The one thing that sets Americans apart from the rest of the world is mobility. When Henry Ford took the idea of interchangeable parts to the next level with the invention of the assembly line and gave the gift of mass production to the world, the result was extremely affordable transportation for the masses. People were no longer constrained by geography, and the age of mobility was born.
It is no mere coincidence that the petroleum industry was born at approximately the same time that the automobile was conceived. Natural petroleum seeps had been known to mankind for thousands of years prior to the automobile. They were thought by many to have medicinal value and were applied to wounds to speed healing, and truth be told, that wasn't too far off the mark. And so the natural seeps were revered as a gift from God.
It was used for lighting into the nineteenth century along with whale oil. But it was the age of mobility that caused the ravenous thirst for fuel for that mobility. Serendipitous as it was, oil was discovered quite by accident in great abundance while drilling for water in Titusville Pennsylvania and it turned out to be the fuel of choice for mankind's new found mobility. And voila, it was the birth of the modern petroleum industry.
The extreme intrinsic value of a highly mobile society wasn't lost on the politically savvy. Hitler capitalized on that value. He honed the idea into a razor-sharp military machine. "Blitzkrieg" as Hitler called it comes from Middle High German and it literally means "lightning attack"; aptly named for the speed of overwhelming force by which Germany took control of enemy territory.
And in like fashion, the politically powerful of today are seeking to control the masses by controlling our mobility. They seek to make purchasing energy for mobility so expensive as to restrict mobility itself. This is the insane and warped reasoning behind the whole "Cap and Trade" ideology. It is a blitzkrieg of a different kind, but the intent and the desired result is the same; subjugation of the masses. It really doesn't have anything to do with environmentalism, or saving the planet. It isn't even about filling their coffers or lining their pockets or balancing budgets, social justice, or the redistribution of wealth. It is all about controlling the mobility of the freest people that God has ever graced this planet with; You!
There is an abundance of modern scientific evidence that refutes the notion promulgated by the left which postulates that there is only a finite amount of naturally occurring crude oil in the ground. The fact is that oil is still being formed today at a fairly fast pace. There is no shortage of oil in the ground. The only shortage we experience is that of will power to overcome the self-imposed limitations on exploration and development of our own oil resources here at home.
Live free or die trying is more than a slogan, it is who we are. It is what we are. It defines us. It sets us apart from all who have been before. Our mobility is why we are the envy of the world. It is why others covet our freedom. That is why even those who espouse unbridled disdain for us would secretly love to come and live here. It is also why those of us already here that preach against our values, simply do not pick up and go anywhere else on the planet to live out days. They talk out of both sides of there necks. Their mouths say one thing, while their actions (or lack thereof) says the opposite; hypocrites every last one.
I for one, know I am free and how that came to be. I make no apologies to anyone for daring to live free or die trying. How about you? Are you proud to be here? Are you proud to be an American? Are you proud to be one of the most free people on the planet? If you aren't perhaps you should look elsewhere for an oppressive regime to live under.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
His Incredibly Incompetent Boobness; Obama
The incompetent jackass Obama has lost his appeal to reinstate the blanket moratorium on all offshore drilling for oil. This is more than just being about energy in general and oil in specific however, it is about keeping Obama from running roughshod over the entire constitutional process and usurping de facto dictatorial power for himself. Who would have ever guessed that the Supreme Court would be the fly in his ointment of supremacy! All hail Roberts and Alito! Thank God for the two of them.
Obama is a wet blanket to prosperity anywhere in this country. Every time that damned fool opens up his pie-hole and his extreme disdain for all things American spews out of it like diarrhea, the markets tank, businesses shudder in fear at what this manic fool will perpetrate next. He really is clueless isn't he? A transaction tax? He must be smoking some awfully good crack on the links if he thinks that any Americans are willing to pay any more taxes on anything. STOP SPENDING YOU ASSHOLE!
We don't need bigger deficits, we need austerity. Starting with less damned government. Every time anything happens, this idiot rushes to create a damned commission to study it and develop a report about it (while he duffs another 9 holes somewhere). What does he think, this is a college exam he is studying for or something; develop a report. What an asshole.
Keynesian economics never worked before, and it will not work now. Free markets are self-regulating and do not require government intervention to "correct" the business cycle. All that government regulation accomplishes is market distortion every single time. History is replete with examples of this.
