The Life and Times of Jim
Hi, there. I'm Jim. Welcome to my phlog!
This site was written for Las Vegas, then LouisVille. Now, it seems to be about anywhere. In these phlogs, you'll see a lot of my personal notes and pictures. I like to post my observations here to remember life and celebrate it. I'm not religious. I don't pray for good fortune. I'm ecstatically grateful for the gift of life and I think our time should be remembered and not taken for granted. I'm not a writer. I think pictures tell stories so much better than words. I love just about everything in this life, and, I guess that would have to include you. So, if you've seen me, don't be surprised if your picture is in here somewhere. Of all the critters, people are absolutely the most interesting. 
<< 11/2007 < 09/2008 Calendar 12/2008 > 11/2009 >>Sign InView Other Logs
Sat 
11/01/2008 00:00:01
 jim  Set your Clocks Back Tonight
You don't really want to be early to work on Monday, do you ?!
Fri 
10/31/2008 18:13:13
 jim  Its a Pumpkin Affair
See, Pumpkins ARE good for something!
Thu 
10/30/2008 06:30:45
 jim  Snow, turkeys, and Beaver Pennsylvania
Tue 
10/28/2008 22:10:43
 jim  As I lay me down to sleep

As I Lay Me Down to Sleep


It felt like spring time
on this February morning.
In a courtyard birds
were singing your praise

I'm still recalling things you said
to make me feel alright.
I carried them with me today

As I lay me down to sleep,
this I pray,
that you will hold me dear

Though I'm far away,
I'll whisper your name into the sky
And I will wake up happy

-- Sophie Hawkins 



Tue 
10/28/2008 21:31:31
 jim  Mars, Pennsylvania
Only in Pennsylvania do you see outlandish, zany things like this.
Welcome to Mars.
We've driven down beautiful two-laned highways, where pockets of civilization are strewn about the mountainous terrain, in towns with names like Mars, Moon, California, Washington and Beaver. Some towns adhere to the theme.
And we come home, to spaceship Earth
Tue 
10/28/2008 06:19:00
 jim  Will it snow today?
Its 37 degrees outside and it's supposed to snow today and tommorrow.
I am hoping we get some nice flurries.
I'm half alive, running at 60%.
Been sneezing and wheezing, but I'm plowing through this cold with a smile on my face. It's still beautiful here.
Becky's knee got better.
But we're both a mess.

But I love you all *sniff* *sniff* !!!
This Halloween is going to special.
Sun 
10/26/2008 14:40:56
 jim  Whats cool and whats not...
We went back up to the trash compactor today. What a beautiful day !!!
While we were up there, I decided to put some windshield washer fluid (with deicer) into the truck. A girl pulled up behind us, and I asked her if she'd like some...she said YEA!!! Then she asked me if I'd like some Rainex...I said YEA!!!
That was cool.
We needed some quarters for the washing machine, so we went to Big Eagle.
Becky hopped out of the truck, and couldn't walk. She's got tendonitis in her right knee.
That was not cool.
I got her to drive one of those motorized carts. She did. It was fun watching her navigate the cart.
That was cool.
We're getting old. We're starting to give back all of the gifts we recieved from our youth.
And that's not cool.
But on second thought, I'm with a beautiful woman. We're going to age well together.
And that....is very cool!!! 
Sun 
10/26/2008 14:19:54
 jim  Meet Scats
Sat 
10/25/2008 15:33:08
 jim  Apartment Complex

Believe it or not...this is where we take our trash. We talked to several people at the compactor. I think it is amazing how several people can live in the same area, see the same things, and have totally different opinions. For instance, we love it here, we like the manager, the grounds, our neighbors...everything. Another guy at the compactor agreed with us 100%. He took our picture. Then a lady came up, and complained about EVERYTHING we said we liked. I took a look at her trash bag, it was small. Then I looked at her car, it was full of trash. I thought her life might improve a lot if she just bought larger trash bags.
Fri 
10/24/2008 07:11:22
 jim  Views from my work site
It is still dark when I come into work at 7am. I think its beautiful, but then again, I think everything is beautiful. 

These vibrantly red bushes are everywhere. What are they?

