Prices Are Marching Ever Skyward!

If paying $3 more for a 30-ounce container of coffee last week than I did a year ago wasn't enough of a wake-up call for me regarding the growing inflation, I just got another in-your-face reminder.

I have a client with a unique setup in terms of how its editing functions operate. Publications I have been with previously either had a stand-alone fact-checking arm or fact checking fell to the copy desk in smaller publications. This client, however, has a copy desk that is constantly kicking the vetting of my pieces back to me through my editor. I get e-mails, for example, that ask me to recheck the prices of cars I've featured in a story or other figures I've used.

I recognize that I'm not infallible, so I actually do the work. I'm not sure everyone does. In any event I just completed this exercise for a piece I did on the cheapest family sedans to own and operate. Based on Edmunds True Cost to Own (TCO) calculator, this story presents the five family sedans with the lowest ownership cost over the next five years. I submitted the story to my client six weeks ago; it was kicked back to me this morning to verify my TCO numbers.

In six weeks the TCO of every car on the list but one was up by $200 to $300. In six weeks!

I grocery shop in dibs and drabs. I usually go to the store to buy something I'm out of. I probably go four or five times a week. Because I buy things one at a time, I notice prices escalating and they have been doing so for the past year. Doesn't matter what it is: a quart of milk, a bag of Cheetos, a pound of coffee. Prices are heading upward at an alarming rate.

I don't know if we are ever going to reach the point when we have to take a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread or the price of an item goes up between taking if off the shelf and paying for it, but the trend is frightening nonetheless. I lived through the Carter years when inflation and interest rates skyrocketed; that was scary enough.

I'm not keen to do it again.

The Pros and Cons of Paid Assignments

I am actually fretting over a couple of paid assignments at the moment. What a nice change of pace that is. Paid, paid, paid, paid...what a wonderful word; even if it is a concept with which I have all too little contact these days. I'm going to be paid! Wow, that has a pleasant ring to it.

In the old freelance writing game, getting the assignment is only a small fraction of the battle. If the story requires citing sources and presenting quotes, research becomes the bulk of the effort. Writing? Heck, writing is the easy part. Trying to figure out who can provide background and facts for the story, and then somehow getting them on the phone; that's the time-consuming, gut-wrenching, put-a-gun-in-my-mouth part. Don't worry; I don't own a gun. Not yet, anyway.

Depending on the topic, securing a qualified source for some assignments is easier than others. The two stories I am currently struggling with each have a negative aspect that is making potential sources shy away. I have solved that problem with one of the stories, but not the other. Usually tossing around the name of my client sufficiently greases the wheels to get me an audience. However, for my second assignment it is a liability. Apparently another of my client's writers, working on an earlier story, didn't treat this source particularly well. Even with all my charm -- and I have plenty -- I may not be able to overcome this objection. As he tries to make up his mind, I am shopping for another source.

Once the piece is written, I then have to deal with editors who may or may not have a clue what I'm writing about. When they don't, it's typically problematic. I'm lucky that I don't face a lot of rewrites, but a few is too many.

Finally comes (what in the last two years has become) the really tough part: getting paid. Even clients who do pay, often take their good old time. And those are the good ones. I currently have several outstanding invoices from the same client and damn little chance of ever seeing the dough. At least with nonpaying gigs, I don't have to worry about this final step.

So that's the life of a freelance writer: fret, worry, research, write, invoice, fret, worry, and maybe get paid. What a job.

Me, Myself and I: Googling My Name

Yes, I admit it; sometimes I Google myself. This is not entirely a vain, narcissistic exercise. I make my living -- such as it is -- writing, and once a month or so, I check to see what a search engine coughs up when a potential client searches my name. The first time I did this a three or four years ago, I was quite impressed with myself. Not so much of a big deal these days.

When I type in my name without quotation marks, Google spews out about half a million results. Of course after about page 10, all sorts of "heaps" surface. Hit page 35 or so and you are mostly getting references to "heaps of one thing or another." Most of these aren't particularly flattering.

Typing my name within quotation marks brings up about 5,000 results. A majority of these do link to stories I have written or mentions of me, but not all.

One of the mentions of me that I find interesting was in a news story that appeared in the Forty Myers News-Press from January 2007. The story was about Gov. Charlie Crist wanting to rein in insurance companies. When he was elected in 2006, I fired off an e-mail to him challenging him to do what every other Florida politician had promised but failed to do and get a hold of runaway homeowners insurance premiums. Evidently the reporter, using the freedom of information act, culled Crist's e-mails and picked mine out of the thousands to quote.

