Crabby’s Comments

Why is Freedom of Religion NOT Freedom from Religion?

Why is Freedom of Religion NOT Freedom from Religion?

There is a group of Atheists who are promoting their desire to NOT have a nativity scene at the Denver City and County Building.

To do this, they have paid approximately $1,000 to put up three billboard ads in Denver, that protest the nativity scene.

The organization has an interesting name – Colorado Coalition for Reason, or COCORE. I have a hard time with their reasoning, or lack thereof.

Our founding fathers wanted this as a nation where folks could express their religious freedoms without worrying about being punished or shamed for their belief in God – as long as no one is hurt in the execution of those freedoms.

The folks at COCORE are promoting their lack of any religious belief as if it is a belief system – someone who believes in nothing promoting (evangelizing) a belief in nothing – kinda different, if you ask me.

They have their right to believe or to not believe, this is a fact. But why they are making such a fuss over a nativity scene is a bit much. Come on folks, if you don’t want to see the nativity scene, look the other way – problem solved.

Everyone has the right to freedom of religion in this country, not freedom from religion. If you don’t like it here, I am sure that some of the communist countries would like to have you.

I saw what it was like in Czechoslovakia and Hungary before the Wall fell – churches were barred shut or used for museums This is true freedom from religion, which is pretty ugly stuff. If you want to be a robot, this is a great start. I for one, refuse to see this kind of junk happen in my country, so give me space as I do you, and we can get along.

I won’t be offended by your lack of religion and you don’t need to be offended by my relationship with God. There are much bigger problems you could use your group for like feeding some of the poor, or providing shelter for homeless folks. That one grand could do a lot more good in these two areas and it would make a REAL difference that benefits folks.

In closing I would like to wish fellow Christians a Merry Christmas, to Jews, a Happy Hanukkah, to Muslims, a Joyous Ramadan, and to those who celebrate Kwanzaa, all the joys that this time may bring. To anyone else who doesn’t have a religious belief, may you have peace and happiness in this time of year! Enjoy the time with your family, friends and those dear to you!

OK, I’ll shut up now…

Signs Of The Times

Economic Stress is Affecting Everyone

The world’s economic structure is under major stress. Like the techtonic plates of our planet, pressure will continue to build up until something breaks or explodes and the pressure is released.

Many of the things we see today are related to the stresses that are present.

Companies that historically have not needed to advertise are doing so. Others are putting products at near or below cost today to attract the shrinking number of customers to their doors. Giants like Microsoft and McDonalds are changing their tactics to get or to retain market share.

Many of us are working at multiple jobs – not to get rich, but just to survive. I have caught myself “changing hats” three or more times per day just to pay the bills. I don’t know abut you, but it gets really confusing at times. Living outof a day planner or a calendar program is becoming too common for most of us.

As to the old method of getting a part time job to help to pay the bills, it has now changed to us having mutiple part time jobs just to meet our basic needs – because no one wants to pay out benefits anymore. Add to that the fact that Social Security, Welfare, Medicare and all of the programs to help people are maxed out, and you have pressure building up at a tremendous rate.

My advice to all my fellow strugglers is to hang in there. We can make it if we really try.

OK, I’ll shut up now.

The Cost of Free Web Hosting

Should You Set Up a Site On a Free Web Host?

Backup, Backup, Backup! I always harp about this. The thing about it is that I, like most of you, fail to back up my data from time to time. When you don’t back up stuff – things happen!

One year ago I needed a CPanel hosted service to set up a web site for a WordPress Direct blog. I use GoDaddy for most of my sites, and they don’t use CPanel, so I had to use another hosting provider. I decided to go with a free hosting provider to save some money – that was a big mistake.

I got set up fairly quickly on the free hosting provider. It was a slower set up process than what I have experienced with paid providers, but what the heck, it isn’t costing me anything, so what is a little waiting time?

The site went up and ran fine for about 2 months, then the server was down – it had been hacked. One week later, my site was back up – for another 3 months. This time the server was taken down for maintenance. One week later, it was back up. There were a couple of other times it went down, but I had learned my lesson – I was backing up regularly – just in case I needed to move the site.

