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Archive for December, 2009

Take My Texts, Please!

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

On Sunday, prior to leaving with her mother at 1030 in the morning, the Missus took the password off of the community cell phone so that Number 2 could text if she got bored at her mother’s apartment. And text she did! And text and text and text! According to her siblings, Number 2 spent pretty much the entire day at her mother’s apartment texting, only to come up for breath long enough to eat. Between 1030 Sunday morning and 2 in the afternoon on Monday, Number 2 texted an incredible 1100 times!

At 3 PM Monday, Number 2 walked down the street to her friend’s house to visit and stay the night. By 6 PM, she had texted so much that she had drained the battery, and with her final bit of battery power called me to ask that I bring her the charger. When I finally was able to reset the password at 8 PM on Tuesday, she had texted over 1600 times! Doing the arithmetic, she texted once every 2 minutes for 58 hours! Heck, it takes me well over 2 minutes just to text a simple message like “YES” or “NO”.

When you think about the frequency of texts, and take into account that she slept and showered in that 58 hours, that means that the periods when she was able to text (i.e. not showering or sleeping), that is pretty much all she did. Do you know how insulting it is when you are standing two feet from someone and they are ignoring you to text?

Interestingly, on Monday night Number 3 had a friend over for a few hours. I noticed that when I was sitting at the table, her friend had her head down.

“Are you texting?”

“Yes, I am. I am sorry. That’s rude, isn’t it? I will put my phone away.”

And she did. It’s a shame a 14 year-old girl has proper texting etiquette, when those who are older do not. There is hope for the next generation after all.

I am not the only one who gets annoyed when texters ignore those around them. Here is a column by Jay Cronley of the Tulsa World about this very topic. I couldn’t have said it better myself!

OMG! Manners missing

by: JAY CRONLEY World Staff Columnist
Sunday, December 27, 2009
12/27/2009 3:46:36 AM

Time was, it was somebody who was young and raised by a computer who had a difficult time looking you in the eye.

BlackBerry and laptop lovers get used to looking down at screens and begin living that way out in the wild, so to speak, walking and talking with their heads lowered even when they’re without electronics.

Now, it’s adults leading with the tops of their heads.

UOK?: The other afternoon I was talking with somebody when, as I was making a halfway decent point, the person a few feet away reached into a jacket pocket and took out a device meant for sending and receiving text stuff.

And she checked the screen for a message.

I stopped talking.

She said go ahead, she was still listening.

But she was also sending a text message, then reading a return response.

I asked if she was kidding.

Head still down, she asked about what: about interrupting a personal conversation to check a small screen for a text message.

The equivalent of checking for a text message during a conversation, in the perspective of somebody standing there, would be opening a comic book to read a page or two.

The person checking on texts said that it could have been an important message.

Like what?

Like: Is you-know-who there?

Like: I’m bored.

Like: Anything new about Tiger?

I asked to see the text message that could have been so important; didn’t happen.

SRSLY: If two people sending text messages, and eagerly anticipating replies, like teens who could use a date, want to hold a simultaneous heads-down conversation with one another, fine.

But if you’re talking to a regular person, it is the height of rudeness to interrupt the conversation to receive or send a text message.

That wacky text thought will keep a minute or two.

It is essential that text junkies come to their senses immediately and begin to stand straight and look a person in the eye.

We are in the throes of a global manners crisis. Showing consideration to others at the basic communicative level would be an improvement.

So stand or sit up straight.

Hands off the electronics.

Let’s talk.

Let’s talk person-to-person about something pleasant or something important.

Come on.

You can do it.

Look right here into my eyes.

Now, what’s on your mind?

Nothing?

So then e-mail me.

Posted in Aaarrgh, Life | No Comments »

One Digit Makes A Difference

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

Back at the beginning of December, I decided to reestablish the tradition of sending out Christmas cards. Since my ex-wife took the address book, I only know about a dozen addresses (with a little help from Mom), so I proceeded to write out and mail Christmas cards to the dozen. I thought that since it has been years since I sent them out, it would be a pleasant surprise. I was flabbergasted, then, when I went to the post office and found this in my box–

20091217modified

Yes, it was one of my Christmas cards!

There were several reasons for my flabbergastedness. First, this card was postmarked December 7, and it floated around the USPS for more than two weeks until it was marked “UNDELIVERABLE” on December 24, and I finally received it back on December 28. Yes, my precious was bouncing around the system for three weeks before finally coming home!

