Category: Life

Another hobby on its way out: Stamp collecting.

Every now and again, you get some article in the newspaper (probably from a news bureau, which has a Mad Libs style template for the story, where the journalist can just drop in some proper nouns) that decries the death of collecting hobbies, especially as Boomers downsize and discover that their beer can collections aren’t going to supplement their Social Security very well. Hey, I’m a hoarder; I know the urge to collect things, but I’m not going into it with the idea that my collection of old handheld video games from the 1970s and 1980s is ever going to be worth anything. My generation is that pivotal generation that remembers the old artifacts, but also embraces the digital content that used to be stored on those artifacts, so it doesn’t want those bulky old things in the loft.

But I digress.

Stamp collecting. I had a kit for it when I was a boy, with the little hinges, lined mounting paper, and envelopes of old stamps. I didn’t really get into it, though, but back then, the allure must have been much more. It was a way of interfacing with history through historical stamps and with exotic foreign lands through stamps from other countries. Back then, people still had international pen pals, for crying out loud. There was a community. Clubs for collecting stamps, even.

Now, stamp collecting is running into some serious head winds.

First, people aren’t collecting as they used to. See above.

Secondly, the exotic nature of foreign stamps has no doubt fallen since you can learn all you want and talk to people all over the world, instantly, through the Internet. For example, my QA Hates You Twitter feed has followers from Russia, Britain, Canada, India, Pakistan, Australia, Egypt, Brazil, and a bunch of other countries. My mother had a Japanese pen pal who would send her letters a couple times a year. I’m exchanging quips worldwide daily.

Thirdly, the volume of mail has diminished, and the stamp is on its way out. It’s not something that connects the exotic and the historical to present day experience. I think one tends to collect the normal things of life and extend it to artifacts outside one’s existence. Maybe I’m off afield or generalizing from my own experience, but that’s what writers do.

Finally, the stamps themselves, if they exist, are becoming less interesting. We still get commemorative stamps and whatnot, but most of the time here in the US, we get bland Forever stamps which don’t have the price on the front. That removes them a bit from their particular moment in history. Increasingly, people are turning to postage they print on their computers. Who wants to collect that?

Here’s an example: Although I’m not a philatelist, I keep my eyes open for stamps because one of the organizations at church collects them to sell to philatelists to raise funds. I get a British periodical that’s shipped in a plain envelope and stamped. Or so I thought. Is this a postmarked stamp or something printed at home?

I dunno. I’ll take it in and let the experts decide to throw it out as worthless.

As a fundraising strategy, I think this one will be on the way out.

And although I’m not a philatelist, that’s not saying I don’t have some stamps I’ve purchased to keep as keepsakes.

I know, I know, you’re seeing all the blog posts about crafting books and are thinking, “What kind of man is this Brian J.?” The answer is, “Not much of a man at all.” For further proof, note how he does not make all improvised household repairs with duct tape. Continue reading “Wherein Brian J. Admits He’s A Sissy Because Sometimes He Makes Household Fixes With Something Other Than Duct Tape” →

In Springfield, the head of the city’s HR department has told the city council that city salaries are too low:

Springfield is at best average — and more often significantly worse — when it comes to the pay offered to most city employees, according to a salary survey City Council discussed Tuesday.

The survey, completed earlier this year, compared the maximum pay for 61 city positions to the salaries offered for the same work in 11 of Springfield’s benchmark cities.

“All in all, 64 percent of our salary survey positions are in the lower third,” said Sheila Maerz, the city’s director of human resources. “Our goal is to be in the middle third.”

You know what citizens should call this? A bargain.

The article does mention that Springfield has the lowest cost of living among the cities sampled for this information. The city also says that its cost of attaining new workers, which would seem to indicate that they’re not having trouble filling the jobs they post. So, what’s the problem?

