Coffee, yes I love it!!

“A day without coffee is not to be imagined – too horrible!!  I mostly make coffee at home now.  But if I go out, Starbucks is a wonderful treat!” — Sally K. Witt

 

Coffee, yes I love it!!.

This is a great read from Sally K. Witt. I’d appreciate anyone stopping by to give it a read and leave her a comment. If you love coffee the way we love coffee, you will appreciate this one. Good videos, some cool pictures and plenty of comments about my favorite beverage.

Why coffee is my higher power

Being a stay at home mom, tireless slacker, and compulsive procrastinator I have learned some very important things in life. Anything that isn’t supposed to go in baby’s mouth somehow will even if you glue it to the ceiling, what should be done today but can wait until tomorrow usually will, and without coffee the world is an ugly place that would cease to exist as we know it. I read it on the side of a can of Maxwell House so it must be true!

Now you may buy into my first two observations just a little bit at least, but you are likely to think I am a complete nut for the power I see in coffee. Okay, I am a nut, certified twice and rated beyond repair by not just single doctors but teams of doctors with books and busts of Freud in their office that have to cost at least fifty bucks so you know these are super smart people. I really am being as serious as my heavily medicated brain allows though when I say it is coffee that runs the world. Some folks think money or love makes the world go round but I say they are lunatics! Caffeine is the true puppet master.

Take me for instance, I wander out of bed around 5:30 A.M. after a solid three hours or so of sleep and begin my day. Of course I do the normal things like make sure there is a floor under my feet, say hi to the dancing teddy bears in front of me and go to the bathroom. I don’t make coffee the way you’d expect me to, it is already being brewed thanks to the previous nights preset clock on Mr. Coffee. That’s right, I take my java so seriously I have to have it ready before I even consciously realize I need it.

Mmmmm...forbidden beans...mmmmmm

The first cup is a delicious treat, no sugar our cream for me thank you, my Kona blend is straight uncut high quality stuff with a street value of about a dollar fifty an ounce. As the first sip scalds it’s way down my throat, I momentarily turn into Homer Simpson lamenting “mmmmm….coffee.” By the time I get that first cup down I become human again. I am overtaken by a surge of power! Forbidden caffeine!

So what does that have to do with the world you wonder? Well, if you had a good cup of Joe right now, you wouldn’t be so antsy to hurry through this. Sheesh…Some people’s kids. Anyway, as I was saying before you rudely invaded my mind with your psychic questions from light years away, or Toledo as it may be since I have no idea who you are other than the voice that lives behind my eyes and screams at my brain, coffee makes me human. Human might be a stretch admittedly but it makes me function. It makes me get out of bed, get dressed, and it bestows upon me the energy to sit in my recliner and watch re-runs of the Dukes of Hazard all day. More importantly it provides me the focus to do so without the aid of cliff notes to follow the complex plot lines that Boss Hog always throws me for a loop with. One day he really will get them Duke boys!

This is true - and coffee reminds us of that

Now if it can make me do that imagine what people with actual ambition accomplish with the powers those magic beans transfer via their ground and strained transformation. Would we have faked landing on the moon? No way! Who would have had the motivation to build that Arizona sound stage they filmed from without coffee? What else would have woke Mickey Mantle up from his hangovers to propel his monstrous home run stroke? Mapo? Forget about it! Do you want to think about a world run by people with access to nuclear launch codes that don’t have coffee at the ready to guide them through the process? It would be a scary place.

Coffee is the worlds get up and go. It’s our doctor healing us after a long hard night. It’s our mom and dad, yelling at us to get off our tails, move out of the house and go get a job. Most of all it’s our comfort. It’s consistent, delivering exactly what we want when we need it without judging us for having a sixth pot. No matter how many spouses leave us, or how many times we are fired for trying to organize fire extinguisher chair races through the halls, coffee is always there reminding us it’s not our fault. It’s those people that haven’t had a few pots before noon that are the problem. They just don’t understand us. They aren’t thinking on our advanced, fast moving mental plane.

Whole lotta' shaking going on!

