Insurance

I realize that with all the talk about insurance in politics lately no one probably wants to read a blog about the subject. I promise that this blog will have nothing to do with a political stance on health insurance. No, I don't want to type about it any more that you want to read about it.

In the year 2001, I got my first cell phone. It was a big fat navy blue and black Nokia that I was seriously proud of. It did nothing more than store phone numbers and make phone calls, but that was about all cell phones did back then. One of the things that really surprised me was that I was able to get the phone for "free" for signing up for two years. You all know the very typical story so I won't carry it on at length, but I had entered into a realm of technology that I had never dreamed I'd be part of.

One thing that I thought was imperative upon starting up my two-year contract was setting up the insurance plan. I was assured by the sales representative that accidents can and do, in fact, happen all the time to phones that are carried around everywhere you go. I imagined an accident occurring to my beautiful blue Nokia and being stuck with a contract without being able to afford a new phone while having to pay for a service that I couldn't use. So, $5 per month to assure me that this imagined scenario wouldn't take place felt like a great deal at the time.

Little did I know that this particular phone could also be used as a hammer without any consequence of functionality. Two years went by and I found out that I was eligible for a "free" phone upgrade. So grateful was I that I got another Nokia, but this time it was silver and black and only weighed a mere pound which happened to be roughly half the weight of my previous phone. It was also half the thickness so that I could stuff it in my pocket without quite the prominent bulge of its predecessor. I continued my insurance plan without a thought at all to whether I needed it or not.

More years passed by and I had my first problem with a cell phone. One day the little colorless LCD screen messed up. A third of the screen froze while the remaining two-thirds flipped like a mirror image. The phone still worked but was obviously difficult to maneuver through the numbers. I was available for an upgrade again so I took it. But, this time I wanted something cool. Cell phones had come a long way in the last couple of years and I wanted something cutting edge. Even with the upgrade discount I still shelled out about fifty clams for a sleek, stylish, black Motorola RAZR. I loved it. It took photos. It shot some of the worst video I've ever seen, but it actually shot video! I was feeling pretty cool. I was a little perturbed by the fact that RAZRs started being given away for free with two-year contract renewals just weeks after my purchase, but I got over it because at least with the phone I was cool.

Very cool, in fact, until it happened. Another problem arose with my cell phone. This time it wasn't the screen, it was a speaker. The tiny speaker that you put up to your ear during a phone conversation just quit working. I would answer the phone and people could hear me just fine but all I heard was silence. I quickly discovered that the speaker phone option still worked. Apparently, it used a separate speaker for that function.

Now, when someone receives a phone call while in a crowded store, and they whip out their cell phone and put it on speaker for everyone to hear, what do you think of that person? PRECISELY! You think that they're trying to show off their phone, but you immediately find them arrogant and rather annoying. And, there's no explaining the situation to everyone who passes you by either. You just learn not to use your phone in fear of people's scorn.

So, after months of dealing with the huge inconvenience, I remember that I've been paying for an insurance plan for years. It's time to cash that puppy in and get this problem solved. So, I call the 1-800 number and I quickly get the process started with a customer representative and find out that I have to pay a $50 deductible. WHAT?! I guess I never noticed. Oh well. I pay it. I get my new RAZR pretty quickly and have to ship my old one in. Problem solved, you think?

No. I finally drop my insurance plan after paying $5 a month for about 6 years. I paid about $360 in premiums over this time and when I finally went to use it I was out another $50. So, in essence, I paid $410 for a replacement RAZR that I could have purchased used for about $50 on Craigslist. You live, you learn.

A couple years ago, Jodi broke her phone. Well, Lyric broke her phone, actually. And it only cost me $27 on Ebay for a replacement. Moral of story: don't buy cell phone insurance.

The sad part about all this is that it also corresponds to our own health insurance premiums and usage. I've paid more in than I'll ever get back. Because of never needing health care beyond the amount of our deductibles, it's as if we don't have insurance at all. We pay full amount out of pocket even though all year we're paying high premiums. Moral of story: you decide.

