Sports I Never Participated In Or Stopped Playing

Written By:  Andrew Eide

Today I wish to explain to you why there are several sports I either never participated in or I gave up playing and the reasons why I made those decisions.

When I was in Junior High School our Class Graduation Field Trip was to a beach South of San Francisco for a day in the ocean. My classmate decided to give surfing a try. He paddled out into the waves, turned around to catch the wave, and when the wave swamped him the surfboard whacked him in the back of the head. He suffered a nasty gash on his head, nearly drowned, and was taken to the hospital to get his head stitched up. That experience made me never want to attempt mounting a surfboard and riding waves.

I tried water skiing when I was a teen. My father took me and my best friend Steve on a two week houseboat trip on Lake Shasta in Northern California. My father rented a boat and skis and we went out to a quiet area to take our turns skiing. After numerous falls into the water it was apparent to me that this nice smooth soft water that we swim in and take showers and baths in is damn hard when you slam into when falling off the skis. It was like slamming face-first into a cement sidewalk. After that experience I never did water skiing again.

Snow skiing is another adventure I never participated in. Don’t get me wrong here. I loved playing in the snow. I would hop on a sled or inner tube and fly down the hills and often ended up flipping over or running into someone else on the hills. From 1980 to 1982 I worked at General Dynamics Corporation in New London, Connecticut. One of my fellow Quality Assurance Analysts took a ski vacation. When he returned he was on crutches and both his knees had braces on them. He looked as though he has just survived an automobile wreck. I asked him what happened and he told me snow skiing is very stressful on your knees. He said he was going downhill and was doing what you are supposed to do to control your descent and he ripped both his knees out. I figure our knees are extremely important to us so I never took up snow skiing.

I started playing regular golf when I was 16 years of age. I played until 2012 when I finally gave up the sport. There are several reasons including the high cost of playing a round of golf, the high cost of equipment, and I had back surgery in October 2004 to repair a ruptured disc in my lower back. The pressure put on your back during a golf swing was causing me problems so I gave up regular golf and took up Disc Golf instead. The Disc Golf courses are shorter and the movement you make to throw the discs is way less stressful on my back.

 

Thanks for joining me today for this explanation of what sports I never took part in, which sports I did participate in but no longer do, and what I am participating in now.

Why I Changed Banks

Written By:  Andrew Eide

There are many reasons why a person would change banks from their current bank. Today I will give you several examples of why I changed from the banks I worked with.

#1 My father banked with United California Bank (UCB) in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area in the 1960’s and 1970’s and I also opened an account with UCB when I joined the United States Navy in March 1972.  Shortly after that my father wanted to change banks. He went to UCB and asked to withdraw all his money and close his account. I believe the amount he had in his account at that time was less than $10,000. UCB told my father they refuse to give him his money. He complained stating it is HIS money and he has every right to withdraw it and close the account. Then UCB changed their excuse to state they didn’t carry that much money in the bank at any given time. My father told them he knows they carry well over $50,000 at any given time and then he told them he will be back in the morning to withdraw his money and close his account and if they money wasn’t available he was going to bring a lawsuit against them. They had his money the next day and closed his account to prevent a lawsuit. I changed from UCB to Bank of America shortly after my father’s incident.

#2 During my time banking at Bank of America (BofA) things went well. Then I purchased a car while serving in the Navy in San Diego. At that time, which was in the mid-1970’s, there wasn’t the ACH automatic charge to your bank account or credit card as they do today. Back in those days you made an Allotment which was sent to the bank. Basically explained the bank would receive a spreadsheet with all the Allotments and account numbers and someone in the bank would process the payments to the appropriate accounts. Every month my Allotment from the Military arrived on the 1^st of the month. However Bank of America put a due date on my car loan of the 30^th of the month. So each 30^th of the month Bank of America would claim my car loan payment was overdue and charge me a late charge. I complained telling them they know my Allotment shows up on the 1^st of every month so stop charging me the late fee. They continued charging me the late fee so I switched banks.

#3 My final change of bank really wasn’t a change for a detrimental reason or customer service it was due to the branch being about 15 miles away when I had several other banks located in Redlands, California within 3 miles of my home. While searching for a bank to change to from Great Western which had only one branch 15 miles from me I searched out Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo in Redlands.

Washington Mutual stated if you have Direct Deposit to your bank account then your Checking and Savings are SERVICE CHARGE FREE. While talking with the banker at Washington Mutual I repeated that they offer service charge free Checking and Savings with Direct Deposit. The banker said yes and then went on to explain that I would be charged $10 per month service charge on my checking and 15 Cents per check. I protested and repeated about service charge free checking with Direct Deposit and several more times they told me even with Direct Deposit the fees are $10 per month and 15 Cents per check.

I stormed out of Washington Mutual mumbling about them being idiots and walked across the street to Wells Fargo Bank. Wells Fargo also told me you get service charge free accounts with Direct Deposit. I’ve been with Wells Fargo Bank since 1998 so I’ve been with them for 19 years.

If you give me good customer service I will stay with you. If you give me poor customer service I cease to use your services.