I never expected the governor to read the thing, let alone a newspaper to pull a quote out of it. I didn't even realize the quote had been used until Googling myself a year or so later. The quote:

Every politician wanting a ticket to Tallahassee promises to address the insurance crisis in this state. Well, talk is cheap and that's all we've had to this point. It's your turn.

Not exactly Charge of the Light Brigade, but pithy and to the point, nonetheless.

It seems there is a professional football (rugby, I assume) player in England with whom I share my name. He must not be a key player because there aren't very many links to stories about him, but he shows up among my references.

Then there is the Heaps Reunion Photos link from 2006. Somehow this link has stayed among the links on the first three or four pages of my "results" as long as I've been searching myself. I have no clue who these people are.

For the most part they appear normal; although there is more than one scary face among them. Capable of frightening buzzards off a meat wagon pops to mind. A couple of the females, however, are quite fetching in a I-hope-you're-not-my-cousin way. The big excitement at this reunion seemed to have been a checker tournament and water-balloon toss. It is obvious that this is not my family; there isn't a beer to be seen in the forty or fifty photos.

Otherwise the results are a rag-tag collection of stories I've written for Web sites and publications over the past six or seven years. Every time I Google myself, it becomes more and more apparent that I've got to get cracking on my novel.

Online Auto-Repair-Estimate Sites: Some Protection Against Cheating Mechanics

We've all been there: You have a service problem with your car and no clue if what the mechanic is telling you is true. What's the problem and how much should it cost to fix? These are the issues we wrestle with every time something goes wrong. Although it can't protect you against crooked mechanics, the Internet provides some sources for verifying service problems and establishing ballpark estimates for repairs.

It's a place to start and can provide at least some peace of mind. Check out my take on online auto-repair-estimate sites at www.bankrate.com/finance/auto/cruise-the-web-for-car-repair-estimates.aspx.

Where Has All the Good Beer Gone?

My relationship with beer changed sometime over the past five years or so. It wasn't a conscious transition, but a subtle, nearly unnoticed shift in my taste and behavior.

Like many guys I know, my appreciation for beer developed around a keg at fraternity parties. Sure, I had quaffed a beer or two in my high school days, but not in amounts of any significance. By the time I reached college at the ripe age of 18, I had probably consumed no more than 12 to 18 beers in my life. Far too few to have a favorite brand. My brand of choice was whatever someone had sneaked out of his parents' refrigerator. Judging by some of the crap my adult friends have tried to foist on me from time to time in the years since, I'm sure I drank a few plundered beers in my high school days that were something just short of elephant whiz. Did I care? Heck no, I was drinking BEER!

I refined my taste for beer in college.

It was a happier time when I headed off to Wittenberg University at the close of summer of my senior year in high school. Located in Springfield, Ohio, Wittenberg is affiliated with the Lutheran Church. I was active in the Lutheran Church in my youth. I consider myself a recovering Lutheran. My father was a Lutheran minister. In fact, he went to Hamma Divinity School, which was part of Wittenberg years ago. That's how I became familiar with Wittenberg. We lived just off campus for almost three years as my dad matriculated through Hamma.

He had to work his way through school to pay for it and to support my mother and me. My sister was already married and out of the house. He earned his way by working for the university as a campus cop, construction crew foreman and assistant manager of the book store. I had the run of the campus and the use of many of the facilities. It was a tremendous three years and when it came time to apply to colleges, there was only one place I wanted to go.

For liquor, the drinking age in Ohio in those happy days was 21; but anyone over 18 could drink what they called near-beer or 3.2 beer. At 18, I could stroll into a bar in Ohio and order a draft beer. This was also long before the Political Correctness Police and we were able to drink on campus. Once I was in a fraternity, we could drink anything we could get someone to buy for us because the university didn't police our parties or really give a hoot about whether we were drinking grain-alcohol-based punch or 3.2 beer. There was always a senior or two living in the house who was over 21, willing to make liquor-store runs.

I had four years to hone my beer-drinking skills. I took full advantage. I drank it by the buckets full.

