Matthew Birkbeck

Congratulations are in order to Matthew Birkbeck of the Pocono Record for winning the Investigative Reporters and Editors award for his investigative series:
“A price too HIGH“… blowing the Home Builder/Inflated Appraisal scandal in the Poconos wide open.

It’s been long known as the Poconos’ “Dirty Little Secret”, where creative financing is used to lure New Yorkers to buy homes which end up worth a fraction of the cost by a real appraisal. The end result is you have a house you can’t afford, and no way to refinance for a better rate. (And you know how I was burnt!)

The news report focuses primarily on Raintree Homes (who sued the Pocono Record and lost…BIG TIME.), but I can assure you there are many more uscrupulous home builders just like them. New Yorkers really need to do their homework, before considering a move to the Poconos.
(Check out this spoof site of Raintree’s… it’s hilarious!)

Congratz, Matt!!!!

Other Great Links:

A little birdie* tells me that GeoCities is stopping FTP access as of April 1st. As I hear the sounds of a mass-exodus coming, I’d like to remind you folks of my webhost:
Server-Space.Com - Home of:

• EricBrooks.Com
• Pocono Job Search
• Sun Litho-Print

20MB Webspace, CGI-BIN, FTP-access, support for GreyMatter & Movable Type… all for only $8.99 per month!
Server-Space.Com
(E-Mail Me to get set up… I haven’t had time to re-do their “Contact Forms” yet.)

* Big ol’ Kudos to Simply Lee for taking in a few refugee sites in this time of crisis! *SMOOCH!* Now *THAT’S* Southern Hospitality!

At the request of Fontographer Michael Bujardet, the following fonts have been updated in the Font Section:

Bujardet Freres, Candy Cane Match and Dactylographe.

He’s a talented guy, and a class act. He found the information in the zip files either wrong or missing, and asked me to fix it… rather than remove it, and be nasty about it. He maintains a large site himself and understands that sometimes your sources (I get most of my fonts from FTP sites and CD’s) are less than reliable. Stuff like this happens. I truly appreciated his willingness to continue working with me. He even thanked *me* for *my* support!

Well, hey… the font section is the most popular section on this site. I couldn’t have done it without the contributions of talented folks like him. So I thank Mr. Bujardet, Ray Larabie, and all the other talented folks that make my font section possible. It’s a lot of hard work making fonts, and I try to support these guys whenever possible.

However…

I have to deal with the occasional “Shareware Weenie“, who thinks I’m indebted to them, and they have the right to address me like I’m a lower form of being. Like this letter I got the next day from some *other* fontographer not worth mentioning:
“Hi -
I’m the author of [name of crappy font] and [name of crappy font], which are available on your server. The read-me with those files is inaccurate, and the Windows version is unauthorized. Please remove the fonts and associated files from your server. Thanks very much.

You may wish to link to my type page, where users can pay for my fonts via PayPal:“

Uhm… let me think about it. No!

WTF? This guy practically accuses me of pirating his fonts (one of which I cant even find on my site), talks down to me in an insulting manner, and expects me to be nice and link him???? I don’t think so. I removed his fonts, and that’s that.

I don’t have I problem with these guys wanting to get paid for their hard work (hell, they deserve it!)… But damn, respect goes both ways, chuckles.