June 2, 2007

  • Life is Shit─get to know this.

    It has been a most interesting week.

    Sunday I decided to eat at my ex-General Manager’s new restaurant. (I swear, I’m never going to learn how to spell that word correctly.) One of my ex-coworkers (and by extension good friend) works for our old GM at the restaurant. I went by and was their only customer. After I shot the shit with my little buddy, I decided to walk on top of Monte Sano. That day, however, I decided to try something I had never attempted before: I decided to go walking on the foot trails instead of walking around on the service roads. I hiked for about an hour or so on some flat trails that went up to the top of the mountain. I’m not sure I ever really got to the fire tower; I did however make it to some kind of tower that resembled a cell tower enclosed by a chain-link fence and had a little shed inside the fence as well.

    On the way to the “tower”, I passed someone dressed in Army greens. We talked about hiking on the Appalachian Trail and that brought back memories. Once I reached this point, I saw another trail marked “Warpath” or some such. My hike had been flat thus far, I was on the top the mountain and was feeling rather nostalgic so I thought What the hell? I’ll go down the mountain and come back up. Yeah right.

    I stayed on the path the entire time and thirty minutes went by…but I had not seen signs in quite some time. At the hour mark (really it would have been the two hour mark, but an hour down this particular trail) I came out in a field in the East side of the mountain. There were two metal towers that were carrying some kind of metal wires. It was painfully obvious I wasn’t where people were intended to go because this was a dead end.

    I went back the way I came for about two hundred feet or so because on my way down I had noticed where the trail curved back on itself like it was going to climb the mountain again. This was a good thing for I was parked up top and it was getting closer and closer to sunset. I had my cell phone with me and by some miracle had reception; indeed I got a call from two different friends. I thought I might have to call 911 to get rescued. The entire time I was on this trail I was descending. Not good.

    Finally, I heard children in the distance. I didn’t understand where I was…until I finally came out twenty minutes later. I was a mile or so from the park and had come out in the ritzy residential area where I used to deliver pizza! I called the nearest Domihoe’s (the one that serviced that area) to get directions to my present location. I knew the area but not implicit directions to the exact street I was on; suffice it to say that when I called my friend to pick me up (it would have been another hike back to the top, taken hours and the park would have been closed) we had a big laugh over the whole thing. Now you can too!

    “You know what Capitalism is Manny? Getting fucked!”
    Try this one on for size: Last year, I signed up for a credit card with my bank because I didn’t have the credit to get a loan and I was trying to pay off some debt. They gave me a 12 month 0% APR on any balance transfer for the life of the card. When I signed up for the card, I transferred to my credit limit. Ever since, I’ve always made the payment on time and most months more then the minimum payment.

    About two months ago, I applied for another balance transfer. The very next day I got a call from the credit division of the bank stating that they got my application for balance transfer, that I had good credit with the bank and could get the limit on the card raise. Even though I knew this was too good to be true (I knew this because the ditz on the other end of the phone didn’t know what the hell she was talking about) she said that she could raise my credit limit from the low level that it was to $10K. I said “sure, go ahead.”

    Then I waited.

    I waited and waited and waited. But the transfer never went through. So I sent the girl at the bank I normally work with an email (after I had visited with her about the issue a few weeks before) and asked her to please check into the situation again. She said that she would but that she was training someone that [last] week. Ok, cool.

    She emailed me back on Tuesday (because Monday was the holiday) and told me that the bank ran my credit on the ditz’s order to up the credit limit. Well, instead of upping the limit, they not only denied the balance transfer, the closed the card and never bothered to tell me about it nor propagate that information through their system.

    I stopped by the bank Tuesday at lunch because I had to make a deposit and decided to talk M─ about it. She said that she looked through all the information that was available to her and that her terminal was showing that my account was still active and that I still had a credit line. Of course, I’ve receive three (3) card statements that say the same thing since requesting the balance transfer.

    I’m thinking about changing my name to Holio Fuentes and tapping into all of the wonderful resources our government is passing out to illegal aliens the nice, decent, kind, hard-working American wannabes.

    Illegals and You
    I suppose there is some good to having the illegals here. Yesterday I was at the gas station at 1630…the one with the cheapest gas in town where everybody wants to buy. I pulled in behind someone at the pump. When he was finished, I backed up to let him have some room…rather I inched back but he kept honking his horn. I just didn’t get it…until I felt the impact. He wasn’t honking, it was the illegal Mexicanos behind me. It was a bumper to bumper accident with minimal damage; just a wee bit of scrapping. He was upset about his truck and I offered to call the police to file the accident report dreading how my insurance was going to skyrocket thus causing me to beg on the corner. But alas, he didn’t want to get the policía involved. For the life of me I don’t know why since Sam Lindsay has overturned the people’s mandate to do something about the plague.

Comments (9)

  • If you did not notice, I am in to good a mood for this one tonight. But I will be back

  • That bit about Monte Sano was hilarious.

