Tag: homelife

On April 21, 1996 our family gathered in the kitchen around a brand new Acer computer and logged in to the Internet for the first time. We didn’t understand what that meant, then or now.

It was important to our daughter’s education to have home access to information via the World Wide Web. Important enough to spend about three week’s take-home pay on a computer, and pay $25 per month for dial-up service. I had used email at the oil company in 1990, and understood the web’s ability to connect people in far away places. I wanted our daughter to have that.

I had no idea how much Internet access would change our lives, and 20 years later still don’t.

There are obvious effects: communicating with people from past lives; reducing television viewing to almost zero; providing the ability to work from home; and importantly, creating a venue for self expression and creative work.

On most days, I don’t like a lot of what I see and hear when logging in. However, I now rely on the Internet in ways I didn’t before. Particularly important is the ability to connect with different groups of people on multiple platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but also WordPress, Blogger, Feedly, Flipboard, YouTube, Skype and mail groups. I got started on email, and it has been the bread and butter of my Internet presence.

Here are some ways logging in changed my life.

1. Access to certain kinds of news and information is more immediate. By following corporate media, governmental bodies and key public figures, access to their formal news is available as soon as we log in. There is an inherent bias, but I can’t imagine waiting until radio, television or newspapers report the news any more now that it is on line.
2. I’ve become more open to sharing things about myself. Albeit I don’t tell secrets and personal stuff, I haven’t minded posting my ideas in a multitude of places on the Internet. By doing so, my personality has changed for the better, at least I think so.
3. Working with people on a project is easier. While longing for in-person relationships, the Internet has enabled keeping many conversation threads going at the same time. My life has been richer for that, and more productive.
4. It became possible to earn income using the Internet. Consulting and writing have both been facilitated. I’ve also made a bit of money by selling on eBay.
5. Family relationships took on a new dimension. While the touch and presence of family members can’t be replaced, the Internet bridges the distance when we are apart. Simple things like sharing calendars and social media have helped me get by when visiting in person is not possible.
6. Shopping changed forever. Amazon.com changed how I shop for books in a way that still has a wake. The selection grew exponentially and the price doesn’t seem too high. The same holds true with retailers like J.C. Penney where I buy the same types of socks, shirts and slacks over and over. No need to be subject to local store manager peccadilloes.
7. No idle time, less isolation. Access to the Internet can engage us in positive ways, especially if we keep a constructive attitude. As long as there is an Internet connection, there is little reason to feel isolated, even if one lives in the rural part of the state as we do.
8. Access to Weather Information. This almost goes without saying, but access to current weather conditions has made life better. The quality of hourly forecasts has improved, and one can plan the day around them.

Memorial Day is mostly about the Civil War. These shirt tail relatives and at least one direct ancestor pictured here (Thomas Jefferson Addington) made it back, but many did not. Men from this Virginia county fought both for the Union and the Confederacy. The photo was taken Memorial Day, 1912. I favored the Confederacy when I was young, but once understanding came, switched sides.

It’s a mixed bag as to whether people understand the meaning of Memorial Day. It’s not Veterans Day. We have another holiday for that. Many politicians get it wrong and talk about taking care of veterans. Today is about remembering soldiers who gave their life in the line of duty.

This is also the first of four days mostly off work and I was at it early. Reading in bed at 3 a.m., up around 5 a.m. to work in the kitchen, and then outside to mow at 2 p.m.

When I finished the mowing, I took a rake to the turned soil, working it for tomorrow’s planting if the dry holds. The vegetation in our yard is growing out of control. Four days may not be enough to get the yard in shape.

During the peasant’s revolt of 1381, 14 year-old King Richard II capitulated completely to the rebel demands at Mile End. He ended up reversing his decisions, but for a brief moment the peasants rose up, believed they had ended their servitude and changed the course of history in ways we can’t even fathom today. The pessimist in me says it was inevitable Richard’s promises would not be kept. The optimist in me looks to the possibility of common people joining together in a cause to overturn, even if only for a while, the status quo and embark on a new and more just path in society.

Have to hope the latter is possible and that it has some local application.

The full moon eclipsed before disappearing behind clouds in a predawn sky. It reminded me of the vast and quiet universe and how small our lives are in comparison.

