Washington Mutual Meltdown Continues

Washington Mutual continues to cause me problems. If you've been following my pain, on the 19th of last month checks were deposited. I received a letter October 2 from Washington Mutual advising me that the funds deposited the 19th were available the 23rd.

The day after the 23rd WaMu bounced a check, saying there were insufficient funds to cover it. My local branch saw this was in error and that they would take care of any costs incurred.

Yesterday, October 4, I got another letter from WaMu, this one dated September 29 and telling me that they'd returned yet one more check, this one for $350.00, returned on the 26th, 3 days after their previous letter that told me the deposited funds were available.

In the latest letter WaMu makes this gem of a statement, "At the time we created this notice (which is later than when these transactions were processed) your available balance was $2,298.05. You must immediately make a deposit to cover any negative balance."

How can they do this to people? I'm not alone. There is a website called Washington Mutual Sucks. In the past month that websites number of visitors has soared. I wonder why?

Still Swimming in October

It's October 4. The overnight low was only 68, the high yesterday in the 90s. Right now, at 10 am, it is about 75. And I'm still swimming early in the morning.

Yes, as you can see in the photo, I wear a stocking cap in the pool. I don't get my head wet. It feels warmer that way. Downside is when I get out and take a shower the cold tap water feels warm, til it hits my face, then it's a major BRRRRR.

Previous years I've bailed on the swimming by now. But several weeks ago I found that if I make it past the initial half minute of the bracing cold the cold sensation goes away.

After 15 to 20 minutes, though, I think the cold penetrates deeper and I start to get this slight shivering sensation. That's when it's time to get out. This morning the air temp and the water temp seemed about equal. I like it when the air temp is less than the pool temp. That makes the water feel warmer.

Katharine Hepburn, til she got old, would go swimming year around in the Atlantic whenever she was staying at her house in Connecticut, which was most of the time.

I don't remember if I've said this before, but it's my intention to emulate the late Ms. Hepburn and swim in my little version of the Atlantic all winter long.

We'll see how long that resolution lasts.

Obesity Is No Laughing Matter

Usually Gar the Texan is quite refined and of impeccably good taste and manners. But, apparently he's having some marital/relationship distress and that somehow had him blogging about a long ago, back in the 90s, Internet sensation known as "Bob the Anal Fissure."

Well, I've long been puzzled by a certain delicate subject that usually I'd just let fade into the recesses of my curiosity, but Gar going on about his Anal Fissure Bob thing gave me the courage to be in really bad taste. For once.

It's good to dare to go where you've never dared to go before.

There was this guy in Granbury. That's a really nice Texas town outside the D/FW Metroplex. They put on great events. Best 4th of July Parade I've ever been to. And don't get me started on General Granbury's Birthday Party.

Anyway, this guy in Granbury weighed way way over a half ton. He was bed ridden. Unless there was a huge intervention, he'd die in bed. Now, when I read things like that, and you read it way too often, I think, who brings this guy the food? And what about his bathroom needs, both of the most basic nature, and things like taking a shower? How does that work?

Now I spent time with a morbidly obese person when I was in Tacoma. This person was not bed-ridden, no one had to bring food to her in bed, except on weekends when her husband was home. This obese person was totally mobile. She was able to forage buffet lines and dessert trays all by herself. But still, having seen the difficultly she had in getting to a prone position or putting on a shoe I could not help but wonder how safe a bath tub was. Or a toilet.

That guy in Granbury was totally non-mobile. So, who brought him the food? And where did the food go when his body finished processing it, since he was bedridden and couldn't get to the bathroom? When it came time to get the Granbury guy to a hospital in Dallas a wall to his bedroom had to be removed and a forklift lifted him, bed and all and put him on one of those flatbed trailers you see all the time here being pulled by a Ford pickup. He was hauled down I-30 to Dallas, operated on with what I don't remember. Stomach staple? Liposuction? I don't know.

I do recollect a follow up article quite awhile later. The guy was back home in Granbury, the wall to his bedroom fixed. He, able to walk. After a few more months of losing weight the Granbury Guy decided to see if he could drive to the store. I would hope not to get cookies and donuts. He got in his pickup, started it. And made it a couple blocks before it stopped. I don't remember if he ran out of gas or if the vehicle had a breakdown. I do remember it was too far for him to walk back home in his condition. I don't remember how he got back home. I imagine it involved calling 911.

Anyway, I Googled "obese person bathroom" and found an appalling amount of info. I was going to link to the specific websites, but some of it is so disgusting I think I'll just let you Google it yourself if you want to put yourself through that.

Suffice to say, it ain't easy being extra fat. One would think being in that condition there would be so many reasons to lose the weight. But having said that, one thing I read when I Googled the "obese person bathroom" string was that some obese people claim they can't help it. One woman claimed she went from petite to big in just a few months due to hormonal imbalances. Still seems that food going in the mouth had to be involved. I've never heard of hormones having many calories.

Okay, I'm being insensitive. I'll shut up about it now.

Who Won The Debate? Biden or Palin

I'm going with neither won. Like others have said, Sarah Palin exceeded the low expectations many, including me, had for her. She did not stumble. While Joe Biden held his own. I fell asleep twice during the debate. Others opine, in the video below titled "Spin, Baby, Spin." You will have to scroll through all the CBS News Videos, to view videos about the debate. I've found they update these throughout the day....

One Woman's Take on the Financial Meltdown and WaMu

My WaMu situation seems to have improved today. A WaMu-ite in California at WaMu's Problem Resolution Center keeps leaving voice mails. I keep missing her calls. She keeps missing my return calls. In the meantime I listened to this fine older lady below lament about WaMu and the current mess the financial system is in.......

Chesapeake Energy alias Prescott Energy

Stephen Colbert is probably America's #1 TV journalist. His below report is a prime example of why.....

Sarah Palin Anti-Christ's No Gaffe VP Debate

Gar the Texan's mom is mass sending emailings saying Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ. Obviously that is nonsense.

After watching tonight's Vice-Presidential debate I am convinced that it is Sarah Palin who is the Anti-Christ.

She set us up by acting like a total fool in interviews with Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson.

This cleverly got the media, and me, saying she was in way over her head. That she would not hold up debating veteran politician Joe Biden.

Causing millions more of us to watch as tonight Sarah Palin did not commit a single gaffe. I feel like I've just watched the Olympic champion ice skating competition without a single satisfying crash to the ice by a touted contender.

I don't know what to think now. Maybe I should quit thinking, since I seem to be always wrong.

I'm thinking, okay, after a short break, I'm back thinking, Sarah Palin's witch doctor did some major voo-doo ju-ju on her. And it's working.

I'm scared. First Washington Mutual's WaMu Ju-Ju and now this. I'm going to bed. I probably won't sleep. Maybe, if I do, I'll have a nightmare about Sarah Palin. She looked cute tonight. I never thought I'd see myself type such a thing. She is the Anti-Christ. We are all doomed.

The Top Ten Places I Want To Escape To

Washington Mutual's Problem Resolution Center called and left a message. I called back. And left a message. I've no clue as to which of the Washington Mutual Problem's the caller was seeking to resolve. Right now I don't care.

Instead I'm in the mood to muse as to where I'd like to go to escape here, someplace fun that I've already been to and know is fun. I'm not in the mood for anything new right now. Though I am taking the TRE train to Dallas tomorrow morning. I live on the edge.

So, where do I want to go if I could right now? I'll try and think of the Top Ten. That should occupy 10 more minutes of waiting for Sarah Palin to have her meltdown.

In no particular order.

Bryce Canyon National Park. I love everything about this place. It's otherworldly scenery. It's great hikes. Ruby's Inn. I spent an Easter weekend at Bryce Canyon a few years ago. It was in late Spring. There was still snow at Bryce. It's at a high elevation, as in over 9000 feet above sea level at the highest.

Grand Canyon National Park. I've been there several times. Have stayed overnight twice. Once at the South Rim. Camping. I hate camping. And the most recent time, at the North Rim, staying in log cabins. A blizzard roared in overnight leaving us snowbound til snowplows from Utah could rescue us. I've only hiked down into the Grand Canyon once. It's a real good thing.

Arches National Park and Moab. Well, also Canyonlands National Park. Moab is your base town and in all directions there is good stuff to do. Like the photo at the top, that's me biking the Slick Rock Trail by Moab. That's a group hike in Arches NP, called The Fiery Furnace, on the left. You have to pay a fee and it has to be ranger led. You can get lost in there.

Yosemite National Park. The first time I saw this place was in fall. I was not all that thrilled. Then sometime in the 90s we rented a big ol' Cadillac, 3 other guys and me, and went on a road trip, ending up in Yosemite at Curry Village. It was spring, the waterfalls were out of control. I loved it.

