Tag: kids

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the week in review

At home. Quarantined. No school. No going to work. Life has changed.

It has been a few weeks since my last post. I had started several posts but never finished them. Much has changed since my last post.

Sadly, we are coming up on day 14 of the 15 days to slow the spread. They call it “flatten the curve”. As it is, I am starting my second week of working from home. Only so much of my job that I can do at home. Lots to do but working on things, trying to access my work computer from home has been difficult.

For the kids, the school year has been cancelled. In New Mexico, we have 208 positive cases out of 10,977 total test as of the latest information on the New Mexico health website. I am sure that the numbers will only increase. At present, no one in Los Alamos County has tested positive, but several people in every county surrounding us has tested positive. It’s just a matter of time I am afraid. But I fear that there will be a rush to return and that will only make things worse. We have been instructed to work from home in order to limit the number of people at work. Well if you cram four to five to ten people per office, the outcome will not be good. Some people have been designated as essential to the national security mission. So for them, work continues. I don’t like to be considered “non essential”!

Yes we will pay in terms of our economy in the short term, but the longer term and many unnecessary lives is not worth it.

Even if you are young, or otherwise healthy, you are at risk and your activities can increase the risk for others. It is crucial that you do your part to slow the spread of the Coronavirus.

The only times we head outside is either out for food, to the grocery store, to walk the dog, or to the stables to feed the horse. Have plenty of supplies in terms of food. Dreary Sunday morning. Ruby is fine.

Ruby at feeding Sunday morning, March 29, 2020.

Spend lots of time reading things on Facebook. Whether it is posts from friends who are similarly locked up inside, or the news spinets that are for or against the President, we all have to pull together to beat this illness.

I find this interesting in a scientific way. Several times a day, I venture to see the updates on the Johns Hopkins website ( https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html ). It saddens me that it is a scoreboard,

From https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

much like when I turn to CNBC to catch the daily scoreboard of the stock market. Certainly have taken a hit as far as my retirement accounts, but that will recover over time, just like we will recover over time from this illness.

It’s times like these that make me ponder, make reflect, about what are the best things in my life. Family. My kids. This adventure of mine that will soon surpass 59 years on this planet.

I do not have the illness, not that I have been tested. I find myself checking my temperature several times a day. Wash my hands frequently. Drink lots of fluids. However, those damn seasonal allergies make people look at you if you are in the store and sneeze, cough, blow your nose, or look sullen around the eyes.

Soon, this too shall pass, and our lives will return to some semblance of normalcy. I am sure that the dog would like to have her days of peace and quite.

Jewel sitting still for a moment.

Don’t forget to fill out your Census 2020 forms. I did. Every ten years we count the number of Americans, well at least we try…Until then. Everyone stay safe, hug your family, and be careful.

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ramblings of a madman

Divorce, debt, and diatribe

It’s that time of the month where I sit down to pay the bills and track my budget and figure out financially where I am going in the coming year. Before my divorce, I was very frugal. No credit card balances to speak of. No outstanding debts except a mortgage. It was save, save, save. Emergency fund. Savings for college for the kids. Check. Savings for a beach house. Yep, it’s what the family wanted. Savings for retirement. Planned to work to age 52. Everything was on track.

See the source image

Then it came all crashing down. I managed to keep my retirement account untouched in our amicable, negotiated settlement. But I managed to pick up massive debt. Rent became a new mortgage. Child support became half of my paycheck and yet I had the kids half of the time. A personal loan to cover expenses incurred during my divorce. Lost significant savings. My doldrums that I encountered during the divorce were handled by some extravagant spending on trips, on stuff, on junk. No control. No problem, just charge it. New furniture for a house. Buy whatever the kids wanted. LEGO’s and horse things, fish and birds and guinea pigs. Exercise equipment to better myself. Books to read, learn to play the guitar, eat better food, drink better wine. Bourbon and scotch. Hobbies. I literally found myself in debt.

Now, as I stand on the precipice of retirement, I find myself still digging myself our of that debt. Granted, I am probably better off than most Americans. A good paying job. A 401k and pension for retirement. A roof over my head. Not living paycheck to paycheck. Yet there it is. DEBT.

See the source image

So here I am this Sunday morning after Thanksgiving, paying my bills. No, I am not thankful for that debt. I am thankful that I can manage it. Started looking at the interest rates that are charged for monthly balances. My Chase Freedom Card carries an interest rate of 13.99%. They calculate it by taking the prime rate and then add their costs on top. The Wall Street Journal carries the prime rate, which is currently listed at 5.25%. From the internet, I learned that the prime interest rate, or prime lending rate, is largely determined by the federal funds rate, which is the overnight rate that banks use to lend to one another. Also, it is stated that the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee, which is comprised of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks) has voted to lower the. target range for the fed funds rate to 2.00% – 2.25%.

So JP Morgan Chase charges me 8.74% to use their money when I charge something to my credit card and then carry a balance. Wow! My local bank pays me 0.10% for what I save in my savings account, and less for my checking account. It’s much worse when I look at my American Express Delta SkyMiles card. There the rate is 21.99%. A whopping 16.74% to use their money. It was my Amex card that just started me on this rant this morning. My annual fee was being increased to $99 a year. That’s $99 just to carry the card, get some frequent flyer miles if I use it. All of this for the luxury to not pay to travel with one bag on an airline. Not really sure if it is worth. I think that I can leave home without it.

Why so much for using their money? Well, the are a business. They need to make a profit. They have millions of credit cards in use. They get paid every time I use their card. And if I carry a balance, they get paid again by charging me interest. By my math, that is between 8 and 16%. Sweet if you can get it for your savings account. Some people pay them off every month. Some do not. Some incur large debts and then just don’t pay them. Guess that means that those of us who honor our debts are also paying for theirs. Why should I pay for someone else? I have my family to keep.

As a business, they have shareholders, including myself. I like my stock price to go up, my dividends to increase. After all, I need my 401k to cover me when I retire. They have employees who have families just like me. They have CEO’s who make ridiculously large salaries. I am not picking on Jamie Dimon; he certainly works hard for his money and has added value to his company. JP Morgan made $31,500,000,000 profit in 2018. Jamie Dimon got a 5% raise in 2018, and made a salary of $31,000,000. Now if you were like me, my raise was less than 2%. No bonus, no stocks, no performance-based variable incentive compensation. Jamie’s salary was a base salary of $1.5 million and a “performance-based variable incentive compensation” of $29.5 million, split as $5 million of that in cash, and $24.5 million in the form of “performance share units”, a fancy word for extra shares of stock. I could not find how much Jamie personally donated to charity in 2018, but I know JP Morgan Chase donated millions.

I don’t necessarily begrudge Mr Dimon for his money. There are others who do, like Elizabeth Warren. She is running for President. She has a plan, and as near as I can tell, a tax for everything. She wants to expand government into everything. In 2018, Warren made about $325,000 from book sales in addition to her $175,000 salary from the Senate. Her husband was paid about $400,000 from Harvard. Explains why it is so expensive to go to college. The couple paid about $46,000 last year for a solar energy installation on their home in Massachusetts, and received about $15,000 in tax credits, and they donated more than $50,000 to charity. All told, the Warren’s paid more than $200,000 in taxes on about $900,000 in income last year, based on their tax returns. By my math, they made about $100,000 on investment income. Don’t worry, Joe Biden did better. Can’t say that about Donald Trump. Yet we know that he took no salary and did not release his tax returns.

See the source image

So as it is now 24 shopping days before Christmas, it’s time to go shopping. No iPhone 11 for me or the kids, the iPhone 6 works just fine. No trip to someplace warm for the holidays. It’s currently 22 and with snow on the ground. No Black Friday. No Cyber Monday for me. Just gather up my kids lists and then off we go. Soon we will have another Star Wars movie in the theaters. Then it will be tax time and another election.

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Family

Weekend with the kids – part 2

Sunday starts early. I’m up before sunrise, doing some reading. Daughter is sleeping in but we must get going if she wants to feed the horse and get to Goose Downs by nine. Sadly, she is the slowpoke of the family and doesn’t have us heading out the door after eight to go feed Ruby.

Ruby is happy to see us. In her fly mask and sheet, she greats us like she does every morning. Leaning over the fence, a couple of hello whinnies, and then the expectation of a treat. Hay, grains, beet pulp and supplements; and she is fed and we are on our way. No ride for Ruby today. The 60+ minute drive to Goose Downs is in front of us.

I have brought the dog along for the car ride. Drop off daughter and finally get play date time and location scheduled for son. There I am, driving back. Passing through the McDonalds drive through in Santa Fe, I order a large coffee and a sausage with egg. Long line at the drive through, but as I get my order, the two people at the window are talking that the order in front of me left too quickly and were short on their order. I comment how I never leave without checking. I check and it looks good, at least the wrappers. However, I need to check deeper in the future. My sausage is not sausage, rather it is Canadian bacon. My coffee, which is black with two sugars, is coffee with cream and no sugar.

Back in Los Alamos I get son and get ready for his play date. His friend arrives after lunch and they proceed to play Minecraft for two hours. I try to nap as I am still tired and recovering from travel. And just like that, they are done and scheming for next weekend. I drop his friend off, taken son to his mothers and then back out on the road to pick up daughter.

I have divided the trip to Goose Downs has been into three 26 minute increments. Each increment becomes a race inside my head as I try to beat the time of 26 minutes. The first is Los Alamos to Pojoaque, one of the many reservations (and casinos) that exist in the state. The road is two lanes in each direction, the scenery is that of mesa’s and mountains, although they lack the vivid colors from a Georgia O’Keefe painting. The second segment is Pojoaque to the I25 interchange south of Santa Fe. This actually takes you through Santa Fe. Once upon a time, one could drive through Santa Fe at 38 miles per hour and never hit a red light. That changed with the New Mexico Rail Runner, which crosses at the intersection of St Francis and Cerrillos. The panhandlers are on these corners, with their signs stating their plight. It’s summer so there are many of them, although it isn’t as bad as the cities in California, Oregon and Washington state.

After the I25 intersection, you head north for the third segment, to Goose Downs. Staying on I25 for awhile, you then turn south on 285, passing Eldorado. Goose Downs is south of Lamy, just before Galisteo.

The scenery is like much of New Mexico. All in all, the trip is just over an hour one way, and probably could be described as the southern route like the scenery in the great book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”.

Before you know it, I have daughter and we are heading home. The race over the three sections plays itself out in reverse. Try talking during a car ride to a teenager who has her ear pods in and the music cranked up. Lastly, horse is fed, sone is retrieved and tonight we are having pizza. After 12 hours in the car driving back and forth, my ass is sore, the evening is soon upon us and tomorrow is another work day. The things we do for our kids.

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Family

Dogs

Since I have had to set up my own household, the kids and I have adopted two dogs. Both animals were from our local county animal shelter. The first was Abby (photo on the right). The second and most recent is Jewel (photo on the left).

They are part of our family.

Abby was a long hair mixed bread who was an older dog. The adoption papers suggested that she was perhaps 10 years old, and came to our local shelter after living in the Taos area. Set in her ways, she would always great me at the door when I came home, often sitting there looking outside through a window that was floor height.

She immediately fit into the family, but was not the kind of dog who liked to wrestle with son. Even though he picked her out of all of the dogs at the pound, she was my dog. When she wanted something, it was me that she would always visit. Short walks were fine, but she certainly would let you know when it was time to go home. I think that is a trait that she learned from my kids. We had Abby for a little over two years before she passed away from a seizure. We have a lock of her hair, a paw print and her cremated remains in a picture box in the dining room of the house.

At her passing, I wrote a little poem. It went like this:

Rest In Peace my four-legged friend.
Our time together, albeit brief, has come to an end.
I rescued you from the pound,
You rescued me from being lost.
Together our love and friendship grew.
I already miss your wagging tail, and your growls of joy when you roll on my pile of dirty clothes.
Your barking when you would greet me at the door, 
was evermore poetic with the kids in tow.
My loss of joy makes this pain so acute.
It will exhaust me with each passing day I am sure,
But in the end, we will meet once again.

Some months passed before we got another dog. Her name is Jewel. A pit bull terrier, she equally had a troubled life. Abused and injured before she was two years old, I can only describe her as a very lovable ball of pure energy. Just looking at her chasing her tail wears me out.

She also likes to look out the window next to the door. And she loves long walks that allow me to really get a workout. She also is my dog even though the kids picked her at the pound.

In my life, I have only had four other dogsthat I called part of my family. They had less interesting names: Tinkle, Tippy, Buffy and Dash. Dash was the family dog after I got married. She was the dog who was around when the kids were born. A golden retriever, Dash was a great dog. The other dogs are from my childhood years growing up in Pennsylvania.

Dogs are just great. They are family.
Categories
life

Sitting down at the table for dinner

For the past month or so I have been able to resume an age old tradition. That is to sit down together as a family for dinner. It’s tough as a single parent to cook for an almost teenage son and a very much a teenage daughter. Both tend to be picky eaters. For several years, I stopped because it was too much to accomplish between school, after school stuff and work. Also, there was lots of clutter such that I could not see the table. In preparation for hosting the last poker game several weeks ago, I have been working on the clutter issues around the house. There is something positive about the whole minimalist thing, but we can save that for another conversation.

Also, I am trying to eat healthier, trying to get them to eat healthier and a greater variety of foods. Yes we still have pizza night. Taco Tuesday has been curtailed somewhat cause the kids are sick of my ground beef taco’s. I’m working on chicken and pulled pork for a future meal. In addition, making things from raw ingredients can be better for you, and for the wallet. So tonight I prepared chicken on the grill, melon, rice, and

corn-on-the-cob. The kids like rice and chicken and corn and green melon. Simple, and except for the two starches, reasonably good on the healthy scale I hope. Sorry, they originally wanted spaghetti but I quite frankly am tired of spaghetti. I ate too much of that during my high school years.

The kids ate everything on their plates and aside from the soda, I was happy. The whole idea of sitting at the table is that there is no television, iPhone or iPad. We resort to the age old ideas of conversation and laughter. Now sometimes the kids get silly and that gets to me. However, they say more at the table in that short period of time eating then now. I’m here sitting at the table writing tonights entry and they are upstarts playing computer games. There is distance. There is silence.

Of course, when we went to feed the horse, we had to get desert. Ice cream sundaes. Bon Appetit.

Categories
life

What to write about today

Since I have started this journey a little over a week ago, when I sit down to write, I have typically had the entire piece written in my mind. Today I find myself in the opposite state of mind. Some subject ideas but nothing about the details of the piece. Not sure if it is because I haven’t thought enough about what specific subject to write about, or was it the frustrating day at work, or is it running for three days on seven hours of sleep, or the fact that there is to much going on.

As I said, I have many subjects to ponder. All of them will hopefully get put into words as we continue on this journey. All of them will provide you, the reader about what kind of person I am. Such topics include financial stuff. Lots of blogs about that. Some offer great advice and I have found the articles to be very helpful. I am not a financial expert so I will not write about that much. At least I can write at some point about my axioms for handling money. History and politics are two areas that I have interest in, but they can easily turn people off, especially when they don’t agree with your position on the issues that confront our nation. Suffice it to say, I characterize myself as being “so far to the right that I end up on the left”. Other topics can be hobbies, travel, people, book reviews. Many ideas of things to ponder and keep me occupied and hopefully, all of you as readers, coming back for more. Of course, there will be more offerings in the future about my kids and our pets. Cannot wait to tell you about the goldfish.

Work can be a dull subject. I have a PhD in Chemistry from a Big 10 school, but I really don’t do much chemistry anymore. Most of what I do is in the area of solving technical problems. These technical problems are often caused by others and thus it becomes my job to “make it work”. You do with what you have and don’t request the Lamborghini when a Ford works.

As for the sleep, that becomes an annual conversation in my medical checkup, along with weight, diet, and exercise. Ever since college some 40 years ago, I have been able to function on 2 to 4 hours of sleep every day. Yes it is odd that when I am on vacation, 8 to 10 hours is the norm. Charging the batteries I guess, but I’m thinking that weight, diet and exercise, would be better controlled if sleep was more normal than what I get at present.

And as always, there is lots going on. While I no longer work the 50 to 60 hour work weeks, there are the kids to consider, life and activities outside work, and the general realization that it’s time to do something different as I reach middle age. Yes I plan on living forever, so I better start working on weight, diet and exercise in order to even remotely live to 150.