Thursday, December 15, 2005
No Matter Where You Go, There You Are
So today marks the end of my long stretch of time off, during which I accomplished nothing.
Sure, I signed a contract to buy a condo, but that’s not looking like it’s going to actually amount to anything (more on that in a bit), so basically I accomplished nothing.
It’s not as though I expected to accomplish anything, I’m just noting the fact that I didn’t.
I did actually think about going away somewhere at some point, but that thought led to some obvious questions, the first of which was “Go where?”
The second, of course, was “And do what?”
The point of the thought, though, was that I would do something wholly out of character by just driving off somewhere for a few days and hope that the rest of it would just fall into place.
Ultimately, however, I decided that if I did go off somewhere by the time I got there I would have maxed out my ability to step out of character, at which point I would that I was simply being Jon somewhere else, and if I’m going to go somewhere and just be me I might as well spare myself the trouble and stay home where I’m comfortable.
So that’s what I did.
In any case it’s all over now, and tomorrow morning I’ll have to get up early and drive to work through the ice storm that we’re supposed to get.
Even though it’s been snowing and sleeting since this morning, and they’ve known in advance that this was coming, it’s doubtful that anything will be done to clear the roads and to ensure that they remain clear.
I imagine the road crews will take their standard “Let’s take a lesson from France and just surrender” approach to snow removal, and as I’m sliding in to work in the morning I’ll see multiple plows and salt trucks parked alongside the road, their drivers catching some much-needed sleep, as not actually removing snow is extremely exhausting.
I already had to venture out into a panic-stricken world of lazily drifting snowflakes and somewhat wet roads today.
Actually, it turns out that I didn’t have to venture out, as the meeting that I thought I had was not taking place. Three of the four of us who’d been present at last week’s meeting recalled that we all agreed to just meet every Thursday at 1, but apparently the fourth person didn’t remember it that way and wasn’t going to drive in for it.
Of course, one of the other people wasn’t going to brave “storm” to come in for the meeting anyway, so basically I showed up for nothing.
Well, not nothing, as I’m still going to put the time down on my time sheet. It won’t be overtime because I didn’t work Sunday, but it will make up for the shift differential I lost out on by being on vacation.
I had kind of intended to go to see “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” and “King Kong” this week, but I just didn’t feel up to sitting through them, especially since it would have meant having to get up and dressed pretty early so that I could catch the earliest matinees and be there with the smallest possible crowds.
That’s usually how I like to do it if I go to see a movie by myself.
Maybe next week.
I didn’t post anything yesterday because for most of the day yesterday was about as uneventful as it’s possible for a day to be outside of being in a coma.
The one unusual event was that my brother Brad called me in the evening.
Today started off equally sluggishly.
Given how short my Thursdays are thanks to my early bedtime, I hate to sleep in too much, but this morning as I was lying there forcing my eyes to stay shut it seemed to me that actually getting out of bed was probably the worst idea that anyone ever had.
Eventually I was forced to get up by the sound of my phone chirping and Brian’s voice coming out of the walkie talkie.
Still groggy, I couldn’t manage to work the Direct Connect feature, so in frustration Brian actually called me to ask his question about a work-related e-mail we’d gotten.
As far as the whole condo-buying thing goes, there are some old debts that I need to clear up before I can get financing. I got the list today, and thanks to some duplicates and an inaccuracy (I already paid one of them off), the amount is less than I was originally told, so it’s possible that I could come up with the money in time, but given how much of a rush would be involved I can’t help but wonder if I shouldn’t just back out of the contract (which I can still do for at least another ten days, though probably even longer), get the debts taken care of, wait a couple of months, and try the whole thing again. Admittedly I’d lose out on the particular unit I was looking at, and I’d probably end up having to pay more (base price on the units in the development I’m trying to buy into already went up $5,000 in the past month), but there would be a little less pressure involved.
So I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Just scrapping it for now (I’ve got a fair amount of time before I absolutely have to get out of my apartment) has a definite appeal, but on the other hand I’d really just like to get this all over with.
We’ll see, I guess.
In any case, there are some things that I should do to prepare myself to my trip back to the salt mines tomorrow.
I hope you all have a better weekend than I’m likely to.
Sure, I signed a contract to buy a condo, but that’s not looking like it’s going to actually amount to anything (more on that in a bit), so basically I accomplished nothing.
It’s not as though I expected to accomplish anything, I’m just noting the fact that I didn’t.
I did actually think about going away somewhere at some point, but that thought led to some obvious questions, the first of which was “Go where?”
The second, of course, was “And do what?”
The point of the thought, though, was that I would do something wholly out of character by just driving off somewhere for a few days and hope that the rest of it would just fall into place.
Ultimately, however, I decided that if I did go off somewhere by the time I got there I would have maxed out my ability to step out of character, at which point I would that I was simply being Jon somewhere else, and if I’m going to go somewhere and just be me I might as well spare myself the trouble and stay home where I’m comfortable.
So that’s what I did.
In any case it’s all over now, and tomorrow morning I’ll have to get up early and drive to work through the ice storm that we’re supposed to get.
Even though it’s been snowing and sleeting since this morning, and they’ve known in advance that this was coming, it’s doubtful that anything will be done to clear the roads and to ensure that they remain clear.
I imagine the road crews will take their standard “Let’s take a lesson from France and just surrender” approach to snow removal, and as I’m sliding in to work in the morning I’ll see multiple plows and salt trucks parked alongside the road, their drivers catching some much-needed sleep, as not actually removing snow is extremely exhausting.
I already had to venture out into a panic-stricken world of lazily drifting snowflakes and somewhat wet roads today.
Actually, it turns out that I didn’t have to venture out, as the meeting that I thought I had was not taking place. Three of the four of us who’d been present at last week’s meeting recalled that we all agreed to just meet every Thursday at 1, but apparently the fourth person didn’t remember it that way and wasn’t going to drive in for it.
