Money

Is passing a big stimulus a way of not dealing with our economic problems but drowning them them instead?

Some teenager should do this next summer

I had this idea that a jobless teenager could do. Plant a flower garden like this one. Its a $10 flower garden with instructions. After you have some flowers growing the jobless teenager picks them and visits a local nursing home visiting residents to deliver flowers. Each week the teenager picks more flowers and delivers them to the same residents. They could even go to goodwill and buy up a bunch of 25 cent glass vases for the flowers. As the person builds relationships with the resident they could start to glean stories. If the teenager was a good writer (like my sister Boni is) he/she could journal about the experience or write down stories that are gleaned from the residents. A parent wanting their child to do this could use incentives like movie tickets and I-pods at the end of the summer.

Anyway, I thought this would be a cool thing to do and that someone (Not to mention any names like Boni or Anita) should do it. Besides, a flower garden is a nice thing.

I have no pictures to post

Sarah and I have returned from a week long tour of the west (by "west" I mean that we made it to Fort Wayne Indiana) I was recruiting for camp and she was catching up with friends along the way. Along the way we picked up a side table made by my cousin out of an old gym light and several bill board tarps that I plan to make into the worlds biggest slip and slide.

Sarah keeps the books around these parts. She is very good at it. She is good at a great deal of things. Tonight she was giving me the monthly financial briefing complete with interactive color coded pie charts illustrating how much money we spend. (I'm not making this up) I know know that we allocate 26.76% of my income (after taxes and tithe) to paying for student loans. When I saw that I thought to myself: "Gee Zach, if you didn't go to college you could be buying motorcycles (like my younger brother), a new house (like my older brother), or running up large cell phone bills (like someone who I won't mention)." Was college worth it? I could be talking on my expensive cell phone as I drive a new bike to a new house. Instead I'm being told by a pie graph where my is going.

I've always had critical things to say about higher education. Especially about how a liberal arts college doesn't always give you practical skills. Sarah's frustration in job hunting and this article seem to make my point for me.

So long for now!