Mrs. Dubbatrubba and I were supposed to be winging our way to Minneapolis tomorrow, along with our friends Heather, Shawn, Celene, John, another John, (not from They Might Be Giants*), Jon (not at all confusing), Kelsi, Ashley, and a few more folks who are friends of John or John (but not Jon).
We were going to do a 200-mile 12-person relay race:
“Crisp lakes, quaint towns… shaded bike path trails…” sounds delightful, doesn’t it? (OK, other than the 200 miles of running. And to be clear, I’m using the royal “we” – I was just going to drive one of the two support vans.)
We were all set. John (not John) booked the VRBO, the hotel rooms, and rented the vans. John (other john) mapped out the relay legs and all the other logistics.
We’ve run Ragnar races before – they organize the Bourbon Chase in Kentucky and other round-the-clock team relay runs all over the country.
But apparently NOT in Minnesota.
Ragnar cancelled the race on July 13th. Less than four weeks before it was supposed to happen. For… “reasons”…
Sorry, but that’s pretty lame. (And quite nebulous… my guess is they didn’t get enough entries.)
How about “exhausting every available option” BEFORE you collect every team’s entry fee. And if you have to pull the plug, how about offering a full refund to anyone who wants it, instead of just offering a “transfer package” to another Ragnar race. (Sorry, but once bitten, twice shy.)
And because they cancelled less than 30 days before the event, our fun bunch is on the hook for a 50% cancellation fee from the VRBO cabin we rented for after the race. That’s $1800 down the drain. (Unless someone else rents the cabin – I hear Duluth is lovely in August.)
And of course all of us booked flights too. Most had a cancellation fee. Mrs. Dubbatrubba and I were able to get our fee waived and got a full flight credit, but that’s not the same as cash in our pocket. Not to mention the headache and hassle of trying to contact the airline and plead our case.
That’s just for our baker’s dozen. Every other team that signed up has been dealing with similar challenges.
For a race that was supposed to end on Lake Superior, the Ragnar experience has been decidedly inferior.
I know stuff happens. But there was a better way. Ragnar could’ve taken a page from the Kickstarter book – their campaigns are all-or-nothing, and you don’t get charged unless the goal is reached.
In short, Ragnar needed to get their ducks in a row before advertising their “crisp lakes.” Instead, every member of every team is dealing with the headaches, hassles and doo-doo they created.
If you’re considering doing a Ragnar relay, please reconsider.
*They Might Be Giants is a band featuring John Linnell and John Flansburgh…
“Tom Tomorrow” is a darn funny political cartoonist. He puts out a weekly cartoon/comic strip called This Modern World.
It’s actually a single-panel cartoon, but it’s usually subdivided into 6 frames. It’s always amusing, and unfortunately these days, it seems less like satire and more like reality. Here’s his cartoon from last week:
“Tom” (a.k.a. Dan Perkins) has some serious bona fides too:
“Tom Tomorrow’s sharp and iconic work embodies the higher purpose of political cartooning: holding powerful figures to account using satire grounded in good journalism,” the Berryman Award judges said.
(from the article linked above)
I used to read This Modern World in CityBeat, Cincinnati’s alt-weekly. But times are tough in the print biz, and Tom’s strip has been dropped by a lot of alt-weeklies due to budget constraints. You can check it out for free at Daily Kos, but a better way to reward his art is to subscribe to his weekly newsletter, “Sparky’s List,” which includes the weekly cartoon, some commentary on the artwork, and Dan’s personal observations.
You can subscribe to “Sparky’s List” for as little as $20 a year.
A single Jackson a year for a weekly dose of humor from Tomorrow? Totally worth it in This Modern World!
It’s waaaay too easy to “multi-task” these days. The distraction device in our pocket or purse doesn’t help.
Pick a thing, any thing, and see it through.
The rest will still be waiting for you when Task #1 is done.
Speaking o’ the ol’ distraction devices, I’ve been shutting down the computer and phone earlier in the evening, and reading books before bed. My sleep has been better. That’s not a coincidence.
Because I’m a person of advanced years, I DO think about Social Security a bit more than I did in my carefree younger days. But I quickly tire of any talk about Social Security insolvency. Not because it isn’t possible, but because the fix is so patently obvious.
It’s time to raise the roof!
Here’s why:
I know $184,500 is more than most Americans earn in a year. But there are plenty of people making a LOT more than that. (6% of covered workers, per the Social Security website.) And it seems unfair that once they’ve hit that mark, they don’t contribute another nickel… even though their SS payments will be higher than the Average Joe’s (and Average Jane’s) based on their lofty income.
And the $184,500 is based on “earned” income (wages, salary, tips, bonus…). So if you make a killing in the stock market, or pulling in thousands in dividends, that’s not even taken into consideration.
Raising the roof (i.e. the max or cap) would deliver a lot more money into the system, without creating a hardship on anyone. What should that roof be? 300K? 400k? Greater minds than mine can sort that out.
OR, maybe instead of raising the roof, we shouldn’t have a roof at all!
Nick Hanauer‘s proposal calls for that (eliminating the roof), and actually goes a couple of steps further, by lowering the contribution rate by 50% while also eliminating the capital gains and investment exemptions and loopholes. Check it out:
“Half of all national income is now above the cap.”
I’m not one of those “eat the rich” types. But I do think that Social Security could be much better for America if it were more social.
Jason Kottke’s newsletter led me to Molly Burford’s “list poetry” as Jason called it. I thought this one was very poignant:
I especially love “Those who are kind to those who can do nothing for them.” because I think it’s a great litmus test. And “scrappy souls” is a great moniker too!
If you have people like this in your life, you’re truly blessed. As Molly advises “Hold them close. Love them hard.”
And better still, be the type of person that others want to hang on to.
Molly Burford’s first poetry collection Moments to Hold Close is available now here.
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