Just days ago, I received a sort of performance review, nine months in.  The review was fairly typical—all good nothing bad.  Nothing that I should do better at or improve upon. Just “keep doing what you’re doing”.

At the last company, they reviewed a little differently.  Basically, it was like being graded on a final exam and then being told that you’ll never be able to get higher than a C.  Everyone got C’s.  If you got a D or an F, then you should be fired.  If you got an A or a B, then you should be promoted.  They didn’t like to do either, so no matter how hard you tried, you’d never get more than a C.  And then they’d bullshit with you and tell you that a C is great—it means you’re doing your job satisfactorily.  Ugh.

Along with my review, I was informed that they’d be adjusting my salary. To give a little background on this, when I interviewed at this smaller company and they asked me what I’d like for my starting salary to be, I told them I’d think about it over the weekend. That weekend, I came up with a number that was much larger than my salary at the global, financial organization and figured that I could rationalize it because I’d be losing some “perks”.  Those perks weren’t really that big of a deal, but when you’re negotiating a salary, they become golden nuggets. I let the HR person know what number I’d come up with and she replied that it was in at the top of the range they’d planned on paying, so she’d be fine with it.  Whoa.

So last Friday, during this performance review, I’m told that they’d be adjusting my salary. They’d done a review of people that perform the same job that I do and what salaries these people make and determined that I wasn’t making enough. Let me repeat that.  I’m not getting paid enough. I’m getting paid too little.

So, they’re going to raise my salary to the level it should be at. Where that is, I don’t know. It could be very little, or it could be a lot more.  Something tells me that they wouldn’t go to this much trouble if it’s just a cost of living increase.

Anyhow, did I just fall asleep and wake up in a dream??  Come on now.  The last company probably wouldn’t have ever told me.

Tags: bathroom, hospital, toilet, news

“As for me, I’m moving out of the dorms and into an apartment with some friends to save money, and instead of taking an internship in Washington, D.C. this summer like I had planned, I’m going to have to stay here in Chicago and work full-time to pay rent and save money for next year. “

This girl is a student at the University of Chicago.  Her parents are considering selling their home and living in an RV. I actually applaud the fact that, instead of taking an internship, she’s doing the right thing by getting a job to make some money to finance that education of hers.  I don’t happen to be one of these people that feel like their parents owe them a college education.  Working your way through college won’t hurt you.

“We have two kids we are TRYING to keep in private school. [Like] most working couples, we want the best education for our children, because not just “the rich” deserve private school. … We don’t own a house. We are about to lose our vehicle.”

I have a problem with this. Sure, private school is nice, but if you’re about to lose your car and can’t afford a house, do the kids really need to be in private school? It’s not just for the rich, but it IS for the people that can afford it without living on the street in a cardboard box.  Send the kids to public school and spend a little extra time with them outside of school educating them about the real world.

Gas is on average $3.25 a gallon here in North Florida. The prices at the grocery store are getting outrageous. My husband and I have a combined income to only place us in the lower middle class so there is no help in sight for the people in my class. … We have five children between us and it is hard to live paycheck to paycheck.

I’m sure you can figure out where this is going to go.  Five children.  If you’re living paycheck to paycheck and can barely scrape two dimes together to afford groceries, maybe some family planning should have been put into place.  Sorry, but I’d rather have one kid that I can spoil than to have five that get hand-me-down clothes and some ramen for dinner. People get it into their minds that they have to have lots of kids—they want a big family.  Yet, they can’t afford it so everyone ends up suffering.

My home went on the market in one of the worst housing markets I’ve seen in my lifetime. The funny thing, though, is it was a good year. I’m extremely grateful that I had the retirement account, the equity in my home, the credit available and the supportive friends to be able to tap into when immersed in a desperate situation.

Even though she had to sell her home in a bad market, she’d obviously done some planning ahead.  Having a good retirement account, some equity and some credit available are all things that help ride out a tough economy.  Just live within your means and you’ll be alright.

