Bail Out

The term "Bail Out" is an apt description of what is being planned to help keep the banking institutions out of bankruptcy; it goes well with the term "Golden Parachute" which describes the severance packages given to discharged CEO's. It seems to me that before we give the Treasury Secretary $700 billion we should find out how he's going to use it. With $700 billion we could give jobs to all the unemployed and provide health care for those in need. People with jobs buy things, even homes and that would jump start the economy faster than pouring it into the bottomless pit of the banking industry. Of course, we could give the CEO's of the top 700 companies in the US a Golden Parachute of $ 1 billion each and that could start a luxury building boom in one of the off shore islands with lax banking laws. Hell, they could buy me off with a measly million. They could pay the defaulted mortgages off and folks could keep their homes and the banks would come out fine. Give us a blueprint before handing out that much money.

Lies

I had a disquieting experience today. I was lied to by a person with whom I was doing business. I'm not sure why it upset me so much, I knew she was lying and she knew that I knew. Maybe the fact that she offered no apology or any explanation is what got to me. It was a financial deal and her lies cost me and my driver some money, but that's not what bothers me. The fact that she would continue to lie even after being caught is really upsetting. We try to do business as Christians, that is trying to make sure that each person in the business deal leaves feeling good about the deal. In the end, her lies may even cost her some money at a later date. I have put her company on our no call list. I will no longer do business with her and perhaps there will come a time when she needs my help. I will no longer do business with her not as revenge, but as protection. I can no longer trust her to do business fairly, so I feel it would be unwise to expose out company to someone who has lied in a business transaction.

I know that my attitue sounds naive, but most of the folks I do business with are honest and give me the best deal they can.They try to make it so that everyone involved in the transaction is pleased with the outcome. Those are the people I will continue to do business with.

Vacation Time

We got to have a brief vacation on the Oregon Coast this past weekend. It was great fun! Our hosts, Libby and Martin, rented a house on the beach south of Yachats and invited the Bonfire Bunch to join them. Martin's twin sister, Faith, and her husband, Paul, were there from their home in England. They were a lot of fun to get to know. We didn't do much except sit in the sun and walk on the beach. The local whale pod entertained us each day by swimming a couple of hundred yards off the beach. They would surface and blow and submerge again. They didn't show their tail flukes when they dove, probably because the water was too shallow. They were fun to watch, and they spent most of each day off our beach. The weather was fantastic! Both Paul and Martin were sporting sunburns, a rare occurrence on the Oregon beaches.

We also got to visit one of my brothers on the way down and the other on the way back. It's always a good time to be with them. My older brother always thumps me in Scrabble although our first game was close, I only lost by two points. Of course he has the Scrabble Dictionary memorized! It was also fun railing about the Republican nominees for President with my other brother. He is active in the Democratic Party where he lives. I live in a super conservative area, so it's fun to have someone who is more incensed about the Republicans than I am.

So Tuesday was back to work day. We survived, and were astounded to learn that our little 4 truck trucking business had expanded to 15 trucks! I will be stretched a bunch trying to keep that many trucks moving. I have found that a big part of dispatching is getting to know the drivers. Each driver is different and likes to run certain lanes where he is comfortable. Two of our guys refuse to drive in California and New England. Sometimes that makes it a little difficult because of the huge volume that flows in and out of California.

Little Church Guy is Gone Man, Gone

I got to thinking today that my blog name of Little Church Guy is no longer correct. Our little church has closed its doors and even though I still serve a little church part time I think it's time to change my name. Selecting a screen moniker or a name for your blog is really tough, especially if you're not very inventive. With my blog I started out with Rural Rantings and soon found I didn't really have much to rant about, so I changed it to Sawdust Musings to reflect the time I spent in my wood shop reflecting on the ways of life. I couldn't come up with a great title and name like Mad Priest and Of Course I Could be Wrong...I suppose the ability to come up with a great name is directly linked to the ability to post interesting stuff. I got excited when I had my 2000th visitor to Sawdust Musings, many of whom I suspect are relatives. Mad Priest probably has that many or more in a day!