It’s hard for me to imagine an HR director at a private company going to the corporate management and saying “We need to boost salaries just because.” If Springfield’s city salaries go up, its benefits costs go up, and its ability to meet its future obligations go up drastically. Let’s take a look at the cities Springfield compared itself to:

• Abilene, Texas (Dyess Air Force Base)
• Amarillo, Texas
• Chattanooga, Tenn.
• Columbia, S.C. (Fort Jackson)
• Fort Wayne, Ind.
• Grand Rapids, Mich.
• Huntsville, Ala. (U.S. Army Redstone Center, NASA)
• Knoxville, Tenn. (U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge)
• Salt Lake City, Utah (State Capital)
• Savannah, Ga. (Hunter Army Air Field)
• Wichita Falls, Texas (Sheppard Air Force Base)

Look at all the government jobs available in those positions. Of the other eleven benchmark cities, at least six of them have military bases or other federal installations in them and one of them is the state capital. As such, they are automatically going to have competition for government workers and would have to pay better to keep the city workers from becoming state or Federal employees or contractors.

I wonder if the presentation covered the possibility that the job competition might have had an impact.

I shall coin a term:

Galinize: To clean something in one’s household that nobody will see.

Example: I just galinized my kitchen by dusting the tops of my kitchen wall cabinets.

So named after my aunt who was very particular in this regard and who managed to keep a tidy house when the poor relations, including nine-year-old and eleven-year-old boys, came to visit for a year and a half.

Also, we would be remiss to not cover an additional term:

Regalinize: To draw attention to something that one cleaned in one’s household that the audience would not have otherwise seen. Typically, the person who hears or reads about the newly cleaned invisible object should compliment the person telling the story.

I just got a check from my insurance company for $261 rebate on my insurance premiums. Apparently, this is part of the PPACA, that I get money back if the insurance company does not pay out 80% of its premiums as benefits.

This check, stamped COURTESY OBAMACARE by statute, no doubt, came just days after I received a letter from my insurer that my premiums are going up $1200 a year, or $300 a quarter. Also COURTESY OBAMACARE, no doubt.

So this month, I will write out that insurance check, and the government’s check to me personally will not actually fully cover the increase in the premiums. Where have I seen this before?

However, as a self-employed small business owner, I am not the target of this gambit. The real target of this largesse is someone whose health insurance costs just disappear from the weekly or bimonthly paycheck, but to whom this check might appear, courtesy the Democrats in the Federal government. Their insurance costs will go up, too, assuming their employers keep them on it, but the gravy has a .gov return address.

I hope they’re not fooled.

UPDATE: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch covers the story, along with this quote from a believer and recipient:

“I imagine there will be a bunch of people who change their minds about Obamacare when they get their checks,” Fox said. “I think it will make them feel better that their insurance companies are being held accountable for gouging.”

He is the target audience. Kudos to the St. Louis newspaper for making sure he got to laud appropriately in paragraphs 3 and 4 and to get a critic of the move, an industry spokesman, to criticize it only in the final paragraph.

The article clarifies that I was mistaken in who gets the refund. Mostly people who buy directly from insurance companies, like me and Fox.

On Independence Day, we took the children to the local town fair to see what they had to offer. The Battlefield City Park, which now works in Trail of Tears into its name somewhere, had a band, some food stands, a number of inflatable bouncy-house kinds of things, a couple of politicians under tarps, and a guy twisting balloons.

But if you think he was making giraffes and doggies, you’re in the wrong corner of the state, brother.
Continue reading “Balloon Animals? Are You Kidding?” →

In Nixa, the city fathers are considering whether to turn part of their community center over to the YMCA:

Since the first of the year, City Council, together with the Parks Advisory & Stormwater committees, has searched for solutions to help fund the city’s parks and stormwater operations and maintenance. Discussions involved a possible stormwater/parks sales tax initiative and the privatization of the Community Center’s second floor as a fitness facility.

A request for proposal (RFP) advertising the availability of the second floor enticed the Ozarks Regional YMCA to submit a partnership proposal for Council’s consideration. The public is invited to share their opinions on the YMCA proposal that transfers responsibilities of Nixa Parks recreational programs to the YMCA at two public meetings held on July 5 and July 9.

If your city is looking for ways to get out from under the onerous burdens of the programs and facilities it created in flush times and/or in response to peer pressure from other regional governments (Ozark has a community center! We should, too!) and wants to turn them over to private, nonprofit or for-profit enterprises, your city has extended itself beyond basic services into things best accommodated by the private sector.

Lesson learned? Probably not.

Full disclosure: I am a member at the YMCA, and I have been off and on for fifteen years, and the last three have been at the Ozarks Regional YMCA.