People are still lining up to purchase entry-level properties, and paying absurd amounts, up to $700 per buildable square foot. And this is not an ocean view, just plain Main Street type land. When I ask them why, they still say it’s the Palisades and it can’t go down.

People are stupid. They want to live in a glamorous area and make all of their family and friends think that they have it all going on—that they are yuppies.  I don’t payday loan store chicago1 hour payday loanpayday loan fast no faxloan online payday quickameriloan loan paydayamerica cash loan paydayloan milwaukee payday storelow interest payday loan,low interest rate payday loan,interest loan low paydayfaxing loan no payday,faxing loan no overnight payday,no faxing instant payday loandebt get loan paydayguaranteed no fax payday loanquick faxless payday loan,low fee faxless payday loan,faxless loan paydayadvance? cash loan online payday ?emergency loan paydayfaxing loan no payday requiredadvance cash loan payday today,advance cash loan payday,payday payday loan cash advance loanloan until payday100 loan online paydaypayday loan without fax,fax less payday loan,fax payday loanalabama loan payday store,payday loan store in chicago,loan payday storeapproval guaranteed loan payday,guaranteed loan payday,faxless guaranteed loan paydayquick payday advance loanlow cost payday loan24 hour loan paydayhour loan one payday,hour in loan one payday,faxless hour loan one paydaycalculator loan paydayone hour payday loancalgary payday loan,calgary loan paydayhour loan online payday1000 payday loan no teletrack,loan no payday teletrack,200 loan no payday teletrackcash advance loancash america payday loan,cash loan payday,1000.com advance cash loan paydayquick cash payday loanadvance cash loan military,cash in advance loan,cash advance loan idahoonline casino cash advance,online cash advance,cash advance online no faxingcash advance serviceadvance cash loan payday quickadvance cash line loan,budget line cash advance,advance cash on lineadvance cash overnightget payday cash advance fast online loan,fast cash advance,advance cash fast getadvance cash faxing money no now,no faxing cash advance,advance cash faxing no paydaynational cash advancecash advance nowpayday cash advance utah,payday cash advance,advance cash payday ringtoneadvance cash check credit no,cash advance no credit check,advance cash check credit no onlineadvance advance america cashadvance bad cash credit loan payday,cash advance for people with bad credit,bad credit cash advanceadvance card cash creditpayday us fast cash loan,fast cash payday loanfirst southern cash advance,first cash advance,first time cash advance understand what people are thinking.  What makes that 2-bedroom house worth $700K??

I accepted a job in February 2007 that required relocation so we packed up and moved to Alabama. We had not gone through this before. We purchased another home in Alabama and we were sure that our house in Three Rivers, MI would sell. Not the case. Not only could we not sell our Michigan house but my husband could not find work in Alabama. So we made the decision to have him go back to Michigan to work as a temp in September 2007.

So they bought a new house before they sold their old one.  Erm.  And why would you do that? Why not rent an apartment until the old house sold? God forbid you live in an apartment. You’re homeowners, not apartment people.  Ugh.  Now you own nothing. There are so many things wrong here.

With huge energy bills in our house that almost equaled our monthly mortgage payment, my husband and I had to let our house go last year. We’ve lost our house and canceled our vehicle insurance.

I don’t know that background here, but what kind of house has energy bills that are equal to one’s monthly mortgage. We used to wrap ourselves in blankets and burn wood for heat at times growing up. I know that energy bills are going up, but something doesn’t quite seem right here.

Everyone got excited about the fact that they could buy a home with no money down and live the life of a homeowner, paying the bare minimum. Some even got excited about buying homes and flipping them before the mortgages reset, allowing them to make a ton of cash off depressed property.

Unfortunately, the saying “what goes up, must come down” is a reality. In California, housing prices have been out of control. When you can’t even buy a 2-bedroom cottage for less than a million dollars, you know that something is wrong. When five couples are having a bidding war over that 2-bedroom cottage, you should really know something is wrong.

