Chris​Hubbs​.com

On my way home from work every day I pass a billboard that frustrates me. It’s a simple message, white text on a black background. It’s designed to look like a written note. The words:

One nation under Me.

--God

Undoubtedly this billboard was purchased by some well-meaning evangelical wanting to make a point about their beliefs that American was a Christian country, should continue to be a Christian country, etc, and remind us about the battle over the Pledge of Allegiance. I don’t want to debate those points at all. Not that I necessarily agree with them exactly, but there are people in my congregation that would wholeheartedly agree with them, and I don’t have time to write a full, thoughtful response to the ideas; nor do I want to offend them by giving a less than thoughtful answer. So let’s leave that particular question alone.

These signs with ‘messages from God’ aren’t something new - they’ve been a staple on billboards for the past several years, and on church signs for many years before that. Even the Life Magazine that came in today’s newspaper had a collection of photos of church signs, including the ever-popular “let’s meet at my house today before the game – God” sign. (As an interesting aside, one church is now using a reverse strategy: messages from Satan.) In general, my attitude is iffy-but-OK with this type of message. Many times they just come across as cheesy (such as the church sign example above), but sometimes they can manage to be thought-provoking instead.

But this particular billboard really bothers me. Why? Because, first of all, it’s not something God ever said. The “One nation, under God” phrase was added to our Pledge of Allegiance by Congress, back in the fifties. I guess it’s become all too common today to put our words in God’s mouth, but this seems pretty flagrant. Second, I’m not sure it’s a message that God would endorse. I don’t think God is worried too much about America becoming a “Christian nation” again. God is much more concerned with people, individuals, coming to Him and being a part of His kingdom. God’s focus is the Church, not the political system or national structure.

My call is that we set our priorities by His priorities. Sure, that’s easy to say, harder to work out. But there are some places where it can be pretty clear. Let’s put our focus on forwarding Christ’s kingdom, not in trying to restore a “Christian nation”. If God wills, our country will come around. If not, well, God knows what He’s doing. My guess it you’re not going to find out about it, though, from a billboard.

I woke up this morning to find that I had very limited, analog cellular service. US Cellular has usually been reliable, so I was a bit suprised. I checked with a few coworkers and found that they had the same problem.

Digital service was restored around 10:30 this morning, but I still didn’t have any luck calling out. I walked past a US Cellular office on my way to lunch around noon, and they reported that they had some electrical problems and that most of the towers in eastern Iowa were problematic. As of that hour, apparently inbound service was working, but outbound was still disabled.

As of a few minutes ago (1:20 PM) outbound calling appears to be working again. Specialized calling (for instance, #BAL to get your minutes balance) was still kicking you off to the analog network. Hopefully they’ll have it up again soon.

I’ve probably sent in more rebate forms in the last two months than I had in my entire previous 28 years of life. It’s starting to drive me nuts.

It starts out innocently enough - a $10 rebate on a spindle of blank CDs. Then all of a sudden it goes nuts on you. $30 on a wireless router. $20 on a wireless network adapter. $60 on Adobe Photoshop Elements. $80 on a new hard drive for the Tivo. $60 on contact lenses. It seems like it’ll never stop.

Then we bought a new washing machine. I have 3 forms just for it! One to rebate the $50 delivery cost. One for $100 back from Alliant Energy since it’s an Energy Star washer. And then one for a $75 gift card from Home Depot for some promotion they were running. What a pain.

I understand why manufacturers offer rebates; they give an incentive to the shopper (“I pay $100 now, but it’s only $40 after the rebates!”) while at the same time they’re betting that a many folks won’t file the rebates on time or correctly (or at all), thus sticking the buyer with the full price. I’ve even fallen for it before; when I bought my Dell laptop back in the fall, it had a $100 Dell rebate that had to be filed within 28 days after the computer was shipped. I remembered it on day 29. There was much unhappiness that day.

Rebates do offer a few rays of sunshine, though; months from now when I’ve totally forgotten about the $80 hard drive rebate and my budget has absorbed the full cost, I’ll get an unexpected check in the mail. That’s always fun… and a good excuse to go out for dinner or something. See, maybe these rebates don’t save me any money at all…

I received my OfficeMax gift card yesterday in the mail. It was accompanied by a cheesy little letter telling me how sorry they were that my PDA broke, and praising me for my foresight in purchasing a replacement plan, and expressing their hope that I would buy a replacement plan again for my new PDA. Heh. So, last night I went to OfficeMax and purchased a new Palm Tungsten E2.

It’s going to work out OK. I had to put an extra $50 out of pocket, but it has a $50 rebate coming back from Palm, and it came with a nifty leather cover as a bonus. The one thing I’m a bit disappointed about is that they changed the sync cable interface… the old Tunsten E had a mini-USB connector, which was great since I already had a couple of those cables. My guess is that Palm realized they weren’t making enough money on extra cables and such, so they went back to some proprietary connector. Arrrgh. Now I need to decide what to get so I can sync it at home, too… I’m thinking maybe a cradle for here at work…

So now I’ll have to find other subjects to keep up my consistent blogging. Maybe it’ll be good for me to prove that I can consistently write even when it’s not about something that’s making me mad. :-)

Still counting. Maybe I’ll get my gift card before the holiday weekend… but that may be too much to hope for.

I sent an inquiry last week via the OfficeMax website, requesting some contact information. I wrote:

Could you please send me the name of the store manager for the Cedar Rapids, IA Collins Road store, and also the name and mailing address of the district manager who has oversight over that store? I would like to contact them regarding my recent store experience. Thanks!

This morning I finally received a response, but it was not very helpful…

Thank you for your interest in OfficeMax.com. I don’t have the name of the store manager. The district manager is [name deleted]. I have forwarded your email to his email address. I do apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused. If there was anything else we can help you with please feel free to contact us. Once again thank you for you interest in OfficeMax.com.

Sincerely,

Unique

Customer Service Representative

First of all, “Unique”?!? I hope that’s not somebody’s real name… secondly, they totally ignored my request for a mailing address. Maybe he’ll respond via e-mail, but I doubt it. Grrrrr……

Take heart, though, my entire life isn’t this frustrating… I guess those parts are just the easy ones to blog about.

Today I missed my first event due to not having a PDA to beep at me… I was supposed to meet a friend for breakfast at 6:30 and I totally spaced it. Sitting at work about 8:15 it finally dawned on me that I was supposed to meet him… Arrrgh.

Still nothin'.

On another warranty replacement topic, I remembered this morning that the Countryman E6 microphone that broke on me has been in for warranty repair for nearly two months now, with no response from Countryman. Guess I’d better get back on their case about it.

Date I started the process: August 6. Days since I called to start the process: 22. Days since I sent the dead PDA in: 11.

Assuming a 4-day USPS trip from Cedar Rapids to Dallas.

Projected days until they send the gift card: 3 to 8.

Assuming a 3-day USPS trip for the gift card.

Projected days until I get the gift card: 6 to 11.

Projected total cycle time: 28 to 33 days. (For an “immediate” replacement!)

Projected date I get the new PDA: Sept 6 - 10.