ICanSleepWhenI'mDead

I realized a long time ago that information is power. I made it available from reliable sources rather than from an anonymous avatar with multiple brothers named Darryl. What he does with the info, or if he even reads it, is up to him. He can rely on the financial advice of others on a mainly football message board if he chooses, but some people don't want any advice . . .

Maybe he read what came out of her own mouth about regionalization duties in the interview published here: http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/02/28/People-and-Pop-Culture.aspx [need to scroll down a bit at the link]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/monsanto-develops-hardier-strain-of-corn-that-yiel,35377/

Regardless of where you stand on these issues, ya gotta love The Onion: http://www.theonion.com/articles/closeminded-man-not-even-willing-to-hear-out-argum,35379/

1. First, a few links from reputable sources to give an overview of retirement plan options for the self-employed: http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Retirement-Plans-for-Self-Employed-People http://www.kiplinger.com/article/saving/T047-C001-S003-best-ways-for-the-self-employed-to-save-for-retire.html?si=1 http://money.cnn.com/retirement/guide/selfemployment_basics.moneymag/index.htm http://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryhannon/2011/04/01/the-best-retirement-plans-for-the-self-employed/ [info is about 3 years old so read for background but update before relying on it] 2. Info on rollovers from 403(b) account to an IRA: http://ctainvest.org/home/403b-457-Plans/403b-457-overview/Roll-Over-Your-403b-or-457-or-Leave-It-With-Your.aspx http://www.403bwise.com/wisemoves/irarollover_vt.html 3. Rolling over old 403(b) accounts into a single new IRA creates administrative convenience, and allows a wider range of potential investments than the typically limited choices offered by each 403(b) plan's administrator. But I am aware of one downside. I think I have read (not certain, and unfortunately no link) that existing 403(b) accounts with a former employer can sometimes be rolled into a new employer's 403(b) if the new employer's 403(b) plan documents allow this. I'm not sure you could do that if funds had been rolled over into an IRA first. When your wife eventually wants to take money out of her retirement account, 403(b) plans have slightly different rules than IRAs for penalties on early withdrawals. If your wife separates from her then employer's service after turning 55, she can withdraw funds from a 403(b) plan without paying the 10% IRS premature withdrawal tax. If the money has been rolled over into 1 or more IRAs, withdrawals before age 59.5 are subject to the same 10% IRS penalty. The added convenience and increased investment options may be worth more to you than the possibility of withdrawing money without penalty a few years sooner, but you should be aware that you are making that potential trade-off (which only comes into play if she ever goes back to work for an employer with a 403(b) plan). 4. One final thought that many people who have a 403(b) at work don't know - - the IRS allows contributing the same annual maximum to both a 403(b) plan and a 457 plan in the same tax year. This allows you to make double the maximum annual tax-deferred contribution compared to what you could make to a 403(b) plan alone. Sounded too good to be true when I first read about it, but I have confirmed it with several sources. Here's a couple: http://www.403bwise.com/participants/getwise_403b_another.html http://money.cnn.com/retirement/guide/401k_457plans.moneymag/index2.htm [based on 2011 contribution limits] 5. Be aware that whatever type of retirement plan your wife may set up for her self-employed business, she should not purchase tax free investments with funds already in that tax-deferred account. I have seen a financial advisor recommend such a strategy because he merely wanted to get the higher commission available to him from selling a tax sheltered annuity product. 6. Probably more than you wanted to know, but hey, you asked . . .

You can avoid that and still see the game if you hang tin foil on her ears. Might require some adjustment, though.

So what happens when somebody's furry friend pipes up - - "The woman you were with yesterday smells more like bacon than this one!

I'm curious how those who have posted here would evaluate this hypothetical situation: Remember when the White House had to step in to try to get some minister/preacher/whatever to stop his plans to hold a public burning of the Koran, because the Obama administration believed it would incite more violence against our troops in the Middle East? Let's say a devout Muslim man owns a printing business, and the minister/preacher/whatever comes in to the Muslim guy's shop and wants to have some fliers made so that he can hand them out inviting the general public to attend his Koran burning ceremony. Should the Muslim print shop owner be required to accept the order and make the fliers?

I agree that the $6.00 price tag for the downloadable app makes it sound like a Mickey Mouse approach to things. But Seitz, the UC Riverside professor who created and tested the visual training exercises on the school's baseball team, and later started a company to sell them in video game format, then got a $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") to further this type of vision improvement research. It was for non-sports applications, but still: http://www.eurekaler...c--na103013.php A $1.7 million research grant ain't entirely rinky-dink. Somebody with some science credentials must think there might be something to this.

I realize it may just be sales puffery by the company trying to sell the app, but from the FAQ at their website: http://www.ultimeyesvision.com/faq.php Admittedly, those claims are pretty vague. But why do you think that an NFL team would publicize its use of the app, or something like it, IF the team believed that using vision training exercises gave it a competitive advantage?

