The big step

Well, this is the time for new beginnings - my daughter Hillary started her new job today, going back to the work she loved which is legal research. She is now working for a law firm specializing in Intellectual Property cases, one of my daughter's favorites.

My daughter Jessica was just promoted at the place she works. She is now a career advisor in a group home near where she lives in Connecticut. So far she seems to love it. She has worked there between overseas assignments for several years.

I took the big step and turned in my Real Estate license last week. I have spent the better part of the past three days taking inventory of the supplies I accumulated going through a sort of triage. One pile is stuff I will keep for future use (large), one pile is stuff that is getting trashed (even larger), and one pile is stuff that I will try to sell (small).

It is really amazing how much stuff I have accumulated in just four short years. Lots of printer materials, most of it was personalized for my Real Estate business so it wasn't easily reusable and thus got trashed. This morning I took out four very heavy plastic trash bags of stuff. I also trashed several dozen personalized directional signs.

This last I considered trying to sell, but at last decided to trash since whoever bought them would have to cover over the personalization (my name and phone number) which might not make it worth while. Fortunately the garbage men take everything.

The nice folks from Comcast installed my cable phone service last week, and the quality of the sound on my phone doesn't seem to have changed much. In as much as I only use one phone regularly I didn't check any further. Saturday morning I accidently set off the alarm. As a habit I turn on the alarm when I go to sleep, and turn it off from the pad in my bedroom just before I come down stairs. Well that morning I forgot, and when I went to open the sliding glass doors in the living room, the alarm went off. Nice to know it works. I entered the code and didn't think anything more of it, except that I got annoyed that Brinks did not call to ask if there was any problem, Then the key pad started to beep and the red trouble light started to blink. I checked the manual and it said, sysem needs service. OK, I picked up the phone in the kitchen and tried to dial. Nothing, tried again, still nothing. After trying several other phones I realized that I had no service on any of the phones in the house other than the one in my office.

It seems that the installer forgot to ask me some questions and thus set it up incompletely. Long story short,they will be back tomorrow to do it over.

rumor mill

The more things change, the more they remain the same, but on the other hand the only thing constant in in life is change. Take your pick!

The Real Estate Market has gone to hell in a hand basket. Listing agents are spending a fortune market their seller's homes and holding open houses with no takers.

People wonder where all the home buyers are, that is easy, almost all of them are waiting to sell their current homes before they can look for a new one. In this market they just can't afford to carry two mortgages. First time home buyers are having a rough time in a money tight market.

As I have written previously, mush as my company may trumpet stronger sales, the wave of agents interviewing at other brokers looking for a better deal, or looking for jobs that will bring in some income to pay the rent, has reached tsunami proportions. Rumor has it that my broker, is not out ill, but has in fact quit. She has been at it for decades and I guess she had enough. Company pressure to produce sales, cut budgets and recruit new agents must have been intense.

As the keeper of the phone list I haven't seen a new entry for quite some time. I have seen several agent removal requests

I congratulate my oldest daughter on her new job (not yet started) and wish her the best of luck. Coincidentally my youngest daughter has also started a new job and I wish her the very best of luck as well

After four years of being a Real Estate agent, I have come to the realization that I am not a sales person. I don't have the temprament for it, so I will continue until I find something els to do. My initial thoughts are that I will look for work (probably part-time, hopefully from home) as a writer or editor. Lots of places with jobs being posted so we shall see. First up, create a resume.

Memories

When my parents were alive, more specifically my father, he was an inveterate picture taker. Problem was once taken the pictures went into albums unlabeled, and unorganized.

When my mother passed away, several years after my father and I was tasked with closing won her condo, I found more than a half dozen photo albums, some of them dating back to before my mom and dad got married. There are pictures from when they were dating, when my dad was in the war, my mom's high school and college pictures, pictures of my grand parents when they were young. Lots and lots of pictures.

