Jasper Jones

   The American economy is not doing so hot right now.  Economist will declare the country to be in a recession, probably sometime in the next month.  This means that gas prices (already approaching $4) will be going up. It also means that the president will be instituting fiscal or monetary policy to try to drive the country from its recession.  To sum things up, if the president employs fiscal policy, one of two things will happen or possibly both.  Either government spending will be increased and and taxes will be decreased, taxes will be increased and government spending will be decreased, or a combination of the two.  If the president decides to use monetary policy to offset the recession, he will be raising or lowering the FFR (federal funds rate).  Other things that happen in a recession include the value of the dollar sinks, trade slows, and unemployment goes up.  However, things in the economy are not going to stay this way forever. An average recession only lasts about 11 months and the period of low prosperity lasts up to 36 months. So the economy will bounce back.

   The world is making a big shift from home PC’s to portable laptops. Laptops are simply more convenient than the big and heavy PC’s of old.  College students are rarely found not owning one.  Making trips to the library with a laptop is more common than checking out a book for a college student.  Also, students are very rapidly venturing away from taking notes on paper while in class. They are starting to carry laptops to class for taking notes, thus cutting back the expense of buying paper notebooks (which just might save a lot of trees) and lots of pens.  Laptops are not all that expensive.  A good one can be found from about $400 to $1000.  This is about the same as a good home PC.

  Many people will go store to store, shopping around for the best prices on anything they are trying to buy. For instance, I used to shop around a lot for better prices on my vitamins and body building supplements. I finally found the best prices on the Internet. They were about half the cost than if I were to go to the store and buy the same exact product.  I would not suggest that people read this and go straight to EBay for whatever they are looking for.  Just try to find a website that sells a lot of the same types of products.  For example, I would have to go to GNC and Vitamin Shoppe to get all the things I need to work out. But I found a website called massnutrition.com and it had everything I need from both stores, and more!  When you find a mass producer like this, prices will generally be cheaper.

I recently found a show that is very interesting.  It’s called “The Deadliest Catch.”  The show is pre-filmed in the Berring Sea on crab fishing boats.  The show does not sound very interesting when it is put this way, but do not judge a book by its cover.  The show has everything that a viewer could want.  There is drama, comedy, action, and the best part is that it is an actual real reality show.  The three big boats are the Northwestern, the Cornelia Marie, and the Time Bandit.  It’s a lot of fun to watch these ships race across the Berring Sea to catch the crab and meet their quota.  There are several seasons of crab fishing in the show. The main two are the Alaskan crab season and the Opellio crab season.  I would suggest that everyone check this show out.

To keep progress moving forward, sacrifices must be made.  These means that new cities are going up and forests and beautiful landscapes are being torn down.  I believe in progress, but is it worth destroying nature?  Not just some nature, all of it.  Trees clean our earth by soaking up carbon dioxide and producing air.  It has been said that since all these trees are being destroyed, more carbon dioxide is in the air and it is increasing global warming.  There are some companies that are doing their part to help change this. Esurance issues all of their insurance policies online.  This saves some hundreds of trees every year.  There should be more that to follow this example. It is not a hard change to make for any business. It could save forests all over the planet, and also help save the Earth.

  Society has a fun way of making people feel good about themselves and bad about themselves at the same time.  There are so many commercials tell people that they are perfect just the way they are and that they will find their special someone without changing how they look.  Then there are all of these commercials that show weight loss pills and exercise programs.  They tell people that weight can cause stress and unhappiness.  We also see celebrities showing there bodies and tell how they have to look good to be famous.  This makes everyone want to look just like them and do the same things that that they do.  People think that they will be happy if they do all the things that these celebrities do, but few know what these means.  It means changing your daily schedules to work out twice a day on top of the running of two hours. It also mean changing your eating habits.  These celebrities pay thousands of dollars for people to design meals for them that are perfectly balanced.  Most people don’t have this type of money for this. This is putting mixed feeling and a lot of pressure on society.  People should do what makes them happy, whatever that is.  If they want to do what these celebrities do, that’s fine if that’s what makes them happy. But the main point is that if people are not happy with themselves the way they are now, then they will never be happy no matter what they look like.  It’s more about who you are than what you look like, or it should be.

  Many kids view entertainment as watching TV or playing video games for hours at a time.  I have found that there is a better way for kids to have fun and learn at the same time.  They won’t learn English or history, but they will learn life skills.  This type of learning comes in the form of a board game called, “Monopoly.”  Monopoly teaches kids to do math by counting money, but that is not all it teaches them. Kids will learn strategies such as money management and conservation.  These are skills that you must have to win the game.  They are also skills that can help these kids in life.  Saving money, learning only to spend for what you only need, and also critical thinking are things that kids can learn to help them in the game and also in life.

  Over the last two years the Florida gators have boomed from a good SEC school as far as sports go, to an outstanding and astonishing school.  Over the last two years the University of Florida has won three national championships (two basketball, one football).  In basketball last year the gators sent four starters to the NBA and the other went overseas to play. In football, three players went to the NFL.  Also, this past season Florida quarterback Tim Tebow became the first underclassman to win a Heisman Trophy.  Billy Donovan has been a genius for the basketball program.  As of late, the gator had won four SEC titles in a row before this year.  But where has this outstanding progress come from the football team?  The answer comes in the name of Urban Meyer. In the three seasons he has been there, the gators have only lost seven games.  They have won an SEC championship and a national title.  Meyer recruits speed and agility that is not matched by any other school. This recruiting skill is matched only by Donovan.  These recruiting and coaching geniuses are the sole reason for the Florida Gators success.

  In this day, everything is done by computers. There is not one single business in the United States that can run without one.  But is it safe for someone to put everything that the business does in one computer server?   With advanced technology there is a need for some people to know more about computers. Those people are divided into two groups.  The first being computer technicians, the people that fix problems with computers and set up system for schools to use.  The second group is more commonly known as hackers. These hackers can get anything out of a computer they want, making it very unsafe for business to keep all of their information in their computers.  Businesses now have to keep both computer documents and printed documents in the case of a hacker.  The government has billions invested in keeping their computer hacker proof, but what about the rest of the country?  The use of wireless Internet only makes it easier for these hackers to access our computers as well as businesses.  So the question comes to mind, how do we stop it?  Well, the government has ways of tracking these hackers to an extent, but there is no sure way to get them all or to stop them all.

  With summer just around the corner, everyone is busting around to try to get in shape.  The ladies all want to look fit enough to wear their two piece bathing suits, and the guys want to look lean and cut to drive the girls wild.  Well here are some tips to get in shape, increase your metabolism, and have fun doing it.  If you want to get in shape, you have to get off the couch. It’s as simple as that.  The single most effective way to get a better body is to be active. Take a quick ten to fifteen minute jog in the mornings. This will wake you up and also burn off some unwanted calories too!  Running, over time can speed up your natural metabolism.  There is a faster way to speed your metabolism up every day and it is extremely healthy, as well.  In the mornings, instead of having a glass of milk with breakfast, have a glass of water with some freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice in it.  This kick starts your metabolism in your body.  Another way to do this is by eating pickles.  The vinegar in a dill pickle has the same effect as the lemon juice. These are just some easy simple was to get in shape of the summer months and also all year around.