In Your Best Interest

I took a business ethics class while working towards my MBA. I am one class short of my degree and will probably never go back to get the MBA for two reasons. One, it will not benefit me in any way I can see. Two, I already have a business degree so what is the point of going over the same old ground. If I ever do get the chance to go back to school, it will be for a Masters in History. At least it is different and I find it to be vastly more interesting than accounting, finance and marketing. Anyway, back to my ethics class.

One of the questions posed to the students was, if you walk by a lake on your way to you final exam and there is a child drowning in the lake, should you save the child or go take the exam. That was a no brainer. You save the child. Now if this exam was so important that you would have to repeat the class if you missed it, no make up, what would you do? Again, it was no brainer, save the child. Ethically, this is not a dilemma I am having problems with. Our instructor wanted to see if we were compassionate toward those who were less fortunate or to put it a better way, the fight against world poverty. I pushed the envelope one step further. I asked if the next time I went to take that final exam and the same thing happened, what should I do? And the next and the next and so on. At what point do you sacrifice your own future for the welfare of someone who keeps jumping into the lake without knowledge of how to swim. What happens if you are so tired from a late night of studying that you drown while trying to save the child?

I have had 10 years to think about that problem. The most obvious solution is to put a fence around the lake and post signs, no swimming. But that punishes those who can swim. It takes away everyone’s rights to protect an ignorant few. The next solution is to test each person on their ability to swim before letting them go into the lake. It now comes down to who pays for that expense. I am not the one who wants to swim. I just want to take my exam so I can graduate. I am not concerned with what is going on in the lake yet, as my priority is to focus on my own future. The obvious solution is more long term and involves teaching everyone to swim. That assumes people want to learn and aren’t candidates for the Darwin Awards.

I see no reason to punish everyone due to one person’s lack of capability. I do not see it as my issue because a large group of people living under a repressive regime cannot feed themselves. If we send food, it is confiscated by the governments to feed the troops that are oppressing the people. That leaves you with a warm and fuzzy. If we let them starve we are rich, fat Americans who do not care about those living in poverty. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. It appears that some people want to be victims instead of taking responsibility for their own future. I prefer to address the issue and create a path for success. Take a look at 1776 as the how to guide. I guess I am just brainwashed into believing that the tools are available to the select few and those less fortunate are on their own. NOT.

Icool


Cobb

Waterworld

No, I am not going to talk about that turd starring Kevin Costner although his vision of how the Earth ends up is a kernel of my topic. I have skimmed the topic of greenhouse gases to see for myself how they affect the escape of the sun’s warmth. What I have found provides pretty good insight into the cause of weather changes and temperature variations from epoch to epoch.

The amazing thing about greenhouse gases is that the major component of their group is not carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, or the chloro-floro carbons from our aerosol cans. The major contributor to greenhouse gases is the Earth itself. The sun warms the oceans and the resulting water vapor becomes the largest contributor to the mix. Yes, water vapor is the largest component to our global climate villains list. Our burning of fossil fuels has caused an increase in the carbon dioxide levels, but a burst of solar activity would contribute more to greenhouse gas in one day then we would do in a year. Of course you have other contributors to greenhouse such as people breathing, volcanoes, animal flatulence, or burning hydrogen. I don’t hear anyone talking about any of those issues as ways of stopping greenhouse gas emissions.

But the true villain is the sun. It has its own cycles that cause varying amounts of solar radiation to reach the Earth’s surface. The arrogance of a group of pseudo-scientists who want to compare man’s influence on his environment to that of the sun’s effect on global change is like comparing a nitrogen atom to the Himalayan Mountains. Sure there are rocks in the mountains that contain the atom but it has little effect on the entire chain. Our power output is not remotely significant compared to one day of the suns.

What amazes me even more is that hydrogen is touted as the savior for eliminating greenhouse gases. We want to replace our fossil fuels and substitute hydrogen as the fuel of choice. Now for all those versed in chemistry, what happens when you burn hydrogen? You get water. Now what is the biggest component of greenhouse gases? Somehow, these pseudo-scientists think that the average person is truly stupid. If we stop producing carbon dioxide and start producing water, won’t global warming get worse? Right now we have vegetation that consumes excess carbon dioxide. Where will the water go? What a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive.


Icool

Cobb

Making News, Out of Nothing At All

I thought the Air Supply song would make a good spring board for my next rant on our thoughtful media presentations. Yahoo has a front page headline that says, “Forecasts: Northeast Due for Big Hurricane.” The article goes on to say that because the Atlantic Ocean is warmer and the Pacific is cooler, that it is the perfect time for a big Northeast hurricane. Of course they show a picture of the devastation caused by the last big northeast hurricane in 1938.