Famous Daves is close to work. They closed to remodel. We are wondering if they will ever open their doors again.
These geese look like hay bails from a distance. They like this field for some reason. They call other geese when flying to this field, and they are rarely fly alone.
Wed 
10/22/2008 18:42:40
 jim  Atrias Restaurant

Normally I don't say much about the restaurants I eat at, but Atrius has class, an excellent menu, and very good prices.
Wed 
10/22/2008 06:09:42
 jim  Its cold in Pittsburgh
The leaves are falling, and the temperature has already hit 29 degrees.
I'm thinking this is going to be a very cold winter with lots of slushy snow.
Words of Wisdom from the Locals
- Get windshield washer fluid with an antifreeze ingredient in it. It makes the snow turn yellow...lol
- Keep a heavy jacket in your vehicle

I still can't believe how friendly Pittsburgh people are.
They offer kind words, good advice, pure honesty, and have a positive outlook on life.
They're family values are the highest I've ever seen, and their love for sports in undying.
Through my travels, I've noticed unfriendly pockets of places in friendly towns.
I haven't found any pockets like that in Pittsburgh, and we've been all over.
Even the bums (which they're aren't many of) tell you their story.
I think I'd hate being alone here, but Becky and I meld in whereever we go.
This is an incredible place.
Tue 
10/21/2008 13:44:26
 jim  Rainy Skys
Thu 
10/16/2008 20:16:39
 jim  Atoms are shaped like kidney beans
I just gotta say this. I've seen pictures of atoms...and they're funny.
If gravity affects them at all, they're shaped like kidney beans...lol
Theory is great, but it may lack important items like GRAVITY.
Don't trust every thing you read. Don't trust pictures.
Everything you need to know is in your mind.
Wed 
10/15/2008 18:34:38
 jim  Shadyside
Sun 
10/12/2008 20:11:08
 jim  Wexford Fireworks
Sun 
10/12/2008 16:53:30
 jim  Fun with Pix
Sun 
10/12/2008 16:04:10
 jim  McCandless Day
Sun 
10/12/2008 15:37:15
 jim  McCandless Carshow
Sun 
10/12/2008 12:47:50
 jim  Afternoon Delights
Sun 
10/12/2008 11:56:13
 jim  I am not an economist BUT
Two things have happened in this century which are phenominal:
- The cost of houses have doubled or tripled.
- The cost of transportation / fuel has doubled.
The powers that be, could try to bring home prices down to what people can afford...
- yea, that might work..
Relief loans could be provided for loans in trouble...
- yea, that might work..
But it seems to me that what really needs to happen in this country is
Incomes must rise, to meet the rise in cost of  everything else.
It's been a long time since my salary doubled. I'm making less than I was in 1996. How about you ?
I think inflation must occur for all areas that haven't caught up to the housing and transportation inflations.
I think we need to grow our own food and produce our own products.
We need to produce own our oil...don't you think ?
We need to produce SOMETHING besides slavery for the other impoverished countries of the world.
I also want to add this,
How could buying oil from Iran and Iraq ever have helped the free world?
We built the monster.
Sat 
10/11/2008 17:34:46
 jim  Wexford - Church Road Cemetary
Sat 
10/11/2008 09:04:35
 jim  Wild Turkeys - Outside our door
Sat 
10/11/2008 08:45:06
 jim  Everybody must get stoned
22 July 2008 , By MICHAEL THEODOULOU IN CYPRUS
An Iranian mother of four faces death by stoning "at any moment", human rights campaigners have warned. Kobra Najar has spent more than ten years behind bars after being convicted of adultery and encouraging another man to murder her violent and heroin-addicted husband, who forced her into prostitution. If her sentence is carried out, Najar will be ritually washed, wrapped in a white shroud and carried on a stretcher with her hands tied behind her back to an open space in the prison at dawn. There she will be buried up to the armpits and stoned to death in the presence of prison officials.
Sat 
10/11/2008 08:01:23
 jim  Who is the real ass?
Numbers 22:21-29 (New King James Version)
Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his ass and went with the princes of Moab.
But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the LORD stood in the road to oppose him.
Balaam was riding on his ass, and his two servants were with him.
When his ass saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand,
his ass turned off the road into a field.
Balaam beat his ass to get his ass back on the road.
Then the angel of the LORD stood in a narrow path between two vineyards, with walls on both sides.
When his ass saw the angel of the LORD, his ass pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam's foot against it.
So he beat his ass again.
Then the angel of the LORD moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left.
When his ass saw the angel of the LORD, his ass lay down under Balaam, and he was angry
and beat his ass with his staff.
Then the LORD opened his ass's mouth,
and his ass said to Balaam, "What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?"
Balaam answered his ass, "You have made a fool of me! If I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now."
Fri 
10/10/2008 22:19:24
 jim  Kinneywood Park - Scream Night
Fri 
10/10/2008 04:14:37
 jim  My favorite sayings
When the US sneezes, the whole world catches colds.
Live today as if its your last. Plan tommorrow as if  you're going to live forever.
No matter how much reason you offer a person with faith, they don't get it.
Make the most amount of money in the least amount of time.
When your occupation, vocation, and vacation are the same, you're set for life
I take that back. If your happy in your head, you're set for life.
The eleventh commandment 'Thou Shall Not Get Caught'
Do unto others (before they do unto you).
Eat, Drink and be Merry (for tommorrow everything might suck).
The best formula for wealth is to be born wealthy, which wasn't my option.
Success is dictated by being born wealthy, being attractive, having a good voice or being just plain lucky. Intelligence doesn't seem to have much to do with it.
Being a doctor or lawyer is a great idea, if you can afford working 8 years through college.
I'd sue everyone who has ripped me off, if lawyer's didn't rip me off.
I wonder what the chairman of Lehman Brothers did to make a half a billion dollars a year. The company went under.
Path of least resistance is the reason for how the rock rolled down the hill into the road. The dent in my truck was its purpose.
Wed 
10/08/2008 16:10:48
 jim  Rainy Days in Pittsburgh
Tue 
10/07/2008 07:34:36
 jim  Fields of Wexford and Ross

