Christmas Wish: End Media Clutter

If Santa Clause really existed, his importance would probably be number 20 on the popularity charts. Right behind Tiger Woods' extramarital affair and Lady Gaga's newest and weirdest dress.

Still, if he really had the power to grant Christmas wishes, mine would be to end all the nonsense talked about in the media. Why is so much importance being given to people like Tiger Woods, ex-senator John Edwards and ex-governor Eliot Spitzer - when there are other more important issues in the world. What they do in their personal lives should not over-take our own.

For one whole week now, the top news on every channel is about Tiger Woods' affair. Prompting more women to come forward and claiming they had an affair with him. The popularity of the case is drawing out all the weirdos. The news should be limited to the sports arena only.

Its ridiculous that we are constantly hit with images of what Lady Gaga looks like in public. We all know she's an attention freak that just needs to get over it. If I had children, I would never let them wear anything remotely similar to what she wears. I can dress up Fredric (my cat) in more provocative clothing and he'll still look ten times better than her.

In case people have forgotten, we're still at war. Not just in one, but in two. Yet, most of the younger Americans, including my own nieces and nephews, don't know which countries we're at war with. But if we asked the same kids what the ethnicity is of the most recent kid Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are planning to adopt, they'll answer faster than a fighter plane can fire off a missile.

The mature adults of our country are the only ones who care about health care reform. Everyone else seems to be more curious about who the star of Twilight is dating these days. To say that it's only the fault of people reading up on these things is unfair. The truth is that we are inundated with unimportant information which blinds us to the real issues going on in the world.

Upon browsing the net right now, MSN.com has a lot of information that should not be that important to the average American. At eye level is Bing.com searches which include mostly sports information, celebrity news, recipes, and shopping things. In the bottom right corner is where the real news is. To get there, you have to scroll down.

Santa Clause has his hands full if he's planning to grant my wish. Not only does the internet need to be cleaned up of its celebrity clutter, but so does television, radio and print media like magazines.

I think I need to change my wish to wanting a new printer instead. It would be a lot easier.

Turkey is so Yuck!

This year we did not celebrate Thanksgiving due to a death in the family. However, I did help my niece roast some chickens for lunch on that day. We made all the trimmings, had a quiet little lunch and went back to our own homes. The whole process took about two hours.

As we were finishing up, I started thinking about past Thanksgivings and how my sister (who's now out of the country on vacation) labored over the fat bird that is well known as the main dish on this holiday. She always makes rice, potatoes, gravy, veggies and bread with the turkey. Throughout the years, I've tried eating turkey that has been prepared in many different ways. From tandoori style to being stuffed with various nuts and garlic, turkey never disappoints at being completely tasteless.

This is probably the only bird in the entire world that refuses to get infused with any of the flavors that you put in it. Even if you put the most flavorful spices in it like cloves, it's still pretty tasteless. You have to dress it with a gazillion things to make it even the least bit appetizing. I can never seem to understand how people can eat it!

There are a few different reasons why turkey can never taste as great as let's say chicken. The first one is because its such a fat bird. There's no way possible to marinate it with anything that will go deep enough into the white meat to actually stay. Then you have those funny television programs that suggest you stuff it with a duck! Why would anyone want to put a different species of bird into a turkey is beyond me. Sounds and looks ridiculous.

The other reason why turkey doesn't absorb flavor is because unlike chicken, its meat is pretty dense. Have you ever seen turkey salami versus regular salami? It has no holes in it - no place for the spices to sit and marinate. It's just smooth, round, tasteless meat.

My final reason for why you can't flavor a turkey well has to do with the mind of the turkey. It's simply a stubborn bird. Come around Thanksgiving, it probably laughs at us thinking "Ha! You think I look fat and juicy, wait until you carve me up! I WILL have my revenge!"

Perhaps I haven't tried every method of cooking turkey out there. To be honest, after the many years of tasteless turkey, I don't know if I want to try it anymore. Even the original pilgrims did not eat turkey. They roasted geese and shared with their Native American neighbors. It's the later colonists that got lazy and decided to settle for the tasteless turkey which was probably easier to catch than geese.

Happy Thanksgiving Day anyways, hope you filled up with the trimmings at least.

Can the current economy afford gay marriage?

When is the continuous drone of the gay rights activists going to stop playing the victim and face the facts? The argument is that people in heterosexual relationships get more rights under the current system of marriage laws than do same-sex relationships. I will not refute that.

