I remember a time not too long ago when my wife and I were really struggling financially. Heck we aren't far better now. At the time though I was beginning to question how we would be able to heat our house through the winter. Bills were piling up and there wasn't much hope of the situation improving anytime soon. Christmas came and we had to make the tough decision to not buy each other anything for Christmas. The holiday is certainly not all about giving or receiving presents but it's nice to be able to go spend money on your spouse and surprise them with something and it really stinks when you can't.
A co-worker of mine at the time was somewhat aware of the situation we were in and a few days before Christmas he gave me a card. Inside of it was $50. He wanted my wife and I to be able to buy each other something for Christmas. Later that day we took the money, split it up, and went shopping for each other. Nothing big or extravagant just small gifts that wouldn't have been there otherwise. There's something so much more special about being able to give someone a gift after you've already resigned yourself to the idea that you won't be able to. The gifts you receive in those circumstances are all the more precious as well.
That friend of mine may never know just how much he changed Christmas for us that year. I pray that God will multiply to him and his family the blessing that he gave us on Christmas. And to everyone who reads this article, may you be blessed richly and joy be upon you.
Merry Christmas.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
What's Holding You Back
There comes a time, or many times, in everyone's life when they feel as if life has not been working out as they had hoped. Often times this prompts the question of what has been holding them back. More often than than not, what's been holding them back is themselves.
A lot of my articles recently have dealt with these kind of ideas but I think it is worth reiterating. You need to know what your goals are in life and you need to ask yourself if you can really bear the thought of looking back twenty years from now and realizing that you've accomplished none of them. Wasted time is such a huge thing in our society and it's crushing to the would-be entrepreneur. Another death blow to your progress towards your goals can be trying to pursue something that you really know nothing about. Having a great business idea is one thing, having the knowledge, time, and will power to take the idea from a dream to a reality can be quite another. Investing time and money into areas that you have no business being in won't help you achieve anything. Pursue knowledge before you invest.
A couple months ago my family and I were taking a trip out of state for a couple days. The day we were supposed to leave I looked up the directions on the internet and hit the print button. The printer proceeded to make a series of loud bangs and was shaking violently. An orange error light came on but gave no indication of the problem. I pulled the paper out, put it back in, checked the cartridges, and couldn't find anything wrong. Print. Wrrrr, bang, bang , bang, shake, orange error light. Again, I looked over the whole printer and still couldn't find anything wrong. I repeated this whole process a couple more times and finally saw what the problem was. Inside the printer, all the way over to the right side was a pink plastic Easter egg that was sitting right in the path of the cartridge carriage. Oh, the joys of having a toddler. I removed the offending egg and the printer started working just fine.
Many times in life, we are our own worst enemy and hold ourselves back from accomplishing anything. But sometimes what's holding us back is a pink Easter egg in our printer.
A lot of my articles recently have dealt with these kind of ideas but I think it is worth reiterating. You need to know what your goals are in life and you need to ask yourself if you can really bear the thought of looking back twenty years from now and realizing that you've accomplished none of them. Wasted time is such a huge thing in our society and it's crushing to the would-be entrepreneur. Another death blow to your progress towards your goals can be trying to pursue something that you really know nothing about. Having a great business idea is one thing, having the knowledge, time, and will power to take the idea from a dream to a reality can be quite another. Investing time and money into areas that you have no business being in won't help you achieve anything. Pursue knowledge before you invest.
A couple months ago my family and I were taking a trip out of state for a couple days. The day we were supposed to leave I looked up the directions on the internet and hit the print button. The printer proceeded to make a series of loud bangs and was shaking violently. An orange error light came on but gave no indication of the problem. I pulled the paper out, put it back in, checked the cartridges, and couldn't find anything wrong.
Many times in life, we are our own worst enemy and hold ourselves back from accomplishing anything. But sometimes what's holding us back is a pink Easter egg in our printer.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
The Dumbening
Over the past decade we've seen a lot of changes in the entertainment and news media industry and I for one don't believe that the changes are positive ones. It seems as if everything is being dumbed down and that the bulk of the public is just fine with that and in fact are eating it up more than ever before.
Over the past decade video games have seen a huge transition away from games that require a certain level of strategic planning and mental involvement towards a style of game play that boils down to mindless repetition. Those kind of games have always been present in the industry but it's really only been in the last ten years that they have become the biggest sellers. Some good examples are Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The value of video games for stimulating the mind was dubious before, but now it's even worse. I often waste too much time playing a game called Combat Arms. It's an online first person shooter that features various modes of play including capture the flag and elimination mode. When I play it, I only play Capture the Flag. It's fun to try and strategize how best to overcome the other team. But Elimination mode is by far the most popular. The only goal in an elimination game is to kill more players than are killed on your team. There is no strategy it's just mindless shooting and it's what most people choose to play.
In the television industry the past decade has seen the rise of reality television. The networks realized that they don't need to pay writers or actors they can just bring in some random people off the street and have them play a game and people will watch it. There is no attempt at quality programming with these shows and yet it is wildly popular.
Thirty years ago video games didn't exist and seventy years ago television was just in it's infancy. People used their free time differently in those days. Sure it wasn't all reading books and learning but when kids played, they actually did something physically and often times mentally stimulating. If you wanted to play a game, it was a family and/or social thing, not a solitary tapping of buttons or keys on a computer or video game system. I believe that the recent rise in dumb entertainment is a direct result of a generation of video games and a few generations of television watching. People are less physically and mentally active. I'm not trying to blame the entertainment industry for this problem any more than someone who eats at McDonald's everyday should blame them for their obesity. I believe in personal responsibility and people are responsible for how they choose to use their time.
A couple weeks ago one of our horses ran through a fence late at night. I didn't have time to fix and so I decided to take care of it after work the next day. When I got home from work that day it was already dark and it was snowing. I had been looking forward to a relaxing evening of watching TV and playing video games. But that wasn't going to happen. Instead I was out in a dark field with snow falling around me and I was piecing together an electric fence that had broken in multiple locations. About an hour into the work I realized something. I felt alive. I was cold and tired but I felt alive. I was actually doing something. It wasn't what I would have chosen to do that evening but it was something real and tangible, not just another night of letting my brain turn into useless mush.
As I continued to piece the fence back together I started to feel the electric shocks through my gloves and realized that I had forgotten to unplug the fence. But the shocks were minor and I assumed that the gloves were protecting me a bit. The shocks however continued to grow in intensity as the fence became more intact and as I was tying off a wire at a fence post my wrist came in contact with the metal post just as the wire did and I got a huge shock. It felt like someone had punched me in the wrist and like my thumb was on fire. I then decided to unplug the fence. Feeling alive is one thing, lighting up like a Christmas tree is quite another.
There are millions of people willingly participating in The Dumbening. You can be a part of that tide or you can fight it. Be active, feel alive and do something with your life.
Over the past decade video games have seen a huge transition away from games that require a certain level of strategic planning and mental involvement towards a style of game play that boils down to mindless repetition. Those kind of games have always been present in the industry but it's really only been in the last ten years that they have become the biggest sellers. Some good examples are Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The value of video games for stimulating the mind was dubious before, but now it's even worse. I often waste too much time playing a game called Combat Arms. It's an online first person shooter that features various modes of play including capture the flag and elimination mode. When I play it, I only play Capture the Flag. It's fun to try and strategize how best to overcome the other team. But Elimination mode is by far the most popular. The only goal in an elimination game is to kill more players than are killed on your team. There is no strategy it's just mindless shooting and it's what most people choose to play.
In the television industry the past decade has seen the rise of reality television. The networks realized that they don't need to pay writers or actors they can just bring in some random people off the street and have them play a game and people will watch it. There is no attempt at quality programming with these shows and yet it is wildly popular.
Thirty years ago video games didn't exist and seventy years ago television was just in it's infancy. People used their free time differently in those days. Sure it wasn't all reading books and learning but when kids played, they actually did something physically and often times mentally stimulating. If you wanted to play a game, it was a family and/or social thing, not a solitary tapping of buttons or keys on a computer or video game system. I believe that the recent rise in dumb entertainment is a direct result of a generation of video games and a few generations of television watching. People are less physically and mentally active. I'm not trying to blame the entertainment industry for this problem any more than someone who eats at McDonald's everyday should blame them for their obesity. I believe in personal responsibility and people are responsible for how they choose to use their time.
A couple weeks ago one of our horses ran through a fence late at night. I didn't have time to fix and so I decided to take care of it after work the next day. When I got home from work that day it was already dark and it was snowing. I had been looking forward to a relaxing evening of watching TV and playing video games. But that wasn't going to happen. Instead I was out in a dark field with snow falling around me and I was piecing together an electric fence that had broken in multiple locations. About an hour into the work I realized something. I felt alive. I was cold and tired but I felt alive. I was actually doing something. It wasn't what I would have chosen to do that evening but it was something real and tangible, not just another night of letting my brain turn into useless mush.
As I continued to piece the fence back together I started to feel the electric shocks through my gloves and realized that I had forgotten to unplug the fence. But the shocks were minor and I assumed that the gloves were protecting me a bit. The shocks however continued to grow in intensity as the fence became more intact and as I was tying off a wire at a fence post my wrist came in contact with the metal post just as the wire did and I got a huge shock. It felt like someone had punched me in the wrist and like my thumb was on fire. I then decided to unplug the fence. Feeling alive is one thing, lighting up like a Christmas tree is quite another.
There are millions of people willingly participating in The Dumbening. You can be a part of that tide or you can fight it. Be active, feel alive and do something with your life.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Angel Food Ministries - 100th Post!
If you are like me then sticking to a budget to remain financially solvent is becoming a main priority. I've found for myself that sticking within the budget when it comes to food is harder than most other areas. I've been a bit sickened lately when a couple bags of groceries can cost more than $40. Recently a couple internet friends of my wife tipped her off to Angel Food Ministries. It's a non-profit organization that buys lots of food at wholesale and then sells it for wholesale to the public. A good size box of food costs $30 and is easily worth double that. This past Saturday we picked up our very first box of food from Angel Food Ministries. Here's what it contained: steaks, pork ribs, hot dogs, eggs, chicken breasts, chicken nuggets, ground turkey, milk, peanut butter, cranberry sauce, pasta, pancake mix, green beans, carrots
Not bad for $30. I should note that some of the items are quite generic but that doesn't mean poor quality. They also have several optional boxes that you can order that cost varying amounts and feature different meat or fruit and vegetable items. Next month I think I'll order one of the optional boxes as well.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US and Christmas is four weeks away. This time of year can definitely get expensive, do yourself a favor and at least look at Angel Food Ministries. It can be a great money saver and this is certainly not a time to be spending money unnecessarily.
And because Thanksgiving is only 15 minutes away as of the time of this writing, I would like to just say one thing that I am thankful for. There are many many things that I am thankful for and most more personal than this one. But the one thing that I'd like to share with you is that this is my 100th post on I'm Not A Rat. This is the first blog that I have consistently stuck to for this long and I am thankful for the things that I have learned and been able to share with all of you over the course of the last 8 or 9 months through this website. Thank you for reading.
Not bad for $30. I should note that some of the items are quite generic but that doesn't mean poor quality. They also have several optional boxes that you can order that cost varying amounts and feature different meat or fruit and vegetable items. Next month I think I'll order one of the optional boxes as well.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US and Christmas is four weeks away. This time of year can definitely get expensive, do yourself a favor and at least look at Angel Food Ministries. It can be a great money saver and this is certainly not a time to be spending money unnecessarily.
And because Thanksgiving is only 15 minutes away as of the time of this writing, I would like to just say one thing that I am thankful for. There are many many things that I am thankful for and most more personal than this one. But the one thing that I'd like to share with you is that this is my 100th post on I'm Not A Rat. This is the first blog that I have consistently stuck to for this long and I am thankful for the things that I have learned and been able to share with all of you over the course of the last 8 or 9 months through this website. Thank you for reading.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Black Friday
We are just a week away from the most greed filled day of the year. I am talking about Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is one of the commercially innocent holidays remaining of the major holidays. That status is being stripped away though by more and more retail stores choosing to open on Thanksgiving instead of waiting until Friday to kick off their sales.
I have never gone shopping on Black Friday, most years it is because I have been working and a couple years it's simply because I've got no money. As someone who has worked inside of a store during this madness I can say that it is generally a display of the worst of humanity. People pushing, and yelling, and bursting with anger if they don't get their hands on lots of junk that they don't need anyway. A lot of them are the types that you see every year, buying the same type of junk, and also throughout the year whenever sales are good enough. These are the ones that aren't buying for themselves or as gifts for anyone, they are simply reselling. And they are usually the rudest ones.
If I could give just one piece of advice to those who are thinking of venturing out on Black Friday it would be this: Don't. Do you actually need the things you plan to buy or are the low prices driving greed somewhere within you? Those low prices aren't worth dealing with the traffic, the crowds, the stress, and more often in recent years the violence that accompanies this day.
I have a friend that has worked at Wal-Mart for a number of years. She told me that every year on Black Friday she comes home with bruises all over her from greed driven customers trying to get to whatever generic electronics item is on sale that year. Black Friday is definitely a dark day in America. Once again this year, I will be working that day. Fortunately though the company I currently work for doesn't deal with this kind of insanity.
I have never gone shopping on Black Friday, most years it is because I have been working and a couple years it's simply because I've got no money. As someone who has worked inside of a store during this madness I can say that it is generally a display of the worst of humanity. People pushing, and yelling, and bursting with anger if they don't get their hands on lots of junk that they don't need anyway. A lot of them are the types that you see every year, buying the same type of junk, and also throughout the year whenever sales are good enough. These are the ones that aren't buying for themselves or as gifts for anyone, they are simply reselling. And they are usually the rudest ones.
If I could give just one piece of advice to those who are thinking of venturing out on Black Friday it would be this: Don't. Do you actually need the things you plan to buy or are the low prices driving greed somewhere within you? Those low prices aren't worth dealing with the traffic, the crowds, the stress, and more often in recent years the violence that accompanies this day.
I have a friend that has worked at Wal-Mart for a number of years. She told me that every year on Black Friday she comes home with bruises all over her from greed driven customers trying to get to whatever generic electronics item is on sale that year. Black Friday is definitely a dark day in America. Once again this year, I will be working that day. Fortunately though the company I currently work for doesn't deal with this kind of insanity.
Black Friday
We are just a week away from the most greed filled day of the year. I am talking about Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is one of the commercially innocent holidays remaining of the major holidays. That status is being stripped away though by more and more retail stores choosing to open on Thanksgiving instead of waiting until Friday to kick off their sales.
I have never gone shopping on Black Friday, most years it is because I have been working and a couple years it's simply because I've got no money. As someone who has worked inside of a store during this madness I can say that it is generally a display of the worst of humanity. People pushing, and yelling, and bursting with anger if they don't get their hands on lots of junk that they don't need anyway. A lot of them are the types that you see every year, buying the same type of junk, and also throughout the year whenever sales are good enough. These are the ones that aren't buying for themselves or as gifts for anyone, they are simply reselling. And they are usually the rudest ones.
If I could give just one piece of advice to those who are thinking of venturing out on Black Friday it would be this: Don't. Do you actually need the things you plan to buy or are the low prices driving greed somewhere within you? Those low prices aren't worth dealing with the traffic, the crowds, the stress, and more often in recent years the violence that accompanies this day.
I have a friend that has worked at Wal-Mart for a number of years. She told me that every year on Black Friday she comes home with bruises all over her from greed driven customers trying to get to whatever generic electronics item is on sale that year. Black Friday is definitely a dark day in America. Once again this year, I will be working that day. Fortunately though the company I currently work for doesn't deal with this kind of insanity.
