Margret Sloan

After driving across three states this past week, we got home safe and sound and tried to pick up from where we left off before the funeral. Hubby had a lot of work to catch up and, sadly, his assistant manager had a family emergency and needed to be off for several days, so that means hubby doesn’t get a day off for a couple of weeks.

Ironically, with all the driving we’ve done over the years and especially this past week, it’s here at home that hubby gets pulled over by the police. Ostensibly for not wearing a seatbelt, which is true – he just refuses to wear a seatbelt over any and all protests by me. But it’s the law here and they changed the enforcement provisions of the state law so that you can be stopped just for not wearing a seat belt. Up until they changed it, the seatbelt violation could only be a secondary reason to get a ticket.

So, the cop wants to see his driver’s license (no problem), the registration (no problem although the tags expire the end of this month and we need to get the emissions inspection done this week to renew the tags) and proof of insurance. Oops. Where is the insurance card? The one in the car expired last month and we haven’t received the new one in the mail yet. That’s a problem, since the cop wants to see the current card or hubby gets a ticket. Oh well. At least you can get the insurance squared away and have the ticket dismissed. If he had gotten a ticket for the seat belt violation then he would have no defense and would be paying for that ticket with cash, court costs and points on his license.

Today I have to call the insurance company today and find out where the new proof of insurance cards are. And I get voice mail. Sigh.

So, I’m online and checking for an auto insurance quote from different insurance companies because now I’m getting really annoyed with the lack of service from the current insurance agent. I found the ez-insuranceportal web site which is really convenient and helpful.

Most of the major insurance companies are represented on this portal site, so you can get quotes and compare the rates and coverages all at the same place. They have a “quick quote” tool that lets you put in a few important details and then the site comes back with quotes from these companies that everyone knows:

• Allstate
• MetLife
• Nationwide
• State Farm

And there’s quotes from lesser known companies that offer great rates, too. So now I’m ready to have a serious talk with my insurance agent when he calls me back. Now he’s going to have to defend the business with me and I’ll be ready to change if I have to. The premiums come right out of my checking account every month, so I’ll be real interested in why I didn’t get the new cards a month ago so we wouldn’t be dealing with a traffic ticket on top of everything else I have to worry about.

Gas prices have kept going up and are over $4.00 a gallon now in the Franklin gas stations. Closer to my house it hovers around $3.89 per gallon. This is a huge increase over last year’s prices of around $2.39 – I remember freaking out that it was over $2.50 in San Francisco. Now I hear that is around $4.50 after just one year since I was last out there.

My sister was sweet enough to suggest that we get a cash back or gas rebate type of credit cards to help save a few extra cents off each gallon of gas that we buy. I hadn’t really thought of that and decided to look into it. I used the credit cards club website to read up on the gas rebate programs and find a good card to apply for online. Their top four card recommendations for gas rewards programs are all types of Discover Cards. The one that caught my eye says that you get a 5% rebate on all gasoline and auto maintenance purchases. If you paid for an oil change lately you will know that the cost of an oil change has gone up about the same rate as the cost of gasoline these past several months. So you save on oil changes and other auto related things beside just gas, and 5% is a nice little sum to put back into your wallet at the end of the day.

My favorite way to spend a few minutes on a mental health break is to play online backgammon or some of the free card games on Yahoo or other online game sites. I first discovered online games way back in the early 90’s, when Microsoft launched their “Village of Games.” Now there are dozens of different sites, some with excellent graphics and large numbers of regular players from all over the world.

If I have a full hour to spend on R&R I’ll try to find a good partner and play one or two Spades games. If I only have a few minutes I’ll play something fast, like backgammon or cribbage. Sometimes I like the cutthroat strategies of Hearts to sharpen my mind. These are not time wasters as much as they are mental exercises to keep me alert and sharpen my critical thinking skills.

Saw a short headline yesterday that the NFL is going to give Pacman Jones a break and reinstate him with limitations. What a bunch of sissies that run today’s “pro” league! The integrity has evaporated and it’s nothing but money money money anymore.

I’m going to join in at work with all the NFL pick ‘em games and maybe even join a fantasy team this year. The corruption in the league is getting so obvious that even I can predict the winners of every game, so I might as well make some money off it, too.

Found a website called Addict Sports that has bulletin boards for discussions on the different sports and even has college and NFL football picks on their site. Registration is free and there is a ton of information for people serious about picking the winners when this year’s preseason “games” start up again in August.

Look out, boys! Marge is playing for your money this year!

The banks, savings & loans and credit unions are a huge modern business that are getting way too big for their britches. They have strayed so far from their mission of offering a safe place for people to put their money and a resource for the average person to buy a house.

Everything they do is about generating fees for themselves and customer service has gone out the window. I’ve had banks refuse to take my U. S. currency as a deposit to my account. I’ve had banks tell me that it is too close to their closing time (15 minutes before the doors were to close) for them to help me and to come back the next day. Now the bank where I take our company’s weekly deposit – two checks and a deposit slip – tells me that I will no longer be able to make my commercial deposit at their drive through windows. I must find a parking spot in the crowded lot and walk into the bank and stand in line with all those people who have no I.D., have accounts at other banks, and all those other time consuming banking issues, to make a deposit that takes all of 2 minutes at the drive through.

On Monday I’ll be calling their other branches to see if this is a new policy with all the locations or just the branch close to my house. If this is their policy for all locations, I’ll have to find another way to do my banking business each week.