Llama and Lamb

Photography from our two week trip through Germany has been posted. We made a U-shaped trip this October (view our approximate route on Google Maps). We made sure it was after Ocktoberfest. Drunken tourists were the last thing we wanted to see on our trip. For most of the more than a 1000-mile trip, we drove a 2009 Mercedes Benz C-Class car, since the rental company did not have a compact car with automatic transmission. In Berlin and Munich, we took public transportation. There were many beautiful sights in Germany although the naked and rugged western shore of Ireland will still be dearest to my heart. Read more »

I found this comment on a credit card / finance blog the other day:

I’ve been playing the 0% BT for 15 years now–it’s paid all my education, down payment on my house, down payment on a beach house, my cars, the list goes on and on. I have opened just about every card that offered the 0% with no fee, and now, with $38K needed to flip by February, I’ve realized they all have a fee, most of which are 3%, even for current customers. I currently have all 38K on a Chase, and planned to switch it to a Discover which is offering me 0%, but with a 3% fee. However, Discover also has a card that has a $75 fee cap for new customers, but who would ever get approved with 38K credit limit? SOOOO… the trick is to open a new Discover with the better offer, then move your available credit from the old card onto the new card, which will bring my available credit to 40K. To move all that money for just $75 is quite a deal. When the 12 months is up, I’ll do the same, only back onto my Chase. I will have $40K available on my old Chase, then just open whichever one they’ll be offering with 0% BT at the lowest fee and move the available credit from the old Chase. Chase Disney also offers a $75 fee cap, so I’ll just hope it stays that way until next year.

Wow. And we wonder why we have a debt problem in this country.

The election polls opened at 6 am in Indiana. I am within walking distance to my polling stations, so I decided to walk over in case there was a line of cars. There wasn’t. I had heard stories of 2-3 hour lines in Downtown Indianapolis on Monday. Some friends said it looked like a party.

Behind me in line was a active duty soldier in the army and in front of me was a man about to join the Air Force. Talk about picking your boss! One man said that the station had twice as many booths as they did four years ago. The general consensus of those around me was that either McCain or Obama were better than Bush–although nobody discussed any details. No matter whether you can photograph the polling stations or not, I’m sure there will be plenty of personal documentation. I wouldn’t be surprised if Twitter went down at least a few times today. Read more »