Thursday

Thursday


4 hours labor. That is what was quoted to me by some freak of nature. I responded to his ad on Craigslist for a mobile mechanic. This guy claims it's going to take 4 hours to remove the harmonic balancer on my old Buick and put a new one on.

May I say here that the only thing that has to come off other than the balancer itself to GET the balancer off is the accessory belt? May I also say that there is only ONE bolt holding that harmonic balancer in place? $240 labor alone.

I was going to write him back and give him a piece of my mind, instead, I decided to let it go and not write back to him at all, instead, going with the dude that will replace both the balancer and the wheel brake cylinder for a grand total of $80.

Still, quite unbelievable. I can take the car to a shop for the money that first guy wanted.

The unbelievability of the statement that "the recession was over in June of 2009" is so incredulous, at least to me, that I can hardly believe these people really believe what they are saying. Staggering unemployment rate at almost 10% average nationwide; foreclosures still going strong; millions of Americans out of work that WANT to work; another - and allegedly the biggest yet - round of foreclosures coming as ARM's reset. Yes, that's what I have read and heard anyway, the round of Adustable Rate Mortgages that is going to reset sometime next year, I believe it was, is going to be the biggest yet.

And then what? More foreclosures, more short sales. Oh, and don't forget that "new jobless claims rise to 465,000, the first increase in 5 weeks". Who's the belly-gutter that is trying to tell us that we aren't in a recession? My first guess: The Political Machine.

Yes, I can just see it now, Obama attempting to go around telling everyone we are no longer in a recession. Good luck, I hope he DOES try to do that, American sentiment against him will only grow stronger if he does.

I'm having a heckuva time getting people to come look at the room I have available. They don't like my style of house. I actually could have had a site-built home instead of a manufactured when I was going through that process, but it would have taken MUCH longer and I was HATING living in an apartment. It's a good starter home, and at 2,000 square feet and 5 bedrooms, it's hardly small. It's also very nice inside, everyone that actually comes IN the house always is surprised. First, they didn't expect it to be that big and Second, they expected to see panelling and all that jibe they used to use in this kind of housing.

Yesterday, a lady that was supposed to stop by to take a look wrote me later saying that there were just a bunch of "trailers lined up real close to each other".

Lol. I wrote back and told her that first off, those lots those trailers are on are MUCH larger than the amount of room site built housing developers are giving. Second off, dismissing her claim that a "trailer isn't a house", I just said well, I guess it won't work out for you, good luck in your search. I can tell you right now, a 2,000 square foot abode is a house, at least from my perspective. The stigma is always going to be there, though: trailer trash. Unfortunately, there are people on my street that are just that: trailer trash. They literally throw trash out their doors and leave it to rot. They bring junk onto their property and stack it up. I have written numerous complaints to the city's neighborhood services department and they have done some good.

The only thing that would actually force people to change, however, would be to start a homeowner's association, get the CC&R's down on paper, give people whatever - 90 days or however long seems reasonable to get their properties cleaned up and landscaped and then - start handing out fines.

That will, of course, never happen. In fact, the amount of opposition I received to starting a Neighborhood Association - sort of similar to a Homeowner's Association excepting it has not teeth - can't hand out fines - was too much. I COULD start one without too much help from anyone since it's a voluntary thing and whether people want to participate is totally up to them, but, I have given much thought to it and just don't see that there is enough community support.

Too many cliques in that neighborhood and attempting to get people out of that mindset? Not worth the trouble. Or is it? A clean, good looking neighborhood raises property values, a trashy, dirty looking neighborhood helps to lower them. Some people are too poor to afford landscaping - albeit they could clean the property up if they wanted to, especially considering every 3 months the City of Phoenix comes along with a small front loader and a garbage truck and will haul WHATEVER you put out there away.

For now, I just write up the complaints.

And for right now, well, work day approaches and I do, allegedly, have a trip up to the mine.

G'day.

ben