Pet peeve # 2,347,843
Topic: ramblings
Here's another notch for my "pet peeve" belt...

A member calls in today to talk about his account and puts me on hold after a few minutes. He then comes back a few minutes later and talks again about his account. He then asks me to hold on again, only this time he didn't mute me. So I hear in the backgroung him saying...

"Welcome to Jack In The Box, may I take your order?"

The guy was FREAKIN' WORKING while he was calling to talk about his account!

It wouldn't have bugged me so much if I didn't have to repeat myself 3 times to get his story straight...

...geez...

The $50 billion question...
Topic: thought provoking
The $50 billion Question

Suppose you were given $50 billion. You are to spend it on projects that would best foster global development and alleviate human suffering. How would you spend it?

A World Connected (.org)
Topic: informative
A World Connected

The website linked above is an awesome website to go to in order to read about world issues. It's a nice point of view on a lot of the big issues affecting the world and its dealings.

One of my favorite issues as of lately would be sweatshops. Not that I'm a big fan of sweatshops or anything, but this site (out of many others) helps to dissolve the myth that all sweatshops are bad simply by not paying their workers "enough" (or a "living wage" as many say). What most don't consider is the difference between the "real wage" and the "nominal wage." A nominal wage is a literal dollar amount you receive. For example, $10/hr. The real wage is what the money buys for you. Here in America, an 8 hr day at $10/hr will earn you enough to pay for most necessities (food, clothing and shelter). The $80 earned in that one day will easily sustain you for a day, hopefully even 3 or 4.

An 8 hr work day at $10/hr in a Third World Country, however, will allow you the opportunity to purchase much more than you could in America. The $80 that would be earned that day could most likely sustain their life for a whole month.

This is why a corporation with a manufacturing plant in a Third World Country does not pay the same as it would in America. The worker in the other country is more likely to get $2 - $3 per day (depending on the country of course, it could be much wider than that still). Unfair you say? Not really, considering a meal in this same country can be purchased for 10 to 20 cents.

The ethical corporation would then, of course, pass on the savings from paying less in wages (in the Third World Country as compared to the US) by selling the products produced for less. This of course is very ideal, and some (or perhaps "many"?) companies do not do so *cough cough* Nike *cough cough*

But, the nominal wage in this Third World (low by our standards, decent or "good" to their standards) then leads to a higher real wage (i.e. higher spending power) in the US. Children in poorer countries stay off the street and earn money, people in America get to buy things cheaper. Certainly it would be best if children were in school and they had at least one parent working in order to raise them, but that is not always possible (in any nation). So this is about as close to a win-win situation as we can get.

One article in particular emphasizes not only the danger in closing legitimate sweatshops but the benefit to the country to have them. The argument being that sweatshops actually give jobs to many who would have much worse options for employment otherwise (prositution, drugs, crime, etc). Boycotting such products and forcing the shop's closure, studies have shown, leads those shop employees to tend towards said negative results.

Furthermore, the article mentions, every prosperous nation today (USA, Britain, France, Sweden, Germany etc) has had its own "sweatshop days."

"Only with the prosperity brought by international trade, globalization?s adherents say, can a country then afford to demand better working conditions for its workers."

Bottom line, it boils down to this:

"Most free trade advocates agree, for example, that benefiting from slave labor is no better than theft. Sweatshop workers are often the envy of their communities -- they make more money than the farmhands or beggars, for example. But it?s important that they?re working in factories of their own free will. The key to building prosperity is choice, and if workers don?t have the option to quit, or to take a job with a factory across town offering better wages, the "free" in "free trade" is a misnomer, and the benefits of globalization are tainted."

So much for me posting what I had first planned: a website with a quick suggestion or stamp of approval to have you visit it. My "two cents" usually end up being 10 to 20...dollars...

Cardstacker
Mood:  happy
Topic: informative
Ever wonder who holds the Guiness Book of World Records for stacking cards?

Bryan Berg: Cardstacker

I'm kinda fond of his name myself...

What I'm Worth...
Topic: funny stuff
I am worth $2,107,770.00 on HumanForSale.com

Free speech
Topic: ramblings
I witnessed this morning one of the greatest examples of free speech I have seen in a long time...

I was listening to the radio station Z100 (100.3) this morning. They're usually a decent radio station. They started playing a crappy song so I decided to flip over to 101.1 where Howard Stern talks in the morning. I'm not a big fan of Howard, but when Z100 sucks bad enough sometimes I switch over out of curiosity.

Anyway, the first thing I hear from Howard Stern's show is (verbatim) "F you, F you, F you..."

Then, Howard begins to play a song to the tune of The Beatle's "Hey Jude."

"F you, you mother (beep)-er..."

