Author: Chris Souther

Chris joined the Air Force out of high school. After four years of supporting communications for the Department of Defense, the White House, and stations around the world, he left the military and moved to Atlanta. For the next six years, Chris continued working in the telecom field, eventually traveling around the country teaching companies like MCI, Nortel Networks, and Cabletron, how to do what he did.

When the dot.com crash happened, upon recommendation from his wife, Chris re-enrolled in school and earned his B.S. in Communications (PR & Marketing).

Since then, he was worked in network security, healthcare, banking and finance (and FinTech), general high tech (AI/ML, Cloud, IoT), and most recently, application development fields. Now, with more than 15 years of both Marketing and Communications under his belt, he helps organizations grow their business through the proper application of marketing, communications, and content.

And he blogs on the side. It keeps him sane.

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Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States Society

What’s NOT in my wallet

credit-cards.jpgFor years, my bank of choice was Bank of America (BOA). I had my checking and savings account with them for nigh on eight years. Due to selling a house, and a couple of rather nice tax refunds, a few times I had enough money in my checking account (albeit temporarily) to qualify for a “Gold” account. Rather than asking me if I’d like to upgrade, they just did it. Subsequently, after I moved the money, usually within a matter of days, they turned around and fined me for not meeting the “Gold” account’s minimum. After the third time they did this, I got fed up and canceled everything I had with them.

If you track financial dealings at all, you’ll know that BOA is now one of the largest players in the banking industry. My last credit card (a Platinum rewards card) issuer was bought out by BOA last year and because I liked the card, I stuck it out with BOA. Until recently.

I made a payment on the 8th of last month, then I made another payment on the second of this month. Unfortunately, my billing cycle apparently runs wonky and rather than having made two payments in two months, I made two payments in one month. To make a long story short, BOA ticked me off with a late fee that they refused to remove, so I quit them…again.

I need a credit card for sundry monthly expenses and just because these days you need a credit card. So, I went online to a couple of these Credit Card compare Web sites and eventually settled on a “Diamond” rewards card from Capital One with a fairly low rate. I applied, and thanks to my 784 credit score, was approved immediately.

When I got the card in the mail, I reviewed the details. Everything looked hunky-dory until I got to the “Credit Limit” field and it said, “$1,000.00.”

A thousand dollars? I couldn’t even buy a refrigerator with that, much less book a vacation or finance my takeover of a third-world country. Thinking that maybe this was some kind of introductory, “Call us and let us try to upsell you a toaster, and while you’re on the phone we’ll up your limit” kind of thing, I called their no-customer service line only to be told that nope, $1,000 is my limit. When I asked what they based it on, they said my credit score and my credit history with Capital One.

Well, I DON’T HAVE a credit history with Capitol One, so I guess that outweighed my perfect credit. So, I told the fellow on the phone to cancel this card too. He was staggeringly unconcerned, “Thank you sir for calling Capital One, is there anything else I can do for you?”

I hung up.

Without going through the litany of debt I have held and/or paid off over the last 15 years, and my current situation, $1,000 is an insult. Though I’ll admit, I never thought I’d get upset over not being offered enough credit. I often scoff at the commercials that use the buzz phrase, “Get the credit you deserve” thinking it stuffy and pretentious, but I’m coming to realize that I fit that demographic. At this point in my life, there are a few things I think I deserve:

  • 15 minutes of quiet bathroom time each day (What? I read…)
  • A guilt-free day of golf once every month and a half
  • A fine cigar if I’m out with the guys
  •  Good running shoes

AND some friggin CREDIT!

Otherwise, what the heck am I working so hard for?

Categories
Dad Blogs Family Marriage

Who said love was “free”?

cards.jpgUnless you’re unattached (physically, not emotionally) to another person, you are probably aware that today is Valentines Day (should it be “Valentine’s Day” in the possessive form?). That means for the last few days, commercials have bombarded us with portrayals of lazy, procrastinating boyfriends and/or husbands busily running over to Target and/or the Hallmark store to find some last-minute doo-dad for his lover.

