Is Pizza More Important than Life?

 

Sounds like a silly question, right?!  Could someone possibly think that a pizza is more important than a human life, or better yet the life of a loved one?  No Jason ... that's just too silly to imagine.  Now, what a minute, lets talk this out.  First off we need to establish what we are really talking about here.  I mean a pizza dinner at let's say Monical's Pizza, in Linton, if you order a large pizza Meat Eater Special with breadsticks and sodas for 4 people would cost roughly $32 (including tip).

 

Does that sound about right?  I think it does, and I think most of us will have pizza at least once a month (it's reported that 70% of Americans do).  So that proves to me that Pizza is more important than life!  Because nearly half of those folks having pizza this month will say that they don't have enough life insurance (according to a LIMRA study in 2013)

 

"But Jason", you say in a whiny voice, "Life insurance costs so much and pizza is so cheap!'  Most Americans greatly over estimate the cost of a life insurance policy.  For example, a non tobacco using man age 30 who is good health and a normal body weight can get a level term policy with a face amount of $500,000 for $28 a month.  How much does he need?  Well if he is 30 years old and he currently provides $40,000 a year for his family, he will earn $1,400,000 over the next 35 years until he retires, at age 65.  So lets say he wants to be worth 1,000,000 .. guess what the monthly cost would be?  About $46 a month or less than a pizza dinner and one trip to the Linton movie theater (full price adult tickets are $6.75) for a family of 4 ...

 

Life insurance is affordable and necessary ... don't make dinner and movie more important than your family's security.

 

Jason

Old guys are the lucky ones!

Time marches on ... we all know this and yet looking back on the days gone by, we all seem to say, "where has the time gone?"  But I must say that as I slowly become an old guy, I find that I feel like a really lucky person.

 

I've had both success and failure in my life ... so, I know what I can accomplish but, I'm not afraid of missing the mark.  I've seen peace and war, both up close and I know that one can not exist without the other.  I work hard so that I can have sometime to play, and that makes me understand the value of both work and play.  I have enough money to pay my way ... but not enough to make me greedy.

 

As we get older we realize that it isn't the money, fun times, peaceful world, or successes that make us happy or even lucky.  Happiness and indeed luckiness comes from a generous helping of life!  The messiness, the highs, the lows and the craziness of a life through the years makes it more valuable to the person living it and more interesting to anyone that is observing it.  Some folks will tell you that success comes from planning for the future and there is truth to that, but success is not the only element of life worth pursuing. 

 

So here is the last word from this "old guy" in training. Plan what you can, accept what you must, pursue what you love and give 'til it hurts.  When you look back at the days gone by, you'll still say "where has the time gone", but you'll feel like the luckiest old guy on the planet.

 

J

 

Here's my commercial for this post.  Life insurance is only for a person that owes someone or loves someone.  If either fits you, call me for a quote.  It's a lot less expensive than not having will be for your family.

Happy Hallowen!

Halloween isn't my favorite holiday but we usually have fun with the neighborhood during the night.  We get 300 plus kids at our house for trick or treats and while we know many of them we get a lot that are total strangers.

The funniest ones are the teenagers that are too old to be trick or treating and don't even have a costume on, they walk around with a sack looking to get candy from the neighborhood houses.  The funny thing is that they don't even look like they are enjoying it.  The uncostumed "too old to be doing this" teens look like they just lost their best friend.  Of course I know they didn't just lose their best friend because they are standing right there next to them.

Our favorites are the young kids that we know, they show up with super hero costumes on or princess costumes or funny ones with a mask.  Best of all is when you say "oh my who is this?"  and the kids pulls up their mask and with a sly grin says, " it's just  me!"  How cool is that?  More than the pursuit of candy, the youngest kids are really wanting everyone to see that behind the mask, it's just them.  Perhaps those sad teens have forgotten that the candy is not nearly as sweet as your neighbors knowing that you and your parents have turned ordinary you into a believable super hero, princess, ghoul or other creature.

Every year my family and I carve pumpkins and as my kids got older they started liking it less and less, but I like just as much now as I did when I was really young.  Maybe I didn't like it when I was a teenager, I don't recall, but right now I really enjoy it because it gives me a chance to show my neighbors that I and my family have turned an ordinary pumpkin into a really cool super hero.

Happy Halloween.

