The SoapBoxers

We recently celebrated our 250th anniversary! 250 articles, that is. I’d like to thank all of the loyal readers and my great staff of writers!

In the spirit of baseball season, I have broken down the process of buying a home into nine innings (technically, ten sections – there is also a post game).

Note: this advice is provided with no warranties. I am not a realtor or a financial advisor. If you have questions about the process, I would suggest that you consult with a professional. This is geared mostly toward the first time home buyer, although other some veteran homeowners might pick up a tip or two.

First inning: Clean up your credit – Your credit history will affect your interest rate. A mere one percent rate hike can add up in a hurry. One percent on an outstanding balance of $200,000 is an extra $2000 per year (this amount would decrease in future years as you pay the balance down). Pay your bills on time, and avoid doing things that could adversely affect your credit score (such as opening 85 new credit cards).

Second Inning: Determine your budget. Some people will go to a bank and ask how much they can get approved for. This is a bad idea, as it may cause you to take on a higher mortgage than you want. Instead, determine what you want your housing budget to be. Once you have determined your overall housing budget, subtract an amount to save toward maintenance and upgrades (a new roof, fixing a furnace, etc.) to leave the amount that you want to put toward the actual monthly payment. Then subtract the amount for insurance, property taxes, and PMI (if necessary) – items that are typically escrowed – to leave the amount of money left for the actual house. Run this number through a mortgage calculator to determine the maximum price of the house.

Sound confusing? Let’s do an example. Let’s say that you want to spend $2000 per month on your overall housing budget. You decide that $350 of this amount should go into a savings account devoted to maintenance and upgrades (to a new homeowner, this might sound like a lot, but a new appliance can quickly wipe this out). This leaves $1650 for the mortgage. You expect to pay $300 per month for property taxes, $100 per month for home insurance, and $50 for per month for PMI. Deduct these amounts from the $1650 and you have $1200 left toward the actual house payments. Assuming a 30 year mortgage at 6%, this means that you can spend $200,000 on a house. (Note: these amounts may not be realistic for you – they are provided simply to show how the math works).

Summary:

• $2000 : Monthly housing budget
• -$350 : Put towards maintenance and upgrades
• -$300 : Property taxes
• -$100 : Homeowner’s insurance
• -$50 : PMI (mortgage insurance)
• = $1200 per month toward the purchase price of the house

Plug $1200 (payment), 6 (annual interest), and 360 (months) into this calculator, and you get a mortgage amount of $200,000.

Third inning: What do you want? OK, you know you want to buy a house – but what sort of house? Ranch? Two story? Two bedrooms? Four bedrooms? Do you need a three car garage or a big back yard? Do you want to live in a particular neighborhood – or avoid certain parts of town? Make a list of things that are “must haves” and things that are nice to have. Look around a bit on realty websites and in your local paper to determine if you can realistically afford the type of home you want, based on your budget. If you can’t realistically afford it, begin to scale back.

Fourth Inning: Get pre-approved – Sellers (and realtors) love buyers you are pre-approved, because it avoids a situation where someone wants to buy a house but can’t get the financing. Get pre-approved for the amount you determine in the second inning – or perhaps a slight bit of wiggle room – but don’t get pre-approved for an amount you don’t want to spend. The availability of the credit might tempt you to buy a more expensive house than you really want or need. At this point, you might want to get an estimate of taxes, insurance, and PMI to get a better grasp on what everything is going to cost.

If you have a choice between a piggyback mortgage (such as an 80-10) and PMI, one thing to keep in mind is that mortgage interest is deductible, but the PMI is not. You will pay more interest with a piggyback (due to a higher rate on the smaller loan) than you will when you use PMI, but your out of pocket cost may still be lower.

Fifth inning: Get a realtor – Ask your family and friends for advice on a realtor. In most cases, you won’t be directly paying the realtor (they split the commission with the seller’s realtor), so get the best possible realtor – money is no object! Find someone who not only is good at his or her job, but also will mesh well with your personality.

Note that your realtor will not help you on homes that are for sale by owner, unless you pay them. Why? Because FSBO homes don’t have a commission to split. Thus it is only fair that you pay them, since they can’t work for free.

