Cantankerous Old Coots

Coots Lesson 19- You can’t have it all!

Posted by Ralph at 03:54 Coots Lessons

Mar 182013

BEHIND WHICH DOOR, WILL YOU FIND ONE BILLION D...

Image by marc falardeau via Flickr

Bummer!

Let’s face it Coots, we’ve been sold a bill of goods. We grew up in what seemed to be a golden age. The sky’s the limit. Anything goes. You can have anything you want. You deserve it all. Nobody got snookered more than the women. Back in the 70’s feminists announced that women were the superior sex-capable of doing it all and without any help. Men were just chauvinist pigs, easily expendable. It was great news for men and for women. Suddenly the burden of supporting a household was lifted from men while at the same time women were freed from domestic slavery. Everybody wins – or at last that’s how it seemed at the time. We all bought the story because it excused weakness and self indulgence. Nobody ever expected to pay the price because post war babies were raised to believe that all we had to do was ask and it shall be given. And nobody was ever going to have to pay.

But we forgot biology.

All this self indulgence failed to recognize the physical limitation of human existence- our bodies. Women postponed families past the prime reproductive years and then struggled with infertility and miscarriage while they fretted about how it would affect their careers. Men failed to step up and take charge, not willing to earn enough to support the family lifestyle or take a stand and cut back. Nobody understood what was wrong but it wasn’t how we expected life to be. And this is just what my wife and I experienced.

Life was controllable. Not.

There is a lesson here about understanding what is important and finding good models in your life. Listening to popular culture and the latest new idea is always a temptation but it is far more important to observe what works. Human beings have been around for thousands of years. The human body works as it was designed and cannot be messed with particularly the reproductive cycle. Radical changes in living that conflict with tradition and biology are risky strategies. Just because an idea is new and dressed up in modern clothes doesn’t mean that it is better. But it is much easier to believe in fantasies than reality.

I know.

I messed up my life because I was naive and because I listened to the wrong voices. The real problem came from allowing myself to believe that short term thinking was enough to build a life on. Sooner or later even the stupidest and most naive individual begins to sense that it is all going terribly wrong and if he has any sense or responsibility, he changes. .

So what to do?

So the point of this lesson is not that bad principles can take your life off course. Even the best of us goes off course from time to time. The point is what you can do about it and how to create value from those painful life lessons. Now that you know that you can’t have it all and that those short term goals left you far from where you would like to be in life, what can you do?

You choose.

You pick what is important and let that decision guide you. You can’t anymore manage to have everything at the end of your life than at the beginning. You should have learned along the way, what things are really important and which are trivial.

You can’t have it all and only a stupid old coot will be able to hold that belief after years or experience. So pick what’s important and go for it. Maybe you can still make up for being so dumb up until now.

Taxed to Distraction

Posted by Ralph at 03:54 rants

Mar 182013

I’m grouchy today. I’m getting my tax stuff ready and it is hard to have positive feelings when you think about how much money gets syphoned off by the government before I get it. The income tax is something we take for granted today. It’s just a fact of life like death and…but back 100 years ago when my grandparents were whippersnappers; there was no income tax at all. Imagine that.

I don’t know what an average individual today pays in income tax. Obama just raised the top rate again so I think that the most anybody pays is about 40% on the margin but the average rate is lower due to the ridiculous amount of complication in the tax codes. Let’s just say for discussion purposes that it is 25%. Since the government takes the money up front you never really miss it. You see the amount on your paystub but it isn’t real. Then at tax time you try to arm-wrestle some small part of it back from the government and feel pleased when you get a refund. The truth is that the only reason you get a refund is that you let the government take too much in the first place. You lent them your money with no interest. It amazes me how clever the government can be at making us feel grateful after our pockets are picked.

My impression is that back in 1913 we had a pretty respectable government. We had services, roads, communications, and defense. There was pretty much everything we needed and it all happened without taking a 25 percent cut of your paycheck. It’s hard to believe.

When they started the income tax it was small-hardly noticeable. But later when the government decided to take the tax before we got the money the floodgates opened and led us where we are today, taxed to death. Somehow you don’t feel robbed when the money never gets in your pocket. These days it is a struggle to assert that the money you earn belongs to you. The government has taken the position that everything is theirs and only grudgingly permits individuals to spend what they have left. It is a decidedly un-American turn of events- a 180 degree retreat from the principles our county was founded upon, the idea that people can decide how to spend money belter than governments. These days the government knows best.

I might feel better if I had some feeling that the government was a good steward of the money it appropriates but it seems that the government is only able to spend like drunken sailors and enough is never enough. They demand more and more. And we get less and less- both of our hard earned money and the services which the government has promised to provide. We have enabled a monster that apparently will not stop until it sucks us all dry.

When there is any attempt to get the government spending under control, it screams bloody murder. I paid no attention to the frantic cries from the insatiable government last week about this impending doom of the sequester spending cuts. The cuts don’t amount to a hill of beans, won’t stop the government from borrowing more money from the Chinese and yet the President tells us that our country id doomed unless we raise more taxes. Then he shuts down the White House tours just to emphasize how dire the situation is. It is a pathetic cry from a spoiled child. We’ve created a monster.

