Why was a 74 Year Old Man Driving a Semi in Fatal Crash?

74-year-old Olympia man dies in semi truck crash in Pierce County | The Today File | Seattle Times.

semi-truck-fatality

I was struck by this story (above link) when I heard it on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM Seattle this morning. It tells of the death of a 74-year-old man from Olympia who crashed the semi-truck he was driving into an overpass abutment on southbound Highway 167 near Sumner. The truck was carrying 40-thousand pounds of pumpkins and apples. The story reports that the trucks driver’s compartment was intact and the man showed no obvious signs of major trauma, leading the Washington State Patrol spokesperson to speculate that the man died of a personal medical condition that led to the crash.

I was saddened to hear of the man’s death, the crash, the major traffic back up it caused, and the pumpkins all over the roadway. But what I mostly found troubling was that a man old enough to be my father, old enough to have earned a more relaxing period in his life was driving a semi-truck. Driving a truck is hard work. It’s very labor intensive. It’s long hours. And especially in Puget Sound traffic it can be very stressful. A 74-year-old man who is capable has every right to be doing this. And maybe this was something he did for the love of it. Perhaps he really enjoyed his work. I don’t know the man. I don’t know. But what seems far more likely is the man was working into what should be his retirement years because he had to. He and his family probably relied on the income he earned driving the truck, or selling the pumpkins and apples. Not working at his advanced age and with his apparent questionable health is something that should have been an option for him. I don’t want to be working in a stressful labor intensive job when I’m 74. Heck, I no longer want such a job now. I’ve done plenty of that in my nearly 50 years and my body already has its share of aches and pains.

The incident reminded me of a major home upgrade my family undertook 7 ears ago. When we bought our home it had a backyard concrete sports court. After living here 3 years and seeing that my growing kids were not using the 40-year-old sports court with any frequency and that it’s cracking posed somewhat of a hazard for anyone using it we decided to have it removed and to install a lawn. It was a big job and quite difficult. It was far more than I would take on myself. So we hired a firm to do it. 3-4 days of jackhammering followed. Upon breaking up the concrete into 30-50 pound blocks the two men performing the work manually loaded the chunks into a small wheelbarrow-type trailer which was then towed to our front yard driveway by a tiny tractor between the narrow path separating our home and our neighbor’s house. The chunks of concrete were then again manually loaded into a large truck trailer. At the end of each day the truck trailer drove away the broken up concrete, presumably to a concrete recycling location where, again presumably, these men had to once again manually offload the heavy chunks. It was hard grueling work done in the hot sun of Summer time. And the two men doing the work were employees of the contractor. They weren’t even business owners. And they were each old. Each one was at least in their upper 50s and possibly they were in their 60s. I was very concerned for their well-being. But I knew they wouldn’t be doing such intense work if they didn’t feel they had to do so for themselves and possibly their families. 

These men had not prepared for being older and still needing money to live. I vowed such a fate wouldn’t happen to me and my family.

Saving for retirement is talked about endlessly in the United States. And many options are provided for people to do this with some effectiveness. But all of them involve diminishing what you have in order to live more comfortably in your Senior years. To save for retirement (a smart thing to do) you must take some of what you earn today and store it away for some future use. You do with less today in order to have something tomorrow when an income is diminished or nonexistent. You do without today in the hopes of having and spending it tomorrow. And when tomorrow arrives in most cases you are taking from what you’ve earned and saved and gradually diminishing it…making your savings smaller until such time as it’s gone or you’re dead.

To me the only logical solution was to operate a business that will keep generating money for me and my family even when I work less or even if I’m gone. We started Total Broadcasting Service in 2005 and ever since have been working hard to make it a self-sustaining business. We’re getting there.

But not everyone can do what we do in radio voice work, editing and producing audio and video production. Most people can’t start their own business. They don’t know how, they don’t have the financial resources, and they don’t have whatever it is that entrepreneurs like myself possess to work without a net and to risk so much with the belief that they will succeed. It’s hard. I know. Like most business owners we have no one helping us. We have no Sugar-Daddy feeding us money in the event that we’re not bringing in enough of our own. Few do.

