I have been helping a friend of mine look for a new job over the past couple of weeks.  It seems that for all of the “hype” that job search companies “put out” that for the area in which she lives, there really is no great job search engine.  She apparently lives in a “black hole” because whenever you type in the name of the nearest “town” where she lives, all of the results that come back are at least thirty miles away from where that town is.  That’s really a shame because the town is a faily large one, with a lot of businesses in it.  I would not have thought that those local businesses would not be participating in the large search engines that are available on the Internet, but the proof is in the pudding.  If she wants a job in that area she needs to KNOW what businesses are there and go to them directly, which is a pain in the neck to have to do!

I was reading a story on today.msnbc.msn.com about how pre-teen girls are getting bikini waxes!  The article was talking about how girls as young as six years old are having hair-removal waxing done, from their faces, backs, and bikini areas.  I think that is way too early for something like that!  What kind of body image problem are these girls going to have as they grow up?  How can a mother be so irresponsible as to encourage this type of thing?  Why are we trying to force our kids to grow up so fast?  This is just plain silliness!

I never quite know what to do or say when someone gives you a gift that is totally worthless junk.  For example, my sister-in-law gave me her “perfectly good, hardly ever used” Roomba robot vacuum cleaner.  I was thrilled at first, took it home and cleaned it all out, plugged it in to charge it.  I already had one, and was thrilled to have another!  Well, that Roomba never charged - the battery was completely dead and non-rechargeable.  Well, that was OK, I had a spare battery.  I put the spare battery in the “new” Roomba and the “new” Roomba just sat there and squawked at me.  Wouldn’t even budge.  Completely worthless.  So now I wonder what to say if my sister-in-law ever asks me how I like the Roomba she gave me.  Should I smile and say I love it?  Or should I be honest and tell her it was broken and I never got the chance to use it.  I have to wonder if she KNEW it was broken and was just trying to get rid of it!

I did not actually read the articles, I didn’t have the time. But I was looking at the Newsweek website, looking at Business news and saw two headlines that were kind of strange in the sense that one followed the other, and seemed to contradict each other. One headline was about how “we” are far from a depression; the other headline was about how the economy was “worse” than we think.

I had to laugh because I think we ARE in a depression (I know the experts say a recession, but trust me, money is so tight I think a depression is more accurate) and if that is the case, if we really ARE, then the economy is NOT worse than I think

I was reading on the time.com website that gray wolves in the Northern Rockies have had their endangered species protection status restored by a federal judge. This ruling has upset the plans of the three states of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho which were planning to hold public wolf hunts this coming autumn.
The wolves were under protection previously, but that protection expired last March. Many farmers are upset over the decision to reinstate the protection, as wolves have been killing their livestock, which cuts into their profits. I don’t know exactly how I would feel about that situation if I lived in the area; seems to me that there are breed of dogs whose specialties are to protect herds against wolves, maybe the farmers should buy some of them!

I’ve been listening to the live coverage on CNN of the rescued Columbian hostage’s press conference. I have to say that when I heard about the dramatic rescue, I was so very happy for them and their families. Now that I’ve listened to one of them talk about how they were tortured and led around with chains around their necks I am especially happy for them. I cannot even imagine how hard it was for them to endure what they went through. Congrats to all involved in rescuing them!!

I was reading an article on the Reuters website earlier today; a friend sent me the link and told me to read it. The article was talking about how solar energy will be cost competitive with fossil fuels by the year 2013. Well, if that is true, I think that the US government should just stop even talking about drilling for oil off the coast of Florida and in Alaska. I understand that even getting that oil drilled and refined will take at least five to ten years to reach the gas pumps, so what’s the point of spoiling the environment when we will have perfectly good alternative fuels ready by then? Now I understand that solar energy will not be able to run everything that needs gasoline, but there ARE other sources of fuel out there that could be used to replace fossil fuels that will be ready to be on the market by then and will be cost completive too.

My little sister graduated from high school last night.  I was so proud of her, she really did it!  High school is such a tough thing to get through; so many social pressures to do the wrong things.  So many of her friends were getting into trouble so frequently I was afraid that they were going to do something that would end up with ALL of them in jail, with my little sister right beside them just because she happened to be in the car when the rest of them did something stupid.

Well, she has graduated and now she has some vocational training to look forward to in the fall.  She says she wants to be an X-ray technician.  I think that’s a wise choice because the health field is always going to need X-ray technicians. 

I was reading on the Internet that five detainees at Guantanamo Bay are finally going to be sent to trial for their parts in the 9/11 attack on the New York World Trade Towers. From I understand, once they’ve been “referred” (the term used in the article) to trial, they must actually stand trial within four months.

The men who are going to be tried are claiming that they were tortured and that their admissions of guilt are a result of the torture, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out. I believe that they WERE tortured, and that really is a shame. Torture is really morally wrong, and I’m ashamed to learn that the American government has had anything to do with it.

I’ve been hearing and reading a lot about the energy crisis, and the global warming crisis.  I just want to say that I’m doing my part!  I don’t even OWN a car (which is a good thing because I couldn’t afford to put gas in it!) because I live near the public transportation that I need to get back and forth to work and to shopping.  I have recently bought some of the CFL bulbs to replace my regular light bulbs when they burn out.  I turn down the heat/turn up the air conditioning as much as I can bear it, and my landlord put in a programmable thermostat so that the heat/cool will change to a lower energy consumption setting when I’m away at work.

So, I’m doing MY part; I hope you are doing YOUR!