News At Our House

Now that Jerry is doing better, it seems like there is not much excitement at our house. I have to say that after this summer, I am glad to have less excitement.

We do have a new foster son living with us now. His name is Christian Wong and he is 14 years old. He has some serious offenses on his record and he is not very easy to get along with, but Jerry is convinced we can help him and he has started in with enthusiasm to help Christian overcome his challenges. Here is a funny story about one of Christian's challenges (he is absolutely sure he is always right and he is sure that he is the expert in all things): He wanted to play the farming game (which he had never played before), so we agreed. Those of you who have played the farming game before will understand why this story is funny, for everyone else you will have to go get one and learn to play. Anyway as we got started, he had an option to buy 5 acres of fruit and 10 acres of hay, but he didn't want to go into debt (even though we told him that he should purchase the crops if he wanted to do well). So after about 10 rounds of the board he decides that everyone else is doing better and he ought to buy some crops, so he buys hay (20 acres because he has picked up another OTB for hay), even though we told him that he should get the fruit instead. Meanwhile he has landed a couple of times on places where he had to pay for not having a tractor or harvester so he decides to trade Forrest the Fruit OTB for a tractor OTB (even though, once again, we told him that he shouldn't do it). So then, after several unsuccessful rounds of the board, he gets another OTB for fruit and decides that it would be good to buy it, but he is maxed out on debt and has no cash. I suggest that he could sell some of his hay acreage for enough to buy the fruit, but he decides to sell his only grain acreage instead (even though, once again, we tell him this is a bad idea), his rationale being that he has more hay (we point out that you make more money on grain, but that doesn't influence him). Anyway, to make this long story a little shorter, when the audit is called, he is $200,000 dollars behind the person in 3rd place (Forrest) and $400,000 behind the winner (me, in case you care). I decide that there is a good life lesson here, so I point out to him that in this game, as with life, it is good to listen to those who have some experience as they know how to avoid the problems. His comment was, "I only lost because I didn't get lucky rolls of the dice, not because I didn't do what you told me." All I have to say is that Jerry has his work cut out for him and I hope that I survive him.

The happy news is that Forrest is still with us and he is doing really well. He will be going to high school this fall and he is more than a little nervous about it. He is such a nice young man, we really do love having him live with us.