We have some friends that recently purchased a house. My advice during their search was to choose a good location because when the inevitable fall happened, they’d be in better shape.  They didn’t listen.  They didn’t want to “waste their money on a condo” and, instead, bought a house across the Bay. Their home is a 2-bedroom home that is smaller than our townhouse and in an area that could be called “undesirable”.  Think about it.  Every home in the Bay Area sells for more than $650K and they find one for $500K.  Um.  Ever think that something may not be quite right.

First, in this area, a 2-bedroom house is undesirable to most couples or families. Families typically look for 3-bedroom homes so that they have room to grow. Second, the only way to actually get to their house is through this kind of seedy, ghetto type of area.  They’ve admitted to hearing gunshots and have bars on their front door, which I’m not exactly sure screams “homey”.

Had they taken my advice, with the market the way it is, they’d only be down maybe $30K or so.  As of today, they are down about $70K. The hope is that they’ll get back into the black before their interest-only loan resets.  My prediction is that they’re in for a tough time.

The real estate market has hundreds of these stories. People wanted to live the high life and compete with the Joneses. They wanted homes they couldn’t afford and are now paying the price. My advice at the time was to just buy what you could comfortably afford and to make sure you had plenty of money left over after paying all of your expenses. If you can get buy with a 2-bedroom condo, why buy a 4-bedroom house with a family room?

As I move forward with the reconstruction efforts with my HOA, I continue to hear people saying that they’re going to have to foreclose… that they’re going to lose their homes. We’re talking about an extra $250 a month.  If that’s going to send them into foreclosure, then I can’t help but to think that they’re already headed there.  You shouldn’t buy a house if you can’t do it and not have any extra cash in your budget.

I think it’s fair to say that we’ve been warned. The news of a housing and credit bubble has been around for a few years. They’ve warned us that it would burst and that housing prices would reset to where they realistically should be.  It’s really no surprise.  It is unfortunate.  But maybe this is a lesson to everyone that we should all remember to live within our means and not to try and constantly keep up with everyone else.  Maybe everyone else is also living outside of their means and when they fall, we’ll all fall.

Tags: housing, bubble, credit, recession

I have to say, they had some benefits that were nice. But honestly, I can buy my own tickets to the amusement parks, or pay the extra couple of bucks to get into the museum. I don’t really go that often anyhow. Other than that though, it’s kind of an isolating, lonely type of experience being a drone in a sea of drones walking the hallways like zombies, rarely receiving a hello or goodbye.

That environment made me extremely unhappy and I’d have left a long time ago had they not been providing me a steady paycheck and medical benefits that we can’t live without these days. Most of my days were spent staring at the walls or ceiling, waiting for work to come my way. And when the work did come, I was typically done with it in less than a few minutes.

When I made the change in mid-2007 to a smaller—much, much smaller—statewide company, I knew things would be different. Way different. It’s strange going from a company where the department you work in has more people than the new company you’re going to work for. The biggest change was actually having a steady stream of work to do. My first couple of months, I was totally under water trying to keep up with the work and learn the process at the same time. Eight months later, I’m falling into the groove. It’s less structured, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

At the old company there were days I didn’t even know if my supervisor was in the office; at the new company the CEO comes by a few times a week to greet us “good morning”. It’s really the small stuff that makes coming to work so much better. Today is St. Patrick’s Day and they served us corned beef and cabbage—all free, just because. They did the same thing for some of the other holidays, along with the week between Christmas and New Year’s off.

I’m guessing that I’m just not a “big company” type of person. I do better in a smaller atmosphere where I can share my opinions and ideas and see them come to life. You can’t get that in a corporate atmosphere. It just won’t happen, unless you’re kissing the right asses.

And I don’t kiss ass. I do, however, like the corned beef.