Obama is a wet blanket to prosperity anywhere in this country. Every time that damned fool opens up his pie-hole and his extreme disdain for all things American spews out of it like diarrhea, the markets tank, businesses shudder in fear at what this manic fool will perpetrate next. He really is clueless isn't he? A transaction tax? He must be smoking some awfully good crack on the links if he thinks that any Americans are willing to pay any more taxes on anything. STOP SPENDING YOU ASSHOLE!
We don't need bigger deficits, we need austerity. Starting with less damned government. Every time anything happens, this idiot rushes to create a damned commission to study it and develop a report about it (while he duffs another 9 holes somewhere). What does he think, this is a college exam he is studying for or something; develop a report. What an asshole.
Keynesian economics never worked before, and it will not work now. Free markets are self-regulating and do not require government intervention to "correct" the business cycle. All that government regulation accomplishes is market distortion every single time. History is replete with examples of this.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Gulf OIl Catastrophe Is Made Worse By Obama's Ineptness as Leader.
Regarding the Earth's bleeding of oil and methane into the Gulf of Mexico because of BP's Deep Water Horizon well; why on earth would they have used dispersants to begin with? If the oil is dispersed it will be harder to recover the oil from the ocean. And recovering it should be the goal, not allowing it to linger in the environment where marine life are harmed by it! They suggest that as much as twenty percent of it will just evaporate, but that can only happen if it is on the surface. After treating it with dispersants it hangs at various depths under the surface, where it cannot possibly evaporate.
It was a rash decision for our government to allow British Petroleum to release nearly a million gallons of chemical dispersants into the ocean in an attempt to emulsify the oil. They should have forced BP to use the disparate viscosities of oil and seawater to keep the oil in one place; on the surface, where it can easily be skimmed, or gathered and burned. Now there are multiple massive plumes under the surface at different depths that can never be removed from the environment. They are marauding death plumes for marine wildlife that happen to swim through them or have them settle upon them in their habitat.
And then there is the Obama administration's equally oafish response by refusing several offers of international help and not suspending the Jones Act, and also banning all offshore oil production for six months which hampers our economic recovery by crippling an important industry that employs hundreds of thousands of Americans with high paying jobs.
Regarding the cleanup of surface oil; the use of "off the shelf" technologies can easily handle the entire cleanup. By retrofitting ocean going supertankers with a few large high-speed centrifuges and a little old fashion plumbing, the oil and seawater on the surface can be scooped up in massive quantities, pumped into a centrifuge, spun and separated. The oil can be pumped into a hold, and the seawater can be returned to the ocean cleansed of oil. Yet none of this is being done because the Obama administration is angling for political advantage. They are seeking to capitalize on this disaster with the "never let a good crisis go to waste" mentality, and that is childishly shameful, environmentally irresponsible, and a huge political gamble that he will most likely loose.
It was a rash decision for our government to allow British Petroleum to release nearly a million gallons of chemical dispersants into the ocean in an attempt to emulsify the oil. They should have forced BP to use the disparate viscosities of oil and seawater to keep the oil in one place; on the surface, where it can easily be skimmed, or gathered and burned. Now there are multiple massive plumes under the surface at different depths that can never be removed from the environment. They are marauding death plumes for marine wildlife that happen to swim through them or have them settle upon them in their habitat.
And then there is the Obama administration's equally oafish response by refusing several offers of international help and not suspending the Jones Act, and also banning all offshore oil production for six months which hampers our economic recovery by crippling an important industry that employs hundreds of thousands of Americans with high paying jobs.
Regarding the cleanup of surface oil; the use of "off the shelf" technologies can easily handle the entire cleanup. By retrofitting ocean going supertankers with a few large high-speed centrifuges and a little old fashion plumbing, the oil and seawater on the surface can be scooped up in massive quantities, pumped into a centrifuge, spun and separated. The oil can be pumped into a hold, and the seawater can be returned to the ocean cleansed of oil. Yet none of this is being done because the Obama administration is angling for political advantage. They are seeking to capitalize on this disaster with the "never let a good crisis go to waste" mentality, and that is childishly shameful, environmentally irresponsible, and a huge political gamble that he will most likely loose.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
The Middlemen
I recently had a conversation with one of my loyal customers of my communications business. They have a main office and two satellite offices, one of which uses dial tone from the main office via IP telephones on the system at the main office. They had moved this remote IP office over to another nearby building in an office park in which they own two of the several buildings. The IP phones were working just fine, that is until they experienced power problems at the new building. The IP phones went up and down several times after midnight one day and this caused the fault buffer in the phone system at the main office to quickly fill up. When the fault buffer filled up, the operating system performed a stack dump which causes a forced rebooting of the system. So the frantic service call that I received was that "Our phone system keeps going down and coming back up repeatedly".
