Category: hmm… thoughts

On New Year’s Eve we stood around our little kitchen butcher block talking to the kids about 2013. We shared some plans we knew about, some things we were hoping for in the new year, and then we turned it on them.

“What’s your new year’s resolution going to be?” 

Our kids aren’t exactly forward-looking. I think it’s a combination of developmental appropriateness and just being chilled out kids who live in the moment.

After a few minutes of talking Paul piped out his idea. “I’d give up candy for a whole year for $50.”

We went with it. $50 for no candy for a year? We shortened it to 6 months then made it inclusive. Anyone in the house who wanted to give up candy for 6 months gets $50 cash on July 1st.

Megan tapped out right away. Part of our routine in going to SDSU basketball games is stopping at 7-11 to get candy. There’s no way she was going to give that up, not even for $50. 

But Paul was into it. Mom and dad joined in out of solidarity.

And here we are… July 1st.

Resolution complete.

Totally Survivable

This wasn’t that hard of a challenge. Megan was right, the basketball games were the worst part. I love getting Mike & Ike’s for the games and I never really found a good substitute. (Coffee was the next best thing, I guess.) But outside of that and the occasional, daily, gnawing craving to stuff my face with candy at 2:00 PM, it was easy. 

It’s not like I missed Skittles at all. Or a frozen Snicker bar. Or Hot Tamales. And it’s not like SDSU didn’t make it to the Sweet 16 or win a conference championship simply because I didn’t get to eat Mike & Ike’s after the Star Spangled Banner. Didn’t miss it at all. Kind of like giving up breathing. 

It was totally survivable.

So What’s Next?

I have no idea. But it’ll involve Skittles.

As a small business owner, I have a number in mind for what my business must make each month.  It’s an actual number based on the amount of money the business needs to make so we can pay all of our bills and ourselves.

Here is something that I’ve been wrestling with lately:

The number, however exact or arbitrarily picked, becomes the number.

It’s a goal but also a limiter.

So, right now, I can open a spreadsheet and point to every month in 2013 and tell you exactly how the business got to, is getting to, or will get to that number.

Could I make more? Yes. Could I make less? Yes. But chances are good that the business will generate just about that amount of money we need because that’s what we’re aiming to do.

(more…)

January 28th, 2014 UPDATE

I received a 1099-C today from Citimortgage documenting that they’ve finally written off the debt and assigning the debt amount to my SSN to pay taxes on. I assume that’s what the $300 is going to cover? Either way, glad this sad chapter is ending.

APRIL 23rd, 2013 UPDATE

Over the weekend we received a check for $300. So a bank stole my house, humiliated me in front of my neighbors, killed the value of homes in my area, then tried to collect damages from me… and that’s worth $300. You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.

Leave me a comment and let me know what I should do with this $300. I’m thinking of buying more Citibank stock.

MARCH 22nd 2013 UPDATE 

Today, we received a postcard in the mail from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency telling us we no longer had to do anything, no forms, no investigations, no risk… but to expect a check in the mail over the next 4-8 weeks. If you’re wondering if that is legit or just another scam, please read about it on the Federal Treasury website.

Original rant

<rant warning>
I got a letter today, allegedly from the Michigan attorney general encouraging me to sign on to a settlement. (148,000 other people got this, too) If I read the letter correctly, the 5 major banks are settling with foreclosure victims for whom they, the banks, willfully blocked a short sale to force them into foreclosure. Additionally, the payments are regarding litigation surrounding illegally signed documents, perhaps in lew of criminal charges. (This was one of the myriad of problems we faced.)

In our case, after stealing my home the bank then bought it from themselves and then sold it to a 3rd party, making $75,000 on the transaction, while at the same time taking a federal buyout of billions of dollars, crying to Congress that they got stuck with losses from people like me.

And now these same banks want to give me $840 as an I’m sorry– we’re not at fault — please take this money payment? As if, “Oopsies, we stole your house and turned your life upside down” is worth $840.