A couple of weeks ago, the site was offline again. I was too busy building websites and fixing computers to mess with it, so I decided to wait it out for the website’s return.

Today I had a few minutes to kill, so I thought I would check on the site. When I entered the URL, it was No Go. I decided to investigate further – I tried to go into my CPanel – No Go. I checked the server’s status – it showed the same thing that I saw 2 weeks earlier – that all services, including FTP were down.

I then went to the support forum – the only way that you could get any information about the “free” hosting accounts (emails were not answered when sent to support – at least they were up front about this). I was greeted by the following message in the support forum:

***********.com Hosting Community
This bulletin board is currently closed. The Administrator has specified the reason as to why below.

Hosting server (******.net) shut down permanently due to widespread abuse of ***********.com service.

So here I am with a backup that is two months old and no way to retrieve my data from the server.

The cost of a free web hosting account is not free. It requires dilligent backing up of data and files. Without the backups, the cost for the hosting is the hours that work that you lose.

My advice to anyone is not to use free hosting unless there is no other alternative. Let the “buyer” beware!!

OK, I’ll shut up now…

Should You Get A Loan Modification?

I thought others could benefit from my experience with loan modification.  I told Crabby about what happened and he said that he would like for me to put this in his blog to help others.  I hope it does…

Several months ago I was behind on my mortgage.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I had lost a part-time job and had exhausted all my savings, and retirement resources.  This caused me to get behind, and I was several months in arrears and facing foreclosure.  The option that my mortgage lender offered was loan modification.

These are my experiences with a loan modification. They may or may not be typical, but the information here is based on what happened to me and my family.  I have posted this to help others who are having to make the decision on whether they want to do a modification or not.

As they requested, I sent in all kinds of information, income information, debts, payment info credit card info – basically, I gave them all the information about every facet of my finances and my life.  They even had me fill out a statement letting them know why I was in arrears.  In that statement, I told them about my last few years problem finding permanent employment, the fact that I had lost a part-time job and that the only interviews I had recently got me into the top 2 interviewee position – hence I didn’t get the job.  I also let them know about the fact that I had no more savings or any other resource to draw upon.

I sent off the signed papers and began my “trial modification.”  My original mortgage payment was  slightly over $1150/month, the trial mod payment, which was based upon my current situation, was just over $800/month.  Needless to say, this arrangement helped us tremendously.  It was now affordable to put food on the table and gas in the car – instead of struggling to find change around the house for these items. We were told that the final modification payment might be higher or lower, but it would be in the same ballpark.

About 5 months later, we got approved for the actual modification.  The paperwork we were sent gave us a new monthly payment of $1100/month.  The change was just over $50/month.  I was in shock.  I contacted the lender about the papers I had received.  I asked if this was the best they could do – I was told that this would be the only offer I would get from them – so it was take it or leave it. It would bring us current on our loan, and it would pull us out of pre-foreclosure, at a cost of a balloon payment of over $90,000 at the end of the loan term.  (The 30-year mortgage would be amortized over a 40 year term, and the $50 “savings” would compound to the balloon note amount.)  Ouch!

I was told that the modification was based on my income from last year.  I guess that they missed the part about me losing a job and spending ALL my savings and retirement.

The only option we had was to agree to the modification – or lose our home.  Not much choice if you ask me.  It appears that the only people that loan mods help are the lenders – not the homeowners.

Income Tax Preparation

Well, another tax season is coming to a close. With the exception of those who file for an extension, everyone will have the “verdict” on last year’s taxes by April 15th. The funny thing is that even when you think you planned well to do your return, you always seem to miss something. There are always loose ends. There never seems to be a perfect and easy tax year – at least not for me.

Is it just me, or is it true for you as well – no matter how much you plan, it just isn’t enough? This year I had started two new businesses and closed an old one. If that wasn’t enough, I sold some stock that I had bought in small lots several years ago. What a mess! Backtracking some of the information for the stocks was zero fun. Add to that, the tax software said that I was off on my total number of shares, and the information was coming from data provided by the folks managing my investments!

