"American Home Mortgage" what a great name for a company

Too bad it does what it name says so it was down 90% on the stockmarket today ... CHART

I think we left the "Fear" stage and are entering the Depression phase.

First day of school

Most important information:
--> School starts at 8h30 and ends at 15h23 (no, that is not a typo)
--> Every teacher has his/her own classroom, so students have to walk around
--> Lisa will be teaching Geometry in 10th and 11th grade (4e en 5e middelbaar)
--> David will be teaching (this is funny) World Studies in 10th grade(LOL) and Economics in 12th grade

"World studies" combines Geography and History...

Naomi's first day at daycare went great. She really likes it there and she understands most of the things we talk about in English.

Jim Cramer on the housing market

He definitely has ADHD, which is not difficult to spot. He has one of the best track records as a hedge fund manager, he is not dumb at all studying Magna cum laude from Harvard... This is his take on the Us housing market.

Naomi's school is not yet finished so

her school starts the 27th of August.(not the 13th of August as it was planned) Wish I had that kind of luck when I was young.

Some misc. facts / Varia (UPDATE)

--> I will be visiting the Phoenix Table tennis club this week. First I'll wait until my health plan kicks in :-) I will take some pictures when I get there.
--> Someone comes and cleans the pool once every week.
--> Someone comes to clean up our front and backyard once a month.
--> It is Monsoon season in Arizona, that's why there are always thunderstorms on the Maricopa weatherforecast.
--> We couldn't watch the Tour de France on our computer/internet (damn you vrtnieuws.net), pity.
--> There is NO dental plan included in the health plan. Dental plan is about $350 per person per year.
--> In Maricopa there is a pizza place called "Fat Daddy's Pizza"... link
--> We have 11 paid days of leave at our school. Reading between the lines they expect us to use them every year, but they can be transferred to the next year(s) indefinately.
--> The calender of our school is online, see link (includes 5 paid leave days)
--> Cheese and all decent products :-) (French) are VERY expensive here. Camembert costs $40 per kilo. Oh my. "French" bread is $3.59...
--> I was able to upload a movie to the blog so this opens up new possibilities for the blog and the way I communicate to you all.
--> All prices in US stores have NET prices, TAV or sales TAX(BTW) is NOT included. However when you buy on the internet, you DON'T have to pay sales taxes (BTW). On a 14 dollar toothbrush, it makes not much of a difference BUT on a $1700 LCD 1080P TV it DOES. sales tax is +/- 8%.

Can someone please explain to me

WHY a news radio is doing the job of the police... Why are they broadcasting this live? What is the added value for that?
This is a big tragedy that could have been avoided. Pity.

Crash727tm
Uploaded by krs601

Some misc. facts / Varia

--> During the day we keep the temperature of the 1st floor at 24 degrees Celsius and the second floor at 26 degrees Celsius

--> The temperature of our pool is 34 degrees Celsius

--> We pay $7 to pick up our garbage per month. They come and get it twice a week. We do not need to recycle, everything goes into the garbage can...

--> A gallon of gas (benzine) costs about $2.69, which is about 0.50 euro per liter...

--> Everyone living in a community like ours has to live by the rules of the Home owners association (HOA) which means you can't do what you want. Cars are not allowed on the street, the front yard has to be well maintained, ...

--> Because the water in Phoenix is hard (a lot of Calcium in it), most people need to install a special system that takes the calcium out of the water.

--> We went to a school meeting this wednesday where we had to fill out a zillion papers. Second day of school meetings is Tuesday the 31st of July. First children arrive at our school on the 13th of August. We will recieve our first paycheck on August 10th.

--> At this time Lisa doesn't have a health insurance plan because they wouldn't let her have one, reason: she, as a US citizen didn't live in the United States the last 12 months...

--> The health plan of the school for the three of us, starts Wednesday the 1st of August.

--> We don't need to pay for the health plan but the mothly bill for Naomi's health plan is $350. ($4200 a year) The health system works very differently then in Belgium of course but let's say this health plan resembles the Belgian system. For example a doctor visit would cost us $15, keeping us a day in the hospital would cost us $100, the emergency room would cost $65,...

--> Our application for a Credit Card was denied. LOL. No comments on that one for now...

--> The Americans don't use 'wire transfer', they only use Presidents (hard cash), checks and credit cards. Because they didn't want to cash our checks and we couldn't get a credit card, we're stuck with cash...

Naomi's 8th Birthday party

We held a birthday (8 years old) party for Naomi this Friday, here are some pictures. I will try to upload a video later this week-end.

So, what does Naomi do 24/7?

Well, that can be summarized in 3 pictures: POOL, POOL, POOL.

So, what are you guys doing over there, enjoying the sun?

Euh, not really. SHOPPING, BUYING, GETTING THINGS, ...

So how it is the Phoenix real estate market doing?

Not that good ...

The pictures I took of the accident were published on the 85239.com website !!!

What about that. LOL
SEE link

Grandpa sent my pictures to the Maricopa Website: www.85239.com and they published them on the frontpage of their website.

It feels great having your picture on the frontpage of that website.

Zane's first birtday, some pics of the party at Shanti's place

Big car crash at the entrance of the community where we live

Auch, that is about 300 meters from our place.

