The G.O.P Suxx

Words. The English language is a "living" language. Words pick up new meanings, and some words are altered, brutalized and if misused often enough, become acceptable. Some examples: Ironic has become "ironical." Bleah! And what about "irregardless." That’s probably the most misused word of all. Another of my favorites though is "Orientate" and let’s not forget "Preventative." Ironic, regardless, orient and preventive are all found in the dictionary, and some even include variations of the misused words on my list. So I’ve concluded that "irregardless how I orientate my lifestyle, no preventative measures guarantee freedom from the common cold. How ironical."

Keep smiling, and stay dry,

Seeing something in print gives a problem special impact. We’ve all known that the FERS formula for retirement provides a lesser annuity than the old CSRS plan. The last couple issues of the Postal Record provide a graphic illustration..

One need only look at the double spread showing the CSRS retirement table on one page the FERS on the other. Taking it from the top at just 20 years of service, a level 6 annuity under CSRS is $1200 per month. The FERS guy/gal for the same length of service and pay level will receive a whopping $722.

Some of you will remember me spouting endless praises for the TSP back when I was cranking out the MUSHROOM. I still encourage the FERS folks to get involved, max-out their contribution, sacrificing some pay now, for greater needed benefits later. Truer words have never been spoken, even if I say so myself.

Working the market requires vigilance, education along with advice from a competent financial planner. A lot of people have lost a lot of money in the market in recent months, myself included. Things are turning now with some light at the end of the tunnel. But the FERS folks simply cannot rely on the FERS annuity alone to provide for any kind of comfort upon retirement. The matched dollars by the government and growth in the market are an integral part of your future. Even at low or modest growth levels like right now, the USPS is still matching one dollar for every two you sacrifice into the TSP. It takes self-discipline.

Put it into perspective. This grandiose program was created back in the "Kinder and Gentler" days of "Dutch Reagan." They knew all along that it would be difficult for young new workers to make a monetary sacrifice at a time they were trying to establish a career. (This plan gives the term "dutch" new meaning.) You do the math. For those individuals not looking out to protect their future, the government will save about 30%. Now that the bastard republicans are in control we will only see further erosion of your benefit package. I’ve seen a lot of "take aways" since I first went to work for Uncle Sam in 1955. Not complaining, mind you, just cold hard facts. (boy, I am getting old)

Stay dry, and keep smiling, GOO

So just "what is a Beachcomber?"

Recently I had the pleasure of showing train slides to a local Lions Club lunch meeting. In my introductory bio-sketch is, among other things, my hobbies. Included is "beachcombing."

After my presentation a person, not wanting to earlier be embarrassed, came up to me and asked: "what is a beachcomber?’ I told her that it is a treasure hunt with a new venue with each change of the tide. I explained that I go out to relatively remote beaches and walk the tide line and see what I can find.

One recent morning I boated over to and walked about a mile of beach below University Place. I never come away empty handed. Granted, some of my booty is of questionable reward, but here is a list of one mornings effort:

a childs life jacket

½ x 12 inch galvanized bolt

creosoted rail tie spike hole rehab strip

an as-yet unidentified steel bracket

a glass telegraph wire insulator

steel fishing float

perfectly good oar

2 garden grade railroad ties

pressure treated 4x6x8 and 2x6x8 boards, 2 regular 2x4s

large block of float/foam (many uses)

l" square mesh plastic mat, 2’ x 4’

toy micronaut superman

2 fish lures

a Frisbee (I pitched up the beach for kids later use)

As you can see beachcombers are easily entertained. However, when I first started doing this with my uncle over on Vashon Island during the war (WWII) it was serious business. For what seems now like every weekend, we boated and combed the beach for lumber. To make a very long story short, he built a house, and later I helped build a guest house out of material that we picked up off the beach at high tide.

The big difference between then and now is the Tacoma waterfront is no longer lined with lumber, shake and shingle mills and door factories. My uncle and I would load up his skiff to overflow with unbelievable quantities of every dimension lumber you could think of. In building the guest house we realized that we had an abundance of 4 x 4s. We ended up making the South wall a solid laminate of 4 x 4s. As a 12 year old boy, my chore the next summer was to wheelbarrow bricks down the trail for the fireplace. It took all summer.

Just thought I would share some of my boyhood with you.

Gary O. Ostlund

Bundling Machines  (or should we say bungling machines?)

Comes word now that the brains are going to procure machinery to give you co-mingled flats, periodicals and letters. Didn’t they learn anything from DPS?

The Postal Service wants a system that can sort the periodicals, catalogs and various pieces of flat mail. They hope to test and install the machines by 2006.

