Category: Reflections

So, this morning, Nya climbed out of her crib, went into the bathroom, plugged up the sink with the toothpaste tube, then left the water running. The water covered the bathroom floor, then spilled down, soaking the kitchen ceiling, then the kitchen floor.
Then she took out Tamika’s makeup, smeared it all over herself, then dumped and smeared the rest all over the no-longer-cream-coloured carpet.
We then caught her, cleaned up the mess, and put her back to bed.

She got up again.
This time, she went into her brother’s room, climbed in a storage bin of his clothes, and threw them all over the floor. The. She took all the blankets out of another bin, threw them in Arion’s crib, climbed in, and as a finale, dusted herself and her brother, and the entire vicinity with baby powder.

Lord help us.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-fWDrZSiZs

Video’s kinda corny, but the lyrics are powerful.

I’m trying to pull it together. I’ve got a lot of things to do, and I’ve got to kick it into high gear. I’ve been going to bed early and everything, but I’m still tired. I kinda feel like all that me going to be early has been doing is letting me procrastinate from the things I’ve got to do. I’m not quite BEHIND on anything (except maybe Moment), but I have the nagging feeling that if I don’t work hard, I won’t stay ahead.

Brightline is going really well. I’m working on this amazing kiosk for a big car company. They’ve been letting me do some pretty cool stuff, and I sent off the final designs to them this afternoon. My boss, Erik, was out with his laptop at a meeting, and gave me a call complimenting me on the designs. It felt really good!

Just polished off a turkey club at Della Rosa’s, a restaurant bar in the 1st Mariner Bank building.
Tamika had a lacrosse game this morning (playing, not coaching), and the bar sponsors the team, so we all came here for lunch.
Wasn’t the best game, the team struggled for the points they did get. Think I got some decent shots, though, I’ll put them up if they’re any good. Hopefully the camera card won’t go corrupt this time… Last time we were at one of their games, I took a beautiful shot of the team but the whole card went bad and I lost all the pictures. 🙁

The show went really well!
The place was packed. 50? 60 people? Not sure, but it was standing room only.
A lot of people. Steve Wilkes (my former coworker) showed up with his girlfriend, as did Barry Liebowitz and his wife.
Tamika had it pretty rough the first hour… Normally Joe Squared gives the band a massive free pizza, but it didnt happen. Tamika hadn’t eaten all day. But once our set ended, we scarfed down a crab pizza and a pair of Natty Bohs and she was fine.
We all played well. We probably needed to turn down a bit, but all in all I think we sounded good.
I set up my 7D on a tripod and tried to film it, but I think I only got 12 minutes. If any of it is decent, I’ll YouTube it.
Benji, the guy who did our demo recordings was also there, and recorded the show on his handheld audio recorder. He said if it’s any good he’ll send it to us.
I’m beat! Time for bed.

Today was a pretty long day, but most Saturdays are in spring. Tamika is coaching and playing lacrosse, and with her band, free time is a luxury.
Most Saturdays these things all happen at once, so I stay home with the kids. It’s a little rough, but Tamika deserves it.

Now I’m about to take a shower, and then we’ll be going out together to MY show with The Black Marks. We’re playing at the pizza house Joe Squared tonight, and I can’t WAIT to get out of the house. If you’re in the Baltimore area, come check us out. We take the stage at 10.

I am officially registered to ride a motorcycle, thanks to the state of Maryland, Victor Ponte (my instructor), and Old Glory Harley Davidson!

I past both the written and road tests with flying colours (only 1 mistake on each).

Just got home about half an hour ago. The training was fun, but really long! 2 four hour days, and 2 ten hour days. I am beat!

I picked up my motorcycle from my friend Adam Scott’s house, then rode to Home Depot for some supplies. Our neighbor agreed to let me use their abandoned tin-and-steel shed, but it didn’t have any locks on it. I installed two heavy duty padlocks on the steel doors on the front, and then also padlocked the bike itself to a steel cable wrapped around the center beam of the shed. And there’s a inGENIOUS alarm system I built that’s so secret I just can’t tell you about it (unless you email me).

I am sore everywhere. Never mind that drilling through steel takes a lot of work! I clocked nearly 12 hours on motorcycles this weekend.

But it was worth it. Tomorrow, I’ll be able to get suited up, and thunder down to work.

I’m slowly catching up with emails, projects, and phone messages, so if you haven’t heard from me yet, you will soon. But now, right now, I need sleep. 🙂

OH. Before I forget, I need some help! I’m going to name my motorcycle. Any suggestions?
My old bike was named “Wiskichan” (the Naskapi word for Canadian Jay). If you’ve got any ideas, I’ll translate them into Naskapi.

