Election 2008

I am doing everything that I can to NOT blog about the upcoming election. I have people close to me on both sides and I appreciate them for having opinions that I believe are derived from a combination of research and what they value most.

I did however come across an interesting quote and wanted to post it:

"“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.”

~ Thomas Jefferson

As far as I am concerned BOTH the Republicans AND the Democrats are guilty of this.

and let me give another quote by perhaps the MOST influential of our founding fathers:

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

~ James Madison

Geek at heart...

This cartoon was on my door while I was in college with Midvale scratched out and replaced by the name of my university.

I went to perhaps the biggest geek university ever. When I was a freshman, my parents called to let me know that USA Today ran a story that for X University to attract its students to attend a football game on campus, they were giving away some game on disk. To the rest of the world this was funny. I wanted to know what game.

Fast forward many years and to this day I realize that the only thing that has changed is that I am older. On my desk sit TWO iphones. Of course I don't subscribe to AT&T so one is a functional unlocked iphone, the other I have spent countless hours trying to unlock. Guess what I just started to do AGAIN? I am afraid that I accidentally fried it. Ug.

I get excited when Apple releases new Macs. I have had... Oh My God, that is a big number, let's just say more Macs then dogs and I have had a lot of dogs. I sell my old ones on Ebay. I have had .... Oh My God, another big number ipods. Meanwhile I drive a car that is nine years old. It is a very nice vehicle but most people don't drive a car that old. I replace my Mac more frequently then I replace brakes in my car.

Very funny that I am a roofer isn't it? I am always amused when someone makes what I consider an interesting observation about me. Once at Starbucks, a woman was chatting with me and asked what I do. After I told her she commented "I don't know a lot of roofers that carry Kate Spade bags". Good one. I was at a walk through and one of the roof consultants noticed my iphone. Not standard in construction you understand. Ultimately I suppose that you can take the girl out of geek school but I guess you can never take the geek out of the girl.

sad...

First off, shame on me, I started this blog on Saturday while getting my hair done in NYC and couldn't get my iphone to post anything except the title of "sad" and today I get a call from a friend worried about me. I am sorry!

Lets go back to Saturday.

My sister got me a color and cut appointment at "the" salon in NYC through her fashion photography network. What this means in reality is that I was going to pay through my nose for a haircut. OK, I am game.

I don't like normal chit chat gossip. I hardly ever follow celebrity stuff unless they are mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. I don't get excited about the demise of other people. I do talk with and about my friends and personal situations but not in a way that is harmful or destructive. When I am put into that position, it is clear that I am very uncomfortable.

While I am at the salon, I have my wedding and engagement rings on my right hand. I am wearing them as after the hair appointment, I am going to the diamond district to break them into pieces and turn them into other jewelry. This is a huge move for me and the last item left over from a terrible marriage.

It was as if sharks smelled blood in the water.

"Are you married?"
no
"Sorry, I just noticed your wedding rings"
I am divorced
"Oh, I see... well no worries you are young, you can find someone else"
(this is where I give them the eye in the mirror)
"they are beautiful rings"
***sigh*** (and I have no reading material so I can't ignore them forever)
... I give in... My former father in law started his career at Cartier and made them for me
"Really, so he was great but his son wasn't?"
Yes, he is a great man and these were the last items he made before he had eye surgery and can not work any more.
"Oh"
His son was a bad man.
"well at least you got the rings"
only because I pre nuped them and because they were in my safe in my office when he broke into the house to try to steal them.
"my God"

I can't go on. You get the point. There is more and for those of you who are familiar with my marrige, you can imagine. This goes on for what feels like forever. In reality it probably lasted around 15 minutes.

I don't like to talk about it. I talk to some people about it. I didn't even really talk to my sister about it. This puts a cloud over me.

Fast forward a few hours and we are in the diamond district. I take off the rings and my sister has to help me to give the jewelers direction as to what to do. I start to cry. Right there. I haven't cried about my marriage in 1.5+ years. Here goes the only nice thing that anyone relating to and including my husband ever did for me and I am tearing down all this work.

In the past few weeks, I have realized that I still carry baggage around with me. I said something mean to my sweetheart that wasn't about him at all. I apologized for it but what I did was wrong and was a result of my lashing out at the past. I saw my ex walking and felt like such a small idiot for marrying him. I got upset at a hairdresser for being nosey. I cried when I broke apart "the rocks". Jesus, how long does this last? I am in a whole new place in my life! I have a new (old) home, new friends, new dogs, an amazing new man, heck I even have a new "look"!

Saturday I was in a sad strange place.

I am glad that it is Monday.

Would you believe me if I told you they still had not paid???

This cartoon sums up the way I started my day yesterday.

I came in to my office yesterday in the am and received an email from the same General Contractor in the blog of three weeks ago saying they did not have current insurance certificates and won't pay until they get said certs. OK, they got the first set in FEBRUARY, the second set in June (policy renewed on 7/1) third set in AUGUST and Fourth set in SEPTEMBER. Now remember this is for a job that is $6,600 ~ TINY compared to our average job! That was all I needed to hear this time.

I did two things:

1. sent an email to my insurance company requesting the return receipts for each time they emailed a copy of the certs to said company

2. forwarded the email where they received the information multiple times.

THEN I brought out the big guns. I called the client. See I am a vendor for the same client so I know some of the fantastic staff that they have and they deserve to know how the GC they have hired hasn't been responsible to the vendors on the project. I told the client that although the GC was as nice as they could be they haven't paid the first dime on a four month old bill and have given me the same insurance certificate run around for months. Last iteration was three weeks ago and now the entire job is finished and I don't have the first dime.