We started our AdvoCare business in 2012. To get started it cost us $79. For less than we might typically spend on a trip to the grocery store we had a money earning business. And while working on our Plan B income, AdvoCare, only 5-10 hours per week we have seen our income slowly grow. We have a plan that will see our AdvoCare business bring in over $1000 per month by the end of this year and continue to grow from there. And AdvoCare’s business plan is easy. Anyone of any age can do it. And the money keeps coming in even on weeks when we don’t spend any time on it at all. It will continue coming in years from now when we want to slow down. Also, AdvoCare’s business and it’s income is inheritable. After my wife and I die what income and business we have built doesn’t go away. It becomes our children’s. The business and the money it earns becomes my children’s.

I won’t be working when I’m in my 70s. But thanks to AdvoCare my family will have an income. You can do it to. More importantly, you should. The alternative was shown by grave example on a highway near Sumner yesterday.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

To learn how you can build your own AdvoCare business for now and your future, and your children’s future call Michael or Sonja Schuett at our Total Broadcasting Service office: 425-687-0100

Click to go to our AdvoCare website.

Click to go to our AdvoCare website.

Call for Video Production Services: 425-687-0100

Call for Video Production Services: 425-687-0100

 

 

 

September 26, 2013
Categories: Business, Uncategorized, Washington State, Weight Loss . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: 2 Comments

How Much Are Women Really Spending On Their Hair?

English: Example:hair being straighten with a ...

 

 

Ada Polla: How Much Are Women Really Spending On Their Hair?.

 

The above link is an interesting article talking about how much women do for, to and spend on their hair. In the article the person who spends the least claimed to only spend $900 per year on their hair. All the rest claimed to spend well over $2000 per year. In the case of one woman, over $10,000 was spent on her hair…which…as the article points out is dead and will be cut away in a short period of time. And none of the women in this article are women of color. I guarantee black women with any means at all spend much more on their hair than the average white woman. MUCH MORE! 

 

I don’t have any issue with women spending a lot on their hair. A woman with a good looking, nicely styled head of hair can really accentuate her beauty. However, I have issues with women spending lots and lots of time and money on their hair while being seriously out of shape and unhealthy. Where are your priorities ladies? Your poor fitness could kill you. It certainly will shorten your life. And in terms of attractiveness, speaking as just one man, a woman with a fit body and…less than perfect hair is more attractive than an unfit, unhealthy body with a perfect do.

 

Spend nearly as much money and time on your body as you do your hair and this country would not have nearly as bad an obesity problem. It would be cut in half, leaving only the men with the need to fix their weight issues. Because I guarantee any woman willing to put as much time and money into their body as they put into their hair will not have a weight problem.

 

This has been something I’ve wondered about my whole marriage. Fortunately my beautiful wife and I found AdvoCare to help us both with tremendous weight loss. And my wife’s hair is gorgeous in spite of caring for it on a tight budget. Certainly, a tighter budget than the women listed in the above article. AdvoCare helped her and I lose a combined 100+ lbs. in only 7 months, thanks to the 24 Day Challenge.  (Contact us if you want help with AdvoCare)

 

I just got a hair cut. I might get 6-8 of them in a year and spend $20 each time. I have no idea what I spend on shampoo and conditioner but if I were to guess, each bottle costs $5-6 and lasts 3-4 weeks, I might spend another $70-$80 for a total yearly investment in my own hair of less than $240.00. And keep in mind I’m not the only one in my household using my shampoo and conditioner. Obviously women have it different. And I understand that. But $900? $2000? $10,000? YIKES!

 

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

 

Go to our website, read our story and try some AdvoCare. You won't regret it.

Go to our website, read our story and try some AdvoCare. You won’t regret it.

 

September 17, 2013
Categories: Uncategorized, Washington State, Weight Loss . Tags: , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on How Much Are Women Really Spending On Their Hair?

Who Will Raise Your Kids Since It Won’t Be You?

