Clothing Budget worries

I've been working on revising our family budget for 2008. Hey, I'm a little strange and enjoy that sort of thing. But here is what I've learned: my wife tunes me out about as soon as I start talking about it and when I get done all she wanted to know was if she still got a clothing budget or not. I'm pretty sure I could eliminate the satellite, meals out, and travel without catching as much flack as if I eliminated her ability to go to the mall once in a while.

Now, for accuracy in reporting I have to say that she is very frugal with what she buys. She has not and will not create a problem for us financially with her spending (I am very blessed to have a wife so financially conscientious). I just think it's funny that her first question is always about the clothing budget.

After I got her question answered, she paused and then asked, "And what about you, do you get to buy clothes too?"

I wonder if that means anything?

Back to the "Sure I'll Paint That" Series

For regular readers of this blog - and I know there are thousands of you out there - you'll remember the series I did back in August when I decided to tackle refinishing a couple of tables we have here at our house. I spent the better part of the first week of my vacation working on breaking them down, sanding, priming, sanding, painting, re-assembling, sanding, and painting again. But the end result was very good - my wife was very pleased (guys, once you get married that becomes the standard for whether many of the things in your life are a success or not).

Shortly after that I was laying on the couch watching TV (our TV sits on one of the two tables I re-finished and the other one sits next to it) and it occurred to me that what I needed to do was add a lower shelf on the larger table to match the one the smaller table has. Reason? We need a good place to store DVDs and PS2 games that doesn't clutter the rest of the table.

So I climbed into the attic to find I had the needed piece of plywood that would become the shelf itself left over from building the smaller table a few years ago. This meant all I needed was some additional black paint, a small piece of 2"x2", and some screws (along with brushes and a drop cloth) to do this small project. A quick jaunt to Lowe's took care of that.

Observation: I needed about 8oz. of paint, but the smallest amount they would sell me to match what I'd bought before was a quart. I'm already looking for other things that might need to be painted kettle black to use up the rest of it. The two cheap bar stools sitting behind me right now are likely candidates, but the thought of sanding (3 times) all of the tiny rungs and legs of those makes me want to hurl - and they don't come apart like the tables did.

On Tuesday while I was in Vinita, dad and I cut the plywood and 2"x2" to the sizes I needed. On Wednesday I did the rough sanding, priming, fine sanding, and first coat of black on them. Then on Friday I did some measuring so that I knew precisly how to install the blocks (from the 2"x2") that will attach the shelf to the legs of the table. Then I attached the blocks to the shelf, did the finish sanding and applied the final coat of black paint.

At present the shelf is in the garage drying. I hope to install it tomorrow afternoon - just in time for Christmas. Merry Christmas, Wife! Oh, I was supposed to buy you something? I just thought I was supposed to surprise you (Robin Sigars!).

This project has taken much less time and been more enjoyable - the second time around tends to be. I did comment to my wife yesterday that it would have been handy to have a cordless drill and sander so I didn't have to keep dragging an extension cord around! She rolled her eyes. I wonder if that means anythings?

Save the Planet? Bring on the green.

As I was starting a load of laundry this morning, using a bottle of newly released 2x concentrated detergent I was reminded of a post I'd been meaning to write.

The environmental movement has gained tremendous momentum in the last couple of years and I'm glad that it has - done correctly it's in all our best interest to take care of the planet and it is cerainly a stewardship issue.

I want to suggest something, however that some might question me on (and I might be wrong, but hear me out).

I am often skeptical of corporations that claim environmental purposes behind changes they make. Why? Because if you look at a lot of the things they're doing, the net result is 2-fold: great PR and more money for their bottomline.

Now, I'm a capitalist, so I have no problems with businesses making money. That is their job and managers have a fiduciary responsibility to the stakeholders/shareholders to maximize returns over the long-term. They have other responsibilities too, but that one is fundemental. So when a business rolls out a new product under the guise that it's going to save the environment I tend to ask myself a question: what is this initiative doing for the business financially?

In many cases I'm sure the motives of businesses are totally pure. And I have no doubt that there are people in every corporation in America that care deeply about things like global warming. But I stop short of buying that all the new initiatives we're seeing from businesses are really primarily aimed at environmental protection - these are afterall the same companies that have been ripped all over the place for decades for the waste they produce.

A couple of examples of things I question:

1. The aforementioned 2x Concentrated detergent. This one seems to be a P&G (Proctor & Gamble) brain child (P&G has always had PR issues, they're not exactly seen as the most socially reponsible organization in the world). Does concentrating the detergent reduce the amount used? Yes. Does it reduce the amount of plastic required for packaging? Absolutely. So in theory this is better for the environment. But what does it do for their bottom line? Well, it makes it more likely that you're going to use too much with each load and since the price seems to have gone up inversely proportional to the concentration that means you're going to spend more when you use too much (and you'll notice the fill line in the caps are now way down in there, so filling to the brim is complete overkill now, much more than before). It also means that the containers are smaller (a benefit for the consumer), but also a way to reduce transit costs in a time of exceedingly high fuel costs. Not to mention the money they're saving on packaging (did I mention that this stuff didn't get any cheaper per load)?

