Turn Your Cheap Apartment Balcony Into a Private Garden

Any tall plants like tomatoes that grow in containers create privacy for you.

If there is one thing everyone hates about living in an apartment building it is the lack of privacy. You always hear your neighbors no matter how hard you try to mask their sounds. And if you are lucky enough to have a balcony it faces someone else's balcony. Or, worse, your balcony faces a busy road.

We Must Change the World or Be Left Behind

The world is ever changing. We must help to make it better.

History is one of my favorite topics. That should be obvious from the name of this blog. I love reading about history and how things have changed over time. Humanity has been here on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years. And yet it's only the last 10-15,000 years that have been interesting. It's almost as if our ancestors were complacent. They had plenty of food to eat. If they could not find enough then they wandered until they found a new home. What an idyllic life that must have been. And yet I would not trade the modern conveniences of my life for a single day in prehistoric Africa.

This is My Favorite Scrambled Egg Recipe

The humble egg has taken it on the chin.  We grew up eating scrambled eggs, bacon, and grits.  By the time I was an adult all that changed.  Eggs were supposedly the greatest source of cholesterol and therefore were bad for you.  I'm happy to report that recent science says all that anti-cholesterol stuff was wrong.  And I always wondered why mama birds would put bad stuff into their eggs.  They were supposed to be nurturing their chicks, after all.

How To Improve Your Self Esteem

What do we mean by "self-esteem"?  A quick check of the dictionary tells you that self-esteem is "confidence in one's own worth or abilities; self-respect".  I think that's too vague.  Self-esteem is more than just how much you value yourself.  Self-esteem is also how you value yourself.  I learned to differentiate between how I value myself and how others value me in several ways.  I'd like to share them with you.

How I Reduce Stress without Spending a Lot of Money

As a commuter I learned to destress by avoiding the worst of the traffic jams on my way to work.  I did that by trial and error because before we had smartphones to tell us what the fastest route to work is we had to buy big map books and plot our routes.  I found that driving through certain neighborhoods helped me relax.  I think driving on streets where the speed limit is slower than the highway also makes the experience of driving slowly more relaxing.  When you see a speed limit sign that says "65" and traffic is going 35 miles per hour, you feel like time is being stolen from you.

Where Should You Live for the Next Apocalypse?

Whether you believe in Biblical prophecies or not, the world has ended for "life as [we] know it" five or six times over the past few hundred million years.  Along with the passionate religious teachers, passionate scientists insist that sometime in the near future the world as we know it may come to an end.  Of course, they are talking about global warming, which may trigger another mass extinction event like the one which saw most of the dinosaurs die off 65 million years ago.  We have about 100 years left on the current civilization clock before sea levels have risen to the point where whole countries will vanish.

Global Warming is the Threat We All Face Together

I am tired of reading about how Republican politicians are unwilling to accept the reality of global warming.  These guys are putting their political donations ahead of the futures of their children and grand-children.  How idiotic and short-sighted do you have to be to be a Republican?

A Quick Lesson in How to Play Blackjack

I love the game of Blackjack.  In my opinion it is the easiest casino game to learn how to play and it is also the least stressful.  Blackjack is considered by many people to be the game where you have the best chance to beat the casino if you play your cards well.  And I don't mean if you count cards.  Card counting is hard and I don't recommend it.  You should play the game because you enjoy it and want to stay in the game for a while.

Republican Party Seems Set on Destroying the American Republic

Maybe my title is a bit over the top but I really think these guys are about as unAmerican as you can get in American politics.  Let's take Ted Cruz's crazy tax plan as an example.  According to a non-partisan analysis, Cruz's proposed plan would cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars.  This is how you reduce the deficit?  To make ends meet he would have to fire about 500,000 government employees.  Can imagine the chaos that would ensue?

How We can Achieve Great Things One Step at a Time

There's always an inspiring story waiting to be told and appreciated.  I love to read about people who rise up from the ranks to become leaders and successful business owners.  Here is a fantastic story I came across that really leaves me wanting to get out there and work hard.

But first let me set the stage for you.  Imagine a world where you have to call someone in order to change the service they just sold you, and you have to wait a week for them to make the change, and they will charge you $100 or more to make that change, and then you have no guarantee that you'll be able to get the service you actually need.