Adoption (Part 1)

So first a little background. My wife and I have been trying to have a family for seven years now, and nothing has seemed to work out in that regard. We've been to all kinds of doctors and specialists and been poked and prodded and given different stories as to possible reasons as to why this, that, or the other. Hopes have run high and then been dashed later. We finally got to a point where we just don't want to do it anymore. We looked at adoption but it's so stupid expensive that even if you are able to adopt it seemed like you would have to trade in your house for a cardboard box for the child and then your social worker would likely take the child away because the living circumstances just didn't cut it. We'd seen all kinds of folks run a gofundme campaign so we though why not? Anything will help. We passed it around and it was shared around, but ultimately we ended up with a fraction of a percent of the daunting price tag that an agency demands in order to even consider working with you (and we are talking the price of a spiffy new Subaru with all the options, and that's just the agency fees!)

You can always get loans and get yourself a ball and chain of that nature for the next however many years (also not very beneficial to the amount of dough you'll need just for the basics to keep the child alive). It was becoming quite obvious that adoption is a booming business and though the selling of children is strictly illegal, there didn't appear to be an affordable way to work on getting your family started (though there is no problem with the government paying for the living expenses of a lazy single drug addicted mother and her 14 children, all with different fathers). That being said I'm not trying to be judgmental towards those that need a little help in life. I'm just trying to point out that adoption seems to come with a ridiculous price tag and it appears (to me at least) that the only way to adopt is to heap up ridiculous amounts of debt to do so.

Those that are able to conceive naturally have insurance to help with hospital bills (which by the way are still less than the fees associated with adoption agencies for the most part). There is no such things as insurance for adoptions (though there might be a multi million dollar idea in that!). Most insurance won't even cover fertility treatments, since that is considered optional.

Anyway I digress from story to griping. Long story (or gripe) short nothing was looking plausible. With enough savings we might be able to adopt by the time we retired, but we likely wouldn't live long enough to see graduation from high school (and that is problematic on so many levels).

Now onto the good stuff. My father-in-law had been working incognito for the past several months. He had found a family connection down the line of a child in need of adoption. He just so happened to have a daughter (and son-in-law) looking to adopt. Finding a child is half the battle and cuts the wildly expensive agency out of the equation. With the search over all that's needed is the paperwork to be done by attorneys (still thousands of dollars, but a lot better than the tens of thousands of dollars otherwise required). My father-in-law had done a lot of checking and confirming before telling us anything about it. Once he was sure that it was a real possibility for us, he let us in on the secret.

We were beyond thrilled. Everything seemed to fit into place. It looked good that everyone involved was in agreement. We called and talked to the birth mother that day. It was a bit awkward, but good. Through texting and Facebook we had set up a time to meet with both her and the birth father that weekend. The week dragged by knowing we had a little trip planned for the weekend.

The day finally came and we jumped in the trusty Chevy and traveled north. Through construction and pot holes we traveled. Before we had left the birth father had called us and told us something had "come up" for the birth mother and she couldn't make it. We assured him we'd still make the trip to meet him. We had a nice visit and stayed for three hours or so before we once again made our voyage back to home base. We had learned during our visit that the reason the birth mom couldn't make it was because she had had some sort of disagreement with her mom and was grounded and had phone privileges revoked. Also her mom wanted her to be ready to meet us (ready or not this kid is going to be born in September). Her mom also wanted her to go through an adoption agency (Oy! I believe I mentioned the price tag with those things).

We had limited contact through Facebook with the birth mom a bit. We encouraged her to talk with our attorney before making a decision. After a few days and the reinstating of phone access she and our attorney had a good discussion. We talked with the attorney afterward and it sounded pretty positive. She also messaged us and let us know that after her vacation she was good with proceeding using the attorneys (glory be!).

So now we are setting up the arrangement of the attorneys and the home study. We're about to hemorrhage money, and a lot of it. It's doable though and we look forward to the day about two months from now when all the fun paperwork and fees and such are behind us, and we are holding our little boy!

This is far from over though. To be continued...

Where's the Kaboom?

In an episode of Looney Tunes Marvin the Martian is making an attempt to blow up the earth with his Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator because it obstructs his view of Venus. Bugs Bunny runs off with his device while Marvin is plugging his ears and closing his eyes. After a minute Marvin asks "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"

Link for context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuUJfYcn3V4

I'm pretty sure I heard that kaboom the other night when I opened the garage door (the one from the house to the garage) and the entire garage shook with said kaboom. I flipped the light on expecting to see a disaster. After looking around for a minute trying to find the source of such a loud noise I walked around the door (the one for the cars) and couldn't see anything blatantly obvious until I looked up. The spring for the door was now in two pieces and I noticed the wire holding on to the door on either end had let go or given up.

