Category: Life

No, not something I wrote; I wish. Instead, this month’s Missouri Times, the newsletter of the State Historical Society of Missouri (available in PDF form here) has an article on Carrie Francke, a woman in the state Republican Party who ran for a couple of offices and lost, before she died in an auto accident in 1989.

I helped on Ms. Francke’s campaign for Congress in 1984. It was the year we’d moved from Milwaukee into the basement of my oft-mentioned rich (that is, struggling middle class) relations in St. Charles. My uncle was politically active and volunteered for this particular campaign, which is why I found myself canvassing Augusta (I think), knocking on doors to tell people about Ms. Francke. I remember seeing a phone booth that only took a dime in that small town (Augusta, I think), which was something prevalent in the novels I was reading at the time (at age twelve, I was already reading pulp fiction from the 1940s and 1950s) but not so much in the real world (where phones were a quarter).

I thought about clipping the article for my uncle, one of the political lions I’ve referred to over the course of this blog, but he passed away in April. So the story from the historical society, that thing I remembered live, I’ve got no one to share it with except the uncaring Internet via this blog.

Now that I have, I’ll drop the clipped article into the recycling bin.

On Wednesday night, I went to Kohl’s and got the shams. Yea, verily, that does sound like a disease instead of decorative pillows, and it’s just a destructive to one’s manhood. So I went to the shooting range yesterday for the cure.

Actually, my mother-in-law had wanted for a very long time to take a basic handgun course and to practice with the little Smith and Wesson Combat Masterpiece her brother gave her for self-protection a decade ago, and I went along for lunch and for moral support.

We got a 30 minute talk about gun safety and how the revolver works, and then we got a chance to put some rounds down range. Well, seven yards down range. Is that far enough to be “down range”?

The instructor fired three to show how the gun works, and then my M-i-L and I alternated a couple of loads. She fired twelve, and I fired eleven. And I have to say I did pretty well for someone who hasn’t fired a gun in nearly four years:

I put about half of my shots into the 10-ring or the X-ring. I think I like the wheel guns better, at least at the outset here, because you can see the mechanism working and know with better certainty when the bang is coming and you can pause en media res better to make sure you’re still lined up on the target.

Comes a self-defense situation, though, I think I’d still want more bullets.

Now my mother-in-law has expressed interest in taking a concealed carry class, and it’s entirely possible I’ll be along for moral support again. We’re a mutual excuse society in that.

So it was a good time, and almost enough to make one forget that one knows the difference between American and Euro shams. Although, in my defense, I have a beautiful wife who wanted the shams.

Last night, on our way home from dinner and some shopping (where my beautiful wife somehow walked out of a Kohls with several articles of clothing, two high-end pillows, and a king sized 8-piece bed set for twelve cents that she happened to have in her wallet), we saw a fire truck turning off of our road. Uh oh, I thought. They don’t tend to just cruise the neighborhood, and when my wife pointed out it was a Nixa fire truck, it meant something bad.

But not mortally bad as it turns out.

Fire crews were called out to a hay bale fire in the 4400 block of S. Farm Road 115 Wednesday afternoon.

. . . .
A horse trailer was also caught in the fire, but no animals or firefighters were injured.

It was Cheyenne‘s barn, if you’re keeping track.

My children are back in school, including my youngest, who has begun a full-time Pre-Kindergarten program this year. For the first time in many years, I run errands without toddlers toddling behind me, without having to keep my head on a swivel to watch for malfeasance or just childfeasance. I can’t help myself, though, continuing to chant things like, “C’mon, laddies,” or “Stretch ’em, short legs,” as I’m moving through the store.

Even though there’s no one trailing me.

Suddenly, I am Exidor.

I used to be Mork, but now, with the inclusion of giving navigational instructions to people who aren’t there, I’ve elevated to a new plane.

Brian J., you ask, why do you keep everything like you do, especially books, pamphlets, and some ephemera (but not as much as Lileks)?

Because someday I might need it. For research.

Of course, when I was young, I imagined it would be for important works of literature that would speak to readers about the journey of man from life to death and the struggle for meaning along the way. But that was back in the 20th century. Now I know better, of course, and my 21st century sights are set more along the lines of After civilization collapses, my physical books will be the things that brings Man out of his new Dark Age, and by that I mean the bastard that shoots me down will warm himself for several days by burning my tomes.

Aside from that, though, I do go to the books now and then. Continue reading “My Library Is Deep, As Are My Archives” →

A couple things that have just disappeared, and their disappearance has gone unnoticed for the most part until someone points it out.

• When police used the word “suspect.” Now, of course, no one is ever a suspect. They are a “person of interest” until the time they are arrested. I don’t get it. Was the term “suspect” sexist or racist?
   
• Rusty cars on the road. When I was growing up, it wasn’t uncommon to see cars with rust on them. A lot of rust on them. Partly that’s my cohort of the era, but also it’s because fiberglass and plastic have replaced metals in vehicle exteriors, so there’s nothing to rust except the three pins holding the cars together. Of course, one might say that one does not see as many old cars as one used to, but you know what? Old cars look a lot like the new cars. Sometime in 1993 or 1994, the design of cars changed forever to accommodate CAFE standards, and they’re all wind-tunnelled-to-death blobs of fuel efficiency, and Tauruses from 1998 look a lot like Camrys from 2012. And then the car starts to get to that breakdown point, it fails expensively from the inside, and in the course of a year or two, there’s a great Automobile Rapture that calls all instances of a model home. Remember Neons? Remember Saturns? The roads were lousy with them, and now they’re just….gone. Without rusting first.
   
• Tags on shirts. Remember those? They used to itch, sometimes, but most importantly, they allowed you to dress in the dark since you could feel the tag and orient the shirt. Now, I spend many morning hours walking around in shirts that are inside out and backwards because the shirt manufacturers want to save a couple ha’ pennies’ worth of paper and a couple stitches.

If I were Andy Rooney, I could probably get 600 words out of each cantankerous thought. But Andy Rooney was a professional, and he got paid for it. If I were getting paid for it, I could stretch that out, too. But since you’re a freeloader, you get the steno version, gentle reader.

So, all spring and summer we watched them work one of the horses at the public stable at the end of our farm road, and I took to calling the horse Boots because its legs were black.

One day recently, I saw a woman riding the horse down the farm road, and I asked her what its name is. “Cheyenne,” she said, and I explained that I’d called it Boots and now I’d call it by its right name from now on. Later, I realized I hadn’t asked her name nor given her my name as she rode along, but who cares about the people, hey?

At any rate, it proves a data point that supports the Nogglean law that Cities in Wyoming make good names for horses.

Compare and contrast the potential horse names from cities in Wyoming and Illinois:

Wyoming city	Illinois city
Cheyenne	Chicago
Cody	Carbondale
Laramie	Sauget
Sheridan	Rock Island
Casper	Joilet
Baggs	Moline

Q.E.D.

Today’s fun fact: There are almost as many incorporated municipalities in St. Louis County, Missouri (91) as there are in the entire state of Wyoming (99). How many are there in the state of Illinois? Too many.

This morning, I told my child there are only 49 states.

Why did I say that?

This morning, I saw the Millennium Falcon in a pancake.

I’m not sure what it means. Does it portend the relative worth of a good blaster at your side, or a hokey religions and ancient weapons?

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.