A Compilation

Mark Kantrowitz / Publisher of FinAid and FastWeb
September 22, 2009

The US House of Representatives passed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009 (SAFRA) on September 17, 2009 by a party-line vote of 253 to 171.

This legislation eliminates the federally-guaranteed student loan program and replaces it with 100% direct lending from the federal government. SAFRA uses the savings to fund an increase in the Pell Grant program among other initiatives. The US Senate is expected to consider its own version of the legislation within a few weeks.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that ending the origination of federal education loans by banks and other financial institutions would save the federal government $87 billion over the next ten years.

The education lenders countered with their own proposal, but the CBO scored it as saving $13 billion less. The Obama administration argues that the Direct Loan program saves the government money by eliminating the middleman. However, much of the savings comes from the federal government’s lower cost of funds.

From a practical perspective, most students will not notice much of a difference between the Direct Loan and federally-guaranteed student loan programs. Money is fungible — it’s still green whether it comes from a bank or from the US Department of Education.

The Direct Loan program has a lower interest rate on the PLUS loan program (7.9% versus 8.5%) due to a legislative drafting error that was never corrected. PLUS loan approval rates are also higher in the Direct Loan program. Customer service is a bit better during the loan origination process in the Direct Loan program, but a bit worse during repayment.

However, the US Department of Education has awarded contracts to four of the largest education lenders to service loans in the Direct Loan program. The SAFRA legislation has no impact on existing student loans or borrowers who have already graduated.

About half of the savings will be used to index the maximum Pell Grant to the inflation rate plus 1%. It would increase to $5,550 in 2010-2011 and likely reach $6,900 by 2019-2020. However, it does not turn the Pell Grant into a true entitlement program. Congress could still cut Pell Grant funding during the annual budget appropriations process as it did in 2008.

The legislation also eliminates all of the asset questions and many of the untaxed income questions on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), cutting about a page from the six-page form. This will eliminate any penalty for savings in the federal need analysis formula, so there will no longer be any disincentive to saving for college.

SAFRA includes several provisions relating to student loans. The interest rate on subsidized Stafford loans for undergraduate students will switch to a variable rate capped at 6.8% starting on July 1, 2012. Otherwise the interest rate would have increased from 3.4% to 6.8% on that date, a big jump.

Annual funding for the Perkins Loan program would increase four-fold from $1.5 billion to $6.0 billion a year. While the new Perkins loan would no longer have subsidized interest, the interest rate would remain at 5.0%. Students at many more colleges would become eligible for the Perkins loan.

The new College Access Challenge Grant program would be focused on increasing enrollment, persistence and completion rates. It would fund financial literacy programs and make it easier for students to transfer from 2-year colleges to 4-year colleges. There would also be a significant increase in funding for community colleges and minority institutions.

September 2009 Pictures

2009-09-30T10:48:00.001-05:00

September

Florida Emigration

2009-09-28T20:35:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

Between 2008 & 2009, Florida 58,000 residents total for the year. This is the first time since World War II that Florida has seen a decrease in population.

Although it's not a major headline, this is an important statistic to look at when going through the recession numbers. For the first time in more than half a century, people have moved out of Florida instead of into Florida. The northeast has lost thousands of people every year as well. So, where is everybody going?

It seems like the only place that anybody could move to now is the west. More and more jobs and companies are opening up in the west and the east just continues to have little or no growth whatsoever.

Florida was a booming state for economy, but now with higher taxes, more restrictions and less land, it has become a place that is not for businesses. If 2009-2010 shows another loss of residents, it will be very interesting to see how many corporations continue their plans to move into Florida.

You can read the entire article in TIME magazine here.

True Blood - Season 2 Finale

2009-09-16T17:00:00.000-05:00

By Robert Frank

Last Sunday was the season finale of the second season of True Blood. True Blood is HBO's newest hit series with more viewers for the season premier of the second season than the series finale of The Sopranos.

I didn't watch the first season, but Marcie did. She read all the books and than bought the DVD of the first season. So I sat down one weekend and we watched the entire first season the whole way through. The story sucks you in right from the beginning. It has a little bit of comedy, horror, fantasy, and many other storylines that you won't believe.

It's one of those series where you don't really know what's going on until the last episode, which is always fun to follow, especially when you can watch the entire season straight through. I also just got through the first book, which followed the show pretty closely except for some things added in on the series.

If you haven't had a chance to watch any True Blood and you are looking for a different TV show to watch, this is definitely a good show that will keep your attention. Season 3 will be starting sometime early 2010, so start getting caught up now!

Paperless Statements

2009-09-06T12:24:00.000-05:00

By Robert Frank

One of the big pushes right now is for everybody to go green. I haven't been doing too much to switch over to a "green" lifestyle, but I have done one thing that has been very advantagous to me.

Switching to paperless statements for your billing is a great way to go green. It saves you time and space in your house and also saves you money. Many companies are starting to charge around $2 for people who stay on paper statements. If you don't know if you are being charged it might be a good idea to look at your statement in detail.

Another great thing is that you get your statement the day that it is ready. Instead of waiting 2 or 3 days for it to come in the mail, you can see exactly how much your bills are the day they come out.

I save all of my e-statements onto my hard drive and file them by vendor name. I can go back for two years and look at any statement that I want to see and what the charges were. It is an excellent way to go green and does not take very much effort at all. You won't have a messy filing cabinet or a big drawer full of bills. It makes managing everything much easier, especially since most statements go directly to your e-mail inbox.

So take some time this year and switch over to paperless statements and reduce the amount of paper that is being printed on. It saves you time and money and also saves the planet!

Mini-Movie Marathon

2009-09-02T18:08:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

I had a mini-horror movie marathon over the weekend and watched some good movies. The first one I watched was Stephen King's Rose Red. This was a good movie, even though it was a made for TV movie. It was interesting because it is based on an actual Haunted House that exists in the United States.

The second movie that I watched was House of a 1,000 Corpses. This was an older horror movie that I have wanted to see for a while. It was a different spin on the horror movie storyline as well as the directing.

The third movie that I watched was 30 days of night. This was a good movie with a lot of action. It was pretty intense and had a good storyline about people who actually have to deal with 30 days of night in Alaska.

All three of these movies were good. I also watched a thriller called Horsemen which was really interesting as well. All four movies were actually good movies, which is surprising to get four good movies in a row!

August 2009 Pictures

2009-08-31T10:48:00.002-05:00

August

Football Season - And The Drama

2009-08-27T21:25:00.008-05:00

By Robert Frank

Football season is about to hit full swing. With only two more weeks of pre-season left, we are about to enter into week 1 of the NFl season.

I personally cannot wait. I have been looking forward to the beginning of football season for a while. But, there are some things that are really making me re-think if I even want to continue watching football.

If I hear ONE more thing about Michael Vick, I will probably puke on myself. I am so tired of hearing about some loser, that got entertainment out of watching dogs kill each other, and then get back in the NFL that I get sick to my stomach every time I see the name on the news.

The sportscasters can't wait to talk about him and his pathetic excuse of a life. They talk about him more than they talk about Tom Brady (Which is supposed to be the best Quarterback in the NFL). And we haven't heard a peep about Tom Brady coming back from his injury. For some reason, I think they actually get a bonus for every time that they say "Michael Vick". I have never heard anybody say someone's name as much as they say his worthless name.

The best, was on week 3 preseason, while they were actually "Praising" him because he had such a rough day of going to bankruptcy court and then going to play a football game in the same day. Our country is on the verge of a depression and all we can listen to is how some stupid idiot who watched dogs kill each other, went to jail for a year, and probably did a million other moronic things spent $20 million to get out of bankruptcy court.

The last time I checked, if I got arrested and sent to jail for a year, I would certainly not be getting my job back. I don't understand what the point of him going back in the NFL is, but if there are a couple more of these players and these situations going on, I will no longer be watching any National Football League events.

This is a pathetic display of American's stupidity and just another great example of how we are letting our rich culture take over our lives when we actually let them continue being the number one news source while we continue to get poorer and he gets paid millions for every game he plays even though he is a CONVICTED FELLON.

Get Michael Vick out of the NFL.

Obama Chills Free Speech On Healthcare

2009-08-09T11:25:00.000-05:00

This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 8:08 am

As you may have heard by now, the Obama administration has created yet another site to counter the ‘disinformation’ campaign against them.

Their earlier site, created during the campaign, was called “Fight The Smears,” and was itself larded with several lies and misrepresentations, as we noted at the time.

(For instance, the site falsely claimed Rush Limbaugh substantiated the Michelle Obama ‘White Tapes’ hoax started by Democrat spokesman Larry Johnson.)

Ironically, the Obama people are now using a quote from John Adams that was heavily mocked when popularized by none other than Ronald Wilson Reagan during his campaign against Michael Dukakis — “Facts Are Stubborn Things”:

Facts Are Stubborn Things
Posted by Macon Phillips
TUESDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2009
Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things." …

And they go on to ask people to snitch on those who do not toe the government line:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

And, coincidentally, we are immediately seeing the fruits of this campaign in our email inbox:

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Kevin XXXXXX <xxxxxx@msn.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 9:10 PM
Subject: Health Care Reform Issues
To:
Hi!
I’m so sick of getting untruthful e-mails about health care reform, that I’ve decided to send these links to Snopes regarding two of the most commonly sent e-mails. Please read them carefully.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/seniordeath.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/euthanasia.asp
Thanks,
Kevin

Of course no one is in favor of disinformation. But the Obama folks are past masters of spreading untruths. (See our link to the Fight The Smears site above.)

Moreover, how does this do anything to encourage an open debate on the subject of healthcare?

(Click to enlarge)

From the start the Obama administration has sought to demonize anyone who questions their program – calling them Swift Boaters. (Which is actually a compliment, but they don’t mean it that way.)

Meanwhile they have put together a coalition of some of the most notorious propagandist thugs in the history of our nation:

A campaign that is being run by the selfsame people who were spreading disinformation in order to get us to surrender in Iraq.

But their lies are okay.

Originally Posted Here

Head Injury

2009-08-01T11:05:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, I decided that I would do some laundry and help out around the house. Our laundry room is detached room from the house, so we have to go outside and into our laundry room to do laundry. Since the room is detached, it is very easy for bugs, spiders, lizards and bees to make their home in there.

