The picture for my blog was pilfered from somewhere unknown on the internet.  It didn’t come with a caption.  It didn’t come with a descriptive title or some of those imbedded information tags in the properties.  Come to think of it, it came with absolutely no information whatsoever, other than what you can see in the photo itself.

Personally I am one-hundred-percent convinced that it was taken in the Sandhills of Nebraska.  Trust me, I was born there.

The Sandhills are rugged and desolate to be sure, but they also have their own inherant beauty.  Wildflowers dot the prairie, adding random patches of unexpected color to the vast expanses of sand beige and scrub grass green.  Listen at night for the sound of insects singing you to sleep… and if you’re especially blessed you might also hear the lonely howl of a coyote or two.  On that same clear, still night look up at a sky unmarred by pollution and the light from nearby metropoli for stars so numerous and thick that you simply can’t count them.  Oh, and from any number of windmill-drawn wells you can find water so pure that Aquafina, Evian, and all the others can’t even touch it.

Some of the best charms of the place is that it is laid-back and quiet, and full of friendly, helpful residents too.  There won’t be much industry there, yet the locals are industrious… and certainly hard-working.  This is mostly livestock country, and people live here by the sweat of their brows.  Neighbors help neighbors, simply because it’s the right thing to do.  Someday you might be the one needing help, and you’ll find others pitching in often without being asked.  Families are large here, both in the numbers of offspring and the size of the individuals that make them up.

Two weeks from today I make a return visit for the first time in several decades.  My family is one of the homesteading families out there, and it’s a year to remember for all of us.  I’ve always been proud to be one of them, but lately it seems to be especially so, so much that I have begun the oft frustrating legal process of taking back the family name.  It’ll be worth it to be part of them again in name as well as blood.

If you’re fortunate enough to somehow part of the clan, maybe I’ll see you there.

You’re gonna love this one.

I work in a consolidations department of a education finance corporation.  We consolidate college loans.  It’s like putting all of your eggs in one basket with one interest rate.  Sometimes I have to call a customer.  Sometimes I have to call a lender.  Sometimes I have to call one of the companies that guarantee the loans.

Today was no exception.  I had to call a guarantor, a largely frustrating waste of ten minutes of my and the company’s valuable time as I was transferred no fewer than five times, was given a different number to call three times, and never did get any REAL help.

Two of the three alternative numbers matched, minus one small detail.  The second time I was given the number, the individual told me that it was an 888- number.  The first time I was given the number, I had to ask the area code and was only then told it was an 800- number.  Between you and me, there can be a vast amount of difference between the two.  How different?  One place gave me the division where I should have been able to get information about defaulted loans.  The other… well, read on.  Two key names have been changed to protect the innocent… otherwise it reads EXACTLY as I heard it.

You have reached the Potter’s Abbey Fruitcake Bakery.  If you wish to leave Brother John a message, please do so after the beep.  Thank you.

Kid you not, folks.  That one kept me laughing for fully five minutes after I hung up.  I mean, I’ve heard of fish friars and chip monks, but that’s a new one…