Second, this card was for Sibling 2, who lives within a mile a my parents. They share a ZIP code. Somehow, I got the ZIP code right on the card to my parents and wrong on the card to my sister and brother-in-law. The “4″ at the end of the ZIP code should’ve been a “9″. Yes, I feel stupid. In my defense, it was around 1 AM when I was writing my cards, but then again, I got one right and the other wrong. Go figure.

So, to Sibling 2 and her family I want to say – MERRY CHRISTMAS! Sorry you didn’t get my card.

Posted in Aaarrgh, Comments, Life, My personal soap opera, The In-Law | 1 Comment »

Police Harassment

Monday, December 28th, 2009

Here’s one I received from one of the fine citizens of Tulsa.

Recently, the Chula Vista, California Police Department ran an e-mail forum (a question and answer exchange) with the topic being, “Community Policing.”

One of the civilian e-mail participants posed the following question, “I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it?”

From the “other side” (the law enforcement side) Sgt. Bennett, obviously a cop with a sense of humor replied:

“First of all, let me tell you this…it’s not easy. In Chula Vista, we average one cop for every 600 people. Only about 60% of those cops are on general duty (or what you might refer to as “patrol”) where we do most of our harassing. The rest are in non-harassing departments that do not allow them contact with the day to day innocents. At any given moment, only one-fifth of the 60% patrollers are on duty and available for harassing people while the rest are off duty. So roughly, one cop is responsible for harassing about 5,000 residents. When you toss in the commercial business, and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 10,000 or more people a day.

Now, your average ten-hour shift runs 36,000 seconds long. This gives a cop one second to harass a person, and then only three-fourths of a second to eat a donut AND then find a new person to harass. This is not an easy task. To be honest, most cops are not up to this challenge day in and day out. It is just too tiring. What we do is utilize some tools to help us narrow down those people which we can realistically harass.

The tools available to us are as follows:

PHONE: People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus on a person for special harassment. “My neighbor is beating his wife” is a code phrase used often. This means we’ll come out and give somebody some special harassment.

Another popular one: “There’s a guy breaking into a house.” The harassment team is then put into action.

CARS: We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars with no insurance or no driver’s licenses and the like. It’s lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light. Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, they are drunk, or have an outstanding warrant on file.

RUNNERS: Some people take off running just at the sight of a police officer. Nothing is quite as satisfying as running after them like a beagle on the scent of a bunny. When you catch them you can harass them for hours.

STATUTES: When we don’t have PHONES or CARS and have nothing better to do, there are actually books that give us ideas for reasons to harass folks. They are called “Statutes”; Criminal Codes, Motor Vehicle Codes, etc…They all spell out all sorts of things for which you can really mess with people. After you read the statute, you can just drive around for awhile until you find someone violating one of these listed offenses and harass them. Just last week I saw a guy trying to steal a car. Well, there’s this book we have that says that’s not allowed. That meant I got permission to harass this guy. It’s a really cool system that we’ve set up, and it works pretty well. We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass. And we get away with it. Why? Because for the good citizens who pay the tab, we try to keep the streets safe for them, and they pay us to “harass” some people.

Next time you are in my town, give me the old “single finger wave.” That’s another one of those codes. It means, “You can’t harass me.” It’s one of our favorites.

Posted in Aaarrgh, Humor | No Comments »

When You Are A Leader, You Don’t Have A Private Life

Monday, December 28th, 2009

A new “The Fine Print”

http://t2s2.org/fineprint/Oklahoma/tfp122809.html

Posted in Aaarrgh, The Fine Print | No Comments »

Merry Christmas! You’re Unemployed! Don’t Cash That Check! And You’re Stranded!

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

The big news in Tulsa today is that Arrow Trucking Company, which employs several thousand, has closed its doors. That is bad enough, but the way it has done it is despicable.

When the office employees went to work this morning, they were told to get their stuff and leave. At least they got to go home. The company cut off the fuel cards for the drivers, who are now stranded at locations throughout the country without a way to get home. And it gets better! It seems that the last paychecks have bounced, too! Right now, three days before Christmas, there are hundreds of drivers who are stranded without the means to get home and without the means to stay where they are at! Merry Christmas to all!

This is the second time in the past five years that a local company has shafted its employees. Hale-Halsell, a food distributor and grocery store operator, went out of business in a similar dramatic fashion – bounced checks, no notice, complete shutdown. What is tragic is that the owners of these companies get away scot free. Sure they get a fine, but when you have millions of dollars, so what?

