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All The Make Do
He wears long shorts we wear long shorts…
You just can’t wear shorts if you are Mormon. Clothes must cover the garments, and they go to the knee. No, I don’t mind. It is who I am, it is part of my own moral code. I LIVE this dress standard. All summer long I just wear Capris.
So Kevin NEVER wears shorts. I mean, NEVER. He didn’t even wear SANDALS. He’s a long pant socks and shoes kinda guy. I don’t know why. He just is.
But this is Kansas. It is so hot and humid here in the summer, and his job is very physical. He walks a lot, lifts a lot, bends a lot, and just generally moves a lot, in a warehouse where the AIR moves very little. Even when the AC is on, it cannot possibly keep up.
He arrives home every evening in the summer months (of which there are 6-8, by the way), beaten, sweaty, and miserable. There is not enough ice cream to really compensate.
This persuaded him to begin to wear sandals when he is not at work. This helped him not hate the climate quite so much – but it is a 2 percenter, not a huge factor.
We started thinking long shorts or clamdiggers, and I went looking.
I found two things – shorts that were just ABOVE the knee (which cannot be trusted not to show the garment bottoms in the back, or when you move around), and shorts which LOOKED like they hit just below the knee, but which the MODEL was wearing LOW. Watch for it. THIS is about a 50 percenter!
We went to Bass Pro to get out of the heat. Very limited AC in the house, so sometimes we’ll go somewhere to use THEIR AC. Nice way to wangle an extra date or two each week…
But also because WE had POINTS.
We found a pair of long pants – cargo pants. The kind that aren’t all puffy on the sides, like Pockets in Hatari. Just nice pants with pockets on the sides that don’t poof. Paid for them ENTIRELY with points (boy did that feel good).
Got them home, cut them off below the knee, and I hemmed them up by hand (can’t use the sewing machine right now, too damaging to my spine).
They look really good. Like they were supposed to be that way. Somewhat loosish in the leg, but that keeps him cooler.
He thinks it over, and then thinks about work. He thinks maybe some short pants would help him stay cooler there. He wears jeans, so cuttoffs it is. I cut them off. They’ll fray on their own.
But if he has cutoffs, he also needs short socks. Kevin does NOT WEAR ankle socks. He likes Over the Calf socks. All year.
But this is Kansas, and shorts are shorts, and legs should not show long expanses of sock when one is trying to stay cool. But he wears work shoes that require socks.
By now, I am feeling a bit pinched with the costs that I can see coming (he has to replace the pair of jeans we cut off, I have had to buy some cooler shirts, and now we need more socks).
But as luck would have it, I have some spare socks in a drawer. Socks I don’t really like. Ankle socks with 2″ cuffs. More mannish. By some rare fortune I have exactly 5 pair. He is outfitted for the entire work week just by moving them from my drawer to his. Hallooo!
Next day I am looking for a cooler. We plan to head to the races this fall, and it takes some planning and saving to get there.
We have a cooler. It is a cheap cooler with a hand painted top. A kinda cool looking night-scape painted in acrylic. No mistaking it is ours.
But last fall (when we were GIVEN some tickets to the race), we hiked from the outfield parking to the gate, and it was a pretty hefty hike (much of it over VERY uneven ground). That little cooler got heavier by the step, and it was all on Kevin. (Soda pop, lemonade, and ice water, plus sandwiches, pickles, olives) I could barely lift the thing to help him move it to a cross carry so it would be easier to keep in place. It really hurt his shoulder to haul it all that way.
So I want a small cooler with WHEELS. I look around and I find one, and it is PERFECT. 16 qt size is just right for a day’s worth of lunch, snack, and fluids on a hot day.
Halfway to the checkout stand I think to pull that handle out on the side of it. The handle is about 6″ too short to actually drag the cooler without stooping QUITE a bit! You can’t even reach it without bending down when it is at rest, let alone tip it down to drag it. There is NO WAY you could drag it more than a few feet without pain. Shame on you, Igloo! I take the cooler right back to the shelf I got it off of.
Then I go hunting. No one has anything else in that size. Everything else is too big.
It occurs to me that a luggage cart might do it. I check. The handle is much longer, and the wheels are also larger. I think it might work. Same price.
Not only that, it is big enough to haul the cooler, the snack bag, AND both of our Stadium Seats. Woohoo!
