Down to This

PNC and the Adventures of the Making Home Affordable Program

Theme for this post:

I just received a very disappointing letter from PNC, my mortgage company. They have denied my hardship assistance request. Now, before I get into that, we need to go back in time.

Let's jump back to around October 2009. I've just arrived home from work after being told that I may no longer have a job. My company Blackberry rings. It's someone from the HR department on the other end telling me I can expect to receive a final decision in 3 days. When I hang up, the Blackberry begins to erase itself. Something makes me think the decision has already been made.

I start submitting Unemployment paperwork, cancelling premium services, and generally trying to reduce the overall cost of my life to prepare for the uphill battle that is an unexpected job search. Now, what am I going to do about the house? I bought it in November 2006 and I'm living in Central Illinois, so it's not particularly expensive. My parents are suggesting I sell it but there's been talk about the housing crisis and homeowners assistance programs, so I give that a shot.

PNC calls theirs the Making Home Affordable Program. There are a number of options outlined in the pamphlet included with the paperwork outlining different options: A Repayment Plan, Loan Modification, Forbearance, Partial Claim (for First-time Homebuyers), or giving up the home either by Deed in Lieu or a Short Sale.

I've filled everything out (including an incredibly detailed worksheet showing all my expenses and income), sent it in, talked to folks on the phone and everything's being processed. Also, I send off November's payment. Two weeks later, I get a request to resubmit my income/expense worksheet in the event those figures have changed.

December rolls around and I'm greeted with a request to resubmit my income/expense worksheet. So I submit it with December's payment. Two weeks later, I'm asked to resubmit my income/expense worksheet in the event those figures have changed. Also included with that request, is December's payment along with a note explaining that payments aren't accepted while the request for mortgage assistance is being processed. I bank the funds from that payment for later.

January looks much like December. I forget and send off a payment, along with the two-week regularly occuring income/expense worksheet. And I get the payment back again.

February, rinse and repeat. Payments are via my checking account's auto-bill-pay and between the job search and wondering how much longer this will all last, I've forgotten and sent another payment. Though, this time the returned payment and income/expense worksheet request are hand delivered by a legal service person, along with a foreclosure notice.

I am now in foreclosure because I've gone 90 days without making a payment. When I contact PNC they suggest I submit a hardship assistance request and ask for an income/expense worksheet.

Eight months go by as I fight the foreclosure in the court system. At first, PNC's lawyers don't think any hardship assistance program exists. When presented with documentation, they have to go back and research. Next time, the assistance request is on hold because they need a new income/expense worksheet. This cycle repeats monthly with each hearing and even the judge seems fed-up with it all. By October, I've produced a check for $10,000 which is the full back amount that I've been trying to pay all along and they agree to reinstate the mortgage. I also submitted a (possibly) updated income/expense worksheet.

By this time, I've gotten a contracting gig and am back out of the financial storm and things go back to "normal". The hardship assistance request continues to be processed and I continue to send them income/expense worksheets.

In November 2010, my contract gig is coming to a close and by February 2011, I've moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to work for a startup. I sell my house February 10, 2012.

This brings me to the letter. Dated February 14, 2012, it reads:

We have completed our review of your hardship assistance request under the Making Home Affordable Program (MHAP). However, we cannot approve or finalize your request for assistance, for the following reason(s): Loan Paid Off or Reinstated. We are not considering your request for a modification because: Your loan was paid in full on February 13, 2012. 

Seriously!? 3 years and a foreclosure later and they're finally done, but only because I SOLD THE HOUSE!

Sold mah House!

Fuck yeah! That is all.

K-Ching

Questionably Great Ideas

Sometimes, the pets do something that gives me a (questionably) great idea.

(download)

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questionably-great-ideas-HaBDqiyfuHlBFEjkqmul.zip (1.21 MB)

Howto: Split a git repo and still retain history

At work, we have a project that started out small. As with most of our projects, it started with us learning more interesting and better ways of doing things as we became more familiar with the blocks with which we were building. Recently, the project grew big enough that it had actually become two projects. Unfortunately, they shared the same code repository, since they started as one. After a little bit of time in the office Om Lounge with my abacus, I figured out a fairly simple way to split these two repositories, but still retain the whole development history up until that point.

TL;DR Steps:

1. Create KEEP and MOVE branches.
2. Make the appropriate changes in each branch.
3. Push the MOVE branch into master in the new repository.
4. Merge the KEEP branch into master.
5. Delete the MOVE branch.
6. Repeat for your branches other than master.

(My company uses GitHub, so my examples are using that.)

If you don't have a repo you'd like to split, but would like to follow along, make your self some dummy repos on GitHub and then create some test files. In my example, I'm splitting up repoA. I'm going to keep file1 in repoA and move file2 into a brand new repo, repoB.

First you need to figure out everything we want to keep in repoA. Create a new branch for the files you're keeping. Use git rm and git mv to rearrange the directory, reflecting it's look after the move is complete. Don't worry about deleting files, they all still exist in previous commits. (You did commit everything, right?)

Next, you need to figure out everything that's getting move to repoB. Check out master, so you get your original state back, then create a new branch for the files you're moving. Again, use git rm and git mv to rearrange the directory, reflecting the new repo's look after move is complete.

Now we're going to push the files that are moving, into their new home. Don't worry about setting up remotes, since you'll (hopefully) only be using this remote once. (Nerd note: remotes are just shorthand notation for a git URL, so we can use the URL directly here. Read more here)

Command Anatomy:

Now that the moving files are safely moved to their destination, we need to finalize the move by merging the branch of files that are sticking around.

All that's left now, is to push our changes back to the original repository and clean up a bit.

You'll notice that git complains when it tries to delete the branch of files that are moving. It's letting us know that we're removing information from our repo by deleting that branch. We'll have to use -D instead of -d to let it know we really mean it.

That's it! Pretty easy, huh?

Check out my sample repos: repoA and repoB

Also, check out all the gist stuff on one page here: Gist.

On Living in the Future and the Benefits Thereof

Tonight, I connected to the internet, over my Verizon MiFi's 3G connection. I did this from a little over a mile away.

In my quest for inexpensive internet, I am establishing an 802.11a link with my office from my apartment. The distance for this link is around 1.1 miles. Tonight, with very little actual aiming and signal optimization, I was able to get around 45 Mbit of performance out of the link. The hardware I'm using is rated at 300Mbit over  5 miles, so I'm sure with a little bit of work, I can get that speed up to a limit where the bottle neck becomes the wires in my apartment.

Here's to living in the future!

In which Röyksopp wear funny costumes

It's funny how something as simple as a change in location can change your access to things.
Monday morning I walked to work listening to Röyksopp Forever. That gave me the idea to build a playlist of songs where a DJ had either sampled or worked with an orchestra. Eventually I ended up listening to albums from Röyksopp and Jon Hopkins all day while I worked.
Imagine my surprise when Dave popped his head into the office inviting me to see both of them live that night.

Danger: Hang Glider Landing Zone

We Get Letters! (On Mattressi and Their Safe Transport)

Too often I receive a letters from my readers asking how to properly transport a mattress. (Plural: mattressi) As an experienced mattress mover, I have learned by trial and often nearly fatal error, the optimal methods for transporting your mattress.  I offer up to my readers, these three points, painfully learned, so that you may never suffer the need to drive around looking for escaped mattressi.

Couch, I haz u.

Look I have a couch! Maybe soon I'll have places to put this other crap. And some lights.

(download)

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Couch_I_haz_u..zip (3.87 MB)