So far...

Well, all that other info got back to the office. August 9th, the
underwriter for the rurdev office did some figuring. I got a letter that
basically said, yes, I could get a loan through Rural Development. Only
thing is I couldn't get enough to buy a house.

So the figures go on my monthly gross, use 29% of that, then use $150 a
month in estimated real estate taxes and $35 a month in insurance. That
would leave a payment that qualified me for only $4,977.00.

First off, I wouldn't even consider a place that required $150 in taxes.
One house I want to get is $72 a month in taxes. Cheaper house might
also mean cheaper insurance. Mom figures if we can make a downpayment of
$10 to 15K or so, we would need to borrow much less. How we get the
downpayment, I'm not sure.

Distraught and depressed, last Friday I wrote a letter back to the
rurdev office requesting an informal review and suggested some
alternatives. I also wrote a letter and sent copies off to TV stations.
Hopefully I'll hear from one of them soon. I also tried contacting a
local Habitat for Humanity office via email. I haven't heard anything
back from that, so I will end up having to call them.

Might be talking to the real estate agent who has this one loan officer
coming into her office at the end of this week. There's gotta be a way
for me or us to get a loan to buy a house. I want to get a federally
subsidized loan like my mom got through Farmer's Home Administration
years ago. I should be able to do this.

I'm also considering alternative forms of employment. One is a 2nd part
time job, and the other is getting management training where I work for
getting me out of that store and into another. If one friend who used to
work there can get it and pass the test, I know I can do it, too. I'd
likely end up in a salaried management position, which would suck. After
getting burned on one non-union protected job, I don't want to work
without it ever again.

I don't know if I'm going to get screwed over or not

Well... I've begun the process to apply for a Uniform Housing Loan
through the government's USDA Rural Development office. I sent in at
first an incomplete application, then I got it sent in with the $30
credit reporting fee and additional info they requested.

A week after that, I got an envelope with a few other papers (credit
reporting disclosure, Truth in Lending data), and sent those back in.

Now they're checking info with my current landlord, my current employer,
my past employer, and the bank.

Two of those bits have replied. I called on 8/2 about how things were
going, left a message on the processor's voice mail about how if things
were looking good that I had a house in mind and where it is. The
processor of my application called back saying the landlord info was
received as well as my current employer.

But the thing that caught me off guard was them checking my past
employer. My heart sank when I heard they were checking that. I have no
idea what info they'll be asking for, or if how my employment with them
ended will make any difference. I hope all they need and get is how long
I was employed by them. I also hold no hope for their timely response.
If the errors in my credit report with the Bank of America account I
never had doesn't mess things up, this thing with my previous employer,
for whom I worked 10.5 years, just could depending on what info the
rurdev people ask for.

I woke this morning feeling like crap and with a bit of a sore throat.
Autotoxemia? Heh, I wouldn't be surprised. I've started getting boxes
from where I work now, but haven't begun packing anything, and I got a
lot to pack.

Damn.

Hoping for a future

A few days ago I sent in the application for the Rural Development
Uniform housing loan. Or something much to that effect. I hope I hear
from them soon so I can snap up one of a few houses I have en eye on.
The house we're currently in went on the market in April without our
consent. My older sister claims she's upset that mom's upset for that
happening, but I know better. It's crockadile tears. Then, just because
it's been... what, 3 months? since that happened and the house here
hasn't sold? She's trying to blame the unsold house on us? I heard talk
of her wanting to kick us out so the house will sell. All I know is,
when the name on the deed for the house is mine, my older sister will
never be in my house ever again.

Something of a revelation

After reading over the text of stupid customers that I had saved, I
realize something but only after having some exposure to Gordon Ramsay
and his Kitchen Nightmares, Boiling Point, and Beyond Boiling Point, as
well as the current Fox series Hell's Kitchen - I should have had
complete free reign and control of how I wanted to deal with stupid
customers when I worked at the restaurant. When that one stupid woman
complained of "cold fries" when the dish had just been dished up from
product that was still under the hold timer, I should have been given
the right without retaliation, much like Gordon Ramsay, to go right up
to her and ask what the problem is.

"What's the problem?"

"The fries are cold."

"Oh really? Let's have a look at one then."

Pick up a fry, break it open (crisp fries should snap open), and have
hot steam come out of the broken ends.

"That certainly looks like a hot french fry. I can grab some of the cold
ones out of the freezer if you need something to compare these to.
Satisfied now?"

Oh man, the things I wanted to do. Gordon Ramsay is like an idol in
regard to how chefs should be. Perfectionist, demanding of respect, and
willing to fight for the quality and reputation of the food they create.