When I went in to do the laundry, I opened up the washing machine and started hearing some buzzing. Marcie had been complaining that there was a bee hive in the laundry room for a little over a week, so I knew that there were bees in there. It got very loud, there must have been a lot of bees because it sounded like a truck was driving down the road in front of the house.

I hurried up and tried to get the clothes in the washing machine before I saw any bees. After I got a few pieces of clothing into the washing machine one of the bees flew into my back while I was still bent over. I jumped and spun around to try to get out of the laundry room, but unfortunately, I didn't stand up all of the way and slammed my head into the metal frame door on the laundry room.

I blacked out and the next thing I knew I was standing in the middle of the laundry room with a piece of laundry held up to my head and my phone in my hand dailing Marcie's work number. I pulled my hand down and blood squirted out onto my shirt and my hand. The piece of laundry was covered in blood. At that moment I flipped out and ran inside. I got a hold of Marcie and told her to get home immediately while I held the piece of laundry and applied pressure to my head.

We rushed to the emergency room where I was numbed and the doctor put 14 staples in my head. Marcie took some pictures and they are below.

This is the side of the door where I hit my head. The red and black is pieces of skin, blood and hair from the impact.

This is a closeup of the corner of the door.

This is a picture of half of the cut on my head. This was after they cut my hair and the doctor cleaned out the wound. The total size was about 6 inches and made a U shape from the side of my head, up to my forehead and back around to the top of my head.

This is a picture of me after my staples were put in and they applied the bandages to stop the bleeding.

This is a picture of the staples 1 day after the staples were in. I cannot wash my hair so there is a lot of dried blood mixed in with the gel.

This is a close up of one of the sections of the cuts with the staples in. The blood has mostly dried and clotted up and there has been no more bleeding.

This is another picture of the staples. You can almost see how the U shape of the cut goes around my head and why it needed 14 staples to close it up.

I feel good now, butthere is a little pain when I try to make facial expressions, go out into the sun, or sit down and get up really fast. Luckily, the CT Scan came back good and there was no concussion.

I think that the moral of this story is that if you hear bees swarming around, calmly stand up and walk out the door as slowly as possible. Otherwise, you may run into something and get a far worse injury than a bee sting!

Fishing Trip In The Gulf

2009-07-25T17:30:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we went on a fishing trip in the Gulf and caught five fish! This was the best fishing trip that we have had yet. Check out the fish in the pictures!

Fishing Trip In The Gulf

Appendicitis

2009-07-01T13:10:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

Last weekend, I went into the hospital with the same stomach pains that I have been having for years. This time, they finally did something about it.

After I told the doctor that I had been in the hospital many times in the past for the same problem, they finally did a cat-scan and found that my appendix was swollen and enlarged. They immediately sent me to the OR for surgery to have my appendix removed.

I have never had any surgery before, so to say I was scared to death would be an understatement. But, before I knew it, I was put under and awoke in the recovery room with a 4 inch incision on my stomach and excruciating pain. I had to stay in the hospital until Monday to make sure that I did not get any infections or have any complications which I did not. I am still in a little bit of pain, but hopefully I will not have any more stomach problems like I have in the past.

I would never want to live that weekend over again, but I am glad that they finally figured out why I was going to the hospital every year with really bad stomach pains.

Marcie's Trip To Rochester

2009-06-14T15:12:00.000-05:00

Trip To Rochester

June Weekend Vacation

2009-06-13T15:06:00.000-05:00

June Weekend Vacation

Happy Birthday Marcie

2009-04-30T15:34:00.005-05:00

By Robert Frank

Saturday is Marcie's birthday!! Sunday kicked off her birthday week (we celebrate our birthday's for a whole week down here in Florida), and this year for Marcie's Birthday week I have gotten her a present every day of the week.

Last weekend Marcie went to Vero Beach to visit her friend Angela for Angela's birthday and this weekend her Angela is coming up for her birthday and then her mom is having her over for cake.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARCIE!!!!

Addicting Video Games

2009-04-20T15:10:00.003-05:00

By Robert Frank

In a new report recently released, 1 in 10 young adults are addicted to video games. I don't think that is too bad of a figure considering 9 in 10 young adults are addicted to television.

Once again, studies have failed to look into the addiction of television while they look into the addiction of everything else.

I will agree that video games can be very addicting. I just recently hooked up my xBox Live and have played just about every day. But, I do not get up and play xBox, turn on the xBox as soon as I get home, and go to sleep with the glow of the xBox as millions upon millions of people do with their televisions.

There are some people who do not even know how to eat dinner without at least hearing a television in the other room. I do not understand why there have been no studies on why television is so addicting. Is it because there is too much money in advertising and the actors and actresses to actually tell people that they are addicted to television. That doesn't make too much sense because video games have made more money on their opening days than any movie in the history. Scientists are even comparing video game addiction to alcoholism. "'I think we're at the same place now with video gaming as we were with alcoholism 40 years ago,' said Gentile, noting that decades of research finally showed that alcoholism is a disease."

So by the time my children are actually able to understand video games, they will most likely have to wait till they are 21 years old to play on their xBox 360 because it is a disease. But it will be just fine still to have them sit in front of the television for 13 hours a day. And that's ok, because no scientist has told us that we are addicted to tv yet.

Tea Party

2009-04-16T09:44:00.003-05:00

By Robert Frank

Yesterday was April 15, 2009. If you didn't file your taxes yet, you are now late and better get your extension mailed in so that you can reduce any penalties you may be accruing already.

But, what was even more interesting on April 15, 2009 were the thousands and thousands of protests all over the country protesting the income taxes that everyone was forced to pay yesterday.

The income tax has been around since the Civil War to help the government pay for the war and really hit full force right before and during World War II, to again help with the war. Today, income tax is just the normal thing to pay and withhold from your paycheck because the laws were never taken off the books after the wars.

I never minded paying taxes until just recently with the escalating amounts of bailouts being given to large corporations that already have made millions and millions of dollars. My life of going to work every day and paying taxes is being given directly to people at the top who have screwed up the entire economy and now still want to live the best quality of life possible. What the United States government does not understand that we are now living in an era of taxation without representation. The last time that this occurred, there was a major revolution against the government that eventually led to the creation of the United States. It seems as if our own government forgot how they were created in the first place.

This past year, I've grown to not even care whether someone supports the democratic or republican party or even an independent party. The entire system has faltered and it is time for either a system overhaul or a severe separation from the states and the country government. We cannot continue as a superpower of the world in the current state that we are operating in.

Ryans Birthday in Tampa

2009-03-28T10:22:00.002-05:00

Ryans Birthday in Tampa

View Album

Rochester, NY

2009-03-27T12:10:00.001-05:00

Last weekend Marcie went to Rochester to visit her friend Jen who is almost ready to have her first baby. She spent a couple of days up there and these are the pictures from that weekend. Click on the picture below and then click on "View Album" to see the pictures from her weekend in Rochester, NY.

View Album

Fishing Trip In Dunnellon

2009-03-21T06:43:00.002-05:00

This past weekend, we took a trip to Dunnellon, got a cabin, and spent the weekend out on the water. We had a blast and Marcie caught a nice foot and a half fish while we were out. We also saw a pretty big size gator floating in the water past us. The pictures are below from the weekend!

Fishing Trip

New Truck!

2009-03-11T17:36:00.002-05:00

It only took me a month to finally find a new car that I liked, but I finally found one! On Monday, I purchased an 03 Chevy Silverado. It has some high miles, but the truck itself is in perfect condition. The engine looks great, the interior and exterior have almost no wear and tear at all. I took some pictures and uploaded them for you to see!

Our Blogs

2009-02-16T17:00:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

While I was going through our blogs the other day, I realized that we have entirely too many blogs. So, in an effort to make following the blogs easier, I have combined all of the blogs into a single blog entitled "A Compilation: By Marcie & Robert Frank".

This blog contains all of our pictures from 2005 to the Present, all of our Daily Report Posts, All of our fishing blog posts and Andrew J Semesco Foundation posts. Going forward, everything will be posted to this single blog. You can sort out what you would like to see by selecting a category on the left entitled Our Daily Report of Our Pictures. This way, you can narrow down what you are looking for.

Florida 5708 will still remain a separate blog.

I know I am behind the times a little bit, but tax season has been completely insane. Way busier than any year before, but I guess that is a good thing right now.

The Steelers won Super Bowl 43! My prediction was for the Steelers & Giants to play in the Super Bowl, so I was 50% correct! I just wanted to share some pictures of the Super Bowl game at my parents house. Click the link below to see them and GO STEELERS!

There are also some pictures of Addie & Rocky and Marcie's new tattoo!


Superbowl Party

Tax Season Is Here

2009-01-05T14:25:00.003-05:00

By Robert Frank

Tax season has officially arrived beginning today, January 5th, 2009. We are in full swing at work already working 12 hours a day.

Because of the long hours at work in addition to two online classes, postings on the blogs will slow down immensely. Especially on Florida 5708. We will try to post as much as we can on here when we have time, but Florida 5708 will probably go down to 2 or 3 posts a day.

In April, we will resume all of the postings. This weekend we will get the last of the 2008 pictures uploaded so that everyone can see them.

December Pictures

2008-12-31T09:05:00.000-05:00

December

St. Augustine

2008-12-30T17:39:00.004-05:00

By Robert Frank

Tomorrow evening, we are heading up to St. Augustine for New Years Eve. We are going to be staying at the Victorian House Bed & Breakfast. We will be right downtown in St. Augustine so we should get to see a lot more stuff than we did last time. The last time we went to St. Augustine, we stayed on the beach which was a little bit of a drive to get to downtown, but this time, we will be able to walk outside and be downtown.

We don't know what our plans for tomorrow night are just yet. We are hoping that when we get there they can tell us what kind of things are going on downtown for us to do. It will be in the 70's so it should be perfect weather for walking around and checking things out. Thursday, we will be going back to the Columbian for some of the best seafood that I have ever eaten in my entire life! We will also be trying their Sangria, which we didn't have time to try last time, but hear that it is the best Sangria around.

After the Columbian, we will be heading over to the movie theater called "Pot Belly's Theater". One of the oldest theaters in the world, it only has 3 screens that seat 100 people a piece. But, when you walk in, you can purchase anything you want from corn dogs and hot dogs and popcorn to beer such as Bud Light & Corona. The manager even walks around the theater during the movie and picks up your empty bottles!

