I lost many survey jobs because I would not do them as cheap as somebody thought I should. I seldom regretted that. I always thought if my work had no value to others I should keep it to myself.

One of the guys at church got mad at me for how I was doing my job one day. I told him if I bothered him that much I was content to take a pay cut or be fired. Otherwise I wanted him to leave me alone.

At a GPS seminar two years ago I thanked the folks who attended for paying their money so I could come talk to them about GPS. One of the people later gave me a lecture about how I ought to be willing to do the seminars for free and he could not understand why I wanted money for talking about GPS.

It reminded me of a friend of mine who was a very practical and plain spoken man who was elected to be a state senator anyway.

In radio and TV interviews he made it clear that he could not vote for one of those pie in the sky measures because it created what he called an "unfunded mandate". In other words, it directed people to do something without providing any money to do the task. He said it was stupid to tell people to do work that nobody wanted to pay for.

When it came time for debate he convinced others of his logic and the measure was defeated.

A lady in his district called him up to express her anger at him for defeating the measure. She was not interested in his reasons. She said, "I will never vote for you."

He said, "Well, Ma'am, have you ever voted for me before?"

She said, "No, and I NEVER will!"

He replied, "Then I have not lost a thing.", and he hung up the phone.

Despite the ultimatums issued on both sides of the world yesterday I will go get on a plane on Thursday and fly to Chicago. That is if the plane will fly there. I will enjoy doing my seminars and once again pray to Jesus that the airline will take me home safely. I like sharing what I know about GPS. But if it were not for the money I would not get on the plane.

Should I expect more from anybody else than I expect from myself? I will be glad for everybody who comes to the Chicago seminars and pays their money to be there. They are the reason for the job.

shucks, Phil, i was gonna pony up the bucks to listen to you yak in SLC last month, but the folks told me it was cancelled...

LK, They said I was not popular enough in SLC. They had money from only one person and decided I cost too much to go there for just one person.

It's OK, I stayed on and worked on some more creative writing that weekend.

Phil,
I'll be at O'Hare also on Thursday on my way somewhere unknown (my wife is suprprising me for my 40th birthday).... If I see you, I'll yell!...... You're a good man, Phil!

Mike Moe

Chicago huh? Gee, I had plans on crashing a party at the PlayBoy mansion, but things may have to change now! Just exactly where is that seminar?? ;)