Now if I am not mistaken, hurricane season is at least three months away. Our local weatherman is rarely correct about tomorrow’s weather. He’s usually incorrect about yesterday’s weather for that matter. Now we have Ken Reeves from AccuWeather Center in State College, Pa quoted as predicting a category 3 hurricane in New England this season. I would love to see how accurate he has been for the last month. I’m surprised that Punxsutawney Phil hasn’t chimed in on the monsoon season or commented on the effects of seeing his shadow on global warming.

The media just has to make news if nothing is happening. It is what ever gets someone’s attention and pays the bills. There is such media saturation that unless there is some kind of new twist, it falls on deaf ears. About the only way things are even heard anymore is through the constant pounding by several different mediums. That is how the environ ”mentals” have managed to get the myth of man’s mismanagement causing global warming beyond the tents they are camping in. The arrogance that our contribution to global change is that significant tells me they think man has more power than a volcano or earthquake. We do a great job of predicting one and stopping the other. Yea right!

Now once they have you reading their article, they go through the doom and gloom of what could happen compared to what has happened in the past. It is a great way to fire up people to expect the worst and provides a way to campaign for more restrictive policies on greenhouse gases. I’ll rant about those another day. So we get to the last line of the article. Another weatherman gives you his perspective on the whole article by saying, “The chances of one happening this year is no greater than it was last year.” Why didn’t they put that first and then not bother to write such garbage. I guess everyone needs a job. Maybe I should have misquoted another Air Supply Song, “I’m All Out of News.”

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Cobb

Lookie What I Found

For those who have internet savvy, this is old hat. For those who have been sharing and swapping music for years, you will think I am a fossil. I have started loading my CD’s on my home computer and letting them play while I play Civ. Some CD’s I am selective on what I load because there are only a few songs I like. Others, (the majority) I enjoy the “album” experience.

In the age where you can buy your music over your cell phone, I am just starting my trek down the digital pathway. I knew I had an understanding of the process when my oldest daughter asked me to burn a CD for the bus ride to her scrimmage on Saturday. I asked her what she wanted and clicked the song, loaded the blank into the record drive and viola, a CD is born.

Now I listen to “my” music when I play Civ which is short for Civilization. It is a computer based turns game where you take a civilization from cradle to the stars or world domination.
It normally takes about 36 hours to complete a game which in reality could be a month of playing. Sid Meier created the game in the mid-90’s and a friend of mine from high school turned me on to it. I started playing with a pirated version of the original and have moved onto Civ IV (Civ 4). I am not overly thrilled with the last version and am still playing Civ III most of the time. I will eventually get to version four but have run into interference from my children. There seems to be a competition for the computer with one child playing Runescape on-line and the others playing SIMS.

Anyway, I am slowly working my way through my CD collection to get what I want on the computer. Once I get my music on the computer, I will probably start buying what I want but don’t have from the on line catalogs. Hopefully by the time I retire, (hopefully another 15 or so years) I will have the music I enjoy available any time I want it. You have got to love technology.
I remember when my 9th grade English teacher rolled a huge VCR into her classroom so we could watch some educational program. I don’t think that video stores had come into existence yet. Now we are watching the death of that format and the birth of streaming digital.

Icool

Cobb

Missing The Point

There is an outcry for the man in Afghanistan who has converted from Islam to Christianity. Afghan law requires anyone converting to Christianity be put to death and Americans are up in arms trying to save this man’s life. Either I am so thick that I cannot understand the gravity of the situation or I have a glimmer of how God is working through this man.

Early Christians were persecuted for their faith. The Romans frequently used them as theatre in the Coliseum. They were hunted down and put to death but their belief in the teachings of Jesus and their faith that Christ is Lord and the Son of God sustained them. . God finally worked a miracle through Emperor Constantine who brought Christianity to the Roman Empire. The other, larger picture was that people were willing to die for their faith. When someone is so devoted to what they believe in that they are willing to die for it, it tends to get people’s attention. Making a martyr of oneself is a way of demonstrating that you are strong enough in your faith that death is not an issue. You are going to meet your Maker and spend eternity in His Heaven. Wow, that is true faith. When the Holy Spirit gets into your system, it is tough not to let your light so shine before men.