Of course, one of the other people wasn’t going to brave “storm” to come in for the meeting anyway, so basically I showed up for nothing.
Well, not nothing, as I’m still going to put the time down on my time sheet. It won’t be overtime because I didn’t work Sunday, but it will make up for the shift differential I lost out on by being on vacation.
I had kind of intended to go to see “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” and “King Kong” this week, but I just didn’t feel up to sitting through them, especially since it would have meant having to get up and dressed pretty early so that I could catch the earliest matinees and be there with the smallest possible crowds.
That’s usually how I like to do it if I go to see a movie by myself.
Maybe next week.
I didn’t post anything yesterday because for most of the day yesterday was about as uneventful as it’s possible for a day to be outside of being in a coma.
The one unusual event was that my brother Brad called me in the evening.
Today started off equally sluggishly.
Given how short my Thursdays are thanks to my early bedtime, I hate to sleep in too much, but this morning as I was lying there forcing my eyes to stay shut it seemed to me that actually getting out of bed was probably the worst idea that anyone ever had.
Eventually I was forced to get up by the sound of my phone chirping and Brian’s voice coming out of the walkie talkie.
Still groggy, I couldn’t manage to work the Direct Connect feature, so in frustration Brian actually called me to ask his question about a work-related e-mail we’d gotten.
As far as the whole condo-buying thing goes, there are some old debts that I need to clear up before I can get financing. I got the list today, and thanks to some duplicates and an inaccuracy (I already paid one of them off), the amount is less than I was originally told, so it’s possible that I could come up with the money in time, but given how much of a rush would be involved I can’t help but wonder if I shouldn’t just back out of the contract (which I can still do for at least another ten days, though probably even longer), get the debts taken care of, wait a couple of months, and try the whole thing again. Admittedly I’d lose out on the particular unit I was looking at, and I’d probably end up having to pay more (base price on the units in the development I’m trying to buy into already went up $5,000 in the past month), but there would be a little less pressure involved.
So I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Just scrapping it for now (I’ve got a fair amount of time before I absolutely have to get out of my apartment) has a definite appeal, but on the other hand I’d really just like to get this all over with.
We’ll see, I guess.
In any case, there are some things that I should do to prepare myself to my trip back to the salt mines tomorrow.
I hope you all have a better weekend than I’m likely to.
Incomplete
This picture isn't finished.
When (though it's probably more like "if") I finish it, there will be a horrible, vicious, slavering monster lurking behind the woman (whose name, though she's no relation to the shoes, is Nike).
But in the meantime it's about as complete as it's likely to get anytime soon (or ever), so I figured I'd post it.
Be back later with a regular entry.
When (though it's probably more like "if") I finish it, there will be a horrible, vicious, slavering monster lurking behind the woman (whose name, though she's no relation to the shoes, is Nike).
But in the meantime it's about as complete as it's likely to get anytime soon (or ever), so I figured I'd post it.
Be back later with a regular entry.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
The Past Sneaking Up On Me, Born Again Virgin, A New Sin, Dreams, Nightmares, And Egg Salad
I heard back from the financing guy today, and while the news wasn’t totally discouraging, it wasn’t especially encouraging either.
Suffice to say there are some issues with my credit history that I need to address and I’m not sure that I’ll be able to in time.
Of course, that means that I could wait until next year, by which time I could address the issues, and actually try harder to save up money for a down payment, but by then who knows how much prices will have gone up.
Still, I haven’t given up yet.
The issues with my credit are, not surprisingly, from several years back. I mean, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that an unemployed drunk is unlikely to pay his bills or demonstrate much in the way of fiscal responsibility.
People always say that you can’t live in the past, and they’re right, but the problem is that while you’re busy living in the present the past will often sneak up on you.
Oh well.
Today I went out and reluctantly spent some money. I’d intended to just pinch every penny until the whole condo buying thing is resolved (in whatever fashion), but there were two things that hit the market today that I couldn’t pass up.
One was “The Forty Year Old Virgin” on DVD.
The other? The “Sin City: Recut, Extended, Unrated” DVD.
While the former was just as funny the second time around, the real story lies with the latter item.
I remain annoyed that I ended up wasting money on the first DVD release of the theatrical version of “Sin City,” which is actually included with the new box set, but I was very pleased with the special features.
The coolest feature is that the four interlocking stories that made up the movie can actually be viewed as four separate mini-movies that include all the content deleted from the theatrical version.
Another cool feature is the “All Green” version, which is a copy of the movie looking the way it was when it was shot, with the stand-in props and the green screens in place of sets. It’s sped up about 800% though, and even when slowing it down as much as possible I got ripped off when it came to getting to see Carla Gugino walking around well-lit and in color with nothing but a gun and a thong, as that whole scene just blips on by.
When I got home from buying the DVDs I opted to pop “Virgin” in and watch it, as I was in the mood for a laugh and when it’s sunny outside it’s far too bright in my apartment to watch some movies.
There’s a scene early in the movie, which I’d forgotten about, in which one of the guys who works with Andy – the titular virgin – tells him about his weekend, which consisted of driving down to Tijuana and taking in a show that involved a woman and a horse. Suffice to say that it wasn’t the sort of equestrian event you’re likely to see televised.
In any case, after telling his story he asks Andy what he did over the weekend, at which point Andy tells him a story about making egg salad.
The scene is funny enough in and of itself, but it was made more so today by the fact that, as I was watching it there were some eggs floating around in a pot of boiling water on my stove, as it was my intention to make egg salad.
I wonder if I subconsciously remembered the scene before I put the DVD in and that’s why I opted to make the egg salad.
Either that or I’m just as much of a lame, pathetic loser as Andy.
*Sigh*
Earlier I mentioned my days as an unemployed drunk. Some time before that period, in the days when I was a drunk but still had a job, there came a night at the bar in which my jaw very nearly dropped and hit the floor thanks to an entrance by pair of spectacularly beautiful young women who were, as they say, dressed to the nines.