Per the last link in the OP, the app actually costs $5.99 - - I see no evidence that we are now ahead of the curve and would like to see us get there. Maybe if I bought and used the app my vision would improve enough to see such evidence, but I don't expect miracles for less than $6.

How many times have you heard some announcer say that the best QBs see the entire field? The ones who don't see the entire field wind up trying to read defenses based on the limited keys available in the portion of the field that they actually CAN see. If your QB can't see the entire field, you get wide open WRs waving their hands while the QB throws the ball somewhere else because he just didn't see the open man. We can do better through science. I have previously posted info about how certain visual training exercises can improve the ability of athletes to track the motion of balls in flight better (and perhaps thicken the superior temporal sulcus of players like McKelvin in the process). Now that McKelvin is playing better, let's SEE (I crack myself up) if current cognitive neuroscience research offers any hope for making EJ able to see the entire field. Then he can more consistently target his throws at the guy who is actually most open. Turns out, there's this guy at UC Riverside who recently conducted a successful experiment to sharpen the vision of the school's baseball players: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-baseball-brain-20140214,0,1140628.story#axzz2uDmYV1OS Although not mentioned in the LA Times article, if you read the peer-reviewed research report published in Current Biology, you find this: http://download.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/PIIS0960982214000050.pdf?intermediate=true How can improving our QB's peripheral vision be a bad thing? From what I read, the players already get their playbook on a tablet. I also keep reading how EJ is driven to succeed in this league, and willing to put in a lot of effort to make that happen. Why can't our offensive coordinator (who just happens to have a degree in neurobiology) put the vision training app on EJ's tablet? What could it hurt? Mr. Hackett, in the unlikely event that you or one of your assistants reads this Bills message board for grins in the off-season, check this out: http://www.ultimeyesvision.com Could we please get ahead of the curve for once and spend $6.00 to give our young QB some help seeing the entire field?

Being a science teacher in Reading must have been confusing . . .

Multiple votes with respectful internal disagreement about who to select? - - maybe - - but somehow I see the process a little differently: http://www.moviefanatic.com/quotes/when-we-finish-this-meal-you-little-rodent-were-gonna-go-out-in/ "SDS has a soft spot for runaways, derelicts, vagrant types - - but you can't be any geek off the street. Ya gotta be handy with the steel, if you know what I mean - - earn your keep."

1. Like I said, Darryl ain't too bright - - note that in the post above, 4.375 - 3.25 = 1.125% (not 1.25%). Oops. Maybe he did the math while an American guy was making his luge run. 2. If you think you might want to contact a lawyer about this, stop waiting. If the bank was gonna fix it based on your own inquiries, they would have done so by now. It probably takes time to find a lawyer you are comfortable with, and if he/she is any good he/she is already busy. You want to leave the lawyer some time to try to work out a resolution before the 1 year clock expires. If it turns out you do have good grounds for a lawsuit on a legal theory that has a 1 year statute of limitations, you will 100% lose the lawsuit and get nothing if the suit is filed even 1 day later than a year after the date of the aborted closing - - at least that's what Darryl thinks. Some legal theories have statutes of limitations longer than 1 year. Until you consult with a lawyer with expertise in consumer suits against banks, you have no way of knowing whether you will lose any right to recover that you might otherwise have, if you wait more than 1 year to file suit. Why risk it?

You may be right, or you may be wrong, but you ain't alone: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/us/a-utah-law-prohibiting-polygamy-is-weakened.html

