Archive for April, 2008
Whimsical Wednesday: Things With No End
· CommentsAnother way to write the title of this post would be: thoughts that get you into a continuous loop. And, there aren’t many of those types of thoughts. At least not for me.
Some people think the question, “Which came first - the chicken or the egg?” is a thing with no end (TWNE). But, I don’t get caught up in that one. To me, it’s true that we don’t know the definitive answer to that question, but I think everyone agrees that there is an answer. It had to be either one or the other. I might guess that creationists are on the side of the chicken and evolutionists lean toward the egg, but I don’t really want to get in the middle of that discussion.
For one woman in 1994, this question was a TWNE: “If you could live forever, would you and why?” Sound familiar? That was asked of Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss America Contest. Amazingly enough, lots of folks must have agreed with her - about the question being a TWNE. She was chosen as Miss America 1995. Here’s her answer:
“I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever,”
Note the comma after that last “forever”. I’m not sure that she wouldn’t still be stating and restating that TWNE if the MC hadn’t needed to give some of the other contestants a chance to nail their questions.
Here’s my TWNE: What holds up the planets? I don’t see this as a religious issue — however you want to think the planets got here, how do you think the whole place stays together?
Here’s the loop I get into. So, the planets are just out in space. But, the centrifugal force of us going around the sun creates a gravitational pull that keeps all the planets in place. Although I don’t see how. It seems to me that the level of gravity that would be required to keep the Earth in place should be enough of a pull so that if you dropped something really light - like a Kleenex, it should fall up, not down.
So, then what holds the Sun and stuff in place? Well, we’re in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is a “large system of stars held together by mutual gravitation and isolated from similar systems by vast regions of space”. So, now we’ve got regions of space which certainly aren’t solid, and which have black holes in them which suck in anything in their path. Except for the galaxies and planets. For some reason. And whatever does get “sucked in” disappears and goes. . . where??
And, here’s the kicker. If you could sit high above all this stuff and see as far as there are galaxies, what would you see at the “horizon”? Is there a horizon? Are there an infinite number of galaxies and regions of space? This is where I get a brain freeze, and it’s not from chugging a frozen Margarita.
So, I finally give up trying to get my head around it and decide that we just may be encased in an amulet hanging around a cat’s neck. . .
Give a Little, Take a Little
· CommentsHad a few discussions about ways to get contact information from Internet visitors lately. There seem to be two schools of thought:
- If someone wants information from my site they’ll have to give up their contact information for it!! After all, I’m not running a charity!!!
- I hate it when I’m on a website and I have to complete a form to get access to information. So, I can’t bring myself to require registration for anything on my site. People will just have to want to contact me!
Hmm . . . How about a middle ground? Give a Little, Take a Little??
Try this exercise the next time you have an idea for adding tips or tools to your website: Write an outline. Now, you probably haven’t written an outline since you were in school, but I’m sure you remember how it goes.
I. First Main Topic
A. First Sub-Topic
B. Second Sub-Topic
II. Second Main Topic
A. First Sub-Topic
B. Second Sub-Topic
And, so on………
Then, take all the Main Topics and summarize them in prose (meaning paragraphs, for example). Take all the Sub-Topics and put them into a checklist or a chart or something a bit spiffier than just paragraphs of content.
Put the Main Topic prose on one of your web pages, followed by an offer for the chart or checklist. Naturally, if you make the prose interesting and valuable enough, people are going to want the details, and they won’t feel put upon if they have to fill out a form to get them.
The best way to do the form is to have the chart sent to the email address the visitor provides immediately after they complete the form. Instant gratification - always a good thing!
So, you give a little and take a little. And, starting a relationship with that person just got a bit easier because you know of at least one topic in which they are very interested!
It’s New! And Improved!!
· CommentsI’m running a bit behind on the blog this week. But, it’s not my fault, really. I’ve been spending time that I would have normally devoted to the blog on updating our www.BuildRealEstateResults.com website.
