Sports history, bankers, 5 days

I, like many millions stayed up till the end of the game last night to see the Red Sox officially end the longest drought in sports history as they put away the Cardinals, with a sweep no less. It really was an amazing run for them. The historic comeback against the Yankees followed by sweeping out the team with baseball’s best record. Wow. The Cardinals looked defeated way before the game was officially over. They had no fire, it almost seemed like they knew they were going to lose. In contrast, the Red Sox to a man looked confident and relaxed. I’m not even remotely a Red Sox fan but even so I was pulling for them in a big way to win it this year. Everyone likes an underdog.

I took time out of work yesterday to pick up Ali and go to the credit union to sign paperwork for our home equity line of credit. However when the loan officer plopped the papers in front of us, I immediately saw they f’d it up. They had the total loan amount as the number I requested as an INCREASE over our existing line of credit. Argh. The woman apologized and said this sort of mix up is common because their web site, where you apply for such things doesn’t do a good job of distinguishing an application as an increase or a total amount for a loan. She said to qualify for what we actually wanted to loan would require a new appraisal, more money, more delays. Then we mentioned that the appraisal that was on the county property apprasier site should reflect a higher figure. She checked it out and said that should work just fine. However, when she went for the approval, they declined it because of some BS about the way the value is stated on the site and they would only give credit for the value AFTER the homestead exemption and save-our-homes discount. It was annoying. So we have to get another appraisal, take time out to meet the appraiser at our house, wait and then take more time out to go back to the credit union to sign more paperwork and pay a couple hundred bucks. This could be another situation where dad might walk away from the deal but once this gets finalized it will give us financial flexability that I could have only dreamed of 10 years ago. Of course such power requires discipline as this good fortune could easily be abused by careless spending. I’ll toe the line.

5 days till the election. I hope to do my early voting either today or tomorrow. The polls still seem to have Bush ahead by a slim margin but I wonder if these polls reflect all the newly registered voters that registered this year for the sole reason of kicking W out of office. I’m crossing my fingers that enough people can see through the smokescreens, character assisination and misdirection that the Publicans seem to rely on so heavily to steer people away from what they have been doing the past 4 years. (ask John McCain)