Why Divorce?

Have you ever just sat back and thought, what would the world be like if everybody just got along? If people never got divorces and just worked out their differences! How would this effect our children today? What would they be like if they didn't come from a broken home? After all, it seems that when I watch a show on TV and the people have problems, it seems like
almost always that they blame it on the parents. So what if the people came from perfect homes? What then? Would they be perfect citizens walking around with Ph.D's or would they still be jerks? Or maybe they would just be your average Joe! Who knows, but let's look back at the parents.

It's been said that children as well as teens look to their parents as roll models. If you look at your kids, or someone who has them, you can see that the children want to be involved with their parents! Children want to do what their Father's do, and do what their Mother's do. Let's say that Daddy is in the Military, there is a real good chance that son or daughter is going to want to be in the military too! This isn't to say that their choice in careers won't change by the time that they graduate high school, but it is saying that for a good chunk of their life, they are going to want to be what their Father or Mother is as far as a career.

However the real question to me is why are people divorcing in the first place? You see, when you married you made a vow! Everybody make them! Most people follow a set of vows that says they will stick with their partner through thick and thin! They make a lifelong commitment to be with their spouse "until death do they part" meaning that only death will separate them! Nothing else will come between them. Not health issues or finance issues or any other kind of issue. No matter what the circumstance, they vow to stick with each other. In most marriages this is sworn on a Bible. Basically it means that the marriage vows that each person takes is not sworn to each other. The wife doesn't swear to her husband that she will stick with him through thick and thin, nor does the husband swear that he will stick with his wife through thick and thin. Rather both of them swear to God, the creator of this universe, that they will stick with their spouse through thick and thin. When they do get divorced they have broken the commitment that they make with God, not with each other. And let's face it, if your a Christian you know that God hates divorce. Malachi 2:16 says, “The man who hates and divorces his wife, ” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty. Basically it says that you should stick with your spouse no matter what because divorce does more harm than good. You might think your getting away, but your not. The pain is very real and when you divorce it makes it that much worse.

There are tons of reasons that people divorce, but the number one reason always seems to be the same and that is finances. People divorce over money, or lack there of, more than any other reason. But is money a real reason to divorce? No. We all have struggles in this life that we have. If you can find one person in this world that has had the perfect life then you are fooling yourself because there is not one person in this world who has not had it hard in their life at some point. We all struggle in life, but if your married you struggle together. Listen, I would rather struggle with my wife than struggle alone. At least if my wife and I struggle together I have someone who knows how I feel and I have a shoulder to cry on. Being alone is just no fun in my opinion.

If there is one thing that I have found out in life it's that the Bible has the answer to literally everything in life. No matter what I am going through I can look to God and find help. God wants to help you and he will if you are willing to let him. So if you are struggling in the divorce area, get help. I would encourage anybody thinking about divorce to get help from a local church. Get counseling from a church not some guy who is going to charge you $200 bucks an hour for his opinion. Get help from God. He deeply cares for you and desperately wants to help you.

People Not So Sugar Sweet to Sugarland

I have yet to figure out why people sue each other here in this country.  I can understand suing someone for really screwing you out of your money or for being coned or something like that, but for no reason makes no sense what so ever.

It's sad for me to see that the band Sugarland is being sued by some of the victims families that died or got injured in last years Indiana State Fair.  It doesn't even make sense to me that people would even think to sue Sugarland.  They had nothing to do with this incident.  They just happened to be there.  If Sugarland knew in advance that the stage was going to collapse and didn't tell anybody, or if they had built the stage themselves, then it might be worth suing them, but not for things that were beyond their control.

It's sad that people want to point fingers and blame everyone.  However, an attorney representing one of the victims in the lawsuit(no name given) said the band was trying to “pass the blame.”  Basically, this attorney is saying that it is Sugarlands fault.  So, so sad that even lawyers are blaming Sugarland for a simply buck!

No Point

So I go to Lowe's Home Improvement the other day because I needed a few things to finish a project that I was working on.  So I go in the store, find everything that I needed, and then proceed to checkout.  Not a big deal right?  Everything normal so far, right?  Well, it's not during the checkout that things get weird, not even when the guy told me to have a great day.  It's when I've already left the store that things get weird, or rather Lowe's gets weird!

I'm out the door walking to my car when all of the sudden a guy comes out the store chasing me telling me that I set off the alarm in the store.  I understand that sometimes things like this happen, so I'm not in any way offended, however what bothered me is what the guy says next.

He tells me that he has to take me back to the store to "deactivate" the metal strips that caused the store alarms go off!  This is where they got me!  First, I just don't understand the logic in making me go back to the store.  Second is because I have my receipt that proves that I bought the stuff that I have in my hands! I had only bought 3 items and my receipt proves that I bought them, but the guy insisted in taking me back to the store and deactivating the metal strips.

