In a world of Tech....

We forget that a lot of what we do is reliant on user names and passwords. 

My parents are both getting up in years, and as a result, there are medical issues that happen.  Life can change over night, and fortunately nothing has happened yet that warrant any "drastic action" on my part.  But, as parents get older, it is important that someone in the family, be it a child or sibling or even a close trusted friend have all the information needed to make a transition as smooth as possible.  

Many people will leave it to the attorney to handle the estate, but inevitably the issue of user name and/or password will pop up somewhere. Bank accounts, insurance, even utilities. You, as the relative or friend, need to sit down with your parent / senior friend and get a list of all accounts that have user names and passwords. Names of lawyers, auto mechanics, Doctors, insurance agents.... anything you can think of that may pop up.  If they change the password on an account, it should be updated on the list.  Ideally, if the parent or friend is not comfortable giving this information to you, they need to have it where you can get to it in case of death, coma, or any other reason that they can no longer take care of their affairs.  This makes it easier to wrap up loose ends. 

I know this sounds like common sense, but there are many many families out there that do not plan for the future. We don't like to talk about death, but it is waiting for all of us.  Make it easier on your loved ones to cope in what will already be a mega stressful time.  If you have older parents or siblings, make sure you have the information you need to get through the situation. Have a family meeting, talk about it and I promise you will all rest better for it. 

Have a great day!

Remember this when you look at ALL YOUR FRIENDS on Facebook...

I am currently writing a book. I have been working on it for quite a long time, because it's the kind of thing you have to write when the mood hits you, and you have a great thread of thought...much like a blog. It's a chance you take that anyone will be interested in what you have to say.  I enjoy writing, and I hope to someday E publish this book. If one person reads it and it helps them, then it was worth taking the time to do. 

The book is called The Self Help Book For People Who Hate Self Help Books (c)2016..... 

I have read a ton of self help books, some great, some not so...but most have one thing in common. They are written by people that have a lot of letters after their names. All good...not dissing anyone. I am writing mine from just years of observation and experience. I would like to share one of the chapters with you here, just because social media is such a thing now. We are get pulled into the Facebook Rabbit Hole. So here we go. This chapter from the book is called: 

But I Have 4627 Friends on Facebook

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Okay. Take a DEEP breath. All but about 12 of these people are not your friends. Maybe a few more or less. Go through your "Friends" on Face Book and write down the ones you would trust your kids, Dog or Spouse with. Who can you call as a house sitter if you have to go out of town? Yup. Short list. Multiply all this by the number of friends on Twitter, Voxer, Snap Chat Yadda Yadda Yadda and you still end up with about 12. So why are you sharing you most personal stuff with total strangers? And why do they think you really care about what they eat every 42 minutes? It's really gotten out of hand. Okay, so I am an entertainer. I have a couple of Face Book pages. I think I have a total of about 2500 "Friends" between the two pages. I perform and send invites to everyone. I figure asses in seats means ticket sales. But, at lets say, Christmas Time, if I want to send out a personal greeting to people on my pages, there are only MAYBE 30 people that I feel I know well enough to invade their personal space. And some of them are iffy. Don't let the number of "Friends" you have in cyber space lull you into a false sense of being all that. We are really not that important to anyone but ourselves. We measure our success in terms of likes, shares and comments. We have all done it. We have liked some crap on Facebook that we didn't spend more than a 10^th of a second looking at because the person is our “Friend” and we want all his “Friends” to see that I am his “Friend”...What a crock. In the great scheme of things, it's meaningless. There is no personal contact. It's an illusion that we have all these friends that we “Connect” with when we sitting at home in our underwear at 2 AM looking at our Facebook page because we have forgotten how to really communicate.

When something goes wrong and we put it on Facebook or instagram or Twitter, whatever your social media of choice, we get responses of condolence, prayers, advise, whatever from all these people we don't know. But how many of them are responding because they are really praying for you, and how many are just doing it because you had 231 other people do it and they want to feel like they are part of the collective conscience. That's all good and well if they actually say a prayer for you. How many times have YOU said someone was in your prayers and never thought about them again??

As a sales person, I sit and hand write 5 to 10 cards a day to clients that have bought cars from me. People I work with are astounded by this. That someone can actually sit down, with a pen and a blank card and envelope and write...in your own handwriting mind you.....a couple of sentences to another human being. It does not involve a keyboard, an e mail address or a data plan. It's olden days stuff. I actually had someone ask, “What do you do? Mail it?” It's a damned shame. It's a shame that these guys are missing out. I get calls from these clients thanking me for taking the time...(2 minutes) out of my day to think about them. Oh, and they come in and buy another car.

