"A Republic, if you can keep it."
01/08/21 07:09
Where are we going this week, Johnny Boy? What tortured and twisted road will we be going down before we end up god only knows where? So, life isn't all unicorns and rainbows? I guess we'll see. It will unfold before our very eyes for better or worse. No one has a crystal ball so there won't be any previews for those who love previews. We can only hope that there will be very little bad news and more good news than bad at the end of the week. What a way to kick off my blog this week. It's a fucking disaster before it even starts.
If the good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise, we'll be picking up Evan's new used car today. He's about as excited as one can be about getting a new set of wheels. He's been car-less for the better part now of two to three weeks and, while he's not one to complain, he seems darn happy about the prospects of getting back behind the wheel. His first official destination, or so he says, is to head for the nearest Starbuck's drive-up window and get himself an iced flat white. Seems righteous.
We have a vacation in the works but there have been a few developments that qualify somewhat as a flies in the proverbial ointment. Our plan was to stay lakeside for a week, do a little fishing and boating, and maybe throw in a modest road trip or two just to keep things interesting. Here's the rub: The boat we had planned to use has been sold. To make matters worse, the boat will stay in its present day mooring for the duration of our stay at the lake. That is to say, even if we wanted to use another boat, we would have no place to dock it.
That's a cluster under the best of circumstances. Half the fun of being at the lake is being able to do a bit of boating while there. So, we need a plan B. It's clear we need a plan B. We have a couple of feelers out for a place with an available dock but, thus far, it's a no-go.
I'm trying to negotiate a better price for this one place we're looking at considering the fact that we're talking about post-season rental dates. It's the best time to be on the lake if you want the unvarnished truth. The yahoos of summer have long since departed and the lake reverts to its natural state. It's the lake of my childhood. It's the lake of my dreams. It's the Queen of American Lakes.
The rental market for lakeside properties on this particular lake has been so hot this year that the owners seem to think that they can fetch top dollar even after Labor Day. Maybe they're right. I'm hoping they're wrong. It doesn't hurt to make a pitch so that's what I did. The week we're interested in still appears available on the website so why not offer less than top dollar? It's a win-win for everybody, is it not?
The realtor gets her slice of the pie, albeit a smaller slice than she'd hoped to get were she to find a renter to pay the full freight, but a slice nonetheless. The owner no longer has to run the risk of getting nothing as the summer season on the lake comes to a close and they find themselves competing with a boatload of vacated properties and a rapidly diminishing number of prospective renters.
The first response from the broker to my pitch was as follows: "The owners are charging $x,xxx for the month of September." Loosely translated, that means they're not offering any discounts at this time. All I could envision was Greta Thunberg sitting at her computer and banging away on her keyboard with the following: "HOW DARE YOU?" What about that response tells you that the broker didn't even approach the owner with my offer?
Call me suspicious but I had the funny feeling given the brevity and the haste with which she responded to my e-mail that she never even approached the property owner with my offer. When a realtor takes it upon his self or herself to speak for a property owner, that's a problem. I needed to tease this out a bit more, so I responded with the following: "Ok, thank you for inquiring." I was essentially calling her out for not making the pitch on my behalf but pretending that she had.
I wanted to let her know that I knew that she really hadn't done her due diligence as a realtor when she decided to answer for the owner of the property. What realtor worth his or her salt doesn't go back to the owner with a counteroffer tendered by a prospective renter/buyer? Has her experience as a rental agent in the fast flowing and occasionally nasty nature of that end of the business so corrupted her that she is essentially now nothing more than an agent running rogue?
The final steps in my long distance Kabuki dance with the realtor was to thank her for doing something that she essentially did not do. I knew that if she had any scruples whatsoever, this probably wouldn't sit well with her. I was counting on it. Within 45 minutes of my e-mail and her original response, she replied with the following: "I've just asked them again. Will let you know if anything changes."
