Mishmash Musings

This being the last day of the month, I had to sit down and do some accounting and administrative paperwork for my various online ventures. I’ve been earning money online since early 2005, and have done reasonably well since then.

But this month, September of 2008, was my lowest grossing income period in three years. Part of it is my fault, as I haven’t been motivated to do very much, but a lot of it is simply the due to the state of the economy. Businesses aren’t spending money like they used to, so there’s less available for freelance writers like myself. The numbers are pretty depressing, and make me wish I had a home theater where I could just veg out in front of a movie with a huge bowl of buttered popcorn for the rest of the night. Sigh.

There are still three months left in the year, however, so I’m going to try to regroup and refocus my efforts in order to make up for this month’s lost income. I’ve got to quit wasting time on message boards and fantasy football, and really focus when I’m working. Then I can be done sooner, giving me more free time to spend any way I want.

This weekend I’m going to try to come up with a new daily schedule/routine that will hopefully keep me on task. It’s obviously not as easy to make money online now as it was a year ago, so my efforts have to reflect that change!

The House rejected the proposed $700 billion bailout bill by a vote of 228-205 today, which helped the stock market tumble another 700+ points. According to news articles I’ve read, some people are blaming a scathing, partisan speech by House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) prior to the vote, in which she basically blamed the country’s current economic problems on Republican policies that promoted an “anything goes” attitude. At least one member of Congress said this speech probably changed a lot of minds and swung votes the other way.

This isn’t the end of the bailout plan, but it obviously will need to be reworked a bit before going up for another vote. Personally, I don’t want to end up footing the bill (along with every other taxpayer) for the horribly unsound decisions of a handful of major banks and investment firms, but what’s the alternative? Widespread unemployment? Inflation? Lost retirement savings? Unstable domestic and world financial markets? Another “Great Depression”? Um, no thanks.

With several games still on the slate, there have already been quite a few upsets in the college football world today. I should say that there have been lots of upsets this week, as things actually got off to a start on Thursday night when the Oregon St. Beavers took care of then-No.1 USC in Corvalis. As if that wasn’t shocking enough, other ‘dogs emerged on top today, including Ole Miss over Florida, Navy over Wake, Houston over ECU, Michigan over Wisconsin, and Maryland over Clemson. Wow!

I’m in a college football pool, so my stomach was in knots for a few minutes as I reviewed the scoreboard this afternoon. But then I realized that most of the other people I’m up against bet on the same teams that I did, so I actually didn’t come out too badly.

Crazy day, though, and it made the games far more interesting, that’s for sure!

(AP Photo/John Raoux)

I have a friend who works in an automotive plant near San Antonio, TX. Gil’s job is to load steel coils into huge press machines, where the material will then be punched out into various auto parts. The steel coils weigh upwards of 1,000 lbs., so it’s very dangerous work. In fact, Gil told me that when he was transferred to the department, several of his co-workers mentioned that it would be a good idea to locate a San Antonio Personal Injury Lawyer just in case legal services are required further down the road.

Since I had some free time on my hands, I decided to help Gil out by getting a couple of law firm names for him. One of the top personal injury law firms in the San Antonio area appears to be O’Hanlon, McCollom, and Demerath. Founded in 1992, some of the name partners have been practicing together since the early 1970s, and have a great deal of experience handling cases involving personal injuries due to motorcycle, ATV, automobile, construction, and workplace accidents. They’ve got an excellent track record at winning favorable settlements, and seem like a good bet for my friend.

At any rate, I’ll be sure to pass the info along to Gil so he can make his own decisions. Of course, I hope he’ll never be in a spot where he needs this kind of service, but better safe than sorry….

I came across a new (for me) meme that looks pretty interesting, so I thought I’d give it a try. It’s called Friday Fill-Ins, and gives you several incomplete sentences that you must fill in however you see fit. The filled in portion will be in bold, with the original snippet in regular type. Here we go!