Why don’t we plan everything out more carefully, and is there any way to get “all your ducks in a row” well before you file? For the average taxpayer I really doubt it can happen. I always wondered why my parents had a book keeper and an accountant to do their books and taxes – now I understand. Combining the complexity of 3 businesses and personal tax information can get really confusing – to say the least.

Every year I plan to have all things in place. I make a plan to get it right the first time, but I still spend several hours each day for several days to insure that the best, most accurate return information is given to the IRS and the State. I guess if I wasn’t so picky, there would not be a problem. The only consolation I have is that I know I did the best job I could at a task that I wish I didn’t have to do. All the last-minute scrambling to get everything right works out, given enough blood, sweat and tears.

One of these days, I will beat the system by having everything ready. One of these days, I will adequately plan for all the contingencies related to taxes. One of these days, I will remember every little detail I should cover and get my act together…Yeah, right!!

OK, I’ll shut up now.

Following People on Twitter

I just don’t understand some things. Folks that are on Twitter that follow everyone that follows them are one of these things. It never makes sense to me to do this. I want to follow people that have something important to say, are funny, or that provide me with valuable information when they tweet.

If you follow anyone that follows you, the resulting group will no doubt contain some unsavory characters. One of the biggest trends that I see is the porn industry – every pervert out there that wants to make a fast buck is creating not one, but multiple twitter accounts. Once they do this, they follow you with multiple accounts, hoping you will miss one of them and bring up their popularity by following them.

Another group that gets to me is the folks that are “spiritual.” Most of these people didn’t get any religious training at home, so they have gone out and got some belief system (in many cases, a rather strange one), that most folks would quickly trash. Often time these center around “finding inner peace” by looking inside yourself – get this, a person in turmoil is going to look inside his/her turmoil to gain peace. This doesn’t make much sense to me.

One guy that I checked out today said he wanted to “…thank the universe for what I have…” This sounds to me like thanking a Honda Accord for what the manufacturer (Honda) did. The Universe is a creation, not a creator. Again, someone that I couldn’t follow and believe what he says. If you really think that there is no God or Supreme Authority, please explain what CAUSED the Big Bang (objects remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force).

Then there are the immediate-follow junkies. These folks stop following you in an hour if you don’t follow. They are not being realistic. It takes time to verify what others are about before following them. I don’t live on Twitter, and I do try to check it out every couple of days, so give it a break, guys. If you have some valid content, you will be followed. (I had one of these ditch me while I was looking over their links…during that 3 to 5 minute time frame – gimme a break!)

And there are those that don’t put a link about themselves or post any tweets – how can anyone follow that?

Finally, there are the very valuable contacts that you gain on Twitter – these are the reason most of us tolerate the other folks in Social Networking. You have to separate the cream from the milk to get the best stuff.

So the next time you follow someone on Twitter, check them out. Make sure that they will give you insight or help you to reach your desired goals, or, if nothing else, they help you to laugh or share interesting quotes. After all, you want value in your Twitter feed, right?

OK, I’ll shut up now…

Uses for a Spork

I have often wondered how some inventors sell their ideas, especially ones that are pretty useless. They must have a group of really slick promoters that know how to sell ice to folks living in polar regions.

This HAS to be the case with the spork. This device has, to my knowledge, no real purpose for its existence. The thing seems unnatural, as it doesn’t do anything well. Even kids understand this. My son was wanting to have some cereal this morning. I didn’t see a spoon around, so I offered to let him use a spork – he declined, strongly. I think it has something to do with the fact that liquid, when placed in a spork, comes running out the fork portion of the device. No one wants milk on his/her shirt. You get the cereal, but the milk dribbles out – unless you use the device carefully.