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Merry Christmas!

Merry (belated) Christmas everybody!

This was Lyric the morning after Christmas. The light coming in the window was just enough to give Lyric a light saber.

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History of Motorola

Last night, Jodi and I watched Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian. I wasn't sure about the prospect of watching it despite having enjoyed the first one. I saw a couple negative reviews of people saying the humor was too silly. I didn't get that impression at all in the movie. It's a family movie, for sure, so there is a little slapstick humor that was intended to make the kids roll on the floor, but for the most part they did a fine job of incorporating humor that was fun for everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed what I saw of it.

We started the movie about 10:00 PM and after finishing a 57-hour week at work, my fatigue got the best of me. I only saw about an hour of the movie and then proceeded to wake up near the end when the music is getting all climactic and loud. I started to watch again, but upon seeing Jodi snoozing beside me, I decided to ignore the screen so that we could retry where we dozed off and finish the movie together at another time.

With the movie over and the credits rolling, I felt safe to watch while I tried to find the strength to get off the couch and start the task of getting ready for bed. They showed a little clip alongside the credits of a young man they had showed earlier in the movie. His mother was calling him down to dinner or something and he says, "In a minute!" The mother then calls him by his whole name as mothers often do when becoming impatient with their children. The joke is that earlier in the movie Ben Stiller's character finds himself transported into the famous black and white photo of the sailor kissing the nurse in the middle of the street in Times Square. During this brief stint of running around in the black and white street scene, he drops his elaborate cell phone and a young sailor, this kid I mentioned during the credits, picks it up. During the short credits scene, the young man is tinkering with the phone (which appears to be a Blackberry or a similar PDA style phone) and his mother, becoming impatient, calls out, "Joey Motorola, you get down here this instant!"

I might have found this funny, but I already knew enough history to know that the name Motorola didn't come from it's creator's surname. This aside, the joke would've still failed in its attempt to humor me for the time discrepancy. The famous photo, as shown here, that the main character gets transported into was taken at the end of World War II, more specifically on Victory over Japan day, August 14, 1945. From what I knew of Motorola, the company, it had emerged out of the Great Depression which took place after the stock market crashed in 1929.

I did some research and found that Motorola became one of the largest electronics companies in the United States, but like most companies, they had a very humble beginning. The company started in 1928 as Galvin Manufacturing Company. They made a product called a battery eliminator. Most home radios were designed to run off of battery power. The battery eliminator converted the radio to allow it to be plugged into a home's AC outlet. The company started to flop when the market crashed and people stopped buying anything that wasn't an absolute necessity. That's when the owner, Paul Galvin, began talking to engineers at a radio parts company who shared space within the same Chicago manufacturing facility as they. They formed a group who designed the first radio for an automobile in 1930.

They named the radio 'Motorola' because they felt that it suggested music in motion. This was because, since 1901, a company named Victor produced phonographs. Their most popular model was named 'Victrola'. This had become a household name by 1930. So, in essence, Galvin was combining 'motor' which was most commonly associated with vehicles and the last part of a household name known for music to produce the name for their designed automotive radio. They became so popular that Galvin changed the name of their company from Galvin Manufacturing Company to Motorola.

One of the people in the group that designed the radio was Elmer Wavering who was only a young man of 23 at the time. He had been working at the radio parts company when Galvin got the group together. Many years later, Wavering and several others would create the first automotive alternator that could be easily mass produced. In his later years he would say that the alternator was, by far, his greatest achievement. He said, "The car radio made driving more enjoyable, but the alternator made everything else possible." The consistent power of the alternator, as opposed to the inefficient generators that were previously used, made many things possible including power locks, power brakes, power seats, power steering, electric wipers, air conditioning, etc. This is just to name a few really. Take it from a guy who for years drove a 1959 Ford truck that had a generator. Almost nothing was power. Not even the windshield wipers, which ran off of air compression from the engine. They would barely be moving when idling at a stop. They'd quit working altogether while accelerating and then would finally work fairly well after having reached cruising speed.

