Let's play a game. Over here, we have an expensive and drawn out process that will disrupt your life and your finances. But, behind that curtain, we have something that will cost significantly less, be much less stressful, and likely be over and done much more quickly. Which do you choose? If you went for what's behind the curtain, you ...
Who cannot be stirred by the great Patrick Henry, American patriot? This famous Virginian, eyewitness to the founding of our nation, is remembered not only for “Give me liberty, or give me death,” but also for the Virginia Yazoo Company1. Huh? You hadn’t heard? Yeah, Patrick Henry was involved in a fraudulent land scheme. He headed the aforementioned Virginia Yazoo ...
George C. Parker had an interesting, if illegal, livelihood. Twice a week for some thirty years, he sold the Brooklyn Bridge to unsuspecting victims, according to the New York Daily News1. He also sold people Madison Square Garden and the Statue of Liberty2. We suppose, if you bargained well, he would have sold you all three prime properties in a ...
“It is dependency, not familiarity, that breeds contempt,” says author Marty Rubin. If you depend on your ex-wife to refinance your marital home after a divorce and she does not, she faces more than just your contempt. She faces a contempt of court charge from a Virginia Circuit Court judge. Refi Gone Awry? We will get into the details of ...
In 2000 — the latest year data are available from the U.S. Census — 6.4 percent of Virginia’s homes were mobile homes. The 185,282 manufactured homes are a sharp increase over the number of such homes in 1950, when 4,508 mobile homes accounted for only 0.5 percent of our Commonwealth’s housing. We are a mobile culture; we move around a ...
The Broadway musical, Music Man, has a wonderful song called, “The Wells Fargo Wagon,” written at a time (1957) when Wells Fargo was noted less for its banking irregularities and more for its express shipping services. That song, and indeed the entire musical, is an example of intellectual property. In Virginia divorces, intellectual property must be protected just as vigorously ...
Backyardchickens.com (We know you don’t believe us, but it exists) offers helpful advice on getting your chickens to lay their eggs in their nest boxes, and the secret lies in putting fake eggs where you want the chickens to lay real ones. This is the origin of the term “nest egg,” because once you start the golden egg-laying, it does ...
Almost nobody plays Monopoly by the printed rules. A genuine game of Monopoly takes approximately eleventy-seven hours, so most people make up their own ways to play so that, if they started at sunup, they stand a reasonable chance to finish by supper time. By Monopoly’s printed rules, the Banker is supposed to hold an auction for any property a ...
You cannot make this stuff up: the FBI is looking for “The Chameleon Beard Bandit,”1 a bank robber who has robbed six banks, including two in Virginia, using the clever ruse of changing the color of his beard. If you feel your wife (bearded or not — we’re not judging) has essentially robbed you by cleaning out your bank accounts, ...