Commentary – Page 7 – Dishers.com

October 2, 2009October 17, 2009

ATT, Cincinnati Bell, buried cables, who’s responsible?

As most of you know, our In-Laws built a house next to us, on part of our property.

Google hasn’t updated their satellite imagery so you’ll need to bear with me.

The house is done, ready to move into. The In Laws, hate Time Warner about as much as I hate Cin Bell. They already have DirecTV but they need internet. So they ordered up Zoomtown/DSL from Bell. Easy enough.

The demarcation point for Bell is a phone box in the right hand corner of our yard up by the road, and all of our telecom stuff is buried.

About a month ago they installed a temporary line, which I’ve been mowing around for a few weeks. Last week they came to burry the cable but they did it wrong.

We still farm most of our 13 acres that are not attached to the house. It’s currently hay, which we use for our horses. It is due to be replanted or rotated which likely means a year of corn, a year of beans, then back to hay. We put the house where it is to keep a much contiguous farm land as we could.

Now enter Cincy Bell or ATT depending on who you want to trust as they are each pointing fingers at each other.

Instead of running the phone line along the road (where utilities go), they decided it would be easier to run up our grass driveway to our barn, and across the field to get to the new house.

Which normally would be fine, provided (a) they asked us if they could do that, and (b) we weren’t still planning to farm that area, which we are.

So now we have this:

In addition, the line going up the grass driveway is also at risk if we get to the point where we want to put in a real driveway, gravel or not. Where it crosses what will be farmed. It will definitely be dug up when the soil is turned.

I’ve now spent about 4 hours trying to get this through to the folks at Cincinnati Bell.

I’ve gotten responses like:

– Well the line works, and since it works we’re not going to come out and fix anything because there’s nothing to fix.
– We can move the line but it will be at your expense.
– ATT: that’s not our line or our responsibility, even though we installed it, we’re not the carrier for this line.
– Bell: ATT installed that and screwed it up, you’re going to have to deal with them.

I have half a mind to ‘fix’ it for them, but don’t want my in laws to be out. I did finally get a phone call today from a customer service rep from Cincinnati Bell. He promised to look into it (again).

We’ll see.

UPDATE 10/17/2009:

As of now, they have buried a new cable along the path that it was supposed to be buried. However, they didn’t take up the initial cable. So we’ll take care of that for them in the spring and and they’ll be on the hook if the equipment gets damaged.

I will say that Tom at Cincy Bell is persistent. He called me every day to see if it had been moved. The last time I looked they had not cut their house over to the new line despite the fact that it was installed.

March 26, 2009March 27, 2009

Stop the whining… Just stop.

I just listened to ‘The Story’, from March, 24th, 2009. About a temp worker at Microsoft, who was unwilling to accept a 10% pay cut, or rather wasn’t happy about it and started fussing.

He whines about being indistinguishable from an employee, other than the color of his badge. Yet he doesn’t get to partake in off-site team building activities that employees get to partake in. Temp workers get no real benefits from Microsoft. (Duh, that’s why they are temp workers).

How can you be that stupid? He wants temp workers to unite and stand up for their rights. Rights that, well, as temp workers you don’t have.

Here are the facts jack:

You’re a temporary worker, i.e. contract worker.
Your Job could go away at the snap of a finger. There are a million and one reasons a company like Microsoft uses Temp/Contract workers, the primary reason of course is to control costs.
You agreed to be a contract worker.

Now if they are being treated poorly because they are temp workers, that’s different. That’s simply poor management. But they are NOT employees; hence they don’t have the same rights and privileges.

This is a horrible ‘Woe-is-me, I’m entitled to something story’ that is all too common with ‘The Story’. It’s very, very frustrating.

Pay cuts, temporary or otherwise aren’t any fun. Not fun for those taking the cuts, or those who have to implement them. Get over it, 10% less is far more than you’ll get from the unemployment office.

Here is the Seattle Times article on this clown.

March 18, 2009

Investment Banking Explained

(This is floating around, I didn’t write it)

Young Chuck moved to Texas and bought a donkey from a farmer for $100.
The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
The next day the farmer drove up and said, ‘Sorry Chuck, but I have some bad news, the donkey died.’
Chuck replied, ‘Well, then just give me my money back.’
The farmer said, ‘Can’t do that. I went and spent it already.’
Chuck said, ‘OK, then, just bring me the dead donkey.’
The farmer asked, ‘Whatcha gonna do with a dead donkey?
Chuck said, ‘I’m going to raffle him off.’
The farmer said ‘You can’t raffle off a dead donkey!’
Chuck said, ‘Sure I can. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.’
A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, ‘What happened with that dead donkey?’
Chuck said, ‘I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars apiece and made a profit of $898.00.’
The farmer said, ‘Didn’t anyone complain?’
Chuck said, ‘Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.’
Chuck now works for AIG where he’s about to get a huge bonus!

March 16, 2009

Get Off My Land!

Man have things changed. We’re no longer the hip young couple in the old farm house. We’ve moved on to being the crotchety couple in the farm house (though we have yet to garner the classification of ‘old’). The old people are what started this.

We have a decent amount of land just outside of Trenton Ohio that surrounds the 3 acres that our house sits on. On that 13 acres, my in-laws are building a house. Ask me in 5-10 years if that was a good idea or not.

As a result of this we (they) had to have our property surveyed so that we could get a legal description of the land we’re giving them (or allowing them) to build on.

This has turned up two areas of encroachment. One we were aware of and one that we were not.

In the front of our property (see drawing), we knew there was a small triangular piece of property that is actually ours. The previous owners told us about it when we bought the place. But they had a gentleman’s agreement with the neighbor at the time to allow them to fence a squared off area. When we moved in they had goats in that small field, and later a cow.