If you have rollover minutes on your cell phone plan, you might want to roll some forward, as you’ll chew up a lot of minutes talking to the realtor, spouse, banker, etc.

Sixth inning: Find a house – This is a fairly important part of the whole process, right? You may choose to attend a few open houses, or you might share your list from the third inning and have the realtor find some properties that seem to be a good fit.

When you walk through a house with your realtor, give them feedback. Don’t simply say that you don’t like the house; instead, tell them what you don’t like. This allows them to focus on houses that are more suitable for you.

When it is time to make an offer on the house, your realtor can advise you on a good place to start the negotiations. You don’t want to insult the sellers, but you also want to leave some room for negotiations.

As a tactic to gain leverage, you may want to point out some of the less desirable qualities of the house – such as saying “we really like the house, although the yard seems a bit small.” In our case, we actually looked at both sides of a zero lot line home (referred to as a duplex in some areas). The homes were basically the mirror image of each other, with some small differences. Thus, we had some leverage based on the fact that a very similar house was for sale just a few feet away. If one of the sellers wouldn’t negotiate, we could just go next door and make an offer on the other house.  Do not, however, turn this into an all out attack on the house.  You won’t fool anyone, and you’ll make the sellers angry.

Seventh inning: Get inspections – While some people may be tempted to avoid the expense of inspections, you will want to strongly considering getting them done. They could find big problems that you might not have found on your own. Our inspector found a rotting window frame on the upper level – it is unlikely we would have caught this on our own. We were able to get the sellers to pay the estimated cost of replacement – this more than paid for the cost of the inspector.

Seventh inning stretch: OK, time to stretch your legs and get ready for the big finish.

Eighth inning: Closing – Finally, the day that you have been waiting for! First of all, you should have an estimate of closing costs from your lender. Make sure you have the funds available (and a bit more, just in case there are some “surprises” on closing day). Verify whether you can pay with a personal check, or whether a bank check is required.

If you have questions during the closing, make sure you ask them. Once you have signed the paperwork, it is too late to begin asking questions.

Make sure you know when the first mortgage payment is due, and where to send the payments. A lot of lenders allow you to pay online, which I have found to be very nice.

Ninth inning: Moving day – If someone gave me the choice of being hit in the head with a shovel or moving, I’d take the hit with the shovel. Moving sucks.

Having said that, there are things that you can do to make the process a little easier. This is a great time to get rid of things you no longer need. You can also work on packing a few things every day, to avoid a big rush to pack everything right before the move. Make sure that everything is completely ready to be moved when your moving crew arrives. They are your moving crew, not your packing crew. I have heard stories of people having laundry in the washer and dryer – that’s not good.

If you are renting a truck for the move, reserve it ahead of time, and pick it up the previous night, if possible. The rental places often get a big rush of traffic in the mornings.

If you have friends who are helping you move, remember to thank them. Multiple times, if your have a lot of heavy items.

Post game: After the move – Within a month or so, you’ll realize that you don’t like your house quite as much as you did when you agreed to buy it. This is buyer’s remorse, and it’s a very common feeling. Trying to focus on the positive aspects of the house.

Make sure to stock up on items you will need, such as furnace filters, salt for a water softener, and bulbs to fit the various light fixtures (wow – there is an incredible variety of light bulbs). Put new batteries in the smoke detector, carbon monoxide detector, and thermostat.

When tax time rolls around, make sure to have records of the mortgage interest and property taxes you paid during the year. These are itemized deductions – if you have used the standard deduction in the past, it might make more sense to itemize because of these deductions.

If you have two mortgages – such as an 80% at a lower rate and a 10% at a higher rate, any extra payments should go to the loan that is at the higher rate.

If you have PMI, make sure to notify your lender when your loan balance is less than 80% of the home’s value. They don’t always drop the PMI automatically.

When it is too early to refinance? Never. Refinancing is not a question of time, but rather a question of cost savings. There’s also a rule of thumb that you should not refinance unless you can cut your rate by 1%. In the past, this might have made some sense. However, with the increase in housing costs over the past few decades, this rule of thumb is obsolete. For example, if you have a $500,000 house, a half point drop in your interest rate can save you $2500 the first year (and slightly lesser amounts each year, as you pay down the mortgage).

