Kudo's to Winston's Mommy - Let me Sing her Praises!

My friend decided earlier in the summer that she wanted to combine her passions of teaching, music, and developing activities to kids into her career. What does that equal... a high school music teacher. She went back to school and plowed through a mountain of course work for towards her second masters ( all post secondary school was done on her own and as a non traditional student.. I might add). She earned a 4.0 average and "scored" a part time position at the local high school as a music teacher. She will finish up the requirements this Fall and get her accreditation. Meanwhile, the students will have a teacher that wants to be there.

I give her a lot of credit for chasing and grabbing her dream. That is life lived like it is your last day.

Roosters coming back to the hen house... Hopefully it isn't being forclosed on.

I am reading and listening to all the reports on the credit crunch in the media. You only have to go back to my June 22, 2006 post. (It would have been done earlier if I had a blog back in 2004). Anyone that went through the S&L crisis in the late 1980's, could have predicted the news today. All you had to do is look at when those 3/1 arms were going to adjust.

I really fault the mortgage and real estate community for not policing itself. It comes from having an industry that is founded on commission only employees and greed. I can say that I am in sales. This needs to change, period. Real estate agents and brokers need to be employees of agencies with salaries and commission. They need benefits. The same is true of the mortgage industry. This also is not something for people to "dabble in real estate". This is a serious industry. Every house is a home. It is also a SIGNIFICANT investment vehicle for every home owner. It isn't a part time job, it is a profession.

The long term real estate professionals need to police there own shop. Down turns like this separate the wheat from the shaft. Learn from the historical information out there. Establish policies and procedures to prepare for this when it goes the other way. It will.

I think the core of the problem this time was the stupidity that mortgage professionals and underwriters applied to approving loans. Creative financing is fiction. It is simple. You can prove your borrowers make "x" based on the formulas they can afford to spend "y". Standard formulas we worked on when I was doing mortgages in the early 1990's were the following.

Your house payment should not exceed 26-28% of your Gross Income. There is a second ratio that takes into account your other debt. Think about this. Your home should cost you NO MORE that your gross check for one week. Week two is taken by Uncle Sam and Aunt State. Week Three & Four = cars, insurance, credit cards, fun, student loans, day care, 401K, utilities, home improvements, other investments, cell phones, clothes, gas, food?

Are you sure that you want to spend that full 26% at this point? Okay, whine at me.. The price of houses demand we spend more than we want to... WHY!

Simple.... people were able to get financing for higher ratios. Salaries have increased but not in the same correlation to home prices. We also have a full generation that expects to be able to purchase a house that has the same size and features as one their parents have after years of working and increasing their net worth.

I bought my first house for 91K. It was a 3 bedroom and 1 bath house built in 1906. The kitchen had metal cabinets. I lived with it. It was mine. Since selling that home, I have purchased and moved four times. The house I live in today is a lot nicer than that first house. However, I have firmly believed in the lessons I learned at Colonial Mortgage and Paul Speiss about how to qualify myself for affordability.

The other thing. Don't use a mortgage officer because they have a relationship with your realtor. They will be more loyal to the realtor than you. It is okay to pay a bit more in rate or for services to work with reputable people.

Would we be in trouble if we lost a job or something happened that we weren't able to work? Sure. It would be tough but we aren't going to lose our shelter, credit, and investment because of the mortgage type we signed on for 30 years.

Think about that ... what else do you commit to for a 30 year term besides your spouse and being a parent? Be really sure about the mortgage and home prior to jumping.

Can you Unplug?

With many of the changes that have been occurring with my company, still known as (idk.com = I don't know), I have found myself unplugging from my own personal community. I have began to sympathize with JK Rowling as a result. I keep getting asked what my world is going to look like in month, six month, or a year. Regardless of my lineage, I never was great at the crystal ball thing. At least, I can sympathize with Harry about that as well.

Ms. Rowling has had the world at her throat.... "What is going to happen? Who lives? Why are you stopping?, Please don't kill, Hermione, Harry, Ron, etc."

If she retreated to her home in Scotland and yanked the telephone cord out of the wall, I would get it. Meanwhile, it has to be business as usual in both circumstances. We have a product to ramp up, new ones to be flushed out, QA'd, and Customers to serve. She had a movie in production and the entire merchandise market around the Harry Potter series. While the scale is significantly and dramatically different, I get it.

The point is... you never can truly unplug from your community. A robust and lively community needs to be communicated with fresh content and information. Even if that information is... I don't know yet.. I am still working through to get to your answer.

