Hey everyone, get out your party favors and hats, it’s time for another recession!

Okay, so maybe you can skip on the party favors and hats…and, cake and ice cream, and don’t even think about buying take-home treats.  Who has enough food to go around anyways these days?  No, it’s no 1929, welcome to 2008!  So, where does the soup line start around here? (Looks around)

Alright, so it probably won’t get that bad, but I’ve been reading articles all day, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the Dow Jones will have to fall 6000 more points, and the housing market prices will have to fall by 50% before this recession corrects itself, otherwise we can all say buh-bye to our 401K.  And, for those who are lucky enough to just be out of college and just starting our 401K, we can say HURRAH FOR CASH!

I personally am considering becoming a hippie, but then I look at my finances and realize:

LOL.

Eh, scratch that idea.

So this past weekend I visited where I used to work at Illinois State University (ISU) and my parents house.  It was actually a really relaxing weekend overall.  Then, when I was driving home I saw a bunch of cars all over the side of the road. Not all at once like a car wreck or something, but every mile or so there would be another car on the side of the road.  It didn’t take very long before I realized what they were all stopping for:

And, that is just with my cellphone.  It felt like a scene from a movie:  I’m driving down the highway, and I see a Mustang up ahead - parked, alongside the road.  A woman is leaning against it, away from the traffic, throwing what looks like fruit snacks in the air and catching it like popcorn.  A guy is lying on the hood, his hands behind his head, facing the sun.  The sunset was so beautiful yesterday.  Not even a truck could ruin the sight:

This is actually my favorite picture, truck and all.  I like it because you can see the reflection of the pure darkness in my side mirror.  Just forget about the fact that it looks like I’m have a SEIZURE while taking that picture, obviously, I was driving so I couldn’t line it up- ah well.

I only wish I would have left slightly earlier from my parents house, so that I could have got a picture of the sunset as I went past the HUGE wind farm on my way back.  Unfortunately, by the time I got there all you could see was the blinking red lights in the darkness, signaling to any aircraft that there are windmills present.

Oh well.  I don’t know what everyone is getting so upset about for this market thing.  I’ll just be wheeling my coworkers in on wheelchairs at this rate in 15 years or so - no big deal.

I’m just going to sit back, relax, ride out this market, and hope for another beautiful sunset tomorrow.

So today was spent in Six Flags, Great America, with 40 other new-hires for the company that I work for!  It was fun, especially when the HR person started reading off the list of stuff that we couldn’t bring into the park and it included “no nuclear warfare” and “no Ace of Base”.  I mean, I understand the no Ace of Base, but nuclear warefare…?  Just kidding, of COURSE Ace of Base wasn’t on the list, but it should have been!

It was really fun, mainly because the group of us went on most of the roller coasters and had no problem zipping through the lines.

Since I forgot my camera, we can just pretend that I took the above picture! Oooooo, ahhhhhhh. So first I wanted to talk about the Superman ride at Great America, as the picture shows above. That was the last one we went on, and after that ride I think I was done with coasters for the day. The standing-up coaster was bad enough (called the Iron Wolf, it was horrible), but this one really topped the cake.

There was literally NOTHING hold you to the coaster but the harness, and most of the time I felt as if the harness was going to snap open and that I was going to fly out.  The standing-up one was alright, you weren’t really ’standing up’ in every sense of the word, more like straddling a seat that adjusted to your height and in a standing position (although you could just sit in the seat if you wanted too).

In a word: FUN.

Well, besides the asshole.  If I had to give an Asshole-of-the-Day award, it would’ve gone to him.  Sooooo, the Asshole-of-the-Day Award goes to the guy two people in front of me standing in line for water!

“Hey look,”  A young boy in front of me in line says, pointing to a sign with ‘THE EAGLE’ written and a giant picture of a bird on it.  He adds, “It’s a hawk!”

He turns around to see his parents didn’t hear him, they are fussing with a baby in a stroller about 10 feet away.

“Very good,”  I say, nodding at him and smiling.  He turns around and grins at me with his I’m-gonna-have-braces-in-high-school smile.

“It’s an eagle,”  Asshole-award-guy deadpans; he looks over his shoulder at the boy who is now frowning.

“Come on man, the kid is what, ten?”  I say quietly to the guy so the boy doesn’t hear.  He just shrugs and steps up for his turn at the vendor.

Here’s your award, asshole!

However, I think the best conversation of the day was when we passed by a Papa Johns (yeah they have those at Six Flags too), and they were handing out samples.  I pop one into my mouth.

“Ma’am,” A guy with a clipboard appears out of nowhere, “You just tried one of our new flavors here at Six flags, BBQ chicken, how was it?”

I brush him off, and we continue along the path.

“Oh, please allow me to respond with this tactical nuclear device,”  I say in an undertone to a coworker, Rachel.

“I think that’s illegal in 47 countries,”  She quips. “Including Puerto Rico.”

Well, it was worth a shot.