Update: Good news. I just got a refund on my car insurance payment of $7.00. Time to crack open a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill wine to celebrate.

Yesterday I got a letter from Wells Fargo informing me that they're handing my mortgage over to Freedom Mortgage Corporation which sounds very MAGA to me. I never wanted anything to do with Wells Fargo, and I'm glad to be rid of them. However, I now wonder if I've just gone from frying pan to the fire. Looking up Freedom Mortgage Corporation it seems that they do a lot with Veterans Administration housing loans. That might explain their boisterous sounding name.

I figure Wells Fargo is doing this because my rate on this mortgage is a low 3.75% due to me buying a repossessed home near the end of the housing crisis. Perhaps some bean counter at Wells Fargo has determined they're not getting enough out of this after factoring in their administrative costs. That's a guess though.

Paid my car insurance this morning to the tune of $2900+ for six months. Yes this is full coverage but damn this is intense. If I were to pay the entire year at once it would be $5800+. Since it is a 2017 model year that I paid off within two years of purchasing, I'm wondering why I keep the full coverage.
Once I'm retired, you can bet I won't be keeping that coverage. Not having to go into work at zero dark thirty during heavy rain kinda skews my chances of an accident away from me.

While normally resistant to poison oak exposure, I'm currently in the throes of of the worst reaction I've ever experienced. For other people with intense reactions my plight is negligible. For me it is an unprecedented struggle to keep the itching and spreading under control. Calamine lotion or Benadryl spray help to an extent, but the itching is never gone for long. At least I've managed to keep the rash from spreading to an extent by laundering bed sheets and my work sweatshirts.

This morning I found that I actually have some Zyrtec in the house. I'm now going to try and tackle this from the inside. I'm not placing too much faith in this making a difference, but I'll find out for sure by tonight.

Wish me luck.

@timbear Great news indeed!

@timbear I'm not going to say that won't happen because it certainly could, but as of late Trump is being a bit distracted as his approval ratings plunging even among his base supporters. If the economy absolutely tanks, there could be a bit of an uprising against him in congress.

And maybe, just maybe...

Okay I might be venturing in fiction at this point, yet there is still hope.

@timbear At least you're staying hydrated. Soup is usually good for the flu. You get liquids as well as some solid food.

@pinskal Heights are my kryptonite. I could never walk out there even if I was wearing a harness.

@timbear That hospital should be giving you some meds on your next visit since they were the ones that passed the flu onto you.

@timbear Adding coffee filters to my shopping list too. I'm down to less than a dozen.

It's that time of the year again when it's a race between weather that's warm enough for me to stop using the furnace vs the amount of propane I have left in the tank.

Ideally I would have about 20% left in tank when the house no longer needs heating which is more than enough to get me through the summer. This way I can place an order to fill the tank up in late September while the price of propane is supposedly low.

But if only it were that easy.

@ohchristwhatnow A simple .pdf file that you could download would suffice, but I suppose that that someone has to write that .pdf. It could be asking too much.

@drahardja

Almost stepped on this one the other day. Wish I had my real camera and macro lens with me at the time. But as they say, the best camera is the one you have with you. Luckily my phone does quite well or at least good enough for social media.

Well damn? I've survived another work week. I wouldn't call it rough but on Wednesday I had to be corrected that it wasn't Tuesday like I thought it was. How I managed to lose a day is beyond me.

Maybe that's a problem.

Time for an annual checkup I guess.

@timbear I've gone to bed early like that before but usually after a long and arduous day.

Well now. I just downloaded my quarterly retirement fund statement and it's down almost 3.70% as of March 31. As of April 4 it's now down almost 12% this year.

Markets rise and fall and coincidentally I'm a bit cash heavy right now. Presumably when this whole tariff BS is over and it looks like there's going to be some recovery, I might plug in some of that cash while things are low.

That's the plan anyway, and I've been wrong before.

@scott I had to crop the image. You can go to the Silica Hotel on Google maps where you'll see several full shots of this from various contributors. And to answer your question, this was ceiling to floor.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Silica+Hotel/@63.8802173,-22.4493179,17z/data=!4m9!3m8!1s0x48d61d75ccaf359f:0x9662a8bdf8d613d7!5m2!4m1!1i2!8m2!3d63.8808485!4d-22.4420751!16s%2Fg%2F1tjf9vtc?hl=en&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQwMi4xIKXMDSoJLDEwMjExNjQwSAFQAw%3D%3D

I was cyber globe trotting this morning when I came upon the Silica Hotel in Iceland which is located at the Blue Lagoon. This is a picture from one of the hallways in the hotel. This alone would make the $676 a night cheap room worth it to me. I just can't get over this bit of volcanic whimsy.

The real irony here to those of you that never had Geology 101, aka 'Rocks for Jocks,' is that this is basalt. As such the silica content is very low which is why it flows as it does. I wonder how many people staying here have pointed this out to the poor beleaguered hotel staff.

@timbear I actually want him to go through with it and have it blow up in his face.