Other corporations that can get fucked:

1) the Mortgage Exchange, for botching the close of my loan, nearly causing the closing to be rescheduled. I don't care how mushmouthed Joe Aldeguer is in his radio ads. DO NOT do business with them.
2) Option One Mortgage - these assholes bought my mortgage from The Mortgage Exchange. Normal practice. However, I have recieved a call every day since the mortgage closed from some Indian in a call center who CANNOT deviate from his script of verifying my information. Finally I got through to a manager and explained that my information had been verified several times, and each time I had been assured was the last call I'd get. Corporations that do this type of outsourcing do not see what kind of damage it does to them to put customers through this shit. I cannot wait for my house to sell so I can get a mortgage on MY terms.

I guarantee it will not be with the Mortgage Exchange or Option One Mortgage.

Fuck me? Fuck U-HAUL!

I forgot to tell you about this, but I used U-Haul for my move. Having that 26-ft truck made things easy. Getting it was a pain in the ass.
1) you make a reservation online, then get a confirmation back immediately. It basically says someone will call you to arrange your vehicle.
2) Someone does call you. They talk you into a one-way move meaning you pick up and drop off in 2 different locations. No sweat, I think. This is Chicagoland. There's bound to be a few between Westmont and Lisle. You are then told that you will receive a call NO LATER THAN 5 PM the day before the pickup that tells you where to pick up.
3) The day before your move rolls around. You receive no call by 5 PM. You are panicked because you have help coming tomorrow, and you need to/want to move.
4) You call the local number and (avter waiting in the ACD queue (Thank you for holding, fool. Your call is as imprtant to us as Human Papilloma virus. Please continue holding like a hapless moron) for an hour, are told that the rain storm knocked out the computers, so call the national number.
5) You call the national number and hold for literally 2 hours before giving up.
6) You are in the middle of moving the next morning at 9 am when they call and get all hard on you. You are asked to drive 20 miles to get your truck. When you say that they were supposed to call by 5, they say they are supposed to call by 6 pm the night previous as if it's a defense.
7) you concede to getting the truck. In your 120-minute round trip, you find that you have to wait in line a half hour behind argumentative morons trying to fake like they put in a reservation. You come to find out that the furniture dollies you had ordered on the almighty internet are no longer available.
8) you move
9) Exhausted, you decide that it'd be better to return the truck that night than have to do it in the morning, not realizing what an adversary the dark will be when you are told the return address, again 20 miles away, is along a frontage road.
10) after rumbling down all three other directions if the potholed frontge road, you finally find the dealership and angrily stuff the keys and rental agreement into the night box.
11) a month later, you notice a mysterious second charge from u-haul to the tune of $83 on your credit card.
12) You attempt to call the 800-number, and after a half-hour on hold, you concede to sending an email via the customer service form, knowing in your heart that you will never receive a reply.

Fuck you, U-Haul. Next time, I'm going Ryder.

Mas Bupdates

My wife thinks she saw a coyote (Fiiiiiim!) in the yard last night. They had a pack of them in Oak Brook last year, eating toy poodles, so I am on the lookout since Rerun's not much bigger than a poodle.
<---RERUN
I read in the paper yesterday that they charged the guy (Timothy Dumbrow) who tried to break into my house and successfully broke into my neighbor's house. They charged him with trespassing. Maybe criminal trespassing, but it seems that if you do thousands of dollars worth of damage to a house, you should be charged with more. But maybe I'M the crazy one. Anyway, Neither of my calls to the Lisle police have been returned.

Bridging the gap

between my last few posts...
I had to dry my hand on my handkerchief.
Yes, I carry a handkerchief. You should too. Mostly I use it for mopping my brow, but it never fails to come in handy. Hence the name, I guess. Plus, I get nothing but points when people comment on it. Think of it as a soft pocket knife.
All Men should carry them.
Today, a guy got on the train who really could've used one. He sat behind me slurching snot back up into his nose. I moved seats 'cause I ain't about to try to get sick. My point is, a man solves that problem. He doesn't sit there sounding like a sheep-legged 8-year-old with a runny nose and a kool-aid moustache.
What else makes a man? I'm hoping to sprur some comments here like my metabigots discussion a few months back.
Holla

Public Restrooms

Hey, Y'know those metal boxes that hang on the wall in public restrooms and blow hot air?
Can anybody tell me why they're called "hand dryers"?
I've never known them to do such a thing.

