Are you ready?

Well, the time has come. Yes folks, Football has returned.

Let us rejoice at the sport that makes us come together to either love or hate one another. I for one am a Miami Dolphins fan and hate patriot fans. This includes the Patriot fans that are in my family.

I love nothing more than sitting around in my gym shorts and a sweatshirt or t-shirt, depending on the time of year, and watching football on Sunday. Snacking almost all day, drinking beer, and doing absolutely nothing is what I live for.

I do however play flag football on Sundays from 10am to 12pm. Just in time to get back home for the games though.

So I welcome the season with open arms, especially after the lockout scare. We are truly lucky that all those greedy people could finally come together to come to an agreement on how to get/ stay rich.

The only thing that scares me about the future of football is all the rules being put into place. I understand wanting to protect the players, that if great, but I feel we are turning them into a bunch of puss’. I know it’s not the players fault either for the most part. The league needs to protect their investments. Football players are like businesses on Wall Street. If a star player gets hurt, people will sell their stock (interest), and not put as much money into apparel, tickets to games, etc. as they would if the player (business) was healthy.

Ramble

Eh, I just feel like going from thought to thought today. No specific topic, just see where the keyboard takes me.

So, I was thinking last night about if I died. I found out other than missing my wife, I don’t think I would be too disappointed. Every time I think of my life and how I am going to be working for 40-50 more years just to get by, it does not give me a great outlook. I love life, don’t get me wrong. I just feel like I’m wasting my life. Working my ass off just to have a roof over my head is a waste. I have no other money and if I do, it goes to surviving. I think we need to do something to contribute, but make it worth it for us. Not only that, but when I can afford to retire, I will be too old to most likely do the active things I can do now.

Granted maybe I will be in OK shape when I get older, but I have a bad ankle, knees, and neck problems and I’m only 24….soooo yea, I won’t hold my breath.
As for living life, I try to do what I can now. With so much debt, it makes it hard to do a lot of stuff. It is just really depressing to know that this is my life.

I always think of how cool it would be to be a comedian. I want to be the asshole comedian. The one who is such a jerk, yet you love him because he speaks the truth no one usually wants to hear. Or the truth that is so obvious it makes the crowd feel like idiots. For example, why it is so awkward to go into a public restroom to take a #2 and if someone else is in there you have second thoughts of going into the stall.

So I drive about 20-30 minutes to work every day and I have found that 90% of the people I see driving like idiots are Asians. I am not making this up.

I hate dry erase boards because if I erase part of a word or letter I can’t just fix it, I have to erase the whole damn thing and re-write it.

I hate decorative clocks because I can’t stand looking at them all day and it being the same time all the time. My co-worker that I share an office with has two of them….
OK well I guess I’m done for now.

Pay 'em

I read an article today about raising the salaries of teachers. As someone who is married to a teacher, I could not agree more...to a point.

My wife has yet to get a job as a full time teacher because of all the financial cuts to the education programs in the state. We have less and less people wanting to go to be teachers due to the fact their are much more lucrative careers out there that pay more and don't involve being surrounded by kids 7-8 hours a day.

Tell me this, would you be willing to spend a year as teacher making between $35,000 to $50,000?

I really don't think people realize what goes into being a teacher. I have seen my wife work all day student teaching, and then come home and work for hours on lesson plans for the next day.

Take this into consideration. Not every kid is the same. So not only do you have to create something for all the kids, but you need to make it challenging for the few smarter kids, and at the same time, figure out something to do with the kids who don't really grasp things as fast as the other.

You also have the kids who are trouble makers. The ones who have to be the center of attention/class clown. The kids who are shy or shut themselves down from other kids. The kids who want the undivided attention of the teacher. The sensitive kids who whine about everything. I hope you get the point....

Their is so much that goes into the profession that anyone who is not a teacher has no idea of.

I think we need to start paying teachers more to get more people into the field. You do need to have a passion for teaching, which is very important. I see the teachers that are in the union that know they can't be fired and just really suck at being a teacher. But there are more people who really do care and want to be great teachers. We need to reward them for that.

I do feel however that the union has a bit to much reach into the schools. It makes it so hard to fire a teacher because of the union, even if the teacher is horrible. We do need some sort of performance'd based structure.

These are the same teachers that are teaching our future doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc.
Why are they paid so much less than these people?

I totally regret going to college

So I have felt this way from the first year I started college. I never really knew what I wanted to do in life. I went to college because of the pressure from my family. These are the same people who didn't even go to college til either later in life or not at all. My father went when he was in his mid 30's, and my mother never made it past the 10th grade. My parents divorced when I was 2 and they hated each other with a passion, especially my mom. So I always had to decipher what they were trying to say to me, because they always had two completely different idea's of what they wanted me to do.

I always wanted to move away from home, mostly because I could not take living so close to my parents for the rest of my life. They drove me NUTS.
Anyways, Myself and then girlfriend/current wife, moved to Utah to go to the University of Utah. My aunt lived in Salt Lake City, so it was good to have someone there.

Like I said, I never knew what I wanted to do.

