Root beer

First off, those countries have government subsidies, for the most part. The price of crude is priced worldwide. Meaning, our imports and exports doesn't necessary matter, in theory. Oil is traded on the NYMEX index. If we ramped up productions here in the U.S., and price falls which causes demand to increase the price goes right back up, In theory. What most people fail to understand, crude oil is used in many, many industries not just for cars. Oil is refined into gasoline, and other products used in many other industries. For simplicity sake, an exploration company will drill it out of the ground, and sell it to a refinery; the refinery would then refine it into gasoline which then sells it to a distributor or wholesaler who then sells it to the gas station. The product itself exchanges hands a few times before it reaches consumers and each time it exchange hands the price slightly increase so the previous owner can net a profit. Then you add on federal, state, local taxes and there your price of gasoline. The refinery can refine it into other useful products, not just gasoline. Sunoco has a refinery operation in Mid-Atlantic area and they have lost $3 billion dollars over a 3 year span. Many analyst projections if they cannot sell off that huge refinery, we're going see the price of gas go up... Now that I got that part out of the way, the U.S. dollars are directly tied to oil, for the most part. As our dollar becomes unstable, if you will, the price of oil will become, uh, unstable… haha. It an imperfect, complex economic society we live in today. In my opinion, we won’t see oil stabilize until U.S. dollar becomes stable, alternative fuel is available, and/or government subsidies. Plus you have increasing demand in emerging markets, and countries like India and China are turning into modern day United States in term of using gasoline. That doesn’t help the world’s oil price.

I can't pee to save my life if someone is next to me at the urinal. It just as bad if someone standing behind me waiting.. I just go into the stall. I don't know why. I don't like idea of someone (both sexes) watching me do my business, it just makes me uncomfortable for some reason.

Way to take it out of context! When I do drink soda it's either root beer, cherry coke, or mellow yellow.

I don't always drink soda, but when I do I hold the ice. I don't drink soda due to fact it doesn't hydrate you in the way water, gatorade, or electrolytes drinks do. I'm an active person and I've noticed soda tends to make me drag my arse around compare to drinking water or gatorade most of the day. I still drink it when I go out to eat sometimes, but I don't buy it for my fridge. I don't drink coffee, so I'll get a soda out of a machine or get black tea for my source caffeine if I really need it.

I wish I could get a notification if someone deletes me. That way I can "like" it.

I'm not switching to it. I've seen it on other people's profile and I don't like it.. If I get force to switch I'll probably delete facebook.

Tell your mother prior to coming to college I didn't know the difference between all the financial statements nor how to read one. Now I'm borderline genius at it! Just because she thinks you are not "mechanical savvy" at it right now, doesn't mean you will be at end of the schooling. Then with experience and people teaching you, you'll become mechancial savvy. Working on big toys like that sounds cool. Best of luck, man.

We don't have football at my school, but we got a pretty decent soccer team and the atmosphere is awesome! I don't watch professional soccer on TV or anything. I look forward to the world cup, although. Both men and women, it can get intense in the last few minutes when there a potential game tying or winning shot.

Shake your nephew's hand for me.

It touch down an hour from us and we had warnings all night, but never touch down here. Reminds me of living in Tuscaloosa County. lol.

I was reading this today and thought it was pretty cool: http://www.etsu.edu/calendar/EventList.aspx?view=EventDetails&eventidn=9040&information_id=34264&type=&syndicate=syndicate "ETSU’s performance is noteworthy, since 70-80 percent of mutual funds underperform their benchmarks every year. Over the past three years, ETSU’s portfolio has returned an annualized 21 percent relative to the Standard & Poor’s 14 percent." I think it shows how well our students are taught in the business department here.

Let's do it! Let bring good image back to the trades. This will be our theme song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJGHVYPG_HY&feature=related

"No one wants to admit when they have done something wrong or really screwed someone over and I was no exception. I took the cowards’ way out and didn't look back...even though it ended badly, don't think I used you that summer. I was your friend and was really honest with you. Which in some ways I think what scared me the most was the fact that I told you EVERYTHING. I look back and don't even remember that girl....and to be honest I don't really want to." That what she said. I took it pretty hard for awhile after she cut ties with me. The pain faded with time, but the disappointed feeling of what could have been lingers from time-to-time. That without getting too personal. Screw it, I'm just going get through this last week of school before spring break and deal with it then. Thanks for the advice, guys.

Hypothetically, if you had a girl you deeply cared about that randomly messaged you out of the blues after two years and apologized for the way things ended, lack of closures and way she acted the last time, how would you respond? Or even respond at all?

I had maybe 3 teachers that told us the reality of college in high school. The workload was nowhere compared to what I do in college. My first year I got slapped by reality of what college is going to be like. Public school system in my area too busy telling kids they need go to college without really preparing them for the course load and responsibility. I think they need prepared everyone the responsibility and workload then after high school whichever path they choose whether trade, college, or nothing they would at least have some exposure and experience of what to expect before they get slap in the face and decide to quit. I've seen it happen where a former classmate breeze through high school and got slap in the face by college and gave up, sad. (far as I'm concern he isn't getting any job training nor continuing his education.)

I'm pro-legalization. I follow the issues in every aspect. Should the government ever allow it, I think I have found me an industry.

