wasted some money on a double cappuccino and blueberry scone today while chatting with friend, then on some kitty weed, dried and fresh, to test the cats' individual speeds to "oblivion." One cat is mellow, one is happy, and one is surfin' about harum-scarum.

Skillet Chicken Dijon
Ingredients
1/3 cup hot chicken broth
2 tablespoons dry white wine
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/8 tsp dried tarragon
dash of pepper
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
nonstick cooking spray, butter, or oil

Preparation
In a small bowl, combine chicken broth, wine, mustard, basil, tarragon and pepper. Set aside. Rinse chicken; pat dry. Spray a large skillet with nonstick cooking spray or coat with a little butter or oil. Heat skillet over medium-high heat; add chicken. Cook chicken for about 2-3 minutes each side, or until lightly browned.

Remove skillet from the heat; carefully add broth mixture. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for about 5 minutes, or until chicken is tender and cooked through. Remove chicken to a warm serving plate; boil pan juices for about a minute to reduce to about 1/4 cup. Pour juices over chicken. serve with rice and a green vegetable.

Servings: Four

Chicken Paprika
Lots of ways to make this. Could I find the one recipe with roast red pepper I had in front of me when I constructed this? No. Sorry. When I do, I'll post it here, or scan it and give you the link to my Mega lode. I have three others, but this one is quick and has the least ingredients.
Servings: Two
Ingredients
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
paprika powder
ground pepper
can of stewed tomatoes
cup of cream (heavy? whipping? I use whipping)

Preparation
Place 1/2 cup of flour onto a piece of waxed paper and coat the chicken in the flour. In a large frypan, add some olive oil to cover the bottom and lightly fry the chicken until it is brown on both sides.

Remove the chicken from the frypan and set it aside.

Add stewed tomatoes juice to the frypan and stir over medium-high heat until juice boils. Add three tablespoons of paprika to the juice, and continue to boil for one more minute.

Add the cup of cream to the mixture and raise to a boil then reduce heat to low immediately. Replace the chicken in the sauce, cover and cook over low heat for 30 minutes or until chicken is tender.

Update: You're welcome! Simple as this last one is, it is the one that my son's best friend asked me to send to his mother.

Having a tough time thinking up things today:

1. Grateful for comprehensive factory-produced user manuals for new car. I felt more than slow trying for five minutes to get the car to move before understanding a more complicated procedure of getting the vehicle out of park was required for when it was on an incline.

2. Grateful for auto dealer offering to pay for oil service due at time of our test drive and purchase.

3. Grateful to have sweaters and zip-up cardigans to wear when the weather is cold.

Not new. Not an HP nor a Dell. I bought a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 530 at a local business, not a big box store national chain. The TouchPad seems more durable, and there is more storage and a number pad. I like that I was not talked down to, and nobody minded that I used the one floor model with web access to check CNET reviews and user reviews/complaints. They could not ignore me because three people were on shift and my family were the only customers in for awhile.

I have backed up my documents, videos, songs, executables on the Studio 1537 to an external drive.
I will not use or start the Lenovo until everything has been backed up.

The outdoor plants think it is spring. Some muscari corms have green shoots, including some in a bucket. One rose bush has leaf buds. The rhododendrons bloomed again in September after a June prune. I know I am supposed to be mortally terrorized by climate change and greenhouse gases, and my heart did go out to the people on the East Coast who survived an unprecedented storm.

We did have a very wet day on November 19, with reports of flooding in an area one mile away from us. Nothing to warrant FEMA's attention though, and we are glad to live on a hill. I think I will put that in my list of requirements when I move: be on a hill away from floods. However, I walked without jacket or gloves today outside in the sun, and love that I could do that.

Thanks to our credit union. I feel some tension release: I am very pessimistic about our finances and about my life in general. I shan't share the maximum amount we were approved for, only that I am convinced we can get a car we can afford and live with, and that the process took twenty-two minutes instead of thirteen because our member services consultant needed assistance getting the loan docs filled out. We even got a free calendar.

Spending Turkey Day in Vancouver BC, but having turkey nonetheless as a Canadian restaurant is acknowledging the holiday down south. I hope to buy some CDs and maybe some silver.

My Dell 1537 will be replaced within a month too, I believe. The USB ports are damaged and very sensitive. I did not like that Dell's website balks at the idea of sending me, after I submitted my Service Tag info, to Windows 7 display drivers (because I AM running Win 7, 64-bit) and instead rests me at Windows Vista, which I do not have.

