November 24th, 2008 → 11:30 pm @ terry
I’m sitting here trying to decide exactly how to say what I want to say. It can be terribly hard at times to put the words down in such a way that you absorb the mood I intend. Even though it’s late, I’m going to try to transfer today’s mood to you, but first a little background.
Last week I was extremely fortunate to have visitors come stay with us for a few days. Even though the visit was for business purposes, it’s was nice to get the feeling that there could be future visits based entirely on friendship.
My guests went to a lot of trouble and expense to visit. And, four or five days “out of the office” is always a gamble. So, I was fully aware that the business endeavors must be accomplished and “southern hospitality” had to play second fiddle.
You will benefit from out meeting. It took my vistors four or five days but they did finally make me see the light – this web site as well as cubicyard.us and therepreport.com are filling a need in the industry and causing some things to happen in the industry. Some of the topics brought to my attention were real eye-openers and made me realize I was ignorant of some trends that were taking place right before my eyes.
How will you benefit. Well, you will start seeing more “meat and potatoes” at all of the sites. This site will still be primarily for sharing information about the mortgage field services side of the business and to tell you about my days. I still feel there is no better way for you to get a feel for the business than for you to read about and share my days with me.
There will be a renewed effort to introduce new material to the business manual, much of which will be shared here on the site. Everyone knows whats going on in the mortgage business and the financial world and lord knows it’s effecting our business in a big way. There’s lots of new stuff coming.
I started this post by saying I hoped to transfer today’s mood to you. What is that mood? I hope you are not disappointed with my choice of words but I can think of none better than “astonishment”. I have been in this business long enough that I truly thought I had seen it all. Boy was I wrong. I have never in my life seen things like they are now and even though the money is flowing like water, I almost hope I never see it like this again. I’m actually having to work, work, work!
I’m going to call it a night. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. While out working, I will be jotting down some ideas on info I want to pass on to you later. I’m also going to start a Q&A for the site and have decided that it will be available by subscription. I figure that’s one way to cut down on the time I spend on the phone and the information can be shared with everyone that is willing to pay a small access fee.
Things are different today. Maybe they shouldn’t be; or maybe they’re really not. If you think my writings are not worthy of your thoughts, you might be willing to think about something Benjamin Franklin once said:
 ”Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
Think about that!
Here’s another:
“Everyone cries, a Union is absolutely necessary, but when they come to the manner and form of the Union, their weak noddles are perfectly distracted.”
That one makes me think of all the reps hollering in the Yahoo Groups!
November 21st, 2008 → 9:47 pm @ terry
Since I have a terrible memory, I cannot say when this first happened to me but I do remember I was in a coastal town in Louisiana. I was responsible for the cash kept aboard our boat so I never let the cook go to town for groceries unless I was with him. We had a rather large purchase of supplies and I was paying in $100 bills. What shocked me was the clerk told me there were no bills to give me my change – all he had was coins. I received $37 and some pennies – all in change. Almost all of the coins were minted in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s. When I commented about the coins, the clerk said “Yea. Times are real hard. Most people are going into their piggy banks and coin collections.”
I am getting a lot of silver coins in my change nowadays.  I know what that means. I stopped at the local gas station where I have been buying gas for about twenty years. I know all the employees so I asked about a wooden cola crate setting on a stack of beer cans behind the counter. “Full of change! Get too much to keep it in the register”.
Wow. Now I’m beginning to think things may be worse than I thought. I’m really not very good at offering comfort. I do, however, think I have a knack for survival tactics. I have a lot of experience at that since I spent a large part of my life broke and eating fish and taters three times a day for weeks on end. Even then I found out it can get worse when there’s no money to buy the oil for cooking and worse still when there’s no money to buy alcohol for the stove.
Am I off track here? Well, maybe; but I just wanted to say that I’ve been there. I get a lot of calls asking “where do we go from here?” “What do we do?” Well, I don’t really know – not exactly. But I do say, “Don’t give up. I think better times are ahead and I’m going to do my part to help, too.”