BOOM! 4 States In A Day

Today we flew EARLY from Denver to Atlanta to Newport News, Virginia where we drove to North Carolina. All in about 13 hours. To spend a week on the east coast with a family from church and another family that was from church, but then moved to North Carolina. But then they moved to Georgia! And so now we’re all from out of state. It is as far east as this Californian has ever been. Also as far as his TX and CO girls have been. His wife has been further east, but she jumped continents to do so. Do people in the far east think we’re far east, far west or far out?

Too-ness and More-ness

There are things I don’t tell my children.  I tell them to other people’s children, but not my own.  At first you’re probably thinking of either something slightly evil or disciplinary.  You’d be mistaken.  What I don’t tell my own kids about are stunts I did as a kid.  The reason?  They’ll want to do it, too.  If your child does it, I’m not responsible for their actions, you are.  If I tell my children they will do it, possibly injure themselves and then I’ll be responsible for fixing my children.

It gets worse.

The problem with too-ness is that once they master the stunt then there’s something more impressive that needs to be figured out.  If jumping your bike over or off of a large item is cool, why not jump on or over a car?  If climbing in a door jamb is fun, why not also climb up a very dangerous elevator shaft?  Children are creative, often more than adults, when it comes to doing more dangerous things.  I take precaution in what I tell my children so that they will be safe, too, and probably more safe.

Today I Called My Mortgage Company

They sent me some mail telling me that they needed to increase my rates ever so slightly to compensate for an increase in my property value.  I’ll refrain from giving you my opinion about this only to say that their ‘helpful’ voice recognition software was annoying, painful, and completely frustrating to interact with.  Worse: the computer took on a personal tone that implied it was human and was going to assist ‘us’.  Creepy.  I kind of wanted to unplug the server 🙂

Your Worldview Forces Your Conclusion

Just to point out what should be obvious, but is not: if you hold to a worldview, you’re going to come to conclusions that are unlikely to shatter your worldview.

Scientists who have a worldview that is based on a macro-evolutionary pre-condition are likely to conclude things that tie in with that worldview. Creationists will do the same. I do this. I find that in our relativistic culture this is kind of a missing conclusion in the minds of many people.

It is like the Republican and Democrat. They both swear up and down that a vote for any person but their candidate is a vote for [Satan, or the opposing party]. This is simply not true. It is a vote for the other option. You are beholden to a political view that I am unlikely to persuade you from [I’m one of the minority who is registered independent or undecided].

Trying to get someone to leave their worldview is like [some sexual reference here].

I probably make more money than someone else.

There, this post is highly inflammatory now. I have mentioned religion, sex, politics, and money. You’re also probably wrong [NOW it’s really inflamatory]

Changing Banks

When it is all said and done it will have taken us several months to actually change banks.  We’re actually leaving our old bank to switch to a credit union.  This is something that I like because firstly it’s a local financial institution, and secondly credit unions are much more service oriented in many cases because they have members who the employees are serving rather than some person that is not directly their ‘boss’.  When I asked the employee at the credit union if I could do various things that my old bank wanted to penalize me (unnecessarily) for he simply said, “Yes, you can do that.”  How about situation two? “Yes, you can do that, too.”  Are there fees for this?  Do I have to jump through this hoop?  “No, there are no fees for that and we don’t own a hoop holder to put a hoop there for you to jump through.” [I made that last answer up, but he said the same thing in meaning, even if my imagination makes him more funny.]

The hardest part is the automatic withdrawals and direct deposits.  Those seem to take weeks and up to months to get swapped over.  And they want voided checks.  And they warn you not to close down your old account until (insert some date/time here).  Seriously: in the age of computers and databases are we that slow that what takes me seconds to enter into an online form takes weeks and months to process?

The Credit Union is not officially supported by Mint [and they are not presently working on supporting it], but I’m OK with that.  I will likely pay for and install You Need A Budget and use that with regular downloads of our data.  There are downsides to changing institutions like re-entering online billpay accounts.  But those are minor in comparison to being nickel and dimes and treated like a money tree that needs regular pruning.

I look forward to being a member of a local credit union with staff that treat me like a human being.

Flat Tire

This morning I took our car in because our front passenger tire had a screw in it.  It was a slow leak, but you don’t want to find the boundaries of the puncture – air pressure balance.  At Discount Tires (the only place I go for tires, yes, that’s sort of a plug) Evie was noticing logos and patterns on the rims that were for sale.  She was fascinated by the work that was being done in the garage bays.

I’m really thankful for my 5 year old.  She’s precious.

On my desk is a hand written note from my 8 year old telling me she really missed me while I was on a business trip earlier this week.  I missed her, too.

I’m really thankful for my 8 year old.  She’s precious, too.

It’s good to be a dad.

Boiled Coffee

Do you know what’s good about boiled coffee?

Nothing!

Take it from me the last thing you want to do is boil your coffee like I just did.  You will cry.  You’ll have wasted the coffee, wasted the water, and wasted the heating source’s energy.  Don’t do it.