As I mentioned upthread Darryl's a bit of a moron, but he's no fan of banks. He's been cogitatin' on this from time to time (mainly during luge runs in the Olympics), and based on the fact that he once knew a guy whose neighbor's third cousin dated a gal that worked down the street from a guy who once sold office supplies to a law firm, Darryl wanted me to pass along the following thoughts: 1. The comments upthread about evaluating whether a suit is worth your time and expense are spot on. But you may have an argument for somewhat bigger damages than some here are giving you credit for. In most circumstances, somebody who suffers an economic loss caused by wrongful conduct of others has a responsibility to take any reasonably available steps to reduce the amount of damage incurred. The fancy legal mumbo jumbo term for that concept is called "mitigation of damages." If you were to sue your bank, you can expect them to argue that even if the bank wrongfully caused you to be paying a higher rate than the 3.25% they promised you, you presumably could have refinanced with some other lender at 3.5%, effectively allowing you to reduce your losses to 3.5 -3.25 = 0.25%. 2. But Darryl thinks you've got a strong counter argument. The fact that your bank has repeatedly CONTINUED to represent that they are going to make things right by giving you the originally promised 3.25% rate may prevent the bank from simultaneously arguing that you could have minimized your losses by refinancing at 3.5% elsewhere. If you reasonably relied on the bank's promises and actually expected the bank to make things right, your failure to refinance elsewhere at 3.5% was reasonable, even though your existing mortgage is at 4.375%. In fancy legal mumbo jumbo terms, the bank is arguably "estopped" from raising the failure to mitigate damages issue by their own continued promises that they would still give you the 3.25% rate. 3. Your best case scenario for claiming monetary damages would be if you could show that the bank was continually promising to still give you the 3.25 % rate, while market rates rose from the 3.25% you were originally promised until they reached the 4.375% you have been paying on your existing loan. Isn't 4.375% about the current market rate if you were first applying for the refi today? If so, that would make your potential damages 4.375 - 3.25 = 1.25% of the remaining (and declining) principal balance every year for the remaining life of your existing mortgage (assuming you have no plans to sell the house). Depending on your existing loan balance on the date of the aborted closing and the remaining term of your existing loan, that could be a sum you are willing to fight about. 4. If you want to pursue a potential legal claim, you shouldn't delay finding a lawyer who handles consumer claims, preferably with some experience in disputes with lenders. Some types of legal claims have statutes of limitations as short as 1 year (and in uncommon situations even less) - - and the clock probably starts to run from the date of the aborted closing for most types of claims you could bring. 5. The NY statutory version of the federal deceptive trade practices act may not provide a private right of action for monetary damages, but it may allow you to bring a claim for "rescission." That's a fancy legal mumbo jumbo term for putting both you and the bank back in the positions you were both in just before you applied for the refi mortgage. That could get you back anything you paid out of pocket during the refi process, even if it leaves you stuck with your existing 4.375% loan. 6. Sometimes a demand letter from a law firm spurs action, so even if you don't want to invest the time and effort to file suit, paying a lawyer a small sum to simply write a stern demand letter might get you something. If you take that approach, ask your lawyer to include a request that the bank put a "litigation hold" on all email messages (including any stored on computer backups) that relate to your refi loan application and/or aborted closing. It's amazing how many people will make incriminating statements in internal company emails that they would't dream of putting in a letter - - requesting a litigation hold should prevent anything like that from disappearing. Whatever you decide to do, good luck! If you have time, let us know how it turns out, and I'll pass the word on to Darryl.

"The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (Est. 1945) vigorously denies that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had any lasting impact on the gene pool of Japanese citizens."

More about (1) comparative tax burdens in all 50 states and DC, and (2) making fun of the famous last name of a guy who happens to be Indian. Deal with it, Cochise.

I s**t you not: http://cfo.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ocfo/publication/attachments/2012%20Tax%20Rates%20and%20Tax%20Burdens_NATIONWIDE.pdf War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Mahatma said war is not the answer, in other words, Natwar. Wait, what?

Hard to tell if you were being sarcastic. You realize that you may not be in the clear just because nobody else happened to be in your office looking at your monitor, right?

The birds that crap facing north like dogs do can sense the earth's magnetic field and migrate. The birds that randomly crap everywhere (like pigeons) are not magnetic and don't migrate. You can test this theory by holding a magnet next to a pigeon - - there's no attraction.

They could give Monty Python a run for their money - - maybe they were inspired by watching the "Twit Olympics" but were out of pistols:

Antarctica - - First we find extraterrestrial neutrinos there, and now a massive hole (bigger than the Grand Canyon) is discovered beneath the ice. http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2014/01/15/massive-hole-discovered-under-antarctica-bigger-than-the-grand-canyon/ Who knows what's hiding down there? Run North!

This is fairly old but may have some useful basic info anyway: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/mtg/20020124a.asp My oldest brother Darryl suggests that somebody might be able to give you better guidance if you posted answers to the following questions: 1. What state are you in? 2. Did you get a written Good Faith Estimate ("GFE") from the bank? 3. Did you sign a written rate lock agreement? 4. If you signed a written rate lock agreement, did the bank then give you a revised GFE? 5. If you signed a written rate lock agreement, how many days did the agreement lock the promised rate? 6. Did you ever actually pay a fee to the bank in return for the bank's promise to lock the rate for a specific length of time? 7. Did the aborted closing occur before or after the written rate lock expired? 8. Do you have copies of any of the closing documents that were presented to you at the aborted closing? 9. Did you sign any documents at the aborted closing before you got to the one(s) with the wrong interest rate? 10. What was the name of the lender on the aborted closing documents, and was it the exact same name as the name of the bank that employed the person who admitted the "mistake?" 11. Are you certain that the bank employee is sick, and not gone because he or she was fired for incompetence or some other reason? Darryl's a bit of a moron, so you shouldn't rely on anything he says or suggests. But even a blind giraffe finds an acorn now and then. Darryl found this: https://www.aba.com/aba/documents/abaworks/ABAWorksonRESPA.pdf [excerpt below from page 12] [more at the link] and at page 14: