I’ve wanted a 3D printer for well over a decade. I never really had a reason to get one though, and, “because it seems fun” just didn’t seem like a worthy rationale. But then Donna needed tiny skulls for a display at work. And I FINALLY had a reason!!!
A few months ago I ordered the Bambu Carbon X1. I have to admit, I’ve printed far more things than I expected. Almost all of them have been toys. It turns out, having a granddaughter is an even better reason to get a 3D printer!
I was blocking the television. Emmy was not impressed.
Recently I’ve been printing these nifty little cars. Each color piece prints separately, and then are easily assembled with superglue. My granddaughter loves cars, and these have become her favorites. If you’re looking for a reason to buy a 3D printer, I highly recommend grandchildren. LOL!
I mean, it was only a 40 minute drive, but still, today my son in law Niel took me on a fishing trip. He and Lydia got me a pair of waders for my birthday, and since the ladies were having a baby shower for my eldest daughter, it seemed a perfect day to wade up the river and hopefully catch some fish.
I did learn a few things. One, fancy fishing waders have “socks” built into the bottom of the legs, not actual boots. Most people then have “wading boots” which are pretty heavy duty boots which go on like regular boots, but over top of the “socks” at the end of the wader legs.
I do not have wading boots.
Thankfully, I did find a pair of water shoes. The water shoes were sized to fit my bare feet, so they were REALLY tight over the neoprene wader sock-things, but I managed to get them on, and they worked fairly well. (sorta — more on that in a bit) Anyway, once the foot situation was handled, we crashed through the woods and got to the river.
The river was narrow, fast, and a bit treacherous. Still, within the first 5 minutes, I caught a little brook trout. It wasn’t a showstopper, and my phone decided not to save the photo. Still, catching something so early in the adventure was encouraging. (NOTE: We caught nothing else all day, lol)
While we had a ton of fun, the river turned out to be really quite challenging. There were a LOT of downed trees and branches, making fishing tough. But more than that, the river bottom had inexplicable mucky spots. The weird part was that it was often impossible to tell where the bottom would “fall out” from beneath you. It wasn’t possible to tell the difference between the firm sandy bottom and the deep muck with a dusting of sand over the top.
There were sections that were so mucky, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get out! Oh, and remember the water shoes I mentioned earlier? Yeah… they wanted to stay in the muck really really bad! I did not lose the shoes, but it was a close call a few times.
Once it was time to head back, we crashed back through the woods, and walked along the road back to the truck. No, we didn’t catch any more fish after that initial little brookie, but it was a VERY fun day! The waders worked perfectly well, the company on the river was amazing, and we didn’t get skunked! Plus I got to spend a day with my son in law, which would have been worth it even if there wasn’t fishing at all. Thanks for a great day, Niel!
That’s not really true. I have somewhere around 16 shirts. They’re just all exactly the same brand, size, style, and material. I have the same shirt in multiple colors. But they all feel the same. They are a tri-blend fabric, no tags, and extremely soft.
I wear the same thing every day. Since the shirts are different colors, it doesn’t seem like it. I think.
I also usually wear the same type of blue jeans, but I haven’t found my favorite yet, so I have a couple with which I go back and forth.
Someday I might switch to a single color shirt, and a single style pants. One less thing to think about is really, really nice.
It annoys me how prevalent ADHD is in every aspect of my psyche. Really. I’d like to have some qualities and faults which don’t fall directly in line with how ADHD brains work. I used to think I was a special, albeit broken, snowflake. (Not in the political sense, I just mean in the special and unique sense) But nope, even thinking you’re different than everyone else is a symptom of ADHD. If I think about the things that make me uniquely me, it’s ADHD every single time. It seems like the only uncommon thing about me is that ADHD medicine doesn’t work super well to relieve my symptoms. But everything else?