We splurged today at a candy store, where we found some longlost childhood favourites like Fruit Stripe (used to be Lucky Stripe, after the cigarette brand Lucky Strike) gum and Oh Henry! bars, and coconut curry cashews.

Oh yes, spammers can go die of septic shock while being tenderized by an auger at high speeds.

After a jaunt to Vancouver, purchases of new sheets for the bed, vacuum cleaner and handheld blender and SureFit slipcovers for our shredded (we have cats) upholstery, the credit card account approaches $1000. I did go to the Veterans Day evening sale at Sears, paid $249.99 plus tax for the Kenmore 21614, getting a Cuisinart handheld blender as well for about 11% of that.

Why the splurges? We had delayed the slipcover purchases for years, and the vacuum cleaner hose, with its silver-tape patches, showed its age and would cost close to $100 to replace. The handheld blender is useful for whipping cream, blending soups and salad dressings, all of which I do with bulkier appliances.

I regret nothing! Except my clutter, and attention deficit, and taking way too long to get back to people, and bothering to make golden orange cupcakes which were good but barely touched by my book group.

The school Fall Family Feast was cancelled due to low interest. Colour me surprised: the insinuation that junk food would be an essential part of feast food in other countries' harvest celebrations was insulting. This from a school whose country propelled Paula Deen and Guy Fieri to television stardom.

and tomorrow I go to Sears and spring for a new vacuum cleaner. Let us hope it sucks hard. I did my research and we arrived the day before a sale, so we saw the model in stock.

A mutual follower on Twitter had a Donald Duck-style rage on Tuesday night. For her, I vow to save at least $3.32 a day or at least pay my debt down by $3.32 a day. Fortunately for me my mortgage will count in that $3.32.

Looking at tax changes for 2013 I think I will go get some advanced or intermediate data processing skills and a wardrobe and head out for jobs.

Parameters:
A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York pegs total debt for all Americans at $11.44 trillion in the first quarter of 2012.

2011 US population estimated at 311,591,917.

The average American has a total debt of $36,714.69.

Approximately 68% of people in America own homes (or have titles to homes that they pay mortgages on). Some have huge mortgage balances while others are nearly paying their homes off. The total mortgage debt per homeowner would be $38,874.38.
Average mortgage size in my city this year is $302,220.
Average home price in my zip code is $317,000.

So I can choose to feel bad about owing $124,161.26, way above the average American mortgage debt per homeowner, or I can feel great about my mortgage size being well below average in my city. Let's see what the average home price is in the US: $204,187 according to Standard & Poor w/Census Bureau for January 2012. So average equity would be: $165,312.62.

Average house price in my city is $377,000.
Average equity for people purchasing this year would be $74780, so lots of people putting down 20%.

The average American has HELOC debt of $1,835.73 ($3,671.47 per family). Ours is about seven times that. I keep telling myself that when I reach $16500 in liquid cash (money market account, CDs, savings accounts) I will pay down the HELOC in earnest. I was better about paying the HELOC before we adjusted my spouse's withholding. I have no regrets about adjusting the withholding: writing four-digit cheques to the Treasury Department was turning my hair white prematurely. We are at $15305 liquid cash (not including savings bonds, the mortgage and utility payment due the first of October).

The average American has car loan debt of $2,202.88 ($4,405.76 per family). No debt here.

The average American has credit card debt of $2,202.88 ($4,405.76 per family). I checked the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

graph: equal percentages of car loan and credit card debt. I have about $600 due on upcoming statements, but no interest nor finance charges.

The problems with averages are how skewed the wealth distribution is in the US (and here, we have a coupla billionaires), and how long people have owned their homes. Also, the Case-Shiller graph, which I did not use, has about twenty Metropolitan Statistical Areas only, and not the rural houses which would cost much less.

I was thinking it would, quite frankly, as F.I.A. Services regularly monitored my credit, and my credit utilization ratio is below 20%. But no, I had to reapply for my credit card to be reinstated. It was my only credit card, I had it for twelve years but did not use it for eight, on account that the bank who bought out the original card-issuer did nothing to make the card competitive with the credit union credit card -- the foreign transaction fee was not low, the grace period was briefer, the terms and conditions changed more rapidly than a telecommunications provider. I even asked twice to be transferred to someone in Credit Review, but apparently that is "going off script."

