Seattle, Banking and backyards

I drove down to Seattle the other day to pick up some friends from the airport. They just returned from a huge world trip and were gone for 8 months. It was a nice drive, sunny and traffic was subdued to a dull roar.

It occurred to me while driving through Blaine, WA that I had only been in the states for about 2 minutes and I was only 5-6 KM from the border but I feared the country I was now in. The thought of America makes me as uncomfortable as a Seth Rogen movie. I don't know how I feel about this re: relations with Americans et all but I do know that I have very little interest in visiting the southern neighbours. When I was at the airport it felt even more uncomfortable, parents treating their kids like dogs, the way people treated one another, how a guy in a turban freaked out a whole family of mid-west looking folks and the woman at Starbucks who tried to convince me that getting the smaller size coffee I wanted would only leave me coming back as 'folks need more than a grande y'know and a supersized McDonalds drink is barely enough'.

I know that everyone in a country is not the same and I know that there are people in Canada who are far worse than the people I have referenced thus far, but my stereotype of the USA leaves me looking around and seeing them all come true and it just makes me.... well.... not wanting to be there.

That said the drive over the bridge on the I5 as the sun was shining directly on to downtown Seattle was really really beautiful, during the time I spent in Seattle a few years ago for a course at the Mac Store I got over these fears and preconceptions quickly and enjoyed my time. I guess I need to shake the mental view of America as such a police state where people all tote guns about and the smallest thing will spark an injust act. (yes I know that my comments have ticked you off.)

The drive back was nice ( I missed you guys ) and ( to my surprise ) we were over the border in less than 10 minutes and back in to Canada. Drove home and dropped them off and went home for some sweet sweet sleep.

Backtracking.... before I went to Seattle I stopped off at the Citi Financial where I was going to refinance my loan and maybe get a little Doh-Ray-Mi for other bills n such. Well after going through all my information I was wondering why the loan officer and underwriter had been talking out of the office for the last 30 minutes... The underwriter came in and let me know I had qualified for my new loan and that I could sign the papers and be on my way....but.

But?

But. I'm legally obliged to tell you ( he says ) that due to an error on our part you have been paying an interest rate of 2.8% for the last 3 years instead of the predetermined 25.7%.

Say Whaaaaat?

And due to new banking regulations within our structure we can not claw back the amounts.

Fuckin sweet dude.

So now if you sign the new loan the interest rate will be 26.5% and you'll go back on to a $300 payment etc etc etc

Thanks guys.... I'll talk to you later. ( psst... I didn't sign the new papers because I'm not a moron )

So now the payments I had been making that were supposed to be only interest over the last 3 years have paid down over %60 of my loan principal and we owe very little on it. For the first time ( in a long time ) the bank has helped me and I like it! The reason for the screwup? Well the last two digits of my phone number are.... 28 and the interest field follows the phone field.

Lastly - Backyards....

I have spent a good amount of time cleaning up our new property and getting the area cleared. This guy rents the garage at my house to build his El Camino and other cars in. Apparently he had some cars parked in the pad out back at one point and is super happy I have cleared all the trees out and made space so he can park more cars there now. Yeah...

Listen, I didn't clean out this whole area so that you could put more obstacles and worry items in it for me. I cleaned it out so that the dangers that WERE there are now gone and my kids can play in the backyard. So the push to build the fence across the back yard and create a separate parking pad is now ON. I want to segregate out the cars from the kids and make my life somewhat more easy and calm.

So there's the news that's new and improved.

/end