Well to make a long story short, I ended up going back to the store and letting him deactivate my stuff.  The point is that this was stupid.  A total waste of time.  What Lowe's should have done was checked my receipt and sent me on my way.  There is no point in dragging a customer back to the store to deactivate something that was already out the store.  Just check their receipt and send them on their way!

And that's my rant for the day...I think!

What's Wrong With Flexible Spending Accounts

So if you don't know anything about what a flexible spending account is, here's a little breakdown.  A flexible spending account is an amount of money that is given to you and you are forced to pay back.  You set the amount of money that you want to receive and at the beginning of the year you receive a credit card with that amount of money on it.  The payback on the money is taken right out of your paycheck.  The payback is divided into 52 equal payments  or 26 biweekly payments or 12 equal payments so that it is paid back in one year.  Flexible spending accounts are  tied in with your insurance.  The only way to have a flexible spending account is to have insurance.  This is not a loan.  In a loan situation, a company gives you money, trusting that you"ll pay them back.  If you don't there is nothing that they can do to you.  They can't send you to jail and they can't garnish your wages.  They can't do anything except ding your credit score which can be damaging enough by itself.  This is not a loan in that you are forced to pay it since it is taken right out of your paycheck.  There is another reason that it is not a loan but we will get into that later.  Basically, the only way to default on a flexible spending account is to quit your job.  Finally a flexible spending account can only be used to cover the cost of medical treatments or dental treatments and to cover the cost of prescription medicine!


So that's the low down on a flexible spending account.  Sounds pretty good, right?  In some ways it's great.  Having a flexible spending account means that if you get sick and have to go to the doctor or you have a dental appt., you don't have to worry about having enough money to cover the cost because you already have the money with you on the flexible spending account.  Or if you get a prescription filled, you can use the flexible spending account to pay for your medicine!  Also money that you put on a flexible spending account cannot be taxed by the federal government.  So if you put $3000 on a felxible spending account, that money is not taxed!


So what's wrong with flexible spending accounts you ask?  Well several things.  For every one thing that sounds good one a flexible spending account, there is something that's bad about having a flexible spending account.  Let's see if you agree!


First would have to be the amount of money that you put on a flexible spending account.  Currently you can put up to $4000 dollars on a flexible spending account.  Starting in 2013, that amount will change from $4000 to $2500.  But that's not why I am complaining.  When I say the amount of money that's put on a flexible spending account is a problem, what I mean is that you have to "guess" on how much time your going to be sick this year.  How much your going to be a the doctor or how much your kids are going to be in the clinic or hospital.  How much time your going to be in the dentist.  Things like that.  My thing is, who in their right mind plans to be sick?  Who plans on going to the dentist expecting to have cavities?  Who plans on their kids breaking an arm?  Who plans like that?  I certainly don't and I hope that you don't either.  I don't think that there is anybody out there that plans to be unhealthy.  The truth is that you cannot plan on things happening.  It's like driving in a car and getting in a wreck.  Nobody plans to get involved in a wreck!  So basically you have to plan on getting sick and guess how much money your going to use that year.  Pretty much impossible.  If you don't put enough on a flexible spending account, you may have to start digging money out of your own pocket that you might not have.  This might get you into trouble in some cases.  On the other hand if you put too much on a flexible spending account and don't use it, well in that case your just going to lose it, which is my next topic.  Once you set the amount that you want to be put into the flexible spending account you cannot change it unless a qualifying event occurs such as the birth of a child or death of a spouse, etc.


Use it or lose it.  One major drawback is that the money must be spent within the coverage period as defined by the benefits plan coverage.  This can be different depending on the type of flexible spending account that you have.  There are several different types but for the most part, they are typically the same.  Some require that the money be used within 12 months while others give you a grace period.  The grace period usually is about 3 months but sometimes can be shorter.  Any money that is left unspent at the end of the coverage period is forfeited and can be applied to future plan administrative costs or can be equally allocated as taxable income among all plan participants.  This is why people call this the "Use it or Lose it" rule.  If you want to get technical, if you don't use some of the money and you lose it, they you are taxed on that money.  Basically you get taxed on money that you didn't have.  Let's say that you put $2000 on your flexible spending account.  They give you the $2000 at the beginning of the year.  You only use $1000 so you lose $1000.  Even though you paid $2000 back through payroll deductions, you still lose that money and then are taxed on the money that "they", the government, took back.  Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  I'm not sure why you lose the money at all!  If you pay all the money back anyways, why do you lose that money if you don't spend it within a certain time frame?  You earned it, right?  They just gave it to you in advance, yet you are paying it all back with equal payments.  There is not a more devastating feeling than the government taking money away from you that you earned!  Well just one other which ties into my last topic.