Miette's JCPenny collection

She is a living, breathing tickle. She's 15 Months old. She's Miette.

Bupdates

First, at the Comedysportz banquet, I found out I have a lot more readers than I thought. Welcome, all. I appreciate your digesting my prattle.

My wife has put the kybosh (sp?) on me writing to the Lisle sun. Maybe they'll just see my blog. In other Lisle news, there's a police auction this weekend. I really want to go check it out.

One last bit on Manhood that I found interesting. In GQ or Esquire, they talked to a trend specialist who specializes on men's trends. She (yes. Wierd.) Says that most men of my generation will belong to a social fraternal organization like the Elks or Odd Fellows so that they spend a lot of time socializing in that way. Can you picture me driving a tiny car with the shriners? I guess I can. It makes me wonder if I can parlay my college fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon into a longer-term experience. I know it can be done. I just wonder how/if it will work for me. I guess I feel like I don't have time to explore that now. In the future I'll dust off the Teke Guide and rock it.

Portly = Sexy

Well, according to the Today Show, anyway. Actually, the whole piece was a marraige of the death of metrosexuality and then they blended in Steve Schrippa, author of "The Goomba Diet" in times square asking women if they preferred a man with a gut to a metrosexual. Lord knows how they edited it, but the story was basically saying, "Guts are In!". Like I didn't know that.
Confidence is what's sexy. Toward the end of the piece they cited funny fat guys like Jack Black. They they qualified that by saying he was more funny than sexy.
I can't believe I'm even writing about this. The Today Show is for candybrains. If you need to watch that shit to know how to feel, you have bigger problems.
What I'm trying to get to anyway is a bit about manhood. I've spent a lot of time in recent years trying to be the best man I can be. That can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but a little piece in this month's GQ started to crystalize it for me. It was written by a feminist who has fallen for a man who takes the reins a bit. However, the way this guy takes the reins is just by being a man. Being a gentleman, being slightly chivalrous, knowing how to fix things, and not being afraid of work.
Lately, that's almost all I've been doing. Work. Especially with the move. There's been countless hours of physical labor. I've been reveling in it 'cause it's all for my wife and baby. The wierdest thing is how great accomplishment feels lately. Even little accomplishments. I get a little irie just turning screws. Sounds wierd, but spending 5 hours in the attic with sweat running down my face putting ends on cable felt great. Because I was doing it (and doing it and doing it well).
I guess it's a good thing to feel that way since I have so much to do. I'll start by mowing 2 lawns tomorrow morning...
Let's go get some shit done. Let's do it to them before they do it to us; and hey, Let's be careful out there.

Hasn't quite got the same ring to it...

This is the blurb that appeared in the Lisle Sun regarding the guy in the green headband:
"In Brief
Home disturbances end in man's arrest
The Lisle Police Department responded at 7:25 a.m. Aug. 5 to several emergency calls describing a man damaging and trying to enter several residences, shouting that he needed help from police, according to a press release.
Officers were told the man entered residences on the 600 block of Jonquil Avenue. Police found a man at one home damaging a bathroom, the release said.
Police arrested Timothy Dombrow, 32, of 588 Front St., Lisle, and took him to Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, where he was involuntarily committed for an evaluation.
According to Sgt. Ron Wilke, public information officer, Dombrow said he was being chased.
Charges of criminal damage to property and trespassing are pending upon Dombrow's release from the hospital. Police have issued a warrant. Wilke said the hospital had not notified the department whether Dombrow had been released as of 3 p.m. Aug. 9.

