ROE INTENSE

I turned right onto an East Omaha street. Kids were out playing. Parents yelled at them from their porches. My destination was on the right. I pulled over and parked. It was a weird order: a single pan pizza and a two liter of orange diabeetus juice. I hopped out of the car and made my way to the door. The customer was there to greet me. “How are you, ma’am?” I asked. “Oh, not so good,” she said. Her speech was slurred and she seemed tired. “Not so good?” “Yeah. When you’re on 18 different medications, you’re not so good,” she said. I handed her the clipboard. “18 different medications? Yeah, I can see why that would take it out of you,” I said. Her hands had a slight tremble as she signed. “Yep, I’ve got hypertension, relaxed tension, triglycerides, diabetes, triabetes, quadribetes, LDL sadness, slipped discs-“ She kept signing and kept listing. I readied the two-liter. I saw a diabetic bracelet around her wrist. I took the clipboard back and handed he...

I arrived late last night to my shift because of a Wi-Fi build-out for a new customer at job #1. I grabbed my first receipt. The name on the receipt was Hispanic, but just close enough to English to be a possible typo. Michoacana took the initial order. I asked her if the customer spoke Spanish or English. “Spanish,” she clarified. I nodded. I grabbed the order and some condiments and I left. As I approached the home of this person, something came into view. It was large. It moved and shifted in a mass of arms and legs. It was alive. Very much alive. It was bigger than my car and fast. I wondered what it would take to get through it. As I got even closer, I realized I was in no immediate danger. It was a mass of a dozen or more children playing around the very apartment I was headed to. I got out of my car with the pizzas. The kids raised their voices is a chorus of shouts. “The pizza is here! Hi pizza!” One kid sat by the driveway to a small parking lot. He straddled a bike and ...

I puttered all four-and-a-half cylinders of Taurus muscle down the street and thought, “I haven’t posted a new blog post in a while.” Because I haven’t delivered in a week. Last week was Mega Week. Mega Week is something’. Mother’s Day, our Anniversary and Meredith’s Birthday all fall within it. We had a blast. I took Friday off to take Meredith dancing and eat Localmotive . I could still smell the rounders and frites from that awesome food truck as I hit my turn signal on my way back to the store. It click-clacked back and forth and I thought of something else. I had forgotten to pray. I pulled off my hat. “Lord,” I started. I noted the time of evening. “Sorry for not praying sooner. Help me to have a good night. Please bless my wife and girls. I’m going to sit and watch for something to write about. It’s been a while. Thanks for the chance.” Time passed. It was a great night. Large tips and quick deliveries made for a smooth evening. I saw fun things, met fun people, but nothin...

  There is no angry way to say ‘bubbles.’ I tried. The result was hilarious, sad and confirming. There really is no angry way to say ‘bubbles.’ I told my kids about it. There we were, sitting around the dinner table. We munched on delicious noodles. We went through the typical conversation. I asked everyone what the favorite part of their day was. The middle and eldest Princesses pointed at the table with full mouths. Bright red watermelon drips lined their chins as they smiled. The message was clear. “Right now. Because food.” The youngest can usually jabber a response, but she was busy. She is getting ready to go through  a growth spurt, so she gave me a sidelong glance as she shoveled in another handful. “Please. I am eating,” the glance said. That’s when I told them. There is no angry way to say bubbles. We had a good laugh as we tried. Something became clear as we did. My pizza coworkers trying to say ‘bubbles’ in angry voices would make for an epic story. On my w...

I lost count of how many drivers there were tonight. Five? Six? Huey was doing prep in the back. Deliveries were moving right along. Leff-tenant was milling about with Cap’n , checking orders and getting things ready for the weekend. Two drivers were in the store at a time on average. We burned through cleaning dishes. The prep list was huge. I turned around after launching a dish rack through Blastoise, careful so as to not slip. Huey was stacking a few pans. The prep table was bare except for his few pans. He had oil-in-a-can and was taking his time, one piece of dough at a time. I think my eye twitched. “Anybody show you the layout trick, Huey?” I asked. “Yeah. But this only needs, like, twenty five so I’m not worried about it.” He stacked another pan. It was like he was in slow motion. The layout trick uses the entirety of the surface of the prep table to make multiple stacks of pans. You can quintuple your productivity and get done just as fast this way. “But RI,” you mi...

Since my first post September 20, 2014, this blog has been viewed over 10,000 times! Over 70 people have liked the Facebook page and great conversations have taken place on Twitter . The reason for this blog is to keep a record for my beautiful Queen and Princesses and their children, but also to make a difference in the lives of others. The majority of us today are festooned with debt. Us married couples are struggling. The United States and its citizenry have money problems that need handled. I hope my adventure in handling our problems inspires others to do the same. I hope it makes you stand up out of the gloom of your own problems and CHANGE . Let’s live like no one else so we can live like no one else. Money problems begin and end with the person in the mirror. Thanks again for the 10,000 visits. Here’s to 10,000 more. ROE INTENSE

Friday was a decent night of deliveries. We were busy. It was an uneventful kind of night. Get in, do the work, get out. I made about $48. I want to be crystal clear about something. The reason I delivered pizzas Friday was to become a millionaire . It's possible to be a millionaire. You should try to become a millionaire. Dave Ramsey spent an hour on his 4/30/14 show to prove that it's still possible. “But RI,” some might say, “the love of money is the root of all evil .” I didn’t say I want to become a millionaire because I love money. “But there’s more to life than money.” I didn’t say becoming a millionaire was my life. I want to become a millionaire for a lot of different reasons. One of them is a glaring fact: to age, retire and die with dignity, you have to have over a million in the bank. Let me clarify what I mean by dignity. Living off of $3,000/month (assuming $1.3M in the bank), self-insuring against major medical and death, then leaving bucketloads of money...