Procrastination: ADHD Self loathing: ADHD Unreliable: ADHD SUPER reliable in an emergency: ADHD Above average pattern recognition: ADHD Superb problem-solving skills: ADHD Self-deprecating humor: ADHD Moody: ADHD Hyperfocus: ADHD Outside the box thinking: ADHD Extreme good looks: ADHD Sarcasm about physical appearance: ADHD
OK, the last couple were jokes. But even that, being funny — a pretty common ADHDer trait. One of the biggest trends with folks who have ADHD is that they only stick with a subject while it’s interesting. Once it gets boring, they can’t (like, actually can’t) focus on it. This is why most folks with ADHD will burn through hobbies and jobs like crazy. I’m no exception here either. But there are a few long-standing passions in my life, and I’ve been trying to figure out why they exist.
Off the top of my head, there are things like Linux, bird feeders/cameras, technology in general, writing, and my wife/family. I know, family doesn’t seem like it qualifies as a “hobby”, but folks with ADHD often have real struggles with romantic relationships. They fall deeply in love (extreme emotions: Another ADHD thing), but once the novelty of the relationship wears off, they lose interest. That hasn’t happened to me. Plus the other things listed have been a sort of staple in my life while so many other hobbies and interests have come and gone. And I’ve been trying to figure out why.
Perhaps it’s because those things are all fairly dynamic and ever changing. Linux is really just a vehicle for all the various software-related hobbies I’ve had over the years. I’ve upgraded and changed the bird feeder cameras dozens of times over the years. Technology is constantly changing. And writing is different every time. Family though? Relationships aren’t easy by any means, but they’re not exactly brand new every day. That “success” doesn’t really fit the same mold as the others.
Maybe it’s not the constant change at all. Maybe it’s the challenge. Relationships are certainly challenging. Attracting birds and getting good video of them is difficult. Writing well is hard. But Linux and technology? I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but no, they’re not difficult or challenging anymore. Yet I still remain interested.
I’d like to have a great answer to finish off this post. Some kernel of wisdom, which peels back the mysteries of the universe just a bit. Heck, even a hint so I might leverage some sort of brain hack to stay excited about the things I SHOULD be focusing on. But no. I have no idea.
I’ve lost interest in this blog post. See you later.
(hehehehe, ok, that was just my attempt at a clever closing)
On Star Wars Day (May the 4th… lol) of 2023, my wife Donna had the first of 3 surgeries on her heels. Donna has a genetic defect called, “Haglund’s Deformity”, which is sorta like bone spurs that were exposed to gamma rays and became Incredible Hulk level angry.
The left is a normal heel bone. Donna’s is on the right. She calls it her dinosaur bone.
While sometimes physical therapy can alleviate the pain caused by the issue, Donna had gone decades without a diagnosis, and the orthopedic surgeon who finally did recognize why she was in constant pain said hers was the worst case he’d ever seen. And both of her heel bones being identically that severe was an indication it was not a growth, but rather a lifelong deformity. Unfortunately, when the spur is so pronounced, it causes severe damage to the achilles tendon along with the chronic, often unbearable pain. But I digress. After years of pain and frustration, a specialist not only diagnosed her, but happened to be incredibly skilled at the procedure for repairing the deformity. And the procedure is a doozy.
Basically, the surgeon detaches the achilles tendon from the base of the heel, and then saws off the back of the heel bone where the spur is located. Then the damaged tendon is cleaned and abraded in order to encourage healing, and reattached to the reformed heel bone using an elaborate procedure that basically screws the tendon into the base of the heel bone again. As is easy to imagine, this is an extremely invasive and extensive procedure with requires 6 months to a year of rehabilitation. It starts with 2-3 months of absolutely zero weight bearing.
And she needed both heels done, back to back.
The bottom is Donna’s heel pre-surgery. On the top is the same foot, with the deformity cut off.