These girls were absolutely stunning in and of themselves, but the way they were dressed enhanced the effect in ways that I can’t begin to describe.
In time I came to know both of them, as they eventually ended up working at the bar, but that night it was as if they had walked straight out of my dreams.
They then proceeded to walk into nightmare territory, though, when the two of them left the bar with my friend Jeff.
(It wasn’t that much of a nightmare, though; he just went for a ride with them. It’s a long story.)
In any case, on my way home from Best Buy today I stopped at the grocery store where I randomly saw three extremely beautiful and extremely well-dressed young women, and I found myself reminded of that night.
They weren’t quite as beautiful or well-dressed as the two girls in the bar that night, but the fact that there were three of them gave them a bit of an edge.
I got a closer look at them when they were congregated at the end of an aisle that I was headed down, though, and saw that despite the fact that they were dressed like sophisticated business professionals they were clearly high school students.
This was most evident in the fact that one of them (the hottest one, and the one who glared at me the whole time I innocently made my way down the aisle toward them, or rather, toward the breakfast bars they were congregated in front of, with an expression that very clearly said “Will you just die already?”) was wearing what I call “training pumps.” These are the sort of low heels that teenage girls who are trying to be sophisticated wear while working their way up to taller, thinner heels.
The surreal quality of their appearance – attractive, well-dressed women are just as rare in my grocery store as they had been in my bar – echoed the dreamy quality of that night so many years ago, and given that the three of them were there with some dorky guy, the nightmarish aspects were echoed as well.
The dorky teenaged guy they were with was also dressed like some kind of busy executive, though he looked much more like a kid playing dress up than the girls did.
He was wearing one of those blue shirts with the white collar that I see guys wearing from time to time. Who decided that was a good look?
In any case, after I’d gotten home, watched the movie, and made my egg salad, I decided that I should go for a walk.
It’s been a few days since I’ve walked the full circuit, but I figured that it’s been long enough since it snowed that the trails would be clear.
I was right, for the most part, but there were significant patches of ice in the areas where trees and houses prevent sunlight from reaching.
As I was walking I could hear the distress of an extremely vocal housewife who was trying to walk two dogs and navigate the icy patches. She was talking to her dogs as if they could understand her, and then getting angry at them for failing to listen to her (“I told you not to try pulling me when we got on the ice!”).
Given that the combination of the ice and the well-worn soles of my shoes led me to spend some amount of time walking as though my pelvis were made of brittle plastic, she and her dogs caught up to me at one point and she complained to me about the Homeowner’s Association failing to clear the paths the way they were supposed to. Not being a member of the Homeowner’s Association, I did my best to commiserate with her, but eventually I proved to be slightly more sure-footed, despite having to engage in that slip and recover maneuver that involves throwing your arms out the side and trying to retain your balance, which looks like nothing so much as some kind of retarded Disco move, and eventually left her behind again to try to negotiate with her dogs, who were eager to yank at their leashes and make her fall on her ass.
And then I came home and it was dark enough to watch some of the “Sin City” DVD, and now we’re pretty much all caught up.
I think I’ll go make myself an egg salad sandwich.
Suffice to say there are some issues with my credit history that I need to address and I’m not sure that I’ll be able to in time.
Of course, that means that I could wait until next year, by which time I could address the issues, and actually try harder to save up money for a down payment, but by then who knows how much prices will have gone up.
Still, I haven’t given up yet.
The issues with my credit are, not surprisingly, from several years back. I mean, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that an unemployed drunk is unlikely to pay his bills or demonstrate much in the way of fiscal responsibility.
People always say that you can’t live in the past, and they’re right, but the problem is that while you’re busy living in the present the past will often sneak up on you.
Oh well.
Today I went out and reluctantly spent some money. I’d intended to just pinch every penny until the whole condo buying thing is resolved (in whatever fashion), but there were two things that hit the market today that I couldn’t pass up.
One was “The Forty Year Old Virgin” on DVD.
The other? The “Sin City: Recut, Extended, Unrated” DVD.
While the former was just as funny the second time around, the real story lies with the latter item.
I remain annoyed that I ended up wasting money on the first DVD release of the theatrical version of “Sin City,” which is actually included with the new box set, but I was very pleased with the special features.
The coolest feature is that the four interlocking stories that made up the movie can actually be viewed as four separate mini-movies that include all the content deleted from the theatrical version.
Another cool feature is the “All Green” version, which is a copy of the movie looking the way it was when it was shot, with the stand-in props and the green screens in place of sets. It’s sped up about 800% though, and even when slowing it down as much as possible I got ripped off when it came to getting to see Carla Gugino walking around well-lit and in color with nothing but a gun and a thong, as that whole scene just blips on by.
When I got home from buying the DVDs I opted to pop “Virgin” in and watch it, as I was in the mood for a laugh and when it’s sunny outside it’s far too bright in my apartment to watch some movies.
There’s a scene early in the movie, which I’d forgotten about, in which one of the guys who works with Andy – the titular virgin – tells him about his weekend, which consisted of driving down to Tijuana and taking in a show that involved a woman and a horse. Suffice to say that it wasn’t the sort of equestrian event you’re likely to see televised.
In any case, after telling his story he asks Andy what he did over the weekend, at which point Andy tells him a story about making egg salad.
The scene is funny enough in and of itself, but it was made more so today by the fact that, as I was watching it there were some eggs floating around in a pot of boiling water on my stove, as it was my intention to make egg salad.
I wonder if I subconsciously remembered the scene before I put the DVD in and that’s why I opted to make the egg salad.
Either that or I’m just as much of a lame, pathetic loser as Andy.
*Sigh*
Earlier I mentioned my days as an unemployed drunk. Some time before that period, in the days when I was a drunk but still had a job, there came a night at the bar in which my jaw very nearly dropped and hit the floor thanks to an entrance by pair of spectacularly beautiful young women who were, as they say, dressed to the nines.