The albums went to my brother who volunteered to scan them into his computer and put them on a CD for each of us. He did a very creditable job. Afterwards he distributed the albums, or at least some of the albums to each of us. He kept those that couldn't be divided up.

When I got married I also took lots of pictures, which also got stuffed into albums in the same way my father did, somewhat disorganized and unlabeled.
When my ex and I got divorced one of the things I demanded was the right to copy all the albums. When I got them I scanned some and some never quite made it back into the albums that my ex wanted back.

So... now I had almost a dozen albums, some from my cameras, some from my parents camera, some from my kids cameras. Big three-inch, three ring binders full of pictures, plus wedding albums, and misc. loose pictures. Last weekend I put all the albums in a box and gave it to my kids to divide up.
I didn't know about my parents pictures until they had passed away and it was too late to ask who was in the pictures. Most I recognized, some I did not

The problem was I never opened then albums, and with the advent of digital cameras, CDs, computers, and flickr, physical pictures seem to have become obsolete. But they still represent a bit of family history, which I felt now belongs to my kids and grand kids. Maybe they will enjoy them more than I did

Tuesday after Monday

Yeah, I know, Tuesday always follows Monday, but in this case Monday was a holiday, so while this is Tuesday on the calendar, for most of us it feels like Monday - the first day back at work.

My son Micah and his wife Misun, and my daughter Jessie and my grand children Jake and Samantha were all here for the weekend visiting and celebrating. Micah and Jessie and my grand daughter Daria all has birthday at the beginning of the month and it was decided that since they had the holiday weekend, the birthday would be celebrated a bit late, but together.

We spent time at my daughter Hillary's community pool where I attempted to take some pictures. As you can see my children were


not cooperating, so I tried again



and again



But alas, no luck. Getting my grand kids to stand still for a picture is like herding cats, not practical. So I will have to wait for the results from the other picture takes (Hillary, Jessie and Misun) for good pictures

Procrastination

The art of putting off until tomorrow what you should have done yesterday.

I have to say that I have mastered this art. I have more projects on the to-do list, and each of them has a long list of reasons why they have never been started. None of them are particularly hard tasks, but the lethargy has a tendency to build, and accumulate, Chalk it up to a lack of enthusiasm, or spring fever, or more likely just plain laziness. Personally I like laziness.

Last August I signed up for a cruise - a repositioning cruise aboard the Norwegian Jewel. They were moving the ship from its route in the Caribbean to its new home in the Mediterranean. Since they actually have to move the boat (ship?), they take passengers on this extended cruise to help defray the cost but at a reduced fare since it is a one way trip. the passengers fly home from Athens at extra cost. By cousins and brother went on this one but I begged off due to my flood. Problem was and is, I still didn't get my refunded reservation fee.

Yesterday I called to ask what happened. Well the original reason was that the card number the had had expired (and I guess no one thought to ask for a new number, after all it was a refund.) So I sent the new number and still no refund. So while on the phone yesterday I looked up my charge records from last year and lo and behold, I hadn't charged it to a credit card, I had my bank send them a check. So now I can look for a refund check. I wonder how long that will take.

My daughter Jessie and my grandson Jake and granddaughter Sam will be here on Saturday and my son Micah and his wife Misun will be here late Friday evening. Should be a fun weekend, with a group birthday party (Micah, Jessie and Daria)

TGIF

It's Friday and its raining, and they are predicting rain for the weekend, so what else is now. It is getting harder and harder for the office to find people to man the phones. The budget has been slashed so much that they can only afford a morning receptionist one Mon-Fri. She stays until 1:00 PM and then goes home. The rest of the time the desk is covered by agents. But if an agent can't make his or her shift, or for what every reason, doesn't want to go in that day they either have to find a replacement, or they close the switchboard.

I get a lot of calls to fill in, but sometimes like today, two agents couldn't make it so coverage for two consecutive shifts was needed. I agreed to take the first one, but said no to the second one. I guess either someone will cover, or the office will close early.

