To Bowl or Not To Bowl

I admit I am not a football fan. I really am even less a college football fan, so maybe this will just be a whiney post for you. No matter. I write it, you get it.

My state of Michigan has teams that will appear in five Bowl games this winter. Those are:

• The Quick Lane Bowl (Eastern Michigan U)
• The Pinstripe Bowl (Michigan State U)
• The First Responder Bowl (Western Michigan U)
• The Citrus Bowl (University of Michigan)
• The New Mexico Bowl (Central Michigan U)

I have only ever heard of one of them. Care to guess which one?

Now, I know the various Bowl games have been taken over by major sponsors for decades; there has always been money in college football and in many states, the college football coach is among, if not at the top of, the highest paid people. Someone has to pay the piper, so it is no wonder Bowl organizers - whoever they are - sold out to wealthy corporate owners.

But Pinstripe? First Responder? New Mexico?

I'm pretty sure those aren't corporations, but I have no idea who they are. And I have no idea what the former name of those Bowls were. I am not even sure if the only one I have heard of, the Citrus Bowl, is even the same one I have heard of, so I don't know if my state's five football teams are in "name" Bowls or not.

Then again, it probably means nothing since I am not a college football fan.

Amazon: The Company We All Love to Hate

The newly-built (summer 2019) Amazon fulfillment warehouse about 3 miles down the road from my house opens January 2020. Already, supervisors are being trained on what is no doubt the most modern facility built in preparation for hiring and training 2,000 or more new employees. According to one person to whom I spoke, the new hires will start at $17/hour and will have very generous monthly cash performance benefits. That will most likely make a lot of people apply.

Since I already have next-day delivery - during non-Christmas rush periods; I am lucky if I can get 2-day delivery during Christmas shopping season - opening that huge new warehouse will probably give me same-day delivery.

But there is this from a New York Times article on how Amazon "treats" its suppliers, regardless of size...badly. So:

Many sellers and brands on Amazon are desperate to depend less on the tech giant. But when they look for sales elsewhere online, they come up short. Last year, Americans bought more books, T-shirts and other products on Amazon than eBay, Walmart and its next seven largest online competitors combined, according to eMarketer, a research company...

 

Amazon collects 27 cents of each dollar customers spend buying things its merchants sell, a 42 percent jump from five years ago, according to Instinet, a financial research firm. That does not include what companies pay to place ads on Amazon, a business that Wall Street considers as valuable as Nike.

 

“We really built the company on Amazon,” Mr. Thompson said. “We have no regrets about doing that. But today our focus has to be getting diversification off Amazon.”

He said he understood what he was up against. “We are dealing with a partner,” he said, “who can and will disrupt us for unpredictable reasons at any time.”

 

Yes, Amazon is the behemoth we truly love to hate. We all know how bad it is and we all continue shopping there. It is easy. Click, evaluate, buy...and a couple of days later, the item appears on your doorstep. No car, no crowds. Heck, you don't even have to get dressed.

And like the worst addiction you can imagine, getting "off" Amazon is very, very difficult. I know. I am one of them.

Student debt: What does it actually do for and to you?

As I have shown before, Credit Karma gives me a monthly update on whether my finances are moving in the right direction - down - or the wrong directions, no change or increasing. Last month, the report was my student debt went down $13.00.

Yes, thirteen whole dollars.

I can assure you my monthly payment is a whole lot more than that. Actually, at this point in the scale, it is about $110.00 per month, which means that lending company is keeping almost $100 of my money and my student debt will go down very, very slowly.

Of course, I am not alone. Mandy, a 28-year old college grad living in New York City, chronicles her journey from almost overwhelming student debt to pay-off. She is under no misconceptions that merely being free of her student debt is the end of it. She also has some thoughts about a topic the current batch of Democratic presidential hopefuls have bandied about for some time...student debt forgiveness. While it sounds good on paper, it has sounded to me like fixing a broken brain after years of being a professional football player in the National Football League.

Will the after-action do anything about reducing or removing the initial problem? Here is what she wrote:

I'm all for debt forgiveness, but I don't think it alone will solve the problem. We need to attack the issue at its core: predatory private lenders with high interest rates, tuition hikes, and the lack of education an 18-year-old gets making such a huge financial decision. The system is broken and it's time we vote for lawmakers who are committed to fixing it in its totality.

