[Cube]

Rich,

Have you tried the Deschutes Red Chair “Northwest Pale Ale”? By their own estimation: “The citrus punch of a big IPA, minus the one-dimensional hop sledgehammer.”

I agree though on the pale ale sentiment. I reach for the pale ale more often than the IPA these days.

Of course, I reach for porters and stouts more than most other things these days….

[Cube]

We bought our house from an owner-occupier. She had lots of wall hangings.

After we closed escrow, and she moved out, she left the house very clean (better than “broom-clean”). But, there were nail holes (and some bolt holes for anchored furniture) all over the place.

It didn’t even faze me. Nail holes are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. We just bought a _house_.

Now, to be fair, the house was effetively “staged” while she was living in it. I knew there would be a lot of holes from the pictures she had up, but with them up, I was not staring at a vacant house with attrative nail holes.

I guess the moral of the story is stage the house? And/or paint.

[Cube]

In our case, it meant we took posession at 5pm on the last day of the rent-back.

However, Flu’s right, your agent should be able to explain with confidence exactly when you’ll be taking posession.

How long is the rent-back?

[Cube]

Flu, it’s not just *your* income that matters. It is the proportion of contributions to the DCFSA coming from HCEs and non-HCEs at your employer.

If you had a bunch of non-HCEs that stopped contributing as much (or picked up a bunch of HCEs that started contributing more, or had a bunch of non-HCEs that were using the DCFSA get bumps in salary that pushed them into the HCE category), then you’d see this.

At my company, the people with kids are well-correlated to HCEs, so when HR prepares the plan info in December, they survey people to find out if we can pass the test. The last several years, they simply havn’t offered the DCFSA since we can’t get enough non-HCEs to use it.

For non-AMT payers, I think the benefits of the DCFSA are really not significantly better than the regular tax credit option (which if I recall are generally mutually exclusive). I haven’t studied the comparison for AMT payers, but that’s like a spot where DCFSA may shine.

I dislike all the hoop-jumping and paperwork that the FSA administrators generally require, and I mentally reduce the tax benefit vs. the leg-work cost. (Mine’s a high bar though. I’ve been too lazy to file the insurance paperwork and FSA paperwork and rebate paperwork for my costco eye exam so far…. And when I do, I’ll end up with a bunch of small-denomination checks in the mail that I have to deal with….)

[Cube]

Is this a part time job for him while in school? Summer gig between school years?

What is/was his field of study?

[Cube]

[quote=moneymaker]{snip}
I’m just amazed when I see people I consider really smart, leasing vehicles.[/quote]

I see where you’re going with this, but as with the renting money for the house as you mention below, leasing is really just a financing and depreciation gamble with the dealer / leasing corporation.

In general, I assume that they have to have it stacked in their favor (as is ought to be the case with extended warranties sold by third parties), but they can’t get it right all of the time. If for some reason you think you have an edge in predicting interest rates or depreciation (or you want to lower your variance / lock in your expenses), then it might make sense to lease a car.

I toyed with the idea of a lease assumption if I could find a car whose remaining mileage was good for me, but was too little for the original lessee, and they had to unload it before the end of the lease so that they wouldn’t be shafted with overages.

[Cube]

I’m not a scary movie fan, but I did end up seeing “Event Horizon” in the theater.

[Cube]

If MSM isn’t doin’ if for you, you can get your daily fix here:

http://fukushima-diary.com/

[Cube]

I’m all for people be able to keep their community identity, and to me Sorrento Valley is a distinct geographical neighborhood from Mira Mesa, but this seems a bit dramatic:

“I am outraged that this bogus group of Mira Mesa volunteers want to steal my property value, steal the location of my house, steal the prestige of this high tech neighborhood,” said Thayer.

http://www.10news.com/news/battle-develops-over-mira-mesa-community-signs-in-sorrento-valley-102213

[Cube]

If they didn’t get you either the list or the full refund within 21 days, you’re entitled to the whole deposit back with no deductions. (It’s *possible* that a postmark within 21 days would still count…)

I once had a property management firm fail to get me either the full deposit or an itemized list of deductions in 21 days. When they did send the list of deductions, and I pointed out to them that they were past 21 days, they were profusely apologetic and returned my full deposit ASAP. I was expecting a fight, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Given all my other experiences with propery management firms, though, I’d expect you have an uphill battle. However, if you’ve given us all the facts, then you probably have a case.

Under California law, 21 calendar days or less after you move, your landlord must either:

Send you a full refund of your security deposit, or
Mail or personally deliver to you an itemized statement that lists the amounts of any deductions from your security deposit and the reasons for the deductions, together with a refund of any amounts not deducted.

http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/sec-deposit.shtml

All that said, it sounds like you went the extra mile to have the carpets shampooed and provide receipts, etc. You sound like you were a stellar tenant, and she should be thankful that you did the majority of the prep work for the next tenant for her. She really gives honest, competent landlords a bad name.