There has been a lot of company trumpeting about how good the market has been BUT...

1) they apparently have cut the budget for the personal marketing managers (these are the folks who make up the brochures, etc. for newer agents)

2) they have cut the receptionist budget

3) they have cut the advertising subsidy to agents

4) they have increased all the fees for agent services

5) office income is way down

6) agents are leaving to take full-time positions to pay their bills. - we now have half the number of agents in this office we had a year and a half ago

7) A year and a half ago, the office took over most of the third floor and turned it into office space for the gents (some got single offices, some shared a group office and some got a cubicle in the bull pen) word has it that the manager is now trying to unload that space.

And the beat goes on.

Friday

It's Friday and I have survived another week. It has been busy, but as of yet I cannot say whether it has been profitable. I tried to call by daughter Jessie on her birthday but she was out to dinner with her family. I tried to call my grand daughter Daria for her birthday (same day) but she was out to dinner with her family as well. Not one to give up, I called Jessie the next day and spoke to her, have yet to reach Daria.

I did manage to cal my son Micah for his birthday on Thursday. He was in San Francisco for a convention and apparently enjoying his birthday.
Last month I purchased a new blood pressure tester. It was expensive, and had lots of features, but from day one it gave me nothing but problems. The low battery indicator was constantly blinking even though I changed the batteries several times, the reading was constantly giving me errors, so I finally took it back. I bought a new one, different brand, simpler, fewer features, and so far it works just fine.

I received a call this morning from one of my fellow agents, could I cover for her this afternoon. Since it is cooler in the office than in my house I don't mind going in. I won't turn the AC on until we have two weeks of warm days in a row, so far we have only had a few days in a row. Monday it was in the high seventies, Tuesday the heat went on - go figure.

Cash flow

Today was my day for small chores - bank deposits, picking up some stationary supplies, and checking on my rental listing. The renter's application was accepted with flying colors, so everyone is happy, and I get my commission.

I am on the desk again today, and as I was sitting here a fellow walked in looking for a rental. Actually he asked for a list of rentals in the Nokesville/Bristow area. I cut him a list and he looked at several and liked what he saw. He asked if I could help him with them. At first I said no, but in a moment of weakness I agreed, especially since it was around the corner from where I live.

About twenty minutes later he called back and said he and his wife found one they liked, and could I show it to them. Since it is on the way home I said sure why not. Who knows maybe I have some more unhatched chickens to count.

Lots of the agents are suffering from a severe shortage of cash. Their cash inflow has all but dried up, but their cash outflow has either not changed, or has increased. Many of them have reluctantly decided to look for full-time jobs to support their families. Fortunately I don't have that same problem. Inflow/outflow yes, but there is only me to support, and so far I have my nose well above water. If I am lucky I can stay that way.

One of the ladies from the building came in to drop something off. She is a very heavy smoker, and for a half hour after she left I could still smell the smoke. It made me stop and think.

When I was young, from my early teens on till I turned fifty-ish I was a smoker. My ex didn't say anything about it until after we were married then she got on my case. But smoking, like any other addiction is tough to give up, especially in those early years when it was socially acceptable, and "cool". By the time it became un-cool I was totally addicted. There was always the idea that I could stop whenever I wanted to. The problem was that my friends all smoked and when when I was with them I couldn't resist smoking to be sociable.

Of course when you are the smoker you never really know what it smells like to non-smokers, how really, really bad it smells.. There is the conceit that a breathe mint will take away the odor. What you don't realize is that the smoke clings to everything, clothing, skin, hair, lungs, and everything you touch as well.

As a non-smoker I realize how the smoke odor pervades everything. I wonder now how even I put up with the smell.

Monday, Monday!!!

Usually Monday is a day not to be looked forward to, coming so soon after the weekend, but sometimes Mondays bring good things.

Today's mail brought the final part of my insurance reimbursement, not a whole lot of money, but it is something, and it clears a task on my to do list.

