Tripping Tuesdays

Cars Are the Biggest Highway Safety Threat

2013-08-19T12:48:00.001-04:00

Just in case it's hard for any readers to understand this infographic, it states that fatality rates for all vehicles have actually dropped over the past 35 years. For fatal truck-car crashes in 2010, the car crossed the center line 87 percent of the time in head-on collisions. In a rear-end collisions, the car hit the truck 76 percent of the time.

Infographic from overdriveonline.com

The government needs to lay off the truck drivers. All these new safety regulations are ridiculous, and only being put in place to stop truck drivers from earning a decent wage. Don't be fooled: It's not about safety. Look at the facts above. It's not the truckers that cause most of the accidents, it's regular car drivers, like you and me.

I'm sure you've noticed the rise in the price of your food over the past 5 years. At first, this rise was caused by high diesel prices. It cost more for the driver to get the food and products across the country, and the costs were put on the consumer. I don't expect those diesel prices to go down anytime soon, which is a problem in and of itself, but you can expect the prices to continue to rise because now we have to worry about all the new regulations being put on drivers and the shippers. If their profits are cut into, those costs are turned over to the consumer.

The newest set of rules are called "hours of service" rules and they went into effect on July 1, 2013, making it a requirement that truckers may only take their 34-hour restart once every 7 days. They are also required to take a half hour break within 8 hours of driving. However, they are not allowed to take this half hour break if they are sitting at a shipper waiting to be loaded or unloaded (most times loading and unloading a truck can take several hours). They already had a rule to take a 10 hour break each day/night. So what's with these new regulations?

It appears that our government has a lot of time on its hands, and we're paying people in government to write up ridiculous rules like this. I think it's a travesty. I am sick and tired of having to pay high prices for food and other items for my family.

Professional truck drivers need to be respected. The job isn't easy. They are away from their families for weeks at a time, locked up and alone in a box that's smaller than your bedroom. Many have to go days without a hot shower, and clean clothes, or a good, home-cooked meal. Things you take for granted because you're home every night.

Remember: We all depend on truckers. Even the nimrods in government, although they like to pretend they don't.

Magic Kids USA - Is it a Scam?

2012-05-10T13:39:00.002-04:00

Today I received a very interesting 16-page letter in the mail attempting to entice me to "buy" in to a business opportunity with an online children's wholesale company called Magic Kids USA. The letter is signed by Isaac Mizrahi, of all people. Now I don't know about you, but I've heard of Isaac Mizrahi, who is a well known designer. Is this the same guy, or is the real writer name-dropping in order to make me trust the letter's contents?

I perused the letter, and let me tell you, 16 pages is a lot of reading. Yes, most of what is said is repeated various times throughout the letter, but I was curious, so I took the time to go through it. The first thing I noticed are the words: "no selling"; "no risk"; "50% profits"; "life-changing". With words like that, anyone would be intrigued. Plus, I'm like most of you and hungry for some extra money in this shoddy economy, so a business opportunity with the potential for high profits that involves no selling really appealed to me.

I then read further. In order to be an exclusive Magic Kids Circular Distributor and receive a special Magic Kids cash-producing kit, I have to submit a "small good-faith deposit of $89." Okay, so I knew this was too good to be true. To me, $89 is a lot of money, especially for something I've never even heard about.

Of course the letter says I can get that money back if I don't earn "at least $3,000 within the first 60 days." But I'm curious how they would know I did anything at all in those 60 days? What if I sat on my ass and never tried to distribute circulars? Would they still give me my money back?

I realize that people prey on others all the time, especially through email, and I have paid in on scams unknowingly in the past. This makes me very suspicious of letters like this. It's possible this business opportunity is completely legit -- and there IS a valid web address, but the deposit of $89 up front is highly suspicious. I don't know why I have to pay anything at all to be hired in to distribute this guy's circulars.

I did some research online and there appears to be all sorts of people questioning the validity of this 16-page letter. It's not a new business opportunity. The dates I found go all the way back to 2006. At that time, the deposit to join was much higher. It has lowered over the years to the $89. I believe in 2008, the letter asked for a $147 deposit up front! Imagine that.

I also noticed that the company has a bad Better Business Bureau rating: in fact, it's an F rating. That's quite questionable, isn't it? I've always been told that a business's BBB rating is important. To receive an F means that the business doesn't honor many things, has numerous unsolved complaints, and probably has poor products.