It should be a fun trip and we plan on taking tons of pictures while we are there. We will post them when we get back! Happy New Year and thanks for taking the time to read all of our posts in 2008. With over 50 posts, we have had a great year!

Tyler's 2009 Trip To Florida

2008-12-22T18:22:00.002-05:00


Tyler's Trip To Florida

Tyler made his 2009 trip to Florida last weekend. The weekend flew by, but we had a blast. Thursday night, he didn't get in until late in the night so we didn't do anything when we got back to the house. Friday night, we got a Bud Light party ball and all hung out at Shnockey's Bar (The shed I converted into a bar in the backyard) and had a fire. Saturday, we spent 5 hours or more playing Rock Band, went to Outback, and had another fire.

Sunday we went out to my parents to watch the Steelers Vs. Titans game, even though it was disappointing it was still a good time hanging out during the game. We took a bunch of pictures and you can view them all by clicking on the album. There are some good ones except for the ones of Tyler by the fire, he is glowing in almost every one of the pictures!

Week 16

2008-12-17T17:39:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

This has been an amazing NFL season for 2008. Teams that were supposed to go to the Super Bowl like the Chargers and the Patriots will probably not even get into the playoffs. Teams that won one game last season actually have a shot at a wild card in the playoffs.

Going into week 16, the Steelers play the Titans for the number 1 spot in the AFC. If the Steelers win on Sunday and next Sunday against the Browns, they will be the number 1 seed in the AFC and have home field advantage throughout the playoffs!

Beating the Titans is not going to be a walk in the park, since they are currently the number 1 seed in the AFC. But, if the Steelers defense keeps coming in strong as they have all season, than they should be able to pull away a win.

The top four teams right now are the Steelers, Titans, Giants and Panthers. It would be awesome if the Giants could get to the Super Bowl and play the Steelers in Tampa. We would definitely have to make a trip down to Tampa to see that crowd!

But without getting ahead of ourselves we hope that the Steelers can come out playing hard this week and next to secure the first spot in the AFC division!

Bracket

Auto Bailout on SNL

2008-12-08T18:34:00.000-05:00

November Pictures

2008-11-30T09:05:00.000-05:00

November

The 7 Most Annoying People At Thanksgiving Dinner

2008-11-27T08:00:00.000-05:00

Stolen From Holy Taco

Thanksgiving is one of our greatest holidays. We eat until we feel like we're going to die and then we lay around and watch football. But you're also forced to see family members that can turn all the gluttony into a big downer. Here are the seven worst.

7. THE RELIGIOUS RELATIVE

It's fine if you love Jesus. No one is saying you can't. But you have to understand that for the rest of us, Thanksgiving is the only Holiday we get where we don't have to hear about the man upstairs. Therefore, I don't give a shit that the shape of my mashed potatoes reminded you of a passage from Corinthians, I just want you to pass the salt. I may not know Jesus as well as you do, but if he's as cool as you say he is, then if he was invited over to somebody's house for dinner, he probably wouldn't spend the entire meal talking about how awesome he is. That sounds to me like an asshole.

Typical Conversation:

You: You know, I think if the Colts could get healthy, they could make a run this year.

Religious Relative: And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. James 5:15

You: Right. I'm pretty sure the Lord wasn't referring to someone having "turf toe."

6. THE PERSON WITH THE SECRET EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS

You'll know this person is coming to your thanksgiving about three and a half minutes before they get there, because you're mother will pull you aside and say, "Ben is coming. Now, he's gay, but he hasn't come out to the family yet, so don't say anything about gay things. Everyone, did you hear that? Ben is coming and he's gay, but he hasn't come out yet!" Now, all anyone can think of when they look at Ben is "gay, gay, gay,gay" and because you don't want to bring any attention to the fact that he's got this secret, you end up bringing even more attention to it by striking up a conversation that is the direct opposite of it, which ends up awkwardly becoming about said secret.

Typical Conversation:

You: So, Ben, how about that new James Bond Movie. He's a good James Bond right? I mean, just the way he acts, not like how he looks or anything. Not that he acts a certain way or that you can tell something from how somebody acts, but just like- wow, that's a lot of gravy on your plate. I mean, I like gravy-

5. THE FANTASY FOOTBALL GUY

Football on Thanksgiving is a tradition, but your fantasy team is not. So when the entire room wants to change the channel because the Lions are losing by 42 points with six minutes left, it's super annoying when you respond with, "Wait, wait, I just have to see if Calvin Johnson gets fourteen more receiving yards." To make matters worse, this person insists on telling you the score to their fantasy game, and the picks they made early in the season that have or have not panned out, like they were in a Nazi prison camp and a guard made them choose which one of their children lived.

Typical Conversation:

Fantasy Guy: YES!

You: Is it a close game?

FG: No, it's 46-20. Kevin Smith lost two yards. I need him to not gain more than ten yards the rest of the game, the guy I'm playing has him. I took Matt Forte instead of him, I was thinking of taking smith, but at the last second, I had Forte in my draft que and I just pushed "draft."

You: Great. Um, you think we can change the channel? There's three minutes left and we were hoping to watch anything but this.

FG: Yeah yeah of course, there's just three minutes left though. I just gotta make sure I win this week. Sorry.

4. THE NEW BOYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND THAT WON'T LAST

This person brought their boyfriend that they met three weeks ago when they were shit-faced drunk and letting people take body shots off their titties. Now everyone has to pretend like she and he are in a serious relationship, even though when he tells someone he's originally from Tuscon his "girlfriend" responds with "really, I thought you were from Fresno...Huh." And since now there's someone at the table that no one knows, everybody has to pretend like they have manners are care about what's going on in other people's lives. This leads to everyone at the table focusing on the fact that this dude they've never met before, and will never see again, is "in ad sales right now, but looking to maybe starting a club promotion business or something like that."

Typical Conversation:

You: I was thinking of buying a new Honda.

Cousin: Brian used to fix Hondas, right Brian?

Cousin's Boyfriend: Um, no. I know a guy who did, though.

Cousin: Really, I thought you did?

Cousin's Boyfriend: Nope.

(awkward silence)

Your Mom: Well, being a mechanic is a good job.

(more awkward silence)

3. THE OVERLY POLITICAL RELATIVE

You haven’t read the latest book by Ron Paul, and you have no idea what the trade deficit is, but that’s not going to stop the political freak from constantly quoting Ron Paul’s latest book about the trade deficit whenever there’s a two-second lull in the conversation. It doesn’t matter that your eyes glaze over like a ham when he starts spouting endless facts about civic policy and the economies of risk-management, he will not stop trying to get you to agree to a political stance that you have never heard of or couldn’t possibly care less about.

Typical Conversation:

You: Man, I can’t believe the holidays are already here.

Political Relative: You know what I can’t believe? I can’t believe that the S&P needs to increase by 33% just to get back to even over the next 12 months. And you know what else I can’t believe? The fact that Bernanke and Paulson have destroyed America as you and I know it. They’re the “experts”? Really? If they were so smart, then why didn’t they see this coming? Now we’re supposed to feel comfortable with these crooks in charge? Yes sir, you can kiss your nation goodbye forever.

You: Yeah, uhhh, time sure does fly.

Political Relative: And you know what won’t fly anymore pretty soon? Our bankrupt airlines. If you think Uncle Sam is going to keep bailing those mismanaged disasters forever you can think again.

You: I just want to eat some turkey.

2. THE SUPER OLD GRANDPARENT

We should all have some respect for our elders, but trying to have a conversation with your 96-year-old great grandmother is like talking to a junkie who just shot up. There’s a lot of mumbling and nodding off and when there is some conversation, it’s mostly just a series of repetitive stories from your childhood.

Typical Conversation:

You: Hey Grandma. Can I get you some stuffing? Are you thirsty?

Great Grandma: …zzzz…who? You remember when you used to come and visit us and you had such a good time? I remember that.

You: Yeah, that was fun.

Great Grandma: Remember when you used to come and…visit us in the summers? We had so much fun during those summers…zzzzz….hi! What grade are you in now?

You: I’m 33 and divorced, Grandma. I’m not in school anymore.

Great Grandma: Such a big boy! Look at you! I bet you study hard and get good marks. Are you going to come visit us this summer…

1. THE RECOVERING ALCOHOLIC

We get it. You don’t drink anymore. But we don’t need updates every five minutes that you “haven’t touched the stuff in six years, 48 days and 15 hours.” And you know what? I’m not an alcoholic. Just because one sip of booze would turn you into a raging alcohol monster who would drain the liquor cabinet and then start chugging Aqua Velva doesn’t mean the rest of the world can’t have a glass of wine. But the worst part about this guy is that he has absolutely nothing else to talk about.

Typical Conversation:

You: This turkey is delicious!

Recovering Alcoholic: Back when I was drinking, the only turkey I would have during the holidays was a bottle of Wild Turkey. And I would drink the whole thing by myself. I was so bad, back then. So bad.

You: Well, it’s great that you stopped.

Recovering Alcoholic: Whiskey, vodka, beer, sake, wine, rum, grain alcohol, bourbon, gin, you name it, I’ve drank it. But it’s been six years since a drop has passed these lips. Six loooooong years. It’s been great, but a day doesn’t go by when I’m not thinking about booze. It’s the first thing I think about when I wake up and it’s the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. I love booze. That’s why I had to give it up.

You: Well…good for you. So, how are your kids doing?

Recovering Alcoholic: It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I used to drink so much. Then I hit rock bottom and gave it up all together. I knew if I didn’t I wouldn’t be here today. But I used to love drinking. It was my life. You should probably quit drinking, too. I used to be like you, a glass of wine here and there and then all of a sudden I was stealing from my daughter's piggy bank just to go get a bottle of rot gut. That’s how it always happens.

The Ocala PD

2008-11-24T16:03:00.000-05:00

By Robert Frank

In the latest round of complete stupidity by the local police department in Ocala, FL, they spent an entire week, police force, and volunteers time to arrest 15 people who were handymen.

The reason for their arrest, "No License". These "unlicensed contractor's" are just handymen. They don't have a business, they are making multi-million gross sales every year, they are doing some handy work around people's homes to make a living and make ends meet.

Now, in one of the largest economic downturns in construction history, the police set up a sting to bust these people who are barely getting any work as it is. In my opinion, I would rather have a handyman come over to my house and fix something than pay someone who has a permit. The guy that has a permit is going to cost 4 times as much because the permit licensing in this county is ridiculous. Permit holding contractors have to charge 4 times as much because of how much it costs for the licensing.

