Nothing like the holidays to pull me away from any time to blog. Even now Megan is pulling at my arm and pissed that I want a few minutes to myself. I swear, last week was the longest short week I've ever had. It was like the 3 day work week that would never end. Thankfully it finally did, and I've been able to forget about work for a few days.
Thanksgiving was uneventful this year as we did our standard day of driving. First to New Ulm to Andrea's parents house for an early meal followed up with a drive back to my Mom's house for an evening meal. I decided this year to give up pie and for the most part succeeded, although I did sneak a few bites at my Mom's house because one of my aunts had made a bunch of home made pies. Normally we just have an army of Baker's Square pies.
Last night I took two of my friends out for a birthday dinner. They both have birthdays this week. It was a great visit, like it usually is. It's simply amazing how much can change in a single year (the last time we were all together). Combined, we all had some pretty major life events this year. Here's to hoping we can find more time to get together in 2009.
So speaking of change and 2009, I'm at that point where I'm thinking about the new year and things I want to change/do better/improve. Not sure where I'll end up, but I have a few ideas cooking. Some honestly too private to share, others that I'll probably post about. One way or another, I have this premonition that 2009 is going to be a very pivotal year (and not just for me).
The big news for me and 2009 is that Andrea and I are expecting our second child, due to arrive around May. I know it's kind of odd to just mention this for the first time at the end here, as opposed to an entire post devoted to the news. I'm sure those will come eventually! The important part: everyone is healthy and Andrea is doing great. She seems to be through the rougher morning sickness parts and she heard the baby's heartbeat earlier this month.
That's all for now, but expect more news in the coming weeks and of course, my yearly rambling about goals or, dare I say, my new years resolutions.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
1am wake up call
You may recall at the beginning of the month I was mentioning having tough sleeping times at night. Well, it's 1am and I'm having another one. We went to bed around 9pm with Megan sleeping in our bed. She was having a rough night so we just decided to lay down. Fast forward to 12:30am and Andrea asked if I would move Megan down to her bed. It didn't go so well and by the end of it I was wide awake. After tossing and turning for 30 minutes, I decided to just get out of bed.
Oddly, work isn't the main thing keeping me up at this point. Oh, don't get me wrong. It's contributing no doubt. Today I stood up in front of a room full of CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, COOs, VPs, and directors (15-20 total?). Nerve wracking? Just a little bit. I survived, and now have one more life experience in my back pocket to draw from. Should I need to do it again, I'll probably do an even better job of it. Thankfully, my portion was a mere 10 minutes.
No, the thing keeping me up tonight is... drum roll... my hobby! Yes, sadly my one remaining form of entertainment, Dungeons and Dragons, is keeping me up. My mind is running through scenarios, ideas, plot lines, and all the rest. Added to that are my struggles with getting people together, and my constant thoughts of "Oh jeez, I should just give this all up." I've basically forced the guys I play with to give me more feedback that they actually enjoy playing enough to keep going. Because without that feedback, it just felt like I was forcing them to play for my own amusement.
We will be "playing" Saturday night. I put the quotes around playing, because honestly, I don't even know how much playing we will actually do. My brother won't be there, so that's one short already. Another guy is most likely working late, and hasn't got back to me with a specific time. So that leaves only 3 others... Not that we CAN'T run the session with 3 players and me, but it just makes it much more difficult. Not to mention, the whole continuity thing of "Oh and now that Neal is here, his guy magically comes walking in from around the corner."
I've also been putting together an "Adventure Website" for my own personal fun. I'd say in total, it was around 10 hours of work, so not too bad all things considered. The hardest part was finding a good starting template. I think I spent a whole hour searching google and finding something simple that I liked. The end result is sort of neat, and I thought it would be a fun way to track the adventure over time. And give the "storyline" more life, so the players could look back and review "Okay, what the heck happened 4 weeks ago at the last session?".
Shawn's crazy "I have too much time on my hands" AD&D Web site
Now I suppose, I'll try to go get some sleep. Gotta work in 4 hours!
Oddly, work isn't the main thing keeping me up at this point. Oh, don't get me wrong. It's contributing no doubt. Today I stood up in front of a room full of CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, COOs, VPs, and directors (15-20 total?). Nerve wracking? Just a little bit. I survived, and now have one more life experience in my back pocket to draw from. Should I need to do it again, I'll probably do an even better job of it. Thankfully, my portion was a mere 10 minutes.
