Root beer

I've only heard of one horror story in which the roommate batted for the other team. To make it a long story short, one of my roommates friend had a roommate that batted for other team and supposedly during a party one night he tried to, err... force unwanted contact into him that would have spark an investigation by Law and Order:SVU. Fortunately, a girl at the party slap the crap out of the guy and nothing happen. And the next day the two gentlemen shook hand and called it a drunken incident and never spoke of it again until he told me and my roommate about it.. Far as my experience goes, my first roommate was horrible. He was messy and left food particles everywhere in kitchen, etc..His girlfriend was so ugly, she could have trick or treated over the telephone. My first week there I woke up to smell of burning pancakes every single morning..The guy actually moved out 3 weeks later, and they gave me new roommates who were easier to get along and much cleaner. I've heard plenty of other horror stories and believe me a roommate who is g.ay or is Obama supporter is least your problem. A straight guy might be a lot worse to tolerate...

I went there in person and they lowered my deposit to $200 with a $40 outlet fee or something like that. I saved $60 bucks. lol.

I moved from a student living apartment to a more private apartment. The new apartment has me paying my bills directly to city's power company. The previous apartment I just paid it directly to the apartment manager. Well, at my previous apartment I paid everything on time nor was I ever late. Today, I called the city to get my account set up since I'm moving into my new apartment real soon. She said "Since you are new account, we will not turn the power on until you pay $300." Wait, what? I asked her if she ran my credit with my previous landlord will that lower my deposit, she said "$300 is what it will take to turn it on, sir." Seriously? Jeez. Talk about a slap in the face. I was expecting $100 maybe $200 at most to turn it on, not $300 in the manner in which she made it sound like.

Wal-Mart and Walton family are two separate entities. A Corporation is treated as person just like you and I. The Waltons may still have ownership interest or might even have a seat or two on the board of director..This post may be true that Waltons family are donating to anti-fisherman, but the corporation is not making the donation. The Waltons don't have complete control over Wal-Mart....I wouldn't find it odd that Waltons are donating to fight anti-fishing, while Wal-Mart still sponsors FLW and sell fishing gears....Just pointing that out before everyone goes mad. I don't shop at Wal-Mart anyway.

Uh, LSU fans, http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/45167/lsus-les-miles-is-fighting-mad

Two words: Put Options.

Oh, I knew all of this stuff. I just couldn't figure out how universities are being hypocritical at telling their athletes not to accept money from boosters, while they turn around and accept it from boosters. Way I see it, not every individual athletes benefits from boosters giving money. Cam Newton for instance, he was at center of a huge pay-for-play scheme. He was getting paid to go to Auburn in additional to his scholarship while other players playing along side of him had to live off the scholarship. (Before Auburn fans bash me, I'm just using this as an example to prove my point) Now, if Auburn accepted money from a booster, that entire donation is being used for entire team or athletic department to benefit from. I cannot find hypocrisy in this situation. This is basically how it works. Look at the new Miami allegation, the guy said he gave improper benefits to 72 players. Not every athlete that came through that program got extra benefits. That's unfair. That the way I see it. It about who is benefiting from the money.

I thought your point had to do with universities telling players not to accept money from boosters, but the universities then accepts it from boosters was hypocritical on the universities' part? I guess I read wrong. I cannot find this being hypocritical...

Not exactly. The university uses those funds to provide players uniforms, equipments, etc. Boosters normally entice players into going to a certain school for pay, is not same thing as a university getting money to provide players with what they need to play. And the money the boosters donate usually gives universities more money than if they had sold those parking spaces, suites, etc to general public. Now, if you were to say boosters are allow to pay players to go a certain university, creates recruiting disparity. Instead of head coach selling the universities, his coaching prestige, etc Recruits are looking for biggest buck they can find from each booster. It just ruins the sport's amateurism.

I really don't want to hear the argument that college football players should be paid extra in addition to the scholarships. Not every school brings in that kind of money, and maybe 5 programs actually makes a profit in which some of them are actually giving to academic side of the university. (depends on the school) They play football in exchange for a free education, if their jersey are popular, then NFL will recognize that and they'll make their money then. Of course I don't know how the new rookie salary cap impacts this, but there is always endorsement when they leave college...

All of these scandals are getting on my nerves. If Alabama gets hit with one, I may have to pull the plug on college football. I cannot understand why boosters and agents are getting kids in trouble and kids not knowing rules or simply refusing to follow them.

Lot of trade folks can make good money...I don't measure success by money anymore. That the problem. I'm just simply saying that some counselors should encourage kids to look into trade school instead of feeding them "go to college" B.S. Lot of those kids go to school and get into crap load of debt problems and fail out. I've seen too many of my ex-classmates go to UT or other big schools and end up at junior college the next year because they partied too much. You don't have to go to college to party...My biggest complaint being in college is seeing kids wasting money, resources, and time. It bothers me so much when students don't show up to class simply because they don't feel like it. Or when I have group projects other members are slacking and refuses to actually try. If kids' motivations are like that, they shouldn't be in college. Lot of them drop out, but some of them manage to barely scrape by. It's ridiculous. I'll get off my soapbox now. lol. P.S. I have to share this, my principle of accounting professor told the class this on first day: "If you are here because mommy and daddy wants you to be here, walk out of my classroom right now." One of the best things I ever heard.

I don't understand why guidance counselors and others are always telling young kids to go college when trade is the future. Nothing wrong with going trade school in my opinion. It's useful to learn things that keeps society going. I only went because I had dreams of running a business. I almost went to trade school. My cousin did and he is barely out of trade school and already got a very quality job. But I don't *** him, one day I'll have it made.

