Anubis Drives a Tan Suzuki Week 4

Anubis Drives a Tan Suzuki Week 4

Updates: none this week.

            Though, I hinted at this possibility last week, I’m just as disappointed as you probably are. Lulls like this are to be expected from time to time given how long I’ve given myself to plan and do everything else.

Being in school full time doesn’t help either. In fact, after I post this I’m planning on taking an online quiz for my Info Tech Solutions class.

I was planning on posting an Interview of the amazing woman I’m lucky enough to call my boss, Heather Dvorak, but my school work and her busy schedule put a stop to that. Maybe next week.

To fill space I might as well announce my future plans to interview the leaders of a few local religious establishments. For example: the Ark of Salvation Church in Kennewick, the Buddhist Temple and the Islamic Mosque, both in West Richland and less than a 15 minute walk from where I live.

I would share some more biographical Info with you this week, but like I said, there’s school work to get to.

Like last time, if you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, spelling or grammatical corrections (how will I ever learn if no one ever says anything), words of support or encouragement, confessions of love, hate-filled rantings of utter distain, or anything else for me, do not hesitate to email me at funhomeambo@gmail.com.

I’ll post a new one of these every week. Feel free to e-mail me and call me a loser if I don’t live up to my self-imposed deadline.

Hope you enjoyed it and I thank you for reading all of this or skipping to the end, whichever is the case.

Johnathan Hove

Anubis Drives a Tan Suzuki Week 3

Anubis Drives a Tan Suzuki Week 3

Friday: I spoke to a few people at the National Funeral Directors Association and at the Funeral Service Foundation. Everyone seemed very receptive of my idea, but the woman I spoke to at the Funeral Service Foundation said that they don’t normally sponsor individuals, which is completely understandable.

           So, that’s all I have for updates this week. I could try and tell you that it was the last week before fall quarter at school, so I wanted to spend time with friends before all the chaos began and that I worked a lot this week, but, really, I know it’s no excuse.

            But, hey, this means I get to bore you with more autobiographical information that you didn’t want or even ask for! Isn’t it exciting?!

How I ended up in Funeral Service:

           It all started back in early 2008. The economy was booming. Home prices just kept going up and up and seemed like they’d never stop. And why shouldn’t they? The idea of “flipping” a house was so popular that there were a dozen reality shows on TV dedicated solely to following people who flipped houses. (needs citation) But that’s enough sarcastic 20/20 hindsight-ness. No one could have predicted the bursting of the housing bubble (other than a Nobel Prize winning economist, *cough* Paul Krugman). About that time I was turning 25 and it was time to stop being a bum, jumping from job to job and start thinking about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.

            Both of my parents had spent their whole careers as Letter Carriers for the USPS, or United States Postal Service, The only government agency that made money. And still would have if the government hadn’t made it prefund its retirement program for an extra 10 years (I’m not going to say which party was mostly responsible for this simply because I promised myself I’d keep politics out of this blog. Silly self-promises, always getting in the way). I keep getting side-tracked. Anyway, both parents being successful postal workers (meaning they stayed postal workers their whole lives and were never fired, not that they earned awards or made huge sacks of money doing it) made me think that, from a genetic predisposition standpoint, I might make a good postal worker as well.

           At the time, the way you became a postal worker was to sign up to take a multiple choice entrance exam. Exams were given at certain times during the year in each region, regions being large chunks of each state. The score you received on this exam determined where you landed on a call list. The higher the score, the higher on the list. Extra points for being a veteran of the US military, can’t argue with that. If you had the highest score you were the first person they called when there was a job opening.

  

          I, not wanting to spend any more time than I had to in the Tri-cities where I was born and raised, signed up for exams in every region in Washington state except for the ones east of the Cascades and south of Moses Lake. This meant I spent most of the spring and summer of 2008 traveling around all the parts of Washington that were actually evergreen taking the same exam over and over again. I never got more than an 87%. Meh.

For those of you not from ‘round here, there’s a large chunk of Washington, The Evergreen State, that’s just all desert and sagebrush and not particularly ‘Evergreen’. The Tricities is in the middle of that part.

            Then the economy took a header, Lehman Brothers, Fannie and Freddie, blah blah blah, stuff we all remember, and the USPS initiated a hiring freeze. Well darn, what to do now?

            One day I was lamenting my sad predicament in my own sardonic way in my mother’s kitchen while she sat on the couch in the other room watching TV and listened to me whine. She just happened to be watching an episode of Modern Marvels on Funeral Tech and said “Why not look into becoming a Funeral Director?” and, just as she suggested, I thought ‘Why not?’

