Robert Stinnett

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Archive for category Home Life

Why the Post Office Matters

Jul 8

Posted by Robert Stinnett in Home Life | View Comments

There has been a lot of talk lately about the United States Postal Service and the challenges they are facing.  Mail volume has dropped dramatically since 2007 thanks in part to the Great Recession and the increasing number of businesses and people using electronic communication methods.  In an effort to get on better financial footing the Post Office has suggested stopping mail delivery on Saturday along with other measures they hope will turn the tide.  Some people argue that it doesn’t matter if mail delivery stops on Saturday, and others say that the Post Office itself is irrelevant in this digital age we now live in.  However, I disagree and believe strongly that the Post Office still matters in our everyday lives.

I’ll dispense with the usual arguments made about how Post Offices are still gathering places for the community, and how they help connect rural towns across America to friends, businesses and neighbors.  While these arguments are true, I want to instead focus in why the Post Office matters to you and I, whether we live in a big city or a small rural town regardless of how we actually use the buildings themselves.  They matter because the mail is still one of the best ways of communicating and getting

Andy Rooney talks about why the mail matters.

my attention.  Andy Rooney of 60-Minutes did a piece on this subject in which he said that there is something about getting a letter in the mail that still excites us all – and it’s true.  One of the first things I do every day when coming home from work is check the mail – wondering what might be waiting for me inside that box.

Sure, I have e-mail.  In fact at last count I have over 6 different e-mail accounts that I check on a regular basis.  This inlcudes work-related email, personal email and some email accounts for different projects I am involved with.  On any given day I am probably reading (and ignoring) well over 200 pieces of e-mail. 

That’s the problem, though.  E-mail is so impersonal, and I get so much of it, that I tend to ignore it.  Work e-mail is different, of course, but even that has a lot of noise in it that I don’t pay too much attention too.  If you are a business trying to get my attention – or even a long lost friend wanting to drop me a line – sending me an e-mail is probably one of the worst ways you can attempt to get my attention.  You have probably less than a 50% chance that I will ever read it and respond.  That’s just the way e-mail is!

But it’s different with regular mail.  Even the junk mail that I get is something I at least give a few seconds of attention too.  I take the time to look at and open every piece of mail I get at home.  Why?  Because when its only 3-5 pieces of mail it’s a lot different than 200+ emails.  With the mail I pay more attention to it because, after all, someone took the time and expense of sending that to me and I feel some sort of obligation to at least give it a brief glance.

It’s rare nowadays, but when I get a personal letter from someone I know in the mail (or a card or just a thank you note) it really stands out.  I can’t stand those electronic birthday cards and e-greetings.  They are impersonal, and thanks to the constant threat of spyware and viruses I never open them anymore anyway.  If you send me an e-card rest assured it will never get seen.  You send me a real birthday card in the mail you can rest assured I not only will read it, but I will remember the gesture.

I am not a fan of stopping Saturday delivery because I like getting mail – and even though I’m a very tech oriented guy I am finding a renewed renaissance as it were in using the Post Office.  I find myself mailing more things off nowadays – I’ve even went back to mailing off a few of my bills.  Sure, electronic billing is great – but do you know how it easy it is to forget to pay a bill electronically when you don’t have that reminder sitting in front of you?  Sure businesses love it – more late fees for them!  But for me, I’ve actually went back to getting paper bills and doing more of my bill payment by mail.  There is something that gets “driven home” in my mind when I write that check out.  It’s like its real money and I know where my dollars are being spent instead of just sending electronic bits and bytes down the wire.  I find I pay more attention to my budget and how I’m spending money when I actually get a paper bill in the mail and pay with an old fashioned check.  Not to mention I take the time to read paper bills – so I can see if charges are on there that shouldn’t be, something that when I get a bill electronically I don’t take the time to do. 

