Debate, phones, etc…

That debate went long, longer than I thought it would. My first impression was that W looked strikingly like Alfred E Neuman as he stood there at the podium. I thought Kerry did quite well in the debate and he clearly came off as a more educated, polished and informed candidate then President Bush. However in the 2000 elections Gore stomped Bush in the debates as well, yet with a little help from his friends, W made it into the white house. Bush had 3 or 4 catch phrases that he must have memorized before the debate and he simply kept repeating them. It seemed like no matter what Kerry said, Bush would somehow come back to his core phrases. Bush basically said he would keep us safe and he is steadfast. To me his strategy is very simple. He feeds off people’s fear of terrorists. Since there hasn’t been another 911, people assume he is doing a good job. Second he is in bed with big business and the upper class of America who love the fact that he pads thier pockets with lower taxes and looser constraints on industry. The huge money that supports him buys a lot of votes. If he manages to get reelected it will be a testament to the power of fear and money.

Kerry pointed out one untruth after another and all Bush basically would respond with was “wrong war, wrong time, wrong place” It was just ridiculous. I have no idea how grown adults with a basic education could look at President Bush and honestly think he has done a good job. I can only hope that there are enough voters out there that actually engage their brain before voting and look beyond their fears and 6 figure incomes to do what is right.

I hate Sprint. I recently took a second to get pissed off about how much I pay each month for a lousy local land phone line. In the past year, we have paid over 650 bucks for local phone service. The reason it is so high is Sprint will not allow you to add on only the extra features you want. In our case, Caller ID and call waiting would be all we would need. The only way to get these things is to buy an entire package which gives a ton of features that we don’t need or use. They charge 25 a month for this BS. It’s absolutely insane. So I started to try to find a way to stop giving Sprint money. I came across some info regarding IP Phones. Wow it sounds great! 25 per year and then pay 3 cent per minute as you go. The 70 minutes of long distance time we had last month cost us 11 bucks with Sprint. With an IP Phone it would cost 2.10. Plus the phones include caller id & voicemail. There are some downsides, there is no 911 service with an IP phone. If you lose power you have no phone and calling into a IP phone from a regular phone requires a process similar to using a calling card. Also an IP phone will not have a phone number in your local area code. So my original idea to throw Sprint out the window and use an IP phone exclusively was not going to fly. So I called up Sprint and found out how much it would cost for a bare bones line with no extra junk. After taxes it would be about 20 bucks. Hmmm ok cool, then I can have the best of both worlds and still save around 400 bucks a year. So I plan to order the stuff soon and happily call Sprint to cut back my service to bare minimum. Expect some reports on the IP phone experience shortly.

The weekend is here. I have a bunch of stuff to do. I feel like I have to make up for lost time since so many weekends have been cut in half by volleyball over the summer. Ali and I were talking about getting a pool heater. Ali is cold blooded and doesn’t like going into the pool unless the water is at least 85 degrees. However I was thinking about how much Ali actaully goes in the pool over the summer when the pool water is that warm, very little. I started running numbers in my head. The cost of the heater was steep but the real cost is the electricity to run it. I ran it through a calculator and to keep a pool our size at 84 degrees would cost approximately 100 bucks a month. Woah. There is just no way I can justify that right now with us trying to minimize monthly expenses. So as a compromise we are going to go look into solar blankets that help keep pools warmer by not allowing the heat to dissipate overnight. I am hoping this will help keep the pool swimmable longer while not costing us any money besides the initial expense.

I’ll be grabbing another 30 bags of mulch to continue my landscape low maintenance project. It’s a big job but will be well worth it if it cuts my weeding times down significantly. Saturday night we are going to go out to dinner with mom. It should be a nice time, we haven’t gone to dinner with her for awhile.

Eagles/Bears on Sunday. The Birds are big favorites and Chicago is racked by injuries. It makes me nervous. The games where the Eagles are huge favorites seem to be the ones they struggle in the most. If they go into Soldier Field and take care of business like they should with little fuss it will say a lot about this team to me.