To me, her phrase "predatory private lenders with high interest rates" is the key. Our government wants its people to fund college education by borrowing huge sums of "easy" money from for-profit organizations. Long ago, I had a student loan from the State of Alaska. The interest rate was 1% over the life of the loan until they sent me a very apologetic-sounding letter saying they would have to double the rate...to 2%.  My federal loans started at 5% and are now well above that, even though I continue to pay on them.

Another student, Jessica, had a similar experience:

For 10 years, we'd been just paying the minimum and not thinking about it much. In late 2015, we moved to a lower-cost-of-living city and started making a little more money, and decided it was a good time to reevaluate our finances — particularly as we had an infant son to think about. Also, the debt had been a thorn in the side of our marriage and we wanted to stop fighting about it and problem-solve.

When we checked the balance, it was still $71,000!!! The interest rate was so high, we'd barely made a dent. We decided to live like monks and put every extra cent toward the debt until it's done.


At $13 a month, I might never get out of this burdensome, $30,000 student debt. My predatory private lender, one of those approved by the US Department of Education to lend tax dollars to college students, will make a lot of money on my student debt and that of thousands of other students, current and past.

English: Love it or leave it. Apparently, we are leaving it.

Many writers on social media seem to have stopped using subjects in their sentences. Why? Here is an example:

"Not able to cover as much area as we wanted because it's so marshy/swampy up there. Possibly going up in the next couple weeks to rule out some more areas."

I believe we are already well on the way to forgetting how to use penmanship - how many young people use cursive after their school classes? - and if we keep this no-subject-used sentence structure, we will devolve as a species. The ability to use and evolve language is the one thing that really separates us from those species in the the lower Animal Kingdom and I am not sure we really want to evolve language as we seem to.

 

Already one of the most common - though I hesitate to use the word "popular" - subjects in a college freshman's curriculum is Remedial English. (That, of course, leads one to as what is being taught to students in pre-college school...but that is a topic we do not want to address lest we make young students feel less than Perfect In Every Way.)

Our "Modern" Health Care System and Health

I have written this before and I will probably write it again after this time. 

 

I am watching this week's episode of a weekly New York Times show called The Weekly. During these shows, various reporters highlight some story. This week, the show is about the staggeringly high cost of what are called "orphan drugs." These are drugs specifically designed by Big Pharma to combat a specific, highly rare disease. There are about 7,000 of these "orphan diseases" in the country now, affecting about 30,000 patients, sometimes only a hundred or so at a time. Many of them are hereditary.

The cost can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, per patient, per disease, per year. So if a Mom has it, her kids probably will, too, as will theirs. Do the math and try to imagine what you would do if you did not have an employer-sponsored health plan that had the right approach.

I am so glad my health is generally great for a 70-year old male. I take no prescription meds (save those my dentist gave me, which have a limited life), I have no infirmities that prevent me from doing normal, age-related activities, I have no need for joint replacement, and I pretty much enjoy my life as it is.

Even with the excellent Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan I carry, I cannot imagine taking a drug that would cost as much as an orphan drug might. And Big Pharma charges whatever they want; the law allows them to do it. Someone pays the billions of dollars in executive bonuses...you and I do.

Our health care system is totally broken. Totally.

Now I Know Frustration, aka, Where Are The Tradespeople?

Trying to arrange to get my 3-sheet drywall repair done has turned into the most frustrating, irritating task I have had in a very long time. It is not a whole-house job, but one might think it would be worth doing. Apparently, it is not.

First, it started with two "professionals" on Home Depot's list of referred workers. Neither of them wanted the job because it was "too small." Then contact with a handyman organization I have used for years resulted in a waffling response from the customer service agent to whom I spoke. It became clear that she did not want the job, either, even if I combined it with other small repairs I had to meet the 4-hour minimum. Getting no response from them, I contacted the fellow who arranged to build my new deck in April; his company mainly does roofing and decking, but he also has many other contacts in the trades and has done well for me in the past, so I figured he would come through again.

He did not contact me for a month, so I kind of gave up; after all, summer is the busy season for roof repairs and replacement, their main job.

Thinking I had entered some kind of alternative universe where up is down and good is bad or if my breath smelled over the Internet, I wearily contacted a fourth provider of handyman services I found using an online search. I was pleasantly surprised! I was immediately put in touch with an installer, with whom I made arrangements to begin the job today at 8:00 a.m. I was confident my worries were over, so I cleaned the area and moved some objects around to give the worker plenty of room.

Then, at 7:30 a.m., he called.

