Mark Dalton

Okay so I found this over at one of my favourite sites but thought it was worth reposting.

Can you spot what is wrong?

Like most people who haven’t won the lottery I have the pleasure of buying my home via a mortgage. well for last few years I have taken out a “fixed rate” mortgage. Well as most of you will know the economy has gone to the dog’s and the interest rate has followed. The great thing with a “fixed rate” mortgage is that if the interest rate goes up your payments are “fixed” at the rate agreed, the problem is that if rates fall your payments also stay at the rate agreed.

Like most investments you have to study the market but eventually there is a little gamble involved. This gamble is usually based on sound research but it’s still a gamble. A “fixed rate” mortgage is in essence a gamble against interest rates going up.

Now one thing that nobody ever really predicts is the economy going into recession, and if they do they rarely tell anybody. The first thing the controlling bank normally does in this case is to reduce interest rates and that is exactly what has happened, to the point that the current interest rate is 0.5%.

Now when a “fixed rate” mortgage comes to the end of its agreed period it automatically reverts to what’s known as the “standard variable rate“. This is usually fixed at an amount, usually 0.25% above the base rate. So with a base rate of 0.5% you would expect the “standard variable rate” to be 0.75%. So to say I was somewhat surprised to receive a letter from my mortgage company when my “fixed rate” mortgage ended and they advised me that I would now be subject to there “standard variable rate” of 3.5%.

What? Well as it turns out that the biggest losers of this recession are the banks. Yeah you know the ones we gave billions of pounds too. Well in order to help us out they aren’t passing on all of the cuts, well they have a business to run you see. While they are grateful for the money, without them we would be even worse off. So it wasn’t so much as a handout, it was a investment in our own futures. All that money they have taken in bonuses doesn’t count. You see that was just the right amount they needed to pay in order to ensure they recruited the right people. The people that landed us in this mess right? No not at all, that was our fault.

Any way, you get the idea. The sad fact is the change is actually saving me money on a monthly basis as my “fixed rate” was actually at a higher rate, but I can’t help but feel cheated.

I have spent most of today researching mortgages and the financial markets trying to figure out what I do next. Obviously paying less is a preference but I also have to consider how much longer this will last. More thoughts on the subject to come.

Wow what a week! The moment I set foot in the office on Monday I knew it was going to be one of those crazy weeks, and I wasn’t let down. After my catch up last weekend I decided that I wasn’t going to fall behind again so went back to carrying my MacBook Air. I must say that its surprising how much I get done during the train journey and with things so busy at work it’s nice to get things done while I am still in the frame of mind to do so, meaning that when I get home I can relax.

It has now been a couple of weeks now since I upgraded all of my machines to Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6). While Snow Leopard isn’t revolutionary I must say that I have found that all my machines are a little snappier. The MacBook Air is probably the machine I notice it on the most as this is the one that travels with me. The first thing I have found is the speed at which it comes back from sleep mode and secondly the speed of the Time Machine / Time Capsule backups, especially important as quite a bit of data can change while I am on the move. Other than that I can’t say anything has particularly impressed me, but for the £25 upgrade fee I am happy with the improvements made. On the MacBook Pro and iMac I can’t say I have really noticed any difference as both are high end machines, but the real test will probably be the next Final Cut Pro project I have. What I can say however is that to date I haven’t experienced any problems, bar a few applications that are awaiting compatibility upgrades.

With the Snow Leopard upgrade also came the upgrade to iTune 9. Now there were some much trumpeted improvements but the one that really stands out for me is iTunes Home Sharing, which allows me to finally copy my music between my machines legally.

Well today I am going to catch up with my PodCasts while catching up with some paperwork, and then tidy up the house. Tomorrow I need to sort out the weeds that are over taking the drive way and the garden which is just going wild again.

So after being Duty Manager last weekend I started the week looking forward to a short (4 day) week. Monday and Tuesday were uneventful and pretty quite but Wednesday was just crazy. Meeting after meeting, the phone didn’t stop, and email was coming in from all sides. Thursday thankfully things calmed down and gave me the chance to catch up before heading into the weekend.

Friday I woke early and hit the ground running. I have felt a lot better this week and was determined to start catching up on all those things that I had been neglecting. I had ordered a Drobo & DroboShare Thursday from Amazon and had ordered it early enough to secure next day delivery. Now I have been looking at these for a while, but up until now they have been far to expensive, but Amazon had them both as a package for a very reasonable price. Unfortunately I was then pulled into a meeting and completely forgot to order any hard drives when I returned. Doh!

So Friday morning I was resigned to the fact that I was going to be stuck in all day waiting for the delivery so set about house chores. I was relieved when just after 09:00 I heard the sound of the City Link delivery truck pull up and gratefully accepted my parcel. Within about 15 minutes I had it setup and it was then I remembered I hadn’t ordered any Hard Drives. So I hit the web and after a little searching settled on 4x 1TB 3.5″ Hard Drives from Scan at a quite reasonable price, and once again next day delivery.

After finishing the household chores I headed to Morrisions and set about restocking the cupboards and filling the car up with fuel. I was surprised while making a rather tricky biscuit decision by a text message from scan advising that my Hard Drives had been dispatched. Shopping completed and car fuelled I set about refuelling myself with a couple of nice salad rolls and considered my plans for the rest of the day. I decided that the next priority was a hair cut but instead of driving into town I elected to walk in. The idea being walking in meant I could have a couple of pints. Once in town I meet up with Laurence and Phil and then a little later Dave Birkett. Laurence and Phil had other plans so left Dave and I in Lloyds bar. Needless to say a few more beers were consumed however this time it was me that ended up a little worse for wear.

Saturday I woke up feeling a lot better than I probably deserved to feel but at 07:30 still with a zeal to get things done. I set about finishing off some of the house chores left over from Friday. About 09:30 the City Link truck was back outside and 5 minutes later I had my new Hard Drives laid out on the desk, and about 30 minutes after later I had them all installed and formatted in the Drobo. I then spent about an hour trying to figure out why the Drobo wasn’t auto mounting before finally finding a knowledge base article on the Data Robotics web site saying there was a known issue with Snow Leopard and the Drobo Share that prevented the volume mounting automatically. Thankfully they provided a work around and I was up and running in a couple of minutes. I spent the rest of the day catching up with stuff, mainly paperwork.

Today I was up and about at 08:30 and after a quick shower set about the last few jobs of the weekend before heading round to Mum & Dad’s for Sunday lunch with them, Katrina, and the children. After the last week the sunshine let us down and after an hour or so we were starting to feel cold so headed inside. It was good to see everyone again, especially as William starts school tomorrow, and I am feeling more like myself every day. It was great fun as always and the kids surprise me every time I see them. Little Eleanor is such a little beauty and so cute when she laughs. Well, its back to work tomorrow but I have had a good weekend so it will be what it will be.

So it’s been a long time since I last posted anything so I thought I better explain myself. It started off with a few nice weekends and the desire to be out and about rather than stuck in front of the computer, then I went down with the flu and was off work for three weeks. Since then I haven’t felt 100% and have been unable to shake it off. I have been backwards and forwards between the doctors and the hospital and have had more blood tests and x-rays than hot dinners but am still none the wiser as to what the underlying problem is other than some kind of infection.

Well this last week I have started to feel a little like my normal self and have started to catch up on many of the things that I have neglected. This weekend I am Duty Manager so am tied to the house for the most part. Luckily so far it has been quite and today I have managed to catch up with the growing mound of paperwork, and upgrade my Mac’s to the latest version of Mac OS X (Snow Leopard). Tomorrow I plan to sort the house out a little, especially the growing pile of e-Bay items, and may even tackle the weeds that seem to be taking over my drive way if the rain holds off.