J

Call me for an insurance quote!

Bacon Ice Cream ... like licking a cold pig on a hot day!

Sometimes you have to throw caution to the wind and try something that scares you. The only problem with that philosophy is that once you throw caution a couple of times you start to get braver and doing wilder and crazier stuff.


So when I was a very young man, my mom encouraged me to try new things, and especially food. Later in live I challenged myself to try new foods all the time, sometimes in a foreign country with questionable sanitation and unrecognizable meats.\

This has led to a lifetime of foodie thrill seeking and the latest is bacon ice cream. Don’t stop reading now, you really need to try this as it is incredible and worthy of a thrown caution!

I’ll get to the point, below is the recipe … try it and let me know what you think … oh and remember I’m a insurance agent and I’m wanting to quote your business (although if you are such a risk taker with your food, I might have to rethink that.


Bacon Maple Ice Cream

1/4 pound Bacon, raw, roughly chopped
2 cups half & half
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup brown sugar, light, packed

In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine bacon, half and half, cream, maple syrup, and sugar and bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
Reduce to maintain a gentle simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.
Remove from heat, cover, and set aside to steep until a deep bacon flavor develops, 10 to 20 minutes. Strain through a medium-mesh strainer and set aside to cool to room temperature.
Cover and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
Put it in your ice cream machine and run it according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Makes about 5 cups of ice cream.

Candied Bacon bits

While waiting on the ice cream to get done you can take ¼ pound of bacon and pack brown sugar on top then boil in the oven on low until the sugar is melted and the bacon is crisp. With kitchen shears chop up the bacon into small pieces to sprinkle on top of the ice cream.

Now buy life insurance from me cause you’ll need it if you keep this up!

The Funny Thing About Food ...

Did your mom and dad make your food fun?  I remember my parents making me meals that looked cool and that seemed to make them taste great.  You know what I mean, fried bologna that looked like pac man, hot dog octopus and broccoli trees.

Not only did we have fun with our food, there was always plenty of it.  Sadly, this is not the case for all kids today.  According to the USDA, over 16 million children lived in food insecure (low food security and very low food security) households in 2010.  This means that they live in homes were they aren't sure where their next meal is coming from.  In fact during 2010 there were over 20 million kids that received free or reduced lunches at school but during the summer when school is not in cession only 2.3 million kids got feed through the USDA's summer food service program.

So only 10% of the kids that get free or reduced lunches at school are getting the same lunch benefits in the summer months.  We want to change that!  Our church and other churches in our town are banding together with others in the county and using the USDA's summer food service program to get those kids in need a free lunch Monday through Friday and perhaps a little fun too.  This summer EVERYONE gets feed!!!  This summer no one goes hungry!  This summer we will be the hands of the church, reaching out to make a difference in the lives of the children of our community.

J

Stop Knocking on Wood!  Call or email me to understand what your coverage is ... No matter who you're with, know what you have!

"So Long And Thanks For All The Fish"

Douglas Adams wrote the book titled, "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish".  I really loved the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy series of which this was the fourth book.  It was a fun, crazy narrative about an ordinary guy and his extraordinary adventures.

Adams was an atheist and while I believe his view on creation was stupid, I really loved his writing ... and in particular the title of this book.  I think of it often because over the last few years I've been studying fish farming. 

The population of our planet continues to grow and our sources of high quality protein from nature and traditional farming techniques can't keep up.  While science has helped us get fatter pigs and chickens they have created a few problems along the way.  We have bigger farms that create bigger animals but that means if the animals from one farm are diseased it will affect folks around the country, where as if we all ate from local farms less people would be affected by a diseased herd.  We would use less gas to get our food from the farms, and so we would create less pollution.  Plus we would know the people that raised our food and more importantly they would know us and have to look us in the face if they sell a bad product.  That's strong motivation to do the right thing.

Besides the need for quality control, there is the issue of "franken food" ... with all the genetic engineering going into those fat pigs and chickens are we changing the food into something that is ultimately bad for us?  We don't know the long term effects of the extreme genetics that is practiced today, but I can guess and you can too.

Well, with that idea for green living I should get my seafood from close to home as well ... so I'm going to grow my own fish and shrimp.  This way I can be more responsible and grow a food source that I love close to the home that I love.

Perhaps when I die they will put this on my tomb stone "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish" ...