Writing Wrongs

The seller accepted my offer, without changes. The mfg rep is processing the loan paperwork with her lender, but I'm also on Lending Tree because the interest rates she quoted me are pretty high compared to what I have seen out there, especially for a <$150k loan. I checked with my insurance agent, they use someone else for mfg homes, but will give me a few $$ off for also having the car insured by them. I got a quote from progressive, they want twice as much. Both will only cover $150k, not the full replacement price. esurance gave me a quote from Safeco, which fielded it at 10% less, but their form did not recognize it was a mfg home, so that may be bogus.

Taxes come to about $50 a month. Utilities are not in the equation because I pay those now, Comcast says they serve that address so I should be good for cable and internet.

Work was pretty slow, so I found some more corporate online classes to sign up for. I watched one, 2 years old, on how cable TV is moving to IP, and while it was a well done marketing presentation, we've been selling in that field for about 10 years.

Team meeting had some revelations. Minor ones, though about two of the new company's local-ish offices moving to our building this month. Parking may get tight. 

Lunch with Automation Guy, we went to the Thai place which was too full last week. The key is to wait till 12:45. We can take lunch any time, but most of the worker bees in the neighborhood strap themselves into noon lunchtimes. Barn Thai is the sign on the place, and Automation Guy laughs that he expects to see cows inside. I explain that it's really pronounced "bahn" which means "house". Thai House because reverse word order (in Thai and most Asian languages, nouns come before adjectives, verbs before adverbs).

Back at work my tennis elbow was hurting a lot so I switched my mouse to left-handed mode. Did the same when I got home. I'm just ambidextrous enough to be able to do that.

UPS, three things to pick up, then home. As usual most of the mail went into the trash or the shredder, but there were two checks from a class action settlement against AT&T Mobile. One was for about $5.00 the other for 3¢.

Online, grabbed the last two months' statements from my 3 credit cards, and the last 2 from my CU and emailed them to mgf rep.  So we should be done with that load of crap until it's time for the park approval process. And she said we have most of that covered already.

On to BASFA because MNF was not a game I was interested in. Passed around the 3¢ check and got many amused/amusing reactions. Reviewed Les Miz, pocket review. It was lightly attended, so things went quickly, done in just over an hour. I got in a couple of puns, no zingers, though.

---

In other news, my last remaining uncle died this afternoon. Call from my Baltimore sister, who said our aunt asked her to make the calls. Sis said he died peacefully in his sleep, I said it was probably the only thing in his life he did peacefully. I phoned my aunt, their eldest son answered, I gave him my condolences and then talked to her. She was in shock, but managed to brave it out for a few minutes. Uncle Dave was a New Yorker. A Bronx New Yorker. He did everything forcefully and with supreme confidence. When I was a kid he kind of scared me, force of nature that he was, and kind of annoyed me because he always thought he was right, loudly. But during the past 10 or so years we'd been communicating a lot**, and oddly enough, he usually was right. He had dimensions to him which he had not talked much about until lately, which is a shame because if I had known as a child, I would have admired him more and sooner.

He was a WWII veteran of the combat engineering company which helped liberate Italy. He left a job as a welder to enlist. After the war he worked for 25 years as a railroad post office employee up and down the east coast. You can read more about that career choice here. His final job, I think, was head of customs inspections at JFK Airport. I know that was his job, he met me at customs when I came back from the Peace Corps. I'm just not sure it was his last one.

**He had macular degenration since 2007, so I started recording 15-minute mp3s messages and emailing them so he could "read" my messages without my aunt having to be there. She wrote most of the replies, being a retired executive secretary, but I had also taught him how to record messages, and he used that to communicate with friends. Elder son helped get him started. We corresponded about once a week, but he would phone if something in  one of my messages raised a red flag, or if he had some medical advice which needed to be shared urgently.

---

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
???

Work was the usual. Lunchtime I drove out to McCarthy Ranch Walmart and bought 3 5-drawer units to replace what is in the closet and broken. Got them home, it is the same set of drawers as 2 in the closet and the same brand as the 3rd set in there.
After work got a haircut at Great Clips, then went across the street and picked up a second set of pet steps.

Home, hauled all that plastic (in 2 trips) into the apt, set up the steps on the opposite side of the long computer room window. Domino sniffed at it, cli,bed it, and walked across the sill to hiss at Kaan who was about to climb up the original steps. FAIL.



I may get around to the closet drawers. Probably not tonight, for no apparent reason. I need to take the cat carrier and a chair and a couple of bags of paper plates out, then pull all the drawers out, pull out the frames and then put the new ones in and fill the drawers. Pretty much a 1-for-1 swap. The weight of the stuff in the drawers over time warped the frames and the drawers and they don't pull out easily now.

---

Meanwhile, on Facebook, much has been posted about Hugh Daniel. His housemate says it was a heart attack while housemate was out  in the afternoon. I am reminded that the way I met him was at a Stuart II party, Edith was his date. She had a collection of fun, smart, geeky guys, and she added me by the end of the party. This makes the second of that group who are no longer with us, and both are a huge loss.

---

And on the opposite side of the fence, today is my oldest younger sister's birthday.

At her son's wedding, October 23 2011. Which happened to be my late Dad's birthday.

---

Plans for tomorrow:
Work (1-on-1)
???