The problem here is all about resources. In today's economy, the housing market has gone to the dogs. The student debt is higher than ever due to increasing tuition. The loss of jobs and unemployment rate are the highest since The Great Depression. We just don't have enough resources to offer gays the additional financial benefits that marriage provides.

The tax breaks and the insurance benefits they are fighting to get will further increase our economic woes. A similar argument can be made for providing benefits to illegal immigrants - so this rant isn't a discriminatory one. We can't be handing out benefits like its cake, especially since a lot of our universal rights are being violated as we speak.

There is a lack of resources in America. I would not be surprised if they take away rights that are being given to heterosexual couples just so they can "balance the budget." Talks of ending social security benefits by the time we get old and the possible privatization of the public university system are hinting towards the further decline of benefits. These are benefits we have grown accustomed to over time.

The rights that most homosexual activists are fighting over can be obtained in other ways. For example, same-sex couples can obtain inheritance rights that give heterosexual couple the automatic right to children, property, and finances after the death of their spouse - by simply leaving a will.

And then they also want tax breaks. Are you kidding me? People with children are the only ones that can get somewhat significant tax break. We all know that is not going to happen with same-sex couples because they cannot naturally procreate. A homosexual parent who has adopted a foster child does not need to be married to receive these benefits.

The case being made for gay marriage rights, the government benefits part, can also be made for the ordinary single tax payer. We've had to fork out taxes, which benefited large corporations that were hit by the economic crash - not by choice, I might add.

Because of the current economic condition, it's the wrong time to be asking for marriage rights from state government. My position on the matter might or might not change as economic problems improve. From where I stand, all people should worry about losing rights and benefits, not just homosexual couples, who have never had them in the first place.

Coping With Death

The single most important fact of our lives is that one day we are all going to die. Other than in biblical stories, dead people do not come back. A couple weeks ago I was reminded of this truth when my mother passed away. Almost nine months ago we were informed that she had only six months to live. A few months later she moved in with me in my new home, where she seemed to be defying the doctors predictions by being in high spirits and good health. Unfortunately, when she did fall ill - she couldn't seem to get better as she did before.

The forewarning the doctors gave us allowed us time to prepare for the worst. Yet it has not made it any easier to live with her disappearance. More than three years ago, there was another death in the family, that of my brother who was only 39 years old. That was a surreal moment for the entire family. Coping with that loss took many of us months to recover.

This time it was a little different. As a family we had decided that we would not do what we had done with my brother, to prolong death. We wanted her to be comfortable and without pain. Through prayer and family gatherings we were able to momentarily minimize the impact of her passing.

Since she has passed on various members of the family are coping with the loss in their own ways. Those that are successful in carrying on their lives employ simple methods to help them get through their grief.

The key to making it through any sort of loss in life is to control your mind. Our minds consciously and subconsciously reinforce the sadness through various methods. For instance, someone who has lost their husband or wife to death resort to listening to all their favorite songs which they had marked as "their songs." We tell ourselves that this is to help the grief process, when in fact its only reinforcing the sadness.

Another thing people tend to do when they lose someone is to see old pictures. They look at them often enough and with enough people that they keep the memory alive for longer. Even when the mind tries to occupy itself with other things, it reverts back to the good times with the deceased, ultimately leading them to think about their death.

Talking about what happened is a great tool to help someone grieve. However, overdoing it isn't. This also keeps the pain fresh. Each time we think of anything related to the deceased, we start the grieving process over again, keeping us in a constant altered state of mind.

Loss of loved ones whom you are very close to is hard, and nothing I say will change that. But the saying that life goes on rings true. You cannot die with the person that has died, nor can that person come back to you. Accepting this fact will help people move on and live their life. I know my Mom would have wanted me to do the same. Every inch of my body wants to lie in bed and be miserable, but that wouldn't be helping me, nor would it help my Mom. This is why I choose to control my mind thus controlling my emotions enough so that I can do what she would have wanted me to do. To live.

Funny Life with Lisa Kogan

Biographies are boring; at least biographies of those of us who haven’t done anything special to change the world. Lisa Kogan, a columnist for O Magazine, writes about her life but with a humorous touch that anyone would enjoy. Not to mention, she writes on day-to-day issues for parents, cooks, and individuals everywhere.

