An Updated Picture

So, I've just started week 5 of Officer Candidate School. It's tough, but it's going well. I have some studying to do and could probably find any number of things to accomplish, but it's been a long time since my last update, so I thought I'd put in a quick note.

As I said, Officer Candidate School has not been easy so far. It's been difficult in many ways. My whole army enlistment has offered challenges thus far, but it's been rewarding, too. I'm in the best shape of my life and I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere again professionally and fiscally.

Now, I'm just impatient to finish my training, get a duty station, and settle in to a home of our own, and hopefully get to enjoy some time with my wife before I get deployed to some foreign land somewhere.

Norway's Fastest-growing Sport

Thank you, Levi, for sharing this.

Star Wars According to a 3 Year Old

Maybe I'm the last one to see this, but I thought it was worth sharing.

Grocery-mobiles

Levi took this picture.

Those are snowmobiles.

The building just behind them is the Albertsons/Save-on near the Mill Creek town center, just half a block from the office.

More Snow

So, after the first snow pictures, my mother suggested that the snow should be cleaned off of the patio cover. I did so, and more snow fell.

I cleaned the snow off again after taking the picture above, but the snow keeps falling, so it's stacked even higher now.

Snow

Insurance Quotes

I just finished my first week selling insurance and I have to say I think that it went rather well. I met a lot of very nice people and I believe that I'll be able to do a lot of good for them - and make a decent living of doing so.

The people who work in the insurance field are likable and friendly, generally bright and considerate. The customers run the entire spectrum of the human race and have needs as diverse as one could imagine. There are enough prospects available that I never need to chase or cajole people who don't know they need my products, and the products I sell are affordable enough that they fit in just about every budget.

I can honestly say I feel good about what I do. That feels nice.

So, you ask, what's with the picture of the former prime minister? Well, we have two quotes posted in the office. The first is from Winston Churchill:

“If I had my way, I would write the word ‘Insure” over the door of every cottage, and upon the blotting book of every public man; because I am convinced that for sacrifices that are inconceivably small, families can be secured against catastrophes which otherwise would smash them up forever.

It is our duty to arrest the ghastly waste not merely of human happiness, but of national health and strength which follows when, through the death of the breadwinner, the frail boat in which the fortunes of the family are embarked founders and the women and children are left to struggle helplessly on the dark waters of a friendless world.”


Winston Spencer Churchill
Manchester, England May 23, 1909

The second is from JFK:

THE LIFE INSURANCE AGENT

I can think of no more effective person in advancing our freedom to live as we choose than the insurance agent. This person knows the economic and human pulse of the country as few people may, for they walk all streets of American life and they sit down and talk with the youth and the mature and the aged. They know their wants. They help them to help themselves in times of need. They build, for they help others to build. They insure the future. They are respected, and they are friends.


- John F. Kennedy