The first surgery went as planned, and it took a little over 6 months for the heel to heal (hehehe) enough that it could bear the weight of walking. Then the second surgery could (and did) happen, starting the entire rehabilitation process over. Unfortunately, while the second surgery seemed to go identically to the first, during the physical therapy portion of the second heel recovery, her tendon proved to be irrevocably damaged from the lifetime of abuse. Rather than healing, the achilles in her second heel ruptured. Like, literally ruptured through the back of her heel. (I’m not kidding, it was the most blood I’ve ever seen in my life, it was like a poorly produced horror film)
And so when we thought her almost year long debacle was coming to an end, she had to have an emergency 3rd surgery. The surgeon harvested a tendon from her big toe, and used it to rebuilt the achilles on her left heel. This surgery was also a success, but the trauma the heel had been through meant an even longer and slower recovery process. And if the toe-tendon didn’t “take” — it likely would mean a permanent disability that wouldn’t be repairable.
That was February. Today, Donna had her final followup appointment with the orthopedic surgeon, and got a clean bill of health. Both heels have healed. The achilles tendon on her first heel seems to be in good shape, and the toe-tendon did in fact grow in place properly to recreate a working achilles tendon on the ruptured side. Donna is done with physical therapy, and after a full day of work, her heels don’t hurt. Truthfully, her recovery felt like it might never be complete. But thanks to an incredible surgeon, and well over a year of recovery and intense, painful physical therapy — the nightmare appears to be over. There is still some strengthening to do, and flexibility will require constant attention. But she made it. We made it.
And today, for the first time in years, Donna and I went for a walk along the waterfront. We held hands, and we talked, and it was the best.
I went fishing today after I dropped Donna off at work. This will surprise exactly zero people, but this particular fishing stop ended up lasting a lot longer than my normal 20 minutes of worm drowning. (OK, that’s not actually a good description, since I almost always fish with lures, not live bait. But “worm drowning” is such a clever way to describe fishing, it’s hard to resist in prose…)
An older man, probably in his 60s, was walking along the beach and struck up a conversation. It was the standard “two old men talking” banter for a bit, talking about fishing, lake access, etc, etc. Somehow the conversation turned to more serious things, and as I’m casting my Husky Jerk Rapala lure out into the lake (see? not as clever as “drowning worms”), we started talking about the junk humans tend to accumulate over a lifetime. He’d recently gone through the passing of several older family members, and the burden of sorting through possessions and such he experienced both first hand, and by watching his extended family deal with it as their parents died.
Yeah, we were talking about dying. But it wasn’t a depressing talk about it at all. Rather he managed to express a lesson he’d recently had driven home about getting rid of the stuff he owned. I have to give it to the man, whose name I never learned, it never once felt like a lecture or even a lesson he was trying to give me. Rather he was teaching in that most effective of methods: storytelling.
And he wasn’t even telling me a personal story, oddly enough. Just about the general frustration of dealing with probate after someone dies, and the stress, financial cost, and strain on relationships the process creates. Intellectually I’ve known that for a long time, but seeing him saddened by the recent experiences he’d lived and witnessed really drove it home. And it reminded me of what Donna went through when her father and his wife died a few years ago.
The only things Donna wanted from her dad were memories. A few trinkets that reminded her of him were nice, or an heirloom that had no monetary value, but was special to him. It’s easy to imagine your children or grandchildren will want you to leave them something of value. And sure, an inheritance is nice if it doesn’t come with lots of hoops to jump through. Honestly though, when someone you love dies, you just want to remember them.
It’s almost ironic that when someone dies, the “stuff” they leave behind is almost just a bitter reminder of how little the “stuff” in our lives matters. Again, there’s nothing wrong with leaving an inheritance behind, but I think it’s almost kinder to make sure you don’t leave behind a burden. Even burdens of value.
Let me say that again, mainly so I can hear it myself: It might be kinder to not leave behind a burden, even if that burden is a valuable one.