My first though was "Ah....that sounded expensive." and my second one was "It's not the furnace!" (owing to my previous adventures in our first house with the furnace there). We were able to get a garage repair guy out the next day and I was glad to find that it wasn't going to cost me an astronomical amount (a little over $200 with the right referral). It made me think of Marvin and the sound that he was expecting. I hope to not have to hear it again in the future.

Adventures With an Exhausting Executive

Working in IT I've had my share of dealing with execs. They've ranged from being pretty cool to being impatient. This last week I found one to top my avoidance list.

My supervisor had given me a Surface Book to set up for them (the $2700 variety). I had it set up in an hour or so and handed it off to our security master to make sure it was encrypted and slap an asset tag on it. In the meantime I had someone IM me asking if it was done yet, and my supervisor had several emails asking for a status on it. The usual turn around time on a new machine is at least 24 hours. We have to get them encrypted, software installed, and it has to sit on the network long enough for our systems to figure out it exists and get entered into our asset tracking system. Since this guy was one of the big wigs he had an army of folks asking if it was done every 15 minutes or so. I sent the guy that messaged me to the security master who's desk it was on. He's a busy guy and doesn't just sit at his desk waiting for us lowly hardware guys to give him something to tag. I'm sure he got a pile of requests to push it through "ASAP" as everyone likes things done. Being the big wig's machine I'm sure that leverage sped things up a bit and next thing I knew the machine was back on my desk about an hour before I was done for the day. Since my supervisor was the one that handed it to me I figured he could take it to the exec in the morning. About 15 minutes before I was going to leave I got a phone call from the security master asking if I'd taken the laptop over to the exec yet. I told him I hadn't but I could. He said I'd better because he was asking for it. I assume he was probably getting bombarded with the execs private army asking when it would be done.

So I hauled it over to the building across the street and stayed an hour after I was supposed to go home helping get everything transferred from the old Surface Pro 4 with the cracked screen to the new and groovy Surface Book. The exec was very impatient and demanded to know why it was "so slow" I've never considered 15 seconds from boot to login "slow" but this exec was already proving to be in a league of their own with impatience. I fiddled around and got email set up and One Note notebooks moved over. I moved everything over that was asked for. I asked several times if they had everything they needed. When the display port adapter designed to fit the Surface Pro 4 didn't fit the Surface Book adapter the exec didn't hesitate to whip out some scissors and start carving off plastic bits until it was able to be forced to fit. I asked several more times if there was anything else that was needed. After confirming several times that they were good I left for the day

The next day the security master slapped the laptop back on my desk and told me they needed the VPN software installed. I told them that it was already installed, but I could put a shortcut on the desktop to satisfy the exec.

A week later my supervisor was over at the building across the street and ran into a pleased exec... is what I'd like to say, but he started ragging on him about how our group sucks and should sit down and help get everything moved over to the new machine. The mac guy across the street had to move his favorites from Google Chrome over to his new machine. Did I mention how many times I asked him if he needed anything else? What a schmuck. 

I deal with people that are upset all the time about something. What really rips my shorts though is when I've gone out of my way to help someone get something set up or fixed but because I didn't read their mind that makes everything else I did worthless. It makes me glad that I don't have to deal with dopes like that all the time. Most people tend to be fairly understanding and patient. I have a low tolerance for people that are ignorant because they choose to be. Obviously this person is good at something because they have a much higher pay range than I do, but that doesn't give them the right to be a schmuck.

Being a jerk to the person that is trying to help you isn't going to help your situation any. Whether it's someone over the phone in a call center or a waiter serving you at a restaurant it makes no sense to be a jerk to them. They are there to help you and if you make their life difficult more than likely they have the power to make yours more difficult as well. It's about as effective as burning down your house to get rid of a rat.

The Tale of Rocketman

This is another tracting story from my first area. I'd been out a couple of months. We had been tracting a street when there looked like there was a path leading up the hill from the street. We almost missed it but decided we might as well follow it and see where we ended up. Lo and behold it lead to a house. The doors and windows were all wide open. It did look like someone lived there so we knocked to see what type of hermit lived atop this hill hidden from plain view. We stood around for a bit and knocked again just for good measure. We were about to leave when suddenly a guy comes racing to the door, flings it open, looks at us, and says "Oh good!" He didn't do this but I could see him rubbing his hands together. He just had a look in his eye.

He never invited us in, but he did talk to us for quite a while on his porch. He immediately started telling us all about how everyone in town knows him as Rocketman. He even had a little button that he wore that said "Rocketman, 50,000 sold!" He told us all about how he had taken breakfast cereal and had made them into little bars and sold them around town for $1 a piece. He rode his bike all over the place. I recognized him because we had indeed seen him on his bike in town quite often. He had an old white bike with the handlebars that curved down. He was bald and always had a beret on.

