Religion, Politics, and Culture: Explained and Defined
While browsing television options in an Idaho hotel last week, I ran across this juxtaposition of programming.
Yep, the Crave channel is offering More Sex, Less Stress followed by Boy Scouts: The Sex Abuse Coverup.
Gee, what’s next Bill Clinton: the Monica Years followed by Jeffrey Epstein’s Weekend Getaway? No wonder people in our society are so confused about morality.
For those of you planning to flee California, here’s some advice that will save you time, money, and frustration.
I can tell you from firsthand experience that getting recommendations for a realtor via a friend or word of mouth is a waste of time. Both realtors that my wife and I have found in Idaho by this method have been colossal disasters. Neither person that was recommended to us knew the market or cared to take time with us to find what we wanted. Don’t be fooled by flashy websites or other marketing tools.
Oh, by the way, Zillow is the least accurate website that we found. Often its lot locations are wrong, sometimes by a factor of miles, especially in rural areas. Sometimes listings aren’t shown because they don’t have a street number. Also, Zillow is many days behind in terms of showing listings and their current status. The site does have some value but if you rely solely on it, you will not have accurate and up to date information.
So, if you can’t trust recommendations or the Internet, where should you look? Lucky for you that this is the purpose of today’s blog. If you want a realtor that cares about you as a person and doesn’t see you as just as another commission then you’ve come to the right place. Oh, my advice is free and nationwide, so you have no excuses. Also, the people that I’m about to recommend have all been vetted to the same high standards.
Go to Dave Ramsey dot Com, click on Dave Recommends, and select Endorsed Local Providers (ELP). You can pick from Real Estate, Insurance, and Tax Services. Both people that we worked with from the ELP list took lots of time with us as I will briefly explain below.
In order to be in a position to purchase real estate in Idaho, we had to do a refinance of our California home. Strictly speaking, this probably is not a Ramsey approved method; however, due to our closeness to retiring and the rising costs of real estate in desirable areas in Idaho (in some parts of Idaho, prices are increasing at over 15% a year) this is what we ended up doing.
We found a finance guy in Roseville that spent about two hours with us on the telephone going over our financial situation. This person was fully aware that he probably wouldn’t make a dime off of us but was willing to help us anyway. He said that he had enough paying clients to make a living so that gave him the flexibility to help others. In Evangelical terms, he viewed helping us as a ministry opportunity.
Through him, we were referred to another person that helped us do a cash-out refi of our house. She was able to knock about two percent off the interest rate of our mortgage and get us $130K out of the house. The net was a mortgage payment increase of about $300 more each month. With this “seed money” we were then able to try purchasing a property in Idaho.
The ELP real estate lady that we found in Idaho was fantastic. She spent most of three days with us driving around to various properties in the Treasure Valley area of Idaho—think within a one-hour radius of Boise. We learned a lot about Idaho that you won’t be finding on the Internet. We put in an offer for a piece of land with a terrific view. Sadly, we couldn’t agree on a price within our means. (The property owners have had the property listed for two years and weren’t willing to flex too much on their price which is why it’s still for sale.)
In contrast to a great real estate experience, is the one we have been living for the last few weeks. A few hundred miles away from the Treasure Valley area, a property was listed that checked a lot of the boxes that we were looking for. We had a relationship with another realtor thru a recommendation. Since the listing was exclusively on his website, we contacted him. (FYI the listing showed up on RedFin a few days later and Zillow on the fifth day after it was listed.)
The realtor was a California refugee that had been in this part of Idaho for over two decades. On the surface we thought we had found a great realtor but as time went on, we discovered otherwise. This guy had very little idea what he was doing, was extremely passive, and failed to be proactive on our behalf. Much of the time when we asked him questions, we were either referred to someone who gave us bad information or found that the realtor just didn’t know and didn’t want to find out for us. Were he a newly licensed individual, this would be understandable but for a guy doing this for a living for many years, it was profoundly disappointing. It got so bad that last week, I literally had to take time off from work and fly up there just to see for myself.