I'm transcribing my account (and cleaning out the expletives) and will send it to the Lisle Sun Editor. I'll let you know if I get a reposnse.

Bits per second

I'm in a data networking training class all week. The gratuitous use of the words bit and bits is totally bitworthy, but no one here appreciates it. I'm following along surprisingly well. It's difficult, nerdy subject matter.
I saw Talladega Nights. It was wonderful. Especially John C. Reilly and Sacha Baron Cohen. The fucking Time Crisis 3 machine in the lobby was broken.
Times are still stressful on the house front. I really need to unload the house, and the realtor doesn't seem to be coming up with ant whizz-bang ideas. However, It is accurately said that all real estate sells; it's just a matter of when.
I finally mowed the grass in the new yard. It took an hour.

I don't like it unless it's brand new.

--Rhymefest. Stupid name, great album. Go pick up Rhymefest's "Blue Collar" It's about 80% awesome.
Pharrell's "in my mind" is good but not great, it can wait. Rhymefest can't. He's a Chicago guy.
Still waiting on getting Damian Marley. That I heard in Cali, and it's great. I jut keep forgetting to buy it.

Even in Lisle

Even in Lisle.
Saturday morning at about 7:30 AM, we'd just finished eating breakfast and were getting the baby dressed. Suddenly there was pounding at the front door. At first I thought it was my dad or brother screwing around, but before I reached the bottom of the stairs, I realized that whoever it was was pounding too hard for it to be a joke. I got in front of the door (it has a top half that is glass) to see a piece of white trash wearing a torn piece of green fabric as a headband with his back to the door attempting to kick it in and slamming his fists into the glass in an attempt to break in.
My balls crept up inside me.
I told Kiki to stay in the baby's room and called 911. This is the conversation:Me: "Hello I'm at 610 Jonquil and someone's trying to break down my front door"
Operator: "The guy with the headband, right? We've gotten a ton of calls about him. Please stay on the phone with me; we have officers on the way, and we'll need help locating him."
[At that point, the guy quit kicking the door and took off west across my yard. Just then there were squad cars]
O: Do you see squad cars?
M: Yes, but the guy just took off across my yard to the west.
O: We've got him. Thanks.