We should thank our coffee, buy it a new maker, keep that favorite mug unwashed until it stains to the point we can write our name inside it, and always keep it sealed in an airtight container which makes it happy. Yes I’m sure about that, it reminds me every time I open it up. Without the energy, love, and reassurance coffee provides us don’t you think the world would fall apart too? Dogs and cats living together, “new coke” re re-replacing classic coke, multiple channels that show nothing but Law and order all day everyday! Egad! The horror! Then again my coffee has encouraged me to state this viewpoint for it so it may be a bit biased factually.

The parallels between the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations

John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln shared far more than the office of President of the United States of America. They were held up as heroic figures whom transcended the office by their admirers and were vilified as criminal by their opposition. It may be said no two Presidents ever shared such a great and well defined divide of support than these leaders in American history. More importantly what we will examine here are the circumstances surrounding their assassinations, circumstances some theorists believe cosmically link them together so closely that there must be something more to all of this than meets the eye. Clear your mind and sit back while we examine the similarities surrounding the deaths of these two American Presidents.

Immediately people point out that Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846 and that Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946, exactly 100 years later. On it’s own that is sheer coincidence, however Lincoln was elected President in 1860 and Kennedy won the seat in 1960, again exactly 100 years later. While this may seem like nothing on the surface it is the groundwork for many more similarities to be built upon, the second of which is both Presidents were directly pivotal to the civil rights movement, a cause it is believed may have gotten both killed as it was that issue which caused each the most public grief during their time in office. While living in the White house both Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Lincoln lost a child, perhaps a precursor of things to come? It hardly ends there though or what kind of possible cosmic connection could they hold?

Lincoln was shot in the back of his head in the presence of his wife in Ford’s Theatre. Kennedy was shot in the back of his head in the presence of his wife in an automobile made by Ford. Both men were assassinated on a Friday, as well in front of a large crowd in a public place. The whereabouts of both Kennedy and Lincoln were well known in advance. Kennedy’s parade was planned early enough for everyone to know his location on that Friday, and Lincoln attended Ford’s Theatre each Friday night and sat in the same box, this also was common public knowledge. As the coincidences pile up we see even more similarities when we look to the assassins of these great Presidents.

Each President’s assassin was known by three names; John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. If you add the letters of all three names up you will notice each man’s name is comprised of fifteen letters. Each assassin chose a firearm to carry out the killing. Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy from a warehouse (Book depository) and fled to a theatre. John Wilkes Booth Shot President Lincoln in a theatre and fled to a warehouse. Actually in all fairness Booth fled to a farm where he hid in a tobacco barn, but it’s just a little stretch and it keeps the connection alive! Both Booth and Oswald were believed to only be a part of a much greater conspiracy although nobody has definitively proved that to be true. Finally both Oswald and Booth were both killed before they ever made it to trial. Both assassins were killed by a gunshot, Oswald was gunned down by Jack Ruby, and Booth was gunned down by an infantryman when fleeing a burning barn and died from the wound several hours later.

While that is all very interesting there has to be more you must be thinking and there is! The successor to each president bore the same surname, Andrew Johnson and Lyndon B. Johnson. Coincidentally Andrew Johnson was born in 1898 and Lyndon Johnson was born in 1908. Again we see the magic spread of 100 years come into play for the third time. Mere coincidence or something greater at work?

Is this enough to say there is some odd otherworldly link between these two Presidents who were gunned down? Some say yes and go even further into such things as astrology and numerology to show countless more similarities surrounding the pivotal figures in these mens lives and deaths. Others say the similarities mean nothing and that it is possible to draw such conclusions between any two people that ever lived. Who is to say what is or isn’t true? You now have the information and it is up to you to decide if all of this is sheer coincidence or if something or someone far greater than we know is pulling the strings.

Chase bank – With 5,000 branches there is no waiting to be screwed!

Banks take security measures, Chase bank in particular, and they do so for their protection and the protection of their clients, but is there a point that security measures go too far? Is their a point where banks abuse “security measures” to try to extort people using their facilities? It’s a question that is being asked more and more often that deserves an objective look as to how they do this. Since Chase bank on Tech Drive in Norcross, Georgia is a bank I’ve personally heard many complaints about as well as had problems with them myself at times, we’ll use them as an example.

