Enjablog

Congressman Moran visited my office today. It was kind of weird. He showed up, the big-wigs did a presentation for him, then he took questions from the employees. For the most part, it was the expected questions about funding and defense budgeting and whatnot. Then, there was a question on re-districting and gerrymandering, which led to discussion about the Supreme Court nominees.

Then, someone asked about the facilities to help immigrant workers in the area, specifically what was organized in Herndon, but as it applied to this area as well. He prefaced his answer by acknowledging the likely difference in opinion with this audience, but that he felt an obligation to speak frankly. So, then he gave his response, detailing the contributions he believed were made by the local immigrant population and the benefits of aiding these people. And that’s when he got lambasted by the attendees. “They’re here illegally.” “They’re stealing our jobs!” (Really? Because last I checked, we didn’t have a significant number of first or second generation immigrants working at our company, much less illegal immigrants.) “They’re taking away from our taxes.” “They’re stealing social security money.”

He made a quick response, reiterated that he was just stating his opinion, and while he understood where other people were coming from, he had seen the budgets and the percentage of immigrant workers in the area, and stood by his beliefs. He thanked everyone for the presentation and our contribution to the community and then ducked out.

In other news, Happy Halloween! I totally bought too much candy, but oh well. More for me. :) -j.

Friday night started out interestingly enough. I attended my first re-wedding. Hung out in a church parking lot with some relatives and then watched Lenny and Stephanie renew their vows.

Went out to Mark’s Duck House, just us kids (+Ian and Stephanie’s friend), as their re-reception. It was pretty good food and we were all being very Chinese.

Stopped in for Ian’s first trip inside Hooter’s to meet up with Sonny and his friends before heading over for the rest of the evening doing the karaoke thing.

Saturday, had lunch with all the relatives before they skipped town. Hung out with them for a bit and then Lenny and Stephanie met up with us at Sonny’s place and we discussed “growing up” for a little while. It surprises me over and over again how different my siblings and I are from each other. I think I’ll just leave it at that.

Worked on some cheesecakes and found that 10 minutes is way too long for the crust to bake on my brand new, shiney Calphalon springform pan. Had to start over, but got two cakes done by the end of the day. Also, finished the scarf I’ve been working on for Ian! My first knitting project complete!

Saturday night, went with my sis, Ian, and Squidgey to a Maize Maze!! So, it turned out to be not as exciting as I had pictured in my head all these years, but I still had fun. I think we went too late in the season, so a lot of the corn had thinned out and the paths were trampled, with new paths created by people who were too lazy to find the real way out. We made it about a third of the way through before it got too muddy and the paths were too filled with high school kids making out. There was, however, a funnel cake stand. So, I tried funnel cake for the first time ever. Turns out, it’s very tasty. :)

Sunday, went shopping with Ian before heading over to his parents’ place for Sunday brunch. Spent some time over there while everyone got riled up over politics, then we watched the Redskins lose for a while. Left just before halftime to meet up with Mindless and his friends to watch DC United lose to a buncha cheaters and their cheating ref.

Finished up the weekend with some reading and crocheting. New project: Hokie Scarf!

QOTD: “I want mutant babies”

2005 Help the Homeless Walkathon

November 19, 2005. Come out and walk with me!

I am going to preface this entry by saying this happened last night around 9pm. This is not a dream sequence. I am not making this up.

I went to the Carnegie Science Night lecture with Sonny and then headed back homeward (more on that later). I had forgotten to get gas the night before, but didn’t want to spend the extra 20 cents/gallon in Arlington, so I risked it and headed home with my gas light on.

Almost 30 miles later, I cruise into a gas station ($2.45!) and fill up. I get into my car and hear honking, so I look up:

The main road is completely clear, but Car#1 isn’t going. Then I see Car#1’s reverse lights turn on and back up right into Car#2. What the…?

There was no reason that should have happened. What’s going on?

Then, I’m not sure about this part, but either Car#3 moves forward or Car#2 backs up. Either way, #2 is tightly wedged in between the other two cars.

Seconds later, Car#5 pulls up and before it’s even completely stopped, 5 men dressed completely in black with bullet-proof vests on jump out with guns drawn! I assume the drivers for Car#1 and Car#3 get out the other side in similar fashion (though, I couldn’t see the other side since all the cars were trucks/SUVs).

What is going on? Some gang thing? A weirdly complicated car-jacking, whereby they ruin the car they’re trying to steal?

Should I be calling the cops? Are they the cops? Should the people at the gas station know what’s going on? Do they care?

Car#6 comes speeding along just after the 5 men get into position and the 6th guy jumps out with gun drawn.

It is at that point when I finally see the front of one of the men and see that the front of the vests say, “POLICE.” Oh good. They’re either a really well-supplied gang or the cops are already here. Time to sneak away!

I went around to the other exit and pull up behind car#4. He has his emergency lights on and waves me around. Oh, look… another cop.

I guess he was the back-up plan. Car#6 might have been in the turn lane next to him originally and then pulled around to back up the other people.

Anyway, I called up my district’s police station today to find out what happened. That was their narcotics team. There was a “narcotics violation.” No other details besides that. I guess I could have stayed around and watched the action, but the arrest wasn’t made until an hour later and I was supposed to meet up with people to watch the VT game (GO HOKIES!). Well, that and I wasn’t really all that interested in being around for when they start giving away stray bullets.

So, yeah… Just say “No” to drugs.

It’s Friday…

Grid Game — record so far: 1947 2662.

The Red Sox won the World Series last year and now everyone thinks they can do it. What’s up for next year? The Cubs?