I have all my clients in an e mail database, I have a ton of them on Facebook, and yes it would save a lot of time and postage to just bulk email a big “How have you been” to 400 people at the same time. But, it's just another email. Lost in 50 others they just got. But when someone goes out and opens the mail box and there, nestled among the bills and junk is a bright blue envelope, with their name and address hand written upon it, well, That's special. Someone once said, If you can count your friends on both hands, you can count your REAL friends on just one hand, and out of those 5, maybe two are true friends. Be careful who you share your thoughts, loves, fears and food pictures with. All of it will be in cyber space, uh, FOREVER!

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Hope you got something out of that. I hope to be done with the whole thing sometime this year!

Have a Great Day!

TO GROUP OR NOT TO GROUP...LEAVE ME OUTTA THIS

With the advent of modern technology, the chain letter was replaced by the chain email which was replaced with the chain Facebook post which has been replaced by the chain text. 

You know, the text where you are included with 65 other people wanting to have you reply or comment to everything from Boxer or Briefs, to political views, to saying Amen, Drinks at Bob's who's in?.... to countless situations...about this time of year you will be getting group texts about Cornbread or Rye Bread Stuffing...Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays...Turkey or Tofu...So and So is having a party, rsvp...yadda yadda yadda...

Point is, I don't mind getting a text from anyone about anything. My phone pings and I look at it, and at that point decide to respond or ignore.  My bug bear is when I have to listen to my phone ping half a dozen times in a 2 minute period because everyone else is responding to the sender, and being part of the group, it is assumed that I give a crap about what everyone else thinks.  "Text me back or you are not my friend..."  What is this? Third grade?  Here's a thought....Friends don't send friends stupid group texts!" 

So, about now, dear reader, you are saying, just delete it and unjoin the thread.  I have enough threads in my life that I should not HAVE to unjoin something that I did not join in the first place.  There are times that group texts are easier for sharing things. At work, Everyone gets a daily sales report group texted to them. Fine. Necessary and expected. But when someone asked a question on that thread and everyone starts answering it's a pain in the ass. ding...ding...dingdingdingding....

It's part of life, can't be avoided, so, feel free to group text all you want, but don't feel bad if I don't reply. 

While we are on the subject of annoying text messages, What is up with all this invasive advertising on your phone now?  I can't go to Walmart, Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond or even McDonalds without my phone pinging, and a text ad saying you are at Walmart...look at these specials...Again, I could shut off my location access but WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO DO THAT??? Any thoughts?  We will address this at another time.

Have a great day.

Do you want your car making life changing decisions for you?

OK. I sell cars. I work for Jim Marsh Kia in Las Vegas. (plug plug).  I get asked almost on a weekly basis when we will have a self driving car.  The answer to that is, when they come out.  Part of me would love a self driving car revolution because it would open a whole new market for me as a sales person. On the other hand, I don't know if I want to be in, or sharing the road with self driving cars.  I am not sure how the tech works. I know that it has to do with satellites and cameras and sensors and any number of systems that can fail while you are doing 80 MPH per hour and taking a nap while depending on your tech to make decisions like when to stop when a forklift falls off the truck in front of you. 

We are a tech dependent race. As we have seen in the news, tech is a playing field for hackers who have nothing better to do than screw with people's lives without a care. So if someone pushes a button 2000 miles away and makes your self driving car plunge into the ocean, this is not a good day.  How does it handle finding a parking space? What about that detour? That child that is running in the street to catch a puppy that ran out?  Too many grey areas here. If you are in a car, you should be driving, and in control.  There have already been instances with self driving cars killing people.  It's all great in Sci Fi, "Thank you for taking Johnny Cab"...But do we really NEED a car that drives itself? 

Did we learn nothing from 2001 A Space Odyssey?  "Open the Pod Doors HAL..."    
"I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave.."
I can see it now, headed toward your garage door, and it does not open because your car has decided to take over and wreak havoc in your neighborhood?  I remember the first self driving car I ever saw. Christine.  How soon we forget. 

Who gets the ticket when your self driving car blows through a Red Light?  Who is to blame with insurance when your self driving car rear ends someone?  Too many questions. 

Remember about 10 years ago when they said Electric cars will change the way we drive forever? That half the cars on the road will be electric by 2015? How'd that work out?  I feel as though this whole self driving car thing will go the same way. They will be rare and very expensive.  I'll wait for the Flying Cars to hit before I get terribly excited. Because, "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads...."