Yesterday while I was on the desk, the other agent mentioned that she had called in for availability on my rental listing and she was told that it had an application registered. Now this is good news because it means I get a commission on it, but I hadn't been told about it, and I didn't know whether it had been one of the many people who I had shown the place to, or clients of the two agents who showed the place.


Turns out it was someone I took there, which means I get both sides of the transaction. We are not talking about large numbers here but every little bit counts. Nice!

This morninng I got a lead from the Weichert online system. The fellow wants to see a house near here, a bank owned property (post foreclosure). Maybe he will buy it and I can make some more money - how is that for counting unhatched chickens?

It is one thing to count unhatched chickens, it is quite another to count unlaid eggs. Ah well! we shall see.

May day

It is hard to believe that it is already May, and 1/3 of the year is already behind us. By now my brother and cousins should be visiting somewhere in Italy, either Rome or Naples, a trip I was going to go on but decided against.

My daughter Hillary should be up to her ears in fiber this weekend, because if memory serves me correctly this is the weekend for the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival, Something she has been looking forward to for a very long time, actually since the festival last year. Her knitting tournament is down to the final four and the pattern for this round is a very complicated two color intricate design. Should keep the contestants busy for a while.

Every once in a while I get ambitious and take on a project. Like most people, well, maybe only like some people, I keep very meticulous records. I keep everything, tax returns, credit card receipts, bills, statements, etc. Why, you might ask, because you never know when you might need something, like a tax audit. Tax returns, and the supporting records of course, get saved for four years, and the return itself gets saved forever.

But then there is other stuff. Records of other activities that no longer matter, such as tax returns for my company which was dissolved some four years ago, or the records for the first incorporation which is now ten years old. So I started going through the boxes of records, I had garbage bags on one side and the shredder on the other. Things with my name or signature got shredded, the rest got round-filed. I must have filled up eight to ten garbage bags full of stuff, and emptied the shredded bucket five or six times.

Now the easy thing would have been to dump it all, enmasse, but mixed in with all that paper are records that are still needed; home improvement bills, bills for appliances that I still use, etc. So I had to go through everything before disposing of it. That made a short job, very much longer.

Fortunately tomorrow is trash collect day. So everything is out by the curb, the original bags tightly sealed in big heavy plastic barrel sized trash bags, tied very tightly so nothing will blow away (I hope!)

April's end

Here it is the last day of April 2007, and the year 2007 is one third over. Imagine that! It's not like it has been super busy, but the days seem to slide by faster and faster.

My daily ritual is becoming more and more set. Wake up, wash up (yeah I know, don't say anything), trot downstairs, test my blood (higher than it should be,) test my blood pressure (also higher than it should be.)

A small glass of orange juice helps me take my pills, diabetes (1), high blood pressure(3), high cholesterol(2), Multivitamin (1), and a couple to keep my electrolytes in balance (2). And finally to round out the ritual, put the drops in my eyes for my Glaucoma.

For the rest of the day I walk around feeling like a rattle with all those pills bouncing around in me.

Pills down it is time for breakfast, 2 eggs, two pieces of multi grain toast with some margarine, coffee with skim milk.

Then it is down to my office to read my email from the night before, then check to see if my son has posted anything on his blog (no, not in a very long time) and then check my daughter Hillary's blogs. She usually posts something new every day and it is always worth reading. Actually she has two blogs, one is her normal blog Knitting4Shirley and the second is for the tournament she and her friend Felicia are running, something they call Sockmadness after the NCAA March Madness. Both are very entertaining.

After that it is whatever Real Estate work I have to catch up on, which is very little, so I spend the remainder of the day, puttering around the house, doing chores and watching TV

Boring, I guess, but that is my routine.

So when my son called last evening and asked what's new, I had very little to tell him. I am sure that there was much more new in his life than in mine, he being newly married, a new home owner, and having what seems to be a very challenging job. But does he write about any of that - not a word.

