Too Hot

It is so hot and humid in California today, it's almost unbearable. Have you ever seen a  pre-school little girl hold up her dress to cool off? Picture me doing that in my house today. The fans in each room are not cutting the humidity unless you're sitting directly in front of the breeze.

Yesterday wasn't much better. I ate light in the AM and around lunchtime, drove to Commerce to look at LVP flooring. I have to replace the 15 year old carpet and my choice is to go the vinyl plank route. Why?

1. It's a DIY easy to install project
2. It's nano silver infused, so it's super sanitary
3. Even though Lumber Liquidators is in the neighborhood, I didn't like the products they were offering.

So I picked up this white washed oak color that is just what I was looking for. Light, clean, and thick at 5mm and at the aforementioned Lumber Liquidators? They only had one choice that was vinyl plank at 5mm. I feel like I got a good deal. I almost bought the entire pallet. I may go back this coming weekend and buy the rest so my whole house can be floored in that product.

As nice as carpet is under foot, it's just a seething, filthy, smelling mess after 15 years of use.

I don't remember when the weather has been so strange as California goes. There were lightning strikes near the beach in Venice, Palos Verde and Catalina...

http://online.wsj.com/articles/man-dies-after-lightning-strikes-14-in-california-1406519232

Today's hatred for Chase

So I get two emails today from Chase that said I didn't pay my bill and that they assessed a $25 late fee. I set-up e-bills with them just so I would never pay late.

In May, they forced every one of their credit card users to change to a chip card which changed their credit card number and with that, they stopped sending their e-bills to Bank of America.

After receiving those emails today, I was pissed off. I called that damn 800 number to India and I got that $25 late fee reversed. I ended up hanging up on the rep. I hate talking to India.

Then, I paid the entire balance in full minus $25.

Die With Your Boots On

https://www.ocregister.com/2014/04/25/2-killed-in-i-5-crash-in-irvine-that-blocked-lanes-for-hours/

You ever get a weird feeling someone you know is in distress or something bad happened to them? That's how I felt on this day. 

Typically, I turned on the TV to watch the morning news to see how the traffic is. On this day, I was headed out of town to visit my aunt in Virginia, but early in the morning, there was a multiple car crash on the 5 Northbound near where I live. Later I come to find out that two of the people who died were former co-workers from Deutsche Bank 

Friends described the fact that Sherry must have been driving and her car clipped a parked car on the left sitting near the HOV lane and then ricochetted off of the concrete barrier on the right like a pinball would then flung left back into traffic hitting another car. Clip-pow-pow. Just like that. Gone.

I went to their funeral after I got back from vacationing in Virginia. A lot of people from work went to the funeral. I think the family was kind of in awe to see so many showed up. I think they worked there for over 10 years, so you've had an opportunity to make an impact in that amount of time, you know?

I titled this blog entry "Die With Your Boots On" because Andrew sometimes came to work with black cowboy boots on.

RIP Andrew Hays 04/25/2014.

10 Money Management Tools Inside Google Drive

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-money-management-tools-inside-google-drive-use-today/

In The News: Lots of Retirement Information

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-key-to-happiness-in-retirement/

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/3-ways-to-save-more-money-2014-04-18?siteid=yhoof2

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/5-ways-run-money-retirement-135956313.html;_ylt=AwrTWVW8EVNTRxsApxCTmYlQ

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlaura/2014/04/15/7-life-hacks-for-retirement/?ss=retirement

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-the-us-gets-no-medals-for-retirement/

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-free-online-retirement-planning-guide/

Perspective

At work, many of us have gone through Oz Principle training, myself included, and its true what they say how personal perspective colors our communications with others. I just experienced one of those ah ha moments with one of my cousins after I posted I was at urgent care for a swollen ear. She said it might be a sinus infection, and I commented back to say, I didn't know there was a sinus tract in my ear. Turns out she takes Sudafed to clear her sinus infection which was also bothering her ears. The only problem is, my nose is clear, but nice try by the Walmart pharmacy tech of the family.

Vacation Countdown

Vacation Countdown

It's tomato time!

I have made two runs to Roger's Garden's this year so far and came back with seeds and tomatoes. Last weekend was the annual "Tomatomania.com" event. I was bummed not to be able to locate parking on Saturday morning within the first hour of them opening, so I tried again at about 3PM on Sunday and I had absolutely no issues then... with parking. Somehow by dumb luck or sheer timing, I ended up behind a mother and her daughter who, I would kindly say, were a generation older than I was struggling to get up that hill where the rear entrance is to check out.

Once I ditched the cumbersome green garden cart for a black wire shopping basket, found my four plants, which included two Chika cherry tomato plants, one Texas hybrid and one German heirloom, I trailed behind these two aforementioned ladies. The older of the two was worn out from the trip and dropped her velour warm-up jacket on the sidewalk while heading for the exit. I bent down to pick it up, but allowed the daughter of the of the pair to complete the retrieval. A man passed by going downhill and asked the two women before me if they needed any help with their cart, but declined. They had one 5-gallon plant and were doing just fine by me, just going slow. I felt like I was their spotter. I even allowed these two to line up in front of me at the check-out instead of going round them or getting into the one other line which didn't look as though it was moving any faster than a warm Sunday afternoon needed to. The daughter escorted her mother to the car for her to rest and get out of the sun while I kept their cart moving forward waiting in line to pay.

I should have replanted them into the raised beds when I got them home. It's now the Thursday after the daylight savings time change. Friday is almost here...

In The News 02/26/14:

In The News 02/26/14:

 

This is a great article explaining how portfolio loans aka HTM designated loans effect your financial institution’s bottom line:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-26/banks-averting-bond-losses-with-accounting-twist-credit-markets.html?cmpid=yhoo

 

 

Re: Credit Suisse and U.S. Tax Evasion

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/why-credit-suisse-may-have-difficult-morning-in-dc-anpgmvSFQLCJW5fCshSzXQ.html

 

Re: B of A being investigated for their forex conduct and practices

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bofa-under-investigation-over-u-005926467.html

 

 

 

 

Use it or lose it

One of the perks of being a 4 year survivor... err someone with tenure at work is that I accumulate vacation time quickly. Which leads to the next question, "Where am I going to go for vacation this year?"

Last year, I traveled to Virginia to visit with my aunt and uncle. It seemed as though I came too soon because:

1) I don't call 40 degree weather a suitable temp during any vacation for me. I was sequestered to the house until it hit at least 50 degrees. I am no snow bunny.

2) Then come to find out that the major annual event for Winchester, "The Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival" is near the end of the month and not at the beginning when I was there.

But no matter. I had fun anyway.

So now I have about a two week period to figure out where to go.