Well, what do ya know? Asked them again, my ass. So, you've asked them twice within 45 minutes? It just doesn't pass the smell test, sweetie. So, here's the deal. I'm thinking that when August 1st rolls around, which is just a day or two away now, it will be a whole new ball game. It's one thing for a rental agent to turn down an offer when you have what you think is an entire summer ahead of you to find a renter willing to pay full price for a post-season rental.
It's quite another thing to get down to your last 4-5 weeks of the summer and those mid to late September weeks are starting two look very iffy. That can't sit well when your sole responsibility as a rental agent for the properties that you manage is to ensure that no weeks on the rental schedule go unfilled. I've bookmarked the agent's website in my browser and I check it daily now just to make sure that it hasn't yet been rented. Every day it goes unrented, my chances of getting an e-mail from the agent improve over my prospects from the previous day. Who says there is no god?
We finally put a bow on this car thing with the Ev man. He's now the proud owner of a brand spanking new used car. The old car has been towed away, we'll get this new one registered in a week or two, and it's nothing if not blue skies and clear highways ahead for the once beleaguered Ev man. Beleaguered in the sense that he was sidelined by a series of events with his car that were largely unforeseen and truly unfortunate. It's all in the rear view mirror now so that's a good thing. He couldn't be happier to be behind the wheel again and to have the freedom that having a car represents.
I was telling the missus the day I went with the Ev man to pick up the car that I don't think I've ever seen the Ev man so happy. I don't call him the "Ev man" when talking to the missus, but you get my drift. The day we picked up the car was an unusually sunny and bright day with a deep blue sky overhead. His car sat in the lot buffed and ready for the taking. She was even more beautiful than the day we took her for a test drive. I don't know what the Ev man was thinking, but he was all smiles, so all was well with the world.
It looks like we're going down the rabbit hole again with these so-called variants. I'm not sure it has anything to do with public health or anything of the of the sort. The messaging is all very confusing so one doesn't know quite what to make of anything they're hearing or seeing. One thing is clear. They are pushing the vaccines like nobody's business and that should give us all pause. We're even being told now that the vaccinated folks need to wear masks when indoors.
Apparently, vaccinated people can carry a viral load that makes them more infectious than previously thought. You need to protect the people around you and you're a danger to society if you're out and about without the protection of the jab and a mask! Oh, and it's those damn Trump supporters who haven't taken the jab who are putting us all at risk. Not a fucking mention of vaccine hesitancy in the black communities or communities of color. It just doesn't fit their narrative.
I get why people aren't getting the jab. It's an experimental vaccine and no one knows what the vaccine does to you longer term. The mortality rates for certain age groups are almost infinitesimal. This warrants taking a vaccine into your body that we really know nothing about? What parent would subject their child to that level of risk? What pregnant woman would subject their unborn child to this vaccine? Knowing what we know about the level of risk associated with the virus, not to mention the various and sundry drugs that have been shown to be effective against the virus, it should be no surprise that people are willing to take their chances by not taking the vaccine.
It's a moving target for the media. As an arm of the democrat party, the party that wants a jab in every arm in the country regardless of age, they've given the green light to every Tom, Dick, and Harry on their respective networks to push the jab at any cost. Their latest push involves featuring people who are now lying on their death beds with the virus who now say that they wish they'd gotten the jab. It's just more shameless jibber jabber from the dick heads on the major networks. Who's ready for another Trump rally?
We're even starting to hear about lockdowns again. Thankfully, most red states are now pushing back and passing laws against the idiocy that we can see coming down the pike. Governor DeSantis of Florida says that there will be no mask mandates, no lockdowns, and no more bullshit of any kind related to the virus in his state. Other red state governors are following his lead. There are more murders in the city of Chicago on any given weekend than there are people who die of the virus so everybody just needs to calm the hell down. You won't get this message from the democrats though. They have elections to steal. Time is a wastin.'
