The Peoria Dispatch

The world is apparently in crisis, with wars and high energy prices, the stock market is falling and so is the sky.  So, given this, what guidance might people be searching for–on Google?  Google moved their  “Suggest” feature to the main page a few weeks ago, as you’ve undoubtedly seen as it tries to complete your queries.  I was starting to type in a question tonight, beginning with “what to do when…”, and was met with this hilarous suggestion set:

So the world is really just a bunch of rich, bored, pregnant stoners with broken ipods.  Not nearly as bad as how I’d imagined things!

If you live in the US, you’ve no doubt seen seen one or more T. Boone Pickens’ ads pushing his energy plan. Yesterday we headed to Tanner’s Orchard to pick apples (something of an annual tradition for us), and I was struck by the large number of wind turbines in the area (Speer, IL). I’d heard that they were putting in additional capacity in that area, and had seen the blades being transported (quite an impressive feat), but I didn’t realize until yesterday just how many turbines they’d installed. The slowly-rotating propellers dotted the horizon looking north.

I came home interested in some of the details of wind power and found many links ended up on The Pickens Plan. While I don’t know enough to push this plan, I did find the lecture format introduction very effective, and have included it below. Whether or not this is the right plan I don’t know, but it is certainly encouraging to finally see a lot of attention being paid to energy policy.

I like the “three r’s” campaign which expands recycling to:  reduce, reuse, recycle.  We’ve been recycling for years, but more recently I’ve been looking for ways to reuse.  “Borrow what you need, give what you have”, they say.  I’ve been looking for ways to give away the ton of unused–but not useless–stuff that we’ve accumulated.

For giving and getting books, I recommend BookMooch. This site provides a forum for listing your books and searching for others’.  If someone requests one of your books, you send it to them on your dime (about $2.50 via media mail for a normal size book), and get one point.  Send it overseas and get three points.  You can then spend those points on any of the other books that are offered by requesting them from the BookMooch site, which will forward the request to the owner (who will pay the shipping).   The site itself has no role in the trade beyond tracking points and providing a way to search.  It’s a very effective system for swapping certain types of books.

For giving and getting general merchandise, I can go to Goodwill, but I’ve never been very confident in the effectiveness of Goodwill.  Often times the drop-off location looks like a dump, and a dumpster is usually nearby.  I’m just not sure the things I drop off end up with someone who needs them.  Enter Freecycle.

Freecycle is a network of Yahoo Groups sites where you can post offers to give away just about anything.  The sites are set up around geographic areas: the Peoria site covers the city and surrounding counties.  The rules state that the recipient is responsible for picking up the item, and that there is to be no money involved in the transaction.  Why Freecycle and not eBay?  Mainly because it’s simpler and quicker.  You don’t need to post an elaborate ad, wait for the auction to expire, and handle the money and shipping issues.  Freecycle is a simple way to give things away to people in your area who want them now.  And it’s been very effective for me.  I’ve offered up an old scanner, computer, and an end table.  In each case there were many interested parties, and I just chose someone who was willing to pick the item up quickly and would accommodate my work schedule.  I’ve had no problems with any of the exchanges, and it’s very satisfying handing over some perfectly good item (that I don’t need anymore) to someone who can actually use it.

Give these two sites a try and help reduce the world’s junk.

Actually somewhat boring… in any case, Aaron Schock, Peoria’s celebrity youth politician who is now running for congress, got to address the RNC in Minneapolis today. I don’t know where CJ over at the Peoria Chronicle found the clip, so you’ll just have to view the article there to see the video. Or you could do something else with your 4 minutes, as there’s nothing but standard platform platitudes in his brief talk.

We had a fun labor day weekend.  A lot had to do with both of us not going to work .   Christian visited us from Michigan and stayed over the weekend.   As a token of “thank you”, he kicked our butts in Ping Pong.   Thank goodness, Karl got him on golf first.  So I have to say Peoria 1,  Novi 1.

Well, we had dinner at Ponte Vecchio (Italian) the first night and the food was good.  On the second night we stopped at Kellerher’s after Mr. Sauerland’s defeat in golf.  I had Fish and Chips but it was nothing like the ones we used to get in NZ.  It was alright but not great as far as fish and chips standards go (if there is such a thing).  Jim and Kipp had hot pies/pot pies without the pie or the puff pastry.  It was more like a bowl of chicken pot pie filling and a bread roll.

Well, we wrapped up the holiday on Monday when Christian left for Michigan.   We settled back to our normal routine of doing laundry, pick up around the house,  and other misc before the work week began.   All in all, it was a good break, nice to have a friend visit,  and play catchup on news.    Hope all of you had a great Labor Day.

….PS:… I’m listening to the Republican Convention in the background while typing this blog.   Sarah Palin is scheduled to speak tonight.  I am curious to see how well she presents her own story.

That invasive pest ‘spam’ has struck this meager blog (and its cousin at NZ Life).  I’m finding all sorts of annoying or rude spam comments posted across the site.  To combat this I’ve installed a captcha.  You know what these look like:

You’ll see this when you try to post a comment.  I think the audio version () is pretty much indecipherable, but it’s entertaining to listen to once.

In addition to proving you are a member of the human race, you’re also helping to digitize books when you enter the test words.  More on that at the Recaptcha site.  Give it a try on this post!

I am tired of listening to all this subprime mortagage news especially with regards to having the government do more to bail out “victims”.   For the past 3-6 months, the news media have  been making the issue that the government is not doing enough to protect middle class citizens.  Presumably the  government is also not doing enough with laws to prevent loan companies from having the ability to provide shady loan contracts.  I am not saying the lenders are not at fault,  I do however believe that the fault is not all theirs.

Subprime loans consist of various types of arrangement – 2 year fix and remaining at adjustable rates, interest only payments, etc (For more go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_lending)

With the amount of media focused on how much lenders are “scamming” victims and how little government is protecting the victims, it makes me wonder if “so call victims” have any responsibilities at all.  How do one consciously signs up for a 30 year loan when they only know of the fix rate interest for the first 2 years? what about the next 28 years?…  How could one who claimed they cannot read the contract, can trust themselves in speculating that the interest rate will decrease or maintain the same after the first 2 years?

Whatever happened to the idea of “Living beneath ones means”?   What happen to “Earn a dollar and save a dime”.  I rarely hear about savings anymore, all I hear is credit cards and credit limits.  Do people not understand what the word “Credit” mean?

I have no problems placing blame on businesses (lenders, banks, etc) or the government, but equal blame needs to go to those people who signed up for these loans. The media needs to stop portraying the lenders and government as evil entities and the borrowers as the helpless victims.   People need to have some self responsibilities.   The media rarely mention the borrowers being at fault, probably because that will cause a stir.   Can’t imagine many who want to watch much of the show if the host refers to the viewers as “dumbasses”.  I know I won’t want to watch it….   it’s difficult to handle the truth… it’s easier just to blame someone/something else.

If you can’t tell that I am venting,  “I AM VENTING”.    I should have never watched Lou Dobbs, mind you I did not watch the whole show, I just watched enough to set me off!  If it’s not the freaking fence, it is the subprime mortgage.

Peoria was indirectly in the national news twice yesterday.  Most prominently was President Bush’s visit for a Republican Party fundraiser.  Bush usually stops by for some trade or transportation press conference with CAT as the backdrop, so this was a bit different.  The fundraiser was held at the Weaver Farms, just a few minutes from our house.  They reportedly closed off  I-474, and much of the surrounding War Memorial drive stretch, as the motorcade passed.  They surrounded the farm with City of Peoria dump trucks and some semi trailers as a temporary barricade.  For $500 you got lunch and a speech, and for $5000 you got a picture with Bush.  The whole affair lasted about 2.5 hours, and then Air Force One departed back to DC.

Aaron Schock is the primary beneficiary of all this and will have an even larger campaign war chest following the event.  Which brings me to a gripe:  do his fundraiser proceeds get debited for what it cost to fly Air Force One round trip, manage a battalion of Secret Service and state police, mobilize City of Peoria resources and block off roads?  I doubt it.  Who pays that bill?  The event was not public, and the press wasn’t even allowed in.  Schock would have probably had no problem winning in November anyway, so while it’s always interesting when dignitaries visit, this latest trip seems a bit wasteful.

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On a completely different note, our Peoria Chiefs made the news by being part of a messy brawl in Dayton.  The worst part by a mile was Peoria pitcher Julio Castillo winding up and beaming a fan in the head with a baseball.  (The guy was injured but not seriously.)  Castillo has been charged with felonious assault, had his passport held, and I hope his baseball days are done (at least in the US).  If so he may well be sent back to the Dominican Republic to think for the rest of his life about what an insanely stupid thing he did.

(Both photos are from The Peoria Journal Star)

It’s pretty painful to watch a stock you bought at $45, like I did with Washington Mutual, plummet to $19, where I gave up and sold it.  On the other hand it’s quite redeeming to watch that stock continue to go way, way down, now to $3.23.  This is a positive (for a change) lesson in cutting my losses I won’t soon forget.

In any case, what a shockingly bad market……….

Just a quick note giving our thumbs up to the new Disney/Pixar movie, “Wall•E”. It’s a great movie for kids and adults. The animation is of course excellent (as they all are anymore), but what is really novel is the story itself. By far the most original I’ve seen in years (trailer).  Though there are some heavy enviro/political overtones, the points of comment are really fundamental to the whole plot and didn’t get annoying.

4.5/5 stars.  Go see this one on the big screen if you can.