Happy Panic Productions

One word

On a stair here in the library, scrawled in chalk, like the cry of some freedom fighter:
"Linoleum!"

Holy crap, I own a house!

Closing Day wasn't fun. I had applied for my mortgage through National City Bank because they were among only two lenders I could find in Michigan who had ever heard of an Energy Efficiency Mortgage, much less offered one. It's a cool deal: a federally-approved energy inspector runs some tests on the house, recommends upgrades, and calculates how much those upgrades would reduce your monthly energy bill. The cost of the upgrades is then rolled into your mortgage, provided the resultant increae in your monthly payments is lower than the monthly energy savings. I wanted to get this mortgage not only because it promotes conservation in general, but it would also allow me to immediately replace the 52-year-old furnace I was buying, even though I don't have the cash to do so. (It also would allow me to buy a top-of-the-line furnace and pay it off over 30 years.)

So yes, this is the mortgage I wanted, applied for, and offered. And about 30 minutes before closing, I learned that it was the mortgage I would not get. The loan officer calls to inform me that the energy inspector she had hired, as it turns out, is no longer approved for the program.

This is a crappy way of telling this story, so I'll try to re-write this post sometime this weekend, in the midst of painting the house that, yes, I did get nonetheless.

I was in Boston for the first time over the weekend. Reading through the Boston Phoenix, I spotted a couple of interesting bits:

The bass player from The Poster Children sold tickets to the sunset.

I was actually trying to get event insurance for these events, in case the sun didn’t set, and no company would insure me. Isn’t that funny?

...and...

In a six-minute exchange at the May 24 hearing (viewable at hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=238 [apparently no longer avaialable]), Bloch continued his evasiveness until an exasperated Levin finally berated him into conceding that, in fact, he believes the OSC [Office of Special Counsel] provides no legal protection to federal employees who are fired or otherwise mistreated because of their sexual orientation. "Why did it take me five minutes to get an answer out of you?" Levin moaned. "I believe it was longer than five minutes," Bloch replied.