When I was with the City of Cabot, I was canned right before Christmas. And let me just say, it made for a very sad, depressing, and heartbreaking Christmas. Three days from Christmas, I know that I have a job and can pay all of my bills and take care of my family. My heart goes out to those poor Arrow employees who now find themselves destitute and deserted by the company they were loyal to.

There is chatter on various message boards about the situation, and imploring people to help these stranded drivers any way you can. If during your Christmas travels, you see an Arrow truck, stop and let the driver know that someone cares. That is what Jesus would do. That is the true meaning of the season!

Posted in Aaarrgh, Comments, Life, News | 1 Comment »

Insurance? You Call This Insurance?

Monday, December 21st, 2009

With all of the discussion about Obamacare and the need for insurance, remember this – not all insurance policies are created equal!

On Saturday, Number 1 and I went over to Walgreens to pick up her prescriptions. I didn’t think anything of it when they said they rang it up under my ex-wife’s insurance policy until they told me what I would owe – $371. What? $371? For two prescriptions?

Surely there was some kind of mistake. Did the forget about the insurance? No, they had not. Without insurance, it would cost $740. Holy moly! $371? That’s more than a car payment!

Dejected, I was ready to walk away. I didn’t have $371 to plunk down for these medicines, and since they were from a dermatologist, they were not life-or-death. Then I came up with one last idea – run it under my insurance plan. The first try was a failure, as you could not use both on these prescriptions. As I figured that my insurance would cover more than my exes, they rang it up using my insurance only. The total for both? $20. That, I can afford!

Back in 2008, when the ex and I were still married, she convinced me that having two insurance policies was a bad idea; after all, why take deductions out of both paychecks? That makes some sense, so we decided to drop my insurance, as the premiums were higher. Now I know why. Higher premiums = less out-of-pocket. The same holds true with auto insurance; pay higher premiums, and pay less out-of-pocket.

Which brings me back to Obamacare. Yes, it is good for everyone to have insurance. Talk to the Missus about that one, as she couldn’t afford insurance when she had her gall bladder surgery (before she became the Missus) and now has to pay down a $15000 medical bill, a little at a time. Granted that insurance would have helped some, but how much? If she had had insurance like the ex has, it might have paid $7000, which would have left her $8000. When you earn only minimum wage like she was before we married, $8000 is not any more affordable than $15000, so what would be the point of paying that monthly premium?

There is the feel good ideal world where everybody has insurance and they never have to worry about medical bills ever again, and then there is the real world that you get what you pay for, and if you buy the bare minimum coverage, the bare minimum is what you will get. Kind of like AAA – if you buy the cheapo membership, you get a five mile tow, and if you buy the premium, you get 100 miles. Although it is painful at the time, it is much better to get the premium membership.

Instead of duping people to believe that as long as they have some form of health insurance they will never be responsible for medical bills, we need to tell them the truth – if they are willing to spend more for a premium, they will get more coverage, simple as that. You get out of the system what you are willing to put into it, and if you put in nothing, you should get nothing.

Posted in Aaarrgh, Life, Politics | No Comments »

Vultures! Nothing But Vultures!

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Before I met her, the Missus made a fateful choice that millions of Americans make when they are struggling to pay the bills – she took out a payday loan. If you are unfamiliar with payday loans (I am a bit of an expert on this, thanks to the ex), most of them are for small amounts, typically less than $300. The catch is that the interest rates are ridiculous, and they encourage installments that result in the borrower never being able to repay the loan. The Missus borrowed $300, and even though she paid back around $500 in installments, she still “owes” over $500. You see, whenever she makes an installment payment, it isn’t considered an installment, but a “loan refinancing”, and they reset the amount of principal paid back to zero, which means you have to start all over. So, unless you can pay everything at once (and if you had that kind of cash you wouldn’t have needed to borrow the money to begin with), the loan is perpetually “reset” and the borrower is perpetually making payments. Kind of a neat scheme, isn’t it? Unless, of course, you are the hapless borrower who is always making payments.

The Missus has asked for a detailed accounting of exactly how much they loaned her, how much she has paid, and the interest rate. They have sent her a piece of paper telling her what the original “note” was for and how much she still “owes”. They are constantly harassing her and her father. So, being the decent husband that I am, I called them and asked for a detailed accounting. They refused. I asked if she had paid back the principal and a the maximum interest rate they can charge under state law. Yes, she had, but she still owed them money, because the “note” renewed every time she made a payment. In their books, they have issued numerous $300 loans, even though she only received $300; they’ve created multiple loans from the same $300.