So, as I work up my tax information in a futile attempt to take control of my income, I’m just glad the government leaves me anything. My grandparents didn’t know how good they had it but they were asleep at the switch when they let the government start the income tax. Maybe those Tea Party folks are on the right track.

What Kind of Woman

Posted by Ralph at 04:34 Ask A Coot!, principles, Reflections

Mar 112013

Can put up with a Cantankerous Old Coot?

One of the frequently asked questions around here is about how you get to be one of the lucky women married to a cantankerous old coot. Maybe we need to ask Bob’s new bride how she hit the jackpot. Is it luck? Propinquity? Careful planning? I can’t, of course speak for Justin and Bob’s experience. I only know my own and I have to confess that I see only luck. There is no way that my wife could have realized what a wonderful catch she had found that rainy Saturday in New Haven. In fact, it was only because she was new in town that she didn’t throw me back into the dating pool. Not that I wasn’t dashing in my baby blue combat boots and day-glow poncho (my college pick up outfit). It was just that after the introductory burst of personality, I I was still a grad school dweeb.

Even if she wasn’t swept off her feet that night, something kept us together that year and connected even after I graduated and moved 3,000 miles away. I knew I had found a keeper though I made her do the pursuing. You can call that an early manifestation of Cootness or you can just call it stupidity. Whatever you call it, my wife eventually graduated and joined me in LA. Then after some coaxing, we married, raised our family, fought and loved.

Looking back over all those years-

So here we are now in the idyllic Sierra foothills, enjoying our senior moments and trying to get the last kid out of the house in spite of the abysmal Obama economy. What has it all meant? Has it been a wonderful life? Will Hollywood producers line up to make a movie? Probably not. Looking back, I see a few things that should have gone better, priorities that got skewed but all in all at this point, as Hillary Clinton says “What difference does it make?”

Well, the biggest difference that I see looking back over 40 years is the woman I met, by chance at a Halloween party that rainy New England evening.

That’s not really an answer to the question that started this post. It doesn’t really explain how my wife got to be so lucky. She is, of course, lucky but luck is not so easily explained. There is also the complication that luck can be shared. I was lucky too; lucky that a casual conversation in the grad school coffee shop snagged me an invitation to Susan’s party; lucky that my wife got an invitation as well and finally lucky that I forced myself into an uncomfortable position of going to a party where I didn’t know anyone.

The Road Less Traveled..

Long story short, my wife didn’t have a clue that night how lucky she was because the Coot-to-be she snagged that night was disguised as an ordinary grad school nebbish.

Bottom line, I don’t know how to answer the question. Even after all these years, life is a great mystery to me. Most of the time, it is a messy experience with the wrong people making the wrong decisions about too many things that mess up my life. Most of the time, I find myself railing at the stupidity that makes my life difficult. But when the dust settles, my ranting is done and I retreat back to the safety of my home to lick my wounds and plot revenge, I realize how lucky I am.

Because of that chance encounter 40 years ago and a bit of effort from time to time since, I have a home. My wife has made a sanctuary of peace and security where a Cantankerous Old Coot can find comfort and forget about life’s problems.

Yes, my wife is a lucky woman but it goes far beyond being married to a Cantankerous Old Coot. It took a long time for me to see what she gave me and even longer to learn how to pay her back. My wife is lucky because she was willing to stick with me until I was mature and responsible enough to understand that I can never do enough for her to make up for all she has given me.

So what kind of woman can marry a Cantankerous Old Coot?

If you really want an answer to the question, ladies, this is the best I can do for you. It takes long term planning. You need to become the kind of woman that will give herself to a man that doesn’t deserve her and hope that he will rise to the challenge. Find some worthless dweeb and devote 40 years to making a home for him. Then, if you are lucky, he will develop into someone of consequence- a Cantankerous Old Coot, if you will. And you will live happily ever after.

No Cash? What do you mean you don’t take Cash?!?!

Posted by Justin at 05:26 Down with, Plain 'ol Cantankerous, principles

Mar 072013

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

Cash is king! Not anymore (boston.com)
Smarter Eats: Pay Cash at the Grocery Store (fitsugar.com)

Federal Express knows how to spell stupid…F-e-d-E-x

Posted by Bob@HayleStorm Interactive at 05:26 Bob's Politics, rants

Mar 072013

Sometimes corporations are their own worst enemies

You know, sometimes corporations just ASK for abuse

Anybody who reads very much of my stuff knows that I am a laissez-faire capitalist. I like capitalism. I support capitalism. I am a capitalist.

With that said sometimes capitalist… Corporations… Do some really stupid things and ask for the abuse they get. I’m talking about big corporations in general, but today I’m specifically talking about FedEx, Federal Express, and what some of their stupid people can do.

I read a news story in the Washington Post, and the headline pretty much tells the whole story. “Massachusetts woman sues FedEx over errorness marijuana delivery; says dealers looked for package”.

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