Banks charging a fee to cash a check that is drawn on their own institution isn’t a new concept by any means, but it is one that is catching on with the mega banks. Chase is an ardent proponent of this. Chase bank will charge anyone that does not have an account with them $6 or more to cash a check drawn on Chase. While that’s their choice to do, the way they handle people that do not have an account but are trying to cash a Chase check is problematic at the least.

At the Chase bank on tech Drive in Norcross, they have a habit of changing the rules midstream in order to make it as difficult as possible to cash a check drawn on them. Recently, a person trying to cash a Chase check at this branch was denied on the basis of insufficient proof of ID. The person had their valid driver’s license with their documentation from their local bank only a few miles away. Rather than wait 5 days to clear at her own bank, she chose to cash it immediately and then deposit it at her bank. Chase refused to cash the check.

She was told she needed her license and more ID to corroborate it. What she had with her aside from her license wasn’t good enough. They then spun it toward “..but if you open an account with us, you won’t have to pay to cash a check.” That didn’t work for her, the odd check from a Chase bank now and then wasn’t worth absorbing all the fees Chase charges just to keep an account open. The Chase teller had no answer for that. She saw a manager.

The manager recognized the woman, recalled cashing a check for her before in fact. She too said “Why not open an account with us?” She responded as she had before, but the manager said we can open your account right now and then you can cash all the Chase checks you want which posed an interesting question:

If the ID a person has is insufficient to cash a check, how is it then more than sufficient to open a checking account and get debit cards etc…?

After being asked for the name of the teller that refused to cash the check, and the manager’s name as well, they suddenly got very eager to cash the check. Suddenly, there had been a HUGE misunderstanding. That would be fine, but it wasn’t the first time, and she wasn’t the only person they did this to. It is serial behavior.

I went to the same branch a few months earlier with a check from a Chase bank to cash. I didn’t have an account there so I got the same story. I was near opening an account, she almost closed on me. Although my State ID, Federal ID and SSID card were somehow not enough to cash their own check, opening an account was no problem – better yet, they’d waive a part of my maintenance fees because I would have direct deposit. I did the math in my head real quick and realized that to “save” $6, I’d spend $96 per year. How was that “helping me?” I made a huge stink, threatened to blog it as I did the Dunkin Donuts across the road and suddenly – “we can cash that check and you just keep that $6!” They couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.

I have a neighbor that has had this problem, a woman at the soccer field – it’s not an isolated type of thing – but it is always a Chase bank. Chase even had someone arrested trying to cash their own check at a Chase branch because they said they thought it looked fake. When he waited over 15 minutes for an answer on whether they would cash it or not, he decided to leave. They decided that was suspicious behavior and sent the police after him.

This isn’t anything new. In 2009, Chase was refusing to cash their own checks and couldn’t provide any legitimate reason or documentation as to why. These aren’t million dollar checks or for tens of thousands of dollars, they are checks you would expect to see everyday – a few hundred bucks, maybe a few thousand. These aren’t so large the bank can claim they don’t have the cash on hand to satisfy them. Without rhyme or publicly explained reason, Chase just puts the screws to people.

Here’s what you can do though if you really want to screw with Chase bank – when you get a check drawn on Chase and they try to charge you $6 to cash it after they finally decide they are willing to part with someone elses money, tell them to call the person that  drafted the check and ask them if  THEY want Chase to charge you the $6 fee. If they say “NO”, Chase can’t charge it. If they are going to make you miserable, give them a dose back. Of course it may not be convenient for the person that wrote the check, but it is an option.

The bottom line is – Chase sucks. If you don’t have an account with Chase, you aren’t a real person in their eyes. If you don’t buy their line about opening an account with them to “save” on check cashing fees, they don’t care about you. If you’re a small business, you’re double screwed. The best way to avoid the problem is don’t deal with Chase and ask your clients for alternate sources of payment when possible if they are Chase customers. It’s not really about security, it’s about soaking people for all they can.

Things you say to your teens which are a waste of breath

If you’ve ever tried talking to your teen, sometimes you know there are things you say which seem to have zero effect on them. I’ve often felt like Wylie Coyote going over the side of the cliff after a few sit downs in which the things I thought were not only important, but pretty simple to follow fell on deaf ears. Whether or not that was by my teen’s choice to tune these things out or if there is some sort of mechanism in the teen mind that hears key words and automatically shuts their brain processing center down until they have kids of their own is a mystery to not just me but the entire scientific community and parents everywhere. Still, we keep trying over and over which makes investing in companies that produce aspirin and headache remedies a good long term buy and hold, just ask a stockbroker, they’ll back that up.