If you're not smart enough to ask someone some questions and figure out if they know what they are doing before you hire them, that is your own fault. I'm not going to let anyone in my house before I ask them some questions, especially if they don't have a business.

It's a shame that the Ocala Police Department couldn't spend some more time on the drug trafficking problem that we have in Marion County or the crime that is going on with pizza stores, banks, and pharmacies being robbed on a weekly basis. Not to mention the increase in home invasions in the area. That would make too much sense, and hey, they might even have to actually work if they went after those problems.

Instead, three people I know got a speeding ticket last week. Way to crack down on the speeders going over the speed limit instead of doing some real police work around here.

Original Article

Spam Mail

2008-11-20T12:28:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

The spam mail that I have been getting recently is unbelievable. I haven't even been signing up for stuff online anymore because there isn't anything fun to sign up for anymore, and I am still getting massive amounts of spam in my e-mail everyday.

The other day, on Monday, I got to work and had 250 spam messages in my spam folder! So, this week, I started going through and blocking every e-mail address that I was getting spam from. It has slowed down dramatically, since I noticed I was getting 15 messages from the same e-mail address and this morning I woke up and only had 40 spam messages.

The worse thing is when you have important messages getting thrown into the spam folder. Then you are missing those e-mails because you don't have time to sift through 250 spam messages to get to the ones you really need.

I am thinking about just getting a new e-mail address, but that is such a pain that it's almost not even worth it. But, I think that will be the best thing to do because unless blocking the spam e-mail addresses starts working, I am wasting entirely too much time looking at spam mail.

On another note, it is a week away from Thanksgiving which is amazing! There's only 4 workdays left before a nice break and lots of eating. We will be posting some pictures next week of course of our Thanksgiving weekend!

NFL & Their Referees

2008-11-17T15:45:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

I'm sure most of you heard about the 11-10 victory the Steelers had over the Chargers. What was even more interesting was the call the referee made at the end of the game to take a touchdown off of Polamalu. What is even more interesting is that the referee took this touchdown off of the Steelers and if he would have given it to them, the people who bet on the Steelers would have won the 5 point spread, but instead, everyone who bet on the Steelers lost their money last night.

This is the 3rd time this season that a referee has made a horrible call and gone unpunished. Why is the NFL letting these referees call games and bets and not doing anything about it. If it were up to me, this guy would never be the referee in another game the rest of his life. An it is not just because it was on the Steelers. The other referee, Huchili, has already called two games this year and is still allowed to be on the field.

The NFL needs to do something about the referees before they start to lose fans because the refs have too much power. The steelers had 13 penalties to the Chargers 1. Then, the referee took 2 touchdowns off of the Steelers, with a "holding" call and a "dead ball" call. I know if I see too many more games like this, I'm not going to be a fan much longer.

There are only a few weeks left in the NFL & it is an exciting season with many teams having to play down to the last game just to get in the playoffs. It will be a shame if these games are decided by a referee that shouldn't even be on the field.

The Latest Casualties

2008-11-10T19:08:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

I was surprised to see today that Circuit City has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. While this doesn't mean they are going out of business, it definitely means that they are headed for extremely rough times.

I was not surprised to see that Starbucks Coffee profit dropped 97% last quarter. In these economic times, people cannot afford $4.50 for a cup of coffee. As soon as the economy started to fall into a slump, Starbucks should have lowered their prices by at
least a $1.00 per cup. This would have made it so they may have

only lost 66% of their profit instead of 97%. They better have some reserves or they will be filing for bankruptcy soon, following Circuit City.

GM has announced that they will be out of cash by next summer. That means, that in less than a year we may see the entire fall of the automaker and hundreds of thousands of people lose their jobs. I will not be surprised to see the Government step in and prevent this from happening at the start of 2009.

Fannie Mae recorded a record $29 Billion loss last quarter and said that the bailout the government gave them a couple of months ago was "just not enough". They are now asking for even more money from the government.

These are just the big ones that are making it in the news. There are hundreds and hundreds more who are experience this cash shortage and are unable to stay in business and pay their vendors. We have less than 2 months until 2009, and I think that if the core economy can hold on until then, we may see an upswing at the beginning of the year. I think that most companies will write off huge amounts of debt in the 4th quarter to start fresh in 2009, maybe even re-incorporate under different names leaving their old companies behind. This will start a wave of fresh new businesses being opened in 2009 pushing the economy up a little higher than it is now. But for now, we have to get through the next two months and the worst retail time of the year, the holidays.

The Votes Are In

2008-11-05T16:11:00.004-05:00

By Robert Frank

The votes are in, Barak Obama is going to be the next President of the United States. I, for one, am extremely excited that the election is over. I really don't know if I could have sat through one more election commercial talking about how bad the other guy is. It was really starting to get to me!

But, the white house, senate, and house are no democratically controlled. After this huge defeat for the Republicans, it is extremely important that the democrats do something with their new majority. Otherwise, we will be right back in the same position voting for a republican in 4 years.

There were record numbers of voters turning out yesterday, which I am excited to hear about since the last election had less voters than American Idol did that year. It is good to see that so many people are getting interested in politics and beginning to get a voice in what is going on around them. Probably one of the main reasons that so many people did vote is the economy, it really pused people to get out there and vote for something so they felt like they were being part of the solution.

All we can do now is sit back and wait and see what happens in 2009. Hopefully, for everyone, 2009 is a much better year than this year has been.

Obama (D) - 349 votes

McCain (R) - 162 votes

Chad & Michelle Thompson's Wedding Weekend

2008-10-31T08:04:00.000-05:00

Chad & Michelle Thompson's Wedding Pictures

Rochester, NY

2008-10-27T15:39:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

We are heading up to Rochester, NY on Wednesday for Marcie's brother's wedding. The wedding will be on October 31, 2008. That's right, a Halloween wedding! We are looking forward to the decorations and overall feel of a Halloween wedding, since I have never seen one before.

It is getting extremely cold, I guess because it is almost November. But, tonight it is supposed to be 39 degrees and tomorrow night it is supposed to be 34 degrees in Ocala. But, then it is supposed to warm up on Wednesday, of course, the day we leave for Rochester where the temperature is scheduled to be 32, 41, 36 for the lows on Wed, Thurs, and Friday and calling for snow on Wednesday.

It will be interesting to see if it really does snow on Wednesday since I haven't seen snow in 4 and a half years now! But, I am going to be extremely annoyed by the freezing temperatures.

We will take tons if pictures, hopefully none outside, and post them on the blog when we get back. This will be our last trip out of Florida for 2008!!

We finally got situated in our new house and are settling in now. We will also put some pictures up of the new house, and Addie, who is already getting huge!

Apartment Damage

2008-10-25T08:06:00.000-05:00

Apartment Damage

Quick Update

2008-10-14T15:00:00.003-05:00

By Robert Frank

Just a quick update, I know we haven't been posting very much recently. We have a ton of stuff going on!

For starters, there is a new addition to the family. Addie is a 6 week old pure white German Shepard. We got her 2 weeks ago and she is awesome. She is already doing very well and is just about completely potty trained. There are some more pictures of here after the post.

Secondly, we are moving. I know, there is a big surprise, we actually stayed in our apartment for a year. At least we are staying in a place for a year minimum now before we start moving around. But, we are moving to a 3 bedroom house with a huge fenced in yard and it is much cheaper than our apartment and about .5 miles to Marcie's job. So, we are going to be moving in there on the 26th!

3 Days after that we are leaving for New York for Marcie's brother's wedding. I'm pretty sure that I will come back to Florida with pneumonia considering the high was 65 in Rochester today. By the end of the month it is going to be freezing! But the wedding will be awesome, it is on Halloween, so that will be fun.

Next Thursday we are doing a Lite The Night Walk and walking 2 miles for cancer in remembrance of Marcie's Aunt Patty. And the Tuesday that we get back from New York we will be voting for the next President!

So, we have a busy couple of weeks ahead of us. Not sure if there will be a lot of posting or not. We will post some pictures of the house once we are settled in.

Addie & Rocky

2008-10-04T08:04:00.000-05:00

Addie & Rocky

BRCA 1 & BRCA 2

2008-10-03T13:17:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

As our technology gets more and more advanced, we see new advancements in our health care that help our prevention of certain diseases. We have pretty much seen the complete destruction of many diseases including smallpox, measles, mumps, and some others. One that the human race doesn't seem to have an answer to is Cancer. So, instead of looking for treatments of this disease, scientists are looking at ways that it can be prevented from the beginning.

How can they do this? They can look at your genes. Apparently, doctors can look at a woman's DNA and tell them with a 80% certainty if they are going to get breast cancer or not. The Gene called BRCA 1 & BRCA 2 show this by being mutated. If the gene is mutated, then the woman has an 80% chance of getting cancer. This sounds like a great breakthrough for prevention of breast cancer for women.

What doesn't make sense is what is causing our DNA to become mutated. It seems as if the mutated DNA is what causes the breast cancer in women. I don't know too much about Cancer, but the earliest surgical procedure dates back to 1,600 BC in Egypt. So maybe, nothing is mutating our DNA now, people are just living longer and it takes longer for Cancer to develope in a human being. It would have been difficult for our ancestors to get cancer when their life exptencancy was 41 years old in the year 1,100. Most people diagnosed with cancer are over 41.

With the advancement of DNA research, we may eventually be able to "turn off" these mutated genes or remove them from our DNA so that cancer becomes extinct. Until then, it seems as if it is one of the greatest disease and threats to the human race. 1,600 BC until today is over 3,600 years that a disease has been affecting humans. That seems like a long time for a disease to effect so many people and not be cured.

As for the gene test, I would encourage any woman to have it done, whether they want to know or not. Prevention is the best defense that a human has against cancer. If the mutated gene is found, then they can be monitored on a semi-annual basis for any signs of cancer. This way, it can be detected early and prevented from becoming dangerous. Just as the cervical cancer vaccine, I would say that any prevention is better than no prevention.

You can read more information on the research here.

Oct. 1, 1957: Thalidomide Cures Morning Sickness, But ...

2008-10-01T15:40:00.001-05:00

By Tony Long

1957: Thalidomide, a drug developed to help women overcome the symptoms of morning sickness during pregnancy, is first marketed in West Germany. Forty-six countries approve its use before thalidomide's terrible side effects become apparent.

