32 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-8-16”

  2. Oh Dear Lord, what has happened in our world? This isn’t the world I wanted to hand to my child and I am sure it isn’t the one you wanted to hand yours.

    Liked by 6 people

  3. Good morning Aj and Ann.
    We’re supposed to close on my house in Hendersonville today.
    It will be in Asheville, but they say I don’t have to be there. I’ve signed a dozen papers.
    I’ll be glad to get that off my back. It’s been a hassle as Kim can likely affirm.,
    Just one more thing.

    Liked by 7 people

  4. Chas,
    Like every other thing the Government got involved in to “protect the consumer” it created more paperwork and less understanding.
    When I first became an agent, the broker who trained me had a friendly contest going– when we did our estimated closing costs and Good Faith Estimates you got a funny trophy for how close you go to the actual dollar amount.
    Then homeowner’s insurance became a wild card based on consumer credit rating, location of the property, which company wrote the policy, etc.
    THEN the crash of ’08 happened and the Government got involved in making it where the consumer would better understand the HUD-1 closing docs. NO ONE understood them and I could no longer figure out a good- Good Faith Estimate. That was called RESPA (revised)

    The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) is a consumer protection statute, first passed in 1974. The purposes of RESPA are. to help consumers become better shoppers for settlement services and. to eliminate kickbacks and referral fees that unnecessarily increase the costs of certain settlement services.

    Last year they came out with TRID

    http://www.consumerfinance.gov/policy-compliance/guidance/implementation-guidance/tila-respa-disclosure-rule//

    This took average closing time on a loan from 30 days to almost 45 days. Now the buyer and the seller receive two separate “Closing Disclosures” for more privacy and NO ONE understands it anymore. I, as your agent, am not allowed to see it until we get to closing, so how am I to protect you by reviewing it and making sure that you are not being over charged? That all the numbers are correct? Most loan officers and title companies ignore this part of the law and send it to the agents anyway. Shhhh….don’t tell anyone.

    Yep, Uncle Sam just keeps making things easier and easier. 😦

    Liked by 6 people

  7. We do seem to be living in the days when things keep getting worse. These are days to cling whole-heartedly to God Who is love, truth, mercy, and good beyond our imaginings.

    Like

  8. I was up kind of late watching the Dallas news unfold, horrible. It certainly won’t make it any easier to recruit police officers. How awful. I haven’t looked at the news yet today but I imagine will get some information on the shooters and what they were all about.

    Photos were taken on a recent dog walk after work to the neighborhood park (where the coyotes hang) — taken with the iPhone, not the ‘real’ camera, so the colors and other elements are kind of funky, but the phone doesn’t do a bad job in a pinch and it actually has a decent little zoom. And it’s always with me.

    I watched this guy (a night heron someone told me) for quite a while as we walked by him a couple times. I was trying not to spook him, and I enjoyed seeing him walk and slink around those rocks. Later, he was perched leaning way over the edge, beak to the water, looking for dinner.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. Lunch with friends and then off to Portland to see three or five more grandchildren
    Getting tired of flying and I am only half way there
    Grieving for our nation

    Liked by 3 people

  12. In 2005, in Mayerthorpe, Alberta, Canada, four police officers were killed while repossessing a stolen vehicle. The shooter was a drug dealer, who deliberately ambushed them, with an illegally obtained gun which two of his friends had given him. He was white – so were the police officers. The shooter then turned the gun on himself. In 2014, in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, five police officers were shot and three were killed in Moncton’s first homicide since 2010. The killer was a white conspiracy theorist who had been raised in a religious family and homeschooled and who was attempting to start a rebellion against the Canadian government. He is now imprisoned for life.

    Whenever the police here shoot or otherwise cause the death of an innocent person, there is outrage here, and a call for more accountability, and that is only right – there are police, for example, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, who have been directly implicated in dropping off drunk people who happen to be First Nations (Indigenous) and leaving them to freeze to death – as there must always be checks and balances in law enforcement to prevent abuse. However, I have read comments by people who seem to never give the police the benefit of the doubt, using even positive stories about the police to air their grievances. There is also resentment toward the police in inner city neighbourhoods. I’ll never forget the spectacle, walking home from the bus stop to my apartment in the city, of seeing an arrest taking place across the street, and hearing the (white) women on my side of the street scream and curse at the police officers (both suspect and officers appeared to be white), telling the police to leave the suspect alone. I cite these case to demonstrate that unreasonable resentment of and violent attacks on law enforcement is not something which only occurs along lines of ethnic division.