Just as a for instance, the land we are trying to purchase has never been developed before and was on the outskirts of the city limits. We were told that we would need to get water on the property, but the realtor didn’t know whether connecting to the city water (about 500 feet from the property) or drilling a well would be cheaper. After two days of looking, I found out that the city required us to hook-up to the city’s water supply and it was illegal to drill a well within the city limits. Shortly after I found the regulation stating this on the city’s website, the well drilling contractor—recommended to me by the realtor—told me the same thing. Oh, said regulation stated that the city would provide service up to the property, whereas the realtor and his buddy at the city told me that it was on me to figure out how to get water on the property.
This is just one example of several that we have experienced while working with this guy. The only reason that we didn’t use a Ramsey ELP was that we felt we already had established a relationship with this person. In retrospect, we should have sought an ELP anyway.
If all goes well, we may end-up property owners despite our realtor and not because of him. Please learn from our experience. Whether you always agree with Dave Ramsey or not, use his Endorsed Local Providers program and save yourself from tying your fate to some clueless individual with a slick website.
Yep, you’re minding your own business and just living your life when Facebook, Linked-In, or some other social media alert is sent to you reminding you that you’ve been friends with Aunt Martha for ten years or Uncle Bob has been on the job for 12 years. The only problem is that you distinctly remember going to Uncle Bob’s memorial three years ago or Aunt Martha met her untimely end back when you were still in high school.
In my life, I have two people that I know are dead that kept popping-up several times each year in my email alerts. I finally got mad about it and took action. The platform that I went after was Linked-In. Here’s my experience. I’ll use only one person as my example in this post.
George was one of my old pastors back when I was attending a now defunct parish of the Reformed Episcopal Church. When he transferred out of the area I kept in touch. He loved the Internet and social media. My only gripe with him was that he was an Apple user. Apparently when he died of a heart attack, he left no master list of accounts and passwords for his wife to delete his digital footprint.
I went to his memorial service several years ago but Linked-In kept sending me reminders on his behalf such as these.
Congratulate George XXXXXX and 2 others for work anniversaries
Congratulate George XXXXXX for 6 years at XXXXXX the XXXXXX Church
The last reminder about George was received this week. I finally got tired of these messages and contacted Linked-In. Amazingly, they actually wrote me back.
I certainly appreciate you taking the time to contact us about this.
Due to the gravity of the situation, we have a formal notification process to address the death of one of our members. Please complete the following form and we can proceed with our confirmation process:
The form was simple which surprised me; however, you do need a Linked-In account to access the form. Linked-In asked for your contact information and then that of the dead person.
Information about the Deceased Member:
I submitted the form and 12 hours later I got a response that the account had been closed.
George still has active pages on Facebook and other social media locations. As recently as yesterday, I found another active account that he had opened on yet another website. George made quite an impact on me and I don’t need to be reminded of his contributions, at least not by Linked-In.
If you have similar links for Facebook or other sites, I’d be glad to post them on the blog.
Today our church decided not to subject its members to the heat and humidity of the current heatwave so they opted to let us meet indoors. As timid as these folks have been about all the Covid-19 rules, this is a big deal. I think my church’s leadership was emboldened by John MacArthur standing up to Los Angeles County and the Governor and then winning the first round in court.
Newsom’s rules are arbitrary and capricious and the sooner that folks tire of his pompous BS the better off we will be. In the meantime, we are singing at church and at least occasionally meeting in the building built for that purpose. Its progress in my mind and I’ll take part of something over hiding in place for another six months and doing nothing.
The wife and I decided to take a trip to Ikea today to window shop and dream about making some upgrades to the house. As you can see, we were not alone.
When we arrived just before 10:30 this morning, there were hundreds of folks waiting outside to get in, plus several hundred already in the store. Oh, and about another hundred waiting outside in the return line. Yes, men, women, and children were crammed into the “cattle call” lines just to get a dose of Swedish retail therapy. Folks if you thought your last trip to Home Depot was an ordeal, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
We talked to a few folks waiting in line and this is what we were told.
We spoke with a lady that was getting close to the entrance—a few dozen people away—and she had been in line for over an hour to get this far. Calculating backwards, this means she arrived shortly after nine am for a chance to get in Ikea when it opened at 10 am. FYI the line was halted because the store was at capacity and she would have to wait until some people finished shopping before more customers would be allowed to enter so she might be waiting another hour to actually enter the store.
