Yesterday, Logan decided he wanted to play catcher for his travel team. I was opposed to the idea for a few reasons. One of them is that his team already has 2 kids who want to play catcher. The other is that I'm worried about his knees. Not sure if that's an old Dad's tale or what, but I've always believed that catchers blow out their knees early and have shorter careers than other positions.
Not that I expect him to have a "career", I just don't want him walking with a cane when he's 35 because he played catcher in High School. Still, he wanted to do it. The nice thing about playing catcher is that you're involved in every pitch. If you have some talent, it's probably one of the better positions to play. Teams always need a lot of pitchers and catchers.
I talked it over with the dad of one of the other catchers and he said that most teams want 3 or 4 catchers, not just 2. The logic is that it's a physically taxing position to play. You're throwing as often as the pitcher is. You have to chase balls to the backstop. You're wearing a ton of extra gear. Baseball is usually played in Summer months, so it's hot when you're doing it. Apparently, it's easy for kids to get worn out playing catcher.
So, I figure if he catches one game on a tournament weekend, no big deal. We went out and got him his gear. The team would have provided gear, but this way I can make sure it all fits, that he can work out with it whenever he wants (instead of whenever it's available, etc.) It was also less expensive than I thought it would be. We also got him a catcher's mitt, which is a big adjustment for him.
I told him he's going to be one of the fastest catchers to ever play the game, but the team's main catcher is fast and athletic, too. Go figure. Logan may very well be the only Catcher / Shortstop / Center Fielder in the league.
Today was his flag football game and wow, did Logan shine. He was everywhere on defense. The other team we played was the 2nd team from his elementary school and it has a lot of talented athletes. Logan did a great job of stuffing everything. The other team didn't score once on offense while Logan was playing. I should have taken a movie camera, because his performance on defense was every bit as amazing as the day he went 4 for 4 with 2 homers in a baseball game.
Didn't matter where the play was. Logan got to the runner and tore the flag off. He was on fire.
Because this is rec league, Logan played as much line as he did linebacker / cornerback / quarterback, and had to take a rotation off the field. He only sat out 2 plays and on those plays, the really talented kid on the other team scored a touchdown and ran in a 2 point conversion. Logan had kept him at bay all day, but once Logan was off the field, nobody could match this kid's speed and agility.
It'll really be a pleasure to see them play on the same team someday in football. They both play on the same travel baseball team.
Late in the game, Logan played QB and had one gigantic run of about 40 yards, but outran all his blockers and couldn't get the one block he needed to spring him for the score.
They really need to work on offense, but that's tough to do in a league where all the kids play all the positions. Really, to develop an offense, they'd need to assign kids to the positions they're going to be best at and let them really learn those positions. Hard to do, though, because these kids are too young to want to play interior line, for instance.
Rec league really is its own universe. Participation is the emphasis, and with kids who are only 8 or 9 years old the coaches have done a great job of making sure everybody gets to play everywhere.
Even so, no matter where Logan played on defense, he was a force to be reckoned with. Honestly, I regret not getting film, because he was a one-man highlight reel on defense. I'll try to get some footage of the next game.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Septoplasty Fun
On Monday, I had a septoplasty to correct a deviated septum.
The main reason I need it is that I have recurrent sinus infections. Lots of 'em. Like maybe 3 or so per year.
Once, when I was about 12, I had sinusitis that ended up backing up into my face. All I remember from the incident was begging to go to the E.R. on a Saturday night, having to wait for all the typical Saturday night type trauma people go fo first, then being admitted and spending several days unconscious in the ICU in critical condition. (Okay, I don't remember being unconscious... those details got filled in later.)
I've been paranoid about my sinuses ever since. I hack and spit a lot to try and keep them clear all the time. Apologies to anybody who has ever had to witness this ritual. Without that sort of diligence, though, my 3 times a year sinus infections can result in hospitalization, as they did when I joined the Army back in the dark ages.
The surgical procedure? Can't really tell you much about that, other than I was comfortably resting on the bed and woke up feeling drugged up.
The nurse kept administering meds to try and get my blood pressure down. It was ungodly high right after surgery. Apparently, they give you some vasoconstrictors to control bleeding during surgery. Then, they need to reduce the effects before you can go home.
The doctor came in, said things went well, then proceeded to yank out two things that felt about like pipes from my nostrils. They were big and hard and it hurt like the dickens when he did it. In fact, I felt pretty okay until right when he did that.
I felt really weak, but had to go to the pharmacy to pick up some drugs and supplies. Because I'd been under general anesthetic, I had to have somebody else drive me. Got a little bit of food, and felt much, much better after that.
Tuesday, I stayed home all day, bored. Didn't really drive or do anything of the sort. Just puttered around the home. The doctor said I didn't need bed-rest, per se. I just needed to take it easy. No heavy lifting or exercising or that sort of thing.
I actually felt very good on Tuesday. I have some pretty strong pain killers, but wasn't even tempted to use them on Tuesday. Was able to handle everything with the help of maybe 2 Tylenol.
Wednesday, I figured I'd drive to the office and take my son to his baseball practice. Big mistake. It's amazing how the smallest amount of physical effort completely saps me. With the baseball practice, all I did was carry a lawn chair and his light bat bag to the dugout. I was drained after that.
I felt much better once I got home and got some food. I figure I probably lost a lot of blood over the course of the past few days. I should probably be trying to eat some more red meat, but just haven't really had the appetite.
Other than that, though, my eating habits are fine. I can eat everything I could ever eat. Not a biggie. Day of the surgery, I was eating a toasted sandwich afterwards.
The toughest part, so far, is that I can't breathe through my nose. It feels about like being waterboarded. If I swallow, my eardrums feel like they're going to burst. If I'm drinking something I have to make sure to take a deep breath first, or it feels like I'm suffocating. This is obviously more of a psychological issue than a physical one. However, it's funny how you take things for granted, like being able to breathe through your nose.
I really like my doctor. When I got out of surgery, I asked how long until my nose would be clear and he basically said not for a couple of weeks. I told him that I'm paranoid about that (he knows my history with the whole coma thing) and he said we could meet 3 days after surgery so he could check everything out. Having my nose clear is something beyond a compulsion for me.
Since it literally could have killed me before, it's something approaching a phobia. It's very hard for me not to freak out after over 3 decades of keeping the knowledge that "plugged up nose" = "might die" in the back of my head.
My sinuses will drain out now and then when I least expect it. I'm spitting up blood pretty regularly. I'll hear the sound of air entering a sinus, and then spit out a wad of clotted blood about the size, shape and consistency of a gigantic garden slug.
Yesterday, I was thinking that this is so unbelievably uncomfortable that I really, really expect this thing to yield results. Granted, I had a physical condition that needed to be addressed, but it could be controlled with diligence and a few hundred bucks of antibiotics every year.
This? This just blows. I must be getting old because this sort of thing never used to hit me all that hard. Maybe I'd feel better if I'd go whole-hog onto the pain killers, but I've never been much of a pain killer guy. Several times in my life, I've had prescription pain killers in my medicine cabinet from a medical procedure from a year or two before.
I think my odds of ever becoming drug addicted are pretty low. This is sort of in keeping with the whole not-drinking thing, too.
I think my biggest mistake, which was predictable, was trying to do too much on day 2 post-op. I should have spent the entire day in bed or putterring around the house. Instead, I tried to get to work and take my son to baseball and it really wore me down.
Will update everybody after seering the otolaryngologist today. Really, I can deal with almost all of this, but being easily fatigued is a bit of an adjustment. Once I can breathe fully, I'll feel a lot better.
The main reason I need it is that I have recurrent sinus infections. Lots of 'em. Like maybe 3 or so per year.
Once, when I was about 12, I had sinusitis that ended up backing up into my face. All I remember from the incident was begging to go to the E.R. on a Saturday night, having to wait for all the typical Saturday night type trauma people go fo first, then being admitted and spending several days unconscious in the ICU in critical condition. (Okay, I don't remember being unconscious... those details got filled in later.)
I've been paranoid about my sinuses ever since. I hack and spit a lot to try and keep them clear all the time. Apologies to anybody who has ever had to witness this ritual. Without that sort of diligence, though, my 3 times a year sinus infections can result in hospitalization, as they did when I joined the Army back in the dark ages.
The surgical procedure? Can't really tell you much about that, other than I was comfortably resting on the bed and woke up feeling drugged up.
The nurse kept administering meds to try and get my blood pressure down. It was ungodly high right after surgery. Apparently, they give you some vasoconstrictors to control bleeding during surgery. Then, they need to reduce the effects before you can go home.
The doctor came in, said things went well, then proceeded to yank out two things that felt about like pipes from my nostrils. They were big and hard and it hurt like the dickens when he did it. In fact, I felt pretty okay until right when he did that.
I felt really weak, but had to go to the pharmacy to pick up some drugs and supplies. Because I'd been under general anesthetic, I had to have somebody else drive me. Got a little bit of food, and felt much, much better after that.
Tuesday, I stayed home all day, bored. Didn't really drive or do anything of the sort. Just puttered around the home. The doctor said I didn't need bed-rest, per se. I just needed to take it easy. No heavy lifting or exercising or that sort of thing.
I actually felt very good on Tuesday. I have some pretty strong pain killers, but wasn't even tempted to use them on Tuesday. Was able to handle everything with the help of maybe 2 Tylenol.
Wednesday, I figured I'd drive to the office and take my son to his baseball practice. Big mistake. It's amazing how the smallest amount of physical effort completely saps me. With the baseball practice, all I did was carry a lawn chair and his light bat bag to the dugout. I was drained after that.
I felt much better once I got home and got some food. I figure I probably lost a lot of blood over the course of the past few days. I should probably be trying to eat some more red meat, but just haven't really had the appetite.
Other than that, though, my eating habits are fine. I can eat everything I could ever eat. Not a biggie. Day of the surgery, I was eating a toasted sandwich afterwards.
The toughest part, so far, is that I can't breathe through my nose. It feels about like being waterboarded. If I swallow, my eardrums feel like they're going to burst. If I'm drinking something I have to make sure to take a deep breath first, or it feels like I'm suffocating. This is obviously more of a psychological issue than a physical one. However, it's funny how you take things for granted, like being able to breathe through your nose.
I really like my doctor. When I got out of surgery, I asked how long until my nose would be clear and he basically said not for a couple of weeks. I told him that I'm paranoid about that (he knows my history with the whole coma thing) and he said we could meet 3 days after surgery so he could check everything out. Having my nose clear is something beyond a compulsion for me.
Since it literally could have killed me before, it's something approaching a phobia. It's very hard for me not to freak out after over 3 decades of keeping the knowledge that "plugged up nose" = "might die" in the back of my head.
My sinuses will drain out now and then when I least expect it. I'm spitting up blood pretty regularly. I'll hear the sound of air entering a sinus, and then spit out a wad of clotted blood about the size, shape and consistency of a gigantic garden slug.
Yesterday, I was thinking that this is so unbelievably uncomfortable that I really, really expect this thing to yield results. Granted, I had a physical condition that needed to be addressed, but it could be controlled with diligence and a few hundred bucks of antibiotics every year.
This? This just blows. I must be getting old because this sort of thing never used to hit me all that hard. Maybe I'd feel better if I'd go whole-hog onto the pain killers, but I've never been much of a pain killer guy. Several times in my life, I've had prescription pain killers in my medicine cabinet from a medical procedure from a year or two before.
I think my odds of ever becoming drug addicted are pretty low. This is sort of in keeping with the whole not-drinking thing, too.
I think my biggest mistake, which was predictable, was trying to do too much on day 2 post-op. I should have spent the entire day in bed or putterring around the house. Instead, I tried to get to work and take my son to baseball and it really wore me down.
Will update everybody after seering the otolaryngologist today. Really, I can deal with almost all of this, but being easily fatigued is a bit of an adjustment. Once I can breathe fully, I'll feel a lot better.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Oh we really need some health care reform...
We need health care reform. Not just "health insurance" reform. Actual health-care reform.
First, for all his talk, Obama is really showing his lack of leadership ability, here. His proposed "health care reform" is nothing but a showcase for how to let lobbyists write legislation.
The problem is that health insurance is too expensive. So, the Democrats' solution: force people to buy it or face fines. Nice job, Barack. Logic only a Democrat could love.
Of course, the Democrats are saying that they watered down the bill to get Republican support. Never mind that nobody in their right minds thought that the Republicans were going to support this. That gives us one of two possible conclusions: that everybody in the country is smarter than a Democrat, or the Democrats wanted to sell us out but wanted to blame somebody else for it.
I've seen the Republicans do some pretty crappy things over the years, but I've never seen them blame the Democrats for it.
The Democrats have a reputation of being unaccountable and unable to lead. Their performance on the health insurance reform initiative pretty much solidifies that reputation.
We need an overhaul of the system from the ground-up. I just had a very minor surgical procedure. I am still amazed that medical records are kept using technology developed in the 17th century. I fill out a form listing all my current meds. A nurse then interviews me, asking for all my current meds. I fill out another form with all my current meds. Then another form with all my current meds. Then another nurse interviews me about my current meds. You get the picture. And I'm only shortening that story because reading the same two sentences over and over for 3 paragraphs gets a little old.
Anybody who can spell the word "doctor" knows that it is physically impossible to include the words "customer service" in the same sentence without a word like, "not" somewhere in there.
Any business that operated like a doctor's office would be bankrupt very quickly. Unfortunately, most people are not repeat customers of doctors and there is no need for doctors to improve customer service at all. Especially since most people don't actually choose a doctor. They find the list of their insurance company's network and generally go with the closest guy.
If that doesn't work out, chances are you don't need to see a doctor in a while. In the few cases where you change doctors, you do so after several years.
They just don't care. Their current ways are inefficient and expensive, but they don't have the same competitive pressures that make the free market work. So, they just pass the cost on to you. End of story. They'll complain that their medicare reimbursement rates are too low, but it never occurs to them that collecting 15 pieces of paper with the same information on it wastes both time and money. Or that the nurses who had to ask you the same questions over and over and over again aren't working for free.
Another example? I had surgery yesterday. I feel pretty good, but not good enough to want to talk to people on the telephone. I had to make a follow-up appointment.
We finally got settled on the date and time and the person on the phone said, "and what is your insurance?"
ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME? I have already been to your office. Made sure you photocopied my insurance card. You took it from me no less than 3 times that visit. I hand-corrected where you still managed to get it wrong on my paperwork... AND YOUR DOCTOR JUST OPERATED ON ME YESTERDAY???!!!
YOU DON'T HAVE MY INSURANCE INFORMATION WRITTEN DOWN SOMEWHERE???!!!
Honest to god. Again, any real business would have changed this... oh... 20 years ago. Not the medical industry.
I wish I could say this was an isolated case of bad service, but it isn't. Anybody who has had to deal with health care knows exactly what I'm talking about.
Yet, nobody, but nobody does anything about it.
Yeah, the government is big and beaureaucratic and not the most efficient bunch of people on the planet. But compared to the medical industry, the government is a bunch of Wall Street stockbrokers.
Finally, there's a huge problem with health insurance. It can't be fixed. That's the problem. It just can't be fixed.
Why? Because people aren't all created equal in regards to health.
With your car, you are grouped in a risk pool. You are grouped with drivers who, the insurance company estimates, are about the same risk as you are to need to file a claim.
If you're a careful driver, meaning the ones who pay premiums for 50 years and never file a claim, the insurance company wants you to be their customer. So, they charge you the lowest premiums to attract you. After all, you will pay them thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands of dollars, and all you'll actually get in return is a piece of paper with some writing on it.
A driver like me with a ticket or two pays a slightly higher premium.
Drunk drivers? People who are just plain crappy drivers? They pay a huge premium. In fact, their risk pool is so bad that many of them simply can't afford insurance.
Health is done a bit differently, though.
