Holy Crap - Friday Again...

Blog volume goes in inverse proportion to Mortgage Office volume. Therefore, blog entries have been short, and few.

However, we shall stick a post up here as a placeholder for those that have begun stopping by in regularity over the last few months. And thanks for the traffic and great comments, by the way.

I have nothing to say, really. I've read recently that a large percentage of blogs contain nothing more than regurgitated odd news and net tidbits. Lazy bloggers, they're called. As I look back, I have been guilty of same. Mixed in with serious thoughts are randoms, meaningless blather, and crap no body cares about. Hence the title of my blog, I guess.

However, there are places where my thoughts are expressed and concerns raised. Good for me - happy to put my thoughts out there - I tend towards the opinionated, and to the verbose where it concerns the written word. It's good to have a place to vent one's spleen and have it be okay. You can read or you may not, makes no nevermind to me in the long run.

There are some things that bug me though, concerning where my current energies are:

1. It bugs me that people don't answer phones anymore - returned (or not) voice-mails are the norm. Answer your phones, people.

2. It bugs me that potential employees think they need to have a base salary in a 100% commission-based job description.

3. It bugs me that some people don't believe me when I say I'll call them back when I have something to report to them regarding a status change in their business with me.

4. It bugs me that people who have no idea how to pay their bills, and consequently have a HORRIBLE credit score, think they should be buying investment real estate. They shouldn't even be allowed to own a primary residence.

In a non-job related arena, it bugs me that:

1. People think that physical violence is okay. Here.

2. Some people have such a high opinion of themselves that they think that God/Jesus/"The Devil" have a direct and pointed interest in whether they win a political race. Here.

3. It bugs me that public officials think it's okay ot issue a public funds bond for use in financing a stadium for a privately owned sporting franchise when we can't even get legislators to cough up the money to pay for seniors dental care. The Brookings Institute has a report here about this very issue.

In it, they state: "The additional labor and capital income a community obtains from a sports-related - whether a stadium, arena, or training center - generally is inadequate to justify public subsidy of that facility." See the report here. This also discussed at length in a Salt Lake Tribune article that appeared on June 1st 2006, by Lya Wodraska, under the headline,

"Stadium controversy: Teams playing their cities for big bucks may also be a major sport". The article notes that "Team owners understand they are creating economic activity, but the hard part to wade through is whether the public is getting anything for the money it is putting into it and how much it is willing to pay."

Team owners don't become rich by being bad businessmen. They work for the best deal they can get from the city before committing their own finances. However, RSL owner Dave Checketts may have pushed the negotiations to the edge by offering to donate $7.5 million toward youth soccer facilities with one hand while asking for millions more for the stadium with his other.

Seattle, San Diego, Minnesota and Florida are areas currently in the throes of their own controversies. While several nearby areas are vying for the San Diego Chargers, there is a chance the football team could move out of state if it doesn't get a new stadium.

Most stadiums are financed over 20 or 30 years, which is fine for your house, but the lifespan of a house is upwards of 50, 75, even 100 years or more. A stadium is obsolete and ready to be torn down and replaced before even some of the electronic equipment inside is worn out. That's a lot of interest and finance charges for public money to endure. I'm just sayin.

And by the way, Rocky gets the POO award for swinging into town on his "off week", and suggesting that the stadium should be out at the Fair Park. Again.

4. It bugs me that east-side residents want to break out of the large Granite and Jordan school districts and create a smaller district to cater to their little princes and princesses. Creating a (nother) beaurocracy to administer a school district is the wrong move for residents in this valley to take.

Consider just the economics, people. Duplicating all the administrative services of the larger district would be expensive; a study would reveal just how expensive. When residents of Utah County wanted to create Pioneer School District by partitioning the Alpine district in 2004, a report by Brigham Young University estimated taxpayers in the new district would see their overall property taxes rise by at least 24 percent and local taxes for education by at least 40 percent by 2010.

Those parents envisioned a tiny neighborhood school district that they could control. It was a bad idea, and hopefully Salt Lake County cities may find it makes no more sense for them.

(I've heard that "hopefully" is perhaps the most misused word in the English language.)

So that's the stuff that bugs me this week. The Oilers lost, and that bugs me, but I'm okay with it. There has been a lot written about them, and by me as well, and they are the future of the NHL. I'll look forward to that next year. They have already sold out of all their season tickets for next year. I wonder how many retirement annoucements we'll hear from the Hurricanes this summer - I bet three. The Oilers, though, are young. They'll be hungry next year.

And finally, this: I've decided to get a new tattoo this summer: