Yeah, I went to MIT

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Find the Candidate that is Right for You!

This neat little quiz will help you find which candidate is closest to your positions on key issues. I admit I was skeptical at first, but the results were pretty much in line with what I thought. I am a McCain man, with a 28 percent match. Mike Huckabee was in the top third, but no front runner. Giuliani was way down the list. I had the least in common with John Edwards, I am happy to report.

The big surprise was Ron Paul, who I thought I aligned with pretty closely. He was about fifth from the bottom (and there are quite a few candidates listed). Oh well Ron--you and me, it just wasn't meant to be.

Sinking

Generally, my dreams don't make sense. I'm not the kind of guy to have epiphanies mid-slumber, and when I wake up in the morning I am never inspired by my brain's midnight opus (much to its chagrin):

7:30 in the morning
Brain: Soooo, what'd you think?
Me: About what?
Brain: Last night! Good show, huh?
Me: Eh, it was all right.
Brain: All right?
Me: Not your best work.
Brain: What are you talking about?? Didn't you get the underlying themes, the internal conflict??
Me: I don't know, it felt contrived. Honestly, a blind bull in a video store could do a better job putting together a show.
Brain: That was my Last Supper, my David. You've just pissed on David.
Me: Well, it could only improve it.
Brain: Jerk.

Chagrin is a fun word. It should come up more often. So anyway, I generally don't remember my dreams, and if I do it is because some de ja vu moment comes up where I perform the same action I did in a dream. As cool as that might sound, it is always a mundane action like sharpening my pencil.

Yeah, I'm that exciting.

But two nights ago I had an interesting dream. I was in a rowboat that was sinking. And no matter how hard I was bailing, the water just kept rising. This stuck in my mind, I think, because I distinctly remember using a hand-driven bilge pump (works like a bicycle pump). I am inwardly fascinated with flowing liquid for some odd reason. Even the simple act of filling a bucket intrigues me. If you ever watch me pump gas you would swear I am catatonic because I will sit there and just think about the gas flowing into the tank. I don't know why, but I'm sure it can't be a good thing. I'm full of lovely quirks like that.

Anyway, there I was in my rowboat pumping water, but not pumping fast enough. I don't know what happened to me in this dream, but I don't think that was important.

It is kind of funny, because at work lately I've noticed myself slipping on certain benchmarks. For one, my email inbox is inexorably increasing. Not a month ago I could empty my inbox every day, but now I have things that sit there, waiting for me to get around to them. I hate this. I could always turn around tasks in about a day, but now, even though I am working harder than I ever have, things are piling up. I take this personally, because my inaction or decreased ability to anticipate invariably costs the government, and the taxpayer, more money. At the end of the day, in addition to feeling overwhelmed, I feel like crap because I didn't do as well as I know I can.

My boss referred me to the Irish prayer that says something like "May God give me the courage to change what I can, the patience to cope with what I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference." With all due respect (and I mean, with all due respect), I think this is crap. If I can't fix something, then, according to my own personal convictions, I've failed. But then again, maybe I am just a fool in a sinking rowboat.

Helping out my neighbors in mini mansions

Well, looks like we get to bail out our neighbors who sprung for the five-bedroom, 4,000 sq. ft. homes.

A year ago I could have gotten an ARM. I could have bought a $300,000 home for under 4%. I could have been living the good life in a beautiful neighborhood with a fountain in my private lake. I could have pretended that I didn't know my mortgage rate would reset, and I could have cried for help when my mortgage payment doubled.

But I didn't. Because I'm not an idiot.

A year ago I took out a traditional mortgage on my reasonably priced townhouse. I make my payments on time and I know that my payments (minus taxes) will remain the same for the life of my mortgage. This is security that I owed my family. This is a responsibility that I had to you.

Because I didn't want to screw you over. Why should I get into a situation where I couldn't make my payment and where I would go into foreclosure? My foreclosed property would be sold for loss by my bank, effectively screwing my neighbors with an immediate drop in property values.

And now, the collective million homeowners out there with these jumbo super-duper ARMs are screwing us all. Honest homeowners cannot sell their properties in many areas without taking a loss, due to the number of cheap, foreclosed properties on the market. And now, President Bush wants to freeze the rates on some of these ARMs. Our idiot neighbors are practically stealing from their banks, and in return the banks will raise the interest rates on new traditional mortgages to offset the expected losses.

So when you are paying 9% on your next mortgage, you know who to thank.