Kogan is a 49-year-old single mother who lives in New York City. She started writing as a columnist for small magazines such as 7 Days, Mirabella and Egg magazines – all of which went out of business. She then wrote for Elle magazine for seven years. This gave her enough background to be picked up by Oprah Winfrey for her O Magazine which launched in 2000.

Besides writing for O Magazine, Kogan also wrote a book called Someone Will Be With You Shortly. The book discusses issues big such as raising children by yourself while having to deal with the other parent who lives thousands of miles away, and issues that are small, like selecting the right kind of deli meats.

Kogan’s self-deprecating humor and deep appreciation for what really matters has made her popular among O Magazine’s general readers. She believes that everyone is entitled to having a great mattress, comfortable shoes, and a very smart psychiatrist. She also searches around the globe for the decent tomato; one she believes hasn’t been grown since 1963.

Working for O Magazine, she is the writer-at-large. The magazine has approximately two million readers. Although her ultimate boss is Oprah herself, she gets most of her direction from the editor-at-large Gayle King. O Magazine has a large female readership which makes Kogan’s writing more geared towards issues that relate to women.

She’s a self proclaimed busy body, stating that she works way too hard and doesn’t get enough sleep. The humor in her columns is so original that it seems like it comes to her naturally. Some of the topics she has written about are Everything You Want To Know About Sex Toys (calling on a sex-toy-expert to help her with this one), Love & Relationships, and What Makes People Happy. Kogan also maintains a blog which is not very popular and does not have more than one posting on it.

Here are some hilarious quotes from Kogan’s columns:

I'd like to say a few words to every crabby traveler who responds with disgust whenever a baby cries on an airplane. Perhaps you don't know how babies work, but there's been a study, and it turns out that giving a 4-month-old the stink eye doesn't actually accomplish anything. Either have a little compassion or a little Ambien.

Allow me to demystify the entire real estate market for you: Gracious means ridiculously small. Quaint means a total wreck and ridiculously small. Spacious, airy, luxurious, and grand all mean ridiculously small.

Any shrink worth his or her salt will tell you that it is a mistake to think of your colleagues as family. But what is a family if not a group of people who care about you and irritate you and show up for cake on your birthday and look at pictures of your kid even when they don't feel like it and think it wouldn't kill you to put on a little makeup and a pair of heels once in a while?

So if you’re looking for a good read that will teach you a thing or two about cooking fish, try reading the columns written by Lisa Kogan. A humorous writer with a lot of experience – she won’t disappoint you as a reader.

Procrastinator's Guide to Survive the End of the Academic Semester

As the fall 2009 semester at California State University Sacramento draws to a close, students across the various academic courses scramble to turn in their final papers and prepare for the dreaded (mostly comprehensive) final exams. I, too, am one of those students.

With deadlines looming for research and analytical papers, I've learned my lesson from previous years to not make the procrastination mistake again. This year, I'm practicing a new approach to keep on track with the research paper deadlines. Here are some tips I have picked up over the years:

• Start Research Early. Most professors give the research assignment quite early. Even if you're not writing it right away, begin the research. Use the time you have between your classes to your advantage.

• Talk to Classmates. See what others are doing. Where they're getting their information. Just try not to let other's procrastination rub off on you.
  

• Make an Outline for Your Paper. At the very top in bold letters write: DUE DATE: and put a date that is a week to two weeks prior to the actual due date. This will trick your mind into getting started sooner rather than later.

• Put Some Time Between Papers. Sometimes all the papers are due during the same week - the week before finals. If this is the case, put at least a week between the papers as your personal due date. This way, your thoughts won't get all muddled among the various topics.

• Write the Paper! This is it! You've done the research, organized your thoughts, now sit down and write it out. After you proof read it for errors, it’s ready for turn-in. You can either leave it saved on your computer (with a backup copy on a flash drive somewhere) or turn it into the professor for extra brownie points.

This year I will be leaving on vacation out of the country a week prior to the end of the semester. Because of this, I've had to ask professors to allow me to take the exam early. Knowing I have less time to study than other students has given me the motivation to get away from my usual cramming sessions to distribute my learning and studying process over the semester. Here are some tips on pre-finals preparation:

• Take Good Notes! Most professors base tests on a combination of their lectures and chapters from the textbook. If you take notes not only on the lectures, but also on your readings, it will decrease your time in trying to read the entire book to refresh your memory for the final exam.