Thalidomide is a powerful synthetic tranquilizer, originally developed by Ciba, a Swiss pharmaceutical company. Unable to make it commercially profitable, Ciba gave up on the drug. A German company, Chemie Gruenenthal, took over and eventually began marketing thalidomide as a "completely safe" method for warding off morning sickness.

Except thalidomide wasn't "completely safe." In fact, it was quite the opposite.

Inadequate testing procedures were to blame for what followed. Had the pharmaceutical labs done a better job of testing thalidomide, they would have discovered that the drug's molecules were able to penetrate the placental wall, especially during the first trimester of pregnancy when the fetus is largely unformed.

This invasion of the womb resulted in a variety of profound birth defects, including deformed and missing limbs, deafness, blindness, cleft palate and a slew of internal problems.

By the early 1960s, more than 10,000 thalidomide babies had been born. Although many died in infancy (an estimated 40 percent died before their first birthday), quite a few survived into adulthood. Now in their 40s, most thalidomide survivors continue suffering from a variety of chronic health problems directly related to their condition.

Thalidomide's impact in the United States was minimal, because the Food and Drug Administration had held up the drug's approval for reasons having nothing to do with birth defects. Thalidomide was finally pulled off the world market in 1962.

In a reversal of fortune, thalidomide resurfaced 30 years later as an effective drug for improving the survival rate in bone-marrow-transplant patients. It is also being used to treat multiple myeloma.

Source: Various

View Slideshow

Original Article

September Pictures

2008-09-30T08:03:00.000-05:00

September

Fuji Leaps Forward

2008-09-29T11:23:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

Apparently, they have a show event for everything now. I hear about conventions for restaurants, computers, cars, everything. But, this one was for cameras. And there was lots of cool things unveiled!

The camera to the left is the first 3-d camera. It was created by Fuji and takes two pictures at the same time and instantly turns them into a 3-d image.

The camera also has multiple zooms, so each lens can be individually zoomed to take wide angle pictures. The photo can take two panoramic pictures at the same time to create a double panoramic picture. And, the camera can have one lens recording video while the other just takes still pictures of the video being recorded.

This camera is going to be amazing, and completely change how photos are taken. It may even change the way films are recorded by having more than one lens recording a series of events. This would make it feel as if you were in the movie with the actors rather than just watching the movie. It may also lead to new video games that actually allow you to be a part of the video game rather than just playing it.

The two lens camera has been talked about for years, and now it has officially been released. These will be available to consumers in 2009.

To see the other cameras debuted at this convention, click here.

Mob Lynching

2008-09-19T07:56:00.005-05:00

By Robert Frank

All of us down here in Central Florida have been bombarded with the news story about Casey Anthony. It is on the news constantly, and so far, there has not been 1 day that it was not the top story.

For those of you who just may have heard about the story once or twice on MSN, a little girl was missing, her mother did not report it to the police, and they don't know where the girl is. The mother lives with her parents.

But, the story is now that there are protesters outside the Anthony's home on a daily basis. These people are throwing rocks, shining spotlights in the windows, and pounding on the walls. They are destroying the neighbors yards, and getting into fights in the streets outside the home.

The funniest thing about this is that the protesters are saying that they are protesting because the parents are hiding a baby killer. These protesters have to be the dumbest people I have ever seen in my life. They are constantly sitting there screaming at the camera on the 5:00 news, and they are always low life trash, obviously with no job and nothing better to do than go sit and scream at these people.

First of all, why are the police sitting here and letting these people do this? This is completely unbelievable and a complete failure on the police side. Last night, a security group called "Guardian Angels" went in to break up the mob. The police actually said on the news that they were not helping the situation. The police have yet to show up and try to break up the mob even though the Anthony family called 911 when the protesters started throwing rocks at their windows at 2:00am.

I understand that the mother is under investigation for the murder of her daughter and I am not defending her in the least bit, but the parents and all of the residents in this neighborhood have rights and those rights need to be protected. The police in Orlando are pathetic and should all be terminated for allowing this to go on just because they believe that the Mother killed her daughter, even though they don't have enough proof, because she's not in jail.

I also think that the Judge that threw out the request by the Homeowners Association to prevent the protesters from staying in the streets all night should be relieved of his duties, he is just as pathetic as the cops are.

I would not be surprised if in the next week or two that someone ends up getting killed, because each night the protests get more violent and one protester actually hit the security guy from "Guardian Angels" with his car and sped off.

My main message here is get a life people, if you spent more time looking for a job and less time on welfare you wouldn't have time and energy to be sitting there till 2:00am protesting. And what is your mentality, you are acting like people from the dark ages when they went to witches houses and pulled them out and burned them. Is that what you want to do? Have a Mob Lynching? Well the truth is that the people with have of a brain made Mob Lynchings in Florida illegal. So, get a life, get a job, and get off the streets. And if your not smart enough to do that, at least don't take your 5 year old children to the street at 3:00am in the morning. As for the cops, you are completely pathetic and ridiculous and to think that we should respect you is the biggest joke on the planet. You make me sick to think that you actually believe that you are upholding the law when you are doing nothing except acting as bad as these morons in the streets. Which is not very surprising considering you only had a to complete a 6-12 month course to become a "law officer". And to the judge, get off the bench, you obviously are out of touch with the law.

Time To Move

2008-09-16T07:01:00.004-05:00

As everyone knows, yesterday's financial news rocked the global markets to losses total over $500 million. With this news came huge speculations and very important analysis that the United States citizens need to pay attention to and heed before we become a third world country in the next decade.

The FDIC only has $50 billion available for the insurance on bank accounts while there is over $1 trillion in accounts. - This means that if there was a bank run tomorrow, your money is not insured and the same thing that happened in the 1920s would happen again. (Task, 2008).
The United States now only has 4 of the top 20 richest people in the world compared to 10 people on the top 20 richest people in the world just 2 years ago. Russia, India & China now top the lists for richest people in the world.
The American Dollar is becoming increasingly worthless while Europeans flock to the United States to purchase American Made Products with the Euro for half the price they would have to pay for it in Europe. Our exports are becoming worthless.
The American Auto Industry Is Dead - That's all there is to it.
London is actually outperforming and out-investing Wall Street making it the center of the global financial market and the economic cycle is beginning to follow London rather than Wall Street, leaving American Investors without the foreign investors it was relying on.
In 25 years, the ethnic population will be completely diversified leaving White Americans as a minority. Assuming that the new majority race continues to keep America as a democracy and not become a dictatorship, we will see vast changes in federal and state government laws.
Our education system is failing with class sizes doubling and 50% of students going into 9th grade failing out before graduation. Our college educations are getting so expensive they are only for the rich again.
The citizens are in a state of complacency which is leading to huge amounts of government power and many of the rights of regular people to be taken away. We don't care about anything as long as we have our safety from terrorism.
Banks are stuck in a situation that leaves them with two options, go bankrupt or give credit to people who are not going to pay it back and go bankrupt anyway. The credit crises has completely silenced the economic success the United States has seen and may never be able to recover to the point that we have seen before.
Lastly, the one thing that provided the middle class with a sense of wealth was their homes. This wealth has successfully been destroyed by the credit crisis. We now are seeing the gap between the rich and the poor increase with the cost of living and inflation going through the roof to create two economic classes.

"Taken together, some say, the evidence suggests the U.S. might be heading into a twilight phase -- one in which it is ceding to other nations its usual claim to superlatives and leadership as well as its adventurous, cutting-edge spirit" (Beck, 2008).

Unless the American people stand up and recognize these problems we will no longer exist by the turn of the next century. If we do, we will not be a superpower and most likely split up as states begin to secede from the nation to make their own laws and regulations.

Considering all of these points of view and many economists saying that we will never recover from the fiasco that the United States is in for simple facts like wasting all of the money generated over the past eight years on a pointless war that has pushed us even further into the recession that we are in all lead to one thing, moving out of the United States. It is time to migrate to a different part of the world. Maybe even begin looking at migrating to another planet such as the moon or Mars. Whatever we do, it needs to be done in the next 100 years, because the way things are going now, we will not be in the same environment that we have experienced for the past 100 years.

Resources

Beck, E (2008, September 15). Is America in a permanent decline?. Retrieved September 16, 2008, from MSN Web site: Full Article

Task, A (2008, September 16). Americans Should Worry About Bank Deposits if Congress Doesn't Act. Retrieved September 16, 2008, from Yahoo Finance Web site: Full Article

Church & State During Elections

2008-09-12T11:19:00.003-05:00

By Robert Frank

The Alliance Defense Fund, or ADF, as referred to in the cited article is something that needs to be squashed almost immediately.

This group is recruiting pastors from churches to openly donate to their candidate of choice, which is strictly against the law and would force the church to no longer be tax-exempt so that the ADF can sue the government and make it legal for churches to make political contributions.

Having half of a brain you would realize that this would directly impact the election based on religion. There is a reason that there is a separation of church and state in this country and its because the people who founded this country came to America to get rid of a government completely controlled by religion. These religious entities and fanatics are getting completely out of control, and on top of that, gaining way too much control.

Now I'm not against any religion, and I believe that you can believe whatever you want to believe, but church and state separation exists for a reason, because it did not work in the past when the two were one government agency. And if we want the United States to remain the United States, then we have to continue to keep a separation of Church & State.

ADF Pushes Church-election Scheme

Steelers & Giants - Opening Week

2008-09-08T07:57:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

The opening week in the NFL brought me and Marcie's teams huge victories. The NY Giants played on Thursday night for the opener following the Super Bowl victory and beat the redskins 16-7. The Steelers came out with a huge victory of 38-17 over the Texans. This is the Steeler's 6th consecutive win in the season opener, the NFL's longest streak since the Dolphins won from 1992-2002. For now, both the Steelers and the Giants are 1-0. Fantasy Football scores for Pennsylvania Vs Florida will come up tomorrow and I will update who is in the lead for the 4th season next week. I will also give an update on the Steelers & Giants next week as well. The Giants play the St. Louis Rams, and the Steelers debut an 8:15 game against division rival Cleveland Browns.

In other football news, Tom Brady is out for the season after a knee injury against the Kansas City Chiefs. Matt Cassell will be taking over the QB Position for the Patriots. T.O. was penalized for being a complete moron in the endzone again. The Colts were beat by the Bears in a huge stunner.

