Category: Life

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Humanity vs Commerce

At the moment, car dealerships are closed on Sundays in Colorado. (For my friends outside the USA, laws on these things vary from state to state.)

I think that’s a great thing.

The mechanics, sales people, managers, and parts experts all get one day to spend with their family. Or their dog. Or their television.

We all need a rest.

A few years back, Colorado changed their liquor laws such that stores are now open on Sundays. Shortly after that, I asked a checkout clerk if the change had made any increase in their sales. He said no – but that the business just got redistributed over seven days instead of six.

Sad. Now the store owners have to pay more salaries and electricity bills. For no gain except to keep up with the store down the street.

I’d love to turn back the tide. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon. At least the car dealerships’ lobby has some sanity left.

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Why can’t they make them in brown?

My sons are like just about any other American male teenagers – they love to shoot things. (Suffice it to say that I am no longer an American teenage boy.) Anyhow, Airsoft rifles are their weapon of choice. And it’s just slightly annoying to me that the bullets mostly come in dayglow green. Vibrant dayglow green.

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Competition can be bad

Advance Auto is building a new car parts store not far from our house. Nothing wrong with that – except that there are already two auto parts stores within a mile of that location. One is even just across the street!

I’ve been to both stores, and I’ve never had to wait more than two minutes to check out.

It amazes me that their corporate headquarters did not do their research before being willing to spend more than a million dollars to see this project through. The sign touts new jobs becoming available. But that’s just short-term. One of the stores will inevitably close within a few years. Those employees will lose their jobs – and maybe years of gradual small pay raises, only to have to start over.

Sad.

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Self-assured vs. Bossy

In the years I’ve related with people, I’ve noticed that American business and politics reward those who stick their necks out.

There is a fine line between being self-confident and being full of yourself. It’s a spectrum. You can guess which side I fall onto – I often go out of my way in trying to not appear egotistical.

I also realize this is a at least partly a function of personality type. Some people need affirmation from others like a fish needs water. Others are happy to work in relative obscurity. Neither way is right or wrong. However, either way can be wrong if they are left unchecked.

Those characteristics are not directly related to being self-assured or bossy. Self-assured is almost always good. Bossy is almost always bad. But bossy people can get lots of things done!

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Great contest

(Living a Better Story Seminar from Donald Miller.)

So, this looks like a pretty cool seminar. I’m not entering the contest, just because I don’t think I could win. But maybe you can and will.

Here’s what he says:

What you will win if you’re chosen:

1. We will fly you and a friend to Portland.

2. We will put you and your friend up in a swanky hotel.

3. We will vacuum the space around your seats and make sure you have fresh mints and bottled water.

4. You will receive a gift wrapped box in the mail. You are not allowed to open this box. You have to bring the box with you to the seminar. I will call you on stage and we will talk about your story before you can open the box.

Sounds fun to me!

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Becoming a millionaire

What would I do with $7.5 million?

During our recent long-weekend family vacation, I had the luxury of sleeping late enough to linger on a dream. I won $7.5 million in some kind of a contest. (The kind of contest was not revealed to me – dreams are so funny in how they give us such random details and leave out others.)

The first thing I thought of was how I would get two more Solatubes for our living area and hallway. (The two we currently have are wonderful!)

I ended up paying off our mortgage. We kept our two current vehicles – but I spent some money fixing them up to perfection.

Being a car guy, I pondered how fun it would be to get a fairly new sports car. (Even though I was a millionaire, I could not fathom spending the extra for a brand-new car. Some aspects of my thinking will never change.) But in the end, I decided against it, as I could not store it on the street and thereby show off our wealth. Our minivan would need to stay in our one-car garage, as it’s such a pain to clean off the snow on winter mornings.

Much of my dream was spent in figuring out how I would give to our missionary friends. That was a tangle of thoughts. Investment of the money was tied into that – as of course we would need to live off the income for years to come and be able to continue giving.

So overall, the money in my dream was not a fun thing. I guess that’s a indication that life is good the way it is.

Lest you think I am a total killjoy, in the dream I booked first-class air travel for an upcoming (real life) long trip in the fall – for myself and all those traveling with me. Long trans-oceanic flights are brutal. I’ve often dreamed of how nice it would be to experience one of those voyages in a total-recline seat.

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Unpublished?

A very minor shiny bit to leave you with for this long holiday* weekend…

I found it highly amusing that in the latest Communication Arts magazine, there is an entire section devoted to unpublished artwork. How can the works be unpublished when the magazine has published them?

(*Independence Day in the States, to those of you not here.)

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Spanish Twitter

I realized I had a very narrow view of the world when I saw this billboard – I thought, “Wow, people who speak Spanish use Twitter too!”

What are some ways you have been narrow in your thinking lately? (In other words, take a moment to comment – I’m curious at how you have surprised yourself lately.)

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One year

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of my mom’s death.

I say that with sadness. We miss her. Time does lessen the hurt, but our sorrow still lingers.

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Did it again

Faced with the prospect of getting a new refrigerator/freezer or paying to get our current appliance fixed, we chose the “fix” route. (Faithful readers will remember how we made the same decision with our oven.)

We calculated that it would take roughly 25 years of energy savings to make up for the difference a new more efficient model would provide.

Who knows – maybe in five years, they will invent a frig/freezer that runs on air! Then we’ll be ahead.

(By the way, the ice maker had quit. And we Americans are quite fond of ice in our drinks.)

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