Another week

All things being equal, which of course we all know never happens, this has been one of those weeks. I can't say it hasn't been interesting, but I can say it has been remarkably unproductive.

The week started off looking like we had just stepped into summer, bright skies, very warm temperatures, and birds singing.. Then yesterday it turned nasty again and it is damp, windy, rainy, and definitely uncomfortable.

This isn't unusual, but it looked so much like spring turning into summer that I put away all my winter clothing. Now I have to go find some it again. Bah, Humbug!!

Yesterday we had a class at the Weichert office. We have them periodically my broker is big on education. The topic yesterday was net sheets. A net sheet is a form where we list/calculate all the fees and charges that a buyer or a seller can expect to have to pay.

For the seller it includes all the mortgage, lien and tax payoffs, and for the buyer it includes the mortgage, points, prorated taxes, fees, etc.

Normally this is a set of straightforward calculations and addition. The kicker this time was the added wrinkle that the seller was four payments in arrears on the mortgage, We of course had to calculate the payoff balance with the added late fees, for both the first and second mortgages, It was surprisingly difficult to calculate compound penalties, Lots of variables in interpreting when and how to apply the penalties.

Somehow we (the twenty agents that were taking the class), all seemed to come up with similar results, note I didn't say the same results,, just similar Fortunately we weren't being graded on our results, just our technique.

Spring has sprung

Today is Sunday and the weather is glorious. Warm, sun shining brightly, just a light breeze, and the trees just beginning to bloom. Outside my window are several trees with large pink flowers. The aroma is like perfume.

Today s the day that my brother and cousins and I were supposed to leave for our repositioning cruise from Miami to Athens. I wish those who went a wonderful trip, and requested that they take lots of picture.

My daughter Jessica is coming down for a two or three day visit at the end of May. As it turns out my son and his wife Misun (picture) are coming down as well. I don't know what the sleeping arrangements are going to be, but I have a spare room, and my daughter Hillary has a spare basement. Between us we can all the expected guests. This will be the first time in years that all three families will be together with me. They get together regularly but since most of the occasions are for events for my ex-wife's family I am never invited. The kids also get together in pairs for vacations but again not with me.

My daughter Hillary's knitting tournament is down to the final eight contestants and all involved seem to be having a great time.

Pound puppies

One of my neighbors was out on his lawn - the postage stamp size plat of grass in from of his home playing with what looked like a pound puppy. It seemed sort of strange since he is in his mid-twenties. Then I looked closer and it moved. Turns out he acquired a basset hound puppy. The thing is the same size shape and coloring as a pound puppy. It is really cute.

For some reason I have been on a cleaning binge. I don't do it very often, but with only me living here and mostly hardwood floors there isn't much dust or dirt. I did go through my drawers and threw out a bunch of stuff. I am sure you know what I am talking about. When you buy something that needs assembly it usually comes with a small packet of spare parts, extra screws, bolts, dowels, etc. Most times that stuff isn't needed, but then again maybe something will come up so away it goes in "the" drawer. That's the one with packets of screws, dowels, small tubes of glue, extra this and spare that.

Well yesterday was cleaning day and all that stuff, well most of that stuff got trashed. That makes room for new stuff.

A month ago I (belatedly) sent in a request for reimbursement for some 2006 medical bills. My "policy" allows for reimbursement for thee doctors visits, two tests and on flu shot. They don't pay much, but still something is better than nothing. I guess the forms I sent in weren't clear enough so they paid part of the claim and asked for further documentation for the rest. I called my doctor and they were nice enough to send me a copy of my payment history for last year, which I submitted to the insurance company. Hopefully that will be enough.