As I write this, I’m driving up to Harrisburg in the middle of a snow squall with my coworker Jannah.
We’re on our way up to Messiah Village (a retirement community affiliated with Messiah College) for a training. I helped Merrick Towle with a branding project, with one of the goals to introduce them to the world of blogging, and set up a WordPress blog for them. They’ve got a group called The Golden Mouse Club, which are tech-savvy (or tech-interested) residents, who I’ll be teaching how blog. Apparently a number of them are already prolific writers, and I’m really excited to read their stories!

Next week is my last at Merrick Towle. I’m very very sad to go. It’s been nearly 3 years since I took the job, and it has been one of the best jobs I’ve had yet. I couldn’t ask for a better boss, or a better set of coworkers. It’s probably one of the most difficult decisions I’ve made in my career. But God has a plan, and I’m definitely going to a really really good place.

I got an offer for a job in Alexandria that’s going to be much better for our finances, and also affords some really cool opportunities for growth too. On the 8th, I’ll be starting at Brightline Interactive, an interactive design agency. The founder, Erik, seems like a really really nice guy. Their office is really cool, full of vintage stuff like huge Cold War era TVs turned on their sides as end tables, interspersed with top-of-the-line Apple equipment, and even their own sound booth!
They do a lot of government contracts… one of the coolest things they showed me was this massive kiosk they did for the Air Force. They got this massive rear-projected screen set up, and then set it up so you could actually move things around on it by touch, a la Minority Report.
Erik seemed really interested in my Flash animation and illustration, and I’m really hoping to be able to get stronger experience with motion graphics with After Effects, Premiere and Motion. I’m taking some classes on my own, just because I’m really interested in it. I actually started up a kinetic type blog. I haven’t posted in a while, but maybe I’ll start it back up again.
I know what you’re thinking… Alexandria is pretty far away, but Erik said that after the first month or two, he’d let me work 2-3 days from home. My Mac at home is pretty powerful, so that could work out pretty well.

Now, Tamika is starting her lacrosse season, which always presents a challenge because we have only one car.
But, as some of you know from Facebook, I had put a motorcycle on layaway this winter, an all black Suzuki Intruder 800, and now it’s fully paid off.
I enrolled at Old Glory Harley Davidson for some motorcycle classes, and come Monday (Lord willing), I’ll be cleared to ride the bike! The classes are long (they take nearly the entire day for 4 days), so I’ve had to shut everything else down for a little bit. The bike will become my main transportation. I’m very excited to be riding again.

Nya and Arion are doing really well. Nya has become a really good conversationalist. Arion still isn’t walking yet, but he can stand on his own for a few seconds. That is, until he realizes he is standing, and sits down. 🙂 He’s been talking, though, and has learned a lot sooner than Nya did. He says “Thank you” every time you give him something.
Being home, Tamika takes lots of pictures of them, so definitely check out her new blog for more.

I felt right at home! It’s about time I was in a decent storm.

Here are shots of what it was like, starting with a timelapse.

Timelapse

Watch my neighbor’s tree and porch get completely obliterated!

Feb 5, 8am:

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Feb 5, 7pm:

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Feb 6, 2am:

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Feb 6, 9am:

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Feb 7, 1pm:

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Feb 10, 10am:

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Feb 10, 6pm

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Other photos

Icicles hanging from our bathroom window out back.

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Augusta St. Still hasn’t been touched by a plow. People dig their cars out in vain. The white pickup truck is there because he can’t make it down the street.

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Nya comes out to shovel with Nuuta! Cute! She is so excited about the snow.

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Frederick Ave East

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Frederick Ave West

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Potter St (my street) looking South. I’m standing on about a foot and a half of snow.

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Potter St looking North. Somehow I think the chair is in vain…

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I turned on my car to warm it up while I dug. It looks like an alien.

So, things are looking up.

Tamika and I remembered that I had some money saved up in our 401k that I started last year, and so I talked to Stacey, my day job’s accountant, about how to use that money for the foreclosure.
Stacey told us that, fortunately, 401k lets you take you money for foreclosures without much in the way of fees. She did, however, need proof faxed over that we were indeed in foreclosure, though.
No problem, I’d call Bank of America.

So, I call them up.

A little background, we’ve been in foreclosure before, last year. We paid them off somehow, and were good for a while, but then slipped back in because I’m not making enough.
This time, we were 5 months past due. Basically, we make enough money to pay for all bills except the mortgage. Typically, I work harder at Zerflin, make up some money, and pay it back. In the meantime, we spread around the damage, missing a month on some bills, then paying them back the next, and skipping out on some other bill. But with our Bank of America loan, (we have two) it’s over $1000 a month. My 2 week paycheck is just barely $1000, and on top of that, they won’t let us make a partial payment.
Simple math; we’re stuck in a really bad rut.

