FHA Letter

I found this letter in my snail mailbox one day last week and since it seems like it tries to be helpful, I thought I'd post it. The sad part about it is that no matter how much talking you do to these folks, they are not going to give you the money you need to pay for the overpriced home now that you're late on the payments. You bought at the height if the bubble when property values were sky high and when you were working on salary plus commission in your mortgage broker/finance industry related job that has now dried up with all of the sub-prime mortgage lenders that went under here in Orange County. No way-no how are those types of jobs going to come back anytime soon and you're stuck and facing foreclosure.

And I'm sure you're saying, "Well at the time I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars it's just now that I'm forced to make it on $1800 a month max for unemployment, I can't make it." Oh yeah, sure, but you were not savings any of that precious resource when you had it either. It was all about spend-spend-spend and worry about the bills tomorrow. Not a good financial plan in my book.

So now there are about three classes of people loosing their homes.
1) the honest but misinformed ones that fell prey to bad brokers and interest-only loans who jumped into the real estate too late in the game and never had money to back themselves up in a bad situation in the first place living from paycheck to paycheck
2) the dishonest ones who maybe even along with the bad brokers worked the system and those were the first houses to go into foreclosure after 120 days in CA
3) the fallout from anyone who lost their jobs for a number of reasons now that because the mortgage industry is in the crapper, the residual industries are feeling the pinch.
-People are not buying cars when the majority of their money is going to try to keep a roof over their head and food in their belly.
-People won't be going out to eat as much because it's cheaper to eat at home (not to mention healthier for you).
-People won't be traveling for pleasure when gas-plane-hotel-food is only going up in price and their regular incomes are not keeping pace with the rate of inflation.
-Personal service industries suffer because less customers comes into the shops and less tip money is bestowed upon your favorite hair stylist-manicurist-skincare specialist at the conclusion of your session.

Personally, I'm trying to find the bright spot at the end of the rainbow and checking out if I can take advantage of retraining due to being a dislocated mortgage worker.

What owning a Maytag Dishwasher taught me, pt. 2

So the part comes to my door via UPS and it's for the bottom try, not the top one like I need. O.K., my bad. I call to get a return code so I can get my money back or exchange it for the part that I actually need. I need the wheel to the right tray assembly.

So everytime I've completed a transaction with them up to this point, I've seen the phrase "satisfaction guaranteed" plasterd on my emails, the website, etc. When I called, it was a totally different story. Not only was I told that the part - the wheel I ordered for the bottom try was non-returnable, I could not even order the wheel I needed from the right tray assembly because it's was not offered as a part without said assembly for $32 some-odd dollars.

So now, not only am I out the $10.32 (part price plus shipping and handling) for a wheel I cannot use, I cannot get the wheel I need without spending another probably $42 for the entire assembly which I don't need. I'm pissed. I'm mad. And now I'm on a mad hunt finding some glue that will work inside a dishwashe because, damnit, I'd rather spend money on groceries than molded plastic I don't need.

Poo poo on Sears parts and service dot com.

From the book of prose 02/25/2008

I don't like the bump in my nose.
I wasn't born with it,
I acquired it.
I don't like the bump in my nose.
I think it's gotta go
To save my very soul.

I want to see my nose on my face
and not my father's nose on my face
when I look into the mirror.
I want to see my reflection looking back
of the girl I should of been
instead of the woman I turned out to be...

(C) MMM Art, Inc., 2008

(See, this is what happens when I spend too much time sequestered in the bathroom.)

A night at the Oscars

I watched the entire thing from before the main event started to the very end and, hey, I did not fall asleep! I was finishing up my crochet project on my bed and began assembling the blanket while the show was on.

I printed out the awards list from Oscar.com in advance to keep track of how I did with my picks. I should of had a handicap because I did not watch a damn one of these films this year. I'm still meaning to go see "No Country For Old Men" just because it looks so bad ass.

I totally missed the technical awards, but most hit the major ones just right.

My score? 9 out of 24. How well did you do?

Saturday at Lakeside, CA

My mom lives around the bend from a tiny town in San Diego County called Lakeside, California. I needed to get keys made and I know my local True Value Hardware always does a good job, so I located Payton's True Value on Maine in Lakeside to accomplish this task. Here are my photos from Saturday.


Link to Photos

McScrooge for Valentines Day

I hate Valentine's Day. I hate any pseudo holiday that lands on my calendar in which people are coerced to participate in an act of consumerism towards one another in a fake kind of way. So that, for me, includes Mother's Day as well as the quote "holiday" I was born on - Father's Day. And if you feel like lumping Christmas and Easter into the pool because these days have lost their original means over the many years they have been celebrated, you have my permission.

Oh, let me count the many ways I would rather punch a fork into my foot than participate in this ridiculous ritual called Valentine's Day:

1. It almost requires you to pick someone special in your life to dote over. What if you're an equal opportunity doter? I believe everyone in your life is deserving of your attention unconditionally because they are special enough to be a part of your life in the first place. If you've held conditions for them to interact with you, maybe you should reconsider their friendship and they should, too, once they hopefully open their eyes to your deceptive ways.