I am finding that it is often very hard to find the things we need, it is like the world is imploding and things that were common and useful are all of a sudden dinosaurs and the fossils we find in their place are just not useful at all. There is something about them that is done so badly it destroys their essential function. Sometimes there is an alternative, or a way to compensate, sometimes not.
Cutting off pants and hemming them, that I can do. Wearing cuttoffs, that is something Kevin can do. Using a luggage cart to haul the gear to the race is also something we can do.
And just as a side note… Shopping at Ikea is something I CANNOT do. What a mixed up nightmarish labrynth that store is.
The Thingamabob That Does The Job
In certain herbalist circles this phrase is used to identify an element that is a KEY herb or substance in a remedy. Something like Calendula and Geranium for Resistant Strep types. Or Decongestant with Croup or Mumps as being one of the Thingamabobs that does the job.
We quote that from Disney. But he got it from cultures LONG before he dreamed up Bibbity Bobbity Boo.
So what is the origin of that peculiar phrase?
The Thingamabob is actually a Thingamabobble. Just a bobble on a hat. Either a pompom, or a string with a clipped pompom swinging around on it. Other variations also, depending on the style favored at the time.
This is Lapland. It is upper Finland, and two counties of Russia including Murmansk and one lower. It is COLD country. Hats are a big deal.
People are generally fairly poor, and life is hard. Lines of frugality are drawn in ways we might not have to consider in our day.
A hat was made with the least wool possible. A pompom in any manner was a frivolity or a luxury, again, depending on what was in style, for wool is dear, and there must also be gloves and scarves and socks, not to mention warm pants and coats.
It is the MEN, ladies. Women did not wear bobbles (women wore feathers, and ribbon or crocheted flowers, if they could afford them). Men wore the bobble.
This meant either they had a frugal wife who tended well to them, and managed the resources so he had a little bit of finery dancing on his noggin, or that he made enough money to AFFORD a wife, if he were single.
So a man who wore a hat with a bobble was a good prospect for marriage. He had sufficient money to buy a hat that announced his prosperity. And so he did… a single man on the lookout for a wife would work to acquire a hat with a pompom, to add weight to his dating efforts.
So this phrase translates roughly to, “The hat with the bobble that attracts the girls.”.
Life is often stranger than fiction.
Life On Bacon Street
In the process of studying Constitutional Law, I created a document to record in.
The filename was abbreviated. It had BA as one abbreviation. It had CONST as the other abbreviation. It made sense. I named it, and saved it.
When I went to find it again, there it was. Only it now said Bacon St. It DID! Ba Const runs right together as baconst.
So this makes us think.
Bacon is Liberty. There are those that think Bacon should have been a protected right under Constitutional Law. They may still get an amendment passed for that.
Bacon should be Law. Or at least protected from trespass or unwarranted nibbling.
Bacon has to be FAIR. He can’t take more of it than I get.
Bacon should protect the little guy and restrain the big one from getting it all by Crime. Or even by mooching.
Bacon ought to be exempt in the Constitution, specifically, in regards to Slavery. It should be specified that enslavement by Bacon is Constitutionally permitted.
Bacon St. should invite us to sample the delights of Porkery. It should do so with much savory mapley smoky enticement.
And it should definitely be Smoky and Salty. Bacon is, after all, how you Smoke without being an addict (though the case CAN be made for Sausage and Ham).
Bacon St. Who knew THAT was in the Constitution?
An acquaintance rewrote the US Constitution by placing the word “Bacon” in every place they wanted it to be. They said that much of it made more sense that way, and somehow it turned out all right if we just though of Bacon as a metaphor for Liberty.
Please do not misunderstand our humor. We take the Constitution VERY seriously, and feel a great loyalty to that Law which IS Constitutional. Which is why I was studying it in the first place.
Really, American Family? How Crooked Can You Be?
We needed to add a truck to our insurance. It should have approximately doubled our premium. We know how insurance works, we’ve been at this a long time.
Now, to make one thing clear… I LOVED this company. We would have stayed with them until doomsday. Until their agents screwed us.
If you think you are being screwed, you should know, Screwed means: Tightened, Torqued, Leveraged, Impaled, Pressured, Squeezed, Fastened, Forced, Pinched, Turned, Twisted, Secured.