These girls were absolutely stunning in and of themselves, but the way they were dressed enhanced the effect in ways that I can’t begin to describe.
In time I came to know both of them, as they eventually ended up working at the bar, but that night it was as if they had walked straight out of my dreams.
They then proceeded to walk into nightmare territory, though, when the two of them left the bar with my friend Jeff.
(It wasn’t that much of a nightmare, though; he just went for a ride with them. It’s a long story.)
In any case, on my way home from Best Buy today I stopped at the grocery store where I randomly saw three extremely beautiful and extremely well-dressed young women, and I found myself reminded of that night.
They weren’t quite as beautiful or well-dressed as the two girls in the bar that night, but the fact that there were three of them gave them a bit of an edge.
I got a closer look at them when they were congregated at the end of an aisle that I was headed down, though, and saw that despite the fact that they were dressed like sophisticated business professionals they were clearly high school students.
This was most evident in the fact that one of them (the hottest one, and the one who glared at me the whole time I innocently made my way down the aisle toward them, or rather, toward the breakfast bars they were congregated in front of, with an expression that very clearly said “Will you just die already?”) was wearing what I call “training pumps.” These are the sort of low heels that teenage girls who are trying to be sophisticated wear while working their way up to taller, thinner heels.
The surreal quality of their appearance – attractive, well-dressed women are just as rare in my grocery store as they had been in my bar – echoed the dreamy quality of that night so many years ago, and given that the three of them were there with some dorky guy, the nightmarish aspects were echoed as well.
The dorky teenaged guy they were with was also dressed like some kind of busy executive, though he looked much more like a kid playing dress up than the girls did.
He was wearing one of those blue shirts with the white collar that I see guys wearing from time to time. Who decided that was a good look?
In any case, after I’d gotten home, watched the movie, and made my egg salad, I decided that I should go for a walk.
It’s been a few days since I’ve walked the full circuit, but I figured that it’s been long enough since it snowed that the trails would be clear.
I was right, for the most part, but there were significant patches of ice in the areas where trees and houses prevent sunlight from reaching.
As I was walking I could hear the distress of an extremely vocal housewife who was trying to walk two dogs and navigate the icy patches. She was talking to her dogs as if they could understand her, and then getting angry at them for failing to listen to her (“I told you not to try pulling me when we got on the ice!”).
Given that the combination of the ice and the well-worn soles of my shoes led me to spend some amount of time walking as though my pelvis were made of brittle plastic, she and her dogs caught up to me at one point and she complained to me about the Homeowner’s Association failing to clear the paths the way they were supposed to. Not being a member of the Homeowner’s Association, I did my best to commiserate with her, but eventually I proved to be slightly more sure-footed, despite having to engage in that slip and recover maneuver that involves throwing your arms out the side and trying to retain your balance, which looks like nothing so much as some kind of retarded Disco move, and eventually left her behind again to try to negotiate with her dogs, who were eager to yank at their leashes and make her fall on her ass.
And then I came home and it was dark enough to watch some of the “Sin City” DVD, and now we’re pretty much all caught up.
I think I’ll go make myself an egg salad sandwich.
Monday, December 12, 2005
My Cognitive Skills Are...Umm...Ungood, Or Something
I’m beginning to think that I suffered some form of brain damage within the last couple of days, as today my cognitive skills seemed to be well below the average for me.
When I got up this morning I called the financing guy to get things rolling on the money front of the condo purchase and got his voice mail.
Sometime this afternoon he called back, requested my e-mail address, and sent me a list of things he would need me to fax to him and a link to his Web site where I could fill out an application.
I got to his site and couldn’t see anything indicating an online application other than a link to loan application forms in PDF format.
So I assumed he just meant that I could get the forms online and began printing out all 21 text-heavy pages of the application, dropping my ink levels way down.
I started filling it out and thought “There has to be an easier way,” so I went back to the site and there, right in front of me, was a link to an online application form.
All that ink wasted for nothing.
After I filled the form out I needed to fax the other documents to him (printing them out consumed even more ink), which was easier said than done, as I don’t have a land line, so I can’t fax anything from home.
What had once been the leasing office is now the sales office, and the one person working there is nowhere near as nice to residents as the people who worked there when this was just an apartment complex were, so I knew that I wouldn’t be able to make use of the fax machine in there.
I considered driving in to work, or even over to where Kathleen works to make use of a fax machine there, but at that time of day it would have been a major hassle to have to deal with traffic.
So I opted to walk over to the shipping/copying place across the street and fax it from there, thinking that it would cost, at most, 50 cents a page or something, though I didn’t bother asking the price before I had the papers faxed, so I was quite surprised to find out that it cost me eleven dollars to fax it all.
A dollar a page seems extremely excessive, especially for a fax sent to a local number. I would have been better off waiting until tomorrow and heading over to visit Kathleen or something.
Worse, many of the documents (though not all) I printed out and faxed could have simply been e-mailed over to the guy.
So as I was indicating at the outset of this narrative detailing the minutiae of the day’s events in reference to the current atrophied state of my cognitive abilities, Jon brain no work good.
In any case, I have actually made my application at this point and so far I haven’t heard the sound of laughter in response.
Honestly, I have to say that, on paper, or at least on-screen, things look deceptively good. The balance of assets versus liabilities looks especially good.
Of course, that’s based on things like gross income and doesn’t take into account any of my other monthly expenses. Viewed in those terms, things would look considerably less rosy.
Still, it did look pretty good, and buoyed my hopes about getting a loan ever so slightly.
Honestly, I really don’t see how banks are really risking anything by giving anyone a loan in this market. I mean, sure the foreclosure process can take a while and costs money, but given how rapidly properties appreciate in value around here, by the time they got it all sorted out the property would be worth twice what the original loan amount was for and the bank will stand to make a hell of a lot more than they would have made off of interest if the borrower hadn’t defaulted.