No, the thing keeping me up tonight is... drum roll... my hobby! Yes, sadly my one remaining form of entertainment, Dungeons and Dragons, is keeping me up. My mind is running through scenarios, ideas, plot lines, and all the rest. Added to that are my struggles with getting people together, and my constant thoughts of "Oh jeez, I should just give this all up." I've basically forced the guys I play with to give me more feedback that they actually enjoy playing enough to keep going. Because without that feedback, it just felt like I was forcing them to play for my own amusement.
We will be "playing" Saturday night. I put the quotes around playing, because honestly, I don't even know how much playing we will actually do. My brother won't be there, so that's one short already. Another guy is most likely working late, and hasn't got back to me with a specific time. So that leaves only 3 others... Not that we CAN'T run the session with 3 players and me, but it just makes it much more difficult. Not to mention, the whole continuity thing of "Oh and now that Neal is here, his guy magically comes walking in from around the corner."
I've also been putting together an "Adventure Website" for my own personal fun. I'd say in total, it was around 10 hours of work, so not too bad all things considered. The hardest part was finding a good starting template. I think I spent a whole hour searching google and finding something simple that I liked. The end result is sort of neat, and I thought it would be a fun way to track the adventure over time. And give the "storyline" more life, so the players could look back and review "Okay, what the heck happened 4 weeks ago at the last session?".
Shawn's crazy "I have too much time on my hands" AD&D Web site
Now I suppose, I'll try to go get some sleep. Gotta work in 4 hours!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Why I Need a Life
Okay maybe "life" is a bit much. More like, "why I need other things in my life besides work". That was just too long for a blog title. Work has been dragging on me lately. 10 hour days, end of the year type of crap, new stuff going out soon, etc. Same story really, only this time, it's almost anti climactic. I'm just too jaded.
I had this long post made up, and at the last minute decided it was just too much about work. Call me paranoid I guess. You hear about the whole "Oh my gawd, don't blog about work or you will get fired" crap. I guess I buy into that. It's sad really, because it's a pretty funny story. If you ever talk to me in person sometime, have me tell you the "The 50,000th bug" story.
I ran into my old physics teacher at the gym last night. It was fun seeing him, I suppose he was surprised I remembered his full name. He said he remembered me, although I just assumed he was being nice. But then again, if there was any teacher I had that would actually be able to remember students from 14 years ago, it would be Mr. Michels. We chatted for a bit, and I told him how over the years I always love to tell people the model rocket story.
The model rocket experiment involved launching a rocket and determining the height it reached using a known distance on the ground and a measured angle. Simple trigonometry. I had my normal rocket for the experiment, and also one of the smallest rockets you could buy, typically called "The Mosquito". I painted it all black, because that was cool. This rocket could only fit the smallest possible engine, size A.
After the experiment, I launched my Mosquito. It basically disappeared the moment it launched. It was too small to follow... Well, that was fun. Later on, someone ended up finding it in the field and brought it back to me. Mr. Michels had an idea. Let's tape the largest possible engine (size D) around it and then launch it! Hell ya, that sounds like a great idea!
The result? Just a little too much engine. It launched so fast, it got stuck on the wire of the launch pad, which fell over, and then shot straight off along the ground into some nearby woods. Mr. Michels looked around, and goes: "Don't tell anyone about that!"
When I mentioned to him that I loved to tell that story, he said that he still tells it in his classroom too! I'm sure his version is a little toned down, but it was fun to hear him say that. He also said that they had a new group simply called "The Rockets". They have competitions where they have to launch a rocket with an egg and altimeter inside, and reach an exact height of 750 feet. Then the rocket has to land within 45 seconds. Apparently the AVHS team has made it to nationals 4 times.
Googled up some links:
AVHS Rocket Team
Rocket Team seeks rarified air of national title (Sept 2007)
I had this long post made up, and at the last minute decided it was just too much about work. Call me paranoid I guess. You hear about the whole "Oh my gawd, don't blog about work or you will get fired" crap. I guess I buy into that. It's sad really, because it's a pretty funny story. If you ever talk to me in person sometime, have me tell you the "The 50,000th bug" story.
I ran into my old physics teacher at the gym last night. It was fun seeing him, I suppose he was surprised I remembered his full name. He said he remembered me, although I just assumed he was being nice. But then again, if there was any teacher I had that would actually be able to remember students from 14 years ago, it would be Mr. Michels. We chatted for a bit, and I told him how over the years I always love to tell people the model rocket story.