So, the banks get to ruin my credit score until 2016, these same banks get to charge me higher interest rates for everything from a credit card to a car loan and all the nastiness that goes with that, like getting denied credit for little things like say… my electric bill, forcing me to pay deposits.

And $840 is supposed to make up for that.

That sickens me.

I’m thankful that I was smart enough to take what was left of my IRA in 2009 and invest in these same banks. Between 2009 and 2011 my IRA made back the vast majority I lost in cash value from the house as they reaped the benefits of grand theft and federal bailouts. (Take that, suckers!)

But telling me I’m eligible for $840 in a settlement without fixing the main problems… is a slap in the face.

To summarize, Mr. Big Bank…. here’s why I think your settlement is a far cry from what is needed.

1. You forced me to give up my house by refusing to fulfill your end of the mortgage contract and work with me on a short sale. I had multiple buyers with offers tens of thousands of dollars more than you eventually sold it for in foreclosure. Additionally, you refused to take a 1 time settlement with me for the balance of the loan at closing to avoid a short sale altogether. You weren’t going to lose a dime! But gave me no other option after months and months but to give up. How is this settlement fixing that? 
2. Literally, at the end of the day, you stole the house from me months before the foreclosure process had run its proper course, which would have allowed even the most inept person processing your short sales the opportunity to close. You forged paperwork, you sent me documents with “sign by” dates having already expired, you then sold my house at public auction before the foreclosure process was complete… it wasn’t even yours! And how does this make up for any of that? 
3. You had the nerve to tell me that I owed an additional $31,000 to cover the balance of a loan in full flat out denial of the fact that the house was collateral against the loan. (As clearly stipulated in the contract.) This has never made sense to me. Did you take care of that? 
4. You then sold that bogus debt to collection companies who have harassed me illegally since 2009. Every 6-7 weeks I have to put up with phone calls and letters from another entity for a debt I do not owe and will not pay. These companies give up and then sell that “debt” to another company, who calls and harasses me. One even offered me a settlement saying if I paid $1100 now it’d erase a $31,000 debt they can’t prove that I actually owe. Are you going to take care of that? It’s driving me nuts.
5. You ruined my credit and will continue to ruin my credit until at least 2016. Are you going to take care of that?
6. You forced me, a person who had never missed a payment, to go through the humiliation of foreclosing on a house I loved and invested every penny in. Further, your actions cost my neighbors money as this bogus foreclosure devalued their homes, making me look like a chump. How are you going to take care of that? 

Seriously. $840.

For all I know, these banks have a deal with the attorney general of the state of Michigan which will somehow make me liable for something else by accepting a stupid $840 settlement check.

Trick me once. Shame on you. Trick me twice. Shame on me.

Never again.

So that’s what I think about the letter I got today.

</rant warning>

I watched way too much football yesterday. 

My two teams, Notre Dame and San Diego State, bookended the college football schedule. My alarm went off at 5:30 AM to start making breakfast for a 6:00 AM kickoff for the Irish. And San Diego State took on Washington with a kickoff at 7:30 PM.

My friend Paul came over for the ND game. We had fun making an Irish-inspired breakfast. I bought a few Guinness for the occasion and let me tell ya, I don’t really like Guinness, but they are especially tough to drink at 6:00 AM. I think we each took a couple of sips and that was as much of Ireland as we needed.