After a few questions I surmised that tech support from the equipment manufacturer was warranted. With tech support on the phone, I had them dial into the switch and have a look at what they could find out. When they told me that the fault buffer was causing the system to reboot on account of extensions 124 and 126 going up and down repeatedly, I knew instantly what the problem was; bad power at the IP office location.
I had the maintenance person at the customer's location unplug the phones until he could procure a couple of UPS for me to put in line with them. After completing the service call, I called the customer back and explained that the real culprit was bad power.
You see, I had worked at Detroit Edison for several years as a contractor in the metering department and a few more in the communications department. I was there before and during the deregulation of the utilities industries and have made a few key observations about it all.
What was supposed to bring increased "choice and competition that would result in lower costs and better service for consumers" has in fact done neither. In fact, quite the opposite has happened. You see, Detroit Edison, which was founded by none other than Thomas Edison himself after he left Ford, used to own the entire process from start to finish. They owned the power generation, power transmission, metering and collections. But with the deregulation that was foisted upon them, they were forced to give up something. They chose to sell off the power transmission part of their enterprise to a company called ITC Holdings Inc. based in Novi, Michigan. Not that I have anything against ITC per Se, ( I actually have a cousin on my Dad's side that is a Linesman there) but having two many chefs in the kitchen spoils the stew. And now after this forced deregulation we have lousy power all over the region that regularly fries sensitive digital electronic business telephone systems. My customer experienced this firsthand a few years back.
And then there is the constant assault on our front door by all the young sales types with clipboards in hand hawking the latest and greatest way for me to purchase energy. There is one who tells me that I can shuck the evil gas company and just pay them instead and they will guarantee that my gas rates will not change for the next five years. I usually ask them if they also guarantee that if the rates should go down, would they as a middle man pass that savings along to me or other consumers? No thanks, I'll take my chances with the original supplier of my energy. And then there is the one who uses green energy as a marketing tool. Like I or anyone really stops and thinks about how the energy we use gets there as we push the button on the remote for our big screen televisions, or flip the light switch, get a cold drink out of the fridge, or make coffee or toast in the morning. Green is nothing more than a marketing tool. Ask Tipper Gore about that one, Oh, that's right she won't be a "Gore" much longer. Guess that she got fed up with the hypocrisy too.
I liked it much better when the only assault or intrusion that we had to tolerate was on the phone. That was handled easily by technology like caller ID or privacy blocker. No, now we have actual people stalking our front doors with clipboards, pens and name tags to look official that try to convince us that we are unwise to play roulette with the evil power companies on our own. We need them to moderate our prices for us because we are so busy and uneducated about the whole process. Folks, we wouldn't have a process to contend with if it wasn't for our lousy government sticking its damned nose where it does not belong; in our business, in the first place!
I feel rather sorry for those fools who carry the clipboards around. I figure that they got suckered into that job because they needed the money that badly since they probably have been out of work for so very long. But I do not feel sorry enough to abandon all reason and add another middle man into the fray between me and suppliers of the energy I use. Adding a middle man into any business transaction will only increase costs for the end consumer.
Sometimes, the wheel is just fine like it is; you don't really need to reinvent it. All it does is turn round and around regardless so why try to mess with it?
After a few questions I surmised that tech support from the equipment manufacturer was warranted. With tech support on the phone, I had them dial into the switch and have a look at what they could find out. When they told me that the fault buffer was causing the system to reboot on account of extensions 124 and 126 going up and down repeatedly, I knew instantly what the problem was; bad power at the IP office location.
I had the maintenance person at the customer's location unplug the phones until he could procure a couple of UPS for me to put in line with them. After completing the service call, I called the customer back and explained that the real culprit was bad power.
You see, I had worked at Detroit Edison for several years as a contractor in the metering department and a few more in the communications department. I was there before and during the deregulation of the utilities industries and have made a few key observations about it all.
What was supposed to bring increased "choice and competition that would result in lower costs and better service for consumers" has in fact done neither. In fact, quite the opposite has happened. You see, Detroit Edison, which was founded by none other than Thomas Edison himself after he left Ford, used to own the entire process from start to finish. They owned the power generation, power transmission, metering and collections. But with the deregulation that was foisted upon them, they were forced to give up something. They chose to sell off the power transmission part of their enterprise to a company called ITC Holdings Inc. based in Novi, Michigan. Not that I have anything against ITC per Se, ( I actually have a cousin on my Dad's side that is a Linesman there) but having two many chefs in the kitchen spoils the stew. And now after this forced deregulation we have lousy power all over the region that regularly fries sensitive digital electronic business telephone systems. My customer experienced this firsthand a few years back.
