Lately, as a family we have not been eating dinner together as much.  We used to eat together most every night except when the three oldest were with their dad.  The teenagers (twin 16 year olds) either have friends over at this time and are not interested in dinner or they are at there friends house.  We have Delaney our 12 year old for dinner more often than the Lauren & Austin.
Recent surveys say that families with teenagers that eat together get better grades, less likely to try cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs.  It is my perception that the teenagers that have scheduled family dinners have three obvious things other kids do not. One, teenagers who eat dinner with their family have parents that are home at dinner time, not working late.  Two, they have parents who are engaged in their kids lives. They know the kids friends and maybe even their parents.  Three, the parents are in charge of the home, and are not controlled by their children. They are not their kids friends they are the parents.
Now, I have just convinced myself the importance of making it a point to eat together as a family more often. Not that the dinner makes us a family. Rather it is a way to connect at a deeper level as a family. We need to laugh together and have disagreements, to learn how to have safe healthy relationships. This is the preparation for the future America.

      

So, she finally got her phone. ...<< MORE >>

As the Stimulus checks start trickling out people are starting to reveal what they are buying. My friend Brian told me about his stimulus check investment. That being a pistol, I had to laugh at the thought of the government buying someone a gun. God bless America and our right to bear arms.


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  Last week I received a call from my wife while I was at work.  She wanted to inform me that our teenage daughter dropped her cell phone down the street in front of our house.  This cell phone is or was a black Katana that she had to have after the New Year this year. 
    The coveted Katana at regular Sprint store was over two hundred dollars.  I bought hers on Ebay for one hundred and forty dollars.  She paid me back the purchase price by working different jobs like baby-sitting her three-year-old brother, cleaning the cat's restroom and a few other less than glamorous jobs.  By all accounts, this phone fit her needs, unlimited text, unlimited internet access, and constant communication with all her friends. 

    All that came to a screeching halt when her cool hoody pocket was too narrow to hold the long sleek black Katana cell phone when her friend parked over the street drain that day.  Bloop, I think is the sound it made (I am guessing because I was not present when it went into the mouth of the drain) when it hit that Black murky drain slug.  My wife was describing the actions the teenagers were taking, like using her younger brother's butterfly net to try to scoop it.  Then when all attempts failed all they could do is just stand over it and morn the loss, picture it five teenagers standing over a street drain with there heads low.  Later that day she did tell us that she missed her phone.  Not because she could not communicate with the outside world but that she really did like, like a pet or something.
    That night she found a replacement for sixty-five dollars on Ebay.  There is part of me that regrets getting the new phone as quick as I did, to drive home the need to sure up some responsibility in her but too late now.

      

Last Monday I arrived early to a meet a friend for coffee.  When I arrived I noticed the Wall Street journal and thought I would take a quick look.  That is when the article called "The mother of all Bubbles? Oil's record run baffles bears" struck my eye.  This being the first article that I have seen that posed this question and I wanted to see what Gregory Meyer had to say.
The article says that analysts continue to warn that oil prices close to falling back to at least $80.0 a barrel.  Micheal Lynch, the president of  Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc. out of Amherst, Mass was quoted "I
personally think this is the mother of all bubbles" and expect prices to fall back to $80.0 a barrel by late June.  Tim
Evens from Citigroup in New York feels that the bubble is still expanding and is creating a supply surplus.  Micheal 
Lynch says that even with red flags on the horizon and oil prices breaking predictions, the rally has generated a sort of self-fulfilling momentum.
With all that, I have different scenarios of why the run up in the crude-oil and what are the possible effects of the
bubble burst.  My first thought is that after the bubble pops gas prices will go down a little then the government
will increase the tax on gas to create revenue.  Everyone has been forced to rethink future purchases and plans in
light of the price of current gas prices.  This may create a smaller stir than if the government just heaped the tax
on the current rise in gas prices.