I didn't slow down for decades. I loved beer! I went through my Heineken phase, my Bud phase, my Corona phase, my Sol phase and my Miller Lite phase. I developed a real fondness for craft beers and micro-brewed beers. Whenever I am out of town, I still try to locate a local brew pub to sample its small-batch stout or porter. I have stumbled across some great ones.

When I made my exploratory visit to Greenville nearly four years ago, my first stop was the Blue Ridge Brewery downtown. I'm not kidding; it was my first stop. On my second Greenville visit, I joined its mug club. I had belonged to such a club at a raw bar in Delray Beach called Rosie's. A bunch of us had mugs there. You paid $10, got a 22-oz mug that you decorated and then you got to enjoy mug-club specials. You also only paid for a 16-oz draft whenever they filled your mug. Sweet!

There wasn't much in the way of information about the mug club and its perks on the place-mat at Blue Ridge, but heck, I wanted to join. The mugs are one-of-a-kind locally-made pottery mugs with silly faces on them. I had a choice among five or six available mugs and made my pick. I was told my first beer was free. I had another after that -- a stout, no doubt -- and asked for my tab. Imagine my shock when the tab arrived and reflected the cost of my second beer and the $75 fee for the mug club. Yikes!

Well, I reasoned, I am going to be living here and I want to be a part of something. I still had money in those days, so I forked over the dough. What the literature also failed to mention is that this isn't a one-time charge. Nope, they expect you to pay some sort of renewal each year. It's been nearly four years and I have managed to avoid the renewal fee so far, so I have no clue what it is. But when it eventually catches up with me, I'll take my mug and go home.

The point being, I haven't lost my taste for a good beer. However, I can no longer drink beer in volume. Where there was a time, when properly motivated, I could sit down and drink half a case of beer in an afternoon, I couldn't begin to attempt that today. Even drinking something as innocuous as Miller Lite, four or five beers and I am full. Moreover, when put in the position of drinking beer exclusively for three or four days, I just get sick of it. What has happened to me? Decades of training down the flume.

What brought all of this to mind is a bottle of Moose Drool. Crafted by the Big Sky Brewing Company in Missoula, Montana, Moose Drool is a brown ale. It is one of my all-time favorite beers. The Drool has become a staple on our annual ranch outings in Wyoming. There is a bottle of Moose Drool sitting in my refrigerator. I see it every time I open the door. I brought it back with me last year in the wood box I use to transport my bottle of Makers to the ranch.

I know when I take my first sip of this beer, I will be immediately transported back to the front porch of our cabin at the ranch where we sit, talk, tell lies and drink. Buying a bag of peanuts in the shell to eat while drinking my prize will only intensify the experience. I am waiting for another spurt of warm weather, so I can sit on my porch and take this beer's full measure.

It's an issue of taste not volume. I can still really enjoy one bottle of great beer.

Some Things I Just Can't Ignore

I typically attempt to keep this blog light. I can't turn on the news without my blood pressure shooting up 70 points. I don't want to add to the dreary information that is offered at every turn. However, there are a couple of things that are bugging the crap out of me and I just need to get them off my chest.

As you are sweating over your taxes and maybe trying to figure out how to come up with the cash to pay that extra unexpected amount that you are due over and above any withholding or quarterly prepayments, keep this in mind: GE declared a net profit -- yes, that's "net" as in "after expenses" -- of over $14 billion for 2010. How much did they pay or do they have to pay in taxes on that amount? Wait for it...$0!

Do you really need another reason for a flat tax? That's a tax that's the same across the board without credits, subsidies and loopholes. $14 billion net profit and $0 paid in taxes. As an individual, I can't make $6,000 (net) in a year and avoid paying taxes. Not only did they pay $0, somehow they wound up with a $3 billion credit toward next year's taxes. How did GE do it?

All you need do is spend $26 million or more lobbying the federal government to write its regulations to create subsidies and tax loopholes to benefit your business. Spend enough money, and evidently for GE $26 million is the magic number, and you too can avoid paying taxes. You can't afford that, you say. Well neither can many of GE's smaller competitors who don't get to operate within the warm embrace of Uncle Sam.

Did I mention that GE is the same company that over the last decade has shuttered more than 20 plants in the U.S. and shipped more than 20,000 jobs over seas? Yea, GE!