For other local YMCA follies, see how the city of Ozark considered turning its rec center over to the YMCA (it didn’t) or how the Springfield Parks Board wanted to replicate the YMCA’s services with a new expensive rec center (Of course, they went ahead on it.)

We took our children in for a shearing this weekend, and as always, the hair stylist asked if we wanted the hair off of the children’s ears. I’ve seen that this is starting to come back into fashion, probably because of that Justin Bieber kid or because of the Hanson brothers or the Jonas brothers or whichever or all of the kiddy sensations who and whose fans were not alive in the 1970s and whose parents are braindamaged from the same.

Me, I just say no to the Keith cut. Continue reading “Just Saying No to the Keith Cut” →

I like to think that I’m noticing the world around me more now that I live in the country. I notice the different locations on the horizon where the sun rises and sets in the different seasons, mostly because I can see the horizons. I can see the topography of the land quite a bit more now that I can see for miles and to larger hills over the tops of smaller hills. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve gotten to be more observant, but that I’m noticing different things now. Maybe in the city, I looked at architecture and at the people moving about.

At any rate, one of the things that has struck me recently is the windbreak at the southwest corner of my property. It looks very different in the morning light than in the afternoon light. I think I’m beginning to see it like a painter would. Continue reading “Now I’m Seeing Like A Painter” →

Two headlines this morning jumped out at me:

• Governor Nixon Signs Bills to Help Children In Need
   
• Gov. Nixon Scheduled to Sign New Tax break

Fascinating, isn’t it, how when laws are made, the Republicans in the legislature do the bad things about making cuts and balancing the budget against the valiant efforts of the Democratic governor, but when it’s time to sign the things that the media likes, the Democratic governor is responsible for the good things?

Well, not fascinating, but too typical.

Conversation this morning as I passed my beautiful wife’s office:

Me, hearing a snippet of music: Is that Phantom of the Opera?
My beautiful wife: No, that’s Aladdin.
Me: Good. No man should recognize Phantom of the Opera.
MBW: That’s not true.
Me: All right, Andrew Lloyd Weber should recognize Phantom of the Opera.

Make a hasty generalization, and there’s one exception to puncture the rule immediately.

The elected city council of the city of Springfield are unpaid, and the mayor draws a token salary. Of course, this needs to change:

No Springfield City Council member has drawn a public paycheck for more than half a century, but one current member thinks the topic is due for a discussion.

“What I want to do with it is open up that discussion, is that something we need to consider? We are one of the largest cities in the country that doesn’t have a paid (council).”

At Bieker’s request, tonight’s City Council agenda includes an action item referring the issue to council’s Plans and Policies Committee for review.

The City Charter adopted by voters in 1953 grants the mayor a $200 monthly salary and up to $100 a month for expenses.

The charter specifically forbids a salary for council members, although it does allow them to be “reimbursed for any necessary specific expenses incurred in connection with their duties …”

Of course, they’re going to compare the council and mayor to other cities of the size. Cities whose fiscal house might be in terrible shape, but that’s neither here nor there.

Personally, I prefer a community where the leadership is unpaid and therefore doesn’t feel the need to put in a full forty hours a week in making and enforcing an ever-growing set of constricting laws and ordinances.

But Springfield wants to be a big city, dammit! So it’s ladling out tax incentives to big corporations and developers and everything else.

I’ve got a package I’m going to mail, so I’m preparing myself for the inevitable question from the postal clerk:

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if (theTextField == self.textField) {
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Oops, sorry, wrong thing on the clipboard. Silly Macintosh! CTRL+C means copy that text.

Nadine, the postal clerk in the little cinderblock post office that serves my zip code, will actually ask:

Does this parcel contain anything fragile, liquid, perishable, or potentially hazardous?

Of course, I spend mental clock cycles coming up with smart alec responses:

• Potentially hazardous? If it’s caught in hurricane-force winds, it can go right through a tree.
   
• Perishable? In a millenium, it will be reduced to its component molecules. All except the bubble-wrap.
   
• Liquid? It’s $640,000,000 in negotiable bearer bonds!
   
• Fragile? Depends on how hard you hit it.
   
• It’s very flammable; it burns if you put it in a fire.

I’m lucky that Nadine has a good sense of humor. I’m also smart enough to never, ever joke with a government employee I’m not related to through blood and am on very good terms with. Because one quip could get you on a no-fly list or put on the ground, brotha.