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This is a return volley at MaryAnne’s blog entry of a couple days ago.  Yes, I know Jack, and in addition to her many references already listed, here’s a few more to ponder.

“Jack” is a popular name. It’s also defined in Webster’s Dictionary as a common term for manual labor workers - like lumberjack. 

The name “Jack” is found in a number of modern food brands, too.  Here’s a couple of them:

“Jack” is also a breed of dog - the Jack Russell terrier:

But we’d be missing the obvious, if we didn’t point out the name “Jack”  as it appears in equine circles.  For example, here’s a donkey breed known as the Mammoth Jack:

Not to be confused with the humble jackass.  Ahem.

In the music category, I don’t know how MaryAnne missed the 70’s classic hit, “Do It Again” by Steely Dan.  The name “Jack” is mentioned in the chorus.  Not particularily a comforting set of lyrics if you know Jack like I do.   With that in mind, I offer this token of goodwill to my opposite number: THHHBPTHPTH!!!!  

I recently returned from another long business trip. 

I’ll tell ya’ll right now, if you think a job eats up your life on a 9-to-5 basis, try adding company travel on top of it.  

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it don’t matter how nice the hotel is, or how fancy your dinner is, if you’re by yourself, hundreds of miles from home. 

There’s nothing like a long day of travel to various client offices, followed rejections of your sales proposals, topped off by snotty emails from the boss, to sour a person.  I can completely understand why salesmen     kill themselves in hotel rooms.  There’s nothing like isolation, fatigue, and a complete lack of appreciation to run ya down.  

Fortunately, I had a laptop along and high-speed internet in my hotel room, and my cell phones, so my friends and cousins were never far away.   I still got lonely, though, because I didn’t rent a GPS with the rental car this time.  I had to settle for singing along to the radio and screaming out the window to amuse myself. 

It’s easy!  Follow these steps:

#1:  Over-commit

#2:  Accommodate everybody

#3:  Omit personal life

#4:  Take projects with impossible deadlines

#5:  Turn to caffine - frequently

#6:  Shorten sleep cycle

#7:  Eat junk food while you work

#8:  Collapse

#9:  Fall behind in work due to step # 8

#10:  Repeat!

First off, this photo only slightly understates the buying power I have in the real estate market: 

That’s right.  I can do somewhat better than a birdhouse, but not by a whole helluva lot. 

Ah, but not because house prices haven’t fallen! Truth be told, I’ve noticed more in my price range than ever, some of it even being habitable!  The deflating of the real estate bubble has worked marginally in my favor.

I say marginally, because the mortgage underwriting criteria has been changing dramatically.  Whatever I saved in house pricing, I’ll be paying out in PMI - Private Mortgage Insurance.

For those of you who ain’t hip with mortgage jargon, PMI is required by a lender whenever you have less than a 20% down payment.  And who the hell has 20% down on loan amounts like $100,000 and up?  Get real.   Anyhow, PMI is a bad-loan insurance that you pay the lender, to protect THEM in case you go financially belly-up.  If you default on your loan and it goes to foreclosure, PMI reimburses the lender for any financial loss.  It doesn’t do you, the homeowner, a damn bit of good.  It does not save the house for you, or buy time, or make payments.  It’s strictly CYA for the bank, and you get to pay for it.

Over the past few years, clever strategies like taking out a “piggyback” loan, or second mortgage, were in vogue to avoid PMI.  With the endemic foreclosure problems, however, no bank wants to be holding that 2nd position anymore. So it’s back to ol’ PMI.

But the institutions that offer PMI are charging very high premiums these days.  Historically high.  They have huge losses already on the books, and just like any insurance company after a natural disaster hits, they’re making up their losses by collecting bigger premiums.

Good times.

I’m one of the lucky few who might be able to handle the extra $300 a month this puts on the mortgage payment, without having the whole deal blow up.  Many other buyers are not so lucky.   They qualify for a house, right up until the PMI premiums are factored in.  These conservatively range around $150 and up, depending on one’s circumstances. 

