" personal website. Anyway, he was impressed and started reviewing the websites and Blogs, and I am waiting for him to comment on at least one of my posts... Then I will know my audience went to at least two people! He told me that he was on the web also, and I should Google him, so I did. I found a website that had a video clip from when he was interviewed on TV for a news cast about a machine to help people with bad backs. Now it was my turn to be impressed! I may have created a website and write to a Blog, but I have never gotten interviewed on TV! He's famous! Well maybe not, but he has had his 15 minutes of fame... My turn! Later Lou

New Car - Part 2

"Two" is a little upset that I posted about his new car before he did. He sent me a few IM's yesterday and a comment on my last post expressing that he had the "real" story!

The rest of the story is that his car isn't yet road worthy, although it soon will be. We had to get it insured of course, which was an interesting event. The same night after we wrote the check for the car (Sunday I believe), we went home and logged onto my insurance company's website: http://www.geico.com/. I put in a few quotes: 1) Adding a car, and 2) Adding a driver. A representative from Geico wrote me an Email shortly after my request for a quote telling me that my premium had been raised to almost $1,700 for 6 months worth of coverage!

I had a small anxiety attack, not only because of the very large dollar figure, but because I didn't really ask them to change my policy yet, only give me a quote. So I immediately responded with my displeasure of changes being made without my consent.

A second representative wrote back and told me that they had to "by law" add the second driver if he was licensed, and a learner's permit was considered licensed, and if he was living in my household. I really started to sweat wondering how I was going to come up with that sum of money, or how I could tell "Two" that almost half his monthly income would be going to pay for car insurance.

Before I got too worked up I got another message from Geico in response to my quote for adding the car. I expected the number to go up even more, and was not only relieved, but elated that the number actually went down over $600! I am not sure how the insurance premium calculations work, but as long as "Two" had his own car the rate dropped considerably.

The monthly cost of insurance is now manageable, however, it doesn't manage my concerns about him being out on the roads without supervison. Hopefully within the upcoming weeks he helps me to be assured by becoming a stronger and more confident driver.

BTW: Here's second picture of "Two's" car, since he posted the same picture on his blog, that I posted previously.

New Car

I bought a new car... It's in my name.... I paid for the taxes and title transfer fees.

Ok, I confess, the car isn't really mine. "Two" bought the car... He paid for it with his own money, and he will be paying me back for the taxes and title when he gets paid on Monday. The car is, however, in my name since he is underage, and doesn't have a license yet. He's still working on both of those issues... I am pretty sure at least one of them will be resolved within 7 months.

He spent the last couple of weeks scouring the newspaper classified ads, and the local "auto trader" magazines. He called numerous people, asked questions, talked with friends, until he found what sounded like a pretty good deal.

We went to meet the owner, and see the car, and I was pleasantly surprised that the car looked in decent shape. The owner told us two bad things about the car: No key to lock or unlock the doors, and the battery needed to be replaced. Both issues can be resolved easily without much knowledge in car repair, which of course is a bonus for both him and I, since we are absolute non-experts in fixing up cars.

The owner asked if we wanted to drive it, and I was glad to hear that he was very forthcoming, and seemingly honest (yeah, I had, and may still have a little cynicism). We drove the car, and "Two" was extremely happy. The only thing that was not 100% with it was that the car had a little muffler noise which seems to be coming from a loose strap on the exhaust pipe. There were no drips coming from the engine, so no oil leaks, no radiator leaks, and nothing glaring wrong with the engine.

The car is a little old, being that it's a 1994 Chevy Cavalier, but it only has 94,000 miles on the car, which I thought was pretty good for the age of the car.

Today, "Two" and I went and signed the papers and got the new license plate. So it is now officially his property, and as soon as we can get a extra driver to go with us (or him) to pick it up, he will have it moved to our place so he can clean it up, put in the new battery, and attach the new plate.

He was very excited to place the ignition key on his keyring today.

I am very proud of him, and at the same time very nervous. My son will very soon be driving around by himself, and I will be worrying for quite some time each time he is out that he may be broke down or in an accident... Yeah, I know the car is pretty solid, and his a pretty good driver, but I believe I am allowed a little excess worry as a father... Right?

Later Lou