And then there is the constant assault on our front door by all the young sales types with clipboards in hand hawking the latest and greatest way for me to purchase energy. There is one who tells me that I can shuck the evil gas company and just pay them instead and they will guarantee that my gas rates will not change for the next five years. I usually ask them if they also guarantee that if the rates should go down, would they as a middle man pass that savings along to me or other consumers? No thanks, I'll take my chances with the original supplier of my energy. And then there is the one who uses green energy as a marketing tool. Like I or anyone really stops and thinks about how the energy we use gets there as we push the button on the remote for our big screen televisions, or flip the light switch, get a cold drink out of the fridge, or make coffee or toast in the morning. Green is nothing more than a marketing tool. Ask Tipper Gore about that one, Oh, that's right she won't be a "Gore" much longer. Guess that she got fed up with the hypocrisy too.
I liked it much better when the only assault or intrusion that we had to tolerate was on the phone. That was handled easily by technology like caller ID or privacy blocker. No, now we have actual people stalking our front doors with clipboards, pens and name tags to look official that try to convince us that we are unwise to play roulette with the evil power companies on our own. We need them to moderate our prices for us because we are so busy and uneducated about the whole process. Folks, we wouldn't have a process to contend with if it wasn't for our lousy government sticking its damned nose where it does not belong; in our business, in the first place!
I feel rather sorry for those fools who carry the clipboards around. I figure that they got suckered into that job because they needed the money that badly since they probably have been out of work for so very long. But I do not feel sorry enough to abandon all reason and add another middle man into the fray between me and suppliers of the energy I use. Adding a middle man into any business transaction will only increase costs for the end consumer.
Sometimes, the wheel is just fine like it is; you don't really need to reinvent it. All it does is turn round and around regardless so why try to mess with it?
Thursday, April 29, 2010
New Hate for Big Oil.
The latest news on the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is that it will make landfall as early as tomorrow evening. Governor Bobby Jindahl of Louisiana is mobilizing a united effort to lessen the environmental impact on the beaches, wildlife, tourism, and the shrimping and fishing industries there.
The untold story here is not that the rig had caught fire after an explosion, or that it sank and damaged the well head. The real story here is that the efforts to extinguish the fire are what sank the rig! These rigs (oil platforms) are floating vessels that are permanently moored to the seabed far below. So the question arises, why did British Petroleum try to extinguish a fire on a floating oil platform with water instead of foam?
After what happened on the Air Carrier U.S.S. Forestall, the United States Navy, (which I served in) trains every recruit as a fireman. Every fireman knows that you cannot fight an oil fire or many other chemical fires with water. Water only spreads the fire around because the chemicals are lighter than water and the viscosity is so different. Even some certain solids are best extinguished with foam. Expanding foam quickly smothers the fire and chokes off its access to the oxygen that is vital for sustained combustion. The heat remains, but without oxygen the flames are quickly extinguished.
Knowing this, why then did they choose to fight the fire with water? They only succeeded in reducing the buoyancy of the platform to the point that it became unstable and sank falling onto the well head a mile below the surface of the water and thereby damaging the well casing at three points on the way down.
And now of course the flip-flopping Governor of Florida has penned a letter to Obama petitioning for the end to "drill baby drill" and all exploration off shore. This couldn't have happened at a worse time. This may just doom us to forever purchasing oil from hostile nations overseas. BP should be skewered for this, not necessarily for the environmental impact alone, but also (and especially) for the socioeconomic fallout for United States citizens as well.
And for God's sake BP start stocking fire fighting foam on board your oil platforms, and train every single employee in firefighting like the United States Navy does. And keep them current on their firefighting knowledge and techniques. This catastrophe was entirely avoidable.
The untold story here is not that the rig had caught fire after an explosion, or that it sank and damaged the well head. The real story here is that the efforts to extinguish the fire are what sank the rig! These rigs (oil platforms) are floating vessels that are permanently moored to the seabed far below. So the question arises, why did British Petroleum try to extinguish a fire on a floating oil platform with water instead of foam?