So does the Post Office matter in this day in age?  You bet it does – and even now I still look forward to seeing the mailman come because there is that excitement that comes with actually getting something in the mail.  That is a feeling that I will never get from some electronic e-mail that looks exactly the same as the other 200+ emails I will get today.

Why not reach out and share a little bit about where you live with me – and see how exciting it can be to get something in the mail!  Send me a postcard from where you live and I’ll return the favor.

 

Robert Stinnett
PO BOX 287
Boonville, MO 65233

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School Is Almost Out – Summer Ideas

May 1

Posted by Robert Stinnett in Home Life | View Comments

It’s hard to believe we are already in May, but before you know it school will be out for the summer and for many families it’s time to start thinking about summer vacation and activity plans. With a little help from the Internet, and a few basic supplies, you can help keep kids entertained and their minds active all summer long – not to mention help get them outside and active instead of parked in front of a video game console for the next 2-3 months!

Muppet LabsI remember growing up one summer my parents bought me a subscription to a bi-weekly science kit. Every two weeks a little kit would arrive in the mail and would teach me the basics of magnetism, electricity, flowers, etc. They included the basics needed for the activity and were a great way to keep me occupied! You can do something similar for your kids without spending a fortune and using supplies commonly found around the home. Great resources for making these kits can be found at a variety of websites including the American Chemical Society (http://portal.acs.org; look under Volunteer in a Classroom), Science Bob (http://www.sciencebob.com/), and Science Buddies (http://www.sciencebuddies.org/). These sites are chocked full of ideas for you and your kids to explore some of the wonders of science this summer without spending a fortune.

Another great way to keep kids busy over the summer while keeping their minds active at the same time is through planting a garden. Gardens are a great way to teach kids about the effects of water, sun (photosynthesis), soil, and plant nutrition. Set aside a small part of your yard and encourage your kids to experiment growing different types of vegetables. Encourage them to think about what is going on by posing questions such as, “What happens when you give a plant only one-half the water you give another?” or “What happens if you plant one tomato plant in the sun and another one in the shade?” This is also an excellent opportunity to introduce them to organic gardening, a process by which they use natural methods for pest control and cultivation. An excellent resource to get you started, as well as give you ideas on how to challenge your kids to think and keep them active, can be found at http://www.kidsgardening.com/.

If you have kids that are a bit older, perhaps getting ready to enter high school next year, why not consider a lengthier project that they can use as a foundation for a lifelong hobby or career. Restoring or fixing up an old car can be a project that is not only fun, but can be very educational and profitable. What kid out there wouldn’t love to have a classic muscle car? Even if you are your son or daughter knows nothing about mechanics, this is a great time to start learning! Often old cars can be found for cheap (check out www.craigslist.org) and with effort and time they can be turned into true showpieces. It may take 2 or 3 summers to finish the project, but when it is all said and done you will have something that you and your kids will remember for the rest of their life.

This summer make it a family effort to get everyone – kids and adults alike – outside and active. Keep their minds active by challenging them in fun projects and ideas. Most importantly, do something together that you all will remember for years to come!

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They’re Dreaming of a $$$ Christmas

Nov 23

Posted by Robert Stinnett in Home Life | View Comments

… just like the ones the retailers used to have! (come on, sing along, you know the tune!)

The holiday season is upon us — it comes earlier every year — and this year, thanks to the sour economy and double-digit unemployment retailers are nervously trying to get people to buy “stuff”. One of the ways they get you to buy this “stuff” is to disguise so-called gift guides and “hot item” stories as news. This trend started right around 1999 or so, and in the past decade retailers have found that they don’t need to write the so-called news articles anymore, the “news” sites will do it for them. Why you may ask? It’s all about the $$$.

Websites and online news sources quickly discovered that there was gold in those gift guides. Click gold that is. Through referral partnerships (whereby the merchant pays the referring website a percentage of the sale) and pay-per-click (the website gets a few pennies each time the story is displayed, or a link clicked) the money rolls in 24×7. Why report on any real news at all when you can post faux-news and collect that click gold?