2. Hotels requesting that you reuse your towels to save water and detergent and in the process the planet. Is this a good practice for the environment? Yes, of course. I certainly use my towels at home a couple of times before washing them and I'm not opposed to doing so at a hotel. But what's this really doing for the hotel? It's saving money on things like water and detergent, but perhaps more importantly it is reducing their labor costs (which are significant) because they use less man hours each day doing laundry and it reduces the time it takes housekeeping to make up a room.

Is this a cynical view? Yes, sadly it is. But please don't miss what I'm getting at here. It's not that I think we should reject these efforts and others like them. I just want people to realize that large corporations may or may not really be as concerned about the environment as they want us all to think. Is what they're doing wrong? No, not at all. Kudos to them for finding ways to benefit the planet, become more financially efficient, and get some good PR in the process (that's management gold). Just don't assume that there's nothing in it for the company aside from the peace of mind that they're making an effort to save the planet. My question for some of these companies would be, so what are you doing for the environment that doesn't make you money? Doing things that make more money doesn't make a company green, it makes them shrewd. Doing things because they're the right thing to do, regardless of what it does for the bottomline make the company a good steward (of the enviroment, resources, dollars, people, etc.).

I'm done. Let the tomato throwing commence.

When Heaven Freezes Over

On Sunday, shortly after we got home from church we were starting our laundry, eating lunch, doing the things we do on Sunday afternoon's when suddenly the power went off. A round of freezing rain had blown through the area and we knew a lot of people were already without power, but thus far ours had been on - and last year we never lost it, so we didn't really expect to lose ours. It came back on briefly a couple of times, but then all was dark and quiet - and began to get cold.

We napped on the couch for a couple of hours, but when it didn't come back we decided we needed to take the load of wet clothes to get dried at Britt's mom's parent's house (Nan & Popi - who still had power). After a couple of hours finishing that load of laundry we left there headed to find some dinner and then back home for the night.

We ate at Panera (whose site I won't link because I really don't care for the place, but my wife loves it, the food is good enough, but I can get lunch for less than $15 elsewhere thank you very much) where we found no less than 10 or 12 OCC students huddled up to stay warm, work on projects, and use the internet.

As we sat a table over from them we could tell three of them were discussing titles for a sermon they were writing for class. We stayed out of until one of them (who I have identified to the Executive Director of Student Development, just for fun) decided to call his "When Heaven Freezes Over". At that point my wife started laughing out loud. We chatted with them a while and went on our way. Lito, don't worry, Monte didn't seem too upset about the whole thing, he found the humor in it as well.

Our house was about 58-degrees when we got home, so we piled 4 extra blankets on the bed and climbed in. We did manage to watch a DVD that evening on Britt's laptop - thanks to a decent battery and a mobile power station my parents got me a while back that we could use to charge her laptop when it ran low. Staying warm that night wasn't a big problem...as long as we stayed in bed.

By the next morning it was down around 50-degrees in the house and my wife made it clear we weren't staying there anymore until the power returned. Yes, Ma'am. We decided to hit the Y - thinking we could workout and get a hot shower. The workout worked out, but JFY-South lost power before we finished upstairs, so we got booted and ended up at Britt's dad's parent's house (Grandpa Bob and Grandma Judy).

Grandpa Bob and Grandma Judy were nice enough to put us up most of the day Monday and Monday night (and would have kept us much longer if we had needed to). They had lost power only briefly early on and had it back sometime late Sunday or early Monday. We had a good time hanging out with them and Brittany's uncle Danny - also staying there due to a transformer (the electrical kind) laying in his front yard.

I got up early Tuesday, hit JFY-Downtown and then dropped by our house to drop off clothes and check on things. By this time we'd transferred our frozen stuff to Nan & Popi's and I had a large plastic container out on the back porch of the last few things out of the refrigerator. Thankfully the temps had hovered near freezing (this was the one upside of the cold weather during a power outage) so we weren't losing food. The house was somewhere below 50-degrees now, the dial hit it's limit around 48 and couldn't go any further down.

I was able to spend the day at work (which was quiet since the office was officially closed) getting contracts out and intern applicants evaluated. Britt spent Tuesday around town Christmas shopping.

Then came the call I'd been waiting for...Britt called to tell me that our power is back on. We were both relieved and ready to be back at home. Fifty hours without power really isn't that long, but felt like an eternity (especially the first 24). This experience certainly has made me realize how much I take things like electricity for granted. Shame on me.

There are still thousands around this area without power, some may not get it back for days. Please pray for all those still in the dark and cold or temporarily residing with friends and family. And pray for the crews working to restore power, that they would be kept safe as they work and be able to quickly get things put back together.

Subprime Bailout

I don't have much time, but this got me a little fired up, so I felt the need.