I still can't believe any apartment could have such a beautiful view of a forest.
Mon 
10/06/2008 18:31:10
 jim  Vestal Park
Sun 
10/05/2008 20:56:44
 jim  Pittsburgh People
Sun 
10/05/2008 18:18:16
 jim  North Hills Park
Sun 
10/05/2008 17:37:46
 jim  Meet Ruth
This is Ruth. 
We pulled up next to her, and its seemed like she was waiting for us. She has lived in Pittsburgh all of her life.
When she was 16, she joined the Musicians Union and played her the bass. Later she toured with a band where she met her husband. He passed away a years ago, along with most of her friends, but she lives on to tell their story of their days on the road. She lives on a ranch nearby. She said her stew should have been finished crocking when we parted ways (she uses only fresh picked vegetables). She comes to this park every day to walk her pomeranian pooch.
Pittsburgh people are the friendliest I've ever met.
They are honest, open, and colorful people.
They are more than happy to tell you the story of their lives.
Its always a pleasure listening to these people paint their pictures of their lives, and the days gone by.
I've been honored to meet every one of them.
Sat 
10/04/2008 22:10:26
 jim  Pennsylvania Fireworks - 250th Centiniel
Sat 
10/04/2008 20:07:44
 jim  Pittsburgh Fireworks
Sat 
10/04/2008 15:01:56
 jim  The Ross Township Landscape
Sat 
10/04/2008 12:31:13
 jim  I love hackers
Ever since I've owned a website, I've had to deal with hackers.
I LIKE THEM. They make me extra money.
Here's how the hackers help me.
I block certain IP address, so the ones that hit my sites have to have IP changers. It looks like multiple IP addresses are viewing my web pages. I get paid for each unique IP address that views a page on my site, with an ad on it..
Here's how they hurt me.
They don't really. At least not much. LVDarling's database was up to 1.2 gig. I rolled it back.
This database in only 10 meg, so, I usually restore a backup when I get too many Users.
Sat 
10/04/2008 10:18:09
 jim  I think its Beckys birthday today
She woke up, and said "It's Becky's birthday today"
I said, babe, "You're Becky"
She said, "I thought Becky was at the White Capitol"
I said, "No, that's the White House, and she...I mean WE, went last week, or did we go last week?".
She said, "No, I think we went last month.". "So, I wonder what Jim got me for my birthday."
I said, "Jim?".
I'm trying to figure out who and where I am these days
Am I Joe Six-Pack, Joe Lunchbucket, or the White Collar Elite ?
Do I live on Main Street, or am I the McMansion type?
Joe Six-Pack is generally understood to be one heckuva nice guy. He drinks, but he never drinks and drives. When he does drive, he would be the last person to tailgate or cut anybody off in traffic. He just Wants What is Best for America.
He has lunch with a lot of so-called "blue-collar" types - plumbers, electricians, truck drivers, the guy who owns the local car-repair shop. Some make more money than Mr White-Collar Elite. Joe Six-Pack is the one the politicians seem to like best. He's usually married to Soccer-Mom.
Soccer-Mom doesn't logically exist, or I don't know any of them. Soccer Moms work hard for their kids, but soccer is far too expensive for most middle class Moms. I think the middle class mom would be best coined as a Pink Collar Mom since most Mom's have to work these days. Mr and Mrs Cleaver are working so Beaver can spend all of time online.
Joe Lunchbucket  is a working stiff who has to pack his own lunch and can't even afford beer. Nobody seems to mention him much. I don't know any of these guys. Most of the people I know in this class work through lunch.
The White-Collar Elite guys live one subdivision away. In fact, you can catch all these guys after they've taken off their white or blue collars and put on t-shirts to go watch football. They're awfully hard to tell apart.
Wall Street is where all of those stock brokers go to have panic attacks, heart failures, and mental breakdowns just before they get soused at a local bar, then take the subway home. Nobody I know, knows these guys.
Main Street I think is where we are supposed to live. I can't usually afford to live downtown.
I think I'd call my self Joe Cubical,
I live in Back Street America. You never hear about that. 
Most of the people I work with don't take lunch breaks. Who takes lunch breaks these days?
Sat 
10/04/2008 06:35:11
 jim  Home foreclosures - My point of view
In the quarter ending September 2008 :
In the United States overall, home foreclosure filings were .5%.
In Nevada, home foreclosure filings were 1.4%  (that's the highest in the nation).