No one wants someone to be put to death for their beliefs. It is an awful thought to die for freedom when you live in a supposed Democracy. As Americans, we are used to religious freedom. It is one of nation’s founding principles. What we fail to understand is that our culture is a little over 200 years old. We are dealing with societies that have been in existence for much longer than that and have much more ingrained societal quirks that we do. Bringing democracy to them is only one step to creating a truly free society. We can lead them to the water, but we cannot enlighten their minds enough to be baptized by that water. That is up to God. Maybe He is providing that opportunity.

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Cobb

And the Winner Is…..

As the United States becomes more of a global player, we become less of a manufacturer of the goods that we buy. We have heard that we are in the information age and I think that I agree. We love to classify where we are at by the age we are in. There is the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Industrial Age, Automotive Age, Computer Age and now the Information Age. The progression through each has made it easier to do things and provided more leisure time for each culture. With first use of stone tools, to the use of computers to reduce the time it takes to do meticulous tasks, each advancement has offered man the opportunity to do more with less and reduce the amount of time it took to perform the task.

We are getting to the point where we no longer make things. We have pushed the envelope to get to the point where electrons and radio waves control our world. We have also created an environment where those who do not or cannot understand the technology in front of them are no longer able to contribute to the whole of society. There is no place for people who have rudimentary skill to go and just stand in front of a machine for 8 hours making trinkets. We have priced ourselves out of that market. We have become too expensive to be just labor. Our nation is known for our innovation yet each generation spends less time creating and more time enjoying the fruits of our past labors.

The rest of the world sees the fruits that Americans are enjoying. They see a land of plenty where everyone has a car and a place to live. All this while half of the world lives in hovels that lack in door plumbing and running water. Now, I do not see that this is America’s fault. We fought and won our independence from Britain, established a form of government that allowed us to flourish and the rest is history (sorry I couldn’t help myself). Most of these countries had the same opportunities we had and squandered their future on greed and oppression. Our fault? I think not. Do we owe them something? We had to deal with the European superpowers at our inception. Britain, France, Spain, Germany and Russia were all vying for power at the time yet we survived and prospered. They were still in their colonization modes and conquering the last of the “native lands” while Americans built a nation. No we do not owe them anything. We do however buy their goods and invest in their countries. We are doing something.

I have wandered so far from my starting point that I need to regroup. America is at the cusp of another change in ages. We have an antiquated education system that attempts to equalize instead of innovate. We have a legal system that perpetuates that equalization process. Any attempt to progress or better is looked on with disdain. Profit is right up there with rape on the scale of sins. We need a radical cranial rectotomy or as the Joker (Jack Nicholson) says in the original Batman movie, “This town needs an enema.” I think I will stick with prayer and vote every chance I get.

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Cobb

Las Palabras de Amour

This Queen song title started running through my head this morning. Las Palabras de Amour is off of the Queen Hot Space album from 1982. I can say that the album was too big of a departure for me to appreciate it and I did not listen to it as much as their previous albums. However, Las Palabras de Amour, which translates to "The Words of Love" is a phrase that I used when I was dating my wife. I titled a poem (yes I was a poetry writer) to my wife and she just melted. I was a prolific poetry writer while we were dating and even after we were engaged. The words of love flowed from the ends of my fingers like dew from the tip of a double rainbow.

Now using foreign words also reminds me of the movie, "A Fish Called Wanda." If is a comedy staring John Cleese and Michael Palin from Monty Python, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline (who won an academy award for his performance). In the movie, Jamie Lee Curtis plays a money grubbing woman who is going to double cross the men in a movie to get the jewels from a heist. She has a weakness for men who can speak a foreign language and gets aroused when they do. If you havn't seen it, it is very funny and worth the time. Kevin Kline plays her brother (who is actually her boyfriend/soon to be dooped) who thinks he's smart because he is reading philosophy but is actually nothing more than an ignorant lout. He quotes bits and pieces of Italian (parmaseano, linguini, pepperoni) and thinks he is a great lover. It is a hoot.

Now, my wife and I laugh at the movie. She does not share the proclivity of loving foreign languages like Wanda. She does love poetry and has kept everything I ever wrote for her. I can still recall a few of the lines and remember laboring over then to make sure they were truely my words of love.

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Cobb

The Great American Novel

When I was in the Army, (we’re talking 20 years ago) I started writing a novel with my room mate. His parents were book reviewers that suggested how many copies a public library should purchase for their readers. He had met quite a few authors and had a pretty good grasp of how to put things together. He also had a few connections on how to get something published which is always a step up for an aspiring writer.

Well, I got out of the Army and continued sending bits to him for review. I never received anything back and I soon stopped sending anything at all. I did continue to write and completed six chapters before I hit a road block. My main character goes someplace that I had never been and I could not visualize the event enough to write about it. That event happened in my life last year. After about 6 months of thinking about it, I started chapter 7 and just recently finished it.

