Christian Children's Fund: Sponsor a Child

Looking back over my past blog entries, I came across one from last December. I was down to spare change (really, literally!) and toughing it out for about a week until the student loan checks came. My little brush with poverty caused me to reflect on how good I had things even at this lowest point, and how much people struggle who don't have luxuries like computers and blogs.

You might recall that I decided I would sponsor a child through Christian Children's Fund once I was in a parish and had a steady income. I also said I would post here once the details were worked out.

I tried very shortly after starting here in North Dakota to sponsor a child, and it appeared like the application was processed. For whatever reason, nothing ever came in the mail, or in my e-mail, though, and I have to assume something got fouled up.

So tonight, Thanksgiving Eve, I filled out the form again, and things are looking much more promising. I will be sponsoring Charles, an eleven-year-old boy from Indonesia. I won't know much more about Charles until my info packet comes (it will take several days), but I wanted to post right away. This has been a long time coming, and I had hoped to have sponsored a child many months ago. It's good to be doing this.

Please think about sponsoring a child this holiday season. It doesn't cost much... if a "poor preacher" can find $24 in his budget each month, so can you. For you, those dollars might mean a DVD, or a night at the ballpark, or a few meals at Subway. But for a child like Charles, $24 means food, medicine, and a measurable improvement in his life. It might mean a chance for him. And I hope it will mean that he knows there's someone who cares about him... someone he's never met, but who wants to help him just the same. Maybe just that knowledge will mean something to him.

There are many things I have to be thankful for. And I would be deeply thankful if my readers would visit Christian Children's Fund tonight and lend a hand to one of the many, many children like Charles.

May God bless this world with a Thanksgiving of abundance for all his children this year.

Thank you.

Too peppy

Upon looking back at today's blogging, I have realized that each of my last three posts' titles end with an exclamation mark. No more. You will notice that this post does not, in fact, follow in the established pattern. Thank you for your time. Good night.

Beat the geek!

Came across a fun little Digital IQ test on MSNBC. It doesn't take long, and it's pretty fun. I scored 153 on the test. Can you beat it? ;)

CONGRATULATIONS, Miriam!

Allow me to brag a little bit. If you follow this link you can read a great write-up of one of "my" kids out in Washington. Miriam is the daughter of my internship supervisor, and she and her sibs are the closest thing to sisters I've got in this world.

Turns out Mir's had a great senior season on the volleyball team, and was chosen by the local daily as the 2003 Volleyball Player of the Year (as well as being voted MVP by her teammates, which is another big honor). There are several good, lengthy quotes, along with four photos. Pretty good press!

Of course, all of the Taylor daughters are absolutely outstanding young ladies, and worth more than a bit of boasting. =) I couldn't be prouder of them.

Today, though, I've got to offer my congrats to Miriam for a job well done. Way to go!

Oh, the memories!

Yahoo! News - Air Canada Service Staff Get Burger-Coupon Bonus

This reminds me of when my brother and I were young 'uns, delivering papers for the Hutchinson Leader. 125 of those shopping supplements - at this time of year, overflowing with ads - each Saturday, for a nickel apiece. $6.25 a week for lugging those things through the Minnesota weather.

So it was really wonderful for us to see a Christmas bonus envelope in with the regular paycheck! Imagine the disappointment to find just a couple of $1 gift certificates to a fast food joint. Not even enough to get a simple cheeseburger and fries, nevermind a beverage or anything fancy.

Worst Christmas bonus ever. Better not even to give a Christmas bonus than to give one that makes you look fantastically, breathtakingly cheap.

Even though I still think that was a pretty crummy way to handle things, at least I can recognize now that the Leader is a small-town paper, and probably doesn't have all kinds of money to burn. Not only that, but its carriers were mostly kids who were happy to get a few bucks each week to blow at K-mart. (Yes, that was in the pre-Wally World days, when K-mart was king.)

But this little article about Air Canada is really remarkable, especially when you realize that their meager bonuses, given to only 100 employees, cost the airline essentially nothing.

Except for bad publicity, that is. ;)

Of course, now I'm just waiting for some stinker on the church council to read this and stick a a couple of Mickey Dee's bucks into my December paycheck, just to get a rise out of me! *LOL*

But, of course...