Tags: corned+beef, st+patricks, work

The guy is a serial killer… with a twist. He had these urges since he was young boy and his father, a police detective, noticed them.  So, he trained him to use the urges to kill for good.  He taught him to only kill bad people.  And that’s what Dexter does.  He kills people that have done something really bad.  Oh, and he also happens to be a blood splatter expert for the police department.

We came in during the second season and have been hoping to catch season one and now we’ll have our chance.  It’s going to be showing on CBS starting Sunday, February 17th.  They’re going to cut out the really bad stuff that you can only show on Showtime, but honestly aside from the occassional boob or some bad language, you probably won’t miss much.

If you like this sort of thing, I’d recommend you try and catch Dexter.  For a serial killer, you kind of end up liking him… which is the point.

I also sleep well at night knowing that I had nothing to do with putting Bush into office in the first place.

Earlier this year, I became President of my homeowners association. And we’re taking on some of the largest projects that the complex has undergone. So, it’s taking up all of my free time and thus, very few updates are happening on this website. We’ll see how it goes.

Lots of changes going on this year.  Stay tuned.

Tags: president, clinton, obama, election, politics

Almost immediately, the Bush team began working on ways to put that money back in the hands of the American people.  And they did.  I got back a few hundred bucks.  I’m sure there were some wealthier folks out there that got a whole lot more.

My problem with the rebate plan back then was that we didn’t really need for the money to be given back to us. I think, if I’m like most people out there, once you give your hard earned cash to the government, you pretty much never expect to see it back ever again.  Rather than handing me a check for a couple hundred bucks, I could have thought of thousands of better ways to spend the extra cash.  Just to name a few, how about fixing all of the schools out there that need some fixing, or how about setting up a fund for medical insurance for people that need it, or maybe some of it could have gone back into communities that needed it.

Instead, they gave it back.

A few months later, 9/11 happened. And then we started a war with a country that had nothing to do with it.  Oh yeah, and where’s Osama Bin Laden again.  And then Katrina.  And it goes on and on.

And now the country is trillions of dollar in debt because of a war no one ever wanted. Our economy is tanking. People are losing their homes.

And the politicians want to give us some more money—about $800 for a single person and $1600 if you’re married.  Now, here’s the part I’m not exactly understanding.  We’re trillions of dollars in debt and they want to give us some money.  Exactly where does this money come from?

Now the Republicans want to just give the money to taxpayers. Basically, you earn enough money to pay taxes, so we’re going to give you some money back.  And the Democrats want everyone to get a check back, regardless of whether they actually put money into system.  Huh?  The thought process is that poor folk tend to be more reckless with free money, so they’ll go out and buy a plasma or something stupid with it and stimulate the economy.  Well, I can’t really disagree with that.  I mean, if you’ve ever watch Judge Judy and have seen these ghetto people out there with an “inheritance” of a couple thousand, you’ll also know how they spend their money. Ugh.

Anyhow, I like to think of the last eight years as a nightmare in my life. At least I can sleep soundly knowing that I had nothing to do with it, though. I mean, I voted for Gore back in 2000. Our biggest worry would be the environment and not a WAR.

I’m still not too keen on the whole stimulation rebate. I think the government could find other things to spend money on, rather than to basically funnel it to big business through us. That whole medical insurance problem still exists, and social security isn’t getting any better, and how about all these people who’ve lost their homes.  Where do the politicians expect people to hang that new plasma when they don’t even have a home anymore?

Onto a lighter note, 2008 was spent watching poor old Dick Clark mumble his way into the New Year.  I just think it’s time for him to hang up the coat, work behind the scenes and not depress us every year.

We’ve also got news that Barrack Obama is pulling ahead in New Hampshire. He won the last caucus and it’s looking just as good for him in this one.  I think people are just ready for a change.  A big one. Maybe he’s what we need.  I wouldn’t mind an Obama/Clinton ticket. I just feel sorry for whomever ends up in office because they’ll have to spend their eight years just cleaning up the mess caused by the current dictatorship administration.