First, he asked to verify that "all the supplies" were on-site...even though when I originally contacted the company, I told them I had NO products for the drywall repair - no drywall, no tape, no mud, no drywall screws, nothing - and that I had originally agreed to pay $35 to have the worker pick them up. I told him I was home all day, so even if he was late, that was okay with me.

He then asked if I could call Home Depot and get them delivered because his SUV was not big enough to carry 3 sheets of drywall. 

Seriously? You are a drywall installer and do not have a VEHICLE that can carry drywall sheets? So I declined the appointment and put that company on hold...meaning cancelled...and out of my mind.

Finally, the fellow that built my deck - remember him from earlier in the story? The one who did not respond to my initial inquiry more than a month ago? - well, he called to say he has a guy who can come look at the job later this afternoon. While I am happy to hear that, considering my luck in this fix-your-drywall business, I am not going to hold my breath or bet the farm on him showing up or being able to do the repair any time soon.

I might just have to learn to do drywall repair myself. At least I know I will show up on schedule.

How Two Small Bees Made One Man Happy

Readers know that I have a fairly large potful of green cilantro plants that are flowering on their way to seeding. I have enjoyed growing, watching, cutting, and eating them this summer and now I get enjoyment from another observation.

For the past few days, I have watched one bee working the flowers, flitting from this petal to that one. I wondered if it was the same discoverer-bee or if there was some kind of bee hierarchy that only permits one bee at a time on a plant. I still do not have an answer to that wonderment - and quite frankly, I have no real need to know; merely observing is enough.

Today, for the first time, I have two bees on the same bushy, flowering, cilantro blossoms at the same time. And I noticed something else, also for the first time: these two bees have a pink pollen sack on both sides of their abdomens! I am pleased that my large cilantro is now giving two bees happiness. 

Who knows? Maybe in a few days, there will be more; the plants are not even close to being dead and we certainly need to have these intrepid creatures moving pollen hither and yon, don't we?

These two bees have made me very, very happy.

Tofu? To-fooey.

I have eaten tofu twice in my life; once, so many decades ago I cannot even remember which one and I cannot recall the taste or consistency.

The second time was just now.

For dinner, on a lark - one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" larks we all have enjoyed and regretted - I made cashew tofu. A delightful sounding recipe with cashews, broccoli, sweet/sour sauce, and lots of olive oil, jasmine rice, salt, and pepper. Yum! I hoped my more-mature palate and possible improvements over time would accept this thing called tofu; after all, there were lots of my faves included in the recipe. What's not to love?

Answer: the tofu, that is what.

To prepare the dish, I had to cut the tofu chunk into 1-inch cubes and fry them in olive oil for a while, then mix in the other ingredients. The end result was a tasteless mass of...well, something resembling nothing.

Except tofu.

Now I remember why it took decades for me to try it again. I only hope my senses do not leave me an allow me to try it ever again in my lifetime.

Is it what a man does as he ages?

Sitting here, typing on this stupid MacBook Pro or, for a change of pace, that pink MacBook Air over there, or the new, fancy iMac desktop in my office back there, a weird thought came over me.

I recall a moment when I was an airline pilot relocating from one duty station to another. I had my belongings packed into the one suitcase I had and a second bag, my electric typewriter. During the flight, we hit some turbulence and the typewriter took what turned out to be its last flight. It left the confines of the cargo compartment, flew a bit, and hit the floor on a very bad angle.

One last flight, one final hard landing and that was it for my last typewriter.

But I want another.

It's been decades since I used one; in those years, home computers have come into existence, the price has dropped, and reliability has increased. We now have computers on our phones and wear them on our wrists. These marvels of human engineering do many things that other machines or the smartest people in the world used to do. They type, remind us of errors, even suggest alternatives.

I have owned many of them, some expensive, some cheap. Some survived a long time, others failed at the hands of a young son's first attempts at what would become a lucrative career in computer engineering and software development.

Not one of them loved me as much as that typewriter loved me. There was no personal attachment to the device itself, only to what it could do for me. Maybe it was faster or larger of smaller. It was nothing more than a means to some end; it had nothing to do with enjoying the journey itself.

Is using one efficient? Yes. Can a writer make a change quickly? Very much so. That sentence in the last paragraph was, "It was nothing more than a means to an end, having nothing to do with the journey itself." This paragraph has changed form several times, too. Not one of those changes can ever be seen, though. A typewriter creates a historical record of movement, including sucesses and failures.

I want another typewriter. Is that an age thing? Who knows?

Who cares?

Federal retirement is not what it used to be

I am a retiree.