I have never gone shopping on Black Friday, most years it is because I have been working and a couple years it's simply because I've got no money. As someone who has worked inside of a store during this madness I can say that it is generally a display of the worst of humanity. People pushing, and yelling, and bursting with anger if they don't get their hands on lots of junk that they don't need anyway. A lot of them are the types that you see every year, buying the same type of junk, and also throughout the year whenever sales are good enough. These are the ones that aren't buying for themselves or as gifts for anyone, they are simply reselling. And they are usually the rudest ones.
If I could give just one piece of advice to those who are thinking of venturing out on Black Friday it would be this: Don't. Do you actually need the things you plan to buy or are the low prices driving greed somewhere within you? Those low prices aren't worth dealing with the traffic, the crowds, the stress, and more often in recent years the violence that accompanies this day.
I have a friend that has worked at Wal-Mart for a number of years. She told me that every year on Black Friday she comes home with bruises all over her from greed driven customers trying to get to whatever generic electronics item is on sale that year. Black Friday is definitely a dark day in America. Once again this year, I will be working that day. Fortunately though the company I currently work for doesn't deal with this kind of insanity.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
National Novel Writing Month
November is National Novel Writing Month. Maybe November 12th is a bit late in the month to be mentioning it, but this article kind of got preempted by all the political news last week.
National Novel Writing Month is when writers all across the country attempt to write an entire novel in one month. It's an admirable goal and one that I don't intend to achieve. I am however going to put a renewed focus on the novel that I am currently writing. That means that there will likely be a few less articles on I'm Not A Rat this month. I love writing on this website but the reality is that it sometimes cuts into my creative writing a bit much. I have a certain goal in mind for how much I would like to have finished on the novel by January and if I'm going to achieve it then I need to shift some of my writing time around to put a little more emphasis on fiction instead of non-fiction.
I hope you, my loyal readers, understand and cheer me on in this endeavor. I've got some great articles coming up, they're just going to be a bit more spaced out.
National Novel Writing Month is when writers all across the country attempt to write an entire novel in one month. It's an admirable goal and one that I don't intend to achieve. I am however going to put a renewed focus on the novel that I am currently writing. That means that there will likely be a few less articles on I'm Not A Rat this month. I love writing on this website but the reality is that it sometimes cuts into my creative writing a bit much. I have a certain goal in mind for how much I would like to have finished on the novel by January and if I'm going to achieve it then I need to shift some of my writing time around to put a little more emphasis on fiction instead of non-fiction.
I hope you, my loyal readers, understand and cheer me on in this endeavor. I've got some great articles coming up, they're just going to be a bit more spaced out.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Preparing for the Years Ahead
We are just a few days removed from Barack Obama's election as President of the United States and still a couple months away from when he actually takes office. It's never too early to start planning for the future and I think it's important to understand how policies that Obama plans to put in place may affect your daily life.
If your finances are like mine then supposedly Obama plans to give us a tax cut and people who are wealthy will have their taxes increased. On the surface this seems great for people who aren't well off financially but the problem is that it punishes people for being successful. Why should people work hard to succeed when the government promises to punish them for it?
He also plans to raise taxes on businesses. This has the great potential to do two things: one is that businesses will likely raises their prices to cover the cost of the tax increase and the second thing that could happen is that business close up shop and move over seas. In both instances we will need any tax cut we can get because things that we already can't afford are going to cost us more.
There's also that promise of $1000 for everyone in America that is supposed to come from the pockets of the oil companies. Again to punish them for being successful. Look I need any money I can get, so it's not like I would take the check and through it back in his face, but the reality is that a one time check for $1000 won't even heat my house for one winter and does nothing to actually lower the price of oil. My other problem with this idea is that I feel it was just an effort to buy votes for $1000 each and I sincerely doubt he will even follow through with this promise.
So what can we as individuals do to prepare ourselves for potentially far worse economic conditions in the country? The short answer is that we need to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. And preparing for the worst can mean a lot of different things depending on how bad you think things might get in the next four years. I should really say the next eight years. If Bush was able to go two terms while the media was destroying him before he even took office, then certainly Obama being the media's anointed one can go two terms.
I think a wise person would not spend beyond their means, would save money instead of going into debt. I wise person would become self-reliant in as many areas as he or she is capable. I think a wise person wouldn't just be thinking about stocking up on canned goods but growing their own food and learning how to can it themselves. I think now more than ever you need to be the best that you can be at your job so if the company you work for is making cuts you hopefully won't be one of the first to go. Find ways to make yourself energy independent because you realize that the country will never be.
These are all things that people would be wise to consider any time but especially right now when there is so much instability in our own country and abroad. We've had plenty of presidents who turned out to be pretty bad and it's way too early to start judging Obama as president, but I feel it is necessary to understand the potential consequences of his policies so that we are prepared and can handle the things that directly affect our lives.
If your finances are like mine then supposedly Obama plans to give us a tax cut and people who are wealthy will have their taxes increased. On the surface this seems great for people who aren't well off financially but the problem is that it punishes people for being successful. Why should people work hard to succeed when the government promises to punish them for it?
He also plans to raise taxes on businesses. This has the great potential to do two things: one is that businesses will likely raises their prices to cover the cost of the tax increase and the second thing that could happen is that business close up shop and move over seas. In both instances we will need any tax cut we can get because things that we already can't afford are going to cost us more.
There's also that promise of $1000 for everyone in America that is supposed to come from the pockets of the oil companies. Again to punish them for being successful. Look I need any money I can get, so it's not like I would take the check and through it back in his face, but the reality is that a one time check for $1000 won't even heat my house for one winter and does nothing to actually lower the price of oil. My other problem with this idea is that I feel it was just an effort to buy votes for $1000 each and I sincerely doubt he will even follow through with this promise.
So what can we as individuals do to prepare ourselves for potentially far worse economic conditions in the country? The short answer is that we need to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. And preparing for the worst can mean a lot of different things depending on how bad you think things might get in the next four years. I should really say the next eight years. If Bush was able to go two terms while the media was destroying him before he even took office, then certainly Obama being the media's anointed one can go two terms.
I think a wise person would not spend beyond their means, would save money instead of going into debt. I wise person would become self-reliant in as many areas as he or she is capable. I think a wise person wouldn't just be thinking about stocking up on canned goods but growing their own food and learning how to can it themselves. I think now more than ever you need to be the best that you can be at your job so if the company you work for is making cuts you hopefully won't be one of the first to go. Find ways to make yourself energy independent because you realize that the country will never be.
These are all things that people would be wise to consider any time but especially right now when there is so much instability in our own country and abroad. We've had plenty of presidents who turned out to be pretty bad and it's way too early to start judging Obama as president, but I feel it is necessary to understand the potential consequences of his policies so that we are prepared and can handle the things that directly affect our lives.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
The Day After the Election
I'm writing the first part of this article at 4 pm on Tuesday so as of right now I have no idea who won the presidential election. Up until about four hours ago I was pretty hopeful that John McCain would emerge the victor when all of this is over. But a startling thought kind of killed a lot of that hope.
Nearly every person I have heard show support for Barack Obama has done so from a place of willing ignorance. Most of the endorsements for Obama are filled with words that have no bearing on who he actually is and what he actually stands for. I saw an article yesterday that claimed Obama stood for family values. I'm not sure where they got that impression. Most of the rest of the endorsements Obama picks up lack anything that even approaches a substantial reason for supporting the man. Colin Powell's endorsement is a good example of this.
So here is the startling revelation that I had: None of this makes any sense. When normally intelligent people are willing to ignore all of the facts and come up with reasons for supporting someone that have no bearing in reality then I think there are greater things going on here than meets the eye. Just the other day a woman was buying dog food at the store I work at and said "I can't wait until Obama is president and we don't have to deal with these high prices anymore." What is wrong with people? It's best not to try and make sense of it all because you can't. There is no reasoning and no logic to describe why Obama carries the support that he does. What I'm trying to say is that I believe that our leaders are only in power because God allows them to be in power. If Obama wins the election then it is because God willed it so. And I certainly don't mean that to sound like God somehow endorses Obama's policies. No, I think sometimes nations need tough medicine to get themselves back on track. See my article Electing a King for more information on that.
I would like to believe that when this article is published tomorrow morning that none of this has actually come true, that enough of a America is not under the Obama spell to bring about a different outcome. The reason I don't hold on to much hope of that however is because I have yet to find an Obama supporter that is actually informed about the issues and has based their decision on that knowledge. I'm sure those kinds of people are out there as well, and though I disagree with them, at least they are making their decision from a place of knowledge and not because they think Obama will lower the price of dog food or because "McCain is too old."
This next paragraph is specifically for people in Pennsylvania. I've heard so much about how Obama cares about the middle class but what will happen to the middle class in Pennsylvania if he bankrupts the coal industry like he said he would? What about all those middle class people employed in that industry? What will happen to our electric prices in PA if there is no coal industry, or a heavily hindered one? If Pennsylvania goes to Obama, it just reinforces everything I have written in this article about voters not thinking and only feeling.
WEDNESDAY MORNING:
Well America has actually done it. I watched McCain's concession speech last night and at one point it almost seemed like there was a tone of “everyone can just shut up about equal rights now.” I could be wrong but that's what some of what he said seemed to be geared towards. I only watched about two minutes of Obama's speech in front of the teary eyed millions. Never before have I seen a president elect welcomed with such fervor and emotional displays, it's a bit frightening. America is normally not about these kinds anointings of elected officials. I kept expecting to see Hypnotoad somewhere up on stage with him. Friday's article will be about what to expect in the years ahead, don't miss it.
Nearly every person I have heard show support for Barack Obama has done so from a place of willing ignorance. Most of the endorsements for Obama are filled with words that have no bearing on who he actually is and what he actually stands for. I saw an article yesterday that claimed Obama stood for family values. I'm not sure where they got that impression. Most of the rest of the endorsements Obama picks up lack anything that even approaches a substantial reason for supporting the man. Colin Powell's endorsement is a good example of this.
So here is the startling revelation that I had: None of this makes any sense. When normally intelligent people are willing to ignore all of the facts and come up with reasons for supporting someone that have no bearing in reality then I think there are greater things going on here than meets the eye. Just the other day a woman was buying dog food at the store I work at and said "I can't wait until Obama is president and we don't have to deal with these high prices anymore." What is wrong with people? It's best not to try and make sense of it all because you can't. There is no reasoning and no logic to describe why Obama carries the support that he does. What I'm trying to say is that I believe that our leaders are only in power because God allows them to be in power. If Obama wins the election then it is because God willed it so. And I certainly don't mean that to sound like God somehow endorses Obama's policies. No, I think sometimes nations need tough medicine to get themselves back on track. See my article Electing a King for more information on that.
I would like to believe that when this article is published tomorrow morning that none of this has actually come true, that enough of a America is not under the Obama spell to bring about a different outcome. The reason I don't hold on to much hope of that however is because I have yet to find an Obama supporter that is actually informed about the issues and has based their decision on that knowledge. I'm sure those kinds of people are out there as well, and though I disagree with them, at least they are making their decision from a place of knowledge and not because they think Obama will lower the price of dog food or because "McCain is too old."
This next paragraph is specifically for people in Pennsylvania. I've heard so much about how Obama cares about the middle class but what will happen to the middle class in Pennsylvania if he bankrupts the coal industry like he said he would? What about all those middle class people employed in that industry? What will happen to our electric prices in PA if there is no coal industry, or a heavily hindered one? If Pennsylvania goes to Obama, it just reinforces everything I have written in this article about voters not thinking and only feeling.
WEDNESDAY MORNING:
Well America has actually done it. I watched McCain's concession speech last night and at one point it almost seemed like there was a tone of “everyone can just shut up about equal rights now.” I could be wrong but that's what some of what he said seemed to be geared towards. I only watched about two minutes of Obama's speech in front of the teary eyed millions. Never before have I seen a president elect welcomed with such fervor and emotional displays, it's a bit frightening. America is normally not about these kinds anointings of elected officials. I kept expecting to see Hypnotoad somewhere up on stage with him. Friday's article will be about what to expect in the years ahead, don't miss it.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The Vacation has Ended
After taking an entire week off from work and this website I am back. I usually rather enjoy my time away from responsibilities but this wasn't exactly the most relaxing vacation ever. I'll spare you the many details of why it wasn't that great but I'll tell you one small story from last week.
It all started the very first day of vacation after getting off of work. I was driving home and then we would be leaving for New Jersey shortly after that. It was raining and I drove through a large puddle which splashed water into the engine and the car nearly stalled in an intersection. Smoke and steam billowing and check engine light flashing, I pressed on. We got on the road around 6 pm that fateful Saturday night. The rain was heavy and I could barely see the road in front of me. As we neared Philadelphia traffic slowed to a crawl and that's when realized that the Phillies were in the World Series! A trip that should have taken 2 and a half hours ended up taking 4 and a half. There were a couple times that we considered stopping at a hotel for the night because the rain was so bad. But we made it! The visit to relatives in New Jersey was pleasant but driving in New Jersey is not. At most intersections they don't let you turn left! You must turn right and go around a loop just to get back to the intersection in order to go left. Craziness! Their politicians should be run out of office for laws like that. We got lost on a couple of occasions thanks to that. On the way home we got lost again because of crazy road changes. And that my friends, simple set the stage for how the rest of the week went. It's not like anything terrible happened but nothing good happened either.
On a brighter note I finally finished my first online store. Three months ago I mentioned that I set up a small page for Wizkids Pirates of the Cursed Seas and that I hoped to develop a store out of that to sell some of my extras. Well I finally did it and got my first sale within the first couple days. Here is the link to the store: Pirates for Sale! I'll keep you posted on the growth or lack thereof of this new venture.
I also took some time to fix one of my other sites, substandardstudios.com. Apparently the blog portion of it hadn't functioned right for months.
I spent some time working on music as well but I wasn't nearly as productive as I had hoped to be with it or with many other things I had hoped to accomplished. Eh, life goes on.
It all started the very first day of vacation after getting off of work. I was driving home and then we would be leaving for New Jersey shortly after that. It was raining and I drove through a large puddle which splashed water into the engine and the car nearly stalled in an intersection. Smoke and steam billowing and check engine light flashing, I pressed on. We got on the road around 6 pm that fateful Saturday night. The rain was heavy and I could barely see the road in front of me. As we neared Philadelphia traffic slowed to a crawl and that's when realized that the Phillies were in the World Series! A trip that should have taken 2 and a half hours ended up taking 4 and a half. There were a couple times that we considered stopping at a hotel for the night because the rain was so bad. But we made it! The visit to relatives in New Jersey was pleasant but driving in New Jersey is not. At most intersections they don't let you turn left! You must turn right and go around a loop just to get back to the intersection in order to go left. Craziness! Their politicians should be run out of office for laws like that. We got lost on a couple of occasions thanks to that. On the way home we got lost again because of crazy road changes. And that my friends, simple set the stage for how the rest of the week went. It's not like anything terrible happened but nothing good happened either.
On a brighter note I finally finished my first online store. Three months ago I mentioned that I set up a small page for Wizkids Pirates of the Cursed Seas and that I hoped to develop a store out of that to sell some of my extras. Well I finally did it and got my first sale within the first couple days. Here is the link to the store: Pirates for Sale! I'll keep you posted on the growth or lack thereof of this new venture.
I also took some time to fix one of my other sites, substandardstudios.com. Apparently the blog portion of it hadn't functioned right for months.
I spent some time working on music as well but I wasn't nearly as productive as I had hoped to be with it or with many other things I had hoped to accomplished. Eh, life goes on.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Vacation
Next week I'll be taking a vacation from work for the first time in a year. Changing jobs a couple times during the past year has kept me from being able to take any amount of time off of work so this is a much needed break. My family and I will be taking a short trip to New Jersey to visit some relatives and then I'll be spending the rest of the week doing work around the house including recording some new songs and working on some websites. So I won't be at my job but I'll be doing work at home.