Howard interrupted the song by mentioning that when he goes to Sattelite Radio he's going to play this song in "honor" of Clear Channel Radio (where he currently works, mind you). "Only, on Sattelite Radio I won't beep out anything," he said.

Now there aren't many nations you can do this very thing without worrying about losing your job (or, in some places, your life). Gotta love America huh?

Graduation!!!
Mood:  happy
Topic: informative
Well, it's finally done. I officially am done with my bachelor's degree! I went during my lunch break and picked up my diploma downtown. I returned to work and showed it to a few people...whoever I felt was interested enough to see it.

Let the parties begin :D

Trip to Sacramento...
Mood:  happy
Topic: ramblings
I just finished writing this even though I started it over two weeks ago...

Here it is in all its glory...the story about hanging out with the best friend in the world in my recent trip to Sacramento...

***************************************************

I had an absolute blast hanging out with my best friend, Joe, on Friday. I hadn't seen him in, easily, 6 or 7 years. We had met in the 5th grade when I first moved to California back in 1992. I was 10 when we moved there, and only 14 when we moved out of California to live in Utah. I'm not sure which year Joe came to visit me in Utah but I think it was my sophomore or junior year, so probably 1998 or 1999.

Anyway, this last weekend I traveled down to Sacramento to go to a wedding for a friend of the family. When I was born my parents lived in a cul-de-sac and all 5 of the families were good friends and actually have stayed good friends even 20+ years later. My parents were the first to move out in 1984. Anyway, one of the kids in the families just got married and my mom, dad, sister, niece, and I all came down for the wedding. I had met Joe when we moved back to California in 1992. Joe and I planned to meet up on Friday afternoon.

He and his brother, Jonathan, showed up at around 3pm. They had to drive from Fresno (a 3 hr trip according to mapquest, a 2 hr trip according to them). Everyone else at Susie and Walt's house were gone: headed for the rehearsal dinner that night. So Joe showed up and I asked him what he'd like to do. We went over our options and eventually decided it would be an awesome idea to drive (another hour and a half mind you) to Travis AFB where we used to live. So we all hopped into the Nissan truck that Joe and Jonathan showed up in and chugged our way west to Travis. We showed up just as the sun was going down. The whole car ride over was spent talking about the "old days" and laughing about various things. It was so much fun to get to hang out with Joe again, and I hadn't seen Jonathan since we left in 1996. He is 19 now which means he was around 9 or 10 when I left.

Most of the ride from Sacramento towards Travis I didn't recognize. The first point that I remembered anything was when we drove by Vacaville (east of Travis) and I saw a sign for the Nut Tree. The Nut Tree was a really cool gift shop type store that had all sorts of different things to buy and look at. A "specialty" merchandise store. I remember when mom would buy some unusual hot sauce there. It's also where I've seen my first (and so far only) real life Venus Fly Trap.

Anyway, we drove by Nut Tree and I remembered that there was an In-and-Out Burger nearby; we later verified that when we were driving back the other direction. I think there was a Target being built when I was moving ten years ago; now there was a whole plethora of commercial development there. That's when I first started tripping out...

When we got onto base I start remembering things that I had long forgotten about. The only way I could describe it would be an acid flashback; only in my case without the acid. Slowly my mind started to remember roads and buildings. The main gate was closed (and apparently has been for a while due to construction/reconstruction) so we entered through the nearby "Hospital Gate." Our first stop was the Base Exchange (BX). A civilian equivalent would be...well...Wal-Mart I suppose. They sell almost everything there, from clothes to electronics; even furniture. They have convenient store type food available, but most food can be found at the Commissary (across the street). We went into the BX and looked around and reminisced. Then we all ate a Cinnabon (compliments of Joe). We stopped by the liquor store and picked up a couple little (50mL) liquor bottles: Grand Marnier, Courvoisier, and two Capt Morgans. The first two Joe and I shared straight; the rum we mixed with the Dr. Pepper we drank while watching a pretty good movie by the name of "Hitch." I would even say it was a borderline "great" movie.

After the BX we drove and got some gas (and our Dr. Peppers) then went and drove by my old house. It looked almost the exact same as it did 10 years ago. Well, what I could see anyway. We couldn't quite pull into Cannon Drive because the road was blocked off. Construction of some sort. We did drive by the side of it after we did a U-turn but nothing too exciting there. As we drove back we passed by "No Name Lane" which was a street where one of our former priests lived: Father Bruce Brown. I have become accustomed to calling him "Father Bruce" but when I mentioned him to Joe and Jonathan, they didn't remember any Father Bruce. After a while I was like "come on, Father Bruce Brown...you have to remember him!" "Oh yeah, Father Brown, yeah!" Apparently I'm the only one on a first name basis with him? They remembered him then, and I mentioned that "Father Brown" is now up in Portland and I go to his mass occasionally.