I wonder what effect the denial of reinstatement would have on my car insurance. I also wonder where I should apply for credit, if anywhere, considering I do not have a job at present. If only there were a general use credit card that was preferable to using cash, like the Target RedCard, with a decent grace period, and that I could use pretty much exclusively while I was in Canada (i.e. no 3% foreign transaction fee). The limit does not have to be high: the cancelled card had a limit of $15200. It would be disappointing and anomalous if, considering we get decent rates and rapid approval for all the credit lines and mortgages we have opened for the past nine years, Bank of America denied me the reinstatement of the credit card.

What credit utilization ratio is preferable? With the Signature Visa our credit utilization percentage is 13.6%, without, it is 16.7%. Should I be paying down the HELOC? Should I ask for the HELOC limit to be upped past $50K so it is not seen as a revolving account? Or should I be saving up $$ for the higher insurance premiums I would pay despite my pristine and lengthy payment history on my other credit accounts and driving record?

I refueled the car at $3.56/gallon USD. Just outside Seattle. (The cheapest price quoted in town is about forty cents more.) Thank you, Safeway!

I also went to the beach to pick up about 20 lbs of sand for foot skin exfoliation. Our drug store had sold out (!) of pumice stone. Walking 0.2 mi uphill with the 20 lbs of sand was part of my exercise. I will sleep well tonight, it is hoped.

Eating down the pantry for the second day in a row. This time I emptied the millet. Yesterday it was 2 1/12s of 1 lb packages of linguine and fettuccine.

PayPal has suspended my husband's account due to a SUPPOSED suspicious credit card activity on 6/30. We looked at our July statement tonight and saw a refuel at a gas station for a typical amount (11.7 gallon tank, 10.6 gallons refueled, what is the problem? Did everyone except us stop using credit cards for gas station refills?). I have never been a fan of companies who have the policy "we can end your account for no reason, and you can't argue with us". That does not win the kind of customer that is me or my husband.

$250 to last us six days, and not just the food budget (not much challenge to live on $250 worth of food for two adults and a kiddie). My household's remaining food items are refrigerated vegetables, half of which will be juiced; eggs; condiments; salmon; frozen perogies and vegetables; boneless skinless chicken thighs; handpicked berries; buckwheat soba noodles; quinoa; brown rice; sushi rice; pasta; oatmeal; sun-dried tomatoes.

Ideas: Oyako Donburi, Garlic Lime Salmon, Lentils 'n' Rice or Kusherie, Kasha Varnishkes, Frittatas, Karaage, some Pino Luongo recipes (the famed restauranteur/cookbook author went bankrupt in NYC recently), Perogies for those who want 'em, Coconut Chicken Curry, and Meatloaf.

Entertainment Link: 1958 Mad Daddy Pete Myers DJ recorded radio broadcast (early rock'n'roll, rhythm'n'blues) including a crazy thrill from David Seville

book by Phil Villarreal.
I do not think I would make a good stingy scoundrel. I have two watches, even though Phil says they are archaic nuisances, one for "take me seriously" and another for "ooh I like colours!". Also, he says tan lines are annoying, but he is from a warm-weather locale where drying clothes outside yearlong is a good idea. As a Cascadian (PNW), a tan line for me is like a 1963 silver dime. I like the colours and styles of these watches more than I do the phone's and the mp3 player's, and today's hi-tech thug just doesn't rip off arms at the elbow after some guileless person responds with the time @ the thug's request. Mp3 players and mobile phones can be snatched away.

Other disagreements I have with Phil, but this book is a collection of hilarious and ethically questionable ideas. This is what I have amassed from the first 34 pages.

Frugal Virus/Disease Busting Shots of hard liquor or almonds, grapes or onions chase your cough away!
Apples battle light depression.
Eat lemon slices to speed riddance of a common cold.
If your toenails are cracked and discolored by fungus piss on them. Or pour vinegar on them. I cannot pee on my toes: I am not that limber.

Price Matching Fun! What you need: stacks of sticky notes, pen and glossy grocery store ads. Affix Post-It to non-store-brand item, then name your own price. Use the pen to jot down the price-matched figure you are willing to pay. Feign authenticity by adding a random competing store name to each sticky note.

Things you never have to buy: honey, paper napkins, soy sauce, jam, relish, pepper. Just go help yourself from a fast food place or supermarket deli/food court.

