a-day-in-the-life-of-jtyler

Hold the Door Open for the Person Behind You

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 14:35:19 +0100

Even in this world, manners count. I recently heard of a rumor that a homeless man was given two million dollars and a job by a rich philanthropist who owns a chain of restaurant. The man saw the homeless man give another homeless man his lunch and shoes. The rich man talked to both men separately and asked them questions.

It turns out the homeless man lost his job a few years ago and was forced into homelessness, while the other has been homeless for a long time. The first man knew the other hadn't eaten for a few days, so he gave up his own lunch to feed him. He also saw he had no shoes, so he gave the man his own shoes as well.

The rich man was touched because he had never seen or heard of this. A lunch and a pair of shoes doesn't sound like much, but remember that the man who gave them up was homeless himself. The rich man gave him two million dollars, provided that the homeless man use some of it to buy a house and support himself while he got a job. He could do anything he wanted to with the rest. He gave the other man a job as well.

This shows that kindness and chivalry still counts. Remember to help the old lady across the street, help the person in front of you pick up the books he dropped, and remember to hold the door open for the person behind you.

Updates

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 21:20:44 +0100

Sorry, it's been a while since I've made my last post. I simply haven't had the time to continually update this. However, I'm still active and I'll be making posts when I can.

There is No Half-Way

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:10:20 +0100

Whenever you try to do anything, remember this - there is no half way point. You either accomplish your goal, or you don't. If you get half of what you wanted, you haven't accomplished your goal. The worst thing you can do is try to do something. You either do it, or you don't (sound familiar).

I hear people complaining a lot. Whenever they fail at something, others try to console the failures by saying things such as "you got part of it", "you tried your best", "maybe next time", etc. That is bad. It gives the person the wrong feeling. It makes him feel better when he should instead feel that he should do better.

Don't take this too literally, however. This is more of a way of thinking than a strict rule. If you see that you're going to inevitably fail to obtain the whole thing, go for half, a quarter, or however much you can get.

Unfortunately, our schools are indoctrinating our children with values and ethics that will make them all panzies when they grow up. This value is not one of them. I wonder how pathetic our society will become because of this...

Free eBooks

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 01:15:10 +0100

Project Gutenberg has thousands of free eBooks. Many of these books are public domain books, but they have been converted into many electronic formats such as html and pdf. There are also other books as well. I searched Isaac Asimov and found a few things by him there.

I suggest those who own eBook readers or even computers to look at this site and download some books. Try something new. Reading is very important and very beneficial. If more people read more, maybe the number of idiots would diminish...

George Washington

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:27:20 +0100

Sorry for not posting the last few days, but I haven't had a chance to.

George Washington, as everyone knows, was the commander of the army during the revolution and was the first president of the country. Different history textbooks and sources describe him as an honorable, just man with extraordinary leadership capabilities. This may be exaggerated a bit in certain American sources of information, but there is a general consensus between the sources that he was a good man.

During the revolution, he was already somewhat wealthy. He wasn't exactly an aristocrat, but he wasn't exactly amongst the common class. He had a large sum of money saved up from careful and intelligent money management.

However, he refused to recieve pay for his efforts. He led the US to victory and independence and fixed many of the problems the nation had from its start (which were many). He didn't recieve pay, unlike carreer politicians (something we shouldn't have at all, and something that wouldn't exist if we got a GRIP). He also set the precedent for serving two terms and warned us about having political parties. He was absolutely right about that one. Look at the US today. Politicians care more about advancing their parties and salaries than they do about advancing me or you...

They Didn't Have Air Conditioners 50 Years Ago

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:41:40 +0100

Don't you hate when people say that? I understand why people say that, but that kind of phrase somewhat annoys me (it depends how the person says it). It is true that people got along well enough without them, but that doesn't mean they have to or should now. That applies to any similar statement (they didn't have cars 100 years ago, etc).

When someone says something like that, you can say something like this as a rebuttal - "they didn't have hospitals either." It works whenever I say it. However, I say it as a sarcastic joke. If you say this in the wrong way, people will get mad at you for appearing to be snobbish and rude.

I wonder what would happen if everybody did this...