The model rocket experiment involved launching a rocket and determining the height it reached using a known distance on the ground and a measured angle. Simple trigonometry. I had my normal rocket for the experiment, and also one of the smallest rockets you could buy, typically called "The Mosquito". I painted it all black, because that was cool. This rocket could only fit the smallest possible engine, size A.
After the experiment, I launched my Mosquito. It basically disappeared the moment it launched. It was too small to follow... Well, that was fun. Later on, someone ended up finding it in the field and brought it back to me. Mr. Michels had an idea. Let's tape the largest possible engine (size D) around it and then launch it! Hell ya, that sounds like a great idea!
The result? Just a little too much engine. It launched so fast, it got stuck on the wire of the launch pad, which fell over, and then shot straight off along the ground into some nearby woods. Mr. Michels looked around, and goes: "Don't tell anyone about that!"
When I mentioned to him that I loved to tell that story, he said that he still tells it in his classroom too! I'm sure his version is a little toned down, but it was fun to hear him say that. He also said that they had a new group simply called "The Rockets". They have competitions where they have to launch a rocket with an egg and altimeter inside, and reach an exact height of 750 feet. Then the rocket has to land within 45 seconds. Apparently the AVHS team has made it to nationals 4 times.
Googled up some links:
AVHS Rocket Team
Rocket Team seeks rarified air of national title (Sept 2007)
Monday, November 10, 2008
Hold on Tight
It's 11:11pm and I should be sleeping. But work is no fun, and I'd rather blog a response to Scooter, about this book I'm reading. A small part of me wonders if I'm just intellectually starved. Like when you eat that first bite of cottage cheese after a 10 mile run. Cottage cheese tastes "okay" by itself, but after a long run without breakfast? It tastes DIVINE!
I agree that we are better off than before. The point Meyers was trying to make is that our material well-being, health, and safety aren't proportionate to our psychic or emotional well-being. That's the part that I agreed with, and have tried to touch on in the past in my whiny sort of way. (then Keara comes in and tells me to count my blessings)
So now we are right back to the same question about happiness. How can one be unhappy given all the blessings mentioned above? (material well-being, health, and safety) And this author, in a long, drawn out, round about way tries to tackle that question. Not directly, but with small tid-bits here and there that I'm slowly trying to digest.
Sadly, the books focus is not a question on happiness, but of why Americans are discontent (his main beef it seems, is with media). Still, I find myself connecting to a lot of different things he has to say, especially a section on "Broadband Babies", referring to those born after the turn of the century, in the range of the 2020 college grads. It's hard not to think about that part in context of Megan, growing up in this age.
The problem with the book is that it is seriously ALL over the place. It's like a long stream of consciousness with not enough organization. It's an enjoyable read, but an odd mix of deep philosophical concepts with light anecdotal stories. But when he starts quoting my favorite philosopher (Søren Kierkegaard), I can't help but read on.
I agree that we are better off than before. The point Meyers was trying to make is that our material well-being, health, and safety aren't proportionate to our psychic or emotional well-being. That's the part that I agreed with, and have tried to touch on in the past in my whiny sort of way. (then Keara comes in and tells me to count my blessings)
So now we are right back to the same question about happiness. How can one be unhappy given all the blessings mentioned above? (material well-being, health, and safety) And this author, in a long, drawn out, round about way tries to tackle that question. Not directly, but with small tid-bits here and there that I'm slowly trying to digest.
Sadly, the books focus is not a question on happiness, but of why Americans are discontent (his main beef it seems, is with media). Still, I find myself connecting to a lot of different things he has to say, especially a section on "Broadband Babies", referring to those born after the turn of the century, in the range of the 2020 college grads. It's hard not to think about that part in context of Megan, growing up in this age.
The problem with the book is that it is seriously ALL over the place. It's like a long stream of consciousness with not enough organization. It's an enjoyable read, but an odd mix of deep philosophical concepts with light anecdotal stories. But when he starts quoting my favorite philosopher (Søren Kierkegaard), I can't help but read on.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Truthiness
The other day, I was reading one of Andrea's magazines. I couldn't tell you the name of it without going upstairs to check it. The Week maybe? The important part is that somewhere in the magazine, I read the following quote from Mark Twain, which I think I've read before:
I then read an interesting story at the end of the magazine, which ended up being an excerpt from a book. Combined with the quote above, I decided to get my hands on this book: Why We Hate Us. Luckily, it was readily available at the Library.
