March 2009

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Stop the whining… Just stop.

March 26, 2009 in Commentary by MAD | No comments

I just listened to ‘The Story’, from March, 24th, 2009. About a temp worker at Microsoft, who was unwilling to accept a 10% pay cut, or rather wasn’t happy about it and started fussing.

He whines about being indistinguishable from an employee, other than the color of his badge. Yet he doesn’t get to partake in off-site team building activities that employees get to partake in. Temp workers get no real benefits from Microsoft. (Duh, that’s why they are temp workers).

How can you be that stupid? He wants temp workers to unite and stand up for their rights. Rights that, well, as temp workers you don’t have.

Here are the facts jack:

  • You’re a temporary worker, i.e. contract worker.
  • Your Job could go away at the snap of a finger. There are a million and one reasons a company like Microsoft uses Temp/Contract workers, the primary reason of course is to control costs.
  • You agreed to be a contract worker.

Now if they are being treated poorly because they are temp workers, that’s different. That’s simply poor management. But they are NOT employees; hence they don’t have the same rights and privileges.

This is a horrible ‘Woe-is-me, I’m entitled to something story’ that is all too common with ‘The Story’. It’s very, very frustrating.

Pay cuts, temporary or otherwise aren’t any fun. Not fun for those taking the cuts, or those who have to implement them. Get over it, 10% less is far more than you’ll get from the unemployment office.

Here is the Seattle Times article on this clown.

Investment Banking Explained

March 18, 2009 in Commentary, Opinion by MAD | 1 comment

(This is floating around, I didn’t write it)

Young Chuck moved to Texas and bought a donkey from a farmer for $100.
The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
The next day the farmer drove up and said, ‘Sorry Chuck, but I have some bad news, the donkey died.’
Chuck replied, ‘Well, then just give me my money back.’
The farmer said, ‘Can’t do that. I went and spent it already.’
Chuck said, ‘OK, then, just bring me the dead donkey.’
The farmer asked, ‘Whatcha gonna do with a dead donkey?
Chuck said, ‘I’m going to raffle him off.’
The farmer said ‘You can’t raffle off a dead donkey!’
Chuck said, ‘Sure I can. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.’
A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, ‘What happened with that dead donkey?’
Chuck said, ‘I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars apiece and made a profit of $898.00.’
The farmer said, ‘Didn’t anyone complain?’
Chuck said, ‘Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.’
Chuck now works for AIG where he’s about to get a huge bonus!

FJR Crash Bars a good investment.

March 17, 2009 in 06 FJR 1300, Motorcycling by MAD | 1 comment

So I’m just riding to work minding my own business. I’m about a mile away, three turns left to negotiate.

A left, a right, then a left into the parking lot. I go through this intersection every day and yes it always looks like hell.

But this time it has an extra special coating of something oil like which I don’t see until after I try to stand up and just about bust my a$$.

I was going maybe 15-20, the road leading to it is 45MPH and I didn’t have to wait for the light and there was no one in front of me.

I go to turn left and *bam*

Next thing I know I’m sliding across the pavement, uttering a few obscenities.

Luckily there was an ambulance sitting at the light. They guys jumped out helped me pick up the bike. They offered to call it in, but I declined. Nobody hurt but my FJR and my pride.

All I recall is hitting my head, it happened that fast. Helmet’s good, jacket is good, gloves (check). I was wearing jeans, and if I hadn’t had the benefit of what ever was lubricating the street, I’d be rashed a bit. There’s no real rash, it’s more like a rug burn.

The turn:

From FJR Crashbar Test

(notice the scrape marks from my bike)

From FJR Crashbar Test

Now for the Feej, Standard left side low-side damage:

From FJR Crashbar Test

From FJR Crashbar Test

From FJR Crashbar Test

I only had the fronts installed, the rears are too fugly for me, and the ones I have don’t have peg mounts for the passenger pegs.

Though my left side is starting to get a little sore.

 

The mirror took a hit but is still intact. I already have a replacement though :)  

I’ll just need a bag… and a new left side crashbar, some new gear and I’ll be ready to go.

Clearly the crashbar saved my stator cover (already dinged up from a parking lot drop) and my left side fairing. That more than covers the cost of the bars.

Higher res images are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mdisher/FJRCrashbarTest#

Get Off My Land!

March 16, 2009 in Commentary, Homestead by MAD | 3 comments

Man have things changed.  We’re no longer the hip young couple in the old farm house.  We’ve moved on to being the crotchety couple in the farm house (though we have yet to garner the classification of ‘old’).  The old people are what started this.

We have a decent amount of land just outside of Trenton Ohio that surrounds the 3 acres that our house sits on.   On that 13 acres, my in-laws are building a house.   Ask me in 5-10 years if that was a good idea or not.

As a result of this we (they) had to have our property surveyed so that we could get a legal description of the land we’re giving them (or allowing them) to build on.

This has turned up two areas of encroachment.  One we were aware of and one that we were not.

In the front of our property (see drawing), we knew there was a small triangular piece of property that is actually ours.  The previous owners told us about it when we bought the place.   But they had a gentleman’s agreement with the neighbor at the time to allow them to fence a squared off area.   When we moved in they had goats in that small field, and later a cow.

Those neighbors have since moved on, a victim of the mortgage crisis before there was a crisis. (More a victim of common sense than anything but I digress).  The new owner uses the property as rental property.  When we met them we discussed the area in question but it wasn’t a big deal to us.   Now that the land has been surveyed it is a big deal.