In addition, we had gotten letters from a law firm, saying that they were a collection agency for Bank of America, but because we’d gotten LOT of scam letters and hadn’t heard anything from Bank of America, we thought that they were fake.

So, I called them to ask for the documents.
They said sure, they’d send over the documents, but when I ask them how much I owe at this point, they won’t tell me.

Me: Why not?

BoA: It’s our policy. We have to go over your financials first.

Me: Seriously? I’ve done that nearly every month for 5 months… nothing’s really changed about my situation. Can you just tell me how much I owe?

BoA: Well, if we could go over your financial information–

Me: Fine. Let’s do it.

BoA: Ok. Thank you sir. Your bi weekly paycheck, is it still–

Me: Same.

BoA: Your electric bill–

Me: Same.

BoA: Your water–

Me: Same.

This went on for a while.

BoA: Thank you sir. You’ve been pre-approved. I can send the foreclosure documents over right away. What number would you like me to fax them to?

Me: Wait… pr-approved? What does that mean?

BoA: It says here you’ve been pre-approved for a loan modification on your mortgage with us.

Me: It DOES? How? Wait… are you sure?

BoA: Yes sir. Your monthly mortgage payment has been temporarily reduced and is up for review.

Me: How is that possible? Listen, no disrespect, but I’ve been calling you guys for over a year trying to get this mortgage modified. Nothing about my financial information has changed since the last go around, so…

BoA: Well, sir, the computer tells me you’re pre-approved, so…

Me: But how?

BoA: I don’t know, sir.

Me: Ok. So, um… So, yeah. Now what?

BoA: Well, we put you on the temporary reduced payment of… $918 a month, just about $200 less. Then we’ll assign an adjuster to your account, who will review your mortgage in detail.

Me: $918 for how long?

BoA: Well, usually it takes about 3 months, but to be honest, we’ve been kinda swamped here with mortgage foreclosures here, so it may take longer than that, perhaps 5 months…

Me: 5 months. Ok. So, what happens after that?

BoA: Your mortgage will be reviewed.

Me: And?

BoA: If you’re approved, your mortgage will be modified.

Me: And if not?

BoA: Well, you’ll go back to your old amount.

Me: Ok. So, you still need me to pay the balance? What is it, by the way?

BoA: Over $5,000. But you don’t need to pay that now. It’s been absorbed back into your loan.

Me: Oh wow. oh wow. Uh, that’s good.

BoA: Now, if you’re not approved, you’ll owe it again. But we’re not putting any interest on it during your review period.

Me: Great. Wow. This is really good.

BoA: Very good, sir.

Me: Now, I got this letter from this law firm…

BoA: A collection agency?

Me: Yeah. Do you need to give them a call.

BoA: Actually… no…

Me: Why not?

BoA: Well… to be honest, they weren’t actually going to kick you out…

Me: Wait, what???

BoA: We never gave them the order to forclose.

Me: So, all those letters…

Boa: Were just to scare you, yes.

Me: Oh.

Yeah. Oh. So they were only messing with us.

Thanks, BoA.

And please modify our loan…

Christmas was nice, all craziness aside.
We drove up to Perkasie on Christmas Eve, making it there at dusk.
Christmas Day was waves of excitement, mounds and mountains of packages, which Nya and Arion seemed to enjoy the piles of discarded paper from (though Nya picked out a Dora the Explorer cooking set as her favourite gift from her grandmother Angel). We then went to visit Aunt Cookie and Uncle Jimmy, and ended up at Tamika’s grandparents, each visit followed by food and more presents.

By the time we arrived at the grandparents’, the poor Subaru was stuffed to the brim with all manner or toys and clothes for the little ones.

Tamika and I kept our gifts for each other modest, both by choice and by force, though I would have liked to get her more. It’s not always easy to look at ones own small gifts when surrounded by opulence.
Nevertheless, she seemed to appreciate the matching sets of cloth jewelry I got her from Etsy.

The day after was spent lounging around. I missed the laptop badly, but it was probably the best to unplug.

I was going to go see Avatar with some of the family, but everyone bailed at the last minute. I was pretty dissappinted, but Tamika and I rented The Soloist from RedBox instead, and enjoyed each others’ company.

Came back today (Sunday), battling bad traffic, got unloaded, and had a little time to do catch up work. Tamika is on the prowl for a new home, which is great, leaving me to focus on other things. If you want to help, we can afford something around $800 a month, and are looking for at least 3br.

Much love to you all…