Damn straight.

Anywho, here I sit at my mom's desktop working on files for a CDrom and all, and I realize something. It's Tuesday before Anime North, but I'm not doing something I feel I should be: gathering at a friend's house with all of our group that goes to Toronto around this time of year, waiting to leave Wednesday morning, an extra day or 2 ahead of time so we can do shopping at Pacific Mall before the convention. This feeling is odd. It may also relieve the tensions of crossing the border into Canada as well as the post-convention blues when coming back and all. Everything tells me something is wrong. I should be somewhere else feeling good - but I'm not. It's kinda depressing. I don't have my camcorder ready with charged batteries or blank tapes; I didn't get any clothes ready; I don't even know what panels they'll be holding. I'll have to ask my anime friend in Toronto to see if he can get me an additional program book. I never really expected to go this year. I didn't even pre-register! Instead, the Wednesday before Anime North, I have to get ready for work, then a day off, then I work during most of the convention. And things at work aren't the greatest either, so I will likely not be in the best of spirits right now. I have my friends and I work with people I like, more or less. It's just sad.

Everything right now says this is wrong. My friends' plans also imploded, which in turn imploded my plans. I have money that I won't be spending where I want to spend it. My exposure to Asian and Japanese culture will be lacking. This was not how 2005 was supposed to be like.

Anywho, I must plod on. Somehow. I'm going to miss all those people in costume. Damn.

Pioneer DVDs marked down at Valu City

A friend on a whim for something else went to a local Valu City store
and noticed a rack over by the toys and small appliances with Pioneer
DVDs on them. Of note, a Card Captor Sakura DVD, one CardCraptors DVD, 2
Adventures of the Mini Goddesses (Urd and Skuld files - dunno why they
can't just number them), Black Heaven. $5.99 each. There may have been
others, I don't know. I know of one other Valu City store and may try
checking it out to see what they got.

Interesting to see stuff like this popping up almost all over. Dollar
General, Big Lots, and now Valu City? It was a few years or so ago I
found MEAD's Sailor Moon design notebooks at Valu City and ended up
collecting all 6 designs. It's nice to see stuff like this still popping
up. And it sorta makes up for our group's destroyed plans for Anime
North this year. T.T

change of plans all around

First off, there will be No Anime North trip this year. We will try to
plan something else instead, and maybe shoot for Anime North in 2006 if
things work out all around. I am also hoping to shoot for a trip to
Japan possibly in 2006.

Secondly...

"OK, change of plans is in the works."

"First off, I may have use our union influence to finally get the
position I've been screaming for. They put people in there and they
don't exactly want to be there - then they get someone like me with
experience to be there and I get totally ignored!!!"

Scratch that - Management at the store is using "customer service
issues" as an excuse to not let me go to Hot Foods (which I have
experience doing - 10.5 frigging years of experience!) NOR to train me
on registers! Bastards! I have another ace up my sleeve, and I will not
reveal my plans just yet. I had one of the union stewards pound an
explanation out of the HR person, and even then they got the brush-off
and got lied to as well. I have written down notes of this whole ordeal
so I don't forget any details. I have not given up fighting.

"There may also be a plan in the works that will allow mom and myself to
buy a house. It will end up in my name, and if I can get something in
the price range I'm thinking of, this could go well. I'll have to start
praying I can find something where I will like it. I liked living on
Euclid, so perhaps there will be something available. Heh."

These plans haven't changed. I'm still working on this.

"Been selling on eBay pretty steadily for the past month. Some items get
no interest, while some do surprisingly well. Up to now, all my JEM
listings have sold the first try. I fear the Star Stage won't, and only
because I haven't been able to find one piece. T.T"

My last few listings came and went. The buyer of the Psygnosis lot says
disk 1 of Awesome is missing. While I don't think that's true, I will
look to see if it ended up staying here. My brother in law took in
almost $500 for the remote control model airplanes he had me sell for
him on eBay, with one seller being a bit of a fussbudget. Might block
them from future listings.

Been working on graphics from CDroms a friend sent me. The Prototype
Generation BBS collection, the Venice Perfect Memory collection, as well
as some assorted sound and video files, and "Digital Pink" which has a
terrible rate of duplicate images and other stuff. Compressed a bunch of
uncompressed KISS files into LZH archives. Today's KISS software has the
ability built in to uncompress from LZH archives. ^_^ Also working on
converting .AU files to .WAV or even MP3 if the file is big enough.

