I've found a new wealthy liberal enclave to mock. Pt1.

I love driving to a new town just to have breakfast. I can tell a lot about a town by doing this. This weekend it was Pt Reyes Station up in Marin.

The first thing I noticed about this town was it seemed like a full 60% of the locals where dressed in bike wear. Yet... I never really saw any bicycles. A few motorcycles sure. I don't remember once seeing an actual bicycle. The town was straight out of the Goode Family cartoon sitcom. Another good chunk of people were basically straight out of a Lands End catalog. Everyone was in natural fiber cloths that were naturally dyed. Then you had the Under Armor crowd, but the guys were crammed into the shirts like sausages. Man muffin top and all. Large muffin. All of this was funny in it's sterotypicality.



First you have to drive through Lucas Valley. Which is beauty beyond belief.



When you hit this boat you are almost there.



Standard beach art.



The town bulletin board was filled with this crap.



And of course, many of the cars ran on the sun.





Mr S. noticed these two things in one of the store windows. He regretted not buying the crazy cat lady one. That is tech office gold.

At least try to watch a little of the Good Family. We were bummed they never renewed it. It was the most hilarious cartoon sitcom out there.

It made me laugh....

Don't you know who I am?

Mr S. and I stopped to get hay for the bunnies today at a Pet Food Express. When he whipped out his ID because he was paying via credit card, the checker told him they were not allowed to check ID's anymore. Handed down from corporate. She added "I wish I was kidding".

So...... I guess if you steal someones credit card - run over to Pet Food Express. And it isn't like you can't drop a hundy in that store. For pet beds, or any number of things.

The homeless clearly have a middle class now.

I think it was about a year ago the people in my city finally got their panties in a bunch about the homeless. The town had otherwise been very welcoming. Maybe it was because the homeless were migrating from San Fransisco it started pissing everyone off. My city has a rather unjustified vision of itself. And the homeless in SF have a deep kind of poor people in my city had never experienced before. Even I am shocked by the homeless in SF most of the time. It's a depression style grubbiness. Enough was enough for them. Everyone was mad.

All of a sudden the homeless started turning up in these 1970's campers. These are chronic homeless so everyone in town knows who they are. I don't know for sure, but I suspect the city found "grant" money to buy the campers for them. Which did make them less visible. They aren't walking around all day or hanging out in the park. Anyway...

The other day Mr S. and I were doing some errands and I noticed one set of homeless are now keeping a cat. I know many of them have dogs, but somehow owning a cat made it feel like these people are now homesteading. I don't know why the city doesn't run an extension cord out for them. If it was a solar powered motor home I bet they'd come up with some inventive way to pay the power costs for the homeless too.



It was a couple of years into the recession I started noticing they also all had bikes. I guess when peoples shit got tossed out on the lawns, it was sweet picking. I posted about this somewhere but I don't feel like looking for it. For a time I'd even see them with rolling luggage.



I don't know how much it costs to register a motor home, keep insurance, and buy gas at over 4 bucks a gallon. But being homeless sure isn't the way I remember it.

Oh! And remember when I was mocking that beggar a few days ago for having a buzz cut and a somewhat ironed shirt? Yesterday I saw another guy begging and he also looked uncharacteristically clean.

Expect Stagflation now.

The only reason I was able to keep my shit together regarding my late mortgage payment was because on Thursday, BOA called to say they were ready to close on my refi more than a month early. My elementary math registered that as before the 16th (when my mortgage payment would be late). I figured I'm close enough now that I get can everything fixed later.

The whole thing was actually going swimmingly well. They asked for documentation once. I never even called them to check on the refi. I didn't want anything I said,  or did, to grind the logic of refinancing me to a halt. They were good with keeping me updated. So when loan officer called to say it was all done - I could have hugged her from inside the phone. I mean, I just tried to refi this place last year. They just wouldn't touch it because I don't live there. Which sucks for legitimately good customers, but from what I know about the recession - people who owned more than one house did a lot of damage.

Of course, things couldn't be effortless. Cha! An hour before I was suppose to meet with the notary I got a call from her. I don't have the documents - she said. Now, I can not yell at these people. I need something from them. It turns out they have scheduled my signing at 11:00 at night. Not eleven in the morning. And with the headlines I'm reading - if that is all the bank can do - I will keep that appointment. I don't care if it's 11:59 that night. I will come to you. This refi was not (not) getting signed that day.

