DISASSEMBLING LIFE

Stacking and Burning

mark2002rc@yahoo.com (Mark) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:01:34 GMT

While splitting and stacking fire wood the other day it made me think about how some things we do today are not benefited from right away. In this microwave / drive thru fast food world I sometimes find it hard to wait for anything. Even though I want this item and I want it now. (This thinking and way of life could have contributed to the current U.S. housing market). I was remembering back to my days working at a grocery store while going to college. Those days pushing grocery carts in wind chill weather in the winter and ninety degree weather in the summer. The whole time thinking someday I will be working at a great job, able to make enough money to have my own place.
I knew then that I would not have to do that job the rest of my life. At that time in my life I was stacking the fire wood. I was sweating splitting it, putting it into a wheel barrel and hauling it, then fitting the pieces together so the stack would stay in place. All that work with no benefit from it yet. Attending the classes 7:00 am tell 2:30 pm Monday thru Thursday before racing home to eat and rush to work by 3:30 pm to work tell 9:30. No benefits then just sweaty hard work.
Now I am benefiting from my college / splitting wood days. I am happily married with five great kids, roof over our heads, food on the table and transportation. I am burning the fire wood and it is keeping my family warm. I am still planing for winter by preparing my fire wood in its stacks. Keep learning new things, try to understand why things work the way they do, can it be improved. Just stacking the fire wood.

Home Protection

mark2002rc@yahoo.com (Mark) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:55:41 GMT

    A few weeks ago we went on our annual group camping trip. Mary has camped with these five families for the last ten years, this was my seventh year (we have been married for seven and a half years). My wife is friends with the women from each of the families and she sees them quite a bit through out the year. I most often see the men from this group only when we camp although we all live in an approximate eight mile radius of each other.
    This year we went back to Indiana to camp at a Yogi Bear Park. As we do every year the guys gather in a car and go to town to get things that were forgotten in the packing frenzy. This year I was anxious to get going because it was raining and starting to come down pretty good. This was going to be a fun trip catching up with the guys and hunting for Mary's Nutella (a Hazelnut spread found with the peanut butter). We soon realized we would have to go to Meijer because the mom & pop grocery store did not have it.
    Through out the time we were gone two of the four guys got call from their wives. All of these calls were dropped due to bad reception. As we were about to pull out of the Meijer's parking lot Dan got a call from Denise, this is where fun began. Denise expressed the fact that I did not have my phone and Mary is trying to get a hold of me to tell me that the camper is leaking. Dan spoke on my behalf and said "what does she want Mark to do?" When He said that I suddenly had a mental list of the things that I needed (Tarp, Rope & Stakes). At this point we could all sense the fact that I needed to go back and get the items on my mental list.
    After tarp was in place, the rain had quit and things had generally settled down Mary and I talked about the husband and wife point of view in these situations. What I mean by that is this, Men are to be the provider and protector I think that most men would not argue that fact. Some times men receive the information that our wives try to give us a just another demand. We need to focus on the duty portion and not focus on the way that the most important woman in our life delivered the information. Even if the negitive delivery of the information was on purpose we need to just do the task without complaining or being defensive. This is just another example of how I fumble to ball toward the goal in regards to my marriage.

Family Dinner

mark2002rc@yahoo.com (Mark) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:29:02 GMT

Lately, as a family we have not been eating dinner together as much. We used to eat together most every night except when the three oldest were with their dad. The teenagers (twin 16 year olds) either have friends over at this time and are not interested in dinner or they are at there friends house. We have Delaney our 12 year old for dinner more often than the Lauren & Austin.
Recent surveys say that families with teenagers that eat together get better grades, less likely to try cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs. It is my perception that the teenagers that have scheduled family dinners have three obvious things other kids do not. One, teenagers who eat dinner with their family have parents that are home at dinner time, not working late. Two, they have parents who are engaged in their kids lives. They know the kids friends and maybe even their parents. Three, the parents are in charge of the home, and are not controlled by their children. They are not their kids friends they are the parents.
Now, I have just convinced myself the importance of making it a point to eat together as a family more often. Not that the dinner makes us a family. Rather it is a way to connect at a deeper level as a family. We need to laugh together and have disagreements, to learn how to have safe healthy relationships. This is the preparation for the future America.