I am not sure whether I am writing for myself or whether I plan to submit this to a book publisher. Either way it is something that I plan to finish. It is going much slower this time around but I have a few more distractions than I did 20 years ago. A professional writer would devote a portion of his day to doing nothing but putting words to a page. I have a full time job, full time family and a bevy of outside events that provide enough distraction that it is difficult to get into the right frame of mind for any length of time.

I figure that have about five more chapters to finish and I am done with the book. It took me about 6 months to complete the last chapter but I am slightly more motivated by the completion of that event. I could probably sit down on a Saturday and crank out another chapter and maybe by the end of this year have a finished product. The next step, if I choose to pursue it, is to find someone who would take the chance to publish it. My room mate’s parents thought that the book had potential 20 years ago. We’ll see if they were actually impressed or just blowing smoke up their sons BDU’s.

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Cobb

Total Recall, A New Beginning

I received a call at work from Saturn of Ann Arbor last week. This professional female voice informed me that my Saturn Vue currently had two recall announcements and asked when I would like to schedule the GM paid repairs. This call took me completely by surprise. How did the company I bought while I lived in Michigan track me to my job in Ohio? I had to shake off the pre-internet paradigm and remember that you can usually be tracked anywhere. Of course I was working here when I bought the car and probably gave them this phone number in case they needed to contact me.

I politely informed her that Ann Arbor was a little out of my way and asked if I could take it to any Saturn dealer? She politely said yes, thanked me for my patronage, asked if there was anything else she could do, then hung up. I called the Saturn dealer in Toledo to schedule the repairs. I told the shop manager who I was and what I wanted, he pulled up all of the information on me and my car and gave me a range of dates. He let me know that it was a 4 hour job and that a rental would be available at no cost.

It amazes me that all of this information is available so quickly. I guess that they have their databases set up to manage to allow them to get any customer information immediately to avoid costly delays. I am also pleased with the level of service that the dealerships are coming across with. Polite and customer responsive are two things that I am not accustomed to. Maybe the level of competition is finally creating a push to become responsive to a customers needs. Wow, imagine that, a company that cares about you after they sell you the product. It is usually the wooing and the consummation followed by years of neglect. Sounds like the premise of every sitcom.

Icool

Cobb

The Slings and Arrows

We had a great weekend at our house. It was full of drama, emotions, thrills and spills. Well, not so many thrills and spills as drama and emotions. Some great friends of ours visited from Michigan on Saturday. They are people we met at our first attempt to find a church when we moved to Michigan in 1997. We attended a medium sized Methodist church that had a couples get together once per month on Sunday nights and met them there. My wife was anxious to meet people to have someone to pal around with and she found out that we bought the house right next to where our friend's wife grew up. A common framework always speeds things along. Anyway, we used to go out about every two months for dinner and a movie and we got to know them well. First we moved back to the Toledo area and then they moved up by Grand Rapids so it has become harder to get together but we try at least twice per year.

I slept like crap this weekend and after taking a half hour nap yesterday, woke up with a phenominal toothache. I have had this issue before when I used whitening toothpaste and tylenol usually takes care of it. I stop using the toothpaste and it goes away. The tylenol is not working well but I have switched to a toothpaste that is just plain to see if that is the real culprit. In the mean time, nothing too cold or hot, nothing too hard or crunchy. It is oatmeal, eggs, yogurt and bananas for meals today. If it does not clear up by tomorrow, I will call the dentist. I hope it is not a cracked tooth. If that is the case, the nap was not worth the time it took.

Sorry for the rambling entry but it is hard to think with the throbbing pain in my jaw and dull ache in my lower back. Ain't getting old a bitch.

Icool

Cobb

On A Tangent

I always hear the phrase, “You’re off on a tangent.” It is probably because I spend most of my time looking at things from about 90º from where they are. When someone says the word two, too, to… you can take it anywhere. I love to play on words, phrases, observations, and any other situation where it can be taken out of context and made into an absurdity. Now that doesn’t mean that I do that with everything. There is a time and a place for levity and as I get older, I think I am levitating less and less. I can barely float off of the floor but that may be due more to my weight than my ability to float.
Now the absurd drawer to the filing cabinet rolled open and the Stephen King novel IT jumped out. It is about an ancient alien that wakes up from hibernation in 20 year cycles and goes on a killing spree. One of the ways he lures little children to their death is to become a grease paint clown with balloons. The phrase that runs through that portion of the book is, “They float don’t they.” Now I don’t associate myself with a killer klown from outer space (that was a really bad B grade sci-fi film from the 90’s)
but words trigger certain events to occur and the stream of consciousness meanderings of my mind lead me down paths that are at best paved with gravel and at worst quicksand.





