Tag Archives: radio

Some Positive Economic News, At Least for Me

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I used to listen to National Public Radio a whole lot more.  When we moved to this house we did not put a radio in the kitchen, and that is a place I like to listen.  When I am whipping up some tasty meal, I can hear what they have to say.  This morning I was whipping up four-berry muffins and I wanted to listen.  But no radio.

Actually, that is not true.  We have a radio in the kitchen.  It is a wind-up generator radio.  Wind the crank and it charges the battery.  It works great, but the battery does not last long.  I need to keep winding it.  And winding it.  I want to use this radio.  I like the idea of listening to an electronic device without using electricity from the grid.  But, I admit, I rarely do.  I don’t want to keep winding.

There is another option, however.  This radio has the option to charge the battery with electricity from the grid.  Plug it in and charge and off we go.  I could keep it plugged in and listen as long as we have power.  This morning I decided that I was ready to choose that option.  The problem, however, was that I haven’t ever used the power cord.  And I had no idea where it might be found.

This took me to the basement.  Our basement is still full of boxes and baskets and bins from when we moved to this house two and a half years ago.  We slowly empty them and slowly bring new ones down.  The result is clutter stasis.  So when I go to look for a power cord, and I know I just saw the box full of them down in the basement recently, I get stymied.  I can’t find doodly-squat down there unless I get lucky.

I searched and searched to no avail.  I did bring up a mason jar to use for the bulk popcorn I just purchased at Healthy Living, so the voyage to the underworld was at least worthwhile for that, but I never did plug in the radio.  And, to bring this around to the point, I saw an envelope on the floor.  The envelope contained two $50 savings bonds.  Why it was on the floor was a mystery, but I figured that was not the ideal storage location for paper that had any value, due to the occurrence of mildew on such floors.  And so, in my wisdom and readiness to take action, I picked it up.

Now I was fully distracted from finding the power cord.  I had a jar to wash and some savings bonds to check out.  With the savings bonds in the envelope was a letter from the Hartford Courant.  It noted how my service as a newspaper carrier was superb, blah blah blah, and here was a token of appreciation.  I only received one savings bond with that letter, as I recall.  The other came later.  I decided I should find out how much they might be worth these days.

I turned, as is the norm in our house, to the internet for answers.  Ten years ago I might have just wondered about it and found a better spot for the envelope, but now I’ve got Google.  Google led me to the government web site with information on savings bonds, including a calculator to tell me the value of my investments.  As I have mentioned, two of my traits are wisdom and readiness to act, so I used the calculator.  I found out the bonds’ values and also learned a few things.

One of the bonds, issued in 1981 (have I actually held onto the thing for that long?) is worth $131.  The other, issued in 1986 (same question) is worth about $85.  That seemed a big difference for issue dates only five years apart, so I read more.  It turns out savngs bonds earn interest based on when they were issued, and the interest rates can vary quite a bit.  I couldn’t find interest rates for the earlier one but I did learn that the one issued later has a minimum rate of return of 7.5%.

That made me look twice.  Did it really say 7.5%?  Who gets a guaranteed rate of return of 7.5% these days?  You’d be lucky if you could earn 4% on a CD these days.  The rate chart only went back to 1982 but the rate on the bond from 1981 must be higher.  Get this–the highest rate I saw on the chart was from 1982 at 13.05%.  And this is supposed to be a safe investment.  Safe indeed.

So the good economic news is that I have $216 worth of savings bonds, and I have two years before the first one stops earning interest.  Considering these were purchased for half face value, that is a fine rate of return, especially since I didn’t purchase them myself.  Now, we’re not talking a huge amount here, but by 2016 I can cash them both and do something with those earnings.  Of course I will probably just reinvest them.

So it is good to know that I’ve got something, a little buffer, sitting in that envelope.  I keep reading bad economic news.  Here, at least, is some good news, if only for me.  Now I need to go get that fireproof safe I have been considering for years.  Then I can really stop worrying.  At least about a few things.  Then maybe I get on top of all the crap in the basement and, finally, I’ll be able to listen to radio while I make muffins.

Bad Music

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There is this gas station/convenience store at which I occasionally stop, usually to conveniently purchase gas, but sometimes, since they have a clean and easily available restroom, to conveniently expel some gas, that plays fairly wretched music.  I am no musicologist, of course.  I was a DJ for my college radio station, and that station sometimes played wretched music, but the groaners that came out of that basement studio never matched this tripe.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m no curmudgeon or anything.  I tend to think that any music is good for you in some way.  When kids sing it would win no American Idol competition, but I still encourage it.  Makes the soul bound, if you know what I’m saying.  This establishment, the one that I don’t quite frequent, is generally blaring, louder than such a place should blare anything, modern country music.