One time I tried to eat some soup with a spork – because it was all that was available. I was not pleased. I LOVE having to clean up my shirt after a meal – good thing I wasn’t wearing a tie…

I have also tried to use this device as a fork. Trying to spear anything with it is an exercise in futility. The things are made of such thin plastic that they bend all over the place. What you do accomplish in this situation is to shove your morsel of food around the plate until you have sopped up all the juices on the plate into the meat, vegetable or whatever. In addition, has anyone tried to hold something with the spork so you can cut it with a knife, yeah, right!

Somebody made a killing on this invention, which doesn’t seem to work very well. All the restaurants that bought into it thought they were saving money. Instead, they have made customers either angry or disappointed – not good for business. Great idea, save 5 cents and lose a twenty dollar sale – SMART!!

I do know of one use for the spork – it is really great for kids to use when digging in sand at a beach. It might even work as a tool in SOFT snow. I could also see using it as a tool to put cool grooves in icing on a cake. Funny thing – none of these uses are what the silly thing was designed for. Someone probably got rich off this one. I gotta get my own idea like this – bound to be someone else that is gullible out there…

OK, I’ll shut up now…

Thank You Colorado Lawmakers for HB 10-1193

I recently checked my Amazon affiliate account.  A yellow and red banner greeted me, stating that my account had been closed.  Upon further investigation, I discovered that this was due to pressure from a recently-passed  bill from the Colorado lawmakers.  The bill in question House Bill 1193, which is directed at forcing anyone in Colorado that is doing affiliate marketing, to charge sales tax.

The result of this document and its passage is that everyone in the state of Colorado that WAS an Amazon Affiliate lost their job.  Thanks guys, we are barely surviving and you are kicking a lot of us when we are down…really great way to treat your taxpayers.

To me, the law seems a bit ridiculous.  At the end of the year, we have to declare our income, and state and federal numbers must match, so we end up paying taxes at the end of the year.  Now we have the greed factor stepping in – lets poke and prod them for sales that are going out of state – and charge an additional tax for it.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I just lost several hundred hours of work that I spent developing 3 websites, in addition to the loss of potential income, along with the effect on other sites where I had a few Amazon ads that now must be replaced. Hurting me is one thing, but my family did nothing to deserve your abuse.

This is a kick in the teeth.  I have been trying to make money for my family since a part-time job I had ended back in September of last year.  I guess the goal of the State Legislature is to fatten their wallets and to kill the public.  They are succeeding.  I sent an email to the Governor and will email all my local politicians that are responsible for this Bill.  They will at least hear my .02 worth – although it probably won’t do any good.

I remember growing up in a household where public service was an honor and a good thing.  My dad was a City Councilman, a County Commissioner, and served on all kinds of organizations and committees to help others. I am glad my father is no longer living to see this kind of self-service being done by those in public office – he would be disgusted.

The government is SUPPOSED to serve the people, not the other way around.  When those in politics realize what PUBLIC service is, and stop SELF-SERVICE, then we, as a nation, can go forward and get the country back to work.  A bill like this only hurts the little guy who is just trying to survive.

Thanks, Guys, for kicking Colorado’s Affiliate Marketers, we really needed it, with the economy down and all.

Some links:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Colorado-House-Bill-1193-Colorado-Affiliates-And-Are-States-Going-After-Affiliates

http://www.websitebabble.com/affiliate-programs-affiliate-marketing/12324-fight-against-colorado-bill-hb-10-1193-preserve-your-affiliate-business.html

http://www.blogher.com/amazon-associates-and-colorado-hb-101193-youre-fired

http://hubpages.com/hub/Sales-Tax-On-Internet-Sales-For-Affiliate-Programs

Comments are welcome, but they are moderated, keep it clean, and I will be happy to share your opinion.

OK, I’ll shut up now.

Rudeness

Today I got a couple of doses of rudeness.  Rude behavior is something that I have always thought was bad, but to some folks, it apparently is OK.

I was listening to the news on the radio.  They mentioned that the city council of a town near me had voted to make it illegal for people to live in tents along the riverbanks, and that these were only to be used as “temporary shelters.”  The report went on to say that they were going to have the police issue citations to anyone who was trying to live in a tent along the riverbanks or in parks.

