Inefficiency

My wife and I were driving by our local community college the other day and saw a monstrosity of building going up right next to the road. This was the back side of the campus near the track. I have watched the progress of this building for months now and have been interested, but have never really thought about just how large of a building it was.

It has some yellow underlayment on it now and the color really makes it stand out and gives you a sense of the size of the building. It is huge! It will be used for some sort of sports activities. I don't quite remember the exact use. At this point it is an eyesore.

From the moment they broke ground on the building I questioned its need. The college is cutting classes and enrollment, but it is building this new facility for sports. How does that make sense?

The argument I always get is that it is a grant or there is a specific budget for buildings of this type. Those arguments just make me mad. Why do you cut back on education, but still fund sports? How does that make any sense at all. You are in the process of eliminating classes and students, but you are building a large, new facility for sports. This is just ludicrous.

Here is my argument to the asinine budget argument. Suppose you have a personal budget that includes $200 for food and $200 for clothing and $100 for entertainment. Your income remains the same, but you add twins to your family. Do you keep your budget the same? Or what if your family stays the same, but your income drops by 10%. Do you keep your budget the same? Of course not. Rational human beings change things on the fly as necessary. Why can't the government do the same thing?

It is just very frustrating to see education spending is getting cut while we are still spending money on buildings like this one. Education spending is getting cut, but we are still resurfacing roads. Education spending is getting cut, but we are still fighting two wars. Education spending is getting cut, but we are still bailing out banks and car manufacturers. I think we need to get our priorities straight in this country and start taking care of our people. We can't abandon our children and our future to rescue people and companies who make foolish decisions that affect all of our lives.

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It's Christmas!

It is Christmas morning. We sort of had a white Christmas this year because it froze last night. The grass and plants in the back yard are all white with frost. It would be really great if it snowed one year.

Christmas is a time for giving and I did my part yesterday afternoon. I volunteered at the Visalia Rescue Mission. I thought that I would be serving meals, but I ended up taking care of a few tables. I went and ordered the plates of food for my guests and made sure that they had a drink, utensils and a hot plate of food.

I was very surprised at the whole thing. For one, I thought the people would be lining up and getting their food themselves. That was not the case. The volunteers did everything for the guests. The other thing that surprised me was who exactly was getting the meals. I expected it to be a lot of really rough looking homeless people, but it wasn't. It was just a bunch of "normal" people who are just down on their luck for one reason or another.

Tina and Meg volunteered with me. Tina saw several families from her school. Most said hello to her and a few even gave her a hug. I don't know what exactly I expected to feel after volunteering, but I didn't feel as good as I thought I would. It made me feel like I was not doing enough. In the car on the ride home, Tina and I discussed what else we could do to help people more often. I don't think it is out of the question that we volunteer once or twice a month. It would be a great example for our children.

Meg is still not up yet, so we are waiting on her and Chachi so we can begin our Christmas day. It should be a great one!

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Christmas Eve is Upon Us

Are you feeling the Christmas spirit yet? It has been a little slow to come around in our house, but I think it is finally here. We have been very busy this year and we have let some things slip a little bit. Not on purpose, but just because we have been so busy.

The whole foster care/adoption process has really overwhelmed us both physically and emotionally. We have had classes to take, paperwork to complete and a lot of thinking and talking to do. It is a little disappointing that we will not be able to have a child before Christmas, but we will take one whenever they come to us. We just can't wait to share our first Christmas with a new child.

We opened gifts at Tina's parents house last night. The kids all got really excited. It was great watching there enthusiasm and patience. They are all growing up and exhibiting a lot of self control and patience.

Today I am going to the Visalia Rescue Mission to help serve lunch for the homeless. I am really looking forward to this. Tina and Meg are coming along to help. I think it is going to be a very positive experience for us all, especially Meg. Everyone needs to have a slight readjustment of priorities this time of year and this should do the trick. I want Meg to grow up appreciating all of the things that we have and understanding that not everyone is as lucky as we are.

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Morals

I had an interesting conversation at work the other day. It seems lately that a lot of our conversations head in the direction of the greater good. Whether it be the environment, how to treat people or even just general business practices.

