Maxed Out

If anyone has not seen the documentary Maxed Out, it comes highly recommended by...ME. Debt had become widely accepted as the norm in this country. I'm not going to get in to the state of the economy and the mistakes that were made and why we are in the situation that we are in, I'll leave that to the pundits and less informed amateurs.

The subject that I would like to be talked about more is FICO scores and the credit bureaus that control them. I am talking about the three overlords: Equifax, Experian and Transunion. There is very little oversight of these entities and they control so much of our lives, which is fine and everyone should be accountable for their credit.

For as much control that these companies posses we should know how they formulate our score right? How come one bureau can say our score is X and a different bureau says it is way less than X based on the same exact information. These scores can save you or cost you a lot of money and there are plenty of injustices that have occurred without explanation.

It is not talked about enough and if my BLOG was accountable to anyone that wanted me to be more detailed, I would be but since it's not, all I'll say is watch the documentary or do some googling and write your congressman.

Holiday Memories!

Holidays were always special because my parents worked so hard to make them special. Cool thing about growing up in California was that you didn't have to wait until Spring to use the roller blades or bikes and it wasn't too cold to throw the BO Jackson silver and black football that my dad got me when I was eight.

Some of my most precious memories as a child are with my brother at Christmas time. The year we got our first Playstation, the year we got our roller blades, the year we got this and the year we got that. Looking back, each of those moments were monumental at the age of 10, 11 or 12.

Those gifts are no longer apart of my daily life but what is apart of my life are those memories we made together when one of us was the lookout for the parents and the other went through the shopping bags (that were in the hiding place that we weren't supposed to know about) to see what we scored or when we stayed up till 2 and 3 in the morning perfecting MK3 fatalities.

Miss you Pat and I look forward to your homecoming for Christmas 2010 and sharing it with the soon to be new addition.

God Speed...

Chink in the Armor

A twenty five year old mother to be collapsed while on "duty" at a coffee shop in Brooklyn New York. Off "duty" EMTs were in the right place at the right time, or so it appeared. When asked to aide the fallen citizen, both FDNY EMTs suggested that they dial 911 and left. The mom and her child (too premature) later died at Long Island College Hospital.

Hard to imagine being in a situation where you knew that you could help another human being and bailing out instead. Most of us would relish the oppurtunity to step in and be the hero, whether it be performing mouth to mouth, the heimlich maneuver or getting a cat out of a tree. How rewarding must it be to answer the question "what do you do for a living?", with "I am a FDNY EMT".

This incident is not and indictment on the FDNY, fact is that the FDNY is a symbol in this country and has become synonymous with the idea of selflessness, courage and honor. Few details were released in this story but it is hard to imagine a reasonable explanation for the EMTs actions.

Merry Christmas!