Here are some thoughts on the college football season, in random order:

• Notre Dame is better than I thought. I know Navy is very weak and Notre Dame is supposed to steam roll them. But the Irish were pretty sharp. They could do what they wanted on all sides of the ball and showed a lot more depth than in previous years. I think we’ve found a quarterback in Golson, he ran the offense well and got a lot of players involved. With a few veteran players coming back from suspensions I suspect they will roll Purdue next week and set up a challenging Michigan State & Michigan back-to-back match-up in a few weekends. Oh, and wasn’t it cool to play that game in Dublin? 35,000 North Americans came bringing $125,000,000 into the country in tourism dollars. A lot of people think Notre Dame gets unfair special treatment. Well… how many schools can get 35,000 fans to fly to another country for an opening game? Not very many colleges can get 35,000 to a bowl game! That’s why the Irish get special treatment. They are special.
• San Diego State was about what I thought they’d be. We lost a lot of talent to the NFL and graduation and we looked very young. I’ve always liked Walter Kazee and was happy to see him get some big runs. Ryan Katz was OK, he played scared in the first half and then woke up in the second. I’ve never seen a player take so many slides… and for a young man who likes to slide I’d encourage him to take 1-2 more steps before sliding the rest of the season so he can slide us to first down instead of 3 and 2. I wrote earlier this fall about the introduction of Rockyball. We didn’t punt when we had the ball inside the 50, never kicked a field goal, and never kicked a PAT. Rockyball got an F yesterday because none of it panned out. But if it had we’d be celebrating a victory over a Pac-12 team.
• Penn State. I don’t think Penn State should be playing football for the next 4-5 years. But since they did a deal with the NCAA and saved football… I’ll just be forced to hope they lose a lot. If you watched the game you saw Penn State give up. Ohio (not Ohio State, mind you) man-handled the offensive and defensive line in the second half. The commentators tried to spin it as the PSU players were overly emotional at the beginning of the game and just ran out of gas. I think, what we saw, was the team flat out giving up. For months they’ve tried to hold it together and pretend that what happened had nothing to do with them… and it was almost like you could see it hit them during the physical exhaustion of the game. With all of their best players heading for other programs they just couldn’t compete against a MAC team. And the realization of that has big implications in the Big 10. By the time the game came to its merciful conclusion you had to wonder how many players from Penn State were thinking, “I should have transferred.” They should have. All of them. And just for the record… with yesterdays loss they continued a 14 year losing streak. 
• Alabama vs. Michigan. I’ve got to give Michigan credit, I didn’t think they’d have an offensive touchdown and they did. Alabama is, by far, the best team in football. What we saw yesterday was an exhibition of just how good they are. I think they’d give a bunch of lower level NFL teams fits. (They’d be #2 or #3 in the AFC East) Alabama’s defense exposed the single dimension, Denard Robinson-focused, offense. Michigan entered the game #8 and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them drop into the 20s. Someone even gave them a #1 ranking… yeah, those days are over. All future opponents saw how Alabama did it and will use that as the roadmap, which spells trouble in Hoke-ville. All of Robinson’s Heisman dreams went out the window yesterday. It was kind of sad to see. He’s make a great NFL tailback, though.
• Here’s to the wussy schedules. Some of the match-ups this weekend have been horrid. None so bad as Oklahoma State vs. Savannah State. 84-0 and the Savannah State coach said “it could have been a lot worse.” (North Carolina vs. Elon was a close second.) Almost as interesting, though, were how many of these mid-majors and mini-majors hung in there. Northern Iowa almost beat Wisconsin. NIU came up just short against Iowa. Arizona needed overtime to beat Toledo. Bowling Green played toe-to-toe with Florida for 3 quarters. Arkansas State outscored Oregon 24-7 in the second half. And San Jose State almost held on to beat Stanford.
• Mountain West report. Outside of Nevada beating Cal, the Mountain West underachieved against non-conference opponents. That’ll hurt us down the road. We needed SDSU to beat Washington and Boise State to beat Michigan State. I think this is a weak year for the conference, but I expect Boise State, Nevada, and SDSU to be the top 3 teams at the end of the year. (Which leaves SDSU out of a bowl for the last time before joining the Big East.)

“Um, I went to Bible College. I have a degree in youth ministry.”

I find myself saying that a lot when I’m frustrated. Sometimes when things aren’t going well on a project I suddenly feel way, WAY outside of my training.