Enough said. What I've read really puts me on notice. Hopefully, if you've received such a letter, it puts you on notice too.

To me, this opportunity stinks of suspicion.

No, I won't be sending in any money on this scammy opportunity, but I'm curious if anyone else has tried it, and sent in the deposit money. If you have, would you be so kind as to comment below and let me know what happened?

Depression is a Vampire

2012-04-18T10:37:00.002-04:00

For the past several months I have been suffering from depression. When I am depressed, I lose the ability to write cohesively. I want to apologize to my readers for this time-out period, but please understand it was beyond my control.

I have suffered from depression and mania (bipolar disorder) and anxiety most of my life. I have been labeled with a whole host of disorders since I was a wee little one. Although it's been very hard for me to write this post (in fact, I'm on Day 3 of typing and editing this), I'm going to try to tell you all how I have been feeling lately.

I have felt very listless. I have felt very tired, but I can't sleep.

I even felt gloomy, unless the sun was shining, and then I only felt okay. If it's raining, watch out, because I couldn't bear to get up out of bed. My joints ached. My heart ached.

I barely had an appetite. Strangely, I have been only able to eat Bosco Sticks every day. When I eat them, I have to eat them with a tall glass of hot green tea flavored with honey. Everything else is bland and boring. I could barely stand to chew.

I had a bunch of favorite television shows that I taped on the DVR, but I haven't been able to watch any of them. The numbers next to their titles on the DVR Menu were adding up each week. I'm now behind 4 weeks of House, 5 weeks of Celebrity Apprentice and 4 weeks of Ghost Adventures. I'm sure ignorant people believe depressed individuals are couch potatoes, but for the past month and a half I couldn't even sit in front of the television long enough to watch any of my shows. My thoughts wandered continuously, and I couldn't focus.

Depression is a vampire that slowly drains a person of their life blood. It not only affected me, it has affected everyone around me. My husband, my children, my friends.

Many of you may wonder, if I was diagnosed so long ago, why don't I have this disorder under control.

Well, it's not that simple.

The trouble for me is two-fold. If the medication works, it causes side effects.

Depakote is one of those medications. It's as old as the hills in bipolar treatment. It was the first mood stabilizer I was ever put on. It works wonders for my mood. It keeps me stable. It makes me play nice. But...and this is a big but...it causes extensive weight gain and hair loss. My sister and I have joked that Depakote makes you fat and bald. That, in itself, can cause depression. And then treatment becomes a vicious circle.

Over the years I have been on: Tegretol, Topamax, Risperdal, Zyprexa, and Lamictal. Each one causing some horrible side effect. Tegretol gave me headaches; Topamax made me lose too much weight and I was in a fog most of the time; Risperdal made me too tired to work; Zyprexa made me jittery and shaky; and, Lamictal caused a light rash.

Last fall, after years of being off and on various mood stabilizing medications, I was taken off everything. I actually felt good about the decision. I wanted to believe there was no such thing as bipolar disorder. I wanted to believe I could cure myself.

My good mood lasted for several months.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. I was delusional. There is no cure for bipolar disorder. I was just in remission, as my psychiatrist called it. My experiment didn't work. I fell into a depressive episode shortly after Christmas.

I also started having sleep issues and anxiety, and was put on Trazodone.

Now my therapist has added Saphris, a newer sublingual mood stabilizer. The first few days on Saphris were scary for me because of the delivery mode of the medication. One doesn't swallow a pill with a glass of water. Instead a chalk-like pill is put under the tongue and it is allowed to dissolve slowly. It tastes horrible.

But amazingly: it is working.

I'm slowly coming back to life. So far the side effects have been minimal. The biggest issue I have is what time I take the medication. I have to take the pill early in the night and make sure I get at least 10 hours of sleep, or it's very difficult to get up in the morning.

Thankfully, I had a few posts that were prepared ahead of time that published in the month of March. This is my first post for the month of April. I really hope that I can continue to push forward.

I hope that you all don't mind my opening up here about my struggles with depression. I realize my blog was never meant to be a personal expose of my feelings or of my family, but I hope my readers will stick around to get to know me anyway.

I welcome your comments.