In other news… Spent last weekend napping a lot. I don’t know why I was so tired, but between reading and knitting, I probably took about 4 or 5 naps. It was good. Hung out at my parents’ for a while on Saturday to celebrate my brother’s birthday. Hung out at the HOY Saturday night and met Crit’s new chicky.

Did the ALS Walk on Sunday morning. It was strange… I guess it was a smaller walk, so they didn’t get a big route reserved. But this was the first walk where I was instructed to do laps. It was in Constitution Gardens and when I did WalkAmerica for the March of Dimes, they said Constitution Gardens, but gave a cross street and they met across from the Ellipse. This time, I walked just past the Ellipse and then turned back, thinking I had the wrong location. The only people around were playing flag football on the Ellipse.

When I got off the metro a group of 20-somethings had gotten off at the same stop all hyped about a walk and had headed toward the mall, so I back-tracked and headed over to see what was going on. Wrong walk… It was another breast cancer walk, so I asked one of the cheerers if she knew where the ALS Walk was and she gave me a funny look like I had made the biggest faux pas: asking about the wrong charity at a big charity event. Oops…

I went back to the metro and looked at the map and found where I was supposed to go (all the way to the reflecting pool). At this point I had probably already walked 2 miles looking for the walk, but I arrived at the pond near the reflecting pool and joined in the crowd of people. I got to what I assumed was the beginning/end and signed in. I asked around for what the route was and was told to walk around the pond three times. Interesting…

Finished that up and then went home for a well-deserved nap.

QOTD: “I dream of being called “mayo couple”, but my wife isn’t a big fan. She keeps packets in her purse so I won’t eat the ones out of my wallet.”

Happy birthday, Critical!

Another one:

Happy birthday, Sonny!

Also, happy United Nations Day!

Condo: So, these last two weeks have been very erratic as far as this whole condo thing is concerned. I was scheduled to close on Tuesday, October 11th, but my loan fell through that morning. So, then I thought I wasn’t going to get the condo.

Then, the sellers said I could have a few more days if I had the loans approved and just needed time to process. I had until this Wednesday and if I couldn’t get a loan by then, I could use their lender and they would give me the extra leeway for however long he needed because they were more comfortable working with someone they knew. Ooh, I might get the place.

Then, I got approved for two loans that I couldn’t afford. So, I thought, again, that I had lost the condo.

Then, along came lendingtree.com and they said that there were loans out that that I could afford. Maybe I can get the place. So, I called a bunch of people and most of the lenders said it would take 10-12 days. So, I thought I lost the place.

One of the people I talked to said that if I had everything else done for the closing (appraisals and whatnot), they could close for me in 4-5 days. Oh! I’m sure to get the place now!

Schedule the closing for Thursday night. Phone calls all day Thursday assuring me that the loan process is in motion and I have been approved. Everything is going fine. Late Thursday afternoon and still no final number for my check to bring to the closing. Finally, I get the phone call moving the closing until Friday morning. Maybe I’m not going to get this place…

Friday morning, calls all around trying to find out what I need and what time the closing will be. Get a call at 10am saying that they could only get me a 90% loan for the closing that day. They could get me a 5% loan, but it wouldn’t be able to process until next week some time. What do I want to do?

I’ve already made the sellers wait an extra week and a half. I have no idea if they were bluffing or not, but they claimed to have another buyer waiting in case I couldn’t come through. They’re not going to give me another week of leeway.

So, uhh… I’m supposed to come up with an extra $16,000 to bring to this closing in 5 hours? Yeah, right. I really am going to lose this place.

But wait! Thanks to the power of the intarweb, some frantic phone calls, Wachovia, and Fidelity, I was able to close on the condo around 6pm Friday.

So, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to do all of this so rushed and to leave myself with $48.17 to my name (ok, not really…), but I think I got blinded by all the excitement. I’m working on the assumption that since the rest of my life has worked out so well up to this point, nothing could go wrong now, right? Right..?

And to make this all weirder, the lender that the seller wanted me to use and the lender that the broker finally found me a loan with were one and the same: Countrywide. Too bad the guy the seller put me in contact with laughed at the offer I wanted him to match. He said that was impossible and I would lose the place. And yet, it was his company that ended up meeting that offer. This whole industry boggles my mind.

Charity: Joined the Red Cross Knit & Crochet group. We knit and crochet rectangles and then stitch them together to make afghans for old people. It was terribly exciting, I assure you.

Doing the ALS Walk tomorrow. I hope the weather is nice. Supposed to only be cloudy in the morning, so maybe it’ll hold out.

I signed up to help out with the NPR fall membership campaign on Friday. I was so excited about it because they made it sound so fun on the radio when they kept talking about it. And I figured since it was my day off anyway, I could go in and spend half a day there and then go do something else around DC. Unfortunately, due to the condo thing, I had to call and cancel on Thursday evening. I left a message, though. I hope I don’t get in trouble for that…

Work: New boss at work. I don’t think he’s crazy, so I probably won’t have any funny stories about him any time soon. But at least now I have someone to report to. Maybe he’ll give me work to do too!

QOTD: “Should I just yell at your uterus for a while?”

Happy belated birthday to Mars!

Happy early birthday to Lenny!

:) -j.

LOTD: Google KAI is the name of our SON www.google-kai.com

Aww… so huggable…

Item: Sisters Think Parents Did O.K. - New York Times

In “Top of the Class” the Kim sisters advise parents who want successful children to raise them just as the Kims did - in strict households in which parents spend hours every day educating their children, where access to pop culture is limited, and where children are taught that their failures reflect poorly on the family.

Congratulations to Lenny & Stephanie!