The market is such that there’s pretty much no risk in giving anyone a loan.
Around here, a bank could give a home loan to a penniless bum who walked in off the street and still end up making a huge profit.
Yes, I know that I’m making a gross oversimplification (bear in mind that I am admitting to possibly suffering from some form of brain damage), but the point is that I’m not exactly a high-risk for a bank, and even if I were, they’d still be able to at least make their money back eventually.
Still, I’m am convinced that I’m going to get a phone call or e-mail saying something like, “What the hell were you thinking? You expected us to loan money to the likes of you? Not only are we not going to give you a loan, we’re going to sue you for wasting our time.”
I know, that’s not too likely to happen, but there is a distinct possibility that I’ll get something along the lines of “Thank you for your interest in a home loan from Company X. Unfortunately, we are not able to provide you with a loan at this time due to one or more of the following items:
Okay, the wording might not be exactly like that (it will probably say “one or more of the following derogatory items”), but that will be the message it’s conveying.
In any case, the process has at least been initiated, and I guess there’s no point in worrying about whether or not the process actually makes it all the way through to a successful completion.
Not yet, anyway.
Beyond the financial nonsense, not much happened today. I cashed in about $92 worth of change at the bank to try to free up as much in the way of financial resources as possible.
And that was pretty much it.
I’ve got some pictures started, so I guess I’ll work on those right now. If I finish any I’ll post them.
When I got up this morning I called the financing guy to get things rolling on the money front of the condo purchase and got his voice mail.
Sometime this afternoon he called back, requested my e-mail address, and sent me a list of things he would need me to fax to him and a link to his Web site where I could fill out an application.
I got to his site and couldn’t see anything indicating an online application other than a link to loan application forms in PDF format.
So I assumed he just meant that I could get the forms online and began printing out all 21 text-heavy pages of the application, dropping my ink levels way down.
I started filling it out and thought “There has to be an easier way,” so I went back to the site and there, right in front of me, was a link to an online application form.
All that ink wasted for nothing.
After I filled the form out I needed to fax the other documents to him (printing them out consumed even more ink), which was easier said than done, as I don’t have a land line, so I can’t fax anything from home.
What had once been the leasing office is now the sales office, and the one person working there is nowhere near as nice to residents as the people who worked there when this was just an apartment complex were, so I knew that I wouldn’t be able to make use of the fax machine in there.
I considered driving in to work, or even over to where Kathleen works to make use of a fax machine there, but at that time of day it would have been a major hassle to have to deal with traffic.
So I opted to walk over to the shipping/copying place across the street and fax it from there, thinking that it would cost, at most, 50 cents a page or something, though I didn’t bother asking the price before I had the papers faxed, so I was quite surprised to find out that it cost me eleven dollars to fax it all.
A dollar a page seems extremely excessive, especially for a fax sent to a local number. I would have been better off waiting until tomorrow and heading over to visit Kathleen or something.
Worse, many of the documents (though not all) I printed out and faxed could have simply been e-mailed over to the guy.
So as I was indicating at the outset of this narrative detailing the minutiae of the day’s events in reference to the current atrophied state of my cognitive abilities, Jon brain no work good.
In any case, I have actually made my application at this point and so far I haven’t heard the sound of laughter in response.
Honestly, I have to say that, on paper, or at least on-screen, things look deceptively good. The balance of assets versus liabilities looks especially good.
Of course, that’s based on things like gross income and doesn’t take into account any of my other monthly expenses. Viewed in those terms, things would look considerably less rosy.
Still, it did look pretty good, and buoyed my hopes about getting a loan ever so slightly.
Honestly, I really don’t see how banks are really risking anything by giving anyone a loan in this market. I mean, sure the foreclosure process can take a while and costs money, but given how rapidly properties appreciate in value around here, by the time they got it all sorted out the property would be worth twice what the original loan amount was for and the bank will stand to make a hell of a lot more than they would have made off of interest if the borrower hadn’t defaulted.
The market is such that there’s pretty much no risk in giving anyone a loan.
Around here, a bank could give a home loan to a penniless bum who walked in off the street and still end up making a huge profit.
Yes, I know that I’m making a gross oversimplification (bear in mind that I am admitting to possibly suffering from some form of brain damage), but the point is that I’m not exactly a high-risk for a bank, and even if I were, they’d still be able to at least make their money back eventually.
Still, I’m am convinced that I’m going to get a phone call or e-mail saying something like, “What the hell were you thinking? You expected us to loan money to the likes of you? Not only are we not going to give you a loan, we’re going to sue you for wasting our time.”
I know, that’s not too likely to happen, but there is a distinct possibility that I’ll get something along the lines of “Thank you for your interest in a home loan from Company X. Unfortunately, we are not able to provide you with a loan at this time due to one or more of the following items:
- You don’t make nearly enough money to live in Northern Virginia
- Your credit history is like that of someone who spends a significant amount of time traveling by boxcar
- We just plain don’t like you
- You’re ugly
- You smell funny
Okay, the wording might not be exactly like that (it will probably say “one or more of the following derogatory items”), but that will be the message it’s conveying.
In any case, the process has at least been initiated, and I guess there’s no point in worrying about whether or not the process actually makes it all the way through to a successful completion.
Not yet, anyway.
Beyond the financial nonsense, not much happened today. I cashed in about $92 worth of change at the bank to try to free up as much in the way of financial resources as possible.
And that was pretty much it.
I’ve got some pictures started, so I guess I’ll work on those right now. If I finish any I’ll post them.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
A Minor Smiting
Today is my brother Stuart’s birthday.
Coincidentally, it’s also his wife Shannon’s birthday (though her birthday came a few years after his).
While the simple fact that my brother and his wife share a birthday is mildly interesting, what makes things even more so is that my sister Kristy and her husband Ken also share a birthday (though their birthday isn’t until next month).