2. Any holiday created to be one in which you have to buy something for someone to get their attention and affection is wrong. Words and actions ring true and are remembered, but that stupid box of chocolates in a heart-shaped box is not going to be there for long. Besides, I can't eat chocolate.

3. It's a holiday of pink, red and purple, but mostly red. Not everyone looks good in red. Red is the color of the cars that get the most tickets on the highways because it's supposedly a 'fast' color. Red should be a color reserved for lipstick, stop lights, certain vegetables and fruits and roses.

4. The holiday of rejection. Nothing says love more than being forced to participate in having to hand out valentines cards to 35 students in your elementary school class room when you really have no clue why the hell you're doing it in the first place other than you know its cupcake day once more. The chore always rattles your parents because you wait until the very last minute to tell them you need the cards to pass out because everyone else is doing it (which is not true, by the way). And then you have to exchange your TV time for writing out names of people you didn't even know existed in your class because they never sat by you?

The best part of the day is when you're handing the cards out and you get all these weird looks from the receipants. Nice.

As an adult, you try to be civil, but it usually goes haywire and you get an emotional response you didn't bargain for.

..and all this over Valentine's Day. Bah Humbug.

#4, with feeling

I had my fourth interview today in about three and a half months for a position that I hope I get because this one has to do with databases and I love to work on that kind of stuff.

Otherwise, I'm back to looking for a job. Cross your fingers.

Do you feel stimulated?

Do you feel stimulated? Can you feel it? President Bush signed a $168 billion dollar stimulus package into law today.

The low down on the give-away goes something like this:
Rebates are to go out beginning in May to taxpayers and low-income people, including seniors living off of Social Security and veterans who depend on disability checks. Businesses would get tax breaks for investing in new plants and equipment. Most taxpayers will receive a check of up to $600 for individuals and $1,200 for couples from the Internal Revenue Service, with an additional $300 per child. People earning at least $3,000 and those who owe little or no taxes would get $300 for singles, $600 for couples. Those making more than $75,000 and couples with income exceeding $150,000 are to get smaller rebates — $50 less per $1,000 they make over those thresholds. (AP-Associated Press)

So I'm guessing I'm lumped into the "most taxpayers" category. I'm assuming I'll get $600 for me being a single individual and my son will my son get $300 since he met the $3k threshhold for earned income in 2007, but does not pay that much in taxes.

This would be a good time to file for your digital TV converter coupon, so by the time you get that, you may also have your stimulus fundage in your hot little hand and you *could* concievably purchase a new hd-dvd player and a digital converter box. Hrmmm?

...Or just pay bills or sock it into your savings account like congress does not want you to do.

and now... the toilet!

You wouldn't even believe that the toilet chain busted today, too. This has got to be some sort of sign. I'm not touching anything else associated with water and moving parts for the rest of the day.

I was able to readily fix that, though. Thank Gosh.

What owning a Maytag Dishwasher taught me

I love my Maytag dishwasher. I bought it brand new in the box from my local Lowes when I fried the motor on the one I originally purchased for my home at the Sears Outlet in Santa Ana. The old one was horrible. It never seemed to get the dishes clean enough. It was noisy and made cleaning my dishes more of a chore than it had to be. I like things that are effective, efficient and work well, don't we all?

You see, without the benefit of rubber gloves, my hands have a chemical reaction to hand dish washing detergent, so having a dishwashing machine is almost a necessity for me. I attribute this affliction to using industrail strengh dish sanitizer when I used to work for Jack In The Box in Riverside oh so many years ago.

When I forget to use the gloves, I get what looks like water blisters on the third pad of my middle and ring fingers, mostly. I lance it, drain it, bandage it up and wait for it to heal.

So when I went to lpush in the top rack after loading it up the other day for me to be able to close the sleek black glass door, which happens to match my oven by the way, I was crushed to find one of the plastic gray wheels which rides inside the rail was busted. The rack jolted down and out of place in such a way that the door refused to close. I was able to gently position the rack into its proper position and then resume my plans to wash yet another loads of dishes.

So what to do next to get this problem repaired? I figure its a Maytag - they must have an excellent parts and service section on thier very own website right? No! You can absolutely find a service center or their 800 number to request service, but no parts like I thought they would have.

Now what do I do? Well, Sears is the major distrubutor for Maytag, so I thought I'd atleast try the sears.com website. Bingo! I input my model number and the result is the subcomponents list I was hoping for. Oh, things are looking up now. I click on the rack and track assembly link and on the next page, there is a parts list on top that correlate to the beautiful exploded view of my rack and I can readily identify that part #23 is the one that broke.

O.K, my part is $2.97 for 1 unit. With shipping and tax, my repair will cost about $10.00 and the part will be here on the 18th. Nice! Back to being happy.