If you're in good health, you can probably get a relatively affordable policy.
However, if you're a woman of child-bearing age and want pregnancy covered, you're going to pay more.
If you have a pre-existing condition, if it's expensive enough, you're in a risk pool so expensive that you can't afford it. It's not that the insurance company wants to deny you insurance. It's that they know you can't afford it. So, they're not going to bother selling it.
If you have a health condition that costs you $10,000 a year, then, well, you're going to pay more than $10,000 a year for coverage. In fact, administrative costs usually add up to about 30%, so you're going to be paying a minimum of $13,000... not to mention a few more thousand for the occassional unforseen event.
Which gives us our current problem: you can get health insurance easily if you don't need it. Trouble is, you don't need it.
The insurance companies need those healthy people. They throw them into risk pools with unhealthy people and voila, premiums go down for the average policy holder... until the healthy people realize they've paid thousands... and all they got was pieces of paper with some writing on it, and they decide to drop their insurance or move to a cheaper pool, preferrably with only healthy people in it.
The way it works with individual policies, is that they then assign you to a brand-new risk pool. They raise the premiums the 2nd year because healthy people (who need insurance less) drop out, and sick people (who need insurance more) stay in. Eventually, everybody either keeps moving to new risk pools if they are healthy, or they get classified with a pre-existing condition if they're not.
So, basically, individual policies only work if you're healthy. If you ever really need them, they just don't exist for you. Eventually, anybody whose health costs are lower than yours will leave the pool and only you and other high-cost policyholders will be left. The pool will be crazy expensive and you'll either drop out or pay your entire income to afford health insurance.
If you work for a large company, you're in a little better shape. Your risk pool is generally the entire company. So, the odds of your premium increasing by 25% in a year (like an individual policy) are remote. They'll just go up at 2 or 3 times the normal inflation rate so that they double every 10 or 12 years, your copays shoot through the roof, your covered services dwindle every day, and your pay raise fails to keep pace with inflation because your employer is paying through the ying-yang for your health insurance.
Now, the only 2 things the Obama plan does is it precludes insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
That means the cost of those risk pools will skyrocket. They'll have no choice but to raise premiums unless they can get enough healthy people (meaning, "people who will not file claims") to offset the cost.
Thus, othter thing is the need to FORCE everybody to buy health insurance. Not just inexpensive catastrophic-only policies, either.
Now, I know there is a social problem with people who chose to be uninsured, but I chose to be uninsured for about 6 years after I got out of the Army. Why? Because crappy health insurance cost about $150 a month, and that was a lot of money for a guy who, literally, might consume about $100 a year in total health care costs.
What the Obama plan does is forces people in that boat to pay their $2,000 a year for a cheap personal policy, even though they'll only use about $100 a year in medical services, in order to contribute the other $1,900 to lower the cost of the risk pool, overall.
It'll be a benefit if that young person gets into an accident. If not, it amounts to an insane tax on the young and healthy in order to benefit those with higher health care costs.
The other reason health insurance doesn't work, other than the fact that people are born with different health-care needs, that they cannot help, is that people also make lifestyle choices that impact their total health care spend.
I think some element of fundamental fairness should dictate that just because a person was born with a condition that they had no control over, that they should not have to live their life in poverty, paying only for their health care, with the only other option being to die. People don't chose to be born with type 1 diabetes, or other heredetary diseases.
Unfortunately, once you know somebody has that problem, how will you price their risk? If you're a for-profit insurer, you need to recoup every penny that person will cost, plus money for your overhead and profit.
The single payer system is probably most fair in this regard. Everybody is entitled to the same health care services from cradle to grave. Your risk pool is simply universal. I could have had a child with multiple sclorosis just as easily as I had one who is perfectly healthy.
By assigning everybody to the risk pool BEFORE we know if they're sickly or not, we level the playing field. Sort of like if you sold insurance policies, but KNEW whose house was going to burn down. You'd end up only selling to the folks whose houses wouldn't burn. And you'd charge the folks whose houses were going to burn down enough to cover the cost of their house, plus your overhead and profit.
Same with health insurance. Since, in so many cases, they can tell who is going to need a lot of care, they only want to insure folks who won't. And they charge the folks who will need a lot of care enough to cover the cost of a home, plus overhead and profit.
The lifestyle choices get a little trickier:
If you smoke? You'll need more health care. If you drink? You'll need more health care. If you were buying a life-insurance policy all those factors would be taken into account.
If you don't exercise? You need more health care. If you overeat, you need more health care.
Is it fair for people who make good lifestyle choices to have to pay what amounts to an additional tax to pay for people who do not?
No. It isn't.
But should I not be allowed to ride a motorcycle? To rock climb? What if the parachuting accident that caused me a lifetime of extensive hospital bills was from an accident in the Army, not from recreational parachuting?
Tough one, there. On the other hand, our private health insurance solution is no better at fixing that problem than a public solution would be.
Other cute things that happen in our current system? Drug manufacturers, hospitals and networks want to entice insurance companies to use them. So, they offer "discounts". Problem is, those aren't discounts at all. All they do is jack up the sticker price to twice what it should be, and "discount" it down to the reasonable price that they charge to insurance companies.
No harm, no foul, right? Unless of course, you're uninsured and need to buy medicine or check into a hospital. If you aren't destitute enough to be on medicaid, you have to pay sticker price. Yep, the people least able to pay for medical care since they have no coverage at all, are charged twice what everybody else pays.
The system is just flat out broken. It doesn't need repair. It needs to be scrapped and replaced.
Unfortunately, the market forces that can take care of so many aspects of our lives absolutely can't fix this problem.
Only a single-payer system can possibly address the problems in our current system. If not a single-payer system, then at least a very, very strong public option. The current Obama plan provides for neither.
Obama is proving to be a weak and inneffectual leader trying to wrangle a bunch of special-interest whores. What he intitially proposed as a real solution is now watered down to yet another government giveaway to private industry. He's proving himself to be our generation's Jimmy Carter. A well-intentioned, brilliant man who is being made a laughing stock by his inability to lead his own party.
First, for all his talk, Obama is really showing his lack of leadership ability, here. His proposed "health care reform" is nothing but a showcase for how to let lobbyists write legislation.
The problem is that health insurance is too expensive. So, the Democrats' solution: force people to buy it or face fines. Nice job, Barack. Logic only a Democrat could love.
Of course, the Democrats are saying that they watered down the bill to get Republican support. Never mind that nobody in their right minds thought that the Republicans were going to support this. That gives us one of two possible conclusions: that everybody in the country is smarter than a Democrat, or the Democrats wanted to sell us out but wanted to blame somebody else for it.
I've seen the Republicans do some pretty crappy things over the years, but I've never seen them blame the Democrats for it.
The Democrats have a reputation of being unaccountable and unable to lead. Their performance on the health insurance reform initiative pretty much solidifies that reputation.
We need an overhaul of the system from the ground-up. I just had a very minor surgical procedure. I am still amazed that medical records are kept using technology developed in the 17th century. I fill out a form listing all my current meds. A nurse then interviews me, asking for all my current meds. I fill out another form with all my current meds. Then another form with all my current meds. Then another nurse interviews me about my current meds. You get the picture. And I'm only shortening that story because reading the same two sentences over and over for 3 paragraphs gets a little old.
Anybody who can spell the word "doctor" knows that it is physically impossible to include the words "customer service" in the same sentence without a word like, "not" somewhere in there.
Any business that operated like a doctor's office would be bankrupt very quickly. Unfortunately, most people are not repeat customers of doctors and there is no need for doctors to improve customer service at all. Especially since most people don't actually choose a doctor. They find the list of their insurance company's network and generally go with the closest guy.
If that doesn't work out, chances are you don't need to see a doctor in a while. In the few cases where you change doctors, you do so after several years.
They just don't care. Their current ways are inefficient and expensive, but they don't have the same competitive pressures that make the free market work. So, they just pass the cost on to you. End of story. They'll complain that their medicare reimbursement rates are too low, but it never occurs to them that collecting 15 pieces of paper with the same information on it wastes both time and money. Or that the nurses who had to ask you the same questions over and over and over again aren't working for free.
Another example? I had surgery yesterday. I feel pretty good, but not good enough to want to talk to people on the telephone. I had to make a follow-up appointment.
We finally got settled on the date and time and the person on the phone said, "and what is your insurance?"
ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME? I have already been to your office. Made sure you photocopied my insurance card. You took it from me no less than 3 times that visit. I hand-corrected where you still managed to get it wrong on my paperwork... AND YOUR DOCTOR JUST OPERATED ON ME YESTERDAY???!!!
YOU DON'T HAVE MY INSURANCE INFORMATION WRITTEN DOWN SOMEWHERE???!!!
Honest to god. Again, any real business would have changed this... oh... 20 years ago. Not the medical industry.
I wish I could say this was an isolated case of bad service, but it isn't. Anybody who has had to deal with health care knows exactly what I'm talking about.
Yet, nobody, but nobody does anything about it.
Yeah, the government is big and beaureaucratic and not the most efficient bunch of people on the planet. But compared to the medical industry, the government is a bunch of Wall Street stockbrokers.
Finally, there's a huge problem with health insurance. It can't be fixed. That's the problem. It just can't be fixed.
Why? Because people aren't all created equal in regards to health.
With your car, you are grouped in a risk pool. You are grouped with drivers who, the insurance company estimates, are about the same risk as you are to need to file a claim.
If you're a careful driver, meaning the ones who pay premiums for 50 years and never file a claim, the insurance company wants you to be their customer. So, they charge you the lowest premiums to attract you. After all, you will pay them thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands of dollars, and all you'll actually get in return is a piece of paper with some writing on it.
A driver like me with a ticket or two pays a slightly higher premium.
Drunk drivers? People who are just plain crappy drivers? They pay a huge premium. In fact, their risk pool is so bad that many of them simply can't afford insurance.
Health is done a bit differently, though.
If you're in good health, you can probably get a relatively affordable policy.
However, if you're a woman of child-bearing age and want pregnancy covered, you're going to pay more.
If you have a pre-existing condition, if it's expensive enough, you're in a risk pool so expensive that you can't afford it. It's not that the insurance company wants to deny you insurance. It's that they know you can't afford it. So, they're not going to bother selling it.
If you have a health condition that costs you $10,000 a year, then, well, you're going to pay more than $10,000 a year for coverage. In fact, administrative costs usually add up to about 30%, so you're going to be paying a minimum of $13,000... not to mention a few more thousand for the occassional unforseen event.
Which gives us our current problem: you can get health insurance easily if you don't need it. Trouble is, you don't need it.
The insurance companies need those healthy people. They throw them into risk pools with unhealthy people and voila, premiums go down for the average policy holder... until the healthy people realize they've paid thousands... and all they got was pieces of paper with some writing on it, and they decide to drop their insurance or move to a cheaper pool, preferrably with only healthy people in it.
The way it works with individual policies, is that they then assign you to a brand-new risk pool. They raise the premiums the 2nd year because healthy people (who need insurance less) drop out, and sick people (who need insurance more) stay in. Eventually, everybody either keeps moving to new risk pools if they are healthy, or they get classified with a pre-existing condition if they're not.
So, basically, individual policies only work if you're healthy. If you ever really need them, they just don't exist for you. Eventually, anybody whose health costs are lower than yours will leave the pool and only you and other high-cost policyholders will be left. The pool will be crazy expensive and you'll either drop out or pay your entire income to afford health insurance.
If you work for a large company, you're in a little better shape. Your risk pool is generally the entire company. So, the odds of your premium increasing by 25% in a year (like an individual policy) are remote. They'll just go up at 2 or 3 times the normal inflation rate so that they double every 10 or 12 years, your copays shoot through the roof, your covered services dwindle every day, and your pay raise fails to keep pace with inflation because your employer is paying through the ying-yang for your health insurance.
Now, the only 2 things the Obama plan does is it precludes insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
That means the cost of those risk pools will skyrocket. They'll have no choice but to raise premiums unless they can get enough healthy people (meaning, "people who will not file claims") to offset the cost.
Thus, othter thing is the need to FORCE everybody to buy health insurance. Not just inexpensive catastrophic-only policies, either.
Now, I know there is a social problem with people who chose to be uninsured, but I chose to be uninsured for about 6 years after I got out of the Army. Why? Because crappy health insurance cost about $150 a month, and that was a lot of money for a guy who, literally, might consume about $100 a year in total health care costs.
What the Obama plan does is forces people in that boat to pay their $2,000 a year for a cheap personal policy, even though they'll only use about $100 a year in medical services, in order to contribute the other $1,900 to lower the cost of the risk pool, overall.
It'll be a benefit if that young person gets into an accident. If not, it amounts to an insane tax on the young and healthy in order to benefit those with higher health care costs.
The other reason health insurance doesn't work, other than the fact that people are born with different health-care needs, that they cannot help, is that people also make lifestyle choices that impact their total health care spend.
I think some element of fundamental fairness should dictate that just because a person was born with a condition that they had no control over, that they should not have to live their life in poverty, paying only for their health care, with the only other option being to die. People don't chose to be born with type 1 diabetes, or other heredetary diseases.
Unfortunately, once you know somebody has that problem, how will you price their risk? If you're a for-profit insurer, you need to recoup every penny that person will cost, plus money for your overhead and profit.
The single payer system is probably most fair in this regard. Everybody is entitled to the same health care services from cradle to grave. Your risk pool is simply universal. I could have had a child with multiple sclorosis just as easily as I had one who is perfectly healthy.
By assigning everybody to the risk pool BEFORE we know if they're sickly or not, we level the playing field. Sort of like if you sold insurance policies, but KNEW whose house was going to burn down. You'd end up only selling to the folks whose houses wouldn't burn. And you'd charge the folks whose houses were going to burn down enough to cover the cost of their house, plus your overhead and profit.
Same with health insurance. Since, in so many cases, they can tell who is going to need a lot of care, they only want to insure folks who won't. And they charge the folks who will need a lot of care enough to cover the cost of a home, plus overhead and profit.
The lifestyle choices get a little trickier:
If you smoke? You'll need more health care. If you drink? You'll need more health care. If you were buying a life-insurance policy all those factors would be taken into account.
If you don't exercise? You need more health care. If you overeat, you need more health care.
Is it fair for people who make good lifestyle choices to have to pay what amounts to an additional tax to pay for people who do not?
No. It isn't.
But should I not be allowed to ride a motorcycle? To rock climb? What if the parachuting accident that caused me a lifetime of extensive hospital bills was from an accident in the Army, not from recreational parachuting?
Tough one, there. On the other hand, our private health insurance solution is no better at fixing that problem than a public solution would be.
Other cute things that happen in our current system? Drug manufacturers, hospitals and networks want to entice insurance companies to use them. So, they offer "discounts". Problem is, those aren't discounts at all. All they do is jack up the sticker price to twice what it should be, and "discount" it down to the reasonable price that they charge to insurance companies.
No harm, no foul, right? Unless of course, you're uninsured and need to buy medicine or check into a hospital. If you aren't destitute enough to be on medicaid, you have to pay sticker price. Yep, the people least able to pay for medical care since they have no coverage at all, are charged twice what everybody else pays.
The system is just flat out broken. It doesn't need repair. It needs to be scrapped and replaced.
Unfortunately, the market forces that can take care of so many aspects of our lives absolutely can't fix this problem.
Only a single-payer system can possibly address the problems in our current system. If not a single-payer system, then at least a very, very strong public option. The current Obama plan provides for neither.
Obama is proving to be a weak and inneffectual leader trying to wrangle a bunch of special-interest whores. What he intitially proposed as a real solution is now watered down to yet another government giveaway to private industry. He's proving himself to be our generation's Jimmy Carter. A well-intentioned, brilliant man who is being made a laughing stock by his inability to lead his own party.
Post Surgery Writeup Day one of Recovery
As though my nose needed anything more to make it look funny...
