As the election year drags on, I have actually begun giving strong consideration to voting for a candidate I would have never considered. While I disagree with many of his ideas, it is quite possible (depending on the LP candidate) that my vote may go for Ralph Nader. Why is this? First of all, integrity. While I don't fall for the "Chicken Littles" of this world, Nader is at least a true believer. One who takes his responsibilities seriously. You can use a lot of adjectives to describe Nader...

As budgets gat tighter and tighter, analysts are recommending stockpiling food by buying in bulk and keeping a full pantry. What amuses me about this is, I've been doing this my whole life. And I'm FAR from the only one. See, keeping a stockpile of food is one of the positive things I owe to my LDS upbringing. While I left the church over twenty years ago, some things stay with you, and the LDS church has always encouraged its members to keep a year's supply of food in their pantry. While ...

Earlier this week, I was delighted to see my inbox fill up with three tickets about two hours away. The individual prices were initially too low, and I didn't want to enter my bid too high for fear of being underbid. So I took a gamble. I bid an amount on all three tickets that individually would have paid gas, meal money, and not much more. But if I got all three...well, let's just say, it would be a fairly nice payday, despite putting in 4-5 hours on the road. I am happy to say, the plan wo...

As the semester is winding down (and tax season is past) we've gotten back a few more of our papers, and while I'm still not sure what I've gotten in Management or Marketing, I was pleased to see my Accounting grade is looking good. REAL good when you consider the struggles I've had with it. On the "comprehensive problem" (the one I sweated over when I discovered an 11th hour error), I received 74 out of a possible 75 points. Looks like there was value in sweating that one out. On the last ma...

I was scanning through my yahoo! mail when I saw the words that should make anyone shudder. The local freecycle group (if you haven't checked into these groups, you should!) had a posting from one of the members offering a hide-a-bed. Hide-a-beds are, in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions, the devil! They are the fruitcake of furniture, pieces that nobody ever seems to buy, yet that somehow everyone ends up owning. After our last move, and the twisting, turning and contort...

I was scanning through my yahoo! mail when I saw the words that should make anyone shudder. The local freecycle group (if you haven't checked into these groups, you should!) had a posting from one of the members offering a hide-a-bed. Hide-a-beds are, in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions, the devil! They are the fruitcake of furniture, pieces that nobody ever seems to buy, yet that somehow everyone ends up owning. After our last move, and the twisting, turning and contort...

In the linked article, Oliver "Buzz" Thomas postulates that our religion might be killing us. His rationale? The "dire" need for climate change (one wonders why he is wasting so much time on an electrically powered computer if the need is so dire). He believes that opposition to birth control, which is characteristic of the Roman Catholic Church as well as many Orthodox Jewish and Muslim sects, and the encouragement of large families in faiths such as the LDS church. He argues that instead of of...

Well, as of today, there is exactly one month left until the last day of finals. And immediately afterwards, I will start on a *new* job ("new" in the responsibilities of the position, not in the people I will be working with). It will be a management position, so I get to torture my underlings with all of my newly acquired information from Business Management. Hey, I had to suffer in my day...it's THEIR TURN now! (LOL!) I'm doing better than I had hoped in Accounting. I'm sitting two percent...

I heard an educator this past week report that high school dropouts are at an all time high. A few google searches seem to confirm this; that as recently as 2003, only 70% of our high school students are getting their degree in four years. While it's hard to find reliable stats for the last few years (in part because some of the students may go back), it seems this trend is indeed occurring among our young children. The irony is that this apparent epidemic is not even mentioned in the nationa...

I've decided I'm grateful for the drawn out Democratic Primaries. See, they've begun to show the DNC candidates as what they are. As Obama began amassing a lead in delegates and popular votes, the shrew in Hillary came out. At this point, I'm doubting there's anyone to the right of Mao who will vote for her. After all, they'll have Ralph Nader, who has FAR more respect among the left than Hillary EVER will. For that matter, he has more respect among the right and independents, for while we do...

Today brought a couple of reminders that my oldest is growing up. First, the local Christian radio station has a coloring contest. The kids can choose what prizes they'd like to be entered for. One of the prizes was a cell phone with 100 minutes. Des asked us about the cell phone, and we told her it would be better to look at addinhg her to our cell plan when we sign a new contract. This led to a discussion about rights and privileges, and the standard reminder that if she gets a phone, she's...

We spent the last several days out of town, and I received two SMS messgaes from a firm that hires me for contract jobs. Since I was nowhere near a Wifi hotspot, though, I couldn't answer them. I let them go, figuring they would be re-routed before I could look at them anyway. So I was surprised this morning to see that neither of the two jobs had been re-routed. I checked them out and took the first. I went onto the second to note that the fee for the job, which was initially $100, had been ...

For a long time I have regarded a degree as "just a piece of paper". In fact, coming into this semester, I still carried that belief. Although I saw the practical reasons for it, to me, it was nothing more than a piece of paper. Just halfway through this semester, I have to say I see it quite differently. My semester has been crammed with courses on management, marketing, programming, business communication, and the oh so dreaded accounting (in which, after seeing my midterm grades, I found I...

One of the things that major politicians seem sadly not to realize should be the most obvious. In every election cycle, we get candidates identifying problems and offering rhetorical solutions. While they may sound as if they offer real answers, their solutions are hollow, impractical, and unimaginative. Sure, it's good to offer health care reform, but when your solutions are as practical as building a suspension bridge to the moon, you know it's not going to get done. Anyone with half a brai...

For those who care, I haven't fallen off the end of the world. For those who don't, I still haven't. The other day, I was finishing off a mammoth problem for accounting. It was one of the hardest tasks I've undertaken, and at about 11:30PM the night before it was due, I was on the second to last step and discovered an error I had no clue where to find. I was devastated, and briefly the thought of withdrawing from the course popped into my head. Only briefly, though, because I quickly reminded...