The Self-Employed

This is my therapy for the day, so here it goes. We rent some commercial spaces to businesses. So far, they are all self-employed individuals with maybe one or two subcontractors that help them. Don't get me wrong, I'm self-employed. It has its positives and negatives, but it works for me. Most of the self-employed people that I've encountered with these rentals should NOT be self-employed. And it's becoming more and more evident as the recession hits Austin. They were barely making it in easy times and here come the hard times. With nobody to tell them to work, they don't. Or they chose very particular times to work (3 hours a day). Why do they not understand that this isn't going to hack it? And paying their landlord rent is apparently not a concern. Or, at the most, at the very bottom of the list. Do you people not understand that this is part of our income, our job? MAYBE YOU SHOULD GO GET A JOB. A 9-5 job with an employer and a paycheck.

Our Kids are Getting Bigger

I am a strong believer in kids getting p.e. in school. Not only do we need to begin to teach kids to NOT sit on the couch all day and eat fast food, but physical education and sports teach so many skills, including discipline, concentration, responsibility and sportsmanship. Parents are obviously not doing their jobs, so once again, we have to try to rely on the schools to do it.

Richard Simmons is trying again to get the FIT Kids bill passed with the No Child Left Behind bill that's being rewritten by Congress in March 2009. You can learn how to write your congressperson Here.

Statistics (we should be ashamed of ourselves!):
3.8 % of elementary schools & 2.1 % of high schools had daily gym class in 2006, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Approximately 15% of teens in the U.S. are overweight.
The rate of overweight children and teens has tripled in the last 20 years.
Research shows that school-based programs can increase physical activity and improve nutrition among students.

You don't need these statistics to tell you what's going on. Look at the kids around your kids' schools or at the mall or at resturants. And then look at their parents.

This is totally off the subject (but involves Richard Simmons), and this is one of the funniest You Tubes I've ever seen: