Mar 072013
 
The Morgan silver dollar

Image via Wikipedia

I never thought I would see the day when there were places right here in these United States where they didn’t like cash.  Cash is no longer king, and sometimes the green is not good.

First some small history.  If you have read my blogs over this summer you will have some small inkling of the size of the pile of crap that has fallen on us.  Long story short, (side note at this thought, zemanta just brought up some pics to put on the page, I am hoping a manure pile is one of them) anyway, long story short, we have decided to nearly forego the banking industry and go back to a mostly cash system for our budget.

Seems like a good idea right?  Get the direct deposit, go withdraw it, be hyper accurate with records and it should work out fine.  Biggest problem, some places give you dirty looks when you pull out cash.  Some look on in puzzlement as former presidents look out from their assigned currencies.

Some say “Oh, we don’t get much cash.”  or some don’t even take it.  I tried to pay my rent with cash and they said no.  I had to go get a cashiers check or pay over the net with a credit card.  Hmmm.  Imagine that, here is perfectly good money, issued by the Government for the people by the people and protected under miles of codes and laws, and they don’t want it.  All they want is the numbers in the bank account.

It is not like I am paying in chickens or anything.  Back in my grandparents day, they had cash.  You got paid in cash or a check that you cashed at the bank.  You paid cash for groceries.  You paid cash for gas.  If you didn’t have cash, you didn’t buy that extra candy bar.  Debit cards are way too easy to use and they get you in trouble.

I could have called this article “Down with Debit Cards.”  We got nailed with the timing of debit cards to the tune of about $1400 in the past 6 months.  May not be catastrophic but that is rent and groceries for a month.  The issue is timing.  and the fact that the banks need to make up some revenue that they are not getting from loans and other government restrictions.

So I am working hard to keep my bank accounts at a minimum and use that debit card as little as possible.  I have had to plan on getting gas during the times when a person is actually in the place to take my cash.  I have had to really keep track because I know that when the cash is gone, there is no more.  It brings a whole new level of frugality that debit cards and easy credit have taken away.

Plus you can have fun with it.  I sold some fitness equipment earlier this week and took the check to the bank to cash.  They asked how I wanted it back and I told him a sack of dollar coins.  He looked nervous before I chuckled and told him what bills I wanted.  I would still like to have $1000 in dollar coins.  Walmart would have an apoplexy when we got groceries.

Anyway, have a great weekend, Remember Talk Like A pirate Day is on Monday, I hope you have all decorated and have been watching your pirate movies and singing your sea chanteys around the grog pot.  There will be a special edition of the podcast on Monday, the reason there was not one yesterday.   It is taking a lot to put together, but it should be entertaining.  I have had not interest in joining in on the podcast, so **like deleted to preserve family content**

I will be having some special guests that will remain unnamed until the naming during the podcast.  I would say you don’t want to miss it, but then again you might.  In that case I will email it to everyone who visits this site and  clog their servers and email systems so that I can take over.  Cyber hijacking.  Anyway, have a fun weekend.

ONE MORE THING!  Happy Birthday to Ralph earlier this week, he got older and probably more cantankerous.  Wish him a happy belated birthday.

Later – Justin

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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Feb 152013
 

Senility.  Some days I wonder if I am on that path or if i am just having brain overload.  It seems the world now is trying hard to break people.  Break them and crush their spirits and very souls.  I look at my kids now, out of school and, well, sitting in the house.  They don’t go outside very much saying “I’m bored” or “It’s too hot”.  Well it isn’t as hot as the first ring of Hell, or Florida for that matter.

Kids Watching House Burn Down

Kids Watching House Burn Down (Photo credit: Kiwi NZ)

Kids do not remember how to play with an old can for hours.  Or a stick that is both baseball bat and sword, sometimes in the same game.  Have you ever had to win a duel to reach first base?  (And not with your girlfriend.)  Yes these kids like to sit inside and watch TV or play video games.  My 12 year old will read for hours and hours.  I can’t complain about that too much, I used to do the same thing, but she has friends to play with.

I have 3 bikes collecting dust in the garage that only get pulled out now and again.  So, what am I to do?  I would really like to get some work done on the old computer here, and try to make some money, or heaven forbid, a podcast.  I could try one but the screaming of the kids would most likely have DCFS over here to find out how I was torturing them.

I have tried unplugging the TV.   They just go to their rooms and scream at each other.  I have sent them outside.  The only time they want to stay out there is when the sprinklers are on and they can get wet.  My yard could grow rice some days.  I guess all that I can do is wait for 3 more weeks and then 3 out of four kids will be back to school……I’ll tell you, I don’t know which I am looking forward to, the NFL season or the kids being in school.

I think the kids being in school will win.  Have a good weekend.

-Justin

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Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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Nov 082012
 

We have a legeslature we hire when we vote them into office. It’s bad enough that we are pissing away our money by being corrupt liars in their actions, but they are lazy too. They work hard at not having to do what they were hired to do, and

Environmental Protection Agency Seal

Environmental Protection Agency Seal (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

one way they avoid work…and responsibility…is by handing responsibility AND POWER off to agencies that abuse that power and the people it is applied to:

 

 

A look at John Pozsgai’s battle with the EPA:

The EPA had enough of Pozsgai placing topsoil on his own land, so they set up secret surveillance video cameras to record some of the filling activity. Armed with this evidence and aerial photographs, the EPA had Pozsgai arrested and indicted in September 1988 for “discharging pollutants into waters of the United States.” Keep in mind that the “pollutants” consisted of earth, topsoil, sand, and clean fill. (Under the Clean Water Act, a child at the beach dumping a bucket of sand into the ocean is technically “discharging a pollutant into waters of the United States” and can be arrested for doing so without an EPA permit!) The EPA readily admits that no toxic or hazardous wastes were involved in this case.

note Mr Pozsgai died on October 11, 2011. He fought the EPA for 25 years, and died as his daughters continued the fight, speaking to a House committee on Government Abuse at the very moment he died.

From Businessweek Magazine:

The Sacketts say they were stunned. The owners of an excavation company, they had secured all the necessary local permits. And Chantell Sackett says that before work began, she drove two hours to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to consult with an Army Corps of Engineers official. She says the official told her orally, though not in writing, that she didn’t need a federal permit. “We did all the right things,” she says.

The EPA issued an order requiring the Sacketts to put the land back the way it was, removing the piles of fill material and replanting the vegetation they had cleared away. The property was to be fenced off and the Sacketts would be required to submit annual reports about its condition to the EPA. The agency threatened to fine them up to $32,500 a day until they complied.

They won…but they lost…

Sackett v The EPA

You have a choice:

Believe in the “cradle top grave” federal government…believe that the government will take care of everything, and that this MUST be right because, after all, the government did ot, or…

Raise holy hell! I’ve been telling you how…have you listened? Are you willing to get off the couch, put down the chips and beer, turn off “American Idol” or todays MLB game, and DO SOMETHING, or are you just going to sit there, fat and happy, thinking things like this only happen to other people?

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Bob@HayleStorm Interactive

Bob comes to us with a skeptical attitude and a full cup of Cantankerousness. He also writes about homesteading and yurts over at JuicyMaters.com and rants about politics at Common-Sense-Conversation.com Most of the time, though, you'll find him at HayleStorm.net, cranking out great websites for clients OR writing tutorials teaching them to build their own sites.

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Nov 082012
 

“Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”

― Abraham Lincoln

It’s over.  All the hype and hysteria; all the pathos and melodrama; all the lies and deceit: They are all history.  And we are just about in the same place we were before.  There is no mandate for change.  The players stay in place and nobody seems to care about the fiscal cliff ahead or the dependency model that reelecting the President endorses.  I don’t believe that the voters voted with their heads but it is what it is.  The problem is what to do next.

Face the fire!

The country may be going to hell in a hand basket but more than 50 percent of the people who vote don’t seem to notice- or maybe they just like the warmer temperatures.  Whatever the virtues of the American independence and can do spirit, they don’t seem to resonate with voters anymore.

Gurus always say that you can’t fix a problem unless you take ownership.  Up until now I’ve been telling myself that the problem is those other people.  I don’t have a problem.  I have the right attitude and appreciation of our country and freedoms.  Well, the truth is that if I don’t have a problem; if I didn’t have any responsibility for the sorry state our country is in then I don’t have a prayer for doing anything to change it.  The only thing I can change is myself.

My Agenda is Clear.

I have been lazy.  I have been complacent and self-indulgent.  I didn’t do my part for the country I love and the result is revealed in the election results.  I depended on somebody else to defend my rights and privileges and coasted through the campaign. It is my fault.  I claim the failure and commit to fixing myself in order to be the citizen I need to be and correct our country’s course.

So forgive the gloomy tone today.  I just needed to work through all my rationalizations and disappointment about the election and own up to my failure.  Those blisters I’m sitting on are all my own.  And if I want something to change, it’s up to me.

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Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Aug 292012
 

English: Right of way The formal line of the r...

You know what I am getting sick of these days?  Me.  That’s right, Me.

I am getting sick of myself and telling myself that I am too tired or too old or…well just too full of shit to do what I should be doing.

This summer has been a disaster and it is no ones fault but mine.  Why didn’t I get more posts done?  Ehhh…. just didn’t.  That is the worst excuse in the world.

How can any of this online stuff survive with such namby pamby crap floating in my blogs?  It can’t.  So, now I am not going to try any more.

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Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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