But that’s nothing compared to the lady we spoke with that had just finished going thru the return line. This was her fourth day* trying to make a return at Ikea. She had driven from her home in Fairfield and arrived at 7:30 this morning. She said at 7:30 that there were already 15 people in line ahead of her. Again, Ikea opens at 10 am.
* Folks, 3 ½ round trips form Fairfield to West Sacramento is about 280 miles of driving.
As I pondered the possibilities of what to do while waiting in this ridiculously long line, I thought this might be a great place to have a church service. As you can see in the photos, much of the line is shaded by a whole series of coverings. Just put your pastor at the front of the line with his congregation behind him. Then the group could sing, pray, and listen to the sermon as they wait to enter Ikea. In the line, there’s no social distancing, just face masks. The whole congregation could literally gather in one accord, at one time: to heck with the pesky 100-person limit and all the rest. Towards the end of the service, the minister could just stop advancing thru the line, stay in one spot and as people pass him, they could take Communion and give an offering.
Such a service would be more dignified than having a flash mob service at Wal-Mart or Home Depot. Such crafty skirting of Governor Newsom’s bias against Christian worship would be mitigated by conducting the worship at a government approved essential business.
21st Century churches—the big ones, anyway, are big into marketing. However, I’m stumbling to create a reverential, yet marketable slogan for such a gathering. Our advertising department has rejected the following suggestions.
Anyway, if you need something to do for a few hours while we are in the midst of triple digit temperatures, try the line at Ikea.
Earlier this week I went to visit my dentist for a semi-annual cleaning. What was once a routine visit has been turned into a freakshow by the irrational fear of Covid, government bureaucrats, and lawyers. After hearing my tale, you may wish to take a pass on going for the next year or so.
Last week, I got a reminder call about my upcoming appointment with my local dentist. During the call, it was mentioned that before my visit that I would need to complete two online forms.
On the morning of my appointment I went online to their website–which up until that time I had never visited before. I found a tab for forms and filled out a medical history form—which I had updated in person during my last visit in January and thus was a totally unnecessary exercise. Then I had to complete a Covid form. I knew I would be in for some grief when I answered “Yes” to the question about have you been out of state within the last 14 days.
Right on cue, I got a phone call later in the morning about the “Yes” response on the Covid questionnaire.
I mean really. Why is any of this your business anyway? I felt like I needed a Miranda Warning and a phone call to my attorney before answering the blizzard of questions.
Folks I went to Idaho to look at property. Its my second trip there in three months. Given my treatment by the dentist–which is just getting started by the way–can you blame me for wanting to leave the hellhole of California.
If anything, when I said that I went to Idaho, the interview should have been over. Idaho has very few Covid cases and most folks there don’t give a crap about giving up their liberty to have the government protect them from the flu.
I told the lady from the dentist office that I went to Idaho with my wife to meet with a realtor to look at properties. What I didn’t say is that none of us wore masked while spending three days together in her car. Oh, the realtor had just spent the last four days at the local county fair—remember when we used to have those in California? She was working at the fair with her granddaughter. Thus, she was easily exposed to several thousand local residents in close proximity with each other. If anything, the folks in Idaho should have feared us since California is infested with liberals and Covid-19. However, we were not treated as pariahs but as fellow Americans.
Anyway, I thought I was good to go for the appointment and hung up the phone. I had no idea of the gauntlet that awaited me at the dental office.
I arrived a few minutes before my appointment and went into the waiting room of the dental office. Per the sign, I deployed my government mandated muzzle (mask). The next thing I noticed was a bright line on the floor that said stop here. It was about 10 to 12 feet from the front counter and barely inside the lobby door. I told the receptionist my name and was told that I had to apply some hand sanitizer that they provided on the table behind me. Yuck! It was the nastiest smelling stuff I’ve ever applied to my body. It put me on the verge of feeling ill. It was horrible. Then some woman in full garb came out and made me put my finger in a blood oxygen reader—like they use when you are in the hospital. After getting a reading, she then shot my forehead with a gun to take my temperature.