Back to the name thing, I think I'll go back to the name I inadvertly gave myself in the 6th grade. In preparation for Parents' Night our teacher gave us each a folded piece of cardboard with the instructions to write our name on the card so that our parents could find our desk. Being the over achiever that I am I wrote my name in large letters that nearly filled the paper. Dan The letters were so large that there was no room for my last name, all I could get on the page was a G so my name came out as DanG . Therefore, henceforth my tag will be DanG. Easy to write and doesn't take up much space. All I have left to do is figure out how to change it in my profile. Wish me luck..DanG

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

I can't believe that a week has passed since I last blogged. I have been busy with my new (kinda) job, but that isn't a very good excuse because I have spent the evenings watching TV. Not anything really good on either. I have had time to check in on Mad Priest's blog and I have to say I'm glad that the Lambeth Conference is over because I was getting tired of all the jabs at the African Bishops and the Archbishop of Canterbury. They deserved the jabs because of their stand on the issue of homosexuality, but it does get tiresome at times. Making fun of folks who disagree with you is fun especially when you are in the right, but after a while it begins to get boring. It's sometimes too easy to mock folks because they make such stupid statements, but it seldom does much to change any minds. The Republican faithful continue to think that Sarah Piglet walks on water even when it is patently obvious that she was brought aboard simply to appease the ultras and to be McCain's attack dog. He can stay aloof and let Miss Piggy make the attacks on Obama and then cry "sexism" when he fights back. She is an easy target but pointing out her failings will change no minds. I hope that the Dems do fight back and sling a little mud so that the undecided voters see that Barak Obama has a backbone. (an aside, my spell checker does not recognize Barak or Obama as words in its lexicon.)

Nostalgia

While riding my lawn mower around and around the yards today I had time to reflect on my life and those who helped shape it. Today my thoughts turned to my brothers, Emery and Bruce. Emery is the oldest of us three brothers and I am the youngest, so that puts Bruce in the middle. Bruce and Emery are closer in age and in our youth they palled with our two cousins who were near their ages and two neighbors of similar ages. Emery, Billy and Ron were the three leaders because of their age, and Emery seemed to be the overall leader because, I guess, he was a natural leader. Bruce, Chuck and Dick were the younger followers and I, almost four years younger than any of the others, was an unwanted follower. When we all lived on the east side of Bend there weren't any kids near my age and I wanted to go on the adventures my older siblings always had. I would usually whine and tell Ma and she would make them take me along on their forays to Pilot Butte or Porcupine Butte. Usually they would wait until we were well out of sight of Ma and then tell me to get lost and if I told Ma they would beat me up. So, I would follow them at a distance until they out paced me and I would find a place to play by myself until they returned from their wonderful treks into the vast sagebrush and Juniper wasteland east of East 8th Street. They would talk about throwing rocks at a big Jack Rabbit or trying to catch a lizard they had seen among the rocks. Starting in 1942, I think, there were US Army troops practicing desert warfare in our playground. Visiting the soldier's bivouacs was the one time that the bigger kids would let me come along, I think because I was a cute little snot nosed kid and the soldiers would give us chocolate bars. The day finally came, around the end of WW II, when I was allowed to go along on one of their treks. We climbed Pilot Butte! Straight up the trail! I thought I was going to die. I had to take two steps to their one and they didn't slow down for me. They would stop and let me catch up and when I did, they started out again. I knew I was going to die. They did find Jack Rabbits to throw rocks at, but the rabbit was long gone by the time I caught up with the rest of the troop. After that trip, I wasn't nearly so anxious to join the big kids forays out into the High Desert of Central Oregon. Now, of course, our vast playground is covered with homes and businesses. Porcupine butte is just a rockpile across the street from Pilot Butte Middle School and St Charles Medical Center is north-east of Pilot Butte.
Bruce and his wife live beyond Tooth Acres, the home of a Dentist in our youth and about the limit of our treks. The trail straight up Pilot Butte is still there, but I believe it is blocked off to prevent erosion of the cinder cone.