We then drove around base a little bit and ended up parking at the youth center that Joe and I used to hang out at. Joe's mom used to work there. The second we went inside the building (which was open just 5 more minutes) we took a whiff of the same scents that lingered in the hallway when we were there 10 years ago. The girl still working there that evening didn't seem to recognize the name of Joe's mother or the two other women Joe mentioned; nor did she seem to care. We walked around the youth center a short while and then eventually made our way into the gymnasium. I'm not sure if they lowered the rims or not, but it seemed like the rims went from about 12 feet off of the ground to just about 6 feet. Could have just been that we are twice the height we used to be. *shrugs*

After we visited the youth center we left and walked around Travis. We went first to the new skate park across the street between the baseball fields. Then we ventured back to Joe and Jonathan's old house (just behind the youth center a little bit). The house was obviously not occupied by anyone. Neither were the houses surrounding it for that matter. From the looks of the other houses on base it looks like Joe's old house was now one of the oldest buildings on base. There were probably plans underway to build new houses there. We then walked around Travis a little more and ended up circling our old Sunday School building and reminiscing about all of that.

After a few hours on base we ended up venturing off base and ended up visiting our old middle school: Golden West. It was around 7:30 or 8 or so by this time. Of course no one was there, but we just went ahead and snuck onto campus and shared stories of different classes we had together and separately. I still remember the room where our math teacher, Mr. Deter, laughed so hard that Hi-C came out of his nose and when our history teacher, Mr. Noble, would tell jokes like "what did the hat say to the hat rack? you stay here, I'll go on ahead (on a head)." We circled around the back of the campus, and Joe reminded me of the spot where we stood during a solar eclipse. We wandered by the gym and talked about the time he slam dunked a basketball and broke his wrist. See we were only in the 7th or 8th grade, which would have made Joe about 12 or 13. Not quite the right height to be able to slam dunk a basketball. It's because the bleachers were drawn back at the time, as were the basketball hoops. Which meant he could climb up on top of the bleachers and slam it; the broken wrist, however, meant he shouldn't have.

We then headed out to Vacaville to find the movie theater. Joe and Jonathan had been back to Vacaville more recently than I had, of course, so they recognized things better than I did. We eventually drove over the back roads east through Vacaville and by the area where the Nut Tree was. The movie theater that used to be there had been converted into a church. So, we stopped by a nearby Harley Davidson motorcycle dealership and asked one of the salesmen inside where we could find another. He directed us to a theater not too far away and that's where we headed. We stopped by the theater and Joe and I bought the tickets while Jonathan parked the car. It was one of the most crowded movie theater parking lots I had ever seen. After he found a parking spot, and Joe and I got the tickets, we walked to a nearby Quizno's Subs shop and ordered tuna sandwiches (it was a Friday during Lent, which meant no meat). The subs were actually really good. We then grabbed our Captain Morgans and our Dr. Peppers and headed to the theater. Don't worry, though, Jonathan was our DD and didn't drink anything.

"Hitch," as I had mentioned, was actually a really good movie. I suggest you go see it :)

Anyway, after the movie we drove back to Sacramento. It was on the drive home that I learned the hard way that "Jackson Blvd" is the one that turns into Highway 16, not "Jefferson Blvd." After driving a few miles down the wrong road I called Annie (the daughter of the couple we were staying with in Sacramento) and she informed me of my mistake. So, we turned around and made it back around 1:30.

As we were pulling up to the house I asked Joe if he wanted to come in and see if anyone was awake or, cause of the time, if he'd rather get started on his way back home. He opted to go in and that's what we did. Susie was still awake. My mom had just gone to bed so I went and got her up and the 5 of us stayed up another half hour telling stories and laughing it up.

And that, in a nutshell, was my daily excursion with Joe...

2.10.05

Linguistically Violent
Topic: quotes
"If I'm linguistically violent, then you're a fucker..."

Phone call I received...
Mood:  happy
Topic: funny stuff
I just received a call from someone at work...

"Hello this is Bryan, how may I help you?"

"Yeah, I was wondering, how much does it cost to open up an account there?"

"A savings account requires a minimum of $5; a checking account is a minimum of $20."

"Oh ok. Do you guys sell tools there?"

"I'm sorry, tools? What kinds of tools?"

"You know, tools..."

"Ummm...no we don't sell any tools here."

"Ok, thanks..."

(The best part then happens...the person doesn't quite hang up and I hear in the background...)

(Extreme laughter) "I can't believe you just asked him that!"

"I know...I'm so stupid..."