I like to think we are somewhat important. Not so important that people would start saying how much we suck. But more than a piece of animate dust in the universe. Somewhere in between.

Looking for a while, I went inside and got about the day.

It’s been a dry March and El Niño has begun.

“A drier March and a drier first one-quarter year was last recorded in 1994,” said Harry Hillaker, state climatologist. “Much of Iowa, the upper Midwest, and the central and northern plains states have been very dry over the past five or six months.”

The good news this year is above average precipitation is expected during the first year of El Niño. We’ll see what happens. The second year is expected to be drier.

My work at the warehouse included a shift near the floral display. I could have spent the whole day watching women choose cut flowers. Tulips were popular. Young girls favored inexpensive, colorful bouquets. One can’t but wonder what lived behind the looks, gestures and touches as bouquets left with them. I noticed many adult women wore a pair of sunglasses on top of their head. They say it was sunny outside.

Tomorrow is Easter.

The sign at the Catholic Church proclaimed, “He is Risen!” When it comes to the risen Lord, I don’t believe that any more.

I believe in redemption.

It is hard to believe we can be redeemed from the sins and errors of our lives. There is a god and we fall short of his standards. We are sinners and it would be surprising for a deity to redeem our transgressions. It would deprive us of our humanity. Redemption must come in another form.

Each of us wants to go on living. Some may despair, but if I believe anything, it is in the persistent desire to go on living on Earth. To go on living, something is required of us.

Wanting, we reach for tomorrow, never to touch it. If that’s all we do with our lives, we are lost to a fate worse than eternal damnation. Deliverance will come by releasing tomorrow in favor of today.

Relief to isolation caused by an eclipsing moon; hope like cut flowers blooming briefly before the compost.

We shall be released of our mortal debt too soon. If we are lucky, not before we go on living—here and now.

It’s working folks who pay taxes and each year there are life lessons learned through this necessary intrusion.

We fund our government and help produce income that proceeds obviously and directly to the richest people on the planet. We make a life for ourselves while doing so.

As businesses have driven out operating expenses over my lifetime, the notion of security escaped into the ether. Everyone is affected, although there is a tremendous advantage to those whole own capital. When a person has capital, there is less worry about security from anything except populist uprisings.

For the rest of us, to sustain a life one must embrace living without security. It’s likely been that way for most people.

Our tax rate is 20 percent this year, including federal and state income tax and local property tax. It seems high and it was hard to come up with the cash despite a frugal lifestyle. As a result of hard work lasting decades, the checks are written except to the state where the filing deadline is April 30. I’ll likely pay that soon so the bill is not hanging over the household for another month.

This year’s tax cycle brought some learning.

Hidden from the analysis is the cost of health insurance. Because of our projected 2014 income level, we were eligible for a tax credit to subsidize our policy payments. Including the tax credit and what we paid, the premiums for a policy were $13,756 for 2014. Luckily I made more money in 2014 than projected. Unluckily we had to pay back part of the tax credit because of our success, creating a cash flow issue.

According to Medicare.gov, Medicare covered 48.7 million people in 2011 at a cost of $549.1 billion. Do the math and the annual cost per person was $11,275. Assuming health insurance providers have a better ability to manage their business, and the cost to provide care is substantially lower than what Medicare pays, the gross margin of providing health insurance must be about 20 percent or more. That is way better than being in the transportation and logistics business as I was for 25 years.

The numbers don’t include the billions of dollars being taken out of the health care system by the reforms of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The ACA should have reduced costs for health insurance providers. It is fair to say health insurance companies were handed an opportunity to do very well under the ACA, especially those that held firm on initial premium rates.

The other learning has to do with the life I led that year. At one point I worked eight part time jobs. In the end they did not produce enough income to make ends meet, which favors working less jobs that each pay more if that’s possible.

It felt unjust that for those that generated a 1099 I had to pay a flat self-employment tax, while those that paid me as a contractor but didn’t generate the form were taxed at a lower rate. Operationally there was no difference, but tax-wise, it was better when I didn’t receive a 1099.

Bottom line: more is not always better when it comes to working multiple jobs.

I like the ownership brought by contributing to society in the form of paying taxes. What I didn’t expect was that providing health security would be such a large part of our budget, or that compensation for doing the same work would be so uneven. As they say, live and learn.

I predict there will be more lessons as we sustain our lives in a turbulent world.