I hate unwanted callers
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Homemade laundry detergent
Everyone who knows me, should know by now that I'm cheap. I'm openly cheap and I don't have any issues at all with being that way. In fact, I've been cheap way longer than this recent recession/depression. Everyone who has increasingly been feeling the effects of the poor economy and has recently turned cheap, has got absolutely nothing on me! 
In addition to being cheap, I am all about being natural and green. I drive a car that gets 37mpg regularly, take my own bags to the grocery store, and now, make my own laundry detergent. It's really simple. You get a bar of soap that you like, shread it up using a cheese grater or a food processor and mix it with Borax and washing soda using a wooden spoon. I'm on my second batch and really recommend using the food processor, because it takes like 20-30 mins to manually shred up a bar of soap!
In addition, it works great in a front load, so called high efficiency washer. I use 1 tbsp for normal loads and 2 tbsp for extra dirty loads. The reason it works well in the front load washer is because they require a low sudsing soap, which is exactly what this recipe yields.
Ingredients:
1 bar of soap, shreaded
1/2 cup Borax
1/2 cup washing soda
Here are some links that I've found useful in my quest for cheap, all natural, functional laundry detergent.
http://diynatural.com/simple-easy-fast-effective-jabs-homemade-laundry-detergent/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Laundry-Detergent
A 2012 scene and political ideology
I was watching 2012 with a friend. We were discussing a point in the movie in which many people were loaded onto several large boats (very similar to Noah's Ark) in effort to withstand a coming global flood. One of the characters was trying to rally other boats to open up their gates and allow the many desperate people outside to board. One of the American characters refused. He was worried about not having enough resources and being over capacity.
My friend said "Russia would never agree to open up the gates." For some reason, my reply was out of haste, but got me thinking even more. "Would China?", I prodded. He said in a matter of fact manner, "No". At this point, I felt as though I was wildly misunderstanding socialism and communism. My understanding is that those views are less individual oriented and more group oriented. For instance, they would dislike how 1% of Americans control the majority of wealth in our country. They would rather that the wealth was distributed equally among the population at large.
With this in mind, I feel like both Russia and China would be more likely to open the gates than the Americans. This only considers the basics of socialism, communism and capitalism, without taking into consideration how those nations employ the principles of each, respectively. For instance, America is supposedly “by the people, for the people” but there is some debate as to how accurate that statement is when applied to the historical actions of the American government.
Perhaps I'm simplifying this far too much because there are many degrees of socialism/communism/capitalism/etc. However, with less people on the ship, the Americans would feel as though they'd be more likely to survive individually. I think the Russian/Chinese view would be with more people on board, there may be more casualties, but the group as a whole would have a better chance of surviving. Another difference that I see is that the Russians may want to select certain people from the outsiders to board the ship based on their ability to contribute to society as a whole; whereas the Chinese would be less selective.
Thoughts?
Lots of great changes, appreciation, and finally reflection
In the past approximately nine months, I've gone through a great deal of changes, most good. This past Saturday I was at a Labor Day picnic and was asked by someone who hadn't seen me in over a year, "Hey Andy, what's new?" The only reply I could think of was, "Well, a lot!"
In the past year, I've gotten a raise (pretty substantial), moved out of my Dad's house, bought a house with my longtime girlfriend, Sarah, spend 6 months unpacking my junk (and some junk that a few people dumped on me during my move, the most of which ended up in Goodwill), developed a petting zoo in my new (4 fish tanks, 2 cats, a dog, 2 guinea pigs, and a Chinese Hamster), cut down 7 trees on my property (most of them were dying or too close to the house), bought a brand new mower, replaced a non-working washer and dryer set, worked on and repaired in excess of 14 computers since having moved... the list goes on. But in the spirit of being "connected", I've decided to update my blog, which will also be posted to Facebook for all my "friends" to enjoy...
I've also learned to appreciate the things (not material) that I have... a great girlfriend (whom I've should have married sometime in the past 8 or so years and my entire family agrees with that idea), a great first dog, Petey!!!! and a great family.
When moving, I've been pleasantly reminded of who my true friends are. Certain people, some unexpected, came out of the woodwork to help me into my newly discovered, total freedom from authority (read: parental) figures. Though, not everyone can be totally pleased.
Some people have seemingly alienated themselves from me which I am apparently the only one who can be blamed for such divisiveness. I guess those are the same people who accuse me of being antisocial. Let me just say, they can't be more wrong. Everyone close to me knows, they have an open invitation to visit with me, some of those know they have a place to sleep/live if they should so need. I don't know what it is about people, but I think everyone's always looking for traits in others which reflect their own inadequacies and like to knife you and twist it... letting you know your issues and scream them from the rooftops... let me just say this to you, keep your mostly wrong opinions to yourself. If you think someone else is the issue, I first ask you to internalize that judgment and think, "is it me?" In my experience, it's almost always been me when I'm faced with the aforementioned internalized interrogations.
On a lighter note, I really, really appreciate life. More so than ever. Even though daily, we face obstacles that try us and prevent steady progress, in the end we become stronger from walking tall against any issues in our way. I'm speaking very generally here, but always realize that you can do whatever you want, it's a matter of will. Do you want to? Make sure you do, and understand that you can!