Alabama going to win it all. 10 returning starters on defense, a very experienced offensive line and a really good running back. Enough said, end of story, move on.

Contrary to popular belief, high school is not the best years of your life. You have no freedom, you are forced to go to school, you have no rights, you're treated with no respect, etc.

That's awesome.

Then at the end of those 4-6 years you will struggle like hell to find a job in your degree.

That's pretty cool. Did you have any spare time to explore some of their wilderness or did you pretty much stay nearby where you were working at?

Tyrius beat me to it. You can indeed write off casino loss. It's a little tricky. By the way, stock market isn't gambling, the derivative market on the other hand is gambling. It how the money flows that distinguish one another. In gambling, both side already has wealth it simply exchanges hand. In the stock market you put in money in hope that money yields a return or create wealth that wasn't there before, particularly with IPOs. Dividends are return of profits and capitals that wasn't there before. That's how I interpret the difference between gambling and investing. The other reason for allowing loss on capital assets is because government is encouraging investing. They are thinking "hey, if you made a poor decision in investments, we will allow you to deduct a certain amount each year from your taxable income."

Tax purpose. Some people already have quite a gain for the year, so some will sell off poor performing stock and use it as a tax benefit for the next few years depending on how big the loss is. Some of the people selling off is trying to raise cash because they have position in other securities and in event those fail they got all cash from the equity, regardless if it a loss and gain. When the bond market was collapsing couple years ago, the reason equity crash was all the hedge funds, and institutional traders were selling off a lot of equity to raise cash. Some people are just fearful and uneducated at what's going on.. And Roadwarrior, screw the bond market. Treasury securities yield are so low that the risk of inflation is higher than the yield. Who would buy that?!? Corporate bonds aren't that attractive either. It's too cheap to borrow and risk of inflation are pretty high and interest rate doesn't reflect it. Unless you buy TIPS then your only concern is U.S. government failing to cooperate with one another. Price index has gone up this year compare to last.

I agreed, the downhill tears me up worse than going up. I had similar experience near the summit if Mt. Rogers (highest peak in Virgina) and ran/power walked 4 miles downhill to get out of the storm. My knees were not hurting when we was at the base of summit, but after that run down my knees were shot..I had to drag my leg back to the car. lol. I had friend of mine that was trout fishing in the Smokies and he looked behind him and a bear was sleeping on a tree above the creek. He has also seen a mama bear and a cub wandering along the creek, but neither one of them bothered him and he just walked in opposite direction along the river. lol.

I help contributed to that decline.

Nick, we started at Newfound Gap in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and ended at the Big Creek ranger station. We parked our cars at Big Creek and got a lift to Newfound Gap and just walked 32 miles on the AT back to Big Creek. We past about 7-8 peaks along the way. Lot of them didn't have the view I expected because trees and bushes were blocking it. Oh well. 70 miles is approximately how long the AT stretch in the Smokies, we did 32 miles of it. One day, I might thru-hike the entire Smokies. Maybe. Hope you and your son have a good trip. Hookem, I love my tent. I didn't need it on this trip since we stayed in a shelter along the AT. I'm looking at a hammock shelter at the moment. They pack down to a size of a softball. My tent only weights about 2-15lbs, so it just a hair under 3lbs. Weight isn't an issue with my tent, but I figured a hammock will save a lot of space in my backpack. I just want to rent or borrow a hammock first and see how I sleep in them. I won't sell my tent because I have feeling I'll need it when I go out west and camp above the tree lines or in a canyon where there are no trees. lol. The coolest thing about my tent, I can take the footprint for the tent and just put rainfly over the footprint with no tent body between footprint and rain fly. Then take a bivy sack design to keep bugs off and just sleep in that while the rainfly keep the weather off of me.. The footprint and rainfly will pack smaller than the tent body and bivy sack can weigh less than a pound. I might do that instead of a hammock if I cannot sleep well in one. I have a new backpack coming soon and trying get a new sleeping bag, but I go back to doctor next week about another knee surgery so I might just invest that money and hope it grows to where I can buy both backpack, sleeping bag, and take a little extra for clothes and a trip out west when I heal.

My senior year of high school, I decided go fishing about 4pm after school to scout some locations for a tournament using my depth finder and watching the water level. (It was spring on a TVA owned lake.) I pulled up beside the boat ramp to unhook the strap, plug up the hole, etc. Then as I got in my car this truck comes roaring passed me with a pontoon and proceed to back down the ramp..Literally cut me off with no concern to me..Not only did he cut me off, but he also backed right down the middle of the ramp taking up both lane rather than going down one of the two lanes on the ramp..If I tried to back the boat down I would have went off the ramp. So, I sat there watch 4 old men and 2 old ladies climbed onto the pontoon boat, unstrap the boat, order pizza, take something for their arthritis, rub BENGAY on each other, etc. After about 5 minutes I'm still sitting there and I said "Do you need help launching?" and the guy said "Nah, we'll be ready in just a second.." I said "Next time, can you back down single lane instead of down the middle so people like me who ready to launch can use the other lane?" He replied "This is one big lane, son." I walked away shaking my head..Every time some senior citizen tells me I need show respect to someone older, I tell them this story. I have plenty of boat ramp horror stories..

This was a hiking trip I did two weekends ago when I backpacked 32 miles in 2 days on the AT in the Smoky Mountain. This bear was 15 yards from me and it was biggest I've seen and the closest I have ever been. I was with some friends, but if I was alone I would have freaked out, maybe passed out. hahaha. I have more I'll post later today if you guys want to see more views.