Jasper Jones

Not that I pay much attention to the stock market, but the news all last week was about how dire the economy is, with a huge bailout requested by President Bush for Wall Street.

The housing market has been in trouble for almost a year now and now insurance companies and banks are in trouble.

The talking heads on the news channels have been declaring this an economic emergency and insisting that Congress needs to take taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street. Well, I don’t think that is the best solution to this situation and it is nothing more than the consequences of Bush’s faulty and failed economic policies these past 8 years. To come from an economic surplus that was left by the Clinton administration to the dire situation we are in now is more than just egg on the face of the President.

Sure enough the expected vote in Congress did not happen today. The bailout was voted down in the House of Representatives. And the Dow closed down almost 800 points today. Should not have been a surprise to these people.

Just chatting with Kelly over a couple sandwiches from Subway and taking a break between classes, we were discussing the fact that a lot of public information is now available over the internet and in many cases the challenge is just to find the right URL or right links to get what you want. For example, the names and addresses of landowners of record are available through the state of Tennessee, but you can’t Google anything to come up with the right URL for the information.

The same thing goes for other public records, like marriage licenses, divorce records and other Court Records. You have to know where to look. Some sites are free and other charge a nominal fee. In my opinion, I don’t mind paying a fee if the information is fast and reliable.

This was probably the nicest weather over the weekend that we’ve had all year. The sun was shining, there was a nice breeze, and it was cool enough at night to open the bedroom windows to let the fresh air in.

Alex spent the day with his parents on Saturday and then they all went to brunch this morning before his parents had to leave for the airport. Alex is doing OK now and his parents really helped out this past week by getting him food and other things to make him more comfortable and settled in with the leg cast causing him so much inconvenience.

Of course, I worked last night and have to go in tonight. But I was outside for the better part of both days and enjoying every minute of it. I think the only thing that would have made the days any better at all is if I had a big black labrador with me.

One of the movies that Alex’s parents bought for him today is called “Leatherheads.” It’s a comedy about the early days of professional football, starring George Clooney, Renee Zellweger and John Krasinski.

I didn’t get to watch the movie with them since I was in class, but they invited me to watch it later tonight if I want to. But I have to run off and do a shift at the hospital tonight. By the time I get home I’m sure Alex will be sound asleep and won’t want the TV on. Maybe tomorrow.

I just love Alex’s mom - she is such a warm and caring person. Just being around her makes you feel taken care of and secure. His dad is a great guy, too. Very reserved but confident and obviously very intelligent. They’ve been over at the dorm most of the day, just hanging out with Alex. They went out and rented a couple of good movies and picked up some lunch while I’ve been in class. His mom wants to get a few things from WalMart to fix up the room and make it a little more cozy.

His dad has decided that Alex needs a laptop computer since he won’t be able to sit at the rickety little student desk that has our desktop pc and printer on it. I was telling his dad that they can save some serious bucks if they order it online from the Office Deals.info website. That’s what we’ve been using for all our school supplies.

All you have to do is got to their homepage and click on the store name or the brand of what you’re looking for and you’ll get a list of discount offers, coupons and bargain prices. The discount promotions for computer supplies are all for brand names and store chains that everyone knows and likes, like Best Buy, Circuit City and Office Max. I think we’ve saved at least 20% on everything that we;ve bought online and most of the places give us free shipping, too.