It looks like this eviction moratorium that we've seen in place since the pandemic began is about to come to an end. I'm at odds when it comes to feeling any empathy for those people who have not paid rent for months on end because they've had the full protection of the United States government behind them going back to the beginning of the pandemic. These protections were never intended to last forever. The owners of the real estate have borne the brunt of the program and have been on the hook for the monies owed on their mortgages irrespective of what their tenants have or have not been paying. They are more than deserving of our collective empathy.
For those tenants who have paid not a dime during the pandemic, for those tenants who have made no effort whatsoever to work with their landlords, I have no sympathy for them. It's not like there are no jobs available that would otherwise enable them to pay down their debts. Evict their sorry asses and do it now. I don't care how many children they have living in the household. Keep in mind that another boondoggle of a federal program brought to you by the bumbling Biden Administration, is now sending checks to every household every month depending on your income and the number of children in your household. Time to pony up, bitches!
And then there is the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room. Our southern border is wide open thanks to the Biden Administration. We're seeing millions of migrants flooding our country and being transported in the dark of night by the federal government to every community across our country.
Nobody knows where these people come from, what diseases or viruses they carry, or where their final destination might be. It's a fucking invasion, folks. How is this not an impeachable offense by a sitting president? Have I heard so much as one voice from the choir of politicians in Washington even mention the word "impeachment"?
The Biden-ista's want to put masks on the faces of every American and a jab in every arm, but they seem to care not one iota about the illegal aliens flooding our borders harboring god only knows what viruses or other such diseases. We have millions of homeless living on our streets that don't see even a sliver of the largesse that is afforded to every Jose', Miguel, and Marguerite coming across the Rio Grande and into our country.
I hope they enjoy their stay here in America because they are all going back to where they came from when Trump gets re-elected in 2024. Trump also needs to fire every last one of the mother fuckers in the Department of Justice who have not only looked the other way while this invasion took place, but they have effectively aided and abetted Biden and the leftists every step of the way.
I thought they had some responsibility for upholding the Constitution and our way of life? What about a one-party government ala Venezuela do they find so alluring that they are willing to suck up to the Biden-ista's and do their bidding? This should concern every American.
Maybe Ben Franklin was right when he was asked by a group of citizens, "What sort of government have the delegates created?" Franklin responded, "A Republic, if you can keep it."
If the good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise, we'll be picking up Evan's new used car today. He's about as excited as one can be about getting a new set of wheels. He's been car-less for the better part now of two to three weeks and, while he's not one to complain, he seems darn happy about the prospects of getting back behind the wheel. His first official destination, or so he says, is to head for the nearest Starbuck's drive-up window and get himself an iced flat white. Seems righteous.
We have a vacation in the works but there have been a few developments that qualify somewhat as a flies in the proverbial ointment. Our plan was to stay lakeside for a week, do a little fishing and boating, and maybe throw in a modest road trip or two just to keep things interesting. Here's the rub: The boat we had planned to use has been sold. To make matters worse, the boat will stay in its present day mooring for the duration of our stay at the lake. That is to say, even if we wanted to use another boat, we would have no place to dock it.
That's a cluster under the best of circumstances. Half the fun of being at the lake is being able to do a bit of boating while there. So, we need a plan B. It's clear we need a plan B. We have a couple of feelers out for a place with an available dock but, thus far, it's a no-go.
I'm trying to negotiate a better price for this one place we're looking at considering the fact that we're talking about post-season rental dates. It's the best time to be on the lake if you want the unvarnished truth. The yahoos of summer have long since departed and the lake reverts to its natural state. It's the lake of my childhood. It's the lake of my dreams. It's the Queen of American Lakes.
The rental market for lakeside properties on this particular lake has been so hot this year that the owners seem to think that they can fetch top dollar even after Labor Day. Maybe they're right. I'm hoping they're wrong. It doesn't hurt to make a pitch so that's what I did. The week we're interested in still appears available on the website so why not offer less than top dollar? It's a win-win for everybody, is it not?