Now quicksand it a big part of the early horror films. Frankenstein
seemed to always fall into quicksand and get buried. It was a great opportunity for the opening scene of the next “Return of …” movie. Horror films have come a long way from the torch carrying villagers congregating and chasing down the pathetic creatures that were sorely misunderstood. Now we have killer clowns, Freddie Krueger, and computer generated graphics to keep us amazed and amused. No need for plots if you can dazzle the audience with explosions, blood and gore.

Well time to get back from my tangent. Maybe I’ll go on a sine or cosine next.

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Cobb

Go Fly A Kite

"A penny saved, is a penny earned."

"Remember, that time is money."

Ben Franklin

I enjoyed taking the Thomas Jefferson quotes to show how much has changed from the original founding vision. It led me to look up another of our founding fathers, Ben Franklin. Now, this influential man never assumed the mantle of power that some of the other founding fathers grabbed onto. He did leave as big of a legacy in America, bifocals, libraries, fire stations and of course the Franklin stove. It was big enough to make it on the $100 bill. George Washington only made the $1, Thomas Jefferson managed to get to the now defunct $2 and Alexander Hamilton managed to get to the $10.

As a child, I started a savings account at the local bank. Spring and summer brought ample opportunity to make money by mowing lawns and cleaning up yards. The fall supplied a bountiful drop of foliage to be raked up. There was always at least one good snow during the winter that afforded the back breaking task of cleaning up sidewalks and driveways. Someone was always looking for some young buck to do those chores that were too time-consuming or physically challenging. I learned very early that money saved in the bank needed to be withdrawn to be spent so it was a safe place to deposit it after it was made. I managed to amass a nice tidy sum during my misspent youth that I used for my first year of college. Of course, you could attend a year of college for $1500 back then. That was with staying on campus. So this wise founding father encouraged his fellow Americans to be thrifty with their money and save at every opportunity. As I found out early, it pays to follow that bit of advice. Back then, you could still buy candy for a penny.

As an adult, there are many events that need to be managed on a daily basis. Sometimes it is just not possible to get everything done or done you your specifications. You come to the fork in the road where the decision is to whether to spend to have it done or do it yourself. It comes down to remembering that your time is worth something. The amount of time you spend enjoying yourself or cleaning your house is worth something. If you paid to have it done, you could gauge the actual cost of the chore. Some people pay to have their house cleaned, their laundry done, their car washed and their meals cooked. All of those mundane chores that most people mechanically do all take our time. We must compromise and spend our hard earned money to get them done or do them ourselves. Your income level or general level of laziness will dictate how far you can go with this but those memories of youth and the reward of saving drive me to do most of my own chores (or have the children do them. After all, isn’t that why we had them).

Franklin’s sayings are a great philosophy to live by. Learn to save, encourage your children that you can save for what you truly want and they will be rewarded with the true gifts of life. As an adult, understand the value of your time and use it wisely. You never know, you might end up with a Benjamin or two.


Icool

Cobb

Wisdom of The Ages

"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."

"Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day."

Thomas Jefferson

These are two quotes from the 3rd president of the United States. Thomas Jefferson is one of our revered founding fathers and after 200 years has been found to be a great man and definitely human. His human failings have been well documented in the news in recent years so I will not dwell on them. They do however provide insight into what was thought proper at the time and how times have changed.

The first quote I though hit the nail on the head. People who complain that nothing good ever happens to them are usually waiting for their ship to come in instead of building their own. We have become a society that expects and demands instead of one that goes out and gets. Our societal safety nets have encouraged us to take fewer risks because we know that we will be taken care of. Our nation was built on taking risks. The founding fathers knew that the only way to establish our republic was to get rid of the king and govern ourselves. They put that plan into play and our fathers birthed a nation. Risk and reward provide the backdrop of luck. You make your own.

The second quote rings in on our current struggle in Iraq. We first had to free the nation of their dictator before we could begin the enlightenment process. It has been an uphill battle due to cultural issues, outside influences and a general clash between two religious sects. I would suppose, if you went back and looked at out American revolution, you would find similar clashes, although not to that extent. We had those citizens loyal to Britian, the French interference and native Americans to gum up the works for us but we managed to create a great framework to build on and have struggled to maintain that for more than 200 years.