The first mistake I made was getting Private Loans from Sallie Mae. NEVER DO THIS... One piece of advice I can give is to avoid private loans like they are the plague. I got them and it was nice at the time, paying for school, having a bit extra to live off of, and not have to worry about them until I graduate.

Well my father and mother co-signed for 2 years each. My father had horrible credit, which I obviously did not know at the time, and now I am stuck with a 9.5% interest rate and my mother got a 5.5% interest rate. So it was $20,000 per year because I had out of state resident status. To add on to that, my father claimed me on his taxes which screwed me with getting the in-state price for tuition.

So I got the ended up graduating with a Bachelors of Science in Mass Communications. The broadest degree one can get, but at least I can now professionally speak to people.

I now have about $100,000 in student loan debt and am working at a $12.50 /hour job that really has nothing to do with my degree. I am trying to pay off my loans, after putting them off for 3 months at a time over the last year at a $150 fee for each time i did it. Again, thank you Sallie Mae for squeezing even harder. So now the payments are $918 per month, thank you very much college, you make me stressed out every day.

So here is a tip from a seasoned veteran...

1. Go to a community college for your general education credits. It's so much cheaper. You can transfer to a bigger university later when it is much more affordable and you have all the stupid general education classes already done.

2. Remember all the thing you need to pay for in college. Books (very expensive), Food for both semesters (remember that you will almost never cook stuff yourself, unless in a microwave), Entertainment(this includes going to college sports games if your into that. And don't say this is not an expense....please, you are not going to sit in the dorm room whenever your not in class.)

3. DO NOT GET PRIVATE STUDENT LOANS. try as hard as you can to get Grants, Scholarships, Federal money, Loans from the government, your grandmother, ANYTHING else.

4. Do extensive research on what you think you want to do as a career. Salary, number of hours worked, what material you need to focus on, Get an internship.

5. Get an internship. There is almost nothing better to help prepare you for a career than an internship. If it is unpaid, do it anyways you will still get college credit for it, which saves you money and time.

Yes, the wind blows

OK, so I am just about sick of every year hearing about how bad hurricanes are, and how they are in the news every day until they are nothing but a tiny T-storm over the Midwest. I realize they are strong storms capable of doing massive damage, but come on.

Let’s think about this, they happen every year without fail. I would assume people realize this, especially the ones who live on the coast and deal with it year after year. I think they should only be in the news if they cause a lot of damage. It like me telling someone who lives in California that it is 60 degrees in Maine. They most likely will not care (unless they are originally from there and are still concerned with the weather for some reason). This is how I feel hearing about every hurricane and tropical storm from A-Z every year.

I realize that Meteorologists have nothing better to talk about, and this kind of stuff gets them all worked up. Most of these storms hit land and weaken so fast, it was like it was just a strong T-storm with some big waves at the coastline. So please, give it a rest on the hurricane bit.

Hot Mama

So I saw this story about a mom who punished a kid with hot sauce. She was convicted and may face jail time. The only reason she was caught, was because she went on the Dr. Phil show and people were so outraged they demanded the police do something about it.

So this brings me to my first point, why would you go on Dr. Phil? He needs hot sauce put in his mouth so he does not speak. Give him the fiery butt hole. Of all the people in the world who you can go to, why is one of those choices Dr. Phil.
If I need money, I go to the bank, not to Bill Gates front door. You get the point…

Second point, what has happened to child punishment in this country? When I was a kid, my father chased me with the belt he was wearing at that specific time if I did something wrong. I got spankings, or smacked with a wood spoon or spatula. There was an arsenal of punishments at the hands of my parents. I think I turned out just fine, and I still love my parents for the most part.

Maybe the hot sauce is a bit much for a kid, don’t want to permanently damage the tongue, but I think we are being too nice to kids. It’s no wonder why a lot of kids these days are little assholes. You know it’s true. Kids are a lot bolder these days because they know they have nothing to be afraid of. Kids are well aware of Child Protective Services and use that against parents. It’s almost funny, but not quite. I say bring back giving your kid a good swat to the butt and put a little more fear in them.

I am only 24, but when I was a kid in elementary school, I was terrified of the older kids. Now the 4th graders talk like seniors and act 7th graders. There annoying, bold, and are smart at getting away with things.

Third and last point...Parents stop letting your kids do whatever the hell they want. Stop buying cell phones for them when they are 6 years old, stop treating them like little babies when they are no long little babies, and stop telling everyone how great your kid is, because honestly, they are not that great. (Unless they cured cancer, which that would be pretty neat)

In the Beginning...

This is a blog I hope to keep up on and share my opinions on what/how I see the world. This will range from the dumb stuff that happens in the entertainment world that we as a society love, to just everyday topics such as politics, stupid people in the news, or basically whatever I can think of that I see fitting to rant about. I encourage all people that read these posts to comment your opinion, especially if you think I am wrong. I would love to argue with you even if I am wrong and I know it. There is a big part of me that loves to be an antagonist. So please do not be shy, and I will not be offended by anything you say, although I will not guarantee you will feel the same about my words.