For a few weeks I've been telling Mr S. that if us smucks with good credit can refi a rental anyone can. I'm starting to finally expect inflation. I mean, money is obviously circulating now. However, I read the UK was now experiencing stagflation. Which is closer to what I expect for the year.

Today I got a call from BOA telling me I qualified to refi my rental. Not one of those millions of letters you get in the mail. But cold calling. Even though the refi was through them - I listened to the sales pitch. And it only reinforced my belief even more. Stagflation. The banks are lending.

You will not believe how dysfunctional our banking system still is.

Do you know how hard it is to convince your mortgage company these days your rent check really is "stuck in the mail" even though you paid electronically? Oh. I will wait for you to either brace, or settle in for the read. Ready?

My mortgage company told me to wait until Monday (yesterday) to see if my check would show up and then call them. It didn't show up after 20 days - so I called to have them to make sure it was okay to make a stop payment. Because they are going to cash the check if it arrives and cash it. Then I will look like I'm a deadbeat. Plus all the fees.

They tell me "We don't recommend our customers put a stop payment on a check for 30 - 60 days". Maybe I should take the time again to mention I am in the middle of a refi. So of course I flip out. Even though my check is "in the mail" - the reason my check is in the mail is because of their own incompetence. They failed to give my bank the correct information when something internally changed. This caused my bank (Citibank) to say - All I want to do is pay your bills and we don't know how to do that - so we will send a check. Which doesn't seem all that unreasonable. Now my check is lost in the mail.

The mortgage company offers to take a new payment, and if the other check arrives they will cash that one too. My rent is late on the 16th. And brace for it - they were going to charge me a fee to take my payment over the phone. You can not make this stuff up. Of course I do not want to put anything on my credit card because that changes your credit score and I am in the middle of a refi. When I call Citi back they tell me the mortgage company can pull that money electronically. But of course my mortgage company never offers this. Finally I'm flipped out enough that when the Citi manager and I call back they have decided to waive all fees.

So far - it's taken me 11 calls. Eleven. I am not exaggerating in any way. I've had to have Citibank teleconference my mortgage company twice. And I wouldn't have even noticed this until I got a notice from the bank. The bank has always done what I've asked, and I've never had any reason to micro mange them. In a normal world it would have taken me several months to get this off my credit report. Because my time is not at all valuable to these people. Sadly - it wouldn't have been the first time I've needed to do this. Which is one reason I keep documents to infinity. It's the only way to clear your name,

My mortgage company even went as far to say "Mrs Snarkolepsy, all of the banks should have gotten this information propagated through the system by now. As if to say - we don't believe you. Even though they must see I've called 5 times since March 4th. I even had to tell them - I even had my bank send you a letter saying I paid you. This is your banks fault!

The stunning thing about this is getting information out of them is like pulling on a tiny loose thread. You tease a little information out, and on to the next person. Finally after 11 calls you can parse through and try to figure out their insanity.

All the more maddening - this is a prime mortgage company.

Later as I was reflecting on everything I realised this whole thing was a giant I don't trust you exercise. They don't trust I've made my mortgage payment, because I'm sure they haven't heard that a time or two - and I dont' trust them to not eff up my credit and my reputation.

The market can never recover until this gets better and people start to trust each other again.

Cont.....

A Corvette makes it to the blog.

Not because I like Corvettes - because it had an unusual license plate. This car was street legal. It had one of those pink stickers in the window that lets you drive when you are trying to resolve your registration. I've seen a car every once in a while from Britain like this - but this was out of Kuwait. Which somehow made it seem more rare.

That is a question mark.

Which insect is this car?

I'm phoning it in today. It's been a stressful week. This photo was taken a few months ago, and basically sucked. It did teach me something new about cars. If you look at them at the right angle you can see other things.

Gee. It's like we are all playing musical chairs waiting for the music to stop.

Frys "R" us.

After the horrible emails were leaked about Walmarts' February sales - I had to go and see if Frys Electronics was having the same "restocking" problems. Last time I blogged about Frys' it was because shelves were thread bear. They had since resolved that issue and things looked better.

This time when I went in - it was hard not to notice isles clogged with perfume and toys. And not the kind adults want to buy. The isles also seemed much wider. And finally.... TV's. You can get any 55 inch flat screen TV for 1500 bucks and below. Most are more in the 1000 dollar range. Any 60 inch screen TV for 2000 bucks and under.



All of this is giving the Fry's guy with the tesla ball a headache. I imagine him saying "eff my life".