I think I'm going to take the week off from articles on here as well. After many political articles in a row I'm feeling a bit drained from all of it. Monday's article Electing a King, pretty much sums up the best explanation I can figure for what America is possibly about to do. The implications of not only the outcome of the presidential race but also senate races will have far reaching effects for many years to come and right now I just don't have the energy to keep writing about it. So I will return with new articles November 3rd, right before the election. And if I am as productive as I hope to be with my time off then hopefully I will be able to share some of what I do next week with all of you.
I think I'm going to take the week off from articles on here as well. After many political articles in a row I'm feeling a bit drained from all of it. Monday's article Electing a King, pretty much sums up the best explanation I can figure for what America is possibly about to do. The implications of not only the outcome of the presidential race but also senate races will have far reaching effects for many years to come and right now I just don't have the energy to keep writing about it. So I will return with new articles November 3rd, right before the election. And if I am as productive as I hope to be with my time off then hopefully I will be able to share some of what I do next week with all of you.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Catching Up With the Internet
I've spent the last four years on dialup internet. During that time I wasted countless hours waiting for pages to load and didn't go to many websites because I didn't have the time to wait. I also killed many website ideas I had during that time because managing them would have been impossible on dialup. As of a month and a half ago though I have finally rejoined the rest of the high speed world and am on a level playing field with my internet connection.
I came to a scary realization a couple week ago though. While I spent the last several years maintaining simplified websites to accommodate my connection, the rest of the internet was becoming bigger and better and I simply ignored what I couldn't do on my connection. Now though I realize that while I was stuck, the rest of the internet has passed me by. My web design and graphic design skills are severely out of date and if I want to be able to compete in the online world I need a major upgrade to my knowledge. I may have grown up with computers but kids today have grown up with internet capable computers and their skill level is accordingly greater in the online arena.
If you find that your skill set is also obsolete here are some subject areas I would recommend studying: css, xml, php, asp, javascript, internet marketing, and very importantly graphic design. The first several things I listed are the meat of what makes a site do what it does but the internet is increasingly a visually dazzling place and most sites don't need a really meaty backend to be able to perform their intended function. So if nothing else, try to look good. Good graphic design is often aided greatly by good graphic design software and that unfortunately isn't cheap. All of the graphics on all of my websites were made using Paint Shop Pro. Years ago I would have likened Paint Shop Pro to being really similar to but not quite as good as Photoshop, while keeping the price tag much cheaper than Photoshop. Unfortunately though in recent years the makers of Paint Shop Pro have really not kept pace with the tools that are now available in Photoshop.
There are a number of really great free tutorials scattered throughout the internet that could teach me any of the programming languages I listed. And that is where I plan to start when I am able to make the time. I haven't yet figured out how to resolve the graphic design problem but I'll work on it. We live in an online world and it changes with such frequency that it is far to easy to be left behind.
I came to a scary realization a couple week ago though. While I spent the last several years maintaining simplified websites to accommodate my connection, the rest of the internet was becoming bigger and better and I simply ignored what I couldn't do on my connection. Now though I realize that while I was stuck, the rest of the internet has passed me by. My web design and graphic design skills are severely out of date and if I want to be able to compete in the online world I need a major upgrade to my knowledge. I may have grown up with computers but kids today have grown up with internet capable computers and their skill level is accordingly greater in the online arena.
If you find that your skill set is also obsolete here are some subject areas I would recommend studying: css, xml, php, asp, javascript, internet marketing, and very importantly graphic design. The first several things I listed are the meat of what makes a site do what it does but the internet is increasingly a visually dazzling place and most sites don't need a really meaty backend to be able to perform their intended function. So if nothing else, try to look good. Good graphic design is often aided greatly by good graphic design software and that unfortunately isn't cheap. All of the graphics on all of my websites were made using Paint Shop Pro. Years ago I would have likened Paint Shop Pro to being really similar to but not quite as good as Photoshop, while keeping the price tag much cheaper than Photoshop. Unfortunately though in recent years the makers of Paint Shop Pro have really not kept pace with the tools that are now available in Photoshop.
There are a number of really great free tutorials scattered throughout the internet that could teach me any of the programming languages I listed. And that is where I plan to start when I am able to make the time. I haven't yet figured out how to resolve the graphic design problem but I'll work on it. We live in an online world and it changes with such frequency that it is far to easy to be left behind.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Electing a King
You know I was thinking about this whole situation with Obama's fast rise on the national scene. Many of the people who support him, do so with a fervor that is frightening and when they hear the facts about who he is and what he stands for they just shut it out not wanting to hear anything negative about this hero that they've lifted up. There are so many really scary things people are doing in the name of Obama, not the least of which is a bunch of teenagers dressed in camouflage doing a chant to Obama. All of these things reminded me of a story from the Bible, when the nation of Israel decided that they no longer needed or wanted the leadership of God in their nation. Instead they clamored for a king like all of their neighboring nations. They wanted to give power over their lives to someone on Earth instead of God. And so they lifted up Saul. He was tall, good looking, and a good speaker. At first everything was fine but then quickly turned sour. He killed people who disagreed with him. He grew jealous of anyone who got attention from the people and tried to kill them as well and in the process King Saul self-destructed and ended up tearing apart the country. The point is that Israel got exactly what they wanted. They got a king, who did what kings do and acted only in his best interests and not the interests of the people he was supposed to be leading.
Many people in America right now are clamoring for a king. I hope for the sake of the future of this nation, that we do not elect a king on November 4th. Of course though the story didn't end with King Saul for Israel. After his reign finally ended God gave Israel it's most famous king, King David. He guided the people back to a place of worship and close relationship with God. He made his own mistakes and his reign had it's own troubles. Even good kings have problems of course.
The point to all of this is that the United States of America was founded on the idea that no one person here on Earth should have the authority that the king of England did at the time. We find ourselves at a place in our nation's history where government involvement and control over our daily lives and over commerce has grown to a level never before seen since our founding. Barack Obama promises nothing but more government spending and more government involvement in our lives. John McCain wants to curb government spending and get government out of our way. That's what he says anyway, what he would do as president may be something different but with Obama we know for sure that he wants the federal government to have more power. We cannot forget the mistakes of the past. We cannot just blindly accept policies that grant more power to the president.
Many people in America right now are clamoring for a king. I hope for the sake of the future of this nation, that we do not elect a king on November 4th. Of course though the story didn't end with King Saul for Israel. After his reign finally ended God gave Israel it's most famous king, King David. He guided the people back to a place of worship and close relationship with God. He made his own mistakes and his reign had it's own troubles. Even good kings have problems of course.
The point to all of this is that the United States of America was founded on the idea that no one person here on Earth should have the authority that the king of England did at the time. We find ourselves at a place in our nation's history where government involvement and control over our daily lives and over commerce has grown to a level never before seen since our founding. Barack Obama promises nothing but more government spending and more government involvement in our lives. John McCain wants to curb government spending and get government out of our way. That's what he says anyway, what he would do as president may be something different but with Obama we know for sure that he wants the federal government to have more power. We cannot forget the mistakes of the past. We cannot just blindly accept policies that grant more power to the president.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Senator Government, Obama's New Nickname
I didn't have a chance to watch the second debate live so I had recorded it. I ended up only watching ten minutes of that debate before turning it off. I later deleted the recording, I just didn't want to hear the same garbage again. So when Wednesday night's debate began I didn't have much intention of watching it but I got sucked in unfortunately.
As of right now when I'm writing this I haven't seen any polls on who did better in the debate but I can guess what they will all say. The polls from liberal news organizations who have a liberal leaning audience are going to show that Obama won. But I felt that McCain won by a slim margin, and only slim because I realize that those who support Obama probably heard singing angels every time he spoke and felt that he did well.
I noticed a couple of interesting things in this debate in the character of each of the candidates. Let's look at Obama first.
I think he must be using a professional speech coach because he didn't do nearly as much of his usual stuttering that generally precedes anything but a scripted response. When McCain brought up his connections with Ayers and ACORN, Obama was completely dishonest about the nature and depth of those relationships and the nature of ACORN as an organization. Obama once again mentioned Joe Biden's ties to Scranton, Pennsylvania. This is simply an insult to the people of Pennsylvania. You hear more from the Obama campaign about Biden and Pennsylvania than you do about Biden and Delaware. Let's be clear, most people in Pennsylvania had probably never even heard of Joe Biden until he became the VP candidate. So to expect us to just vote for Obama-Biden because of some ancient ties that Biden has with Pennsylvania is insulting.
For McCain's part he did finally bring up Barack's character in front of a national audience but he didn't really go for it with full force and part of that was probably because of time constraints involved with each of the questions. McCain did very well at nailing Obama on a lot of issues but unfortunately for him he has the worst poker face in the world. Every time he nailed Obama on an issue, as soon as he was done speaking he looked very smug and self-satisfied Obama is a lot better at hiding his contempt for John McCain. To his credit I don't think I heard him use the word 'maverick' through the whole debate. If I hear McCain or Palin say the word 'maverick' one more time I think I might puke.
McCain did have a couple of great lines during the debate though. The first one was when he finally called Obama out on trying to make people think he is just like Bush. This probably isn't an exact quote but he said "If you wanted to run against President Bush you should have run for president four years ago." The other great statement from McCain was completely accidental but it was perfect. He misspoke and accidentally called Obama Senator Government. If you really listened to Obama's responses Wednesday night, his answer to almost every question included more government spending and more government involvement in our lives. Senator Government is the perfect name for him. All that he thinks of is more more more government.
Another great name that radio host Michael Savage came up with for Barack Obama was BO. Since it is somehow so offensive to mention his middle name as Hussein and in the tradition of referring to a president by their initials it would have to be BO instead of BHO. So if America is crazy enough to elect Barack Hussein Obama, when he turns out to stink as a president, everyone who had any sense about this guy will say "Well what did you expect? You elected a guy named BO."
Anyway, we've got three more weeks of all of this garbage to go. And then we're gonna get four years of whatever we deserve.
As of right now when I'm writing this I haven't seen any polls on who did better in the debate but I can guess what they will all say. The polls from liberal news organizations who have a liberal leaning audience are going to show that Obama won. But I felt that McCain won by a slim margin, and only slim because I realize that those who support Obama probably heard singing angels every time he spoke and felt that he did well.
I noticed a couple of interesting things in this debate in the character of each of the candidates. Let's look at Obama first.
I think he must be using a professional speech coach because he didn't do nearly as much of his usual stuttering that generally precedes anything but a scripted response. When McCain brought up his connections with Ayers and ACORN, Obama was completely dishonest about the nature and depth of those relationships and the nature of ACORN as an organization. Obama once again mentioned Joe Biden's ties to Scranton, Pennsylvania. This is simply an insult to the people of Pennsylvania. You hear more from the Obama campaign about Biden and Pennsylvania than you do about Biden and Delaware. Let's be clear, most people in Pennsylvania had probably never even heard of Joe Biden until he became the VP candidate. So to expect us to just vote for Obama-Biden because of some ancient ties that Biden has with Pennsylvania is insulting.
For McCain's part he did finally bring up Barack's character in front of a national audience but he didn't really go for it with full force and part of that was probably because of time constraints involved with each of the questions. McCain did very well at nailing Obama on a lot of issues but unfortunately for him he has the worst poker face in the world. Every time he nailed Obama on an issue, as soon as he was done speaking he looked very smug and self-satisfied Obama is a lot better at hiding his contempt for John McCain. To his credit I don't think I heard him use the word 'maverick' through the whole debate. If I hear McCain or Palin say the word 'maverick' one more time I think I might puke.
McCain did have a couple of great lines during the debate though. The first one was when he finally called Obama out on trying to make people think he is just like Bush. This probably isn't an exact quote but he said "If you wanted to run against President Bush you should have run for president four years ago." The other great statement from McCain was completely accidental but it was perfect. He misspoke and accidentally called Obama Senator Government. If you really listened to Obama's responses Wednesday night, his answer to almost every question included more government spending and more government involvement in our lives. Senator Government is the perfect name for him. All that he thinks of is more more more government.
Another great name that radio host Michael Savage came up with for Barack Obama was BO. Since it is somehow so offensive to mention his middle name as Hussein and in the tradition of referring to a president by their initials it would have to be BO instead of BHO. So if America is crazy enough to elect Barack Hussein Obama, when he turns out to stink as a president, everyone who had any sense about this guy will say "Well what did you expect? You elected a guy named BO."
Anyway, we've got three more weeks of all of this garbage to go. And then we're gonna get four years of whatever we deserve.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Examining Obama's Finances
I really thought I was done with the political topics for awhile but there are just too many oddities in regards to Barack Obama and money that need to be seriously examined by the American people before they vote on November 4th. I don't know that I can tie all of these things together into one coherent article so I'll just list them and briefly discuss each one.
His Spending Plan - Obama has plans for nearly one trillion dollars in new spending if he gets elected. Where is this money coming from? Washington just rushed through a $700 billion bailout bill that had $150 billion in extra unrelated spending tacked onto it. We also just borrowed $500 billion from China. Obama wants to spend an extra trillion? That's just frightening.
Freddie Mac - Barack Obama blames the current administration for the current economic woes. That statement is completely flawed and ignores certain facts about the Carter administration and the Clinton administration. In just three short years in the senate Obama received the second most campaign financing from Freddie Mac compared to any other senator.
ACORN - Barack Obama worked closely with ACORN in the nineties and they in turn helped him to get elected to the senate. He served as one of their lawyers in a lawsuit against Citibank, in which ACORN was trying to force them to make housing loans to poor people who couldn't afford a home. Anyone still believe his lies about the housing issues being Bush's fault? Earlier this year Obama gave ACORN $800,000. ACORN is now under investigation in ten states for voter fraud.
Campaign Spending - Shortly after Sarah Palin's addition to the Republican ticket Obama boasted that his campaign spends more in a month than the entire yearly budget of the town Palin was mayor of. First his statement was completely dismissive of the fact that she has been a governor for the past couple years. Secondly, it again shows a complete lack of understanding of what fiscal responsibility is. America doesn't need a president that boasts about how much money they spend, we need a president who will cut spending.
His campaign spending raises another question as well: If he's spending $40 million a month on his campaign, where is all of that money coming from? Obama has spent the last several months trying to pit the poor people against the rich. He's been trying to play the part of Robin Hood promising to raise taxes for the rich and give it to the poor. Many poor people of course are out there saying "yeah, stick it to those stinkin' rich guys why should they have it all?" Let's just forget about the fact that many rich people are rich because they worked hard to beecome rich. So Obama is going for mass appeal here but there is still the question of where $40 million a month is coming from. It's certainly not coming from the poor people that he is trying to get to hate the rich people. They don't have that kind of money. Nope, the money is coming from rich people contributing to his campaign. So why are they giving so much money to him if he hates them so much(he is also quite wealthy of course). It's because they know that he is full of crap. He doesn't hate rich people, he loves them. He loves his elite friendships. Obama cares nothing for the poor people of this country, heck his half brother lives in a shack on $12 a year. This is a guy who says that he is his brothers keeper. He's simply trying buy the election and when it's all over if he does win those poor people won't be any better off for the rich people paying higher taxes.
His Spending Plan - Obama has plans for nearly one trillion dollars in new spending if he gets elected. Where is this money coming from? Washington just rushed through a $700 billion bailout bill that had $150 billion in extra unrelated spending tacked onto it. We also just borrowed $500 billion from China. Obama wants to spend an extra trillion? That's just frightening.
Freddie Mac - Barack Obama blames the current administration for the current economic woes. That statement is completely flawed and ignores certain facts about the Carter administration and the Clinton administration. In just three short years in the senate Obama received the second most campaign financing from Freddie Mac compared to any other senator.
