Looks like I may be doing the refinance after all. It should save me some money every month and that is always a good thing. Of course I pay for it in interest in the long term but, what can you do? Did some more editing to the blog page, including adding a section for other interesting blogs as I find them. Dear_Raed is definitely an interesting blog - right from downtown baghdad. YOu can read stuff here that the papers won't print. Definitely recommended reading. Heard from my (is it second) cousin from down south. He's researching the family tree, hopefully he has some info on the Irvine side that I don't have.