I got an email this morning. The GC is cutting my check tomorrow. Of course, I won't believe it until I see it.

This is the part of the blog where I express how grateful I am. Grateful that we are 20 years old, well networked, and big enough to not have to WORK FOR GC'S THAT OFTEN! See the trick here is to realize they have already been paid by the client for my part of the work so they have been sitting on my pay for months without any kind of reasonable excuse. This is a small town and our paths will cross again, do you think that I will ever work with them again?

I guess that depends on how rough an economic ride we are on. I would rather fly off on my broom like Helga.

PS off to NYC for a few days so more blogs soon!

Afraid of the postman...

Hey another day of bragging before I begin:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081008113434.htm

Kudos to you Mark!!

Like many Americans, I fondly remember those post college days in my first "place". You know you lived in a space that you rented and it was either completely empty or full of furniture that was an eclectic mix of something that your parents had from 1970, something a friend didn't need any longer and/or something you build out of a combination of cinder blocks, duct tape, milk cartons and scrap wood. Lets face it, my place, like everyone else's, was haphazard but infinitely cool as it was my space.

Those were the days when your budget was crazy tight and you dreaded the day when the cable or phone bill arrived because if it was slightly higher then the last month, it would be ramen noodles the entire next week to keep you on budget.

Fast forward a few years, multiple hair colors, and new furniture and there is a new horror from the postman, the dreaded quarterly retirement account statement.

On my desk was the scary envelope. I found myself experiencing a mix of anxiety and excitement ~ was I the statistically anomaly who did not experience a 30%, 40% or 50% decline in portfolio value? Yea, right and I still dream about Santa Clause.

It is almost impressive how much I lost in the period ending 9/30/08 and we aren't even addressing the market tank of the past 10 days! My saving grace is that I have many many more years in the market and this will all work out by the time I retire. I am very sad for those who don't have that current luxury of time as I do. I am certainly going to have a more slim and trim retirement account in the short term, however I am not thankfully going to be consumed by Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater in spite of this Halloween like horror movie we call the stock market.

Knot or boulder?

Before I indulge, I first must brag... http://www.ajc.com/health/content/health/stories/2008/10/06/bikram_yoga_workout.html

Cool.

Kudos to Katherine and yes, kudos to Jenny as she is the one that makes Bikram Yoga Alpharetta possible.

Now, onto these dog gone roofer rantings du jour.

I have a knot in my stomach today. The stock market has been all over the map. When we had a "slight decline" (first day under 10,000) I actually got a little excited looking around for a good buy. Now I just feel sick.

Our market has just pulled out of a 1.5 yr decline. We are working on Q1 2009 backlog. We are just recovering. But for how long? Everyone else seems to be in a decline and we are recovering?

Today I am closing Q3 financials and wondering about the moving mark of the banking industry. What will it take and what are they looking for to renew my line of credit in six months? I know what my year end goals are but do they? I will call my banker and get a read of the expectations ... well hopefully I will get my banker and hopefully they are not busy with the FDIC. Six months ago I sold and purchased a home. With my 700+ credit score and 20%+ down I still had to haggle with the mortgage company. What will I have to do with our line of credit??

Meanwhile, in my last blog I mentioned that I had a rock thrown through my car window. OK it has been seven days and my car still sits at the dealership with no work done on it as I am fighting with my insurance company. Now my car is insured under the company policy although I personally own it. I also happen to be the insurance decision maker. I purchase the auto, work comp, general liability, umbrella, life, medical, etc insurance. This claim is under $4,000 and the insurance company wants to put parts in it so that the new window and the new interior door wont actually match the rest of the car so they only pay $1,100. OK, at what point does someone say, "hmmm... these pennies are going to cost us tens of thousands of dollars worth of business when the roofer moves her policies elsewhere?"

I am feeling a little... stressed today. The immediate future (market woes and insurance issues) are out of my hands. I am angry and I am worried. I can only react to the next set of actions from both the bank and from CNA. I feel like I have gotten customer "no service" from the government in this pork heavy bail out, definately no service from CNA, worried about Wall St., the credit crisis etc..

Today with this knot in my stomach, I feel the need for Bikram yoga, chocolate, and a good joke.

I think the link to the article above will at least inspire me to have a great Bikram class tonight.

You Can't Steal My Birthday...

I came back from lunch to find these on my desk! Believe me, the day didn't start this bright.

Today is my birthday. I was at M's house and when I left this am, I found that someone had thrown a rock through my car window and stole my gps. OK, so I took M's car home to get ready and take care of the dogs and then we waited about an hour back at his house for the police to show. By then it was light out and we got a good look at the damage. It was much worse then I originally thought. The rock was huge and was thrown so hard that it shattered the driver side window, hit the passenger door, bounced and landed back on the drivers seat. This guy was an olympic athete to hurl a rock that big, that hard!!! LOL! No one threatened me, it is just a gps that is lost and certainly there is damage but all that will be made right. That is why you carry insurance. So all inconvenient but no real harm done.

M was mad. He hated that this happened. He wanted to take me to lunch but I had an appointment to take my car in for service, etc. When I came back from lunch, these HUGE and Beautiful flowers were on my desk.

I got to stop and enjoy a second cup of coffee this am, a nice breeze on the way into work and can smell and see a georgeous floral arrangment. Weird but good day!