Sharted birthdays seem to be common among people I know, as besides my siblings and their spouses, my friends Joel and Kevin (who are first cousins) also share a birthday. Further, all three shared birthdays fall within a three-monh period (November, December, and January).
Unfortunately, that’s about as interesting as today gets.
I woke up tired art a bit after nine, sat around for a couple of hours not doing anything in particular, then went back to bed for about two hours. When I got up again I ate some leftover pizza and watched back to back episodes of “Mythbusters.”
(My cell phone just rang. The number that came up was totally unfamiliar, and when I answered it I was greeted with some kind of recording in Spanish.)Yesterday, for most of the day at least, was similarly uneventful, so it’s clear that I’ve made the best of my time off.
Still, when the evening rolled around I did actually venture out into the world for my realtor’s holiday party.
Kathleen’s friend – and massage therapist – Rebecca, who was accompanying us to the party, was supposed to show up at Kathleen’s at 7:30, meaning that they would likely get to the party around 8. So I did my best to just sit around and wait so that I wouldn’t arrive there well before them.
Though it nearly killed me to do so (I hate sitting at home waiting to go somewhere), I managed to hang on and was set to arrive at the party after 8, allowing for the extra five to ten minutes that you need to add to any estimate that Kathleen gives you as to when she’ll arrive.
Shortly before 8, however, as I was on the way, Kathleen called to let me know that Rebecca hadn’t arrived yet, and so they would be later than anticipated.
Initially it didn’t seem like too big a deal, as it took me a while to actually find the place (The directions on the invitation, which erroneously claimed to have a map on the back, only took you so far and then told you to follow the signs to the Landsdowne Resort. Unfortunately, pretty much everything in that area is named “Landsdowne” something, so when you’re driving along and you see a sign that has arrows pointing in five different directions telling you that there’s a Landsdowne something or other in each of those directions, said signs aren’t especially helpful.
Eventually I found the place.
Sort of. There was a big hotel-looking place with a parking lot that was filled beyond capacity. I drove past that down to another parking lot in front of something that looked a bit more like a country club, which is where the party was supposed to be, and thought that it must be the place.
However, the invitation – already not to be trusted thanks to the missing map – stated that the address was 44050, whereas this building had a big sign in front of it that said 44060.
I wandered up to the other building to see if it might be the place, figuring that somewhere along the line Kathleen would arrive and call me and we could figure out where we were supposed to be.
After a while that didn’t happen, so I tried calling her and got her voice mail.
Admittedly, I could have just tried going in to either of the places to see if it was where the party was, but I didn’t want to walk up to the wrong place and look like an idiot (much better to wander around out in the cold in a parking lot and look suspicious). Besides, I figured it would be better if the three of us arrived together.
I tried Kathleen again, got voice mail, and was sitting in my car swearing when I heard Kathleen call my name. Apparently she had left her cell phone at home, didn’t know my number, had asked Brian to call me and tell me that Kathleen didn’t have her cell phone and that she had seen me driving around in the parking lot and that I should just go inside.
(I’ll give Brian the benefit of the doubt here and assume that he did call and that for some reason I just didn’t get it.)
Apparently they’d been there for quite some time.
But no big deal; I was there, I was inside and warm, and we were in time for the game.
“The game” consisted of each of us getting a card with trivia questions on it, along with the name of a person who could give you a hint as to the answer. The first person to successfully answer all of the questions would win a 26” LCD TV. The second would win an iPod.
Most people who know me are aware that if there’s anything I’m good at it’s trivia.
These questions, however, were well beyond me.
Rebecca mentioned something about calling her sister, who would be near a computer and able to look things up for us, when it occurred to me to try something.
I broke out my PDA, turned on the WiFi and found that the country club, in fact, offered free WiFi access, and soon I was at Google seeking out the answers.
Of course, with only the stylus for input, and questions that were difficult to phrase so as to find results on a search engine, the process was slow-going.
Eventually I gave my brother Brad a call in the hopes that he would be able to answer the Navy-related question (he’s a Lt. Commander in the Navy), but while he was trying to think of the answer they announced that they had their winners.
From that point on the rest of the evening consisted of eating free food, watching people awkwardly dance – Kathleen and I were both especially amused by the thought of me going out on the dance floor and busting out some moves a la Napoleon Dynamite, though there was no way that would ever happen – and making fun of some old lady’s mullet.
There was some kind of silent auction for sports memorabilia going on, but though it was for a good cause (children’s hospital), I didn’t participate.
We did end up staying to the end, though not the bitter end, which was going to be taking place at some bar.
Once I got home I decided to turn the tables and give my friend Kevin a call in the middle of the night.
Pending the successful completion of his finals this week, he went through commencement yesterday, and now has two degree covers that will eventually hold his degrees in Computer Science and Business. With the start of the next semester he’ll be working on his Master’s in Business.
After talking for quite some time I eventually crashed, and that brings us up to date.
There was actually a magician performing at the party, though I didn’t really watch much of his act as I was busy eating and wasn’t seated in a good spot for watching. I did see him engage in some sword-swallowing, though, which made me think of a young woman named Heather Brooke who has some mad skills of her own in that area, though hers isn’t exactly a family-friendly act.
On that front, there actually were quite a few attractive women at the party in sexy little black dresses – several of them there with men old enough to be their fathers – so at least there was a little bit of eye candy.
Sometimes Being Right Is Overrated Department:
One of the biggest frustrations I have with many of my friends is that they often disagree with me.
Disagreeing with me in general isn’t a big deal. After all, I don’t really care enough about most things to get upset if someone disagrees with me.
However, there is a particular area of my life in which I do find disagreement irritating: my complete and utter lack of a love life.
This disagreement mostly consists of me asserting the pointlessness of my even trying to approach a woman and them responding with something like “you never know unless you try.”