The best way to determine whether or not to finance is to figure your break-even point. First, figure out the costs of refinancing. Do not include prepayments on the new mortgage or re-establishment of escrow, as these are not true closing costs (prepayments are simply a mortgage cost, and re-establishment of escrow is offset when your previous lender returns the existing escrow balance to you). Take the refinance costs and divide by the monthly savings – this is your rough break even point. Actual break even will be slightly more, due to the fact that interests costs decline each month. However, this is typically a very small difference.

What did you miss over the weekend?

• Friday featured kosmo’s short story Drunk.
• Cheri Nobel made her debut on Saturday be welcoming us all into her country corral.
• Kosmo talks about the case of Jasmine Fiore
• We went North of the border with Tyson on Sunday as he shared Canadian fun and facts.

First off, in a bit of a follow up to last week, my kudos to a contestant on Trivial Pursuit this week who correctly answered the question “What is the capital of British Columbia”? While most would have went with the obvious choice of Vancouver, she correctly responded with Victoria (a very beautiful city and year in year out voted best city to live in Canada). So, well done, restoring my faith in the geography skills of Americans.

So the big deal this week in Canadian sports was the unveiling of Canada’s hockey team’s jerseys for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The jersey is actually fairly boring to look at on the surface, just standard red and white with a big maple leaf. However within the maple leaf contains some images of past Olympic successes. The jerseys are selling for about $130 Canadian. I really think if the country won gold in men’s hockey but didn’t win another medal the games would still be a success. Prognosticators are predicting this could be Canada’s best medal haul ever, with hockey, curling, speed skating and snowboarding being at the top of the list where Canada has some legitimate contenders. Given the lack of success our athletes had in Calgary in 1988 (no gold medals), the pressure is definitely on.

Otherwise, I found some fascinating Canadian trivia this week which I felt just had to be passed on. This includes:

• The Trans-Canada highway is the longest national highway in the world, measuring in at 7821 kilometres.
• Canada has some famous roadside attractions, including world’s largest coke can, world’s largest beaver, and world’s largest tin soldier.
• Quebec City is North America’s only walled city.
• Toronto’s CN Tower is the world’s largest free-standing structure. I have stood on the glass floor before, and it is quite the experience.
• The highest waterfall in Canada is actually not Niagara Falls. It is Della Falls in British Columbia, with a height of 440 metres.
• The legal drinking age in Canada is actually 19 in all provinces and territories except for Quebec, Manitoba and Alberta, where it is just 18! So you young Americans who want to experience the bar for the first time (legally) should make the trip up!

I am currently out at Lake of the Woods for the last time this summer. We finally have some nice weather, so I am going back out to enjoy it. Next Saturday I am off to Grand Forks for the day, so I will report back with details of my latest American experience!

The body of model/actress Jasmine Fiore was found in a Dumpster earlier last week. Her body was found in a suitcase by a man looking for bottles to recycle. (Note: if you find a suitcase in a Dumpster, don’t open it.) Her husband, Ryan Jenkins, has been charged with his murder. He is believed to have slipped into Canada and Canadian law enforcement personnel have joined their US counterparts in a manhunt for Jenkins.

Fiore’s teeth had been extracted and her fingers had been removed. This was done in an attempt to conceal the victim’s identity. Fiore was identified by the serial number of her breast implants. This is not the first time that law enforcement has used this method to identify a body.

Ryan Jenkins (the husband who has been charged with the crime) is a contestant on the reality show “Megan Wants a Millionaire”. The show says that it fired an outside company to do background checks on contestants, and that the outside company missed Jenkins’ criminal history (a prior conviction for assault).

Apparently they also missed the fact that Jenkins was married, and thus not a great fit for the dating show. Whether Jenkins is actually a millionaire is unknown.

On a tangent – have you noticed that the word “Dumpster” is often capitalized? That’s because it is not a generic term, but rather a brand name.

UPDATE: Ryan Jenkins has been found dead in British Columbia.

