whirlwind

I'm at the Unicorn Cafe, in Evanston Illinois, about a block from the Northwestern University campus. This Chicago trip was a surprise, two days notice. I'm here to help an elderly relative who got into some financial trouble. The summary: 11 credit cards, and a bunch more they sent her which were never activated. She didn't even know how many she had until I asked. She tripped some credit report threshold, or else the companies are having cash flow trouble, and they all wanted to be paid at once. If I hadn't intervened, they would have grabbed her meager bank account, left a 76-year old lady with no money at all, no way to pay her phone bill, no way to buy food. They had pressured her into giving them bank routing numbers. What was in that account would have covered about one percent of the total.

Is anyone still wondering why there's a major financial crisis in this country?

For what it's worth, American Express was the easiest to deal with, very accommodating, very easy to work with. Chase Bank was the worst; transferred three times and still couldn't get a straight answer. Apparently the front-line people aren't trusted to make decisions, and the hierarchy is tangled and inefficient.

Oh, and Chase was charging her 28.99 percent annual interest. The prime rate is currently 5 percent... why is this legal? Even if it is, why is Chase charging nearly 30 percent?

I pulled my account from them more than two years ago, after they made three screwups in a few months. One wonders how inefficient companies stay in business....

Anyway, it's pretty much handled now, and I may even be able to get a shoot in this weekend before flying home. I'm back to traveling light, one 12.8 pound bag (just weighed it) with my laptop (4.8 pound 12" Powermac) and two Leicas. No heavy DSLR this time.