Donna and I have talked for decades about how we would like to have 3 different properties, so we could leave each of our children one when we go. But as we get older, and see what happens when loved ones die — leaving 3 properties seems almost silly. Why would we think our children would want properties to deal with suddenly? It’s unlikely our properties are something they’ll want to live in, especially not at whatever random part of their own lives we happen to die during. So they’re left with the burden of selling those properties, or keeping them as a way to try to keep our memories alive. What a terrible situation to put them into.
If we ever get a cabin on a lake somewhere, setting up a trust that makes the property available for all of them to share, without being an additional burden might be an option. But not just random properties they’ll have to sell and then feel guilty about selling.
The old man at the beach (the other guy, not me) wasn’t even most put out by those types of situations though. For him, it was the stuff left behind. Going through your parent’s stuff after they die is never fun. Those boxes of things in your closet that you haven’t needed for years, but you are keeping because someday you might need them? First off, you almost certainly won’t. But the people who have to sort through it when you die will certainly never need it.
I have a lot of stuff. I have a lot of valuable stuff. But I certainly don’t need the stuff I have, and its value is questionable at best, and nothing but a burden if I’m not here to think it’s worth keeping. I’m going to try to get rid of my stuff. I don’t plan to die any time soon, but when I do, I’d sure like to leave my family with little more than happy memories. Hopefully by then, my most valuable things will already be a part of them, and won’t be something they find in a box anyway.
It’s been a couple weeks now, and my green hair is starting to fade. My light brown roots are peeking through, and since I don’t go many places, most people who will see me have seen me. And while I tweeted a short explanation, I haven’t gotten too detailed when explaining why my hair is green. Mostly because I was (am) angry, and it was hard to talk about it without being mean. And that rationale is sorta the whole point.
In order to really understand my green hair, however, you need to understand me a bit. I don’t really talk about my faith much publicly these days, and that’s been on purpose. Largely because what “Christian” seems to mean in society these days doesn’t really align with what it means to me personally. But also partially because I’m not a man of great faith. When I see Jesus talk (twice) about having faith as tiny as a mustard seed, my first thought is something like, “um, what about people with the faith of a basil seed?” (full disclosure: I haven’t gardened very much, basil seeds are probably not the smallest, they’re just the smallest I’m familiar with, and MUCH smaller than mustard seeds)
Shawn, Let Me Explain Matthew 17:20…
Please don’t. I already know. I really do. I’ve taught bible class, led youth group, served on deacon/elder boards, and heck even preached Sunday sermons. I’m familiar with conventional wisdom on the metaphor, and I’m not claiming that I’ve discovered some new, deeper, more holy meaning. No, when I consider the notion of small faith affecting change, I’m encouraged in spite of the biblical focus. Jesus was stressing that God is so great, even the smallest sliver of infinity is still infinity. (See? Old habits die hard. Here I am preaching…)
But what if my small faith is combined with weak belief and mountains of uncertainty? Is my basil seed of faith still enough to move mountains? Maybe. And, maybe not. The thing is, I still need to live my life in a way that seems right. And let’s be frank here, when I say “weak belief”, I’m not just throwing out church-y phrases. Do I believe in God? Sure, usually. I guess. But pretending to have a rock solid faith for the sake of saving church ladies from “the vapors” seems a bit un-Christian. Heh.
Bro, Do You Even Christian?
Yes. Yes, I consider myself a Christian. But only because Jesus seems to be someone worth following. Whether you think Jesus was/is the creator of the universe, becoming a man to redeem the world, or just a rebellious lover of humanity — he was a really awesome guy. I want to be like him, because he cared about the outcast, taught people to think instead of blindly obeying, valued people over anything else, and got furious at the exploitation of human beings by those in power. And Jesus was kind. He must have been, or the children wouldn’t have flocked around him.
