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Too Slick

Last week I met a "wealth manager" after a conference over in Birmingham, Michigan (cool place).  Out in the lobby after the conference, he sat down next to me and another guy and started chatting about the conference, what we all do for a living, if we had any kids, etc.  I mentioned I have three precious kiddos at home, at which point he said "hey, let me show you a picture of my kids."

Ok, I'm thinking.. he's a proud dad.  That's great.  I should probably carry around pictures of my kids in my wallet, or in something less nerdy than on my cell phone (does that make me a bad dad?).

He begins to flip through a three ringer binder, pointing to pictures of celebrities and "important looking" people (presumably some of his clients) and finally gets to a picture of his teenage children.  Then he tells us that he put $32,000 into a fund that he manages and that it's appreciated to some astronomical figure over the last three months, 500% growth or something like that.  I'm being pitched.

Anyone who can start with "let me show you a picture of my kids" and ends with "results like this, of course, are not guaranteed, but I mange [name drop] and [name drop] and blah blah blah options, and blah blah blah futures, and here's my card if you're interested in blah blah" is too slick for me.

Today's Funny

Today's laugh was produced by the following snippet.  I'm sure it was forwarded a billion times, and I haven't a clue where it originated.  (And, no, it's NOT ok to add me to a joke-of-the-day list):

A man and his ever-nagging wife went on vacation to Jerusalem .  While
they were there, the wife passed away. The undertaker told the husband,
"You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here, in
the Holy Land , for $150."  The man thought about it and told him he
would just have her shipped home.

The undertaker asked, "Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your wife
home, when it would be wonderful to be buried here and you  would spend
only $150?"

The man replied, "Long ago a man died here, was buried here, and three
days later he rose from the dead.  I just can't take that chance."

Movie Review: The Illusionist

Tonight I went to see The Illusionist staring Edward Norton (Fight Club) and Jessica Biel.  GREAT movie.  It's a little dark, mysterious, almost creepy.  I really enjoyed it.  The setting, characters, and plot were all excellent.  I was really into the story and it seemed like it was going to have a ho-hum ending, and then it all came together at once to complete the story with the happy ending spin to boot.  Go see it.

Is There Something in My Teeth?

After church on Sundays we like to go to Atlanta Bread in Grandville.  Awesome sandwiches (I like the Bella Basil Chicken Sandwich, grilled) and they bake chocolate chip cookies for us... sooo good.  And they have a special on Sunday where kids eat for .99 !

We sit in pretty much the same booth every time, right by the window.  So we're sitting there eating.. and I glance out the window to see an elderly couple at an outside table.  How sweet.. they must be in their 80s.  It looks like he's telling her she has something in her teeth.. they're pointing.. she can't quite get it... AND THEN SHE TAKES HER TEETH OUT AND STARTS POLISHING THEM WITH HER NAPKIN!

Tormented

"M, I'm feeling tormented.  I have too many problems to work out.. I'm figuring out problems in my sleep at night and again when I wake up in the morning."

"I'm sorry, dear.  You need to pray about them and give them to the Lord to work out instead of dwelling on your problems."

Such a sweet, loving woman my wife is.

"No, they aren't problem problems but Sudoku problems.  If I wake up at night.. in that half asleep half awake state I see rows and columns of numbers and I'm putting numbers in the boxes and trying to do it faster to beat my last time.  It's like the burn-in you could get on the old televisions if you left the same video game image on there too long, except I have Sudoku burned into my brain and I see the puzzles when I close my eyes.

And when I'm not solving Sudoku problems in my head I'm trying to figure the solution to sorting an array of words in Ruby [I'm learning Ruby so I can learn Ruby on Rails so I can go to stuff like the CarsonWorkshops Summit and learn about making a killer web app] without using the 'sort' method.. I thought I had it worked out but there's a bug and I haven't tracked it down yet.. still learning the language and all.  I've been stuck on it for a few days now.

And then this morning I woke up trying to decide if it would be more efficient to process the new loan portfolio we're buying using Salesforce or my old FilemakerPro solution.."

"Oh, that's just terrible dear.. you poor thing.."