First, we went to an agent we were familiar with. She turned out to be the insurance agent who refused to issue a policy for minimums. I walked out. She quoted WAY too much. Far more than the amount I knew it should be. (She’s stupid. If you will ONLY handle high rates, you LOSE all the bread and butter customers, and you make literally 1/10 the money that agents do that take all comers. Her office kinda shows it.)
Next, the one who promised they’d be happy to issue the minimum coverage I wanted. Only she couldn’t quite figure out how to quote it… and the computer would not bind it… and it would take a few more days. She was friendly, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt in spite of her yellow orange hair.
A WEEK later, she finally has the quote. She quotes me almost THREE TIMES the amount we had been paying. MORE than the one did for 100k coverage. instead of minimums. How does that work? You get LESS insurance, but you PAY MORE?
We quit. Went to another company – one we’d been happy with before. They wanted EIGHT DOLLARS MORE per month WITH THE TRUCK than what we’d been paying for JUST the old car. And I do mean OLD car.
We canceled.
Now, insurance bills TWO MONTHS in advance. When you get a new insurance policy, if you pay monthly, you pay for the first six months over FOUR MONTHS time, and you keep a buffer of 2 months. Always has been this, and American Family was no different than any other.
A week and a half after we cancel, AMFAM sends me a notice. My refund of $21.21 is processing. I should have it by check within two weeks.
Now… They owe us MORE THAN $150. Two months PLUS the part month. And all they are counting is PART of the part month. They want to back date the outrageous rates to the day we purchased the vehicle.
So three weeks later, (I did wait to see if the check arrived), no check, no refund. Not just crooked in one way, crooked all around.
I call. The sweet young thing tries to tell me that there is no 2 month buffer. That they only owe me $21. She tells me they sent it to our street address instead of to our billing address (We do not have street delivery, the Post office will reject it and I will never know.). (Companies like that do NOT make that kind of mistake unless someone is tampering with the mailing of the check. This is done to cause the check to be returned, or to send it to a third party.)
The little squint then tried to find out whether I had insurance now, and told me she could not remove the truck (which we never did authorize to have added) from the policy (to adjust it for the time during which I had not been given a price nor agreed to anything) unless she reported me to the Kansas State authorities for not having insurance on my vehicle so they could fine me, and she said she’d have to report me to the finance company so they could charge me for insurance for however many days we did not have it on the vehicle. Bully boys bully.
This whole situation involves all kinds of things. Software, and crooked associates, mostly. Software exploits that let someone quote high while leaving low benefits, usually by overriding company rates. Software that lets someone manipulate payouts. And then dishonest employees that are willing to lie for each other – they close ranks, like jail people, and like politicians and dishonest lawyers, to tell the lie that leaves you unable to get justice. They will never admit what you are owed. Without a lawyer who IS honest, you can’t do anything about it and they know they can just bully and win.
I would not have thought it was this deep in this company. Corrupt and greed stricken (and stupid) agents in a specific region, yeah. But I did not think it went all the way up.
We are with a different company now. I expect things won’t last long before they start ratcheting the rates. But for the next six months, I can breathe where my insurance rates are concerned.
Come back, American Family. We need you.
Nothing’s Broken, It’s Just Mayonnaise
Every time he put on the brakes he heard it. Thump, thump, thump. When he took off, it thumped again. This went on for several days. Sometimes it stops for a while, but then it resumes. Thump, thump, thump… thump.
He looked up under the chassis of his truck, where the noise was coming from, but there was no sign of anything. In fact, there WASN’T much of anything there, it was just behind the left front wheel. He thought maybe a torn mudflap or maybe a tire that was balding, though that didn’t quite sound right either. It doesn’t sound like the tie rod, but he’s worried that it might be something serious he knows nothing about and can’t SEE.
He’s a tough and independent guy. He doesn’t pay someone else for what he can do himself – only lately he is making enough money in his business that he doesn’t really have the TIME to do certain things. And he drives a lot of rough roads, often in isolated and lonely places, so that truck he drives just can’t be heading for a breakdown. He depends on it.
He finally takes it in. One morning on the way to work, very early, he notices that the VW shop (a guy he respects) is opened already. So he stops on impulse and finds the owner is in early. He asks him to take a look and see if he can find the cause of that noise.
The mechanic looks and looks. He can find nothing. The truck is up on the lift, and he’s searching hard, scratching his head every so often. He has test drove it already, he knows where the sound is. But nothing is there.