In the second page of the preface, the author states, "I make no claims to originality..." A man after my own heart! I was hooked. About every other page of this book has some thought or idea I'd love to take and make a blog post about. (and in some small ways, have tried to)
Needless to say, I find myself agreeing with a lot of what Dick Meyer has to say about American culture, values, and why we hate us. I even agree with how he clearly states look, there are tons of people so bad off in society they don't have the luxury of the kinds of things I think (worry?) about. As he puts it, "They can't afford to indulge in social self-loathing."
But I can. And for no other reason then why a dog licks himself.
At one point, he quotes the book The Progress Paradox which basically states how all measurements of typical "standard of living" have increased since the end of World War II. "... just about every objective indicator of social welfare has trended upward on a pretty much uninterrupted basis for two generations."
What's the opposite of that? Just this:
Am I looking to a very specific place to find validation of my own beliefs and thoughts about what happiness means? Maybe... But maybe that's exactly what *I* needed to be happier. Just confirmation that other people out there believe what I do. That see the fake, bullshit, and materialistic aspects of our culture for what they are. And that it's okay to hate the system you are part of.
On the last page of the preface, he also states, "I don't have answers." That sums it up right there. I never said I had answers either, or did I ever think there were any. But not having any answers shouldn't stop one from asking the questions or engaging in intellectual discourse about the things that, quite frankly, "make me hate us."
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.
I then read an interesting story at the end of the magazine, which ended up being an excerpt from a book. Combined with the quote above, I decided to get my hands on this book: Why We Hate Us. Luckily, it was readily available at the Library.
In the second page of the preface, the author states, "I make no claims to originality..." A man after my own heart! I was hooked. About every other page of this book has some thought or idea I'd love to take and make a blog post about. (and in some small ways, have tried to)
Needless to say, I find myself agreeing with a lot of what Dick Meyer has to say about American culture, values, and why we hate us. I even agree with how he clearly states look, there are tons of people so bad off in society they don't have the luxury of the kinds of things I think (worry?) about. As he puts it, "They can't afford to indulge in social self-loathing."
But I can. And for no other reason then why a dog licks himself.
At one point, he quotes the book The Progress Paradox which basically states how all measurements of typical "standard of living" have increased since the end of World War II. "... just about every objective indicator of social welfare has trended upward on a pretty much uninterrupted basis for two generations."
What's the opposite of that? Just this:
But graphs would lose their skyward direction when the topics turn to the inner self. The trend line for happiness has been flat for fifty years. The trend line is negative for the number of people who consider themselves "very happy," that percentage gradually declining since the 1940s.
Am I looking to a very specific place to find validation of my own beliefs and thoughts about what happiness means? Maybe... But maybe that's exactly what *I* needed to be happier. Just confirmation that other people out there believe what I do. That see the fake, bullshit, and materialistic aspects of our culture for what they are. And that it's okay to hate the system you are part of.
On the last page of the preface, he also states, "I don't have answers." That sums it up right there. I never said I had answers either, or did I ever think there were any. But not having any answers shouldn't stop one from asking the questions or engaging in intellectual discourse about the things that, quite frankly, "make me hate us."
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Sure Happy It's Thursday
Note: Blog title last used Thursday, March 02, 2006
Just to prove my unoriginality, I even copy from myself. Neat huh? Apparently that is the first time I had ever posted about work... weird. One of the things about work is that you can typically drone on for long periods of time, discussing in vague terms problems, struggles, communication issues, things that aren't being done well by management, etc. But the truth is, all that stuff is just bull shit rambling about things that have no meaning. (something I excel at)
In the 10 plus years that I've worked at the bottom of the ladder in my cube farm, the reality I've come to see is this: the people at the bottom doing all the work don't have enough power to make any decent change and the people at the top making all the decisions don't understand enough about how things really are to make good decisions.
In the end, people seem to just float along, some causing positive waves, some causing negative waves, but for the most part, just going along for the ride. And in the end, hoping that the ship doesn't sink so they can keep getting a paycheck. It isn't that people don't want to do a "good job" or "work hard", it's just that when the ship is so large, doing anything to change the course is pretty much impossible.