Of course, I should mention that if "Loaves and Fishes is a little rich for your budget, I know your favorite pastor would be tickled pink with just about any of John's prints.

Just so you know. ;)

Need an idea for Christmas?

I got a card in my mail yesterday from John August Swanson, who is probably my favorite artist. One of his originals, "Good Samaritan", hangs in my living room - the sum total of all of my ordination gift money.

John just published his latest piece, "Loaves and Fishes", based on the feeding of the five thousand. The piece is massive - unframed, it's two feet tall by three feet wide - and was printed in a limited edition of 250 originals. (Serigraphy, John's main technique, produces multiple originals. There is no single "first" one... since they are made with a high-quality printing press, all of the prints that come out of that first edition are originals and not reproductions.)

For a limited time, you can buy this wonderful piece for your favorite pastor for just $750, and stick him with the obligatory framing job of at least that much, which he will dutifully (and probably giddily) take on. ;)

Just wanted to let you know!

The Love Him, Hate Him President

One of the best articles I've read recently... from the cover of TIME Magazine: The Love Him, Hate Him President

News on Nikki

The upside is that Nikki hasn't had any more days like she did two weeks ago, where she's basically immobilized by whatever's ailing her. The downside is that she's still not herself.

I haven't had to refill either her food or water bowl, except to give her fresh water, this whole week. Although her energy level isn't in the toilet, she's not running up and down the stairs like she did a month ago, and she seems unfocused when I give her commands, as though they're not processing.

Also, she's picked up a kind of cough that starts out as wheezing and ends with a little hack. She coughs like this off and on throughout the day, but more often after she's done something physical. From talking with the vet, this is sometimes a sign of congestive heart failure. Add that to the list.

She still hasn't stopped trembling, either. That fits with the anemia, but it's still troubling to see.

In many ways she's "back to her old self," but I've known her long enough that I can tell there are things that are not right yet. I talk with Dr. Kjelland at choir and keep him informed, so that if there's anything we need to address, we can catch it earlier rather than later.

Nikki's an elderly dog, so it doesn't surprise me that she might have any of these various health issues. But it's odd how they just suddenly set in. Although it's possible that until I was aware that she was sick I wasn't really noticing the symptoms she was showing.

Anyhow, that's the story for now. I'm not anticipating any emergency trips to the vet in the immediate future, but I think she does need to be watched.

Planning day

My two big tasks for today: Plan the Thanksgiving Eve service and get that to Amy to be copied, and plan with the First Lutheran music and worship committee for the upcoming Sundays.

And then plan how I'm going to get everything done that needs to be done in the next week or two. ;)

A hairy situation, remedied

For the last three weeks I've been answering the phone for the Just For Men hair coloring free trial.

No, I haven't taken up a new vocation. As it turns out, the 800 number for Just For Men's latest national ad campaign is only one digit off from my personal 800 number, the one I signed up for because it was free from my long distance company and might potentially be useful sometime. My number ends in -3020, while Just For Men's is -3030. Fun!

According to my online statement, I've received 44 phone calls in November to my 800 number, all of which are misdials of Just For Men's number. They've come at all hours of the day and night, waking me up several times (when you're the pastor, you've got even more incentive than most people to jump out of bed when the phone rings at 2:30 in the morning). Thankfully, the grand total charge for all of them is just shy of $2.50, so that's not such a big issue.

After talking to my long distance company, they've agreed to change my number and to credit me for those calls. It's not like it was hard to prove my case... I mean, how many people are going to have nearly fifty legitimate, one-minute calls from all over the United States on their 800 number?

Better still would be if they could put a PIN on the number, like my parents' old personal 800 number had. But it sounds like that sort of an option is still in the future.

For now, I've got a new phone number, and I couldn't be happier.

I'll say this one final time, and then do the happy dance of joy to be done with it: If you're trying to reach the Just For Men free sample hotline, you need to dial 1-888-202-3030.

It's so good to be free. ;)

Lookin' good!