They got rather testy with me when I questioned things, so much so that they told me that they “had other loans to tend to.” They then left a message with the Missus telling her that she shouldn’t bother me to call them. Apparently, I got under their skin and shed some light on their shady dealings.

Cockroaches don’t like the light. With the light, we can see them and squish them, hear them cruch under your foot and see their insides splatter out. These scum are nothing more than human cockroaches and vultures who prey on the neediest. We all need to expose them as the greedy, good-for-nothing bastards that they are.

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Reflections On The Dearly Departed

Monday, December 14th, 2009

A new “The Fine Print”. Yet another shocking death….

http://thefineprint.t2s2.org/Oklahoma/tfp121409.html

Posted in Aaarrgh, The Fine Print | No Comments »

Have You Driven A Ford Lately?

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

Well, apparently, I haven’t. Okay, let me backtrack. I have a Ford Expedition that I drive daily. I have a city-issued Ford Taurus that I drive daily. The missus has a Ford Taurus that I drive only one in a blue moon, and hence my problem.

Her Taurus has some issues, so it stays parked most of the time. After all, why drive the problematic vehicle when we have two good vehicles? Yesterday was one of those rare days where we had to drive it.

The new custody arrangements between my wife and her second ex spell out that he is to have my stepson every other weekend, and that they are to meet to exchange him in Newkirk, Oklahoma, which is midway between us and him. Newkirk is a smallish town that is between nowhere and nowhere that is about 100 miles away. Since I don’t want her driving the untrustworthy vehicle that far, she drives the car I normally drive to work, the P.T. Cruiser. the logistical issue arises in the fact that I don’t get home from Tulsa until after she leaves, so I can’t drive the Cruiser. We have the Expedition, but that is needed to haul children around Bartlesville throughout the day, so I can’t take that one to Tulsa, either. Which leaves the Taurus.

Let’s just say she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of me taking the Taurus to Tulsa, as I am not familiar with its quirks. (Of which there are many.) But, I insisted as the road to Tulsa is a busy four-lane one and I am a man, so if I break down on the side of the road, there is a place for me to pull over, a high likelihood that a law enforcement officer will pass by, and a lower probability of me getting attacked by some random psycho (that has to do with the Mike Gundy “I’m a man” thing).

Before I left for work, I added several quarts of oil (the Taurus has a voracious appetite for motor oil!), and fired it up. Despite the tantalizing and delicious smell of oil burning, it was running. Satisfied that it was working, I left. Several miles down the road, on the edge of Bartlesville, I pulled in to a Phillips 66 to get some gas, as that is the last gas station for 30 miles. I got my gas, put the key into the ignition, the radio came on, and….nothing. It wouldn’t turn over! Crap!

I was befuddled. Why would this car that had sat parked through the coldest days of the year fire up without hesitation and now decide, after four miles, to not fire up at all? Hmmm. What changed? I noted to myself that I had left the radio on when I had stopped for gas, so there must be an electrical short that drained the battery. I tried again. Still, I had the radio, but not enough to turn over the engine. I then made two phone calls.

The first call was to my boss, to explain the situation and why I would be a tad bit late. I had a very important task I had to get done, so I wasn’t at all happy about this persnickety vehicle. The second call was to my wife, asking her to grab the jumper cables and come and rescue me.

Meanwhile, I was still sitting in a dead vehicle. A vehicle that was blocking the gas pumps. I was sure that the station managers were glaring at me through the picture windows for cutting into their business. While I was waiting to be rescued, I popped to hood to see if I could see the source of the problems. Perhaps there was a loose connection.

I looked at the battery cables. Nope, nice and tight. Strange. This battery was only a couple months old, and it shouldn’t discharge spontaneously like that. Perhaps it got wet and shorted. Nope, no sign of a leak. The reservoir was full. After what seemed like an eternity staring under the hood with a befuddled glaze in my eyes, I closed the hood. I decided that since I was blocking the pumps, I’d put the transmission in neutral and push it out of the way until help arrived. Much to my chagrin, the transmission wouldn’t budge. What the heck?!

It was like the ignition was stuck. Try as hard as I might, I couldn’t get the transmission to go into neutral. I jiggled the key, but no success. I’d had a lot of vehicles die on me, but I’d never had one where the transmission was locked in park. Damned Fords!