Somewhere in all of this, your teen has a center that tunes you out

Telling your teen that they don’t know how good they have it compared to kids in “our day” or even their grandparents day, is a conversation you can just forget about having. As soon as they hear anything related to “When I was your age…” they suddenly get a glassy eyed distant look as if they suddenly felt the effects of being hit squarely between the eyes with a 2×4. They don’t care about how it was in anyone’s day other than their own. They don’t want to hear about how you listened to and respected what your parents said. They don’t want to hear how you went to school, worked 85 hours a week, participated in school activities, and raised 7 siblings on your own, even if it’s true! That is not helping them get an iWhatever right here and now.

When they ask for money they are equipped with a shut off switch so that any answer besides ” here you go” and “is that enough?” automatically goes into their auditory spam folder. In about two hours it goes to their recycle bin and they automatically regenerate a new request as if the first never went out. You can tell them you just don’t have any cash on you, the economy is tough, ask why they need $50 to go to Baskin Robbins, or any number of things, but only the two above responses will ever be processed so just save your breath in everything else.

The sex talk really does go down like this

Don’t even get started on sex. Remember how creeped out you were at anything which even gave you the slightest hint that your parents knew or possibly ever had sex? Your teen feels the same way about you. They are living in the same fantasy world that allows them to believe they are a virgin birth or the one baby in the world that was delivered by a the stork before hunters mistakenly shot it down over Alberta Canada thinking it was just a really big duck. Attempting to push the issue will result in their head violently shaking and then exploding just like the guy in that scene in the movie Scanners.

Teens don’t hear anything regarding questions about academics until they come to you for that first tuition check. Even then all they hear are the above mentioned acceptable replies as mentioned in the above section regarding money. Have you ever asked your teen what they learned at school that day, or if they have any homework, or anything loosely connected to education? If you have then you already know they are incapable of responding with answers beyond, “I have no homework” or my “homework is done.” Well actually there is also the ever popular and classic response of “nothing” which can be applied to every single academically based question you can conceive.

You can't handle the truth! (And don't want ot know it really!)

Just as bad is even entertaining the thought of asking what they did while they were out with their friends. You’re not going to get a response and if you do get a response it’s likely nothing more than the party line of “nothing” or “just hanging out.” Maybe they were really just hanging out but from the age of twelve years and seven months until about twenty one this about all the are equipped with to answer. Don’t bother pushing the issue or it will turn into that courtroom exchange with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. Consider for a second, this is one of those cases where it is possible you can’t handle the truth! Even if you can handle it, you may wish you never heard the truth and had to find out.

While the areas mentioned are the highlights, you can pretty much assume that any topic they view as “invading their privacy” like why there are dishes under their bed that have developed spores that grew legs and started asking for an allowance, to simple things like “do you want to talk about anything” are just wasted breath. It’s all falling on deaf ears so don’t bother. Just make a list about everything you want to know and save it until they have their first child. Then they will finally be equipped to answer everything. Just don’t bother telling them that they will have to deal with the same things with their kids you dealt with in regards to them, their teen hearing blocker has just turned into phase two parental selective hearing syndrome.

Most stressful jobs in America

Stress is a fact of life, and oftentimes that stress comes from your job. Stressful jobs are everywhere, and given the state of the economy and how difficult it is for many people to find any employment at times, more and more people are in jobs they find to be stressful out of necessity. If you’re currently in a job you find stressful, there may not be a whole lot you can do to change that right now, but if you are out on the open market and looking for employment, CareerCast compiled a ranking of some of the most stressful a person can hold.

What makes a job stressful to one person may be the exact thing that appeals to another, so keep that in mind and understand there are no absolutes- simply a composite of what is true for many. Career Cast in compiling their rankings of the most stressful hobs in America took several factors into account – most significantly, opportunity for advancement, real or perceived risk, environment, and competitiveness. By examining those factors along with others, after examining better than 2,000 different jobs, these were identified as the ten most stressful jobs in America.