Surgery went pretty unventfully yesterday. They opened up a constricted sinus opening that's probably been the source of my sinus infections over the years. Even these days, I'll have to get antibiotics for an infection 3 or so times per year.
Really, the effects of the anesthetic were the worst. I remember coming out of anesthesia and shivering like crazy. I wasn't conscious enough to move or speak, but I remember thinking, "Hey, I'm freezing here... little help?"
I eventually regained full consciousness and they had to lower my blood pressure before they could transfer me to the next room. Prior to surgery, my BP was about 115 / 73, with a heart rate of about 55. Afterwards, apparently due to the vasoconstrictors they give you (to control bleeding during surgery), it was something like 190+ over something. (Little groggy... was shocked enough about the 190+ number.)
They kept administering drugs and eventually that was it. Got released.
So far, the pain hasn't been bad at all. I have some good drugs, but haven't felt the need to take them, yet.
As for my nose, it's asymetrical and odd-looking. Always has been, and I've always been self-conscious about it.
Right now, it's all swolen. I look like Chief Wiggum on the Simpsons. But it also looks like, ironically, the actions they took to straighten out all the plumbing inside are going to make it look more crooked on the outside. Oh well. At least I can play the banjo.
At least so far, the recovery is much, much easier than I had anticipated. The hardest thing is that I can't blow my nose for 2 weeks. I've been paranoid and compulsive about keeping blowing my nose for most of my life because of the constant sinus problems. 3 infections a year is what I get when I'm keeping them relatively clear. I can't imagine what it'd be like if I didn't keep them clear.
Still, I'm on antibiotics. So, I'll just be stuffy, but it isn't from an infection. And at least so far, everything I'm spitting up or that ends up in the dressings is mostly blood.
I think it'll be a quick recovery. Oddly, even last night, I felt like I slept better and breathed better, even with all the congestion, etc. I hope that's an indicator of things to come.
Also, I am considering dropping caffeine. I feel a little different, probably better. Had to fast for 12 hours prior to surgery, and I was a little pleasantly surprised by my blood pressure and heart-rate. I'm going to see how it goes and may at least cut down or stick with decaf after lunch.
Surgery went pretty unventfully yesterday. They opened up a constricted sinus opening that's probably been the source of my sinus infections over the years. Even these days, I'll have to get antibiotics for an infection 3 or so times per year.
Really, the effects of the anesthetic were the worst. I remember coming out of anesthesia and shivering like crazy. I wasn't conscious enough to move or speak, but I remember thinking, "Hey, I'm freezing here... little help?"
I eventually regained full consciousness and they had to lower my blood pressure before they could transfer me to the next room. Prior to surgery, my BP was about 115 / 73, with a heart rate of about 55. Afterwards, apparently due to the vasoconstrictors they give you (to control bleeding during surgery), it was something like 190+ over something. (Little groggy... was shocked enough about the 190+ number.)
They kept administering drugs and eventually that was it. Got released.
So far, the pain hasn't been bad at all. I have some good drugs, but haven't felt the need to take them, yet.
As for my nose, it's asymetrical and odd-looking. Always has been, and I've always been self-conscious about it.
Right now, it's all swolen. I look like Chief Wiggum on the Simpsons. But it also looks like, ironically, the actions they took to straighten out all the plumbing inside are going to make it look more crooked on the outside. Oh well. At least I can play the banjo.
At least so far, the recovery is much, much easier than I had anticipated. The hardest thing is that I can't blow my nose for 2 weeks. I've been paranoid and compulsive about keeping blowing my nose for most of my life because of the constant sinus problems. 3 infections a year is what I get when I'm keeping them relatively clear. I can't imagine what it'd be like if I didn't keep them clear.
Still, I'm on antibiotics. So, I'll just be stuffy, but it isn't from an infection. And at least so far, everything I'm spitting up or that ends up in the dressings is mostly blood.
I think it'll be a quick recovery. Oddly, even last night, I felt like I slept better and breathed better, even with all the congestion, etc. I hope that's an indicator of things to come.
Also, I am considering dropping caffeine. I feel a little different, probably better. Had to fast for 12 hours prior to surgery, and I was a little pleasantly surprised by my blood pressure and heart-rate. I'm going to see how it goes and may at least cut down or stick with decaf after lunch.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Bad parents, Bad coaching, Bad kids...
My sister in law was discussing child beauty pageants on facebook, and I knew my response would take more words than I could fit into their word-limit. Also, saw some things this weekend that I felt warranted comment.
First those beauty pageants... good lord. Who in their right mind could ever possibly think that this is the way to raise an emotionally healthy young person? What in the world are they thinking? I just fear for the kids who are being raised by such shallow parents with such incredibly warped values.
Bad enough that adults do beauty pageants, where they're graded on their bodies much like the USDA grades slabs of meat. However, what consenting adults do is their business. Children, on the other hand, are impressionable and it is up to their parents to provide them with wholesome activities that will help them grow into competent, confident young people and, eventually, responsible adults.
I don't see how child beauty pageants contribute to any of the goals of good parenting. What possible message could these give to young people? That you're better than other people because you're better looking?
Yeah, there's a "talent" component, but there's also a "how does my ass look in a bathing suit" component. If the Nobel prize included a pole-dancing segment and was only awarded to hot looking women, I don't think I'd view it with the same esteem.
I do believe that better looking people have it easier in life than those who are less fair of face. However, in a society built on merit, it can only take you so far. It may open doors, but without the proper skills, you won't be allowed to walk through. I fear that these kids are going to grow up with a value system and world view that will be utterly incompatible with being a productive member of society.
This is one of those things where my opinions are so entirely negative that it really doesn't pay to enumerate them. It's just a bad thing, in my opinion. Parents who support this type of activity should re-examine their priorities.
Same thing with Logan's football game. They have a remarkable grouping of athletic kids in Logan's elementary school. For example: of the 12 kids on the district's travel baseball team, 6 of them came from Logan's elementary school, out of a district that has 7 different elementary schools.
Statistically, not all distributions are even and equal. Some schools don't have many athletic kids. Some classes don't. That means that now and then, some schools and classes will.
Logan's team was really having an easy time against the opposing team. That's when the bad behavior started. The opposing coaches were yelling at their own boys, saying things like, "You're getting beat!" and "Why did you try to run without the ball?"
I thought most people were aware by now that this is not the way to raise kids... at least emotionally healthy ones. However, some folks clearly didn't get the memo. It's a flag football game in a rec league. Honestly, it's about as competitive as kids climbing on a jungle gym. Everybody plays and everybody plays every position. Yes, the chubby kids who can't run 4 steps without passing out will play just as much wide receiver as the fastest kid on the team. The smallest, lightest kid on the team, like my son, will play just as much tackle as the biggest, strongest kid.
This won't affect your son's scholarship chances there, Vince Lombardi. Just chill out and let the kids have fun. They know when they're winning and they know when they're getting beat. Good coaching doesn't mean piling on the negativity when things are going poorly. If you're such a rocket scientist coach, how about using the moment as an opportunity to teach something instead of blaming the boys for the way things are going?
Now on to the topic of bad kids. I know my son isn't perfect. However, I've tried to raise him to be kind, respectful and generous. Unfortunately, even at his young age (he's 8), some of the other kids he interacts with are just generally obnoxious bordering on being just plain bad.
Examples: we used to have the crackheads a few doors down. They had one boy who was, in my opinion, disturbed. He would show up to play with Logan and other neighborhood kids. I didn't want to exclude him, but more often than not, the play-episode ended when he injured another kid by some violent act. I finally got to the point where I wouldn't let him come over to play. I was responsible for the safety of the kids playing in my yard and he was a serial killer in training.
I hated to be that way because I knew the kid had a lot of problems and issues to deal with, but hey, the moment he started singling out the smallest and weakest kids in the group so he could punch them any time he got frustrated, then sorry kid, life isn't fair and you just made it a lot less fair on yourself by acting like a psycho.
Fortunately, that little crackhead moved away. However, other kids' personalities are really starting to be on display and some of these kids have downright crappy personalities.
Others in Logan's class are what I call schemers. They are always working an angle and try to take advantage of every situation.
There are the flat-out cheaters who will steal, lie and elbow their way to the front of every line, knowing full well they shouldn't, but also knowing that unless an adult sees it and is inspired to do something about it, they'll get away with it.
There's the kids who "playfully" hit the other kids as hard as they can. As in, if another kid does something good, the hitters will smack the kid on the back as hard as they can.
I'm starting to see bullying, and not just physical. Some of the smarter kids are getting really, really manipulative and mean.
There are also the little miscreant kids who combine several, if not all of the possible ways to be a crappy human being.
Granted, these are kids, and some of what's going on is a phase. However, I'm also a person who believes that in the nature vs. nurture side of things, the lion's share is "nature" and the "nurture" side mostly plays itself out by the time a kid is 3 or 4 years old.
Not to say that people can't change... just to say they seldom do, and the few cases where they do, they seldom stay changed.
Part of me knows that Logan will have to learn to deal with all sorts of people. That he will have to learn to appreciate and gravitate towards the nice kids. The pushy, obnoxious, selfish kids? Trouble is, they tend to be assertive and put themselves into some social circles by sheer force of will. Of course, it's not unusual that someday they wake up to find that they're a social circle of one because their act has worn thin with pretty much everybody.
I just hate to see Logan have to deal with kids for whom my gut reaction is to say that they need a prolonged spanking, probably lasting several weeks. Unfortunately, I know that corporal punishment is probably one of the causes of this crappy behavior, not a cure for it. Ultimately, what needs to happen is that Logan needs to move in social circles with kids who don't have these crappy personalities and those with crappy personalities need to hit rock bottom to realize that nobody wants to be around them so long as they think it's okay to act like a selfish little bastard.
It's all a required part of learning how to deal with all sorts of people. However, I've had to have a few talks with Logan that I thought wouldn't come for some time, now. I've had to point out to him that some people are just not very good and that the best they can do is drag other people down. I've had to point out there's nothing wrong with shunning mean, manipulative and selfish kids.
I've had to point out that he can't let these kids get under his skin. He needs to realize that they're just the way they are (crappy) and let it go at that. Unfortunately, he also needs to start avoiding some of these miscreants.
Some of this goes directly against everything he's ever been told up to date: to love everybody and to trust everybody as being basically good. Though I do believe that's still basically true most of the time, the reality is that it isn't true always and that he needs to learn to deal with people who will, if he lets them, make him utterly miserable.
I know that this is only going to get harder to watch and more emotionally involved as he gets older. He's not even a teen, yet, when this sort of thing starts going full-force.
In the mean time, I'm enjoying the last of his days of innocence. I hope they stretch out a few more years at the least. I think that's what I hate about the crappy kids: they're the catalyst in the process that destroys the innocence.
First those beauty pageants... good lord. Who in their right mind could ever possibly think that this is the way to raise an emotionally healthy young person? What in the world are they thinking? I just fear for the kids who are being raised by such shallow parents with such incredibly warped values.
Bad enough that adults do beauty pageants, where they're graded on their bodies much like the USDA grades slabs of meat. However, what consenting adults do is their business. Children, on the other hand, are impressionable and it is up to their parents to provide them with wholesome activities that will help them grow into competent, confident young people and, eventually, responsible adults.
I don't see how child beauty pageants contribute to any of the goals of good parenting. What possible message could these give to young people? That you're better than other people because you're better looking?
Yeah, there's a "talent" component, but there's also a "how does my ass look in a bathing suit" component. If the Nobel prize included a pole-dancing segment and was only awarded to hot looking women, I don't think I'd view it with the same esteem.
I do believe that better looking people have it easier in life than those who are less fair of face. However, in a society built on merit, it can only take you so far. It may open doors, but without the proper skills, you won't be allowed to walk through. I fear that these kids are going to grow up with a value system and world view that will be utterly incompatible with being a productive member of society.
This is one of those things where my opinions are so entirely negative that it really doesn't pay to enumerate them. It's just a bad thing, in my opinion. Parents who support this type of activity should re-examine their priorities.
Same thing with Logan's football game. They have a remarkable grouping of athletic kids in Logan's elementary school. For example: of the 12 kids on the district's travel baseball team, 6 of them came from Logan's elementary school, out of a district that has 7 different elementary schools.
Statistically, not all distributions are even and equal. Some schools don't have many athletic kids. Some classes don't. That means that now and then, some schools and classes will.
Logan's team was really having an easy time against the opposing team. That's when the bad behavior started. The opposing coaches were yelling at their own boys, saying things like, "You're getting beat!" and "Why did you try to run without the ball?"
I thought most people were aware by now that this is not the way to raise kids... at least emotionally healthy ones. However, some folks clearly didn't get the memo. It's a flag football game in a rec league. Honestly, it's about as competitive as kids climbing on a jungle gym. Everybody plays and everybody plays every position. Yes, the chubby kids who can't run 4 steps without passing out will play just as much wide receiver as the fastest kid on the team. The smallest, lightest kid on the team, like my son, will play just as much tackle as the biggest, strongest kid.
This won't affect your son's scholarship chances there, Vince Lombardi. Just chill out and let the kids have fun. They know when they're winning and they know when they're getting beat. Good coaching doesn't mean piling on the negativity when things are going poorly. If you're such a rocket scientist coach, how about using the moment as an opportunity to teach something instead of blaming the boys for the way things are going?
Now on to the topic of bad kids. I know my son isn't perfect. However, I've tried to raise him to be kind, respectful and generous. Unfortunately, even at his young age (he's 8), some of the other kids he interacts with are just generally obnoxious bordering on being just plain bad.
Examples: we used to have the crackheads a few doors down. They had one boy who was, in my opinion, disturbed. He would show up to play with Logan and other neighborhood kids. I didn't want to exclude him, but more often than not, the play-episode ended when he injured another kid by some violent act. I finally got to the point where I wouldn't let him come over to play. I was responsible for the safety of the kids playing in my yard and he was a serial killer in training.
I hated to be that way because I knew the kid had a lot of problems and issues to deal with, but hey, the moment he started singling out the smallest and weakest kids in the group so he could punch them any time he got frustrated, then sorry kid, life isn't fair and you just made it a lot less fair on yourself by acting like a psycho.
Fortunately, that little crackhead moved away. However, other kids' personalities are really starting to be on display and some of these kids have downright crappy personalities.
Others in Logan's class are what I call schemers. They are always working an angle and try to take advantage of every situation.
There are the flat-out cheaters who will steal, lie and elbow their way to the front of every line, knowing full well they shouldn't, but also knowing that unless an adult sees it and is inspired to do something about it, they'll get away with it.
There's the kids who "playfully" hit the other kids as hard as they can. As in, if another kid does something good, the hitters will smack the kid on the back as hard as they can.
I'm starting to see bullying, and not just physical. Some of the smarter kids are getting really, really manipulative and mean.
There are also the little miscreant kids who combine several, if not all of the possible ways to be a crappy human being.
Granted, these are kids, and some of what's going on is a phase. However, I'm also a person who believes that in the nature vs. nurture side of things, the lion's share is "nature" and the "nurture" side mostly plays itself out by the time a kid is 3 or 4 years old.
Not to say that people can't change... just to say they seldom do, and the few cases where they do, they seldom stay changed.
Part of me knows that Logan will have to learn to deal with all sorts of people. That he will have to learn to appreciate and gravitate towards the nice kids. The pushy, obnoxious, selfish kids? Trouble is, they tend to be assertive and put themselves into some social circles by sheer force of will. Of course, it's not unusual that someday they wake up to find that they're a social circle of one because their act has worn thin with pretty much everybody.
I just hate to see Logan have to deal with kids for whom my gut reaction is to say that they need a prolonged spanking, probably lasting several weeks. Unfortunately, I know that corporal punishment is probably one of the causes of this crappy behavior, not a cure for it. Ultimately, what needs to happen is that Logan needs to move in social circles with kids who don't have these crappy personalities and those with crappy personalities need to hit rock bottom to realize that nobody wants to be around them so long as they think it's okay to act like a selfish little bastard.