Happy birthday, Mickey! You're lookin' mighty good at 75. ;) Yahoo! News - Disney Icon Mickey Mouse Turns 75

A troubling issue

Are states using mental institutions to effectively imprison certain offenders for life, even though they have served their full sentences? It seems likely: NY Times - Questions Rise Over Imprisoning Sex Offenders Past Their Terms.

Now, a sex offender does not get any special sympathy from me. But our culture seems to have such a horror of this particular kind of crime that we throw reason out the door. Many people would say, "Good! Let them rot away in a mental institution. That's good justice!"

But good justice is imprisoning people for the crimes they have committed, and freeing them when they've served the time specified in the statutes for their offense. Good justice is not using the health care system as a de facto prison system for people who serve as political free passes to "tough on crime" lawmakers.

Read the article, and you'll see all kinds of examples of bad psychiatry and bad law being applied to keep people locked up indefinitely. In the five years since New Jersey enacted this system, over 300 men have been locked away in prison-like mental institutions... only 11 have "recovered" and been released. All of these men have done their full prison sentences, but for most of them it appears they will be locked away for life, simply because their past actions inspire an irrational loathing and disgust among the voting public.

That's not good justice. It's not even American. But it is popular, and that's why many such outrages continue in America, to our great shame.

La la la la la la...

My router is playing Gargamel tonight... that is, it's catching smurfs left and right.

For those of you who didn't grow up in the Eighties, the Smurfs were a bunch of little blue dudes (and one dudette... er, Smurfette) who lived in the woods and walked around half naked. They were good - some might say they were frighteningly good - little folks, but they all looked alike. Except for Papa Smurf and Smurfette. Whatever.

Gargamel was the evil guy who always tried to catch them. In fact, he created Smurfette in order to lure those 100 male Smurfs into his trap. Hmmmm...

Anyhow, at my house, Gargamel is now the good guy. As much as I loved the Smurfs, lately they've been a pain in the tuckus. See, there's a kind of hacker attack called a "smurf attack" or just "smurfing" for short. If you can imagine getting the whole mob of happy little Smurfs really riled up about something, and then sending them to pummel someone, that's kinda how it works. And thankfully my router has been catching all these little smurfing incidents and protecting my computer.

The annoying part is that I get an e-mail each time the router blocks something, and tonight it's been at least half a dozen incidents. I suppose I could turn this off, but then how would I know whether the smurf village was being wiped out or not?

La la la la la la... I'm feeling so very smurfy, thank you very much...

Hot Death Uno

The outlook is bad: I'm hopelessly addicted to Uno. Hot Death Uno, to be exact. A few weeks back I downloaded a great little free program for my Pocket PC so that I could play Uno on it. Little did I know that with the extra "Hot Death" rules and cards built into the game, that I'd become a junkie.

If you've ever played Uno, you know that it can be a fiendishly vicious game. That's the fun of it - screwing over your nearest and dearest with a well-timed Draw 4. *muwahahaha* But Hot Death adds all sorts of new beauties like its namesake, the Hot Death Wild card, which is a Draw 8. There's also the Quitter, which forces the person on the receiving end out of the game... eating all the cards in her hand. Or the Spreader, a variation on the nomal Draw 2, which forces everyone at the table to draw two, except, of course, the person playing the Spreader.

It's evil. It truly is.

And the wonderful thing is that I found a web site devoted to the Hot Death variation of Uno, which includes... PRINTABLE CARDS!!! This kind soul has created his own special card faces for all of us to print out, so that we can make our own real-world Hot Death Uno decks. =)

So for my dear family, remember that I'll be home for the holidays. >=} And to those card sharks Dave and Sarah, maybe next time we'll play my game.

Muwahahahahahahahaha!

Good news on the Nikki front

Nikki played this afternoon. :) When I came back from the church for lunch, she was in a playful mood for the first time since Monday night. After a little gentle romping, she and I headed downstairs... and Nikki jumped the last two stairs. Normally she jumps about the last three or even four when she's really wound up, but this was a definite sign of improvement.

After we had played tag for a little while, Nikki followed her normal routine, and headed back to her bowl for a drink. A drink. :)

I think I can officially say that Nikki is now on the mend. Which is very good news, as far as I'm concerned!