Finally, a major drawback is where you spend the money.  The government has designated where you can spend the money that is on a flexible spending account.  The money that is on a flexible spending account must be spent on medical expenses, dental expenses, and prescription costs.  In certain cases it can be spent on things like childcare services.  Used to, you could spend the money on over the counter  medications but as of 2011, this feature has been taken away unless these over the counter medications are prescribed by your doctor of dentist.  However, I don't know of any doctor or dentist that prescribe over the counter medications.  This is the other reason that a flexible spending account is not a loan.  Unlike a loan, you cannot spend it wherever you want.  On a loan, you can spend the money where ever you want.  The only loans that you can't are a care loan or a house loan.


Audits.  This ties in with where you spend the money.  Anytime that you use the money, you are subject to an audit.  They can audit you every time you swipe the card, or they may never audit you at all.  It all up to "them".  What boggles me is why the government tells you where you can spend the money.  Especially when you earn it.  True that they give it to you at the beginning of the year, but if you pay it back then why does it matter where you spend the money?  It's your money and you earned it, yet the government tell you where to spend it!  In my opinion that's totally wrong!  Especially in a free country as we live in.  But that's government for you!


So tell me what you think?  Am I wrong or does what I'm saying have any merit to it at all?

Out Of Control Infringement

So my son is at his school's talent show.  I'm taking pictures and my wife is taking a video.  My son is 11 at the time and he really knows how to rock on a guitar!  Taught himself how to play he did!  It was awesome!  On of the best acts of the night!

So we go home after the show and then my wife decides post the video to Youtube.  No problem right?  Wrong!  Within a day or two I get a letter from Youtube that the video of MY son playing HIS guitar in a video that WE took, might have might violate copyright laws and therefore be copyright infringement!  But how?  This is a personal video!  We took it ourselves!  

So I got in contact with Youtube and asked how this could possibly be copyright infringement if we took the video ourselves!  I didn't add any type of other stuff into the video that would make it infringement!  The answer I got was this.  The video constituted copyright infringement because he was playing to a song that was copyrighted.  Because the song is in the video, even though I didn't add the song to the video personally, it still constitutes infringement!  I was thinking that this certainly couldn't be right!  So I decided to write to a copyright forum and see what they had to say.

I wrote to the forum and told them my situation.  I gave them another scenario that I was taking video around my house and went into my sons room where he was listening to the radio and then I posted the video to youtube and got an infringement letter.  The forums response was the same as Youtube.  They said that as soon as I posted the video with the song in it as public, that it became infringement even if I did not add the song to the video myself!  Simply that the song is in the video alone constitutes infringement.  

So in a nutshell, if you have ever posted a video to Youtube and it has music in it, chances are that you have broken the law, no matter how the music got there.  Unless of coarse you wrote the song yourself!  But is this the best thing for the music industry to be doing?  I mean, do they really need to pursue these copyright claims the way that they are?  Are not the people posting the videos with music in them in a sense promoting someone else's music?

Personally I think that big corporations like Sony and others should just stop heckling us peons about copyright infringement simply because there are way too many videos out there with music on them!  Every minute on Youtube, there is 24 hours worth of video uploaded.   You couldn't hire enough people to go through all that video footage just to see if there if copyrighted material or music on them!  Why even keep trying?  By posting YOUR music in OUR videos we are just helping promote YOUR music!  Essentially we are advertising for them and who doesn't want free advertising?  Corporate America I guess!

Look, when we go buy shoes at a store, no matter how cheap or expensive they are, we are promoting for that company.  Every shoe has at least two ways to identify it.  One is the name of the shoe, and the other is their logo that is incorporated onto the shoe, usually on either side of the shoe!  Same thing for cars.  When you buy a car, not only is the name of the car on the car but that company's logo is also on the car so people will know one way or another what type of car you are driving!  Clothing companies too!  Old Navy does it more than any other company I know of!  I would go as far as to challenge you to go into an Old Navy store and find something that doesn't have the words Old Navy blatantly obvious on their stuff!  It's all over it!  No matter what you buy from Old Navy, people won't even have to ask you where you got it from because it will be so obvious!  

But what if we didn't want to promote their product?  Do we have a choice?  Can I take these companies to court and demand that I don't want their logo or name on their stuff that I wear of theirs?  Probably not!  In most cases I would figure that I would be told to go shop somewhere else!  Not that it bothers me because it doesn't, but if it did then would I have a case?  Why when I don't want to promote a product, I'm forced too, but when I want to promote a song in a video I make, I can't!  That doesn't make a whole lot of sense!  Big companies every year save millions in advertising by making their customers the promoters of their product, yet big music companies get mad at their customers when they post music to homemade videos that might make them more sales in the long run!  Some of the best music I have in my music library is from videos that I saw on Youtube!  I watched a video, heard a song that sounded cool, got that song info and bought a rocking new CD!  And that's how Corporate America should view this!  People want to promote your music!  Why?  Because they like it and they want others to like it too!  They wouldn't post it to their video if they thought that it was trash and not worth listening too!  