           So, look into it I did. In Washington State, like most, you needed a license to be a Funeral Director and a separate license to embalm. You were more marketable if you had both. To get those licenses you needed a 2 year degree, a degree in Mortuary Sciences for embalming specifically, and you had to serve an apprenticeship (since then the term has been to Internship because in Washington we just have to be different), 2 years for embalming and 1 year for funeral directing, but both can be served concurrently.

           I was already familiar with apprenticeships from my experience with Trade Unions (I’ll explain later), and the 2 year degree, which normally would have thrown me given that I dropped out of high school, didn’t seem like much of a challenge because it was something that interested me. I figured that the only way that could get a degree was if it was something that really interested me.

Turns out I was right, or wrong given that I’m now in school for Business Management, or right again given that I’m now really interested in the field of Business Management.

           Funeral Directing was also a very practical field, in the way that it is relatively recession proof. And in the fall of 2008 that seemed, and still seems, like a really good thing. I’m also from a hearty German stock and I was raised with the philosophy: Why follow your dreams if it means you’re going to starve to death before you achieve them? Do something that will allow you to feed yourself even if it’s soul-crushingly tedious and/or boring. You can pursue your silly flights-of-fancy in the few minutes you have at home before you collapse into bed at night.

I may be over-exaggerating a bit, but you get the idea.

           I looked into local colleges that offered a 2 year Mortuary Sciences degree. At the time there was only one that had an accredited program, Mount Hood Community College in Gresham, OR. 2 more have since sprung up in Washington and, I’m pretty sure they’re both now accredited, but neither of them have Doug Ferrin as their Program Director and until that changes they will both be inferior in my book.

           I found out what was required, I took the entrance exam, bombed the math portion, but that was workable, got all my shots (hep. B, TB titers and something else I can’t remember were required) and submitted my application. And miracle of miracles, I got in for academic year 2009.

           At this point all I needed to do was figure out how I was going to feed and house myself for the 2 years needed to complete the degree. I first considered buying some sort of motorhome or RV and park in some RV park near the school, but all I could find in anything resembling my price range was something akin to a small Ford Econoline van with a tiny kitchen, sleeping area in the back. I don’t think the thing even had a bathroom. Lot rents in the area of Gresham were also too high, so that idea was scrapped. In hindsight, I could have probably parked it in the back parking lot of MHCC (Mount Hood Community College) by the gym and used the showers and bathrooms there when the doors were unlocked. This, of course, would have probably made me quite the campus creeper and would have, most likely, seriously affected my love life.

           Luckily, I had contacted the Oregon Funeral Directors Association and they had passed my resume off to Columbia Funeral Home in St. Helens, OR and John Potter, the owner of Columbia Funeral Home (and a Saint of the highest order for not firing me at any point during my 2 years there), called me up, gave me an interview, and then gave me a job and a place to stay for the 2 years I went to school. I am forever grateful, as you might have guessed.

            This brings up a good point. If you are a Funeral Director, Apprentice Funeral Director or are an aspiring Funeral Director, for the love of God, join your State Association. The benefits are incalculable. Sure, it might cost a little bit of money, but think of that as an investment. The OFDA got me a job while I was in school and the WSFDA posted my resume on their website back in May and I’ve gotten at least one call a month from someone who saw it offering me a job. I had to turn them all down because they were in other parts of the state or country and I want to finish my Bachelors, but still! At least once a month! Most also provide continuing education, which is required in some (if not all, I’m not sure about that part) states. Just join, you’ll thank me for it later.

            That’s it for now, more to come in the following weeks and months. Probably much more if I don’t get off my lazy, working-full-time-and-just-started-school-again-full-time butt and start doing something update worthy.

            Like last time, if you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, spelling or grammatical corrections (how will I ever learn if no one ever says anything), words of support or encouragement, confessions of love, hate-filled rantings of utter distain, or anything else for me, do not hesitate to email me at funhomeambo@gmail.com.

Here are links to the NFDA: http://nfda.org/

And to the Funeral Service Foundation. Check out their scholarships if you are planning on attending school to become a Funeral Director: http://www.funeralservicefoundation.org/

And to FAMIC, a great program run by the Funeral Service Foundation: http://famic.org/

I’ll post a new one of these every week. Feel free to e-mail me and call me a loser if I don’t live up to my self-imposed deadline.