The problem was that a number of homeless folks were living in tents and some of the local businesses were complaining.  They said the homeless folks were driving customers away and hurting their business.  Hmmmm….

My question is why didn’t the businesses and others that were complaining put some funds together to set up a shelter for these homeless people.  Maybe it’s just me, but I thought charity began at home…I guess that’s not so if someone is inconvenient, smelly, broke or homeless.  So the idea is to kick these folks while they are down – sounds like a really good ethic to teach our kids.  The next thing they’ll probably come up with is to promote euthanasia for homeless folks…sounds like what built this country right on top of the Native Americans.

The one consolation I have is that one of the city council voted against the ordinance – he had almost been homeless himself.  Some folks forget when it is the other guy, while some remember what life could have been if things had not gotten better.

Later  today I was in a place that sells low-cost oriental cuisine.  You know, the dollar fifty per item places, right?  Anyway, I walked in and while I was waiting in line a lady said to the guy behind the counter, “I didn’t know you were here, I almost didn’t see you…”  To which the owner replied with a blank stare. When she ordered her food there was still no reply until she was told the price of her meal.  No reply, no discussion, no kind words to the new customer, nothing.

I have seen kind of rudeness  in very large metro areas but not in the town in which I live.  This is disgusting.  Especially when I know for a fact that this man speaks very good English – I have heard him talk to his employees more than once. I guess he was upset that he was working the serving line by himself.  He looked to me as if he had eaten some sour grapes or something.  In this day and age if you are fortunate enough to be working, you should at least smile once in a while.  Rudeness to a new customer is not only bad etiquette, it is financial suicide.  Do this enough and you will be out of a job, even if you do own the business.

What I am trying to say here is that everyone should think a little more of others, and perhaps a little less of ourselves.   In my youth I heard that there is an old Native American saying: “Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.”

I think that statement is good and true.

OK, I’ll shut up now.

Celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The fact that we have a holiday honoring someone who fought for freedom and equality is a testimony about how far we have come as a nation.  The sad thing is that he, and others like him, had to die to bring attention to the need for equality and freedom.

Dr. King was a great man, and he did what he had to do to help free, not only Black Americans, but those of other races and nationalities that have been discriminated against.  I am the decendent of both Caucasians and Native Americans – I have always had a problem with people of one group or ethnic origin looking down upon another.  For this reason, I appreciate what Dr. King did for all of us. We are all in debt to him, and others like him that had a dream of freedom.

This kind of thinking has repeatedly occurred throughout history, and here are just a few who shared this:

Abraham Lincoln seemed to think this way.  He freed the slaves and he died for it.

In the early 1900′s Mahatma Gandhi used non-violence to gain freedom for his people – this man, who opposed violence, was also assasinated.

John F. Kennedy fought for Civil Rights, as did Dr. King.  Kennedy was assasinated, I believe, because he wanted freedom for all, no matter who they are, or what their origin.

Dr. King talked about John Kennedy’s assasination.  He knew that people who wanted to make equal rights a reality for all Americans might die in its cause.

Dr. King thought more of others than himself.  He was also extremely dedicated to the cause of Civil Rights.  He was the youngest man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  He gave the $54, 123  he received in prize money to further the Civil Rights movement.

Robert Kennedy was campaigning for Presidend when he announced the death of Dr. King.  Like most of us, he was shocked that a man who worked so hard for equality, using nonviolent means, was killed in a violent act.  Senator Kennedy was also assasinated.

Whether a person is a creationist or an evolutionist, one thing is certain – we all came from the same source.  How anyone can claim to be greater than another human being is hard to comprehend.  Martin Luther King stood for equal rights for all…and that is why we honor him with this holiday.

Thanks Dr. King – you did great and we miss you!

I hope everyone has an Awesome Martin Luther King day!

What is a Standard?

What is a Standard?