  • Your “little” hike *laugh* You know, somehow it doesn’t surprise me that you got yourself partially lost. Taking trails you don’t know is always risky and all that fiddle-faddle.

    I hate hiking.

    Credit card problem Meh. Not much to say I guess, other then keep in mind that God isn’t going to give you anything he knows you can’t handle Buddy. I know — you don’t really wanna hear that, but it’s true.

    Fender bender *frown* Lovely. I’ve had a couple of those — the worst of which, which I believe I told you about at the time… if I didn’t it’s cuz I knew you would laugh at me or some such rudeness. But the worst of which was when I was driving in K-Zoo, had mom and grandma both yelling at me, telling me how to drive… and me being young and barely 17… I did as they wanted, at the last minute, without looking in the mirrors to check and make sure there wasn’t anyone behind me etc… BIG problem. I ended up knicking the corner of their car/breaking the headlight. He (and the girls) were on their way to a baseball game, and being slightly older then I, also didn’t want the insurance to sky rocket, so we exchanged #’s, and let it go with the promise to help pay for the damages if necessary.

    If situations had been different… I might have asked him out. He was kinda hott — in a country boy kind of way. *smirk* Somewhere around 6’0, dark hair, chunky (football player type) and the quiet, “I’m angry but I won’t take it out on you” manner.

    Anyway —

    Storm/thunder/lighting and all, I’ve now read it.

    Hope you found something good to eat.

  • Hi Tomas:

    Thought I’d “shock” you and stop around to say Hi.  Umm, got lost, huh?  Betcha will get your bearings next time.  That’s the thing about getting lost, it makes you learn (even if you don’t want to)

    On the credit thing:  You’re blaming capitalism for your overspending?  That’s a whatever.   I realize that everyone does it today, overspending, I mean, including our illustrious leaders, but that’s not really the way the system was set up nor was it intended to indefinitely be run this way.  Seriously, buddy, it’s time to get this thing under control.  We all have to live within our boundaries, even if Congress doesn’t.  I can say this because we’ve been there, as you know.  When we finally sought help, we were $20,000 in the hole (not including additional business bank loans & car loans), just on two cards.  The fees & interest were beyond ridiculous and it was getting worse.  We contacted Christian Credit Counselors, they renegotiated with the cards, CCC tapped into our checking account for a set amount once a month ever since.  We have 1 card below $1000 now with the other at around $2500.  Another six months should put a serious hole in the remainder.  It has been rough at times, a few times we didn’t have the money in the account when they tapped into it, but we had to get it & send it out to them (it cost more in the long run, with extra fees & next-day mailing), so after a couple times with this crap, we had to make it a priority.  It has taken us 5 years.  We will never use cards again, at least not like that.  Our kids have learned this expensive, valuable lesson right along with us.  Putting it off only makes it worse.  Shuffling balances between cards is only putting off the inevitable.  I’ll get you their number if you want it.  They take $30 bucks a month from the agreed upon amount for their fee.  That’s not actually too bad compared to some.  The call is free.  They’ll go over your expenses vs. income on the phone and talk you through it all. Think about it. 

    Hey, sorry about the fender bender.  At least it was a minor thing and the cops didn’t have to get involved.  As for the illegals, I agree they need to become legal & then integrate into the culture, not create their own little subculture — and this applies to Muslims & other immigrants too, besides Mexicans.  All easier said than done.  Don’t know.  No easy answers.  (Of course, I did hear once that had we not legalized abortion in ’73, we would be 50 million people stronger and we would not need the illegals to function.  Nobody ever talks about stuff like that in the debate . . .)

    Heidi, Steven & I just returning after a day in town, chasing down her EMT instructor, getting her certificate.  Locating the other school in a different town, talking to them, filling out the paperwork, setting dates for additional testing — it’s been all good.  Heidi is flying pretty high at the moment.  She has a week to study up on her basic academic placement test, called the HOBET, then another week for her written EMT, then a practicals EMT, all for Elkhart.  Students come in from 2 hours away for this class (hope this is a sign of it’s quality).  She is stressing the HOBET.  I’m sure she will pass, especially if she prepares, but after she gets past this one, it’s all downhill and she’ll be flying high.  I’ve already warned her that over this next week she needs to limit her computer & phone time in exchange for studying.  She knows.  I’m hoping she gets a little more confidence as we go along . . .  So, anyway, I’ve given you a lengthy message here, not necessarily intentionally but I hadn’t talked to you in awhile.  My brain is starting to fuzz out so I’ll sign off.  Talk to ya later, 

    Friends  ~  Terri

  • @trunthepaige - 

    You never came back to this post.

  • You are right i leave lots of discussions stranded. Such a busy life.

  • You do need to remember that Spanish names use a J to make the H sound

  • @trunthepaige - 

    Spelling in Spanish isn’t my strong suit.

    How would you spell that then?

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