Feed your grapevine with the right nutrients for success. Communication and content are king and queen of developing your own socialized network. However, the fairy godmothers are honesty and integrity. Those words are bantered around today by every person that is running for office and most businesses. The key is to walk the narrow road and your community will respect you and honour you with their attention and contribution.

thought of the day

“Selling to people who actually want to hear from you is more effective than interrupting strangers who don't.”Seth Godin

Comic Relief

I pulled these off a a Stumble Upon link... I think everyone could use a good laugh

A little boy was doing his math homework. He said to himself, "Two plus five, that son of a bitch is seven. Three plus six, that son of a bitch is nine."His mother heard what he was saying and gasped "What are you doing?"The little boy answered "I'm doing my math homework, Mom.""And this is how your teacher taught you to do it?" the mother asked."Yes", he answered. Infuriated, the mother asked the teacher the next day, "What are you teaching my son in math?"The teacher replied, "Right now, we are learning addition."The mother asked, "And are you teaching them to say two plus two, that son of a bitch is four?"After the teacher stopped laughing, she answered, "What I taught them was, two plus two, THE SUM OF WHICH, is four."

Next .........

One day the first grade teacher was reading the story of Chicken Little to her class. She came to the part of the story where Chicken Little tried to warn the farmer. She read, ".... and so Chicken Little went up to the farmer and said, 'The sky is falling, the sky is falling!' ".The teacher paused then asked the class, "And what do you think that farmer said?".One little girl raised her hand and said, "I think he said: "Holy Shit! A talking chicken!".The teacher was unable to teach for the next 10 minutes.

Great Quote

Have you ever read a quote... Then gone back because your mind wasn't clear and then the light of the genuis of the statement blared through like a fog horn in central London.

I am pulling this from an article on MSN.com... I haven't double checked it.. but it is brillant:

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

Example:

1) Believing in the Constitutional Right of a Woman's right to choose.
2) AND believing that it is morally wrong and against one's own religious beliefs.

Defending both positions.

This is a simply wonderfully put... I love the quote...

In Memory.....

Life just knocks people hard sometimes and you just don't know how people make it through difficult points. My dear friend lost her mother over the weekend. I have clipped a picture here from their wedding last fall. Nancy's mom was so so proud of her daughter and adored her new son in law. You can purely see this in the smile on her face that night at the reception.

Her passing was sudden and while she was away from home. None of this helps ease the pain that the family is going through. It is hard to find the right words to express your sympathy.

Unfortunately, their pain hasn't stopped here. Last night, their dog was tragically taken from them when a speeding car struck and killed poor little Milo. Losing a parent is hard and tragic. Compound that with the loss of a dog that was their child. I know many people bock at those of us that choose canines for kids but they are our children. This was a safe neighborhood where pets and children call the Street their playground.

I am beyond knowing what to say to them. Perhaps, in a perfect world... Mom has Milo to sit in her lap now and keep her safe, be a warm blanket, and be her companion. They, together, can watch over Nancy ... one with an inner voice of advice and the other to growl at anyone trying to cause them further pain. They are two angels that I would want on my side. Bless both their memories.

Book Club

I just got a response from my local library. I had emailed them back in March about book clubs. They had several that met during the day. Ouch. (How do you live in Litchfield County and not work?) Well, that isn't going to work for me. This is not to be said I couldn't ask if it was a problem for me to take an hour a month to attend a book club. I really don't think that would have been an issue with my employer given my role and hours I typically work. My boss might have been relieved that I had an outside interest from my customers. For me, it was the principal of the thing. A public library should be able to serve all of the community interests. There is that word again, community.

I am happy to announce they kept a list of us ramble rousers that wanted a book club in the evening or on a weekend. I received communication this morning that there were 4 of us with a suggestion of a book that might be of interest as a jumping off place.

Being a supposed "expert" (cough or laugh or giggle) on "community", I quickly looked up the book on Amazon. Read the reader reviews, an excerpt from the book, and sent it all off to the other potential book club members. I also suggested we exchange profiles for each other to "Get to Know" one another. One positive response so far!

Essay 2.0

I have a vivid memory of the first time I realized the short text language used in SMS or text messaging. I was taking Megan somewhere... it was probably to work. We were on US-41 in Kennesaw when I tried to read a text message that she received from a friend. It was not quite gibberish to me. I also noticed the speed that she sent a reply and received one. The teenagers had created a "new language". We had "Basic, Fortran, and COBAL". They have a new shortened script. I thought... "Was this the dawn of the end of modern English and many other languages?" (Let's be real... people text in other languages)

I was sad that about another beloved thing, the art of writing, was going to disappear with the rise of TTFA and BFF. However, I hadn't been introduced to the art of the "BLOG". This is essay writing 2.0. Remember when we used to dread the essay on, "What I did this Summer". Well, today's teenager only needs to look back on their MySpace or Facebook account for a blow by blow account along with rich media content to accompany it. Photos, Streaming video and comments from their friends. Generation Y will be better versed in the writing art than my Gen X or the Boomers. They email, blog and update wikis. Don't worry, just blog!