Child play

I can only imagine the guilt and pain that comes every day a mother or sometimes a father drops their young children at a daycare facility where people they barely know care for their off spring. People that seldom have more than a high school education, and seldom have much life experience beyond high school because day care workers tend to be young. The times when the young ones cling to their mommy and/or daddy and plead “Do you have to work today?” has to be one of the most heart retching experience any parent must face. This is hard and made harder by the knowledge it’s not necessary if the parent makes the right decisions and displays courage. Our experience with AdvoCare has presented to me lots of examples of parents who no longer have both parents working out of the home and entrusting the raising of their kids to some other mostly unknown persons.

Paques01

The importance of being present for your kids is one my wife and I learned early on. And I’m proud to say our kids saw virtually no time in daycare. Being there for your kids is a gift to them you can never give at a later time. That’s why it’s called a “present”. My beautiful wife and I have raised three kids. Though using the past-tense is a little premature since 1) Our youngest is just now entering high school, and 2) Do you ever finish raising your kids? But we have “raised” our kids past the age of any needed daycare. I’m proud of the decisions we made to sacrifice the extra income and status that could have come from working outside the home and leaving the responsibility of raising children to those whose values may not be ours.

Let’s start by stating what must be said. I am sympathetic to the argument that parents only do this because they must. I’m sympathetic not because the statement is true but because it is so common and thought to be true and too many people have fallen into the false belief that no options exist to allow for reasonable, mature adults to bypass the daycare lie and spend the necessary 10-18 years giving of themselves the most valuable community gesture they can. All of society benefits from a well-raised child. And every study over many years and common sense shows that kids raised with at least one parent in the home are far better adjusted and far less likely to travel down dark paths as they grow into adulthood. And such kids are far more likely to be successful as adults and possess the positive values instilled by parents who were present.

LYS87girls

And to the hyperventilating Liberal haters out there who will falsely claim I’m just advocating a 1950s society where the little woman is the care taker of the kids and subservient to the husband I say quite loudly SHUT UP. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. In my house it was me who was home with the kids, most of the time. We became parents October 31, 1987 and in the 26 years since my wife has usually worked 40+ hour per week jobs outside the house. I too worked 40+ hours per week, and continue to do so. But I either worked out of the home or in jobs that had me home by early to mid-afternoon before kids returned home from school. For about 2-3 years before my son was old enough we had a Nanny come into our home even though our combined incomes were only middle-class. But even during this time I was still home early in the afternoon before my oldest daughter got home from school. Since opening our audio and video production company Total Broadcasting Service in 2005 we’ve twice tried to bring Mommy home only to find the lost outside income and health benefits she had while working for someone else too much to overcome. The result- I coached my sons and daughters in softball, baseball, soccer, football, and basketball. I, thus, got to know their friends and the Moms and Dads of their friends. I saw to it that they got to their homework after school and that they didn’t come home to an empty house. They were safe and happy.

Your kids deserve the opportunity to be kids. They deserve the opportunity to sleep until they wake, instead of being woke at the crack of dawn, hustled to the car and driven to that house or daycare facility and hurriedly left in the hands of someone who isn’t mom or dad. Wouldn’t your kids eat better when you’re preparing their fresh fruits and vegetables for snacks and parts of meals than day after day of mass-produced mac & cheese? When they fall down and cry wouldn’t their boo-boo be best nurtured by Mom or Dad than by someone who needs to quickly put them down in order to tend to someone else’s child?

And since day care is so darned expensive just how much is gained by parents not being there? According to the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) the cost of daycare for infants and toddlers is $300-$1564 per month (and I don’t even want to think about the $300 places. YIKES!). The state of Washington, where I live, is the seventh most expensive state in the U.S. for infant-toddler care at over $10,000 per year. In 2012 the average working woman made only $35,000. So, in a 2-income household the average working woman was leaving care and raising for her youngest kids for an extra $25,000 or less. Probably more like $20,000 when the unnecessary expense of gas and car maintenance and mileage, as well as eating out are subtracted.