10. Real Estate Agent

Trying to sell a big ticket purchase like a home in a struggling economy is no easy feat to say the least. The hours are long, the income can be feast or famine, and even when you can motivate a buyer to make a purchase it may all be beaten to smithereens if financing falls through for one reason or another. When times are good, being a real estate agent can be great, when they are bad however, it is easily one of America’s most stressful jobs.

9. Advertising Executive

If you love long hours, harsh deadlines, the demand to always be “on” creatively, and having to bend to the whims of clients at all times in order to maintain a grip on the little advertising money that is floating around in tough times, then this is your dream job. If not, it is easily one of the most stressful jobs in America without a bleak outlook as unemployment in the sector is up 14%.

8. Public Relations Officer

With tough times comes the need for people that answer the tough questions. While being a PR officer can be rewarding on the good days when announcements of popular things need to be made, on the bad days it can be hellish. Imagine being the PR officer for a car manufacturer answering questions about a design flaw that cost people their life, or for a company that was the culprit of an environmental disaster. Right or wrong, the PR officer is the person that becomes the public face of those disasters at times and a fall guy by default

7. Highway Patrol Officer

No job on the front lines of law enforcement is easy, but Highway Patrol Officers are rated as having one of the highest level of job related stress day after day. It’s not just pulling over speeders, it’s dealing with accidents that can be horrific, extremely dangerous high speed chases are always possible, and then there is always the danger faced with late night stops in remote areas. Danger lurks everywhere, and no matter what the pay is, the stress always has the potential to outweigh that factor.

6. Commercial Pilot

Flying the friendly skies may sound like fun, but holding the lives of hundreds of passengers in your hands is no small pressure to deal with. The threat of technical failures, in flight emergencies, environmental situations that cause dangerous conditions, and the slim but very possible reality of a hijacking all can weigh heavily on the pilot.

5. Police Officer

Much like Highway patrol officers, policemen have traffic stops to deal with as well volatile situations like domestic disputes, robberies, and any imaginable transgression of the law. While officers with specialized skills may step into handle certain unique situations like hostages, it is the regular on the beat policeman that is often the first responder and has to diffuse the situation as best as possible or at least try to contain knowing all the time that they may pay the ultimate price to maintain public safety.

4. Surgeon

Working odd hours with the knowledge that one slip. One mistake could negatively alter or end a human life is no easy feat. Add in the pressure for the pursuit of perfection, unbearable malpractice insurance costs, and knowing that you may have to make the tough decision in some cases as to who lives and dies, and it is hard to imagine the stress levels a surgeon can face.

3. Taxi Drivers

Cabbies can deal with surly fares, the threat of robbery, driving in the worst weather conditions, traffic snarls, the knowledge that being on the road so much is statistically indicative they will be involved in a worse than normal auto accident, and the pressures of making the daily bank just to cover the overhead of their vehicle which is their livelihood, and it is easy to see the stress a cabbie faces. Add in being cramped up in a small space. The increased possibility of conditions like hemorrhoids. Deep vein thrombosis, and the need to suppress the urge to give into road rage. And this is an often thankless job.

2. Corporate Executive

Sure the title sounds great and the pay and perks may be wonderful, but there is also the pressure to stay competitive as well as make the tough decisions to not only keep the company afloat but expanding. At stake are the jobs of potentially tens of thousands of people along with their hopes, dreams, and the ability to care for their families. Being a corporate executive is part leader in the now, and part prognosticator for the next month, year, and decade, all the while with the need to know everything that is going on and how to handle every situation that arises good and bad devoid of personal desires with the focus always on the best thing to sustain the company. The hours are long and erratic, and the job is often thankless. It is a perfect situation for pressure cooker stress.

1. Firefighter

While running away from danger is a survival instinct nearly every human is born with, firefighters do the exact opposite. They face the possibility of life ending danger every time they answer an alarm. A firefighter works hours that can be brutal, may spend unimaginable lengths of times engaged dousing flames, and faces long term health risks even with all the safety precautions taken. It is a selfless job that is riddled with constant stress, but can also be extremely rewarding for the right person.