It's all a required part of learning how to deal with all sorts of people. However, I've had to have a few talks with Logan that I thought wouldn't come for some time, now. I've had to point out to him that some people are just not very good and that the best they can do is drag other people down. I've had to point out there's nothing wrong with shunning mean, manipulative and selfish kids.
I've had to point out that he can't let these kids get under his skin. He needs to realize that they're just the way they are (crappy) and let it go at that. Unfortunately, he also needs to start avoiding some of these miscreants.
Some of this goes directly against everything he's ever been told up to date: to love everybody and to trust everybody as being basically good. Though I do believe that's still basically true most of the time, the reality is that it isn't true always and that he needs to learn to deal with people who will, if he lets them, make him utterly miserable.
I know that this is only going to get harder to watch and more emotionally involved as he gets older. He's not even a teen, yet, when this sort of thing starts going full-force.
In the mean time, I'm enjoying the last of his days of innocence. I hope they stretch out a few more years at the least. I think that's what I hate about the crappy kids: they're the catalyst in the process that destroys the innocence.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
First Impressions of "Rock Band" video game, Beatles Edition
I got all the stuff I was after. Bought the Beatles limited edition with the fake Hofner bass, a drum kit and a microphone. I also bought some cymbals for the drum kit.
The first thing that jumped out at me is that in all the pictures, it looks like there's a little fake bass-drum that says "beatles" on it, like Ringo's set circa 1963/64. However, what's in the box is actually a piece of fabric you can put on the drums. I haven't put it on.
Setup was very easy and intuitive. Took maybe 20 minutes to set up everything including the aftermarket cymbals.
Nobody had the Madcats 3 cymbal set around here. I bought two of the 2-cymbal sets. The way you play the game, it has 4 different colored drum heads. (Yellow, Red, Green and Blue) and the bass drum pedal.
During the songs, if you get, say, a high-hat part, you play it on the yellow drum head, which is your mounted tom. Makes no sense. Or, if you have cymbals (which you pay extra for, and which don't come with the kit), you can hit either the yellow drum head or the yellow cymbal. The game scores them both the same.
So, I unpacked the cymbal kits and discovered that you can only mount two of them on the rock band drum kit, itself. Not a biggie for me. I went upstairs and got a cymbal stand from my studio and used it for the hi-hat. I wanted the hat mounted to the left of the "snare", anyway, so I can play hats and snares cross-hands.
It all feels like a cheap toy drum set, but hey, that's what it is.
I fired up the game and it had some tutorials, but I think you learn just as fast by just diving in. The easiest mode was actually sorta hard to play. You didn't have to play that many notes, and although they were in time with the music, they barely made any sense.
As you went up in difficulty, the drum parts started matching the ACTUAL drum parts much more closely. So, they started making more sense. Problem is, they also got a lot more difficult to play. Coordinating with my bass-drum foot was the hardest part for me. I was playing "Getting Better" and there's one section with a repeating syncopated bass-drum beat. I still don't think I got it.
They measure you on your overall accuracy. And if you're in game mode, if you do poorly enough, they end the session/concert, and you just sorta fail. Otherwise, you finish the song and you get a percentage rating on how you did.
The drums were just a blast and a half.
I did find that it wasn't that easy to hit them and score. You had to be relatively in rhythm. At first, I tried playing it like a video game, reacting to the screen. However, the more I just tried for some musicality, and learned the pattern, the better things got.
I don't get the feeling that this teaches the fundamentals of playing actual drums, but it does teach some basic music fundamentals. It has some educational value.
My son came down and wanted to try out the drums. He's my pretense for getting this thing to begin with. So, I had to let him play. I figured I'd try the hofner bass. You can play either a "bass" part or a "guitar" part with it. All I can say is, as a guitar player, it was the stupidest experience I could ever imagine. It made no musical sense at all. It had nothing to do with music or playing a guitar. You probably could learn to play guitar faster by learning to type.
I heard somebody once say that a friend of theirs had so much fun playing guitar hero that they went out and bought a regular guitar in order to learn to play it. After having experienced it, I just don't see any possible way that this transitions to actual guitar playing in any way. It has zero in common. Actually, worse, it does things that are so unlike a guitar that it likely would make learning to play an actual guitar much harder.
So, after one song, I have pretty much resolved that I will never touch one of those fake plastic guitars again. What a stupid idea for a game. No wonder I was against these games for so long.
Finally, they included a microphone so you could sing along with the song on the TV. As you sang, it measured your pitch, and if you were close you got rated just as if you were playing the fake drums or fake guitar.
So, the verdict? Singing along was mildly entertaining. Playing the drums was a barrel of monkeys. Playing that guitar-thingie was a nightmare.
Total cost to buy the game system (which doubles as my only blue-ray player), with the beatles rock band and the extra cymbals was about $650, including all the tax.
Probably not the best investment, but half of that is the PS3, which is going to do double duty as a blue-ray player. Also, I enjoyed playing the game. So, even if my son is lukewarm to the idea, that's fine. I'll get my money's worth of enjoyment out of it.
And it'll give me an excuse to get some V-drums here in a few months.
The first thing that jumped out at me is that in all the pictures, it looks like there's a little fake bass-drum that says "beatles" on it, like Ringo's set circa 1963/64. However, what's in the box is actually a piece of fabric you can put on the drums. I haven't put it on.
Setup was very easy and intuitive. Took maybe 20 minutes to set up everything including the aftermarket cymbals.
Nobody had the Madcats 3 cymbal set around here. I bought two of the 2-cymbal sets. The way you play the game, it has 4 different colored drum heads. (Yellow, Red, Green and Blue) and the bass drum pedal.
During the songs, if you get, say, a high-hat part, you play it on the yellow drum head, which is your mounted tom. Makes no sense. Or, if you have cymbals (which you pay extra for, and which don't come with the kit), you can hit either the yellow drum head or the yellow cymbal. The game scores them both the same.
So, I unpacked the cymbal kits and discovered that you can only mount two of them on the rock band drum kit, itself. Not a biggie for me. I went upstairs and got a cymbal stand from my studio and used it for the hi-hat. I wanted the hat mounted to the left of the "snare", anyway, so I can play hats and snares cross-hands.
It all feels like a cheap toy drum set, but hey, that's what it is.
I fired up the game and it had some tutorials, but I think you learn just as fast by just diving in. The easiest mode was actually sorta hard to play. You didn't have to play that many notes, and although they were in time with the music, they barely made any sense.
As you went up in difficulty, the drum parts started matching the ACTUAL drum parts much more closely. So, they started making more sense. Problem is, they also got a lot more difficult to play. Coordinating with my bass-drum foot was the hardest part for me. I was playing "Getting Better" and there's one section with a repeating syncopated bass-drum beat. I still don't think I got it.
They measure you on your overall accuracy. And if you're in game mode, if you do poorly enough, they end the session/concert, and you just sorta fail. Otherwise, you finish the song and you get a percentage rating on how you did.
The drums were just a blast and a half.
I did find that it wasn't that easy to hit them and score. You had to be relatively in rhythm. At first, I tried playing it like a video game, reacting to the screen. However, the more I just tried for some musicality, and learned the pattern, the better things got.
I don't get the feeling that this teaches the fundamentals of playing actual drums, but it does teach some basic music fundamentals. It has some educational value.
My son came down and wanted to try out the drums. He's my pretense for getting this thing to begin with. So, I had to let him play. I figured I'd try the hofner bass. You can play either a "bass" part or a "guitar" part with it. All I can say is, as a guitar player, it was the stupidest experience I could ever imagine. It made no musical sense at all. It had nothing to do with music or playing a guitar. You probably could learn to play guitar faster by learning to type.
I heard somebody once say that a friend of theirs had so much fun playing guitar hero that they went out and bought a regular guitar in order to learn to play it. After having experienced it, I just don't see any possible way that this transitions to actual guitar playing in any way. It has zero in common. Actually, worse, it does things that are so unlike a guitar that it likely would make learning to play an actual guitar much harder.
So, after one song, I have pretty much resolved that I will never touch one of those fake plastic guitars again. What a stupid idea for a game. No wonder I was against these games for so long.
Finally, they included a microphone so you could sing along with the song on the TV. As you sang, it measured your pitch, and if you were close you got rated just as if you were playing the fake drums or fake guitar.
So, the verdict? Singing along was mildly entertaining. Playing the drums was a barrel of monkeys. Playing that guitar-thingie was a nightmare.
Total cost to buy the game system (which doubles as my only blue-ray player), with the beatles rock band and the extra cymbals was about $650, including all the tax.
Probably not the best investment, but half of that is the PS3, which is going to do double duty as a blue-ray player. Also, I enjoyed playing the game. So, even if my son is lukewarm to the idea, that's fine. I'll get my money's worth of enjoyment out of it.
And it'll give me an excuse to get some V-drums here in a few months.
The Rock Band Blog Entry
No, you juvenile degenerates, not "Rock Band" the game. I'm mean "rock band" as in "people who get together and play music"... and... well... rock band the game, but more on that later.
The Beatles just had their 9-9-09 launch of their remastered discs and their Rock Band game. I ordered the remastered boxed set from Amazon and they said they can't ship it for 3 more weeks. So, I've cancelled the order for now and will cruise Costco and Sam's Club today to see what's available.
Last night, saw Heart in concert. For a bunch of 50-somethings, they're amazing. Okay, the two sisters are amazing. The rest of the band is a bunch of younger road warriors that they put together as the most recent incarnation of Heart. One thing I noticed: the biggest difference between these road warriors and your garden variety cover band that plays at bars and parties is that the road warriors have an unbelievable rhythm section. The difference in the caliber of all the players is pretty obvious, but when it comes to bass and drums, the contrast is really, really vivid, in my opinion.
Which brings me to Rock Band. My son has Guitar Hero for the Wii. I didn't know until he told me the other night that the reason he never plays it is that he only has one guitar controller for it. So, he can't play it with his friends. He's not the kind of kid who plays video games by himself. He's just too social. He'll throw a baseball against a wall for a couple of hours, but won't waste hours on video games. I'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible. However, I might spring for another game controller for him. Especially if I can get one of the Stratocaster ones. It would at least reinforce how utterly cool a stratocaster really is.
Some of you who know me already know that I rail against the utter stupidit of people spending hours upon hours playing fake guitars in a manner that doesn't remotely approximate making music. If today's kids spent that sort of time playing actual guitars, we'd be raising an entire generation of Jimi Hendrixes and Jimmy Pages. Instead, we just continue to raise entire generations of fat dimwits who lack the life-skills to work at McDonalds because they fried their farging brains on video games for a decade and a half before graduating High School.
[/grumpy old man mode]
The other heartbreaking thing to me is that electric guitars are more affordable now than they ever were when I was a kid. When I was a youngster in the late 70s / early 80s, a standard Stratocaster (just called "a stratocaster" back then) cost about $450. Today, they've moved production of standard strats to Mexico. You can buy brand-new ones for $399 at everyday retail prices. I've played American strats of my era and Mexican Strats of the modern era and the mexicasters are better, period. (I actually have two of them.) Better sound, quality and playability. Adjusted for inflation, the $450 Strats of my childhood would be over a grand, today. (Which is about what the modern American Strats go for.)
Now, we also didn't have e-bay back then. So, you can't get the SCREAMIN' deals today that you could get on used stuff back then. A friend of mine once got a Gibson SG and a Peavey 250 watt combo amp for $250. I bought a 1959-ish Gretsch Chet Atkins for $160, once.
For most of my childhood, despite doing things like skipping lunch and saving my money for years on end, I couldn't afford a decent guitar. (Or ANY guitar, decent or otherwise.) I was lucky that my buddy, Stu, had a guitar that he'd let me play, and he knew enough about playing that he could teach me quite a bit. It wasn't until I graduated High School and got a job that I could afford decent instruments.
Not only that, but finding music to play was a chore. If one person knew a song, it spread through the neighborhood like wildfire. There weren't all these guitar magazines filled with tab transcriptions of rock songs back then. You had Mel Bay books with songs like, "Oats and Peas and Barley Grow". Kids today can get note-for-note transcriptions of every song Hendrix ever played! Not to mention youtube videos where people post how things are played.
So, for kids to be growing up in an era when the affordability of guitars is better than ever, and accessibility on how to play is better than ever, and instead be wasting their time, gaining no skills at all, playing a guitar-ish game just galls me.
[/grumpy old man mode off]
The bright side to all this is that my son is showing an interest in drums. I won't force him to play an instrument. However, I'll make it available to him to learn one and take lessons as he pleases. Every time somebody pronounces rock bands as totally irrelevant to young people, an act like the Jonas Brothers comes along and proves to the world, yet again, that a teenage boy is at the height of his powers if he's playing a guitar in a band.
I've been doing some researching and it turns out that in expert mode, these games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero are actually showing kids something analogous to the real drum parts of the songs. The basic plastic kits made for the games are basically like toys. However, there's an aftermarket drum kit called an Ion Rocker made by Alesis that is like an inexpensive electronic drum kit. Finally, you can buy converter boxes that let you connect your Roland V-drums, or Yamaha DTX kit to those video games and then you're playing actual drums (okay, actual "electronic" drums).
If he shows an interest, I can easily see making the trip to Dave's Drum Depot in Toledo to get him lessons and some real skins.
So, mission for today is to see if I can get the Beatles Boxed Set, a PS3 (it allows the most drums and cymbals for Rock Band of any of the platforms), the Beatles limited edition premium bundle (which includes a fake plastic Hofner bass controller), and a 3 cymbal expansion pack.
I'll gauge Logan's interest and if he really shows some interest, I'll be setting him up with some V-drums here, soon. Of course, they're for him... you know... wouldn't spend that kind of money just because I'd like them, too. That'd be extravagant and self-indulgent.
The Beatles just had their 9-9-09 launch of their remastered discs and their Rock Band game. I ordered the remastered boxed set from Amazon and they said they can't ship it for 3 more weeks. So, I've cancelled the order for now and will cruise Costco and Sam's Club today to see what's available.
Last night, saw Heart in concert. For a bunch of 50-somethings, they're amazing. Okay, the two sisters are amazing. The rest of the band is a bunch of younger road warriors that they put together as the most recent incarnation of Heart. One thing I noticed: the biggest difference between these road warriors and your garden variety cover band that plays at bars and parties is that the road warriors have an unbelievable rhythm section. The difference in the caliber of all the players is pretty obvious, but when it comes to bass and drums, the contrast is really, really vivid, in my opinion.
Which brings me to Rock Band. My son has Guitar Hero for the Wii. I didn't know until he told me the other night that the reason he never plays it is that he only has one guitar controller for it. So, he can't play it with his friends. He's not the kind of kid who plays video games by himself. He's just too social. He'll throw a baseball against a wall for a couple of hours, but won't waste hours on video games. I'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible. However, I might spring for another game controller for him. Especially if I can get one of the Stratocaster ones. It would at least reinforce how utterly cool a stratocaster really is.
Some of you who know me already know that I rail against the utter stupidit of people spending hours upon hours playing fake guitars in a manner that doesn't remotely approximate making music. If today's kids spent that sort of time playing actual guitars, we'd be raising an entire generation of Jimi Hendrixes and Jimmy Pages. Instead, we just continue to raise entire generations of fat dimwits who lack the life-skills to work at McDonalds because they fried their farging brains on video games for a decade and a half before graduating High School.