The reason I knew some of this information already was because of my love for old cars. In the owner's manual for my 1962 Plymouth Valiant it shows a Victrola as one of the available options for the car. Yes, a record player, that mounted under the dash. One can be seen demonstrated here in this YouTube video. After having seen one in action, I want one really bad. And, who knows, maybe someday I will run across one on Craiglist for free. While I'm dreaming, though, I should really make it where they pay me to take it off their hands. And, the money they pay me is just enough to repair whatever may be wrong with it. Then, while repairing it I find some important piece of history inside. I open up a 1950's style diner and have the historical item as the centerpiece to the restaurant. And, people come from all over to see it, and discover Jodi's and my awesome healthy cooking. Then, people pay us millions of dollars as the restaurant is transformed into a franchise of healthy fast food restaurants that eventually forces McDonald's to close their doors. What? It could happen.

Back to what I was originally blogging about, I find it funny how a small business that figured out how to power those old huge radios of the 1920's without batteries grew into making these contraptions shown here, a phone/datebook/camera with flash/DVD quality video camera/address book/internet browser/voice-recognizing computer/television/GPS/MP3 player. There's probably more to mention but I don't actually have one, so I don't know all the functions.

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SRC to DEI

It was a beautiful and warm sunny day in early September. I had just turned 20 years old in June and I was feeling very much like I was no longer a kid and I had reached full adulthood. I was also feeling very much like a failure in life. I had been unemployed for the first time since starting working. It had only been a month, but I was desperate for a paycheck. I knew nothing about SRC, but was told by my uncle that I should go and apply and that my cousin's husband could get me an interview.

I stepped out of the warm sunlight and into the 1960's front office complete with wood paneling. I filled out an application and while I quietly sat there and wrote out my non-impressive job history of several fast food places, a brief stint at a telecommunications call center, and the most recent manual labor job that apparently hadn't stuck, a man walked in to check on the status of his application. The patch on his arm indicated that he was an ASE certified mechanic. The secretary told him that he hadn't been selected, but that his application was still good for another month at which time he would have to fill out a new one to keep one on file with them. He had been waiting already two months with no word.

I was tempted to just walk out without finishing my application since if this certified mechanic couldn't get a job with them, how would my pizza making skills convince them to hire me? I reluctantly finished and turned it in. I got a call the next day to set up a panel interview. I was astonished, but accepted.

The interview consisted of sitting in a folding metal chair surrounded by three managers from three different departments. Later, I was told by my boss, one of the interviewers, that what convinced him to hire me was my response to his question: "How do you feel about overtime?" I immediately responded with, "As much as you can give me." I guess that they had a group of employees reluctant to work it, but I was just fine working 63 hours a week, every week, for years.

Over the nine and a half years I worked there my titles went from Cycle Counter, to Forklift Operator, to Shipper/Packager, to Receiving Clerk, to Traffic Assistant, to Inventory Control Manager, to Warehouse Supervisor, to Materials Manager, and finally to Supply Chain Coordinator.

I wrote a blog about my leaving SRC back in December of 2008 which can be found by clicking this link. Originally, I planned to take three months off and if SRC didn't hire me back at that time, then I'd go find a new job. I did look for a job during that time somewhat, but wasn't going to take just any job. If I was going to go back to work it was going to be with a company that recognized and was willing to pay for the skills that I had acquired over the years. I'm a math guy, and I did the math and found out that we would be okay financially for three months and if we needed to we could possibly stretch it out to 5 or 6, but that was definitely going to be a stretch and maybe not even possible. It was 11 months. And we were perfectly fine financially. God is good. Recently, we even did some financial math to fill out an application for a loan for a business venture that we're working on. In going back to see what our recent income had been, we couldn't help but laugh. The final dollar amount was ridiculously low, and yet we lived quite comfortably. I love it when God reveals himself so obviously. I could do all the math and figure out where it all came from directly, but I know where it all came from indirectly so I don't feel the need to waste the time.

