July 21. 2008 by Dick.

My bank insisted the other day that I get new checks. They had changed their routing numbers in 1997 or so and really wanted me to spend my money with something that didn’t screw up their machinery.

They also wanted me to pay for the new checks but I declined. After all, I didn’t change the routing numbers.

They paid for the checks which arrived from Deluxe today.

I do most of my banking online so I write very few checks any more. Not only that, since all the banks were forced to accept colorful (and inexpensive) checks from sources like Checks-R-Us-In-The-Mail, I haven’t bought anything from Deluxe since about 1978. Taken together, I’m thinking the near-captive check printing operations like Deluxe are the buggy whip manufacturers of the 21st Century and that the days of even independents like Checks-R-Us are numbered. Imagine a wry grin at that. Our writer friend Alma in Washington state would thwap me.

Someone at Deluxe got the bright idea that they would save money by shipping the checks with a flattened box.

“Let the customer assemble the box and we’ll save money,” that Deluxe genius thought.

And it was so.

Understand that the cardboard pre-box had been printed, cut, folded, glued, and taped together by machines at the factory. Then the (flattened) pre-box and the little stacks of bound checks were bundled loosely into an envelope to be mailed.

I don’t see the savings.

After all, the cardboard pre-box could have been printed, cut, folded, glued, and taped together as a box shape by machines at the factory and the little stacks of bound checks could have been put inside the box!

I’m a mechanical engineer with an actual diploma and everything. I have built a boat from scratch and gotten it out of the barn. It even floats. I can put the top up on one of Carroll Shelby’s original Cobras. I can even program my VCR. I just spent half an hour folding and gluing and taping this darned box together.

Bean counters. Bah.

At least the couple of hundred checks they sent will likely last my lifetime. Or until the next routing number change.

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July 19. 2008 by Dick.

Some regular readers know that I have “long-ish” hair. Anne has cut my hair for most of our 30 years of marriage but she quit when I started renovating the kitchen. See, with the house in an uproar, she had nowhere to cut it. And in fact, my hair has been growing out since 2003.

I’m lucky to have so much hair.

My mom lost hers when she went through chemotherapy. She bought a fright wig and loved it. Read more…

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July 14. 2008 by Dick.

I write but I rarely write about writing. I think about writing. I sometimes talk with friends about writing. I have written once or twice about writing^*1*. Thank goodness I don’t do it very often.

See, the first piece of advice a young writer gets is, “Write what you know.” Unfortunately for readers, most writers know most about writing so they tend to, well, write about it. I’d rather write about nude wimmens or careening to the inside of turn 7 at Lime Rock or whether I can catch a cow on a hook in the deep blue waters of the Gulfstream.

But the sun is shining. Life is good. And Duma Key the place is, for now, very far away.

I’m reading Duma Key the book right now and have been thinking about why I like Stephen King and, as a broader question, why we all like Stories-with-a-Capital-S and the people in them. See, I don’t read fantasy. I don’t even like horror stories. I never told ghost stories around the campfire nor believed them when I listened but I like Stephen King and he tells some serious ghost stories.

I have just two simple truths to share here:

1. We want to spend our time with interesting people.
2. Characters in novels are always busy.

The USA Network peeps have it right with their “Characters Welcome” promotion. The books I like best, the movies that grab me, and the television serials I keep going back to are all peopled with interesting characters. It doesn’t matter as much what they do in the stories as it matters what makes them interesting.

I may be an interesting person. Or not. You may even like me as a person. Or not. No matter. Neither of us particularly wants to share our time with someone doing what I did today. I brushed, pooped, showered, and wandered around my office in my underwear for a while. I spoke to a couple of clients. I researched a strategic plan. I wrote this blog and my weekly column. I worked on a couple of photo images. I checked that I have a band booked for the weekend concert. I may have passed gas. I ate lunch and will eventually eat supper. Tonight I have a heavy evening planned with the t00b.

Yawn.

That was a busy day. Absolutely no part of it moved this story forward. In the novel we could have skipped directly from finding the red picnic basket in the attic to catching the cow on the hook.

Any writer who can create someone we like and keep us hooked with his or her day-to-day puttering is a treasure.

¹ My 10-1/2 Hot Tips for Small-Town Op-ed Writers was commissioned and published by Inklings in 1997.

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