Finally, over here in California, we just got through our first storm of the season.  Hurricane force winds made a mess of the area and left hundreds of thousands without power. My office ended up closing down mid-day because the lights were flickering on and off and water was actually coming into the building.  Oh, to only wish for more days like that. The power never went out at home, so it was all good.

I have some really good feeling about 2008.  I feel better about this year than any of the last 8 years.  So far the 2000’s have pretty much sucked.  2008 is going to be a time for change, a time for good things to happen and a time to get back on track.

My APPLE stock is doing very well, up over a $100 a share so far.  If I’d only bought back in the 1990’s when I wanted to.  Ugh.  But things cost money.

I’m also the President of my Homeowner’s Association and we’ve got a big project coming up.  I’m crossing my fingers that things will go as planned. We’ve put in a lot of hours and the outcome would be amazing for the community.

Anyhow, let’s raise our virtual glasses to a wonderful 2008!

Tags: time+travel

Tags: bush, constitution, santa

Tags: acapella, bloomington, indiana, university

I’ve never really gotten into the popular shows of the time. When Seinfeld was on I never watched it. And to this day, I’ve only seen a handful of the episodes. Back when Alley McBeal was the talk of the watercooler, I didn’t know much about what was going on. Except for that creepy little dancing baby. Who could not know about that.

Instead I was watching shows like “My So-Called Life” which was cancelled early. Or “Freaks and Geeks” which became a cult favorite, after NBC cancelled it. The producer of that show went on to create “The 40-Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up”. I was also into a show called “Once and Again” with Sela Ward.

Anyhow, it’s happened again. I’ve been watching “Journeyman”, a Quantum Leap like drama based in San Francisco, where the main character finds that he’s “leaping” from present day to the past to fix things from the past. Instead of taking on a character from the past, he is himself, oftentimes nearly running into his alternate self from that time period. He’s also got a former girlfriend who happens to have the same ability to spontaneously “leap” around. It’s a good show, just getting better every episode.

Except that it’s been cancelled. Kinda.

And speaking of television. Apparently, Jennifer Love Hewitt is what fat looks like these days. Yeah. Apparently some asshole bloggers decided that she’s fat. They anonymously posted comments on a message board about—because you know how brave bloggers can be when they are sitting in their homes behind a computer screen.

Instead of sitting by quietly though, she fought back. She posted a message in blog, “‘I’ve sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women’s bodies are constantly scrutinized. To set the record straight, I’m not upset for me, but for all of the girls out there that are struggling with their body image. A size 2 is not fat! Nor will it ever be. And being a size 0 doesn’t make you beautiful…. And like all women out there should, I love my body. To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, put on a bikini — put it on and stay strong.”

Hmm. Well, if this is what fat looks like, break me off a second helping. I’ll take some more.

I think people need to stop thinking that a healthy body weight is fat and that skin and bones is what thin should look like. And for those people that have to hide behind a computer screen to insult someone, maybe they need to spend some time in front of a mirror to find out what ugly looks like.

Tags: television, entertainment, jennifer+love+hewitt, journeyman

For years, we’ve had a dinner at someone’s house on a rotation. We’d have it one year, then another the second year and so on and so on. It gets expensive when you think about all of the stuff you need to buy to feed everyone, along with any decorating you need to do. Christmas is expensive enough.

So this year I suggested that we all meet at a restaurant, have a nice dinner and then they could all head over to our place for dessert. It worked out nicely since homes had recently been purchased and money was tight.

We met at a place called “The Fish Market”, a nice seafood restaurant overlooking the waterway. Plenty of entrees and sides at reasonable prices. You could order something for around $10 or go large and order a $60 entree. Since we’d pay for our portion, it was a good way to regulate the spending.

Overally, the night was fun. Plenty of chit chat and catching up. And I think it’ll be a nice tradition for next year.

Tags: friends, christmas