ACORN - Barack Obama worked closely with ACORN in the nineties and they in turn helped him to get elected to the senate. He served as one of their lawyers in a lawsuit against Citibank, in which ACORN was trying to force them to make housing loans to poor people who couldn't afford a home. Anyone still believe his lies about the housing issues being Bush's fault? Earlier this year Obama gave ACORN $800,000. ACORN is now under investigation in ten states for voter fraud.
Campaign Spending - Shortly after Sarah Palin's addition to the Republican ticket Obama boasted that his campaign spends more in a month than the entire yearly budget of the town Palin was mayor of. First his statement was completely dismissive of the fact that she has been a governor for the past couple years. Secondly, it again shows a complete lack of understanding of what fiscal responsibility is. America doesn't need a president that boasts about how much money they spend, we need a president who will cut spending.
His campaign spending raises another question as well: If he's spending $40 million a month on his campaign, where is all of that money coming from? Obama has spent the last several months trying to pit the poor people against the rich. He's been trying to play the part of Robin Hood promising to raise taxes for the rich and give it to the poor. Many poor people of course are out there saying "yeah, stick it to those stinkin' rich guys why should they have it all?" Let's just forget about the fact that many rich people are rich because they worked hard to beecome rich. So Obama is going for mass appeal here but there is still the question of where $40 million a month is coming from. It's certainly not coming from the poor people that he is trying to get to hate the rich people. They don't have that kind of money. Nope, the money is coming from rich people contributing to his campaign. So why are they giving so much money to him if he hates them so much(he is also quite wealthy of course). It's because they know that he is full of crap. He doesn't hate rich people, he loves them. He loves his elite friendships. Obama cares nothing for the poor people of this country, heck his half brother lives in a shack on $12 a year. This is a guy who says that he is his brothers keeper. He's simply trying buy the election and when it's all over if he does win those poor people won't be any better off for the rich people paying higher taxes.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Economic Immunity
With all of the panic driven market changes of late and the government takeover of much of the financial sector many people are worrying about their financial futures. Analysts are having to change their predictions about the future of the economy on an almost daily basis and usually not in a positive way. There are two ways for certain to come away from this economic meltdown unscathed. There are plenty of other possibilities as well but these two are certain. One is that you could be the CEO of one of these corporations that you ran into the ground and made off with millions from. In that case you are probably in pretty good shape yet. The other certain way to ride out the economic storm unscathed is to be self-sufficient
My regular readers have seen me write about self-sufficiency in the past and it dawned on me the other day that if someone was self-sufficient then all of this stuff that is going on would barely even register in their lives. Take for example the Amish, they are certainly not 100% self-sufficient but they are probably about as close as anyone in America. You know, except for some crazy cults living in the mountains somewhere I suppose. I searched the internet for articles discussing the economic downturn and it's affect on Amish communities. You know what I couldn't find a single article. The reason that they are unaffected is because they don't have mortgages, they don't have money in the stock market, and they don't have much use for oil. They grow their own food and make their own clothes. So there are lessons we can learn from the Amish.
As I've discussed in the past, I am very inconsistent in my approach to self-sufficiency. The other day I had to come to terms with the reality that my house is not located somewhere where micro-hydroelectric was an option. Wind probably wouldn't be very effective for me. And a solar system is well outside of my price range. But I also realized that I spend much more on food in a year than I do on electricity, we won't even discuss how much I spend on heating oil in a year. Though we do grow a very small percentage of our food, if we were to increase that amount a good deal then we would gain a certain level of immunity to world economic issues.
Food prices skyrocketing? Not a problem. Another tainted vegetable scare? That's okay. Can't afford the gas to drive to the grocery store? Hey no big deal, there's food right outside the door. I have no delusions of ever being 100% self-sufficient but I can build myself a layer of protection from the world's economic woes by taking steps in that direction. And you can too, maybe you don't have the room to grow much food (although converting your yard into a garden would be a much better use of space) but perhaps you could generate your own electricity and know that even if you lose your job in all this mess, at least the lights will stay on.
My regular readers have seen me write about self-sufficiency in the past and it dawned on me the other day that if someone was self-sufficient then all of this stuff that is going on would barely even register in their lives. Take for example the Amish, they are certainly not 100% self-sufficient but they are probably about as close as anyone in America. You know, except for some crazy cults living in the mountains somewhere I suppose. I searched the internet for articles discussing the economic downturn and it's affect on Amish communities. You know what I couldn't find a single article. The reason that they are unaffected is because they don't have mortgages, they don't have money in the stock market, and they don't have much use for oil. They grow their own food and make their own clothes. So there are lessons we can learn from the Amish.
As I've discussed in the past, I am very inconsistent in my approach to self-sufficiency. The other day I had to come to terms with the reality that my house is not located somewhere where micro-hydroelectric was an option. Wind probably wouldn't be very effective for me. And a solar system is well outside of my price range. But I also realized that I spend much more on food in a year than I do on electricity, we won't even discuss how much I spend on heating oil in a year. Though we do grow a very small percentage of our food, if we were to increase that amount a good deal then we would gain a certain level of immunity to world economic issues.
Food prices skyrocketing? Not a problem. Another tainted vegetable scare? That's okay. Can't afford the gas to drive to the grocery store? Hey no big deal, there's food right outside the door. I have no delusions of ever being 100% self-sufficient but I can build myself a layer of protection from the world's economic woes by taking steps in that direction. And you can too, maybe you don't have the room to grow much food (although converting your yard into a garden would be a much better use of space) but perhaps you could generate your own electricity and know that even if you lose your job in all this mess, at least the lights will stay on.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Sound Investments
A lot of people have been losing great sums of money on the stock market lately and I don't think that things will stabilize for quite some time yet. Me personally, I have nothing invested in the stock market and I'm quite glad of that at the moment. That being said, I am not offering financial advice on investments to anyone reading this but I will say what I would invest in were it me. Right now I wouldn't put anything into the stock market, not until things settle down a little bit. But if I was intent on investing something into the market there are some areas I would look at.
First I would stay far away from any corporations that derive most of their income from hardgoods and/or services. When things get really bad in the economy people are going to spend less money on gadgets and material things and will be less apt to pay someone for technical or financial services.
What I would look at are corporations that deal largely with consumables. People don't need a new computer but they do need to eat. Food manufacturers, grocery chains, and pet store chains are what I would look at. I'm not saying I expect these corporations to show big gains but I expect them to be more stable than much of the rest of the market.
Energy is another area to look at. A barrel of oil is way down in price and could continue to drop. Nothing has really changed in the stability of the energy market though which means we could be just one natural disaster, one crazy dictator, or one terrorist attack away from higher oil prices again. It's a bleak way to look at things but for the long term I believe energy is still a decent place to invest.
Again, these are just my thoughts on where I might put my money if I was so inclined. Right now though I'm not investing in anything. Things need to stabilize a bit first for me.
First I would stay far away from any corporations that derive most of their income from hardgoods and/or services. When things get really bad in the economy people are going to spend less money on gadgets and material things and will be less apt to pay someone for technical or financial services.
What I would look at are corporations that deal largely with consumables. People don't need a new computer but they do need to eat. Food manufacturers, grocery chains, and pet store chains are what I would look at. I'm not saying I expect these corporations to show big gains but I expect them to be more stable than much of the rest of the market.
Energy is another area to look at. A barrel of oil is way down in price and could continue to drop. Nothing has really changed in the stability of the energy market though which means we could be just one natural disaster, one crazy dictator, or one terrorist attack away from higher oil prices again. It's a bleak way to look at things but for the long term I believe energy is still a decent place to invest.
Again, these are just my thoughts on where I might put my money if I was so inclined. Right now though I'm not investing in anything. Things need to stabilize a bit first for me.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Breaking the Two Party System
The youngest generation of eligible voters probably barely remembers Ross Perot, that funny looking billionaire that spent a fortune trying to win the presidency as an independent candidate. Perot did as well as anyone other than a Republican or Democrat has done during my lifetime. Similarly many Americans probably don't realize that there are a large number of political parties in our country. That is a failing of modern media formats. We only see what the media wants us to see unless we really dig for it. But if you don't know what you are digging for then how do you know where to dig?
Each presidential election cycle all of the minor parties hold their own nominating conventions far away from all of the lights and noise and splendor of the Democrats and the Republicans. And each presidential election cycle these minor party candidates will only garner a few thousand votes. So why do they try? Why do they even bother with the pretense of running for president when they know they have no chance? Ross Perot had the best shot and that was only because he invested millions of his own money in the cause. None of the current crop of candidates is doing any such thing. So why do they run? The answer is probably not the answer that you might think from a candidate who doesn't have a chance: It's power, they all want power.
I am certain that the candidates from the Constitution party, the Libertarian party, the Green party, and whatever other parties are out there are running for office because they believe that their ideas are better and that they can do things better than either of the two parties in power. But putting resources into a presidential election that you are sure to lose shows a real lack of vision. These candidates from the various parties are not taking the long view of things, even through inevitable failure they press on to try and make themselves known.
Allow me to explain how a third party would be able to reach the presidency. First, you can't start at the top. No one knows you or your party and the media will shut you out. So just forget about the presidency for awhile, forget about a lot of national level elections. If you want the country's political climate to change and the policies to reflect your views you must take the long view. You must start at the bottom with local races all across the country. Firmly entrenched at the local level you then move onto state postings, once you have a strong foothold there then you move to national level races. Finally after a 30-40 year journey then you put up a candidate from your party that has become known nationally because even though you are likely still in the minority you are a big enough party to not just be ignored.
I take issue with the presidential candidates from these minor parties. In spite of knowing that their efforts will fail, they press on. When instead they could be devoting time and resources into building a localized movement that would eventually move to the national stage. Because if they truly believed in their cause and the ideas that they are espousing then that is what they would be doing. Instead they are propping themselves up and wasting their party's limited resources doing it.
I know that a lot of people feel in this election that they once again are choosing between the lesser of two evils. Thank the media for propping these two gentlemen up during the primary season. I would strongly discourage you from voting for a third party for the presidential election and instead vote for who you see as the lesser of two evils after doing plenty of research and finding out who these guys actually are. But in the smaller races I think you should definitely vote for third party candidates if they in fact reflect your world view. Change never starts at the top, it always starts at the bottom and works it's way up. Politicians are in office to serve us, not the other way around. And I don't mean that they should be serving us cash on a silver platter. Remember that cash was once yours anyway, they just took it from you through taxes, said they needed it for something and then it turns out that that something was to just buy your vote with your own money. Back to the topic at hand though...start the movement from the bottom and the top will change eventually but don't throw away your vote for president by voting for a third party this cycle.
Each presidential election cycle all of the minor parties hold their own nominating conventions far away from all of the lights and noise and splendor of the Democrats and the Republicans. And each presidential election cycle these minor party candidates will only garner a few thousand votes. So why do they try? Why do they even bother with the pretense of running for president when they know they have no chance? Ross Perot had the best shot and that was only because he invested millions of his own money in the cause. None of the current crop of candidates is doing any such thing. So why do they run? The answer is probably not the answer that you might think from a candidate who doesn't have a chance: It's power, they all want power.
I am certain that the candidates from the Constitution party, the Libertarian party, the Green party, and whatever other parties are out there are running for office because they believe that their ideas are better and that they can do things better than either of the two parties in power. But putting resources into a presidential election that you are sure to lose shows a real lack of vision. These candidates from the various parties are not taking the long view of things, even through inevitable failure they press on to try and make themselves known.
Allow me to explain how a third party would be able to reach the presidency. First, you can't start at the top. No one knows you or your party and the media will shut you out. So just forget about the presidency for awhile, forget about a lot of national level elections. If you want the country's political climate to change and the policies to reflect your views you must take the long view. You must start at the bottom with local races all across the country. Firmly entrenched at the local level you then move onto state postings, once you have a strong foothold there then you move to national level races. Finally after a 30-40 year journey then you put up a candidate from your party that has become known nationally because even though you are likely still in the minority you are a big enough party to not just be ignored.
I take issue with the presidential candidates from these minor parties. In spite of knowing that their efforts will fail, they press on. When instead they could be devoting time and resources into building a localized movement that would eventually move to the national stage. Because if they truly believed in their cause and the ideas that they are espousing then that is what they would be doing. Instead they are propping themselves up and wasting their party's limited resources doing it.
I know that a lot of people feel in this election that they once again are choosing between the lesser of two evils. Thank the media for propping these two gentlemen up during the primary season. I would strongly discourage you from voting for a third party for the presidential election and instead vote for who you see as the lesser of two evils after doing plenty of research and finding out who these guys actually are. But in the smaller races I think you should definitely vote for third party candidates if they in fact reflect your world view. Change never starts at the top, it always starts at the bottom and works it's way up. Politicians are in office to serve us, not the other way around. And I don't mean that they should be serving us cash on a silver platter. Remember that cash was once yours anyway, they just took it from you through taxes, said they needed it for something and then it turns out that that something was to just buy your vote with your own money. Back to the topic at hand though...start the movement from the bottom and the top will change eventually but don't throw away your vote for president by voting for a third party this cycle.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Uninformed Voters
Sometime last week we received some John McCain and Barack Obama dog chew toys at work. This sparked a bit of political discussion and for the first time I came face to face with something I have known exists but had never experienced in someone I know: Voter ignorance. This one woman that I work with whom I would generally regard as pretty intelligent and is a double major in college put voter ignorance on display in grand fashion.
I asked her if she had a dog which one would she want her dog to be chewing on, the McCain doll or the Obama doll. She responded that it would be McCain because "I hate McCain." I asked her why that is and she said it's because "he's so old and just like Bush." She also added that she is going to vote for Obama because she is a Democrat.
Obviously Obama and his allies are making their message heard about McCain's age and the lie about him being just like Bush. I was a bit saddened by her response. For someone who is seemingly intelligent in other areas of life to make such ignorant statements shows us the state of the American public. People are making voting decisions not based on facts but on vague feelings propagated by the media.
Look if someone wants to vote for Obama then fine. If someone wants to vote for McCain then fine. But please, please America do so from a place of knowledge and not ignorance. Learn who these guys really are. Research what it is they have done with their lives and how they got where they are today. Look at their records and not just the twisted half-truths that both of them spew from the debate platform. Don't just take their word for it. Do go beyond the speeches and the press releases and the mainstream media. Read articles that support them and the ones that oppose them. Check the facts. In last Thursday's Vice Presidential Debate Joe Biden said something very interesting. He said that he never questions the motives of his fellow Senators. I'm sure Senator Biden would love for none of us to question the his or Obama's motives on a number of things but that is exactly what we must do. We must know the truth about who these people are and not just the doctored truths of multi-million dollar campaigns.
I also need to address this nonsense of voting Democrat or Republican because "that's what I am." The only people who can truly call themselves Democrats or Republicans are those that are officially a member of that party and do or have served in a public office as a member of one of those parties. The rest of America are just individuals who get to vote one way or the other. Our votes should not be based on what our parents voted. We should not simply vote for one party because that's what we've always done. There is corruption in both parties and it runs deep.
When determining how to cast your vote, ignore which party the person represents for a moment and truly think about which person in the election is going to make the right choices for America. Which one has the strength of character to take us in a direction that will allow us to prosper. Ask yourself which one best reflects the values that this country was founded upon. Ask yourself if our nation will be better off for having this person serve in office.
Half of Americans already don't vote, we cannot afford to have the ones that are voting doing so from a place of ignorance of the facts. If it means you vote for a party that you never have before then so be it. Please educate yourselves. Listen to talk radio, watch cable news stations, and utilize the internet. Then go and educate your friends.
I asked her if she had a dog which one would she want her dog to be chewing on, the McCain doll or the Obama doll. She responded that it would be McCain because "I hate McCain." I asked her why that is and she said it's because "he's so old and just like Bush." She also added that she is going to vote for Obama because she is a Democrat.
