as soon as i sealed the survey envelope it hit me. i am old. i never used to complete mail-in surveys on the highly unlikely chance of winning a $50 prize.

don’t know what i’m talking about – go watch requiem for a dream, its not the drugged up teens i’m identifying with any more.

left to her own devices these were the shoes logan planned on wearing to school today.

if you guessed – cardboard wrapped in decorative duct tape – you were correct.

we’re refinancing our house now because the rates have gotten so low we can convert our current thirty year mortgage to fifteen years for only a few dollars more a month.

in spite of spotless credit, no debts outside the mortgage and every other positive indicator that we merit a loan, the process has drug on for months.

if i had been on the fence before about who was most responsible for the mortgage crisis, the banks or the borrowers, i wouldn’t be after this experience…

ethan’s reaction to tasting froot loops cereal

ugh, these don’t taste natural

and while it sounded surprising at the time, on reflection its the only response that makes sense…

at the end of last year i made an extra principal mortgage payment to pay down my home loan.

the bank applied it twice.

i have tried repeatedly to get them to correct it.

today they told me the only way to fix it was to refund the second, erroneous payment to me.

after all the effort its taken me to correct their mistake and return their money – it took every bit of my best character not to respond, “thanks, you can deposit the funds directly in my checking account”

from my father:

So, one of the lightbulbs in the refrigerator burned out. There are two of them in an assembly at the top of the refrigerator side. It was easy enough to find a replacement at the grocery store. I screwed in the new one. It did not work. I grabbed the other bulb, that was working, to remove it so that I could see if the new one would work in that socket. The working bulb was hot. Duh! The burn will heal in a few days. The new bulb did not work in that socket. Then I tried the old bulb on the other side. It didn’t work there either. After some nifty examination with a makeup mirror and flashlight I concluded that the bulbs were not making contact with the copper connectors in the socket. “OK,” I said. Let’s get out a little screw driver and bend the connectors a bit so that they will contact the bulb. Yes, we should be careful not to touch both the positive and negative connectors. Since we will be careful and since it is a pain to pull out the refrigerator to unplug it, let’s just not bother unplugging it….

POP!

Everything is off. Good job dumb ass. The repairman just left. He will get a replacement for the circuit board I fried and for the light socket that I smoked. He guesses it will be the neighborhood of $300 to $400. He’ll be back in a couple of hours. The Feldt Gene lasts a lifetime…

last week

before starting work i wanted to get a ceiling hook hung in logan’s room to hang a decoration she has wanted to have up for months. i marked the spot where the hook should go and got out the drill with an eighth of an inch bit and pushed it in to the ceiling. the hole went through with little resistance so i assumed i was drilling through drywall only and not a stud. of course my fancy stud finder which could have verified this assumption was lying downstairs in the toolbox.

so i got out the half inch bit that is necessary to enlarge the hole enough to enable pushing through the toggle bolt that will brace the hook in drywall. as i pushed that in the ceiling there was a little more resistance and some wood shavings shot out from the hole. of course i didn’t bother to stop and check what i was doing, i figured i was on the edge of a stud and merely grazing it. i pushed the drill the length of the bit in to the ceiling.

when i tried to push the toggle through i could tell it wasn’t opening up on its own, so i removed it and pushed my pinky in to the hole. i hadn’t grazed a stud, i had put a half inch hole in the center of it. my pinky was surrounded by wood on all sides. now i’ve got a half inch hole in the ceiling which prevents the toggle from expanding and is much too wide for the wood screw that could have been used to fasten the hook to the ceiling.

the feldt gene lasts a lifetime…

i was out running an errand and the rest of the family came home to find my sole piece of cake sitting on the counter.

ethan: can we have the cake?

logan: no, that is dad’s piece of cake

natalie: should we cut it in to thirds?

logan: no – it’s daddy’s

natalie: so, you want me to cut it in to fourths?

logan: no, we can’t have it, its daddy’s

at least there is one person in this family that has my back.

earlier in the week we heard that logan had wedding plans with a kindergarten boy in her class.

today we found out those plans have been cancelled because this boy likes to cut in line and logan will have none of that.

i’m encouraged to see the criteria building for her future mate.

i didn’t see or hear anything inappropriate from m.i.a. during the superbowl – thanks for making a big deal out of it… honestly, i didn’t even know who m.i.a. was before today, guess she wins that round.

who knew tom brady’s supermodel wife knew so much about football and that quarterbacks don’t both throw and catch the ball?

volkswagen again had the best commercial, but only because they reminded us of “the force” commercial from last year.