• Meet the Professor. Get the study guide early so you can have more time to review your information.

• Professor's Advice. Ask the professor what they think you should know for the test. Generally they will tell you to review your exercises, previous tests or quizzes, or chapter review questions. Knowing which one you need, will give you a head start in your studying.

These are the techniques I'll be using this semester to help me survive the end-of-semester crunch. So far I've completed two of the three research papers due and one lab project - all of which weren't due until next month. I hope you will find these tips useful. Until next semester's panic session - toodles.

Roma's Pizzeria - Big Taste, Short on Service

Pizza is probably the number one choice for students on a strict budget. Close to the CSUS campus, on Folsom Blvd., Roma's Pizzeria gives your money's worth of food. Upon entering the facility, a diner can be a little lost, the open-view kitchen is directly to the left. Waitresses are hanging about, making it unclear on who exactly is the host. I soon discover my co-diners waiting for me at a table and I head over there to meet them. Roma's is a seat-yourself type of a restaurant. Great for students who want to get in and get out quickly. The layout of the medium-sized restaurant seems to be designed for large parties, with large tables everywhere, although some booths line the far windows. Menus arrive promptly and water is dispersed to the diners, with the invitation to order any other drinks on the menu. The menu is a traditional five-page laminated booklet that is common in pizza restaurants. The choices include various pasta dishes, sandwiches, salads and the brick-oven cooked pizza. Our waitress was a Mexican-American woman who was difficult to understand sometimes. Our order had to be repeated a couple times before it was received properly. All of us decided to get a large pizza which was split - half being the pesto and cheese, and the other half being pepperoni and black olives. We all ordered side salads as well. The salad was delightfully fresh, the tomatoes sweet and ripe as if just picked from a hidden garden in the backyard. They were too mushy for my liking but my co-diners enjoyed them. The ranch dressing was thick, but not too thick and quite flavorful. Being a vegetarian, I did not have the four, half-salami pieces on my salad that others had on theirs. However, I did ask for them to be put on the side so one of my co-diners can have them - a request that was forgotten once the salads were brought out. While we chatted about our lives and shared our personal experiences, the pizza was cooking up in the brick ovens they had in the back. When our pizza arrived, the waitress set it down with a bang - the pizza almost sliding off the tray it was held in. This has happened before at other restaurants and is extremely unnerving. You would think that practice makes perfect in the food-service business. She stammered out an apology and disappeared after asking us if we needed anything else. One look at the pizza saw that some of the pepperoni from the meat side of the pizza had made it over to the vegetarian side of the pizza. My co-diners were nice enough to take those slices off the tray before I can protest, not that I would say anything publicly anyways. A bite of the pesto and cheese pizza sent my senses spinning. The pesto was fresh and delicious, the cheese was just right - stringy yet good. Little puddles of oils from the cheese were floating on the slices making it look more appetizing. The crust was perfect, not undercooked so it's soggy, nor overcooked so it's too crunchy. As the check arrived - we noticed that we had a good meal for the price. Averaging out to a little more than $10 per person. It was time to get our remaining pizza packed up and ready to go. The waitress made us all nervous by taking the pizza tray and holding the box in the other hand - standing and maneuvering the pizza slices into the box without touching the slices. I was sure they would end up on the floor. If the little things about food-service do not bother you, Roma's Pizzeria is a wonderful place to hang out with your friends and have a bite to eat. It's reasonable in it's prices and fun for those who like a loud atmosphere.

Unloved Old People

America does not treat old people nice. It’s true, believe it. The society we have helped shape sends a clear message to people young and old – as long as you can work, you are a value to our world, and otherwise you are just something that needs to be tolerated. They say, to assess how your own situation is, you should look in other places at similar situations. Let’s compare how older adults are treated here in America compared to other countries.

Recently, the Social Security Administration increased the age at which you can claim your measly $742 monthly check to 65 years. For most people this is the time when the kids are off to college and the peace-seeking young parents’ lives. Leaving them to travel the world or do anything else that they always wanted to do when they were working.

Then comes around the years when you turn 80 years old. Now you can’t even make it to the bathroom without leaving a wet trail behind you. Hey, at least your spouse (if you’re lucky to still have one) can find you from following that trail. These are the years that you need help. You feel alone, everything hurts, and the Department of Motor Vehicles has killed your driving privilege.