I’ll give it one last try, I told myself. I took the key out of the ignition, and put the key back into the ignition, and turned the switch to get the transmission to be able to go to neutral….and it started! What the….? Then I looked at the key in the ignition, and laughed. Sometimes it is the simplest things that bedevil us the most. You see, on my wife’s key ring, there are two ignition keys, both for Fords – one for the Taurus, and one for the Expedition. Both keys look identical – same size, same shape, same color. The only difference, and it is a subtle one, is what is written across the black head of the key. Since I had my extra Expedition keys made at my Ford dealer, it has the FORD logo across the head; the Taurus key does not.

Yes, the reason that I couldn’t get the Taurus to start was that I was using the wrong ignition key! The two keys are close enough that the fit in each other’s ignition switch, and can apparently turn on the electrical system, but not enough to start the car. Perhaps it was that computer chip in the key that prevented it from starting; I don’t really know. What I do know is that you can’t start a Taurus with an Expedition key.

After I discovered my error, I called my wife and left a message – “Never mind”. I called the home phone, too, but couldn’t reach her. Hmmm. Not good. So I decided to wait for her to show up. After waiting for five or so more minutes, I decided that my best course of action would be to turn around and go home, and intercept her on the way. Two blocks form the gas station, I intercepted her.

I asked her if she had gotten my message. She had not, because she had left her phone at home. She was in such a rush to rescue me that she had forgotten it. Glad I stayed and waited. I don’t know about you, but I know that if my spouse called me needing to be rescued and I showed up and my spouse wasn’t there, I’d be both ticked and worried. (Oh yeah, that’s exactly how I felt when my ex did that, and I drove 90 miles to rescue her! But that’s another story!)

As you are aware, it’s been a rough month for both the Missus and I. Somehow, my “Duh” moment seemed to bring, even only for a brief moment, a bit of joy and humor to our lives.

Posted in Aaarrgh, Humor, Life, My personal soap opera | No Comments »

A Hard Slap In The Face

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Sometimes, it takes a traumatic event to sight things right again. For example, a common cure for the hiccups is to startle the hiccuping person, and it works, too. When our great nation was in the doldrums for a decade, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor snapped us out of it and gave us purpose and focus once again.

I have spent this week throwing myself a massive pity party about a situation that I have no control over, namely Christmas. All of my bellyaching doesn’t change one iota that I have zero control over what other people do. Even if I am skeptical, based on past history, that they won’t do what they say they will do, I need to give them the chance to fail, and not be so melodramatic and jump to a conclusion that, despite its high probability of occurring, is not guarenteed to occur. I preach the message of entropy, that there is a certain amount of randomness in the universe that can and does change what we think is a guaranteed outcome; somehow, in my self-absorption, I have turned a deaf-ear to my own message. Sometimes it’s just too easy to mope and feel sorry for myself.

On the way to work this morning, my wife called me. I could hear profound sadness in her voice.

“What’s wrong?”

“My grandmother died.”

“Are they sure this time?”

(A year ago, they had told her her grandmother died, only to find out it was a case of mistaken identity, and it was her grandmother’s roommate that died.)

“Yes. At 2 AM.”

What do you say when your wife tells you her beloved grandmother died? I felt as helpless as I did when my ex-wife’s father died. “I’m sorry” sounds cheesy. So does “She’s in a better place.”

“At least she’s not suffering anymore.”

I regretting saying it as soon as it came out of my mouth.

“But she’s still dead.”

Ouch. Good point. Better to be alive and in pain than dead and pain-free. Feeling like a first-class heel due to my inability to say anything, I did what most people do when confronted with an uneasy silence – I changed the subject.

“How’s your Dad holding up?”

As her paternal grandmother is the only family my father-in-law has left in Stillwater, as her mother passed last December, it’s a legitimate question.

“He’s doing okay, I guess.”

I was relieved to hear that. As her grandmother has donated her body to science, there will be no funeral. As her grandmother only has four living descendants in Oklahoma, there will be no memorial service, which I think is a tragedy, as memorial services are important for closure.

In two consecutive Decembers, my wife has had three major traumas. In December 2008, she lost her mother, and thought she lost her grandmother. In the first ten days of December 2009, she had her son snatched and now has lost her grandmother again, except this time it isn’t a false alarm.

On top of all that, she doesn’t need to put up with my pity party. Right now, she needs a husband, not a 43 year old self-pitying baby. What happens with Christmas, happens. Perhaps I might be surprised and my ex will actually show up on time, and we will have a good Christmas, all eleven of us. Regardless, my wife needs me right now, so it is time for me to snap out of my doldrums. Call it my own personal Pearl Harbor.

Posted in Aaarrgh, Comments, Life, My personal soap opera | 1 Comment »

The World According to "Aaarrgh!"