Birthday Naomi

Tomorrow the 23rd of July is Naomi's birthday. It will be very hard to spent that special day in a foreign country far away from her Belgian family and friends.
Please feel free to sent her greetings by replying on this post. We will read it with her at the end of the day.

Helping the GDP of the United States and China

Helping to boost the Gross Domestic Product (GDP = BBP) of the US by having a shopping spree. So we bought 2 desks and 4 bookshelves from IKEA. We bought a whole bunch of things at Walm*rt: bike for Naomi's birthday, towels, plates, restroom materials, trashcans, pool equipment, and so on...

Eventhough things are really cheap here in the US, in 72 hours we've spent a 30 day Belgian paycheck. Auch, that hurts.

We are working on installing our office. When printers, Wi-Fi internet, computers, webcams, cameras, ... are installed I will provide more pictures of the house and other things.

Continental Airlines

We give Continental Airlines 5 stars for this travel trip. We have flown with most other US companies: United Airlines(4*), British Airways (2*) and Delta Airlines (1*).

Misc Update

Ok:
Internet in our own home
Cellphone
Dunkbed Naomi installed
Groceries to fill up the fridge

We'll be visiting IKEA Phoenix this afternoon
to get some patio furniture that we will be using these first few months
as furniture for our living room.

We zijn goed gearriveerd

We hebben het huis al bekeken en het overtreft onze verwachtingen.
Later meer.

We have ARRIVED

Everything went fine. Later more.

Hibernation until the 20th

No internet available from the 14th on, so next post will be on U.S. soil if everything goes well.
We want to thank grandma and grandpa of Spain who helped us by providing shelter, a bed, food and a lot of love/friendship.

We'll be back in a week.

Flight schedule

All times are local (Belgian time between brackets)
Continental Airways (one way, one stop)

departure: 9h55 AM Brussels
arrival: 11h55 AM New York (17h55 BT)

departure: 4h30 PM New York (22h30 BT)
arrival: 6h54 PM Phoenix (3h54 20th of July BT)

6 days to go

We don't want to be trapped in traffic driving to the airport, so we hired a room in the hotel at the airport: Sheraton Brussels Airport Hotel for the 18th of July.

For Sale: Parking Space $ 225 000

Oh my, a parking space in Manhattan costs $225 000, that 100 000 euro parking space in Knokke (Belgian Coastal area) looks dirt cheap.
LINK to article

Subprime blow up for Dummies (CNBC)

This is a must SEE. How to make A+ bonds from subprime (below investment grade) bonds.

Home prices crash in the United States

It's just a prelude of what will be happening in Europe on a wide scale.
This is a home we visited in July 2006. List price was: $333 000.
Now 12 months later, the same home in the same community costs $265 000.

Prices in Europe have a lot more to fall. A semi detached home in Flanders costs about 200 000 euro (= $284 000) ... Auch that's gonna hurt when prices readjust to inflation.

From ZERO to HERO. Ron Paul on the Move!

Ron Paul has now more cash from donations then one of the big candidates "McCain". Especially the last 1 minute and 40 seconds are a MUST SEE.

Weather in Maricopa

In Belgium the weather really sucks big time at the moment. For a weather forecast for Maricopa, Az, click here.

Conversion:

85 F = 29 C°

100 F = 38C°

110 F = 43C°

What about that!

Countdown, less then 10 days

We'll not be able to use the internet as frequently as we would like :-(

So posting will be sporadic until the 19th.

***NEW*** departure date

We leave on the 19th of July 2007.
We will leave the BAD Belgian weather behind us, and fly towards 115 F (43°) Maricopa weather.

CRASH, BOOM, BANG

The eagle has landed.

Naomi's papers are OK. We still have to get the immigrant VISA now Friday or Monday.

HIP HIP HOORAY

Thursday 5th Of July: DO or DIE day

This is it, this is the day we've all be waiting for. ALL or NOTHING. We have an appointment with the Embassy here in Brussels. Results within the next 10 hours. You'll be the first to know.

After the DISASTER circle, we have entered the circle of HOPE

After we received the documents, we went (without an appointment) to the US Embassy in Brussels. And ... we got an appointment for THURSDAY the 5th of July. There is no certainty that they will review our file but we hope that they do. Keep those fingers crossed and those candles burning...

FEDEX (missing documents)

After filling in all papers over the internet, papers were dropped off in Tempe (Az, USA) Friday at 17h local time (4h Saturday night in Belgium). They arrived on Monday here in Belgium at 11hAM local time.

The FEDEX guy said that he hadn't seen anyone being SO HAPPY to recieve a FEDEX document. Lisa's smile is indeed one of a kind.

Trying to get those Missing Documents

Trying to fill in the missing documents with our contacts our cable company CUT the internet connection! We ASKED to cut the internet on the 30 th of June. But we presumed/expected this to be at 11h59 PM, NOT at 00h01 of that 30th...

So we changed locations in the middle of the night and woke up half our family.

These pictures were taken on Saturday morning 2 AM local time, studying instructions to help our US contacts to fill in the missing papers. They will be FEDEXed and hopefully the package will be here on Monday 2nd of July.

We have looked better but...

Remember we cleaned up our appartment that same day from 7 AM Friday and it was a pretty hectic week.