Jasper Jones

At lunch we were joined by the ladies from the accounting department and had a little party for their manager’s birthday. We liked having free food and birthday cake to spice up our week.

The lady who does payroll is a friend of the family and we were talking about going back to school and how much money it costs to buy school supplies and new clothes for kids. I like the style of clothes they sell at Aeropostale and bought a couple sweaters there. And since I’m outdoors a lot, I like to buy cargo pants and more rugged clothes and boots from stores like L L Bean and Eddie Bauer.

That’s when Miss Evelyn told me about a website she likes that has coupons for saving money on stuff from all those stores, called 1-coupons.com and she used it this weekend to say about 20% off the school clothes she bought for her son.

She found this site when she was looking around to save money on some trips she wanted to take. She started out on Expedia to book online for Disney vacations, ski resorts, sandy beachs, Las Vegas hotels and big city attractions and found a bunch of bargains using the coupon site, and she’s been hooked ever since.

Looks like Wednesday will be movie night for us. I found a showing of Batman that starts at 8:10 and that gives us plenty of time to get home from work (me) and school (her) and change clothes, grab a quick bite to eat and get to the theatre in time for a long ticket line.

Really looking forward to this - I’ve heard so much from all the advance publicity and my friends that have already gone to see it. I was thinking about taking my 5 year nephew to the show but my friends all say that it is way to violent for him. I’m not sure about that - he’s pretty matter of fact about violence on the TV and movies - he scoffed at me once when I asked about a different movie that he’s seen and he said, “It’s JUST a movie! It’s NOT real!” I was pretty impressed that he said that, but I still have doubts about exposing a kid to really violent scenes. Even if it doesn’t scare him, I wonder what kind of impression it is making on him? It can’t be good on some level - will he grow up so de-sensitized to gory things and cruelty that he has no compassion for people? That is what makes serial killers for goodness sake.

With more and more families living paycheck to paycheck, any interruption to that paycheck can put a family in crisis.

My Uncle Mike was on his way home from work back in June when another driver crashed into his car and put him in the hospital for a week. He has been going to physical therapy three times a week and taking lots of medications. And obviously he isn’t able to work right now. So in cases like this, who pays the bills while he can’t work?

People seem to think that the car insurance companies are going to help you. In reality, the insurance company might help get the car fixed, but they aren’t going to help make the house payment and keep the utilities on, buy the prescription medications and take care of all the daily things for my Uncle.

At least Uncle Mike found out about a company that helps front you some money while your lawsuit is pending. They work with your lawyer to evaluate your case and if they think you are going to win in court they provide pre-settlement funding so you have money to pay the bills and get by until you can go back to work. You can apply right online and get an answer quick, and for lots of people this is a lifeline for desperate times.

Not everyone has access to a lot of cash for emergencies and of course accidents can happen at the worst possible time. So at least there are some places that can help tide you over. I’m writing about it here so if I ever have a problem I can come back here to find the link and get in touch with this company.

Well, I called Gretchen tonight and talked on the phone for a long time. She’s really nice and actually very easy to talk to. I don’t want to talk too much about my dating life on my blog, so let’s just leave it at we’re going to get together again this week and go see the new Batman movie. I don’t know why I haven’t seen it yet - I’m a sucker for action movies and this is the blockbuster movie of the summer.

I’ll let you know if we think it measures up to all the hype.

Thankfully I’ve been healthy all my life. Knock on wood, I’ve never broken a bone or needed to be in the hospital. So I don’t know much about doctors and hospitals. But the health care industry is one of the biggest industries in this town, second only to the publishing businesses.

Gretchen, my Vegan date from the other night, is going to tech school to learn how to do medical billing. She says that this is one of the growing areas in the health care industry and that she can take this skill anywhere in the country and easily find a job. She says that she has options of working directly for a large hospital, a doctor’s office or a medical billing services company, like “Advanced Billing Professionals.”

She likes the idea of working for a medical claims service because she can stay as busy as she wants by taking on multiple assignments and working around a schedule that is convenient for her - not the doctor’s hours or a strict shift in a hospital. She can even work from home on some assignments.

