I can't remember if it came from Courtney or from Desi, but I thought it might be worth mentioning that J.Mo. introduced us to the term "Jesus Krispy" after one of her sisters used it at their grandfather's wake.

Jamie, you and your sisters have been on my mind today.

Frown = Terrorist.

No, really. Coming soon to an airport near you: behavior detection officers.

I'm sure you've done some digging already, but just in case. Here is the government webpage for fair housing laws.

This is the address and telephone of the regional HUD office where complaints are directed:

Chicago Regional Office of FHEO
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Building
77 West Jackson Boulevard, Room 2101
Chicago, Illinois 60604-3507
(312) 353-7776 ext. 2453
1-800-765-9372
TTY (312) 353-7143

There is also an online complaint form you can fill out.

Fairhousinglaw.org seems to have some good info also.

It would be interesting to have somebody white go see the apartment and see how he treats them. According to the Fairhousinglaw.org website a lot of people had their white friends call/visit the landlords to see if they were treated differently, and when they were, they sued the landlord into the ground. So that might be a good place to start.

So I looked at an apartment today and the landlord kept making these weird comments that, at first, didn't make sense...until I asked him where to sign (the place was nice, and I wanted to reserve it). Suddenly he started making these excuses, such as "well, I have other people coming to look at it" and shit. Then I realized. He's a bigot! He totally thinks that I don't have a job and won't pay rent because I'm brown!!! For example, when we first showed up, he asked how lunch was because he knew we were heading over after lunch. To which I said, "actually, breakfast..." totally joking around. To which he responded "must be nice to have a life like that" completely charged with disdain. Then, he kept asking what I would be doing (I just responded that I will be working at a law firm downtown). He totally didn't believe me.

I don't even know how to react to this except to report him to the fair housing people...but because he didn't outright say it, I don't know how far a complaint would get. Part of me wants to call him up and yell at him because in two years I could buy his lousy f*cking property. But, on the other hand, what good would it do?? Ugh. It was so subtle that I didn't even pick up on it until after I left and thought about it more. Thank goodness my sister was with me to reflect on it, too. It made no sense the way he was treating me. He didn't even get up to show me the property. He just sat on the porch and pointed me up the stairs. Then he wouldn't show me the laundry room or anything. I'm pissed.

I know it is a long ways away, but I need to book flights soon. I want to be home for Christmas time, I wrote a long, nostalgic, post about Christmas in Rudolph and how I can't miss it, but I left it private on my LJ. I have five vacation days, and combined with normal days off and holidays, I could be home as early as the 19th, but would leave on the 31st.

So, question: are people planning to do anything in cRapids [or Point - I had a great time with Lauren & Friends for 03/04 - or Madison] for New Year's? Or hell, even The Twin Cities - I'm flying out of there anyway. I know people don't know exactly what they're doing, but if I could know where everyone plans to be, that would be great.

Maybe we should plan an outing in the Cities....

Holy Sh*t!

So I went to workout after work. I changed and went into the gym and got on my favorite machine and looked up at the TV and what did I see?

Bridge collapse in Minneapolis

I didn't have the sound and news close captioning is notoriously terrible. So I saw bridge collapse, Minneapolis... connects to Minnesota. At first, I saw a small section, and thought "thats not so bad," then they backed the camera up and I stared, wide eyed for a bit, and forgot that I was supposed to program my machine for a few seconds.

Homeland Security says it is not a terror attack, except for the terror of our crumbling infrastructure. Well, I thought that last part. At first, I thought it was the I94 bridge that connects Wisconsin and Minnesota, then I saw "35W" and remembered that St. Paul was closer to that and the river on that part of the border is the St. Croix. I used to go over that bridge a lot, but I think I've been on 35W a total of two times, and one was a wrong exit. But damn............. oh gosh....

So, when I finished my work out, I started thinking of the people that I know that could have been trapped on that bridge as it plumetted. L, are you ok? Rock, you haven't moved to the cities yet, have you? I hope so, because I'm not sure what help I could offer being so far away. Is there anyone else in that area?