As a reader might recall, I am what is officially called a federal 'annuitant.' This means I retired as a federal civil service and I am receiving a fixed-benefit pension. My federal civil service plus my military service buy-back gives me a pension that, combined with my Social Security benefit is ample enough for me to live "carefully comfortably."

[Note: the current federal retirement benefit is made up of three parts -- payment for length of service; Social Security benefit; and self-savings from the government's Thrift Savings Plan, similar to the civilian "401K" plans.]

I also pay to belong to a federal employee/retiree-oriented group called the National Active and Retired Federal Employees, NARFE. Each month, I receive their magazine and, each month for the past year or two, I have become less and less comfortable reading it. Why, you might ask? Let me explain simply.

As the recent issue says, the current administration and "some members of Congress are quick to see Feds as a piggy bank when it comes time to set the budget, despite the fact employees already contorted over $120 billion in deficit reduction..." These members of Congress and the current White House do not regard employees and retirees in the Executive Branch at the same level as previous members and administrations; combine that with the significant loss of federal revenue from the recent massive tax cut [which, by the way, largely benefited the group of people least needing tax relief, while almost totally ignoring the groups that did] means that the FY 2020 budget will have to be draconian in the cuts.

And it will be.

Through the budget reconciliation process, five Senate committees are required to combine $94 billion in cuts over a five-year span from programs under their jurisdictions. One of them is the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is required to cut $15 billion from mandatory spending programs, mainly federal benefits.

Reading these words makes my blood pressure either go up or drop. In either case, it is difficult to understand why the head of the Executive Branch would treat his own employees and retirees with such disrespect, especially when they - we - have already given up so much...that is, until I consider the incompetent, selfish, extremist administration currently holding the White House. They came in hoping to unravel the administrative order and are well on their way to doing so.

I am glad I retired in 2011. According to a former colleague of mine still working, looking back, daily life has gotten much, much worse and looking forward, the future is much less appealing. I believe him when he says he will have difficulty finding anyone willing to go into federal service, especially considering changes to the federal pay, compensation, and benefits plans and the recent painful furlough, which I would bet will happen next time, too.

That is not at all what I experienced through most of my career.

I guess I should stop reading that magazine.

Grammar really *is* important, people!

Here's why:

when I see sentences and paragrapsh like this I don't know what to think.other than our educational system has turned upside-down there are no punctuation marks no differences between sentences and lots of gramitical errers too.with no clear train of thought?

I do not know about any other reader, but for me, reading sentences like the one I just made up is painful to the point that I soon lose (NO! "Lose" and "loose" do not mean the same thing!) interest and stop reading.

But that is what one reads in many online posts, presumably 'written' by a younger person.

Lactobacillus acidophillus

You might be of the age that remembers when this was found in "healthy" milk. You might recall wondering, as I did, what it did for you. Here is the answer:

The benefits of Lactobacillus Acidophilus

• Treats and prevents vaginal infections
• Treats diarrhea and GI infections
• Aids digestion
• Treats chronic constipation
• Treats symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Enhances the immune system
• Lowers the risk of pollen allergies

You're welcome.

Lt. Everett Backstrom: Who is he and what does he have to do with television?

Not many of you who read this have seen or even heard of the 2015 short-lived TV series "Backstrom" starring Rainn Wilson as Lt. Everett Backstrom, head of the Portland, Oregon, Police Bureau's Special Crimes Unit. Lt. Backstrom is an addict, a loaner, a miserable person, and an absolutely brilliant homicide detective in charge of a motley crew of misfits.

The show lasted one partial season and was canceled. Every time I watch it (I bought the series when it was available) I wonder why. It is edgy and exciting and quite unlike those other "perfect" detective shows that portray police as either completely competent and always in control or as idiots who stumble over their own feet.

They were not realistic. "Backstrom" is ... and it is not a pretty sight. While watching the season again this evening, I think I figured out why the public rejected the show.

You see, the star, Rainn Wilson, is most famous for playing 'Dwight' in the very popular TV show "The Office" not long ago. My guess is his name recognition brought a lot of the fans over from that show for a look-see - I am not one because I never watched one minute of even one episode. What they saw was nothing like what they expected and they left, revolted.

Our television habits are fairly predictable and we watch what we like to watch. Hollywood makes guesses about that and tries to keep familiar names, especially famous familiar names from well-received shows, close to those expectations. When Rainn Wilson deviated from the Dwight character, this was too much for them and they abandoned it.

His name is not well known outside "The Office" and that sealed the show's fate. The cancellation came fast and without remorse. But I own the entire season and watch often.