Taylor Swift

When Taylor Swift first burst onto the country music scene as a 16 year old in 2006 she appeared, at first glance, to be nothing more than the latest in a string of young girls trying to make a name for themselves in country music, following the path of LeeAnn Rimes and Jessica Andrews. Her first song, Tim McGraw, peaked at #6 on the country charts. I can still remember an early radio interview when she explained that the song referred to a fascination with the Tim McGraw song, rather than Mr. McGraw himself (so that Tim wouldn’t see her as a stalker).

Taylor’s self-titled debut album has sold three million copies, and had five singles crack the country top 10, including #1 hits Our Song (my personal favorite from the album) and Picture to Burn.

Taylor’s second album, Fearless, hit shelves in November 2008 and became the first million selling album of 2009. Three singles have been released from that album – Love Story, White Horse, and You Belong to Me. Of those three singles, my favorite is probably White Horse – the only one of the three that hasn’t hit #1 on the country chart (it peaked at #2).

The cool thing about Taylor is that she is not just a singer. She is also a writer. She won a national poetry contest in fourth grade, and writes many of her own songs. She also seems to be a very fun loving person, and shares interesting details about her life and career through her Facebook page (as opposed to some stars who just use it to tell people when their new perfume is hitting store shelves).

Taylor has been in the media a lot, so it’s difficult to imagine that too many people are unaware of her – but if you’re one of the people who have been hiding under a rock, grab one of her albums and give it a listen. Guys – now that she broke up with the Jonas brother, she’s single again!

Runaway

Sometimes a song gets lodged in your brain and you just can’t get it out. Lately, the song that keeps running through my head is Runaway by the new group Love and Theft. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but the group actually has a tie to Taylor Swift – as an opening act for her Fearless tour. In additional, group member Stephen Barker Liles is the subject of Swift’s song, Hey Stephen. Love and Theft’s debut album, World Wide Open, will be released on August 26.

Brooks & Dunn

Sometimes, it’s just time to hang it up. Country duo Brooks & Dunn are calling it quits. After nearly twenty incredibly successful years together, they have announced the end of their career – at least as a group. They will release the album #1s and Then Some on September 8th and will tour one last time in 2010. It’s been a good ride, guys – thanks for all the memories.

Taylor Swift Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift Fearless
Love and Theft World Wide Open
Brooks & Dunn #1s and Then Some

My writing spot is normally not for another couple weeks but this Middle East story was too big to ignore. I am sure most of you reading this have already heard or seen what happened this week with Al Megrahi “the Lockerbie bomber” but I needed to recap. First let me apologize if my writing sounds angry but I am.

So the story is that this guy bombed a Pan AM flight back in 1988 which killed 259 people. Of those 189 were Americans but that is not critical to my rant or to the story. This happened over Lockerbie Scotland hence his nickname. He was convicted in 2001 and was sentenced to life in prison. He was recently diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer with three months to live so the Scottish released him so he could “die at home”. Here are my many problems with this.

1. I am not a big supporter of the death penalty but you know some people clearly deserve it. Why does a guy who consciously kills 259 people get to live?
2. Why the compassion of letting him die at home? Many people serving a life sentence end up dying in prison and some have done far less evil things like maybe only killing one person instead of 259. On top of that, why give compassion to someone who had none. He didn’t let anyone off that plane or give anyone a way to escape. I am sure the 259 people included children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and many people that deserved to “die at home”. He was also convicted only in 2001 so this is not a guy that served 60 years with good behavior so society was ready to forgive him and give him a decent way to exist this world. This guy served a handful of years, probably fewer than a common drug dealer.
3. What happens if he doesn’t die in three months? What happens if he miraculously recovers?
4. Lastly and maybe the most upsetting part is he got a hero’s welcome when he arrived in Libya. Has the world lost all decency? I think we should have bombed the entire crowd that showed up for him. This type of reaction shows you exactly why you can’t negotiate with terrorists – Hezbollah, Hamas and the rest of them. They kill and die for honor, human life has no value which makes them an impossible foe.

