I received this from my mom in an email and thought it was pretty good.
Socialism
An economics professor at Texas Tech University said he had never failed a single student before, but once had failed an entire class.
Students in this class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich. They claimed socialism would be “a great equalizer”. They argued the point incessantly.
The professor said, “Ok, we’ll have an experiment in this class on socialism”.
His ground rule: All test grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade…no one should fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test of the semester the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were somewhat upset and the students who studied very little were quite happy.
But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hardest decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied very little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test of the semester rolled around the average grade was an F.
The test scores never got better as bickering, blame and name-calling filled the classroom. All of which resulted in hard feelings and no one would study or try to help anyone else.
All failed — to their great surprise — and the professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail because the harder to succeed the greater the reward, but when a government takes all the reward away; no one will try, therefore none will succeed.
A hearty southwestern soup courtesy of Southern Living. We double the beef for more substance as well as use the hot and spicy taco seasoning. Top with cheddar cheese as well.
Pad Thai from A Taste of Thai. Had to do this one twice as I used double the noodles on the first try. Second go around was alot better. Used chicken instead of shrimp and had some spicy asian pepper sauce on the side to give it the extra kick. very good and I hope to make more recipes from that site soon.
Sidenote……I really have to start using my categories.
A chapter of my vehicle life has finally come to a close. I sold the truck yesterday. I have to say that I will miss the utility funcitionality of it as well as its ability to continuously take the abuse that I haphazardly doled out over its life. In the end, the bluebook value was at 2800 and, due to some MINOR mechanical issues, I sold it for 2000. Some people thought it should have sold for less, but it still ran great, it just had some blemishes.
That truck took some beatings, ranging from hitting our mailbox and scratching the hood in college to a straight front ending that lifted the back end off the ground. That one needed some body stretching and fender work. I also straight up backed into a neighbors daughters car on a rainy night and screwed up the latch system on the tailgate (her back end of the car was in my driveway…..which I did not see in the dark rain heading to 3rd shift work). Then I sideswiped my own parents vehicle…..which is now mine…..for a fender ding. I think that’s about it.
Now, that truck took the most beating out of all the vehicles I have driven, but if you ask Doug, he can tell you about the most exciting trips my vehicles have taken!
FYI……
I had 2 jobs on the front that I was hoping would come through. Both have since pretty much fallen through. One, that I on-sited with, offered the position to another guy as they thought I was too much “Engineer” and not enough “Manufacturing”. I took that as a positive as that’s what I am! The potential silver lining is that if the first guy doesn’t accept, they would ask me to come in. Nothing negative from the company, I interviewed great and all. They just thought that I was more into the engineering side than the manufacturing side of the business.
The other one did a round table with the economy status and decided that they would freeze all position openings until mid year. As I only have 2 months of severance, I can’t wait around for that.
So now I am back to the drawing board with the only options left with referrals are engineering corporations. One would keep me local and in our home, the other would require a move and sitting on a mortgage until we sold the home. Unless they somehow offered to help out in the relocation with buying the home!! If that happened, we would be set.
Either way, I thought I would let everyone know that Lawton over at LawtonFunk and I will be forming a band. It will be called “The Unemployments” and we will not shower or shave to get the hobo look down.
linked by Doug over at Literal Barrage: A response to Israels recent attacks.
Obviously my mom does not understand as she went waaaay overboard this Christmas for all of us. In the end, the bounty included a Wii for each couple (Yes, they bought 3 Wii’s…..one for themselves). So, if you have a Wii, send me your address and we can hook up sometime. Now I just need to figure out what “essentials” I need and to get my hands on Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess for some hacking funness.
I was going to post a nice holiday image but, while searching for one that I liked, I ran across an image of a statue that always stands front and center in my parents entry way over the holidays. I think it captures the meaning of Christmas rather well and how, through all the holiday hustle, that we should recognize the reason for the holiday and not just the commercial meaning.
Merry Christmas!!
(I embedded the link if you want one for yourself)
So the wife and I started the Christmas baking and plowed our way through the easy ones. They are as follows:
Huggles: get a bag of square lattice pretzels (or some pretzel with decent surface area), buy a few bags of Hersheys Hugs and a bag of Christmas M&M’s. Preheat oven to 300. Place pretzels all over cookie sheet and a hug on top of each pretzel. put in oven for 3 minutes. Remove from oven and press an M&M into th top of each hug. This also presses some of the chocolate into the pretzels crevices. Place in fridge or let cool….easy peezy poor mans chocolate covered pretzels!!
Macaroons: 1 can sweetend condensed milk, 1 bag shredded coconut, 2 egg whites, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla. Whip egg whites and salt to peaks. Fold in the rest of the ingredients. place in 1 Tbsp size drops on ungreased cookie sheet (a little harder to clean but helps keep the macaroon form). Place in 325 oven for 30 mins or until tops are golden. Remove and let sit to cool.
Saltine tree bark…..see previous post.
Next, we hope to make thick sugar cookies and maybe some shortbread thumbprints.
WHAT ARE YOU MAKING FOR CHRISTMAS?!?!
It is amazing how your view of anything relating to babies is changed once you experience the 9 months leading up to and including child birth as well raising one. I have watched countless movies and shows involving babies before after Kate and can honestly say that it gets emotional now. Seeing a scene with a newborn brings me back to when Kate was born and how amazing that was. My parents always said that I wouldn’t understand how much they loved me until I had kids of my own. I guess I understand now.
ABC Families 25 Days of Christmas viewing schedule. It doesn’t get heavy yet but the good stuff is a coming.
My Pandora, traditional Christmas channel. I also have a modern Christmas with todays artists (Blink 182, Jessica Simpson, etc…) singing as well as an instrumental Christmas with Mannheim Steamroller, Trans Siberian Orchestra and a bunch of jazz and orchestral pieces in them.
Food Networks 12 Days of Cookies. Yes, this channel is usually on all day at my house around this time of the year.
As always, suggs are welcome. Hoepfully, I will have some more personal favorite recipes loaded soon.