But they didn't HAVE him. Moments later, there were cops creeping along my bushes with guns drawn. Then crouching behind my neighbor's car and tree.
Minutes passed. I went up to the baby's room and briefed Kiki. We opened the window so we could hear the cops. We could now only see one who tore off in his car, and then returned, blocking our driveway. He took a shotgun out of the trunk, and then moved out of our field of vision. He promptly came back, and got a tear gas gun and again disappeared in the direction of our neighbor's house. We were worried because the neighbors are a retirement-age couple, and the husband was in Florida working on a house they'd bought.
I was also worried because I'd left the shed unlocked, and thought this guy might have been hiding in there. I kept going to a window that looked out on the shed to see if I could see anything disturbed.
10 minutes later a K-9 unit arrived. The cop we'd been watching and the Darien dog handler went into the house. Moments later 8 cops came out of the house carrying this guy like the trash he is. They stood on him while a female officer got the leg ties. Then an ambulance arrived. They loaded this guy on it. I was worried that they weren't going in the house for Trudy, the neighbor, and I was half expecting a coroner van to roll up and go in. Fortunately, she was already out of the house and standing down the street where we couldn't see her.
Then the neighbor to the other side called and apologized to us. She hated that this was our first impression of the neighborhood.
I went outside to check on Trudy. Between this and talking to the cop that filled out a report on our damaged front door (they even fingerprinted it), here's what happened:
This guy had never been a problem before. He lives in the area (the worst possible thing the cop could have said in front of my wife), parked his car a few streets away, and started rampaging. He hit at least the six houses next to ours to the east, working his way down the street; pounding on doors, ripping of downspouts, and breaking stuff. He finally broke a window in Trudy's house and went in the ground level, ripping open drywall and pulling out plumbing and conduit.
Trudy was doing chores upstairs in her house when she heard this asswipe pounding on houses, so she called 911. She was taking the cops through the damage when she saw him get to our house. Just as she was thinking he was going to break one of her downstairs windows and get in her house, he did. She told the cops he was in her house, and they were like "Calm down, ma'am, there are officers in the area. You're being hysterical." She was like, "Look, he broke a window and got in my house. He's downstairs COME AND GET ME OUT!"
What the fuck took them so long to get this piece of excrement out I'll never know. Literally 8 cops carried him out.
The cop who took our statement said that while the police knew of this guy, he'd never done anything like this before, and then he implied that this guy was on drugs. The cop even corrected me by saying Caucasian when I said "Can I say White Trash?" when asked to describe the guy. I did get a laugh, though, when I described the guy's skin as being red like most alcoholics.
The cop and I then talked and I found out he'd been a year behind me in school, though he went to the Catholic High school. We talked familiar names, and he left.
We then heard from Trudy that the cops told her that the guy had some kind of blood sugar episode, so they couldn't charge him with anything. Now, I have 2 diabetic siblings, and I know that blood sugar swings do not make you tie on a green headband and go wilding. I'm thinking meth or a legitimate psychological episode. Neither or which are qualities I look for in a neighbor.
A couple of things in hindsight:
1) I kept my wits, and handled things well, but in that moment of panic, all I could think of was that I'm gonna have to fight this asshole in my underwear. I keep a baseball bat in the house, but since we had just moved, it was in the garage, and I wasn't about to take myself out from in between him and my wife and daughter. I later lamented not having the bat closer to me, and Kiki literally said, "what, so he could take it away and use it on you?". I guess I'll never own a gun.
2) That this happened sucked, but since it happened, it really couldn't have gone better. If it had been 3 AM instead of 7:30 AM and in broad daylight, it would have been significantly more terrifying. It would have also been worse had we been sitting at the table eating breakfast. My wife would have made me sell the house. Plus, no one really got hurt, and there's no better way to meet your neighbors that in the cul-de-sac giving a statement to the police.

Welcome to Lisle, The Arboretum Village.

So we moved in the weekend of the 28th. I had some great help from my Father-in-law, and two high school friends. …And 3 cases of water. it was 100 degrees that weekend. The rest of my family helped out running baby interference. We got it all over to the new house. Lots of it is still sitting in the garage ready to be put away.
All real estate sells. It's just a matter of when. We're currently holding 2 mortgages, which we will be able to do for about a month. That's pressure.
Also, it was after we'd agreed to buy the place that I found out that there wasn't a single telephone jack or cable jack in the entire house. I have done both, and can do telephone wiring easy, but cable is tricky. I bought a TV cable tool off ebay to make the job easier. I finished cabling what I could do yesterday. 4 Phone jacks and 3 cable jacks. I think it took me 10 hours in total. Lots of time in a filthy attic putting ends on wires.
I still haven't cut the grass. I'll be lucky if the neighbors don't call the village on me.
I'll never do business with UHAUL again, and I'd discourage any of you from as well. They do this just-in-time scheduling thing where they call you the night before and tell you where to pick up the truck. Per their guarantee, they're supposed to call you by 5 pm the night previous. I spent 3 hours on hold with them trying to find out why I didn't get my call. They called at 8 AM the next morning. fuxx. It made things a lot easier to have a 26-foot moving truck though. It only took 2 trips. Plus, you feel like a total trucker because you're 6 feet off the ground. WEEEEW!
Also, they don't tell you until late in the day where you are required to drop the truck off. That was a 2-hour odyssey trying to find this office in Bolingbrook along a frontage road.
Comcast was supposed to hook up our cable, phone, and interned on the 31st originally, then they pushed it off til the 2nd, and then today. The guy is there. However, they can't do the phone until Friday. Monopolies are evil, everybody. This is America, and they are anti-American. blee dat.
Here is a picture of Miette chilling in her new room. No walking yet, but trying, and lots of talking.