    Liked by 2 people

  13. On a lighter note. . .

    Anyone here remember singer Gene Pitney, from the 60s & early 70s? Some of his hit songs were “Town Without Pity”, “Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa”, & “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”, among others.

    My friend Mike (he & his wife Cindy go to our church) was good friends with Pitney, both of them growing up in Rockville, Connecticut (about half an hour from Stafford), & their dads were friends, too. On Facebook, Cindy posted audio from a song Pitney had recorded but never released, which Mike had written, with a brief preface by Pitney talking about the song. Pretty neat.

    Mike is a great guy, with a deep faith & a corny sense of humor.

    Liked by 3 people

  14. Here it is, if anyone is interested. The song is called “Boomtown”, & is about how Rockville used to be a big mill town, but had deteriorated quite a bit. It’s only audio, so the screen will be black.

    Like

  15. Cool pix, Donna. I managed to get a night heron in several shots of birds from Alabama, but I didn’t know it until I pulled up the photos, since they were mob scenes of lots of birds. I’ve never knowingly seen them in the wild. (I did see them in captivity in Florida. Pretty little birds.)

    Liked by 1 person

  16. I enjoyed listening to that, Karen. The words were good and the music was pleasant, but I felt the music was a bit upbeat considering the subject. Did you feel that way? Perhaps it was just the time period in which it was produced that required music to sound that way. I am certainly no expert, but that was how it struck me.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. Janice, I put turmeric in the rice, veggies, chicken, eggs, tuna, whatever while they are cooking. We also take capsules of it. This past winter I did not get sick and I took turmeric. I stopped about three months ago. I am sick. Not saying there is a connection…

    Liked by 1 person

  20. Tomorrow I will be babysitting Little Guy on my own, from 6:30am to sometime after 3:30pm. (Any prayers are appreciated. 🙂 )

    2nd Daughter will be attending ConnectiCon, Connecticut’s version (much smaller) of San Diego’s famous Comic-Con, with the McKs. She didn’t ask for the weekend off, but I knew how important it is to her, & told her to go ahead & go.

    Wikipedia describes it as “. . .an annual massively multi-genre convention dedicated to ‘a celebration of pop culture – everything from anime, to science fiction, comic books and card games.’ ” Many (most?) of the people come dressed as their favorite characters, with often a lot of work & detail going into their costumes. It’s called cosplay.

    Has anyone else here heard of cosplay, or know anyone else who does that?

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Karen, I have heard of fans dressing in costumes for Comic-Con and other festivals for fans of comics and related media, but I hadn’t heard the insider word for it until you asked. I looked it up, apparently it is a Japanese portmanteau word, a combination of “costume” and “role-play”. The Wikipedia article was clearly written by a nerd, and goes into great detail to explain the social and psychological factors surrounding cosplay. In my childhood, we called it “dress-up” and “pretend”. Basically, cosplay is making costumes based on a character in a comic or film or game, etc. and impersonating said character while at the convention. Perfectly understandable, as I once made a Renaissance costume purely for the fun of it. There is much harmless fun in such conventions. There is also some tragedy, as some begin to live more in their fantasies than in reality. The key is not to immerse oneself so much in the world of imagination that the real world is ignored and neglected.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. Karen, there is a really big gathering in Atlanta called Dragon Con. Art and I watched a wonderful program on our local PBS about it this past year. I do not know if you can find the program on the Web, but it would be great for your family to view.

    There was a family in one of our son’s home school groups who were involved in it. I felt concerned that the parents were overly involved in all fantasy world. Most children in our small group went to our church with their families but these people were not in church as best I could tell. I think they spent all weekends doing their fantasy activities. This was back in the 90s. I did not keep up with the family when our group ended.

    The actual weekend conference event looks fun and pretty safe although there are always fringe people hanging around big events looking for possibilities to take advantage in numerous ways.

    Liked by 1 person

  32. I had not heard the term cosplay until a few months ago, from a co-worker who does it at Detroit’s Youmacon. The idea’s not new though; Star Trek fans have done it for decades.

    Liked by 1 person

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