It’s Mother’s Day.  I am sitting on my screened porch listening to my seventeen year old son play the guitar.  My wife is preparing for a final exam in a subject she doesn’t like, so that she can get a certificate that might help her get a job to help our son pay for college.

My wife has been a “stay-at-home” mom for all of our son’s life.  Not to say she didn’t work outside the home, we simply arranged our schedules and finances so that we did not need others to help raise our child. 

We have known since he was born that he would go to college.  We probably could have done more to save money.  We could have a 529 plan, or a simple savings or investment account or educational IRA.  But we chose to plan to pay for college this way, because we did.  Part of the issue is simply that the cost of college education has risen faster than the cost of living every year since I graduated in 1985.  Part of the issue, is that we had to choose between private school education, having mom at home, having me work without regular travel, having vacations, having a reasonable retirement savings, and this is what we chose.  Like most American families, we can’t afford to have it all.  We have to choose. Continue reading

Recently, the Barack Obama became the first sitting POTUS to endorse same sex “marriage”. Let me walk into the zone of controversy by stating my own personal moral convictions. I fully expect that anyone who reads this will be ticked off by something I say here.

First of all:

1) Homosexual intercourse is sin.

and lest you think that I am just opposed to homosexuality – let me share the rest of my list.

2) Fornication is sin. For those of you without a clue, this is sex outside of a marriage relationship.
3) Adultery (having sex with someone who is married to someone else, or conversely, having sex with someone who is not the one you are married to) is sin.
4) Masturbation is sin.
5) Lustful thinking is sin. Thinking about sex with someone other than your spouse is sin. (that makes the entire industry of pornography a sin)

This doesn’t prevent me from having friends who do these things. This doesn’t prevent me from caring about and for people who do these things. This doesn’t cause me to judge or condemn people for doing these things. Why, because at some point in my life, I, myself have done many of these things. I, like every other human currently on this planet, am a sinner. Continue reading

Having been off over the holidays, I spent some time taking vehicles to get serviced.  One of these was at a new car dealer.  While I don’t often take cars to the dealer for repair or maintenance, I did this time.

While the appointment was successful, as I left, the service consultant asked me to mark “tens” on the customer satisfaction survey.  Then when I arrived home, I got an e-mail from the service department, asking for the same thing.  This is not the first time, I have been asked to “bias” the results of a customer satisfaction survey – The same dealer asked the same thing when I purchased the car – related to the sales experience survey.

Over the last few years, many organizations have taken to trying to agressively measure customer satisfaction through surveys like this.  Time and time again, I have been asked to “bias” the results.  Continue reading