One of the last remnants of business from my flood claims was a request for reimbursement for repair work done by Brinks Security. They actually made two visits, one right after the flood to check everything out and repair all the broken wires in the walls (before the Sheetrock went back up). They sent me a bill for that visit. Then after the repairs were completed they had to come back to repair a sensor that was busted by either the rockers or the painters, or whoever. In any case the security company will only come out when the homeowner calls, not the restoration company, and thus they billed me. The restoration company knew of the work and allowed for it in their schedule, but since they didn't know the price they left it at zero. So far so good.

When I finally submitted the bill it had to go to the adjuster, then to the insurance company, then to the property management company, and finally to me. Ever play the game telephone? you guessed it. Request for reimbursement and supporting information got horribly garbled along the way.

Recently I received a check for the first Brinks service call, but not the second. After much ranting and raving on my part, it turns out that it was my explanation that caused the problem... sort of. The second part of the claim was due to work done by the repair people, thus the insurance company determined that they should pay the second part of the bill. So now I wait for a check from the restoration company. Any bets as to how long I will have to wait?

Lethargy

Sometimes I am just full of energy and get up and go, other times my get up and go seems to have gotten up and gone. Lately the gotten up and gone seems to be dominant.

It is Passover, which means very little, since I ceased to be observant many years ago. However my children observe, and since my oldest daughter lives near by she usually invites me to her Seder to serve in the Grandpa role - that of narrator/leader. The usual instructions apply, keep it short and time it to finish when the food is ready to be served.

This year, as in previous years I was also invited to the Seder hosted by her friends who live nearby. The reason for the invitation was so that I could meet Gerry's mother who was currently unattached. They had been trying to get us together for years, almost as long as I have been living in Northern Virginia.

This year I decided that in the interest of curtailing future invitations I would accept. This is sort of like the office voice mail system. Whenever they leav a message, or a voice mail, the system rings all of the cell phones in the notification list. Each agent is required to have one number that can be called. Problem is that if you don't pick up, listen to and reply to or delete the message, they keep ringing back until you do. So the best strategy is to answer it when it rings.

In any case, the friends home is close to my daughters and when we arrived they were already set up for the Seder. Her mother was in the basement getting ready. When she came upstairs I took one look and regretted having agreed to come. She reminded me of a younger version of my ex, combined with various features of my sister, neither of whom reside on my favorite people list. Suffice to say there was no animated conversation between us, although we did converse with everyone else. On the plus side, the Seder was mercifully short, the food was good, and I got to leave early. On the down side they have two small, loud, twin girls under two and an older girl the same age as my granddaughter Daria. I am still partially deaf

My glider rocker chair arrived on Tuesday and I spent Wednesday morning putting it together. It wasn't difficult, and there weren't a lot of pieces, but the six nuts and bolts that were needed to attach the back and arm rests were in the most awkward spots making tightening them very difficult and when I got my fingers caught in the mechanism, very painful. Then there was the problem of snapping the arm rest covers, and the chair back and seat to the frame. Again very awkward. But now that it is all done it is very comfortable.

My grand kids came to day. My daughter and son in law have been taking days off to stay with them, (Passover and (spring break) but today was one of those days when both of them needed to put an appearance in at work, so I was volunteered to baby sit. My son-in-law drove them to Manassas where I picked them up. The kids came back to my house for the day. The oldest, Lindsey immediately camped in my new chair and Daria the youngest took up residence on the glider/rocker ottoman.

They were well-behaved and I have no really large complaints, well maybe one. They brought food with them, a good idea since there is very little in my home for small growing children with picky eating habits. Their mother provided plastic containers , with among other things, coffee cake and brownies.

They ate most of the food, but my granddaughter Daria reminds me in a way of that Peanuts character Pig Pen, who seems to have a perpetual cloud of dust around him. Well in this case I can tell were Daria was because there are trail of cake and brownie crumbs where she walked, and on, and under, the chair she sat in. She also managed to spill a bag of mini M&Ms on the floor. These were really small, about an 1/8 of an inch wide, and I am sure they are all over the floor and under the furniture

Completed Work in Progress

Projects, sometimes called work in progress, seem to accumulate like dust bunnies under the furniture. They are always around and you never seem to get rid of them all.