He takes it out again. He drives it around the block, starting and stopping, hurky jerky and spastic. He comes back around and he’s driving smooth and grinning.
The mechanic stops the truck right by where the man is waiting outside for it to come back. He gets out, and dives the top half of his body back into the car, his arm outstretched, feeling under the driver’s seat. He grasps something and triumphantly pulls it out and holds it up.
“Next time, take the mayonnaise jar out!” he says.
You see, the man fixes his lunch in the truck every day. He takes his food with him, but he often eats bread and meat with mayonnaise – not really a sandwich, just almost. And he often uses mayonnaise instead of butter. Just something he became accustomed to when he could afford mayonnaise and not butter.
One day about a year earlier, his mayonnaise jar disappeared during lunch. He could not find it to put it away. Figured it had probably fallen and rolled under the seat, no idea which side, and he’s busy getting ready to get back to work so he forgets. Gets a new jar and the old one ceases to exist.
Eventually it breaks loose. It’s got old mayo in there, and it rolls back and forth under the seat… Thump, thump, thump. Sometimes it gets jammed again and quits. Then it breaks loose again on it’s reign of terror… Thump, thump, thump… and sometimes Thump.
This is a cautionary tale in my family. Sometimes it is used metaphorically. “Nothing is wrong, it is probably just a mayonnaise jar.”
It never really IS anymore. Because we aren’t loggers, and we don’t fix our lunches in our cars. Except Dale. He might. But he’s up to speed on mayonnaise jars, so you can’t catch him with that one.
I Dyed My Hair And Now I Feel Skinnier
Really. True story!
I am gray haired. I mean like the sad old gray rabbit, my hair only has color in the back, underneath, and it ain’t cause I’m trendy, it is because that is where all the pepper gathers in the salt.
I am no longer what I was 20 years ago. I gained a lot during the great disaster, when I could not get the food I needed. I mean, a lot. And Hepatitis did a number on my liver, so I have this pooch above my waistline – Sidney tore the center of the muscles of that part of my belly apart, so any swelling of my liver makes my upper belly just fall out.
I’m eating more, and losing more, though every time I get sick with something I stop losing and gain some of it back. Most years I lose about 10 lbs. Did that for four years running, then gained 10 lbs back and sat there for two years of struggles with all sorts of things due to an immune issue. Then one day I started losing again, and am at a 10 year low now, 14 lbs lower than a year and a half ago. Mostly I don’t think about it. It just happens.
All I’m doing is just eating. Everything. All the food. The bread and the butter, the bacon and the bacon fat. I fry things in lard, I eat everything I want. The salt, the sugar, the msg. Bring it! We have a bowl full of chocolate and I eat as much as I want (quite a bit some days, and a LOT at first, but now many days I don’t have any of it at all, I just don’t need as much anymore since I started getting all my body craves). I have ice cream, fried chicken, lots of beef and pork and fish, I sometimes want a lot of vegetables, sometimes none at all. I eat lots of potatoes, and I eat quite a bit of rice and noodles. I drink a lot of juice and soda pop. I snack on cheese and crackers and chevre with sweet cherry tomatoes. Or praline pecans. Whatever.
The weight isn’t falling off. It is just sort of slowly evaporating off.
A few weeks ago I ordered 1 size smaller pants. They fit. Really good.
I dyed my hair, and it really does help me feel slimmer, and it helps me feel more fun. Weird… And I didn’t even dye it purple this time. Just brown.
I wonder how much lighter I’ll feel if I get my hair trimmed…?
SPECIAL NOTE: I was that woman, who had early gray. It started in my 30s, and it multiplied slowly. I was NEVER going to dye my hair. I am chemically sensitive, but that is not why.
Gray hair is not an indicator that you are lower value. It doesn’t mean you did something wrong to get it. It is not nature’s punishment for people who live wrongly too long. It just happens… it seems.
We do know that baldness and gray hair both occur due to loss of certain protein assembling capacity in your body. This means metabolic or mitochondrial dysfunction. While you CAN do things that make it worse (smoking, drinking alcohol, huffing air fresheners or Febreze, eating foods with contaminants, exposure to chlorine, paint or glue fumes, and ironically, hair dye, etc), for the most part, we didn’t do it to ourselves.
So there is NO SHAME in gray hair. I REFUSE to be shamed for it.