Those neighbors have since moved on, a victim of the mortgage crisis before there was a crisis. (More a victim of common sense than anything but I digress). The new owner uses the property as rental property. When we met them we discussed the area in question but it wasn’t a big deal to us. Now that the land has been surveyed it is a big deal.

It seems if you don’t protect your property, it will be squatted on and you’ll lose it. By us continuing to permit them to have our land fenced, we’re risking losing it. 20 feet of road frontage is not something we wish to lose so we now we need to enforce the property lines. As it turns out, the entire west side of the neighbors fence is on our property and will likely need to be removed.

We have an issue at the back of our property as well.

The Delaware Crossing subdivision behind us and to the west is legendary. It’s been tied up in legal issues from day one. The builder we believe went bankrupt and the City of Trenton now owns the property.

At the back of our property, there’s a small park for the subdivision. A couple basketball courts, and play equipment.

The problem is where they ran the walking path, or the access path to get to this park. It was originally supposed to go between two houses as you can see in the picture. But apparently the folks who live in those houses didn’t like that. So the neighbor closest to us suggested they run it along our fence line and his side yard. The developer agreed. The only problem was they paid no attention to the property lines.

It looks something like this:

The sad part about it, is that they had to tear down some of our fence to make this happen.

So here we go again. We have to re-establish our boundaries or we risk losing this piece of land.

Our initial thought was to simply lease it to them. But there is no ‘them’. The homeowners association in Delaware Crossing is defunct. The city now maintains the park, well they city and the residents that back up to it somewhat share that burden.

If we fence it, it will block their access. They won’t be able to get a vehicle back to the part without tearing up our neighbors yard, and even then it will be tight, very tight.

We’ve talked to them and they will likely fence from our fence to their house which will kill all access to the park.

The City is encouraging us to put our fence back. If people can’t use the park they don’t have to maintain it.

So the question becomes, what kind of fence? Because what ever we put back there will be vandalized, you can count on that.

So if you have any ideas or suggestions, post them up we’re all ears. Of course we want to enforce all of this with as little out of pocket expense as possible.

March 16, 2009May 31, 2016

The Stimulus and us

No big shocker, the economy is messed up. Obama and his stimulus package are now a done deal. Don’t get me wrong, I think Obama is a smart guy, and a smooth talker. The kind of guy you have to watch out for.

I think this image sums it up best:

So here we are. The 800 bajillion dollar stimulus package has been passed by the Dems and signed off on by the president.

Here’s what it means to us based upon the info in this article on yahoo news.

First off, the Dishers are not rich. We’re blessed but far from rich. We’re technically middle class based upon my income and the fact that my income is our only income.

We still have some debt, but apparently far less than most Americans. We didn’t buy more house than we could afford, and we pay our mortgage every month on-time. Yep, even though it’s now worth less. Not less than we paid for it, but less than it was worth 2 years ago.

Apply for a quote for a debt consolidation loan through Money Expert if you’re having trouble managing multiple debts at the same time.

Of course we could have bought a much bigger house, borrowed more money than we could afford and taken out a silly balloon or interest only mortgage but I guess we were smarter than that. Or perhaps maybe not so smart. We’re not getting bailed out in any way.

It looks like I can count on an extra $13 a week, or $52 a month. Not sure what I’m supposed to stimulate with that? I suppose that could subsidize our cable bill. Though if we were to buckle down and trim expenses that would be the first things to go.

“The $1,000 child tax credit would be extended to more low-income families that don’t make enough money to pay income taxes, and poor families with three or more children will get an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit”

This makes no sense to me. We’re not low-income so I guess we don’t get this? What benefit is a per-child income tax credit if you don’t make enough money to pay taxes to begin with? Someone please explain this to me.

We’re technically middle-income so we’ll be spared the Alternative minimum tax what ever that is.

We’re not a first time home buyer so… No benefit for us there. Why would an $8k tax credit be limited to first time buyers only? That seems discriminatory to me.

We can get a $1500 tax credit, if we spend a ton of money in an effort to get efficient. We don’t need a new furnace, and to replace our windows (all 36 of them) even with a $1500 credit is still cost prohibitive. The cost (over $20k) would buy a LOT of heat and AC.

So needless to say we won’t be stimulating the real estate economy because we’re not first time home buyers. If you’ve been foreclosed on do you get your first time buyer status back?

We also won’t be stimulating the home improvement industry because $1500 isn’t applicable to us.

If I lose my job I’ll be happy that the first $2400 of unemployment won’t be taxable.

9 months of Cobra subsidy would also come in handy if I were to lose my job. But why only 9 months? If I’m still unemployed after 9 months I won’t be able to afford it then even though the Govt will let me keep it longer (up to 18 months?)

If I buy a new car, I get to deduct the sales tax? Nice. I’m not buying a new car, and unless you’re independently wealthy, you won’t be buying one either. This doesn’t apply to used or pre-owned cars. And it’s not clear if it applies only to the auto-makers they are about to bail out.

If you want to give me $8k to spend on a car, I’ll happily buy a nice used car for about $10k. That might stimulate the economy some, but no I’m not going into debt further to buy a new car that will depreciate 30% as soon as I drive it off the lot.

I also really don’t understand how the Government can loan 43 Billion dollars to a company who’s current Market Capitalization is only 1.3 Billion.

So somehow we’re all supposed to save the economy with our $57 more per month?

I don’t get it. But rest assured, if you don’t make enough money to pay taxes, you’re getting a tax credit.

Thanks President Obama.

(Note this was drafted a couple weeks ago, and forgotten about)