[/grumpy old man mode]
The other heartbreaking thing to me is that electric guitars are more affordable now than they ever were when I was a kid. When I was a youngster in the late 70s / early 80s, a standard Stratocaster (just called "a stratocaster" back then) cost about $450. Today, they've moved production of standard strats to Mexico. You can buy brand-new ones for $399 at everyday retail prices. I've played American strats of my era and Mexican Strats of the modern era and the mexicasters are better, period. (I actually have two of them.) Better sound, quality and playability. Adjusted for inflation, the $450 Strats of my childhood would be over a grand, today. (Which is about what the modern American Strats go for.)
Now, we also didn't have e-bay back then. So, you can't get the SCREAMIN' deals today that you could get on used stuff back then. A friend of mine once got a Gibson SG and a Peavey 250 watt combo amp for $250. I bought a 1959-ish Gretsch Chet Atkins for $160, once.
For most of my childhood, despite doing things like skipping lunch and saving my money for years on end, I couldn't afford a decent guitar. (Or ANY guitar, decent or otherwise.) I was lucky that my buddy, Stu, had a guitar that he'd let me play, and he knew enough about playing that he could teach me quite a bit. It wasn't until I graduated High School and got a job that I could afford decent instruments.
Not only that, but finding music to play was a chore. If one person knew a song, it spread through the neighborhood like wildfire. There weren't all these guitar magazines filled with tab transcriptions of rock songs back then. You had Mel Bay books with songs like, "Oats and Peas and Barley Grow". Kids today can get note-for-note transcriptions of every song Hendrix ever played! Not to mention youtube videos where people post how things are played.
So, for kids to be growing up in an era when the affordability of guitars is better than ever, and accessibility on how to play is better than ever, and instead be wasting their time, gaining no skills at all, playing a guitar-ish game just galls me.
[/grumpy old man mode off]
The bright side to all this is that my son is showing an interest in drums. I won't force him to play an instrument. However, I'll make it available to him to learn one and take lessons as he pleases. Every time somebody pronounces rock bands as totally irrelevant to young people, an act like the Jonas Brothers comes along and proves to the world, yet again, that a teenage boy is at the height of his powers if he's playing a guitar in a band.
I've been doing some researching and it turns out that in expert mode, these games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero are actually showing kids something analogous to the real drum parts of the songs. The basic plastic kits made for the games are basically like toys. However, there's an aftermarket drum kit called an Ion Rocker made by Alesis that is like an inexpensive electronic drum kit. Finally, you can buy converter boxes that let you connect your Roland V-drums, or Yamaha DTX kit to those video games and then you're playing actual drums (okay, actual "electronic" drums).
If he shows an interest, I can easily see making the trip to Dave's Drum Depot in Toledo to get him lessons and some real skins.
So, mission for today is to see if I can get the Beatles Boxed Set, a PS3 (it allows the most drums and cymbals for Rock Band of any of the platforms), the Beatles limited edition premium bundle (which includes a fake plastic Hofner bass controller), and a 3 cymbal expansion pack.
I'll gauge Logan's interest and if he really shows some interest, I'll be setting him up with some V-drums here, soon. Of course, they're for him... you know... wouldn't spend that kind of money just because I'd like them, too. That'd be extravagant and self-indulgent.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Awesome Old Guys: My Neighbor Herb
We had an elderly neighbor. A nice old fellow named Herb.
He was always very friendly to all of us. Especially to my son, Logan.
He had difficulty getting around. That didn't stop him, on multiple occassions, from showing up at Logan's baseball games. He'd shuffle up and sit down and watch the game.
I always wondered how he knew when the games were, but Logan would tell us later that Herb had asked when the game was, and Logan would tell him.
A remarkable exchange between a 6 year old and a man in his 80s. A person at the start of their lives and a person at the end.
Another neighbor used to clear Herb's driveway. His name was Bahl Bhat (like "Ball bat" he would tell me), and he was a professor at a local college. He passed away, unexpectedly, and at a relatively young age. After that, I took on the duty, myself, though I have to admit, I didn't always do the most thorough job.
Herb was sort of a marvel. We'd see him go out for a walk, dragging an oxygen bottle. He could hardly shuffle most of the time.
But no matter what, he always greeted you with a smile and a hearty greeting.
I'm embarassed to think of all the times when I was bearing the stress of my job or my business, where the best I could manage was a halfhearted wave in return.
I think this may hit my son sorta hard. He lost a great-grandmother this past year. However, he saw her only once a year, at best.
Herb was somebody he saw every day when the weather was nice. Every holiday, Herb would give Logan a little bag of candy. I remember even when Logan was too small to walk, after I built the swingset, Herb would walk over and talk to us when I'd take Logan out for a swing.
He was literally involved in Logan's life from the very beginning, to a greater degree than even Logan's own grandparents.
He had a yard man, Lee, who was the one who broke the news to me. He couldn't get through it without crying.
I miss Herb already. I would try now and then to knock on his door when we were having a picnic or party to see if he wanted to come over, but he seldom answered. He was very hard of hearing and I think he rested a lot.
I wish I could have done a lot more for him. It still stands out to me that he gave his word to a six year old boy that he'd come see him play baseball, and with great physical difficulty, that's exactly what he did on several occasions last year, to the surprise of both me and Logan's mother.
The baseball parks around here are massive. If you're lucky, it's only a quarter mile walk from your car to the baseball diamond, and this process frequently involves logging a lot of miles while you try to find which one, out of a dozen or so, the game is at. Had to be double hard for him to find them since he didn't know the other kids and parents like we did.
Just this past week, I was thinking I needed to get more involved when Herb wanted to see Logan by driving Herb to the game and helping him get around. I would have done that last year, but as I said, out of the blue, a few times, he'd just show up. After he did it the first time, I figured he probably fulfilled his obligation to Logan and that'd be the end of it. But he surprised us by showing up again to another game.
So often, folks will make half-hearted committments that they never intend to keep, especially to kids.
It never came as a surprise to Logan, though. With a smile, he'd just say, "Herb said he was going to come see me play today".
That whole exchange impresses me. First, that Logan knew when and where his games were to the point that he could relay this information to Herb. Second, that Herb took it on faith that a six year old was relaying accurate information to him, and didn't even bother to double check it with the kids' parents.
It was a little boy giving his word to an old man. And an old man giving his word in return. And both accepting each other at face value. And neither one disappointing the other.
If only the whole world could work like that.
We'll miss you, Herb.
He was always very friendly to all of us. Especially to my son, Logan.
He had difficulty getting around. That didn't stop him, on multiple occassions, from showing up at Logan's baseball games. He'd shuffle up and sit down and watch the game.
I always wondered how he knew when the games were, but Logan would tell us later that Herb had asked when the game was, and Logan would tell him.
A remarkable exchange between a 6 year old and a man in his 80s. A person at the start of their lives and a person at the end.
Another neighbor used to clear Herb's driveway. His name was Bahl Bhat (like "Ball bat" he would tell me), and he was a professor at a local college. He passed away, unexpectedly, and at a relatively young age. After that, I took on the duty, myself, though I have to admit, I didn't always do the most thorough job.
Herb was sort of a marvel. We'd see him go out for a walk, dragging an oxygen bottle. He could hardly shuffle most of the time.
But no matter what, he always greeted you with a smile and a hearty greeting.
I'm embarassed to think of all the times when I was bearing the stress of my job or my business, where the best I could manage was a halfhearted wave in return.
I think this may hit my son sorta hard. He lost a great-grandmother this past year. However, he saw her only once a year, at best.
Herb was somebody he saw every day when the weather was nice. Every holiday, Herb would give Logan a little bag of candy. I remember even when Logan was too small to walk, after I built the swingset, Herb would walk over and talk to us when I'd take Logan out for a swing.
He was literally involved in Logan's life from the very beginning, to a greater degree than even Logan's own grandparents.
He had a yard man, Lee, who was the one who broke the news to me. He couldn't get through it without crying.
I miss Herb already. I would try now and then to knock on his door when we were having a picnic or party to see if he wanted to come over, but he seldom answered. He was very hard of hearing and I think he rested a lot.
I wish I could have done a lot more for him. It still stands out to me that he gave his word to a six year old boy that he'd come see him play baseball, and with great physical difficulty, that's exactly what he did on several occasions last year, to the surprise of both me and Logan's mother.
The baseball parks around here are massive. If you're lucky, it's only a quarter mile walk from your car to the baseball diamond, and this process frequently involves logging a lot of miles while you try to find which one, out of a dozen or so, the game is at. Had to be double hard for him to find them since he didn't know the other kids and parents like we did.
Just this past week, I was thinking I needed to get more involved when Herb wanted to see Logan by driving Herb to the game and helping him get around. I would have done that last year, but as I said, out of the blue, a few times, he'd just show up. After he did it the first time, I figured he probably fulfilled his obligation to Logan and that'd be the end of it. But he surprised us by showing up again to another game.
So often, folks will make half-hearted committments that they never intend to keep, especially to kids.
It never came as a surprise to Logan, though. With a smile, he'd just say, "Herb said he was going to come see me play today".
That whole exchange impresses me. First, that Logan knew when and where his games were to the point that he could relay this information to Herb. Second, that Herb took it on faith that a six year old was relaying accurate information to him, and didn't even bother to double check it with the kids' parents.
It was a little boy giving his word to an old man. And an old man giving his word in return. And both accepting each other at face value. And neither one disappointing the other.
If only the whole world could work like that.
We'll miss you, Herb.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Cranky Old Men in Suburbia...
We live in a moderately priced neighborhood. It's not the nicest neighborhood in town. Not the 2nd nicest. Not even close. Prior to the real estate implosion, houses were going for $200,000 or so, well below the median price nationwide. Nowadays, I'd say they're going in the $150,000 to $160,000 range. Still very affordable to most people. Really, if you have $50,000 household income and can come up with the down-payment, you should be able to live in this neighborhood.
Like most nicer communities in Ohio, our property taxes are what I would consider high. Maybe $4,000 or so in our neighborhood, per year.
Still, I like it here. More expensive neighborhoods have fewer young children, and I like that my son has kids his age he can walk to visit. I enjoy having kids playing in the backyard. Even when we had crackhead neighbors, the downside of living near a big family that was constantly in your backyard was easily outweighed by the times they could play with my boy. Granted, in the case of these particular crackheads, the number of times their kids could play with other kids without injuring them wasn't so hot, but hey.
This neighborhood is also older. Most of the houses were built just prior to 1970. If you say "Grove Bel", a lot of folks in this area know exactly what you're talking about. They either lived here once, or knew somebody who did. Some of us are only here on our way to bigger and better houses. Some of us are here for good. It's just a good situation for everybody since we don't have to go broke to make our mortgage payments and it's a nice, safe neighborhood.
Most of the neighbors are just good folks. They'll help you if you need a hand. Like most neighborhoods, we don't know most of our neighbors, but the few we've met were friendly enough. If we made more of an effort to meet folks, we'd know more folks. In that respect, it's like neighborhoods everywhere.
Now, directly behind my house is the house of an older couple. They're retired. They're also the neighborhood's resident cranky old people.
Not that the kids have been particularly good around them. Once we had to punish our kids (yes, Logan, too) for climbing their TV tower and getting up on their roof.
Today, apparently, the kids were on a different neighbor's trampoline (which is basically a baited bone-snapping trap) and playing with balls of some sort. Two of the balls ended up in the cranky neighbor's yard.
The kids climbed the short fence to get the balls and one way or another, the neighbor came out, bitched them out and if my son is to be believed, said that if he ever saw them in his yard again, he'd kick their ass.
I can see where he's coming from on this one. I'm a person who thrives on courtesy and respect. I also can easily see how kids throwing balls into his backyard and climbing his fence could piss a guy right off.
Threatening to kick 8 year olds' asses, though? I'm tempted to call the police on that, since it's clearly a threat of bodily harm. It'd be no different than me walking over and telling him that if he threatens one more kid, I'll stomp the life out of his worthless old carcass.
I guess more than anything, I'm disappointed. I see where the guy is coming from. He's retired. He raised his own kids. He's probably thinking somewhere in there that back when dinosaurs roamed the planet and he had little kids, they never did anything bad, ever, and that they certainly never did anything so evil as climbing a neighbor's fence.
(The fences here are very short. About two and a half feet tall. They're split rail with chicken wire. And for the most part, they're rotting and falling down.)
However, the reality is that this is a neighborhood with a lot of young families and a lot of little kids running around. You have to make some allowances in a neighborhood like this. I mean, you don't threaten to kick a kid's ass if, for instance, you come home and he's playing basketball on the hoop in your backyard. (That's happened before... with the crackheads.)
That's what's disappointing to me. That he countered what is obviously a case of kids encroaching on his property with some rather objectionable language and a threat that was completely out of proportion to the offense.
If kids really annoy you that much, seriously, it's time to move into a condo and realize that you can't expect the entire universe to bend over backwards for you.
This is extra disappointing because Logan loved the elderly man who used to live next door: Herb. He also seemed to like the cranky bastard directly behind us until this chain of events transpired. He respects adults and loves the elderly.
This cranky old dingbat will erode both of those feelings, I hope not by much, but probably by some.
All in all, I think it's just best to warn the kids that they need to keep balls out of this guy's yard. If they get in there, they have to chalk it up that they're gone forever. The cranky old guy did get the balls and throw them out of his yard. However, he impresses me as the kind of guy who will probably just start throwing them away if he finds them back there.
For a lot of reasons, Logan will probably be living in this house, at least part of the year, until he graduates from High School and leaves. With longevity being what it is, this cranky old bastard will probably be here the entire time, too. He'll continue to linger on in his miserable old crankiness, doing his best to make sure that anybody he encounters is equally miserable, even if only for a moment.
Personally, I can relate a little bit to this cranky old guy. Living in the suburbs isn't my idea of ideal, either. If I had my way, I'd live out in the country, probably for the same reason this guy should: so I wouldn't have to deal with obnoxious neighbors. There's just no getting around that in the burbs. If you're easily annoyed, you're either pissed off that kids are tearing up your lawn, or you're pissed off that the cranky old bastard in the neighborhood is scaring the kids.
For as long as I live here, though, I figure I need to be civil, to give a lot and to tolerate a lot because that's how it goes in the burbs. If it gets to the point that I'm getting all worked up about kids setting foot in my yard, that will be all the indication I need that it is time to live somewhere else.
Like most nicer communities in Ohio, our property taxes are what I would consider high. Maybe $4,000 or so in our neighborhood, per year.
Still, I like it here. More expensive neighborhoods have fewer young children, and I like that my son has kids his age he can walk to visit. I enjoy having kids playing in the backyard. Even when we had crackhead neighbors, the downside of living near a big family that was constantly in your backyard was easily outweighed by the times they could play with my boy. Granted, in the case of these particular crackheads, the number of times their kids could play with other kids without injuring them wasn't so hot, but hey.
This neighborhood is also older. Most of the houses were built just prior to 1970. If you say "Grove Bel", a lot of folks in this area know exactly what you're talking about. They either lived here once, or knew somebody who did. Some of us are only here on our way to bigger and better houses. Some of us are here for good. It's just a good situation for everybody since we don't have to go broke to make our mortgage payments and it's a nice, safe neighborhood.
Most of the neighbors are just good folks. They'll help you if you need a hand. Like most neighborhoods, we don't know most of our neighbors, but the few we've met were friendly enough. If we made more of an effort to meet folks, we'd know more folks. In that respect, it's like neighborhoods everywhere.
Now, directly behind my house is the house of an older couple. They're retired. They're also the neighborhood's resident cranky old people.
Not that the kids have been particularly good around them. Once we had to punish our kids (yes, Logan, too) for climbing their TV tower and getting up on their roof.
Today, apparently, the kids were on a different neighbor's trampoline (which is basically a baited bone-snapping trap) and playing with balls of some sort. Two of the balls ended up in the cranky neighbor's yard.
The kids climbed the short fence to get the balls and one way or another, the neighbor came out, bitched them out and if my son is to be believed, said that if he ever saw them in his yard again, he'd kick their ass.