The realtor gets her slice of the pie, albeit a smaller slice than she'd hoped to get were she to find a renter to pay the full freight, but a slice nonetheless. The owner no longer has to run the risk of getting nothing as the summer season on the lake comes to a close and they find themselves competing with a boatload of vacated properties and a rapidly diminishing number of prospective renters.
The first response from the broker to my pitch was as follows: "The owners are charging $x,xxx for the month of September." Loosely translated, that means they're not offering any discounts at this time. All I could envision was Greta Thunberg sitting at her computer and banging away on her keyboard with the following: "HOW DARE YOU?" What about that response tells you that the broker didn't even approach the owner with my offer?
Call me suspicious but I had the funny feeling given the brevity and the haste with which she responded to my e-mail that she never even approached the property owner with my offer. When a realtor takes it upon his self or herself to speak for a property owner, that's a problem. I needed to tease this out a bit more, so I responded with the following: "Ok, thank you for inquiring." I was essentially calling her out for not making the pitch on my behalf but pretending that she had.
I wanted to let her know that I knew that she really hadn't done her due diligence as a realtor when she decided to answer for the owner of the property. What realtor worth his or her salt doesn't go back to the owner with a counteroffer tendered by a prospective renter/buyer? Has her experience as a rental agent in the fast flowing and occasionally nasty nature of that end of the business so corrupted her that she is essentially now nothing more than an agent running rogue?
The final steps in my long distance Kabuki dance with the realtor was to thank her for doing something that she essentially did not do. I knew that if she had any scruples whatsoever, this probably wouldn't sit well with her. I was counting on it. Within 45 minutes of my e-mail and her original response, she replied with the following: "I've just asked them again. Will let you know if anything changes."
Well, what do ya know? Asked them again, my ass. So, you've asked them twice within 45 minutes? It just doesn't pass the smell test, sweetie. So, here's the deal. I'm thinking that when August 1st rolls around, which is just a day or two away now, it will be a whole new ball game. It's one thing for a rental agent to turn down an offer when you have what you think is an entire summer ahead of you to find a renter willing to pay full price for a post-season rental.
It's quite another thing to get down to your last 4-5 weeks of the summer and those mid to late September weeks are starting two look very iffy. That can't sit well when your sole responsibility as a rental agent for the properties that you manage is to ensure that no weeks on the rental schedule go unfilled. I've bookmarked the agent's website in my browser and I check it daily now just to make sure that it hasn't yet been rented. Every day it goes unrented, my chances of getting an e-mail from the agent improve over my prospects from the previous day. Who says there is no god?
We finally put a bow on this car thing with the Ev man. He's now the proud owner of a brand spanking new used car. The old car has been towed away, we'll get this new one registered in a week or two, and it's nothing if not blue skies and clear highways ahead for the once beleaguered Ev man. Beleaguered in the sense that he was sidelined by a series of events with his car that were largely unforeseen and truly unfortunate. It's all in the rear view mirror now so that's a good thing. He couldn't be happier to be behind the wheel again and to have the freedom that having a car represents.
I was telling the missus the day I went with the Ev man to pick up the car that I don't think I've ever seen the Ev man so happy. I don't call him the "Ev man" when talking to the missus, but you get my drift. The day we picked up the car was an unusually sunny and bright day with a deep blue sky overhead. His car sat in the lot buffed and ready for the taking. She was even more beautiful than the day we took her for a test drive. I don't know what the Ev man was thinking, but he was all smiles, so all was well with the world.
It looks like we're going down the rabbit hole again with these so-called variants. I'm not sure it has anything to do with public health or anything of the of the sort. The messaging is all very confusing so one doesn't know quite what to make of anything they're hearing or seeing. One thing is clear. They are pushing the vaccines like nobody's business and that should give us all pause. We're even being told now that the vaccinated folks need to wear masks when indoors.