The cool part about being at the bottom of the ladder is this: if an iceberg is coming, you are usually the first one to see it way before anyone else. Not that I see any on the horizon right now, but I have my predictions. And in my experience, my predictions tend to turn out correct more often than I would like.
Just to prove my unoriginality, I even copy from myself. Neat huh? Apparently that is the first time I had ever posted about work... weird. One of the things about work is that you can typically drone on for long periods of time, discussing in vague terms problems, struggles, communication issues, things that aren't being done well by management, etc. But the truth is, all that stuff is just bull shit rambling about things that have no meaning. (something I excel at)
In the 10 plus years that I've worked at the bottom of the ladder in my cube farm, the reality I've come to see is this: the people at the bottom doing all the work don't have enough power to make any decent change and the people at the top making all the decisions don't understand enough about how things really are to make good decisions.
In the end, people seem to just float along, some causing positive waves, some causing negative waves, but for the most part, just going along for the ride. And in the end, hoping that the ship doesn't sink so they can keep getting a paycheck. It isn't that people don't want to do a "good job" or "work hard", it's just that when the ship is so large, doing anything to change the course is pretty much impossible.
The cool part about being at the bottom of the ladder is this: if an iceberg is coming, you are usually the first one to see it way before anyone else. Not that I see any on the horizon right now, but I have my predictions. And in my experience, my predictions tend to turn out correct more often than I would like.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Case of the... oh who am I kidding
The weather today erased any Monday blahs. I couldn't BELIEVE how nice it was outside for another late season outdoor run. I also got out on Sunday at the last minute. I drove ALL the way to the gym before even realizing how nice out it was, and changing my indoor plans to outdoor. 3 days and 24 miles later...
It's amazing how my brain works. I had my standard "wake up at 2am for no reason" again last night, only this time it was different. For starters, it was Sunday, so by this time I had forgotten about any lingering problems/issues/lame crap at work. Added to that was the fact that we had made our decisions about our refinancing. End result? The 2am wake up was just a blip, as I drifted back to sleep almost immediately. Ahhhh was it nice.
I didn't post anything about Halloween yet, but we had a lot of fun Friday night. We made plans to go around with our neighbors, and their kids. Andrea was working with Megan part of the day, going over what we would do. Mainly we just wanted her to focus on saying the Trick or Treat and Thank you's. The first picture is actually from the previous weekend, when Megan was at my Mom's house on Saturday night. She wanted me to share that... The one after is the night of Halloween.
The night started out quite funny, because our neighbors arrived and lo and behold... Their daughter was also a Unicorn! We hadn't talked at all about what our kids were going to dress up as, so it was a surprise to everyone to see the girls dressed the same. Too funny!
The weather was great, the kids had a great time, Megan did well for the most part. She got tired eventually, which was understandable. That costume she had was very warm and heavy. I overdosed heavily on candy all weekend, but what else is new. There is a reason I don't buy candy, cause I can't stop eating it.
Well that's all for now. If I want to get more than 1 post up a week, I can't go on forever. Gotta save something to drone on about later this week.
It's amazing how my brain works. I had my standard "wake up at 2am for no reason" again last night, only this time it was different. For starters, it was Sunday, so by this time I had forgotten about any lingering problems/issues/lame crap at work. Added to that was the fact that we had made our decisions about our refinancing. End result? The 2am wake up was just a blip, as I drifted back to sleep almost immediately. Ahhhh was it nice.
I didn't post anything about Halloween yet, but we had a lot of fun Friday night. We made plans to go around with our neighbors, and their kids. Andrea was working with Megan part of the day, going over what we would do. Mainly we just wanted her to focus on saying the Trick or Treat and Thank you's. The first picture is actually from the previous weekend, when Megan was at my Mom's house on Saturday night. She wanted me to share that... The one after is the night of Halloween.
The night started out quite funny, because our neighbors arrived and lo and behold... Their daughter was also a Unicorn! We hadn't talked at all about what our kids were going to dress up as, so it was a surprise to everyone to see the girls dressed the same. Too funny!
The weather was great, the kids had a great time, Megan did well for the most part. She got tired eventually, which was understandable. That costume she had was very warm and heavy. I overdosed heavily on candy all weekend, but what else is new. There is a reason I don't buy candy, cause I can't stop eating it.