The Idiot Box

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:17:51 +0100

It's astounding how much people watch TV these days. People have hi-def TVs, hi-def PCs to watch TV on, and have services like Comcast. It isn't that bad to simply have these, but many people over use these a lot. When a person spends more time watching TV than he does reading, writing, exercising, or anything of the like, that person declines. His intelligence and fitness actually goes down. It's happened many times, and I've seen it happen many times myself.

What's worse, however, is the fact that this is happening to children. When a child is raised by the media, by our media in particular, he is being indoctrinated by all of the wrong ideas. Fashion is more important than intelligence, sports is more important than common-sense or education, fast food is the way to go, etc. Also, his political notions that he will have for the rest of his life will be greatly influenced by the corrupt politicians that appear on TV. He won't listen to his parents as much as he should, especially when they tell him something that contradicts what he's heard on the TV. In ten years, it wouldn't be surprising if we started running out of intelligent people because of this. I wonder what our future in ten years will be like...

Racism and Discrimination is Still Strong - Don't Let it Happen Here

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:36:06 +0100

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gULhV8urjWM

This song is mainly an instrumental, but it has some lyrics in the beginning -

"One day they came and they took the communists,
And I said nothing because I was not a communist.

Then one day they came and they took the people of the Jewish faith,
And I said nothing because I was had no faith left.

One day they came and they took the unionists,
And I said nothing because I was not a unionist.

One day they burned down the Catholic churches.
And I said nothing because I was born a Protestant.

Then one day they came and they took me.
And I could say nothing because I was guilty as they were,
For not speaking out and saying that all men have a right to freedom. "

I've been reading about stories where certain people have been petitioning and requesting that certain mosques be torn down and further ones be prevented from being build. I won't give any more details because they are not important. The point is that racisim is still strong. It may be 'illegal,' but bigotry and racism is still a strong force, just as strong as it was in the 50s and 60s. Here's an example of a forum post an average person made - http://www.topix.com/forum/city/jonesboro-ar/TICMILEVDVVAQR27F. Here's what the forum starter said a few of her posts -

"Hey, lets start a petition to tear down the mosque by ASU. I don't want that kind of junk around my kids, and I'm sure most of you other parents don't want your sons or daughters to be in contact with radical Islam. They may not teach radical doctrine there, but better safe than sorry, right? ... I'm not sure, but surely there is a way to get that eyesore torn down. Then we could build a respectable church there or something that would have a positive impact on our students ... I understand that muslims bombed the towers. I understand that we are allowing terrorist to foster and grow in our country. You may change your mind if someone walks to ASU from that mosque with a bomb strapped to their back, screams out "Allaaaaah!" and takes out a few kids. I guess that is just the way it is though. We can learn to deal with the occasional bomber just like they do in the middle east."

Thankfully, there are people in the post who completely disagree with her and tell her how bad her racism is. Unfortuantely, she didn't seem to get the picture. I wonder what oulr world will be like if people continue to be racist and ignorant...

We Need to Recycle More

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 02:04:01 +0100

I didn't make a blog post yesterday out of respect for the 9/11 memorial. However, I will continue to post once a day unless something urgent gets in the way.

America is pretty much dead last in the race towards reducing waste, greenhouse emissions, etc. Other countries have strict and sensical policies regarding recycling, but America does not. However, there are ways that many people don't know about. You can read this article here for more information - http://jennifer.hubpages.com/hub/Recycling_For_Money.

It is extremely imperative that we start changing our ways. The earth can only take so much before our actions come back to bite us. Imagine nuclear winters, air too foul to breathe, rain that will burn your skin on impact, higher sea levels, and more. These things could be likely possibilities. You should consider some of these ways you can get some of your money back by recycling. If more options were available and more people knew of these options, things could be different...

Famous People Seen at Event

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:36:42 +0100

http://www.stylelist.com/2011/09/09/fashion-week-spring-2012-celebrities-front-row_n_954757.html?ncid=webmail13

Apparently, a bunch of celebrities were seen at this fashion event. People thought that was important enough to post on a commercial website, and AOL thought that was important enough to post on their website and on their Today on AOL section on the mailbox.

Honestly, who cares? People obsess over people and trivial events while things like this (riding your bike to school being illegalized) are going on. There's a saying I've heard a few times that are very true - "Great people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people." That's especially true in this case. While people certainly have the right to talk about other people or material things, it shouldn't be the extent of what they contemplate. Perhaps more people should think about this quote...