This wouldn’t bother me so much if A. I weren’t absolutely certain that I’m correct or B. I were absolutely certain that their motivation for encouraging me to try wasn’t based on a sadistic desire to watch me humiliate myself.
In any case, last night I was talking to Kathleen about my theory about being overshadowed by my realtor in attempting to charm Daniela.
I found myself kind of wishing that she would have disagreed with me rather than saying, “Yeah, there’s pretty much no way for you to compete with him.”
It wouldn’t have hurt to have her disagree a little.
I took a break from writing this entry to walk over to the Chinese place across the street to get dinner.
On the way back, hurrying inside to keep my food from getting too cold in the wintry temperatures, I encountered two young men who wanted to talk to me about their beliefs.
Putting aside the fact that they were Mormons and that I have no interest in being hearing about their (or anyone else’s) beliefs and that I wanted to get inside and eat while my food was still warm, these guys had a couple of strikes against them that would prevent me from wanting to talk to them.
For one thing, they were people. For another, they were male people.
I’m pretty unlikely to invite strangers into my home in the first place, but when said strangers don’t have breasts it’s even less likely to happen.
I don’t care what they’re peddling; I’m not inviting two guys into my home. My work life is enough of a sausage fest without me having to put up with more guys in my personal life.
Honestly, the various evangelical religions might have better recruitment success if they sent hot chicks door to door rather than nerdy-looking guys. Just a thought.
Anyway, I didn’t really intend to be rude to them because I know just how shitty life can be when you’re on a mission and that they’re out doing what they think is right, but these two were a little more persistent than most, so I did brush them off a little more aggressively than I might otherwise have done.
Given the comedy of errors that my attempt to eat my Szechuan Beef became once I got inside, though, I found myself beginning to wonder if maybe those Mormons were practicing Voodoo on the side and had put a curse on me. Between the volcanic eruption that was my overflowing bottle of Sprite and the sudden case of the “dropsies” that I developed it seemed like I was suffering some kind of minor smiting.
I don’t know that I really deserved a smiting, though. After all, I wasn’t that rude, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to want to be able to eat my dinner in peace without someone trying to tell me what they believe and why I should believe it.
Besides, what more am I supposed to do to be righteous? I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t gamble, I avoid caffeine, and I’m certainly not out there womanizing. Granted, I don’t exactly go out and engage in good works and charity, but while I’m not actively helping people I’m not actively hurting them either, and I spend most of my time in quiet contemplation.
I pretty much don’t have any vices.
Well, there is porn, but given the state of my romantic life that’s not so much a vice as a necessity.
Once I finished dinner I gave my friend “Zalfiro” a call, and that brings us, once again, up to date.
Tomorrow I have to call up the financing guy and start the process of finding out whether or not I need to back out of my contract before it actually becomes binding.
In any case, for such a largely uneventful day off this has been an extremely long entry, so I guess that will do it for now.
Coincidentally, it’s also his wife Shannon’s birthday (though her birthday came a few years after his).
While the simple fact that my brother and his wife share a birthday is mildly interesting, what makes things even more so is that my sister Kristy and her husband Ken also share a birthday (though their birthday isn’t until next month).
Sharted birthdays seem to be common among people I know, as besides my siblings and their spouses, my friends Joel and Kevin (who are first cousins) also share a birthday. Further, all three shared birthdays fall within a three-monh period (November, December, and January).
Unfortunately, that’s about as interesting as today gets.
I woke up tired art a bit after nine, sat around for a couple of hours not doing anything in particular, then went back to bed for about two hours. When I got up again I ate some leftover pizza and watched back to back episodes of “Mythbusters.”
(My cell phone just rang. The number that came up was totally unfamiliar, and when I answered it I was greeted with some kind of recording in Spanish.)Yesterday, for most of the day at least, was similarly uneventful, so it’s clear that I’ve made the best of my time off.
Still, when the evening rolled around I did actually venture out into the world for my realtor’s holiday party.
Kathleen’s friend – and massage therapist – Rebecca, who was accompanying us to the party, was supposed to show up at Kathleen’s at 7:30, meaning that they would likely get to the party around 8. So I did my best to just sit around and wait so that I wouldn’t arrive there well before them.
Though it nearly killed me to do so (I hate sitting at home waiting to go somewhere), I managed to hang on and was set to arrive at the party after 8, allowing for the extra five to ten minutes that you need to add to any estimate that Kathleen gives you as to when she’ll arrive.
Shortly before 8, however, as I was on the way, Kathleen called to let me know that Rebecca hadn’t arrived yet, and so they would be later than anticipated.
Initially it didn’t seem like too big a deal, as it took me a while to actually find the place (The directions on the invitation, which erroneously claimed to have a map on the back, only took you so far and then told you to follow the signs to the Landsdowne Resort. Unfortunately, pretty much everything in that area is named “Landsdowne” something, so when you’re driving along and you see a sign that has arrows pointing in five different directions telling you that there’s a Landsdowne something or other in each of those directions, said signs aren’t especially helpful.
Eventually I found the place.
Sort of. There was a big hotel-looking place with a parking lot that was filled beyond capacity. I drove past that down to another parking lot in front of something that looked a bit more like a country club, which is where the party was supposed to be, and thought that it must be the place.
However, the invitation – already not to be trusted thanks to the missing map – stated that the address was 44050, whereas this building had a big sign in front of it that said 44060.
I wandered up to the other building to see if it might be the place, figuring that somewhere along the line Kathleen would arrive and call me and we could figure out where we were supposed to be.
After a while that didn’t happen, so I tried calling her and got her voice mail.
Admittedly, I could have just tried going in to either of the places to see if it was where the party was, but I didn’t want to walk up to the wrong place and look like an idiot (much better to wander around out in the cold in a parking lot and look suspicious). Besides, I figured it would be better if the three of us arrived together.