When I was much younger, we were told that if something began with a consonant, that we should “a” before it and if it began with a vowel, to use “an.” So we have, “an apple” or “a banana.” That was before acronyms. Now we have people saying “an HTML document” or “an COBOL 85 standard document.”  What happened to the old rules? Besides sounding strange, it doesn’t make any sense to change standards unless there is good cause.  Think about it – “an Hypertext Markup Language Document” sounds very strange when compared to “a Hypertext Markup Language Document.”  I don’t know, maybe it is just me…

While on this topic – who came up with the idea of putting periods in phone numbers?  It had to be someone under 40.  Periods are too small to break up the numbers as well as the “traditional” dash.  It makes it easier on those of us that suffer from presbyopia.  I just HATE having to pull out my readers to read a phone number!  If the person had used dashes, I might have been able to stretch my arm out far enough to read the silly thing!

The other thing under this topic is being PC.  Why did “Sugar Frosted Flakes” become “Frosted Flakes?” As far as I know, the product still contains the same amount of sugar.  Just because people have become over sensitized to something, don’t make up a marketing lie.  Maybe if they changed the coating to varnish, cement or something else I would understand…

We have lived under the “English” measurement system in this country for over two hundred years.  Why are some folks so determined to convert to metric?  They say it is to help with world trade.  To save money and time wasted in conversion.  Obviously these same folks don’t have a clue about the cost of converting over.  Just the change in road signs will be very costly.  The other thing is distances – the majority of the nation still understands 40 miles to a location – which is 64.37 kilometers in the metric system.  Suddenly my trip became one third longer!  If the metric system is SO perfect, why don’t the numbers come out even?

The biggest problem is that as we get older, we become more resistant to change.  I am no exception to this rule, so I guess I will have to adapt as time goes by.  Change will occur, whether it is good or bad, I will have to live with some of it – even if some of it makes no sense at all.  (If it works, don’t fix it!)

Ok, I’ll shut up now…

Happy Holidays?

Around this time of year, you hear a lot of folks say, “Happy Holidays.” This term is used, more often than not, to be politically correct. Correctness has its place, but I don’t think that it is necessary for this time of year.

The three major religions of the world, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, all have celebrations at this time of year. In addition, there are a number of people who celebrate Kwanzaa as well. Each of these celebrations have their historic roots and are an important item to the people that celebrate them. I personally don’t see a reason that a Christian cannot greet a Jew or Muslim with “Merry Christmas”, or for the Jew to greet the others with “Happy Hanukkah,” or the Muslim to greet the others with his/her own statement about Ramadan. It is a simple statment of the person’s belief system and says to the world, “This is who I am, and what I believe.”

It is sad that we feel that we will offend our fellow human being for saying something that is so important to us that it is something we LIVE (or should be living) every day.

What I am saying here is that we all have our path in life to follow. I personally believe that each of us has a right to seek truth and God in our own way. I also firmly believe that we all can benefit by knowing a little more about the other person’s faith and belief system. The problem is that so many folks take offense at the other person’s beliefs that my suggestion to greet each other with our respective seasonal greeting would, no doubt, cause some folks to get hateful or even violent – sad, but true.

So, to each of you who read this post, I wish you greetings for this wonderful time of year. Whether you be a Muslim, fasting for Ramadan, a Jew, celebrating the Festival of Lights, a Christian sharing gifts with loved ones, or someone having a Kwanzaa feast, I greet you and wish you the best of this season, no matter who you are. May this time be great for you and all you love.

The Science Project

Nothing brings a father and son together more than a project for school. There is nothing like working with your child and sharing your knowledge with them. This is a statement of what it ends up like, but not how it usually starts.

The project information is given as an overview to the student, who takes the information he or she got from the teacher, to Mom or Dad. The concept of sharing information with the parent is a good thing in theory, but in reality, the adult that is involved becomes somewhat confused over the fact that the child used selective hearing when he/she got this information from the teacher. This results in a partial understanding of what the project is supposed to be about, plus a few wonderful assumptions the young learner has added, like salt, to season the discussion.

