A Special Day!

Happy Birthday to Mark Mastin and Brittney Hood!! Be sure and tell them to have a very Happy Birthday today. These are two very special people to the Gohring family. Brittney, because of her sense of humor and warm spirit, and Mark, well, what can I say? He is the first man who ever said to me, "I would have loved to run in my underwear with you."

Happy Birthday you two.

Buying online.... and why it sucks.

There is something inherently wrong with ordering tickets online. I just ordered a ticket for Scott for a concert he wanted to go to in Dallas in a couple of weeks. I ordered it from an online service that I will not identify, but let's call them Picketfaster. The "price" of the ticket was $22. Once I got in and pulled it up to order it, I was told that there was a $6 "convenience" fee to be paid, plus some other amount that I failed to read completely. I thought to myself, OK, this is where the Picketfaster folks make their money, I am cool with that. So we are at $30 for the ticket. Then the seriously stupid stuff started. I was asked if I wanted to print the ticket out on-line, "RECOMMENDED" it said. This would cost an additional $2.50, or I could opt to have them mail it to me for no charge. OK, in what parallel universe does that makes sense? I can print the ticket out myself, thus creating less work for anyone else, but I have to pay extra to do so? Ummmmm, no. Moving on through the process, I enter my credit card info, hit the complete purchase button and before I hit "Accept" I notice that there is now a 5.40 "Order processing fee". what the heck was the previous $6 "convenience" fee for then? Unavoidable I suppose, so I hit "accept", then I am asked if I want the "recommended" insurance on the tickets, (in the event they are lost in the mail, I suppose) for an additional $7. (Attention Picketfaster - If I fail to receive my tickets, I will be instructing my bank to deny payment on the credit card purchase - that is all the insurance I need.) At this point I am saying no to everything, finish up the transaction, and I am told that they will be mailing me my $22 ticket and charging me $36.50 for the transaction. That is a 66% markup on the price of the ticket which, even with paying someone to stuff a ticket in the envelope and slap on some postage, seems like an unbelievable margin.

Interesting Fact

I learned from the FEEDJIT app on the right hand side of this blog that if you perform a google search for "misshapen head haircut", the first hit is my blog!! Also if you ask the question "What's cupcaking?" you are directed here as the most relevant entry. (Relevant, obviously being a very subjective concept.)

Facts like these lead me to believe that it is high time I got back to blogging. In the near future I will try to post some important discussions of things such as cupcaking and misshapen heads. Who knows, perhaps a whole blog devoted to cupcaking with misshapen heads?

I would like to take this opportunity also to semi-publically apologize to anyone who legitimately was looking for insight into cupcaking and/or pointers on how to properly cut the hair on a misshapen head, and ended up here instead. I am sure that the information you seek is somewhere in the cyber realm, but if you are looking for answers, this is probably not the best place to look. Keep searching, and I have no doubt that somewhere out there, amongst the E.D. ads, the online pharmaceutical offers, and the cheap but spectacular imitation watch deals, you will find your answers. Bueno suerte mi amigos.

Haircuts

When we first talked about Jan undergoing chemo, three years ago, I agreed that if her hair fell out, I would get a matching haircut. I dodged a bullet then, as she went through almost the entire regimen and only lost a little hair, not enough for anyone to notice. Well, this new chemo had a different effect, so, being a man of my word, I give you the haircut.

Staci is an excellent barber, in case anyone is interested in getting her to cut their hair.





Do I appear a little nervous?






I was a little concerned that I would have a misshapen head, I have not had a haircut like this since I was maybe 3.







Me and my beautiful wife. They say that couples start to look alike after being together for a long time. I think they might be right! (That makes me beautiful too, apparently)





Scott even got into the fun, although it took considerably longer to get him sheared.