Today I realized what type of person ranks as the lowest form of scum in my book… the person that uses other people to get themselves ahead with no regard for the people they stepped on to get there. To make matters worse these people are everywhere, crawling out from under every nook-and-cranky looking for ways to get ahead at the expense of others.

As I mentioned in a previous post my parents recently purchased a childcare center in Pensacola, FL. They knew throughout the purchase that they were not dealing with the most honest person but that the deal was great if they could work through it. In the end they got the deal done but in the process the previous owner proved that there is another level of low-life that I had heard existed but had never personally encountered.

Without slogging through the details there are several items that were part of the transaction that mysteriously went missing the last day the previous owner had access to the premises. She took important documents in an attempt to ruin the center after she left (this will fail because what she did not know was how well my parents know how to run childcare centers). She talked bad about my parents to the employees as well as to the parents of the kids already using the center.

Then, to top it all off we learned today that she is not planning to pay the employees for the last 7 days she ran the business. She is just “skipping town” so to speak. Essentially she used these employees for 7 days, collected tuition from the parents, and then pocketed it all leaving the employees with bills to pay and no money to pay them with. This is low and I hope that I am never one to be accused of stepping on people just to get that one step ahead.

Unless you are dead you probably know about the proposed government bailout… errr I mean “rescue”… that passed through the Senate last night. This is the plan where the government borrows money to buy bad debt from private businesses that made poor business decisions by lending the money to people that could not pay them back. I know that I am no economist but I fail to see how this plan makes sense from any angle. Where do we draw the line? What about the painter that has fallen on hard times now because fewer new homes are being built or the Pizza guy that can no longer afford to deliver my pizza because of gas prices. Who is going to bail them out?

Yes, times are hard right now. But, somehow the American Spirit always seems to drag us through difficult times. Why are we rushing to pass a bill that has the government lending billions of dollars to companies that got themselves in trouble by making stupid business decisions? On top of this so called “emergency”, the bill being passed is laden with all the typical special interest riders that a typical bill going through Congress gets. If this is soooooo (sarcasm implied) important why can’t Congress pass a bill that does one thing, does it quickly, and does it well?

What do you think of this bailout plan?

Today my parents stepped out into the world of small business ownership. I could feel the excitement when I talked to my mom on the phone this morning. As of 12:00 am this morning they became the proud owners of their very own child care center in Pensacola, FL. They have their work cut out for them as this was a horribly mismanaged center by the previous owner. But, my bet is that within 60 days the thing is humming along like a finely tuned timepiece. If you’re looking for first-class care for kids in Pensacola then check out www.thekidzacademy.com
located on New Warrington Road.

A big thank you to my brother, Aaron, for linking to me from his blog. I am still waiting for Ron to share some “link love” with me as well. Maybe I could spend some of my Ron Points on that.

In other news… I ran 2 miles in 16:54 last night. That is a crazy 8:27 average mile. Needless to say I almost passed out when I was done. Tonight I plan a nice, slow 10:00 average mile run.