            There’ll be a little bonus this week to those of you who’ve joined my Facebook group. If you’re not a member yet, join.

Hope you enjoyed it and I thank you for reading all of this or skipping to the end, whichever is the case.

Johnathan Hove

Anubis Drives a Tan Suzuki Week 2

Updates:

Sunday: I created a Facebook group to keep everyone updated on the project. If you’re not a member of the group, join. It’s open to everyone.

I e-mailed my boss at Dvorak Funeral Home in Pasco, WA and she put a link on her website which you can check out here: http://www.dvorakfuneralhome.com/

I also had a lot of my friends share the link I posted on my page. Thank you to all of them for their support of this project.

Tuesday: I got a lot of good Ideas for my project from my friend Janine, who knows a lot more about blogging than I do. Thank you, Janine.

Thursday: My boss, Heather Dvorak at Dvorak Funeral home, informed me that she had contacted Kenneth Howe at Holman Howe Funeral Home in Lebanon, MO and he agreed to let his establishment be a host funeral home for this project.

Friday: Spoke to Kenneth Howe and confirmed his willingness to participate in this project. I also learned that in 2012 he was selected as the Funeral Director of the Year by American Funeral Director Magazine.

I also E-mailed all of the funeral director’s associations that currently have working e-mail addresses (48 total). So far I’ve only heard back from one, but considering that it’s the weekend, even one is more than I expected.

So, as you can see, it has been a pretty exciting week. I’m still overwhelmed with the outpouring of support I’ve gotten from everyone. Even the fact that I already have a funeral home that has agreed to host is a bit hard to comprehend. I just hope I can keep up this level of momentum moving forward.

Questions and Concerns Addressed:

In this section I will attempt to address the very reasonable questions and concerns brought up by the people after reading my last post.

The first one was why I felt it was important to mention that I will make sure to portray each funeral home in a positive light. I felt it was important to reassure any potential host funeral home managers and owners that I will not be coming there to write any sort of lurid exposé of their funeral home. Doing so would be shooting myself in the foot, especially since I will be posting my profiles and interviews weekly. If I were to post something negative about a funeral home in, for example, California that the owner of the North Dakota funeral home didn’t like and they decided to pull out of the project then I would have to scramble to find another funeral home in North Dakota to profile after I’m already underway. I’ve also taken several business law classes over the course of my academic career and I am well aware of the concept of libel. The last thing that I want to do is spend the rest of my life paying for a small gaffe written during what was supposed to be the last great adventure of my young life.

The next question I keep getting is: why not film it? And/or: Why not contact some of the major cable networks and pitch it as a show? So far, my proclamations that I’m too ugly or not photogenic enough for TV have fallen on deaf ears and/or been met with cries of “What about Honey Boo-Boo?” to which, I have no argument. My concern with filming my adventure was that this might make for too much work for me on top of everything else during and at the end of the project, but like my good friend Brandon Goode pointed out: I will not be able to go back and film it afterward. So on these two points, I have bowed to the pressure put on me by the majority. I will try to budget for one, maybe two dashboard cams and perhaps a hand held camera with a stand for interviews. I will also contact the major networks, but only after I’ve got a few more funeral homes signed on to this project. I feel there is no point in trying to pitch such a concept until I’m reasonably certain that it will actually happen.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that I might need to narrow my focus. The main Ideas so far are: 1. Exploring regional cultural and religious diversity through the lens of funeral service, 2. How each funeral home is adapting and has adapted historically to changes in cultural and religious diversity locally, and 3. What each staff member of the funeral homes I visit has learned through their experiences in the funeral industry about the cultural and religious diversity of the areas where they live and work.

Full disclosure: these are all things that have interested me and things that I have become more eager to learn about through my own experiences in the funeral industry in Washington State (where I currently live) and Oregon and I am very interested to learn more about how things are in different parts of the country, but I’ll be the first to admit that this whole idea grew out of my desire to drive across the country spending more than just a few hours in each state, which, is what I’d probably end up doing if I just saved up the gas money and just went without any other goal than to just say that I did it. I knew that in order to actually fully appreciate and experience this beautiful country of ours I needed to have more than just the occasional conversations with bored gas station attendants.  Increased time spent in each state requires increased funding for the trip.  In this brave new world of crowd-funding, all that is needed for funding is an idea that will get people interested and excited, which, somehow, someway, I seem to have stumbled upon through a combination of my background and personal interest. This is all a shock to me in the extreme considering that I have always seemed to be the oddball in whatever group of people I’ve been placed in or associated with throughout my live, even in the Funeral Service program at Mount Hood I was considered a bit of an oddball.