So, if you were wondering why Congress snuck in that PMI tax deduction for income taxes for 2007,  it’s because PMI is now on the moon and the Feds know it. It’s the unspoken deal-killer for many would-be mortgages.  Of all the financial crap I read daily, no one has yet to ring the gong and say: “You know what will make this housing bubble thing worse? If first-time buyers who otherwise would qualify, get shut out by PMI premiums.”  

Now, PMI is not forever. It’s tied to the Loan to Value ratio of your mortgage - the amount the place is worth, vs. what you owe on it.   PMI can be removed once you pay down the loan enough, and/or your property appreciates in value enough, that you hit that 20% in your favor.

Until then, it’s a rock around your neck.  The premiums are not refundable.  If you pay PMI for 5 years, and you’re never late on a mortgage payment, and then you get the PMI waived after paying down extra to the principal balance - it’s a waiver on the go-forward.  Whatever you paid in the past, stays in the PMI company’s pocket. 

I’m kinda halfway through a mortgage transaction right now, that’s been a bigger pain in the ass than imaginable.  I’m frankly at the point where if the deal doesn’t go through, I’ll cheerfully keep my down payment money in the bank and continue to rent.   There’s still many advantages to home ownership - but today’s mortgage and home markets are a gut-check and the timid need not apply.

And if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. 

I was on strong antibiotics for a week, because I was a dumbass and hadn’t taken care of a long-running dental issue.  So, after the tooth got infected and I was maddened by pain, I finally knuckled under and saw the dentist.  Anyhow, the medication made me dumber than a box of rocks.  I lost twenty bucks from the cash register, to the car, at Walmart.  I once went looking for car keys I already had in my pocket. 

Worst of all, I went to McDonald’s again, thinking that the food might be better this time.  What the hell was I thinking?

Well, not really, but if you’re ever traveling alone on the road in an unfamiliar area, a GPS might be the next best thing.  I never had a lot of use for these until I was sent on a business trip last month, under duress, to an area I knew nothing about. I didn’t have a friend in the damn state.  I was under a lot of pressure, having been sent on Mission Impossible #5,842, and the business objective was hard enough, let alone trying to figure out how to get to multiple destinations in relatively short time.

Enterprise Car Rental offered this GPS thing for a few extra bucks a day.  I figured I’d try it.  Other than the window-cup failing and the silly thing bouncing off the dashboard every 50 miles or so, it was great.   I finally learned to shove the sucker down between the lowest part of the windshield and the dash, and it more or less stayed put.

The GPS was fairly reliable, except if you missed a scheduled turn. Then it had an unholy fit.  It would commence with crazy instructions in a desperate attempt to get you to turn around and take THE route it wanted you to take.   But other than a serious disagreement I had with it regarding a toll road, we got along fine. 

Plus, it talked to me.  “Turn left in one-point-three miles. Turn left. Turn left…..turn left now.  Continue for twenty miles.  Blah blah.  Ding. Tweet. Chirp.”

I was so freakin’ lonely on this business trip, I welcomed the impersonal babbling of the GPS’s voice.  I would find myself answering it out loud, with things like,  “You got it!”  “That’s a big 10-4!  Okay, if it makes you happy, I’ll take that road!”

This alternated with the occassional, “Shaddap!!”  when I knew it was just being stubborn about avoiding the tollways. 

I have to admit I got used to hearing the thing make endless, inane travel suggestions, even if I ignored half of them just to hear it urge me frantically to make a U-turn.  It seemed to get upset if it thought I was lost.  I kept expecting it to tell me to pull into a gas station and ask for directions, but apparently it had more pride than I did. 

The GPS was worth the experiment.  The verbal prompts and the on-screen map allowed me to keep more of my attention on the traffic, instead of trying to glance over to a paper map and find out where the hell my next road was, and try to figure out how far I was from it, when I had to change lanes, ect.  Anyone who’s ever tried to read road signs in rush hour traffic in an unfamilair big city, will know what I’m talking about.