Tag: homeownership

Discontent

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I am not happy.  I have not been happy in quite some time, to be perfectly honest.  It has little to do with the year, or things that are happening around the world, because I feel that the state of my country is going down the shitter in my humble opinion, or that the Atlanta Falcons choked the biggest choke there possibly could be in the Superb Owl.  Although, alternate outcomes of either of the last two might have made some days brighter than they’ve been, they are not the reasons to why I am not happy.

It’s the world immediately around me that’s making me feel brought down lately.  I thought I’d feel a little bit of reprieve when some particular events came and went, and would be in the rearview mirror, but I can’t honestly say that things do.  I’m relieved of the unburdening of some of the responsibilities, but the fallout and aftermaths of them linger, and they are still far from resolved, and no matter how much I can tell myself that I shouldn’t care, I still do, because that’s what I do, I care, I give shits, even when I don’t want to.

In a nutshell, my parents’ divorce is going poorly, my family is basically in shambles and I’m in the process of moving all my shit out of the house I’ve lived in for the last 14 years and dealing with a lot of anxiousness pertaining to changes in life.  I do not feel like I have an adequate support system behind me leading me to feel like I don’t have people to really speak to without conflicting interests, and it doesn’t matter where I go, because I don’t really feel like anywhere is necessarily home for me right now.

Continue reading “Discontent” →

The obligatory 2016 year in review post

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Frankly, I don’t much feel like writing lately.  I’ve been leaning on the crutch of trying to find an intriguing story to me with hopes of sparking some motivation to write, and opting to not force the issue and not writing anything if nothing emerges.  Otherwise, I haven’t felt particularly driven to write, and it’s safe to assume that when I’m not busy, have plans or something to do, I’ve kind of been in this depressed state of being, where my life simply kind of feels like it’s on hold and I’m not particularly happy with my life.

But as far as I can observe, that seems to be a general sentiment felt by many, as 2016 comes to a merciful close – not particularly happy.  Make no mistake, whether you believe a narrative can be conveniently encapsulated within a calendar year, or if it’s coincidental to be insulated within twelve particular months, 2016 was a pretty rough year.  Maybe it was because of the litany of celebrity deaths, from Prince, David Bowie to the seemingly endless coverage of Carrie Fisher.  Maybe it’s because of the election of a president that is a known bigot, sexist and racist and the dread of knowing that he will be in charge of the country for at least the next four years.  Maybe it’s the ever-growing dredge and pessimism and ‘if it bleeds it leads’ mentality of the media and the social shitstorm it brews over social media, leading to this endless cycle of negatively connoted news we’re incessantly exposed to.  Maybe it’s because in our own personal lives, we’ve dealt with loss, bad news, or diminished feelings of hope for the future at the home front.

Or maybe it’s a little bit of all of the above, or any combination of such.  Who really knows, but it goes without saying that for most of the people in my own little world, the negative outweighed the good by a tremendous margin, and that notion in itself is why I’m one of the many that is looking forward to 2016 ending, and hoping that 2017 might just be a little bit better.

Continue reading “The obligatory 2016 year in review post” →

Life in limbo

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a little bit of time since I didn’t write about a particular subject in mind, and blabbed on about life in general.  At least, I think it has; it’s sometimes hard to keep track when my brog is still down, which I’ll address in a little bit.

But saying life were all peaches and honey would be inaccurate, I hate to say.  Things are not completely in the toilet by any means, but I’d be lying if I said that I woke up every day and didn’t have a sense of unease and general discontent with life as a whole over the last few weeks, months, and maybe even 2016.  Sure, it’s en vogue to talk about how shitty of a year that 2016 has been in terms of people dying, the rise of Donald Trump, and other negative things, but when I stop and think about things in my own little stratosphere, I have to say that 2016 has been a pretty downer of a year.

Sure, my vacations to Europe and Korea were pretty good, and I can definitively pinpoint where I felt the most happiness I have in the year, maybe longer, but in the grand spectrum of the package as a whole, 2016 has been kind of crappy.  And as a result, I feel like I’m more often sitting on a happiness rating of like 40, out of a 100 on any given day, with occasional spikes of good times and happy moments sprinkled here and there.

Part of my general discontent with life has to do with the fact that I’m an empathetic person, prone to letting the misfortune and unplesantries of others affect my mood.  There’s no denying that part, and it sucks, but I’m an empathetic person who cares about others despite my best efforts to not sometimes.

