Ben and Jenelle DOT COM

Jenelle is 23 today! Happy Birthday!

Since we’re both working today, we celebrated yesterday. After I made breakfast, we saw The Terminal at Westgate Cinema. It was a pretty good movie — we both agreed that our favorite part involved a “Caution: Wet Floor” sign. For some strange reason, Jenelle decided that she wanted pizza for dinner. I happily granted that request. After dinner, we didn’t do all that much, but we did complete our once-every-four-weeks ritual of cleaning for the cleaning person. Anyone who has someone clean for them on a regular basis knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Things I bought for Jenelle this year included: A subscription to inStyle magazine, a headset for use with our cell phone, and the new Third Day CD.

Now, all of you fathers out there are probably wondering — yesterday was Father’s Day, so why didn’t you do something nice for your parents? Well, knowing that we’d be spending the day together, the two of us took my dad (and my mom) out to dinner at the Chancery on Friday night. We also had time yesterday to call each of our fathers and wish them a happy day. Interesting fact: Jenelle was born on Father’s Day.

I recently received a letter in the mail from Fidelity saying my former employer, Fox, was going to cash out my 401(k) and send me a check. I’m not quite ready to retire yet, so I called Fidelity and asked how to roll my funds into my new SC Johnson 401(k). They told me it was easy– I needed to download a form online and send it in. I would get a check in the mail from Fidelity that was payable to Fidelity and I would have to mail that back to Fidelity with a different form. It seemed like a lot of red tape, and it cost me $50, but I had a few hundred bucks in there, so I went ahead and did that.

Well, it turns out nothing in the financial world is easy, and all those forms did was put my money in an IRA. So, I called them back, and they told me I had to fill out yet another form sending all that money into my SCJ 401(k). So I filled out the form and sent it in just like they told me, but apparently that wasn’t good enough because I got yet another check in the mail from Fidelity payable to Fidelity that I had to send back to Fidelity with another form. Well, they mailed that check back to me because apparently I didn’t fill out the right form… even thought it was the one they told me to fill out.

So I finally sent them the correct form and lo and behold, I had successfully rolled over my 401(k). Or so I thought. A few days later I was checking out my 401(k) balance online and the brilliant masterminds at Fidelity had deposited nine cents in dividends into my old account.

For a while I was concerned that it would cost me a buck in postage to get my nine cents back, so I decided to leave the fund alone. Well, I guess Fidelity figured out that they screwed up somewhere because a few days ago, in the mail I received this: A check for $.09!!! I’m sure I’ll have to pay some tax penalty for cashing out before my 59th birthday.

What concerns me most about this whole process is that these are the buffoons who are managing my life savings! Maybe I should just put all the cash in a shoebox in the closet.

I just got a USB wireless network adapter to function properly at church.

And there was much rejoicing!

Here’s the much anticipated photo album fromJenelle’s Vegas Trip.

Before I talk about my flight back to Chicago from the city of brotherly love, I would just like to comment that this week’s Strongbad E-mail is a must-see for anyone who has ever been to Disneyland / Disneyworld and rode the Jungle Cruise.

I was scheduled to leave PHL at 7:15 on Friday night, arriving at O’Hare around 9pm local time. Working my way through the crowds in the United terminal, I discovered that my flight was canceled, but I was booked on the 6:15 flight with no trouble at all. I also noticed that the 4:00, 5:00, and 6:15 flights to O’Hare were all DELAYED. Yikes. After grabbing a $2 slice of pizza (not bad for the airport), I made my way to the gate. I sat where I could see the departure board so that I could keep tabs on the other two flights.

Seven O’Clock. My flight is still delayed. There’s bad weather in O’Hare, and even after it’s passed through, it will still be directly in between Philadelphia and Chicago.

Eight O’Clock. Still delayed. The other two PHL-ORD flights are also delayed.

Nine O’Clock. My flight gets canceled. I wait in line for a boarding pass on the flight originally scheduled to leave at 5:00. To my surprise, I have no trouble getting one.

Ten O’Clock. I board the 5:00 flight. We sit out on the runway for a while.

Eleven O’Clock. We finally take off. The captain mentions that we’ll be flying south around the storms.

Midnight. We’re somewhere in Kentucky, still quite a distance from Chicago. By 12:30, we’re in a holding pattern over St. Louis.

One O’Clock. The captain mentions that we might have to land somewhere besides O’Hare because we don’t have an abundance of fuel left. At one point, he says something like, “We’ll see if we can make it”. I envision the captain and first officer tapping on the gas gauge to determine if there’s enough left in the tank. “Hey, Bill, have you ever seen the fuel read this low before?”

One Thirty. We land safely at O’Hare. Yay.

Two O’Clock. Jenelle and I meet at the American terminal and head for economy parking.

Two Thirty. We leave the airport.

Four O’Clock. We arrive safely at our condo.

So, it was quite an interesting evening / morning. I’m thankful that Jenelle and I both made it back to Chicago without having to sleep somewhere in an airport.