Obviously Obama and his allies are making their message heard about McCain's age and the lie about him being just like Bush. I was a bit saddened by her response. For someone who is seemingly intelligent in other areas of life to make such ignorant statements shows us the state of the American public. People are making voting decisions not based on facts but on vague feelings propagated by the media.
Look if someone wants to vote for Obama then fine. If someone wants to vote for McCain then fine. But please, please America do so from a place of knowledge and not ignorance. Learn who these guys really are. Research what it is they have done with their lives and how they got where they are today. Look at their records and not just the twisted half-truths that both of them spew from the debate platform. Don't just take their word for it. Do go beyond the speeches and the press releases and the mainstream media. Read articles that support them and the ones that oppose them. Check the facts. In last Thursday's Vice Presidential Debate Joe Biden said something very interesting. He said that he never questions the motives of his fellow Senators. I'm sure Senator Biden would love for none of us to question the his or Obama's motives on a number of things but that is exactly what we must do. We must know the truth about who these people are and not just the doctored truths of multi-million dollar campaigns.
I also need to address this nonsense of voting Democrat or Republican because "that's what I am." The only people who can truly call themselves Democrats or Republicans are those that are officially a member of that party and do or have served in a public office as a member of one of those parties. The rest of America are just individuals who get to vote one way or the other. Our votes should not be based on what our parents voted. We should not simply vote for one party because that's what we've always done. There is corruption in both parties and it runs deep.
When determining how to cast your vote, ignore which party the person represents for a moment and truly think about which person in the election is going to make the right choices for America. Which one has the strength of character to take us in a direction that will allow us to prosper. Ask yourself which one best reflects the values that this country was founded upon. Ask yourself if our nation will be better off for having this person serve in office.
Half of Americans already don't vote, we cannot afford to have the ones that are voting doing so from a place of ignorance of the facts. If it means you vote for a party that you never have before then so be it. Please educate yourselves. Listen to talk radio, watch cable news stations, and utilize the internet. Then go and educate your friends.
Friday, October 3, 2008
They're Not Bailing Out America, They're Selling Out America
Earlier this week the Senate passed version two of a fundamentally flawed bill that will do extensive damage to the principles of our nation's financial system. Today the House of Representatives will vote on this bill and it is expected to pass this time around. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 is opposed by 70-90% of Americans. The bailout bill has passed the Senate for a second time and now it appears that it will pass through the House the second time around. So if an overwhelming majority of Americans are against this bailout for corporations then why are the people who are supposed to be representing us passing this bill? The really terrible thing is that the second time around the bill is actually far worse than the first time.
I spent a good amount of time earlier today reading through as much of the 451 page document as I could stomach. Almost none of us want Wallstreet bailed out and that is bad enough but here are the things in the bill that you might not be aware of: It provides tax breaks for the steel industry, it provides money for the wool industry, it provides money for coal research, it gives $129 million to the Rum industry!, it provides a tax break for a company that makes wooden arrows for children!, it gives $18 million to the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund, and so on. There are also provisions for tax credits for people who buy household appliances that are energy efficient and were manufactured this year or the next two years.
As you read through that list there were probably a couple things that didn't seem so bad and there were probably several things that made your blood boil. A tax break for a company that makes wooden arrows for children??? Someone needs to find out which senator put that in the bill and if they are from a state that allows senators to be recalled then the people of that state need to rise up and use their power to recall that senator. The same could go for any of those other earmarks. The point is that whether you find any of the things that were added to the bill to be good or not doesn't matter. None of these things should have been included in the bill. Our politicians have been busy telling us over the past couple weeks that this is going to be as bad as the Great Depression. First of all I don't believe them. Because if it was really that bad then why did it take an extra 150 billion dollars in earmark spending to be put on the bill before enough of them would vote for it? If this was really about what was good for the country then why couldn't they just vote on the bill on it's own merit? The truth is that they don't care about what happens to the country. They only care about advancing their own careers. They care about the special interest groups that fund their campaigns. They certainly do not care about their constituents.
You need to look at who voted for this and who didn't. Both major party presidential candidates voted for this bill. Shame on them. And as I'm writing this I put the vice presidential debate on mute because I just couldn't bear to listen to the lies and half truths anymore. I live in Pennsylvania and unfortunately both of our Senators voted yes on this bill. Republican Arlen Specter and Democrat Bob Casey Jr. Today I wrote both of them an email which I've copied here so you can read. Perhaps you would like to use it to send to your own senators.
Dear Senator [Insert Name Here],
During this time of economic upheaval in our nation it saddens me greatly to see you vote yes on the bailout bill. This is a bill that 70-90% of Americans are against and certainly that would apply in Pennsylvania as well. The thing is though Senator, that Americans are against the core of what the bill stands for, that alone was enough to have the American people set against it. Now though you and your fellow Senators have packed it full of tax breaks for special interests and added more costs to an already costly bill. Provisions for Wool? Really? How about Rum? Here's a good one: a tax break for a company that makes wooden arrows for children! The list goes on and on. I read through the 451 page bill and frankly, I was sick to my stomach as I did so, knowing that both Senators from Pennsylvania had signed on to this atrocity of legislation.
You and your friends in Washington have shown once again that you do not have America's best interests at heart. Rest assured that when you are up for re-election, I will be voting against you.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
I honestly don't expect to get a response from either of these gentlemen but if I do I'll be sure to post it on here.
Whether the bill passes or fails in the House of Representatives you need to look at who your representatives are and remember their names. Remember this day of infamy, this day when our politicians have continued their ways of greed and corruption to sell out America. When these men and women are up for re-election, vote them out. Also remember though the ones who voted against it. Whether or not it passes you should write to them and thank them for the stand they have made against this unconstitutional bill.
The President, both major party presidential candidates, and far too many senators and representatives support this garbage piece of legislation. A couple years ago here in Pennsylvania the state legislature held a vote late at night to give themselves a pay raise. When the people found out about it they were angry and they got organized with their anger. We voted almost every one of them out of office that was up for re-election. You corrupt politicians in Washington had better look out because the people are angry and we will not forget what you have done here. You will be voted out of office.
I spent a good amount of time earlier today reading through as much of the 451 page document as I could stomach. Almost none of us want Wallstreet bailed out and that is bad enough but here are the things in the bill that you might not be aware of: It provides tax breaks for the steel industry, it provides money for the wool industry, it provides money for coal research, it gives $129 million to the Rum industry!, it provides a tax break for a company that makes wooden arrows for children!, it gives $18 million to the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund, and so on. There are also provisions for tax credits for people who buy household appliances that are energy efficient and were manufactured this year or the next two years.
As you read through that list there were probably a couple things that didn't seem so bad and there were probably several things that made your blood boil. A tax break for a company that makes wooden arrows for children??? Someone needs to find out which senator put that in the bill and if they are from a state that allows senators to be recalled then the people of that state need to rise up and use their power to recall that senator. The same could go for any of those other earmarks. The point is that whether you find any of the things that were added to the bill to be good or not doesn't matter. None of these things should have been included in the bill. Our politicians have been busy telling us over the past couple weeks that this is going to be as bad as the Great Depression. First of all I don't believe them. Because if it was really that bad then why did it take an extra 150 billion dollars in earmark spending to be put on the bill before enough of them would vote for it? If this was really about what was good for the country then why couldn't they just vote on the bill on it's own merit? The truth is that they don't care about what happens to the country. They only care about advancing their own careers. They care about the special interest groups that fund their campaigns. They certainly do not care about their constituents.
You need to look at who voted for this and who didn't. Both major party presidential candidates voted for this bill. Shame on them. And as I'm writing this I put the vice presidential debate on mute because I just couldn't bear to listen to the lies and half truths anymore. I live in Pennsylvania and unfortunately both of our Senators voted yes on this bill. Republican Arlen Specter and Democrat Bob Casey Jr. Today I wrote both of them an email which I've copied here so you can read. Perhaps you would like to use it to send to your own senators.
Dear Senator [Insert Name Here],
During this time of economic upheaval in our nation it saddens me greatly to see you vote yes on the bailout bill. This is a bill that 70-90% of Americans are against and certainly that would apply in Pennsylvania as well. The thing is though Senator, that Americans are against the core of what the bill stands for, that alone was enough to have the American people set against it. Now though you and your fellow Senators have packed it full of tax breaks for special interests and added more costs to an already costly bill. Provisions for Wool? Really? How about Rum? Here's a good one: a tax break for a company that makes wooden arrows for children! The list goes on and on. I read through the 451 page bill and frankly, I was sick to my stomach as I did so, knowing that both Senators from Pennsylvania had signed on to this atrocity of legislation.
You and your friends in Washington have shown once again that you do not have America's best interests at heart. Rest assured that when you are up for re-election, I will be voting against you.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
I honestly don't expect to get a response from either of these gentlemen but if I do I'll be sure to post it on here.
Whether the bill passes or fails in the House of Representatives you need to look at who your representatives are and remember their names. Remember this day of infamy, this day when our politicians have continued their ways of greed and corruption to sell out America. When these men and women are up for re-election, vote them out. Also remember though the ones who voted against it. Whether or not it passes you should write to them and thank them for the stand they have made against this unconstitutional bill.
The President, both major party presidential candidates, and far too many senators and representatives support this garbage piece of legislation. A couple years ago here in Pennsylvania the state legislature held a vote late at night to give themselves a pay raise. When the people found out about it they were angry and they got organized with their anger. We voted almost every one of them out of office that was up for re-election. You corrupt politicians in Washington had better look out because the people are angry and we will not forget what you have done here. You will be voted out of office.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The Economy and the First Debate
I'm sure by now that many of you are sick of hearing commentary about Friday's presidential debate and some of you probably never wanted to hear any commentary. I have no intention of dissecting all of the various nuances of what took place Friday night but there was one aspect of it that I think is important and should be discussed. And that is how the candidates view what is going on with the economy.
Moderator Jim Lehrer posed a question about how the current financial crisis would affect the spending plans that each candidate had put forward. Barack Obama said that some aspects of his plan might not be able to happen that some things might be delayed but that there were aspects of his plan that were necessary. He then went on to list a number of things he viewed as necessary and didn't name anything specific that he would have to cut back on.
Next McCain said that he would consider a freeze on spending in regards to the current financial state, that's a big contrast. Jim Lehrer then pressed Obama on the issue trying to get him to name anything specific that he would have to give up. After his usual stuttering Obama finally managed to spit out a sentence about how some aspects of his energy plan might be delayed.
Let's break this down a bit. Obama's plan calls for $800 Billion in new spending. McCain wants to cut government spending. The one area where Obama conceded he might have to give up was possibly some aspects of his energy plan. I take issue with this. Whether or not his energy plan is any good, the very thing that this country doesn't need is to abandon a push for energy independence in favor of increased spending on government programs that will only serve to create more of a feudal state with the lowly subjects completely dependent on the government. We won't even go into the fact that his plan of being off of foreign oil in ten years is impossible.
There was another economic aspect of the debate that struck me as interesting. Several times Obama used the phrase "tax revenue" in regards to not knowing what to expect in government finances. For whatever reason his repeated use of this phrase, coupled with his $800 billion in extra spending, and his unwillingness to give any of that up made me shudder a little bit. This guy wants our money, his VP thinks paying higher taxes is patriotic, he wants to be Karl Marx in a Robin Hood outfit with his spending plan. When faced with a question about cutting areas of his spending plan he stammered and muddled his way through the question. You know why? Because spending less had never crossed his mind. Using less taxpayer money for his pet projects and his vote buying policies had never even come up in campaign strategy sessions.
Put aside for a moment what he said about tax cuts for 95% of Americans and look at the whole of what he had to say about spending and taxes. If he gets his way with higher taxes for business, you will certainly need any tax cuts you can get because businesses will be raising their prices to try and stay afloat.
Here's the point of all of this. I'm no fan of either of the candidates but I can't fathom why in some polls (prior to Friday's debate) Obama was seen as stronger on the economy than McCain. This is a man who recently equated spending $40 million a month on his campaign to valid executive experience. Here's a tip for you Obama: If you want to convince people that you can have a balanced budget and help the economy, it's probably not a bright idea to show how good you are at spending money as an experience qualifier.
There are many issues at stake in this election and as has happened many times in the past, whoever gets elected will not fulfill all of their promises and not live up to the hype that their voters had hoped. I'm not going to waste time on this blog trying to make a case for or against either candidate on every issue but I think on the economy the choice is clear. A candidate who stares in the face of a $700 billion bailout and can't even fathom giving up his $800 billion in new spending is someone that I think would be dangerous to have sitting in the Oval Office.
Moderator Jim Lehrer posed a question about how the current financial crisis would affect the spending plans that each candidate had put forward. Barack Obama said that some aspects of his plan might not be able to happen that some things might be delayed but that there were aspects of his plan that were necessary. He then went on to list a number of things he viewed as necessary and didn't name anything specific that he would have to cut back on.
Next McCain said that he would consider a freeze on spending in regards to the current financial state, that's a big contrast. Jim Lehrer then pressed Obama on the issue trying to get him to name anything specific that he would have to give up. After his usual stuttering Obama finally managed to spit out a sentence about how some aspects of his energy plan might be delayed.
Let's break this down a bit. Obama's plan calls for $800 Billion in new spending. McCain wants to cut government spending. The one area where Obama conceded he might have to give up was possibly some aspects of his energy plan. I take issue with this. Whether or not his energy plan is any good, the very thing that this country doesn't need is to abandon a push for energy independence in favor of increased spending on government programs that will only serve to create more of a feudal state with the lowly subjects completely dependent on the government. We won't even go into the fact that his plan of being off of foreign oil in ten years is impossible.
There was another economic aspect of the debate that struck me as interesting. Several times Obama used the phrase "tax revenue" in regards to not knowing what to expect in government finances. For whatever reason his repeated use of this phrase, coupled with his $800 billion in extra spending, and his unwillingness to give any of that up made me shudder a little bit. This guy wants our money, his VP thinks paying higher taxes is patriotic, he wants to be Karl Marx in a Robin Hood outfit with his spending plan. When faced with a question about cutting areas of his spending plan he stammered and muddled his way through the question. You know why? Because spending less had never crossed his mind. Using less taxpayer money for his pet projects and his vote buying policies had never even come up in campaign strategy sessions.
Put aside for a moment what he said about tax cuts for 95% of Americans and look at the whole of what he had to say about spending and taxes. If he gets his way with higher taxes for business, you will certainly need any tax cuts you can get because businesses will be raising their prices to try and stay afloat.
Here's the point of all of this. I'm no fan of either of the candidates but I can't fathom why in some polls (prior to Friday's debate) Obama was seen as stronger on the economy than McCain. This is a man who recently equated spending $40 million a month on his campaign to valid executive experience. Here's a tip for you Obama: If you want to convince people that you can have a balanced budget and help the economy, it's probably not a bright idea to show how good you are at spending money as an experience qualifier.
There are many issues at stake in this election and as has happened many times in the past, whoever gets elected will not fulfill all of their promises and not live up to the hype that their voters had hoped. I'm not going to waste time on this blog trying to make a case for or against either candidate on every issue but I think on the economy the choice is clear. A candidate who stares in the face of a $700 billion bailout and can't even fathom giving up his $800 billion in new spending is someone that I think would be dangerous to have sitting in the Oval Office.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Driven to Succeed
There is a small group of people I work with that work on commission, though they rarely make any commission. They spend hours on end some days when business is slow just sitting around talking amongst themselves. Their hourly rate isn't much better than they could get at McDonalds and so you'd wonder why they don't put some effort into making more sales. I tried to address this with them the other day and one of them flat out told me that they didn't care about making their commission. This in spite of the fact that their jobs could be paying quite well if they were actually generating sales.
