Apomo

As I approached the crosswalk area to get to the front doors I noticed several cars backed up on the driveway. They were waiting for an old man to cross the road. It was obvious he’d had a stroke and his left side was mostly paralyzed. His gait was agonizingly slow. We all held our breath for him as he dragged himself with his cane across the street toward the store. Nobody seemed to mind waiting. I think all of our hearts went out to him as we willed his leg to move along with him.

Just as he reached the curb I ran across the driveway and grabbed the door for him. I tried to act nonchalant so as to preserve his dignity. I was sure he was self concious about his predicament. He taught me a lesson as he approached me.

He thanked me for holding door open with such genuine sincerity and unabashed gratefulness I was taken aback. I can’t explain it. It was really weird. He wasn’t just being polite. His “Thank you very much! That is very thoughtful of you to hold the door for me. Thank you!” came from his heart and there was no mistaking it. It was one of those rare moments in life when you experience raw, uncensored emotion. It startled me. I realized that perhaps God has used the man’s handicap to make him truly grateful. The heart felt, honest, humble, genuine kind of grateful. At that moment I felt as if I was the one to whom a favor had been done.

I could only nod to him and mumble something stupid as he drug himself inside the store. He promptly stopped to examine some books at the display just inside the vestibule area. I had to open the other door to get around him.

Later as I tried to find something to spend my money on, I heard him talking to one of the sales girls at the information counter. She beamed from ear to ear as he thanked her for her help in finding a book he wanted. I watched as she went and fetched the books for him and helped him to comfortable chair. It was obvious to me that he was doing her a favor too. He made her feel important and gave her job a altruistic purpose it had lacked just moments before. As I spied on them from across the aisle I couldn’t help but feel a kinship with her. We’d both been touched by gratefulness.

I ended up buying a large coffee table book about U2 that was on sale for $10. I’ll have to remember to call my sister and thank her for sending me the gift certificate.

It’s nice to know that God is still speaking to me. Watched Bonon on 60 Minutes tonight and it made me remember the stuff God has been speaking to me about the last few months. During a commercial break I paused to reflect on the impact that Bono, Brian McLaren, and Dallas Willard have had on my life the last couple of years. As I drank my milk and ate the warm chocolate chip banana bread my wife’d made I was grateful. ]]>

I did my senior thesis in Bible School on prophecy. It was the biggest waste of time ever. That’s one thing I regret about my Bible school career. I should have done it on the fruit of the Spirit or something like that. 

Finally got a call from that Allstate agency owner last night. He wants me to come work for him next week. I’ll go see him and see what the deal is and if it’s even almost as good as the AAA thing I’ll take it. I’ve had more jobs in the last month than I have the last ten years. I’ll be glad when this topsy turvy turmoil is all over.

Now, on to finish the yard work I started yesterday. Gotta use the lawnmower to mulch up and bag all the thistle bushes we cut down yesterday. Oh joy. ]]>

I’m friggin’ wiped out. Spent the better part of the morning hacking at large weed bushes in the back yard of my rental with a machete. In the process I hit the A/C unit and poked a hole in one of the coils and the refrigerant leaked out. Now I have to have that repaired. Grrrr. Have a renter though which is a good. They move in a couple weeks. Just need to get the yard put in (paying someone to do that), ink the lease, and then it’s easy money after that with most of the major projects done. I start my new job on the 14th w/AAA so between now and then I’m just getting a
jump on these projects done as well as other crap done around the house. Life, sigh.

Everything is skin deep right now. Nothing deep happening. Just mowing down the projects. Found a new word today. Limonal. That’s where I am.]]>

Hey, Prov. Did you like the message your secret admirer sent you? You really shouldn’t monkey around like that. haha]]>

http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/?mid=12009431]]>

Interviewd with AAA today. She liked me, wants to hire me but she has to get four more people just like me by next week in order to hire me. She has to hire in batches in order to justify the expense of bringing in trainers for their six week training program. We’ll see.

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It looks like I’ll be working at Allstate or AAA in the two month interim until I start my training in Oct for the Allstate agency. I’ll work as an agent in a local agency just to learn the ropes and help make the mortgage payment. We got a renter for the investment house so that’ll help reduce our expenses by several hundred dollars a month.

I interview in the morning for the AAA thing and the Allstate agency owner is supposed to call me back today to tell me what he has for me. He knows it’s just temporary so if he can give me a little cash in the meantime I think that’d be a good win-win deal.

I had the “big” interview yesterday in Sacramento with the State Farm panel. I’ll get the thumbs up or thumbs down from them by tomorrow or Thurs. I was grilled by four execs about all sorts of “What would you do if…” and “Tell us about a time when you…” questions for about an hour. It was actually pretty fun once I got started Hopefully they’ll give me a thumbs up. And then I’ll take their approval, which is good for two years, and put it in my back pocket as a fallback in case Allstate doesn’t work out for some reason.