Anyway, the other day one of my coworkers was talking about investing. He buys stocks and often celebrates when the market is down because that is an opportunity to buy. I made a comment about him not caring about other people's investments. I brought up a conversation that was had with another coworker when gas prices spiked to their highest levels last year. He owns stock in an oil company. When he heard someone complain about gas prices he remarked that they should buy stock in an oil company so they would benefit from the higher gas prices.

After hearing this story, my coworker said that I would be happy too if I owned stock in an oil company. I told him that I would not own stock in an oil company because I do not believe in their business practices. He was somewhat shocked and kept prodding me. I continued to tell him that I don't like the way the oil companies do business. I don't like the fact that they made record profits while gas prices peaked. I told him that I thought they were immoral.

His reaction surprised me. He asked me why they were immoral. He said, "they are not selling pornography or anything like that." This really surprised me. In his mind there is nothing immoral about shady business practices. In his mind companies cannot do anything wrong unless they are selling pornography. He links pornography with morals...and that is all. I feel sorry for him because he is caught up in the corporate mentality that all that matters is profits.

Profits at the expense of people. Profits at the expense of the environment. Profits at the expense of our future. How has this idea developed in our country? How do we continue to ignore society in our quest for more money? I don't know, but I am trying to do my part to open some people's eyes to what really matters...the greater good.

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Easy Ways to Give

Who ever said that there is no free lunch was wrong. There are several easy, free ways that we can all give this holiday season. I have tried these and recommend that you do as well.

1. Give blood. With increased travel during the holidays, there will be increased need for donated blood.
2. Free Rice. Play some games and rice will be donated for each question you answer correctly.
3. The Animal Rescue Site. All you have to do is click on a link.
4. The Breast Cancer Site. Again, all you have to do is click on a link.
5. The Hunger Site. Just click on a link again.
6. Welch’s Harvest of Help. Click on the link and Welch's will donate juice through Feeding America. Their goal is 1 million glasses of juice.
7. Leapfish & Make-A-Wish. Tweet the provided message and Leapfish will make a donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
8. Kraft Foods. Send a FREE holiday e-card and Kraft will donate 10 meals to Feeding America.
9. Land O’Lakes – Click where it says “You click, we donate” in the upper right corner of their website and they will donate to fight local hunger.
10. Box Tops. Found on hundreds of products like Cheerios, Chex Mix, Cottonelle, and Kleenex. Clip the Box Top symbol from the package and give it to your child’s school, or a teacher you know. Each Box Top is worth 10¢ for your school. Clipping the Box Top takes just a second and doesn’t cost you anything.

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How Hard is it to Buy Something?

I sure cannot believe that we are still in a recession if I have to judge by the response I am getting to purchasing two items. I am currently starting to shop for a new car and am also exploring my options for a swimming pool. I am really having trouble getting people to respond to my requests.

I used the Toyota website to build my Prius and then searched for a dealer in my area. Once I selected the dealer, my information was sent to them. I have been contacted by them via email, which I prefer, and have responded with questions. My email replies have only been responded to one time, but they keep sending me other emails asking how their service has been. I guess I really need to reply and let them know that it has been two weeks since this started and they actually have the car I am interested in sitting on their lot.

I tried to contact a pool builder that I saw at a home show last year. I could never catch a live person, so I thought maybe they were out of business. I made contact with three other builders with no problems at all. I continued to call the first builder and began leaving messages for them to call me back. I finally received a return call. I got all four builders to come to my house and start the work for estimates. One of them got back to within a few days, one got back to me within a week and one set a follow-up appointment for me at the original appointment, though it was almost two weeks later. The fourth, however, did not get back to me after almost two weeks. I finally called them and they got back to me the next day.

Two builders still owe me drawings. One of them told me they would email me the drawing on Monday and I still have not seen it yet. I am meeting with the fourth builder, who is my leader at this point, tomorrow. They are installing a pool down the street from me, which is how I found them in the first place. I am concerned that they did not get back to me until after I called them back though.

All I can think from these experiences is that either the recession is not as bad as everyone thinks and the car business and pool business are just slammed with customers or they are just two very flaky industries. I am inclined to believe the later at this point, until proven otherwise. I wonder if I would have the same luck trying to give away my money if I just stood on the corner with a sign that read, "I will give you all my money, just ask for it?"

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