Wow. Two and a half months since my last update. A lot as happened.
Kaylin is now in school. He started a local adult education program the 20th of August, and is expected to be there a year to a year and a half. He has 45 units to complete from high school. He seems to be doing okay. Today I asked him a fraction problem in the car, on the way home from school, and he answered it correctly. But he still has problems adding without counting. He'll get there eventually.
Unemployment is enjoyable, but I do need to get back to work soon. Since my last update I've read
Head First Java, and am now reading
Head First Design Patterns. If you're a software developer, and need to either learn or brush up on your Java or design patterns, I recommend these books. In fact, I recommend any
Head First book. I also read their
Head First HTML, XHTML & CSS. They're extremely well written, and have been excellent learning experiences.
Anyway, I'm reading these to catch up on some holes in my education. My time at Oracle was not good for my professional develoment. That last six years, working on JInitiator and JDeveloper, were basically maintenance jobs. People say, "Oh, you must know Java really well!" Nope, not as well as I'd like. Your development skills can atrophy when you're stuck in a position like this. I should have quit several years ago.
Ellensburg still sucks. I hate that town. I hate my sister. When she called five years ago, and asked me to buy that property, I should have said no. I'd be much happier right now, and wouldn't have had to hire a laywer.
See, over the past five years, my sister has managed to make many, many late payments on the property. She's managed to accrue $1,180 in late fees with the collection company. And as of May, when I was there, she had missed the prior six payments altogether, was a year late on the property taxes, and a year late on the irrigation. I brought all these up to date.
At the time, the seller, Gary, told me not to worry about the late fees.
Well now, he's sicking his lawyer on me, for the late fees. I've been given until the 14th of November to not only pay the $1,180, but also pay another $1,100 in fees to his lawyer!
Worse, he called the collection company and told them to apply any future mortgate payments not to the mortgate, but to the late fees! As a result, my August, September and October payments were never made, resulting in another $225 in late fees!
On top of that, his
lawyer called the collection company, and told them to start sending the payments directly to him. Then he turned around and sent me another letter, telling me the payments I've been making were insufficient to meet the November 14th deadline, and was charging me another $125 for having sent
that letter.
This entire thing is starting to sound like a scam.
So I had to hire a lawyer of my own, and send a $1,000 retainer, to get this mess cleaned up. I still need Gary to install his own power, so I can disconnect the power on my property and get it listed for sale. My lawyer send a letter to Gary's lawyer, telling him we are
going to disconnect the power, and that he better get his own power installed soon. Further, he told them I plan on demolishing the trailer within ten days of selling the property. This'll get around the clause in the real estate contract, saying I have to pay $5,000 toward the principal if I remove the trailer at any time before Gary's been paid off in full.