So I looked up Advanced Billing Professionals on the internet when I got home that night and learned more about the company. They do a lot of different things to help all kinds of doctors, from general physicians groups like family practice and internists to dentists, Chiropractors, Psychiatrists, Physical Therapists and all kinds of specialty practices.

Sounds like she has things all figured out and is on the right track. I might even give her a call this week and see if she wants to maybe go to the movies with me one night.

Late summer is the time for rodeos all across the country. There are still two rodeos that I haven’t been to yet and I’m hoping to go to one each year after I get out of school.

I’ve alway wanted to go to Canada and the Calgary Stampede rodeo and festival every July is the perfect reason to go across our northern border.

And for the rest old west of America, the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo is 10 days of everything cowboy.

Although a lot of people think working at a warehouse must be boring, that’s not true where I’m working. You put a lot of guys together that don’t know each other and come from all different kinds of backgrounds and you expect them to work hard all day and be a team and get along. Well it doesn’t usually work out that way. There’s guys with tempers, there’s guys who show up late or get drunk one night and don’t show up the next day and all kinds of things going on.

Today was very unusual in that two of the loaders got into a scuffle. Not really a fight but a lot of shoving and cussing and the supervisor ran over and broke it up. But with all the pushing and stupid stuff, some of the computer equipment got broken and both guys ended up getting fired.

The barcode scanner handpiece for tracking inventory was one of the things that got dropped on the concrete floor and busted. I was wondering how much those things cost - they must be expensive. So I looked it up on the internet and found a website that sells them called, BarCode Giant. I don’t know if this is the same place where the company bought ours, but it is the same brand and the website gave me the information I was looking for and a ballpark on the damages. The intermec scanplus-1800 scanner seems to retail for around $400-$500 so that guy just pushed his way into forfeiting his paycheck over a stupid fight.

I don’t know if we have any extra scanners laying around the warehouse, but if they need another one this website has free shipping and toll free tech support, so they can get another one quick. and BarCode Giant prices everything below retail, so they can save some money, too.

Dinner was at Olive Garden. I figured there would surely be non-meat dishes on an Italian menu. Plus I like the huge bowl of salad and basket of breadsticks that they bring to the table to help beat down the hunger pains while you wait for your dinner to be cooked and brought out.

She was easy to please - ordered a pasta with cheese sauce and she didn’t mind that I ordered a dinner with meat and ate it in front of her. At least she said she didn’t mind. But I have to wonder if she is so committed to be a Vegen why she can in good conscience watch others eat meat. I’m not sure how that works, but I didn’t want to ruin a nice dinner attacked her values and questioning her Vegen reasons.

But eventually I think this huge difference between us will interfere with our relationship. So I don’t know if I’m going to call her for a second date or not. She’s nice and all, but this Vegen thing bothers me. I’ll have to think about it.

My brother was over at the house gettig yelled at by my dad. He came over wanting to borrow money again and my dad told him last time to quit coming over begging for money. Geesh - every time he gets in a bind he’s over here getting yelled at. I don’t even understand what he does with all his money. He has a good job in construction and his wife works, too. It can’t be that tough to live in a nice little house and raise two kids on the two salaries they make.

The whole house heard most of the argument. Warren has run up his credit cards to a ridiculous balance and is behind on his car payments again. Dad told him to go someplace and get credit counseling because Dad’s frustrated and sick of doling out the cash every couple months. He might even have to file for bankruptcy - it’s THAT bad.

Bankruptcy is a lose-lose situation and I think he would be better off going to Freedom Debt Relief for help. I heard about this program from the guys at work, If you are in a bind, this company provides Debt Relief and saves you a lot of money doing it with their program instead of what the debt consolidation companies provide. My supervisor at the warehouse told us that he used Freedom Debt Relief to get out of debt and he stuck to their program and sure enough he was debt free in less than 2 years.

This sounds to me like what Warren needs to do - for the sake of his own family and for the sake of my dad and mom, too.

By the way, I’m still ticked off at the bank and I decided to open a new account at a different bank when I get back down to school. It will be easier for me to do my banking with a local bank down there anyway. And I’m going to ask them if they will take my loose change once in a while. If they all say no then I’ll look for a credit union or something online. If no one wants to take my loose change it seems unAmerican to me but there’s no need for me to be tied geographically to a bank if no one wants to give me good local service and meet my needs as a consumer.