But I LIKE the way I look better with dark hair. I have COOL skin coloring, and gray makes me look sick… Or dead. NOT a good look for me. (That’s a joke, in case you missed it. I know, I’ve told it before.) Gray clashes with everything I love to wear, and even with my skin tones. Brown does not… as long as it is not that terrible orange brown color… That one makes me look VERY unhealthy.
I have learned to choose a dye that is not so hard on my body, and I’ve learned to reduce the hair loss from dying it, by cooling the water on my head before getting out, and NOT either pulling on the hair in the shower (don’t keep pulling it out hoping it will stop, it won’t), OR NOT brushing my hair until it is dried after dying it.
You see, dying hair LOOSENS hair follicles. COOLING the head, and DRYING the hair allows those follicles to tighten up again, and you don’t loose so much hair.
Just a few bits to help you understand why I had such gray hair, and then why I decided to dye it.
But really, purple is my favorite color.
Ladies Have You LOOKED At Yourself???
Leggings. Yes, those. Again…
I followed a woman through WalMart (accidentally, not stalking her!). No, this is not about WalMart People, this could have been one of hundreds or thousands of stores in the country. Any country probably.
She had cellulite. Very lumpy cellulite. Her legs tapered where they should taper, they did. But they couldn’t hold a straight line on any angle, it was all bubbles and blops. She wore leggings… THIN ones (some are thinner than others), not even the thicker “hold it in” leggings, the saggy, bulgy, clingy type.
She had a shirt on that came to the waist of her leggings. They nipped in at her waist, and then curved (more lumps) around her rather ample caboose, and then tapered down her lumpy legs to her somewhat heavy calves and normal ankles. It was a divided caboose, and the straddle of those leggings went WAY TOO FAR between the halves. (It occurs to me that it IS rather difficult to describe her without getting crass with the definitive terms.)
I wondered if she had ever LOOKED at herself in a mirror, wearing those leggings. She wasn’t actually in the minority, those same leggings, and equivalent cellulite (and sometimes out and out wrinkles and folds) were visible on FAR TOO MANY women in that store. And they always are!
People wear leggings like they are actually pants. THEY AREN’T!!! They are PANTY HOSE!!! Even if you are SKINNY they AREN’T supposed to be worn OUTSIDE in the place of pants! They are UNDERWEAR!!! I don’t care what color they are, WE DON’T WANT TO SEE THAT MUCH OF YOU!
PROOF THEY ARE UNDERWEAR… Women DO NOT wear underwear beneath them!!!
If you are overweight, or a wrinkled granny, we can’t imagine having SO LITTLE SELF RESPECT that you would expose such a sorry appearance to the world as shows through those leggings.
Skinny women think they look sexy in them. They don’t. They look EMBARRASSING. I mean really, NUDITY IS EMBARRASSING!!!
They aren’t comfortable either. NOTHING should be worn UP IN THERE! (Incidentally, just because it is covered by a layer of cloth doesn’t mean you ought to SCRATCH there either!) They shift and shrink up and down, and you have to pull them all the time to keep them up over your own ample caboose. NOT COMFORTABLE!!
I can’t figure out why hip huggers caught on, and then to be followed by wearing pantyhose instead of pants… Geez people, just STOP BUYING THE TRASH. Just because someone declares it to be fashionable does NOT MEAN it LOOKS GOOD ON YOU… or anyone, for that matter.
It is really obvious that women are not thinking for themselves. I mean, NOBODY would wear those if they SAW what they looked like in them! Well… maybe a slut or two, but they’ll always choose the tacky object, won’t they.
No, I’m not done yet.
Two days later, I saw A MAN wearing leggings outside WalMart. I kid you not. MEN’S leggings, not women’s. Like sweat pants don’t reveal enough. I know, they’ve been riding bikes in something like them for years, but this was WINTER OUTERWEAR that he thought he was wearing, not sports gear.
No, I didn’t want to see that much of HIM, either!
NOTE: According to a broad assortment of men, they don’t like women in leggings either, and the MORE the woman shows, the LESS they like it. They will excuse bikinis, sunsuits, shorts and tube or halter tops before they will excuse leggings.
They think most women look terrible in them, and those that look good ought to keep it to the privacy of their homes, where their intended target of sexual allure is available for immediate action (men are task oriented, remember?). Otherwise they don’t want to be annoyed by a tease. They prevailing conclusion among men on the make was, If the woman is not available RIGHT NOW, with ANYONE she is displaying for, she ought to just cover up better.