I tried Kathleen again, got voice mail, and was sitting in my car swearing when I heard Kathleen call my name. Apparently she had left her cell phone at home, didn’t know my number, had asked Brian to call me and tell me that Kathleen didn’t have her cell phone and that she had seen me driving around in the parking lot and that I should just go inside.
(I’ll give Brian the benefit of the doubt here and assume that he did call and that for some reason I just didn’t get it.)
Apparently they’d been there for quite some time.
But no big deal; I was there, I was inside and warm, and we were in time for the game.
“The game” consisted of each of us getting a card with trivia questions on it, along with the name of a person who could give you a hint as to the answer. The first person to successfully answer all of the questions would win a 26” LCD TV. The second would win an iPod.
Most people who know me are aware that if there’s anything I’m good at it’s trivia.
These questions, however, were well beyond me.
Rebecca mentioned something about calling her sister, who would be near a computer and able to look things up for us, when it occurred to me to try something.
I broke out my PDA, turned on the WiFi and found that the country club, in fact, offered free WiFi access, and soon I was at Google seeking out the answers.
Of course, with only the stylus for input, and questions that were difficult to phrase so as to find results on a search engine, the process was slow-going.
Eventually I gave my brother Brad a call in the hopes that he would be able to answer the Navy-related question (he’s a Lt. Commander in the Navy), but while he was trying to think of the answer they announced that they had their winners.
From that point on the rest of the evening consisted of eating free food, watching people awkwardly dance – Kathleen and I were both especially amused by the thought of me going out on the dance floor and busting out some moves a la Napoleon Dynamite, though there was no way that would ever happen – and making fun of some old lady’s mullet.
There was some kind of silent auction for sports memorabilia going on, but though it was for a good cause (children’s hospital), I didn’t participate.
We did end up staying to the end, though not the bitter end, which was going to be taking place at some bar.
Once I got home I decided to turn the tables and give my friend Kevin a call in the middle of the night.
Pending the successful completion of his finals this week, he went through commencement yesterday, and now has two degree covers that will eventually hold his degrees in Computer Science and Business. With the start of the next semester he’ll be working on his Master’s in Business.
After talking for quite some time I eventually crashed, and that brings us up to date.
There was actually a magician performing at the party, though I didn’t really watch much of his act as I was busy eating and wasn’t seated in a good spot for watching. I did see him engage in some sword-swallowing, though, which made me think of a young woman named Heather Brooke who has some mad skills of her own in that area, though hers isn’t exactly a family-friendly act.
On that front, there actually were quite a few attractive women at the party in sexy little black dresses – several of them there with men old enough to be their fathers – so at least there was a little bit of eye candy.
Sometimes Being Right Is Overrated Department:
One of the biggest frustrations I have with many of my friends is that they often disagree with me.
Disagreeing with me in general isn’t a big deal. After all, I don’t really care enough about most things to get upset if someone disagrees with me.
However, there is a particular area of my life in which I do find disagreement irritating: my complete and utter lack of a love life.
This disagreement mostly consists of me asserting the pointlessness of my even trying to approach a woman and them responding with something like “you never know unless you try.”
This wouldn’t bother me so much if A. I weren’t absolutely certain that I’m correct or B. I were absolutely certain that their motivation for encouraging me to try wasn’t based on a sadistic desire to watch me humiliate myself.
In any case, last night I was talking to Kathleen about my theory about being overshadowed by my realtor in attempting to charm Daniela.
I found myself kind of wishing that she would have disagreed with me rather than saying, “Yeah, there’s pretty much no way for you to compete with him.”
It wouldn’t have hurt to have her disagree a little.
I took a break from writing this entry to walk over to the Chinese place across the street to get dinner.
On the way back, hurrying inside to keep my food from getting too cold in the wintry temperatures, I encountered two young men who wanted to talk to me about their beliefs.
Putting aside the fact that they were Mormons and that I have no interest in being hearing about their (or anyone else’s) beliefs and that I wanted to get inside and eat while my food was still warm, these guys had a couple of strikes against them that would prevent me from wanting to talk to them.
For one thing, they were people. For another, they were male people.
I’m pretty unlikely to invite strangers into my home in the first place, but when said strangers don’t have breasts it’s even less likely to happen.
I don’t care what they’re peddling; I’m not inviting two guys into my home. My work life is enough of a sausage fest without me having to put up with more guys in my personal life.
Honestly, the various evangelical religions might have better recruitment success if they sent hot chicks door to door rather than nerdy-looking guys. Just a thought.
Anyway, I didn’t really intend to be rude to them because I know just how shitty life can be when you’re on a mission and that they’re out doing what they think is right, but these two were a little more persistent than most, so I did brush them off a little more aggressively than I might otherwise have done.
Given the comedy of errors that my attempt to eat my Szechuan Beef became once I got inside, though, I found myself beginning to wonder if maybe those Mormons were practicing Voodoo on the side and had put a curse on me. Between the volcanic eruption that was my overflowing bottle of Sprite and the sudden case of the “dropsies” that I developed it seemed like I was suffering some kind of minor smiting.
I don’t know that I really deserved a smiting, though. After all, I wasn’t that rude, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to want to be able to eat my dinner in peace without someone trying to tell me what they believe and why I should believe it.
Besides, what more am I supposed to do to be righteous? I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t gamble, I avoid caffeine, and I’m certainly not out there womanizing. Granted, I don’t exactly go out and engage in good works and charity, but while I’m not actively helping people I’m not actively hurting them either, and I spend most of my time in quiet contemplation.
I pretty much don’t have any vices.
Well, there is porn, but given the state of my romantic life that’s not so much a vice as a necessity.
Once I finished dinner I gave my friend “Zalfiro” a call, and that brings us, once again, up to date.
Tomorrow I have to call up the financing guy and start the process of finding out whether or not I need to back out of my contract before it actually becomes binding.
In any case, for such a largely uneventful day off this has been an extremely long entry, so I guess that will do it for now.
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