Case in point, let’s take a look at MSNBC. They have been rolling out the gift guides for some time, but today I happened upon one called “Gifts for the hardcore techies” filed under science and technology news. Thank goodness there wasn’t any hard science news to report on instead — you know things like the radiation leak at Three Mile Island that happened yesterday or something like that.

A quick read of this gift guide leads me to ask two questions:

  • Did anyone bother to tell MSNBC that we’re in the worst economic downturn since the Depression?
  • How much money are they earning off this one?

So let’s take a look at what gifts they “recommend” we run out and buy our geek friends.  I’m sure they have personally used and tested each of these, right?  And by used and tested I mean for more than 30 minutes.

First on the list is the Android phone from Motorola — the Driod.  This will only set you back $199, but it also requires a 2-year contract.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t care how good a friend they are, I’m not going to sign into a two year contract for a phone for them.  What if they already have an iPhone or a Windows Mobile phone and love it?  This one sounds fishy right out of the gate.

So the phone is out, but hey they have a lot more “recommendations”.  You can get your friend a $1,800 laptop (I wish I had friends like that) or for a measely $2,000 you can get them a plasma TV.  Geez, I got to start hanging out with some better friends — I usually just get a free lunch or a card.  I feel like I’ve been cheated all these years!

Let’s just hope you don’t have a lot of friends who are into tech, otherwise you are going to have to ask Uncle Sam for your own personal bailout by the time you get done going down the shopping list that MSNBC and their “tech writer” have put together.  The cheapest thing on the list is an overpriced 2GB “designer” USB drive for $24.99 (which can be found for less than $9 as of this writing on Bing’s shopping site).

I don’t know what just upsets me more.  The fact that a news site is passing this kind of nonsense off as “news” (especially science and technology news) to fatten up their coffers (every product on the store had a link at where you could click off and buy it — click gold!) or that apparently they think that the average person on the street going to rush out and buy their friends gifts that cost more than a mortgage payment (or two, or three!)

Perhaps instead you can invite your friend out to a nice, long lunch or a special night on the town.  Maybe you could get a group of friends together and treat them to a movie and popcorn (ok, so I know that one can be pricey!); or give them all a batch of homemade cookies and fudge to enjoy.  Don’t fall for the hype that comes out this time a year — and don’t get sucked into the mindset that you have to buy expensive gifts for family and friends.  The best gifts I ever got cost less than $10.

If you still feel this burning need to spend money might I suggest you consider donating a few bucks to a food pantry or other charitable organization.  In fact, I know of a Food Pantry where I live that could really use some help and appreciates whatever small donation you can give.  And no, I don’t get any click gold whenever you click on that link.

Of course you’ll never see MSNBC put something like that into their “gift guide”.  No $$$$ — no coverage.  That’s just the way these guides work nowadays.  Buyer/Clicker beware.

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Angry, Old, White Men

Aug 12

Posted by Robert Stinnett in Home Life | View Comments

Turn on the news nowadays and you’d think that pure civil unreset was getting ready to happen in this country. Listen to reports and you’d be led to believe that every man, woman and child was standing up and screaming “hell no!” to health care. It’s a revolution, a call to arms, a battle cry — oh, wait a minute, it’s just a bunch of angry, old, white men.

Have you taken a look at who most of these loudmouths are who are disrupting the democratic process? It’s none other than angry, old, white men who want everything for themselves and nothing for anyone else. It is the same people who got a free college education courtesy of the GI bill; the same people who line up for free health care at the VA; the same people who are enrolled in Medicare and have their healthcare taken care of by you and I — the taxpayers. You see, this is the generation that got us into this entire economic mess. The selfish baby boomer generation that wants everything for themselves and nothing for anyone else. They want to continue to dictate to the rest of the country how we are going to live — whether we want to hear from them or not.