This was confirmed by statistics drawn from a panel of men who ranged from convicts, to porn addicts, to ministers, and military.
I Am Author
I am Author, Laura Wheeler. Amazon says so.
I have been writing since the seventh grade. Pretty sad stuff, really, until I began writing instructional materials. And then nothing to send out to all the relatives, just stuff that I wanted my clients to know. Viral books to attract new clients.
Now, it is everything. I write about everything. It spills out of my fingers as though I were talking to someone across the room, trying to get it ALL out in an organized manner. Sometimes instructional. Sometimes fanciful. Sometimes poetic or lyrical. Sometimes just a story that I am compelled to write.
I am never that good. Not really. But I am Author. It is now such a large part of me that it cannot be suppressed, even when I feel my worst. Maybe BECAUSE sometimes I feel my worst.
So now I write THIS. And frankly, it is not because I am in a musing frame of mind. It is more mercenary than that. It is because I am publishing. ALL the writing. ALL the art.
And all this really is, is a puff piece to stand there holding up the sandwich board that says, “Book shop! Come in and browse!”.
Amazon has almost all of it. What they do not have, my bookstore does, at Firelight Heritage Farm. That’s Dot Com to you.
Are You a Geek?
She introduced me to her daughter. She said her daughter was studying computer sciences at the University, and loved web design. I asked her, “Are you a geek?” She smiled and admitted it.
There are two kinds of techies:
- Those who are embarrassed about it, or think that they need to apologize for the name “geek”.
- Those who take pride in it, and wear the name of “geek” as a badge of honor.
She was obviously the second type.
People have tried to define what a geek is. They talk about glasses, social ineptness, and a love of pizza. In reality, geeks don’t fit any stereotype, other than this:
They are universally passionate about their area of technical expertise. They speak a language that boggles the mind of regular people. And they can get in and solve a problem that makes other people think they are a genius (we actually like that part!).
The thing I’ve noticed lately is that you can create a geek. At first, the candidate isn’t even aware it is happening. But soon, words like “processor”, “code”, and “compatibility” begin to creep into their vocabulary. It isn’t long after that before they drop their first acronym (HTML, PHP, SEO, CMS, IP, DNS), and at that point, you know that it is only a matter of time before you can hold a conversation with them which will sound mostly like real English, but which will confuse the heck out of any average person!
I happen to like the confident geeks. The ones who fully understand that it isn’t just something they do, it is part of who they are, and they take pride in their ability to comprehend and puzzle out the problems.
It isn’t a closed club. It is populated by people all across the world, of every shape, size, color, age, and lifestyle. If an overweight, middle aged, gray haired mother of eight can be a geek, pretty much anyone can!
The Last of the Baby Boomers
Baby Boomers are a generation that I’ve never particularly identified with. My husband, who is 6 years older than I, never has either.
Recently I read an article about Baby Boomers. It said that they are starting to retire now, and that the next 15 years would see the further retirement of more of them. I thought that was a bit close to my age range. Sure enough, later the article said that the outside date for Baby Boomers is 1964.
I was born in 1964.
Now, I don’t know where that information came from, or whether it is even accurate. Can’t say I even feel any sense of anything at the news. It never meant anything before, and frankly, it doesn’t mean anything now!
The retirement of the largest age group does present some interesting implications for some businesses. I’m not sure it does with mine.
The Baby Boomers were the first to say they did not trust anyone over the age of 30. I definitely don’t identify with that… nor did I ever. One wonders whether they do! One wonders whether they are not now saying they don’t trust anyone under the age of 50.
Personally, I’d trust a 50 something dedicated entrepreneur over a 30 something overeager corporate climber any day. But then, since I am not really a Baby Boomer, and never really tried to be, I couldn’t speak for the real ones.
Pending Growth within the Medicine Bow, Wyoming Region
The name “Medicine Bow” has been known to only a few traditional western fans. It is the fictional site of a book that is renowned as the “first Western” novel – The Virginian, by Owen Wister. It has been the setting of three movies based on that novel, but has never been the SITE of the actual filming.
Recently, the name of Medicine Bow has been bandied about within the government and alternative energy circles. If you Google “Medicine Bow Coal to Diesel”, you’ll find a treasure trove of both factual and speculative information.