So yes, while in many, many ways I do not identify with the modern, American version of “Christianity”, I do consider myself Christian. Maybe not a “good” Christian. Maybe not even a good representation of “Christ-like”, but inasmuch as I’m anything, I’m a person trying to be like Jesus. And most days, that’s enough for me. To be clear, that’s not enough for many folks, and so many will not consider me a Christian. That’s OK.
But Dude, if You’re Wrong [Insert Crackling Fire Sounds]
Yeah, so if you’re a Christian to avoid burning in Hell, you’ve missed the point. Maybe Hell is a place of fire and pain, maybe it’s a metaphor for separation from God. And maybe it’s simply a description of the empty worthlessness a life lived for selfish gain gets a person. I honestly don’t know. But I also don’t need to know.
The way I strive to live my life is not predicated on a promise of future reward. I don’t choose kindness so that someday I’m given an oceanfront view in heaven. Empathy is not a vehicle to riches, in this world or the next. And my motivation for helping others is not accrue favor from a higher being, but rather to, you know, help someone because they need help.
For what it’s worth, this is also why I’m far less concerned about people who aren’t Christians than traditional Christianity would dictate. And here is where I lose a lot of folks who were mostly ok with my particular take on living a Christ-like life. That’s OK. I’m not starting my own religion, and I’m not telling anyone they should “Christian” like I do. But here’s the thing, Jesus didn’t seem to be a guy overly concerned about technicalities. If there is an afterlife, and some metaphorical pearly gates, it seems like a pretty low-rent heaven that would allow douchebags with the proper punch card into eternal glory, and send caring, compassionate Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, etc., into eternal torture.
Does that mean I’m trying to do some magic hand-wavy trick to turn “the way, the truth, and the life” into a moralistic litmus test for heaven? Um, no. I don’t feel a need to do that. Again, my motivation for how I live my life is not a future reward. In fact I’ve always been suspect of folks who need that carrot in order to do the right thing. My little basil seed of faith is apparently sufficient to follow the example of Jesus, even if he doesn’t want to be friends with me afterward.
Ok. You’re Outta the Club
I know. No, seriously, I know. Writing this and posting it publicly will actually be sufficient cause to prevent me from holding a role as teacher or leader in a church. It will be a rationale for people who have been uncomfortable with my brand of living life to finally put me in the “other” camp. It might sever friendships, and it will disappoint people who thought I was someone else.
But that’s OK too.
I am a Christian, because I think Christ is someone worth following. I think the modern Christian Church resembles the Pharisees in the bible far more than it represents Jesus and his gang. And I can’t pretend to be something I’m not in order to fit in. That really doesn’t seem like the sort of thing Jesus did either. My faith might be tiny, but my resolve is not.
That Was a Lot. But, Why is Your Hair Green?
Heh. You still want to know? Cool. It’s difficult to explain without painting some folks in an unflattering light, but my hair is green because my daughter was treated poorly for dyeing her own hair. She was a volunteer assistant coach at the Christian school from which she graduated. Partway through the season, when she dyed her hair bright red, she was told she could no longer represent the school in public. There was a new rule, which she hadn’t been told about, that volunteers were not allowed to have unnaturally colored hair.
The rub, however, is that she was still allowed to help in practice, just not sit on the bench during games, or get announced as a coach during the pre-game. Her “look” was appropriate enough to exploit for free labor, but not “good enough” for the public to associate with the school in an official role. And she was gutted. So I dyed my hair in solidarity.
So What Now?
"I desire to give away the best parts of myself, so at the end of my life, the stuff buried is of no consequence. And my best bits will be immortal.” -Me 🙂
I dunno, coffee? I mean, it’s not like I’ve suddenly changed who I am, and my life is on a different trajectory. If I haven’t been living my life loud enough that people are shocked to learn I was a heathen all along, well, maybe things change for them. As for me, I’ll continue to live life the best way I know how. When presented with new information, I’ll change my views accordingly. If given a choice between kindness and and cruelty, I’ll strive for the former, while rallying against the latter. And with all my shortcomings, failings, poor choices, and inevitable mistakes: I’ll try to leave this world a little better than I found it. Regardless of where my next stop might be.
