Our apartment in Cincinnati is quite nice. Two bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, kitchen, laundry, living room/dining room, walkout patio, about 1100 sq. ft. It is the same floor plan as the apartment that our daughter Rachel has.

It is fully furnished complete with cable TV and air conditioning.  Unfortunately, the master bedroom only has a full size bed.

Now, it has been about 35 years since I have slept on any thing as small as a full sized bed. At home, we have a king size bed.  Even when we travel, we request a room with a king size bed.  So, sleeping on a full size bed is a challenge.

One of the biggest things that I notice is that my feet hang off the end of the bed.  Fortunately, there are enough covers to keep my feet warm, but it is still strange to have my feet tangling in the air as I sleep.  In fact, even the couch is longer than the bed.

I guess if push come to shove, I can always sleep on the couch.

One of the attractions along the interstate, here in Ohio, is “Touchdown Jesus”. Not to be irreverent, Touchdown Jesus is a giant statue of Jesus, rising up out of the water after being baptized. He is called Touchdown Jesus because both of his arms are stretched straight above his head as if he was signally for a touchdown.

This statue is located in front of a church and is situated in the middle of a artificial pond. I am sure that the church had good intentions when it built the statue. They probable wanted to attract the attention of people on the interstate. Well, they did, but I am not sure that it is for the right reasons.

Touchdown Jesus is now one of the travelers roadside attractions. It falls into the same category as Wall Drugs and the Diesel Fried Chicken sign. It is a place where people say, “I saw a picture of that in a magazine.”

And what were the people of the church thinking when they decided to erect this statue? Did they think that they were going to attract people to their church? Or were they just trying to make a statement to the world? Who knows? At least they attracted the attention of the NFL. Maybe the idea was that they watch football after their Sunday services and so the church is a place to be, much like a sports bar.

Well, anyway, so far the Bengal’s haven’t adopted it as their mascot.

The Ohio rest areas on Interstate 75 are interesting places to say the least. They seem to consist of a building for the restrooms and a kiosk with vending machines.

The kiosks, of course, were an after thought. When the rest areas were first built, it hadn’t occurred to anyone that they could make money by selling pop and candy to weary travelers. And so, when they realized the revenue potential, there was no room for the machines in the main buildings.

What I find interesting is that guns are prohibited in the kiosks but not in the bathrooms.

Now, any time that I see an inconsistency like that, I have to wonder about the thought behind it.

Are the bathrooms unsafe and therefore, you should take a gun in with you? And, what are you protecting your self from? Rape? Mafia hits? Sodomy? All of the above?

Or is it because there is money at the kiosks and they are afraid of armed robbery.

Of course, I fail to see how prohibiting guns in the kiosks is going to deter criminals. I can’t see some criminal saying to himself, “gee, I was going to rob that guy but it is illegal to have guns in the kiosk.” And if such thoughts did occur, any criminal would just wait until the victim left the kiosk before robbing him.

But, in reality, failing to post “no guns allowed” notices in the bathrooms is probably more of bureaucratic over sight than a conscience decision.

Recently, we made a trip to Cincinnati to visit our daughter Rachel. She got a job down there a few weeks ago so we went down to visit her.

Ohio is an interesting state to say the least. They do things differently down there. Besides having a lower speed limit on the interstate, 65, they also have a different view of life in general. For example, they have signs noting that there are overhead wires.

Now, it is not that the wires hang low enough that a tall load on a truck might hit them. On the contrary, those wires are so high that it would require a low flying plane to hit them. A truck carrying a load that high would never make it under the over passes which the wires are often right next to.

And, it is not like the wires sign are far enough back to give you adequate warning in the event that an ice storm might pull them down. No, the signs are right before you get to the wires. Certainly not enough time to stop before you hit the wires.

And, they have a sign just after the wires. I guess that is in case you just ran over the fallen wires and wondered what that snapping sound was. Or maybe it is for people who just decided to stop and back up. “Hey you! Before you back up, you should know that there are over head wires that could fall on you.”

I’ll bet that one of the governor’s won a reelection campaign based on the overhead wires issue “Can’t be too safe here in Ohio.”

I have been in Ohio for two days now and already I have a months worth of blog material.

I was talking with a guy a while back, who worked for the phone company. He was a little shaken up because he almost lost his job.

He was in charge of the tool crib when an installer came to him looking for a new screw driver. When he went back to screw driver bin, he realized that his shipment of Western Electric tools had not arrived yet.

Feeling bad about not having a screw driver for the installer, he told him to stop back after lunch and he would have a screw driver for him. He then ran down the street during his lunch hour to the local hardware store where he purchased a screw driver for $1.00.