What not to talk about on a first date

It goes without saying you want a first date to be the best it possibly can, and while being able to talk in order to get to know each other is a key of a good first date there are topics you should avoid on the first date. This is not to say you can’t talk about important things, it just means you should use common sense and avoid the big five date killers the first time out. If you want to increase your odds of getting a second date, avoid an incident, and potentially suffer a miserable or truncated meeting, follow this advice and you’ll be well on your way.

Unless you met at a Young Republicans meeting or something like that stay away from politics! Even people that generally say they don’t care about or follow politics still have very strong opinions on the topic. You may make what you think is an innocent observation about the president or perhaps some piece of legislation in the news which absolutely turns your dates stomach. The wrong statement on politics could send your date to the bathroom and they may never return opting to quietly slide out. That’s better than starting an argument at least or even worse the silent date. Unless you love living way over the edge just avoid politics all together.

Even touchier than politics is religion. You may think you know where someone stands but you could wind up being so far off base you spend the night in theological discourse more vigorously fought than the Crusades. You could hit the wrong button and end the whole date before the appetizers even arrive, I’ve seen it happen. Heck I’ve actually done it. Religion is a very personal thing that people hold dearly to and they don’t want it to ever be challenged for the most part, certainly not on the first date with a person they are just getting to know. Now there is another possibility and you could wind up with someone that wants to spend the evening giving you their testimony once you open that door and that may not be what you have in mind for the night. This is something you are better off learning about over time, not on the first date.

When it comes to money just say no! When I was dating it was one of the biggest turn-offs out there to have my income or asset value questioned. This is one of those things that just isn’t anyone’s business on a first date. If it was we would all carry a current credit rating and and statements from our bank and broker. Discussing money on the first dates gives the impression that if a person is a bit short in the finance department means they are not worthy of your company somehow. I’m not saying money isn’t something important to discuss down the road, but on a first date it is a killer. It gives the immediate impression you are or may be a gold digger and that goes for men as well as women.

We all have exe’s but we don’t want to hear about them on the first date or sometimes even ever. There are few things worse than sitting across from someone or even worse being stuck in a car with them and hearing them drone on about their ex. When you do this it’s a bit disrespectful to the person you are with at the least, it’s boring to the maximum, and it shows you haven’t moved on yet. It is a clear signal you really aren’t ready to be dating and the chances of a follow up date are slim to none. Do yourself and your date a favor and skip this subject until they bring it up! When and if they want to know they will ask. Volunteering this information on the first date is like sealing your own coffin.

The final thing to forget about discussing on the first date is sex. Sure you may wind up having sex with your date that first night, it happens with great regularity, but if you bring it up it’s a turn-off. Talking about sex with a person on the first date is creepy for most people, it gives off a vibe that’s what you’re going out with them for and nobody likes to be put in that position. It makes a person feel cheap and disrespected as if you think they owe you something above and beyond for your company. When and if it’s going to happen it will naturally. Talking about on the first date makes it feel forced. If you like being ditched by all means bring it up, otherwise just leave this subject untouched.

As we are all individuals not everyone will respond poorly to these topics but in general many will. We all have pet peeves and subjects that set us off. A good rule of thumb is if the topic is something which is or can be controversial or of very personal nature leave it alone. It will come out down the road on a later date. Keep first date conversation light and casual and you’ll do well, bring up these above mentioned topics and you’ll wish you never had.

Adoption versus abortion

Adoption is a wonderful thing, without it I never would have had the life or opportunities I now posses. I have always viewed adoption as one of the greatest gifts on earth to all involved. The child obviously becomes part of a home, the adoptive parents have a child to love and nurture, and the birth mother has the satisfaction of knowing she has provided such to each party. Then there is abortion.

However I also wholly believe in the saying “A woman’s body, a woman’s choice.” I hate to see the government or any institution involve themselves in a decision which is so personal and impacts so many people on that same personal level. What is right, adoption or abortion?

As an adult adoptee and a mother one would think that I would be an advocate for every child being born and having the opportunity for a full life, but that isn’t the case. While not a popular view I have always subscribed to the utilitarian value of doing the best for the most. At times that does come at the expense of the individual, but in today’s world we have to be realistic. The planet is becoming terribly overcrowded, food shortages are the norm in far too many places around the globe, and to be perfectly honest I sometimes find it hard to fathom one more person being on the planet.