Before I start, it’s important to know that I’m not writing this to convince anyone to send money. We’ll be OK, truly. I’m writing this because much like depression, shame withers in the light. I don’t want the specter of “what if someone finds out” to live in my brain, rent free. And perhaps hearing our misfortune will help someone else avoid a similar one.
In order to understand how someone could have $12,518.42 stolen from them without noticing, it’s important to explain our situation over the past 18 months or so. Because on the surface, the notion of losing that much money and not noticing seems like wealth and privilege at an incomprehensible level. If exposing financial information makes you uncomfortable, you might want to click away, because I’ll be using some real numbers.
In the middle of the pandemic, my job changed. Part of that change included no longer receiving employer-sponsored healthcare. I receive a generous stipend, but it doesn’t come close to covering a solo plan. So we added some out of pocket money to the stipend, and started paying for COBRA. (That allows us to keep the healthcare from my last job, paying the full premium plus administrative fees for up to 18 months)
We also have adult children in their early 20s. They were underemployed thanks to the pandemic, and we have been helping them make ends meet. Plus, Donna’s part-time teaching position was even more part time this past school year. Add to that a massive repair bill on my aging pickup truck, existing debt from our barn experience — and the stage is set for a pretty rough financial gauntlet.
With our new expenses and decreased income, it was clear that we would be making less than we spend every month. We had about $17,000 in the bank, and about $20,000 of credit available across our 5 credit cards. Knowing that would only keep us afloat temporarily, we started doing everything we could to add income while decreasing expenses. Sadly, most of our expenses are fixed, and while we could have canceled Netflix, that small savings in the middle of a pandemic didn’t seem worth it. Anyway, we were going deeper into debt every month, but surviving.
Donna took as many sub positions as she could on the days she wasn’t teaching. I worked my DayJob as a sysadmin, and then started cartooning, writing, and creating training videos for YouTube. While my efforts might smack a bit of mid-life crisis, the bulk of my previous career was making training videos, and I’d been a professional writer for years at Linux Journal. The only oddball item was my daily comic, but since I found the process relaxing, it was almost a daily therapy session for me.
So for the past year plus, we’ve been using credit cards for everything possible, and paying the minimum balance due, with additional payments as more money came in. We knew our credit card debt would rise, and our bank account would dwindle, but the hope was to slow the bleeding until I started to bring in some serious revenue from my after work endeavors. It would certainly take a while, but the clock we were trying to beat was a combination of “not running out of money and credit” plus “we have 18 months of COBRA”.
I’d like to say we had a clearer plan, or even a more succinct goal. Unfortunately, we just had stress, chaos, and a faint hope that “something” would give. Perhaps I’d get a job offer that included benefits. Perhaps the school where Donna worked would offer a medical plan. Maybe my YouTube channel would take off, or my comic would go viral. But what it actually meant was many, many credit card charges, and many, many payments to credit cards coming out of our shrinking checking account.
And that’s how it happened.
Back in September of 2021, lost in our myriad of credit card payments, a new credit card payment posted. “Credit One Bank” took an ACH payment for $182.95 out of our account. That’s about the size of other credit card payments that constantly come out of our account, and at first glace I assumed it was our Meijer credit card, which is a branded card from one of the countless credit companies.
As the months went on, there were more and more payments from “Credit One Bank”, all varying from the $100-$300 range, which again, matched our other credit card payments surprisingly close. Looking back, I should have seen it. Of COURSE I should have seen it. There were 4 days in a row where $182.75 was taken out. And while I don’t remember seeing those payments, I probably saw them and assumed I was looking at the same payment. But I didn’t notice.