Banks handle electronic payment problems really horribly.

I knew this day would come eventually. I just didn't think it would be when I was in the middle of a refi. They only had to get things right for three months. Three months!

On Friday I was paying bills when I noticed my mortgage payment hadn't cleared. For years it had been classified as an electronic payment and all of a sudden this month it was sent out by check. Should be no problem since I paid my mortgage on the 22nd. Should be enough time to get anywhere in the United States by mail or carrier pigeon. Yet no one had received my payment.

My bank (Citibank) insisted it has been sent electronically. Why does it tell me when I log in it was sent by check - I ask. I don't know why your screen says that Mrs Snarkolepsy, but we are sure it was sent electronically.  I call my mortgage company and they tell me they haven't received the payment, but I have until the 16th until they start charging a late fee.

I log into the bank on Monday because if it was sent electronically it doesn't matter if it was a weekend or not. My payment is still not there, so I call Citibank again.

Are you sure your account number is correct Mrs Snarkolepsy? Nothing has changed on this account I tell them. We can put a stop payment on this check, they offer. Which at first I was going to take, but then realised that even if I didn't physically write the check - it is still a check - and I will get a bounced check fee. After insisting nothing had changed I finally had enough and went to a manager who also insisted my payment was sent electronically. After about 17 minutes of trying to convince them nothing had changed, they offer to conference call in my mortgage company. Where it turns out that there was some internal routing change. I couldn't quite figure out the details, but it had something to do with Chase Bank taking over JP Morgan's accounts. All of the customers at my mortgage company were having the same problem. Which probably explains the high call volume.

Now my bank has the new routing information, however no one seems to be sure if my payment was sent by check (like it says when I log in) or electronically. They are still insisting it went electronically.

Today I get a call. Citibank was calling to tell me the payment was in fact sent by check and wanted to know if I want to make a stop payment. Where I tell the girl - I apologise in advance but I am going to flip out on you. And I did.

If this bank bumps me out of a refi, I am going to flip out on this bank - I say. My rent is now 5 days late! But this girls function apparently is only to find out if I want a stop payment. What do you want us to do - she asks. Which only incenses me more. I want to be able to trust my bank to do the things they say they are going to do - I reply. This payment has always been electronic and now all of a sudden it's being sent by check. And the mail system isn't the way it used to be. You used to be able to send anything in the United Stated by mail and it would get there within 7 days - now you can't even count on the mail service!

She goes on to talk about the routing problem. Where I flip out even more. The routing problem is between you and my mortgage company. A customer should never have to be put in the middle of this problem. All I am trying to do it pay my bills. And the bigger issue is why does it take three calls to find out how my payment was even sent!

So far I'm at 6 phone calls to try to get this resolved. Three to my bank, three to my mortgage company. I actually don't know if my payment is lost or not. My mortgage company tells me not to worry. In a different world I wouldn't. But who believes anything these people say after the last four years?

Now when I make payments I always get to wonder if my rent will be paid on time. Because they can arbitrarily change the way your payments are sent without notifying you.

Phones now - laptops soon. To infinity and beyond.

Free cellphones available for California resident on SSI, Medicaid and food stamps.

"California residents who receive Supplemental Security Income, food stamps, Medicaid and other public assistance or who earn less than $15,000 per year can receive free cellphones and service as of today."

No one here is surprised. Right? Okay - I know I have to work harder to narrow an eyebrow here. Soooooo.

I was sort of curious how they pay for this. Especially when I read this.

"Roughly 4.6 million California households, including 200,000 from Sacramento, could be eligible for the Lifeline program, based on estimates by Assurance."

Sure, I know all these phones are going to be recyclers, but they are still providing service! Well, it turns out the government extorts cell phone providers to pay into a fund. They should call it the cell phone extortion fund, but it is really called the Universal Service Fund which caught my attention right away. I've never heard of it. But this is wikipedia says about it.

"The Universal Service Fund (USF) was created by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1997 to meet Congressional universal service goals as mandated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The 1996 Act states that all providers of telecommunications services should contribute to federal universal service in some equitable and nondiscriminatory manner; there should be specific, predictable, and sufficient Federal and State mechanisms to preserve and advance universal service; all schools, classrooms, health care providers, and libraries should, generally, have access to advanced telecommunications services; ****and finally, that the Federal-State Joint Board and the FCC should determine those other principles that, consistent with the 1996 Act, are necessary to protect the public interest ****"

Emphasis mine.