I've marveled at this for some time that some people just don't seem to have any drive to succeed and are perfectly happy with that. There are some people who need to be doing, be creating, be striving for something better in order to be happy. And there are those who are happy simply being alive. Neither is right or wrong and that people are all wired differently. I believe that society needs a good mix of both in order to function well.
But those of us who are driven to do something more are not immune to life's brainless pleasures either . The danger comes when these things takeover too much of our lives. The kid who neglects practicing his guitar to play Guitar Hero might become an expert at Guitar Hero. One thing is for certain though: He still has no idea how to play the guitar, he's just really good at a digital version of whack-a-mole.
The challenge for those who are driven to succeed is to remember to slow down and enjoy life while not getting carried away into mental laziness. And the challenge for people who do not have this drive is to be willing to stretch for it once in a while and see what is beyond just being alive. I realize that I'm making very broad generalizations about the entire population.
I've marveled at this for some time that some people just don't seem to have any drive to succeed and are perfectly happy with that. There are some people who need to be doing, be creating, be striving for something better in order to be happy. And there are those who are happy simply being alive. Neither is right or wrong and that people are all wired differently. I believe that society needs a good mix of both in order to function well.
But those of us who are driven to do something more are not immune to life's brainless pleasures either . The danger comes when these things takeover too much of our lives. The kid who neglects practicing his guitar to play Guitar Hero might become an expert at Guitar Hero. One thing is for certain though: He still has no idea how to play the guitar, he's just really good at a digital version of whack-a-mole.
The challenge for those who are driven to succeed is to remember to slow down and enjoy life while not getting carried away into mental laziness. And the challenge for people who do not have this drive is to be willing to stretch for it once in a while and see what is beyond just being alive. I realize that I'm making very broad generalizations about the entire population.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Writing Fiction for Love and Money
I know that to some of my less regular readers, a topic like this one might seem a bit off topic for this blog, however writing is a means by which I would love to someday facilitate my exit from the rat race.
I've read a couple books on the subject of writing now and the best so far and by far is Holly Lisle's Mugging the Muse: Writing Fiction for Love and Money. I have never read any of her other books but reading this one made me want to. She so eloquently describes the nature of being a writer through the sorrows and joys and the triumphs and failures. She is a woman who has had more than her fair share of troubles in her life and has really poured that into her writing and made something very positive out of it.
I mentioned many months ago in an article about another writing book I had read titled $30 Writing School by Michael Dean. While Dean's book has some useful information in it and I did enjoy reading it, so much of the contents of the book are fluff. He comes across as being a bit stuck on himself and a little preoccupied with sex (more than a little, which is apparent to those unfortunate enough to go to his website). Dean also had his share of troubles in life but most of those were of his own doing.
My point here is to simply draw a contrast between two writers of writing books. Holly Lisle's book has left me feeling inspired in my own writing and wanting to spend money on her other writing. Michael Dean's book was informative but self-indulgent. I don't even remember how many times he tells you to buy his other books and plays it off as seeing examples of how he did things.
Dean does give more specific details in regards to dealing with editors than Lisle does. The one very minor drawback of Writing Fiction for Love and Money is that when a subject is approached that the auther has no experience with, she simply states that she doesn't have experience with it and moves on without any further help to the reader. Honesty is great but in Lisle's case it doesn't make a comprehensive book on writing. It would seem that thing to have done would have been for her to consult someone who was an expert in the areas she was inexperienced with. But these were only in very minor industry related items that for most people probably wouldn't be applicable anyway.
So if you are looking for a book on the subject of writing that is written by a real writer that has fought and struggled and climbed her way to a respectable status in the writing world then Mugging the Muse: Writing Fiction for Love and Money is for you. If however you want a book that is more of a "punk rock" approach and has some useful information then you might want to check out Michael Dean's $30 Writing School, but only if you pay much less than $30.
I've read a couple books on the subject of writing now and the best so far and by far is Holly Lisle's Mugging the Muse: Writing Fiction for Love and Money. I have never read any of her other books but reading this one made me want to. She so eloquently describes the nature of being a writer through the sorrows and joys and the triumphs and failures. She is a woman who has had more than her fair share of troubles in her life and has really poured that into her writing and made something very positive out of it.
I mentioned many months ago in an article about another writing book I had read titled $30 Writing School by Michael Dean. While Dean's book has some useful information in it and I did enjoy reading it, so much of the contents of the book are fluff. He comes across as being a bit stuck on himself and a little preoccupied with sex (more than a little, which is apparent to those unfortunate enough to go to his website). Dean also had his share of troubles in life but most of those were of his own doing.
My point here is to simply draw a contrast between two writers of writing books. Holly Lisle's book has left me feeling inspired in my own writing and wanting to spend money on her other writing. Michael Dean's book was informative but self-indulgent. I don't even remember how many times he tells you to buy his other books and plays it off as seeing examples of how he did things.
Dean does give more specific details in regards to dealing with editors than Lisle does. The one very minor drawback of Writing Fiction for Love and Money is that when a subject is approached that the auther has no experience with, she simply states that she doesn't have experience with it and moves on without any further help to the reader. Honesty is great but in Lisle's case it doesn't make a comprehensive book on writing. It would seem that thing to have done would have been for her to consult someone who was an expert in the areas she was inexperienced with. But these were only in very minor industry related items that for most people probably wouldn't be applicable anyway.
So if you are looking for a book on the subject of writing that is written by a real writer that has fought and struggled and climbed her way to a respectable status in the writing world then Mugging the Muse: Writing Fiction for Love and Money is for you. If however you want a book that is more of a "punk rock" approach and has some useful information then you might want to check out Michael Dean's $30 Writing School, but only if you pay much less than $30.
Monday, September 22, 2008
The Death of Capitalism
During these past couple of weeks we've seen the United States government pouring countless billions of dollars into failing corporations in order to keep them alive, and all of that money is coming out of the taxpayers' pockets. And thanks to the government printing billions in extra money, what little money individuals have left is now going to be worth less than it was before all of this began. No one in Washington can truly claim innocence in this. The Democrats have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from these companies that are filled with fraud. The Republicans are going right along with all of this, including the President who at this point appears to have no fight left in him after 8 years of democrat and media attacks. He has endorsed this broad move toward socialism just like everyone else.
Imagine for a minute that the federal government is a farmer. And this farmer has a bunch of pigs. Now a few of these pigs are extremely old, flabby and pretty much immobile and have nothing useful to still contribute to the farm. But the farmer has been friends with these old pigs for quite sometime and so when they start dieing of natural causes the farmer starts taking food away from the young healthy pigs in order to keep the dieing ones alive. And pretty soon all that the farmer has left is old fat useless pigs that aren't good for anything but he's got no money and no room left for any new pigs to be born. The rest of the people in the town are angry and hungry and poor now because the farmer raised the prices on everything to support his friends the pigs. Stupid farmer.
This is where we find ourselves in America. Capitalism used to be about succeeding and failing on your own merit. Companies would fall apart and die and a new more nimble start up company would take their place. They might do things the exact same way but because they don't have decades of corporate bureaucracy and corruption built up inside the walls they are able to function more efficiently. Now the government isn't letting any of the old pigs die, no matter how corrupt and poorly run they are.
I am tired of having politicians tell me that it will hurt the economy too much if these companies fail. How is spending billions in taxpayer money helping the economy? If they really cared about helping the economy there are simple solutions. All those mortgages held by Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac? They should have just canceled them all. What would have happened if all those homeowners suddenly just owned their house without a mortgage? How would millions of people having $500-1000 a month of extra cash have been bad for the economy? Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac were corrupt corporate giants that deserved to die. Ask any of those homeowners if they feel the economy is better now that the government is holding the money that backs their mortgage.
If the other financial institutions that have been in trouble this past week had been allowed to die after running their natural course a new company would have taken their place. One that would likely be able to do the same job with much lower costs and therefore show higher profits which would have resulted in more tax income not tax money being spent to keep them going.
As someone who does not have tens of the thousands of dollars of debt (in spite of making a lot less money than many who do have that kind of debt), and as someone who did not buy a house I couldn't afford, and as someone who is not running a corrupt corporation, I fail to see how all of this government spending, inflation, and rise of socialism is good for the economy in any stretch of the imagination. Will someone in Washington please start to take Ron Paul seriously? He seems to be the only one who has any concept of how the economy works.
Imagine for a minute that the federal government is a farmer. And this farmer has a bunch of pigs. Now a few of these pigs are extremely old, flabby and pretty much immobile and have nothing useful to still contribute to the farm. But the farmer has been friends with these old pigs for quite sometime and so when they start dieing of natural causes the farmer starts taking food away from the young healthy pigs in order to keep the dieing ones alive. And pretty soon all that the farmer has left is old fat useless pigs that aren't good for anything but he's got no money and no room left for any new pigs to be born. The rest of the people in the town are angry and hungry and poor now because the farmer raised the prices on everything to support his friends the pigs. Stupid farmer.
This is where we find ourselves in America. Capitalism used to be about succeeding and failing on your own merit. Companies would fall apart and die and a new more nimble start up company would take their place. They might do things the exact same way but because they don't have decades of corporate bureaucracy and corruption built up inside the walls they are able to function more efficiently. Now the government isn't letting any of the old pigs die, no matter how corrupt and poorly run they are.
I am tired of having politicians tell me that it will hurt the economy too much if these companies fail. How is spending billions in taxpayer money helping the economy? If they really cared about helping the economy there are simple solutions. All those mortgages held by Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac? They should have just canceled them all. What would have happened if all those homeowners suddenly just owned their house without a mortgage? How would millions of people having $500-1000 a month of extra cash have been bad for the economy? Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac were corrupt corporate giants that deserved to die. Ask any of those homeowners if they feel the economy is better now that the government is holding the money that backs their mortgage.
If the other financial institutions that have been in trouble this past week had been allowed to die after running their natural course a new company would have taken their place. One that would likely be able to do the same job with much lower costs and therefore show higher profits which would have resulted in more tax income not tax money being spent to keep them going.
As someone who does not have tens of the thousands of dollars of debt (in spite of making a lot less money than many who do have that kind of debt), and as someone who did not buy a house I couldn't afford, and as someone who is not running a corrupt corporation, I fail to see how all of this government spending, inflation, and rise of socialism is good for the economy in any stretch of the imagination. Will someone in Washington please start to take Ron Paul seriously? He seems to be the only one who has any concept of how the economy works.
Friday, September 19, 2008
The Grand Path of Your Life
There is a bit of a recurring theme in this blog's short history of articles about productivity and following your dreams. The reason that these kind of articles show up from time to time is that I often find myself needing reminded of them.
During these last few weeks while I've been only marginally connected to the internet I haven't been able to post new articles regularly up until this past week and that was beyond my control. But what was within my control was how I used my time while not posting new articles on here. Sure I wrote some new ones which haven't been published yet but I certainly could have written more both for this website and in my creative writing. Those of us who live in the United States of America have been granted a pretty easy life by those who have gone before us. We can be as productive or lazy as we like and either way some portion of our society will accept us as we are. If you don't want to work, that's okay someone else will work and pay taxes so you don't have to. If you don't want to exercise, that's okay when you are too overweight to function as a normal human being anymore, a disability check will be waiting for you. If you want to drop out of school, that's okay there are plenty of jobs that don't require an education. If you don't want to fight in the military and protect our country, that's okay too, someone else will be there on the front lines.
In America we have the freedom and liberty to be as selfless or as selfish as we choose. But if you are a person who dreams of doing something important with your life or of accomplishing something great then keep this in mind: Nothing great was ever accomplished while watching TV night after night. Nothing great was ever accomplished by sleeping in. Nothing great was ever accomplished by partying. Nothing great was ever accomplished while playing video games. Nothing great was ever accomplished by spending endless hours on website forums.
If you don't already, then it is time to start thinking of the path your life is on. Look behind you and you can see the twisting, bumpy path of your life. Full of potholes and thickets. Look in front of you and there is no path. The path you are on only extends as far as you have traveled so far. You are where you are in your life because of the culmination of all of the decisions you have made up until this point. As I said, there is no path in front of you however. If you are unhappy about the path your life has taken up until this point then take heart, for the direction your life takes from here is still completely up to you. Your way is not set so you can start off in a new direction full of hope and promise. You alone are responsible for the direction your life takes.
Look behind you again. Are you happy with what you see? Could you have done more to be a better person or to pursue your dreams in a more effectual way? Perfection is not possible, none of us is capable of it. Self-loathing over failed attempts in your past will not help you. I don't believe that we are ever supposed to be more than we can be but if we are honest with ourselves then we should strive to be more than we have been. If we can manage to do that then perhaps we can one day look back on the path of our lives and see those bends and bumps and thickets and know that the mistakes of our youth have given us wisdom for the future but have not cast us into a mold that we must stay in the rest of our lives.
During these last few weeks while I've been only marginally connected to the internet I haven't been able to post new articles regularly up until this past week and that was beyond my control. But what was within my control was how I used my time while not posting new articles on here. Sure I wrote some new ones which haven't been published yet but I certainly could have written more both for this website and in my creative writing. Those of us who live in the United States of America have been granted a pretty easy life by those who have gone before us. We can be as productive or lazy as we like and either way some portion of our society will accept us as we are. If you don't want to work, that's okay someone else will work and pay taxes so you don't have to. If you don't want to exercise, that's okay when you are too overweight to function as a normal human being anymore, a disability check will be waiting for you. If you want to drop out of school, that's okay there are plenty of jobs that don't require an education. If you don't want to fight in the military and protect our country, that's okay too, someone else will be there on the front lines.
In America we have the freedom and liberty to be as selfless or as selfish as we choose. But if you are a person who dreams of doing something important with your life or of accomplishing something great then keep this in mind: Nothing great was ever accomplished while watching TV night after night. Nothing great was ever accomplished by sleeping in. Nothing great was ever accomplished by partying. Nothing great was ever accomplished while playing video games. Nothing great was ever accomplished by spending endless hours on website forums.
If you don't already, then it is time to start thinking of the path your life is on. Look behind you and you can see the twisting, bumpy path of your life. Full of potholes and thickets. Look in front of you and there is no path. The path you are on only extends as far as you have traveled so far. You are where you are in your life because of the culmination of all of the decisions you have made up until this point. As I said, there is no path in front of you however. If you are unhappy about the path your life has taken up until this point then take heart, for the direction your life takes from here is still completely up to you. Your way is not set so you can start off in a new direction full of hope and promise. You alone are responsible for the direction your life takes.
Look behind you again. Are you happy with what you see? Could you have done more to be a better person or to pursue your dreams in a more effectual way? Perfection is not possible, none of us is capable of it. Self-loathing over failed attempts in your past will not help you. I don't believe that we are ever supposed to be more than we can be but if we are honest with ourselves then we should strive to be more than we have been. If we can manage to do that then perhaps we can one day look back on the path of our lives and see those bends and bumps and thickets and know that the mistakes of our youth have given us wisdom for the future but have not cast us into a mold that we must stay in the rest of our lives.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
How Will You Be Paying for That?
There I was in the express checkout at Wal-Mart. 10 Items or Less. In front of me in line was a middle-aged woman who waited until all her items were scanned and then pulled out her checkbook. Meticulously wrote the information down in the check register and then began filling out the check. Meanwhile the line in the express checkout was growing and tempers were rising. I'm sure this has happened to all of us. Grocery stores should not allow checks in the express checkout lanes if they should be allowed at all.
I've been wanting to write this article for awhile and finally fit it into the schedule. I wanted to create an article examining the three main forms of payment accepted at retailers and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each because it seems that many Americans are ignorant of what the differences between checks, cash, and credit/debit mean to them.
