Talking to a friend this evening, we figured it out. Finally.
Women of this generation are all about themselves. It ain't like the good old days.

when you have nothing to look forward to you turn inward and everything goes TU from there......Anyone can be happy when everything is going well. That becomes considerably tougher when things go bad.

How....%?&*&?(%$ can you do this thing twice....I mean....do it once, and if it's not working...stop there. Human still not able to learn from error.;)

Out of topic...but Randy....please change your avatar...! ;)

Hey drummers have to live somewhere! Reminds me of the old joke: What do you call a drummer without a girlfriend? A: Homeless

My parents' just celebrated their 53rd together...why, that's longer than I've been alive :)!

http://physics.ucsc.edu/~stephanie/housewife.jpg

Amen to that. When people are getting paid and getting laid, it's easy to be happy. When your wallet is full and your nuts are empty. :)

You are so way off. You better take a look around outside of your cubicle. I'll give you an instance and you can go from there: Milgard, the largest window manufacturer of windows in the greater West is off by at least 20%. Sure, some of that is new construction, but as a high end company, they didn't exist on new construction; more on replacement.

Here's another: the Port of Long Beach has had a double digit growth factor in terms of total tonnage of incoming cargo up until last year. Last year there was no growth; it was flat. So far this year, it looks the same. We are not buying as much imported goods, or at least we are not buying any more as we did year after year.

My own home improvement contracting business has been sinking for 3 years. 2005 was my second best year ever. My sales went down by half of the year before in '06, '07 and '08. Same amount of advertising each year until last fall when I pulled the plug.

Yesterday I decided to empty my truck of my tools and put them away for good. I wouldn't do that if there was even decent part time work out there. I said decent, not 12 bucks an hour like the Home Depot parking lot workers charge. What work is left is done by low bidders using this kind on help. And it looks like it.

What is left to say is that the homeowners are feeling the pinch of higher ins rates and gas prices. Food is way up and you should know that. There simply isn't enough money left out of people's income to continue to spend discretionary money any other way than very carefully (or foolishly if they hire sub standard workers).

If that isn't called a recession, then you are right, there isn't one.

Reagan said it well...a recession is when your neighbor is out of work. A depression is when you are out of work.

Milt, I understand your angst...construction is wayyy off. My personal experience is that, a year ago, I couldn't find a contractor willing to rebuild my wood shed...it involved replacing the rotting press board siding with T-111, replacing a couple of support posts. With the then housing development going on, nobody wanted these "small" jobs.

This year, woodshed rebuilt. Not by any fly by night illegals...but by one of our top level licensed & bonded contractors. Good work for a good price. I didn't even ask for bids, knowing the quality of the work, plus knowing his family. One of the advantages of living in a small town, I guess.

Recession causing divorce? I can't speak for anyone else on this. Cindy & I managed to make it though one of the worst local recessions...now 33 years and counting.

Milt...if it's not too $pendy to do so, you might want to hang onto that contractors license...keep your bases covered.