And just taking a wild assed guess...I'd have to think this country's major downfall right now is defaulted mortgages. All of those ARM's are maturing to a whopping big house payment. When I look around Vegas and Pittsburgh, I see foreclosed homes everywhere. They are wasted resources.
Why can't the government bailout the homeowners that fell for those questionable loans ? Wouldn't that trickle upward ? FHA loans used to be the best deal around. I say, populate these empty houses with people. Make home ownership affordable. Offer consumers a way out. A buy out of bad loans could save the banks.

Its been a long life of disasterous things happening
For me, I grew up in a shack with an outhouse. I enjoyed those times, but the news was full of  Hippies ,  Flower Children ,  LSD ,  Vietnam War ,  Racial Wars  and the  Kent State shootings . Then it went on to  Food Shortages ,  Stagflation ,  Oil Spills  and  Gas shortages . Then there was the horrible  Aids  and the  Ebola  viruses. In Vegas, the  Mgm Grand Fire  killed 100 people. There was the  Gulf War . The  '.com' bubble  broke. In this decade, there was the fear of  Y2K  which ended up doing nothing, and the  Twin Towers  which ended up changing a lot of things. I'd guess Wall Street going bonkers isn't that interesting. I have camping gear with me. If everything crashes, we're going camping! YEA!

Well, I just can't talk about. All I can say is, we deal with the stock market, and as you probably know already, the stock world is crashing to its knees. Work aside, I'm getting that same strange feeling that I had after I saw those planes crash into the twin towers. I just know everything is going to change.
We haven't caught much of the news lately.
We've been too busy checking out our new environment to be that bored.
Sometimes, I think ignorance is bliss.
Maybe I'd rather not know that the one-way trail we all are walking down ends at a cliff. I'd assume that somehow, all of the credit so lavishly acquired and abruptly defaulted upon, will be forgiven. I should have borrowed the maximums. I didn't though. I would think the the sound of Lehman Brothers crashing is the sound made by money going into the pockets of the middle class, all cashing in on their home equity loans, then heading off to bankruptcy court. I just wonder how houses got over inflated in value in the first place.
If someone told me my $80,000 home was worth $1,000,000
wouldn't I be crazy not to borrow against its equity, then default on the loan? For those that did, my hats off to ya floating around the waters in your yatchs. For all of us others that have pride in ownership I say, "should of, could have, but didn't".

They're comin! Ahhhh....I went home for lunch. I'm in the mountains and it only took 6 minutes.
You just can't beat that!!!

Its on a hill side in the forest. Our sliding glass door opens up to an open patio where theres a sloped yard, lots of trees and a creek. We expect to see plenty of wild life, like deer and racoon. What makes this location really great is, when we look through the forest, there's some shimming lights. They come from a shopping center with a Giant Eagle, Taco Bell, KFC, an interesting restaurant/bar and some very interesting shops. We can take a trail down the hill and through the forest we can cross over a bridge and a highway, and be shopping in 10 minutes. It's only 6 minutes from work.
Some of the people I've met live nearby on ranches
One girl complained about her two horses. She said all they ever do with them is feed them. The damage caused by the pollutants decades ago has hurt the nutrients in the soil, so they have to feed the horses hay and grain.
The days are shorter here, due to the hills.
So driving to work is shady and bright. The air is humid. The weather is perfect when its 60 degrees. At 90 degrees, going outside is almost intolerable. I'd expect this winter will be rough, with lots of slushy snow.
Last Sunday, 70 mph winds blew down power lines all over Pittsburgh. A lot of areas are having to boil their water. Tree limbs are in the roads. Some of the high shrubbery has been blown flat to the ground.
This morning, the fog was so thick, I could hardly see the stop lights.
I LIKE IT.

- my internet mail is slower than real mail
- a sneak peek at a TV episode on http://www.tnt.tv takes an hour
- http://www.LVDude.com  takes a minute to load
- If I watch a video on http://www.YouTube.com , all I get three pictures
If the pop-ups are mostly all I get, why can't google be a pop-up.
Sorry if I haven't posted much lately. Lately, I get all of my email on my IPhone.
It all works out though. There's been so much to be done here that I've hardly had time for internet.

We had 70 mph winds Sunday. Power lines and trees went down everywhere.
Schools were closed on Monday. People were being told to boil their water in some areas.
The best story I've heard so far about it:
A coworker attended his brother-in-law's wedding that day. Twelve of them were in a basement watching a football game in their Tuxedos. When the power went out, it went completely black.
I couldn't imagine that. In all my travels, in all my experiences, I've never watched a football game with a bunch of other guys. It sounded GREAT!

Its a train and its going 60 mph..
Our track ends after 40 million miles, where our ride takes us off the side of a mountain in the clouds.
We know it ends, but we don't care. On our ride, we can look out the window at all of the beautiful things.
We can't become a part of them because our train won't stop.
But we can love all that we see.
And it is beautiful.

- Weightlifting: 'This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing.'
- Dressage: 'This is really a lovely horse and I speak from personal experience since I once mounted her mother.'
- Paul Hamm: 'I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father.'
- Boxing: 'Sure there have been injuries, and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious.'
- Softball: 'If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again.'
- Basketball: 'He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn't like it. In fact you can see it all over their faces.'
- Rowing medal ceremony: 'Ah, isn't that nice, the wife of the IOC president is hugging the cox of the British crew.'
- Soccer: 'Julian Dicks is everywhere. It's like they've got eleven Dicks on the field.'
- Tennis: 'One of the reasons Andy is playing so well is that, before the final round, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them...
Oh my God, what have I just said?'

  

The job is GREAT !
I'm in a small shop on the fifth floor. They have three perm Tandem people.
We ended up at the Intown Suites.
Its a week-to-week rental, but it's pretty nice.
We've been combing the streets of Pittsburgh, searching for the best sights.
It looks like we may have to go far to see the best of this area.
So far, we've seen the
- River Walk along the Allegheny River
- Mt Washington with a spectacular view of Pittsburgh
- Pennsylvania's 2nd largest mall
- Been all over downtown
We've seen some pretty historical areas.
I'd guess that most people would find this town to be too old,
But we've been enjoying its nostalgia.

LIFE IS GOOD!

Waldorf apartments: 888-848-8107, 103 McKnight Circle, Pittsburgh, PA  15237, $527-$750,
http://pittsburgh.apartmentfinder.com/Pittsburgh-Apartments/Waldorf-Park-Apartments
Its near work. It looks a little run down, but there's several buildings on that hill that look interesting.
Allegheny Center Apartments: (412) 231-3400, Allegheny Center Mall, Pittsburgh, PA 15212, $590, Heating/Cooling,
http://www.alleghenycenter.com/apartments/
Its near downtown, but I'm not sure what to think about it yet. There was one park in front of it with about 50 black people, and another park next to that with about 30 white people. I don't know if that means anything or not, but my gut instincts tell me 'run'.
Presidential Arms, 888-260-8422, 9815 Presidential Drive, Allison Park, PA
http://www.apartmentfinder.com/Allison-Park-Apartments/Presidential-Arms-Apartments
Its near work, but the drive takes awhile because it winds down a 25 mph backstreet. It looks like frat houses. Each buidling has a name, like Beta House, and it reminded me of Animal House.
InTown Suites: (412) 931-6624, 4595 McKnight Rd, Pittsburgh, PA 15237,$229.99 weekly
http://www.intownsuites.com/
No, they don't look like this in Pittsburgh. The plus is, all utilities are included. The minus is, they are very small.
Hickory Hills: (866) 517-5273,100 Arthur Dr, Wexford, PA 15090, $610