What's messing with your Groove?

[Nessus]

Aww

[Lor]

Work has finally decided to add TheWorldForgotten to their list of banned sites.

I was dreading this day.

Is there no way around it? How can they do such a thing!!

PS - i look forward to your response later tonight ....

[Ominous Gamer]

It rained yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. Its raining today, and its supposed to rain tomorrow, the day after that, and the day after that. While still holding the temperature at 90F.

lame

[Angel_Mapper]

I can't believe I had to use a ten foot extension cord because my backup desk fan's cord was two inches short of reaching the plug.

[Catgrrl]

She's a screamer.

When she's hungry, she's inconsolable until she gets what she wants. She tries to claw my face off.

[GGT]

She's a screamer.

When she's hungry, she's inconsolable until she gets what she wants. She tries to claw my face off.

Aw, she's just talking to you the only way she knows how. Babies ALWAYS act like they're inconsolable, it's their only trump card.

I assume you're breast feeding? Don't worry. When you're not totally sleep deprived you'll figure out her patterns, and can nurse her before she barely coos. Then you can drink lots of water and eat a good meal, load up on breast milk, put her to your teat before 8pm, change her diaper and she'll sleep like a baby.

Well, at least until she wakes up at midnight for another feeding. Be prepared for that. Try not to lose hope or energy by falling to the "daddy gives her a bottle of formula".

New mothers are basically milk producers and nurturers for the first few weeks. Let the laundry pile up if you have to (or have your husband do all the domestic chores). Nestle your newborn, cradle her and sing lullabyes, take a hot bath alone or walk outside when you can, wear loose clothing, talk to your friends on the phone or have them visit, but don't feel like you have to load your babe into the car/carseat just to drive around or grocery shop. It's a Small World kind of time, for a reason. You will never get their newborn days back.

It passes super fast, even though right now it probably seems like forever.

[Ominous Gamer]

Scarlett wasn't a big screamer at first, considering how tiny she was, but we did have an issue with her trying to claw her own face up. I will never laugh at baby hand mittens ever again!

[Dattu]

It's supposed to rain for the next two weeks here. Doesn't help that it's still hovering in the high 70s. When my friend got out of his car today, his glasses immediately turned opaque with vapor.

[Catgrrl]

Yes, she claws and screams. We are doing the formula because I couldn't keep up with her appetite. And she hates my boobs apparently.

She won't go to sleep today either, other than a 2 hr nap. I was so excited that she slept for 5 hours last night; I should have known it wouldn't last.

[Ominous Gamer]

Brandy had the same problems breast feeding. She kept at it and loves now that she did.

[Aimless]

Lor, of course she loves you you big teddy-bear, but the apology might just mean that she's worried you're a big teddy-bear who'll get all twisty and confused

[GGT]

Yes, she claws and screams. We are doing the formula because I couldn't keep up with her appetite. And she hates my boobs apparently.

She won't go to sleep today either, other than a 2 hr nap. I was so excited that she slept for 5 hours last night; I should have known it wouldn't last.

Breast feeding is really hard these days. Kind of ironic for such a natural thing, eh. Supplementing with formula shouldn't make you feel like a bad mommy.....okay? It's usually one or two things that make a difference. You have to drink a lot of water, and be properly nourished to lactate. (Ignore the starving mothers and babies in Ethiopia for this. They are on survival mode not nurturing mode).

New moms need to sleep, eat, drink, and nurse. That's about it. New babies need to sleep, eat, drink, and nurse. That's about it. Do it together. Don't worry about anything else. Dirty hair, unshaven legs, body odor---babies don't care and neither should you. When you're ready or want to shower, shave and look or smell like you used to, that's fine. But no one tells new moms about episiotomies, or lochia, or wearing pads for weeks while the blood engorged uterus goes back to normal. Or how they have a different body and "feel odd" in it.

Boobs that grow, nipples that get big and dark and leak, bras that don't fit, hearing any baby cry that stimulates the let-down response, milk leaking all over at the wrong times, buying nursing bra pads----even in the grocery store----there's not much mainstream info about that stuff. There's more about less milk from mothers or babies who have a large appetite.

Cat, you have all the things your baby girl needs. Everything. It can be hard to ignore wanting your old life back, or other voices telling you what to do.......it takes patience. You may feel exhausted, like a leaking saggy body. That's your signal to have a helper feed YOU, so you can rest a lot, lay around and nurse a lot, and enjoy the time with your baby.