1. Football, cool weather, and changing leaves are some of the things I’m most looking forward to in October.

2. Sometimes I go on junk food binges that ruin my diet.

3. Things have a way of working themselves out, and that’s why there is a saying, “never say never”!

4. When I’m down, I like to grab a book, retreat to the bedroom and read/nap for a few hours.

5. At home is where you’ll find me most often.

6. A rainy day is good for absolutely nothing!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to relaxing, tomorrow my plans include reading and Sunday, I want to watch football all day!

There are many instances of parental child abduction around the world, where a child is taken away from the home by one of the parents. Usually, this is the result of broken marriages, and in a majority of cases, the abducting parent is the father (I guess since custody rulings often go in favor of the mother so she would have no reason to abduct the child).

Anyway, I just got done reading about a terrible case involving a little boy named Sean Goldman. Sean’s father David married Sean’s mother Bruna, a Brazilian national, in 1999, and Sean was born in 2000. Back in 2004, when Sean was 4 years old, David drove Bruna, Sean, and Bruna’s parents to the airport, thinking that they were going to go on a two-week trip to Brazil to visit other relatives. But as soon as Bruna’s plane landed, she called David back in the States to say that the marriage was over and that she was staying in Brazil with Sean.

David was shocked by this announcement, as he had no idea that the marriage was in trouble or that Bruna was unhappy in America. Since then, he has been engaged in a long legal battle to regain at least partial custody of Sean, but has effectively been shut out by the Brazilian courts. Even after Bruna died in childbirth on August 22 of this year (apparently she was able to get a divorce from David in Brazil without David’s consent, and she subsequently remarried), David still has not been able to regain custody.

Now Bruna’s new husband is filing for sole custody of Sean, and if that claim goes through, then that would be a complete travesty of justice — in a case already full of them. David is Sean’s biological father, and has never been shown to be anything other than a loving, stable parent. There’s no history of abuse or anything of that nature, so he should definitely have more rights to the child’s custody than anyone else.

David has spent a fortune on legal fees and travel expenses (for appearances in Brazilian court) during the past four years, and thus far has been stonewalled. He has not even been allowed to see Sean in all those years.

What a sad, sad story. Check out BringSeanHome.org for more info or to make a small donation if you can. This story just breaks my heart.

You know, I’m getting really tired of wasting my Sunday afternoons watching the Bears give games away in the fourth quarter because of the offense’s inability to sustain drives and the defense’s inability to play tough for 60 full minutes. Actually, after discussing the Bears’ problems with friends and co-workers, we’re pretty much all on the same page: the coaching staff has to change.

Yes, it’s time for Lovie Smith to either change his style (how about showing some emotion on the sideline for once?) or move on to a different gig. The players just aren’t responding to him anymore, and it seems as though he doesn’t have that much authority over them. Half of the starters just signed huge, multi-year contracts, so why would they fear for their jobs? They’re like a classroom full of seniors during the last month of high school. If the teacher doesn’t have their respect already, there’s no chance of getting it when the students have nothing to lose.

It’s too bad Virginia McCaskey doesn’t really have that much say in day-to-day operations anymore. Maybe to help her make this decision, my buddies and I should chip in on a moving truck rental and send it to Halas Hall for Lovie’s office. Oh, man, I just wish it was that easy!!

And just look for the team to go 1-3 with the Eagles on the slate next.

I usually don’t watch awards shows, but I do TiVo the Emmys because this particular ceremony doesn’t have much in the way of filler (such as musical numbers and so forth). I’ve already set everything up to record tonight’s broadcast, which begins at 8pm on ABC. Why Tivo? Well, to fast forward through most of the banter and acceptance speeches, and also because I have to watch the Cowboys take on the Pack!

Anyway, the two shows I’ll be rooting for tonight are House (my current favorite drama) and 30 Rock (my current favorite comedy). I’d like to see both of those programs win “Best of” in their respective categories, and I’d also like to see the lead actors go home with some hardware.

Other than those two shows, I don’t really much care who wins!