Well that's all for now. If I want to get more than 1 post up a week, I can't go on forever. Gotta save something to drone on about later this week.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me
Did you know that phrase originated from the Simpsons? Me either... This whole only blogging on Saturday crap has to end soon. I'll see what I can do about that, and try my best to get more crazy thoughts up during the week as well.
Turns out Andrea and I both couldn't sleep from 2am-4am this morning. We've both had trouble sleeping lately, from the Megan coming into the bedroom incidents, to stress, to everything else in between. Usually for me during the week I wake up and start thinking about work and CANNOT SHUT OFF MY BRAIN. Eventually I just have to use, I guess what you might call, focusing exercises. I have to basically concentrate on thinking about nothing. Trust me, it's not fun.
Last night for my 2am tossing and turning, I got into my usual thinking (worrying?) about the future, finances, work, and all that. You see, Andrea and I are on the brink of refinancing. We locked in a very decent rate of 5.875% on a 30 year fixed, along with a secondary interest only loan at U.S. Prime+1. That means the secondary will start (and have a floor) of 5%, due to recent cuts that have the current U.S. Prime at 4%. Needless to say, it's a decent set of loans.
The bad news, and the part that makes the decision harder is that we had the official appraisal, and it wasn't pretty. Our home value came back at $1,000 more than we paid for it. That's it. 0.13% value increase over 4 years! I'm trying to look at it in a positive way, and think, we'll at least in this worst period of home value, my home was able to maintain?
Overall, any refinance has associated fees and taxes, so there will be some costs associated with it, which in effect, cause us to "take a step back" in terms of overall loan debt. And with the home value what it is, our second mortgage is not going to go away any time soon, which was the whole goal of the refinancing to a 30 year fixed. (only have 1 mortgage) So if we go through with this refinance... it's going to have obvious long term implications. But not refinancing now could lead to even worse situations in 3 years, when our 7/1 ARM expires.
Hands down, the biggest impact is this: If we go forward with this refinance, we are basically in effect saying, Yes, we are going to live in this house for the next 5 years at a minimum. I have no doubts that we can make that work, and that ultimately, it is probably the better decision right now in our life (to stay put). And the truth is, back when all the home market shit hit the fan, I knew right then I would be unable to move for a long time. So it's not like this is some big surprise.
Now, if only gas could stay at $2.06 for the next 5-10 years... Maybe the commute wouldn't hurt so bad.
Turns out Andrea and I both couldn't sleep from 2am-4am this morning. We've both had trouble sleeping lately, from the Megan coming into the bedroom incidents, to stress, to everything else in between. Usually for me during the week I wake up and start thinking about work and CANNOT SHUT OFF MY BRAIN. Eventually I just have to use, I guess what you might call, focusing exercises. I have to basically concentrate on thinking about nothing. Trust me, it's not fun.
Last night for my 2am tossing and turning, I got into my usual thinking (worrying?) about the future, finances, work, and all that. You see, Andrea and I are on the brink of refinancing. We locked in a very decent rate of 5.875% on a 30 year fixed, along with a secondary interest only loan at U.S. Prime+1. That means the secondary will start (and have a floor) of 5%, due to recent cuts that have the current U.S. Prime at 4%. Needless to say, it's a decent set of loans.
The bad news, and the part that makes the decision harder is that we had the official appraisal, and it wasn't pretty. Our home value came back at $1,000 more than we paid for it. That's it. 0.13% value increase over 4 years! I'm trying to look at it in a positive way, and think, we'll at least in this worst period of home value, my home was able to maintain?
Overall, any refinance has associated fees and taxes, so there will be some costs associated with it, which in effect, cause us to "take a step back" in terms of overall loan debt. And with the home value what it is, our second mortgage is not going to go away any time soon, which was the whole goal of the refinancing to a 30 year fixed. (only have 1 mortgage) So if we go through with this refinance... it's going to have obvious long term implications. But not refinancing now could lead to even worse situations in 3 years, when our 7/1 ARM expires.
Hands down, the biggest impact is this: If we go forward with this refinance, we are basically in effect saying, Yes, we are going to live in this house for the next 5 years at a minimum. I have no doubts that we can make that work, and that ultimately, it is probably the better decision right now in our life (to stay put). And the truth is, back when all the home market shit hit the fan, I knew right then I would be unable to move for a long time. So it's not like this is some big surprise.
Now, if only gas could stay at $2.06 for the next 5-10 years... Maybe the commute wouldn't hurt so bad.
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