Generally speaking, I pride myself on not falling into this bucket. And since CareerMom and I sort of celebrated V-Day at the Ritz-Carlton last week (see: Wouldn’t You Like to Get Away for a complete play-by-play), I didn’t put too much thought into getting anything for actual Valentines day until I realized that I should probably get something for the boys to give to Mommy. She’d like that.

So, I trotted over to Target yesterday figuring I’d get her a card from me and one from the boys and if I was lucky, I’d find one of those candy ring-pops CareerMom had explained to me last week was her favorite candy as a little girl.

I walked into Target and the cards are pretty much the first three rows you encounter as you come in and let me tell you folks, the commercials leading up to Valentines day are waaaay off. There wasn’t a single guy there yesterday. It was all women, who, one would assume, were all getting their last-minute Valentines Day shopping done. And pushy! I darn near had to get rude just to get near the rack. Between the plus-sized models covering several square-feet of rack space, to the purse-laden carts that women won’t let get more than 8” away from their bodies, it was like trying to touch Sammy Hagar at a Van Halen reunion concert! It just wasn’t happening.

I muttered, “Forget this!” and walked around to the other side where they keep the nondescript cards that just say, “Love” on them and grabbed one, figuring I’d just fill in the rest. I also grabbed a card from the boys that they could color and give to her.

Having gotten my cards, I looked all over the store for ring pops—couldn’t find any. As I was walking back to the other end of the store to the one checkout open on the side that didn’t sell groceries, I peeked in all of the candy racks at the checkout counters-to no avail. There was one open checkout on this far end of the store and as I got in it and moved closer to the checkout, VOILA! There was a small box of ring pops. I triumphantly grabbed two of them and moved up to the counter. The clerk rang up my two cards and ring pops and announced, “That will be $11.37 sir.”

Eleven dollars for two ring pops and two cards! After paying, I scrutinized the receipt and realize that the generic “Love” card I grabbed in my fit of exasperation, cost $6 even! Wow!

Either they have some REALLY smart people over at Target, who knew that guys like me would get fed up with the crowd and opt for a more generic card—without even looking at the price—or cards have just gotten waaaay expensive. But, like I’m going to complain to CareerMom about it right? Fat chance!

Happy Valentines Day all!

Categories
Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Marriage

Just SHOUT! it out…

Like most of the people I call friends, I have a touch of the Obsessive-Compulsive. I wouldn’t call my level of it a disorder, per se, but I’m definitely what people would call “anal” about things. Like cleaning. With two large dogs and two young boys, my house is definitely not spotless, but generally speaking, at any time during the week, random strangers, say…the Harlem Globetrotters, could drop by and I wouldn’t be too embarrassed.

Recently, one of my ageing dogs puked on the carpet before I could get her to the door. After sponging up as much of the bile (yummy!) as I could, I got out our handy-dandy SpotBot to clean up the rest. The SpotBot is this little vacuum thingy that you just sit on top of the spot after filling it with cleaning solution, press a button and Presto! It cleans it for you in about two minutes.

The only drawback to the SpotBot is that it’s very small. As you can see from the picture below, it cleans a very small area. In fact, this “clean” area you see before you is the result of having moved the SpotBot three times.

Now, you may be asking yourself, “Did you put bleach in the water? Cuz, you’ve got one bright white spot there.”

The answer is “Nope. No bleach. That area is just REALLY clean compared to the surrounding carpet.”  Now, I regularly use one of those home carpet cleaners, which I thought did a pretty good job, but I was apparently (dare I say, “horribly”) wrong.

Now, I have company coming in town this weekend, and a family get-together for my youngest son’s first birthday, and I have this un-ignorable bright white spot on my carpet that I will forever be explaining to people is NOT a bleached out spot and that apparently the rest of my carpet is just REALLY dirty! Not a conversation I want to have ad nauseum.

