At the time of Canada's hundredth anniversay in 1967, our son was about 5-1/2 and daughter about 2-1/2 and Sue and I went with MIL to Montreal to share in the great experience: I'd have loved to have taken our children, had they been a bit older and could have appreciated it. But that was more of an experience than an adventure. I've encouraged our children to have a wide-ranging, adventurous spirit and to be curious about this wonderful world in which we live. Daughter went on an exchange scholarship to Germany near the end of High School, and enjoyed it ... including travelling to various parts of Europe and to North Africa. When they were about 10 and 7 they drove with me from southern Ontario to Thunder Bay, at the north end of Lake Superior, then flew back home alone while I travelled to the Prairies. As I consider this, I regret that I did not take them on more venturesome activities - but they have been involved in such things, on their own. Folks who lack a venturesome spirit ... ... miss out on a lot of interesting, challenging and memorable experiences in life. Broaden your horizons, folks ... you'll find when you go to various parts of the world, including rather primitive places, that folks are friendly ... and generous. Many who have little have a less acquisitive - and more friendly - spirit. ole joyful.

I think getting a wii is a great idea! While she's tending 8 babies, she can plug in the wii and tell the six kids to bowl, hula hoop, or some sport. They need to keep busy! I can't imagine she's buying it for her own use, at least not daily. Unless she's super woman. It's going to be mega tough taking care of 8 babies but 8 toddlers plus six others would make me lose my mind. I hope she has some help. yea, I'm tired of hearing about it all too.

I ran into a problem after installing and using firefox for a few days. I was not able to open some videos. It would tell me I needed to update my Adobe Flash Player but when I'd try and do just that I'd get it started to install and it would tell me there was a conflict with Mozilla. So, I'd try using my IE to install the update the Adobe Flash Player and it would tell me that there was a conflict with IE. I came across a few more issues too so finally had to uninstall Firefox. I was very sorry to have to since it had eliminated the ads and popups on various sites I frequent. :( I did have to use IE for some of my stops but here or the news site I use, the adblocker plus was a real treat. Don't know what went wrong maybe someone would know. Also, I noticed yesterday evening, even after uninstalling firefox that the ads were still and not very many of them. Not so today, they are in full force like they were before I installed firefox. I'm so confused.

"The middle class isgoing away, too, isn't it?" No, I don't think so. I hate thinking or talking about things in purely class terms but the road to personal economic comfort and success in life has long been through education and hard work. Not just academic education, education and training in the trades, skilled jobs and other like pursuits count too. When the US had a large manufacturing sector, there were millions of people so employed without education, without much training, whose high wages made them think they'd found a back door to the "middle class". It was temporary. Economies evolve over time. Just as the guy who was expert in managing teams of horses to plow fields found himself unemployed when tractors became available, so too the unskilled factory workers had nothing to turn to when factories closed. There are more people employed today at higher paying jobs than ever in our history. But if your only skill is the equivalent of managing teams of horses to plow fields and you're unwilling or unable to train for other things and to move away from the farm area you've always lived in, you're going to have a hard time finding consistent work and income. Getting educated or trained for a job is the ticket into the meritocracy of our society. Not always, and not everywhere, but opportunities exist for those who have worked to get the right background to pursue them. If you do nothing, you get nothing.