Because my son only understood part of the project’s requirements and was (obviously) confused on the finer details of the assignment, I was rather happy to attend an orientation session for his upcoming task. There, I was given lots of information, while watching my daughter, who was determined to visit with her friend. The only problem is that her friend was clear across the room. For most parents, this brings to mind nightmares of his/her child being the only undisciplined kid on the planet.

Orientation helped out, sort of… I was told that information on the project would be on the school’s website. I did not know that THIS particular information required filling out a form and getting access credentials from someone in the front office. I discovered this the weekend before the project was due – oops, my bad. I also misplaced the paperwork for the project. (Guy who has taught a LOT of courses, did the famous, “I lost it!” in REALITY – yes, my ego was crushed!)

Fortunately, I had taken photos of some sample projects at the school, so I had an idea of what was expected.

We started to work on the project and my son decided to change his project to an entirely different topic. We were originally going to work on studying molding on bread products, now we were going to find out about sinking a rock in a thin versus a thick liquid.

I brainstormed for a while on it, and I came up with a thickener that I assumed would work well – Oatmeal. We decided to cook the oatmeal to make it more consistent and make it a better thickener. After a number of trials, my son and I realized that the lumpy nature of the oatmeal made it harder to use as a controlled thickener, so I suggested we use a stick blender before cooking to make it a finer solution to work with. It worked better, but now I had to blenderize each time that my son put in a new dose of the thickener. Add to that the fact that we were doing 2 to 7 trials per run to get numbers that would give us an accurate average of the sinking times, and you have one word – MESSY.

We did complete his project (very early in the morning) and he turned it in today. I hope he did well. I did not do so well myself. I don’t know if I will ever want to eat oatmeal again!

Ok, I’ll shut up now…

When do We Have Time for Family?

When do we have time for our family members? I don’t know about you, but it seems that the day is always so busy that I never seem to get enough time for anything but my work.

That is the problem.

The tail is wagging the dog. YOU have control of YOUR time – use it wisely. Talking with or doing things with your family is an important activity. I would say it is as critical to keeping the family running smoothly as changing the oil in your car is critical to its smooth operation.

Take some time today to say something nice to a family member. Better yet, do that for several folks in your family. They will appreciate it.

You might want to plan an outing or picnic or just plan a walk in the park together. It doesn’t matter if it involves you and those you love. In fact, you may find that the time spent with family may expand your ability to resolve work problems, get more work done in less time, and to focus when you really need to.

Give it a try, I PROMISE it won’t hurt a bit.

OK, I’ll shut up now…

Continue Reading...

What is Correct?

We always hear, read, or are told “What is Right or Correct,” only to see the source of this instruction do exactly the opposite. It appears to fall under the old saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

One of my favorite peeves is people saying, “Click OK.” This is interesting, since most texts on computers say that you CLICK a mouse button but you CLICK ON an object, such as a button, hyperlink, etc. In the same texts you will find statements such as, “Click cancel,” just a few pages later. I find this a little irritating. Which is really right – what you told me is correct, or what you said later?

The same goes for things in the computer field. Let’s take hard drive capacity, for example. We are told that Memory is the physical RAM in the computer. We are also told that hard drive space is called “storage.” Yet, without fail, you will hear someone describing his/her computer saying, “I have 300 Gigabytes of memory.” Yeah, right – you have a supercomputer in your office!

What about folks that “need to work out more?” These are often the same folks that leave their shopping carts where they were parked – instead of walking the cart to the cart corral. I guess they didn’t need the exercise that day…

Dad or Mom got onto little Johnny for stealing a friend’s toy. Later that evening Dad downloads a movie that was just released from the Internet and burns it to disc for the family movie night. Is one “stealing” and the other “borrowing?”

The bill collector is told that you are too broke to pay them because you made only X dollars in the last month. Later on that evening you tell your friend on the phone that you are making more money than you can spend.

I am not perfect by any means, but I think it is important for each of us to look closely at ourselves. We need to take an inventory of what is not right, and at least try to make it better. There is an old saying that, “God isn’t finished with me yet.” The thing is that we are His greatest tools for change…

Ok, I’ll shut up now…