Never visit a garage sale before noon on Sundays. I am totally going to follow this from now on.

Relationship/budget saver This one is for the young men, the ones who pretend they don't read my blog. WNBA. Varsity games. Minor leagues. Instant score with the GF (if you are hetero), and better for your budget.

Keep a spray bottle of diluted dish soap on hand then blast ants to oblivion.

I could not resist a book written by TheConsumerist.com alumnus Phil Villarreal, and my son could not resist a book with a cover showing George Washington's numismatic likeness embellished with red-crayon horns and demonic eyes and goatee.

I shall read it as a newborn (not kicking myself for not having thought this stuff up earlier, that is) and share the good parts: unless you've read it already, of course.

I activated, that is, I punched numbers on a dial pad after a successful connection to a credit card company telephone line, a credit card I have owned since 2000.
I did this two weeks ago because I saw that American Express offers collision damage waiver insurance. Then I went to the car rental office to make my reservation.

Today I entered the car rental agency to pick up my vehicle and to pay in advance for the rental. I brought my American Express credit card and furnished it for processing. The transaction did not go through. I called American Express and learned my account was closed.

So yes, Americans, you can be given a replacement card and balance transfer checks and be allowed to activate that replacement card when your account is closed. If this makes sense to you please explain it to me. Because I am of little brain and little understanding in this.

I learned my VISA card allows collision damage waiver benefit, but not before an automaton tried to send me to the internet. I am not on the internet 24/7 and needed this information immediately.

$405.07 for evaluation from occupational therapist confirming dysgraphia in DS: had hoped insurance would cover it, but it's flipping -----, so bleh. And my car/house/motorcycle insurer ----- ratcheted my renewal policy UP 10%. For a vehicle maybe worth 3x the insurance annual premium.

$800 roughly for a deposit for landscaping, $100 already spent on a room for the roadtrip, and DH decides he wants a rulebook for his fantasy role-playing game. Idiot that I am, I say okay, until I see how much the rulebook costs.

I understand the importance of having personal and discretionary allowance, but prioritizing costs getting the house ready for sale, and testing for child's individual education program, and car insurance, where does the new rulebook for fantasy role-playing come in? I am still paying for last month's tidalwave of medical expenses, baseball tickets (requested for and by my impending visitors)

Only because I intend to rent a car with it for our holiday. This better not be the beginning of the end.

I left at intermission, after

this. Children saw this live, but I can't say it is safe for any animal lovers. It's from Buster Brown Shoes-sponsored "Andy's Gang" television show for children, hosted by westerns character actor Andy Devine. Andy introduces Midnight the cat and Squeaky the rodent as they perform "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know." I wonder how many children grew up to be animal activists and atheists. The only bright spot was Vito Scotti.

You've been warned. It's from a 4hr 40min compilation video collection "Movie Orgy" from famed director Joe Dante. It had to be screened for free because the production and distribution were free, but I wanted my money back.

1. California
2. Hawaii
3. Maryland
4. New Jersey
5. Washington
6. Massachusetts
7. Virginia
8. Connecticut
9. Colorado
10. Nevada

To Nevada's credit, the average credit card balance outstanding is among the lowest in the nation.

My state sucks, of course as it has the 16th highest unemployment rate in the country and a high poverty rate of 12.5%. Credit card debt per person in Washngton: $6,825 (17th highest).

Link

Must remember to treat myself for these $10K milestones. Not a "treat" for myself, but I am licensing and microchipping my bad brown boy kitty. I may start colouring my hair again, now that grey hair is coming in. My first one was plucked by my hairstylist. I gave her a book of dirty comics as a thank you gift. Next $10K milestone scheduled for March 1 2013.

It's a religious observation, sure, but meditating on its secular connotation here are some:
1. my food bill is high because the meat I buy is growth-hormone free. Sure that sounds smug until you know that my dying mom asked me to eat organic and whole foods. If your parents died from degenerative and cardiac disease you'd be making different choices too.

2. Inertia is the only thing stopping us from cancelling our landline. The only calls are from offshore autodialers, and they're not worth running out of the shower to answer.

3. You know what would be funny? A 2000s-era home-building publicly traded company specializing in Nevada/Arizona/California properties called "Icarus." Seattle can have "Fungi Bull Properties."