Conservatives have been blamed for trying to maintain the status quo. Current events do not indicate a lack of risk taking on the part of the current administration and if we stick to our guns in Iraq we may be surprised by the results. But then again, we may end up with something we didn't expect. Our founding fathers would certainly not have expected the 200 year outcome from what they started. I think they would be a little disappointed by what they had created. But they were using their brand of luck instead of the 20th century degeneration of the meaning.

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Cobb

The Next Best Thing

In our new and improved world there is always someone touting a better, stronger, or faster product. It astounds me that there is still a way to make laundry detergent more effective at cleaning our clothes. It must be true if they are advertising it on the television. As Americans, we have come to expect that everything can be done more quickly or more easily than it was done before. Our lifestyles reflect our desire to achieve the ultimate in simplicity. Look at fast food. We can drive up to a speaker, order our food, ensure the correct order and cost on the screen, drive around and pay with our credit card, and get handed a bag of food, ready for consumption. 100 years ago you could go out for a meal but it would probably have taken as long to get it as it would have been to cook it yourself. 50 years ago you could have gone to a drive in restaurant and been served in your car. 20 years ago you could have gone through the drive through and just recently, you can avoid having cash and just pay with your card.

All of this is done to eliminate the need to create a meal at home. First you have to go to the grocery store and purchase the ingredients for your home cooked meal. Granted this is a one time per week (at least for me) but it takes about 2.25 hours to complete. Then you get to carry in and put the groceries away once you get home. This again takes about 15 minutes to accomplish, depending on the amount of people helping. Now there is meal planning but I do that mostly in the car so it does not count. For meal prep and cooking it takes about an hour to an hour and a half to accomplish. Then there is the clean up from the meal with is about a half hour from washing the dishes to putting them away.

If you look at this weekly, you have 17 hours and 30 minutes devoted to providing nutrition to the family, main meal only. With a drive up, you are talking maybe 10 minutes to get the food from start to finish. That gives you an hour and 10 minutes. It is no wonder we are pushing to reduce the complications in our lives. To have 16 and a half hours to use in any fashion I wanted would be heaven. Unfortunately it would drain the pocket book and I would spend more time buying larger clothes. Plus, I love to cook so it is more a labor of love than a chore.

Of course, I do not clean up. The kids have to learn something about chores.

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Cobb

When To Listen

I had a very blessed weekend. Not because I won the lottery or came into any windfall. It was a true blessing and not something gained through my own effort. It was freely given and unsolicited. A friend from church asked me how my wife was doing and I answered that she was still working to help her mother move into her new place. Her response turned my current state of mind upside down.

I knew that she had been dealing with her own mother for some time but when she explained what she was doing and that others had similar experiences, it opened my eyes to my very un-Christian behavior. She had been slowly taking over making the decisions for her mother, not because she wanted to or because her mother was no longer able. Her mother simply stopped making decisions. It was the big ones at first but it quietly degenerated into decisions as simple as what to wear. She had brought some of her mother's winter clothes from storage for her to hang up in the closet. On her next visit, they were still in the same place she had set them. A decision as simple as hanging up clothes was beyond her ability.

I realized that my mother-in-law was facing similar issues. She had not gone as far as my friend's mother but big decisions were starting to create pockets of indecision. I realized that my mother-in-law needed my wife to help her through this difficult period and my attitude toward her was crushing my wife between two important people in her life. I had been staying home to take care of the kids and the house to allow my wife time to help her mother but had been growing ever more resentful for the time she was stealing from my family. Well, she is my family and although an adult and capable of rational thought, she is an older adult who has had some recent traumatic things happen in her life that may be clouding her thought processes. I needed to be more mindful of the situation and less focused on what is was doing to me.

Sometimes, it is important to just spend time listening to the trials and tribulation of your friends. There is wisdom in them there hills.

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cobb

Challenged

I have had a difficult relationship with my older sister for about the last 20 years. When we were growing up, we were as close as two siblings can be. She introduced me to smoking to cover the fact that she had started. When we got old enough, we used to go to a local dance place called Renees every Thursday for college ID night. Many of my fond memories are doing things or going places with her. Most of them involved partying or going to events but that is where memories are made. Around 1983, I joined the service and went off to Oklahoma for three years. She came out to visit me once and we went to Corpus Christi for a weekend.

The next time I saw her was at my younger sisters wedding. I could tell that things had changed but not exactly how. I knew that she had become disgusted with the singles scene, the drinking, partying and was lonely. She was looking for purpose and meaning in her life and someone at work recommended going to church. The church she chose was exactly 180 degrees from where she was in her life. There was no drinking, smoking, or partying of any kind. God did not approve. It was a staunch Baptist congregation that preached fire and brimstone and hellfire. In her mind, it was atonement for her sins and she grabbed onto it with both hands. Though it, she met her current husband who she married about a year later. Jim, who had been a diesel mechanic, heard the calling and decided to go into the ministry and preach the word of the Lord.

