Of the scintillating developments in the past week, I am afraid only one probably would raise your eyebrow. Namely, I have moved into my third office in three years working in the Crunk Factory. I decided to go for many reasons, not the least of which is the furniture that the old occupant (who moved to an even bigger office) left behind. It included some nice bookcases and a horizontal file cabinet. That and a nice desk set that matches the former.

Soon after moving in though, I noticed the most arresting thing was how easily the my coworker’s layout availed itself to really cool decorations and designs. This is a telegenic place, I realized. So now I’m off…to decorate my office in a way that I heretofore had never really taken the effort to.

I have lots of great ideas, but we will see if they pan out. Don’t be surprised of course, to see photos in the near future.

But I also moved because I was tired of having a messy office and wanted a reason to clean it all out and start over. It was just….time. Any designs suggestions, meanwhile, are appreciated.

So much for any hope of a moral victory against my landlord.

Without much warning, I found myself in the leasing office at Rita’s apartment this week. The reason? Her management company requires tenants to have renter’s insurance. Not that Rita didn’t have a policy, it’s that only she and I were on it when she renewed this month. The leasing office, eager to fix this, told us I would have to be added to the lease immediately. Naturally, I planned to do after giving back my keys at the other place at the start of October. So I didn’t think there would be much heartburn in accelerating the date and being on two leases at once if only for about six weeks.

But, as you can imagine, since this made it into the blog….we are hardly at the end of the story….

Rita filed out a renter’s application for me and proceeded to drive to work so I could sign it and have her take it back to the office. I then went to lunch with Duane who was archetypically skeptical. “Now they have you over a barrel…” he said.

Rita then called me to say my application was pending, but that she would inform me of when it was complete. Eventually, I had to call to her ask what happened, but she informed me after an hour that it was “still pending”. Finally, around 4:30pm, she phoned to say that she had “bad news”. My credit was so bad, the management company was demanding an additional security deposit (which we didn’t have) of around $600. This is because Rita and Chey (not the paragons of great credit) paid a small $200 deposit when they moved in last spring. Now, for the privilege of releasing Chey and adding me, the management company required that deposit grow to one month’s rent, hence the $600ish increase.

I immediately began to think something was fishy. Back in May, Rita and I went to another complex (which is in many respects nicer than her current one) owned by the same company. They waived the application fee and let us apply right then. So I did, and I was approved with NO SECURITY DEPOSIT. I told the lady this was interesting, but welcome: I had paid a one month deposit at my current address.

Sitting in my office, I wasn’t satisfied with Rita’s explanation that “….Face it….your credit sucks, man!”. I immediately began to think if they had some sort of punitive policy because it was an existing lease and not a new one. (The management company is publicly traded…so they must be concerned about yield somehow.) The leasing agent denied it.

I wondered if my rental history was to blame, given that I did have to pay a month’s rent at the last place. (And hence they might assume I’m a sucker.) But this was denied too.

The leasing agent then made some off hand comment about the formula changing or something like that…and I instantly said….”Oh I get it…they must have used FICO 08”.

What’s FICO 08, you ask? Well if you have taken out a large amount of credit you are probably familiar with FICO. It’s an algorithm that estimates your credit worthiness and creates a “score”. It’s not your credit report, instead FICO is a formula that rates certain parts of your credit history more important than others. But the other key point is that FICO is proprietary; major rating agencies like TransUnion, Experian, etc. have to pay to use because it’s so “effective”.  As a result those agencies then have to charge third parties like banks and the leasing office access to the data. Now this is important because as you can imagine, the more often you run a credit report…the more often the agency and FICO get paid….

FICO, by the way,  is actually short for the Fair Isaac Corporation. This is because the original two guys who dreamed up the idea had the surnames “Fair” and “Isaac”,  not because it was created by someone who was fair or is otherwise balanced.

Soon after I invoked FICO 08 at the leasing office, Rita was quick to point out,” Why would they roll it out during a recession? Oh man….”

The answer is that Fair Isaac Corporation was under pressure from banks. You know, those same banks that for years had been using FICO scores to scrye the creditworthiness of homebuyers eager to join the housing bubble. And as you can imagine, those same banks now want nothing to do with the very same group of people.

Of course, it is true that during my San Diego vacation, I continually had to push back paying my utilities to get through the trip. (Don’t go there.) But I wasn’t late on my rent, and at the time I was already months behind on my student loans. So it’s hard to see how the electric company, cable company, and my cell phone could have stuck it to me that bad over the course of a month….