The Title:

Another thing I forgot to cover last week was where I came up with the name for this project, Anubis Drives a Tan Suzuki.

First off, it did not occur to me that when you lump the title together as all one word, as you must do in these situations, that you could conceivably read it as: Anubis Drive Satan Suzuki. This was not at all my intention. To paraphrase a common saying during the McCarthy era: I am not now, nor have I ever been associated with any favorable outlook on Satan. No one has mentioned the possible misreading yet, but I figured I’d try and get ahead of the curve.

Anubis, as many of you might know, was the Egyptian God most associated with embalming. This might be a bit of a stretch as it refers to me because, and don’t laugh, I’m still not entirely confident enough in my own abilities to be left alone to embalm on my own. If left with a body and a deadline, I’m sure I’d just nut-up and do it, but given the fact that I’m not yet fully licensed, that would probably not be a good idea from a legal standpoint. Luckily, no one as yet has put me into that position.

The “Drives a Tan Suzuki” part is self-explanatory.

Let’s get Autobiographical:

I know I promised that I would share a bit of my background this week, but too much happened and too much was left unexplained last week that I felt my time writing and your time reading was better spent with me updating and clarifying.

However, I do feel that I at least owe my audience the story of how I named my car, The H. F. S. Laura, since she will be a crucial part of the story until practicality and the Pacific Ocean demand that I leave her behind. The H. F. S. part is a recent addition. It stands for His Four-door Sedan. The “Laura” part is a much more interesting and slightly more embarrassing story, but it is a story that must be told for the sake of honesty and transparency.

As you might have guessed by now, she was named after a woman, a one-that-got-away. I know the phrase is usually “THE one that got away,” but with someone like me who has such cowardice and such a short attention span when it comes to women, there are often many ones-that-got-away.

Back in 2005/ 2006 I was 22/23 and worked at a gas station/convenience store at the south end of West Richland, WA. About once a month or so this 6 foot plus blond Goddess with a smile that could melt the polar icecaps and doom us all, would come in and buy a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Before I ever worked up the courage to ask her her name or gathered up enough wits when she was there to simply look at her debit card for her name, I just longingly referred to her as The Ben & Jerry’s Girl.

I worked at this gas station for a year and never worked up the courage to ask her out. By the time I put in my two weeks’ notice so I could get a better job, I hoped against hope that she would come in one last time, but she never did.

A year or so later some friends of mine and I decided on a spur-of-the-moment trip to the coast, about 6 or 7 hours away. Because it was probably a good idea to have money for gas on this adventure, I stopped by the Albertsons grocery store where I worked to pick up my latest paycheck.

As soon as I walked into the main part of the store, there she was. She was just as beautiful as she was when I first saw her, as she always was, and probably always will be, but much to my horror she was with one of the most handsome men I have ever seen. I’m not gay in the least, but I can spot when and to what extent I’m out-matched by a member of my own gender. And boy was I ever out-matched. He was one of those guys who exude charm and personality from every pour, leaving a trail of envious men and lustful women in his wake.

I was, in a word, devastated. If she could get a man like that, how could I ever hope to compare or compete? All was lost.

At that point I had had my Aerio for about a year and I still hadn’t settled on a name yet. In my pain and my sorrow, I named her Laura to remind me to never miss an opportunity again, to always take life by the horns and wrestle it and all of its cruelty to the ground.

So far it hasn’t worked. I forget all the time to do all of those very inspirational and cliché things I just mentioned and I’m still a coward when it comes to the fairer sex, for the most part. Oh, well.

I still feel sorry for my friends who were with me that night and had to listen to me whine and moan all the way to and from Ocean Shores. I hope they forgive me.

Postscript: Laura and I are now part of the same social circle. She and most of my friends don’t know this story (until now, at least). And I’m now good friends with Don, the über handsome guy she was with that fateful night. In addition to living up to my initial impression, he’s also very smart, a great conversationalist and an excellent cook. Hands off ladies, he’s taken. Not by Laura, but someone equally as lovely.

With the passing of time I’ve realized how silly I had been that night, for reasons that are obvious and for others I will not get into, but I’ve been told that it is bad luck to rename a vessel. So, my tan 2006 Suzuki Aerio will remain Laura for as long as I own her.