Now I think we'll be taking a nice Saturday afternoon nap. ;)

Congrats to the Loboes

The LaMoure-Litchville-Marion-Verona Loboes football season came to an end last night at the Fargodome, with a loss to the Velva-Sawyer Aggies, giving the Loboes a second-place finish and an 11-1 record this year.

Congratulations to the Loboes players and their coaches on a season well done!

Doggie update

Some good news to post - Nikki ate and drank some last night before bed. I used my old trick of tossing the pellets of her dry dog food at her like they're treats, and she snarfed them up one by one. Usually works when she seems to be turning up her nose at the food. Then I put a little pile of them on the floor by her bowl. For some reason, she eats them when they're on the floor when she's fussy, more often than out of the bowl.

After she finished the ones I tossed and the pile on the floor, she decided she needed a drink to wash things down. It wasn't a big drink, and I'd sure like to see her drink more, but it was the first time she's shown any interest in her water bowl since Wednesday morning, so I was happy for it.

Maybe today will be the day Nikki starts eating and drinking normally again.

The Straight Dope takes on psychics

I'm a big fan of Cecil Adams' weekly column, The Straight Dope. Cecil and his staff take on any and all questions, from the bizarre to the fascinating. This week they discuss the many techniques "psychics" use to produce such seemingly amazing results. If you've never heard of cold reading before, you're in for an eye-opener.

"Psychics" are certainly talented people... it certainly takes some skill to mine people for information while looking like you're actually giving them information. But don't bother spending your money on Miss Cleo or her ilk. They can't see your future, except that there's less money in it.

Read the full scoop:

Straight Dope Staff Report: How come TV psychics seem so convincing?

Success!

Cool! It worked. The only thing the Pocket Blog software doesn't seem able to do is to add the title to my entries. But I can always go back and add that later on. But for now it looks like I should be able to blog offline on my Pocket PC, and then upload those entries when I sync later on.

Mobile blogging for Bob?

This is a test of updating my blog from my Pocket PC.

Update on Nikki

The good news is that Nikki seemed to be more herself this morning. She actualy bounced a little bit as she went out the back door, and almost ran down the stairs. That's her normal routine - the back steps usually are only two big bounds in either direction for her - but I haven't seen a hint of it since Monday. She's still not leaping and bounding, but it was definitely more pep than she's had for quite a while.

She's still not eating or drinking, though. I guess I should qualify that. When I've given her her pills, hidden inside penne noodles with Alfredo sauce, she's been delighted to eat those. But she isn't touching her own food, and she doesn't want anything to do with any of the beverages I've offered her.

But I'm going to say there's an improvement today, and maybe she'll be back to her normal dietary habits soon.

Massive rockslide in the North Cascades

Very interesting news from back in the territory of the Skagit River: The Seattle Times: Rockslide traps tiny town of Diablo; officials warily watching mountainside

I've been to Diablo twice, and it's breathtaking. The little company town of Seattle City Light is built alongside the Skagit River gorge, which carves its way through the North Cascade mountains - often called "America's Alps" for their ruggedness and beauty. The dams built here to contain the Skagit are marvels, and they provide much of the power to the city of Seattle.

Sunday morning 3 million cubic yards of rock broke loose from the mountain face and came crashing down across Highway 20 (the "North Cascades Highway") just east of Newhalem, making it impossible to reach Diablo. Just to put that in perspective, imagine a large football stadium, 250 yards long by 150 yards wide. If you piled up all the rock that fell Sunday inside that stadium, you'd have a heap of rock as tall as a medium-sized skyscraper - 30 storeys. Think of that: The Metrodome, only half as tall as the IDS Center!

The only other way out of Diablo is down Hwy. 20 to the east, through Winthrop... but other repairs are needed in that direction before the road is passable.

Diablo has been cut off from the rest of the world before, but this is a pretty spectacular instance of being isolated. Currently only a single-lane emergency road along the rubble has been cleared, and it's quite likely that more of the mountain could come crashing down with the rainstorms in the forecast this weekend. Otherwise, Diablo is only accessible by helicopter.

