Day 4, the final day of the BT redesign meeting.  About 5 hours today.  We have redesigned every page of the site.

Day 3 of the BT redesign meeting.  12 hours straight.

Sneak peak of the new 'Friends' page - see album for lager pic

HOW MESSED UP IS PUBLIC EDUCATION?  The Akron public school cirriculum is just getting more messed up...and like I have said before, my kids are in the best of the Akron schools.

My third grader is learning multiplication concepts now...not even fact tables yet.  Guess what he has to learn in Science?

Newtons Second Law of Motion

Force = Mass x Acceleration

And I quote "Imagine a ball with a mass of 5 grams (0.2 ounces).  It is moving at an acceleration rate of 3 kilometers (2 miles) per hour.  So, the ball has a force of 15 grams-kilometers per hour (0.4 oz.-miles per hour)."

WTF?  The ball has a force of 15 grams-kilometers per hour REALLY?  This is 3rd grade.  My 3rd grader should be learning this NOW?  This is middle school, freshman intro physics stuff. HOW CAN MY 3RD GRADER RELATE TO F=MxA IF HE IS STILL LEARNING MULTIPLICATION CONCEPTS?  Le'ts now mention that fact that he is learning MOMENTUM and INERTIA.  GOOD GRIEF.

This is why our kids our getting dumber...these 'educators' are knee-jerking to state/govt mandates to cram more stuff, faster down our kids throats earlier...they don't even get to master a concept.  My 3rd grader has mentally  'checked-out'...homework took forever tonight...he is so confused now and he was an A student last year.   They are getting hammered with advanced concepts when they don't even have basic concepts down.  And when they do teach basic concepts, they show the kids how to do a simple two row, two digit subtraction problem 3 different ways to further confuse them.  So instead of kids having 2-3 good, learned tools in their toolbox that they can pull out and use correctly time after time, they have about a dozen tools in their toolbox, half of them doing the same thing as another...so the kids don't know what to do.

I AM SO FRUSTRATED.

Those Greeks are out of touch with reality...a referendum on the bailout?  The people won't pass it...from all of the demonstrations I have seen, it seems that the Greeks feel entitled to having all of this socialism that creates obscene amounts of debt that got them into this mess.  When I saw the market hit 12k last week, I thought people were crazy...the world has been trading on Greek speculation for the past 6 months.  I firmly believe the Dow shouldn't be above 10k.  I would cut Greece loose if they think they can do better.  Europe has been doing all they can for Greece including writing down debt.  Let them default...do the people really think that they would ever recover if they defaulted?  Nobody would touch them for buying a Greek investment with with a bazillion foot pole.  If nobody invests in their economy, then they ain't got one anymore...it will be all poverty.

And what other Eurozone country(s) will be next?  Hello...the US will follow...I have seen no progress on a long term deficit reduction package.  The world will hold it together if some smaller European countries default...but not when the US defaults.  Nobody seems to care.

Unfortunately, it takes genuine crisis to effect change.  We aren't their yet...we need more debt before that can happen.

Meds are starting to kick-in.  Slept for the first time last night comfortably...though I had to get up at 3am for some pain meds...but today I feel a lot better.

I will not be working out for a few weeks...they wouldn't let me in the pool looking like I do. 

That is one think nobody really thinks about with respect to health - mental health.  I'm confident that my strength training combined with a swim and runs (sometimes bike) at a minimal level (30-40minutes/session) all zone 2 makes me strong and healthy as an ox.  Since being on this type of program I haven't been sick in 2 years...the fact that I do not train long or do intense workouts that may weaken my immune session temporarily I think keeps me uber healthy.  BUT the last month I have gotten little sleep, very high emotional stressed which was what triggered a fever and shingles.  Even though you may have the perfect, most balanced training plan for your lifestyle, if you don't get sleep or you don't have decent mental health, it will make you just as sick or worse as a over-volume, getting burnt out training plan.