One system would sort the flats into route order and then carriers would have to combine the letter and flats by hand. The other system would sort and bind the letters and flats mail together and then bundle it into a "package" for each delivery point.

The Postal Service favors combining of the letters and flats into bundles, as they believe that it would be faster. (heard that before..??)

The service believes that they would save $2.8 billion if the system of packaging of the flats and letter together were adopted. But cost and operation of these machines is not yet known. (Then where did the 2.8 billion come from. Why not 4.8 billion??)

Let’s turn the clock back to the dawn of automation with the fore-runner of DPS. It was called "segmented mail." This was mail that came to the carrier to case by hand, but was segmented, meaning that it went into the case lightning fast. It came to you not in "route order," rather in blocks. The beauty here was that you could pull out all your nixies and handle them only ONCE. (Duh)

The Postal Service could have saved a jillion dollars if the experiment had ended there. The segmented equipment was dirt cheap compared to the expense incurred, and now it seems to just go on and on. (and how are those manager bonuses coming along?)

Stay dry, and keep smiling, GOO

(writer used phrases from sister publications and internet in preparing this blip)

Insurance 

This is a true story, sad, but true. An acquaintance of mine down the peninsula had the misfortune of losing his house and garage and car to a fire. The fire apparently was an electrical fire under the hood of the car. The car and garage burned furiously, eventually spreading to the attached home.

They were home at the time watching television, unaware of the problem until the smoke alarm system activated. Their alarm company did all the right things, and eventually the fire department arrived, but out in the boondocks, as so often happens, all they could do was clean up the ashes. The home was totally destroyed.

This unhappy event occurred in August 2001. These folks have quite a spread, with cattle and other farm animals. They set up housekeeping in a fifth wheel nearby on the property for what they assumed would be hasty rebuilding. Not to happen.

It seems the car was insured by one company, the home by another. The car insurance folks were ready to settle claims on the car, even the garage. But they expected the homeowner policy by the other insurer to replace the house. The homeowner insurance company said, no-way. The car started the fire, you pay it all.

The site was left untouched for nearly a year and a half. After a fight between the two companies, these folks are just now seeing their home rebuilt and hope to be back in later this Spring.

With your stock portfolio, diversification is a must. You don’t put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. But, with insurance you’ve known all along that you could save money through multiple discounts in consolidating your policies under one umbrella. Now you know there may be an even better reason to do this. An insurance company is only as good as its claims service.

Stay dry, and keep smiling , GOO

That old saying through wind, rain, sleet, dark of night stuff sounds good on the P.R. circuit, but in the real world it’s a bunch of hooey. The wet and cold weather is really the pits, and you as carriers in the NW see more than your share of it. You can’t do much about the weather, and the postal uniform folks aren’t the most progressive, so let me share with you what I did, with varied success.

I hated the pyth helmet, and didn’t use it much. It mostly got kicked around in the back of the LLV. It seems that whenever I wore the raincoat, it was wetter inside than out, between the humidity and perspiration. I solved that problem to a fair degree by making a strap, about 6 inches long, with a male snap on one end and a female on the other. Now I had a cape. I just let the sleeves flop. The cape kept the upper body and satchel dry and I had full use of both arms. It didn’t seem to be a problem getting in and out of the vehicle, I’d just swing it to the side, hookup and go. I made my snaps out of boat tarp fittings, from the marina. Most upholstery shops can help you.

But what about wet and cold hands. I saw a lot fellow carriers cut the fingers out of mittens. I did that for my right hand for a while, then got the bright idea of sewing on a rubber thumb to the thumb and fingers. Not so hot. Too much drag and stick. Next plan was still a rubbered thumb, and only a rubber sewn on the middle finger. Now I could thumb the mail, and not have the bulk of the other fingers effecting the transaction. I found that it was still necessary to cut away the tip of fabric before rubberizing. There was too much bulk with the rubber over a full fabric digit. Now I should tell you, if you are using any mittens or gloves other than wool, pitch them. Wool, even wet will insulate your fingers from cold much better than cotton or synthetics. Learned that in the Army survival training back when I was a young pup.

Probably the most discomfort was wet and cold feet. I wore the standard low quarter shoe. Some folks have boots and fancy stuff, some of it out of their own pocket. When it rained I would slip on the regular authorized slip-on rubber insert. When it got really wild, or if there was snow to tromp through, I had a pair of "alligators." They are a cross-country ski leg protector. They come up to near the knee with elastic band around the top, and snap under the foot, again with elastic and form a barrier that keeps moisture out. They did the job well. Stay dry, and keep smiling, GOO