There's been a lot of natural catastrophe back in my internship stomping grounds this fall. It's probably a good thing I'm in North Dakota now, where all Mom has to worry about is blizzards and rogue deer. ;)

Sick as a dog

I suppose Nikki couldn't be anything other than sick as a dog, being solidly canine all her life, but I'm trying to come up with at least modestly interesting titles for these entries, so you'll have to bear with me in my creatively lame moments.

Not a lot of news one way or the other on Nikki. Most folks who might come to my door probably wouldn't even realize that she's sick, since she's walking around and even wagging her tail some. But I know her, and I know her body language, and I know she's not well yet. She doesn't have her energy, she's still not drinking (not a drop since yesterday morning, and then only a sip), and she's not eating much today, either. On top of that, she seems to be trembling a little bit more often than before.

I'm a worried owner. This is the first time that "one of mine" has been sick enough to bring in to a doctor, and it's stressful. All of the little quirks that a dog might do (coughing in a certain way, being a picky eater, etc.) become magnified, and it's easy to start wondering, "Is this a symptom of something, too? Does the doctor need to know about this?" =(

Anyhow, I probably won't be going to the football game tomorrow. Litchville's team is playing for the state championship. I know it's an important community event, and I'd really love to be there, but unless Nikki's eating and drinking again, I just don't feel like I can leave her alone all day like that. Hopefully my absence won't be a big deal to people, but it's definitely not a good thing for a new pastor to miss in a small town, that's for sure.

On the up side, Survivor Night at my house went well. I cooked, and it was probably just about the first time I've cooked a real meal for more than one guest. Dad sent me his tried and true meatloaf and scalloped potatoes recipes, along with his infamous Bavarian Chocolate Torte, which was a hit. The cooking went well (hard to mess up most of this stuff) and I've got plenty of leftovers. Due to the quantity, not the lack of quality! (Shame on you for thinking I had leftovers because no one ate! *LOL*)

I like entertaining. It gives me a good excuse to straighten a little around the house and to cook. I feel a little bit less like a bachelor and more like a gentleman when I have guests. =)

Time to blow out the candles, though, and hit the hay. Hopefully Nikki will be interested in a good, long drink tomorrow morning.

Clarification

Upon re-reading my last post, I seemed to imply that the ulcer theory was much more likely than the leukemia one. Although that's what I'm hoping, and it seemed to be Dr. Kjelland's best guess, the leukemia theory is absolutely in keeping with the blood tests we got, too. It hasn't been ruled out in any way... it's just that the ulcer is the simpler answer, and so it's what we're running with for now.

Part of that is almost certainly due to Dr. Kjelland's good sense as a doctor not to start talking seriously about cancers until other (less scary) ailments have been ruled out. I told you he had good bedside manner.

So, I felt the need to clarify that. We haven't ruled anything out yet. But Nikki's responding well to the treatments she's received, and all her Jell-O blobs have gathered around her chest. We'll cross any future veterinary bridges when we come to them.

And we're both more than ready for bed. 6:30 this morning seems like a very long time ago to us.

Jell-O dog

That would be Nikki, after her trip to the vet. Jell-O dog.

Among other things, Nikki was about 7% dehydrated... enough to cause concern. (It probably only took the water loss from being sick, and not drinking to get her to that point.) I've got the doggy equivalent of Powerade in my fridge to rehydrate her. But to get her kickstarted, Dr. Kjelland gave her four syringes of water subcutaneously... in other words, the needle injected the water beneath her skin. At first all four syringes of it filled up where the scruff of her neck normally is, sort of like a camel or water buffalo. But the water moves... with gravity, it's mostly down toward her belly now. Her body will absorb it by tomorrow sometime, but in the meantime she's got weird squishy, cool blobs that move around her body at random. Jell-O dog.

The blood test revealed some good things and some bad.

The Good: Nikki's internal organs seem to be doing OK. That's good news for an older dog, since they were concerned about things like her kidneys, liver and pancreas. It looks as though those aren't an issue right now.

The Bad: Nikki had a very elevated level of white blood cells, and also a lowered level of red blood cells - she's anemic.