See, our account balances were changing in just the way we expected them to change. Our credit card debt was rising, and our bank account was shrinking. That’s not ideal, but it wasn’t unexpected. And so we weren’t suspicious that something was wrong. We saw that our money was going away faster than we hoped, and so we focused harder on making more money, not picking apart our bank statements. Heck, we probably subconsciously avoided looking at our bank statements, because we knew it would only add stress to an almost unbearably stressful situation!
And then this month, August 2022, 11 months after that first “Credit One Bank” payment snuck into our life, we ran out of money. Our mortgage payment bounced because its auto-withdrawal happened a couple days before my paycheck was deposited. I had already moved the posting date, because I saw the writing on the wall, but even that only kicked the can down the road a month. Our checking account was in the red, we’d gotten multiple overdraft fees applied on top (because other smaller payments were trying to clear after the account went negative). And only a couple of our credit cards had credit available at all.
It’s embarrassing. And it sucks. But things like Twitter verification, a Wikipedia page, and a well-known-in-certain-circles name does not always equal the underlying financial success it hints at.
So anyway, my paycheck posted, and our account was limping along in the black again. Since our credit was about dried up, we’d been strategically deciding what to pay and when to pay it. So our credit card payments, even the minimum amount due, had to be timed to our paychecks. And that brings us to this week. Yesterday, in fact. My paycheck wasn’t due to post until today (the 18th), and I was watching our account balance like a hawk, making sure nothing tried to clear before my paycheck was in there. And wouldn’t you know it, Credit One Bank was posting a payment for $168.64.
I KNEW I hadn’t made a payment, because after the mortgage fiasco, our balance was too low for that. And so when I logged in to all our various credit card accounts, trying to figure out why one of them automatically made a payment, I couldn’t find a payment for that amount. Anywhere.
And of course then I started looking at our account history, and quickly realized what I should have realized 11 months ago. Someone was making a credit card payment with our account, but it wasn’t us. Or at least, it wasn’t only us. As I searched the transaction history, I found that over the past 11 months, there have been 54 payments taken out. The dates and amounts are fairly random, but vary from $100-$350 or so. And added together, they equal $12,518.42. It turns out that initial $17,000 we had in our account wasn’t dwindling as quickly as we thought, or at least we weren’t “dwindling” it.
I spent most of yesterday talking to the bank, and to the police. Today I have to drive back to the bank (and hour drive, one way, ugh) to finish closing our compromised account and set up a new one so we can continue making our mortgage payments, car payment, and credit card payments. And now, I need to fight to get money back from “Credit One Bank”, even though in my communications with them yesterday have proven to be anything but helpful.
Our bank, Straits Area Federal Credit Union, has shifted a bit. At first, they told me all they could do was stop further withdrawals by charging me a $25 stop payment fee. But after talking to the police officer as I filed a report, he encouraged me to go physically to the main office, and talk to someone a bit higher up the food chain. I’m glad I did, because now they’re going to reimburse me for the previous 60 days, and for some reason the first 60 days of fraudulent charges. Assuming that happens (I’m signing paperwork today), it will put $4,595 back into my new account. The remaining $7,923.37 will likely never get recovered. But I will be sending all the information to “Credit One Bank”, and hoping they do the right thing. Regardless of the outcome, it will take months before I know anything.
I’m not gonna lie, while that $4,595 will be incredibly helpful in the short term, we’re clearly still teetering on the edge of disaster. Thankfully, there’s a bit of good news in this bleak story.
When summer started, Donna clearly couldn’t get anymore subbing jobs, so she applied for a part time position at one of our favorite places on earth. McLean & Eakin Booksellers. She got the job, and I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen her love what she does more than when she’s working at the bookstore. The owners must recognize how much she was made for the job, and without prompting, called Donna in to offer her a full time, year round position. And believe it or not, this small town, independent bookstore provides health insurance for their full time employees.
Health. Care. Insurance.