Now let’s be fair. It isn’t all baby boomers — I know plenty of older folks who think this is the right thing to do. The people who are causing problems are mostly the same group of folks who didn’t vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. As I wrote earlier, the underlying racism has a lot to do with what is going on here. A friend of mine pointed out that some Republicans and their roaming gangs are hell-bent on supporting anything that this administration tries to do because of who Obama is — it doesn’t matter whether it is right for the country or not.

I really believe we are at a turning point in history where this is the last stand for many of these angry, old, white men. People, especially those of us in the younger generations, are tired of hearing it. We are ready to move this country forward, not backward. It’s time for these angry, old, white men to just shut up. The rest of us will solve this problem just fine — and it won’t just be the younger generation, it will also be the open-minded older generation who will help as well.

The relevance of angry, old, white men long ago faded — and not a moment too soon. Just like the relevance of Rush Limbaugh — where the only people who listen to him anymore is the same angry, old, white men.

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Hate, Racism and Smiles in 2009

Aug 9

Posted by Robert Stinnett in Home Life | View Comments

The health debate currently taking place in the United States has brought about some unexpected realities to society.  We’ve been seeing hate and racism boil over in some locations all under the guise of "well, I didn’t mean it that way.”

There are certain people in the US (and thankfully they are a small number, but nonetheless) who take their marching orders from hate monger Rush Limbaugh.  Now, let me say, I’m a big guy – fat if you will – but how anyone could stand to listen to this sweating, pill-popping pig of a person is beyond me.  Rush is what we call an angry, white man who pretends like he doesn’t know what he’s doing.  He is trying to stir the racism and hatred pot, and thanks to his shrinking audience size the only people left to listen to him nowadays are the true nutcases that will do whatever he tells them to do.  That’s just plain scary.

There are so many people out there without healthcare.  People without access to basic preventative services that it is no longer up for debate in my mind whether we need it or not – we need a national healthcare system, and we needed it 30 years ago.

I have high hopes that the small lunatic fringe led by the conservatives and Rush will be ignored and we can have a serious, intelligent debate with good results in the end.  I have faith that most people want to do what is right and have more sense than to listen to a drug addict tell them how to think.

Even if you are against nationalized healthcare for whatever reason (other than Rush told you to be against it), you know what is happening at these town hall meetings isn’t right.  You know racism and hatred when you hear and see it.

Turn off Rush, think for yourself – and no matter what side you are on, let’s all have an intelligent debate on the future of healthcare.

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Taking Time Off to Read

Jul 10

Posted by Robert Stinnett in Home Life, My Adventures | View Comments

Next week I’ll be taking some time off from work and one of the things on my list is to catch up on my reading.  As of right now I have about 18 books that I want to read that I just haven’t gotten too – and some are several months old!

Books Waiting to Be Read One of the things about most workplaces, and where I work is no different, is that employees are never really allowed to recharge their batteries.  Sure, you get a few weeks vacation each year – but as anyone can tell you (and studies have proven) most employees come back to work feeling worse than before they left because all they can think about during the week or two they take off is work, and all the work waiting for them at work when they get back!

Some companies do it right and offer employees sabbaticals every so often.  For example, a few companies offer employees one or two months off to do whatever they want (in addition to their regular vacation) for every 5 years of employment.  The employees get to really relax and come back to work energized and refreshed and ready to really contribute to the team and the company.  They have enough time to completely decouple their lives from work and enjoy the down time.

Other companies take it a step further and have gotten rid of the notion of vacation time altogether.  Employees are encouraged to take as much time as they need, whenever they want to – as long as they meet their expectations, they are treated like adults who can manage their own lives.  What a concept – being measured on your contributions and results instead of your ‘butt in chair time’.

For me, though, its a rush to do a thousand things in 7 short days so I can jump back into the rat race.  At least, if nothing else, I hope to be able to enjoy a few good books – and let my imagination soar.

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