During the first nine months of last year, of all the troubled home loans, only 1% of the lenders rewrote their customers' home loans. To me, that means an ARM loan is more apt to go into foreclosure, than it is to be rewritten. ( msnbc.msn.com )
I'm thinking a bad loan is:
An ARM that lets a poorly qualified homeowner over-refinance his home for say $1,000 a month, then in 3 years goes up to $1,350 a month. ( MasonryConstruction.com ). The lure for a getting an ARM was easy money (more money than a borrower could ever have saved).
I would be one of those ARM loan borrowers, BTW.
- On my first refi, I realized paying off a mortgage was a mistake. My utilities, homeowners insurance and property taxes ran $500 a month. So I refinanced for a $600 mortgage payment. I got $80,000 cash for that. Easy money, right? 
- On my second refi, my thinking back then was: I needed the money. I wasn't working, and I was getting low on cash. Lenders were bombarding my phone and email with incredible offers and I said, "what-the-heck, if I'm going to lose my home anyway, why not have a last fling with it".  I got $60,000 for that.
- On both occasions, I was allowed borrow more money than I knew my house was worth. I wasn't working, but still, I was allowed to refinance my home. Lastly, I couldn't sell my house for the amount of money that my house was appraised for. The mortgage companies were speculating that Las Vegas homes would continue to inflate in value. I guess they were wrong.
- I would think my house today should be worth $140,000, and not the $260,000 it appraised for two years ago.
- I would have had to struggle for 10 years to save the kind of cash these companies were throwing at me.
The bad loans were written based on inflated appraisels, and bad lending policies.
I'm not alone and I think there is only two solutions.
And it stinks for the lenders.  The ways out are:
1) Let the bad loans be foreclosed on and let the homes be resold for their real value
2) Buy back the mortgages, with an assumable loan that has a substantially reduced interest rate.
I think the government is going for the first option, which will cream the borrowers credit ratings, while bailing out the lending companies.
For me, I'd rather keep my home.
I don't think buying the house next door for $75,000, then going into foreclosure on my house (with its $200,000 loan) is cool idea at all. But ya know, if I were to go with the flow, that's what I should do.
I'll wait to see what offers float to the top.
Thu 
10/02/2008 04:04:01
 jim  What should the price of a home be?..
Shouldn't the price of a home be about twice the family's income. I always thought that was a good rule of thumb.
At least that way, the family has the option of paying it off. But when a family can borrow 10 times their income to buy a house, that seems crazy, doesn't it. So, how did that ever happen ? The loan people lost their minds...that's how. 
I think all of us who refinanced know why we did it.
We took advantage of the insane loan companies. For once in our lives, we could have money to play with.
Me, I took five years off. My neighors reinvested their refi money into their houses. I think thats great. What I should do, is buy all of their houses (after they default) for 1/4 of their loan's value, then  default on my house's mortgage.
One of my neighbor's refi'd his house.
It was valued at $250,000. He bought cars, fixed up his property, bought a new $15,000 air conditioner, then defaulted on his loan. A guy from San Francisco picked up the house for $75,000.
Now think about this...
If my neighbor could have defaulted on his loan, and could have bought his house back for $75,000, he could have afforded the mortgage payments. Wouldn't he be crazy if he didn't. But, unfortunately, he didn't have that option.
He had to go into foreclosure, and then someone else had to buy it.
Tue 
09/30/2008 02:32:54
 jim  Not having followed much of the news
And just taking a wild assed guess...I'd have to think this country's major downfall right now is defaulted mortgages. All of those ARM's are maturing to a whopping big house payment. When I look around Vegas and Pittsburgh, I see foreclosed homes everywhere. They are wasted resources.
Why can't the government bailout the homeowners that fell for those questionable loans ? Wouldn't that trickle upward ? FHA loans used to be the best deal around. I say, populate these empty houses with people. Make home ownership affordable. Offer consumers a way out. A buy out of bad loans could save the banks.

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