Monday, September 25, 2006

late at night

I Liked School, I Did, I Did!

The traffic getting there was horrible.  I thought that because we should be going in the opposite direction as normal rush hour traffic, that we’d miss it.  We didn’t.  We hit the Spaghetti Bowl jam just like everyone else, only we were surprised.  Whoops.  We still got there on time, but we intended to get there early.  It took us at least 45 minutes to get there, but maybe 20 minutes to get home.

So, the loan officer class - I thought it would be super dull.  Okay, lots of the terms *are* super dull, but the instructor is pretty cool.  She’s chatty, yes she is.  She’s also super goals, goals, goals, Go Oprah!-ish.  Hard to explain, I think.  Still, she made the class way more interesting than it could’ve been.  Plus, she told us how much money she made in her first six months (100k) and how much she made total in her first year (372k, I think it was), and she didn’t have any experience when she started.  Yes, she’s a much better talker than either Leigh-Ann or I am, but that’s not how we want to find loans.  We want to do it online, with a company that does multi-state mortgages, and we want to do it through email.  We have a website, we have marketing ideas, and well, we need your help.  Yes, you, whoever you are reading this.  Those of you who know us, know we would never cheat you.  In fact, in most financial deals, we often end up being more generous than we can afford to be.  With your help, we can continue our same path of generosity and honesty.  Don’t worry, we’re not soliciting loans yet, as we don’t have our licenses.  We need to find a broker to work for first, and I’ve already had contact with someone in email at a Las Vegas-based bank (who does multi-state loans) who was interested in working with us.  We’ll need to meet them and meet some other brokers, but if we can find a good fit right away, we could be in business, well, as soon as the state gets our licenses back.

I have one request for the next week or so - we both have homework that involves contacting people we know and getting their contact information.  You know, I say, “Lalalalalala, how’s the weather?  By the way, I’ll be a loan officer soon and if you’d like to refinance your house, here’s my cybercard.”  You then say, “Well, I’m not necessarily interested right now, but take my name and contact me in a month or so.  Maybe I’ll have a friend who’s interested.”  We need 50 contact names each before the end of class or we have to sit ina dunce chair or something.  So, if you’d like to help me and maybe someday I can help you, send me your name.  That’s it, your name.  Not your phone number.  Not your address.  Just your name and state.  I won’t spam you.  I promise.  I’m just doing mah homework.  And maybe someday you can have a loan done where you only have to leave your house once, to sign papers at the title company at the end of the loan, then wait three business days and get a direct deposit of enough cash to remodel your kitchen or put in a pool or to pay off credit card debt or to buy your dogs some nice grass and a doghouse.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

late evening

Oh noooo, school starts Monday night

I had to postpone our loan officer school program that we were supposed to go to in August because I was sick.  Remember that little sinus infection deal?  Well, I still have it.  Whooo.  I hope I’m able to keep it in check with meds because we have class from 6p - 10p for the next two weeks.  I so don’t want to go, but mostly because it’s all the way on the other side of town.  Ugh.  Nothing we ever want to do is over here.  Everything is E. Sahara this, E. Tropicana that, E. Flamingo whathaveyou.  Never do we see a restaurant in the paper we want to try and have it say, W. Whatever Street.

To be honest, I’m a bit terrified about school.  Not school itself, although with my stupid herniated disc bladder problems, I hate being required to sit anywhere for long periods of time.  I never know when it’ll be a good day or a bad day.  No, the problem is once I’m done with school, I immediately need to get work (Leigh-Ann is still trying to get a job at the vet’s office, but she’s going to school with me just in case) or we’re going to run out of money very soon…and be living in a cardboard box.  I’m not sure we can find a cardboard box big enough for all of us and the pets, plus shield us from the wind.  Also, we don’t have laptops, so I don’t know if you’ll ever hear from us again.  So, wish us luck…and financial independence.  The kind we had before Google’s algorithms made mincemeat of our finances.  Well, Google and back surgery bills and a few companies we did work with that went out of business, taking thousands of dollars with them to their overseas bank accounts.

I’ve been applying for online jobs for the past couple of months, but nothing has worked out.  Either the job is in New York (hi, Jim), the business hasn’t gotten started yet, the ad was a total scam, or the one I really really wanted…they never contacted me.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

late at night

Oddly And Briefly, Productive

This morning we had to be at the immigration office, all the way on the other side of town, for Leigh-Ann to get her biometrics done.  Fingerprints, picture, etc.  It was strangely enough, a good experience.  We gave ourselves LOTS of time to get there since it isn’t an area of town with which we’re familiar.  Her appointment was for 11am and we got there maybe around 10:30am.  I figured we’d have to wait at least until her appointment, but no.  As soon as the security guard let us in the door (no one gets in w/o an appt), Leigh-Ann filled out one form and then immediately was taken into the back room for medical experiments.  She was gone 5-10 minutes, and then we were done.  We didn’t even have time to read the plethora of magazines we brought with us.

After we left the INS (oh wait, we can’t call it that since it’s been swallowed up by “Homeland Security”) office, we decided to take a quick trip to a realty school that I’d found online.  They have loan officer classes that are four hours daily, for two weeks.  They estimate that it’s equivalent to three months experience.  It’s a decent price compared to the last program I wrote about that was $15,000, but I’m pretty sure you get what you pay for.  I’ll probably be going to class in a couple of weeks.  If I don’t, it’s a 9am class in August…and I don’t want to be on the freeway with rush hour traffic.  It would, at the very least, double my travel time of about 20-25 minutes.  The return trip would be fine though, as that’s about the time we came back home today.  The freeway was clear on our side and bumper-to-bumper on the other side because of one of the constants around here, an accident.  I think Las Vegas specializes in bad drivers.

On the way home, a stop for pet food and the all important Cookie Yumms, P-nutty flavor.  Crickets loves them, and she’s a dog who tires of having the same treat more than once a week.  She loves Cookie Yumms, as does Phoenix, and they’re okay for Phoenix to have because they don’t contain corn.  Yay.

You’re thinking to yourself, “Now, Flippy couldn’t have possibly done anything more today.”  Oh, but I did.  We went to the grocery store too.  We were home by noon and still had to feed the dogs & the birds.  All in all, a productive-ish day.  Now, I’m totally exhausted and won’t be able to do anything for another few days.  Where oh where is my HGH?

Monday, June 19, 2006

lunch time

Time For A New Career

The up & down world of online affiliate marketing has just become too much for my stress level.  I still want to work at home, so I’m looking into becoming a loan officer.  I have lots of support from family and friends who are either loan officers, brokers or realtors, so I really think I can do this.  I want to be the loan officer that people seek out because I’m not working in a stuffy bank atmosphere.  If any of you out there are experienced and want to offer advice, I’m more than willing to absorb as much advice from around the country (and world) as I can get.

I found what looks like a really great loan officer boot camp, but it’s six weeks, in Atlanta, and appears to cost about $15,000.  So, while it sounds great, even if I could afford it, living in Atlanta for six weeks probably isn’t an option.  But hey, if I did, at least I know Helly & Alan and Nancy there, so I wouldn’t be totally isolated with a bunch of future loan officers.