This week I managed to eliminate some of them from my list, and move a few more that were at the bottom toward the top.

I finally completed my taxes, and my audit. Both were mailed weeks ago, but yesterday the IRS finally cashed my check - that puts finis to that chapter. This years tax return didn't carry any tax payment with it.

Every two years my Real Estate License comes up for renewal. Before I can renew I have to complete 16 credits of Continuing Education. The CE topics include eight mandatory credits for Fair Housing, Legal updates, agency law, contracts and Ethics. Some of the topics are two credits some only one.

I took them online this time around and took the exam today - scored 93 out of 100. Passing is 76. Safe for another two years.

Yesterday and the day before it was absolutely spring-like outside, so I took the opportunity to rake up around the plant beds out back, and take down the wires that the dish people strung all over the back wall. They were extremely lazy and managed to drill holes in my walls from the outside rather have to snake the wires through the walls. The dish service has been gone for months but the wires remained, at least until this past week. Now they are gone as well. The only thing that remains is the dish itself. They put it up on the roof, and barring a storm, it will probably stay there. No way I am climbing up on any ladder to take it down.

I am still waiting for my new chair to arrive. Ordered it on line - their estimated delivery day is somewhere between 3/30/2007 and 4/3/2007. Nice range. Naturally, as soon as I leave the house for anything they are sure to stop by to deliver it. We shall see.

Doctors

Yesterday I went to my doctor for a regular check-up. Nothing special (other than a chronic stiff neck) was bothering me, but as usual he complained about my weight. OK so I could stand to lose 70-odd pounds, but I have become very attached to those pounds an it is hard to let them go.

Over the course of seven or eight years I have been seeing him he has recommended nutritionists, Glycemic index diets, fasting diets, etc. Lately he recommended stomach stapling and/or banding. My reaction to both of those was a strong recoil/aversion. Aside from the feeling that taking that route was an admission that I couldn't lose the weight on my own, there was another deeper thing which I couldn't put my finger on at the time. Later that day I remembered what it was. When I was still a teenager my father who lived under great stress as a salesman, developed ulcers, and then one day he had to be taken from the showroom by ambulance because he had developed bleeding ulcers. I guess that is what I subconsciously recalled.

So having nixed surgery he then recommended a new medication Byette(?) which is an injectible that reduced blood sugar and helps weight loss. On the down side it is expensive. So he gave me a prescription and I went to the pharmacy for them to price it and the needles.

Heart attack time!!! Between the two they would cost as much, each month, as the three-month cost for all the other medications I am taking combined. No way I can afford that much extra cost, and have to give myself daily injections, in the stomach, as well

Watching TV

Working from my home as I do, and living alone as I do, the TV is my only company. Most hours of the day one 0r the other of the three TVs in my home (kitchen, living room, and den) are on. There are a small number of network shows that I watch regularly such as Grey's Anatomy, CSI, Criminal Minds, NCIS, Bones. Then there are non-network shows which I also watch regularly, such as How it's made and Deadly Catch on Discovery, any food network shows, and more recently various shows on the Hallmark channel - old standbys such as Matlock and Murder She Wrote, and new ones such as the Jane Doe series with Lea Thompson and the Mystery Woman series with Kellie Martin.

These last two show irregularly but they are very good. I guess I am a sucker for mystery shows. These last two rely on problem solving ability not violence, which makes it more fun as it allows the viewer to try to guess the bad guy before the character on the how.