Our COBRA eligibility runs out in November, and we did not have a plan for what we were going to do after that. The middling insurance plan I was quoted to buy on our own was over $30,000/yr, and that was without dental or optical. Donna getting a job that provided healthcare was unexpected, and the most amazing news we’d gotten in a very long time. I don’t even know what the plan will look like, but it honestly doesn’t matter, because whatever the benefits include will be more than that nothing we could afford once November hits.
I cried like a blubbering idiot. And that, I’m not ashamed of.
Look, we’re far from being financially stable. My napkin math shows that we have about $65,000 in credit card debt, one mortgage with $60,000 remaining, another with $100,000 remaining, and a car loan with $13,000 still outstanding. My DayJob isn’t in immediate jeopardy, but I maintain datacenters for servers that operate in the cryptocurrency world, so longevity and stability are not guaranteed. But in spite of this current financial setback with Credit One Bank, we actually have a bit more hope than we’ve had in a while.
Donna will be working full time, starting some time before November. My YouTube channel was recently monetized, and while it’s only bringing it $100 or so a month, it’s a start. I’ve been working with an editor about a potential book deal, and while my comic hasn’t taken off — I still really enjoy it, and perhaps someday others will enjoy it too. I’ve even built up enough content on YouTube, that I don’t feel bad starting a Patreon page for people who want to support my creative endeavors. (It’s not live yet, but once I get the patron benefits sorted this week, it might be one more trickle of income)
So yeah. It’s been a rough month. But it’s also been a good month. We really will be OK, and my intent is certainly not to make anyone worry about us. We didn’t fall for a scam, and yet we ended up losing the bulk of our “cushion” in arguably the worst time ever. My hope is that everyone looks a bit closer at their checking account after reading this, and if you do end up a victim of bank fraud — know that someone else’s evil is not a character flaw of yours. Be kind, maybe especially to yourself. It’s easy to be like Blue, and since I draw him, I know it first hand.
Five years ago, my wife Donna and I invested our entire nest egg into buying an old farm in Brutus, MI. We refurbished the old barn, and created a young adult ministry, because there wasn’t one in the area. It turned out almost exactly like we pictured it, but then when it was still in its infancy, Emmet County shut us down. It was actually quite ugly, and they threatened to condemn the property if we even had a bible study in the farmhouse.
“The Barn” in its heyday…
So now, rather than the vibrant ministry we hoped to launch, Donna and I have a mountain of debt, a second property to pay taxes on, and a really nice barn we’re not allowed to use. It’s really easy to feel angry, foolish, and defeated.
But.
The young adults who were part of the fledgling ministry did not get shut down. They continued to meet in other locations. They kept meeting for worship music, bible studies, and fellowship. In fact, the core group of people still meet to this day, years after the actual barn was shut down. They still call their group “The Barn”, even though many of the current group members were not around when the actual barn was involved.
Over the past 5 years, 4 couples who met or got their start at the barn have gotten married. One of them is my eldest daughter, the singer in the video clip above. Her and her husband are expecting their first child, and our first grandchild, in September. The group of young adults that got started at our short-lived ministry continues to grow and flourish, even though my wife and I are no longer a part of it at all. Our barn sits empty, but I’m not sure I can consider it a failure.
Our goal when we started The Barn was to create a community of young adults who could grow together, and lean on each other as they transitioned to adulthood. We always intended for the group to take over once it was established. We wanted… exactly what happened. It just wasn’t exactly the way we expected it to happen.
Donna and I can always make more money. We can have a bit less extravagant retirement, which can start a few years later than we intended. Because when we decided to invest everything we had into the lives of the young adults we cared for, our intent was to change their lives, not create a business. And their lives are not only changed, but continue to change new lives who only know “The Barn” as a weird name that references some place they used to meet.
The Barn is both the biggest failure, and largest success we’ve had the pleasure to be involved in. It didn’t turn out like we planned, and yet it also ended up much better than we ever hoped.
Today marks 51 years since Mister Rogers taped his first episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The Google Doodle commemorating the event is pure awesome!