At the reception for my younger sister's wedding, we had the toast all set up for the bride and groom. My older sister was all upset because a wine glass represented that she was dringing wine even though there was sparkling grape juice in the glass. She asked what I thought and I told her she was being selfish. It was not her wedding and that accomodations had been made to allow her to toast without having to ingest wine. I could tell that was not what she wanted to hear and she became upset and stormed off. That was the straw that broke the back of our relationship. From that point forward, we have never been the same.

We are friendly and cordial and I would still do anything I could for her, but she started wearing this brand of Christianity that spits in the face of how I understand the teachings of Jesus. Her understanding of Christ's teachings allows her to hate and despise those who are different. She justified as to why Black people are inferior in God's eyes by telling me that because Noah's son Ham saw his naked and drunk that Noah cursed him and God turned him black and sent him to Africa. I have read the passage on Noah and see nothing about a color change or a trip to Africa. Maybe there is another translation that gives a broader understanding of what happened but even if you accept their version as Gospel (pardon the pun), you need to look at at the teachings of Jesus to see how we are to treat people. He hung out with the "undesirables" of His world and forces us to focus on how we treat everybody. There is no one unworthy of our love and I just don't feel that my older sister is able to believe in that. It is easier to find people to blame for all of the world's ills than it is to work to create a world where those ills are worked on by everyone.

I pray for her daily and hope that she will recognize Christ's real message of love and understand that we are to love one another as He love's us.

Icool

Cobb

This Old House

Gasoline prices have spiked again. Two weeks ago I filled up for $1.999 and yesterday it was $2.499. I do not understand how gasoline prices can go up $0.50 in under two weeks unless oil prices climb the same. I don't remember oil reaching 80 per barrel lately. I know there is concern about demand and Iran and terrorists attacking pipelines but come on. A 25% increase in the price of gasoline in two weeks is a little absurd.

So I am back thinking about energy conservation. I saw an episode of This Old House recently. I know, what were you doing watching television. It must have been a cold snowy Saturday afternoon or maybe I was just bored. Anyway, the episode featured college teams who had build energy efficient homes that could be easily manufactured and not use external energy sources. Some of them even went as far as no outside utilities (other than sewer I would imagine) by collecting and recycling rain water. These houses used active and passive solar to heat and cool. One house had a garden on the roof to grow vegetables and herbs.

The main gist was using solar to produce electricity while the sun was shining. The electricity supplied the power needs during the day and converted water into hydrogen for storage. The hydrogen was used to produce power during the peak periods and times when the sun wasn't shining. You could also sell excess electricity to the grid if you were full up in your system. It was also presented that you could gas up your hydrogen powered car using the same equipment. If this technology is available right now, why isn't it being incorporated into current home construction options. To eliminate the utility bills from your monthly budget and produce clean energy and reduce pollution seems to be a solid solution to our current desire for more. I guess it is not time for the paradigm shift just yet.

From This Old House.

Icool

Cobb

Change The Will

With our upcoming trip to Las Vegas, my wife is worried about the welfare of our children. If the plane goes down or we get kidnapped by roving bands of gambling terrorists, she want to make sure that the children are adequately provided for. We have a will that leaves them everything but in this modern world of litigation and bizarre twisted legal maneuverings, she wanted to get everything put into a trust. So, she got in touch with an attorney and we met Monday night at our house.

Our attorney was a very nice local man who actually knows quite a few of the same people I know. A good friend of mine from years ago, Ted Korn and him are in lodge together and they meet in a group once a week for lunch. Small world. Anyway, we start talking about trust options and when the kids get what from whom for certain periods in their life.

The first step was to take care of clothes, shelter, and ensure they graduated from high school. After that it was to pay for their college and make sure they successfully entered the work force. The third phase was designed to prevent them from getting their hands on the money before they reached the age of social responsibility. That means they can't have it before they reach age 25. If they are not past the big screen TV, sports car, designer vacation stage at that age, go ahead and blow the money. It also prevents the money from being available for litigation if they should ever be involved in a law suit or divorce.

We also did living wills, updated our regular wills and set up a bounce power of attorney in case we become incapacitated for something or other. Now this sounds like alot and I can only imagine that we will get a big bill from this guy for re-writing a standard form and sending it to us. However, at least this way it is legal and binding and done by a professional. The other way would have involved the courts and lawyers eating up huge chunks of a small financial legacy designed to keep my children safe in case their parents come to harm. Pay me now or pay me later.