When he returned, he checked his Western Electric catalog for the price of a Western Electric screw driver. It was $10.00.

At first, he thought it to be a misprint. But, when he checked previous invoices, he discovered that they were, indeed, $10.00.

Concerned that the telephone company was being over charged by Western Electric, he sent a letter to his superiors. Why should the telephone company pay $10.00 for a tool that the hardware store sells for $1.00? After all, a screw driver was a screw driver.

The answer is quite simple. The telephone company is regulated as to how much money they can make. But, Western Electric, a subsidiary, is not. Therefore, Western Electric can make as much money as they want. And the money that they make translates into profits for the share holders.

So, the phone company buys everything from high priced Western Electric. And, the high priced equipment cuts into the phone company’s profits so that they are barely breaking even. And when they are barely breaking even, they show the government their books and ask for a rate increase. Meanwhile, Western Electric shows record profits.

The State likes to hire retired Bell Heads and retired Bell Heads like working for the State. (Bell Heads are life long employees of the phone company.) The reason for this is that most Bell Heads do not have a college degree and therefore, can’t find a decent job in the private sector. And while the State isn’t the highest paying place, it is better than being a greeter at a Walmart.

But, in spite of their lack of education, they are highly competitive. They have to be, because their income, as a Bell Head, depends on their job performance.

The phone company is broken up into teams. And, each team is expected to perform up to and above the company standards. Unfortunately, sometimes this competition works to the detriment of the phone company as a whole. In short, they have the attitude that if I can’t make my team look good, I’ll at least make your team look bad.

First, we have the installation team. The installation team has a finite number of days to complete the orders that they receive. If they fail to complete the orders during that time period, their team looses points. And, those points determine how much money they will receive.

Next, we have the cable team. The cable team has budgeted for cable projects. These projects include replacement of old and installation of new cable. The cable team is expected to complete all of their projects at or under budget. If they fail to do this, they will loose points and money.

Then we have the repair team. The repair team is expected to all repair problems in a finite number of days. If they fail to do so, they will loose points and money.

Now, lets look at a common team vs team situation. You live out in the country, a few miles from town and you decide that you need a second phone line for your modem. So, you place an order for a second phone line and wait for it to be installed.

When the installer goes out to install your second phone, he discovers that there is not any spare cable available for your new phone line. The cable team can not run more cable into the area because it is not in their budget. If they go over budget, they will loose points and money. And while they will eventually address the problem, it will take time to adjust their budget.

Now, the installer is faced with a problem. He has a finite number of days to install the phone. If he can not install the phone on time, his installation team will loose points and money. So, to remedy the problem, he unhooks an existing phone and uses that cable for the new install. Problem solved. No loss of points.

Next, the repair team is given the problem of a dead phone. The repair team has a finite number of days to fix the dead phone.

When the repairman gets on the scene, he discovers that there is no cable available for the phone, so he disconnects another phone to fix the one that is dead. Problem solved. No loss of points.

Eventually, the cable team will get more cable installed but until that time, they play musical phones, disconnecting first one phone and then another. And while it may be inconvenient for the telephone customers, for the phone company it is a win win situation.

In the 18 years that I have worked for the state, I have found that they like to hire retired Bell Heads.

Bell Heads are the life long employees of the telephone company. They are called Bell Heads because they have learned how the telephone company operates and they comply with all of its rules and regulations.

In many respects, the telephone company operates like the military. And, like the military, there is the right way, the wrong way and the military way. Or, in this case, the Bell way.

The first thing to be noted about the telephone company is that they prefer that you are not highly educated. A college degree is highly frowned upon.

First of all, a college degree means that you have a quantified education and a quantified educations means that you are a commodity in the job market. In short, a degree in Engineering from MIT says a whole lot more than a non-degree with 10 years of engineering experience with the phone company. The degree is quantifiable. The experience is not.

Second, because a degree is quantifiable, you could end up having more education than your boss and that is not good. The last thing that a Bell Head boss wants is for his employees to be smarter than he is. After all, if the employee is smarter than his boss then maybe the employee should be the boss.

In an effort to dummy down their employees, the phone company restricts the amount of education that you get for doing your job. Instead of giving you an Ohm Meter and showing you how to measure resistance on a cable, they give you meter A and tell you that the cable has to read between 7 and 10.

You don’t have to know what you are measuring, all you have to know is that if the reading is between 7 and 10, the cable is good. Knowing how to use an Ohm meter is a skill not needed for the job and a skill that will make you more valuable to another employer.

Now, this is not to say that the phone company won’t hire someone with a degree. Obviously, they do need some people with college degrees. It is just that the vast majority of their staff do not have college degrees and the phone company prefers it that way.