DKRW, a relatively new company, is in the development process for a coal to liquids facility which will be located just 10 miles from Medicine Bow. The facility will support a workforce of approximately 300 workers when it is fully functioning (numbers vary according to sources, this is the most often repeated number). Work crews are currently reported as being scheduled to begin construction in the spring of 2008.
The facility will be the first of its kind, and represents freedom from foreign oil, as well as significant advances on the environmental front. It is supported not only by regional government, it has widespread support on the national level. Several other facilities are planned to be built, based on the success or failure of this one. Coal states are watching this one.
Land prices in Medicine Bow are already rising. The last round of property taxes showed a fairly high increase in tax values (nearly double for many homes). Of course, since taxes have been very low here, the increases were not huge by standards elsewhere, but they still ruffled a few feathers.
Medicine Bow has had a depressed housing economy for decades. Where else can you purchase a 3 bedroom home in decent shape for under $100 k? WELL under $100 k. That may change within the next two years though. Even the housing of the work crews will present a challenge in a town that usually has only 4-6 houses for sale at a time, and where finding a rental is as much a matter of luck as it is of timing.
Growth within Carbon County in general is already strong. Housing in the surrounding towns is becoming increasingly difficult to get. The spillover is already affecting the ‘Bow. If a person had planned to purchase land low and sell high, the opportunity is already all but gone. The feeding frenzy is already on, and houses that you could not give away last year are being priced at twice their current value. In a year, they’ll get it.
For now, the small and isolated feeling is preserved. And even with growth that doubles or triples the size of the town, we’ll still be considered unbearably small to most people. When you are starting with an optimistic estimation of 300 people, the anticipated growth still won’t move us beyond “small” or “rural”. Most people in town really just want to regain a small grocery store, and it would take doubling or tripling the town size to make it feasible. It may no longer be an unrealistic goal.
Some of the atmosphere that brings people here will undoubtedly be lost. But it would be lost due to stagnation and neglect if the growth does not occur, and loss due to growth is infinitely preferable to loss due to attrition. Things will change. But we hope to find progress within the change.
Take a look at the town website for more info about Medicine Bow: http://www.medicinebow.org
A Radical Change
Well, yesterday was an interesting day. We finally got the funds together to do some really cool things – High speed internet is coming in on Thursday, a laser printer has been ordered along with Quickbooks Pro (to manage the corporate finances), and we started the paperwork yesterday to incorporate. It should be done by next week, if not sooner.
Just hours after all this, I learned that Kevin had been laid off. He went to work that day, and got blown out of the water by that. So he filed today for unemployment.
I find the timing of this all very interesting. I believe the Lord is in control, and I can see that we were actually well prepared for this. We have been talking for several weeks about Kevin coming home full time to work as my office, finance manager, customer service rep, and technical assistant. But this is not quite how we thought it would come about!
My first instinct was to pull back – I mean, those things that I put in motion were about $1200 – we can live on that for two weeks or more. But then, I really started thinking about our needs. We NEED the printer if we are to produce the promotional materials we need to promote our business (we have a new service line that requires mailers, but not enough to justify professional printing). We NEED the high speed internet, or I cannot develop the two service lines that I feel have the best potential for ongoing income. And for complex financial reasons, we need the incorporation if Kevin is also going to work from home – besides which, that Inc on the end of the business name really does help inspire more confidence than the name without it. It will also force us to be better business managers.
So now Kevin is having to make the transition to working at home. And it is different than he imagined. He has to be self-directed. Sure, I give him a lot of his assignments, but as far as managing the office and finances, he has to do it without me telling him how or when. He has to learn to do payroll, and he has to decide to keep up with it (he will, he is very well suited to this job). He cannot have any down time because there is nothing to do – when you are self employed, you do not wait for someone to tell you, every minute has to be spent doing something that benefits the business. If you do not have tasks that earn money right now, you do things that get you more money later. If you have a sense of ownership in your business, you do these things. If you do not, you just slack and never make it. It is a change for him, but it is a cool one.
The next few months are going to undoubtedly be hard as we all learn a new way of working together. But for me, this is the realization of a long hoped for dream, though I’d have preferred to choose my timing! I sort of feel like I am flying without a net.
But the bills are caught up, we have contracts progressing, and we have a property management contract that we can work on when there is no paying work from anywhere else, so I think it will be hard, but we’ll weather the storm. And I can really see the potential of our business coming into realization.
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