Like last time, if you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, spelling or grammatical corrections (how will I ever learn if no one ever says anything), words of support or encouragement, confessions of love, hate-filled rantings of utter distain, or anything else for me, do not hesitate to email me at funhomeambo@gmail.com.

I’ll post a new one of these every week. Feel free to e-mail me and call me a loser if I don’t live up to my self-imposed deadline.

After this week, I’m going to leave next week’s topic up in the air. Hopefully I’ll have more updates, but if not then much more Bio.

Here are links to my funeral home’s website: http://www.dvorakfuneralhome.com/

And to the Holman Howe Funeral Homes, my first confirmed host: http://www.holmanhowe.com/

Hope you enjoyed it and I thank you for reading all of this or skipping to the end, whichever is the case.

Johnathan Hove

Statement of Purpose:

            The purpose of this Blog will be to document my progress towards my ultimate goal of visiting 51 funeral homes in all 50 of the States in the United States of America +Washington D.C. in roughly 52 weeks. The idea being that I will drive my car to each funeral home and work from Thursday to early Tuesday at each location. I have experience in the industry so I know that weekends are usually the busiest times. I'll help with first calls, help set up services, sit in on arrangements (if the family and funeral home permits me to of course), help dig graves, anything. The whole time I will document my experiences, write up some notes on each town or city I visit and interview the staff and the owners of each funeral home, all while making sure that I portray each funeral home and community in a positive light.

            My hope is to bring a greater understanding to the public about what it is to live and work in the funeral industry as well as learning and teaching more about the rich cultural diversity this beautiful country of ours has to offer.

            Growing up in a non-religious household, I was not informed about religion, religious practices or customs. About 95% of my current knowledge about such things comes from my time in the industry. In my experience talking with friends and peers, I’m not alone. I’m willing to speculate that a large segment of the general public are unaware of the ways and customs of cultures and religions other than their own or even how richly diverse and varied the ethnic and cultural landscape of their own communities really are. I hope to change that with this project in whatever small way that I can.

            I know what you’re thinking now, that I’m some high-minded idealist hoping to change the world. That would be nice, but no. At best I’m hoping that I will be informative and entertaining while filling you, the reader, with the same type of envy and wanderlust that I experience when reading about road trips and cross-country travel.

When:

            Given the vast scope and preparation needed in order to complete this project, I’ve given myself a year to prepare. My hope is to start sometime around the last week of September, 2014. I'm figuring a year will be enough time to plan everything, drum up interest in my project and to raise the much needed funds to do so. I am a college student who will have sizable loans that I'll have to start paying on or deferring 6 months after I graduate.

I am hoping to raise the funding for my project through Kickstarter (I’ll Include the link when it’s all up and running) and through whatever other means necessary, including, but not limited to: sponsorships through trade magazines, national, state and local industry organizations, or even from the funeral homes that, through the kindness of their hearts, choose to host me while I’m on this national adventure. I’ll layout an itemized breakdown of my proposed budget on the eventual Kickstarter page as well as later blog postings.

Getting funeral homes to sign on and host me will be a project in and of itself. Even if my success rate is 1 in 4, that still means I will have to contact at least 204 funeral homes individually. Though, if and when a funeral home does sign on to this project (and yes, I’m speaking now to the segment of my audience that is a potential host funeral home) their funeral home will possibly benefit from exposure to a national audience. They can even promote the project and their participation in it locally, with my full permission, and garner goodwill in their communities. Also, the less-than-a-week visit will give me enough time to get a good feel for the host facility without staying so long that I wear out my welcome.

            As I mentioned before, I’m also a college student. I’m a student in the BAS in Business Management student at Columbia Basin College in Pasco, Washington. My expected Graduation date is June of 2014. This is another reason for my year-from-now timeline, I’d like to graduate.

How:

            As you might have guessed from the title, I drive a tan Suzuki, an Aerio in fact. She is the H.F.S. Laura (I’ll explain in the biographical post next week where and how she got her name). She’s also a 2006 model year with close to 100k miles on her. She’s gone with me everywhere in the last seven years. Bought her new with 23.0 miles on her; she’s been mine her whole life. I’ve spent more nights than I can count sleeping in either the front or back seats on long road trips and I am not at all afraid to do so again. If a host funeral home chooses to allow me to put down a sleeping bag or put me up in a staff member’s home it will be greatly appreciated, but not at all expected.

