Bedtime for Boris

Years ago, I had a running joke about how the Russians were parading Yeltsin's vodka-preserved corpse around in the manner of "Weekend at Bernie's," and that he had actually died in 1994. Either way, apparently he is now gone. For all the foibles, mistakes, and even tragedies, Yeltsin sure did the world...well, a world of good, even if the Russians don't see it that way. Das Vadanya, Boris Yeltsin...you can sleep now.

The Looney Season

For years, I have been amazed at how the third week of April is always prime time for some majot tragedy. Oklahoma City, Columbine, the Branch Davidian fire, plane crashes in Asia (multiple in different years)...and reaching back, the 1906 SF earthquake, the Titanic sinking, and more recently, Chernobyl (okay, that was at the end of the month). Add one more to the list. It just seems strange. Sure, bad things happen at other times, but these events were particularly destructive.

Get Real

We are trying to sell our house near Fayetteville, NC without a realtor. We had a horrible experience with our agent when we bought the place - she absolutely did not act in our best interests, and attempts to hold her accountable all failed. This left us with a mistrust of the rather large brokerage that employs her. Since then, we have observed nothing that could restore our confidence in the ethics of the local realtor community, so we decided to try FSBO. We listed on the MLS using a flat-fee service and offering a 2% commission for buyer agents. Guess what? No calls. I shouldn't be surprised. By law, agents are not supposed to let commission issues stand in the way of showing candidate properties to clients, but clearly none of them are interested in showing our house (which is really nice) when they may only score 2% commission. There may be other issues at play here - for example, our house is priced in line with other resales in the neighborhood, but in our immediate section, the builder seems to have gotten desperate and has underpriced some homes. Obviously competing with new construction is not easy. However, this is a military community, so there are always people who want to move into a house without the wait for a builder to finish construction, probably not on time. Bottom line is that I am even more disgusted than I was before starting this attempt to sell. Fortunately, we still have some time so I am not panicking; I am just annoyed.

Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy office

The polls seem to show a connection between support for candidates and their coffers, according to TIME and everybody else. Apparently, the Presidency is for sale. The neat part is that we will get to find out exactly how much it costs.

Un-elected Representatives

Since when did Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson become the heads of state for black Americans? I know why they appear as if by teleporter whenever the slightest racial epithet appears in the media, but who died and put them in charge of eliciting and collecting the apology? The sponsors, and eventually CBS, did a fine job of reprimanding Don Imus, thank you very much, and they didn't need Jackson and Sharpton to show up and police the apology process. If they really want racial unity in America, they should consider trying to act less divisive, and to stop highlighting the divisions that unfortunately still exist.

Why Hullo...why not?

Welcome to my blog. I plan to use this virtual space for whatever rants, raves, appreciations, frustrations, and recipes I feel like writing on any given day. I don't particularly care whether anyone reads it or not.