In short, the phone company wants their employees to be totally dependent on the phone company for their jobs. A college degree means independence.

The fire alarm system in the Hieminga Hall/library complex at Calvin College was one of the oldest systems on the campus. Parts were obsolete and hard to obtain. It had been retrofitted several times and rewired continuously. And as such, it didn’t always work.

In particular, the pull stations that hang on the walls, were not reliable. But, this didn’t concern the college too much.  The main thing was giving the appearance of a fire alarm system in the building.  After all, the school had relatively few fires and the fire marshal never actually tested the systems.  In fact, there was always some question as to who had jurisdiction; the city or the state.

But, as luck would have it, a new fire marshal came around and this fire marshal was going clean up the town, er campus.  Inparticular, he wanted to test the fire alarm system in the Hieminga Hall/library complex and this is where I came on to the scene.

Fortunately for the college, the fire marshal gave them advanced warning of his intentions.  And knowing that fire marshal was going to test a system that may or may not work, I was stationed, with a two way radio, in the basement of the building by the fire alarm panel.

On the fire alarm panel was a manual alarm switch and when that switch was activated, the building alarms would sound.  So, the plan was quite simple.  When he got on the radio to notify the staff that he was now going to pull the alarm, I was to flip the manual alarm switch.

And so it came to pass.  He got on the radio and notified the staff that the fire alarm was going to sound.  And on cue, I flipped the switch and the alarms sounded.

Unfortunately, I was a little too quick on the switch.  Nerves I guess.  Anyway, I flipped the switch before he could pull the alarm station. Fortunately, the fire marshal was too interested in the fact that the alarms were sounding to notice that the alarms sounded about a second before the station got pulled.  Details, details, details.

The fire marshal was impressed and the college passed.  Since the plan worked relatively easily, I was regularly called into service for the alarm inspections as that was not the only flaky system on the campus.

Fortunately, the campus had few fires.

A few years ago, I was in a minor auto accident. It was no big deal. Some kid pulled out of a parking lot and broadsided me. We were both probable only going 20 MPH and neither of us were hurt.

What was so unusual about the accident was the way that I responded. Instead of being angry, or upset or even annoyed, I was filled with love and compassion and forgiveness, the kind of stuff that comes from God.

Clearly he was at fault so he was all apologetic about the accident. I told him not to worry about it. After all, neither of us were injured.

I am sure the cop must have thought my reaction to be very strange as first, but when he commented on my Calvin Alumni sticker on my windshield, I am sure that it all made sense.

Once the cop finished the paper work, he told us we could leave. We both shook hands and went our separate ways. I never knew the name of the cop or the other guy but I am sure that every one involved will always remember that accident.

It still brings warm feelings to my heart. In a world filled with so much hate and pain, I got to show God’s love to a total stranger.

From time to time, I run into members of my former church. And, depending on my frame of mind and the member, I either approach them or avoid them. Such is the way of transition.

Usually, the members of my former church that I like, I approach. And, of course, they ask where we are now attending and why we left.

Where as, members of my former church that I don’t particularly care for, I try to avoid. And even though they ask the same questions, it is difficult to keep from saying that they are a part of the reason that we left. And such was the case that other day at Meijers. (regional grocery chain)

When I walked into the store, I spotted her. She was about 50 feet in front of me, headed for the back of the store. Since that is what I would normally do, I hung around in the front of the store and gave her a good head start. Then, I proceeded carefully on my way.

Now, this person is extremely opinionated, outspoken and ‘in your face’ aggressive. While the first two traits are tolerable, the aggressiveness is a thorough turn off. It is her way or the highway.

In fact, there are several women in my former church that fall into that category. I often refer to them as the roller derby queens or the biker club.

I thought I had managed to avoid her in the store, but as I was checking out, she got in line right behind me. Rats! And, as expected, she asked the usual questions and I gave her the standard answers.

She told me that the ministers sermons were getting much better and that she really wanted us to come back. She said that she really missed us and that the church really needed us. I told her that the ministers sermons were not the reason that we left. And her mouth fell open when I told her that we have been planning on leaving for about 5 years.

When she asked why we had left, I told her that the church was dying because it refused to change with the times. And I pointed out that all of the young adult couples have left for live and active churches.

It was at this point that she raised the hackles on her neck and clinched her fists. She told me that she has been attending that church for over 30 years and that no one was going to change the way that she worshiped. I told her that I understood what she was saying but pointed out that her style of worship was the reason that the young couples were leaving.

As she went into a tirade, I made my exit. I guess when she said that she missed us, I really think she meant that she missed our money which helps support her style of worship. Oh well.