I grew up in New England, and when I did so, it was hard to find such music.  There was maybe one radio station out of dozens that played it.  There were more on-the-air preachers (Friends!  We realize compassion when we come to passion.  When we share the passion of Christ.  When we share with our neighbors.  When you share what you can to keep the Word coming to you on this station. And so on…) than country music stations.  I thought of it as bad music, but harmless.  Oh some people might enjoy that crap, those poor simpletons, but really, how could it ever catch on?

Eventually, as everyone knows, it crept north, spreading like kudzu, taking over the local flora.  I came of age in the 80’s, when there was a lot of crappy music to be found, but I am still in denial of this invasive species.  Granted, any big country music star has talent, but why waste that talent on simple repeated chords and hackneyed lyrics?  Like some art, I can’t help thinking that my pre-schooler could have created it.  The nasaly twang that pours out these tales of woe that force my eyes to roll involuntarily can be heard in way too many places.

This market is one of them.  Sometimes when I go in there, to grab some coffee after pumping my petrol (fuel for the large polluting commuting machine, fuel for the medulla oblongata) I almost laugh at the seriousness with which the overly loud singer dumps out his or her syrupy schlock.  Are you serious, I want to ask?  But I would both get no answer and insult the meagerly paid woman behind the counter.   She chose this station, after all, and that is one of the few pleasures of  this job that requires only a high school diploma.

I still go in there.  Just like I tune in to the preachers at times, I like to stay keen on my schlock.  Plus, I like to be able to mock it appropriately when I get the chance.  If only I could just mesh the two, it would cut down on my listening time.  Perhaps something like this, heard with the appropriate voice, and you know you know it:

I’m a radio preacher and no one sends me dollars.

My blue jeans are threadbare and I’ve got stains on my collar.

Why does my Christian lady have to tune me ow-oo-out?

Now that’s bad music.  Good thing I’m not in the biz.  But then again, maybe that’s just what the biz needs.

Children on Inauguration Day

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Yeah, yeah.  I watched the inauguration like everyone else.  Let me tell you, I was inspired as all get out.  It was a double whammy of goodness.  First, Bush is finally out of office and he can’t get back in even with the Supreme Court on his side.  I mean, how could you not be happy about that?  The reign of incompetence has come to an end.  Watching his (tax-payer funded, can we please get this guy off the public trough?) helicopter carry him away from the capital, it was a sight of joy.

Second, we get a smart, eloquent, thoughtful individual into the White House.  After eight years of “I go with my gut cause God speaks to me through my gut,” that is a relief, let me tell you.  But we don’t just get someone who isn’t dumb, we get a leader who cares and gets it and understands he can make mistakes and can talk about and think about it.  Obama is going to do a great job.  He makes me believe that change really is possible.  Guessing by the number of people on the Mall today, I don’t think I am the only one.

But the point here.  I met my daughter as she got off the bus and the two of us went to pick up her brother.  Once we gathered him up, the three of us got in the car to head home.  As we pulled out, National Public Radio rebroadcast Obama’s speech from earlier in the day.  The first thing that happened was that my daughter said, “Daddy, can you turn this up?”  A little while later, my son, who wanted to hear about Barack Obama, said “This guy isn’t talking about Barack Obama.”  My daughter’s response:  “That’s cause this is Barack Obama.”

All that was good stuff.  I was happy that they were paying attention and might just understand some of what they heard and maybe even remember this day.  But here is the best part:  they actually paid attention.  They were looking out the windows but listening.  Maybe it was just Obama’s tone, but they were rapt.  I’m thinking if I want to get their attention in the future I can just play back this speech and they will start listening and then I can just slowly fade it out and start talking and all of a sudden they will be paying attention to me and they will do whatever I want just like I was the brain from outer space with my secret zombie army that will do whatever I command.

This is a historical day.  I want my children to remember it.  I wish I could just command them to remember it but I do not have the power of the space traveling brain and, as far as I know, they are not zombies.  So I will have to trust to more conventional means, like talking about it and listening to what they have to say about it.  Obama, in his speech, mentioned the importance of  “a parent’s willingness to nurture a child” to the fate of the nation.

I’m on it.  With these kids, it will be easier than it might.  As I write they are marching about the house chanting “O O Obama, O O Obama.”  I guess I get inspired more than once today.