DEI has been great so far. I really like the people there and the smaller company feel. Additionally, they respect what I am worth even more so than SRC which should know better than anyone. After all, they were the ones who invested so much money and time in me in the first place. They took a pizza delivery boy with nothing more than a high school education and turned him into a businessman. For that, among other reasons, I am grateful.

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Thanksgiving 2009

With Thanksgiving slowly becoming a distant memory, all the focus has rapidly turned towards Christmas. However, I would like to pause for a moment and write a quick blog about our Thanksgiving this year.

It all started early this year. Four days early, to be exact. But, any time is a good time to be thankful to God for what we have and who we are. In order to coordinate with all the family members, my mom had Thanksgiving dinner at her house the weekend before Thanksgiving Day. I thought that I might wind up at work Monday with a turkey-hangover, but all was well.

It was a good time. I really enjoyed getting to hangout with everybody, particularly my brother and his family who braved the trip from Michigan. It was a beautiful sunny day, so we all took advantage by hanging out outside and watching the kids ride motorcycles.

Then, for the big day, we hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house for the first time with Jodi's family and even some of mine. Jodi's family usually has Thanksgiving at Jodi's Aunt Marilyn's house in West Plains. But, she rented the house out this year and I doubt that the renters would have appreciated a bunch of strangers showing up at their door and letting themselves in.

It was a lot of fun and everything turned out wonderful thanks to all the family and friends that pitched in to help with bringing items and preparing the last minute dishes.

A friend of ours brought a cooked turkey with him. Had I known to expect this, I probably wouldn't have bought the largest bird I could find weighing in at over 21 pounds. Oh well. The more the merrier. Both birds were good, but I must say that Jodi did a fantastic job of cooking it and I benefited from a tip that I saw that morning, during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, to carve the turkey against the grain of the meat. This makes the turkey really tender and avoids that tough meatiness that most of us associate with turkey.

Having two turkeys left us with a good problem of having multiple pounds of awesome turkey left over. We knew that with the sheer volume of turkey leftover that there was no way that we were going to eat all of it without growing tired of it no matter how good it may be. So, we got inventive. One night, we had fajitas and used the turkey in place of steak or chicken. It was excellent and it took virtually no time at all to prepare since the meat was already cooked. We just heated it up in a pan with some water and a fajita seasoning packet and wahlah!

We still had plenty to go around so I took a bunch and pulled the meat into strings. I then cooked this down slowly with BBQ sauce, water, and brown sugar to make pulled turkey sandwiches. Instead of using bread, I had a bunch of dinner rolls left over that worked perfectly. They were still connected to each other from baking so I took four rolls in a square and cut them in half sideways to make two thick pieces of bread. It was probably full of calories, but tasted wonderful.

The two carcasses made an awesome turkey soup that had a surprising amount of meat. Jodi slow cooked it all night and it was delicious.

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Have I Gone Too Far? You Be The Judge

I should be really tired, but I'm strangely not. I should be turkey-tired, but I'm going strong. It's currently almost 1:30 AM on Black Friday and will surely be beyond that when I finally get this blog typed up.

The thing is: I need your help. Tonight, I was fixing my computer and while it was formatting another hard drive the slow way, I decided to hop online and kill some time by catching up on my blog reading. I read one of my favorite blogs and was astonished to see the term "xmas" used. I'm sure that the author didn't mean it derogatorily, as I know that they are Christians. However, their usage of it, while most certainly innocent, prompted me to do a little research.

