Saturday, April 26, 2008

4/26/08

This is soooooo depressing. Winter has returned, with howling NW winds and blowing snow. As my son Christian says, 'What happened to global warming?'

Not a whole lot new here. I made a whopping two beads yesterday. Going to the chiropractor has been helping with the pain in my arm and back, but I still have the pinched nerve that makes my left hand go numb when I sit forward, as in making beads or using the computer, so that limits me quite a bit. Now if I could just make beads laying down...

Anyway, here's my very uninspired output from yesterday.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

4/24/08

I was checking the news this morning, part of my daily ritual, and wired.com had an article about NASA releasing 59 hi-res images in celebration of Hubble's 18th birthday. Here's one of the pictures:

"Arp 240 is a pair of similar-size spiral galaxies, NGC 5257 and NGC 5258. The galaxies are visibly interacting with each other via a bridge of dim stars. Both galaxies harbor supermassive black holes in their centers. Arp 240 is located in the constellation Virgo, approximately 300 million light-years away. (With the exception of a few foreground stars from our own Milky Way all the objects in this image are galaxies.)"

"...all the objects in this image are galaxies" Not solar systems, but galaxies!!! That just blows my mind away. I believe in the Bible's promise of a resurrection on this earth after Armageddon and the removal of Satan. That will be a time when man (and woman) can reach their true potential, without all the bad things each of us has to face in this system. When you look back at how much mankind has accomplished in just the past 50 years with all of our imperfections, what will we be able to do without greed, sickness, war, etc.? Look at our space program. Look at all of those galaxies. Look at all of the worlds there must be in those galaxies. Man has been an explorer since day one, and, as a person with itchy feet and a desire to explore, I am fascinated with these pictures.

On the business side, I got some more beads put on etsy and ebay. I HAVE to take notes so that when I do a bead that I really like, I can duplicate it. Here's one that I haven't the faintest idea of what went into it. I really like the opal colors in it:


And here's a couple I put on etsy. The shards and free form beads are fun to do, but my favorite is still the layers and plunges.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

4/22/08

The Star Tribune is running a story about the mortgage foreclosures hitting the ccountry (http://www.startribune.com/local/west/17958114.html). As I was reading it, I was just shaking my head and wondering where common sense comes into play.

"Every so often, his workday over, Bradley Collin Jr. steers his Taurus station wagon out of his driveway and onto the flat, windswept roads near his Andover home. Then Collin gets to thinking about his debts, and the decision he and his wife made three years ago to invest in a get-rich-quick real estate scheme in Wright County. Last year, four houses that he bought in Otsego -- for a combined $1.2 million -- sank into foreclosure. Collin presses on the gas pedal, pushing his car past corn fields and grain silos, at speeds that top 70 miles per hour. "It's my way of unwinding and outrunning the guilt," said Collin, 27, a self-employed painting contractor and father of three."

"Norm Imholte, a truck driver from Freeport, said a builder paid him $50,000 for agreeing to buy a $425,000 house in St. Michael. The builder told him the house would be sold within 30 days and Imholte wouldn't have to worry about making a payment.
Imholte bought a new truck with the cash, but the house never sold and has since slipped into foreclosure. He recently got a call from a state Department of Commerce official investigating mortgage fraud. "I never had any business owning a $425,000 house in Wright County," he said."

"For Bradley and Sarah Collin, buying real estate in Wright County seemed like a ticket to a better life.
The couple and their three children, ages 2, 3 and 5, were living in a crowded trailer park in Blaine, when Bradley saw a newspaper advertisement touting real estate as the next quick way to make money.
"I didn't want to paint the rest of my life, and the trailer park scene was about as bad as parts of north Minneapolis," Bradley said.
Over a steak dinner at a Perkins restaurant, the couple met with two salesmen from Executive Premier Management Inc., a firm in Wayzata that described itself as a "property management company."
With no money down, they could buy properties in a fast-growing new subdivision in Otsego known as Otsego Preserve, near Interstate 94 and the Albertville outlet mall. They would get $5,000 in upfront cash for each house they purchased.
The Collins were also told that home values in Wright County were appreciating at 8 percent a year, much faster than the national average. At that rate, the Collins could make $24,000 a year for every $300,0000 house they bought in the county. They were told that rental income would cover their mortgage payments until the houses were sold.
Collin said the management company helped him apply for four mortgages within days of each other. The firm used a different lender each time, a way to hide from the banks the debt he was taking on and wouldn't be able to afford on his net income as a contractor, which averages about $60,000 a year. The "no documentation" and "no down payment" loans carried a much higher interest rate than conventional mortgages.
The couple purchased four houses -- each for about $300,000 -- hoping to quadruple their profits. The Collins received a $5,000 check after each closing. The cash payments were not disclosed on the mortgage statements sent to the bank, which Collin says he has since learned is illegal."

And we as taxpayers are supposed to help pay for this fiasco? I know first hand how easily life can change, medical problems, job loss. I know that there are many people out there who are losing their homes because of problems like that, but there were way too many abuses happening, banks gambled and too many people got greedy. Let them pay the price.