Don't Back Down

So a new plan for the Freedom Tower has been unveiled. Since it seems that a previously-selected design wasn't actually selected, as it has been replaced, there is no telling if this is what we will see or not. Some have recently complained about the lackluster design. Frankly, I think it looks better. The twisty-spire look, while, well, odd, just looked strange. I like the new look. Though the base is pretty ugly.

While on the subject, however, I agree that antennas should be excluded from a building's height. What I don't agree with is that spires should be included in the height. That's just stupid. If you include one, you ought to include the other. Otherwise some goofball (can you say David Childs) will simply design a spire that will protect the antenna.

Not for us. But it seems like the interest in the refinancing market has been rising again, and a lot of people are "taking money out of their houses". This is an interesting approach. Don't get me wrong - I understand the appeal of money in a checking account instead of sitting unused in the house. What I don't get is how common it is these days for people to simply take on more and more payments, simply because that's what they do.

Put simply, when you refinance, you may lower your payment. It might even stay about the same and allow you to take money out of your home, making it seem like free money. But in most any case, you're refinancing for another 30-year loan, extending the period over which you must make those payments. Resetting the clock in a sense.

Frankly, I'm looking forward to the day when our house is paid off. For those keeping track, it should be December 1, 2005 (unless we meet any unexpected bumps in the road between now and then). While our house payment is already lower than most people's rent payment, we just don't want to make payments of any sort for the next 25 or so years.

Sure, we could prepay some of the principal each month (and have been, at a lower rate), but since most of the interest in mortgages is front-loaded, it's not helping all that much, and it's just getting us to the point where we pay back the principal faster. We could refinance again to an even lower monthly payment, but then we're back to a 30-year payoff. So we upped the rate at which we're paying things back, and hope to have it paid off this year.

If we refinanced, we'd just start paying more interest into the pockets of the lenders. And perhaps to a PMI company, depending on the loan-to-value ratio of our newly refinanced home. Debt-free in today's society? I know it's pretty unlikely, but we're well on our way. I hope it works out like we expect.

Update: Want a home, but not sure whether to rent or buy? Check out this piece on the subject. It's certainly not everything, but it gives you a pretty decent basis from which to start your planning.

In the endless circle that is Charlotte politics, things have come full circle. Not too long ago, voters turned down a financing package that would not only build a new arena for a basketball team, but commit $100-some million to an arts package for the city.

City Council, citing the belief that voters didn't want the arts package, built the arena anyway. Now, the county, presumably figuring that voters didn't really want the arena, are oh-so-close to pushing the arts package through. Isn't it wonderful to be a resident of Charlotte?

In the popular visualization of a tornado, a new technology gains popular appeal at phenomenal rates, while spawning a whole industry of add-ons for the technology. It should be obvious that the iPod has reached this plateau, with all sorts of accessories to be found for the minute music player. It has become a part of mainstream conciousness.

Now it has apparently made another step towards greatness. Apparently they are being stolen at increasingly frequent rates, and in at least one case, someone has apparently been killed for theirs. More importantly, authorities suspect that it was stolen not for resale, but for personal use. Yes, someone was killed for their iPod. Wow.

Have we really come to the point that a portable music player is worth a person's life? Or, more accurately, that a person's life is worth a portable music player? I hope that it was at least a fourth-generation model and not a Shuffle or something.