I’ve been unbelievably busy the last 3 or so weeks. I have a new job which is above my pay grade (quite literally) and Sydney has been keeping us up at night. Lots of work with little sleep does not a good combination make. It’s getting better though.
The shots today are pretty random. They have been sitting in my “Future Posts” folder for an indeterminate amount of time and I finally decided to post them all at once to get them out of that folder. Could I have just removed them at any time? Of course. But they were in the “Future Posts” folder. So I had to post them. Obviously.
Abstract, Chicago, IL
“I’ve always been self-sufficient. My house was close to foreclosure.”
I heard that exact phrase, in that order, on a bankruptcy attorney’s commercial here in El Paso. The beauty of that sentence is that the attorney who made the commercial doesn’t see how ridiculous that is. Either that or he knows that he is dealing with such dim-witted dregs that he knows they’ll hear that and be able to relate. Unreal.
I apologize for the lack of updates this week; Eva and I had a little addition to our family arrive this week on a plane from Phoenix. His name’s Sydney. He’s a Schnoodle: half Schnauzer, half Poodle.
Sydney
I’ve written before about how credit scores are crap and how the American fixation on credit scores is a symptom of our infatuation with credit based purchases and our proclivity to buy that which we can’t afford and to “need” something we want immediately. However, I recently learned something even more telling about the disgusting American credit craze. I learned what the FICO score (the fabled “credit score”) is actually comprised of. 35% of the score is based on your payment history, or the timeliness of your active debt ”reduction” such as mortgage, car and credit card payments. 30% of the score is based on the actual amount of debt you possess. 15% of the score is based on how far back your credit history goes, or rather how far back you’ve possessed debt. 10% of the score is based on what kind of debt you have and the final 10% is based on how many recent new credit accounts you have established. What does this all mean? It means to have a GREAT credit score, you need to have a lot of different kinds of debt. If you have no credit card debt, a paid off mortgage, no car payments and a million dollars liquid in savings you’ll have a TERRIBLE credit score. Also, if you don’t interact with debt for 2 years your credit score goes to zero. What kind of ridiculous system is that? Oh that’s right, it’s an American system.
The photo today is one of my favorite shots from our recent trip to the Bahamas. It’s of a signpost outside the restaurant Cracker P’s which shows how far you are from a bunch of different cities around the world.
Abaco, Bahamas
I learned on a BP commercial that there are 900 people answering phones and filing claims on behalf of people financially impacted by their oil disaster in the Gulf Region. It would appear to me that BP is the only group in this country that has actually created any jobs.
Why is it that I walk up to a urinal full of urine in a public bathroom, and as soon as I stop in front it flushes, thereby spraying pee/water mist toward/on me? And why am I always wearing flip flops?
Eva and I just returned from an incredible vacation in the Bahamas. We were there for my grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary. Our entire family on my mom’s side was there: 24 people in total. It was a blast. I didn’t have one drink on the 4th of July because I needed to detox from a week with my family. In celebration of this event, I’m posting a standard Bahamian photo. This was taken from a restaurant named Cracker P’s where we had lunch.
Abaco, Bahamas