Category: Rev. Joe Dirt’s Ramblings

The unsolicited, unreasoned, uninformed, unapologetic opinions of Rev. Joe Dirt

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #563

yeah I know you did not ask!

The other day I was at home, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt.  Needing to go to the store, I tucked in my shirt as it was cold enough to need a light jacket.  While I do it a times, I think it looks a bit sloppy to have your shirt tail hanging out beneath your jacket.

Upon seeing me with my shirt tucked in, admittedly rare for me, Señora said, “My, my, how fancifed you are. Where are you going?” Well not her exact words, but the sentiment is the same.

I’m thinking this retirement gig has lowered our standards a bit.

 

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La Fiesta de San Juan

One thing I really love about studying español is my conversations with people in other countries. Via Skype, I can practice and sharpen my burgeoning skills (do I dare insert LOL here) with the language.  I love it because I get to learn about other countries and other cultures.  When they asked me questions about my country and culture, I sometimes see our practices, our attitudes, our beliefs in a new light, perhaps I am even forced to re-exam some of my own long held tenets. Occasionally, I am at a lost for an answer. Try explaining our gun laws to a foreigner, it somewhere between very embarrassing and impossible. As a whole, I have learned how similar we human beings can be, while appearing very different.

Via Skype, I was visiting with a young accounting student, Konrad, who lives Continue reading “La Fiesta de San Juan”

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We Bonded

The beginning of last week Señora became very ill.  We thought she was having an attack of sinusitis or possibly the flu.  A few days into it, she lost her sense of taste.  Despite having had both doses of the Moderna vaccine, she tested positive for COVID.  After a miserable weekend she had the infusion treatment Monday, and she is improving.  She remains very fatigued  and is still missing the flavor of food.

Out of an abundance of caution, Señora suggested Continue reading “We Bonded”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #5,975

yeah I know you did not ask!

Señora for Christmas last year bought me a tear off calendar with daily puzzles. Most are fairly easy, but some require a little thought.  This is the one that popped up October 14.

Which one does not belong: 22  45  51  96

It was proof positive that 30 years of programming have warped my mental processes.  I looked at this, and immediately decided that 96 was the odd man out.  Why? We all know about 2 character state codes, AL, MO, AR, OK, MS, etc.  But there are many software applications that use a two digit state code ranging from 01 to 51, and for the purpose of these applications the District of Columbia being counted as a state.

When I looked at the answer I knew my logic had been twisted by bits and bytes.  As you are racing to tell me, the correct response is 22, being the only one when divided by 3 that does NOT result in a whole number.

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Social Security cost of living bump

”I heard a cynical comment to the recent announcement of a 5.9% cost of living adjustment to Social Security benefits, “Oh that is just Biden attempting to buy votes!

Just a few bits of data for grinding the old mental gears on:

  1. The current US monthly inflation rate is running north of 5%. If that continues the COLA will be mostly wiped out by inflationary pressures. The consumer price index is in the same ballpark. I’ve not researched it, but I do not believe past COLAs have kept up with inflation.
  2. A recent study found that 40% of Americans are living solely on Social Security. Forbes, among others, disputes this study as being inaccurate and biased (for my part, I always assume Forbes has a conservative agenda to push).  Whatever the real number is, there are a fair number of our fellow citizens solely reliant on SS benefits for their daily bread.
  3. Pension — Less than one-third (31%) of Americans are retiring with a defined benefit pension plan today. For those who do retire with a pension plan, the median annual pension benefit is $9,262 for a private pension, $22,172 for a federal government pension, and $24,592 for a railroad pension.
  4. The average 401(k) balance for a 65 year old is $216, 720, but the median amount is $64,548. By definition, the implication is that 50% of this age group has less than $64,548 in these types of plans. At 65 you have a good chance of living another 15 or 20 years…not a lot of savings for that time frame.
  5. They talk about the 3 pillars of retirement: Social Security, a defined benefit plan (pension) and savings, 401(k) etc. Most of us are sitting on 1 or 2 legged stools.
  6. The average Social Security benefit was $1,543 per month in January 2021. The maximum possible Social Security benefit for someone who retires at full retirement age is $3,148 in 2021. The average amount works out to $18,516 a year.  A 5.9 % bump works out to $91 a month.  I am reasonably sure the commenter would think he was living in poverty at twice or even thrice the average annual amount.
  7. Purely anecdotal, but when I was in college I did a survey for the Department of Transportation about the need for public transportation in under-served areas. The area I surveyed happened to have a high percentage of retirees. One of the questions on the survey was about income.  Of course, people will almost always lie about two things, money and sex  However, many of these folks were very open about giving me their income information (I did not ask about their sex lives… that would not have been professional).   It was very scary what some folks were trying to live on, many of them solely dependent on a SS check.  I vowed then to work towards having a retirement not solely dependent on SS.

Continue reading “Social Security cost of living bump”

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Rev. Joe Uncovers an International Conspiracy

Señora and I are friends with a couple, Harry and Susan, who live a little north of Chicago.  A few weeks ago they drove down to visit their son in Springfield, IL, and afterwards they passed a couple days in the St. Louis area to visit with us and Susan’s sister.  We had dinner with them one night on our patio and dinner the next night at her sister’s house.  After dinner each night we passed many agreeable hours on our patio gabbing and partaking of water and sunlight that nature had graciously turned into the pleasant and pleasing beverage called wine.

On the night we ate dinner at our house we were having a bit of a problem with flies.  I started talking about wanting to get one of those guns that shoots salt in order to hunt down flies.  A week or so after their visit, there arrived an unexpected package Continue reading “Rev. Joe Uncovers an International Conspiracy”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #3,935

yeah I know you did not ask!

I’m frequently perplexed as to whether the human race is advancing or not.  One area where we seem to be going backwards is in written communications.  There are a few reasons for this, but big ones are platforms such as Twitter that only allow 256 – up from 128 –characters per posting and texting.  Both promote the use of abbrvs. and acronyms, LOL. They also encourage the use of emojis, those ubiquitous smiley faces and other such small cartoons used as shortcuts for emotional content.

My text app has recently exploded with various emojis and other small images.  I type in beer and a picture of a mug of beer appears. I type in disrespectful and a scowling, purplish face appears, and so many more.

Pretty soon we will eliminate all cascades of letters symbolizing various concepts in favor of the new hieroglyphics.   King Tut and his Egyptian cohorts would be so proud.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #1,191

yeah I know you did not ask!

It strikes that the new Republican slogan might be: “Death to America” while utilizing the American flag in any number of disrespectful manners.

Well maybe not “Death to America”, but surely “Death to American Democracy.”