We certainly got dumped on again today with the rain, but at least the sun is shining now, so hopefully we won’t get anymore tonight. I heard we have flash flood warnings out which doesn’t make anyone living near water very happy. My prophesy of it being a hot and dry summer certainly didn’t come to pass. The only reason I believed it would take place, is that some years back we had a quirky winter like last’s, which was then followed by a very hot and dry summer. Once again, there’s no rhyme or reason to these recent years’ weather patterns.
Pretty much the bulk of my day was spent getting files in order, calls made, and emails returned. With the end of our third quarter coming up and closings scheduled, I had to make sure all bases are covered. I have to bite my tongue whenever a banker calls and wants closing figures sent ASAP, but on the flip-side, they take their sweet time getting appraisals done and loan files processed. Not that I’m steering anyone towards one bank or another, I must say a recent sale that’s getting financed thru Wells Fargo, moved thru processing like lightening, and that included the appraisal. I made a point to call the loan originator and thank her for the speed in which that loan got fully approved. We’re now able to get it closed far earlier than expected.
Part of my afternoon was spent working on an ad that will go in this Sunday’s Globe Gazette which will be a notice for a public open house/outdoor barbecue the Good Shepherd and Holtz Realty will be hosting Saturday, September 29th from 1:00 – 3:00 pm. I tweaked the copy enough to where I believed it was good enough to take over to Good Shepherd and have their CEO give me his blessing on it. It looked good to him, so off to the Globe Gazette I drove. While driving there, I suddenly realized Holtz Realty has been in business for 75 years, and still going strong.
When I got there, I wasn’t in the best of moods to find that they’ve now changed the Celebrations section of Sunday’s insert. That change was primarily due all of the Globe’s printing now being done in Des Moines. While standing there waiting for my recently assigned ad rep to come up front, I mentioned to one of the clerks how depressing it was to see their building being nearly void of workers, when not too many years ago, their offices and cubicles were filled with real people who actually worked at making their newspaper readable. What I was seeing today is ubiquitous to nearly all newspaper offices across our Nation, and you can thank the internet for creating all the thousands of our Country’s now vacant brick and mortar buildings.
Now if we expand these truths in our minds, we’re left to wonder where it will take us all in say 20 years. Will hard-bound books be museum pieces encapsulated in glass? Will our world become something like what happened in our past and present totalitarian governments that purged all free thoughts by burning mounds of forbidden books? You can bet it’s even happening right now with the internet-blocking being done in countries like China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and the list goes on.
As we’ve come to know real democracy, I’m of the opinion that the European Union and the United States are our last two towering bastions remaining in today’s world. Free thinking and fearless expression is what keeps us from turning into tribalist who believe only our way is the right way. Yes, American democracy has been under siege by far-right and far-left loud-mouthed politicians who, if able to get their way, would turn our Country into a “Democrazy”.
The real culprits are those who fan the flames of fear and ignorance. If we don’t continue to push for people to get all the more educated, they’ll find themselves as sheep being lead to the slaughter, and I tell as many people possible, to never fear speaking their minds, and above all, to never walk away from a debate.
The above photo is one I took today of the lot I listed yesterday which is located at 1108 -16th St. NE. Now you see what I was speaking about last night regarding the trees. It would be a perfect place to build an inexpensive home which already has in place, maturing trees beaconing for someone to come and lounge under their canopies. The neighbor told me today that she counted 16 wild turkeys strutting back and forth across the street late yesterday afternoon. I begged her to take a photo next time and share.
Tonight’s one-liner is: You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