4. Come to think of it "Seattle Spores" would be a funny NHL hockey name.

5. The Canucks is not a nice team name: "A Canadian, esp. a French Canadian (chiefly used by Canadians themselves and often derogatory in the US)", but it's used. What's sad is that "Canadiens" is a team name used in a city in a separatist province. "Canadian" is also a code term

white American racists use to label African-Americans.

6. Insurance companies somehow know when our insurance becomes due: three solicitations in two days for our business. Two of them give teaser quotes higher than what we currently pay, and one of them has the Hugh Dennis catchphrase "Are you paying too much for... insurance?"

7. Ease is the Disease.

8. For your decluttering/weight-loss/woo-trippy pleasure, It's All Too Much - Beatles YouTube (safe for all)

Friday I witnessed six impossible things before noon:
1. Smooth ride free of congestion to downtown, namely the Public Markets.
2. Immediately available parking.
3. Easy walk with 25 lb box o' meat to car.
4. Easy parking spot to Western Ave where I reused the parking sticker (illegal).
5. Got back from downtown in thirteen minutes. (I live over eight miles away).
6. Had exactly enough for fish, meat, Terry's Chocolate Oranges, and 2012 Slingshot.

I offered one to my son's teacher when I came by to give my son a lunch. His teacher is English, so I expected the Chocolate Orange would go over very well. He received it like a young child, with an "OOH!"

Not going to buy a car until my finances are big enough to manage paying off the car + the HELOC.

Compared to a year ago I am $1515.01 poorer in liquid assets. I'm playing the tattered and faded "I paid for a new roof" card here and saying that's not entirely sucky.

Hubby got $350 from his parents. It's designated "fun money." I asked him to consider putting it in the Money Market Account and he made a face. What's wrong with wanting cheap fun all year?

Did I mention I have three strikethroughs for my 2011 dead pool? Two within ten days. Golden!

Paid $137 to VISA account.
Charged $35 for co-pay for doctor's visit today.
We have $400 for the week to tide us over. Weekly vegetables, grocery replenishments and a $10-$20 food bank donation are covered.

Cinerama big screen 70mm film festival starts tonight.
Hubby very keen to go.

Mortgage down to $118677 or something.
HELOC down to $15785 or something.
A stickler for budgeting figures I am. The important thing is that the balances are going down.

Achieved $16200 in liquid cash, have lipstick and two eyeliners, one sweater, one pair wool trousers, one pair cashmere socks.

Goals for next month: purchase of two replacement items.

Breve $4.31 (latte made with half'n'half) while waiting for
Oil change $44.32 (oil disposal fee 15% of that from "discount oil change places", with no feeble upselling questions from workers who ask by rote before checking service records)
Costco - $90.02 for meat, coffee, juice and cereal. Meat = whole chicken @ $0.99/lb; round roasts for $3.79/lb; organic ground beef @ $4.66/lb. Coffee at $5.19/pound: might be time to switch to yerba mate or green tea for second cups.
Gas - $3.70/gallon at Costco. Cheapest deal around -- filled tank for under $40. MPG: 25.64.

Guilt weighing heavily on me: I know there are no lottery tickets, pop, cigarettes or beer in the above list, but "meat, coffee, juice and cereal" seem so nonessential right now.

I took a Chinook Book coupon down to Take 2 Consignment and bought: one Benetton sweater, one pair wool pants, one silver-plated heart-motif cuff, one pair cashmere socks and one angora short-sleeved top, the latter of which will probably serve as a "party doll" for my cat if I do not take care of it.

With tax, $103 and change.

Despite the supposed obesity epidemic in the U.S., I found the pickings for size 12+ sparse in this quality consignment shop.

Not yet purchased boots: I found some cute ones at the consignment shop but they were ankle boots. OTOH they had a nice heel and scaring people in sexy boots will be key as a campaign coordinator and supporter for he challenger, as the incumbent is a 5'5" male.

In the boots I would be over six feet.

Special message for Chinese spammers: 笨天生的一堆肉 and 我肏死你老妈的臊屄，你那个王八蛋

They keep on top of things and can tell the difference between blogs dedicated to saving money and blogs dedicated to marketing spam.

Update of sorts: gold and silver took a steep dive this week, like Acapulco cliff steep. However, I am close to reaching my liquid cash reserves goal.

Went to Vancouver for overnight stay with my "eh" student to watch NHL HOCKEY practice. It's not so impressive to see them skate around the ice and shoot pucks, but it is impressive to see one of the most seriously injured players suit up and skate slowly in small circles leaning on one hip before practice begins, and then for the second practice stand in the players' box with his teammates while the "cleared for light contact" players don't show up practice. Reserved for one practice, watched two as the superstars came out for the second.

My son left an offering at the Rick Rypien memorial outside the arena. I learned later that the annual Terry Fox Run was happening in Vancouver and four new statues were unveiled. I feel like a bad Vancouverite/Canadian/bereaved-by-cancer-family-member for forgetting that.
Can I be forgiven for telling women in my locality and latitude how to cheaply protect against cancer?

For the extra Canadian experience I ordered a Montreal Smoked Meat (from Dunn's Deli! Authentic!) sandwich from Costco. Now I am wondering where I can get Montreal Smoked Meat (don't say Salumi) in Seattle. Eating smoked meat has nothing to do with cancer prevention. It has everything to do with homesickness.

I didn't speak French with anyone because... it's Vancouver. Seriously, my friends there speak French but I didn't see them. Speaking French in Vancouver is like speaking Spanish in Montpelier, Vermont.

Exercise update for My English Castle: I stretched upward to prune our giant rhododendron. The stretch was good for my cramps. Today I will go for a mile-long walk, and maybe buy some safe-haven currency, according to Peter Schiff.

Within an hour after I shifted $480 to the HELOC--my new goal is to pay $3650 between July 2011 and June 2012--my child came home with a Music Instruction Enrolment Form.

He wants to take music: his options are flute, violin, cello, clarinet, trombone and trumpet. I'd like something we can fit in the car, preferably rentable. He prefers brass, I prefer strings.

I think "yeah it's pricy but Chaplin was an impoverished actor when he started playing violin. Louis Armstrong was in a home for boys and he learned the trumpet. Fats Waller played piano."

So we'll discuss it this weekend. I'd like for him to visit a music store to try each of the instruments...



See? Men can look adorable playing strings.

People, businesses, organizations and nations who make it their business to murder United States citizens have had a lot of help from Chase Bank, despite sanctions imposed by the US Government making it illegal.

- http://www.chase-sucks.com/?p=98

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has been investigating a number of willful violations committed by Chase Bank going back to 2005. The list of laws violated by Chase Bank include:

Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators Sanctions Regulations
Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations
Iranian Transactions Regulations
Cuban Assets Control Regulations
Sudanese Sanctions Regulations
Former Liberian Regime of Charles Taylor Sanctions Regulations

Read the U.S. Department of the Treasury's documentation of Chase's sanctions violations.

Plus!
Here are some of the things that Chase Bank has already admitted to:

Violating the Federal Service Members Civil Relief Act. That law was enacted in 1942 to shield deployed military personnel from financial stress.
Overcharging roughly 6,000 active-duty military personnel on their mortgages.
Foreclosing on military personnel illegally and forcing them out on to the streets.
Chase has already had to return some of the homes they took illegally.
Chase has had to agree to pay back millions of dollars that they stole from US Military families.

Chase's activities do not sound patriotic to me.

"Don't mention the Waugh" update: I suggested A Handful of Dust for book club. I checked Wikipedia and found my son's teacher pronounces Waugh correctly. I didn't, I guess, because I first heard his name in North America. In London I had plaice for fish and chips and pronounced it "plice" because the English did it that way, and I speak English, then in Canada I told my mom and English stepfather about plaice and my mom said "it's pronounced 'place.'" So I had been pronouncing "Waugh" as "waw" in "law" "thaw" and "straw." It's "wor." Boy I had a good "lor" about that.

I saw my Resolutions 2011 post on OneNote: I thought I'd actually get my HELOC balance down below $12K by December. I still could. The HELOC auto withdrawal showed $43 interest applied. Before I borrowed for the roof, I'd managed to bring the interest down to $34 applied per month.

We're going to Vancouver this weekend for hockey training camp. This is roughly equivalent to going to Arizona for baseball training camp in spring, except driving is faster and cheaper.

From

The Consumerist:

Last year, several of the country's largest mortgage servicers — Bank of America, GMAC/Ally, JPMorgan Chase, among others — were forced to hit the pause button on foreclosure procedures after it was revealed that many foreclosure documents were being rubber stamped by untrained, ill-informed "robo-signers."

-- I bet I know where my incumbent School Board Director is going to apply his talents after my candidate unseats him in the fall election. He is tireless in his volunteer elected position because rubber-stamping the School District Superintendent (whom he is to supervise with six other school board directors) doesn't take much effort.

But seriously, this update negates my earlier supposition that things were getting better. "According to the folks at RealtyTrac, "Notices of Default," the first stage of the foreclosure process, rose 33 percent month-to-month in August. So, barring an encore of the robo-signing scandal, these properties will hit the market during the first few months of next year."

July 2011 Notice of Trustee Sales: 731 records
August 2011 Notice of Trustee Sales: 776 records
--- not quite 33%.

While this may be good news for potential home-buyers looking for a bargain, it seems likely that the glut of foreclosed properties will not be welcomed by homeowners looking to sell their houses.

I would give serious consideration to the Costco Auto Buying Program. This isn't a paid ad. I didn't know until today that Costco recently amended its Buying Program to include used vehicles. The

My Money Blog has dozens of comments, good and bad, about the Costco purchase experience. See you can tell this isn't a paid ad because I am not linking to Costco.

I looked at Yelp! and saw so many of the car dealerships within walking distance of my house with one-star reviews. But several of the people giving those one-star reviews did not get the cars checked out by independent auto mechanics within the first three days.

I found Car Buying Tips informative too, for used and new vehicles, especially the parts about extended warranties and what to look for at auto auctions.

I have a spreadsheet of vehicles I might want to buy, with their specifications, features, safety-performance-reliability ratings, suggested buy prices, fuel economy, and importantly for us who are all extremities, headroom and legroom measurements. Yesterday a neighbor told me she was shopping for a car similar to what I want: sedan, $14000-$17000, decent mileage; so I gave her print copies of my research. I guess there are many nerdy underemployed research types in my area, because those cars are hard to find at that price range. More like $16K-$18K, before taxes, license fees, documentation fees.

En route to the library before the weeklong furlough, and to the coin shop to get a guesstimate on some rings left to me by my mom and stepgrandmother, I found a newly issued credit card, unsigned, belonging to "IOA" (initials to shield identity). When I returned from my jaunt I looked up IOA's address courtesy of an onlne state voter registration database and online county records. He was the only IOA in the county, so that made it easy.

I considered returning the card to the bank: the safest thing to do, but they might cancel it and send him a new one. I considered handing it to the place of worship I cleverly worked out IOA went to. But the stalker-way was the fastest, and I wouldn't have to rely on a middleperson's honesty. I changed into something less roadrashy, and took the bike, card and explanatory note ("I didn't use this, but as I didn't see you drop this I can't say nobody else used it -- please check with your bank for any suspicious activity or charges!") to his residence.

I left it with someone I am guessing to be his sister, AFTER asking if "IOA" lived there: considering what she wore when she answered the door, my guess as to how he managed to lose his card in my neighbourhood was well-founded. I did not tell her what it was, only that it was his and I found it and returned it.

I need more practice with the scooter: where I went had steep hills and sharp curves. I did manage to switch out faceshields, something I was too feeble to do with my last helmet.

I'm going to try saving $10/day. With the mortgage reduced by $3.58/day, suspiciously the cost of an 8 oz. latte with tax and tip!, I have only $6.42 left to go.

I'm hoping that the person who couldn't comprehend what was written but commented (without linking to her SA blog, craven and subpar combo there) anyway got bored with one year's silence and moved on. Good people left too, but past banter experiences have helped me make better choices and question some held irrational beliefs.

It's true I need to let go of a lot of things. I'm just not seeing the value of those comments. I don't visit other blogs and leave comments that demonstrate that I haven't read everything. One could post: "I don't understand what you meant by ____________" or "you write statement A, and that's foreign to me. Is something missing"?

It makes me wonder what the standards for online discourse are. Also, I don't see anything wrong with supplementing facts and references when making a statement or correction (e.g., "Councilmember is one word" "panini is plural of panino" "Dover is the capital of Delaware"), but apparently some people think that's snarky. If the correction is done in neutral language, how is a vulgar retort appropriate? What does it say about someone's worldview that facts are feared and viewed as something to be protected against?

I don't delete comments unless they are obvious spam, or if they seem to be accidental multiple-posts, because expression, uninformed and ill-constructed it may be, is a right, and it's useful to readers to know which commentators to ignore and avoid. How can one tell the good among the bad?

I just ask that people consider when commenting that inferences about their education, personality and cognition can be made by readers.