He then pointed inside his house to a sign on the wall (of which there were several) and asked me what does that say? I read: Pray Always. He said "No no the one next to it!" "Comfort Kills?" "Yes! That one! What do you think that means?" I had no idea so all I could think of was "You get comfortable and you die?" "YES!" He went on to say "If I push you off this porch and down the hill you'd probably die. You are comfortable see? But if I TELL you I'm going to push you down you'll brace yourself and resist me. You aren't comfortable so you won't die. Isn't that genius? I made it up myself!" My companion and I just looked at each other. Eventually we told him we needed to get going. Walking down the hill he hollered after us "Remember comfort kills!" He was always friendly. after we saw him and he'd always remind us "Comfort Kills!"

The Legend of Brian (The Second)

Yet another tracting story. We met another Brian in my fourth area. This one was a kid maybe 16 or 17ish. We knocked on his door and started talking to him. He let us in and halfway through the first lesson he said he'd be right back. So we waited...and waited...and waited. It sounded to us like he had gone to his room and was playing video games or something. We didn't know what else to do so we just chilled on his couch. after 20 minutes or so we started a companion study session right there on the couch. We were going through scriptures and cross referencing things. We were getting into it pretty good when his mom walked through the front door. She asked who we were. We told her who we were and that Brian had let us in, and part way through talking to him he said he'd be right back and still wasn't back yet. She just said "Oh..." and walked past us into the kitchen.

We looked at each other shrugged and went on with our studies. It was starting to get dark so we sat in the semi darkness reading. Eventually the kitchen light went on behind us. There was a partial wall between us and the kitchen. We heard Brain sneak into the kitchen and heard whispering back and forth between him and his mom. Occasionally you'd see the shadow of a head pop around the corner and disappear again. We didn't know what else to do other than milk it so we kept reading and talking to each other.

Finally after about 45 minutes of sitting on their couch the mom came out and said "....well I need to go back to work so I'm going to have to ask you to leave." We asked if there was a time we could come back and she said probably not. It looked like poor Brian who had achieved his life long dream of working at the Jiffy Lube didn't have the cajones to tell us to get lost himself. We thanked her and vacated the couch.

Ten years later as I write this it wouldn't surprise me to find out that a now 26 or 27ish year old Brain still lives at home playing video games and working at Jiffy Lube.

The Legend of Brian (The First)

This is another fun tracting story. In my third area my companion and I ran into a guy that was also knocking on doors looking for work. He was asking for any odd job and getting rejected just as heavily as we were. It didn't take long to figure the street was pretty much a bust that day since we were following a guy that people were already wanting off their doorstep. We decided to bag it and head back to our apartment. In the process this guy decided to follow us all over the place and tell us all about his crazy life. We found his name was Brian. He talked to us for a good hour to an hour and a half or so walking all the way. He asked if we had any work for him. We said no because we were missionaries and didn't have much that needed taking care of. He then talked about how he had talked to his minister in the spirit about how his wife was a sick spirit. Somewhere in the middle of it all apparently his minister asked him what he wanted his wife to look like. He said he wished she looked like Trinity from The Matrix. He then said he looked at her and she did look like Trinity from The Matrix. There was a lot more crazy talk of that caliber until he ask if our parents had any work for him. I told him I doubt it and that my parents were in Utah anyway. He said that wouldn't be any problem he could hitchhike there. His little catch phrase that he used about every sentence was "Word up." He was an interesting guy. We finally went our separate ways.

Later that night we talked to our district leader and told him all about Brian. About a week later our district leader called us and asked "Guess who we ran into?" I guessed "Brian!". They had indeed run into Brian 50 or so miles away from the town we were in. They told us he was pretty nutty for them too. We all got a kick out of our adventures with Brian.

Tracting: My First Door

So as a missionary you go tracting a lot. Tracting was not fun for me, but it does spawn a lot of fun stories (for those unfamiliar with the term that's where you go door to door to see if anyone is interested in talking to you). My first door that my companion told me was mine (meaning I got to do the talking) was pretty memorable. We knocked on the door and an older guy opens the door and while looking at what looked like the floor or our feet just said "Yeah?". I start into our intro explaining who we were and part way through he looks up and gets a look of crazed terror on his face. As loud as he could he screamed "GET OUT!" and slammed the door so hard the windows on the front of his house rattled. It was pretty amazing. You could hear and see them physically move with the force this guy put into getting that door closed as quickly as possible.

A month or two later we were walking by and the same guy was on his front porch reading the paper. My companion asked rather loudly "Isn't that they guy that slammed the door in your face?". I said "Yeah...he's gonna hear you." to which my companion said "Well let him hear. He deserves it.". The guy never looked up or acted like he heard anything so I can only assume he didn't overhear that.