In closing, before you comment go talk to someone who had someone they knew murdered. It should not be that hard to find a person. Just ask anyone who had family members in the Holocaust. Once you talk to them, see if you would have the same compassion for this man.

Barry was blinded by the lights of the oncoming car. His hair stood on end when he noticed that the fool was in the wrong lane – headed toward him at 70 miles per hour. Barry tried to take evasive action, but his reflexes were slow and he couldn’t avoid the other car. He felt the impact of the high speed collision and heard the rending of metal before he blacked out.

When Barry regained consciousness, he was aware of bright lights flashing and lots of voices. After a few seconds, he noticed a police offer banging on his door.

“Sir,” shouted the officer. “Please step out of the car.”

Barry took a second to regain his bearings. He opened the car door and stepped out onto the highway.

“Have you been drinking?”

“Just a couple of drinks, officer.”

The office wrinkled his nose as if he was smelling an unpleasant odor.

“I’m going to have to ask you to take a field sobriety test.”

Barry wasn’t quite sure why the cop felt the need to do this, but it was probably just a formality. He wanted to help the officer, so he complied. He tried to walk in a straight line, but the highway was slippery from some earlier precipitation and he kept falling. He mentioned this explanation to the cop, who just nodded in agreement. The cop also administered a Breathalyzer test – probably a formality as well.

“OK, sir, we’re going to take you into the station to have a blood alcohol test performed. If you have only had a few drinks, then you have nothing to worry about.”

Barry nodded in agreement. Certainly the blood alcohol test would prove that he had only drunk a couple glasses of wine and perhaps a shot or two of whiskey. As the officer led Barry to the police car, he noticed an ambulance moving away from the scene. The ambulance did not seem to be in any particular hurry.

The rest of the evening was a bit of a haze. Barry woke up to find himself in a jail cell. A man in a suit stood at the door of the cell.

“Barry Larson? I’m Evan Andrews with the public defender’s office. We need to talk.”

The jailer led Barry and Evan to a private room where they could speak confidentially. Evan began to drop bombshells on Barry. Barry had blown a .26 blood alcohol level at the scene of the crash, and a later blood test had confirmed the result.

“OK, so I was drunk, but the other car was in my lane. I’m the victim here!”

“Well, Barry,” replied his lawyer, “that might be your recollection of the facts, but it doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation. The skid marks at the scene clearly indicate that you were in the wrong lane.”

Barry was stunned, but recovered quickly. “OK, so I pay a fine for the drunk driving and pay for the damage to the other guy’s car. When can I have someone bail me out?”

“It’s really not that simple,” explained Evan. “Two people in the other car were killed in the crash. You’re looking at a charge of vehicular manslaughter.”

Barry stopped breathing for a moment. How could this be true? He only remembered a few drinks the previous night. How could he have gotten so wasted that he was driving on the wrong side of the road and killed two people. He shook his head to clear some of the cobwebs. Pieces of the puzzle were starting to click into place. The problems he had walking the straight line were probably not due to precipitation – and the ambulance he had seen leaving the scene wasn’t speeding away because the people inside the car were dead at the scene.

“Can we reach some sort of plea deal? A hefty fine, a few years of probation, and a lot of community service?” he asked, desperation in his voice.

“One of the victims was a seven year old girl, Barry. This is an election year, and there is no way that the district attorney is going to let you walk without significant jail time. You could face up to twenty five years in prison. The DA is offering a deal that would give you eighteen years.”

Barry was stunned at the prospect of losing eighteen years of his life.

“What’s your advice?” he asked.

“Honestly, Barry, I would seriously consider taking the offer. You don’t want this case to go in front of a jury – especially not with that little girl as one of the victims. The state has a very strong case, and I think they could convince the jury to throw the book at you, and you’d end up with the maximum. Think about it for a few days, and let me know whether or not you want to go to trial.”

Barry nodded. The lawyer shook his hand and left, and the jailer walked Barry back to his cell. The possibility of the lengthy prison sentence was not at the forefront of his mind, however. The heaviest burden on his mind was the thought that he had killed a seven year old girl, cutting her down before she had the chance to truly experience life. The prison sentence would eventually end, but the guilt would always be present.