Gas Prices

Just now, I reviewed one of my blog entries on my other blog and found a series of entries from a permanent change-of-station trip I made from Anchorage to Grand Rapids. It seems relevant today.

May 4, 2007

Arrive: Hardin, MT
Mileage: 51,092
Fuel price: $2.99

Arrive: Gillette, WY
Mileage: 51,279
Fuel price: $2.76

Arrive: Western, WY
Mileage: 51,464
Fuel price: $2.99

It seems gasoline prices have not changed all that much in 12 years, though they have gone up and down as they do. It really is a pity those rich people change crude oil to be a commodity just so they could trade on it.

Are Michigan Real Estate Values Going Up? Maybe.

I returned home from a month at my daughter and her family's house in Maine. I helped manage the household after she underwent surgery until she recovered enough to handle my three grandchildren; they are very energetic and take a lot of energy to manage. A lot of energy.

When I returned, I saw that the house directly across the street had one of those ubiquitous lawn signs that show up when a house if for sale or rent. This one had the normal stuff: the company, agent, phone numbers.

And it had a panel I have never seen before. Just above the "Pending" panel - meaning the house has a potential buyer - was one with "Multiple Offers Made" on it, so there are more than one offer that the owner is contemplating.

That seems like good news for people considering selling their house in Michigan, which since the Great Recession in 2008 has had a stagnant housing market. My own house has been "under water" since then, meaning what I owe is more than the market value. But all that has changed recently, I guess. Amazon is building a huge new fulfillment center just a couple of miles away and I bet it is having a positive impact on real estate values. One area that has been a vacant field since I've been here is now filled with a brand new "neighborhood" of new construction, single family dwellings.

What makes my neighbor's house so unusual is that the entire process from "For Sale" to "Pending with Multiple Offers" happened during the month of April while I was gone. Again, that is probably good news for anyone pondering selling. Heck, it even makes me ponder, though I don't know where I would go if I did sell and there are some fairly expensive repairs to be made. But I do have a new roof, a new a/c unit, a new hot-water heater, and a new furnace...

Today Is A Significant Day

I have been retired since December 31, 2011. After retiring, I spent a good deal of an initial annuity payment on getting a commercial driver license, a CDL, that enabled me to drive a "big rig," something I wanted to do since I was a kid in high school and knew what they were. Since then (February 2012) I have taken a few jobs from time to time to help my financial condition, which has not been good for a private reason.

I also read a lot. In the past year or so, my attention and attraction has been to books written by people who are in what society might call "unusual" situations: quitting a "stable" job, selling everything, buying a recreational vehicle, and hitting the road, working when needed to fund more miles on the road; retiring and taking up a 'job' totally unrelated to work done during a 'normal' work life, like what I did (I was in aviation for almost 40 years and have done nothing related to flying nor wanted to); or being part of a corporate downsizing and either finding another career "with a future," as one writer put it, or pursuing a long-held desire, again, like I did.

I am fortunate to have earned an annuity payment that is higher than the normal retiree plus I am on Social Security, which provides me a monthly check that is also larger than many because of the income I had while working. The point of doing what I did all along, the goal of working hard and 'climbing the ladder' was to get to that point. I worked hard, moved when I needed to, and did what I had to advance as high as my skill and ability could take me. It worked. The downside, of course, is the payment for all that was two failed marriages, six children, from most of whom I am estranged, and a sense that tomorrow is as known and predictable as today was yesterday.

I probably chose the authors I did because of projection; I did not want to be "that guy" who vegetated and died soon after retirement. I was the other guy, the one who wanted, needed, to justify my own angst by saying to myself, 'See? Others do it, too." so, therefore, it must not be Bad.

I find myself having to go back to the workforce to pay down some of the debt I have incurred. Above all else, I truly want to have a retirement that means enjoying what I do, not just "not working." I really do not want to go back to work and the decision to do so has been difficult. I am wise enough not to pursue anything "with a future" - I do not want to fill the shoes of another person who would like to do it longer term than me - and am aware that whatever I take home in payment has to be worth the trouble I endure. I am no longer doing something to advance or improve. Now, it is all about money; while I am doing that, the money has to compensate.

So if you are one of those who sold everything and hit the road in an RV and/or have taken the lifestyle of what is called a "workamper," you are a kindred spirit. I am down with what you have done and do. I am a bit envious and hope one day to be able to stop "working" and enter full-time retirement again. Until then, I do what I have to to make payments I have to make.