Saturday, July 24, 2010

I think the fear of water is fading!

Download now or watch on posterous
IMG_0974.MOV (2049 KB)

G.

Sent from my iPhone

Sunday, July 18, 2010

The Hatching of Evel Knievel 1 and Evel Knievel 2

Posted by She Said

My children believe every living thing – puppies, people – start from that miraculous birthing place. No, I’m not talking about THAT warm and comfy place. I am, of course, talking about… the egg. Endless hours have been spent playing “puppy” where Emily hatches out of an egg and is, amazingly, a pup that can instantly perform all sorts of tricks, like roll over, play dead, and paint. If only Charmin could play this game as well. I’d have our bathroom finally painted.

Yesterday, I am happy to report, in Thing 1 and Thing 2 fashion, Greg and I hatched Evel Knievel 1 and Evel Knievel 2. On a whim, we checked a cool, local iPhone app called Dibbs, that lists everything going on in our area. We found a kite festival up at Squaw Valley and decided to check it out. Only problem we had was after our hour and a half drive up there, we discovered this “free” event required a $60+ ride up the mountain in a gondola to get to it. Lucky for us, there was another “free” event at the bottom of the mountain with some events we thought the kids would enjoy. So, we gave them a choice – go up the mountain and watch professionals fly kites, or stay at the bottom of the hill and get to try out some gnarly, adrenaline-pumping rides.

And then my little adrenaline junkies hatched. I couldn’t be more proud and thrilled for Evel Knievel 1 and Evel Knievel 2.

Emily went first on the zip line:

Then it was Braedyn’s turn:

But Emily will definitely have to wait until she gains some weight to improve her mad gymnastic skills:

Saturday, July 17, 2010

3GS Experiences Grip Of Death

Posted By He Said

I admit it.  I love new technology and I do respect the beauty of Apple products.  As such I bought She Said an iPhone 3G a few months after they came out.  I followed up with the 3GS for myself and then upgraded to an iPhone 4 for She Said. All this hoopla about dropped calls and the grip of death had me wondering. 

Does the 3GS suffer from the “Grip Of Death?”

Yes, yes it does.

Now I did this test before I had a chance to search the internet for this issue and I see that many others are having this issue.

Hey Mr. Jobs.  Can I have a free case too?

P.S. This video was recorded with She Said’s iPhone 4 while she was sleeping.  Don’t tell. Sorry about the video quality.  Apparently Dropbox compresses on the phone so I will have to copy the original off directly for better quality.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Might As Well Walk Away

Posted by She Said

Several years ago, Greg and I bought a condo to help a family member out. In order to do this, we refinanced our house to put down the required 20%. You might be thinking, several years ago… wasn’t that the worst time EVER to buy any property? You might be wondering, wasn’t that at the peak of the housing bubble?

YES.

We purchased this condo at the going rate of $125,000. At the time, it was “hurry up and buy before the prices go up even more!” Now, the same condos are going for around $38,000.

You may be asking yourself if our bank has us by the balls?

YES.

For reasons I won’t go into, Greg and I put the condo up for sale prior to leaving for China. Yes, it would be a short sale. Yes, we’d be kissing the bank’s proverbial feet to forgive the loan difference. No, it was not feasible for us to keep it because we couldn’t rent it for anywhere near what our monthly mortgage plus HOA dues were and we simply could not make up the monthly difference out of our own pockets.

Very soon after the condo went on the market, we got an offer on it! A cash offer! Hooray, you must be thinking. Yes, hooray indeed. Only the freakin’ bank sat on it. And sat on it. And sat on it until we were about to leave China, almost three months after the offer was made. The bank “counter-offered” with what I consider to be equivalent to someone throwing a flaming bag of dog shit at our door. Seriously, they would accept the offer if we forked over $2,000 in cash AND signed a promissory note for an additional $11,000. Excuse me, which ATM machine would you like me to bend over?

We politely refused the counter offer, and the bank has been sitting on it AGAIN. We haven’t heard anything from them in about two  months only to hear today what I consider to be the biggest FUCK YOU news on our condo saga to date. It is possible the bank is ignoring us because based on the bank’s “mortgage insurance”, it may be financially better FOR THEM to let the condo go into foreclosure because they will receive more from the insurance than from the very acceptable CASH OFFER on the table. This seriously angers me to the core. So much so, that I figure if we are going to have one foreclosure on our credit, then it may as well be two. You may have seen that we are streamlining our life and have our house up on the market? Yeah. Why the hell not make it two.

Now some of you may be thinking that we accepted the terms of the loan and should just suck it up. Yes, we signed the loan papers. Some may even be pissed at us for attempting a short sale. I would expect that you would be the same people picketing businesses that leave establishments because of a bad business deal. Seriously, why is ok for businesses to write off bad deals but not individuals?

I’m so blissfully happy that all that freakin’ money that went into saving the banks has trickled down to us EVIL home owners.