Disneyland & California. I've not been to Disneyland since 1994, not since they've added Disney California. I've loved Disneyland ever since I was 13 and got taken there on what was to be my next to the last family vacation. We loved Disneyland so much we went again the next year. I was 14. I never went on a family vacation again. 7 years later I was in California on my own, staying at San Clemente State Park. And remembering back 7 years prior. That seems like such a short time now, but then it seemed like so much had changed. Over the following years I've lost count of the number of road trips to California and Disneyland. I guess the last one was in 2000. But I didn't get to go to Disneyland. Yuma instead. To spend Christmas with my mom and dad. It was real tempting when you saw road signs saying it was only 120 miles to Anaheim to take a right and skip Yuma. But I'm not one to ignore my mom and dad. Even though, apparently, they and others think I do. (That's called slipping in an Easter Egg to see if anyone reads this drivel)

Lake Powell. You need to, at least once in your short life, go to Lake Powell. You don't need to rent a houseboat to have Lake Powell reveal its charms. But a houseboat helps. Good housemates on the houseboat are important also. I've houseboated Lake Powell twice, both times in the 1990s. The water is warm and clear. The scenery is among the best on the planet. Which is why you'll be sharing the lake with so many darn foreigners.

Las Vegas. Any longer than 4 days and Vegas wears out its welcome. But I always have fun there. It can be exhausting. It's not the gambling that attracts me, it's the way over the top over stimulating nature of the whole place. I've only been to Vegas once since I moved to Texas. That was on a roadtrip back to Texas after spending a week or two in Washington. Those trips back were so much more pleasant than the more recent ones. Why? I do not know. That's Nephew Joey and me riding the roller coaster at the New York New York casino when I took Joey and his brother to Vegas the summer before I moved to Texas.

Taos, New Mexico. There was nothing I did not like about Taos. I love the southwest adobe style. The great places to eat. How fun it was to ride my bike around Taos and discover interesting things, like the grave of Kit Carson. And the Taos Pueblo. Even the Taos McDonald's is special.

Yellowstone National Park. I've not been to Yellowstone since the fall before wildfires burned most of the park. Yellowstone is one place I don't mind camping. Hiking over all the boardwalks to see the bubbling water and exploding geysers, loved it when I was a kid, loved it when I wasn't a kid. Yellowstone has been a fond memory ever since my little brother and me were awakened by our mom screaming, standing on top of the picnic table, because a bear was running through camp.

Bears remind me of Stehekin. I've only been there once but everything about it was perfect. A long boat ride up Lake Chelan, staying in the National Park Lodge. Stehekin is in the North Cascades National Park zone of Washington. We brought bikes and pedaled daily up to one of the best bakeries ever, the Stehekin Pastry Company. For dinner each night we'd take a long bus ride up the valley to the Stehekin Valley Ranch where the Courtneys would make a real good dinner for us and a lot of other people.

Stehekin is related to another place I'd like to escape to right about now. That being hiking deep into the North Cascades. The trails are good. What you see when you get to the end of the trail is amazing. Some summers I would go on a hike up in Cascades several times a month, til the snows returned in October. It always amazed me, when I lived up there, how many northwesterners had never experienced the sea of peaks, that being the seemingly endless sea of mountain peaks that extends north and south, with things like Mount Rainier sticking up higher.

I've gone up to 10 places I wish I could escape to right now and I left out Zion National Park. It should be in the Top Ten too. I don't remember ever being so surprised by a place as I was by Zion the first time I saw it. The tunnel into the canyon remains one of the finest moments of my pretty much un-momentous life.

Yet One More Reasonable Trinity Uptown Vision

Awhile back I was put in my proper place by a Trinity River Uptown Vision spokesperson for referring to this 'visionary' project as a likely boondoggle. Now hardly a week seems to go by where there is not yet one more letter to the editor in Fort Worth's most widely read newspaper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that also refers to the 'vision' as a boondoggle.

The boondoggle's defenders paints it as a wide-ranging 'vision' that will transform Fort Worth, giving it a little lake, some canals, flood control (that is already controlled), wetlands restoration, recreational opportunities, like kayaking, (the little lake will be too small for power boats or skiing) but there may be developments like condos and restaurants on the canals.