On Thursday, My wife and I attended the final practice round of the Solheim Cup being played at the fantastic Rich Harvest Farms golf course in Sugar Grove Illinois.

This article will rate the various experiences we had throughout the day. The LPGA is floundering a bit, losing a number of tournament sponsors, and recently the commissioner, Carolyn Bivens, stepped down. Women’s golf this week takes center stage and needs to score big, both on TV and with the fan base and nothing gets this to happen like a good ol fashioned continental rivalry.

We arrived at the course right as the gates were opening for practice round action. The weather was a little bit like it has been in the midwest most of the summer – windy, a bit rainy and unseasonably cool.

Play was delayed slightly because of the weather, so the spouse and I took up residence near the practice green area to watch some of the United States and European teams finest women golfers warm up for their rounds.

My wife has never attended a major golf event before this week. She was anxious to see many of the LPGA players as well as the greats of the Ladies European Tour (LET). She was also eager to get some autographs and multiple photo opportunities of the players and the course itself.

Our first stop was to hit the merchandise tent. Unfortunately, the Solheim Cup folks had failed to order in enough stock of many items. The tents were already out of pin flags (a popular item for autograph hounds) as well as a number of shirts were limited to just one size and a number of other items were “temporarily out of stock”.  We were informed they had actually run out of many of these items on Wednesday. Score – BOGEY – out of too many items on Wednesday is unacceptable, and as usual many things were way too overpriced.

Rich Harvest Farms is a wonderful golf course. It is not, however, fan friendly to walk. The course is very spread out over a huge amount of land, but the actual golf holes themselves are epic for a match play format. This is a tough golf course with superior bunkering and green complexes. Score – EAGLE

The players were out today completing their final practice round. The course is a long walk, so they took it a bit easy today I am sure to conserve energy for actual play. Mrs. Goodman took the time to rate the best … and worst of each team based strictly on their fan friendliness to the galleries. It is important to note that these opinions in many cases are only based on a thirty second contact, but as well all know, the first impression is the strongest.

European Team

Hole In One – Janice Moody. Actually she DID have a hole in one during Wednesday’s practice round. Janice took time to talk to the gallery, especially young kids and asked them questions. She was outstanding with autograph requests as well as photos.

Birdie – Catriona Matthew. The Women’s Open Championship winner this year was very polite and autographed the ball she was using during the round today and gave it to my wife. That extra bonus definitely moves her up the leaderboard here.

Bogey – Helen Alfredson – Stymied the crowds multiple times and even left her own teammates behind after 9 holes. They went back to the clubhouse, she wanted to play a few more … definitely had her game face on today and nothing else seemed to matter.

Double Bogey – Anna Nordqvist – Was a “No Show” on the course today and when asked by a few folks after the opening ceremonies about getting a photo or autograph, she looked exceedingly un-impressed.

Team USA

Eagle – Brittany Lang seemed to genuinely interact with the people and took a LOT of time signing autographs along the way.

Tap In Birdie – Angela Stanford – again was interacting with everyone along the way and after the opening ceremonies, she waited off to the side and took pictures with ANYONE who wanted one.

Birdie – Kristy Mc Pherson– The former Big Break star is still trying to make an impression with the fans, and succeeding.

Bogey – Paula Creamer – The Pinkster is no doubt one of the fan favorites. She is also one of the most saught after of the United States Players. She was the only person on the course my wife did not get an autograph from today, and sadly my wife wasn’t the only person that could say that. Paula did her best, but when others are taking all the time needed at every stop, and you are a player who is not, it stands out.

Triple Bogey – Natalie Gulbis. A fan favorite for some folks the REAL fan favorite was totally incognito today except for the opening ceremony. Cmon Natalie, you left too many guys disappointed.

And to end the day, the X on the scorecard goes to the parking at the Solheim Cup. We left immediately after the opening ceremonies took place and it took us almost 90 minutes just to get out of the parking lot. REALLY – take a lesson from other major tournaments with much larger crowds. There is no excuse for that type of delay.

Overall, it was an incredible experience and I cannot wait to see the real action on Friday.

Today, we welcome James Bathgate on board as the technology writer.  He will write a monthly column, Reality Bytes.