Just one example of how GE operates: It lobbied in support of higher efficiency standards for light bulbs. No incandescent bulb can meet those new standards. Why would GE do that; doesn't GE make incandescent light bulbs? Sure, but it also makes the double-helix-shaped compact fluorescent bulbs that are replacing those old-fashioned, energy-hungry incandescents. Of course, the incandescents were made in the U.S. while its compact fluorescents are made much more cheaply in China and other third-world locations.

That's the same strategy GE used to ensure that it didn't have to pay taxes on a $14 billion net profit.

My second gripe: What are we doing in Libya? I have yet to hear the same answer two days in a row. As far as I can tell from the news is that the U.S. is participating in some sort of drive-by bombing of government forces to support some UN sanctioned, humanitarian no-fly zone. Is that about right?

Our goal isn't to overthrow Gaddafi, but "he's gotta go." We are only establishing a no-fly zone, yet we are bombing and lobbing missiles at his tanks and ground forces. The U.S. is only a participant and not the leader of this effort; still we are flying 90 percent of the missions and firing all the missiles. Is that about right?

I just heard the announcement from our state department earlier today that Gaddafi's ability to command his forces has been greatly degraded. Really? How did that happen if all we're doing is enforcing a no-fly zone. Sounds similar to the result of our bombing leading up to both Iraq wars. You don't accomplish that by bombing some runways and antiaircraft batteries. Sounds like we are bombing his military to hell.

The larger question, however, is what do we expect to happen when we...oops, I mean, when the rebels drive Gaddafi out or kill him? Who is going to take over? Are U.S. interests going to be better served by whatever replaces him than they have been by him? History tells us, no. We were lucky, at least for the short term, that Egypt had a strong military to step in. Not so in Libya. There we are screwed.

Over the past couple of days it has come to light that al-Qaeda is one of the major players among the Libyan rebels? I know we are no longer at war with terror, but aren't we still fighting al-Qaeda? I thought that al-Qaeda was the one bad guy/extremist/overseas contingency operation that we were still engaged in. Did I miss a memo?

Am I the only one who thinks this is nuts? Evidently not many in Washington do.

My Last Hurrah (or Gasp, Depending on How You Look at It)

I missed posting yesterday because I had to make one of my whirlwind round-trip runs from Greenville to Atlanta for the day. Thanks to an 8 AM breakfast at the Atlanta auto show media day, I shoved off from my home port at 5:30 AM.

Located in the Georgia World Congress Center next to The Atlanta Dome, the Atlanta auto show isn't one of the bigger shows on the circuit, but has survived the ailing economy mostly intact. Media day this year consisted of a GM-sponsored breakfast and Camaro presentation, five or six manufacturer press presentations at different displays around the floor, and the Chrysler-sponsored annual business-meeting lunch of our auto media group, GAAMA. Included in that business meeting was the election of next year's officers. Excitement ran high!

Serving as the executive vice president of GAAMA since its inception roughly two and a half years ago, my primary role during that period was not to spill anything on my shirt during our monthly lunch meetings -- at least nothing that would stain. I also had to avoid riding in the same car or flying on the same plane as our president; it was the whole succession thing, you see. I was also tasked with responsibilities regarding membership, such as growing it and vetting new members to ensure they are legitimate auto journalists: an oxymoron if I've ever heard one. Even if there is such a thing, what in the hell would I know about it?

In truth, the group's membership gains, which have been substantial, resulted mostly from the natural momentum of starting a new organization. If you build it, they will come. We have grown from perhaps 20 attendees at our first official meeting, to about 60 at yesterday's business meeting. Not bad for flailing around for two years.

I was the go-to guy to be president this year, but because of my travel schedule and the 300-mile round-trip commute required to attend Atlanta meetings, my attendance at board meetings over the past two years was spotty at best. I would have done the group a disservice to assume the mantle of leadership: If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve. The person elected as the new president did a lot of the heavy lifting required to create the growth GAAMA has enjoyed and is a much better choice than I.

I could have filled another office, but for the same reasons thought it best I step aside. Oddly, there was no concerted effort to draft me. Our meeting room didn't erupt in chants of "Russ, Russ, Russ..."

GAAMA's president these past two and a half years and the catalyst in getting this group off the ground will stay on the board for a year as President Emeritus. Me? Well, like George Washington, I will fade back into my role as a gentleman farmer, only in South Carolina rather than Virginia. I'll reflect on my achievements -- it shouldn't take long; and, perhaps, pen my memoirs to be titled: Zero, Is It Really a Number?