After what happened on the Air Carrier U.S.S. Forestall, the United States Navy, (which I served in) trains every recruit as a fireman. Every fireman knows that you cannot fight an oil fire or many other chemical fires with water. Water only spreads the fire around because the chemicals are lighter than water and the viscosity is so different. Even some certain solids are best extinguished with foam. Expanding foam quickly smothers the fire and chokes off its access to the oxygen that is vital for sustained combustion. The heat remains, but without oxygen the flames are quickly extinguished.
Knowing this, why then did they choose to fight the fire with water? They only succeeded in reducing the buoyancy of the platform to the point that it became unstable and sank falling onto the well head a mile below the surface of the water and thereby damaging the well casing at three points on the way down.
And now of course the flip-flopping Governor of Florida has penned a letter to Obama petitioning for the end to "drill baby drill" and all exploration off shore. This couldn't have happened at a worse time. This may just doom us to forever purchasing oil from hostile nations overseas. BP should be skewered for this, not necessarily for the environmental impact alone, but also (and especially) for the socioeconomic fallout for United States citizens as well.
And for God's sake BP start stocking fire fighting foam on board your oil platforms, and train every single employee in firefighting like the United States Navy does. And keep them current on their firefighting knowledge and techniques. This catastrophe was entirely avoidable.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Enviro-Religion Madness
The environmental terrorists are at it again, celebrating "Earth Day". They tout rabid conservationism as the panacea for all of the perceived ills of the planet. I would just like to know how the earth got along for so long without us humans and our penchant for recycling?
The earth was here before we were and it will most likely be here well after we are gone. Oh my, how will it survive without us humans to recycle?
The earth does a pretty good job of recycling without us actually. In the 90's there was a release of some "low-level" radioactive deuterium (heavy water) into Lake Erie from the Fermi II nuclear power plant in Michigan, yet the fish have not mutated, nor are they dangerous to eat, and there was no effort undertaken by mankind to remediate the lake water. In the 1960's the Cuyahoga River in Ohio actually caught fire because it was a favored dumping ground for volatile chemicals from industry, yet today people still fish from its shores for pleasure and sustenance. There was no remediation done there either. The fire simply burned itself out. How would anyone extinguish an entire river anyway?
All of this time and energy devoted to "saving the environment" is ludicrous. As a species we can't even destroy the environment so how can we be expected to save it? Wasted time and energy is what it all is. And then there is the capitalists like Gore, who stand to make vast amounts of money on the whole idea of greenness. What a crock of (fill in your favorite expletive here).
I drive for a living. I burn about 6400 gallons of diesel fuel per year. I also drive for service in my business and I burn approximately 1300 gallons of gasoline per year. I run my indoor compact fluorescent lighting approximately 2200 hours per year, (more than I would comparable incandescent lighting because it is cheaper to burn). I employ high tech fluorescent safety lighting outside my house that burns from sundown to sunup, even so they consume over 500 watts of power (but create equivalent light to over 4 thousand watts of HID lighting). My electric cell phone chargers are constantly plugged in even if there is no cell phone charging. I pay for it, and the use is minimal. That energy can't be wasted because it can't be saved either. It isn't stored anywhere, it is generated in real time, and you pay only for what you use anyway. I used to work in the field for Detroit Edison in their metering department and the nominal charge for inactivity is just that, nominal. The charge for the metering on an inactive account is less than $5 per month.
I am just so damned sick of everyone bowing at the altar of environmentalism. Enough already. The planet takes care of itself, lets start doing the same. There are far more pressing issues to attend to than wrangling over "paper or plastic". People like to say that all the "man made" items are what is to blame for pollution. Did we import the ingredients for anything that man has made from another planet or universe? It all comes from the earth anyway. For that fact we don't "make" anything, we simply rearrange or assemble what is already here. So tell me, how can the earth pollute itself with itself? When you post your answer, you can become the Enviro-God.
The earth was here before we were and it will most likely be here well after we are gone. Oh my, how will it survive without us humans to recycle?
The earth does a pretty good job of recycling without us actually. In the 90's there was a release of some "low-level" radioactive deuterium (heavy water) into Lake Erie from the Fermi II nuclear power plant in Michigan, yet the fish have not mutated, nor are they dangerous to eat, and there was no effort undertaken by mankind to remediate the lake water. In the 1960's the Cuyahoga River in Ohio actually caught fire because it was a favored dumping ground for volatile chemicals from industry, yet today people still fish from its shores for pleasure and sustenance. There was no remediation done there either. The fire simply burned itself out. How would anyone extinguish an entire river anyway?