It has been 3 years since the release of Windows Vista and a new version of Microsoft’s operating system is just around the corner. Windows 7 looks to be a more streamlined and user friendly version of Windows Vista. The developers at Microsoft have taken strides to make their operating system more secure, easier to use, and less of a general headache that Windows Vista was. Microsoft, however, seems to have overlooked one area when designing Windows 7.

When upgrading from Windows XP to Windows Vista many PC owners had to upgrade their machines in order to run the new operating system. This caused confusion in some of the users of the operating system who did not know how to upgrade their machines.

Now, when upgrading to Windows 7 it seems the majority of people upgrading are going to require a clean install. This means that anyone who does not qualify for an “in-place upgrade” is going to have to back up all of their data from their system before doing the upgrade.

(Click to enlarge)

A user who bought their machine pre-installed with their operating system which included software bundled with that operating system will now lose that software. Even worse, people who do not understand what a clean install means will end up wiping out all of the information on their machine without knowing. In many ways, I think this is even worse than requiring people to buy some new hardware for their machine.

Some may argue that it is a necessary task for people to wipe their machine and reinstall everything now and then and I agree with that, but I do not think anyone should be forced to do this without knowing what they are doing in order to upgrade their operating system. This upgrade is going to cause some unknowing grandmother to permanently lose the pictures of her grandchildren. Some confused self-employed person is going to lose some indispensable business data. Some poor student is going to accidentally lose an essay they are working on when they upgrade their operating system. There has got to be a better way.

As Y.E. Yang hoisted the Wannamaker Trophy with his named newly engraved as the winner of the 91st PGA Championship, the ink had not even dried on the headlines.

“After Fading in the PGA Championship, Tiger Woods’ Slump is Official

” Tiger Woods’ PGA Championship collapse sets up pivotal 2010

“ Tiger Woods Loses PGA Championship to South Korea’s Y.E. Yang

Too many of the fish wrappers state the obvious train wreck type of headline. Don’t bother giving any credit to Mr. Yang. After all, he was a golfer who had to go through qualifying school this year. He formerly was ranked 110th in the world rankings. He had only one PGA Tour golf tournament victory to his credit.

Was, Formerly, Had … all those are way in the past tense now.

Yang becomes arguably the biggest upset winner since Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson. Douglas was the only guy in the place that night that seemed like he didn’t know he was supposed to go home on the wrong end of the stick. He was the guy that was going to get knocked out … not the guy DOING the knocking out.

This has to be one of the biggest sports stories in the history of South Korea. Yang will and should be lauded as a national sports hero. Heck he has won just two less major golf championships that all of the European golfers over the last 10 years combined.

Tiger Was 14-0 in Majors when holding at least a share of the 54 hole lead. Formerly he had played aggressive in many of those rounds, setting scoring records that may never be broken. He Had been untouchable in Majors when entering the final round. It was pretty much like bringing in Goose Gossage to face your kid’s little league team.

Was, Formerly, Had … in Tigers case these are being used in the present tense

And as many will celebrate the demise of the golf demi-god known as Tiger Woods, we get to see that at least on this weekend he was a mortal human … Not just a robotic, cannot be beat, machine like terminator that goes into the final round with the lead and says … I must break you.

The man Tiger is chasing, Jack Nicklaus, won 18 Professional Golf Majors (British Open, Masters, PGA Championship, US Open) in his career. Maybe more astounding than the 18 wins he that he finished second place in those same majors a remarkable 19 times. That means 19 times he was very, very close. Formerly, Jack was considered to be the best golfer of all time. Now many think it is Tiger Woods. Just think if maybe he had just one or two less lucky shots by an opponent, or avoided a bad break or slight miscue to hurt his chances, he might have 25 even 30 majors to his credit.

Was, Formerly, Had … I don’t think Jack dwells on this too much these days.

Regardless, what happens now will be interesting with Tiger. Many times in his career he seems to make it a point to do the unthinkable just to prove the naysayers wrong. After all, two of the traveling championships are at two of his favorite venues, the Old Course at St Andrews, and Pebble Beach.