Blogrush

2008-09-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

By Robert Frank

In the busy building of the Florida 5708 blog, Our Daily Report has been put on the back burner in the amount of posts that have been going up each month. But, last week, I received this e-mail from a website called "Blog Rush"

Congratulations!

This is just a quick message to let
you know that we have carefully
reviewed your blog:

Our Daily Report
http://mandrfrank.blogspot.com/

And your blog has successfully
met our strict quality guidelines!

Your blog has been *APPROVED*
for the BlogRush network.

You should be very proud of
your blog's quality content and
know that you are now included
in a special network of similar
high-quality blogs.

* We have already rejected a lot
of blogs (several thousand) that do
not meet our strict quality guidelines
and we will continue to enforce our
detailed criteria in order to protect the
integrity of our network.

So, now Our Daily Report is being advertised on every blog that is a member of Blogrush. You can see the Blogrush widget on the left hand side of Our Daily Report, and if you are ever bored, just check out the Blogrush for some worthy blogs to read!

Florida 5708 Gear

2008-09-02T09:33:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

Last weekend, Marcie & I designed the logo for Florida 5708. Some of you may remember the "Day Old Beer" post we had back in June. Well, Marcie had a great idea of turning that into the logo for Florida 5708.

So what we did for the logo was took the beer bottle and created our logo right onto the beer bottle. As you can see the shirt to the left has a sample of the logo. Underneath the beer bottle is the website to the blog.

There are tons of other things that we put our logo on including clocks, pillows, boxer shorts, thongs, and polos just to name a few. You can check out our entire inventory here - http://www.cafepress.com/fl5708.

We had another great month last month with over 4,000 visits to the blogs. If you have checked out Florida 5708 in a while now is a good time to see new changes and the new logo!

http://www.fl5708.blogspot.com/

August Pictures

2008-08-31T08:03:00.000-05:00

August Pictures

Immigration and the pending white minority

2008-08-27T09:48:00.002-05:00

By CRAIG NELSEN
Special to the Star-Banner

By 2042, the Census Bureau says, whites will be a minority in the United States, and among children under 18, whites become the minority in just 15 years.

How long is 15 years? Fifteen years ago, Bill Clinton was president.

So, just around the corner, whites in America are going to be disempowered, assuming we remain a democracy, through a radical and rapid transformation of the nation's demography on a scale unprecedented in world history.

In response to this news, individual whites — the proper, polite ones — will affect (or, if particularly ignorant of the world around them, evince) an attitude, at the least, of indifference and calm assurance, at the most, of celebratory enthusiasm.

For the sake of clear, adult thinking, let's dismiss these proper, polite whites as a bunch of panglossian ninnies and adopt a position more in line with everything we know about humans.

Let's say that the Census Bureau projections are deeply troubling and cause for alarm for white Americans, and leave it to the other races in America to decide for themselves what this demographic shift means to them.

Now, if you are a white person reading this, and if you are the type of white person who is already looking around for someone to point and shriek "Racist!" in front of, you might as well stop reading now. You don't matter to the following discussion, and it will be over your head anyway.

For everyone else, let's start by assuming that white Americans share with all peoples throughout the world at all times throughout history the characteristic that being disempowered as a group is a negative — like being conquered, or being subjugated.

Let's assume that it is the same disaster for whites that whites consider it to be for everyone else.

Let's assume there is nothing magical about being white that permits whites the luxury of indifference to this disempowerment — this permanent disempowerment.

Let's assume whites are not so superior that they can ignore gritty, bloody reality — that they can ignore, as if he were a precocious child, Willie Brown, the black former speaker of the California Assembly, when he says, "I think most white politicians do not understand that the race pride we all have trumps everything else."

Let's assume the United States is a nation not so exceptional that Americans of any color can opt out of the destiny that demography is.

If we make these assumptions — assumptions future generations will curse us for not making — then the new Census Bureau projections plainly demand an immediate and radical change in public policy, and an all out effort to accomplish this change.

In particular, the projections demand an immediate time-out on mass immigration like the 40-year time-out the nation wisely implemented in 1924 at the peak of the last great wave of immigration.

There are many similarities between now and then.

A primary power driving the great immigration wave of the late 19th-early 20th centuries was American business, which steadfastly fought for increasing the supply of labor through mass immigration.

As Samuel Gompers, an immigrant and the founder and president of the American Federation of Labor wrote in a 1924 letter to Congress: "Every effort to enact immigration legislation must expect to meet a number of hostile forces and, in particular, two hostile forces of considerable strength. One of these is composed of corporation employers who desire to employ physical strength (broad backs) at the lowest possible wage and who prefer a rapidly revolving labor supply at low wages to a regular supply of American wage earners at fair wages. The other is composed of racial groups in the United States who oppose all restrictive legislation because they want the doors left open for an influx of their countrymen regardless of the menace to the people of their adopted country."

In 1912, the nation elected one-world utopian Woodrow Wilson, and over the next eight years of Wilson's presidency the nation's population grew by 15 percent while President Wilson repeatedly vetoed restrictionist legislation passed by Congress.

Wilson's successor, Warren Harding, increased the power of corporations in Washington, and the cheap labor wave would likely have continued but for the growing threat to the American system from imported anarchists and radicals.

In September 1920, a bomb one-twelfth the size of the Oklahoma City bomb exploded in front of 23 Wall Street in New York City, capping years of rising concern over the threat to the domestic order posed by the massive influx of foreigners.

As James Fulford writes at VDARE.com, "Wall Street support for immigration takes a sudden drop" and within four years the great time-out had begun — 30 years after organized efforts to restrict immigration had begun.

It wasn't until the corrupting influence of the profiteers was sidelined that 1924 America could implement the necessary time-out.

The question we face now, then, is: must we wait for another bombing on Wall Street or its equivalent before the corporate profiteers will again loosen their grip on the nation's future and stop driving the country headlong into demographic meltdown for their own selfish benefit?

Or can we retake control of immigration policy before that happens?

Through the new e-VeriFILE program, through which employers verify the employment eligibility of the people they hire, Americans have the opportunity to bring the business community to heel by financially rewarding those business owners who follow the law, who understand the principle of enlightened self-interest, who understand that the kind of uncertainty into which some monied interests are selfishly driving the nation is not, in the long run, good for business.

The e-VeriFILE program could become enormously beneficial to the country, and every American should support it.

Original Article - http://www.ocala.com/article/20080824/OPINION/570813

Tropical Storm Fay

2008-08-22T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Robert Frank

This entire week, Florida has been haunted by Tropical Storm Fay. It started out with a project path of hitting the keys and going straight up through Florida into Georgia. By the time it hit the keys, the project path showed it swinging right across the state and ending up in the Atlantic Ocean going across Florida just under Orlando.

It did do that but instead of going into the Atlantic, it hit the east coast and traveled directly north up to Daytona Beach. From there, it turned back around and went east to west right north of Ocala.

Florida residents were very lucky that it was just a tropical storm, but the constant back and forth and slow movement of the storm led to unbelievable flooding. There were also some tornadoes on the east coast.

Right now, the storm is just west of Gainesville, and is heading out of Florida back into the gulf. Hopefully, it will be leaving Florida for the last time. The storm has been more of a nuisance than anything else for Florida.

In Ocala, we just got some rain and 15-35 mph wind gusts. It just made for a pretty nasty week and wasn't even severe enough to have to stay at home. Our friend Angela, though, who lives about 2 and half hours southwest of us got some pretty severe weather and flooding. Below are some picture of the area around her neighborhood.

Sebastian, FL

2008-08-12T17:49:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

We are heading to Sebastian, Fl this weekend. It's about 2 and a half hours away on the Altantic coast. We are going down to see our friend Angela and we are even taking Rocky with us! Rocky went with us last year and didn't mind the car ride too much so he should be much easier to deal with this year.

We will just be hanging out and maybe going to the beach depending on the weather. It's a nice town on the water and there is some fun stuff to do.

We'll definitely be taking pictures and will upload them when we get back!

China, The Olympics & Human Rights

2008-08-07T18:37:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

President Bush Cited "Deep Concerns" over human rights in China the other day while he was visiting before the start of the 2008 Olympic Games hosted by Beijing. Bush stated that there are many human rights problems in China including the main one, Freedom of Religion.

Meanwhile, half a world away, the country that Bush is from is still struggling to retain the rights that were given to them over 200 years ago. While Bush stands in China and tells them they do not allow their people enough rights, the United States Congress insists on continuing to take away the rights of the people in the United States.

Its been over 7 years since the Patriot Act was signed into law effect millions of peoples rights as Americans. Taking away freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of privacy just to name a few. Not to mention that the police can now search and seizure anything in any vehicle any time they want to without a warrant and the FBI can break into anybody's house that they think is a terrorist.

Yes, that is what we need to be telling China is that they are doing a horrible job of giving people human rights. While we lose ours on a daily basis, we have to make sure that the rest of the world gets more. Eventually, if Bush keeps going to China and telling people they need human rights, maybe we'll be the Communism country with no rights and China will be the democratic country with all the freedoms we used to have.

I never thought that a president of a country could be so hypocritical and stupid at the same time and go over and tell other countries, much more powerful than the United States that they are doing things wrong when the United States is one country that is headed in the wrong direction. He's a complete idiot moron and I was pleased to see that the "China's Foreign Minister has responded to Bush by effectively telling the US to mind its own business."

Preseason

2008-08-04T14:24:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

I can't believe that it is football season again already. It seems like it was just a month or two ago when the Super Bowl was over! But here it is, August, and the first preseason game is already over. It won't be too long until the regular season kicks off!

It should be an interesting season, as long as all the teams make sure that the Patriots do not become the talk of the season. I'm not sure I can handle another season where every game all I hear about is Tom Brady and the Patriots. I'm already sick of hearing about Brett Favre. I actually didn't mind him until he threw his little baby fit to get back into the NFL.

But other than that it should be a good season. The Steelers have a pretty rough schedule, so that will be interesting as well. For my Super Bowl prediction, I'm going to have to go with Steelers VS Giants. That way Marcie & I both win. Of course, the Steelers will win the Super Bowl!

July Heat Brings In The Numbers

2008-08-01T13:53:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

To say that we have had the most visitors ever in one month last month would not even do justice to the amount of traffic that we have had come into the blogs in July.