But now you ask, why exactly is my credit score so crappy in the first place, given that I’ve had a job for a while now and pay nearly all my bills except for student loans on time? Well the visceral answer from the bank is that I haven’t settled up all my debts from when I was out of work a few years ago. (I still get collection notices on that one.) The other reason, though is a big more, um empirical.

Think of a casino. Ask yourself, who does the casino really want in there? First, they don’t want good gamblers. So if you have taken lots of credit risks, your score goes down. Second they don’t want people without money to spend. So if you have a “short payment history” the credit agencies and banks don’t want you either. But if you have a lot of money, and you aren’t particular good about gambling with it…well the casino wants you and will offer lots to get it. But then, when you run out, the casino throws you out.

Enter me. After piling up a mortgage-sized amount of student debt the credit agencies don’t want me anymore. Not because of the loans themselves, but because they can’t be discharged in bankruptcy and reduce the likelihood that I will spend big on a car or a house. And what do I have to do to get better credit? Pay off the debt and appear vulnerable to a good deal.

But the joke is sort of them….this whole experience at the bottom of the credit ladder has made me less and less excited about debt and more and more against financing stuff. It might be unavoidable for cars and houses, but the only thing I miss about not having a credit card is….the free airline miles.

Just the other day, I found out about downloadable books from the library. I was so excited, that I hurriedly pulled out my library card from the depths of my wallet. After checking a few out, I went to bed and figured that was it.

The next day I had to get something from wallet, and I realized that my driver’s license was missing. I looked around the office, but figured it was at home somewhere around the couch where I had pulled out my library card. But when I got back, my license was nowhere to be found. It then occurred to me that I might have thrown it out accidentally when I was cleaning out my wallet the other day.

Nevertheless, reality sunk in and I took a deep breath. Time to go to the Motor Vehicles Division and get a duplicate license. Luckily, here in Alta Sonora it costs $4. I got up the next day and found little or no wait and a clean new facility. It’s almost nothing like California, I tell you that much.

However, I learned that I couldn’t get the license actually duplicated. I would have to take my picture over. Although I didn’t plan on this, I felt reasonably comfortable about it. I stood up straight and tried to muster a smile. And I noticed how bright the light was, and it soon became difficult to concentrate on my posture. I walked back to the seating area to listen for my name being called.

It only took a minute or two, and then I saw my shiny new license and carefully inspected my name. (I already had to correct it once before by accident to make sure I could use it at the airport.) That checked out fine, but then I saw--- my picture was horrible! My smile turned into a teeth gritting gesture worthy of a mugshot. That’s not to say I consider myself photogenic, but even I have my expectations. Moreover, I thought the woman staffing the desk would let me take the photo over. But instead she rambled on about something and looked at me as if I was going to hurt someone. Instead, I was just in shock that as unexpectedly bad as the photo came out, that I wasn’t offered a redo.

Of course the story is far from over. Now that I have talked about it, I’m sure I’ll get requests to put it on Facebook. And if I don’t….remember this is still the only identification other than my passport I can use to get on a plane…. It’s enough to make me thankful I’m not……um…..named Mohammed.

It can be said that there’s not much to do in Alta Sonora during the summer. What are options you do have however, are inexorably reduced further if you want to do something for free. So tensions ran high this week as Rita, Justin, and Julia and I tried to fend off the effects of cabin fever. Once though contained to the remote regions of the Midwest, Canada, and the East Coast during the brunt of winter…cabin fever tends to manifest itself as the mercury soars northward.

With few or little options to break monotony, I suggested we go to my apartment and begin to move some of my remaining stuff over to Rita’s place. Ostensibly the plan was just to take kitchen equipment and my cache of soda and bottled water. But before I knew it, we were stripping the bare. (Okay, so not really.) But we did pack my car full of stuff and I did sweat quite a bit in the process.

Rita’s friends though, weren’t about to let her down. We ended up going to visit a friend of hers after dinner and had a fun Friday night. Once again, no Chevy Tahoes were harmed….

It’s been a tedious week to say the least. The weather has been really hot, and to make matters worse I’m broke. Well, more like I had to pay my student loans this week or face default…so I ponied up and found myself with about $50 left…just enough to buy gas until I get paid again. But as you can imagine, this is cold comfort for the kids, Rita, and myself as the weeks drag on.