Having cleared this second screening, I was then taken to the dental chair. I was then instructed to use the mouth rinse that they provided and then I could sit in the chair. Having learned my lesson with the hand sanitizer, I used a tiny amount of the rinse and poured the rest down the drain. I then filled the cup with water and rinsed-out the rinse.
Then the dental assistant said I could be seated in the chair. She took my blood pressure. Following the blood pressure measurement, she tried to get me to remove my glasses and then use the ones provided by them. This was an epic failure and I finally opted to wear my glasses just like every other time I’ve visited them.
The assistant then told me that X-rays were the first order of business. I opened my mouth and upon seeing that I was wearing braces, she aborted the X-ray portion of the program. Apparently, wires in your mouth are not compatible with this procedure. What she did with the film that she tried to shove in my mouth I do not know. Anyway, the dentist ended up cleaning my teeth, but no polish on this trip which was unusual. I guess Doctor Fauci is not allowing that today but I’m sure the insurance will still get billed the full amount.
Anyway, that was my trip to the dentist a few days ago. Thought you should know what to expect. After recounting this experience to my wife last night, she exclaimed that there’s no way she’s going to see her local dentist any time soon. Oh, I’ve seen my orthodontist twice since all this shutdown nonsense and other than a mask, things are about the same in their office. As usual, I guess your view of Covid is a function of whether you watch 24/7 news and believe it. After all, its politics not science.
So many questions:
Does Joe Biden know that he even picked Kamala Harris? Assuming he got a say, was it because her hair smelled good, she got Biden’s endorsement the way she got Willie Brown’s, or because Harris was an articulate black woman?
The obvious question is why? Does Biden need to shore-up his support in the once “golden state”? How does picking such a crazy lady help him win in middle America or the swing states? Harris not only represents California values—or lack thereof—but San Francisco values. Where else does that even play well? OK, maybe cities in flames or civil unrest like Seattle, Minneapolis, New York City, and Chicago.
Truthfully, Harris is the perfect choice for the cancel culture and Some Black Lives Matter. Nobody has a stronger track record of promoting the genocide of unborn black children better than Harris. Heck she makes Fay Wattleton look like a poser in comparison.
Harris also has a long track record of selective enforcement of the law—often ignoring it when it furthers her political career. Harris is the worst kind of swamp creature and given the opportunity, she would throw Joe under the bus or upstage him to make herself look good.
Biden’s VP pick is seen by some as a de facto successor since its speculated that he will expire in office with or without assistance from the Clintons.
Joe Biden has a tiger by the tail and Donald Trump will make him rue the day he selected Harris. What a gift Trump has been offered. Only a Supreme Court vacancy would help Trump more.
Look for Orange Man to put it out of reach early on election night.
Have you wondered why so many companies are requiring customers to wear a mask? Why are so many people falling in line with the paranoia that somehow a mask will protect you from Covid when there really isn’t any proof?
Hint, the answer is one word: lawyers.
Yep, if your business bucks the orthodoxy of CNN and a customer happens to get Covid, said customer will blame you not because they have any proof but because you didn’t follow the rules so you must be the guy to blame. It’s a logical fallacy but the Jonathan Edwards crowd doesn’t care about facts just feelings. Emotions are the gateway to get big settlements and CNN viewers are the stooges to get you there.
Republicans say they know that they need to indemnify businesses but somehow the legislation is stuck in limbo. Folks, until we get meaningful indemnification for businesses, there will be no economic recovery. Tyrants in Democrat states will not be seriously challenged about arbitrary rules without legal protections for American’s institutions. This extends to more than businesses but also schools, churches, etc.
So next time you have to apply the “muzzle of the beast” to buy and sell, remember to blame Gavin Newsom and lawyers that support him, but also know that Congressional Republicans can stop this and haven’t.
Yep, SCO strikes again. As a follow-up to yesterday’s report on payroll problems with the State of California, today another error surfaced. This one is related to most State Employees represented by the good ole SEUI.
