It is over, I am full, Holidays.

               I thought I would say hello from the Ford Homestead just to let you know we made it through the Christmas holiday ok.  The grand kids didn’t get many toys, you know we are on a fixed income and need to be somewhat frugal at times.

               There were more packages for the kids than what are shown in this photo.

I am happy to report that we had a second pecan pie from our little tree and this time I was able to get a photo. I would like to report that the pie taste even better than it looks.

               My wife of 43 years got me a new tooth brush for Christmas. Retired people on a fixed income must to be happy with little things that don’t cost too much.  I received several other nice gifts, along with some much appreciated gift cards. Obviously I was on the nice list this year.

               I did purchase a toy for myself, it is a Tablet computer.  I am having fun learning how it works since it is somewhat different from the typical PC.

               Changing the subject somewhat, I thought this photo of Tejas and Molly might be interesting.  They don’t fight like cats and dogs, they put up with each other.

               We hope you had as nice a Christmas Holiday as we did and please do not go out on armature night.

              

From the Holidayed out mind of Don Ford.

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Well, it is the 21st and we are still here

 

               The day isn’t over yet maybe the world is still going to end today…

               December the 21, 2012 and all is well.

Darn I went and screwed up. I was thinking that the world was coming to an end so I took our life savings out from under the mattress. There was $823.16 in cash under that mattress.  I wanted to be in good graces with the man above when the world came to an end so I decided to do something good with our life savings.

               It is Christmas time so I got a small box and put all the money inside and taped the box shut.  I even put some Christmas wrapping paper on the box and it looked nice.

               My wife of 43 years and I decided to donate our life savings, all $823.16 to a deserving charity.  Believing the world was coming to an end we thought a generous gift from us to a deserving organization would help our chances of going up instead of down on judgment day.

               There are many deserving organizations to donate to such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, so we decided to pick one that might impress the man above. 

We took the package to the post office and told the “postal worker” that we had our life savings in this package and we were donating it. The nice postal worker was impressed with the fact that we would donate $823.16, so he said he would put it inside a shipping carton and put the address label on it for us.  He said, “We could leave it to him and he would take care of the package”.  He also said, “We didn’t need to pay postage”.

My wife of 43 years and I were impressed with how nice postal workers can be.

We gave him the name of the Radio Preacher that we wanted to send the money to but we didn’t have the street address. The postal worker said, “I will look it up for you, just leave the package with me”.  I am sure glad we have such nice, friendly and honest employees at the post office.  

 

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You know the old saying, “it is better to give than receive”; well that may be a true statement but there are some good points to receiving, especially now that we know the world did not end and our life savings is gone.  

Since we have no savings I guess I can start picking up aluminum cans from the road side and looking for road kill again.  I hope the radio preacher uses the money for something good.

 

From the “I have no lifesaving” mind of   Don Ford.

 

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For that one person that might actually believe this posting, it is a joke.

 

 

                                                                                                                  

                  

 

Goodbye to you all

               Tomorrow is December 21st, 2012. As you know the world is supposed to end Tomorrow. Darn, why did I purchase Christmas gifts if no one will be here to open them, I could have saved the money.

               Wait a minute, if we are all going to be gone I should have spent all my money (what little I have). 

               Well, it has been nice knowing you all.  Do you think it will happen during the day of the 21^st or at midnight on the 21^st? 

               How do you think it will happen?  Will the earth explode like one giant volcano or what?  This not knowing is messing up my mind. 

               Do you think it is possible that the Mayan calendar maker just got tired of making the calendars and just stopped at December 21^st?  

               I suggest that each of us decide what we really enjoy doing and do it today and tonight. If you really enjoy a big Chocolate malt or possibly some other drink, maybe a special food you might as well have it, I am sure it will not hurt you now that the world is ending.   

               I told everyone that I did not want anything for Christmas but it wasn’t because the world was ending.

Oh well, I guess that is it, I may get with my friend, “Jack and diet coke” this afternoon.

 

From the end times mind of                         Don Ford

 

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Crazy retired man sweeps front yard.

               Here it is December 19^th, and the outside temperature was 80 yesterday and may be a record 80 again today.  There is nothing like temps in the 80s to make you think about Christmas. Tomorrow morning the temp is predicted to be in the 30s with winds of 20 mph and temps in the teen’s tomorrow night.

The weather guy is suggesting the possibility of snow flurries after Christmas but not a strong possibility.

               Yesterday I watered around the house; this drought is really bad and our pour ground is shrinking, leaving big cracks. I also gave Tejas a bath which he appreciated.

               This morning I decided to attempt to pick up some of the acorns at least in the areas where we walk. The grass is the areas where we walk is in poor condition, I don’t like to use a rake as it pulls up the runners and that is not good for the grass.  I have my old broom and I use it to sweep the acorns into a pile then I sweep the acorns from the pile onto a shovel then put them in my little red wagon.               

               In all honesty my little red wagon isn’t little but it is red.

I often wonder what people think as they drive by and see a retired senior citizen sweeping his yard. I keep expecting the Hewitt Yard Police to stop and check out my mental abilities. 

 

From the Crazy yard sweeping mind of     Don Ford

 

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Ask, and ye shall; seek, and ye shall; knock, and it shall be

 

               Good morning from the Ford Homestead of Hewitt, TX.

            I was actually thinking about “listening to the sounds around me” as I sat in my rocker having a cup of coffee. My rocking chair is just outside the garage door so the sounds were from the outside world.

            As I sat there it reminded me of sitting in a deer stand from before sun rise and listening to the sounds as the day began. With the exception of the occasional car driving past the sounds heard from my rocking chair are very similar to what one will hear in a deer stand.

            As I pondered about the act of listening, a thought popped into my head, “Listen and you hear, think about what you heard and you will learn”.

