What Exactly Does "Fortunate" Mean?

I was in San Diego last week filming a video interview and had the opportunity to spend time with a young man, not quite 18 yet, who is "going places" in life. He's already started a non-profit organization, raises money for it, has spoken before large groups of high school students, and on and on. This young guy is charismatic, well-spoken, humorous and engaging - a real pleasure to spend time with.

I found myself thinking about him on the long ride home and the word "fortunate" came to mind. And then my mind screeched to a halt...I had just associated the word "fortunate" to a young person who was left at a Mexican hospital at birth, lived in Mexican foster homes and orphanages all his young life and was subjected to the most horrendous abuses that you can imagine, all before the age of 14 when he was finally adopted by my friends and brought to the U.S.

And yet "fortunate" seemed an appropriate word because he kept his humanity and his love of life through what would have derailed the majority of kids faced with the life he found himself living. Now he is surrounded by parents and people who love him and are helping him reach his full potential in life. That's fortunate. He has faced some of the worst life can dish out and he's come out on top. That's fortunate. He has an ability to look at life from the perspective of "what's the worst that can happen...certainly not anything worse than I have already experienced" which is incredibly freeing. That's fortunate.

Please take a minute and go to his website, www.Thundermission.com - his charity's Mission Statement is "Changing the World One Child @ a Time" and his personal mantra is "Why Change One Life When You Can Change Two?"

You just may be able to someday say, "I knew him when..."

Senate Sends Big Banking Bill to the President

So on one hand they're talking about a $700 billion dollar bailout of the financial sector and at the same time they're sending a huge spending bill to the President to sign so that the government doesn't have to shut down come Tuesday. Here's the link:
http://channels.isp.netscape.com/news/story.jsp?flok=FF-APO-1333&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20080928%2F0046667640.htm&sc=1333&floc=NI-ne1

I just can't comprehend the amounts of money that are being thrown around. And the article ends with some huge dollars of special interest monies being included.

Where's the outrage? Why aren't our elected officials realizing that this just can't keep going on.

Why Do I Feel Like We're at Odds With Our Roots?

My husband has an uncanny way of being right, even when he's being annoying! Now he's not right about everything all the time, but he looks at the world in a very different way than I do.

He didn't understand the stock market crazy days...to him the fundamentals just didn't support what was going on. Same with the real estate boom...he kept saying to me it just can't keep going like it is.

So now he is saying too many people are making money from nothing, i.e., affiliate marketing on the internet, etc., where people are making money on referring people to other people who actually have a product to sell. He just shakes his head and says it doesn't make any sense. You work for money, you don't just shuffle things around and make money off of someone else's product, it just doesn't make sense.

And interestingly I know someone who makes a lot of money doing that, but he admits that it's short-lived. As soon as they figure out they can do it for themselves he's shut off and he has to go and recreate the model elsewhere.

My husband's not a big fan of the internet overall...but when he talks about something not making sense I do (finally!) take notice. He has been right more often than he's been wrong. So he's given me more to think about. Some will tell you the internet makes everything possible, there is no limit. But then I think about my friend who keeps having to recreate his model and I wonder how many times he really can do that.

A day's wage for a day's work. "Any necessary work that pays an honest wage carries its own honor and dignity." -- W. Kelly Griffith

Comments anyone?

I Don't Care What Your Political Affiliation Is, This Article Should Anger You

I don't want to get into politics here, but there's a difference in my mind between politics and just plain government officials, regardless of party, not doing right. This article shows the worst of our elected officials, in my mind anyway.

The friend that posted the link that I'm providing below titled her comment "Pork, the other white meat."

http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/News2?abbr=CCAGW_&page=NewsArticle&id=11608

What's Wrong With This? WaMu New CEO Gets $20 Million for 17 Days Work

I can't find words to comment on this I am so blown away. Read for yourself:

WaMu Gives New CEO Mega Payout as Bank Fails

Friday, September 26, 2008

Nice work — if you can get fired from it.

That's just what one Alan H. Fishman might have thought when he woke up Friday morning.

Fishman was the new chief executive officer for Washingon Mutual — WaMu — the nation's largest savings and loan, which was taken over Thursday night by federal bank regulators and quickly dumped in a fire sale to JPMorgan Chase for the Wal-Mart-like price of $1.9 billion.

But don't cry for Fishman, who reportedly was sky-high — literally — last night, on a flight from New York to Seattle, when WaMu collapsed. Even though he's only been on the job for less than three weeks, he's bailing out with parachute worth close to $20 million, according to an executive compensation analysis conducted for the New York Times by James F. Reda Associates.

That's right, $20 million for 17 days on the job ... and his company failed.

Fishman, who formerly was chairman of Meridian Capital Group, apparently was much coveted by WaMu, which was counting on him to lead the failing thrift out of mortgage troubles that pushed the bank to a $3.3 billion second-quarter loss.

According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, WaMu threw a $7.5 million bonus at Fishman when it hired him on Sept. 8, and guaranteed him an immediate cash severence of $11.6 million — both of which he gets to keep.

He also was eligible for annual bonuses of up to 365 percent of his annual base pay — set at $1 million — to go with millions of shares of company stock.

Fishman does lose out on a big bonus that would have kicked in had he remained on the job through 2009.

Documents show WaMu was going to pay their new boss $8 million to simply not screw up and get fired — all negotiated as the Seattle-based banking giant's loses climbed to an estimated $20 billion.

Do you have a Debit Card for your checking account with a Visa/MC logo? A Warning to Heed!

Late yesterday afternoon I called my bank to alert them that I would be traveling soon to Europe (always do this with cards you're taking on a vacation, BTW) so I wouldn't run into any issues.

But this time with all of the reductions of credit going on I decided I couldn't risk finding out that a credit card I took with me reduced my credit line and left me hanging. So I also told them I'd be taking my debit card.

This is where the "ah ha" came in. The rep asked if I had a secondary checking account that I wanted to make the primary account for my debit card while I was traveling. Huh? Then he explained that if I lost the card it couldn't be used as a debit card without the PIN # but it could be used as a charge card and potentially wipe out my checking account. My bank set me up with another checking account on the phone and made the existing card link to that account as the primary account. I'll get another debit card for it in the mail, and I can always change the primary account back to my regular checking account. But why would I?

Now I don't know about you, but I'd never thought about that and no one at the bank ever brought it up, they just sent me a new debit card a long time ago that now also had the Visa emblem on it.

So a word to the wise - check your debit card and if it has a MC/Visa emblem talk to your bank about it. As far as I'm concerned it isn't just an issue for traveling overseas it's a serious issue, period. You can lose your debit card just as easily as a credit card. And think about this in closing...it's YOUR money that would disappear, not the bank's. Would there be any recourse or protection as with a credit card? My guess is a resounding NO.

Close-up of the Damage to My Friend's Galveston Beachhouse

A few days ago I posted the before and after satellite photos of Galveston, TX. Just now my friend got a photo of her house taken from a helicopter. Take note that nothing has been cleared away in the area and there "was" a house almost twice as big as hers about 3 feet to the left of the house in the photo. It's amazing anything of hers was left.