I can see where he's coming from on this one. I'm a person who thrives on courtesy and respect. I also can easily see how kids throwing balls into his backyard and climbing his fence could piss a guy right off.
Threatening to kick 8 year olds' asses, though? I'm tempted to call the police on that, since it's clearly a threat of bodily harm. It'd be no different than me walking over and telling him that if he threatens one more kid, I'll stomp the life out of his worthless old carcass.
I guess more than anything, I'm disappointed. I see where the guy is coming from. He's retired. He raised his own kids. He's probably thinking somewhere in there that back when dinosaurs roamed the planet and he had little kids, they never did anything bad, ever, and that they certainly never did anything so evil as climbing a neighbor's fence.
(The fences here are very short. About two and a half feet tall. They're split rail with chicken wire. And for the most part, they're rotting and falling down.)
However, the reality is that this is a neighborhood with a lot of young families and a lot of little kids running around. You have to make some allowances in a neighborhood like this. I mean, you don't threaten to kick a kid's ass if, for instance, you come home and he's playing basketball on the hoop in your backyard. (That's happened before... with the crackheads.)
That's what's disappointing to me. That he countered what is obviously a case of kids encroaching on his property with some rather objectionable language and a threat that was completely out of proportion to the offense.
If kids really annoy you that much, seriously, it's time to move into a condo and realize that you can't expect the entire universe to bend over backwards for you.
This is extra disappointing because Logan loved the elderly man who used to live next door: Herb. He also seemed to like the cranky bastard directly behind us until this chain of events transpired. He respects adults and loves the elderly.
This cranky old dingbat will erode both of those feelings, I hope not by much, but probably by some.
All in all, I think it's just best to warn the kids that they need to keep balls out of this guy's yard. If they get in there, they have to chalk it up that they're gone forever. The cranky old guy did get the balls and throw them out of his yard. However, he impresses me as the kind of guy who will probably just start throwing them away if he finds them back there.
For a lot of reasons, Logan will probably be living in this house, at least part of the year, until he graduates from High School and leaves. With longevity being what it is, this cranky old bastard will probably be here the entire time, too. He'll continue to linger on in his miserable old crankiness, doing his best to make sure that anybody he encounters is equally miserable, even if only for a moment.
Personally, I can relate a little bit to this cranky old guy. Living in the suburbs isn't my idea of ideal, either. If I had my way, I'd live out in the country, probably for the same reason this guy should: so I wouldn't have to deal with obnoxious neighbors. There's just no getting around that in the burbs. If you're easily annoyed, you're either pissed off that kids are tearing up your lawn, or you're pissed off that the cranky old bastard in the neighborhood is scaring the kids.
For as long as I live here, though, I figure I need to be civil, to give a lot and to tolerate a lot because that's how it goes in the burbs. If it gets to the point that I'm getting all worked up about kids setting foot in my yard, that will be all the indication I need that it is time to live somewhere else.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Master of Disaster
One of the reasons I chose to go into disaster restoration was that the business was essentially actuarial in nature. If you walk into any insurance company's office, they can tell you, with some precision, how many claims they'll be paying out in the next year. There are always disasters happening to people's homes.
Granted, the slow economy has hurt us in ways that may not be obvious. For instance, if you have unemployed friends and relatives with construction skills, you might choose to have them restore your home, instead of a professional restoration company, like mine.
Still, overall, some percentage of people will need help. I figured no matter what, there'd probably always be some business for me to do.
Trouble is, the business doesn't come in a nice, steady stream. Sometimes we're so busy we are literally having difficulty keeping up. If you walk into our office that day with an impressive resume, we might literally hire you on the spot.
Other times, things are dead slow. We have been that way for the past 3 weeks. Dead slow, as in plans to cut everybody's hours were closerthanthis to being implemented and the next step was to lay off as much as 1/3 of my workforce.
Still, I held on because I knew, eventually, we'd be busy again. There's just no way to know when.
We've grown quickly in my company. That has presented its own set of problems. We've had to borrow money to buy equipment so our capacity was able to meet customer demand. We have never really had an excess of cash in the business. We have had to spend a lot of money to train and equip everybody. In the past year, alone, I've bought 3 vehicles for the company. (Last year, we had 6. One of them basically died. Now, we have 8.)
So, when slow times come, there's not some huge cushion of cash we can draw on. Small business is its own universe. One of the ways it is unique is that in most cases, the owner is the only financial "backstop" there is. Once I run out of money, the business runs out of money. We then become insolvent and perhaps bankrupt.
During my first year of business, I sold over $10,000 worth of musical instruments and recording equipment because of a business slowdown. Fortunately for me, that was able to tide me over for two months until things could pick up a little bit.
These days, with as many people as I employ, and as much overhead as we carry, it would be nothing for me to burn through six-figures in just a couple of months. Suffice to say, that's an amount of money that can ruin most people, and in this case, I'm no different than "most people".
I enjoy being in business for myself, but it is always obvious that my financial well-being is in-play. Every day the doors are open, I take a risk. To me, it's not just a risk to me, but also to my family. A lot of people get hurt if this thing craters, and some of them I'll be seeing regularly for the rest of my life.
That's one reason why I cringe when politicians make attacks against high wage-earners. Many of these so-called "wealthy" are small business owners just like me.
It's important to note that my total compensation as a small business owner should really be considered two separate components. I get paid for my labor: basically the things I do to run this place. I also get paid for my investment: I need an economic rate of return in order to keep my money in the business.
Without that economic rate of return, I have no incentive to risk my money. I'd either sell the business, or sell off the assets and sit on my money collecting a risk-free rate of return. Every day I leave my money in my business, basically my entire net worth is tied up in a single, undiversified investment.
Granted, the "undiversified investment" is a business that I, personally, run, but I'm not going to put so much of my net-worth into an endeavor if there isn't a good prospect of an economic return on my money.
I am very happy being a capitalist. It has benefitted me, personally, but it has also benefitted the dozen people who I employ. It benefits our community and our country with the taxes we pay. Our customers benefit from quality services.
So, it pains me to no end to hear the efforts of entrepreneurs described in terms of "greed" and the need to punish us with increase taxes. Accept it or not, I don't see that I'm doing anything wrong. To the contrary, I believe I'm doing a whole lot of good.
In any event, the past 3 weeks were the worst we've had in about a year and a half, near as I can figure. The tide appears to have turned, though. This is our slow time of year. Things are touch and go until about December, sometimes as early as November. That's when the real cold weather comes and all heck breaks loose.
We jumped the track and it will take 3 solid months for us to finish the year at over a million dollars. Still, worst-case and we'll have increased sales by about 10% this year. In an economy like this when so many others are struggling, that's not half bad. It's not out of the question to hit a million... we'd just have to have some serious good fortune for the rest of the year.
We never did have to lay anybody off these past few weeks. I paid a lot of folks to do some tasks that came dangerously close to busy-work, but never even so much as asked an employee to clock out early. We've never laid anybody off since I opened the doors. That is a streak I hope I can maintain.
Times like these, it pays to stay positive. It's already the middle of September, and this year's busy season is right around the corner.
Granted, the slow economy has hurt us in ways that may not be obvious. For instance, if you have unemployed friends and relatives with construction skills, you might choose to have them restore your home, instead of a professional restoration company, like mine.
Still, overall, some percentage of people will need help. I figured no matter what, there'd probably always be some business for me to do.
Trouble is, the business doesn't come in a nice, steady stream. Sometimes we're so busy we are literally having difficulty keeping up. If you walk into our office that day with an impressive resume, we might literally hire you on the spot.
Other times, things are dead slow. We have been that way for the past 3 weeks. Dead slow, as in plans to cut everybody's hours were closerthanthis to being implemented and the next step was to lay off as much as 1/3 of my workforce.
Still, I held on because I knew, eventually, we'd be busy again. There's just no way to know when.
We've grown quickly in my company. That has presented its own set of problems. We've had to borrow money to buy equipment so our capacity was able to meet customer demand. We have never really had an excess of cash in the business. We have had to spend a lot of money to train and equip everybody. In the past year, alone, I've bought 3 vehicles for the company. (Last year, we had 6. One of them basically died. Now, we have 8.)
So, when slow times come, there's not some huge cushion of cash we can draw on. Small business is its own universe. One of the ways it is unique is that in most cases, the owner is the only financial "backstop" there is. Once I run out of money, the business runs out of money. We then become insolvent and perhaps bankrupt.
During my first year of business, I sold over $10,000 worth of musical instruments and recording equipment because of a business slowdown. Fortunately for me, that was able to tide me over for two months until things could pick up a little bit.
These days, with as many people as I employ, and as much overhead as we carry, it would be nothing for me to burn through six-figures in just a couple of months. Suffice to say, that's an amount of money that can ruin most people, and in this case, I'm no different than "most people".
I enjoy being in business for myself, but it is always obvious that my financial well-being is in-play. Every day the doors are open, I take a risk. To me, it's not just a risk to me, but also to my family. A lot of people get hurt if this thing craters, and some of them I'll be seeing regularly for the rest of my life.
That's one reason why I cringe when politicians make attacks against high wage-earners. Many of these so-called "wealthy" are small business owners just like me.
It's important to note that my total compensation as a small business owner should really be considered two separate components. I get paid for my labor: basically the things I do to run this place. I also get paid for my investment: I need an economic rate of return in order to keep my money in the business.
Without that economic rate of return, I have no incentive to risk my money. I'd either sell the business, or sell off the assets and sit on my money collecting a risk-free rate of return. Every day I leave my money in my business, basically my entire net worth is tied up in a single, undiversified investment.
Granted, the "undiversified investment" is a business that I, personally, run, but I'm not going to put so much of my net-worth into an endeavor if there isn't a good prospect of an economic return on my money.
I am very happy being a capitalist. It has benefitted me, personally, but it has also benefitted the dozen people who I employ. It benefits our community and our country with the taxes we pay. Our customers benefit from quality services.
So, it pains me to no end to hear the efforts of entrepreneurs described in terms of "greed" and the need to punish us with increase taxes. Accept it or not, I don't see that I'm doing anything wrong. To the contrary, I believe I'm doing a whole lot of good.
In any event, the past 3 weeks were the worst we've had in about a year and a half, near as I can figure. The tide appears to have turned, though. This is our slow time of year. Things are touch and go until about December, sometimes as early as November. That's when the real cold weather comes and all heck breaks loose.
We jumped the track and it will take 3 solid months for us to finish the year at over a million dollars. Still, worst-case and we'll have increased sales by about 10% this year. In an economy like this when so many others are struggling, that's not half bad. It's not out of the question to hit a million... we'd just have to have some serious good fortune for the rest of the year.
We never did have to lay anybody off these past few weeks. I paid a lot of folks to do some tasks that came dangerously close to busy-work, but never even so much as asked an employee to clock out early. We've never laid anybody off since I opened the doors. That is a streak I hope I can maintain.
Times like these, it pays to stay positive. It's already the middle of September, and this year's busy season is right around the corner.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
How to Choose a Franchise
With the economy in this condition, people are losing jobs. When folks lose jobs, some percent of them will opt to strike out on their own and start their own business, rather than looking for a job.
Some percentage of those people are going to be drawn to the allure of a franchise. So, I'm going to try and outline a few general principles for people who are considering going down this path. To me, being a franchisee has been a phenomenal experience. I am thankful every day that I was fortunate enough to find my franchise system. I think the support I get from them is great. I think the business model they provide is outstanding. It has improved my life in every conceivable way.
However, that's not the case for everybody. Franchisees go out of business every day. In fact, a few recent studies have indicated that franchise-startups fail at about the same proportion as independent (non-franchise) business start-ups.
If you're like I was, you'll probably take every penny you've ever earned and invest it in your new business. The thought of rebuilding from zero in my 40s wasn't particularly appealing to me. So, I wanted to stack the odds in my favor.
I did this by researching franchises. They're not all good. A rough thumbnail, in my opinion, is that if you took a list of all your available franchises, 95% of them will lead to your bankruptcy. Now, in that list will be a lot of new, smaller, unproven systems. Still, this is just to impress upon you that just because you're buying into a franchise system doesn't mean you won't go broke.
The first step in researching is to find out what your available capital to invest is. How much actual cash (non-borrowed) can you put your hands on. Most franchises have what they call a "liquidity requirement" meaning they won't sell you a franchise if you don't have, say, $100,000 in cash. Different systems require different liquidity and I'm aware of a few that require a seven-figure liquidity number before you can talk to them.
Take this liquidity number seriously. If you ask me, most liquidity numbers are understated. Meaning, if they say you need $100,000, the actual number is probably closer to $150,000. They're literally telling you the DEAD MINIMUM cash you should have on hand before considering what they have to offer. A good franchise system will know what they're talking about on this.
The liquidity requirement will cut down your options substantially. You won't be able to buy into, say, Volvo Rents if you only have $50,000 to invest.
Start with a list of all available franchises and then whittle it down to the ones you qualify for, financially.
Lists are available in a lot of places. The one that was my favorite was the listing on Entrepreneur.com.
After that, look for other qualifications. Many of the better food-service concepts do not want you if you don't have previous multi-unit food service management experience. Others prohibit absentee owners. Don't fudge your qualifications. If you can't do the thing full-time, look for concepts that allow absentee owners. Again, a quality franchise system has good reasons for their requirements.
Now comes the real legwork. Every franchise system in the US is required to have a Uniform Franchise Offerring Circular. Some will require an application fee to see their UFOC. Some will not let you see it until you fill out a detailed application.
However, in some cases, you can get around this by searching for the UFOC on the Caleasi site:
http://134.186.208.228/caleasi/pub/exsearch.htm
Review this document and have some good questions ready.
Next, pick up a telephone and call people who are currently in the system. My advice: don't wait until you're deep in the process to do this. Just do it. There is no law or rule against it. Some folks won't want to talk to you. Some folks will chat your ear off. Just be honest: tell them you're considering investing your life savings into their franchise system and you want to know their experiences as an owner.
Not everybody will be sympathetic enough to cooperate, but some will. Listen to them. They will tell you the good in their system, but they'll tell you the bad, too. I was warned off of many, many bad systems and market segments by owners who took the time to give me the real scoop.
I cannot emphasize enough how these interviews will inform your decision. If you take a UFOC to an attorney, they'll tell you that the franchise agreement is completely biased in favor of the franchisor and you'd be foolish to sign it. From an attorney's perspective, they're right.
From a business perspective, though, they may not be. However, an owner will be more than happy to tell you when they feel their franchise system is screwing them over.
Sometimes, I was able to get hold of somebody who USED to be part of a franchise system, but got out. Not all of them were negative towards their old franchisor, but many were. Mostly, they were very honest and objective because they truly had no reason to flower things up at all.
If you can get somebody to agree to let you visit their facility, that's worth a lot. I would even advise volunterring to WORK for the franchisor for a day or a week or whatever, to get a feel for what life is really like in the franchise system.
Once you've conducted your research, you can submit your application, application fee, and schedule your visits to the franchisor. At that point, you should already have a good idea what you're getting yourself into.
A final note regarding franchises: some folks consider this the minor-leagues of small business. Whereas, more conventional entrepreneurs are the big leagues. I think that's not particularly true. Many franchise concepts allow you to grow into a business with sales of $10 million, and in many cases even more. Franchising is not better than, or worse than other more entrepreneurial business concepts. It's just an option that's available to you.
Best of luck if you chose to go this route, but chose carefully. It has the potential to be either the best or worst decision you've ever made.
Some percentage of those people are going to be drawn to the allure of a franchise. So, I'm going to try and outline a few general principles for people who are considering going down this path. To me, being a franchisee has been a phenomenal experience. I am thankful every day that I was fortunate enough to find my franchise system. I think the support I get from them is great. I think the business model they provide is outstanding. It has improved my life in every conceivable way.
However, that's not the case for everybody. Franchisees go out of business every day. In fact, a few recent studies have indicated that franchise-startups fail at about the same proportion as independent (non-franchise) business start-ups.
