String (of chance) Theory

          Its been a wild week in Neihartium, my home base, to oompha-phrase The Man from Lake Woebegon. After a summer-long search for someone to put up my siding, and for someone to fix or replace my totally useless heating system, I got answers.  Acclaimed author Annie Lamot says that God always answers your prayers, it’s just that sometimes the answer is “no”.  My friend TC has a different take on the issue; he says that there are “strings of chance” that ensue upon making a decision to do one thing or another, and if you make the “wrong” decision, you could end up with a huge pile of stinking bad luck. For him the rewards and punishments of life are like shooting the rapids in a kayak. You’ve got to suss out the most likely place for rocks and holes to be, and then spring forward and hold on. He counts himself very lucky in this life, so maybe he’s on to something.

          His method of “sussing” out the situation has two predictors: first you should never choose the path that anyone else told you to take, whether that be in the form of an actual exhortation, or just in

Lucky Ducky

     Thanks to Alert Reader Matt Martin who hails from somewhere in cyberspace, I found a lender who not only will write a mortgage on an unconventional home, but specializes in it. I knew there had to be one of ‘em out there somewhere! Northpointe Bank is in the fabulous state of Michigan, and is what is called a portfolio lender, which means it’s a bank just like the old-time banks which lend you their money, and never sell the loan to anyone else, so they make their own