My string of searches led me eventually to a blog written by Tommy Sparger who was writing a blog that mirrored many things that I had just read on a previous article on an atheist's resource website (I won't link to that site nor will I give the name of it for obvious reasons.) I'm not saying that they were one and the same, but simply pointing out that they were coming to the same conclusion based off of the same argument being used. This especially struck me since I could see that Tommy Sparger seemed to be somewhat connected to North Point Church (a local church here in Springfield) from what I could see from his blog page.

Of course, I disagreed with the atheist's argument but there was no place for comments of any kind by the reader and I may have been hesitant to comment anyway since the theme of the lengthy article clearly considered me to be the enemy. But, I couldn't idly stand by and watch someone in the church make a similar argument with the same conclusion and not be called out on the fallacy in which the argument was being made. So, I left a comment. It was a long one, but all of it necessary to make my point. I finished, felt good about what I had wrote, and posted the comment. I incorrectly assumed, because many blogs are, that the blog would be moderated. It wasn't. The comment posted right away and was visible for all to see. I was surprised by this, but was also happy that those who read the blog might also read my comment and therefore would not as easily be misled. After it posted, I went on to North Point Church's website using the link provided to see if I would be able to get any clues to who this Tommy was in regards to the church. I found out in a matter of seconds that he's the lead pastor. Oops.

I'm still feeling right about what was said and I feel that it needed to be, but all of a sudden, now I wonder what, if any, sort of repercussion there might be to having this out there for all to read. After all, according to their website, there are about 3500 people that attend this church, and surely someone will run across my comment, if someone hasn't already. Maybe I should have conveyed my message a little more lovingly? I don't know. Tell me what you think in a comment, please.

Below is what was written in Tommy's blog:

At North Point Church, we are about to start a 4 week series of unforgettable Christmas moments. It will rock. You won’t want to miss one week. Don’t come to the services late because we will open each service with crazy Christmas elements that will blow you away. This series starts the weekend of November 28th/29th and runs for 4 straight weekends - through December 19th/20th. The music, the drama, the production, will be out of this world. Something new every week. You will want to “invest & invite” all of your friends and family to this very relevant series!

We are calling this series: “Xmas - Discover the true Christ of Christmas”

I repeat….. we are discovering the true Christ of Christmas, not kicking Him out! We are putting Him in - not taking Him out. That is the point of this series.

Some people think the term “Xmas” is some diabolical plot to subvert Christmas. Many religious people think that to use the term “Xmas” is to take Christ out of Christmas. Replace Him. The truth is, this kind of thinking only shows how uninformed or misinformed, and unnecessarily militant with misinformation, many Christians are concerning their own faith.

The origin of the term Xmas comes from the greek spelling of Christ, which begins with the letter Chi (X).

The origin of the word “Xmas”, is thoroughly Christian. Dennis Bratcher, who wrote an article about the origin of “Xmas” says: “All of the hype and hysteria over supposedly taking Christ out of Christmas by writing “Xmas” instead of spelling out “Christmas” is both uniformed and misdirected.” Abbreviations used as Christian symbols have a long history in the church. The letters of the word “Christ” in Greek, the language in which the New Testament was written, or various titles for Jesus early became symbols of Christ and Christianity.

Dennis Bratcher says ” So there is no grand scheme to dilute Christianity by promoting the use of Xmas instead of Christmas. it is not a modern invention to try to convert Christmas into a secular day, nor is it a device to promote the commercialism of the holiday season. Its origin is thoroughly rooted in the heritage of the Church. It is simply another way to say Christmas, drawing on a long history of symbolic abbreviations used in the church. In fact, as with other abbreviations used in common speech or writing (such as Mr. or etc.), the abbreviation “Xmas” should be pronounced “Christmas” just as if the word were written out in full, rather than saying “exmas.” Understanding this use of Christian symbolism might help us modern day Xians focus on more important issues of Faith during Advent, and bring a little more Peace to the Xmas Season.”

