Chatanooga, Ruby Falls, and Family Vacations. . .

I was recently switched to a 4 day, 10 hour work week on Monday through Thursday each week. Last week was my first run on this schedule and so we decided to go on vacation for the weekend. We decided to go to Chatanooga, TN and boy was this a much needed vacation.

While in Chatanooga, we were able to visit the Ruby Falls cave which was an interesting and cool experience. Kate was a little scared at some parts, so I would not recommended it for kids under 3 and Dallen at 5 was only partially interested in the cave. He was more excited by the wooden rubberband gun that he was able to pick up on the trip.

After winding our way back about a half mile into the cave, we ended up at the actual Ruby Falls where water drops from the ceiling of the cavern 145 feet to the waiting pool below. They have a colored light show that turns on when you get to the cave and allowed us to go around behind the waterfall though you have to duck to make it and it is very slippery.

We also found the Chatanooga Choo Choo downtown and that was another experience. Next time we go, we will stay in the train cars that they have made into a holiday inn. The old station is the main building and behind it on the old platforms, they have a large garden running through the middle and old style train cars setup as the hotel rooms.

On a down side, avoid The Station House Restraunt. I was impressed when we walked in as I liked the ambiance. It is quite dark inside, and has a lot of old fashioned lighting and oil paintings on the walls. Unfortunately, thats where the good ended. I found some thick pieces of mold on the grapes in the fruit of the salad bar and the food was not very good and overpriced. My wife had the Roast Prime Rib of Beef and I had the Barbecued Babyback Ribs. She only took a bite or two of hers and said that it was not good and I was able to finish off my ribs though they were not the best that I had eaten. The bill came up to twice what it should have been as the service was not very good. The servers get up on stage and sing songs throughout your dining experience. Sounds cool right? We must have had one of the better singers as our waiter as he only showed up every other song and then it took forever to get our food. Generally, for the entertainment I could overlook that, but altogether this was not a great dining experience.

It was a lot of fun, and a good city to visit. We are already planning our next trip.

Halloween fever . . .

Well, we started getting out the Halloween decorations this year and I have to say that this is my favorite holiday of the year. You get to dress up and get free candy. No other holiday has every given me more excitement or enjoyment, and that includes Christmas (thanks for the socks each year Mom.)

I regularly peruse the do it your self blogs and sites and find a lot of very cool costumes (see previous posts) and other Halloween decorations. I already posted some good costumes so here are some sweet Halloween decorations.

Creepy Crawling Skeleton - This walk-thru is a bit more in depth than a 5th grader or probably even an 8th grader could complete without assistance. However, the end result is creepy and even without movement would be cool looking. [Creepy Crawling Skeleton]


For those of you that want to create the whole experience and are up to the challenge, try your hand at this working drawbridge with sound. I would be curious in how it could be modded to work with a front door or even someone's haunted house. The ideas are sound and the step by step walk-thru is easy to follow. [Working Drawbridge]


For the younger crowd or for those of us that just like a bit easier project, FamilyFun.com has a large selection of do it yourself crafts that are easy and as the name says fun for the family. My favorite is the CandleEyebra that is very simple but would be cool if you had a large quantity of them and you could do it to different sized glasses for other effects.

For a huge list of items visit the Monsterlist of Halloween Projects. This site has a lot of good ideas and projects.

Go crazy as this is the time of the year where spooks and goblins run amok. You know everyone loves seeing the house that went over the top with Halloween decorations each year.


Oh and Mom I like socks. There is nothing wrong with socks.

Bailout Fails: So what happens next . . .

I think that Clark Howard put it best:

By now you've heard that the federal bailout plan failed in the House of Representatives. Remember, the first job of a politician is to get re-elected. So it is any wonder that -- weeks before an election -- elected officials balked when faced with a bill that was unpopular and little understood by the average person?

Now the inevitable question: What's next? First, Clark believes we are in a recession and it will deepen. Second, this is not the eve of the Great Depression. We may have unemployment, but it will be more like the kind we faced in the '80s -- not the '30s. This is not gloom and doom.

In the post-Civil War years, we had 8 major recessions in the United States if Clark remembers his history correctly. Then in 1907, we had a credit market failure that had to be corrected by JP Morgan -- the man, not the company.

Any recovery will take a while. We borrowed and spent money that we can't pay back. We have millions of houses to work off as excess. Nothing can recover until the housing market returns to equilibrium.

During the recession in the early '80s, we had mortgage interest rates that were above 20%! But we went through difficult times and recovered. We just have to work off the excess -- too much house, too much car, too much debt, too much government spending.

Working off the excess means our standard of living will be slightly lower for the foreseeable future. So you'll have to live on less of what you make. It won't be pretty or happy, but it is not the Great Depression.[Clark's Shownotes bold and italics added for emphasis]

Start saving everyone.

How to Influence a Conversation . . .

I am a fan of the Lifehacker site and blog. They recently had a post with some very good tips on how to hack a conversation. This details different methods to control a conversation and although most are pretty basic and common sense, they can be very effective if you keep them in mind and practice them until they become habitual.

Additionally, it is nice to be able to read what the other person is thinking or feeling during a conversation. For men, this may just help our attention span by giving us something else to do during the conversation to keep our attention, and for all of us, it can help direct a conversation for our benefit.

A whole lot more than just words passes between people who are talking, so a few simple conversational skills can help you recognize what's really being said and help you lead the discussion your way. Learn how to read body language and facial expressions, de-code euphemisms, ask sensitive questions, criticize constructively, get what you want in negotiations, cut off chatterboxes, and more with our top 10 conversation hacks.

Visit their blog at [LifeHacker]

What did he say?

With the recent debate and the November election approaching, wouldn't it be nice to know what each of the candidates said previously? What did John McCain say about this issue, and how did Barack Obama reply to that statement or what did he state previously about the same issue?

I feel that many people base their political decisions (vote cast) off of what their friends say or what the last article they read in the newspaper/online blog said about an issue or politician? Google Labs recently released a tool that allows you to search for keywords and compare what politicians have said. Now anyone can get up to date on the issues that are important to them and make decisions from what candidates have actually said.

Click here to go to the site itself Google Labs In Quotes

When you get to the site, notice the drop down menu in the upper right. You can choose a country from the menu or go custom and create your own comparisons. Also, there are drop down menus directly below the politician's picture to chose another person on the fly. I have to say this is a great tool and will be interested in seeing how much flip flopping I can find.

Pay in mind that these tools in the lab are being worked on and the notice at the bottom of Google's own page states:

Please note: These technologies are still in the beginning stages of development, so they may disappear without warning or perform erratically. If something's not working on this page, please come back and try it again later.

[from Google Labs Page]

Free Money . . .

Recent news has been buzzing about Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson proposed Troubled Asset Relief Program(TARP) that has the government bailing out the financial sector for $700,000,000,000 of the taxpayers money. Lets take a look at some numbers.

The US resident population is currently at 305,262,958 as of today at 1:50 PM. [CENSUS Population Clock]
The US housing units estimate is currently approximately 130,000,000 homes. [CENSUS Housing Spreadsheet]

This means that they could be giving each household in the the US $5,384.61. Now while that does not look like much in the overall scheme of things, I sure could use the extra $5,400 for a lot of things such as bills, however on the other side of the coin, that means that every household would now share the debt of $5,400 a piece to "try" and bail out the financial services industry.

Colin Barr, a senior writer for Fortune Magazine said the following:

With the bailout proposal, Paulson seems to have abandoned hope of holding financial-sector players responsible for their mortgage-related missteps and is instead intent on distributing those losses to taxpayers.

Marc Heilweil, manager of the Marathon Value mutual fund in Atlanta, responded to this with:

"Paulson should have appeared for his 10 a.m. press conference in a Santa Claus suit. But these gifts aren't going to underprivileged children."

I agree that something needs to be done. I do not agree that we need to hand over $5,400 a household to the financial sector free of charge. We already have a huge debt and this is a chunk that should be paid back or come with huge penalties to those that caused the problem.

Ultimately, Paulson's assurance that "the ultimate taxpayer protection will be the stability this... program provides," does not confince me of the need to go into more debt. Spreading out the financial sector's mistakes to the rest of America will just add to the financial strain already felt by many Americans.

On the plus side, a very savvy and fun to listen to Money Guru had the following to say about the current situation.

How long will financial difficulties last?

How to Smile at the World . . .

After talking about Doom and Gloom for a few weeks, I figured I should hit the lighter side of things with how to smile at the world.

The Russian town of Chelyabinsk all got together, found out when the Google Earth satellite was going to pass over their town, and created the following group picture.

Looks like fun, and you could have a potluck after the event with the whole town. Ultimately, the map does not look like it has been updated quite yet, or maybe it has already been removed, however if you want to look through the town and find what I couldn't here is the Google Maps link for this town. [Pic and original information posted by SlashDot]