Ow ow ow ow ow!

It's been barely over six months since number five.

What got us into this stupid credit crisis in the first place?  In my opinion, it was a combination of stupidity by lenders in lending money to people that couldn't afford what they were borrowing and stupidity by borrowers in borrowing money that they couldn't afford to pay back.

What is the government's answer to this credit crisis?  Throw seven hundred billion doaars of MY money at it.  Well... taxpayer money, anyway.

And what did I just see on television?  A commercial from a lender talking about this new wonderful government-guaranteed loan program where you don't have to have a minimum credit score to qualify for a loan for 97.5% of a home's value.

What the??

So the result of the government bailout is more behavior that will cause a need for yet another bailout?  I SO wish I were making this up.

Don't forget to vote tomorrow.  Before you vote, find out how the candidates on your ballot voted on the bailout issue.  My recommendation, let's get rid of the idiots who are spending seven hundred million dollars of OUR money so that people can spend it on television ads that will cause a need for another bailout.

National Blog Posting Month...  or something like that.  It's for people that want to set the habit of blogging by doing it every day for a month.

I'm taking this opportunity to say that I'm NOT doing it.  Ever.

The stuff I post here already is mostly crap and drivel as it is.  Why require that I post something every day?  That would greatly up the drivel to coherency ratio on my blog, which is already dangerously high.

Sure, I may come up with a brilliant post someday.  But why should I make you wade through all of the drivel to find the brilliance?  It's just not worth it.

So everyone!  Chant together with me!

NaBloPoMo! Just say no!
NaBloPoMo! Just say no!
NaBloPoMo! Just say no!
NaBloPoMo! Just say no!

Rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant RANT rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant.

Complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain complain.

Gripe gripe gripe.

So there.

And if you don't like it, then this was about YOU.

Last weekend was my first campout as Scoutmaster.  We went to the Little Sahara recreation area.

My feet are STILL cold.

It got down below freezing during the night.  One of the scouts had nothing for his feet but flip flops.  Smart.

We cooked and ate breakfast in blowing snow.

But the general concensus was that we had a great time!  Yes, it was a lot of fun.  I learned a bunch of things that will make the next campout go more smoothly.  But we all survivied (even the one with flip flops).

The next one will be even colder...  It's the "Klondike Derby" in January.  *shiver*

President Bush just signed the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.  According to the Library of Congress website:

On 10/1/2008, the Senate passed H.R.1424 as the vehicle for the economic rescue legislation. In the EAS version of the bill (Engrossed Amendment as Agreed to by the Senate), Division A (pp.1-110) is referred to as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008; Division B (pp. 110-255) is referred to as the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008; and Division C (pp. 255-441) is referred to as the Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008.

So...  Let's look at this Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

Remember, that Division A, as mentioned above, is the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

Division A is entitled "Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2008."  The summary on the Library of Congress website of this division of the bill has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with bailing out banks.

Hmmm.

It took a lot longer to search and find the actual text of the AMENDED bill.  The table of contents of this amended bill is longer than the entire text of the original bill.

I wrote my congressmen last week.  I asked them to vote against this bailout bill.  I believe that something should be done, but that something shouldn't be throwing a trillion dollars at the problem.  All of my congressmen voted for this bill as amended.  I'm going to write them again now.  They have all lost my vote forever.

I call do-over on the weekend.

Saturday morning, I had to be at the Boy Scout office at 7:15.  7:15 in the morning???  That's too early for most days, but especially too early for Saturday.  My training was scheduled to end at 5pm.  Fortunately, I got out almost an hour early because they were done.  Basically, the rest of Saturday was spend trying to get a couple of the forty-seven dozen things done that I would have done had I not spent all day at the Scout office.

Then, yesterday became a crazy day.  It was my first Fast Sunday that I was responsible for making sure that Fast Offerings were gathered.  I woke up with a start at about 8:30 realizing that I had no idea where the Ward Newsletters were or where to get them.  So I got up, showered, and shaved, and went out to track them down.

I found them (on a Bishopric Member's porch) and came home to find out how many Young Men would be helping out.  There are 8 Young Men that I have responsibility for.  One of them is, at this point, unordained, and one of them spends every other weekend at his father's house.  Out of the remaining six, I couldn't get in touch with one of them, so I assumed there would be 5 Deacons at my house at 10:00.  (It was a pretty good assumption.  The one I couldn't get in touch with showed up, but another one didn't.)  I called a member of the Teacher's Quorum Presidency and he called and asked several more Young Men to show up at my house at 10:00.  ONE of them showed up.  Basically, I had 6 people to do a job that would take at least 10 people to do.

Ugh.

<Panic Mode>

I called the "missing-in-action" Deacon to find out where he was.  He was sleeping and said it would take him a half hour to get ready.  Fine.  We could deal with that.  I called one of my assistant advisors who also needed to shower and assigned him to work with the sleep-in Deacon.  Now I only needed two more people.  They would be me and my son.

</Panic Mode>

Everything turned out okay, and I had the opportunity to gather fast offerings, something I hadn't done in more than 20 years.  But all of this made for a long day.

After church, I had a couple of meetings to attend that, fortunately, didn't take very long.  I ended up getting home at about 5pm.  It had been an eight hour church day.  Wow...  Bishopric members to this and more EVERY Sunday.  I'm not going to start complaining about one week a month.

I also figured out how to get more help next month:  Good old-fashioned bribery.  I had already told my Deacons that if they showed up on time for 3 months in a row for Fast Offerings, I would make homemade cheesecake for them.  That's why 5 out of the 6 showed up punctually.  (The sixth... his parents had a little discussion with him and I'm not worried about a repeat of the sleeping in.)  Then, at Church, I casually mentioned to a couple of the Teachers that the Teachers who help me out the most during the next 3 months will be invited to join in on the homemade cheesecake activity.  Combine that with my reputation as a REALLY good cook, and next month, I'm going to have them beating down my door!  Seriously...  Young Men that before, had avoided Sunday Morning phone calls on Fast Sunday told me that they would be upset at me if I didn't call them FIRST.

Anyway... Between Scoutmaster training on Saturday and a full-to-overflowing "Church" day yesterday, I'm more tired than when I left work on Friday.

I call do-over on the weekend.  I'll just tell my boss that I'll see him in a couple of days.  I wonder if that will go over well.

I'm trying to submit my dutch oven website to Google AdSense so that I can start marketing it.  If I don't have something on the site to make a little money, if it really takes off, the cost of the bandwidth is going to KILL the site and my blog, my sons' blogs, and another blog will die with it.

However, I've now submitted the site TWICE, and both times, they've rejected the site:

Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after
reviewing your application, we're unable to accept you into Google
AdSense at this time.

We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below.

Issues:

- Difficult site navigation

---------------------

Further detail:

Difficult site navigation: When our specialists attempted to review
your application, we found that your site was down. Once your site is
functioning, we will be happy to reconsider your application.

---------------------

But the site is up and running and has been up and running.  This makes no sense to me.

I've submitted it yet again.  Hopefully the third time's a charm.

In a previous post, I posted a copy of an email from someone whose lunch was stolen.  Apparently, this isn't an uncommon occurrence, because someone has come up with an anti-theft sandwich bag.

I think it's a brilliant solution.

Pezao sent me a link to Choir Girl's blog which had this meme:

All you have to do is copy the list (after the jump) and bold the things that you have done.