Midwestern viewpoints without pretentiousness, conformity, regularity or predictability. Hope you enjoy my work!
Halcyon Days - Walt Whitman
Not from successful love alone, Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or war; But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm, As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky, As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier, balmier air, As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree, Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all! The brooding and blissful halcyon days!
Well another week, another horrifying story about the housing market. An AP Report on the housing market stated that the latest Standard & Poor's index showed housing prices at their lowest since 2006. I am not surprised one bit by this news. In my law practice I see hundreds of title reports each month for houses destined for eventual foreclosure. Most of these are in metro areas like Cincinnati, Cleveland, Toledo, Akron and Columbus. It makes sense because how can you sell an existing house for anything close to value when the banks have hundreds of foreclosed homes on the market at discounts of 20%, 30% or even 50% in some cases? Previously released numbers boasting that home sales were steadying or even rising in the area look only at volumes of sales, not price. The truth is, that many of these sales are being done at huge discounts which drives these indexes down.
This problem is only going to be compounded by the fact that thousands of foreclosures have been delayed by the largest lenders due to the "robo-signing" scandal and lawsuits by Attorney's General seeking to halt foreclosures. Once those matters are settled - oh maybe this year sometime - the foreclosure floodgates will open and even more homes will be added to the glut of REO properties.
In the meantime, maybe you're "lucky" enough to pay your mortgage down so that you have equity in your home. Otherwise, join the growing mob and see if you can get yourself a HAMP Mortgage modification and prepare to stay where you are for the next 5 - 10 years until your house is no longer underwater!
I've spent the day watching several movies and specials about wars, veterans and memorial day. Very moving. I want to thank all of my friends and others who served our country in some capacity. Certainly it was an important life experience and one that I regret that I don't have.
One of the questions that I think of when I read about wars is the effect on the soldiers and servicemen for the rest of their lives. There is no doubt that military service teaches many lessons and builds a persons character in ways that I can not understand. What I wonder is what is must have been like for veterans of wars to have some of the most exciting, memorable and profound experiences of their entire lives before the age of 30. For many veterans, this is a fact that they must learn to deal with after the war. For WWII veterans especially, there was a sense for many returning veterans that they would never do anything as important in their lives as they did during the war. They could not escape their halcyon days. Civilians and many of my generation who spent their formative years in peacetime, this is a foreign concept. I grew up with the general belief that one grows up, goes to college, maybe gets married that the best years are yet to come.
I hope that any veterans that may feel this way know that, while their service was extremely important to our country and a debt that can never properly be paid back, their best years are yet to come and their contributions to society are only going to be multiplied because of their service to our country. Looking at the accomplishments of the "greatest generation", it is easy to see that they achieved much after the wars. I'll leave you with a link to one of my friends blogs who, every Memorial Day, posts about a special place in Belgium where he spends time every year. Please check it out.
OK, it's hard to find a quote about music that doesn't sound trite and hasn't been repeated a million times. I went with Olson because this is one of the shortest quotes I could find and he had obviously thought about this subject for a long time before he came up with this gem! I couldn't write this blog without including regular entries about music - what's new and cool, who everyone should listen to at least once, something obscure or something the doesn't work for me.
My favorite kind of music is --------------- anything that is good. Classic Rock, Metal, Hip Hop, Reggae, Classical, 70's Soft Rock, it barely matters what genre if it's smart and has soul and originality.
Take this song that you might be familiar with:
Its as good as it gets and so far ahead of its time I don't know how he came up with it - we'll just assume drugs for now, the point is this is a great song no matter what music you like. Hendrix is just one in a series of geniuses that were able to make music that touches millions of lives.
As a pretty stoic guy, "expressing myself" isn't the first thing on my list of things to do. For me music is an emotion. Music bring emotion to the room. It takes you back to how you felt at a specific moment in time. It uplifts, angers, saddens, delights, invigorates and exhausts.
I leave you with another quote. As a lawyer, I was surprised and impressed to see several quotes about music by Oliver Wendell Holmes . Quite the jurist and apparently "got it" about music.
Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes
The background of my website is a fascinating image of something called the Mandelbrot Set which is a fractal. It is a popular example of a mathematical visualization. A fractal is a geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced copy of the whole. To see a zoom-able image of the Mandelbrot Set that will make your head spin, go here: Neave Fractal Zoom. For the mathematicians out there, or to ruin all of the mystique and fun of the Mandelbrot set, go here Wiki/Mandelbrot_set and get ready to have your mind blown!
Here is a little peek into my world. I am a lawyer, attorney (at-law if you're being formal), counselor or whatever respectful name you care to use. I have certainly been called other things, but that comes with the territory. For most of my professional career, I have worked in what is called the Default Services Industry. Here in the rust belt, it has been one of the few growth industries in town. Default Services deals with all aspects of defaulted mortgages, foreclosures and the subsequent disposition of the collateral - the house. My experiences have allowed me to work as and work with lenders, borrowers, debtors, landlords, title agencies, realtors, investors and homeowners.
While I am grateful for these experiences, it has not been the most uplifting of careers as of late. A recent article in USA Today http://usat.ly/lOHPgu discusses the great news that people who defaulted on the mortgages, but no other debts, are good credit risks going forward. I would enjoy hearing anyone else's interpretation of this information, but I'll tell you this is a great example of where our economy really is. The article's point is well taken and a sign that in the future, as many people will have foreclosures as have good credit!!
Check back for my perspective on the ongoing saga of the biggest problem with the economy that has the broadest effect on real people - the housing and real estate crisis. I will be a frequent blogger on this issue so feel free to join in.
Well first, halcyon is just a cool word to say (and type for that matter).
It has a couple of main sources for me, the first of which is summed up in the Walt Whitman poem on the blog homepage. To me, halcyon days are the best days of your life, as looked at in retrospect. They are carefree days gone by that cannot be recaptured, but can be relived in your memories. They are usually remembered in an idyllic way that is a blur of reality, but that is what makes these memories special.
The second meaning I only recently learned, but I was fascinated to read about the Greek myth of Alcyone. She was the daughter of Aeolus, the ruler of the winds. She threw herself into the sea for love (questionable move there). Out of grief, her father calmed the winds for a two week period every winter solstice. This mythical calm period is also symbolized by the Kingfisher, a bird that is mythically associated with the weather.
To me the halcyon days are the formative days of your life that play a large part in determining your ethos, your interests, and ultimately your life's path. It is from that those memories that much of the source material for this blog is taken.
If it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger. A concept that has always played a vital role in my life. Life is about experiences, good and bad. Bad one's came often for the last few years here in Ohio. Or maybe I take the good ones for granted. I have definitely been guilty of that. Maybe it's been a long, tempering, intense, taxing run for me, and most people I know, and our struggles are beginning to pay off. Hell, maybe its spring and the weather is finally turning. Good times are coming back again and I am going to try to take advantage of them this time around. The hard work is not over, re-focusing, the sour taste of the struggle, shedding the despair and rebuilding...stronger this time.