Could you work at home part-time, raise your own kids, and make $20,000? With Advocare you definitely can. Again using myself as an example we’re working a plan that will have us earning $12,000 in our first year representing Advocare’s high quality health, nutrition and weight loss products. And we have only been able to devote about 5 hours per week to the effort. Naturally we expect that will grow in year two. Our friends and mentors started with AdvoCare almost four years ago and worked it on a more full-time basis and earned $60,000 their first year, and over $166,000 in their third. Could you raise your kids on $60,000 per year? How about $166k? And consider this, are you in a job where you could realistically expect to grow your income to $60k annually in 3 years? How about $166k? Most people will say no.

And we’ve found the “selling” of Advocare easy. And so will you. It really comes down to using the products. My wife and I lost over 100 pounds combined in 8 months using the 24 Day Challenge and Advocare products thereafter. After using the products, you simply tell people of your experience and encourage them to try them too. How hard is that? What makes it even easier is that Advocare provides you with an incredible training program that should you choose to participate, listen and follow will make success and a good income inevitable. You can do this.

Your kids would want you to. Your kids want you to be healthy and to have the energy and the time to devote to them. And that’s what you want too. Like all things it will require you to try. You must try. If you don’t try you’re guaranteed to fail. Simple.

Call me to learn more: 425-687-0100.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

Click to go to our AdvoCare website.

Click to go to our AdvoCare website.

Related articles

August 28, 2013
Categories: Business, Uncategorized, Washington State, Weight Loss . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on Who Will Raise Your Kids Since It Won’t Be You?

Father’s Just Showing Up

Originally written as a Facebook Note June 21, 2009 I republish my memories and thoughts about my father here for others to consider as they think about their own father.

 

Jerome Mathis Schuett

 

When I think of my father I think of the day he died. I think of his temper and obstinate assuredness. And I think of the fact that he was there at every important event of my life. He was there. And that is what I find most important in my thoughts.

Someone once said “90% of life is … just showing up.” I shared this quote with my son today as we ate our Father’s Day breakfast, a delicious confection of Dungeness Crab Eggs Benedict, honeydew melon, and hash browns prepared by my seventeen year old boy. Like so many things shared by father’s to their seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen year old sons and daughters he didn’t subscribe to the quotes logic and sentiment. He said, “That doesn’t make sense. What about the times when you show up and don’t do anything?”

I’m sure I disappointed him and failed to convince him with my brief uninspired retort, “Well, that would make up the other ten-percent. Wouldn’t it?” Nothing further was said; and I’m sure he didn’t give it another thought. But I hope, like so many of the things I try to impart onto my children that a time will come that the quote and its sentiment might settle in his mind and create wisdom.

Truly, I don’t know if “just showing up” is 90-percent of life, or if it’s 60%, 70% or if it’s a moving target. I tend to believe its more like 95%. All that is good or bad in your life “is” because you are or were in it; you were involved. You were participating. You showed up.

From childhood to adult hood the most seminal moment in my life came at age eleven, January 5, 1976. While returning home from my paper-route I unwisely attempted to cross a busy four lane street through heavy late afternoon traffic. I failed. A blue Cadillac whose driver never imagined a paper boy on bicycle suddenly appearing before his windshield smashed into me at full speed, some 35 miles per hour. The driver never having touched his brakes.

The event is fresh in my mind because I just relived it last Monday night. Since that cold and rainy night on NE 8th Street at Crossroads in Bellevue, Washington 33 years ago the event has invaded my mind every few years. And by invading my mind I don’t mean to say I think about or remember it. I mean to say I relive it and experience flying through the air. I feel my forehead smashing against the curb as my upside down body descends to the concrete sidewalk. My body feels the unsteady dizziness that pulled me back to the concrete after standing up once I landed. It’s not remembering. I’m there again. It’s as real as this computer on my lap.

I’m sure the meeting of my brother and his Mom this past weekend triggered this episode. His Mom was a big part of mine and my Dad‘s life in the year preceding the accident. They had split up by the time of the accident. But her surprise visit to me after my return home from the hospital was very important to me then and remains so today.

