Unemployment: It's Hard on the Body

I exercise pretty regularly.

Even when I was unemployed, I normally went walking about two hours a day.  I kinda watched what I ate, and I considered myself fairly fit.

However, my girth expanded a tad.  True, I wasn't close to wearing Women's sizes, but there was a bit of a difference.

Ok.  You realize that even if you go out walking about 2 hours a day that there is still the time that you sat around or slept in.  Plus, you can eat things like vast quantities of spaghetti at lunch instead of making due with the portions in your TV dinner.  But it wasn't merely weight gain.

My knees creaked and I walked around as stiff as all get out.

I'm not very old compared to the usual person who has this problem, but I had some problems with agility.  And it didn't really happen gradually.  It felt like it became noticeable during my unemployment.

I wasn't sure if I would get it back, or if this signaled the downhill slide that came with age.  I used to use equipment at the school gym, and considering that I still made it a point to get exercise on a daily basis I didn't see much hope for returning to how things were when I was in my 20s.

It took a year of working out with Yoga and cardio exercises, but my knees felt "normal" again.

And I had never really done any of those exercises in any quantity before all of this happened.

It took a few months for the creaky feeling to go away.  It took even longer for the stiffness to leave.

It's like I had to spend an entire year rebuilding myself from what I considered to be a very non-physically demanding lifestyle. 

Back in My Day, We Had Fun Parties!

If only I had a picture to contrast two representative Halloween parties.

Which one sounds more fun?

At one party, people are laughing, wearing fun costumes, eating interesting foods, and engaging in creative activities such as pumpkin carving.

At another party, people are sitting around and staring at their phones.

Who is in Charge Here?

As pointed out by John Stewart, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street have very similar agendas, but they are aimed and different people.

The Tea Party wants the government to back off because it blamed the government for this mess.

The Occupy Wall Street wants corporations to back off because they blamed the corporations for irresponsible and illegal activities upon the economic situation.

The Tea Party eventually became a relatively successful political movement with sympathizers being elected to office-holding positions in the Republican Party.

Do you think that the Democrats are going to respond in kind to Occupy Wall Street sympathizers, even though it is picking up steam across the nation? 

I hear crickets chirping.  The politicians are not going anywhere near that stuff.

That, my friends, tells you who is really running the show at the end of the day.

"Hi, I make $50,000 per year."

I had an idea for a documentary or news story.

Someone should contrast the lives of at least two people who live in an area with the same cost of living and spending patterns who make about the same amount of money per year, have the same attitude towards spending, and who bought a house at the same stage of life (if possible).

HOWEVER, they should take someone who graduated from school about 15 years ago and compare them with someone who graduated about 5 years ago and compare how much money they have to spend on food, entertainment, and incidentals after they make their monthly student loan and mortgage/rent payment.