Archives for July 2008

Kaysville 4th July Parade

July 4, 2008 by rickety 6 Comments

A blanket and chairs were left overnight on the parade route to save our place. Jill and I put up the canopy in the morning before the parade. Left to right, back to front are Mark, Connie, Sarah, Susan, Rick, Jill, Shauna, Byron, Daniel, and Paul.

The day was hot but cooled down as the sky became overcast. We could have fared well without the canopy. Here are some photographs from the parade. One of the floats won a prize which wasn’t too difficult as there were only two in the whole parade.

There seems to be at least one rickety old car in every parade. Some of these cars look in very fine shape for their age.

The water fight takes place at the end of the parade. The water trucks follow at the same route and give a lot of people a good soaking. Of course many residents come with their own water weapons ready for a fight.

After the parade we all went back to my house for a well-deserved bar-b-q. Tonight are the fireworks and we already have our favorite spot staked out. See you there!

Past Pictures: Who’s the Dame?

July 3, 2008 by rickety 2 Comments

That dame sir, is my wife. Actually when this photograph was taken she wasn’t my wife. Twenty-eight years ago, when I took this picture with my rickety old camera, I was traveling with Jill and her parents and her sister and husband. We were married a few weeks later. It has been a happy twenty-eight years made even happier by the arrival of five children.

Missionary Jake – Part 2 of 10

July 2, 2008 by rickety Leave a Comment

This is part two of a ten part series chronicling Jake’s Mission. It is told mostly in his own words using excerpts from his letters and photographs sent home.

October 2006

Mexico is a blast. There is a ton of people to teach and they are a very faithful people. The mission president has told us to always invite people to be baptized in the first lesson, and most of them accept! If they don’t during the first lesson then usually the second. We don’t have to hold back on any commitments because the people are clear-cut—they either accept all of our message or none of it. My first baptism here was going to be a woman who has a terrible fear of water (when she was baptized before she got infections in her ears), and the bishop managed to do it, but her whole body might not have been under water. We’ll figure it out. Not much else is going on. My companion is a Native Mexican from another part of the country and is an excellent missionary.

November 2006

Things are great in Mexico. The weather is perfect. Everyone thinks I am absolutely crazy walking around in short sleeves. When it is 70 degrees they bring out their heavy coats and grumble about the cold. We had a baptism that my companion said se cayò de los cielos or fell from the sky. After teaching someone two lessons, he said that he didn’t want to be baptized. A week later he came to church and said I want to be baptized right now. We were happy to oblige and had the service right after church.

December 2006

The Sunday school lessons are about the same here. The only difference is I can’t understand what they are always saying. The stories are the same and the application is the same. It just takes a bit of getting used to. I still have to get a manual, so I can follow along for the new year, but our study time is limited so we try and make it the most effective that we can (because of this it makes sense that we can only study the mission library and the Ensign). The chapels here are quite a bit different in construction, but they are all similar in and of themselves. It seems like they have a set for the United States, a set for Mexico, and possibly more. Being a missionary is really neat. Whenever I get the chance to tell your conversion story. I always think of the blessing that it is to be able to serve a mission. I guess you could really say that having four sons that have served/will serve counts as your mission.

Rewards Checking

July 1, 2008 by rickety 12 Comments

This article will give readers new to Rewards Checking some idea of how it works. Be aware though that the interest rates are out of date.

Ever since my own internet bank dropped their interest rate from 5.2% to 2.5% I have been looking for a better place to park my spare cash. I saw a lot of banks advertising rewards checking at rates between 4% and 6%. I identified a few at 6% that were out of state. Several had very clunky Internet sign up procedures such that I was unable to sign up online. For example, at one bank my browser would crash. At another bank I was diverted to a PDF form with no instructions on what to do with it. Yet another bank had nowhere to start the sign up process.

Eventually I tried Coulee Bank that was offering 6.01% APY with their rewards checking account. They require 10 check card transactions a month, use of e-statements, and require 1 automatic payment a month, called an Automated Clearing House (ACH) transaction. Coulee Bank pays 6.01% on the first $25,000 and 1.01% on anything above that.

For me, Coulee Bank was out of state. The application process was straight-forward except I failed the online identity check. A friend joining the same bank also failed his identity check. I think they have a bug in their program because I’m sure I’m really me at the moment. I was invited to call the branch in Wisconsin and answered the identity questions correctly. Incidentally, the staff were very friendly and helpful, plus there was a bonus — I could understand what they said. Next a paper was sent in the mail for me to sign and return. A thoughtful touch was the stamp placed on the return envelope. Once that was done I received instructions via email to open the online account.

After a few days I received my checking card, complete with a picture of a steamboat. A really nice feature was a user name I could choose rather than have to remember the account number. The web account features were reasonable. There was no count of qualifying transactions but my monthly transaction count ended on the last day of the month making it easy to remember.

To transfer more money to my account I sent a message in the internal email of the account giving the routing number, account number, and amount. The first month you do not have to meet the requirements to obtain the 6.01%. Even so, I met the ACH requirement by having $50 a pay period (fortnightly) transfered from my pay.

The 10 credit transactions are easy to meet because every workday I eat out for lunch. Some rewards checking accounts can require as many as 15 transactions and also mandate at least one account access a month. Coulee Bank rewards checking is still free and pays a standard 0.30% APY if you don’t meet the requirements during the month.

A feature that I don’t use is the $20 to $25 a month reimbursal of ATM fees provided you met the transaction requirements. I don’t expect the 6.01% rate will last for long. Some other banks that started at 6.01% have dropped their rates to 5%. Just yesterday I received an email from Coulee Bank that said in part:

Rewards Checking has been an amazing success due to its incredible rate, ease-of-use, and environmentally friendly attributes. Due to rising costs to deliver this product however, it has been decided to limit the number of Rewards Checking accounts to one per Customer/Social Security Number.

I am going to have difficulty funding one account so this will not affect me. The rate I am earning is 24 times the amount I receive from my local credit union checking and even the standard 0.3% beats their 0.25%.

I hope this little narrative has been of interest to you.

Updates

26 Dec 2008 Recently the rewards checking rate dropped to 5% at Coulee Bank.
28 Mar 2009 See Bank Rewards Checking for banks still offering 5% 4% on their rewards checking.
2 Jul 2009 Coulee dropped their rate to 4%.
2010 Coulee’s rate has dropped below 4%.
7 Apr 2012 Changed have to having in the paragraph beginning “After a few days…”
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