Pop up, fight the flood, escalating earnings

Years ago when I was at Charlie’s place we we sat down in front of his sofa which had a coffee table in front of it.  We had some sandwiches to eat.  All of a sudden he lifts lightly on the table top and it smoothly elevates upward and towards us, putting it in a very good position to eat off of.  Well I thought this was super cool and filed it away mentally as a “someday” thing.  Well yesterday was “someday”.

Since the split I have been randomly checking Craigslist to see if I could score a nice deal on a used lift top table.  Well I found such a deal yesterday.  The listing was actually a couple weeks old so I was skeptical if it would be available, it was.

After doing the mandatory CL discount I was quite pleased to score the table I dreamed of for not much cash at all.

I headed over to the sellers place on my way home.  It was an older couple that were quite nice.  The husband especially had a fantastic, open, engaging, friendly persona, something I always desired I had more of.  He is the type of guy that you can’t help but like.

Anyway after verifying the table was in good shape, the husband helped me carry it out to the Tacoma and load it up.  He said he could try to find something for me to cover it with since the skies looked menacing but I told him I would roll the dice.  Well of course you can already guess, I rolled craps.

I drove through varying intensities of rain on the way home.  Luckily for most of it I was moving at highway speeds which provided a substantial wind barrier on top of the table.  The top of the table had some drops on it but nothing severe by the time I got into the driveway.

Getting the table off the truck and inside by myself was a bit awkward and ripe with potential for back injury.  The table wasn’t all that heavy but it was sizeable.  To carry it inside I basically put the table into a psuedo bear hug and squeezed through the doorways.  The dogs were quite interested in the new addition, assuming of course it was somehow intended for them.

The table fits the space pretty well.  The wood grain matches my 50’s style end table, kind of.  But who cares, what matters is it is cool.

I put the table in place and gave it a gentle touch on the top.  It raised up into a great position, useful for eating, holding my beer or sticking my laptop on.  It also is on wheels so it’s very easy to move around if I am kicking back on one of the recliners as well.

I tried out the table during the evening, plopping my laptop on there for some Diablo play time.  It worked out quite well .  Needless to say I am pleased with my latest and greatest Craigslist score.

So yesterday I received a letter from my credit union whom hold my mortgage.  The letter indicated that I was now required to buy flood insurance based on the new FEMA flood maps.  I sort of knew this was coming as my neighbor received a similar letter from Bank of America a couple weeks ago.  I also knew this was utter bullshit.

Depending on your length of readership here and how much attention you pay to my rambling, you may recall that during the tail end of 2011 I attended a workshop regarding the new flood zones.  Basically you went in, gave your address and they told you if you were in a flood zone with the new maps.

When I was there it was explained to me that the initial remapping of our area by FEMA had put our area in zone AH, which would require flood insurance.  However there was additional, more detailed elevation imagery submitted that actually took into account the three to four foot tall mounds of dirt that houses in our area are built upon, which make flooding of the dwelling basically impossible short of an end of days scenario. I was told this enhanced imagery was what the final FEMA determination was being based upon and that showed my house is in zone X, which does not require flood insurance.

My place is where the dot is.  The orange color is zone AH, the yellow is zone X.

I told my neighbors that they should not require flood insurance either but they opted to pay $150 to get an official elevation survey which told them the exact same thing, they don’t need flood insurance.

Well I am not willing to eat an unnecessary $150 expense so I will be making some phone calls today.  I am not quite sure why the banks are working off of old data but I will do whatever I can to “enlighten” them.

My Google AdSense/YouTube “business” is taking off.  After taking considerable time to monetize the majority of my YouTube library I am seeing my earnings this month skyrocket.  Last month I hauled in $18 and change in advertising dollars.  Today, the last day of the month I am right at 31 bucks and expect to finish the month close to $35, I made over $4 yesterday alone.

Yes I know in bottom line dollars we are talking about chump change but if we look at earning curves I am looking at coming damn close to DOUBLING the prior month’s total.  If that curve continues it doesn’t take a mathematician to see where it could be headed.