Low gas prices yields complacency
I just received an email from T. Boone Pickens' email subscriptions... The subject line read: "URGENT: OPEC is tightening the noose around our neck"
From the desk of T. Boone Pickens
Hey Army,
I’ve told you this all along — our addiction to foreign oil could bring us to our knees, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing we could do about it. Now take a look at today’s headlines. OPEC just announced it’s cutting production by 2.2 million barrels. Remember – this is on top of the 2 million barrels in cuts they’ve already made since this summer! These guys are serious about getting the price of oil back up right where they like it: $75 a barrel, $100 a barrel, $150 a barrel.
This is exactly why now is the time to pull together and Push the Pickens Plan. Every time the price of oil drops, America falls asleep. The Saudis don’t. The Iranians don’t. The Venezuelans don’t. But we do.
President-elect Obama said it best a few weeks ago on 60 Minutes. “Oil prices go up, gas prices at the pump go up, everybody goes into a flurry of activity. And then the prices go back down and suddenly we act like it’s not important, and we start, you know, filling up our SUVs again. And, as a consequence, we never make any progress. It’s part of the addiction, all right. That has to be broken. Now is the time to break it.”
I couldn’t agree more. We’ve got to break that addiction now. Before it breaks us.
Click here to join your Pickens Plan District Group. Better yet, sign up to be the leader if there isn't one already so you can help bring in 500 more members to the New Energy Army in your Congressional District before Inauguration Day. Those first 100 days are right around the corner, and the way OPEC is playing we’re going to have to move fast.
-Boone
The sad thing is, everything in this email happens in real life. Now that gas prices are down again... people are happy. They've already forgotten how bad it felt to pay $4.00 per gallon. As a matter of fact, gas prices are so low, they're as low as they were in the early 2000's. However, people should really be upset because we've had to go into a recession to witness gas prices this low. Did we forget that part of the equation? Shouldn't we be more upset over recession/depression than we were over $4.00 gas prices? Why do we experience a level of satisfication with ourselves as a nation when gas prices go down? The situation at hand today is even worse because we're actually stepping back in time to 2002 or so where gas was as cheap as it is in the 4th quarter of 2008. We've seen a decline never seen before. We should ask "why did this happen?" Instead, we say "well, its really cheap, let's go on another vacation" which yields more and more consumption. Over time, when we start demanding more gas, the prices will skyrocket since the supplies are at reduced levels.
In summary:
We've cut our consumption as a result of $4.00 gasoline. We've seen the prices fall through teh floor. We've realized how bad it is because we're now acknowledging that we're in a recession, but we're not maintaining our consumption, in terms of gasoline. OPEC is cutting production at record rates. We're likely going to increase consumption of gasoline because of the return of the lowest levels of gas prices in the last decade. Thusly, gas prices will skyrocket once again. And this time, we're in a recession. Keep that in mind people.
Reduce! Reuse! Recycle!
Google and their expanding empire
Today the first Google Android powered device was announced. It's an HTC G1 on the T-Mobile network. It will be released sometime in October. While I was watching this video, something struck me that I've never really wanted to think about. I knew it, but didn't want to pay attention to it. Google's reach is constantly expanding and consumers blindly buy into it. They offer an abundance of free, very useful applications that increase the productivity of daily life. Throughout the video, all the features/applications are synchronized with your Google account. With a Google account you can do a lot, from Gmail to purchasing things with Checkout, from YouTube to productivity suites with Documents, Reader and Calendar.
I've always been a fan of Google since they offer many free applications/services that their competitors don't or aren't even interested in offering. What we consumers have to keep in mind is that these free offerings are totally available for the sole reason of driving advertising revenue. After all, how would Google still exist without any income?
Back in college when Google's stock was about $350 per share, I did an extensive report from an ethical point of view. Based on the company's ethics, I recommended to my peers to buy their stock. After all, Google's motto is "Don't be evil".
Since then many new applications have been released. Their reach has grown far beyond what it was in the Spring of 2006. Back to the video. They're highlighting that you have access to all your Google apps right from your handheld Android powered phone. This is really great, but again, we need to remember that they're trying to drive ad revenue.
Suppose that they're motto is a fluke and they somehow were subpoenaed to turn over all their user data to courts to allow prosecution of their customers, for example? How evil would that be? A company like Google has so much user data in their databases that if it were hacked or otherwise compromised by a court of law, for example, their customers would be wide open to attack.
Imagine if you use Google Documents and Calendar on a daily basis for work related activities. Is it right for Google to turn over potential trade secrets to a court of law or prosecuting entity? Is it right for Google to track each user that watches given videos on YouTube and turn that information over to Viacom, for instance, so that they can be prosecuted if the content that the user accessed was copyrighted?
Advances in technology provides us with tough questions. I'm not so sure that we should be so tightly integrated with one company's services that they're linked to your mobile phone and go with you wherever you go. You'll never be disconnected from Google's database if you opt to use their very convenient, useful, and free services.
Just a thought to keep in mind... think about it.