I mentioned this in one of my I hate college thread. I was 18 years old sailing across the Caribbean not sure what I wanted out of my life. I almost went to a trade school in Florida to learn how to work on boat engines, so I can work on boats all day then go fishing on them to make sure I did my job. I look into welding (i took it in high school and thought it was relaxing), I look into some other trades. Somehow, deep down inside of me I felt I was destined to run a business. My old man pushed me to look into trades, my high school guidance counselors and teachers pushed me to go to college. I was torn between which paths to take. 3.5 years later, I'm about to graduate with B.B.A. in Accounting. My brother is the first one in our family to graduate from college, he has a degree in economic working as a cable guy for Comcast. he said he loves every minute of it. He started out working in sales fresh out of college. He enjoyed it for a year or so then after awhile he started to hate it due to people above him and the clients he had to deal with. He moved to Indiana with his new wife and got on with Comcast installing cable. It made my dad a little aggravated because my dad also responsible for some of my brother's loan and my brother doing something that he didn't go to school for. Fortunately, I'm in school on a scholarship. My biggest fear right now, is I'm get into the real world of accounting and hate it. Simply because I don't like the mentality of corporations. I just got find me a niche in the accounting field that I'll enjoy and hopefully run a business whether it my own or as an executive. Sometimes when I'm sitting here doing homework, I wish I could be doing something with my hand outside. The satisfaction of a job well done with your hand is something to be proud of. What I'm doing? Just crunching numbers to assist people in decision-making. Don't get me wrong a lot of my analysis and procedures will help people's businesses flourish. That along is something to hang your hat on. I just hope I find happiness in the real world instead of being some mindless sheep going on a 9-to-5 grind doing same ol' **** day-after-day. I really encourage all high school students to look deeply into themselves and decide what would make them happy, not what society wants them to be. There not one thing wrong with going to trade school and learning to be a working man with your hands. Not one thing wrong with it. College isn't all that crack up to be...and you can be very successful without going to college.

I don't know the terms left on your mortgage, size of your household, size of your house, nor standard of living in your area but bear with me here. What if you took option 1, pay off as much mortgage as possible with the 150k in savings.(maybe even all of it?) Then you can have 90k a year with no debt, plus 400k in reserve money. (It be nice to be retired with no debt obligation.) Pretty soon you qualify for medicare, but I no nothing about coverages and price of that (your wife should be able to get it when she gets S.S.). Then, depending on size of your household and current house you and your wife could sell the house with no debt on it at a later date and move into something smaller with that money and if anything left it will increase your reserve money. 90k a year be pretty good to live off of depending on the standard of living in your area. It be much more beneficial if you set up a retirement budget of things you expect to spend on remaining of your retirement. Start with the necessity then explore other options that are/could be cheaper. Spend an entire week calling every insurance agent in your area gathering every information possible about best coverages for the price. After you do that you can start exploring wants and cost of those wants.(fishing trips, yearly vacations, etc) Use both options to see how much money would remain and how much cash you can have on reserve for if something comes up. Another thought, if you choose option 1, you get 90k a year you could withdraw 20k from the 400k pool which equal to 110k a year for the next 20 years. Which is 10k less than option 2 per year. This assume you stick to a budget and plan/spend carefully. Then when your wife retires you can add her S.S. into current budget which will increase by whatever amount she gets. I think it will just boil down to your lifestyle and how much you need and want to spend per year.

Just watch the movie. It's crazy!! I'm sure there a lot of small and medium size farms or even some large farms that don't use the product mention in the documentary, but the companies that were stated in the documentary got me wondering about it so much and worries me.

Has anyone seen Food Inc? I watched it last night on Netflix and it sounds insanely crazy and terrifying...

It don't work. However, studying then being high to rid anxiety then taking test next day has been proven to achieve a score of a 90, twice. So I've heard. I've also heard it helps you get in zone on certain topics when it comes to writing papers. As long as it's proofread before turning it in.

Alcohol sucks. With that said, I went to a bikini contest the night before a final exam and showed up at an accounting final reek of smoke and booze. Ah, good times. I made an A in that accounting class. That was last year and the last accounting class I made an A in. Last semester I ended up with two Cs and all Bs. Screw Federal Income!

I say that all the time...Yet, people still spend billions on certain food that helps you lose weight, etc. Cycling does wonder for the soul. And your weight!! For me, fishing is fun, but I don't find it as a great stress reliever as it once was. Cycling and backpacking makes me feel better and keeps me healthy. (until I crash my bike.) Cycling, backpacking, and fishing. What a life. For bonus point, do some backpacking in the Smoky Mountain while carrying a fly rod for backcountry trout fishing. They see no pressure (unless you count the bears) and the hardcore fishermen are not always willing walk that far or do that kind of walk. The hardest hiking for backcountry trout fishing will be the Linville Gorge in Western North Carolina. It's not for the faint of heart, but the Linville river is worth all the work hiking up and down the mountain to get to it. Edit; I forgot to add this link; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linville_Gorge_Wilderness Read the Hunting/Fishing section. My hiking partner carried his rod with him when I visited this place in November. He caught one. I've been looking for some rod/reel combo to carry backpacking.

Here one I hear often on a day like today. It grinds my gear when someone say, "I hate Monday." I find it stupid to have a mood base on day of week it is. I dictate a good day base on what going happen, not the actual day. Today is a beautiful day, it only so-so because I'm still on crutches and I'm spending it inside doing accounting rather than enjoying the beautiful day outside..

Go to www.topix.com and put in your local zip code then go to discussion. That should be enough said...I get amused, and disgusted by the amount of craziness and ignorant people that runs amok on that site. Makes me never wanna go back to the town I went to high school. On other hand, it's probably like that nearly everywhere else...