Of course some of the most entertaining stuff on TV is not the broadcast shows, but the ads. Specifically the GEICO ads. Most companies are lucky to hit on one good ad sequence, or jingle, or something to make their ads memorable. GEICO has two! The first being the Gecko, that almost human animated lizard that seems to appear in a very large number of their ads, and the new series the Cavemen (Its so easy a caveman can do it) There seem to be an endless supply of different versions of each of these so you never really get tired of them, and they are so well constructed that you always know it is GEICO that is running the ad, as opposed to some other ad series where you remember the ad but not who the sponsor is. Case in point, there is a hand cream, or body lotion that features a field of hands chanting something like "tuckatin, Tuckatin" sounds very soothing but for the life of me I can't remember the sponsor. And finally there is an ad which talks about banks and governments trying to liquidate foreclosed homes and now is the time to snap up these bargains - so far so good, nothing strange about that. But the ad continues that "if your name begins with the letters A-N you can call today, all others (O-Z) may call tomorrow." Problem is that these ads run every day. I guess the O-Z people will never get to call.

As I mentioned I have taken to watching the show "How it's made" on one sequence the showed how they make glider rockers. It looked so comfortable that I think I am going to buy one for my living room TV chair.

BTW did I mention that most of the shows I seem to like are produced in Canada - strange!!!

equality

The adage starts: "all things being equal", but fails to add "but they never are." In the past several year I have gone to several dentists, all of whom have started out wanting to take lots of x-rays and so scaling and planing, both of which are expensive procedures. Problem is I have always gone in with the same complaint - nagging pain in my lower left jaw. But they say that tooth has had a root canal done and there is nothing there that should hurt.

As of now it is growing progressively more painful, but finding a dentist who will tell me what is wrong, and who will fix it seems to be very difficult. I have to make an appointment with my regular doctor and I will ask him what he suggests.

My taxes were completed and mailed - owing nothing. But when I mail the audit report with the large check they are demanding I fully expect that the nice folks from VA will want some more as well.

My rental listing has become very interesting. So far six people have asked for applications. I can only rent the home once, but maybe I can rent something else to the others. I normally don't do rentals, for lots of reasons, but these folks are coming to me as potential clients and almost all of them are from out of town

Friday I have a listing appointment. The owner bought the place in January of 2006 and has been trying to sell it ever since. He has had it listed three different times with two separate agents, with no luck. The home has dropped in price almost $90,000 below what he paid for it. Should be interesting to talk to him. I suspect he is desperate, but the question is how low will he go?

changes

It is mid-march and we have had weather in the lost thirties and mid seventies, all in the same two week period. Yesterday it was mid seventies, tonight they are predicting snow - go figure.

Monday I went back to the IRS because I thought I had caught them in a few mistakes (yes in their favor). So I took my box of records back and we chatted. As I said to them, all I wanted to do was understand how they arrived at their decisions. A word of advice - don't do what I did.

They started asking more questions about my home office (why was I claiming one, and my car - how could I document not only the total milage but the business portion of it as well. Suffice to say they could pull out five inches of tax code to support their side and I had nothing but my tax records to support mine.

In the end their report stood, they didn't disallow anything more than they originally did,, or anything less, and I had vented my anger and frustration.

I took a rental listing (for want of anything better to do, and I think it is already rented, and I may have found a rental for a second person who called in on it. Rentals don't pay much, but when they fall into your lap it is hard to turn them away. Normally I will take rental listings but not renters. For some reason renters are very picky, very needy, and very poor. A lousy combination. Most don't have cars and need to be chauffered around.

I finally started my taxes for 2006. Because of the flood in my house I didn't earn much, and have lots of expenses, so overall the tax returns should be fairly straight forward.

My daughter Hillary has become a rabid knitter, and jumped into the world of rabid knitters with both feet (mainly knitting socks). Last year she participated in several contests where knitters competed against one another to see who could knit the fastest. My daughter got an idea to run her own contest in the form of a March Madness style tournament. That started last week after months of preparation. With six or seven rounds of compatition, it probably has several months to run.

By all evidence everyone who is participating is having a ball, but at this point I suspect that my daughter my be regretting having started this. It is a LOT of work on her part. Her friend Felicia is her partner in this and I am sure both of the are feeling somewhat frazzled by now. I wish the both the best of luck