Teenagers and Cell Phones Part 2

mark2002rc@yahoo.com (Mark) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:51:23 GMT

I finally got her a phone. It took about a month and a half but she has a phone. After buying three phones on ebay the third one was the charm. There was about three week where she was using her "OLD PHONE" just so she could communicate with her world.
I have been buying my cell phones on Ebay which means it takes about a week and a half for the phone to arrive. Because the price is right I manage to be patient about that part of it. One thing that you have to watch when buying a cell phone on Ebay is of course scams. The number one thing to be careful of is the ECN number. People have been known to sell phone with unreleased ECN number. This means they may have an outstanding debt with there service provider and decide to sell the phone rather than paying what they owe. The other potential scam is buying a phone that is stolen which makes for a unusable ECN number & phone. Having said this, what I do when bidding on a cell phone on Ebay I always ask the seller for the ECN number. When I get it I check with my service provider to be sure that the phone is clear.
The first phone I purchased after the dropping/drowning of the original phone I was unable to use because it was associated with QWest service provider. So I sold it on Ebay for a thirty dollar profit. The next one I purchased was a Pink Katana I which my daughter considered old because she would not be able to have the latest ring backs on it. Finally we found a pink Katana II that she liked that had a price that I liked. Now she is back into her world with texting and Internet access in full force. She was very grateful to have her phone.

Stimulus Check

mark2002rc@yahoo.com (Mark) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:35:35 GMT

As the Stimulus checks start trickling out people are starting to reveal what they are buying. My friend Brian told me about his stimulus check investment. That being a pistol, I had to laugh at the thought of the government buying someone a gun. God bless America and our right to bear arms.
This projected me into thinking about things that people would buy with this "free money". Some people it would be given to there favorite charity or cause. In other words it may be given to religions that are would not view our country as a friend. Maybe the stimulus money would be used by the a self proclaimed "pharmaceutical entrepreneur" to buy just enough drugs to put him into a another level of dealers. I am sure people are going to do some crazy stuff with the Governments free money. Then someone reminded me that they would do this crazy stuff no matter where the money came from.
Back to my friend Brian, he is a fine upstanding citizen of this country. I am confident the pistol that was purchased will be handled by a mature, responsible, and the utmost care. The gun will never be used for any illegal activity while in his position. I still makes me grin knowing that the government of this free country helped a guy buy a gun.

Teenagers & Cell phones

mark2002rc@yahoo.com (Mark) — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:05:41 GMT

Last week I received a call from my wife while I was at work. She wanted to inform me that our teenage daughter dropped her cell phone down the street in front of our house. This cell phone is or was a black Katana that she had to have after the New Year this year.
The coveted Katana at regular Sprint store was over two hundred dollars. I bought hers on Ebay for one hundred and forty dollars. She paid me back the purchase price by working different jobs like baby-sitting her three-year-old brother, cleaning the cat's restroom and a few other less than glamorous jobs. By all accounts, this phone fit her needs, unlimited text, unlimited internet access, and constant communication with all her friends.

All that came to a screeching halt when her cool hoody pocket was too narrow to hold the long sleek black Katana cell phone when her friend parked over the street drain that day. Bloop, I think is the sound it made (I am guessing because I was not present when it went into the mouth of the drain) when it hit that Black murky drain slug. My wife was describing the actions the teenagers were taking, like using her younger brother's butterfly net to try to scoop it. Then when all attempts failed all they could do is just stand over it and morn the loss, picture it five teenagers standing over a street drain with there heads low. Later that day she did tell us that she missed her phone. Not because she could not communicate with the outside world but that she really did like, like a pet or something.
That night she found a replacement for sixty-five dollars on Ebay. There is part of me that regrets getting the new phone as quick as I did, to drive home the need to sure up some responsibility in her but too late now.

Oil Bubble or Not

mark2002rc@yahoo.com (Mark) — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:49:00 GMT

Last Monday I arrived early to a meet a friend for coffee. When I arrived I noticed the Wall Street journal and thought I would take a quick look. That is when the article called "The mother of all Bubbles? Oil's record run baffles bears" struck my eye. This being the first article that I have seen that posed this question and I wanted to see what Gregory Meyer had to say.
The article says that analysts continue to warn that oil prices close to falling back to at least $80.0 a barrel. Micheal Lynch, the president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc. out of Amherst, Mass was quoted "I
personally think this is the mother of all bubbles" and expect prices to fall back to $80.0 a barrel by late June. Tim
Evens from Citigroup in New York feels that the bubble is still expanding and is creating a supply surplus. Micheal
Lynch says that even with red flags on the horizon and oil prices breaking predictions, the rally has generated a sort of self-fulfilling momentum.
With all that, I have different scenarios of why the run up in the crude-oil and what are the possible effects of the
bubble burst. My first thought is that after the bubble pops gas prices will go down a little then the government
will increase the tax on gas to create revenue. Everyone has been forced to rethink future purchases and plans in
light of the price of current gas prices. This may create a smaller stir than if the government just heaped the tax
on the current rise in gas prices.