One year ago today: November 24, 2016, sex as an ‘addiction’.
Five years ago today: November 24, 2012, church picnic.
Nine years ago today: November 24, 2008, Forbes’ yacht.
Random years ago today: November 24, 2013, back in Florida.
While other cultures have their Thanksgiving equivalents, in America it is the beginning of the time for broken diets. If I told you how much weight will be gained between now and New Years, you’d think I was quoting a naval limitation treaty. I played guitar and sang, then headed straight home like a good boy to continue reading my caravan book. Besides, too much table talk turns to gossip and that’s just not me. It was a small group and it was not lost on me that Babes and I were the only two singles present. I was the only newcomer at the table and I’m so slow to take a hint.
While you’re here, would you like any ham fritters or ham popovers? I have lots. Maybe you’d like to take some with you for lunch? Or dinner? Why are there no desserts made from ham? I cubed up a few cupfuls, finally, later in life, figuring out where these recipes for cubed ham come from. Guess what the featured dish was at Thanksgiving y’day? It was turkey, but you were close. They also brought out a game based on some TV show where you name something, say, that you failed at the first time. Everybody except me was able to give the obvious answers. I’d say, “Becoming a millioniaire”, they’d say, “Riding a bicycle.” Hmmm, cultural non-equivalents.
Helping out with the paperwork over yonder has been educational enough to become bloggable, and I found out something new today. At least, I think I found out. It seems to go like this. Suppose you divorce your wife ten years ago and pay good money to get rid of her permanently. For example, you sell the family house and give her half. $93,500 to be kind of exact. That’s the end of it, right? Not so fast. Years later, in the smaller house you moved into, suppose, just suppose you go into foreclosure. That’s nothing to do with her, right?
Not so. The ever-so-sharp lawyers who watch these real estate filings contact her, then send you a letter that basically says if the house gets repossessed, she retains a claim. It seems to work like this. It rarely happens, but sometimes a foreclosed property actually sells for more than the outstanding fees and there is a surplus. Well, the ex-wife just filed against that surplus for what looks like any unpaid amounts due to her for items like alimony or child support, AND if those don’t exist, half the value of the surplus. Precisely when you thought nobody would kick you in the teeth when you just lost your place to live.
[Author’s note: in reality, I see the need for a law like this to prevent various schemes by the ex-husband to hide assets or to get out of paying what the court ordered. But this is the problem with the letter of the law. It can be and is used to cause massive hardships in a manner it was probably never intended for. I’m against it not only for such bad manners, but also because the original lawyers charged healthy fees to finalize the complete severance of the affair. They are going back on their word.
For the record, the husband, who paid for all this, was infuriated. He had been led to believe the documents signed and paid for were his final association with his ex. Welcome to the free world. Instead, the letter from her lawyer, the same one who was paid to make sure this didn’t happen, has sent a statement that denies everything except “paragraph 16”. I hauled out the document only to find I had already highlighted paragraph 16 as something I did not understand and still don’t.
It seems to work like this. If the foreclosed property auctions at a loss to the lender, the ex claims she is not responsible for any of that shortfall. However, should the auction produce a surplus, it could only be because her ex-husband profited unduly from the original divorce settlement and therefore she retains a claim. Well, he hit the roof. The law seems to have meant outstanding support or alimony, but does not rule out anything else. Hence, she could now perhaps cook something up. He’s pissed. The chief problem with American law is this allowing of speculative litigation by people with nothing to lose.
Once more, for my overseas readers, here’s an overview. In America, if somebody is sued, there is awful pressure to settle out of court for less than a trial would cost. Think Michael Jackson and his millions in payouts. But this encourages further legal prospecting. Sure, there is the option that if you have been wrongly attacked, you can counter-sue. But more often than not, the false accuser has no assets. You could win and never collect a pfennig. It is plain too easy to sue to see what you can get.
I’m still against tort reform, however, because reform goes too far to weaken claims for future suffering. For example, if my shoulder never repairs, I would be forced to forego my long-standing intentions to do my own yard work. Should I would be forced to hire somebody to do my chores, I would be a fool to settle for less than the maximum. Yet if I get a large settlement and my shoulder heals completely, I am not obligated to return any portion of the settlement. And the only way to determine the situation is to maintain costly surveillance—to which I would both object and take steps to defeat such a thing because it could not be confined to the purpose at hand.
Their point is why should they pay if I recover, while my point is that they paid only for the chance that I would not recover. So if I did, that is their tough luck—but how do you prevent professional cheats? My stance is that the insurance companies could easily afford to catch the pro swindlers if they spent their money on that instead of fighting over every dollar.
$113,000.00
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As of last evening, I have my own water leak to look after. Hey, it is me that is mucking around with the foundation of the building. View photo to observe spray of water from a 45° pipe joint. Now I know where the PVC is spliced to the old cast iron piping. See how I attempted to make that sound positive? Later today I believe we’ll find out how effectively that product works, the one they claim can seal water leaks from the outside.
For sure, I’ll get you more pictures of the porch progress. Why, that’s the kind of thing this blog was designed for. A daily journal of what was most (or least) important each day. I was under the building to put in the beams, these are placed to raise eight foot sections of the building just 1/4” off the existing concrete cinder blocks that form the foundation.
Here’s a very clear picture of the lumber going under the joists. Shown here are a 2x6 to be sliced up for propping the joists. The cuts are made the correct size to serve as blocking later when the props are removed. Also shown is a more heft 4x6, these are the beams used to raise the 8-foot sections around the perimeter. The majority of the settling was around the outside of the structure, which makes it easier to level the floors by raising the bearing walls up level with the centers.
I wasn’t going to publish this photo, but it effectively shows the grunt technology used. So I included it to dispel any theories that the project is getting too complicated. In fact, it is so cave-man the employees at the DMV could almost follow along, except for the part where the beams don’t actually lean against the walls as in the photo. That’s where they get kind of lost.
By contrast, here’s that handsome double that is always around when I need a picture taken. He’s cutting ordinary wooden blocks to shore up the beams, but look more closely. Proper sawhorses, safety glasses, hard hat, etc. Whoa, whoa, Glen, I said a double, not the rodeo clown you model yourself after. There’s nothing wrong or sissy about safety gear, and yes, I do get the odd comment about being a wimp. I always tell the bigmouth that I agree, but I wear the gear because there might be children watching.
ADDENDUM
This movie is called “Blue Steel”. It begins with an early version of that totally weird music played during the opening credits. Messy, all-over the place pre-jazz broadway music. That crackles a lot. In this movie, the title had no bearing to the plot and the actress was ugly, sort of looked like a modern-day coke hooker. Well, in those days, we know how the actresses got their roles, being that Hollywood was already owned by the types who couldn’t get it any other way. But she couldn’t act, either. One upside is the plot was rather complicated for a movie from 1934.
I’m still trying to figure out which character is played by Yakima Canutt. (Turns out later his name was Enos, but he was misindentified, thusforth becoming "the most famous person NOT from Yakima".)
Last Laugh
(Or maybe you took
the wrong courses, Mr. Millennial?)
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