Ace Wisdom

There is an ingredient (I can’t think of the name) in turkey that tends to make you sleepy.  Yep.  It is true!

Mom and I got to visit with Grandson Grant yesterday.  He is home for the first time since starting college at Iowa State.  No, he hasn’t grown any taller but I can tell he is smarter.  It is hard to believe that the first semester will be over in 4 weeks.  I think he wants to be an electrical engineer but that could change.  I know he likes his Mom’s “home cooking”.

I found out what a “free range turkey” is.  It is expensive, thats what it is.  It has something to do with the turkey roaming free and eating natural stuff including small pebbles and gravel.  Apparently you have to pay for the pebbles.

I headed for the local mall this morning.  I was going to take a chance that crowds were down because “black Friday” began on “sunny Thursday” and my theory was that the crowds would be down.  Whoops.  I got as far as Fleet Farm on my journey and it was packed at 7:30 AM.  I did NOT go to the Mall.

I hope everybody had a happy Thanksgiving.  You were in our thoughts.

I did pick up ingredients for chili this morning.  Cold weather.  Snow.  Chili.  It follows.

Badger basketball tournament championship on TV from the Bahamas today (Bahamas?).  Badger Divisional Championship football game tomorrow against Minnesota at Camp Randall.  Sunday, the Packers match-up Aaron Rogers against Tom Brady (married to Gisele) at Lambeau.  The winner gets bragging rights.  It is all on HDTV.  Does it get any better?

Stay warm

Love,

Dad

So here I am this morning, 7:00 AM watching the TV news and I notice this shadow out of the corner of my eye.  It was a person stealthly slipping into my quiet private computer room.  Whoa!  Grasshopper No.3.  He had been plowing snow since 5:00 PM last night and just needed a “break”.  That means he had been working for 24 hours straight.  Aren’t there labor laws?

There are some birthdays coming up.  Grandson Tommy has a birthday on Thanksgiving day.  I think this is No. 14.  I know Tommy has his first hunting license and is planning on hitting the north woods right after Thanksgiving.  I’m sure his heart is “aflutter”.

Speaking of deer hunting, Grandson Dominic headed north with Grandpa Jerry for opening day.  I haven’t heard anything.  If Dominic had shot his first deer, the electronic world would have been lit up with pictures.  Hopefully this is the year.  Dominic’s other Grandpa (me) could use some “hot sticks”.

My side of the family did not introduce me to deer hunting.  My Grandpa Chalk (my Dad’s Dad), owned a hunting lodge up north with about 4-5 partners.  It was a group of owners that included the Chief of Police, the Mayor and some other prominent business people in town.  Chalk would leave to go deer hunting but with his bad leg, I not sure how much serious hunting got done.  I remember seeing pictures of his lodge buddies sitting around a “card table”.  Chalk died at age 47.  I don’t know what happened to his ownership in the lodge.

To finish the deer memories, my Grandpa Jiggs bought Wildwood Lodge up north on Lake Nemacagan.  He had about 6-7 small cabins to rent and they were always full during deer hunting season.  Jiggs was an excellent hunter and fisherman.  Why didn’t he teach his Grandson Chuck the skills of the trade?

Thanksgiving on Thursday.  I think I’m getting treated to a  “free-range” turkey”. I don’t know what that means.  Should I be worried?

Love,

Dad

 

Apparently “Assassin’s Creed Unity” video game is big stuff.  It was due out one month ago and it is “late”.  Grasshopper No.5’s parent company (GameStop) sells the game and had planned on super sales over the Holidays.  Because Assassin’s Creed Unity was delayed, Gamestop announced their earnings would be slightly reduced.  Whoa!  Gamestop stock dropped 20% this morning.  What is so great about the game?

Your Mom and I went to see A Christmas Story at the PAC (Performing Arts Center) last night.  Your Mom indicates that you kids talk about the film version during the Holidays all the time.  Why haven’t I ever seen the film?

As you know a 10-12 year old boy (I’ll call him Henry) wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.  His parents don’t want him to “shoot his eye out” because the guns were dangerous.  I remember those warnings.  The difference is the Henry got his gun in the end and I didn’t.  No wonder I have issues with the concept of Santa Claus.

