Metaphysx.com

It’s been a little over a month since I posted… and since I temporarily relocated to Los Angeles. Sorry about that.

First, the work has been awesome. In a nutshell, I’m helping one of the country’s largest mortgage lenders in preparing for large-scale business interruptions… while at the same time keeping in mind that their entire industry is currently suffering a large-scale crisis. While there isn’t much I can do to prevent mortgage foreclosures, I feel good about the fact that my client is doing quite a bit to assist homeowners in avoiding foreclosure and my work helps to ensure they could keep up these efforts if/when faced with a business-interrupting disaster. So, if you’re a homeowner with a mortgage or HELOC through my client, and you’re currently working with them to avoid default and to protect your credit rating, you can rest assured that an earthquake, hurricane or pandemic flu outbreak won’t impact their ability to work with you just as they always have.

Second, life in LA is quite a bit different than what I’m used to. Many of you know that my house in Indiana is my ‘fortress of solitude’ in that it is a small little place in the country, the property (about 3 acres) is mostly wooded and very quiet and peaceful. In contrast, I’m currently staying in an apartment in north Los Angeles, Highland Park to be specific. The view outside my apartment is of the 110 freeway. I mean… I’m so close to the 110 that I have to adjust the volume on my TV to account for traffic noise, turning it up so that I can hear over the traffic but not so loud as to disturb my neighbors.

Speaking of ‘Highland Park”, maybe you read about the 14 year-old girl killed by stray gunfire on Memorial Day. This happened just a few blocks from where I’m staying. I admit that I moved here looking for the cheapest rent within reasonable driving-distance to my client’s office, and didn’t do much research into the area itself. It’s not the nicest part of town, but it’s not the worst I’ve seen.

Totally unrelated, this is hilarious… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAu39I5QOUc

I meant to post earlier, but I’ve been busy driving.  Ugh.  So far, it’s been rather boring.  I left Tuesday afternoon and managed to get as far as Concordia, MO, which is about an hour east of Kansas City. Today, I got as far as Dalhart, TX. 

When I left, I expected my GPS to follow a similar route as what I looked up on Google which would take me south through Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona.  I didn’t notice until I got to Junction City, Kansas that instead the GPS was going to take me across Colorado and Utah, then down through Las Vegas.  I decided I didn’t really want to go that way, so I went as far as Saline, then turned south on 135.  The GPS argued for me to make a U-turn for about 45 minutes before it finally gave in and recalculated the route to take me through Witchita.  I really want to drive through NM and AZ as I’ve never been there before.

On the road today as I was almost through Kansas, I noticed a sign for the World’s Largest Hand-Dug Well in Greensburg, KS.  I needed to stretch my legs anyway, so I thought that would be a good attraction to stop and see.  I waIs shocked to find that the establishment was in shambles.  Then I looked around and noticed the whole town seemed to be under construction.  I mean… there were very few buildings standing.  On my way out of town, I noticed a sign referring to tornado clean-up… and that’s when it hit me.  You can read more about Greensburg at Wikipedia.

The other thing that has made this trip a little more interesting is that last night at the hotel I hunted for some GPS tracking/mapping software.  I tried 3D-Tracking but after using it for a day, I don’t like it much.  But tonight I found a new one, Reperion.  So far, I kinda’ like it.  It has too many features for me to worry about playing with right now, but knowing it has live tracking via GoogleEarth in addition to GoogleMaps, MapQuest, Yahoo!, etc is intriguing.  You can follow me for this trip using this link as I think it’s the easiest.  If you turn on ‘breadcrumbs’ you can see where I took the GPS outside as I walked around the motel.  You can read more at the site and, if you have GoogleEarth, give it a shot.

So, anyway… tomorrow I hope to get a few hours past Flagstaff, AZ so I can get to LA early in the afternoon on Friday and have some time to chill.

This afternoon I put on my coat and gloves and stepped outside to get a better look at the bluejays and cardinals that have been hanging around the past month or so.  There I noticed some leaves on a tree that grows just off the porch.  Apparently, snow melted off the roof and the water dripped onto the tree then froze.  It was so cool that I went back inside to grab my digital camera. 

I took several pictures from different angles.  Nature can be beautiful and I wanted to capture it. 

When I was finished, I proceeded back onto the porch where I slipped on the ice and busted both my ass and my camera.

I spent the afternoon taking the camera apart trying to fix it as I couldn’t make the situation any worse.  Eventually, I gave up.

The good news is that I managed to salvage the picture.

Ok, I’m not an expert. But over the past few months I’ve learned a thing or two.

Are you still keeping your savings at your “usual” bank down the street? What kind of interest are you earning? If you follow the recommended practice, you should be keeping 2-3 months salary in liquid accounts (ie, you should be able to convert it to cash easily). If you are like me, you keep a fair chunk of change in a savings account for emergencies. But if you are like I was, you’re savings account draws between nothing-1% interest.

Want to know what I did?

Continue reading ‘… on Finances’