Icool

Cobb

Apology Extended

I have been so busy lately that there has been no time to prep for my entries. Work has heated up and it is run like hell once I get home. I can think of numerous topics but when I have free moment, they seem to evaporate into some hidden cloud and I sit in empty splendor until the next crisis explodes at my doorway. It is not as bad as I make it out but the little things keep my ankles pretty chewed up. I guess it is always this way and I am currently more sensitive to the ebb and flow of the daily storm and strife.

My son called me when he got home from school yesterday. He told me that he was going to be on the television. The local Fox news affiliate had been at their school and interviewed his teacher about crowding at the local elementary schools and he was in a few of the shots. We watched the 10:00 news last night and got to see the news segment. It was the first local news my wife and I watched since we could not remember when. I can honestly say that it looked alot like the last news broadcast we watched. Alot of non-news being made into news and alot of news that was overhyped and uneventful. Yawn.

My oldest daughter is in the process of trying out for the high school softball team. She has an excellent chance to make the team and possibly move from the Freshman to JV teams. She came home all pumped up about the tryout and I got a blow by blow account of the afternoon. The tryouts continue through Wednesday so I will not know the outcome until probably Friday. This is one of the few things in her life that she has been excited about and I am very happy that she has decided to pursue her dream of playing big ball on the diamond.

Well, enough of family news and such. I hope to be back to something that requires a little more thought soon. In the mean time, bear with me.

Icool

Cobb

Are We There Yet?

I can finally say that I have been to an auction. My mother-in-law sold a sizable chunk of her worldly posessions on Saturday to veritable strangers. What you thought was junk went for big money and what you thought was treasure went for a pittance. Maybe it was the sentimental value meter that gave the implied value. One man's junk is another man's treasure. It was tough at the start because we had to pull my mother-in-law away from the sale items because she would rummage through them and pull things out. My wife had to pull her mother inside and set her down to read her the riot act. "Leave the stuff alone. You will never use it and it is not worth anything. Sell it while you can and move on." Not an easy message for a 70+ year old to agree to.

Once the auction was over, she got the total of what her posessions had sold for. How can a life time of accumulation be sold for next to nothing? Not that she didn't get a nice total but it is never what you think you will get. But they are just posessions. The worse thing was that not all of her stuff had been moved to her new condo yet so what she pulled off of the sale items added to the mountain of stuff yet to go over. My wife has been running for the past two weeks to take care of things for her mother. Taking care of the loan, the closing, the moving, the auction, and running during all of her free time. All the time, my mother-in-law has done nothing but complain that things are not suiting her and basically complaining about everything. My lovely wife is at her wits end. She loves her mother but she does not like her very much right now.

My mother-in-law has posession of the house until Friday. She will move the last of her stuff over during the week and begin life in her new home. Her next complaint was who is going to help me unpack. My tirade to my wife last night was, "She's retired and has all day, every day to unpack and she expects you to neglect what you have to do to help her do something she has unlimited time to attend to. That is the epitomy of selfishness." It seems to be everyone's problem but hers that there was a lack of planning over the years. Alright, stop the complaining. She is still a wonderful person who is stressed out and needs our love and prayers. Her generation lived through the depression and things mean more to her than they do to the baby boomers. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here. I will pray on it.

Icool

Cobb

Out of Order

I have been away all week at DaimlerChrysler for a supplier seminar. It has been a grueling week with 2 hour drives through Detroit traffic every day. What made it special was the freezing rain yesterday morning. It sounds like I am complaining and I guess that I am but I wanted to explain my four day blank spot.

It is amazing how much time you spend thinking while you are driving. I can't say that I though about anything profound. My first two days were spent thinking about the Megamillions lottery and what I would do with $267 million dollars. Well, not quite that much after taxes but still a nice chunk of cash when its all said and done. Nothing profound came out of those thoughts either. I cannot think what I would do with that much money. It just doesn't compute.

The other two days were filled with thoughts of my mother-in-law moving from her home of 35 years. She has been packing for about two months and the moving van came and picked up her stuff yesterday. She is having an auction for the stuff that she does not or cannot move on Saturday. I will be out at her old house tonight helping to set up the auction. It should be fun tomorrow looking at all of the stuff people are buying or not buying. It will be sad to watch someone's life reduced to an auctioneer pounding a gavel and saying sold to a life time of memories.

So pray for us for tomorrow and remember that memories are what we get from a life time of caring and sharing with others.

Icool

Cobb