As of June 30th, our most visitors to the blog was 1,322, we were aiming for 1,500 that month. So, in July we shot a little higher and aimed for 2,000. Well, on July 14th, we hit 2,068 hits on the blog. We knew we were in for an explosive month.

The final numbers for last month brought us in around 4,495 hits on the blogs. We more than tripled our hits from June in just one month. Last month, we pushed our total hits on the blogs over 10,000 and are no at 11,655. In July of 2007, we had 128 visits to the blog. So we had a 3,512% increase in one year.

Hopefully, the rest of the year continues to be as successful as the first two months have been with the new addition of Florida 5708. We have already begun to span across the internet with links to Florida 5708 popping up on blogs all over the world. If you haven't checked it out yet, you should take a couple of minutes and look over the blog!

Bank Failures

2008-07-28T17:15:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

It's time to get away from the big national banks in the United States. First of all, you shouldn't have any accounts over $100,000 in them. The FDIC only insures only $100,000 per account. As the banks continue to file for bankruptcy, there is a very high risk for losing any amounts over $100,000.

Second, the large banks are increasing their fees exponentially. Fees have already started jumping through the roof with new rules and regulations that banks have set up to increase their revenue from overdraft fees. So, what are we supposed to do while the big national banks charge the middle class for their mess ups that they should have to pay for themselves while they continue to pay million dollar bonuses to the CEO's?

Get away from them. There are hundreds upon hundreds of local banks. These banks sometimes have slower processing fees for debit cards and checks, and sometimes their online interface isn't as flashy as Bank of America or Washington Mutual, but these are the banks that are the safest and are not going to be following the problems of the big national banks. Some of the smaller banks offer better incentives as well such as no ATM fees or free checks. Look around at some of the local banks and pick one of them and switch your money over there.

The banks are not going to stop while they are getting away with it. In England, the congress actually passed a law that capped the overdraft fees because the banks over there were getting so ridiculously high. Congress may have to put a cap on the overdraft fees instead of worrying about the banks going bankrupt. They should be more worried about the account holders going bankrupt with an overdraft costing up to $43 at some credit unions.

Another thing you can do is turn you overdraft off on your account. This way, your account will decline your debit card if there is not enough funds in your account and you will save $35 in overdraft fees.

So, switch to a local bank, get your debit card turned off for automatic overdraft, and start watching for legislation to support to cap the bank fees. The banks are in trouble, and they are taken it out on the customers. It doesn't seem like a very fair trade for those of us who never had any mortgage problems.

X-Files

2008-07-25T11:46:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

The X Files: I Want To Believe was released today! The X Files: Fight The Future, the first X Files movie was released in 1998. It has been 10 years since the last film was released.

The show went off the air in 2002, so the last episode was aired over 6 years ago. So 6 years since the last time anybody has seen anything from the X Files.

Year after year after year, the forums flooded with the buzz of a new X Files movie. Originally, Fox Mulder would not resign to do the sequel. Then, after he finally agreed, Scully was pregnant.

Finally after everything was together, they started filming in 2007. That is when the Internet exploded with rumors. There is still very little known about the actual storyline of the film, of course that is until today. Chris Carter wanted to keep everything very secret.

We are going to go see it tomorrow. Hopefully, it is just as good as all of the episodes that aired before. Considering this may be the last time these two are together on screen as Mulder & Scully, it is probably a good idea to take in the story of The X Files.

Stop Oil Speculation Now

2008-07-09T15:11:00.002-05:00

I received this letter from Airtran since I am an A+ rewards member from them and sign up for all of their e-mails. It is very interesting and you should take a couple of minutes to read through it and sign up on the website to send letters to congress. If nothing else maybe it will at least put a 1 cent dent in gas prices which will help just a little bit.

An Open Letter to All Airline Customers

Our country is facing a possible sharp economic downturn because of skyrocketing
oil and fuel prices, but by pulling together, we can all do something to help now.

For airlines, ultra-expensive fuel means thousands of lost jobs and severe reductions in air service to both large and small communities. To the broader economy, oil prices mean slower activity and widespread economic pain. This pain can be alleviated, and that is why we are taking the extraordinary step of writing this joint letter to our customers.

Since high oil prices are partly a response to normal market forces, the nation needs to focus on increased energy supplies and conservation. However, there is another side to this story because normal market forces are being dangerously amplified by poorly regulated market speculation.

Twenty years ago, 21 percent of oil contracts were purchased by speculators who trade oil on paper with no intention of ever taking delivery. Today, oil speculators purchase 66 percent of all oil futures contracts, and that reflects just the transactions that are known.

Speculators buy up large amounts of oil and then sell it to each other again and again. A barrel of oil may trade 20-plus times before it is delivered and used; the price goes up with each trade and consumers pick up the final tab. Some market experts estimate that current prices reflect as much as $30 to $60 per barrel in unnecessary speculative costs.

Over seventy years ago, Congress established regulations to control excessive, largely unchecked market speculation and manipulation. However, over the past two decades, these regulatory limits have been weakened or removed. We believe that restoring and enforcing these limits, along with several other modest measures, will provide more disclosure, transparency and sound market oversight. Together, these reforms will help cool the over-heated oil market and permit the economy to prosper.

The nation needs to pull together to reform the oil markets and solve this growing problem.

We need your help. Get more information and contact Congress by visiting www.StopOilSpeculationNow.com/sos.

Sincerely,

Robert Fornaro Chairman, President and CEO AirTran Airways, Inc.	Bill Ayer Chairman, President and CEO Alaska Airlines, Inc.
Gerard J. Arpey Chairman, President and CEO American Airlines, Inc.	Lawrence W. Kellner Chairman and CEO Continental Airlines, Inc.
Richard Anderson CEO Delta Air Lines, Inc.	Mark B. Dunkerley President and CEO Hawaiian Airlines, Inc.
Dave Barger CEO JetBlue Airways Corporation	Timothy E. Hoeksema Chairman, President and CEO Midwest Airlines
Douglas M. Steenland President and CEO Northwest Airlines, Inc.	Gary Kelly Chairman and CEO Southwest Airlines Co.
Glenn F. Tilton Chairman, President and CEO United Airlines, Inc.	Douglas Parker Chairman and CEO US Airways Group, Inc.

4th Of July Pictures

2008-07-04T08:03:00.000-05:00

4th Pictures

Trip Pictures

2008-07-04T08:02:00.000-05:00

Trip Pictures

Skeyeler Pictures

2008-07-03T08:02:00.000-05:00

Skyeler Pictures

Grandma's Pictures

2008-07-01T08:01:00.000-05:00

Grandma Pictures

Very Important Election Update

2008-06-27T19:13:00.000-05:00

Rochester, NY

2008-06-25T17:00:00.001-05:00

By Robert Frank

On Tuesday, we are headed out to Rochester, NY for a week. We are flying up on Tuesday morning and driving up to Marcie's grandparents for 2 days. We will be doing a lot of eating and fishing there. But mostly, we will be relaxing. Thursday night, we are driving back to Rochester and staying with Jen & Kyle.

Friday we will go see Chad & Michelle's baby and then head out to Jen's parents cabin to celebrate 4th of July with all of Marcie's friends. Saturday we will be driving back to Rochester to relax from the week and get ready to come home on Sunday.

We will take tons of pictures while we are there and post them all on the blog. Hopefully we will get some good videos as well and can post them on the blog when we get back.

On a side note, we got a new Nissan Altima this week! It is a nice dark blue and we will post some pictures as soon as we can!!!

The Mist

2008-06-23T16:00:00.000-05:00

By Robert Frank

Last weekend we rented "The Mist" by Stephen King. This is an old book written back in 1980. I remember reading the book a loong time ago, but really could only remember the main storyline. I didn't remember any of the details of the actual book.

But, the preview looked awesome and I was in the mood for a really good movie so we rented this one. The movie was unbelievable. The storyline, the action, the suspense, the graphics, everything in the movie was created perfectly to create an atmosphere of dread the entire way through.

It is probably one of the first movies that we have watched in a long time where we were actually screaming at the TV for the actors to do something. Ryan, Marcie & I were actually cheering when the actors did want we wanted them to do! There are a couple of gruesome parts, but nothing really anymore than what you would see on CSI.

And then, the actual storyline and underlying themes of the movie are really what jump off of the film and hit you hard. The ending is amazing and puts the entire movie into perspective in a film where you don't know whats going on most of the time. Stephen King mostly writes about religious references in all of his novels. It always comes down to good versus evil and this is the same type of Stephen King movie especially since it was an early novel of his. But, the way that he portrays it in this film is by far the best out of all of his other movies.

Marcie & I both agreed that it was one of the best movies we have ever seen. If you have some extra time and are looking for a good movie to rent, definitely get The Mist.

Day Old Beer

2008-06-12T13:55:00.005-05:00

By Robert Frank

In case some of you haven't been checking out the Florida 5708 blog, this picture was uploaded yesterday. On the Florida 5708 blog (updated daily) we are big fan of the motivational posters. While we were in Daytona, we took a picture of a beer bottle that was sitting on the beach the netx morning from the night before.

Once we got home, we knew we had to turn it into a motivational poster and came up with this one here. We have already had 2 hits off of our blog and 2 posts on MySpace from it, so it is spreading quick. We just wanted to let everyone know when this poster is famous and all over the world that we made it! HAHA

A quick update on the new FLorida 5708 blog, we have had over 179 individual hits in just 3 weeks from people all over the world. Here is a map of where our recent visitors have been from. You can see we have had visitors all over the United States, Europe and Australia. We even had a visitor from Ireland and one from Indonesia.

With the current rate of page views we are getting per day, we are looking to annilihate our current record of 640 people in one month visiting the blog to over 1,700 people this month. We hope that the blog visitors continue to come in and look forward to reaching over 50,000 total visitors by the end of the year!

Don't forget that Florida 5708 is updated daily with 5 posts every day. Keep checking back to see more funny posters and pictures like this one! http://www.fl5708.blogspot.com/

Professional Pictures

2008-06-12T08:01:00.000-05:00

Professional Pictures

One Year

2008-06-09T07:35:00.005-05:00

By Robert Frank

It seems like we have been announcing tons of anniversary's lately. There was the two year blog anniversary, our grandparents anniversary, and Marcie's parents anniversary. Now, today, on June 9th, 2008, Marcie & I are celebrating our 1 year anniversary.One year ago, we got married in Daytona.