I had lunch with my friend/mentor at my old job yesterday. I’m glad I got out when I did. He told me that in addition to it being slow industry wide, translated means “no money!”, there have been some rather significant changes in that segment of the industry and all the big wigs are shaking in their boots because they’re wondering if they’ll survive the storm. I guess I didn’t leave too soon after all. Maybe I’m a prophet after all because I kind of felt that things were falling apart at the seams in that industry. Prophet Pomo! Should I take an offering?
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Spent the day yesterday with my friend Rustin. It started out as just breakfast but then we decided to drive to Sacramento to check out the IKEA store there for furnishings for my Allstate office. That’s a really cool store. I’m going to buy the bulk of my furnishings and furniture there as well as my hardwood floor. I’m going for a sleek, chic, contemporary look. I actually bought a two tables that I’m going to use as desks. I got them in the “AS-IS” section where people returned stuff. One piece has no damage at all, the other is barely damaged. I got them for more than half off. Woo hoo!

Going to Santa Rosa tomorrow for another day of State Farm career track stuff. I get to present my business plan to my classmates. Gotta polish up the plan today. My structured interview w/them is a week or so. Then I’m pretty much done w/State Farm. I’ll get voted up or down and if they accept me I’ll keep that option in my back pocket. You never know when you might need it. Options are good.

Sure wish I had something spiritual to say. Just haven’t been in that mode lately. Too concerned about mammon.]]>

I thought we were on track a couple days ago but then found out I had to have the loan in place by Monday; I thought we had another couple of weeks on that. I have a loan in hand but don’t like the terms and another bank says they can do better, but it’ll take a couple of weeks to process it. I figured it’d be better to wait rather than force it.

But that leaves the question of my current employment. I’m probably not going to stay at my current employer. It was represented to me as an opportunity where once I had my Life license I could hit the ground running and start making money from the get go. But in reality it’s one of those jobs where you can make good money but it takes two or three months to get it ramped up to where it’s doing well for you. Obviously, with the new agency thing I don’t have that kind of time. I don’t want to work at something and make very little money and then quit right before the money train is due in the station, so to speak.

So I called my old boss and asked if I could come back. He said he’d let me know Monday if he has something available. I hate that place but it’s easy money and it’d be ok to endure for a couple months. The Allstate guys are going to see if they can find me a spot in an Allstate agency to work as a sort of mentoring/training thing so that I can learn the business from the inside. That’d be ideal. If neither of these things work out I know of two of my old company’s competitors that are looking to hire immediately (so the paper says) and I’m confident I could get on there and start immediately. I could put up w/that for a couple of months.

So it looks like on Monday I’ll be saying “Adios” to my new boss. I don’t really feel bad though because she should have been truthful about he situation from the beginning. Had I known the truth I never would have take the job. She wasted my time and hers. Mainly hers because I’ve spent my time getting my license which isn’t a waste of time to me. At the end of the day I have a Life license and learned alot about Medicare, Long Term Care and annuities and she has bubkis.

So, it looks like the Allstate thing is pretty much resolved as I wait for next month’s track start date to get back in the track for Dec opening or wait another month to do that if I want to start in Jan. Not much to do there.  State Farm, I have one more day in their training center next Wed then the interview at the end of the month then that track is pretty much done. So, then I can concentrate on making a little money at wherever I’m going to be working as well as studying for my securities licenses.

Found out this week that I have to have laser eye surgery again to touch up from the last one. I’m at 20/30 in both eyes right now. The touch up will get me to 20/20. My wife has to have one eye touched up. Thankfully we don’t have to pay for the touch up surgeries, they’re part of the original price.

Found out too that one of my good friend’s wife has been cheating on him with one of his childhood friends. They’ve been cheating for two years and the other guy’s wife caught them in the act of bumping uglies in the back of an SUV in the parking lot of a hotel. Jeez. Once he finally got out of the car the other guy’s wife dotted her husband’s eye and puffed his lip in the parking lot before the police arrived. Pretty impressive considering he’s 6′ 2“, 240 lb, and she’s 5′5”, 130 lb. haha. On the up side, at least it’s all out in the open now and my friend is actually trying to work it out w/his wife. He admits that he’s not been a good husband the last four or five years and that he ran her off emotionally. I thought that was pretty big of him. They’re in counseling and trying to work it out. I hope they do. He’s pissed as hell and hurt to the core, but I admire his attitude and perspective. Even so, I hope I’m not around when he runs into his old pal. It won’t be pretty and I’ll probably have to bail him out of jail.

Hey, I actually read a book this week!! Whoo hoo! Does a Tom Clancy novel count?  haha. It was nice to have some junk food for the brain after all the intense insurance studying the last few weeks.]]>

Met w/the State Farm executive lady last night and she loved my business plan. Only made a couple of minor changes. She gave me a quick mock interview like the one I’ll be doing in front of seven executives in a couple weeks and she said I’d have no problem based on my responses to her questions. So, I feel good about that. Even if I go through the Allstate thing it’ll be nice to have the State Farm thing in my hip pocket as a fall back option if I ever need it.

Been scouting out locations for my Allstate office. Found one last night that I really like. I’m hoping to go see it today. It is literally the first commercial location outside the residential area where I live. You can’t get any closer to home than that.

Still busy, busy, busy. Really haven’t had any time or energy to think about anything deeper than insurance and business plans. Probably a good thing. 

Talked to my old boss yesterday. He’d figured out why business turned so bad in my office in April. The Yellow Pages never put us in the local phone book. They had the ad, but the wrong number. That’s why the phones stopped ringing. That sucks for them because the new phone book doesn’t come out until next March.  ]]>