In experiencing the crash again, I see my Dad. He was there. He showed up. While lying on the sidewalk I was immediately surrounded by strangers. Someone had a blanket and covered me up. And I asked someone else to call my Dad to tell him “I would be late getting home”. In the intervening time before seeing my Dad an ambulance arrived. Paramedics examined me and cut up my brand new Swabbies (pants) I’d received for Christmas, not two weeks earlier. Though I was still a month from my twelfth birthday I didn’t cry. No tears came as I calmly thanked those who helped me, and apologized for causing everyone so much trouble. I remained perfectly lucid and emotionless as I explained to the medical technicians where my hurts and aches were that they couldn’t readily see. But when they took scissors to my first ever non-hand-me-down pants I began to weep.

The paramedic stopped cutting. “Am I hurting you?” he asked. “No”, I said, “But you’re ruining my new pants”. “You’ll get some new ones. It’ll be OK.” He didn’t know. He didn’t know they were my only ever new pants. And he didn’t know they wouldn’t be replaced. They would be sewn.

I was put on the gurney and loaded into the ambulance. Before the doors could close I heard a familiar voice. I heard my Dad. He had come. He poked his head in the ambulance door ever so briefly, saw that I was alive, said something reassuring. And then said, “I’ll see you at the hospital”.

I felt so much better. I feared that he would be mad. My Dad never handled unexpected bad news well. His typical response was to grimace and soon yell at whoever or whatever was his provocateur. In the case of my car-bike accident he may have lambasted the stranger who called him. He may have cursed every slow driver that impeded his two-mile drive from home to the scene of the crash. He may have shoved those who had curiously gathered around the ambulance as he pushed into the vehicles doorway. But he and I never talked of such things. He never made me feel bad for the accident that reconfigured my bones, and my hand specifically. All he did was make me feel better by being there.

There is no need to romanticize my father. He was flawed in so many ways. But he never missed one of my sporting competitions, or school events. He was at my wedding though he said he wouldn’t be because he didn’t believe in interracial marriage. Repeatedly time and again, he showed up. And every time he did I was glad.

And in the eight years since his death not an event or holiday has passed where I didn’t wish for his presence. This includes last weekend when I MET his other son. A son who’s life he never acknowledged or participated in. His loss.

His failure as a father to my brother and his temper and his lack of ambition, selfish nature, and lack of personal fortitude are all forgiven. They are all forgiven, because he showed up. He was there for me when my body was broken and when so many other fathers never would have been home to receive the phone call to begin with.

Your author, step-mother Terri, my Dad Jerry Schuett, and brother Jeff.

Your author, step-mother Terri, my Dad Jerry Schuett, and brother Jeff.

Perhaps you too can forgive your father his failings. If he was there he has already exceeded that which 25% of all American fathers deprive their biological offspring.

I pray my children benefit from what I impart. But I know they gain from my presence. I know tucking them in, cheering them on, and disciplining their transgressions can only help them provide their children that which those future grandkids of mine need most from their Dad and their Mom. Their presence.

Ninety-percent of life is just showing up, that may be true. But when it comes to being a father, or a Dad, it might just be the whole ball game.

Comments are welcome. Thanks for visiting.

My Dad with his first Grandchild, Arica.

Dad & Arica

My Dad with his first Granchild

 

June 16, 2013
Categories: Uncategorized, Washington State . Tags: , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on Father’s Just Showing Up

A List of Funny Sayings

What follows I stole from a Facebook post. I think you’ll enjoy.

ARAPROSDOKIANS… (Winston Churchill loved them) are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently humorous.

1. Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it’s still on my list.

3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.

5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

6. War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

8. They begin the evening news with ‘Good Evening,’ then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.

9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

10. Buses stop in bus stations. Trains stop in train stations. On my desk is a work station.

11. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.

12. In filling out an application, where it says, ‘In case of emergency, notify:’ I put ‘DOCTOR.’

13. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

14. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

15. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

16. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

17. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

18. Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

19. There’s a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can’t get away.

20. I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure.

21. You’re never too old to learn something stupid.

22. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

23. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

24. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

25. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian just as being in a garage doesn’t make you a car.

26. Where there’s a will, there are relatives.

Finally:

I’m supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

Share if you Like.

Click to go to our AdvoCare website.

Click to go to our AdvoCare website.

June 12, 2013
Categories: Uncategorized . Tags: , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on A List of Funny Sayings

« Previous Page — Previous page Next page — Next Page »