Here in America we have “retirement homes.” Those words are in quotes because they’re really just nice terms for the home for the neglected. There is no genuine care in those facilities. It’s merely people doing their job of taking care of your parents.

This is looked down upon by many cultures around the world. This could very well be the number one cause for the demise of the family structure in America. In cultures such as the Chinese, Indian, Greek and Arabian the parents are held in the highest regard. All major household decisions are first discussed with the elders before any action is taken.

It is not acceptable to send off elderly parents who may have lost control of structured thought processes. Even as these cultures migrate to America, they bring along their traditions and respect for their elders.

Being a first generation Pakistani, even the thought of my parents living alone brings negative feelings. I, for one, am not interested in being shunned by the entire Pakistani community of Sacramento for sending my parents off to an elderly retirement home.

As the generations pass, however, Chinese Americans and Arab Americans are finding themselves falling into the norm of neglecting their parents when they get too hard to handle. Second and third generation Americans from immigrant families are forfeiting their traditions of keeping the elderly at home. They too, have turned to skilled nursing facilities.

Although everyone has the right to be independent, they do not have the right to be lazy and irresponsible. People should have enough respect for their parents who raised them to at least return the favor when they need them the most.

Going Overboard

The staff and faculty of all CSUs are rightly pissed off about having to take unpaid furlough days and a pay cut this semester. But they're still taking it and coming to work everyday. They, like the rest of the American public, know that we have some major economic problems right now. Homeowners, students, state employees, elderly folks who are waiting for some sort of decision on the health care woes - all are hopeful things will get better in the near future.

University of Southern California Professor Tierney apparently isn't so optimistic. In fact, he thinks that things are going to get so bad - a for-profit university such as University of Phoenix will one day own all the CSU campuses in the state. Although the idea isn't far-fetched, it seems to be an over-corrective measure for the budget problems the state is having.

His theory is that selling the CSU system to the University of Phoenix will generate billions of dollars that would permanently stabilize the state's financial future. Unfortunately, Prof. Tierney only sees the green. He casually mentions in the article that student debt will increase greatly, diversity in programs will not be available and professors will have the most difficult time of all. He emphasizes how Phoenix's programs will specifically cater to the needs of the majority of students - not all students.

This means that if a student wants to major in World Religions, specifically Buddhism, that course may not be offered unless tons of other students are also interested. This narrows the scope for students who would be interested in non-mainstream majors such as Business, Engineering or Medicine.

The proposal is bogus. There will always be other financial problems the state has. Taking such a large step to save the state some money is not a well thought out solution - its the easy way out. The upsetting thing about his article is that because of his status and knowledge - he may be taken seriously by some lazy legislators that are just tired of the back and forth of the financial crisis issues.

If Prof. Tierney thinks that he's only giving the public and government a hint of where the money can be saved - he should stop right there. They are thinking about it - that's why student fees are up 33% this semester.

Instead of making such an outlandish proposal, he should have introduced a hybrid of some sort. There's nothing wrong with for-profit universities taking over the CSU system. For that to happen, however, clear negotiations need to happen that would not sacrifice the positives of the current CSU system. Some of the positives that need to be kept are the diversity of programs, the affordable tuition costs, and the four-to-five day a week in-class sessions.

Even then, I think it is way too early to discuss any drastic changes to the CSU system. Funding can be found other places, like the two new casinos that are going up in California, cutting some of the extra non-profit organizations that seem to be redundant, and maybe even taxing the "green movement" their share to help with the State's economic issues. If this country can survive The Great Depression, so can it the most recent wave of economic woes.

Lingering Wars

We are now in the ninth year of the war in Afghanistan; the sixth year in Iraq. The United States of America has a basic defense budget of $533.7 billion. As of today, we have spent a combined total of $917,193,132,514 for both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Is Congress daft or something?

Apparently they do not see the economic problems as we see them (from eye-level). Instead of ending the wars which should have ended a long time ago - the Obama administration has announced today that they will not be setting a date for the Afghanistan withdrawal of troops. Along with that prettily packaged announcement, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has also announced that Obama will need to decide on whether he wants to send another 40,000 troops into Afghanistan.

This is just ridiculous. Who made these people in charge? In case they haven't checked recently, the national debt today is $11,821,323,707,051. With the public option for health care gone to the dogs, I'm surprised that they even had the audacity to make such an announcement as they did today.