Most of the pics in JPG format needed better compression. All pics are
getting the BBS stamp removed. Some get softened to make them look more
like a computer graphic rather than a poor grainy GIF conversion or bad
scan. Improves the overall look as well as the space saved on disk. Some
of those JPGs were huge. Criky.

Testing with Veggie Sloppy Joes

Vegetarian Sloppy Joes

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup lentils, sorted and rinsed
2 cups water
2 onions, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
3/4 cup ketchup
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. cider vinegar
1 Tbsp. yellow mustard
10 kaiser rolls, split and toasted

PREPARATION:
Sort over lentils and combine with water in medium saucepan. Bring to a
boil, then cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Place in 3-4 quart crockpot
with remaining ingredients except for vinegar, mustard, and kaiser
rolls. Cover and cook for 10-12 hours until thickened. Stir in vinegar
and mustard just before serving. Make sandwiches using toasted buns. 10
sandwiches

There was a skillet version that didn't take as long...

Trying to do an update

It seems the mail 2 blogger thingy is fixed. One tech support email
suggested changing one setting and I've done that. The previous thingy I
sent got through anyway.

Been trying to do a rant on work. Even though one person keeps saying
"it's your job to do that" or "that's what you're being paid to do" -
those statements mean nothing to me. It may be my job, but that doesn't
make it right!

Anywho, earlier in February...

"The time taken to do the deed was worth it"

Just to prove that taking the time to download security updates is far
less in comparison to the time it will take to clean out the ravages of
internet damage to one's computer, here's a little tale.

Yesterday, I finally had a chance to get to work on one friend's Win98
SE desktop. He had contracted a browser hijack, among other things,
after stumbling on a website that wasn't quite on the level with people
who land on it, if you know what I mean.

The first moment I got there and started it up, it was slow. The dialer
for the ISP came up. I thought "Wtf?" So I cancelled it out. That
brought the desktop to a screeching halt and had to shut down. So I
decided, whatever it's going to do, let it do it.
Start up again, the dialer came up, so I let it do its thing. Some thing
or other came up as having crashed, but instead of closing the warning
box, I let it sit there. Trying to load up My Computer to get to the CD
rom, the computer launches the browser and immediately goes to some
website. I minimize the browser so it doesn't get in the way. Before
that came up, I noticed a desktop shortcut now appears that wasn't there
before. Hoo boy, this thing's got some serious crap going on. Fix it 4.0
tries to do an internet update, so I stop it. Another blank browser
window tries to come up, I minimize then eventually get it closed.

In the meantime, I finally get the CDrom drive to come up, and the
computer runs the install for Ad Aware. It takes a while, but I get it
running and it goes through finding registry keys, registry values, over
200 cookies and 1 folder, eventually finding on its first scan with the
definitions it comes with, 212 items to remove. When you run installs
for stuff like this, you're supposed to close any open programs, but
with the problems this system was having, that wasn't an option. Just
let things fall where they may, and you get on with it. Ad Aware removes
most of the stuff, closing the browser in the process. I have it then
ready to scan on the next restart.

Now, the side benefit from having the crap on there was it kept checking
in over the net connection, which kept the ISP from dropping carrier. I
have Ad Aware do an update and run it again. It finds more items, and
does a more thorough scan. I have the system restart, because there are
sometimes items it can't remove because they're in use.

3rd scan was pretty fast. 6 processes running, it catches 4 more
registry keys. The system is starting to come up to speed. I run AVG
Free, and it has to do an update right away. I run it, and it takes
around an hour and a half. It finds 57 occurences of virus in various
files, like variants and copies of Krepper, some trojan downloaders, a
trojan dialer (which explains the system dialing up at startup). It
heals 3, deletes the other 54 files.

Eventually, the system is clean, the HD is quiet, and the desktop is
responsive. The home page hijack changed at least 3 times before it
stayed with Yahoo. I increased the security settings and it now prompts
for cookies, because that's how a lot of this spyware and malware
garbage gets on your Windoze computer. You can stop a lot of that now.

That took about 7 hours to complete. In the end, the result is worth it.
Most rewarding 7 hours I spent working on a computer, I feel.

Downloading a security update - a few minutes at a time

Which would you be willing to wait for?

Addition: Due to the power outage messing up the modem on WebTV, I've
discovered something surprising. If I connect with the terminal while
it's still on and it's misbehaving (meaning it needs to be turned off to
clear the RAM), I can turn it off, and have it re-dial right away and it
seems to connect on the first try. I don't know why. It does this
usually after I have the terminal hang up and then re-dial again.
Connections go easier once I've already been online... Go figure.

Is it working again?

Testing to see if the tech people fixed things.