Copyright infringement has gotten out of control.  It's so nit picky!  Most people who copyright infringe, don't even know that they are doing so!  If they did, would they really do it?  Highly doubtful!    Give your customers a break!  Look at it from our view!  People are not intending to break the law, but rather they want to promote the music that they love into their videos!  What's wrong with that?  Customers make or break companies.  When companies stab their customers in the back for petty things, that's when you may lose customers!  And you don't want negative customers!  While a happy customer might tell one person about their good experience, an angry customer will tell every person that they come in contact with about their bad experience!  So Corporate America, keep your customers happy and stop being so legalistic! 

Featured Video

So I was looking around on Youtube as sometimes I do, and I noticed this video that was in the "Featured Video" section. Most of the time they have some good things in that section and it's fun to look at some of the stuff that people come up with or what people are doing. However, this video was just too much.

The video title is, "baby eating habañero pepper". I thought, no way. Who would let a baby eat one of the hottest peppers on earth? Bad parents that's who! At first I thought that this must be a fake title. Someone who puts that title on their video to get people to look at it. After all, there is a video floating around Youtube that has almost the same title and when you click on it, the baby is eating a lemon, not a habañero pepper. So I decided to check it out.

At first I could not believe my eyes. There is a guy holding a habañero pepper right next to a baby! I was thinking, no way this guy would stick this in a baby's mouth. But he did! He held down the baby's arms and stuck it in the baby's mouth! Babies will eat anything so why would this be any different? I was in total shock. Who would do this? Why are they doing this? This is child abuse and these people should be put in jail! Those were my thoughts when I saw this video.

What amazes me is that this video is a "Featured Video" on the Youtube website! I don't know how they judge what video's should be "Featured" but this is not one of them! What amazes me even more is that this video has been up on Youtube for almost 4 years and has had over 600,000 hits and is still up and running. To me, that is just uncalled for and should be taken down from Youtube.

You can see the video here.

If you watch this video please report this video to Youtube as child abuse!

The baby eating the lemon but the title says habañero can be seen here.

The $14,000 Word

So I am really confused about this issue over whether the US Government is going to give Christian Lopez a $14,000 "tax liability" over catching Derek Jeter's 3000th hit ball. Why such a high tax liability? Since Christian caught the ball and it marked Derek Jeter's 3000th hit, the Yankee's gave him what they claim is $50,000 dollars worth of "stuff". So what all did they give him? Let's see, four luxury suite tickets for each of the team's remaining home games, including the postseason, three bats, three balls and two jerseys all signed by Jeter. I'm not real sure the total value of all that stuff, but my guess is that all this stuff is overpriced, especially the stuff that is signed. Oh and speaking of overpriced, I forgot to mention that Christian also received front-row seats for Sunday's game, which the Yankee's report sell for up to $1,358.90 each. If that's not overpriced then I don't know what is.

Now here's where this tax liability becomes really tricky. It's going to be up to the Yankee's and how they classify what they gave to Christian as. If the Yankee's say that what they gave Christian was a prize for catching Jeter's 3000th ball, then he could, and most likely will, get slammed with this $14,000 tax liability. However, if they say that what they gave him was a gift then he won't get the tax liability. Yes, that's right, all this comes down to one simple word. But which one are the Yankee's going to use?

In reality, either word would be correct. So let's look at each definition.

PRIZE - a reward for victory or superiority, as in a contest or competition. Was it a contest? Not really! A competition? Only in the sense that tons of people were all going to the same ball at the same time and it came down to who got the ball first! So in this sense, the Yankee's could say that Christian was given some prizes for catching the ball.

GIFT - something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; present. When reading this definition, you know that what the Yankee's did for Christian was to "honor an occasion". Did they expect payment for what they gave Christian? No sir! They fully gave all this stuff to Christian without expecting anything in return. So in this sense, the Yankee's could say that Christian was given some gifts for catching the ball.

Like I said, either one is right, but which one is right to tell the US Government? In my opinion, the Yankee's should classify all the stuff that they gave Christian as gifts! No one wants to be all excited to receive some stuff from your favorite team, just to be slapped in the face by the US Government with a $14,000 tax. If it were me, I would probably wish that I was never at the game. Not an image that the Yankee's would want on any fan. Also, I know that Christian has stated that he will ask his parents for help with the $14,000 if it comes down to that, but what if they don't help or have the money? Then Christian would most likely have to sell some of the stuff that he got for free. Oh but it wouldn't be selling, rather giving it away because the money that he gets is going right back to Uncle Sam. I guess that's what they mean when they say that free stuff really isn't free.

I just hope that the Yankee's make the right decision in whatever decision that they make. If they don't then your going to have people all over the US screaming foul.