It is predicted that by 2010, the cost of the Afghanistan war will surpass that of the Iraq war. I wish they would start making predictions about how many people will be homeless here in the United States in the next year - that's American citizens we're talking about.

As I read the MSNBC article regarding Obama's wishy washy decision-making habits that are beginning to look a lot like ex-Bush's, the slide shows on the side of the page were reminding me to support our troops. I do support our troops. I do not support the privatization of a military that is in countries that we no longer need to be and is draining financial resources that we can use here at home.

During Obama's presidential campaigning, I distinctly remember him stating that we should be withdrawing from Iraq as soon as possible. Once he took office however it, the date changed from 2010 to 2011, now it sits 2012 - still not sure about that one.

There is no end in sight for the war in Afghanistan. The case that is being made to remain there is the fear that Taliban still has a stronghold in parts of the country. However, there are still similar problems happening in Iraq. The strategy that the military needs to start focusing on is to train the Iraqi and Afghani military to handle domestic issues themselves.

Obama doesn't want the military to leave the countries and a civil war to break out amongst the local groups. Who's to say that there isn't civil war among the groups going on right now? The Shiite and Sunni groups target each other constantly in Iraq.

It seems that every time the President talks about the wars, a new deadline is set and more money is allocated towards keeping the wars going. It baffles me that a war was started that many Americans were against right from the beginning - and still with the new administration cannot seem to end.

Congress and President Obama need to focus more on our own economy before they go and fix other country's problems. Those countries at least have some hope that their own governments will step in and protect them. We don’t have any other resource except our own government to help us through hard economic times where health care is the issue at hand – not a war.

“Going Green” - Not So Cheap

It’s been researched and confirmed; humans have contributed to the slow demise of our planet. In response to fixing the problem – the national government, large organizations and individuals are doing their part to help keep the planet around for another million years.

But “going green” isn’t cheap.

Most of us can barely pay our bills, let alone invest in the latest technology to be environmentally friendly. Sure it’s the “in” thing to do these days, but who are these people kidding?

My grandfather isn’t going to get rid of his high-emissions gas-guzzling car for something that will cost him four times as much as his original vehicle. With the economy getting worse by the day, people are more worried about getting cheap-to-free health care rather than changing the light bulbs in their homes.

This is not to say people are not doing their part. We all have those bright blue recycling bins we utilize once a week. We’re doing what we have to do, and also that which doesn’t cost us much money.

This week, Newsweek released a list of companies that are the “greenest” this year. This means they have made changes to some of their locations and made them more environmentally friendly. They are investing big sums of money to upgrade their solar panels, installing equipment that will capture rainwater to be used within their facilities, and changing every light bulb to one that is environmentally friendly.

However, not every rich company is doing enough to go green. Hotels everywhere have cut their costs by asking us to use our towels a second or third time. They’ve just used the green hype to line their own pockets. They should invest some of that money in “going green” before the average Joe is required to do so.

But when did you see a hotel with solar panels? You’d think that they would be required to do more to go green. Political affiliations seem to be giving certain large organizations the okay to lag behind in the race to go green.

Instead we end up with Title 24, Part 6, of the California Code of Regulations – which basically requires all new homes to have expensive environmentally friendly lighting and even regulates how many windows the house can have. Don’t forget, we’re paying for it.

My point is, regardless of whether we like it or not, we will be forced to become more environmentally friendly. Nobody cares if this is being sprung on us at an economically bad time in our lives. Sure, we are not being forced to purchase solar panels for our homes (which begin at $7,000 +) yet, but we are heading that way.

The Cash for Clunkers program has been the latest incentive in the automobile industry to go green. Soon, we won’t have a choice but as to buy a new car that is more environmentally friendly (a small hybrid car currently starts at around $16,000).

Although the incentives to buy into the green hype are attractive, in this economy, they’re unrealistic. Environmentalists shouldn’t expect to see a huge migration by the people to become “greener” until the unemployment rate drastically decreases. For now, people are holding on to their pennies and keeping “going green” on the back burner.

Stolen Goods (Revised)

The best way to make quick money is to rent a bouncing castle for your child's birthday, then when you're done celebrating, take the castle with you! This is exactly what happened to my brother, Qumar, a few months ago. Having been in the bouncy house rental business for over three years, this was a first for Qumar.

