I finished the fencing around the base of the back deck to protect against an invading groundhog. It doesn’t look great but I am now thinking about a flower/shrub bed for next spring along the entire front of the deck.

I noticed some digging around the previous entrance points at the deck. Success! The little rodent didn’t get in! But now I get a little nervous about the other favorite point of entry, our front porch. So I go around the side of the house and HUGE HOLE!

The damn thing dug around the bricks and fencing I put in last time!

Ok, I am sick of this whole fucking thing. The previous owners left a large stash of bricks of various sizes. I grabbed four regular sized one and a large rectangular paver. Dropped the four bricks in lengthwise and dropped the paver on top of that.

The little fucker will probably dig out another direction but at least I have made it more difficult. Next step is digging, laying brick and fencing, and filling in with stone around the entire front porch.

But that is a job for another day.

This is the best podcast for our current economic crisis.  Hell, it is the best podcast about ecomonics period.

I’ve written about it before, particuarly when they were explaining the roots of the credit swap derivities crisis, but this recent podcast (I am a bit behind in my listening)  was mostly about finding someone who had paid off their 30 year mortgage.

This just didn’t seem like such a great feat to me, but when you take into account the transitory nature of our culture, the number of refinances occuring in the past decade, and the overall comfort that the under retirement age crowd has with debt I guess it makes sense that a sub-octogenerian without a mortgage was hard to come by.  (how about THAT for a run on sentence?)

We bought our first house in 2000.  We refinanced that house in 2002.  We sold that house in 2006 and bought our current place.  We refinanced our current house in the Spring of 2009.  So we’ve reset the clock three times in seven years.  And we don’t plan on doing it again.  I doubt mortgage rates are ever going low enough to refi, and we aren’t moving again.  But even with two extra payments a year it’ll still be 2029 when the mortgage is done.  But I guess that is better than 2039.

My major concern in this whole experience is what does one burn when the mortgage is paid?  Do I burn that thick packet of papers that took us 45 minute to sign?  Is there some official document somewhere that they give us and why would I burn that?  The podcast doesn’t answer these burning (haha) questions.  Luckily The LA Times is here to help.

When your loan is paid in full, your lender will return your original mortgage and note, along with a document known as a “satisfaction of mortgages.”

The satisfaction is much like the notice automobile lenders stamp on the auto titles they return when your car loan is paid off. The only difference is that although the lender’s rubber-stamp statement is proof enough for most state governments that the car lien has been satisfied, a satisfaction of mortgage is a legal document that should be filed at the county courthouse.

Looks like we’ll be burning a COPY of the mortgage in 20 years.  By then I’ll probably have to print it out myself in order to burn it but, sadly, it is one of the things I am most looking forward to in life; children graduating, children going to college, children graduating again, children getting married, grandkids, paying off the mortgage.  I just hope the last one happens before numbers 4 or 5.

Then they publish crap like this:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today that the United States will set aside billions of dollars to pursue a vaccine for H1N1, commonly referred to as swine flu.

The Obama administration has officially overreacted.

This first comment says it all:

Let me guess.

The WaPo editorial writers would rather US tax dollars be spent bombing Iran than defending America, right?

Seriously, are you all brain dead – or were you just dropped on your head as children?

As an aside to the stupidity of this columnist, I’d like to point out the relative intelligence of the commentors on this column.  In comparison to the comments I saw at the #racistpool Philly Inquirer article, these commentors are Rhodes scholars.  Of course, the bar wasn’t very high.

The Valley Swim Club (currently 404 error – but someone saved it to archive.org…THANKS!) in Huntingdon Valley, PA appears to have a problem with minorities in their pool.

Pool Boots Kids Who Might “Change The Complexion”.

A summer day camp from Northeast Philly paid $1900 to the Valley Swim Club to allow their campers to use the pool.  However, when the campers actually arrived the white kids already in the pool got out and the lifeguards told the campers that the pool doesn’t allow minorities.

I’ve looked over their rules (PDF) and I don’t see a pigmentation clause anywhere.  IANAL, but it seems to me that every aspect of this swim club’s finances should be examined.  If they are getting ANY public funding AT ALL it should be revoked and they should pay it back with interest.  People are allowed to exclude membership to whomever they want (again, IANAL) but the public shouldn’t be subsidizing that exclusion.

It is good to know about this club since it is located close to my home.  At least I’ll know where not to join and not to let my children visit.

This is shameful…

(Update): The comments to the NBC Philadelphia article are even more repulsive than the original action.  It is sickening that people think like this.

(Update 2):  My Wife pointed me to another, more complete, article.

Moncto Swim Club Accussed of Racial Discrimination

I wouldn’t contact us either.

Anna Kane, 5, of Alton, Ill. lays down on ‘The Ledge,’ the new glass balconies suspended 1,353 feet (412 meters) in the air and jut out 4 feet (1.22 meters) from the Sears Tower’s 103rd floor Skydeck Wednesday, July 1, 2009 in Chicago. The Ledge will open to public on Thursday.

(AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

Fred

It appears that Lancaster, PA has a budding non-profit who is putting up video cameras all over town to watch for illegal activity.  Yeap, not the government but a non-profit.

We can debate the pros and cons of this until the cows come home, but what made me laugh was the comment I link to above.  This should be an internet meme, kind of like “All Your Base Belong To Us” and Goodwin’s Law.  Anytime someone wonders who is keeping track of those with power the answer should be “Fred”.

HijiNKS Ensue

From Mother Jones:

Yesterday the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations decided to investigate the practice of recission.  This is when you pay your premiums for years to a healthcare insurer, then get sick, and then have your insurance cancelled.  The insurance industry executives at the hearing did not exactly cover themselves with glory:

….Late in the hearing, [Bart] Stupak, the committee chairman, put the executives on the spot. Stupak asked each of them whether he would at least commit his company to immediately stop rescissions except where they could show “intentional fraud.”

I’m just starting to read on the options for health care…but anything has to be better than the situation people are in now; lose your job, lose your health care, if you even have a job that offers it.

Why do we need whiteners for coffee drinkers?