That leaves me three, no four options really.

  1. Employ the SpotBot roughly 300 times to clean the entire living room carpet
  2. Get on my hands and knees with carpet cleaner and a scrub brush and see what I can do manually
  3. Go rent a proper cleaner from the grocery store
  4. Call in the pros

Of the four choices, I don’t have time for three of them, and I don’t really want to spend money on the fourth. What to do, what to do?

You know, in the time it took me to write this, I could have moved the SpotBot twice already!

Categories
Dad Blogs Family Marriage

Wouldn’t you like to get away…just for a day…

Ritz-Carlton Lodge CareerMom’s company gives out Pavlonian-style rewards for good work behavior. One can redeem these rewards (with a substantial markup) for all manner of things. Normally, we use them to replace whatever electronic necessity the boys have dropped in the toilet most recently, but this time, we used them to book a night at the Ritz-Carlton Resort in beautiful Greensboro, GA. Yes, folks, a Ritz-Carlton in the middle-of-nowhere Georgia.

It’s about a two-hour drive from Roswell, and so CareerMom’s folks came over to stay at our house to watch the boys. Mind you, they live about five miles away, but they find it easier to just stay at our house rather than put up with my youngest not sleeping because he hates the pack-n-play at their house.

Anyway, I didn’t realize the significance of this Ritz-Carlton’s location until we drove past nearly a mile of golf courses and were greeted by a cadre of knicker-clad bellmen. That’s when it hit me, “Oh yeah, this is where they played the 2007 PGA Cup and will host a future PGA Pro National Championship (will that be the FEDEX Cup now?).

With all this great golf nearby, do you think I got to play? Nossir—and here’s why. CareerMom likes her some spa treatments…yessir, that she does. And when you book a package deal, they won’t let one of you play golf while one of you gets a treatment. You both have to do the same thing. And since CareerMom doesn’t play, it means that for three mini-getaways now, I’ve gotten up-close and personal with massage therapists, while the closest I got to the golf course was tearfully viewing it from my room balcony.

Now I know…boo hoo me right? I HAD to go to the Ritz-Carlton, and I HAD to get a spa treatment. I know, it’s a bit petty but one of the few things I REALLY enjoy doing in my life, and I have the opportunity to do it in a place that most people only get to watch on TV…and I don’t get to do it. It IS frustrating.

Among the other notable things that happened while we were there, was getting the chance to watch two young, fairly attractive women at the pool. Let me set the stage; CareerMom and I meandered down to the pool, which overlooks the lake. We stayed there talking for a few and both turned around towards the pool so we could lean up against the fence. We both had our sunglasses on and CareerMom says, “Is that girl lying on top of another girl?” Being a man, I quickly glanced over and from what I could tell, there was one girl in a bathing suit lying facedown on a chaise lounger, with another bathing suit-clad young woman lying on top of her…also face down. Though I wanted to stare (and fantasize just a tiny bit), I tried not to look. CareerMom though, had no such qualms. “I can’t look away” she said, “It’s fascinating.” This from a woman who later that evening, as I paused to watch a “girls gone wild” commercial remarked, “Two women together, I just don’t get it.”

Really?

Anyway, we also made nuisances of ourselves later that evening at the off-site restaurant, where CareerMom ordered a filet, cooked medium, and it came back very rare. I ordered the Cajun pasta and halfway through, came across something that looked very much like a grub worm that I might pull out of my compost pile, but that the chef insisted was a crawfish tail. Either way, it ruined my appetite.

But the time flew by and we soon were back on the road. It’s amazing how much stuff you can cram into 24 hours. We left at 1 p.m. on Saturday and arrived home by 1:30 p.m. on Sunday. It was fun, but if I’m gonna drive two hours to stay at a Ritz-Carlton, I want to STAY at a Ritz-Carlton. This was just a mad-dash. For that, I could have stayed home and chased after the kids.