            Then quotes from the bible came into my head from the olden days of attending the First Pentecostal Church in Cape Girardeau, Mo. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you”.

            In both quotes (mine and the bible) you must do something to get something.

 

            Let’s all do something today!

 

From the quotable mind of           Don Ford

 

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Best Buy Concerns

 

Friday, December 14, 2012

Best Buy concerns:

 

               Today December 14^th, 2012 was my third attempt to get a $25.00 savings code from Best Buy.

The savings code was a two day event Nov. 25^th and 26^th.  Purchase $250.00 from Best Buy on either of those two days and their advertisement stated, they will send you a savings code, “emailed to you within 4 to 7 days”.

               On November 25^th I purchased on line more than the required $250.00.  I picked the merchandise up at the store on Nov 25^th. I did not receive the email with the savings code within the 4 to 7 days per Best Buy advertisement.

               On December 4^th, I phoned Best Buy and explained that I had not received the email saving code.  I was told, “You will receive a $25.00 gift certificate within the next 3 to 5 business days”. I did not receive the gift certificate or other communication from Best Buy.

               On December 12^th at 10:00 AM I again called and explained the situation.  I was told “you will receive and email or phone call from Best Buy within 24 to 48 hours”. I did not receive any communication from Best Buy.   

               On December 14, 2012 at 11:30 (a little more than 48 hours since I last contacted Best Buy) I again called Best Buy (888-237-8289) and again explained my problem. I explained, this is the third call I have made and my problem has not been solved. I was told, “The other agent had issued the $25.00 certificate but it did not go through”.  This agent then said “he would issue the certificate and this time it will go through”. I was told “you will receive an email conformation within 24 to 48 hours” and “you should keep the confirmation”.  He told me, “The certificate will be mailed to my mailing address in 10 to 14 business days”. That means there is a good chance I will not receive the certificate until the New Year, depending on what Best Buy considers business days.

After talking with the agent I made the above notes.  I then went to the mail box to see if we had any mail. In the mail was the $25.00 gift certificate from Best Buy.  Now this presented a new concern; I now need to call them back to tell them I received the certificate.

               This certificate was probably approved to be sent after the first call to BB. There seems to be a big delay in the approval to send something and actually receiving the item.

 

I wrote the following statement when I was upset and now that I am not upset I am still of the same opinion.

               It is my opinion; Best Buy in its written advertisement and in its verbal communications has provided me with untrue, inaccurate or false information. This company obviously does not follow up with customers who have concerns or problems. 

 

December 17^th, 2012

               I believe Best Buy has a system that is supposed to work; they hire people from a call center in another country to handle their problems and do not give them the means to solve a problem. Big companies wonder why there are perceptions from the customer that they don’t care.       

               Big companies could solve many of their problems if they, asked some customers for their opinions (not these surveys that are done by an outside company but a sit down discussion with customers face to face; group discussions will not be effective as the group will usually follow the lead of a dominant participant) and then have management actually consider what they have been told.  This will never happen because management (the highly educated management team who “understand” how companies should be ran) will never stoop so low as to get information from a non-professional.  

               Big companies like Best Buy should occasionally have one on one meetings with some of the local customer service employees; I believe they have a better understanding of customer concerns than the surveys that are taken by the outside service. 

               Ok now I am done with this rant; I hope you have a good day.

Donald Ford

 

 

                 Don Ford                           

                                                                                                                  

                  

 

In the beginning was the Cell phone

               Yes I do understand that everyone has a cell phone and most of them are considered “smart phones”. My phone is not smart and possibly if I were smarter I would have a smart phone.

               The term “smart phone” means different things to different people. There is a group of people that believe having a “smart phone” means they are smart. There is no doubt that these people seem smarter, the phone does everything for them except wipe their      nose.

               What did you think I was going to say? You always have your mind in the gutter.

 

               I did drop my cell phone (not a smart phone) into the toilet at home.

Yes, I quickly reached in and pulled it out. If I had been at a public toilet I would have left it there.

No, I had not used the toilet, the water was clean. No I would not tell you if I had used the toilet.

Yes, I was able to dry it out and it worked after placing it in a bowl of dry rice for a day.  I learned about using rice from the Kim Kamando radio show. 

Possibly, if I would have had a smart phone it would have been able to swim in the toilet and maybe get out by itself.

 

               I bought my first cell phone over 25 years ago. Back in the early to mid-80s there were few cell phone towers and service was not very good. My first cell phone was called a bag phone. It was named bag phone because it was a huge phone and battery placed inside a canvas bag with a big zipper on top not because it reminder you of your spouse. The hand set was the same size of a house phone if you remember what a house phone was.

I think my first plan was for 30 minutes of so called free calling and 25 cents per minute after that.

As long as you stay inside the service area everything was alright (you could make and receive calls). The service area was basically Waco and 5 to 10 miles around.  If I was driving to Temple which is 25 or so miles south of Waco, I would need to call 411 on the cell phone when I arrived in Temple to register my phone into that system.  If I didn’t call 411 the cell phone systems would not know where I was and calls would not be received. 

Yes I have had the same cell phone number and been with the same carrier since I purchased my first bag phone. If you know the number you know it is very easy to remember.

 

               The carrier AT&T should offer discounts to users who have been with them for more than a quarter century.

 

From the Phony mind of               Don Ford

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The Ford Homestead ready for Christmas

 

               Not as many lights as the Griswold’s house but enough to increase the electrical bill.  When I look closely at the photo I can see the leaves hanging from the Red Oak trees.

 

From the Humbug mind of                           Don Ford

 

 

                  

 

First Time is the Best

               Gabi has lost her first tooth.

               Turning six next weekend and already losing her teeth.

 

Have a great week.

 

From the toothless mind of                          Don Ford 

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