Just like the cobbler’s children, poor BRER.com hadn’t had a facelift since it was created in 2005. What tends to happen is that our sites get tweaked when we have something new to add, but those additions don’t always flow well into the overall structure of the site. So, the poor site was beginning to look like a coat of many colors — random copy and images tacked on top of what did make sense at one point in time.
If you haven’t seen the site in the last couple days, please do stop by. Any feedback you have on design or content would be most appreciated!
PS - Did you notice the buttons on the top of the left column here on the blog?? Finally got some links to and from the main part of the site. Better late than never, as they say…
It’s really puzzling that the powers that be make completing a short sale such a time-consuming and frustrating process. I don’t mean that I think lenders should be happy to take a loss on a mortgage, but I would think they’d act more aggressively on their fiduciary responsibility to minimize losses.
A Clayton Holdings, Inc analysis quoted by the Wall Street Journal found that a short sale typically results in a 19% loss of the loan amount. Homes that are sold after foreclosure typically result in a 40% loss. Really, I didn’t need someone’s analysis to tell me that. I think it’s pretty much common sense.
So, I’ve always been puzzled about the lack of support lenders seem to give to the short sale process. Once a lender is convinced that a mortgagee doesn’t have the ability to either continue payments or sell the property to pay off the mortgage, why wouldn’t they want to take the next best alternative?
That same WSJ article announced a couple of things Freddie and Fannie are finally starting to do to make the short sale process more reasonable. Within the next few months, Fannie Mae says it will try to streamline the short sale process by giving brokers an up front indication of the minimum offer that would be acceptable in a short sale.
Top service organizations for Freddie Mac have already been given greater latitude to accept short sales on homes where the homeowner is still able to make monthly payments. I’ll bet that policy will provide motivation for more people to find a solution to their mortgage problems - maybe rather than just abandoning the house.
Right now, if an owner wants to do a short sale to save their credit history, it seems counterproductive for the lender to force them to stop paying their mortgage to illustrate their financial troubles. I think that’s what calculators and net worth statements are for.
We can’t make the sub-prime mess go away, but it’s heartening to see lenders supporting the more reasonable ways to handle the situation.
I can’t bring myself to trust my gas gauge. I know it’s silly, but I just don’t think the gas gauge looks like a very trustworthy instrument. I don’t usually try to fool with the gauge. I’d rather put gas in the car before I need to than take a chance of running out. But, I’m not driving a lot of miles these days, and I must admit I forget to look at the gas gauge.
So, then the little red light comes on telling me I’m running low on gas. What does that mean? How low is low, anyway? I saw something on TV once where a reporter was testing the gas gauge on his car.
His owner’s manual said he could drive something like 30 miles after the light came on. He even had one of those gauges that tells you how many miles you’ve got before you come to an abrupt halt. According to his test, he drove something like three times as far as he was supposed to be able to go.
Even that didn’t convince me, though. So, I’m always torn. If the light comes on and you’re late for an appointment, what do you do? Do you stop for gas and end up being later? Or, do you assume that the car company was trying to be nice and turns on that little light way before it’s necessary? It’s a puzzle. I usually go with the conservative alternative. I don’t know why - I’ve never had a bad experience running out of fuel.
In fact, the only time I ever ran out of gas was the time I was in a car with what I found out later was a defective gas gauge. And, that wasn’t really a bad experience.
As it happened, the car engine sputtered to a stop at the top of a pretty good incline I needed to go down. And, there was a gas station at the bottom of the downgrade. So, I put the car into neutral and prayed that I’d have enough momentum to make it to the station.
Actually, I had momentum to spare. I made the turn into the station without even needing to screech the tires, I pulled around the busy gas pumps and came to a stop in front of a pump on the far side of the station.
As I got out of the car, I felt like people were staring. Looking around, I discovered that indeed they were. What hadn’t occurred to me was that what they saw was a car, evidently operating without an engine, pulling into the station and rolling up to a pump.
I thought about trying to explain, but gave it up as way too complicated.
