“C”

We are just players sitting around the table, the dealer gives us the cards we are to play.  So who chooses the cards we get to play? 

This time we got delt a bummer, so now we get to play it.  This past Tuesday my wife went in for surgery – cancer.  We were lucky, it was caught very early, from what they told her just in the beginning stages, so it wasn’t as serious as it could be, yet the physiological effect was present.  First comes the shock, denial, why me, a million questions with no real answers.  Then your mind begins to step off the edge and go into the “what if” mode, wondering, thinking the worst.  We always hear on TV, read in the papers, know of someone who knows someone effected by this carnivorous, ever hungry monster who comes in so many forms, effecting people in so many different ways. 

The worst things for us, and played on the wife’s mind is this isn’t her first bout with this creature.  Also it is something which has run a bit in her family – we watch her mother die from this cruel inhuman way to die – extended for a long period of time, slowly sucking the life out of a person.  Watch the person slowly be eaten up from the inside.  The kindest thing we can do many times is load them up with pain killers so the person can be in a dream state until the body finally can stand no more and just gives out. 

Sometimes the treatments are almost as bad and the monster itself.   The poisons we have developed to fight this monster takes their toll on our bodies.  Sometimes I don’t know which is worse, the cause or the cure.  We have been lucky so far.  The “cure” for her at this stage was an operation.  Now we are in that “waiting game”, waiting for a time period to elapse until her next checkup.  Did they get it?  Will she need further treatments, if so how severe a treatment will be required?  Sometimes I don’t know which is worse, the finding out what it is or the waiting time to hear if they “got it”?  I know it is not me directly effected, but it has had its effect on me as well. 

I get to play the mind games and wonder.  After she told me, the first thing I said was, “We’ll get through this”.  So then the short term planning began.  I am lucky, I am “retired” (yea, right), so I looked at my work schedule and adjusted all my appointments for the near future so I can devote my morning to the dogs, horses, stables, getting things done around here.  Then I planned a customer or two during the middle of the day, then back to the house to finish up around here.  How long will it go for?  Who knows?  We are playing this game day by day.  I was going on vacation the first of November – on hold.  Golf clubs got packed up for the season.  We are just waiting now for that next checkup.  Amazing how short termed your life’s planning can get.  I know I am not the only one.  I personally know of others going though this.  I know of those who are effected personally, so I am lucky it is not me.  I know of those who have lost their life partner to this and those people have survived pretty darn good. 

So our lives have had a little change.  I thank God every day when I wake up I am able to get my pants on all by myself.  We just need to have faith the outcome will be a good one. After all, if we don’t have faith, what is there? I guess the thing in life is not what cards we have been dealt, but how we play those cards.

WORLD GOING DOWN HILL

I am so glad I am 67yrs old and not 20yrs old starting out!!  This world is on a slippery slope down and as I look at it, there is no stopping it.  Everyone thinks the computer age, everything electronic is great, and a lot of it is, but with it. is coming to where the world governments will have total, complete control over everything we do, everywhere we go, who we see, what we buy.

Today I had to fill out a form to open a personal bank account with a bank where I already have my business account, what a goat screw.  About the only things they didn’t ask me is if I go to the toilet once or twice a day!  I remember opening my first bank account in Idaho, I went to the office, sat talked with the bank guy, when we were done, I walked out with a book of checks and my account was good to go.  Today, after filling out the forms online, and before I was done I had to make a call to the bank where I got put on hold, then once I was talking to a “person”, she had to transfer me, I got cut off only to recall, then had to start all over again.  Finally after getting a “person” back again and getting my questions answered, he said it will be a week or so to see if I am “good” enough for an account, then they will see about opening the joint account the wife and I want. 

Banks are so afraid of you are using cash these days.  They think you are a criminal if you deposit cash into your account.  The bank my wife and I are leaving was really bad.  “They” wanted me to tell my customers not to pay in cash, but to do electronic transfers.  I told the bank if people want to pay me in cash, I will always accept it.  If I deposit too much cash in the bank, they want to know where it comes from.  “They” say it is because of money laundering.  Guess what – the electronic age has made money laundering and fraud so much easier today, the guys in the know, all they got to do is know the process, and they can still do it.  So much easier than cash.  Governments are making laws so hard and strict they are making criminals from normal people. I hear all the time of Bank fraud just as much today, even more.

Today, if you are a thrifty person who can save money, you are a criminal if that money is not put into a bank where it can be tracked, where they can see what you buy, how much you spend.  I have had my own business, I understand all the costs of running a business.  After I buy a new vehicle, I immediately start to squirrel away cash to start buying my next one.  Not much at a time, just a little, but over the course of four or five years I got enough usually to pay the majority of the cost – but not today.  Here in Denmark they have passed a law I can no longer buy a vehicle with cash, legally I can only put about 10% then the rest has to come from a bank.  Yes, I know I could put all my money in a bank, but what happens if times get really bad and the banks go down, they will go and take money from your account, you don’t think so?  It has happened already – Cyprus, 2013.  Here is a link you can read about it:  https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-cyprus-bank-disaster/274096/

You say, “Oh this is the U.S. or England or a “trusted” country, well, it is getting so governments can and will allow anything “they” want and guess who is behind the governments – big business, the “money” people.  “These people” are behind the one world order, one world currency, and finally getting rid of currency so there is only a digital money world.  Once this happens, you will loose what freedoms you have left.  The governments of the world will have total control of everything.  So what happens when your account gets hacked, you loose your house, your identity?  These things are already happening as I write, and it will only

worse.  Why do you think all this new security, as we used to call in the military: sign, counter sign setup is going on now?  Because of all the hacking.  One thing I have learned in life, every time a defense has been put in place, a way to breach that defense is already being worked on.  Hackers are working night and day trying to get us and it doesn’t take much.  Just look at your emails or text messages you receive.  How many times is there a “You are the winner”, but people got wise to them, so now we are starting to get phising email which start to look real, from the government post office, from DHL, or these package firms.  Once you start looking at these, you will see they are not exactly right, but the hackers are getting better and better all the time.  All it takes is for a person sitting in a bank or business to click on the wrong link or email, then boom the hackers will get access to all our accounts, and this has already happened where customer’s personal information has been “robbed” and now where is the next step? 

I still believe in two things:  IN GOD WE TRUST AND ALL OTHER PAY CASH, and MONEY TALKS, BS WALKS.  If I could, I wish all my customers would paid me in cash, just to keep the cash flowing, just to give the “finger” to banks, big business and Governments. 

As I am writing this, I get an email notice that my subscription is about to run out – subscription to what?  – from an xyz email server!!  But how many older people get caught up in some of these scams?  Must be enough that these scammers keep on trying.  Just think how much good could be accomplished if all these scammers worked for good.  Also where do you think all the governments get guys to develop programs to fight these hackers – hackers!!

Unfortunately here in Denmark if a business does not want to take cash, they do not have to, so I just walk out and go somewhere else.  I am sorry to say, I think I am fighting a lost cause, but this old man will keep on fighting for the “cash in hand”.