One of the more observant Fort Worthers, Don Woodward, had a good letter printed about the Trinity Vision in this morning's Star Telegram....

Blind support for Trinity project

All the Republican and Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates say they are against earmarks.

John McCain boasts he has never sponsored an earmark, and vows to veto any ear mark that comes across his desk in the Oval Office. Sarah Palin turned against the infamous Ketchikan Bridge to Nowhere after it became a national symbol of wasteful spending. Palin told PBS’ Jim Lehrer, “We killed the bridge because we don’t want to pay for it and the rest of the nation doesn’t want to pay for it.”

Eyeing Rep. Kay Granger’s Trinity Uptown boondoggle, Palin might well have asked her, “Why should you have three designer bridges and I no bridge at all?”

In recently opening the funding floodgates for Trinity Uptown, John Woodley, assistant secretary of the Army’s civil works division, said that “the rest of the country is closely watching” this project. Indeed they are. And when congressmen from other states see their projects axed, who thinks they are not going to vote to kill Fort Worth’s Trinity Uptown boondoggle?

Col. Christopher Martin, commander of the Corps of Engineers Fort Worth division, said “It is a difficult process to get projects going in the United States anywhere. Trinity Uptown has been completed at light speed.” Granger, R-Fort Worth, was hailed as the “driving force who pushed the project through the byzantine approval process in Congress.” Shame on Granger!

Savvy Sarah way up north in the land of the Aurora Borealis saw the lights and cut loose from her bridge. How long will it be before our eminent domain-loving congresswoman receives the enlightening epiphany that her earmarked nepotistic elusive dream will be DOA in a McCain or Obama Oval Office? None is so blind as she who will not see.

— Don Woodard, Fort Worth

WaMu Washington Mutual Aggravation: Part IV

I think I understand why some people decide to rob a bank. As in this morning brought fresh HELL from Washington Mutual.

You may remember me mentioning 2 checks from the State of Texas were deposited on September 19, a few days before WaMu's meltdown.

I'd already endured one round of WaMu not crediting the account deposited and a check written on it. That one was no big deal.

This morning I found 2 letters from WaMu in the mailbox. Keep in mind it is now October 2, thirteen days after the deposit was made.

The first letter was written, according to the date at the top of the letter, on September 20, the day after the deposit was made. I got the letter today, October 2. This letter says...

"We are contacting you today to let you know that a hold has been placed on your account to allow time to collect the amount of the check(s) you deposited into your account.

From your deposit, $2,300.00 has been delayed.

On 09/23/08, $2,300.00 from this deposit will be available.

If you have any questions, please contact us.

We're always here for you."

Please note the line in bold & underlined above, saying on 9/23 the funds would be available.

So, like I said there were two letters from WaMu this morning. The second letter is dated September 25, 2008.

"You've had one (or more) non-sufficient funds (NSF) transaction that couldn't be covered by the available balance on your account at the time it was processed."

I'm not gonna bother typing the rest of it. The letter goes on to itemize the overdraft fee charges and then says, "The fees charged here total $0.00."

A chart below that details the check #, the amount, the action (returned), the fee ($0.00) and the date 9/24/08. One day after the other letter said the funds would be fully in the account.

So. I called my local WaMu branch. They told me to bring in the letters and they'd look into whether they'd made a mistake. In the meantime I called the party to whom the bounced check had been written, explaining the situation, she told me just to get a certified check and add $25 to cover the fee her bank will charge her.

I go to WaMu. The manager looks at the letters and the account, says they clearly made a mistake, makes me out a certified check. And tells me to get a copy of what is charged to the account of the party who WaMu bounced the check on and WaMu would reimburse me.

I'm thinking, how does that reimburse me? How do I get back the time this has taken? The gas I burned driving to WaMu. If WaMu can so casually throw about fees, why can't I? Like maybe $100 fee for wrongly claiming their were insufficient funds to cover a check that had been presented for payment.

I'm still not sure this nightmare is over. The party who I wrote the check to said she'd not heard from her bank, Wells Fargo, that a check had been returned NSF. I half except Wells Fargo to re-submit the check and for WaMu to then pay it, that it was a computer paperwork error that generated the second letter I got today.

But, the WaMu manager looked at the account and told me there was no other bad activity going on.

I don't trust them. Why didn't I bail on this bank way back when I first started reading about their problems? Oh, I remember, up til this month, I've never had a problem with them.