To celebrate, we spent the weekend in Daytona at the Hilton where we got married. The weekend was awesome and we had a blast actually being able to go up to Daytona and not have to have the stress of the wedding. It was the first time we have been to Daytona since the actual wedding. I think that we drove back and forth so much before the wedding that we couldn't stand driving out there anymore. But now that we have been back, we want to start spending some more weekends out there.

The first year flew by so fast, it's hard to believe that we have been together for a year now. In 3 days, on June 12th, we will have been together for 4 years total.

We have both grown and helped each other immensley through the past four years and look forward to another great year of marriage. Hopefully this year, our family will grow with the addition of a family member!

You can see pictures of the weeekend here!

Daytona Beach - 1 Year Anniversary

2008-06-08T08:01:00.000-05:00

Daytona Beach 2008 - 1 Year Annivesary

Daytona Scrap Book

2008-06-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

4 GREAT Reasons To Rent

2008-06-05T13:04:00.002-05:00

By Mike Hammer, Parade

Who says you have to own a home to live the American dream? Renting can actually be better for your pocketbook and lifestyle.By Mike Hammer, Parade

Before the housing boom went bust this year, homeownership was considered a good investment. But now, with the rash of mortgage foreclosures, renting may be a more attractive option. Here’s why.

1. Renting can save moneyAccording to popular myth, renters are just throwing their money away. But the reality is that when you buy a home, you’re paying for closing fees, mortgage interest, property taxes, private homeowners’ insurance and maintenance — costs that return nothing on your investment. You’d be better off banking that money or putting it into the stock market. In fact, a recent study by Fidelity Investments indicates that stocks provided investors with nearly 4.6% higher average returns in the past 45 years than real estate.

2. Homeowners’ tax deductions are overstatedConventional wisdom says that buying a home saves you money because the mortgage interest is tax-deductible. But a study by the National Multi Housing Council – a national advocacy group representing the interests of large apartment firms in the U.S. -- points out that half of homeowners don’t get a break, because even with mortgage interest and property taxes, their total deductions do not exceed the standard federal tax deduction ($10,900 for couples and $5,450 for singles).
More on MSN

3. More options are available to rentersWith fewer houses and condos selling, more owners are converting their properties into rentals or providing incentives to lure prospective tenants. In condo-heavy cities such as Palm Beach, Fla., for example — where the vacancy rate has jumped 2.5% — investors are undercutting apartment rates to generate interest. “A lot of people are offering three free months to attract renters,” says Robert Smith, a real-estate adviser in Orlando, Fla. “And modern apartments offer amenities that may be unaffordable in a new home.”

4. Renting gives you flexibilityBuying a home is a big commitment. If you have to move for any reason — say, for work — your property would need to appreciate by at least 10% for you to recover your sales costs, which typically takes about five years. Renting allows you the freedom and mobility you need to find the right job before you tie yourself to a massive home investment.

Florida 5708

2008-06-02T07:25:00.003-05:00

By Robert Frank

With the success of our current blogs and our total visitors closing in on 6,000 people, we have decided to open a new, different blog. This blog is called Florida 5708. Throughout the past year or so, we have noticed the creation of many different blogs that post anything and everything. We decided to team up with some of the other bloggers and join in on the fun.

http://www.fl5708.blogspot.com/ is a blog that posts all kinds of funny stuff. Forwards, funny pics, funny news stories, and just about everything else. If you have fowards or anything you want to see posted on this blog, you can just e-mail it to fl5708@gmail.com and it will be posted there.

So check out the new addition to our blogs and let us know what you think!

May Video

2008-05-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

Skyeler, Chad & Michelle's suprise visit to Florida and Bob & JoAnn's anniversary party.

May Pictures

2008-05-30T07:59:00.000-05:00

May Pictures

TD Ameritrade

2008-05-29T00:22:00.000-05:00

By Robert Frank

There is a lot of scary stuff going on in the economy right now. Prices are extremely high on everything and asset sales are declining in value. I am currently taking Corporate Finance for my spring semester and I am about halfway through with the class.

The entire class is basically about how corporations finance themselves through stocks and bonds and loans, hence the name corporate finance. But, I actually got into a discussion with the teacher when he posted a question for our discussing assignment about where you get information for investing in stocks.

I simply wrote that I do not invest in stocks and I never have. He replied that I have to start investing immediately and that now is the best time to invest. I replied and told him that I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea of investing in stock and basically gambling my money on a corporation that I have never even talked to on the phone. He persisted that I invest, still.

So I did. On May 27th, 2008 I purchased my first share of stock. I purchased stock in Intuit, which is the software developer of QuickBooks and TurboTax. I wanted to invest in something that I was sending business to. My teacher was right as well. Intuit is only 9% above its lowest point in company history which makes it a great time to buy.

I've been doing the research and reading a lot and I opened a TD Ameritrade account. It is very detailed and in depth and there is a lot of information that I still do not understand. But, I decided that I will work through it and learn as I go. I'm sure that I will make some mistakes in diversifying my portfolio, but I guess it is better than never knowing how to do it at all.

Over the next 8 months I am going to invest sparingly and I will keep updates on how it is going. Hopefully, I can turn around some money and bring in a profit, but I do not think it will be short term. I'm not a big fan of the quick turnaround stock purchases and sales. Too many people lose money doing that. I am looking for longer term investments that are going to make money in a year or more.

A New Way To Build Credit

2008-05-25T23:42:00.000-05:00

By Robert Frank

I do not think that credit reports and scores should have any effect on the financial worthiness of a person. It is one of the biggest impacts on a persons life and can determine whether or not they can purchase large assets and it is figured out in a complex equation that is not available for the public to see. Somehow, credit scores go up, back down, stay the same, and even disappear every month. It doesn't make very much sense to me at all.

Luckily, there are some other people that agree. And while it only ever seems that negative information is reported on credit reports, there is a new company that is developing a system to build a decent credit report just by paying regular bills on time.

I had a Verizon cell phone when I lived in Pittsburgh and paid it every month on time in full until I moved to Florida. Once I moved to Florida, I wasn't getting reception and can celled the phone service. I never got my last bill and I owed Verizon $45. Well, the 8 months that I had the cell phone while I was living in Pittsburgh was never reported as a positive on my credit report. The minute that the bill went over 30 days though, the $45 was immediately reported on my credit report as a derogatory item.

PRBC now offers a service that verifies and reports the good account standings with the phone companies, rent, cable, electric, gas, and whatever utilities may be paid on a monthly basis. It is $20 to verify the rental history and $15 for each utility account.

PRBC DOES NOT REPORT THESE ACCOUNTS TO THE THREE CREDIT BUREAUS!!!!!

PRBC is a credit bureaus. You would receive a new report and score from them just as you would from TransUnion or Equifax. What it does is provide you with a free report if you use the verification process so that you can take it with you to banks when applying for loans or mortgages. This way it can show a little extra to maybe lower the interest rate.

I am not completely sure if it works. I don't know how serious a bank would take the report, even though they are a national consumer reporting agency and credit bureau. Eventually the banks are going to have to start turning to alternative credit bureaus for their information because the big three bureaus information is just not working and that is why we are in the economic recession that we are in today.

I'm going to get some more information from PRBC as well as talk to some banks to see if they would even consider the report in a loan decision and post some more findings as I discover them. In the mean time, check the website out and see if you can find any information that I might have missed!

http://prbc.com/

Myanmar & Katrina

2008-05-22T15:07:00.002-05:00

Katrina Stats

Nargis Stats

May 10th, 2006

2008-05-14T18:06:00.002-05:00

By Robert Frank

On May 10th, 2006, Our Daily Report had it's first post ever! It was titled "Poll Gives Bush His Worst Marks Yet". Now, over 2 years later and over 5,500 visits which works out to 7.5 people per day visiting the blog, we have had over 173 posts. Our posts ranged from Movie Reviews to football games to pictures to finance issues to just keeping everyone up to date in what is going on down in Florida.

On March 9th, 2007 we had just had 1,000 hits. So in a little over a year we had 4,500 hits. Hopefully next year can quadruple in the number of people visiting our blog as well.

Our Daily Report has also expanded and now includes 5 individual blogs that are all dedicated to specific things. We have the 2005-2007 picture blog, the 2008 picture blog, the fishing blog, and the AJS Foundation blog, as well as the Our Daily Report. All of these blogs have continuous posts that have led the huge amount of hits we have had.

We will do our best to keep everyone updated with what is going on, our views on everything from the latest movie release to the latest political nightmare. We hope you continue to enjoy and visit the blog and only ask that you leave more comments!!!!

Thank you for visiting "Our Daily Report"

Picture Blog 2005-2007

Picture Blog 2008

Fishing Blog

AJS Foundation

JoAnn & Bob's Anniversary Party

2008-05-10T07:58:00.000-05:00

JoAnn and Bob's Anniversary party

Skyeler's Visit to Florida

2008-05-08T07:58:00.000-05:00

Skyeler's Visit to Florida

Interesting Photo

2008-04-27T18:57:00.002-05:00

I thought this photo was pretty interesting and a shocker. We had to look up "Shock Advertising" for my visual communications class and this was one of the photos that one of the other students posted on the discussion board.

You may have to click on the picture to view it full size to read the entire message on the bottom left corner, but what it says is the following:

Terrorism-Related Deaths Since 2001 - 11,337
Tobacco Related Deaths Since 2001 - 30,000,000

Firefox from Space?

2008-04-18T07:26:00.003-05:00

This was a very interesting photo that I found on Wired news. The photo on the left is the logo for Mozilla Firefox, an internet browser competing with Internet Explorer. It is an excellent internet browser and much safer and secure than Internet Explorer. The image on the left is a gas cloud and group of stars in Space taken by the Hubble Telescope. Some people believe that almost everything that we have today came from space including cell phones, computers, and almost all of the current technology that is available.

Maybe even more comes from outer space as you can see in this image the striking resemblance of the two photos. Maybe the creators of Firefox are actually aliens from outer space!

Either way, I doubt the creators are from outer space but I thought the comparison was really cool and thought I would post it. If you do not have Firefox you should download it and start using it. You will like it much better than Internet Explorer just for the simple fact that it doesn't take 5 days to open so you can check your e-mail.

Here's the link... http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/