Now, the anemia and dehydration certainly account for the listlessnes I saw earlier today... they pretty much kicked her butt. Toss in the almost certain infection that the elevated whites indicate, and it's clear why she was feeling pretty low today.

The red count could come about in two different ways: Either she's not producing enough red blood cells, or she's loosing them somehow.

If she's not producing enough, the most likely culprit would be leukemia. Fortunately, Dr. Kjelland didn't seem to think this was the most likely explanation.

Much more likely is that she's loosing blood cells - probably through a stomach ulcer. That would explain some of the nausea and vomiting she's done, and the reddish tinge to some of it. It's something that would probably require some pepsid and a modified diet over the long term, but certainly not as distressing as cancer.

I got my one real laugh of the day when Jeff pointed out that getting an ulcer would be just perfectly in keeping with Nikki's personality! ;) She gets so stressed out when I have to leave for any amount of time that if ulcers work in dogs like the do in people, it sure would make a lot of sense that my little worrywart gave herself one. I'll have to mention that to Dr. Kjelland tomorrow.

Nikki's doing much better now. She's got $175 worth of food, beverages and pills to get her on the road to health, and she greedily snarfed up as much as I could give her... along with showing a very healthy interest in my cheeseburgers on the way home. A definite improvement over where she had been before. If she didn't improve by tomorrow morning, I'd need to bring her in to get rehydrated via an IV, but it's looking like we won't have to worry about that. Thank God!

One good thing to come out of all this is that I'm quite comfortable bringing Nikki to Dr. Kjelland from here on out. He's got a wonderful bedside manner (with both the animals and their people) and he's an excellent vet. On top of all that, I know him from college and from the Troubadors (he sits right next to me)... on Tuesday nights I get to call him "Nathan," even. ;) It's good to have a vet I can trust up here.

So, that's our little saga. I'm quite relieved. I know Nikki's old and won't be around forever, but I'm not ready to be parted from her yet.

Off to the vet... =(

Nikki's been sick today. She threw up pretty much everything a little dog could have in her stomach bright and early this morning, and then when I was cleaning up the mess in the bedroom, she threw up some more downstairs. Afterwards (but strangely, not between the incidents) she's been completely listless. She hasn't shown an interest in anything, and is hardly mobile. If you set her on the floor, she'll maybe try to walk a few steps... then she'll just stand there with her head and her tail hanging. And that's all she does - she doesn't try to lay down or even sit... just stands there looking absolutely pitiful.

The receptionist at the vet's said that they'd want to do some blood work, because of Nikki's age. These could be symptoms of problems with her liver, kidneys or pancreas. =(

Our appointment is in 45 minutes. I'll post an update when I know more.

Picture perfect

I like the way my house looks surrounded and covered by bright white snow. =)

Corporate bozos and the Single Lender Rule

First of all, I want to be clear that I like my local bankers. =) They're good people who have helped me out already a couple of times in ways you just can't get from a big city bank. The fact that the rest of this post is going to be critical of Wells Fargo Student Financial Services (WFSFS) has absolutely nothing at all to do with my friends downtown who happen to work for the same company.

That said, WFSFS just amazes me. They are the most unhelpful, unrepentantly greedy, uncompromisingly uncompetitive outfit I have ever dealt with. In the worst moments of dealing with them, the word "evil" has often sprung to mind, when I've been able to think straight at all.

You see, I'm caught in a beautiful loophole created for greedy banks like WFSFS by lawmakers who realize that most students don't vote (and don't make huge campaign contributions, even if they do vote), but that most bankers DO. This loophole is known as the Single Lender Rule, and it's one of the stinkiest pieces of manure to emerge out of Washington in recent memory. It's made my life miserable.

What the Single Lender Rule says is that if all of your federal student loans come from the same lender, then that lender can force you to consolidate with them, regardless of whether they offer competitive rates or not.

In other words, imagine all of your financial aid counselors have told you that you should take your loans from the same bank, because it will be easier when you graduate. When you graduate, you want to consolidate with someone who offers you discounts - most consolidators offer .25% just for letting them take the payment right out of your checking account electronically, and another 1.0% for making 36 straight on-time payments. But since you've got all your loans from a single bank, you'd better hope that they offer competitive discounts like this! Because if they don't, the two words that will be ringing in your ears are: TOO BAD. The bank doesn't have to let you consolidate with another lender, and they don't have to match anyone else's incentives.