[Cube]

[quote=SK in CV][quote=livinincali] You worry that McDonald’s might make too much money but you have no consideration for how much harder you just made it for Joe the Pizza guy to start his 2nd restaurant.[/quote]

Why should we care whether it’s hard for Joe the Pizza guy to start his 2nd restaurant? Is there a shortage of pizza joints? Is it a good thing if he only has to sell 20 pizzas a day employing people at the current minimum wage? Is there some reason public policy should support that?[/quote]

Ok, I’ll bite. I care whether it’s hard for Joe the Pizza guy to start his second pizza joint. I want competition and innovation in the pizza joint market. I want a fertile bed of innovation and local alternatives to Papa John’s and Pizza Hut and Domino’s.

There’s a shortage of *good* pizza joints (and other small biz restaurants), and if the marketplace is chock full of mega-corp, franchised pizza joints (ones that can afford an employment law compliance department at that scale), then there will be no reasonable path for newcomers.

I don’t think there should be public policy to support a pizza joint selling any particular number of pizzas per day to stay afloat. I also don’t think there should be public policy actively inhibiting any group of people (employer and employees) from agreeing on how to split the potential profits from trying.

Also, since I’m alreay spending the keystrokes to post, let me say that calling SDR out on his commision is the height of irony. No one sets a minimum wage for SDR’s profession. It’s legally possible for him to agree to take a job for effectively less than minimum wage, and no legal policy is currently standing in the way of clients paying him so little (per hour of labor).

The right to undercut one’s competition in terms of price is not a right that is afforded our workers whose skills are in least demand.

[Cube]

[quote=livinincali]This is in interesting case when you see how people reacted to it. The logic and facts clearly indicated that Zimmerman was not guilty of 2nd degree murder or manslaughter. On the other hand the media clearly built up an emotional response in the public which has led people to believe Zimmerman is guilty because of how they feel. We really don’t want a justice system that determines justice based on feelings.[/quote]

livinincali, you might find this take interesting:

The Zimmerman Verdict: Be Careful What You Wish For

“[T]he more I observe American culture, the less enthused I am at the notion that a jury’s verdict in a criminal case is wrong if it doesn’t reflect the collective beliefs of our society.”

[Cube]

[quote=earlyretirement]I noticed this came on the market and went into escrow in only 4 DAYS.

http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Diego/7575-Delfina-92127/home/6482881

I don’t think houses were flying that fast even during the bubble here…were they?? I will be really curious to see what this house sold at relative to the asking price.

The same realtor sold this house in my development earlier this year. From the time he listed it to the time he got an offer was only 5 DAYS.

http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Diego/8419-Run-Of-The-Knls-92127/home/6541763%5B/quote%5D

ER, this is not surprising to me at all. We’ve been shopping for the past year or so, and since around late December, good properties have been flying off the market. Two that we offered on saw 7+ offers in the first 48-hours after listing. Both were pending in days without spanning a weekend on the market.

Most decent properties that list on Thursday or Friday are pending by the following Wednesday at the latest. We’re often told offers are being reviewed Sunday or Monday evening. If you tour a recent listing on a Sunday, you might have only until nightfall to get your offer in for consideration.

Lately, if something lasts longer than 7 days, it’s either grossly overpriced, or there’s something seriously wrong with it (though as Jim the Realtor would say, nothing price can’t fix).

[Cube]

I noticed the one at Community and Scripps Poway Parkway had a cover over it. Kinda freaked me out.

I’ve seen more people drive dangerously erraticly as a result of red light cameras than I’ve seen without.

I didn’t fully appreciate the cover over it until I was stopped at the light. Maybe for people who drive the road all the time will come to recoginze it as disabled and use judgement accordingly. I’m not one to run red lights on purpose, but I will likely still be among those who will stop dangerously quickly there to avoid any risk of a stale yellow going red. Just my instinct these days when I see those extra poles, and flashs, and high contrast borders around the lights.

[Cube]

I’ve seen some people do similar things using Google Voice. Your callers would call a Google Voice number and then you have some control over where it rings, you may be able to even listen in to the voice mail to screen the call and answer anyway (stealing them back from voicemail like an old-school answering machine).

One confusing thing I’ve heard about this setup is that Google Voice would be your voicemail, but in rare circumstances a caller might end up at your cell provider’s voicemail. This might be undesirable because you might not want them to leave the message there, might never check it, etc.

If you commited to such a scheme, you could transfer your existing number to Google Voice, and then get a new one for your cell phone. You should have some latitude in terms of how you want to route calls (i.e., you could set some numebrs to ring straight through to your cell phone, others would go to voice-limbo ring back, others would never get through, etc.).

I’m not an expert in this type of thing, but I know a few people who use rather exotic setups like I’m describing and seem to like them just fine.

[Author]

Posts