But I would say the other part has to do with the fact that my future is kind of uncertain as the year winds down, because life is moving forward, I’m not getting any younger, and truth be it, there’s nothing wrong with moving forward; it’s a natural progression of life.

Continue reading “Life in limbo” →

This is me lately

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Minus the caffeine pill addiction, but it’s how I feel way more often than naught.

I have a lot of things that I feel I need to do: edit down nearly 2,000 pictures from Europe and Korea.  Write about experiences in Korea.  Build a prop.  Take care of household chores, like replacing the kitchen light and paring down the shrubs.  Write some more, about random, inane things for a brog that’s been down since fucking April, that nobody will see until I migrate my site.  Clean my house, so that I can someday sell my house.  I need a haircut.

So what do I do?  Write about how I feel like I don’t have enough time, or any time, instead.

In my defense, I am currently not in a place where I can do much of my self-imposed workload, although I could write about Korea but I was there for two weeks how can i parse it all down to a few words???

Continue reading “This is me lately” →

Getting penalized for being competent

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Well that’s bullshit: program funded by $110 million federal dollars will provide up to $50,000 of relief to homeowners stuck in underwater mortgages; under specific conditions, none of which demonstrate the ability to be financially responsible much less competent at all

There’s no sugar-coating it, my home’s been underwater for the better part of, since I’ve lived in it.  The house was purchased in 2004, the value of the home rose a little bit for each of the first three years, and then the housing bubble popped, and the values of homes sunk faster than Yahoo stock.  My life was in a way different place back in the day, but I remember getting the first letter that stated that my home no longer had any equity that could be borrowed from, and as far as I know, that hasn’t recovered, even to this very day.

Needless to say, I’ve become very attuned to the concept of underwater mortgages throughout the years, and I should feel fortunate that my household has been in the minority of most underwater homeowners, and that we’ve always been able to pay the bills every month, and have been able to maintain good standing with all home expenditures throughout the years.  We’re actually getting to the point where the mortgage is practically whittled down to where we might be able to even hit a break-even point, with the underwater estimates.

At this point, a push is a win, and Jen and I can brush ourselves off from this failed gamble and figure out the next steps in our lives.

Continue reading “Getting penalized for being competent” →

Season’s Greetings!

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite my tepid enthusiasm for Black Friday shopping season, I still did a little bit of shopping.  Such is somewhat of a tradition in my household, and nothing says the holidays have arrived than spending a bunch of money on things that we don’t actually need, but still cave into the general consensus that it’s shopping time, when Thanksgiving rolls around.

So for the better part of the last few days, it’s been that Christmas-y feeling of checking the myriad of emails that have shipping tracking codes, and checking statuses, to see just what we can expect to arrive, unbox, and be excited to receive, because getting packages in the mail is almost always a fun thing.

A while back, a package was stolen from our front stoop; although never confirmed definitively, the fact that there was a delivery confirmation, but then no package, led to Jen and I determining that it had to have been stolen, given the fact that there are several hours of many of the work days in which someone might not be able to open the front door, combined with the fact that USPS, UPS and FedEx are all incapable of using common sense, and leave packages in plain sight in front of our front door, instead of the slightest of pivoting and placing them behind the shrubs.

Continue reading “Season’s Greetings!” →

Have you ever tried to repair a broken window??

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So in this Chase Bank commercial, Drew Brees’s son kicks a football in the yard; but because he’s the son of Breesus, it’s implied that he has some genetic football talent passed down onto him despite the fact that his dad is a quarterback and not a Gramatica.  That being said, the ball goes sailing at a high velocity, to such a magnitude it breaks through several houses walls and windows, much to the chagrin of Drew Brees himself.  Bewildered neighbors stare at the carnage caused by the lead food of Brees Jr.

But no problem, because Drew Brees is an NFL quarterback, Drew Brees is rich as shit.  And thanks to his handy new Chase banking app, he’s able to parlay chunks of his shit-rich to his various neighbors whose homes have incurred damage at the leg of Junior.

I’d like to point out the part where Drew Brees wires $200 to one of his neighbors for a broken window.  Because I am currently dealing with a similar situation currently, however I cannot say that a young place-kicking prodigy kicked a football through my window.  No, it was just a freak accident involving my landscaper, a mower, and an errant stone in my yard that went sailing into my glass, shattering it.  It is not a big deal at all, considering it technically happened last year, and I’ve just been too lazy to deal with it until more recently.

Continue reading “Have you ever tried to repair a broken window??” →