Which means, when you've got as much in loans as I've got, that the "Wells Fargo Tax" for me will come to somewhere around $10,000-12,000 in extra interest over the life of the loan. That's a car I won't be able to buy, because Congress decided that banks like WFSFS should be protected from the need to be competitive.

Ah, but I've found an (exceptionally ridiculous) way around this situation.

You see, all I need is a single student loan from some bank other than WFSFS, and then I can consolidate with anyone I want. (Yes, the law really is that ludicrous.) "But Bob," you say, "you've already graduated. How are you going to get another student loan?" The simple, yet ridiculous answer: I'm going back to school in order to save $12,000.

I hadn't planned on going back for graduate studies in theology for several years, if at all, before this came up. I wanted to be paying off my loans, not adding to them, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to get a doctorate in the first place.

Well, I won't be going for a doctorate... you can't do that until you've been a pastor for at least three years. But there's no restriction on the Master of Theology degree (pastors have a Master of Divinity). I can enroll in that as soon as the spring semester.

So, the recap: WFSFS are uncompetitive (and potentially evil) bozos. My local bankers are not. Congress has decided to protect the bozos, which will cost me beaucoup bucks. The only way out of this is for me to go back to school long enough to get just one more loan.

The true beauty of WFSFS's bureacracy was revealed when I called them today to tell them I'd found a way out. Let's face it - I'd be much happier just consolidating with them at the fair rates, if they'd only negotiate. So I told them that the choice before them was to match the rates everyone else offered me, or to lose my loans entirely when I go back to school in a few months. WFSFS refused to budge, even then. They'd rather lose all my student loans, and all the interest they'll generate, than to give a fair rate on those loans. "Corporate bozos" really doesn't come close to describing this insane approach to business... but it's the best I could come up with and still be polite.

So, it'll be back to school part time for me once I put in the paperwork. If I'm going to take as many classes as this will take to qualify for a loan, I might as well finish up the degree; it's only six credits, and should cost somewhere around $7,000 to complete. Not counting the thesis, it shouldn't be too hard to finish the program in two or three years.

Well, it was good to finally air that dirty laundry. Even though it's a complete farce that I need to enroll in another degree program and take out more loans in order to get a fair rate on the loans I've already got, it won't be all bad. I need to take "continuing education" credits anyhow... this should certainly qualify, and I've got two weeks off from the church each year to take them, as well as $500 or so in my comp package to help pay for them. Getting an M.Th should increase my earning potential, and it's something that I'll enjoy having and working toward.

I just would never have guessed I'd be doing this so soon. Life in the world of Corporate Bozos and the Single Lender Rule is weird that way, though.

Exhausted but happy

Long day today. I was at Fargo all day... first of all, I was helping Georgia work on the synod's new web site, which I designed. All I did was the actual graphic design and conceptual work; Georgia's responsible for the hard stuff, like content, organization, and also just learning how to use this web publishing program - all of while doing a regular job! She's doing admirably, but it'll be a while yet before the synod site is ready to go live. That's just the nature of the beast. It's a lot harder to do a web site well than most people ever realize!

After that, there was the "rookies" meeting. Technically, it's a semi-monthly meeting for those of us new to the synod. (In other words, we wouldn't necessarily all be first call pastors, although I believe we are.) It's always helpful to network and to share with and learn from my colleagues, especially those who are at a similar point in their ministry as I am.

After the rookies session, I visited a parishioner in the hospital. Then I headed to Target... Sarah has been serving as a pastor lo these many months without a printer of her own, and she finally broke down and decided to get one! Since I was going in "to town" anyhow, I was glad to pick one up for her. While I was at it, I also nabbed a snow shovel and some salt... not like we're going to have any snow at all this winter, but I thought I should have one just in case. *denial*

Sarah was sweet enough to feed me for my troubles, and we enjoyed some good conversation after dinner.

And now it's ten o'clock, and I'm completely and utterly spent for the day. It's been a good day.