Some schools of thought say making a newborn cry and scream and claw is "conditioning them for the future, where they have to wait for what they want or need" or developing their lungs, but I take the alternate approach. Babies cry to talk the only way they can. Their needs are simple: eat, sleep, poop. They want to feel warm, safe and cuddled. That's where swaddling clothes came from, binding newborns up in blankets and putting them in fresh air. But cuddling in mama's arms and hearing lullabyes in her soothing voice instinctly seems better.

She does not hate your boobs. She's probably just needing more calories and more milk. Moms can sabotage that by thinking "omg I have to lose weight, I'll skip a meal, run the treadmill" which makes you lactate less.

I hope this helps you, I know how hard it can be. My first son was over 9 pounds at birth and nursed every hour for a long time. Seemed like forever, but it really did pass fast in hindsight. I couldn't have done it without my mom, sisters, and friends helping out.

[littlelolligagged]

Timmy is sensitive to fleas, but he is also sensitive to flea preventatives (prescription and otherwise). We've had some success with an herbal spray, but he despises that. I thought we'd try an herbal flea powder instead. I am now covered in it.

And the girl-beast wants a pet guinea pig. I told her she has to get a book from the library to learn about how to care for them, first.

[Illusions]

The driving sanity and decision making abilities of people on the road around here has plummeted considerably since Thursday, I'm assuming due to the upcoming three day weekend because of the Fourth of July...

[littlelolligagged]

I really am not seeing why the July 5 is being treated like a holiday, too.

Every holiday doesn't have to fall on a workday to make it count, after all. I've had this come up in the real world a couple of times in the past week.

Only one of them is a real issue for me...

*knocks on wood*

[Dattu]

I'll be at Six Flags on July 5th if it's not raining, so yeah, it's a holiday for me.

[littlelolligagged]

You're a college student on summer vacation. I think you're allowed to have days off.

[Spawnie]

About the whole socialism thing. I wonder if an analogy can be drawn with the way the roads are designed in my hometown of Hull, which is traditionally as labour as they come.

I like to think that at one point, we had normal roads, two lanes, equal width, that went everywhere. Then, due to people needing things, such as bus lanes and places to cross the road, or due to problems, like build-ups of traffic or speeding, changes were made.

However, changes werent made with the overall system in mind, changes were made to fix one single issue at a time, seemingly with as much brute force as possible.

So now practically every major road in Hull has random lanes for various directions appearing and disappearing, with all the markings on the road, naturally, so you cant see it in traffic until you actually drive over it and get stuck in the wrong one. And staying in the same lane is wrong, too, since that changes apparently at random as well. Getting into the city centre is an almost impossible task due to the one way systems and bizzare junctions.

No one who is driving in hull for the first time can possibly find it pleasant. (and the shitty roads dont help either. Bu-dum-chhhhh)

[Hazir]

I really am not seeing why the July 5 is being treated like a holiday, too.

Every holiday doesn't have to fall on a workday to make it count, after all. I've had this come up in the real world a couple of times in the past week.

Only one of them is a real issue for me...

*knocks on wood*

Hey, that's a religious thing. I didn't know you had it overthere too. Overhere the consideration is that you can't have a secular festival on the day of the Lord.

[Khendraja'aro]

About the whole socialism thing. I wonder if an analogy can be drawn with the way the roads are designed in my hometown of Hull, which is traditionally as labour as they come.

I like to think that at one point, we had normal roads, two lanes, equal width, that went everywhere. Then, due to people needing things, such as bus lanes and places to cross the road, or due to problems, like build-ups of traffic or speeding, changes were made.

However, changes werent made with the overall system in mind, changes were made to fix one single issue at a time, seemingly with as much brute force as possible.

So now practically every major road in Hull has random lanes for various directions appearing and disappearing, with all the markings on the road, naturally, so you cant see it in traffic until you actually drive over it and get stuck in the wrong one. And staying in the same lane is wrong, too, since that changes apparently at random as well. Getting into the city centre is an almost impossible task due to the one way systems and bizzare junctions.