Wikipedia -

“In Greek, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ, and it, or the similar Roman letter X, has been used as an abbreviation for Christ since the mid-16th century.[9] Hence, Xmas is often used as an abbreviation for Christmas.”

Answers.com -

“Xmas has been used for hundreds of years in religious writing, where the X represents a Greek chi, the first letter of Χριστος, “Christ.” In this use it is parallel to other forms like Xtian, “Christian.” But people unaware of the Greek origin of this X often mistakenly interpret Xmasas an informal shortening pronounced (ĕksPRIMARY_STRESSməs). Many therefore frown upon the term Xmas because it seems to them a commercial convenience that omits Christ from Christmas.”

“Today, with knowledge of classical languages being less widespread than formerly, some erroneously believe that the term Xmas is part of an effort to “take Christ out of Christmas” or to literally “cross out Christ”;[7] it is seen as evidence of the secularization of Christmas, as a symptom of the commercialization of the holiday (as the abbreviation has long been used by retailers).”

I thought you might find the following article from snopes.com interesting: http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/xmasabbr.asp

I left the following comment which became comment number twelve on his blog with most people supporting or defending the use of the term "xmas."

I, too, must disagree with the stance of this blog.

Regardless of the origins of the usage of the term 'X-mas' as defined here by the author of this blog and then "confirmed" by several websites, the current usage in modern speech and writing forms of the popular majority pronounce it "exsmas" and have no more knowledge of its origin than they have of the origin of the term "jay walking."

The author contends that anyone who takes issue with the substitution of "Christ' for 'X' must be "uninformed or misinformed, and unnecessarily militant with misinformation." He quotes others as saying that they are "misdirected."

So, who from shall we receive direction? From the author of this blog? Maybe from the websites in which he received his information? North Point Church?

If all that these sources can do is point me to an ancient language that scarcely resembles its modern counterpart to prove the origin as innocent, than I am justified in dismissing the argument as obviously missing the point.

People today are not etymologists (those who study the history of words) by default. Assuming such for argument's sake is not only preposterous but downright deceitful to all those who are subjected to it.

The bottom line is that it is a fallacious argument, and intellectually irresponsible as well, to use the origin of a term thousands of years old and from a foreign language to such boldly assert that the use of the term now must not be any different from its original intent.

Furthermore, it's shameful that a short trip to Wikipedia, Snopes, etc. was enough of an intellectually honest path for the people here to make others feel that they were supposedly misinformed. The irony displayed here would be humorous if it weren't so sad to begin with.

And, just to answer those who, no doubt, will attempt to place me in the category of "misinformed religious militants who can't seem to focus on the more important issues of Faith" as this article so well paints it, at least I am not running (or defending) a huge church that is wasting weeks of precious time arguing ancient semantics to justify an aspect of a modern secular worldview in the guise of being "relevant."

Again, I want to know if you think that I went too far or if I was right to argue the case. Either opinion is welcome. I promise that I will not comment on your opinion unless you specifically ask me to do so.

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A Copy of Our Listing

Scroll down for lots of photos!

2-Story
1900 + sq. ft.
3 Bedroom
2 Bathrooms (1 full/1 half) both completely renovated and remodeled
Brand New Kitchen (cabinets galore, black appliances, garbage disposal, built-in recycling center, and many more custom features)
Formal Dining Room
Foyer with built-in bookcase
10 ft ceilings on first floor
Beautiful Molding throughout
Huge Brand New Mud/Utility Room
Refinished Hardwood floors
New ceramic tile in Kitchen, both Baths and Utility
Basement (partial unfinished)
Central Forced Heat and Air
New Roof (2008)
New Gutters (2008)
1 Car Detached Garage (New Roof 2008)
Covered Front Porch
Fenced Backyard w/Garden Wall
Mature Trees and Shrubbery
Alley Access
Great Central Location, Close to Downtown Shopping and Entertainment

Thanks for looking!

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