There has to be a system of checks and balances and unfortunately abortion is a part of that system. We simply have to live within the means of what the planet can realistically provide. We have to stop and ask what do we do when the population reaches critical mass? When does many become too many? We see in nature that when the animal population becomes overpopulated they suffer for food, fight for food, and eventually parts of the herd die for lack of food. As humans we are arrogant enough to try to hold ourselves above this principle, but we are simply animals which have evolved to a different level. We are still subject to the laws of nature and we see suffering for lack of food and basic amenities world wide. The human herd is simply that overgrown.

If, and if is a big word, but if there were more than enough people out there willing to adopt every child that needs a home, and could support them, then my outlook would be quite different. The simple fact however is that this is not the case. Children, especially older ones, go unadopted and become a part of the “System” every single day. Everyday another child is brought into the world that will never have a traditional family life quite simply because nobody wants to adopt them or people that do wish to adopt them are denied, often for rather trivial reasons.

The adoption system could be streamlined and made far more efficient by better regulation and removing the profit motive making it a true humanitarian industry. There are people willing to adopt that simply don’t because they view the process as too expensive and tedious with no guarantee of getting a child. Then there are couples denied children based on sexual preference that could provide good homes. I even know a couple denied adoption by four different agencies based on their age. Imagine being too old to raise a child, especially a child of primary school age when in your fifties. Eventually they did adopt, but had to go abroad to do so.

I would love nothing more than to say every child that draws breath will have a home, but as harsh and hated a thing as it is to say, there are times when abortion is not only justified but necessary and humane. Is it right to bring a child into the world the biological family has no desire to accept and simply hope it finds it’s way to home? Is it better to go back to old traditions of killing children after birth that are unwanted? We scoff at such a thing now, but it was common in our not too distant past. With abortion needless suffering is avoided and it provides children that are already available for adoption better odds of finding a family. Deciding between abortion or adoption is perhaps the hardest choice one can make, but it is a choice and as adoption is no guarantee, sometimes abortion is the proper choice.

Things you should never say to your teenage daughter

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but teenage daughters are from somewhere beyond anyplace the Hubble telescope has managed to pick up yet. Communicating with a teenage girl requires an interpreter, a lot of patience, and I would say common sense but sometimes that even fails to penetrate the atmosphere around your teen daughter. Okay, maybe not yours, but definitely mine. I’ve searched high and low for the right things to say to mine, but in the end I’ve only managed to find out what not to say which has proved equally valuable.

Rule number one is to never use the word forbid! This gets their brain firing like a feline needing a catnip fix. This is a challenge, you’re throwing down the gauntlet. I was once said “I forbid you to get a nose ring.” Now in all fairness my little precious did not come home with a nose ring. She came home with a belly button ring, a tongue stud, and some piece of metal that kept staring at me from the eyebrow area on the right side of her face. She put up a good defense citing she did just as I said and avoided the whole nose ring thing. Being right was little consolation when she was sitting in her room for a month after school though.

Never ever under any circumstances use the words “around” or “about” when discussing time. You have to be specific! I once said be in by around ten. That is not specific. What I should have said was “be in by ten p.m. on the night of 12/09/2007″ because that is concrete. What I originally said using the word around ten somehow makes it’s way through the auditory system of a teenage girl as maybe eleven or twelve, or even the tenth day of the month. Ten p.m. is generally “around” that time in the grand scheme of things. Who knows? You have to remember putting information in their mind is like programming a computer, if it is not literal it is open to a huge world of interpretation and fills in the blanks with the most personally pleasing data.

Never tell your teenage daughter you did the Phoebe Cates - EVER!!

Never ever tell them about the things you did when you were their age, unless of course it’s something like getting a job and saving money for college, or perhaps volunteering with the sick and elderly. Somehow a teenage girl is wired to store every single thing you have ever said and throw it right back at you the exact second you try to punish them for doing the same thing. They will use it against you in the snippiest most snide way possible so you walk away from the exchange looking like the evil unjust hypocrite and they look like poor persecuted Snow White. Even worse than that it’s possible they will attempt the things you did and try to pawn off their shenanigans as some sort of alternate universe form of bonding. It’s not uncommon to hear things in this scenario like “but mom, I was just trying to be like you were when you were my age.” Don’t fall for it!