            I plan to hit each state in a zig-zag, north, south, north again pattern, as hopefully illustrated here: (Not sure if I’ll get the link to work. I’m new to this whole blogging thing) 

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=West+Richland,+WA+99353&daddr=Portland,+OR+to:Los+Angeles,+CA+to:Phoenix,+AZ+to:Las+Vegas,+NV+to:Salt+Lake+City,+UT+to:Boise,+ID+to:Billings,+MT+to:Cheyenne,+WY+to:Denver,+Colorado+to:Albuquerque,+NM+to:San+Antonio,+TX+to:Oklahoma+City,+OK+to:Wichita,+KS+to:Lincoln,+NE+to:Sioux+Falls,+SD+to:Fargo,+ND+to:Minneapolis,+MN+to:Des+Moines,+IA+to:St.+Louis,+MO+to:Memphis,+TN+to:Little+Rock,+AR+to:Jackson,+MS+to:New+Orleans,+LA+to:Mobile,+AL&hl=en&ll=37.509726,-79.541016&spn=37.540074,86.044922&sll=46.277211,-119.327152&sspn=0.008053,0.021007&geocode=FVsiwgIdUDbj-CnNjpVVAXCYVDENAm6zj12tNA%3BFfyhtgIdERyw-CkndKl9CwuVVDGRhdH25rk2HA%3BFYqYBwIdm77z-CkT2ifcXcfCgDH0CEYlb98v4g%3BFblh_gEdy-JR-SnLeaFQ7RIrhzGsG0o1-MdpjA%3BFdYQJwIdMJoi-SnRffWkgre-gDGjebPV5tXMOg%3BFcv1bQIdma1U-SntMdGIlD1ShzHKMU1IoLdTWw%3BFZaRmQIdsbQS-SmdtEfpcvGuVDGbnWc2m5hbmg%3BFfaYugIdLmmI-SmXnfqIiG9IUzFQtXnx1FY1Nw%3BFQ2_cwId6pHA-SmT73MudjhvhzErLZePQTAKsQ%3BFd9YXgIdcg---SnPFx8jqoBrhzHWNoon-PSOEQ%3BFS-_FwIduUKl-Sl7gwnT3QoihzH99tm4zvjTwA%3BFfr5wAEdRBsh-imvDtAEr1hchjG8FqAQO-FWCA%3BFSgxHQIddAQw-imB0vh-VIqthzGdOk_RdBKiMw%3BFTkWPwId0cQy-iktGH_Satu6hzE-PdN0v9WWkw%3BFc6pbgIdMcE8-illElbKWb6WhzG53tUfm4U6Yw%3BFReFmAIdWXg8-inXrL3gmLSOhzHP_LKoOv-V3g%3BFQJKywId1Ro7-ilFcWeEjcvIUjHKqpEnpTCqgQ%3BFSZkrgIdEt1w-im9u3eTkDOzUjEH7novhMmfkw%3BFSHGegIdbqNr-innHmHBpJnuhzGy5JEmUSgAcQ%3BFbpmTQIdlKqf-in5ju36qbTYhzFb4Lsiyuo5vg%3BFd5WGAIdLPah-ilFl0PqHn7VhzH-thpgFfOT0Q%3BFXEwEgIdxcV_-imbVh-hNKHShzEXW_MNEPUFNA%3BFQXX7AEdluOf-ikhG3SQfysohjGgOPBB5M0TBw%3BFVoEyQEdFJ6h-illghGyVKQghjG00yJe6FsG2w%3BFdVb1AEd0pHA-imp-EzxHU6aiDEanol3VA7oTA&oq=mob&t=h&mra=ls&z=4

Given that Google will only let you put in 25 destinations at a time and the fact that I haven’t gotten approval from any host funeral homes yet, this is obviously just a rough sketch, but you get the idea, that is, if the link works.

            That is the plan as it now stands, but, like life, it is subject to change due to practicality, funding, or just good old fashioned reality.

            If you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, spelling or grammatical corrections (how will I ever learn if no one ever says anything), words of support or encouragement, confessions of love, hate-filled rantings of utter distain, or anything else for me, do not hesitate to email me at funhomeambo@gmail.com.

            I’ll try to post a new one of these every week. I am about to start school again in a few weeks so it may be hard, but I do my best to be vigilant. Feel free to e-mail me and call me a loser if I don’t live up to my self-imposed deadline though.

            Be sure to read next week’s entry where I talk a little (quite a bit) about myself, what lead me into funeral service, and what lead me to decide to do this project.

            Thank you for reading all of this or skipping to the end, whichever is the case.

Johnathan Hove