All of this time and energy devoted to "saving the environment" is ludicrous. As a species we can't even destroy the environment so how can we be expected to save it? Wasted time and energy is what it all is. And then there is the capitalists like Gore, who stand to make vast amounts of money on the whole idea of greenness. What a crock of (fill in your favorite expletive here).
I drive for a living. I burn about 6400 gallons of diesel fuel per year. I also drive for service in my business and I burn approximately 1300 gallons of gasoline per year. I run my indoor compact fluorescent lighting approximately 2200 hours per year, (more than I would comparable incandescent lighting because it is cheaper to burn). I employ high tech fluorescent safety lighting outside my house that burns from sundown to sunup, even so they consume over 500 watts of power (but create equivalent light to over 4 thousand watts of HID lighting). My electric cell phone chargers are constantly plugged in even if there is no cell phone charging. I pay for it, and the use is minimal. That energy can't be wasted because it can't be saved either. It isn't stored anywhere, it is generated in real time, and you pay only for what you use anyway. I used to work in the field for Detroit Edison in their metering department and the nominal charge for inactivity is just that, nominal. The charge for the metering on an inactive account is less than $5 per month.
I am just so damned sick of everyone bowing at the altar of environmentalism. Enough already. The planet takes care of itself, lets start doing the same. There are far more pressing issues to attend to than wrangling over "paper or plastic". People like to say that all the "man made" items are what is to blame for pollution. Did we import the ingredients for anything that man has made from another planet or universe? It all comes from the earth anyway. For that fact we don't "make" anything, we simply rearrange or assemble what is already here. So tell me, how can the earth pollute itself with itself? When you post your answer, you can become the Enviro-God.
Friday, April 23, 2010
News From The Road.
Greetings from Grand Island Nebraska. The company flew me out here to cover two drivers taking vacation this week and next. It is rather unusual that I would know what I am doing this far in advance, but the economy is showing signs of rebounding and work is picking up for both my "day-job" here at Ryder and also for my business. I have done five jobs this past two months and I currently have an estimate out on one job and there is yet another looming in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, after I get back from Nebraska next weekend, I will be touring Ontario Canada for the Pella Window account the following week as they are doing a trade show there. I just got word from my boss that the account manager for the Pella account asked if I would be willing to travel cross country for several weeks. I knew that you don't just do one trade show. There had to be more. I told him that I wouldn't mind it at all, I need the money. And it will be very good money going over the road like that.
I traveled light to get here, cause flying is just such a hassle anymore. I would so rather drive anywhere, but time constraints required a flight here and back. So I travel lightly to avoid the added expense and annoyance of extra charges at the airlines. One duffel bag, one hand bag, my file folder and a newspaper to read on the plane.
I am absolutely floored at just how expensive the little conveniences have gotten, especially out here in the plains. A single 20 ounce soda pop will set you back almost two whole dollars! ($1.89 with tax)! Makes me glad that I live in the densely populated and well traveled mid-west, things are so much cheaper there. I am keeping every single receipt for taxes next year. As an employee who is subject to regulation by the DOT (Department of Transportation) all meals and other unreimbursed expenses that are necessary for the job are tax deductible with some limitations. Meals are subject to a 70% ceiling, others can be written off entirely.
Got to go and get some rest now. I have a busy schedule for the next few months!
Meanwhile, after I get back from Nebraska next weekend, I will be touring Ontario Canada for the Pella Window account the following week as they are doing a trade show there. I just got word from my boss that the account manager for the Pella account asked if I would be willing to travel cross country for several weeks. I knew that you don't just do one trade show. There had to be more. I told him that I wouldn't mind it at all, I need the money. And it will be very good money going over the road like that.
I traveled light to get here, cause flying is just such a hassle anymore. I would so rather drive anywhere, but time constraints required a flight here and back. So I travel lightly to avoid the added expense and annoyance of extra charges at the airlines. One duffel bag, one hand bag, my file folder and a newspaper to read on the plane.
I am absolutely floored at just how expensive the little conveniences have gotten, especially out here in the plains. A single 20 ounce soda pop will set you back almost two whole dollars! ($1.89 with tax)! Makes me glad that I live in the densely populated and well traveled mid-west, things are so much cheaper there. I am keeping every single receipt for taxes next year. As an employee who is subject to regulation by the DOT (Department of Transportation) all meals and other unreimbursed expenses that are necessary for the job are tax deductible with some limitations. Meals are subject to a 70% ceiling, others can be written off entirely.
Got to go and get some rest now. I have a busy schedule for the next few months!
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