Satisfied With What We Get

I'm still in disbelief over how warm it got today, and it sounds like tomorrow is to be even warmer. It's no wonder I noticed farmers out in their fields today, and likely readying their fields for a possible early planting. Aren't these the craziest of days?

I was on appointment out of town for the entire morning and part of the early afternoon, which created a pile-up of work when I returned to office, but sometimes you gotta make hay when the sun shines.

My morning appointment went very well, and thankful there weren't any mis-steps on my part, but the real positive side of my being away from office for so long, were the great views I was taking in while driving.

One of the calls I had to return when I arrived back at office, was to an out of State seller who's looking for direction on the pricing of his home here in Mason City, so I spent a good hour going over comparable sales, as well as preparing a rough draft of what his selling expenses would be, so as far as it looks now, I'll be getting a new listing in the near future.

Just to get a closing to the table all the sooner, it looks like I'll be making another trip out of town to get some transfer documents signed by a seller, just so I can keep all parties happy. For whatever reason, there seems to be all the more buyers wanting to get their closings scheduled earlier. I'm now wondering if it has something to do with this sudden arrival of these extra-warm days. I'll continue to oblige them as much as possible.

Once I finally got myself caught up from being gone this morning, it was the time for me to meet a buyer at a property, and as chance would have it, I got there about two minutes before she arrived, which didn't give me time to get the front door unlocked and lights turned on. Oh well, the showing still went well, so I left the buyer to sleep on it and give me a call in the morning if still interested.

Before heading home, I did have a few more stops to make, which caused me to be all the more late getting home. I will say one thing, and that being, this City had better get busy with fixing all these potholes and bad sections of concrete, and especially that stretch between South Taft and Eisenhower, because that strip is beyond unacceptable for drivers. What a way to ruin someone's suspension.

What's really been getting my goat these past weeks, is seeing all the things our City should be keeping maintained but doesn't, yet they find ways to be punitive with our general public. If it's not the parking lots, it's the potholed streets, along with missing and bent signs, dead trees in medians, winter sand still on the streets and back alleys, and my list could go on into the night. I think it best they focus more on taking care of their own responsibilities, instead of getting in the lanes of our tax-paying citizens.

Just today, I did the math on what the future taxes would be on a home after this major increase in assessed values. Truth be told, I had to do the math on it twice, just to make sure I was looking at the correct number. After I was sure about it, I picked up the phone and called a colleague of mine, and informed him there's no doubt there'll be some gaskets blowing with a whole lot of our residents after they receive those bloated tax bills. Can you imagine paying $375 per month on real estate taxes alone? Now if you add monthly homeowner's insurance costs, along with a normal mortgage payment, that would be a huge bite in just about anyone's paycheck, with the exception of our landed meritocracy who've insulated themselves against such increases, and only because they're already getting paid far more than they deserve.

Ok. Let's talk about reason. Would you consider it a reasonable statement if I said, "There's not one person in our City who's a part of its meritocracy, who's truly deserving of the monthly salaries being paid.", and the reason I say this, is because we're far up and away from the metro areas where the real brains are toiling away, whereas here, that's all we have are left-overs nobody else would want to hire. While in conversation several years ago with a corporate head, I mentioned something about how slip-shod our so-called professionals are, and you wanna know what his response was? Well, his only reply was, "Just remember Mr. Chodur, we're living out here in the boondocks where we have to be satisfied with what we get." As much as I wanted to disagree with him, I knew he was right on the mark.

So now we come back to the concept of community. I'm sad to say, many who're in such positions, don't give a hoot about our natives, and only because we're their stepping-stones to either a fat retirement, or a step-up to be better paying jobs located in a larger City or metro area. I personally know several who've never planted one root in our community, yet continue to bully those who've been established here for generations. So, who should be bowing to whom?

Now I'm being wicked again when saying I drove past that fenced-in area where the ghost hotel is standing, and wouldn't you know, the supposed foreman's trailer that's parked inside that fence, is a rental. Now if there's a bona-fide company building that hotel, wouldn't you think they've got their own trailer? Next time you drive by it, you'll notice that sign screwed on its side with the name of the trailer rental company. Looks like there'll be more smoke and mirrors on the way.

Tonight's One-liner is: Be exceptionally wary of those who urge actions in which they themselves incur no risk.

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