If you're like I was, you'll probably take every penny you've ever earned and invest it in your new business. The thought of rebuilding from zero in my 40s wasn't particularly appealing to me. So, I wanted to stack the odds in my favor.
I did this by researching franchises. They're not all good. A rough thumbnail, in my opinion, is that if you took a list of all your available franchises, 95% of them will lead to your bankruptcy. Now, in that list will be a lot of new, smaller, unproven systems. Still, this is just to impress upon you that just because you're buying into a franchise system doesn't mean you won't go broke.
The first step in researching is to find out what your available capital to invest is. How much actual cash (non-borrowed) can you put your hands on. Most franchises have what they call a "liquidity requirement" meaning they won't sell you a franchise if you don't have, say, $100,000 in cash. Different systems require different liquidity and I'm aware of a few that require a seven-figure liquidity number before you can talk to them.
Take this liquidity number seriously. If you ask me, most liquidity numbers are understated. Meaning, if they say you need $100,000, the actual number is probably closer to $150,000. They're literally telling you the DEAD MINIMUM cash you should have on hand before considering what they have to offer. A good franchise system will know what they're talking about on this.
The liquidity requirement will cut down your options substantially. You won't be able to buy into, say, Volvo Rents if you only have $50,000 to invest.
Start with a list of all available franchises and then whittle it down to the ones you qualify for, financially.
Lists are available in a lot of places. The one that was my favorite was the listing on Entrepreneur.com.
After that, look for other qualifications. Many of the better food-service concepts do not want you if you don't have previous multi-unit food service management experience. Others prohibit absentee owners. Don't fudge your qualifications. If you can't do the thing full-time, look for concepts that allow absentee owners. Again, a quality franchise system has good reasons for their requirements.
Now comes the real legwork. Every franchise system in the US is required to have a Uniform Franchise Offerring Circular. Some will require an application fee to see their UFOC. Some will not let you see it until you fill out a detailed application.
However, in some cases, you can get around this by searching for the UFOC on the Caleasi site:
http://134.186.208.228/caleasi/pub/exsearch.htm
Review this document and have some good questions ready.
Next, pick up a telephone and call people who are currently in the system. My advice: don't wait until you're deep in the process to do this. Just do it. There is no law or rule against it. Some folks won't want to talk to you. Some folks will chat your ear off. Just be honest: tell them you're considering investing your life savings into their franchise system and you want to know their experiences as an owner.
Not everybody will be sympathetic enough to cooperate, but some will. Listen to them. They will tell you the good in their system, but they'll tell you the bad, too. I was warned off of many, many bad systems and market segments by owners who took the time to give me the real scoop.
I cannot emphasize enough how these interviews will inform your decision. If you take a UFOC to an attorney, they'll tell you that the franchise agreement is completely biased in favor of the franchisor and you'd be foolish to sign it. From an attorney's perspective, they're right.
From a business perspective, though, they may not be. However, an owner will be more than happy to tell you when they feel their franchise system is screwing them over.
Sometimes, I was able to get hold of somebody who USED to be part of a franchise system, but got out. Not all of them were negative towards their old franchisor, but many were. Mostly, they were very honest and objective because they truly had no reason to flower things up at all.
If you can get somebody to agree to let you visit their facility, that's worth a lot. I would even advise volunterring to WORK for the franchisor for a day or a week or whatever, to get a feel for what life is really like in the franchise system.
Once you've conducted your research, you can submit your application, application fee, and schedule your visits to the franchisor. At that point, you should already have a good idea what you're getting yourself into.
A final note regarding franchises: some folks consider this the minor-leagues of small business. Whereas, more conventional entrepreneurs are the big leagues. I think that's not particularly true. Many franchise concepts allow you to grow into a business with sales of $10 million, and in many cases even more. Franchising is not better than, or worse than other more entrepreneurial business concepts. It's just an option that's available to you.
Best of luck if you chose to go this route, but chose carefully. It has the potential to be either the best or worst decision you've ever made.
Comments on Obama's Health Care Speech...
One of the really nice things about being in the radical middle is that I am allowed to try and embrace the best of ideas from both the left and the right. My inclinations are somewhat to the conservative side of the fence, but frankly, the conservatives can be ass-stupid sometimes. I just find that in a few more instances, the liberals can be ass-stupider.
That sort of goes along with the territory, as the definition of conservatism generally means "conserving" an existing order and liberalism generally involves tinkering with the formula. The liberals have the harder job: trying to make improvements on systems that have been proven throughout the entire course of human history.
As some who know me already know, I support Obama's government health care reform. In fact, I support some of the more radical options including a government-option. My preferrence would be a Medicare for all provision that allowed every American the ability to enroll in the same health insurance program that our seniors do.
I have some personal perspective on this. I didn't have health insurance for a few years during my 20s. Fortunately, I was young and healthy, but I also had to pay for things like an ambulance ride to the ER when a little kid cut my wrist open with an ice-skate. I also remember removing my stitches with a swiss army knife because I couldn't afford a doctor visit to have a physician do it.
Also, as a small business owner, I simply cannot afford to provide health-insurance to my employees the way we currently fund health care in this country. I know that a government overhaul that included adding health benefits would be expensive to me. However, my hope is that it would be possible, which it isn't right now.
We are paying 2 to 3 times more, per patient, on health care in this country than any other industrialized country. I know that providing health insurance to every American will be expensive, but it makes sense that the following areas are areas for improvement:
1. Trial lawyers are not improving the health of americans. Threat of litigation drives insurers and physicians to perform unnecessary tests and procedures and adds to the cost of health care. Trial lawyers would argue that without the ability to sue, doctors would not perform good medicine. However, if this were true, we'd have the best medicine the world had to offer. We don't. In many cases, our health outcomes are actually WORSE than those of other industrialized nations.
2. We pay 2 to 3 times more per patient on health care in the US than any other industrialized country. The medical industry is remarkably non-standardized. There are centers of excellence that produce superior health outcomes at lower costs. The Mayo Clinic is one such center. We need to do a better job of proliferating best-practices through the health care industry.
3. The pharmaceutical companies are thieves and are stealing from you just because you're American. They want to destroy the American economy and to prove it, they're charging you about twice what most other industrialized countries pay for pharmaceuticals. They're charging you 20 or 30 or 40 times what they charge in the developing world? Why? Because we'll pay it.
All we have to do is say we won't pay it, just like everybody else in the world has done, and they'll stop. Trouble is, their lobbyists are constantly trying to protect their right to steal from Americans. So far, they're doing a great job. Any meaningful reform of American health care would include constraints on pharmaceutical costs. I'm not advocating that we pay any less than any other industrialized country. I just don't think that paying 50% or 100% or 150% more should be allowed.
There are other ways we could control costs: for instance, insisting that we can import pharmaceuticals from any other country in a fee-trade zone. That way, we could import drugs from Mexico and save 80% or so. They've already retaliated by threatening not to sell pharmaceuticals to any country that exports them to the United States. We should counter-threaten to deny the US market, entirely, to any pharmaceutical company that violates free-trade agreements and takes punative action against free-trade partners. Personally, I wish our legislators would use threats like this as a club to get big pharma to stop trying to destroy the United States.
If I had my way, I'd take every major executive from every major pharmaceutical company one-on-one into a locked room for 30 minutes and show them the error of their ways. These are America-hating, profiteering organizations who are trying to bankrupt us. Just us. Not Canada. Not Japan. Not Great Brittain. Not Germany or France. Just the United States of America.
4. Although aggregate costs will rise moderately, individual health policy cost should, in theory, go down. Why? Because we've got a terrible free-rider problem in America. Employers (like me) who don't offer health insurance benefit if spouses of our workers have health insurance. ANOTHER COMPANY is subsidizing the health-care of some of my employees.
Why, you might ask, don't I insure my employees and right this wrong? One of the main reasons is that I can't afford to subsidize the health-care of SOME OTHER COMPANY'S employees.
Also, as we all know, uninsured people will sometimes delay care until they have to be taken to a hospital where they receive the most expensive health-care we can offer: the emergency room. With regular access to a physician, we may be able to avoid some of these $1,000 ER visits by providing a few $80 periodic checkups.
Overall, I'm not naive. I know this will cost money. However, we're already insuring our nation's most expensive patients: the elderly and the poor.
When my business was very new, I had a person who worked in my office who made $8 or $9 an hour. She supported 2 kids and a worthless sperm-donor baby daddy. They had better health-care at lower copays and deductibles, than my family did under the plan I was paying for, myself.
So, the idea that "government health care" is worse than what we're getting through private insurance is laughable, in my opinion.
One problem occurred to me as Obama said these words about detractors of Ted Kennedy, a long-time supporter of a government health-care plan: "In their mind, his passion for universal health care was nothing more than a passion for big government."
Trouble is, it isn't like that. The problem with Kennedy is that people perceive that his passion for big government was simply manifesting itself at the moment in a passion for universal health care.
I believe health care is a necessary and important government service. However, the left's willingness to tax everybody to death and try to provide a wasteful government solution to every problem has left people wary.
On this, I will only say: let's not shoot the messenger in this case. Not every government program is bad. Yes, if the left weren't so willing to tax every possible penny away from us, and to waste our money on pointless, stupid and useless government programs, there wouldn't be such a "boy who cried wolf" aspect to this entire debate.
Which leads me to the next resonant thing Obama said:
"the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years - less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration".
At first, I cringed. The fundamental need of Democrats to demonize and punish successful people is one of the more embarassing things about the Democratic party, in my opinion. They may as well come out and say, "We're losers. We'll always be losers. We can't achieve anything. But we can get together and drag down anybody who won't be a loser just like us."
Putting aside the class-warfare implications of his statement, though, there are things that are sometimes worth the cost. Again, yes, if the Democrats didn't have such an extensive history of simply taxing for the sake of taxing, and spending for the sake of spending, they would be taken more seriously. However, the Republicans, under George Bush, were guilty of the same thing, just to a much smaller extent.
I can't help but believe that the one and only government initiative that I can see justifying a rollback of tax cuts, or even justifying an increase of taxes, is the ability to finally provide some health-care security to everybody, and to extend coverage to the 30 or 40 million Americans who currently lack it.
It was refreshing to see Obama finally take the lead on this issue. He made a grave error by turning this thing over to congressional Democrats to sort out. Granted, he was trying not to repeat the mistakes of the Clinton health initiative, but handing his program over to a bunch of special-interest whores was a bad idea from the start. I'd be surprised if more than a dozen of them gave a damn about health care for anybody. The few things they managed to produce were written entirely by lobbyists. For example: the number of proposals that preserved big pharma's ability to destroy America were astounding. The provisions that made everybody sacrifice, except the labor unions, was impressive. And not one single proposal to curtail the cost of litigation was brought forth.
I trust Obama. I think he's an honest man and a brilliant man. I don't agree with his politics a lot of the time, but I think he's smart enough to learn.
Most of all, I trust him more than I trust the lobbyists who own Washington. So, I'm glad he's taking charge of this debte.
That sort of goes along with the territory, as the definition of conservatism generally means "conserving" an existing order and liberalism generally involves tinkering with the formula. The liberals have the harder job: trying to make improvements on systems that have been proven throughout the entire course of human history.
As some who know me already know, I support Obama's government health care reform. In fact, I support some of the more radical options including a government-option. My preferrence would be a Medicare for all provision that allowed every American the ability to enroll in the same health insurance program that our seniors do.
I have some personal perspective on this. I didn't have health insurance for a few years during my 20s. Fortunately, I was young and healthy, but I also had to pay for things like an ambulance ride to the ER when a little kid cut my wrist open with an ice-skate. I also remember removing my stitches with a swiss army knife because I couldn't afford a doctor visit to have a physician do it.
Also, as a small business owner, I simply cannot afford to provide health-insurance to my employees the way we currently fund health care in this country. I know that a government overhaul that included adding health benefits would be expensive to me. However, my hope is that it would be possible, which it isn't right now.
We are paying 2 to 3 times more, per patient, on health care in this country than any other industrialized country. I know that providing health insurance to every American will be expensive, but it makes sense that the following areas are areas for improvement:
1. Trial lawyers are not improving the health of americans. Threat of litigation drives insurers and physicians to perform unnecessary tests and procedures and adds to the cost of health care. Trial lawyers would argue that without the ability to sue, doctors would not perform good medicine. However, if this were true, we'd have the best medicine the world had to offer. We don't. In many cases, our health outcomes are actually WORSE than those of other industrialized nations.
2. We pay 2 to 3 times more per patient on health care in the US than any other industrialized country. The medical industry is remarkably non-standardized. There are centers of excellence that produce superior health outcomes at lower costs. The Mayo Clinic is one such center. We need to do a better job of proliferating best-practices through the health care industry.
3. The pharmaceutical companies are thieves and are stealing from you just because you're American. They want to destroy the American economy and to prove it, they're charging you about twice what most other industrialized countries pay for pharmaceuticals. They're charging you 20 or 30 or 40 times what they charge in the developing world? Why? Because we'll pay it.
All we have to do is say we won't pay it, just like everybody else in the world has done, and they'll stop. Trouble is, their lobbyists are constantly trying to protect their right to steal from Americans. So far, they're doing a great job. Any meaningful reform of American health care would include constraints on pharmaceutical costs. I'm not advocating that we pay any less than any other industrialized country. I just don't think that paying 50% or 100% or 150% more should be allowed.
There are other ways we could control costs: for instance, insisting that we can import pharmaceuticals from any other country in a fee-trade zone. That way, we could import drugs from Mexico and save 80% or so. They've already retaliated by threatening not to sell pharmaceuticals to any country that exports them to the United States. We should counter-threaten to deny the US market, entirely, to any pharmaceutical company that violates free-trade agreements and takes punative action against free-trade partners. Personally, I wish our legislators would use threats like this as a club to get big pharma to stop trying to destroy the United States.
If I had my way, I'd take every major executive from every major pharmaceutical company one-on-one into a locked room for 30 minutes and show them the error of their ways. These are America-hating, profiteering organizations who are trying to bankrupt us. Just us. Not Canada. Not Japan. Not Great Brittain. Not Germany or France. Just the United States of America.
4. Although aggregate costs will rise moderately, individual health policy cost should, in theory, go down. Why? Because we've got a terrible free-rider problem in America. Employers (like me) who don't offer health insurance benefit if spouses of our workers have health insurance. ANOTHER COMPANY is subsidizing the health-care of some of my employees.
Why, you might ask, don't I insure my employees and right this wrong? One of the main reasons is that I can't afford to subsidize the health-care of SOME OTHER COMPANY'S employees.
Also, as we all know, uninsured people will sometimes delay care until they have to be taken to a hospital where they receive the most expensive health-care we can offer: the emergency room. With regular access to a physician, we may be able to avoid some of these $1,000 ER visits by providing a few $80 periodic checkups.
Overall, I'm not naive. I know this will cost money. However, we're already insuring our nation's most expensive patients: the elderly and the poor.
When my business was very new, I had a person who worked in my office who made $8 or $9 an hour. She supported 2 kids and a worthless sperm-donor baby daddy. They had better health-care at lower copays and deductibles, than my family did under the plan I was paying for, myself.
So, the idea that "government health care" is worse than what we're getting through private insurance is laughable, in my opinion.
One problem occurred to me as Obama said these words about detractors of Ted Kennedy, a long-time supporter of a government health-care plan: "In their mind, his passion for universal health care was nothing more than a passion for big government."
Trouble is, it isn't like that. The problem with Kennedy is that people perceive that his passion for big government was simply manifesting itself at the moment in a passion for universal health care.
I believe health care is a necessary and important government service. However, the left's willingness to tax everybody to death and try to provide a wasteful government solution to every problem has left people wary.