It seems if you don’t protect your property, it will be squatted on and you’ll lose it.  By us continuing to permit them to have our land fenced, we’re risking losing it.   20 feet of road frontage is not something we wish to lose so we now we need to enforce the property lines.   As it turns out, the entire west side of the neighbors fence is on our property and will likely need to be removed.

We have an issue at the back of our property as well.

Land

The Delaware Crossing subdivision behind us and to the west is legendary.  It’s been tied up in legal issues from day one.  The builder we believe went bankrupt and the City of Trenton now owns the property.

At the back of our property, there’s a small park for the subdivision.  A couple basketball courts, and play equipment.

The problem is where they ran the walking path, or the access path to get to this park.  It was originally supposed to go between two houses as you can see in the picture.   But apparently the folks who live in those houses didn’t like that.  So the neighbor closest to us suggested they run it along our fence line and his side yard.   The developer agreed.  The only problem was they paid no attention to the property lines.

It looks something like this:

encroachment

The sad part about it, is that they had to tear down some of our fence to make this happen.

So here we go again.  We have to re-establish our boundaries or we risk losing this piece of land.

Our initial thought was to simply lease it to them.   But there is no ‘them’.  The homeowners association in Delaware Crossing is defunct.   The city now maintains the park, well they city and the residents that back up to it somewhat share that burden.

If we fence it, it will block their access.  They won’t be able to get a vehicle back to the part without tearing up our neighbors yard, and even then it will be tight, very tight.

We’ve talked to them and they will likely fence from our fence to their house which will kill all access to the park.

The City is encouraging us to put our fence back.  If people can’t use the park they don’t have to maintain it.

So the question becomes, what kind of fence?  Because what ever we put back there will be vandalized, you can count on that.

So if you have any ideas or suggestions, post them up we’re all ears.  Of course we want to enforce all of this with as little out of pocket expense as possible.

The Stimulus and us

March 16, 2009 in Commentary by MAD | No comments

No big shocker, the economy is messed up.  Obama and his stimulus package are now a done deal.  Don’t get me wrong, I think Obama is a smart guy, and a smooth talker.  The kind of guy you have to watch out for.

I think this image sums it up best:

obama-hype

So here we are.  The 800 bajillion dollar stimulus package has been passed by the Dems and signed off on by the president.

Here’s what it means to us based upon the info in this article on yahoo news.

First off, the Dishers are not rich.  We’re blessed but far from rich.  We’re technically middle class based upon my income and the fact that my income is our only income.

We still have some debt, but apparently far less than most Americans.   We didn’t buy more house than we could afford, and we pay our mortgage every month on-time.  Yep, even though it’s now worth less.   Not less than we paid for it, but less than it was worth 2 years ago.

Of course we could have bought a much bigger house, borrowed more money than we could afford and taken out a silly balloon or interest only mortgage but I guess we were smarter than that.  Or perhaps maybe not so smart.  We’re not getting bailed out in any way.

It looks like I can count on an extra $13 a week, or $52 a month.   Not sure what I’m supposed to stimulate with that?   I suppose that could subsidize our cable bill.   Though if we were to buckle down and trim expenses that would be the first things to go. 

“The $1,000 child tax credit would be extended to more low-income families that don’t make enough money to pay income taxes, and poor families with three or more children will get an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit”

This makes no sense to me.  We’re not low-income so I guess we don’t get this?  What benefit is a per-child income tax credit if you don’t make enough money to pay taxes to begin with?  Someone please explain this to me.

We’re technically middle-income so we’ll be spared the Alternative minimum tax what ever that is.

We’re not a first time home buyer so…   No benefit for us there.  Why would an $8k tax credit be limited to first time buyers only?  That seems discriminatory to me.

We can get a $1500 tax credit, if we spend a ton of money in an effort to get efficient.   We don’t need a new furnace, and to replace our windows (all 36 of them) even with a $1500 credit is still cost prohibitive.  The cost (over $20k) would buy a LOT of heat and AC.

So needless to say we won’t be stimulating the real estate economy because we’re not first time home buyers.   If you’ve been foreclosed on do you get your first time buyer status back?

We also won’t be stimulating the home improvement industry because $1500 isn’t applicable to us.

If I lose my job I’ll be happy that the first $2400 of unemployment won’t be taxable.

9 months of Cobra subsidy would also come in handy if I were to lose my job.  But why only 9 months?   If I’m still unemployed after 9 months I won’t be able to afford it then even though the Govt will let me keep it longer (up to 18 months?)

If I buy a new car, I get to deduct the sales tax?  Nice.   I’m not buying a new car, and unless you’re independently wealthy, you won’t be buying one either.  This doesn’t apply to used or pre-owned cars.  And it’s not clear if it applies only to the auto-makers they are about to bail out. 

If you want to give me $8k to spend on a car, I’ll happily buy a nice used car for about $10k.   That might stimulate the economy some, but no I’m not going into debt further to buy a new car that will depreciate 30% as soon as I drive it off the lot.

I also really don’t  understand how the Government can loan 43 Billion dollars to a company who’s current Market Capitalization is only 1.3 Billion.

So somehow we’re all supposed to save the economy with our $57 more per month?

I don’t get it.   But rest assured, if you don’t make enough money to pay taxes, you’re getting a tax credit.

Thanks President Obama.

(Note this was drafted a couple weeks ago, and forgotten about)