Credit/Debit Cards - Over the last couple years Visa has run a number of commercials that portray using cash as much slower than using credit and the undertone of the commercials is that the person using cash is somehow not cool and dumber than everyone using credit. So let's dive into this a little bit. With credit cards you are spending money that you don't have and if you don't pay it off on time you will be paying terrible interest rates and the things you purchased will cost you more than the price you originally paid. Using debit cards means you are spending directly from your bank account and in some sense that is better than going into debt with a credit card. Thinking about security concerns though if your credit card gets stolen you are often not liable for fraudulent charges depending on your credit card company but with a debit card a person can pull your money from your bank account. That's a bit more serious. As for Visa's ads about credit cards being so much faster than cash. As someone who works in retail I can tell you that an overwhelming majority of the time credit/debit takes longer than cash. Additionally the recent advent of touchpay systems further strips away security features on credit cards because the cards themselves emit a radio frequency that can be captured by someone holding a device near your purse or wallet.
Checks - Other than for paying bills, most of which can be paid online, checks are an outdated method of payment that should be done away with in my opinion. No form of payment in stores takes longer to complete. With so much concern about identity theft it amazes me that people still write checks so much and women are the ones who still use checks at retail, almost universally. Think about the information on your check: Your bank account, bank routing number, name, address, and in some cases your phone number. Some people are even brainless enough to include their driver's license number on there as well. Every time you write a check at a store you are placing an awful lot of trust in that cashier that is only making minimum wage.
Cash - Cash is the oldest, usually the fastest and still the most secure form of payment. There are exceptions to it being the fastest of course. I remember another time I was in an express checkout lane at Wal-Mart and the cashier was an elderly lady in her seventies at least and the customer at the checkout was a lady about the same age. The customer paid for the entire purchase with loose change. Between the two of them it took about ten attempts to count it all out accurately. These situations are rare however. The only real drawback of cash is it can't be used to pay for things online, that is until our computers start coming with cash slots built into them like vending machines.
The thing that I really love about cash though is the security of it. You can spend it wherever you like and none of it is personally identifiable to you. I've heard people say that they don't like carrying cash in case they get robbed. Really? I would much rather lose $100 in cash than lose a debit card that is linked to however much is in my bank account. Even if I manage to cancel the card before any damage is done, the theoretical mugger still has my full name and that is something he wouldn't get from cash.
So there you have it. Quit using checks and don't buy into the lie that credit is better than cash.
I've been wanting to write this article for awhile and finally fit it into the schedule. I wanted to create an article examining the three main forms of payment accepted at retailers and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each because it seems that many Americans are ignorant of what the differences between checks, cash, and credit/debit mean to them.
Credit/Debit Cards - Over the last couple years Visa has run a number of commercials that portray using cash as much slower than using credit and the undertone of the commercials is that the person using cash is somehow not cool and dumber than everyone using credit. So let's dive into this a little bit. With credit cards you are spending money that you don't have and if you don't pay it off on time you will be paying terrible interest rates and the things you purchased will cost you more than the price you originally paid. Using debit cards means you are spending directly from your bank account and in some sense that is better than going into debt with a credit card. Thinking about security concerns though if your credit card gets stolen you are often not liable for fraudulent charges depending on your credit card company but with a debit card a person can pull your money from your bank account. That's a bit more serious. As for Visa's ads about credit cards being so much faster than cash. As someone who works in retail I can tell you that an overwhelming majority of the time credit/debit takes longer than cash. Additionally the recent advent of touchpay systems further strips away security features on credit cards because the cards themselves emit a radio frequency that can be captured by someone holding a device near your purse or wallet.
Checks - Other than for paying bills, most of which can be paid online, checks are an outdated method of payment that should be done away with in my opinion. No form of payment in stores takes longer to complete. With so much concern about identity theft it amazes me that people still write checks so much and women are the ones who still use checks at retail, almost universally. Think about the information on your check: Your bank account, bank routing number, name, address, and in some cases your phone number. Some people are even brainless enough to include their driver's license number on there as well. Every time you write a check at a store you are placing an awful lot of trust in that cashier that is only making minimum wage.
Cash - Cash is the oldest, usually the fastest and still the most secure form of payment. There are exceptions to it being the fastest of course. I remember another time I was in an express checkout lane at Wal-Mart and the cashier was an elderly lady in her seventies at least and the customer at the checkout was a lady about the same age. The customer paid for the entire purchase with loose change. Between the two of them it took about ten attempts to count it all out accurately. These situations are rare however. The only real drawback of cash is it can't be used to pay for things online, that is until our computers start coming with cash slots built into them like vending machines.
The thing that I really love about cash though is the security of it. You can spend it wherever you like and none of it is personally identifiable to you. I've heard people say that they don't like carrying cash in case they get robbed. Really? I would much rather lose $100 in cash than lose a debit card that is linked to however much is in my bank account. Even if I manage to cancel the card before any damage is done, the theoretical mugger still has my full name and that is something he wouldn't get from cash.
So there you have it. Quit using checks and don't buy into the lie that credit is better than cash.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Energy Independence For the Masses
Okay I need someone to explain something to me. Why are all the democrats insistent on keeping oil prices high through hindering more US drilling and instead Barack Obama and many of the others want to industrialize all of our open land with wind farms and vast solar arrays? And all the while trying to hinder oil and coal usage. And on the other side Republicans are trying to open up for more drilling to get oil prices down but they seem content to continue on this same cycle of supply and demand we've been on. This isn't the first time there has been energy problems but Americans have short term memories and as long as times are good, we are content to forget about the hard times and what took place that led us into hard times or how we got out of them in the past.
If you watch the news on tv or listen to talk radio much you'll hear energy issues discussed at length with each side trying to point out how wrong the other side is. What I don't understand though is that I have never heard the issues of energy costs, alternative energy sources, or energy transmission discussed in the context of anything but a national level.
I don't claim to have any answers for what happens to you at the gas pump but here's what I know for sure: My heating bills for my house will be higher than ever this year and here in Pennsylvania when electric companies get deregulated my electric bill is set going to go up more than 50%. My question for all of the politicians and news commentators is this: Why not focus on energy for individual households? Thousands of people already have energy independent homes and the number is growing all of the time. There are many options available for people hoping to go independent including: wind power, micro-hydroelectric, and of course solar. Those are just the options available right now, if there was actually a public spotlight put on it in a big way, new better technologies would develop.
It seems to me that the logical choice for a country wishing to be energy independent would be to do so on a house by house basis. Think a minute about the benefits of this idea. There would be no centralized infrastructure that would vulnerable to natural disaster, war, or terrorist threat. There would be no power lines in danger of all of the above things as well as in constant need of maintenance. Much of America's population lives in urban settings where much of the currently available options wouldn't be viable. But geographically speaking, windpower, micro-hydroelectric, or solar would work perfectly well for the majority of the country.
For now though we will continue to have democrats ignorantly thinking we can stop using oil(anybody else fond of plastic? I'd sure miss it) and pushing alternative energies on a national scale which is not feasible. The republicans of course will continue to point out the unfeasability of the democrats approach and also not realize the value of moving away from a national concept of energy generation and consumption.
If you watch the news on tv or listen to talk radio much you'll hear energy issues discussed at length with each side trying to point out how wrong the other side is. What I don't understand though is that I have never heard the issues of energy costs, alternative energy sources, or energy transmission discussed in the context of anything but a national level.
I don't claim to have any answers for what happens to you at the gas pump but here's what I know for sure: My heating bills for my house will be higher than ever this year and here in Pennsylvania when electric companies get deregulated my electric bill is set going to go up more than 50%. My question for all of the politicians and news commentators is this: Why not focus on energy for individual households? Thousands of people already have energy independent homes and the number is growing all of the time. There are many options available for people hoping to go independent including: wind power, micro-hydroelectric, and of course solar. Those are just the options available right now, if there was actually a public spotlight put on it in a big way, new better technologies would develop.
It seems to me that the logical choice for a country wishing to be energy independent would be to do so on a house by house basis. Think a minute about the benefits of this idea. There would be no centralized infrastructure that would vulnerable to natural disaster, war, or terrorist threat. There would be no power lines in danger of all of the above things as well as in constant need of maintenance. Much of America's population lives in urban settings where much of the currently available options wouldn't be viable. But geographically speaking, windpower, micro-hydroelectric, or solar would work perfectly well for the majority of the country.
For now though we will continue to have democrats ignorantly thinking we can stop using oil(anybody else fond of plastic? I'd sure miss it) and pushing alternative energies on a national scale which is not feasible. The republicans of course will continue to point out the unfeasability of the democrats approach and also not realize the value of moving away from a national concept of energy generation and consumption.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
I'm Back! and on My Cable Connection
This has certainly been the biggest posting gap ever in the history of this blog and I sincerely apologize. My dialup internet connection was almost unusable for the last several weeks and I think somewhere in my sub-concious I just didn't want to deal with trying to be productive on dialup anymore knowing that highspeed internet was coming.
And the cable internet has finally arrived! I know that many people have issues with Comcast and maybe someday I will have issues as well but for right now I couldn't be happier with them. They put in a good deal of effort to make me a customer, not the least of which was running a line 1200 ft back our lane. I've already had a couple of annoying interactions with their customer service department but I have to say the guys in the construction department were great. They were all quite friendly and able to answer all of my questions, including giving me accurate timeframes for when all of this construction would take place.
I disagree with Comcast's choosing to limit customer's bandwidth to 250 gb a month, though I don't know that it would ever affect me, but I have to keep one thing in mind even if it ever does affect me: Comcast went to a lot of trouble to make me a customer. Whereas Verizon has made absolutely no effort to provide service to any of the houses in our area. I had been on their "future notification" list for more than 4 years now and been told the lie so many times from their customer service people that "they are constantly expanding their network." Yeah right.
So that is the story from here. I've got some great new articles coming up that hopefully you will enjoy.
And the cable internet has finally arrived! I know that many people have issues with Comcast and maybe someday I will have issues as well but for right now I couldn't be happier with them. They put in a good deal of effort to make me a customer, not the least of which was running a line 1200 ft back our lane. I've already had a couple of annoying interactions with their customer service department but I have to say the guys in the construction department were great. They were all quite friendly and able to answer all of my questions, including giving me accurate timeframes for when all of this construction would take place.
I disagree with Comcast's choosing to limit customer's bandwidth to 250 gb a month, though I don't know that it would ever affect me, but I have to keep one thing in mind even if it ever does affect me: Comcast went to a lot of trouble to make me a customer. Whereas Verizon has made absolutely no effort to provide service to any of the houses in our area. I had been on their "future notification" list for more than 4 years now and been told the lie so many times from their customer service people that "they are constantly expanding their network." Yeah right.
So that is the story from here. I've got some great new articles coming up that hopefully you will enjoy.
Monday, August 25, 2008
End of Season Gardening Recap
My internet connectivity issues continue. This article was meant to appear last Friday.
My perpetually inconsistent pursuit of self-sufficiency in regards to food yielded some mixed results this year. Our lasagna gardening was a spectacular failure. The idea of lasagna gardening is that you place a layer of cardboard over the area you want your garden to be and then layer compost, peat moss, manure, and whatever else would normally be used in a garden on top of it. This is supposed to smother the weeds or grass underneath and give you a rich growing medium for your plants. Well it was a rich growing medium alright, the weeds absolutely loved it. Really I think it was mainly our fault for not putting a thick enough layer on top to smother everything.
But our plants did grow well too, just lost in the weeds sometimes. The onions we grew from seed did great but we harvested them too soon. The sugar snap peas were thriving until one day they completely disappeared. I think some baby rabbits got through our fence. Our peppers that we grew from seeds taken from store bought peppers didn't really grow at all, we learned our lesson there. The cantelope didn't produce anything. Our watermelon plants managed to produce one watermelon between them all which I accidentally lopped off with the weed whacker (which gives you an idea of how bad the weeds were).
This was the third year for our strawberry patch and it was relatively weed free and yielded our biggest crop yet but even so the amount of berries we got was pretty pitiful for the amount of plants we have. This was also the third year for our grape vines and still they produced no grapes. They grew a good deal but I'm not sure what to do if they still don't produce next year. It was the second year for our self-pollinating peach tree. Seventeen peaches grew on it, none of which developed into anything edible. It was also the second year for our two apple trees. One of which seemed to have died over the winter but just the other day I saw that it had begun regrowing from the base and now has a new "trunk" that is a couple feet tall so hopefully it will make it through the winter. Our raspberry crop was large as always though perhaps not quite as plentiful as last year.
Three years into all these gardening attempts has started to be a bit of a downer. Each year it seems something comes up that keeps us from putting the time into maintaining the garden like it ought to be. Two years ago my wife and I were each working full time jobs. Last year we had a new baby. This year I sprained my ankle and was out of commission for awhile.
There was one bright spot for the garden this year though. Our tomatoes came in wonderfully. We had tried doing tomatoes in hanging baskets which failed miserably because the soil would dry out very quickly if we didn't watter them every day, which we didn't. But the tomato plants that we put in the garden produced a large crop in spite of not being supported on anything and being smothered in weeds. The tomatoes and a few other vegetables from the store allowed us to make enough salsa to last a year. Before we harvested them and made the salsa I was ready to throw in the towel on gardening all together. Three years of failed efforts were piling up in my brain but the tomatoes helped place me firmly back on the course of self-sufficiency.
My perpetually inconsistent pursuit of self-sufficiency in regards to food yielded some mixed results this year. Our lasagna gardening was a spectacular failure. The idea of lasagna gardening is that you place a layer of cardboard over the area you want your garden to be and then layer compost, peat moss, manure, and whatever else would normally be used in a garden on top of it. This is supposed to smother the weeds or grass underneath and give you a rich growing medium for your plants. Well it was a rich growing medium alright, the weeds absolutely loved it. Really I think it was mainly our fault for not putting a thick enough layer on top to smother everything.
But our plants did grow well too, just lost in the weeds sometimes. The onions we grew from seed did great but we harvested them too soon. The sugar snap peas were thriving until one day they completely disappeared. I think some baby rabbits got through our fence. Our peppers that we grew from seeds taken from store bought peppers didn't really grow at all, we learned our lesson there. The cantelope didn't produce anything. Our watermelon plants managed to produce one watermelon between them all which I accidentally lopped off with the weed whacker (which gives you an idea of how bad the weeds were).
This was the third year for our strawberry patch and it was relatively weed free and yielded our biggest crop yet but even so the amount of berries we got was pretty pitiful for the amount of plants we have. This was also the third year for our grape vines and still they produced no grapes. They grew a good deal but I'm not sure what to do if they still don't produce next year. It was the second year for our self-pollinating peach tree. Seventeen peaches grew on it, none of which developed into anything edible. It was also the second year for our two apple trees. One of which seemed to have died over the winter but just the other day I saw that it had begun regrowing from the base and now has a new "trunk" that is a couple feet tall so hopefully it will make it through the winter. Our raspberry crop was large as always though perhaps not quite as plentiful as last year.
Three years into all these gardening attempts has started to be a bit of a downer. Each year it seems something comes up that keeps us from putting the time into maintaining the garden like it ought to be. Two years ago my wife and I were each working full time jobs. Last year we had a new baby. This year I sprained my ankle and was out of commission for awhile.
There was one bright spot for the garden this year though. Our tomatoes came in wonderfully. We had tried doing tomatoes in hanging baskets which failed miserably because the soil would dry out very quickly if we didn't watter them every day, which we didn't. But the tomato plants that we put in the garden produced a large crop in spite of not being supported on anything and being smothered in weeds. The tomatoes and a few other vegetables from the store allowed us to make enough salsa to last a year. Before we harvested them and made the salsa I was ready to throw in the towel on gardening all together. Three years of failed efforts were piling up in my brain but the tomatoes helped place me firmly back on the course of self-sufficiency.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The Cable Man Cometh
I reported a couple weeks ago that Comcast had told me they were coming to install cable finally after years of me being stuck on dialup. Then only to have my hopes dashed for the most part by the installer telling me that the survey must not have actually been done or he wouldn't have even been out there.
