JustinVoelker.com

I can’t tell you exactly how you should spend your $9,500 but what I can do is offer a beginners guide to the task.  Think of this as a condensed version of a “Spending $9,500 in 1.6 seconds for Dummies” sort of thing.  Let us begin.

It is rather simple, really.  Begin by sliding your car sideways across the highway at roughly 55mph.  When you are turned completely sideways and can see oncoming traffic through your passenger window, try to find a guard rail out of your peripheral vision.  Finding a guard rail is absolutely imperative as you will use it as a bumper/fender/wheel/headlight smasher.  To really make sure you spend all $9,500 I strongly urge you to not simply glance off this guard rail but rather hit it at such an angle that you can spin approximately 90 degrees to crunch the rear end as well.  And of course, the pièce de résistance.  Make sure that when you hit the guard rail you are still carrying enough speed to not just crunch the sheet metal and bumper cover but to also do all sorts of damage to the internal structure/components of the car.  For added effect feel free to take a couple hand fulls of loose change, some sunglasses, and your lunch and toss them all around the inside of your car.  Even better–take things that were formerly in your back seat (say, some cds) and relocate them to the floor underneath your gas pedal.

Although I do not condone this sort of act, I will suggest a few items you should damage in the process to  make sure you spend all $9,500:

• Front bumper cover
• Lower grille with fog lamps
• Impact bar (to add a splash of irony)
• Headlamp assembly
• Splash shield
• Engine hood
• Right front fender
• Left front fender
• Fender liners
• Upper rails
• Door shell
• Belt and body molding
• Mirror assembly
• Door handle
• Door trim (black cloth, of course)
• Pontiac emblem
• Rear tail lamp assembly
• Rear quarter panel
• More body molding
• Rear bumper cover
• Lower bumper cover
• 17″ Chrome wheel

If you so desire, toss in an air conditioner condenser a few other things to give it your personal touch.

Now on a serious note,  no other cars were involved and nobody else was injured.  This ordeal could have ended very differently and I am thankful that in the end it was only my car that was damaged (well, totaled).  Thank you to the three people that stopped to offer assistance (no thanks to the person that caused this and continued driving).  Another thank you to Pontiac/GM for building a vehicle that can sustain enough damage to be considered totaled yet leave me without so much as a headache.

In closing, it is with sadness in my heart that I say farewell to my beloved G6.  Goodbye my G6, you’ll be missed.  ”She was a good ship.”

It seems that the call to action in my last post actually worked and drew in some comments (thank you for that!). As promised, I will continue using this blog for a while longer. If I keep getting comments (and maybe some comment debates) I will keep posting. This post is a bit long so I apologize for that–I will keep future posts shorter.  Without further adieu, I present to you my first actual post.

I shall dispense with the names to protect the innocent (and moronic) but will say that my cousin is in the 7th grade at White Pine Middle School here in good ol’ Saginaw Michigan. While spending an evening conversing with the family over pizza, my cousin and her friend began discussing their social studies class woes. Apparently, the teacher finds it appropriate to degrade the class and one day even wrote “worst class ever” on the chalkboard.  He has even said he “feels sorry for this country because you kids are the future.”  I’m fairly certain this is no way to treat 7th graders. That seems like something we can all agree on.  Although these types of comments are disturbing, something just as disturbing is what he is teaching to our youth.

During one discussion the teacher proclaimed that outsourcing is bad and minimum wage is good. I realize everyone is entitled to his or her opinion but really? Nobody wants to pay high prices if they can avoid it. If a company can use outsourcing to give you a lower cost, is that not a good thing? And don’t start with domestic job loss. What the teacher was actually referring to was offshoring although he incorrectly labeled it as outsourcing, but I digress. Yes, an individual may suffer temporary displeasure from outsourcing/offshoring but by saving money the business can lower costs. This can result in actually saving jobs because the company may have otherwise had to fire employees that they couldn’t afford. Outsourcing/offshoring is a good thing and needs to be controlled by the free market.

What about minimum wage? By forcing higher minimum wages the government actually stops businesses from hiring more employees. Let’s pretend that minimum wage is $10 and you, as a business, have $10 available to hire help. You can only afford to hire one person because of the government mandated minimum wage. If there were no minimum wage and the free market determined that fair compensation for that position was actually $5, you could now afford to hire 2 employees. With the government forced minimum wage you were able to hire one less person which resulted in one more unemployed individual. If that person was willing to work for $5 why shouldn’t they be allowed to? By the government stepping in and “helping” people they are actually hurting others.

No wonder people vote the way they do–they are being fed this sort garbage in middle school when they are just plain too young to know any better.

Originally writing this post in the heat of the moment may have resulted in misspellings, grammar mistakes, or just plain hard-to-follow thoughts. So, how about a few videos in case my incoherent rambling didn’t make sense.

John Stossel – Outsourcing

John Stossel – The Minimum Wage Doesn’t Work

It is a shame that the future of our country is being taught by such narrow minded individuals… Comments?

Call it a hunch but I have a feeling that this very post that I am writing right now will not be read by anyone. If you actually are reading this please head back to facebook (nodoubt where you found the link to this post) and leave a comment. If end up being wrong about the “nobody” part and I see that someone actually read this post I may just continue posting new entries every now and then. I have a juicy idea for the next post involving my little cousin and the garbage she is currently being taught in middle school so hopefully someone leaves a comment about this post and I can rant about the deceitful education she is getting.