Henry inadvertently got mad during the play and used the “f” word.  Whoops!  I know that I didn’t originally learn the “f” word at home.  I got it from my buddies (or maybe from some tavern patrons).  Do you remember the first time you heard and used the “f” word.

Henry’s family lived in a home with a coal fired furnace.  It developed “clinkers” as a result of the residual parts of coal that didn’t burn.  Henry’s Dad spent a lot of time in the play getting rid of clinkers.  If you didn’t get the clinkers out of the furnace it could belch and the fire could actually be smothered out.  The City Club had a big, big coal fired furnace.  My job was to keep the coal fed into the furnace and “get the clinkers out”.  I remember opening the furnace front door and reaching in with a 20 foot long tongs to remove hot clinkers.  My thought was “this must be what Hell is like”.

Henry also got a fuzzy bunny set of pajamas (including the ears) from an aunt.  It was hideous.  My brother Jack and I got matching red fleece “pull over” jackets one Christmas.  They were just as stupid as the “bunny outfit”.  The worst part is my parents couldn’t stop taking pictures because they were so proud of their purchase.  Jack and I never let our buddies see the fleece jackets.

I guess I am now obligated to see the movie, A Christmas Story.  It does take you back in time.

Every kid has a “dream gift” they wanted Santa Claus to bring.  What was yours?

Love,

Dad

 

 

Grasshopper No.4 has been witness to UW-Badger football history, again.  He was present in 1999 when Ron Dayne broke the Collegiate four year rushing record with something like 7600 total yards.  It happened again Saturday.  No.4 and Grandson Tommy saw Melvin Gordon, UW running back break the single game Collegiate rushing record with 408 yards (it only took 3 quarters).

I was reminiscing this morning about having kids and the issues that go with them.  I was always accused of using the answer “we’ll see” when confronted with a difficult question.  If I gave a “yes” answer, everybody was happy.  If I gave the dreaded “no”, it turned into a whinning, begging, questioning attempt to change the decision.  I remember Grasshopper No.4 wanting to use our car on a Saturday night.  I said “we will see”.  No.4 became immediately confrontational.  His retort was something like “Dad, I hate it when you do that”.  No.4 indicated that he would rather have a “yes” or “no” answer.  “He could handle it”.  So he repeated his request for the car on Saturday night.  I answered “no”.  No.4’s immediate response was “why not”?  Really?  Obviously he couldn’t handle the dreaded “no”.  I learned that we had just had a stupid conversation.  I really don’t know what No.4 learned.

Just for reference, because I am light skinned, I am prone to sun burn.  Over the years, having a cottage and playing golf (without a hat) took their toll on my skin especially on the face and arms.  Yesterday I had another procedure to remove basal cell carcinoma from my neck.  It is always an unpleasant surgical skin removal and you end up being maimed for weeks.  My advice Grasshoppers is “take sun exposure seriously”.  Just by being part of the family, your genetic make-up puts you at risk.  Think sun-block and hats.

Your Mom walked with me this morning.  Whoa!

Love,

Dad

UW Badgers.  Nebraska.  Camp Randall.  2:30 PM kick-off.  A Badger win launches them towards season ending Big Ten Championship Game.  It doesn’t  get any better?  Grasshopper No.4 and Tommy are charged with bringing home a victory.  Incidently, Nebraska colors include red.  Badgers are awash in red.  It creates quite a spectacle.

My sister Addie passed away in October of 2008.  We have not really visited at length with Brother-in-Law “Ike” since then.  We did yesterday.  He stopped with friend Julie for lunch.  We got updates on nephew Mike and wife Heather and nephew Ryan and wife Luanne.  Addie lived to enjoy her Grandchildren and she got to do that for 3-4 years before she died.  Ryan and Luanne’s first child is Lucy (?).  Addie knowing her inevitable fate with cancer, tried to live every precious moment with Lucy.  Well, Lucy is now 9 years old on her way to being a teenager and brother Henry is in grade school.  Whoa!  Addie would be proud.