Or, maybe he is getting a bit older. Maybe he has lost a bit. Maybe the rest of the field is getting better.

I did see one thing on Sunday’s final round that led me to believe he would not win the tournament. On the 7th hole when faced with a long approach 2nd shot on a reachable par 5, Woods chose to hit a bunt wedge to layup range. That was an unspectacular and non-heroic shot to be sure. Formerly a younger Tiger would never had made such a “safe” play. He would have ripped a 3 wood into the green and taken his chances. Was that a sign of older wisdom on the golf course, or a sign that the nerves are present to the guy who never seems to get nervous?

Was, Formerly, Had.

I am sure he is already thinking about Augusta next year.

Monday was a national holiday of sorts. It was the signing deadline for most of the players selected in this June’s Major League draft. College seniors (as well as Aaron Crow and Tanner Scheppers, who skipped their senior seasons to play in the independent leagues) were not bound by this deadline, but everyone else was.

My focus on this glorious day was on two pitchers – a righty and a lefty. The righty was top overall pick Stephen Strasburg and the lefty was Tyler Matzek, the #11 overall pick.

Stephen Strasburg

Strasburg has been the subject of much media attention over the last year or so. He has been an absurdly dominant college pitcher, throwing a fastball clocked as high as 103 mph. Superlatives were hurled at him by the bushel. Was he the best college pitcher ever? Surely the best in a decade? Many scouts deemed him to be the best player they had ever seen. To make things even sweeter, Strasburg’s coach at San Diego State – Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn – had made a concerted effort to avoid heaping abuse on Strasburg by avoiding monstrously high pitch counts in games. Many top college pitchers are overused by coaches eager to pad their own resumes with wins, at the expense of the health of their pitchers.

After the Washington National signed him, they bumped into the sticky subject of money. There were initial indications that Strasburg’s agent, Scott Boras, was looking for a deal around $50 million! Many thought that it was a slam dunk that he would hold out for $30 million.

There was a strong possibility that the Nationals would not be able to sign Strasburg, and he would re-enter the draft next year. The Nationals would be compensated with the #2 pick in the 2010 draft (an “n+1” formula is used to compensate teams that are unable to sign picks in the first two rounds, so the #1 overall pick in 2009 would yield a #2 in 2010). The Nationals are also likely to hold the #1 pick in next year’s draft by “virtue” of having the worst record this year. However, they would be unable to draft Strasburg a second time without his consent.

So, what happened? Negotiating went deep into the night, and the sides emerged with a deal that will pay Strasburg a reported $15.067 million and keep him under control of the Nationals for four seasons – at which point he will go into the arbitration system. This sounds like a ton of money (and it is) but I score this as a win for the Nationals. If they can lose enough games to land the #1 pick next year, they could add catcher Bryce Harper to the mix, and have a couple of very nice players for the long haul.

For more on Stephen Strasburg, read my fake interview from a few months ago.

Tyler Matzek

Rockies draftee Tyler Matzek garned a bit less attention than Strasburg. The Matzek selection was noteworthy for Rockies Nation, however. The small market Rockies have typically drafted players who were considered to be “signable” (a baseball euphemism for “cheap”) while eschewing players whose upsides were perceived to be higher.

Matzek, however, did not fit this description. Widely considered to be one of the top pitchers in the draft, high schooler Matzek slid down to #11 due to signability concerns (i.e. he wanted a lot of money), where the Rockies picked him. This move was the complete opposite of how the Rockies have historically drafted. Some observers felt that this was a strategic move by the Rockies. The thought was that they really didn’t want to pony up the money to pay a top pick this year, and would prefer to just take the compensatory pick next year.

For his part, Matzek talked a good game, talking about the opportunity to pitch and play first base for the University of Oregon.

Matzek arrived in Eugene, Oregon on Sunday night, which was not a good sign. However, when reports surfaced that Matzek had not attended Monday classes at the University of Oregon, my spirits soared. This was an indication that he might indeed sign with the Rockies.

In the end, Matzek left behind the world of co-eds and spring break for a reported $3.9 million bonus.

If you wonder what my initial response to the draft was, read the draftermath from June.