The things you see on the freeway.

I got this yesterday. Which was good because do you know how dangerous it is to take photos when you are driving solo? As it was - I took 10 shots and all of them came out sorta like this. The roads are pretty jacked up these days.

California - super cool to the homeless.

If I see a guy with a Hawaiian shirt, and a fresh hair cut begging for money - I'm going to take a picture of it. After reviewing the photo, I thought it was a nice touch that his shirt was creased.

That should have been a sign.

This morning, I went to the kitchen to get the coffee Mr S. had made me, and I looked out the window.

Me - Is that woman carrying a golf club?

Mr S. looks out, but it take a couple of seconds for her to come into full view.

Him - Yeah. That is a golf club.

But she's walking her tiny dog (and I mean tiny), and she's got on a sweatshirt with pockets. Her hands are in her pockets as is the handle of the golf club. The part where you hit the ball resting on her shoulder. Just a single club.

If that doesn't make a statement, I don't know what does.

Then, I then go on to spend over an hour on the phone with my bank trying to figure out where my mortgage payment is. I paid electronically on the 22nd. 17 minutes into the conversation the manager finally says - well, do you want me to call your mortgage company. In my mind I say - fuck yeah, are you high? Why didn't you offer this to me earlier! But of course I do the opposite and feign appreciation. Which was good, because we spent 7 minutes on hold together with the mic open. So, we got to know each other.

Did I mention I'm 50% though a refi? I close on April 17th. And it's the weirdest thing because I started it in January. I thought they were going to incessantly have me resend the same documentation over and over. So far the main bug up their ass is - they wanted to make sure the place was insured. I've only had to send in documentation once.

It's a Mark Twain Thing.

Whenever I come back from Sacramento - I always see these signs for Angels Camp. I've never been there. I've always wanted to go the the caverns. But, I didn't want to do that yesterday. We just decided to freestyle. Once we got there we realised the town was kinda kitchy, and I'd run across pictures of these frogs. It's built all around this story from Mark Twain. Turns out Angels Camp is kinda a biker stop as well as Murphy's. Which made me remember Porta Costa. And now I just want to find all the biker hangouts I can find - because bikers seem to like kitchy places.

Your chains can not hold me.

NO pooping! Seriously.

How many times does that have to happen before you become motivated to make a sign?

What is wrong with this picture?

Ah, those stupid environmentalists.

I haven't blogged about this topic in a while because well... whats the point. However this article did make me laugh and rub my temples.

Abound Solar - you know, one of those companies that stole your money. Well, it turns out they were selling defective panels. The company knew the panels were defective. But that is not the funny part.

The funny part is someone is left with 100,000 under-performing, unsellable panels. Which now are hazardous disposable waste. Because those dumb shits thought - these panels last forever! We are making the world a better place. Oh, don't you feel smug? Oh me too. No matter that solar panels are actually made up of environmentally unfriendly stuff.

Well, if they can't find some sucker to buy this crap (and I doubt they will! Why would they?) they are going to bury them in Eastern Colorado encased in concrete! No shit. Good job environmentalists! 100,000 panels. One hundred thousand.

Read about it here.

Maybe it will be okay after all.

I think I blogged about my neighbors house getting robbed a couple of weeks ago. Last night I was in my kitchen when I saw a guy enter their house and walk around with a flashlight. Which freaked me out. Mr S. went out to confront the guy who turned out to be the neighbors grandson.

Today when I was out watering my lawn (because there is no rain in the universe) - the neighbor to my right came over to chat about golf. And whatever. I kinda like the old guy. We didn't really get to know him until our fence came down. And I like to tease him about giving me his pristine Stingray Corvette. Which is mostly just teasing because it's grey (therefore not a color) and you see how much love Corvettes get on this blog. Right? The body is in perfect condition though.

Anyway, I asked if he heard us out last night with the neighbors grand kid. They live directly in front of the one that got robbed. He went on to tell me he thought they ripped all the lights out of the house.

Me - What?

Him - I don't know for sure, but that's what I heard.

Me - Why would they do that?

I mean, this lady's house hasn't been updated in maybe decades. And she is like 80 years old. He goes on to say.... I remember when that family bought that house 30/35 years ago. The people fell behind on their mortgage and they got repossessed.

Me - THAT HOUSE?

Him - Yeah. They ripped all the copper piping out.

Again I say - that house. And I point to it.

Him - Yeah he confirms.