And so I waited for about a week for the construction department to do a survey and they did that on Thursday and said they would call me on Friday with an answer on how much it would cost if anything. For those of you who don't know, if Comcast has to run a line to your house they will cover the first $1500 of expenses and the rest is up to the customer. Well Friday came and went and they never called. But finally today they did call me back and said that it was under the $1500 and so there wouldn't be any out of pocket expense.
Now I wait. They have to have a contractor run the line back the farm lane and it could be a month or more until that happens so I am still on skinnyband internet for a little while. But I can be patient. I've waited four and a half years for this moment.
In the meantime my dialup connection continues to be almost unusable. I've eliminated the software and the phone line as the problem so that just leaves the modem or the ISP. I'm inclined to think it's the modem but I'm not going to spend money on a new modem when I most likely won't need it much longer. Dialup modems are getting very hard to find locally anyway which would make returning it harder if it turns out that the problem doesn't lie with the modem. So if my articles suddenly stop appearing for awhile just assume that my dialup connection finally died and that I will be back online shortly. It's kind of funny that my dialup is dying just as a far better alternative becomes available.
And so I waited for about a week for the construction department to do a survey and they did that on Thursday and said they would call me on Friday with an answer on how much it would cost if anything. For those of you who don't know, if Comcast has to run a line to your house they will cover the first $1500 of expenses and the rest is up to the customer. Well Friday came and went and they never called. But finally today they did call me back and said that it was under the $1500 and so there wouldn't be any out of pocket expense.
Now I wait. They have to have a contractor run the line back the farm lane and it could be a month or more until that happens so I am still on skinnyband internet for a little while. But I can be patient. I've waited four and a half years for this moment.
In the meantime my dialup connection continues to be almost unusable. I've eliminated the software and the phone line as the problem so that just leaves the modem or the ISP. I'm inclined to think it's the modem but I'm not going to spend money on a new modem when I most likely won't need it much longer. Dialup modems are getting very hard to find locally anyway which would make returning it harder if it turns out that the problem doesn't lie with the modem. So if my articles suddenly stop appearing for awhile just assume that my dialup connection finally died and that I will be back online shortly. It's kind of funny that my dialup is dying just as a far better alternative becomes available.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Be Still
The other day I was spending some time with my son outside, he was playing in the yard while I watched him from the porch. The sun was setting and as I looked into the sky in front of me I could see the mostly full moon between the branches of two trees. A thought sparked in my head, wondering if it was possible to see the moon orbiting with the naked eye. Sure you could look at the moon and then look at it an hour later and it would of course be in a different position. But what I wanted to know is to see it moving by watching it consistently. So I sat very still and stared at the moon, which is a lot safer than staring at the sun. The two trees that bracketed the tree gave me an easy sense of perspective. And so for fifteen minutes I watched the moon moving every so slowly across the sky in it's orbit above the Earth. It was an amazing thing to see.
As our lives move at a faster and faster pace it's easy to lose site of the simple wonders of the world around us. If we are idle for any amount of time it is often because we are watching television or enjoying some other form of entertainment. There is nothing wrong with those things of course but there is something to be said for shutting all of that down for awhile and quieting your mind. Be still. Be quiet. Listen to and observe your world. Be silent for awhile and listen to what others have to say It's hard to learn anything from others when you won't quiet yourself down long enough to listen to the wisdom they might possess.
As our lives move at a faster and faster pace it's easy to lose site of the simple wonders of the world around us. If we are idle for any amount of time it is often because we are watching television or enjoying some other form of entertainment. There is nothing wrong with those things of course but there is something to be said for shutting all of that down for awhile and quieting your mind. Be still. Be quiet. Listen to and observe your world. Be silent for awhile and listen to what others have to say It's hard to learn anything from others when you won't quiet yourself down long enough to listen to the wisdom they might possess.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
What It's All About
The other day I received an email from someone that seemed a bit confused about what the point of my website is. So since I don't specifically state it all the time and it has been awhile since I started this site I figured it would be good to write an article summing it all up.
So here it is in a nutshell: I'm Not A Rat is about my pursuit of escaping the ratrace. The end result of which would be to work from home and lead a more self-sufficient life. The primary means by which I hope to make my escape is through my music and my writing (not a small challenge). So there is and will be articles related to music and writing interspersed with other topics. I want to share my journey and insight with others through this website to hopefully help other people on their own journey to escape the enslavement of the ratrace.
So that's what I'm Not A Rat is all about. Now you know.
So here it is in a nutshell: I'm Not A Rat is about my pursuit of escaping the ratrace. The end result of which would be to work from home and lead a more self-sufficient life. The primary means by which I hope to make my escape is through my music and my writing (not a small challenge). So there is and will be articles related to music and writing interspersed with other topics. I want to share my journey and insight with others through this website to hopefully help other people on their own journey to escape the enslavement of the ratrace.
So that's what I'm Not A Rat is all about. Now you know.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Skinnyband Internet
Have you ever wanted to reminisce about what it was like to use the internet in 1994? Well come to my house and you'll find out. I moved out to the country four and a half years ago and have been relegated to using dial-up internet ever since then. Crappy dial-up internet at that. These past couple weeks I've been connecting at 21.6 kbs on good days and my connection lasts about half an hour if I'm lucky. Before I moved out to the country I was making good use of a cable internet connection to manage several websites, play plenty of online games, and discover all the new music that the internet made available to people.
It was quite a shock to my mental state moving into the country and not having access to high speed. DSL wasn't available. The cable company wanted a fortune to run cable to my house. Satellite internet is ridiculously expensive for cheap DSL-like speeds. Cellular companies offer internet service but again the price and quality are crummy. And so during these long four and a half years I have struggled to make do. Managed my websites as best as possible and have had dozens of internet business ideas that I killed before I even started them because I knew that most of them just weren't feasible on dial-up. I also haven't bought a computer game during that entire time because most games these days are heavily oriented towards online play.
A couple months ago I hatched a plan to have the cable company come to my house and run the cable line as close as they would for free and then I would run it the rest of the way. Well I never heard back from them. They were supposed to come and do a survey but someone dropped the ball. So a couple weeks ago I called them again and set up for a new survey...and never heard from them. Once again I was abandoning my hopes of a better internet and began to plan to write this article about my internet plight and all of the options available (crummy as they are) for someone in my situation.
But then something spectacular happened. The cable company called me and said they would run cable to my house! No huge charges for running the line or anything. And then something spectacularly devastating happened. The installer showed up and said he couldn't do it. That who ever surveyed the house must not have actually checked it out to see if there was a line already heading back to the house from the road. This article was supposed to be the first article I published from my cable connection but instead I am currently connected on dial-up at 16.8 kbs.
The installer said he would contact the construction department and see if it was possible but I'm not too hopeful at the moment. This is indeed a sad day in internet land.
It was quite a shock to my mental state moving into the country and not having access to high speed. DSL wasn't available. The cable company wanted a fortune to run cable to my house. Satellite internet is ridiculously expensive for cheap DSL-like speeds. Cellular companies offer internet service but again the price and quality are crummy. And so during these long four and a half years I have struggled to make do. Managed my websites as best as possible and have had dozens of internet business ideas that I killed before I even started them because I knew that most of them just weren't feasible on dial-up. I also haven't bought a computer game during that entire time because most games these days are heavily oriented towards online play.
A couple months ago I hatched a plan to have the cable company come to my house and run the cable line as close as they would for free and then I would run it the rest of the way. Well I never heard back from them. They were supposed to come and do a survey but someone dropped the ball. So a couple weeks ago I called them again and set up for a new survey...and never heard from them. Once again I was abandoning my hopes of a better internet and began to plan to write this article about my internet plight and all of the options available (crummy as they are) for someone in my situation.
But then something spectacular happened. The cable company called me and said they would run cable to my house! No huge charges for running the line or anything. And then something spectacularly devastating happened. The installer showed up and said he couldn't do it. That who ever surveyed the house must not have actually checked it out to see if there was a line already heading back to the house from the road. This article was supposed to be the first article I published from my cable connection but instead I am currently connected on dial-up at 16.8 kbs.
The installer said he would contact the construction department and see if it was possible but I'm not too hopeful at the moment. This is indeed a sad day in internet land.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Create An Activity Calendar
Something that retail corporations (and probably other corporations too) are fond of doing is creating Activity Calendars for the store locations to follow. It may be called by different names at different companies but the purpose is always the same: It's a list of things that "need" done on a specific day sometimes by a specific person. As retail chains have grown larger and money is tight for more corporate personnel, these Activity Calendars have become an easy way for corporations to micro-manage store locations without actually having someone in the stores checking up on whether the tasks were completed. Apparently the store management already being paid for these kind of duties aren't trustworthy enough to handle the responsibility of micro-management.
So what does this have to do with you? Well I've found that an Activity Calendar can be a useful tool in your personal life as well. However, if you are thinking that you can schedule your personal life to the point of assigning specific tasks to specific days, you are completely wrong. Life happens and your schedule will be blown up before it even starts. Jimmy needs to go to soccer practice, Susie needs to go to dance class, Jimmy hurt himself at soccer practice and is now in the emergency room, and it's now 9:00 a night and you just realized that you never did pick up Susie from dance class. The day went by with none of your scheduled tasks getting completed. Find someone or something to blame, then try again tomorrow. By the way it turns out Jimmy was just faking it because he really doesn't like soccer he only plays because you make him. Way to go.
I've found that a much more effective approach to the idea of Activity Calendars is to plan activities, chores, tasks, or whatever you want to call them during the few days leading up to a new week. I don't plan specific times for anything and I don't even try to pick specific days. The tasks get done when I have time during that week. When it happens during that week is irrelevant. Some of those things are on the list every week and some of them are once and done projects. I work the list around my life so that my life doesn't get in the way of a too-structured list. After a few weeks of this kind of approach to my personal life I find that I get in a rhythm and suddenly the things that I never seemed to have time for before are easily handled in manageable chunks.
If it seems like your personal life is a bit out of control then see if using an Activity Calendar can help bring back a certain level of control without trying to control every aspect of every day.
So what does this have to do with you? Well I've found that an Activity Calendar can be a useful tool in your personal life as well. However, if you are thinking that you can schedule your personal life to the point of assigning specific tasks to specific days, you are completely wrong. Life happens and your schedule will be blown up before it even starts. Jimmy needs to go to soccer practice, Susie needs to go to dance class, Jimmy hurt himself at soccer practice and is now in the emergency room, and it's now 9:00 a night and you just realized that you never did pick up Susie from dance class. The day went by with none of your scheduled tasks getting completed. Find someone or something to blame, then try again tomorrow. By the way it turns out Jimmy was just faking it because he really doesn't like soccer he only plays because you make him. Way to go.
I've found that a much more effective approach to the idea of Activity Calendars is to plan activities, chores, tasks, or whatever you want to call them during the few days leading up to a new week. I don't plan specific times for anything and I don't even try to pick specific days. The tasks get done when I have time during that week. When it happens during that week is irrelevant. Some of those things are on the list every week and some of them are once and done projects. I work the list around my life so that my life doesn't get in the way of a too-structured list. After a few weeks of this kind of approach to my personal life I find that I get in a rhythm and suddenly the things that I never seemed to have time for before are easily handled in manageable chunks.
If it seems like your personal life is a bit out of control then see if using an Activity Calendar can help bring back a certain level of control without trying to control every aspect of every day.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Reclaiming My Rhythm
It's been a month now since I started my new job and during that time period I've been completely out of rhythm with my writing, music, and tasks around the house. This is partially due to having to adjust to a new schedule and partially due to some circumstances beyond my control. But if I'm going to be completely honest, there were just some days this past month that I didn't feel like doing what needed to be done.
I've gone through phases like this in the past. Most lengthy of which was after our son was born. I mean what kind of father would I be if I didn't take time away from my creative pursuits to spend time with my family? The flip side of that would be to ask what kind of father would I be if I didn't do something to try and improve our quality of life?
So here at the beginning of August I am trying to turn over a new leaf yet again. I'm going to do my best to get back in some sort of groove and get things accomplished. I think it's appropriate here to borrow a couple lines from one of my as of yet unreleased songs, "Hopes and dreams don't mean a thing, if your decisions keep them from happening." When it comes to deciding how to use your time, make sure you choose well.
I've gone through phases like this in the past. Most lengthy of which was after our son was born. I mean what kind of father would I be if I didn't take time away from my creative pursuits to spend time with my family? The flip side of that would be to ask what kind of father would I be if I didn't do something to try and improve our quality of life?
So here at the beginning of August I am trying to turn over a new leaf yet again. I'm going to do my best to get back in some sort of groove and get things accomplished. I think it's appropriate here to borrow a couple lines from one of my as of yet unreleased songs, "Hopes and dreams don't mean a thing, if your decisions keep them from happening." When it comes to deciding how to use your time, make sure you choose well.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Chapter 1 Complete
I do 90% of my writing on my lunch breaks at work using a bluetooth keyboard paired with my smart phone. Tonight though I'm sitting up in bed writing late at night. I've gotten only about 6 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours but I needed to stay up and do this. After many months I finally finished the first draft of the first chapter of my first novel. Now you are probably saying to yourselves, "It took you that long to write one chapter?" Yes I know it's pretty bad but I'm proud of myself none the less. At 3,988 words it is the single longest piece of fiction I've ever written. And now your probably saying "that's the longest thing you've written and you're trying to do a novel? Your mad I say, mad!" Okay hopefully no one gets that worked up over my blog. Part of the reason that I'm jumping into writing a novel without writing too much other fiction is because I just can't seem to wrap my head around the idea of short stories. All of my story ideas are of such a larger scope than could possibly fit into a short story. And probably 85% of short stories and novelettes that I've read by other authors all feel like they are just a chapter in a larger story that they author couldn't quite write so they just pasted some ill-fitting ending onto the story and it ends like a car wreck. I definitely want to avoid that.
And while 3,988 words over the course of several months probably doesn't sound like much at all, I feel the need to mention that during that same time period I wrote more than 20,000 words on this blog. So I'm not quite as lazy as it may seem. But those kind of lopsided numbers do call into question how I spend the time I have available to write. I enjoy writing non-fiction but I love writing fiction. There's something about crafting a good story that lights a fire in a person's soul.
At this rate I will probably have the novel done by the year 2012. Which is no good at all. I do hope to increase my writing productivity but I'm also realistic. I've seen some authors say that a book should take about six months to write. That's fine if you make your living as a writer. But for us aspiring writers, we have to keep normal jobs that pull us away from writing if we would like to continue to eat. It took me four months to write the first chapter. I'd like to write the next one in a month. That would be like quadrupling my productivity. Ask me on September 1st if I achieved my goal.
And while 3,988 words over the course of several months probably doesn't sound like much at all, I feel the need to mention that during that same time period I wrote more than 20,000 words on this blog. So I'm not quite as lazy as it may seem. But those kind of lopsided numbers do call into question how I spend the time I have available to write. I enjoy writing non-fiction but I love writing fiction. There's something about crafting a good story that lights a fire in a person's soul.
At this rate I will probably have the novel done by the year 2012. Which is no good at all. I do hope to increase my writing productivity but I'm also realistic. I've seen some authors say that a book should take about six months to write. That's fine if you make your living as a writer. But for us aspiring writers, we have to keep normal jobs that pull us away from writing if we would like to continue to eat. It took me four months to write the first chapter. I'd like to write the next one in a month. That would be like quadrupling my productivity. Ask me on September 1st if I achieved my goal.
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