As part of the new contract that went into effect January 1, 2020, the SEIU got the Governor to agree to give all SEIU represented employees an extra $260 per month starting with the new fiscal year (July first). One bargaining unit already gets this perk but the rest were supposed to start getting it in July’s pay which was distributed yesterday. The number 260, is supposed to be the average amount that people in their bargaining units—notice I’m not limiting this to union members—are paying for their share of medical insurance for them and their families. Thus for many State Employees, there is no longer an employee contribution for medical insurance.
Note: Ok, technically there is because they are separate line items in the check, but in actuality, if you are only insuring yourself on the state’s dime and happen to have Kaiser, you get to bank about $140 each month. $260 minus ~ $120.
Here’s the official verbiage from the State Controller’s Office:
Improving Affordability and Access to Healthcare
Employees in bargaining units R01, R03, R04, R11, R14, R15, R17, R20, R21, excluded employees, and certain classifications tied to Service Employees International Union (SEIU), who are eligible for state-sponsored health benefits, shall receive a $260 pay differential for Improving Affordability and Access to Health Care each month and can expect this pay differential to be issued as a supplemental payment, processed in a daily payroll cycle, following the close of the business month.
So taxpayers, thanks for the extra money during these tough times. And one last thing. I’ve talked with a few State workers today that told me that even with Garvin’s 10 percent pay cut, because of this money and a few accounting tricks, that many State Employees will now have HIGHER take-home pay than before the 10 percent cut.
If you mixed Peanuts, The Far Side, and Dilbert in just the right way, you might get a fictional result that’s almost as strange as what happened today.
Remember those pay cuts that Governor Newsom was supposed to give to State Employees? Well today, after most State Workers got their checks, the gang at the State Controller’s Office figured out that they calculated ALL the state employee’s pay wrong.
The miscalculation affected the employee and employer share of the retirement deductions. Depending on the employee’s circumstances, the calculation varies. The employee share amount ranges based on the gross subject to retirement amount but is estimated to be between approximately $.01 to $100, depending on the amount of retirement deduction.
SCO has corrected the calculation and payroll will process accurately, beginning with all payments issued July 24, 2020, and forward. SCO will process retirement adjustments with the August 2020 payroll to correct the July 2020 payroll discrepancy. The adjustment will be shown as deduction *PERS ADJ on the earnings statement…
By the way, SCO is way worse than DMV but you folks in the public don’t have to try to sort thru their crap which is a blessing. Betty Yee has run that place into the ground. They are further behind than EDD and DMV put together. (Years not months.) SCO’s processes and procedures were developed in the 1970’s and technology wise, I expect they are still running those computers from Y2K. Oh, I’ve been to their check processing facility. It looked like it was state of the art when Ronald Reagan was leaving the White House and they keep nursing the antique equipment along as best they can. When is the last time you saw someone using industrial equipment made by Pitney Bowes?
One reason I’m hitting SCO is this: instead of sending an electronic record of each error correction to each department’s accounting office, which anybody on the private sector would do, SCO’s practice is to print one 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper for each payroll error correction that is made. This paper is then mailed to each department every few days. In a typical year they print and mail well over 100,000 of these sheets of paper. Folks per my quick Internet search, there are reportedly 210,916 full time employees! I hope they don’t really waste that much paper. Last time I remember them making a big mistake in payroll was when open enrollment changes took effect and they botched deductions on over 30,000 checks. I got to touch over 17,000 of their error corrections myself. Oh, once the error corrections arrive, they are scanned and attached in the accounting system to the corresponding line item. If handled in the usual way, the current error will not waste man-hours, it will waste man-years of time.
I could explain more about how wasteful SCO is, but you get the idea. You’d think in a state like California, they could find a tech company to computerize the state’s financial processes but truthfully the state isn’t that interested. You taxpayers have already spent a billion dollars on the latest attempt to try. Do an Internet search on FI$CAL cost over-runs.
The state has no incentive to innovate or become more efficient. They refuse to change processes to assist in automating operations. The lack of a profit motive has that result. It’s much simpler to confiscate more money from you than be better with what they already take. Also, they have a contract with the union that nobody can be fired if their position is replaced by technology. Take comfort that no one will lose their job over this. SEIU, or somebody like that, has their back.