Me - Just like now then. That is weird.

Doing rough math, that would have roughly been the 80's. I find the whole thing fascinating because I thought this recession had the sole reputation for copper theft. Who would have even known that copper was that valuable back then. History really does repeat itself I guess.

Almost as good as Yak shaving day.

Tightrope.

What do you think?

Remember a couple of weeks ago Mr S. went in for an eye check up and his doctor had a full on breakdown in front of us? I mean, this guy was crying for shits sakes.

I'd known him for quite a few years, so I wound up giving him my personal email. I mean, what else do you do? The whole thing was awkward for everyone.

All of a sudden I start getting spam from his office. Not once, but twice.

Mr S. decided on updating his reading glasses and when we went to pick them up, the doctor was just switching out patients and he noticed me there. I kind of just glared at him. Because in the tech world - that was a dick move. I would have just let it pass, but he persisted in trying to engage me.

I would have done it more privately, but finally I was like - Can you take my email out of your database?

Him - but I thought you wanted me to mail you.

Mr S. chimes in - Not with Spam.

This is where the doctor goes full retard.

Him - I didn't do that. I swear on my life.

I didn't want to argue with him. I mean, how else did my email get into their database? So I continue. Okay, can you just please remove it. When someone tells you they are giving you their personal email, that isn't an account for spam.

Him - I didn't do that and I can't believe you are reacting this way.

Okay, okay - please just remove it. Obviously this guy is really dug in.

Men, I swear - sometimes you make it so hard for yourselves. He could have just said he was sorry and moved on. But he had to dig in and double down. This whole thing could have been over by now. But no!

We get back to the house and a little while later, who do you think calls? His eye doctor. Who wants to talk to me. Which is just the weirdest thing ever. I'm not mad. I think it was a totally socially awkward Seinfeldian thing to do. But aside from that - all I want is not to get spam from him. That's all!

I'm not sure what to do at this point, because he said he was going to call back. How weird is that?! I don't know what to say to him. For effs sakes.

HEY! Didn't we invade a whole country to steal their oil? If only our government were as useless when trying to steal from it's own citizens. Presidents Days isn't even a driving holiday! Most people don't have it off.

Dear World - you dissapoint me.

You know in California we have these idiotic plastic bag bans at supermarkets, right? You can get a plastic bag anywhere else, but the one place you have to buy a zillion small things - you have to bring your own bag or buy a paper bag. Which drives me batshit crazy. Sure I sometimes have bags in the car which I forget about until I'm in line.

This whole thing just pisses me off because this problem really ramped up when they wanted plastic bags to degrade faster. So, they started making them two hair lengths thick. Which made them so they couldn't even hold one orange without the bag ripping wide open.

People like me started using 2 or three just be able to walk out of the store without a box of tissues ripping open a bag. All of a sudden the streets were littered with plastic bags. Thin tiny wispy ones. But still. Now we are in a complete ban.

So, imagine my surprise this weekend when I ran into this at Lucky's. A Mylar looking bag right next to the ones they are selling patrons to comply with the ban. You know that is going to catch my attention. WTF - I say. Turns out, 2/3's of this bag is made of polyethylene. The exact same material they are screaming about now that wont break down and kills whales and kicks puppies. Only this thing is far thicker than the ones we used to get from the stores before the ban. After all, it's suppose to keep your cold stuff cold.



Let me just point out the green bag says "Reusable bag for a greener America"


I see they are also placing paper bags in the front isle for people to purchase. Which makes me want to run to the restaurant supply store and start selling paper bags at a discount out of the back of a van.




I've even started fantasizing about having a bag or two made up that says something like NO BAGGER NEEDED. Or something perhaps more clever than that. If I bring my own bag - I think I should also be able to bag myself. Putting bagger out of a job. So far I've been using trade show swag bags.

And then! I can't get an effing plastic bag to take my groceries to the car - BUT! I can get two watermelons in a mesh bag. Because it's to hard to say 2 for the price of 1. They need a bag!

Every day I repeat this mantra:

Don't go tits up until my refi goes through. You see... in the new America it takes 3 months to get a refi though. With the same bank that currently holds the mortgage. I'm not even changing banks!

Ah - I remember the days when you could close a sale on a house tip to stern in one month. Inspections - everything. Now, for some reason I have to hold my breath that the economy doesn't fall off a cliff before April. I mean, it seems to me people are already starting to figure out thing are not well in unicorn village.