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I used to be a regular customer of that market in Irvine. It was just another place on the regular lunch rotation, and the sort of place we suburbanites took for granted. In fact I did a lot of Christmas shopping there, more for the prices and selection than to make some vague sociopolitical statement.

There’s nothing amazing about diversity in the suburbs. I guess suburbs have some sort of broad appeal that crosses ethnic and cultural lines …

(Incidentally I got a very nasty case of acute food poisoning from an organic vine-ripened tomato from that very market. But the same thing could’ve happened at Whole Foods.)

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Oh to be a process server or a locksmith.

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[quote=walterwhite]I bought some canned silkworm larvae at a korean market in temecula. I really really wanted to like it. But I didn’t. I tried frying it w hot sauce over rice. Still not tasty. A Korean lawyer looked at me like I was crazy for eating that. She said only crazy old Korean men still eat that.[/quote]

Hats off to you scaredy/walter. In my experience, crazy old Koreans talk about eating bundaegi to gross out the younger generations, but I doubt you could get any of them to touch the stuff now.

I’ve never seen a can of the stuff that wasn’t covered in dust and nearly stuck to the shelf. I suspect that Korean markets stock bundaegi mostly out of some misplaced sense of ethnic obligation.

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[quote=briansd1]If you live in the far flung suburbs, be honest and tell us how many friends and relatives from out of town come and visit you every year. Or are you there by your lonesome selves?[/quote]

Too many. I put a latex mattress in the guest room just so my allergic-to-everything MIL can’t spend the night.

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Check with the sheriff’s department in that county and nearby jurisdictions if necessary. Arrest records and names of jail inmates are public records, and are sometimes available online. If your tenant is in jail and you have no way to contact him, you may be able to sweet-talk the D.A. and get the name of his attorney.

I’m guessing there’s a chance you’ll need to go through the whole eviction process. On the bright side, the weather in Georgia is nice at this time of year and I hear this year’s peach crop was particularly sweet due to the drought.

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“[T]wo demographic groups will simultaneously desire living space in the urban cores of California.” This sounds like a rehash of the “everyone wants to live here” mantra. And even if it does happen, as certain urban areas get popular, people will be priced out of those areas and seek alternatives … and so on.

I’ve lived in large cities and dense suburban infill both here and abroad, and all I can say is … I like my stucco tract home in a far-flung suburb. I have easy access to public transportation, and an eclectic assortment of affordable ethnic restaurants within walking or easy driving distance. I’m less dependent on fragile, unreliable urban infrastructure that depends on an uninterrupted supply of invisible waves running through magic wires. I live in a community that provides diversified employment, not just jobs for overpaid turtlenecked hipsters. I can grow my own organic vegetables without fighting over cramped plots in community gardens built on old toxic waste dumps. And most of all, my neighbors are friendly, open, down-to-earth people who aren’t obsessed with their own exceptionalism. Even if some of them don’t have the benefit of a good education … maybe even *gasp* a humanities doctorate from a second-tier public university.

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I must be a masochist because I just refi’d with USAA, and I’m seriously thinking about doing it again as soon as the dust settles.

I seriously question the abilities of some of USAA’s employees or contractors … for example, the initial GFE vastly overestimated closing costs. But I think the errors resulted from incompetence or carelessness rather than malice or deception.

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It helps to be wary of a free lunch, generally speaking 🙂

From what I’ve seen those generous negative points deals appear suddenly after a major change in interest rates, then disappear just as suddenly. So even if the par rate stays low, you may not be able to get a negative points deal like this again.

I’d check with a reputable mortgage broker as well as direct lenders. Some people here have recommended Sheldon.

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I’d guess it’s the cheapest way for your employer to downsize, though it’s a pretty crappy way to treat people. Either that or it’s a way for another contractor/agency to look busy and avoid their own downsizing.

I kinda question bankruptcy/foreclosure as reasons to pull someone’s clearance. I’d guess that someone trying to avoid bankruptcy or foreclosure would be more vulnerable/susceptible to blackmail or bribery, in the same way that an openly gay person would be a better security risk than someone who resorts to secret assignations in park restrooms.

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U-Verse VOIP phone service worked fine with AT&T-supplied backup battery.

TMobile voice and data worked in most areas.

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Power’s on again in parts of Oceanside.

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So what’s their alternative at 90% LTV and higher?

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I worked in the (figurative and literal) trenches of a previous “green jobs” boom-bust cycle in California … the underground storage tank remediation bubble, which happened to coincide with the ’90s recession.

Enormous sums of money went to waste (pun intended) in an effort to clean up contamination caused by leaking gasoline/diesel/solvent/etc. tanks, much of it coming from “user fees” that were indirectly passed on to consumers. Much of the money came from struggling small businesses too, especially mom-and-pop gas stations. Who profited? Much of it went to snake-oil vendors and other charlatans who charged extortionate prices for unproven technology. Some of it went to incompetent or borderline criminal contractors. Certainly the general public and the business community did not benefit in proportion to the amount of money spent.

In the end I saw some efficient, cost-effective technology emerge from the mess. But by then the public and private sectors were both flat broke.

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Set of Yokohama tires (probably made in Salem, VA) for just a few bucks more than Primewell.

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I’m surprised by the results of sdr’s analysis too. But who wants to take on the risk of refinancing a property that’s almost certainly underwater?

Temecula is down 50% from the peak because of the uncertainty caused by the quarry project. Oh yeah, and because Temeculans like to argue. Once the quarry project is officially DOA, look for the next real estate bubble to start in Temecula.

The worst thing about age discrimination? IMO most of it is internalized age discrimination among managers over 45. They perceive their own physical and intellectual decay and project it on to their older subordinates.

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