On this particular Saturday, the phones were busy and the trucks were out in full force delivering the bouncing castles all over Sacramento. Qumar has nearly 20 bouncy houses complete with generators. Chuck, the employee that works for my brother, went to set up a jump house in McKinley Park. He set up the jump house and informed the renters that he would be back at 6:00 p.m. to pick it up, the normal routine for renting jump houses.

At about 5:45 p.m., Qumar got a call from Chuck exclaiming that the party and the bouncing castle had disappeared. Qumar, my nephew, and I went along to see what had happened. Upon arrival, we spotted the park police hanging about in the playground seemingly doing nothing important.

Qumar asked them if they had seen anything mysterious happen – especially with the bounce house that was set up earlier that morning. The police officer said that he had questioned the renters of the bouncing castle earlier, because they had deflated the castle immediately after it was set up and were stuffing it in their car.

As the officer continued to question them, a woman came running to him screaming "my son has disappeared; I think someone has taken him!" As the officer went to help the woman near the playground, the thieves had disappeared with the bouncing castle, worth $5,000 or more, including the generator. Qumar filed a report.

We returned home dejected. We devised a plan to locate the residence of the woman who had called to book the jump house. She had signed a rental agreement and had paid cash up-front for the jump house, the norm for renting a bounce house from Qumar. He illegally obtained the address of the woman through a friend who works for a major mobile phone company by giving him the phone she had called from.

At 9:00 am the next morning, we were standing outside the woman's house. The stolen bouncing castle was sitting in the doorway of their house; the door ajar. Men were removing the other stolen goods from the car and taking them inside.

Qumar decided to call the police and tell them that there was a man waving a gun at him at such and such location in an effort to get them there quickly. The police was there in a matter of minutes!

The officer who responded to the call was a female officer who could have easily been mistaken for a man. She had a mean look about her – a no-nonsense type of demeanor, complete with a short haircut and butch-like facial features. Immediately, she asked where the gun-wielding aggressor had gone. My brother shrugged and said, "he ran that-a-way," pointing in the general direction of nothingness. He then explained that he had gotten a tip on where the people who had stolen the bouncing house lived. Pointing to the rolled up purple blob in the doorway and saying “that’s it.”

The officer got angry and said, "you know you're not supposed to be taking the risk to come out here, this is what we are here for." I was pretty sure that if we waited on the cops to do anything in the case of the missing bouncy castle, we’d be waiting for eternity.

Upon entering the residence and arresting one person - the cops discovered that there was much more than Qumar’s stolen merchandise in the house. They discovered four to five large Ziploc bags full of marijuana, rolls of cash, and stolen electronics. They also found other generators besides Qumar’s and other bounce houses.

Unfortunately, even though we had done most of the “dirty” work in recovering not only our own merchandise but other people’s as well – we were not acknowledged for doing it. Instead, we were asked to produce official documentation (receipts) for our merchandise before we could take any of it.

There was a valuable lesson to be learned from this experience. If you want to get your valuables back from bouncy-house-thieving-parents, you have to do it yourself - and don't expect any niceness from the boys (in this case girls) in blue!

Need Money? Steal A Bouncy Castle Today!

The best way to make quick money is to rent a bouncing castle for your child's birthday, then when you're done celebrating, take the castle with you! This is exactly what happened to my brother a few months ago. Now normally, he gets parents calling him up and reserving a bounce house for a party they are throwing. Sometimes, he even gets calls from the children directly - promising that they will break open their beloved piggy banks to pay for the bounce house. Unfortunately $3.45 is rarely enough to rent a bounce house, regardless of how much you want it.

On this Saturday, the phones were busy and the trucks were out in full force delivering the bouncing castles to expecting little children all over Sacramento. Chuck, the employee that works for my brother, went to set up the jump house in McKinley Park. He was surprised when the parents wanted the jump house placed near the road rather than further down in the park. He set up the jump house and informed them that he would be back at 6:00 p.m. to pick it up.

At about 5:45 p.m., my brother gets a call from Chuck exclaiming that the party and the bouncing castle had disappeared. My brother, my nephew, and I went along to see what had happened. Upon arrival, we spotted the park police hanging about in the park, swinging from the monkey bars in the playground. After asking them if they had seen anything mysterious happen, the police officer said that he had questioned the renters of the bouncing castle earlier, because they were packing up the inflatable castle and stuffing it in their car.

As the officer's curiosity grew, a woman (the mother of the child for who we had set up the bouncing castle earlier) came running up to the officer screaming "my son has disappeared, I think someone has taken him!" As the officer went to help the woman near the playground, the thieves had disappeared with the bouncing castle, worth $5,000 or more, including the generator.