No one who is driving in hull for the first time can possibly find it pleasant. (and the shitty roads dont help either. Bu-dum-chhhhh)

Hey, we see that over here as well. The street to my parent's house was ripped open thrice in the same year. Once for gas, once for telecommunication, once for cable (that was before the privatization, mind). Thus we had a several month long construction site instead of one for all three services.

[littlelolligagged]

Hey, that's a religious thing. I didn't know you had it overthere too. Overhere the consideration is that you can't have a secular festival on the day of the Lord.

I'm sure the Lord would enjoy drinking, barbecue, swimming, and fireworks if he existed.

How could anyone worship someone so stuffy that he/she/it/they wouldn't?

[Nessus]

Have you read the Song of Songs? He's not that stuffy, he just picks all the wrong prophets (Falwell, Lewk, Ashcroft, etc)

[Catgrrl]

It's more of an excuse for government workers to have a day off, since most aren't working on Sunday anyway.

[littlelolligagged]

I heard a song that set me off on a fairly depressing set of memories.

[oldmunchkin]

I heard a song that set me off on a fairly depressing set of memories.

Me too! It made me think of Dad but it also made me miss him all the more!

The humidity...OMFG the humidity! I can't fucking breathe, and my hair is a funky mess! If it would just rain a bit, I think I would feel better!

[Knux897]

Thats so ironic...it rains here constantly...normally I would like it but theres this block party later and ugh...

[GGT]

Welcome to America's New Wild West:

Finding gold in them thar foreclosures

Ross D. Franklin / AP

updated 7/4/2010 6:31:14 AM

GILBERT, Ariz. — If we're going to search for gold in the wreckage of the mortgage crisis, then 6:57 a.m. in front of 1009 W. Juanita Ave. is as good a time and place as any to start.
The Cooper Ranch subdivision, 25 minutes from downtown Phoenix, is just beginning to stir. But when Casey Doran pulls up to his first foreclosure of the day, the tan stucco house has already seen a steady trickle of visitors.
"Still occupied," he says, nodding to a green tag hanging from the meter by the garage, proof someone's paying the electric bill. He leans on the bell, then tries the door. The house resists his advances, leaving Doran squinting into the darkness behind the blinds.
Three hours from now, the intelligence gathered in these 10 minutes of reconnaissance will be put to the test. That's when 1009 W. Juanita and nearly 600 homes like it are scheduled for the auction block.
Maybe, with bidding set to open at $105,000, this house is a bargain.
Or maybe it's a mistake, waiting to drag an investor under.
Either way, there's little time to ponder this 1,631-square-foot gamble. But there will certainly be other chances.

After all, 50,000 homes clog the county's foreclosure pipeline, with more added every day. But before you jump to buy, know that you'll have plenty of company.
At the top of the boom, speculators swarmed cities like Phoenix, buying up houses largely with borrowed cash. Those who didn't sell in time were stung when the market collapsed. Now investors — many buying with their own cash — are back. Since last year, the share of homes bought by investors at daily auctions has multiplied more than fivefold.
"These are unique times. Very, very unique times," says Tom Ruff of The Information Market, which analyzes Valley real estate data. "I think the best way to describe it is the Wild West."
The scene unsettles some, wary that investors could dump homes if the market weakens or take advantage of buyers or renters. Others are troubled at banks' willingness to settle at auction rather than give more substantial concessions to struggling homeowners. But something's got to be done with all these overmortgaged, underappreciated houses.
"The investors are a tool to help get those properties moved into new hands," says Diane Drain, a Phoenix bankruptcy attorney and real estate trustee. "At this point, the dam is so broken. How do you stop the flow? I don't know how you do it other than one little stick at a time."

Crowd gathers
During the boom, Steve Vadas sold title insurance on thousands of homes. Now, with business dried up, he's back at the job that gave him his start — in the shadow of the Maricopa County Courthouse, auctioning foreclosures.
In the old days, Vadas stood on the steps reading lists of homes aloud and alone, eyed like a crazy man by the occasional passer-by.
"Nobody would bid," he says. "I literally was reading them to the air."
No more. On a May afternoon, a crowd of 60 churns the plaza outside the courthouse doors. Bidders in board shorts and wraparound shades scan pages-long printouts and talk furtively into headsets to unseen investors. Five auctioneers compete for their attention.
Even in good times, some homeowners failed to pay their mortgages. But in a steady economy, auctions were largely formalities. With few bidders, most foreclosures were claimed by the bank holding the loan.
Then, home prices here plunged by half. Debt-saddled homeowners started abandoning houses in the dark. Lenders who never intended to get into real estate ended up holding the keys.
In the last year, they've done what any merchant would do to avoid taking delivery of unwanted inventory: Slash prices. No guarantees. No refunds.





"It's capitalism at its finest — or at its worst," Vadas says.
Stories circulate of buyers who realized too late they'd bought a second loan, when the first loan holder gets the house. Or of investors who bought only to find the tenant had taken cabinets, toilets, even the pipes.
"You can tell all the newbies," says Randy Lewis of bidding service 3rd Party Buyer LLC, scanning the crowd. "They're all up at the front, but not bidding."
But plenty have jumped in, posting the required $10,000 cashier's check and trying to leverage insider knowledge and a tolerance for risk. The result is what Lewis calls "chaos by statute," that begins as soon as opening bids are posted for the following morning's sales.

Deal chasers
"You've heard of storm chasers?" he says. "We're deal chasers."
On to the third house of Doran's morning: 1508 E. Weathervane Lane. Opening bid: $130,100.
A competitor exits the gate just as Doran, who scouts homes for bidding service Posted Properties.com, pulls up. "It's vacant," he says. "You can go inside."
Just past the pool — veined with cracks from standing empty under the desert sun (note to investor: could cost $5,000 to repair) — the sliding door yields easily. The place is empty of life except for a moldy loaf of raisin bread in the refrigerator.
Doran takes a few notes about this house, bought in December 2006 for $300,000. On the way out, he runs into a woman from next door. She tells him the former residents have been "stealing" fixtures out of the house for the past month.
"Hopefully soon we'll have a new neighbor," she says.
By mid-2008, Trish Don Francesco was ready to try the Phoenix housing market again.
Her company, Metropolitan Marketing & Management, had spent the boom assembling portfolios of houses for wealthy investors. In 2004, she urged clients to sell, believing prices had peaked. Instead, most held tight as values crested, then plunged.

But seeing homes for less than $100,000, she was intrigued. On a Saturday that August, Don Francesco drove to the Camelback Inn for an auction of houses.
"It was like being in a candy store," says daughter Makayla Don Francesco, also a broker. Houses were going for as little as $55,000. In a few hours, Metropolitan snapped up 17.
"I said to myself either the world is coming to an end or we're going to be really, really rich. I don't know which," Trish Don Francesco recalls.
She's bought 350 homes since, spending a few thousand dollars to fix and rent them, often to families who surrendered a previous home to foreclosure. Over the next year, she plans to increase that stake to 1,500 houses, buying on behalf of investors seeking a steady return from rents.

Information and cash
But investors are not the only players in this game, which trades in information as much as cash.
It begins each weekday afternoon, when trustees post opening bids for as many as 1,000 houses and property runners like Doran zigzag across the Valley inspecting the merchandise. They report back to companies like Posted Properties, which charge a fee to buy at auction.
Others work for wholesalers, who buy and flip to investors, often within hours, for a quick profit. Still other homes are bought by fix-and-flippers, who renovate and resell for a short-term gain.
When a family buys a house, it's all about emotion. But courthouse bidders trade bets with seeming disinterest. When the price goes too high, they walk away.
Unspoken, though, is the X factor drawing investors: the edginess of the gamble and the pursuit of a deal. Doug Hopkins, Posted Properties' CEO, recalls the morning he tagged along with a friend for his first trustee's sale 11 years ago.
"I remember coming out of there and calling my dad and I said, 'My life just changed.'"
Doran isn't sure what to make of today's fifth house: 6233 S. Parkside Drive. Opening bid: $67,000.

Fresh oil stains
Fresh oil stains the carport floor. A package sits unclaimed on the step.
It's an open secret in Phoenix foreclosure investing that, facing a door that won't budge, some runners drill the lock. Doran's real estate license lets him key in to some houses. But at Parkside, the back door slides open. He steps into the kitchen.
"I'm always afraid I'm going to find a dead body in one of these," Doran says, reaching for the refrigerator handle.
Not yet. But he has found cats and a puppy floating in abandoned pools. At an empty house in Chandler, he found an Alaskan husky, very much alive, left behind with a bag of dog food.
At this stop, though, the biggest complication is the house's size — just two bedrooms and one bath, limiting its appeal.
"Somebody will buy it ... for a rental," he says.
During the boom, borrowing was quick and easy. But buying at auction demands payment by the next day. Forget about a bank loan.
That's where Scott Gould comes in.
At 8:40 a.m. on a Wednesday, Gould tilts back in a black office chair, waiting for two phones and a Blackberry to ring so he can put his money to work. In shorts and running shoes, he looks more like the gymnast he once was than a banker. On the wall hangs a gift from his wife — a "loan shark" assembled from Monopoly money.
Hard money lender
Gould is a "hard money" lender, by some account's the valley's busiest. Last year he loaned investors cash to buy 1,300 homes at 18 percent annual interest. Call Gould for a loan and the answer comes back in 20 minutes, once his staff reviews sales of comparable homes.
"The most important thing at the end is, do we think the guy can make money," he says.
The phone rings. A fix-and-flip investor asks Gould for his opinion about a house in Mesa.
"The inside, from what we could see, looked good. It smelled good," the man says.

Gould, skeptical, counsels bidding $1 over the asking price and no more.
The phone rings again.
"Good morning, Brad. I got a check sitting here hot for you," Gould says.
This morning, though, is slow, with just three new loans. But a few miles away, a new round of sales keeps Makayla Don Francesco's ear to the phone.
When bidding begin, Metropolitan staffers lose out on two targeted houses and in the chaos, miss two more. But at a 10 a.m. sale, Don Francesco grabs a house for $72,300, before discovering it has two bedrooms and a den, limiting its rental appeal. Then she snags another in Buckeye for $66,000, although unsure if it has three or four bedrooms.
"There's a lot of risk and you are playing with somebody else's money," Don Francesco says. "Some days it is terrifying."
But then she reminds herself that the deals may last for only so long.
It's almost noon and this is Doran's 10th and final stop: 2701 Val Vista Drive. Opening bid: $387,600.
"Odd as hell"
"Holy moly," he says, pulling in. The house is very big. So are the mounds of trash in the overgrown yard. He knocks on the back door, then the front. Not a sound. But the place is unlocked. Doran rolls his eyes and steps inside.
"Somebody's still living here," he says, walking past dishes in the sink. "This is odd as hell."
At the living room, he tilts his head. Music floats up from downstairs — and men's voices. Doran takes one last picture, then moves quickly toward the door.
"Not worth getting shot over, I can tell you that," he says.


By Thursday, workmen have ripped out the ceiling in the house on Weathervane Doran checked out two mornings ago. And in a kitchen in Scottsdale, Neil Lende, a real estate agent who invests in houses given up for lost, is deciding where to begin.
The house, bought Tuesday and paid for Wednesday with a hard money loan, has a "popcorn" ceiling that will have to go. The pool is so green with algae it might as well be bottomless. In a valley full of foreclosures, what makes this a singular opportunity?
It's clear only when Lende opens another door in the Paradise Manor subdivision, 10 minutes away.
"When we first came to this one, this stuff was growing all the way out to here," project manager Charlie Sugarman says, pointing to shrubs that blocked the door. Inside, Lende found the kitchen plastered with coffee grounds.
Now, it's repainted in silver sage. The cabinets, refinished in cream, snuggle against stainless steel appliances.
Lende paid $194,651 for the house, then spent $35,000 to renovate. Tomorrow it goes to closing, sold to New Jersey retirees. For two months work — and risk — he'll pocket a $40,000 profit.
But while the new owners know they're buying a foreclosure, they almost certainly don't realize the pipeline it has traveled.
"I don't think they can envision it how it used to be, which is good," Lende says. "Because this is the reality now."

[littlelolligagged]

We may be missing two outside edge pieces of a puzzle. We're about halfway through flipping over the middle pieces and hoping we just missed it when we were originally pulling them out.

Of course, a puzzle of four leopards in grass is going to be a royal pain in the ass to put together, anyway.

[Lor]

My car isn't in good health, it comes with a £450 bill to fix it (I've already spent £200).

[oldmunchkin]

My Flash Player or Plug-in or some such shit keeps crashing on me!! HEEEEEELLLLLLLPPP!! What do I need to do to get it all back stable? Or do I need to go find my recovery disc (either in storage sheds or in closet that is piled high with boxes) and reformat my computer? Suggestions?! Help?! Please!