As you may have heard, the government will roll out its plan today to do a 5 year rate freeze on subprime mortgages that were issued between January 2005 and July 2007 for people who are current in their payments, but would likely default when rates reset to the real rates (now that their teaser rate period is coming to an end).

I am sure this is going to be a blessing for some families who are legitimately in over their heads. I don't want to come off as callous or unfeeling about this situation, but I do want to point out a couple of negatives I think it creates.

1. By bailing out the American consumer who is already clearly too deeply in debt to keep up, the government is in effect going to encourage more reckless spending behavior. My guess is that it'll take about 2 weeks for most of the people effected by this to forget that they just got a huge gift and they'll be right back to buying things they can't afford rather than using this reprieve to save and invest in order to protect themselves financially for the years to come - i.e. being good stewards.

2. There has been much buzz in the media of late about whether we're about to slip into a recession. I am not an economist, don't claim to be, but I think this part is pretty simple. By bailing out subprime borrowers and enabling them to keep spending - which is what really props up our economy anyway since we're running a huge trade deficit at present - I think they have just delayed the downturn in the economy. I'm not for a recession, that hurts everyone, but my fear is that by delaying it a few years potentially, it will be more pronounced and we'll all suffer more because the forces behind it will have had more time to build. Again, I'm not an economist.

3. Bailouts are the antithesis of capitalism. I think every time the government bails a group out they really weaken our economic system. Again, I run the risk here of coming across as unfeeling and callous, but that's not really the case. My argument here is that our economy - the greatest in the world in terms of long-term performance and providing opportunities for the masses to succeed - is built on the premise of risk and reward. The larger the risk, the greater the reward (theoretically). What has happened here, however is that large risks were painted to be very small, but still carried large rewards - and it happened on both ends of the equation. Home buyers (buying homes they couldn't afford with loans they couldn't pay) and lenders (lending to borrowers that weren't qualified) who took large, foolish risks are being saved from the economic consequences of those decisions. And who is paying for it? The rest of us. It's called tax money. Now I do believe that help should be there for families who are in peril because of the subprime situation, but I don't think it's the government's responsibility to bail them out. I would argue that private organizations should be reaching out to community members in need and helping them with legitimate restructuring of their debt, alternate housing, etc.

4. The other group that needs to pay up is the financial services industry. They started this mess and while I think responsibility falls on every person who signed onto an ill-advised subprime note (the home buyers) the one group not really paying the piper is the group that found "creative" (I'd call it borderline fraudulent) ways to package the resale of these mortgages so they would carry investment grade debt ratings so that retirement and mutual funds could own them. So now, in addition to the home owners taking the hit, people are losing truckloads in their retirement accounts because these Mortgage backed securities are failing. A few of the large financial firms are taking a hit on this because they drank the cool-aid themselves - by actually spending their own money to own these improperly rated investment instruments. Of course the ones suffering over that are the lower level people whose jobs are being eliminated. The brass who made the decisions all got fired and used their golden parachute to double their net worth (when top level people sign on at a company, they're guaranteed millions if they get fired, in some cases they make more for getting fired than they would have made in years at the firm).

The details of how this all happened are more than I will get into, but the bottom line is that the rich got richer and it came at the expense of the poor and now the government is bailing the poor out at the expense of the rest of us.

Let's be clear about something, the fundamental problem here is human greed - not our economic system.

The Dwarfs of CIY

At a recent leadership retreat it was revealed that CIY has been benefiting from some employees that are not on the payroll. This came as something of a shock. As we dialogged the situation it was determined that there are actually several non-salaried, but very valuable members of our staff.

Here is the run-down on these "special" friends:

- Banter - This was the first to be identified, he cannot be kept out of any CIY meeting, despite our best efforts.
- Conflict - Conflict likes to tag along with Banter and Pushback, but we're doing our best to minimize his efforts.
- Inappropriate - Lives under Eric Epperson's desk, but manages to be present at every meeting.
- Filter - Is assigned to be everywhere that his brother Inappropriate is and keep him from speaking, but occasionally fails at both tasks.
- Push-back - We're not really sure what to do with this guy, because everyone on the staff is so congenial and we can't stand to air differences of opinion. And if you believe that you need to meet my friend Sarcasm.
- Camp-out - Jayson French introduced this one to CIY. When Camp-out gets called into a meeting you know it's going to take a while.
- Unpack - Unpack tends to travel with Camp-out and is called upon when a meeting isn't designed for discussion, but just the relaying of information in one direction.
- Sarcasm - Sarcasm is the mother of all the dwarfs. Without her, they would lose their power. Occasionally Sarcasm and Inappropriate get in the same room - that never works out well.
- Metaphor & Analogy - The twins, Metaphor and Analogy, are inseparable because we frankly can't keep them straight and tend to call one the other. Rumor has it that these two actually live inside Chris Jefferson. I cannot confirm or deny this information.

The leadership retreat was great, several important things happened. Time will tell where the identification of our dwarfs will rank among the outcomes of this retreat.