Faced with even more time than usual to peruse the various news outlets, I couldn’t help but notice the odd synergy between the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and the health care reform bill. Originally, the President asked for a final vote on the proposal before the August recess that began earlier today. Then it became a vote in both Houses, and then final capitulation to continuing the debate after the break.

As far as the Sotomayor nomination went, you might recall, the Senate GOP also objected to a vote before the August recess. But efforts to derail that as well didn’t work. Or was this the idea in the first place…to have the nomination vote occur before the health care measure? I tend to think so.

Why you ask? The President has sought bipartisan support for his legislation, but the Republican minority has demonstrated vigorous opposition. It is true, though, that at the time the Executive implored the GOP to get on board the Democrats lacked the sixty votes needed to end a filibuster. Now they do.

But there’s been trouble in paradise. Many conservative Democrats have balked at the President’s requests and conspired to water down the bill hoping that it in fact, dies. Not because they oppose the reforms, per se, but because it allows many of them as newly-elected members of Congress to avoid a contentious vote only months before the next election. That is, unless the Republicans come out of the proverbial closet and endorse bill too.

So if you are a willing vote on the health care reform law in the Republican minority, what do you do? You vote on a symbolic but unrelated measure, like say a….judicial nomination. Want more proof?

Of the nine Senators who voted to confirm the justice, four have announced they will not seek re-election. The other five? None will be on the ballot in 2010… Moreover, bloggers have noted this was the first time that four Republican senators (McCain, Hutchinson, Bennett, and Grassley) have ever voted no on a Supreme Court nominee. Meanwhile, Republican Mel Martinez of Florida announced his resignation only one day after casting his vote for Sotomayor.

Of course its really possible as others have suggested that the real reason for all this is the GOP’s nationwide strategy in 2010. But then you have to wonder…just which issue is likely to loom larger in the campaign, Sotomayor or national health care?

Faced with a reeling economy for months on end, I wondered how many companies would find their way to recovery. Several months ago, my landlord proved that the answer wouldn’t be a government program, or the free market, but instead taking it out of my hide.

Somewhere in my lease was a clause that allowed the landlord to require me to have cable TV as a service provided by the landlord and subject to the city’s renter tax. At first, the landlord sent me lots of information that told me how great it would be if I signed an addendum to my lease to provide the service. But when I refused, I made sure to call my attorney friends and ask if such an arrangement was legal.

But nobody really knew.

So I called the city, and found out that if you wanted landlord/tenant counseling it was a walk-in service and it was only available during business hours. This was a stark contrast to Los Angeles, where several nonprofits offer landlord-tenant advice.

I also called the cable company. You see, I already had cable TV service beyond what the addendum would have provided. And I didn’t have satellite TV or something like that…so as you can imagine…other than a few dollars of tax to the city I had no reason to be upset, you’d think. But you’d be wrong.

Ever since I moved in the management company had been angling to raise rents…by a lot. It’s because the complex was slated for a condo conversion and was nearly empty only to be bought and turned back to apartments. (This place is new, and not a dump.) Obviously faced with no way to charge what they wanted to, they decided to use the cable TV clause to ensure a backdoor increase in rent.

Now if there’s one thing I don’t like…and I say this with all honesty…it’s anti-competitive behavior. Maybe I’m quaint and old-fashioned yearning for a free market n’ all…but I was stewing over this. See, the cable company told me that such agreements are common, but the landlord receives a discount and can pass on some of it to the tenant. Guess what happened in my case….

And then, to be cute, the landlord decided to send me a renewal notice that would hike my rent by another $50. The “basic” cable service was another “$50” on top of that…if you factor in the higher taxes it was a rent increase of almost 15%. I had had it…I was ready to move out, but I didn’t have quite enough to afford moving. That and where I wanted to move to was out of my price range.

But thanks be to Rita. Not long after this happened, we decided to move together when my lease expired. (Originally we had planned to get a new apartment, but for now we are standing pat at her two-bedroom in Cougar Country.)

Thus, after returning my vacation, it was time for me to serve notice on my landlord. And oh how sweet it was to tell them that the reason I was moving out was that I didn’t like this sort of backhanded tactics to squeeze money out of me. Of course, they willing to show me whatever it took to stay…but I had to tell them the awful truth--

Rita hates the place.

The irony is though, at Rita’s apartment we are also stuck having cable. Not because the landlord forces us to, but because she doesn’t have a view of southern sky and thus cannot get a signal from a satellite. And believe me, she likes her DirecTV….