Bob and Debbie Conroy - Enjoying the Journey Together!

John Prine 2011 - photo by Bob Conroy Debbie and I went to the John Prine with Iris Dement Concert at the Des Moines Civic Center last night. It was a very enjoyable event.  Dement did a 40-minute set and Prine did a non-stop two hours.   Such talent!  Turns out that Dement is married to Iowa’s Greg Brown and he came on stage for the encore which, of course, was “Paradise”. We planned to go out to dinner before the concert but did not preset the location so it turned into “Where do you want to go eat ?” followed by the required rejoinder “I don’t care, where do you want to go eat?”  We exchanged this several times, trading roles each time but getting no closer to a final answer.  Finally, we talked ourselves into Jethro’s BBQ by Drake University on the theory that school is out so it would not be too crowded.  Epic fail!  As we pulled into the parking lot there were aging frat boys spilling out into the parking lot, beers in hand. (btw, just when...

No theme to this post, just a bit of stream of consciousness that has been carefully edited to protect the guilty. She did it… Our big news since my last post is that Debbie retired from her corporate job and is now working full-time at our agency!   Her last few months were hectic as she valiantly tried to transfer years of experience, judgment and wisdom unto half a dozen people, all of whom already had full plates.  Such is the state of the corporate world these days.  Being able to “retire” (defined here as getting retirement benefits) on her 55th birthday was a great reward for her years of planning, budgeting and faithful adherence to our long term goals.  She has jumped into our new agency and is already running quotes, learning our agency management system (AMS 360), and decompressing from the corporate “bends”. Legos and Waffles… We had a great, albeit hectic, week with the grandkids.  It was the same week Debbie retired and started working in the a...

Photo by Bob Conroy On one of my trips to Lincoln I caught a postal worker doing a shake down at Culvers in Council Bluffs.  It was after the lunch rush and the counter staff was getting a little break.  I ordered my Butter Burger with fries and a coffee to go and waited while the staff chatted.   The postal worker, a 50ish man with thin graying hair and an oversized belly, entered the restaurant and announces they had no mail today.  There was no immediate response from the staff so he asked if they had any outgoing mail and they did not.  He just stood there and finally one of the staff asked if he wanted to “try” the flavor of the day.  Two minutes later he was devouring a scoop of free custard.   No money was exchanged and it had the look of a regular event.

I made four trips between Lincoln and Des Moines in four days.  We both were signed up for a three-day insurance class in Lincoln that Debbie needed to do before her birthday.  The original plan was to leave Des Moines early on Tuesday and spend half of the day in Omaha and Lincoln.  When the class ended on Friday we planned to go to Kearny, NE to see the Lanes.  Then Joey’s graduation party got scheduled on Sunday. No Problem – We could come home early on Sunday.  Then Katie wanted to meet in Omaha on Friday and do the zoo on Saturday.  No Problem – We could stay in Omaha and be closer to home for the party on Sunday.   Then I noticed that my calendars did not sync the Iowa Insurance Hall of Fame Dinner on Wednesday night at Drake University in Des Moines.  As a board member and the official “audiovisual boy” I had to attend. No Problem – I could cancel my registration for the class after paying a minor penalty.  I could still go to Li...

I am writing this a few days after a major earthquake and tsunami devastated parts of Japan. How tragic and painful it must be for the millions of people immediately affected.  I cannot wrap my head around the scope of this tragedy. Ultimately it will affect everyone in the world economically, ecologically and geologically. The price of oil, already under pressure by the unrest in the Middle East, will continue to climb to new highs as nuclear energy will be a less attractive energy source due to a backlash of public opinion.  Ironically what is learned from the aftermath of the Japanese event will allow nuclear plants to be better designed, and eventually more common, because there are few alternatives to them.  Sure we can continue to turn corn into ethanol, creating less energy than used to create it, while millions starve around the world.  (I think I just described a Malthusian-based Ponzi scheme.)  Numerous governments will be destabilized as prices rise...

I have long believed that there are 10 kinds of people in the world, those that understand binary and those that don’t.  As Steve Martin ironically said as a punch line, “enough comedy jokes”.   Approaching the end of my 58th revolution around the Sun, I am often as reflective as the back of Mikey’s head.  It is a dangerous game bouncing through the memories a la Billy Pilgrim but I like living on the edge. There is one memory in particular, about a youthful axiom in the 1960s that went “Don’t trust anyone over the age of 30.” and I believed it.   Older, and hopefully wiser, my new version of this axiom is “Don’t take anything out the mouth of anyone under the age of 30 too seriously”. It is hardly their fault with our culture’s practice of extending adolescence well into their 20’s along with constant exposure to the equal-outcomes-regardless-of-effort-or-ability political correctness mantra, bizarre political views that must have been formed by watching too muc...

We closed on the office condo on Friday! We live in a condo five blocks from a Costco and work in a condo five blocks from Sam’s Club. We started demolition on some items that need to go, e.g., this was formerly a medical office and we do not need the status lights above the doors or the 18 feet of receptionist counter space. The remodeling quotes continue to come back over budget so we are rethinking what we need to do versus what we what to do. We are leaning toward making a larger office (10×20) for each of us and moving access to a private restroom to the hall, installing new carpet and paint and then calling it a day. Or least calling it “Phase 1” and delaying “Phase 2” until our revenue catches up with our expenses. Speaking of expenses, starting an independent insurance agency from scratch is not for the faint-hearted or cash poor. Our original business plan and proforma are proving to be accurate on the expense side but income is falling short. Until everything is in place ...