I figured a stroke will eventually get me one day (from stress), maybe the shingles was a wake-up call.

We better NOT go into Syria and we better NOT go into Iran.  I don't care how good the evidence is of the diplomatic assassination plot...it's not a pretext for war.  Every country participates in covert affairs, I'm sure many leading to death - ours included.  The US government MUST NOT use it as a pretext to attack.  I mean really, 'foiled assasination plot = 10,000? dead via subsequent war'.  Ludicrous.  The US has to be the 'bigger' country...we have to be more 'intellectual' and 'calculating' via other non-war activities.

At the end of EVERY DAY for the past 3 years, we are in debt, we are unemployed.  We are FINALLY getting our troops back from the lie that was IRAQ.  Hopefully we will get our troops back from the Vietnam that is Afghanistan (history repeats itself though never apparent to any Administration).  Do you know that one of the main ways that we kicked the Brits out during the Revolutionary War was through our 'guerrilla' war tactics in the South?  Shoot, duck and cover.  A lot of times we didn't operate under conventional rules of engagemen such as lining ourselves up to get shot at.  And that is exactly why Iraq has come at a much, much higher cost and Aphganistan is just a quagmire.  The tables are turned on us.  We are on foreign soil and our soldiers are 'lined up'.  Who's ideas was this?  Was there ever any foresight? 

Like in the late 1700's, the British military was one of the most powerful, but on our soil...they couldn't win...the war took years since 1776 was signed.  Look as us now...we are the most powerful military on the planet (nothing wrong with that) but that will NEVER GUARANTTEE VICTORY on a foreign soil.  It will just guarantee an emptying of the taxpayers money and maybe a slim chance that the new government we support will be an ally.

Our politicians need to realize this.  This is not the way to stay #1 by using military might under the pretenses of 'but we are giving you democracy'.  The way to stay #1 is to 'back down' from a fight militarily.  Let's use our brains and not our brawn when dealing with other countries.  This is what history says.  The smartest person is the one that doesn't fight.

And if we follow this, we can save all of the countless billions of dollars that goes into the war-chest and instead invest it in OUR OWN COUNTRY!  Novel concept right?  To actually care about your own people first before blowing away billion$ in resources in waging usually, groundless wars.

Let's worry about OUR situation. The People.  It's been about 10 years since the US government's #1 priority was it's own People. The People are getting bled dry by a government intent on racking up trillions and trillions in debt. Instead they have been distracted by war...and more war...wars that should have never started.  And yes..'never been started'...if we were doing things right, or even halfway right, 9/11 would have never even happened. 

This country needs leadership to take the high road in foreign affairs, put in an 'efficiency expert panel' to eliminate government waste, lower corporate taxes.  Be smarter in intelligence.  Put the saved money and focus on our borders, building better systems.  Empower US companies via lower taxes to actually find it financially feasible to come up with the next energy system (instead of oil) and to employ it across the grid.  Turn Medicare into a 'discount' plan or some type of voucher.  The fact that the government runs medicare guarantees billions and trillions in wasted $$$, a big part of our deficit.  SS is a good idea, but needs to be redone as demographics have changed from it's inception.  The military is a huge money hungry complex that I'm sure, like Medicare, sees billions and trillions in waste since it is government run.  Though I do not wish for any aspect of the military to be privately run, an independent panel of efficiency experts needs to cut the budget in half at least while still keeping us #1 in the world.  It can be done.  If a government doesn't abide by a corporations rules but instead 'prints money', there is no tendency for efficiency...only bloat.  I KNOW FOR A FACT that we can twice the America that we are today at a 1/3 of the cost.

I want a candidate that shares these visions.

I had some emotional stress in spades for about the entire last month...not work related, but something else that has both liberated me emotionally (knowing what really makes me happy) but at the same time, could really negatively affect me if unfulfilled.  I am not the same person I was from the first half of this year.  Even knowing the stressor...I don't know how I can keep this emotion in check.  I guess it's back to see my shrink.