Busy week coming up

Headed in for yet another certification. Nothing like being over educated and not paid. So while I'm gone take care of things would you? I mean I expect the place to still be here when I get back.

Class class and more class

Just took a class for first aid. One of the many more to come I guess. Nothing like being a professional student. Maybe by the time I'm finished with all these classes it'll be time to retire. The class was pretty good. The last time I took one was about twelve years ago so I must say things have changed. Got to use one of those new AED defibrillators. Wow are they amazing now. They're basically idiot proof that is until they make better idiots. You open it up and it tells you exactly what to do.
Over eighteen years I think I've had to give first aid about six times. Mostly for lacerations but nothing really major. And here's a bit of advice: If your having a medical emergency unless you're having major chest pains or your arm is detached from your body have a friend or relative drive you to the clinic or hospital. EMS are being overwhelmed with what they call asprin and band aid calls - non serious injuries that don't require their attention. It's really doing a number on our emergency personnel.

Now if there was just some work to put all this great knowledge to work.

So until then
Keep your drums upright

Now I got too much class

So I'm going to yet another recertification class only to find out that the class I just took a few weeks ago requires two more certification classes. And to top it off they haven't got approval from the EPA yet for the two classes I need so they aren't even on the schedule. This is getting rediculous. After taking the weatherization course and acing it I now need a lead abatement and lead renovation class. All I can say is they better pay journeyman wages for all this training or these cards will not be renewed. I have a wallet with all these cards and it's getting to look like Bill Gates' wallet. Sheesh!

Hold on a minute

Before you pop the cork on that bottle of Dom stop to remember that the fundamentals have not changed one iota. We're still in debt up to our eyeballs and nothing has changed other than world leaders pulling out the credit card and saying help yourself. I've said it once and I'll keep saying it until somebody starts listening " you can not borrow your way out of debt".
Like a teenager in debt who's finally hit the magic drinking age goes out with his first credit card forgets his debts and spends like there's no tomorrow. Then that statement comes and with bleary eyes and a screaming headache Jr. opens the bill and realizes he'll have to work thirty years or more to pay this back if he's lucky.
I've heard nothing of the details on the international bail out other than nations will buy shares of banks and try to back deposits. Sounds like they're just trying to cover their own asses on this. Nothing in the bail out says anything about the bad debt or mortgages both here or abroad. Sadly in the long run we'll just have to eat it. Like a hundred bucks you lent to the drunk teenager just kiss it goodbye.

Fan meet poop part 2

The Asian markets took a hammering on Tuesday. Japan stocks were down 5.7% while Hong Kong posted 5.3% losses. With no resolution to the Lehman problem I'd say we'll have another down day on Wall Street.
So what can we do as out of the loop main street folks. Check out your banks' financial health. Do they have a lot of assets in mortgages? Have they set aside money to cover losses from mortgages?
Something I recomended in posts last year was to set aside 10% of your take home pay. Pay yourself first then the bills. When I first started doing this I was making just enough to get by but I found that as time went on it became easier and easier. Once you get a few thousand saved you can use that money as collateral for a car or personnal loan and pay much less than the going rate.
Always pay more than the minimun payments on credit cards. If you have more than one card try and pay off the one with the highest rate first. When the first one is paid off use that payment along with your regular payment to pay off the second. These are just some of the basics. The problem at the present is that there may not be too much time to prepare for long term bad times but for those interested here's a link to my post on surviving hard times.

Plans for surviving hard times

As I mentioned before the biggest problem at present is the funding of FDIC. If something doesn't change with that then you will see runs on banks and the Depression of the 30s will look like a picknic.

PVC shower curtains

PVC


Thought I'd give you my 2 cents on this as it's up my alley.
Polyvinyl chloride is a plastic derived from oil used in such things as water and sewer pipes, shower curtains and a number of other household products. In it's solid state it is fairly inocuous (not harmful) at least from the present knowledge. In its' liquid state it's one of the most toxic substances that I can think of with maybe the exception of Vx. The problem with PVC is that it off gasses the chemicals used to produce it. This is just like the formaldehyde problem with the Kitrina trailers but unlike the trailers PVC gives off more than one chemical. Three of the off gassing chemicals are the components of gasoline that includes: toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene. Toluene is a known carcinogine and the others are not too kind to your system either.
So what to do about the problem. You can switch to other types of curtains like nylon, polyester, or cotton. There is one other solution if the manufacturers would take the time and expense. That would be to treat the curtains to a process of ozone for a few days. The ozone process bonds oxygen to the plastic preventing additional release of the gasses. It's the same process nature uses to eliminate odors. It isn't an expensive process but it does take several days to complete. And no it not something you'd want to try at home although that could be done.

Why the recession will continue for some time

via Bondad
I was looking for this chart to show what's going on right now and what will happen in the next few years. Take a look and hey, don't shoot me this was put together by people with far more know how than me.

(Having tech problems with getting a larger image of this) go to Bondad for a better view and some other great articles.

Paper Plastic or neither?

photo via cracblur

The brilliant leaders in Seattle are going to pass legislation to ban such things as plastic food trays, egg cartons meat trays and the like in restaurants and stores within the next year. They are also proposing a .20 cent fee on all plastic and paper bags at stores. I'm all for recycling. I got it going at my place before it was popular, but to use punishment in the form of a tax seems a bit drastic. Seeing as how we already pay for the bags now and their disposal (stores don't just give them away and we all pay a garbage bill), I don't think much of this legislation. A better way might be a refundable deposit on the bags. The problem there is that bags rip rendering them unusable. It would be great if we all had those canvas bags but then again who remembers to bring them along to the next shopping trip? The delema.

Paper or plastic?
(read the comments section of this article)

Killer Chicken

Just when you thought it was safe to eat chicken:

Killing feeds

I had been looking for info on this for some time now having learned about it from a Haz Mat class a while back. So how can you tell if a chicken has been fed arsenic? Rule of thumb : Take a pack of free range chemical free chicken (skinless breasts are best) and compare the color of the fat. You may notice that the factory chicken (the cheap stuff) has a yellower color in the fat. The only two reasons are that it is either very old or has been fed arsenic.

OLPC project

I had been hoping to start a grass roots campaign to help finance the One Laptop Per Child program, but after doing some investigation it looks like this will have to be put on hold for a while. A $100 computer sounds like a cheap deal however nobody thought of the infrastructure costs involved in setting up such a program. There's the wireless connections sattelite dishes and operational costs that nobody mentioned. That would be something that only a government or large corporation could finance. I still think it's a great educational idea. We'll see what happens.