We returned home distressed. How can someone plan such a web of lies to steal something that is not theirs? Everyone in the house was upset about this. Least did they know, my brother is the badge-less investigator of Sacramento. He's like the annoying sidekick of Jackie Chan in the movie Rush Hour (trust me, he knows all the dialogs too).

After making a few calls, my brother illegally obtained the address of the woman who had called earlier to book the bouncing castle. Then he proceeded to make a plan of action throughout the night. At 9:00 am in the morning, we were standing outside the woman's house. The bouncing castle they had stolen was sitting in the doorway of their house, with the door open. Men were removing the other stolen goods from the car and taking them inside.

Since my brother has had experience with the Sacramento Police Department's delayed response to non-serious issues - he decided to call the police and tell them that there was a man waving a gun at him at such and such location. The police was there in a matter of minutes!

This is when the mother of all living-by-the-book police officers arrived. Immediately, she asked where the gun-wielding aggressor had gone. My brother shrugged and said, "he ran that-a-way," pointing in the general direction of nothingness. He then explained that he had gotten a tip on where the people who had stolen his bouncing house lived and that the rolled up purple glob in the doorway was his merchandise.

The police officer got extremely angry. She said, "you know you're not supposed to be taking the risk to come out here, this is what we are here for." "Were you going to call us when the thieves had sold off our merchandise," I thought. Upon entering the residence and arresting one person - the cops discovered that there was much more than my brother's stolen merchandise in the house. They recovered four to five large Ziploc bags full of marijuana, rolls of cash, and stolen electronics.

You would think someone would say 'Thank You' to us who spent most of the night figuring out a way to get our stuff back, and probably helping other people to get their stuff back too. Instead, we were asked to produce official receipts for our bouncy house and generator. This required us to drive all the way home and finding the paperwork to bring back to the officers. Even then, we were not thanked! How rude!

There was a valuable lesson to be learned from this experience. If you want to get your valuables back from bouncy-house-thieving-parents, you have to do it yourself - and don't expect any niceness from the boys (in this case girls) in blue!

Empty Bullets Fly At Rally

There was a lot of heat, both outside and within the crowd, at Wednesday's rally in the quad at California State University Sacramento (CSUS). Despite the heat, however, there was no fire. Approximately 150 students, professors and faculty attended the rally to voice their opinions about the recent student tuition fee increases, pay cuts for professors, and unpaid furlough days for faculty and staff.

The State Capitol has took it upon themselves to sort out the deficit in the budget, making CSUS a target in their rampage. The student fees for this fall semester have rose a grand total of 32% since last semester. Students within the crowd are feeling the pinch in their pockets. Some students stated that although they do not have to pay the fees directly, being supported by their parents, they still felt that the fee hike is excessive. The universal complaint being that students were getting less for their money.

Speakers included Student Association President, Roberto Torres and members from the California Faculty Association (CFA). There were chants that got the crowd pumped up such as "they say cut back, we say fight back!"

From some students perspectives in the crowd, the rally is not going to make much of a difference. There's a quiet consensus that most of what was said at the rally is just the reaction to the drastic changes at the campus. Some also related it to the bad economic times - excusing the rate hikes as being part of the grand scheme of things that need to be done to recover the economy.

One of the more concerning parts of the rally was the speakers' failure to mention anything about the next steps. None of the people sent out a call of action to march at the State Capitol. The CFA seemed to be more interested in collecting "complaint forms" that would be submitted to some higher power that would stop increasing fees and do something about the pay cuts and furloughs. What they should have been saying is when and where they should be meeting as a large group at the Capitol's lawns. There were calls to the students to "go talk to the legislators" or "write to your legislators;" however this was not followed up with a formal plan of action.

The rally seemed unorganized in what it was trying to accomplish. It seemed more like a awareness rally for the students that the fees had increased - as if they had not realized their empty pockets or declining bank accounts already. All the 'we should's' that were being said became tiring after a while. One of the speakers mentioned that at CSUS, fees had increased 187% in the past seven years. So what makes them think that the increases will not continue?

Some students in the crowd were optimistic; throwing out phrases like "every voice counts." Seeing the way that the rally turned out, fuming participants and no flames, its difficult to predict if anything would happen with the budget problems anytime soon.