Apparently, vaccinated people can carry a viral load that makes them more infectious than previously thought. You need to protect the people around you and you're a danger to society if you're out and about without the protection of the jab and a mask! Oh, and it's those damn Trump supporters who haven't taken the jab who are putting us all at risk. Not a fucking mention of vaccine hesitancy in the black communities or communities of color. It just doesn't fit their narrative.
I get why people aren't getting the jab. It's an experimental vaccine and no one knows what the vaccine does to you longer term. The mortality rates for certain age groups are almost infinitesimal. This warrants taking a vaccine into your body that we really know nothing about? What parent would subject their child to that level of risk? What pregnant woman would subject their unborn child to this vaccine? Knowing what we know about the level of risk associated with the virus, not to mention the various and sundry drugs that have been shown to be effective against the virus, it should be no surprise that people are willing to take their chances by not taking the vaccine.
It's a moving target for the media. As an arm of the democrat party, the party that wants a jab in every arm in the country regardless of age, they've given the green light to every Tom, Dick, and Harry on their respective networks to push the jab at any cost. Their latest push involves featuring people who are now lying on their death beds with the virus who now say that they wish they'd gotten the jab. It's just more shameless jibber jabber from the dick heads on the major networks. Who's ready for another Trump rally?
We're even starting to hear about lockdowns again. Thankfully, most red states are now pushing back and passing laws against the idiocy that we can see coming down the pike. Governor DeSantis of Florida says that there will be no mask mandates, no lockdowns, and no more bullshit of any kind related to the virus in his state. Other red state governors are following his lead. There are more murders in the city of Chicago on any given weekend than there are people who die of the virus so everybody just needs to calm the hell down. You won't get this message from the democrats though. They have elections to steal. Time is a wastin.'
It looks like this eviction moratorium that we've seen in place since the pandemic began is about to come to an end. I'm at odds when it comes to feeling any empathy for those people who have not paid rent for months on end because they've had the full protection of the United States government behind them going back to the beginning of the pandemic. These protections were never intended to last forever. The owners of the real estate have borne the brunt of the program and have been on the hook for the monies owed on their mortgages irrespective of what their tenants have or have not been paying. They are more than deserving of our collective empathy.
For those tenants who have paid not a dime during the pandemic, for those tenants who have made no effort whatsoever to work with their landlords, I have no sympathy for them. It's not like there are no jobs available that would otherwise enable them to pay down their debts. Evict their sorry asses and do it now. I don't care how many children they have living in the household. Keep in mind that another boondoggle of a federal program brought to you by the bumbling Biden Administration, is now sending checks to every household every month depending on your income and the number of children in your household. Time to pony up, bitches!
And then there is the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room. Our southern border is wide open thanks to the Biden Administration. We're seeing millions of migrants flooding our country and being transported in the dark of night by the federal government to every community across our country.
Nobody knows where these people come from, what diseases or viruses they carry, or where their final destination might be. It's a fucking invasion, folks. How is this not an impeachable offense by a sitting president? Have I heard so much as one voice from the choir of politicians in Washington even mention the word "impeachment"?
The Biden-ista's want to put masks on the faces of every American and a jab in every arm, but they seem to care not one iota about the illegal aliens flooding our borders harboring god only knows what viruses or other such diseases. We have millions of homeless living on our streets that don't see even a sliver of the largesse that is afforded to every Jose', Miguel, and Marguerite coming across the Rio Grande and into our country.
I hope they enjoy their stay here in America because they are all going back to where they came from when Trump gets re-elected in 2024. Trump also needs to fire every last one of the mother fuckers in the Department of Justice who have not only looked the other way while this invasion took place, but they have effectively aided and abetted Biden and the leftists every step of the way.
I thought they had some responsibility for upholding the Constitution and our way of life? What about a one-party government ala Venezuela do they find so alluring that they are willing to suck up to the Biden-ista's and do their bidding? This should concern every American.
Maybe Ben Franklin was right when he was asked by a group of citizens, "What sort of government have the delegates created?" Franklin responded, "A Republic, if you can keep it."