• I’m not an event planner! Right now I’m in full-on event mode, deep into producing Open Seattle and The Summit. (Less so the Middle School Ministry Campference.)
• I’m not a video producer! But I’ve put together a bagillion videos lately for various Cartel things.
• I don’t have a design degree. But, of course, I’m doing tons of work in Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Final Cut, etc.
• I am not a programmer. But I’m spending a lot of time coding in php, developing WordPress themes and even trying my hand at plugins.
• I’m not an accountant. But being a small business owner is forcing me to do things that I just pray don’t get me in trouble with the IRS.

The list goes on and on.

And the opposite is also true.

• I pretty much took the summer off from youth group, I can’t think of the last time I did that and it felt really, really weird.
• I rarely teach up front anymore, something 5 years ago I would have told you was one of my best skills.
• While I wrote a curriculum earlier this year, I used to write 2-3 lessons per week.

I guess the point is that I can’t get caught up on relying on the skills I already have to get to the dreams I have for tomorrow. The skills I have already will only  take me where I am today. To get to where I need to go I need to learn more.

What are new skills you are learning to achieve your dreams? 

Last week I sat down and overcame a fear.

I’ll be 36 years old next week. There are still moments when I stare in the mirror and have to psyche myself up to do something that makes me nervous.

When I was a kid I was horribly shy. I would hide from any situation that might make me stand out. I loved to meet new people but I was terrified to talk to them. I was fine with my family and friends. But go to a party where I might not know people? That was really hard. I can think of all the activities I didn’t try (but should have) or things that I quit merely because I was shy.

Eventually, by the time high school arrive, I was just fed up with being shy. And slowly I forced myself to learn how to be more and more outgoing.

When Marko asked me to co-author a book with him my voice said yes by my entire guts shuddered. I suppose a lot of people really want to write books. And I know others who have tried for years to get a book contract. But for me? I’ve had several opportunities in the past few years and always found a way to say no.

I was afraid I’d suck at it.

Specifically– I know how to write something people will enjoy reading in the 500 – 1000 word range. I’m comfortable with blogs and magazine articles. It might take you 5 minutes to read this post– that’s my sweet spot. But the thought of writing something that might be worth someone’s afternoon or weekend? I don’t know  how to do that.

Last week I locked myself in a nice hotel room and wrote the manuscript.

The first half of the first day was hilarious. I turned the internet off in order to eliminate distractions. And then I quickly replaced it with lots and lots of finding ways to distract myself. I went down to see if the water was warm in the pool. Then I went to the grocery store. Then I put the outline for the book into MacJournal and set-up a writing schedule to break it all into bite-sized chunks. Then I remembered that there was a bakery that had really delicious things. Then I went down to the front desk to report something was wrong with my room. Then I put everything away in the kitchen. Then I set up a playlist so I wouldn’t be distracted by a bad song. Then I spent 15 minutes cleaning my bluetooth keyboard because they light in the room showed just how dirty it was and that bothered me. That was followed by an hour of cleaning up the files on my desktop and downloads folder because I’d been meaning to do that.

Of course, by then it was only an hour before dinner and after dinner I’d promised myself I’d take a walk on the pier to watch the sunset.

That’s when the red light went off. I wasn’t just busy getting settled. I was trying to avoid the first chapter.

Dangit. Fear crept in and was literally eating time, getting stronger.

Recognizing that little inclination was a big deal. It wasn’t just procrastination. It was fear of writing the book. By naming that– verbally saying it to myself– I was able to push through.

Two days later and two hours ahead of schedule, I finished the manuscript. I barely slept on Wednesday night… just got into a grove, and made it happen.

It was when I saved the manuscript on Google Docs that I felt this upswell of accomplishment. I’d stared at a fear, one I’d held onto for the last four years, and kicked it in the nuts.

What about you? What do you do when fear is debilitating? How do you overcome it?