On this, I will only say: let's not shoot the messenger in this case. Not every government program is bad. Yes, if the left weren't so willing to tax every possible penny away from us, and to waste our money on pointless, stupid and useless government programs, there wouldn't be such a "boy who cried wolf" aspect to this entire debate.
Which leads me to the next resonant thing Obama said:
"the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years - less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration".
At first, I cringed. The fundamental need of Democrats to demonize and punish successful people is one of the more embarassing things about the Democratic party, in my opinion. They may as well come out and say, "We're losers. We'll always be losers. We can't achieve anything. But we can get together and drag down anybody who won't be a loser just like us."
Putting aside the class-warfare implications of his statement, though, there are things that are sometimes worth the cost. Again, yes, if the Democrats didn't have such an extensive history of simply taxing for the sake of taxing, and spending for the sake of spending, they would be taken more seriously. However, the Republicans, under George Bush, were guilty of the same thing, just to a much smaller extent.
I can't help but believe that the one and only government initiative that I can see justifying a rollback of tax cuts, or even justifying an increase of taxes, is the ability to finally provide some health-care security to everybody, and to extend coverage to the 30 or 40 million Americans who currently lack it.
It was refreshing to see Obama finally take the lead on this issue. He made a grave error by turning this thing over to congressional Democrats to sort out. Granted, he was trying not to repeat the mistakes of the Clinton health initiative, but handing his program over to a bunch of special-interest whores was a bad idea from the start. I'd be surprised if more than a dozen of them gave a damn about health care for anybody. The few things they managed to produce were written entirely by lobbyists. For example: the number of proposals that preserved big pharma's ability to destroy America were astounding. The provisions that made everybody sacrifice, except the labor unions, was impressive. And not one single proposal to curtail the cost of litigation was brought forth.
I trust Obama. I think he's an honest man and a brilliant man. I don't agree with his politics a lot of the time, but I think he's smart enough to learn.
Most of all, I trust him more than I trust the lobbyists who own Washington. So, I'm glad he's taking charge of this debte.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Some Perspective on the Economy, by the Numbers...
I really do hate the current economic climate. No doubt, it's causing pain for a lot of us. For some, it's been an absolute disaster. Even those who have been relatively unscathed are afraid for their financial well-being like never before.
It's tempting, at a time like this, to want to throw the baby out with the bath water, declare that the United States is broken, and that we need to change everything from the ground up.
Unfortunately, the numbers don't bear that out. Don't get me wrong: we really do need to do some tinkering with the model, especially in regards to banking, insurance and health care reform.
Underneath it all, though, the greatness of America is still evident. So, let's not be too eager to tear down the things that could continue to keep us great through the 21st century and beyond.
Let's not lose track of the fact that China may have an astounding growth rate, but that in absolute terms, the US economy has grown more in the 21st century than the Chinese economy has grown in the last 3,000 years.
Literally, we created an entirely new economy, the size of China's entire economy, in less than 10 years right here in the US.
By this I mean, that the entire Chinese GDP is roughly 5 or 6 trillion dollars. (Depending on a lot of factors, and how you measure GDP and against what standard.)
Our economy has grown by about 5 or 6 trillion dollars since the turn of the century.
Literally, it took 3,000 years for the Chinese to grow as much as we've grown in the past 8 or 9 years.
Yes, their growth RATE is impressive, but the reality is that it's only impressive because their economy is transitioning from a medieval agrarian soceity to a modern industrial one. They're literally transitioning from beating the ground with sticks to stealing US intellectual property to build with CNC machines.
In the mean time, they have an abysmal record on human rights, and if not for the fact that they steal all the intellectual property they lay their eyes on, they wouldn't have an economy at all.
The US definition of "poverty" is such that, frankly, only a statistically insignificant number of Chinese people are not living in abject poverty by US standards.
Don't envy them. They can't enjoy double-digit growth rates forever. Once they're industrialized, they'll be subject to the same laws of economics that we are.
We had double-digit growth rates, too, when we transitioned to an industrially based economy, 100 years ago. Difference is, we pioneered that technology. China hasn't pioneered anything in a thousand years.
I wouldn't advise you to put too much of your betting money on China to dominate the US anytime soon. They have to prove they can do something other than steal US innovation and produce it with sweatshop labor ignoring all environmental impacts before I'll consider them a threat to the US.
Our unemployment rate is approaching 10%. Some of you who have travelled to Europe know what I'm going to say next. At our worst... as in "worst since the 1930s", our unemployment rate is basically approaching European unemployment during the best of all possible conditions.
France always has an unemployment rate of about 9.5%. Always. Germany and the UK do a little better with historical unemployment rates of about 7%. The US? Those types of unemployment rates are scandalous and indicative of an economy that's badly off-track.
Those, by the way, are comparisons against pretty much the best and brightest the world has to offer.
So, before we declare that the era of US exceptionalism is over, let's take a deep breath and remember that by almost all measures, the US is still an economic engine that's the envy of the world.
If we can avoid changing things too much, we can lead the world out of this recession and beyond.
It's tempting, at a time like this, to want to throw the baby out with the bath water, declare that the United States is broken, and that we need to change everything from the ground up.
Unfortunately, the numbers don't bear that out. Don't get me wrong: we really do need to do some tinkering with the model, especially in regards to banking, insurance and health care reform.
Underneath it all, though, the greatness of America is still evident. So, let's not be too eager to tear down the things that could continue to keep us great through the 21st century and beyond.
Let's not lose track of the fact that China may have an astounding growth rate, but that in absolute terms, the US economy has grown more in the 21st century than the Chinese economy has grown in the last 3,000 years.
Literally, we created an entirely new economy, the size of China's entire economy, in less than 10 years right here in the US.
By this I mean, that the entire Chinese GDP is roughly 5 or 6 trillion dollars. (Depending on a lot of factors, and how you measure GDP and against what standard.)
Our economy has grown by about 5 or 6 trillion dollars since the turn of the century.
Literally, it took 3,000 years for the Chinese to grow as much as we've grown in the past 8 or 9 years.
Yes, their growth RATE is impressive, but the reality is that it's only impressive because their economy is transitioning from a medieval agrarian soceity to a modern industrial one. They're literally transitioning from beating the ground with sticks to stealing US intellectual property to build with CNC machines.
In the mean time, they have an abysmal record on human rights, and if not for the fact that they steal all the intellectual property they lay their eyes on, they wouldn't have an economy at all.
The US definition of "poverty" is such that, frankly, only a statistically insignificant number of Chinese people are not living in abject poverty by US standards.
Don't envy them. They can't enjoy double-digit growth rates forever. Once they're industrialized, they'll be subject to the same laws of economics that we are.
We had double-digit growth rates, too, when we transitioned to an industrially based economy, 100 years ago. Difference is, we pioneered that technology. China hasn't pioneered anything in a thousand years.
I wouldn't advise you to put too much of your betting money on China to dominate the US anytime soon. They have to prove they can do something other than steal US innovation and produce it with sweatshop labor ignoring all environmental impacts before I'll consider them a threat to the US.
Our unemployment rate is approaching 10%. Some of you who have travelled to Europe know what I'm going to say next. At our worst... as in "worst since the 1930s", our unemployment rate is basically approaching European unemployment during the best of all possible conditions.
France always has an unemployment rate of about 9.5%. Always. Germany and the UK do a little better with historical unemployment rates of about 7%. The US? Those types of unemployment rates are scandalous and indicative of an economy that's badly off-track.
Those, by the way, are comparisons against pretty much the best and brightest the world has to offer.
So, before we declare that the era of US exceptionalism is over, let's take a deep breath and remember that by almost all measures, the US is still an economic engine that's the envy of the world.
If we can avoid changing things too much, we can lead the world out of this recession and beyond.
September Perspective on Small Business
We just finished up one of our worst months in ages. Not that surprising, really. We're at ground-zero of the current economic fiasco. At least we have the werewithall to ride the storm a little longer. We also got some work last week that should keep us busy for a while. All in all, things are not where I'd like them to be, but we should be able to limp along until our busy season hits. (Usually in the December time-frame.)
I am 2 months shy of renewing my franchise license. I opened my doors on the last day of January 2005, but I actually purchased my license in October 2004.
5 years of self-employment has been an adventure. I have only one regret about going into business for myself: I should have done it years earlier. I am better off in every conceivable way now that I am self-employed. (Granted, you might want to ask me my opinion a year from now if the busy season doesn't deliver.)
Even though things have been slow, I haven't laid anybody off, yet. We've had to fire people for reasons unrelated to the economy. (Both of them simply stopped showing up for work.) We went through a few weeks were there was, literally, no work for anybody to do.
I treated it as business as usual. I have expectations of my employees: that they'll show up on time and they will work once they're here. However, I feel I have obligations to them in return. For instance, that I won't send them home early (and thus cut their weekly pay for a few hours) just because we're slow.
We made work for them to do in the warehouse. We had them finish the upstairs offices that have been in-progress for more than a year, now. We had them organize the equipment and implement a few visual management systems I've wanted for a while, now.
We also sent people off for some much-needed out of town training and certifications. I'll probably send off a few more folks in the coming months.
Now, we're busy, thank goodness. I can't say that I will never lay off a worker. Who knows what the future brings. We went 2 weeks without any work, which is one thing. I can dip into my personal savings to keep the place afloat. However, there are limits to my resources. If the slowdown had lasted 3 months, I would have had little choice but to let people go.
That is a last resort for me, though. To me, that's a complete game-changer. From that point forward, how can I blame an employee who feels that my company has shown no loyalty to them? How can I take the moral high ground when an employee slacks?
I also feel that I have an obligation during this economic downturn. Even if I didn't make a penny, I want to employ people. The jobs I have may offer modest pay, but for the workers who take them, that pay is the difference between a dignified, modest standard of living, and poverty. These people worked for me when times were good for me. I want to do all I can to make sure they keep their jobs when times are bad for me.
Underneath it all, I'm optimistic. I'm doing all I can to expand our marketing reach. I'm ready to commit full-force to some initiatives my franchisor is launching that should allow us to continue to grow despite the economic conditions in our corner of the world.
We've grown every year during our 5 years in business. I don't see why this year can't be the same. We took a hard shot by crappy August results, but we still stand an outside shot at a million in sales this calendar year.
The biggest challenge facing us is that we're transitioning from being a smallish business to having to implement the same systems and controls that large businesses do.
In the past, we could get away with relying on the fact that either I, or my operations manager, Mike, knew what to do in a given situation. That works when you have 2 trucks and 4 employees.
Right now, we have 5 production trucks and enough people to staff all of them. I can't be 5 places at once, and neither can Mike. Which means adding some supervisory capacity, but also means training the people all the more thoroughly so they can operate with minimal supervision.
Training and the HR function are becoming more and more critical to our success. There's just no way you can run a $5 million dollar business with the same management structure that worked as a $500,000 business. So, our days without an HR and Training administrator of some sort are severely numbered.
The one thing that I wasn't ready for with small business is how much the business environment changes every year. The restoration industry has changed dramatically even since I first got in to it. We constantly have to change and improve our way of doing things in order to stay one step ahead of the competition.
Every company has the same thing to deal with: improve or die, but the pace of change in small business is staggerring. Entire markets disappear virtually overnight.
5 years ago, a printing business was a viable business opportunity. However, in the past 5 years, half the printers I used to know are out of business. Half of the remaining ones are trying to sell.
I try to remind myself whenever I get frustrated that we have to implement a new system or procedure or respond to a new market challenge, that the alternative is to have a business that essentially remains unchanged from year to year: like printing.
The keys to small business, or to business in general, never really change from year to year. Treat employees well. Treat customers well. Provide quality goods and services at prices customers are willing to pay. Respond to market changes. Look for opportunties to grow.
Most of all: when you're no longer up to the challenge of doing those things, it's time to get out.
I don't feel like it's time for me to get out, just yet. We're still growing, which means I'm still excited and engaged. The past 5 years were everything I had hoped they would be and more. I hope to make the next 5 years even better.
I am 2 months shy of renewing my franchise license. I opened my doors on the last day of January 2005, but I actually purchased my license in October 2004.
5 years of self-employment has been an adventure. I have only one regret about going into business for myself: I should have done it years earlier. I am better off in every conceivable way now that I am self-employed. (Granted, you might want to ask me my opinion a year from now if the busy season doesn't deliver.)
Even though things have been slow, I haven't laid anybody off, yet. We've had to fire people for reasons unrelated to the economy. (Both of them simply stopped showing up for work.) We went through a few weeks were there was, literally, no work for anybody to do.
I treated it as business as usual. I have expectations of my employees: that they'll show up on time and they will work once they're here. However, I feel I have obligations to them in return. For instance, that I won't send them home early (and thus cut their weekly pay for a few hours) just because we're slow.
We made work for them to do in the warehouse. We had them finish the upstairs offices that have been in-progress for more than a year, now. We had them organize the equipment and implement a few visual management systems I've wanted for a while, now.
We also sent people off for some much-needed out of town training and certifications. I'll probably send off a few more folks in the coming months.
Now, we're busy, thank goodness. I can't say that I will never lay off a worker. Who knows what the future brings. We went 2 weeks without any work, which is one thing. I can dip into my personal savings to keep the place afloat. However, there are limits to my resources. If the slowdown had lasted 3 months, I would have had little choice but to let people go.
That is a last resort for me, though. To me, that's a complete game-changer. From that point forward, how can I blame an employee who feels that my company has shown no loyalty to them? How can I take the moral high ground when an employee slacks?
I also feel that I have an obligation during this economic downturn. Even if I didn't make a penny, I want to employ people. The jobs I have may offer modest pay, but for the workers who take them, that pay is the difference between a dignified, modest standard of living, and poverty. These people worked for me when times were good for me. I want to do all I can to make sure they keep their jobs when times are bad for me.
Underneath it all, I'm optimistic. I'm doing all I can to expand our marketing reach. I'm ready to commit full-force to some initiatives my franchisor is launching that should allow us to continue to grow despite the economic conditions in our corner of the world.
We've grown every year during our 5 years in business. I don't see why this year can't be the same. We took a hard shot by crappy August results, but we still stand an outside shot at a million in sales this calendar year.
The biggest challenge facing us is that we're transitioning from being a smallish business to having to implement the same systems and controls that large businesses do.
In the past, we could get away with relying on the fact that either I, or my operations manager, Mike, knew what to do in a given situation. That works when you have 2 trucks and 4 employees.
Right now, we have 5 production trucks and enough people to staff all of them. I can't be 5 places at once, and neither can Mike. Which means adding some supervisory capacity, but also means training the people all the more thoroughly so they can operate with minimal supervision.
Training and the HR function are becoming more and more critical to our success. There's just no way you can run a $5 million dollar business with the same management structure that worked as a $500,000 business. So, our days without an HR and Training administrator of some sort are severely numbered.
The one thing that I wasn't ready for with small business is how much the business environment changes every year. The restoration industry has changed dramatically even since I first got in to it. We constantly have to change and improve our way of doing things in order to stay one step ahead of the competition.
Every company has the same thing to deal with: improve or die, but the pace of change in small business is staggerring. Entire markets disappear virtually overnight.
5 years ago, a printing business was a viable business opportunity. However, in the past 5 years, half the printers I used to know are out of business. Half of the remaining ones are trying to sell.
I try to remind myself whenever I get frustrated that we have to implement a new system or procedure or respond to a new market challenge, that the alternative is to have a business that essentially remains unchanged from year to year: like printing.
The keys to small business, or to business in general, never really change from year to year. Treat employees well. Treat customers well. Provide quality goods and services at prices customers are willing to pay. Respond to market changes. Look for opportunties to grow.
Most of all: when you're no longer up to the challenge of doing those things, it's time to get out.
I don't feel like it's time for me to get out, just yet. We're still growing, which means I'm still excited and engaged. The past 5 years were everything I had hoped they would be and more. I hope to make the next 5 years even better.
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