Nephew Ryan joined General Electric Corporation when he got out of the Navy. He is presently living in Chicago employed by the financial arm of GE (General Electric Capital).  I asked Ike how Ryan got into “money management”?  Ike just shrugged his shoulders.  My guess is that the world is changing so fast, you adapt.  Ryan is pretty good at that.

My thank you to Grasshopper No.1.  I now have new eye glasses as a result of cataract surgery.  She found a way through her company that does vision care, to get me a deal on prescription sunglasses and “back-up” glasses.  It isn’t always “what you know, but who you know”.  I’ve got connections!

I don’t know what a “polar vortex” is but it sounds cold and nasty.  It must have something to do with recent daily temperatures in the teens and twenties.  Sister Addie was part of a “weather memory”.  We had Thanksgiving in Sheboygan with her and Ike in the early 1980’s and we grilled a ham outside in 65 degree temps (in shirt sleeves).  Go figure!

Stay warm.

Love,

Dad

For some reason Nov.10 sticks in my mind as memorable.  I can’t remember why?  I know the Edmund Fitzgerald freighter sunk on the Great Lakes in the 70’s.  The Berlin Wall came tumbling down on that date 25 years ago.  Nope, it is something else.  Oh well, it will come to me.

There are things that present financial disconnects for me.  Something as simple  as a bottle of Diet Coke.  On sale at the local grocer, a bottle of coke costs $.45.  If you buy a Coke out of a vending machine it is $1.75 for the same thing.  If you go to a Badger game you pay $4.00.  My math says you pay 10 times more for soda at a sporting event than at the grocer.  That is a “disconnect”.

Somehow, health insurance policies have evolved to include high priced deductibles.  When I started working, companies paid “everything”.  There were no deductibles.  Slowly, employees began to contribute to health insurance to help defray the exploding medical costs.  $50/month deductibles and   $100/deductibles were implemented.  Now with Obamacare, $5000 per year is  considered low and $10,000 per year is not unheard of?  Another 10 fold increase.  Did I miss something?

Interest rates earned on your hard earned savings might get you 1/2 of one percent interest at a bank or credit union  If you are willing to buy a bank certificate of deposit for five years, you might earn 2%.  Okay, interest rates are low.  The people that issue credit cards are mainly banks.  If you don’t pay your monthly credit card bill in full, most banks charge 25%-30% interest.  Really?  Did I miss something? How do you go from paying a measly1-2% on savings and charging 25% on a credit card balance?

There are many financial disconnects.  Stay vigilant.

Today is Veterans Day.  Every person who has served, deserves a hug.

Love,

Dad

You should feel pretty good today.  You exercised your power on “Super Tuesday”.  Your vote counted.  You were involved in an effort to “make things better”.

I have been pleasantly surprised at the gas pump.  I save $6-$7 everytime I fill up.  Because I pay cash, that means extra bucks to spend on my kids.  Right!

All the gas savings should “trickle down” to more indirect savings.  Everytime you go to the grocery store, the meat, fruit, veggies and other items should drop in price as distributors pass on their gas delivery savings to you.  Right!  Delivery of everything will reduce your purchase costs!  Right!  If you fly anywhere in the country, your tickets will be less because airlines pass fuel savings on to you.  Right!  Airlines by the way are reporting record profits and it isn’t because they are dropping prices due to reduced fuel costs.

Property taxes are going down.  Right!

Medical costs are dropping.  Right!  I resist expounding on Obamacare.

In my regular tours of our local mall, they have autos and trucks placed at strategic intersections.  They put the “sticker prices” on all vehicles.  Most of the trucks are Dodge Ram or Jeep products.  I don’t know when I’ve seen a sticker price of less that $40,000.  Those prices are not coming down.  Really?  Dodge or Jeep.

My message is don’t be lulled into a false sense of financial security.  Lower gas prices are nice but they don’t necessarily translate to a other categories.  Spend you money wisely.

If you have extra cash and don’t know what to do with it, your Mom and I always accept donations.

Cold and snow are settling in.  I hate November.

Love,

Dad