Never tell them what kind of boy, or girl depending on their preference, to date. No matter what you say they will go directly against it. That is unless of course you tell them to go for the bad boy. Never say “date the kid with a charge for grand theft auto and a snake tattooed on his forehead” because they will do it! Even if they don’t want to they will do it to spite you and prove their point. What that point is I’m not even clear on and I did that to my parents as a teen! In fact don’t even talk to them about dating, just let them figure it out on their own and when the are hopelessly lost they will come to you and maybe consider listening to your advice. Of course whatever you say will be wrong and they will blame you for their dateless dilemma so it doesn’t really matter anyway.

Nah, she wouldn't dare rebel...not your little precious

Don’t tell your teenage daughter anything you wouldn’t want used against you in a court of law or blabbed about to the public in general. Teenage girls gossip and yours is no different. It used to take a whole night and hours on the phone to spread a juicy morsel, now it reaches the world in audio, text, and sometimes video in a matter of seconds thanks to cell phones and computers. Remember what you said to your spouse about your neighbor Marjorie and what she did with the UPS man when her husband was at work? Your daughter sure will and that is why before you yourself gossip in the home you need to go down to the Bat Cave and enter the cone of silence. Anything you say in the house, no matter how quietly you whisper, your teen daughters bionic hearing will pick up and instantly disseminate.

It is easy to go on and on for days about all the things to never say to your teenage daughter but if you stick to the above major no-no’s you should be okay for the most part. Most important is if the conversation ever turns to sex…fake a heart attack. Yes it’s cruel and extreme but sometimes it’s worth it.

Is quality important in business? You bet it is!

The most important aspect of business is quality -  it always has been and always be. While there are many factors that contribute to a successful business none trumps this simple axiom whether it be a product or a service oriented enterprise. lack of quality in any aspect of business whether it be personnel, marketing, location, equipment, or any portion of business is essential. In the final analysis you will see how exactly this is true.

Many people will argue that the most important aspects of business are financing and advertising. I will not say these aren’t important and essential but they certainly are not number one when it comes to a successful business. When deciding to enter any business venture the first thing that is discussed is the product, and if the product is a stinker nothing will make the business venture work successfully. Advertising can spread the word and drive a lot of consumers your way, but if the product is no good, no amount of looks will create sales enough to save a bad idea.

For instance it is not uncommon for a person with a great product and business model to find financing anywhere. Everyone including lending institutions wants to make money and if they feel your idea is good enough they will line up to compete to lend you money. If the product or service is sub-par they will give you the polite denial letter and and often tell you the reason they will not finance the venture is the product. Quite simply people have had great ideas throughout business history and almost no money to invest on their own but gotten financing quite easily based on the strength of the concept for their product as can be seen with very simple items like the Hairagami, extension cord clip, and home hair cut systems. There are literally thousands of products like this people have brought to the market through financing from outside sources based on the strength of the product and succeeded.

There is also a school of thought that believes a strong advertising campaign can take even a bad product and push it until sales take off and make it viable. In the very short term this is sometimes true. New Coke back in the mid 1980′s sold great briefly but was so unpopular the old formula was demanded by consumers. If Coca-Cola can’t sell a bad product with their vast resources, nobody can.

Most of us as consumers have tried something new out on the basis of simply giving it a shot. While these are usually inexpensive things which we feel safe with risking a small amount of money, sometimes they are much larger financial risks. Either way the one truth that comes out of this is if the product is a bomb you aren’t going to be a repeat client and you’re very likely to let others know it stinks as well and steer them away from wasting their money on it. Did you ever hear of anyone giving positive endorsements of the Yugo? Conversely speaking if a product is good word of mouth from satisfied consumers can spread farther, faster, and more effectively than any advertising campaign. Honestly answer this, are you more likely to try something based on a trusted friends recommendation or a coupon or advertisement you randomly happen upon?

Again financing and advertising are important, there is no arguing that. Financing can help weather the turbulent start up time for a business, and advertising increases awareness for the product or service. As important as those aspects are however they simply won’t save a bad product. Business is a marathon, not a sprint, and getting out of the gates fast may be exhilarating, but eventually quality always wins out over hype.