rand a

Im heading to amsterdam on dec 19 till jan 6. Much of that time will be spent there with my gf's family. We will have several days to entertain ourselves. If their suggestions fall short, what can we do to entertain ourselves, without spending a huge amount of money? Ive basically never been there, Id like to see all the tourist things that are must sees. Id also like to take a couple days and visit belgium or germany, is there a way to do so without spending too much time and money? I dont want to spend days on a bus, and the trains seem quite expensive.

I guess this is an average of course, but is it really true? How can people complain about gas prices while they let their car idle for 20 minutes here and 20 minutes there?

Maine is becoming a sickening welfare state, many other republicans feel the same way as I do. How does the idea of making birth control mandatory for the dregs who come here to abuse the system? How hard would it be to start a campaign to accomplish this?

I was reading that it would be about ten billion dollars, and who knows how long to build a new nuke powerplant. Most of that money would probably have to be loaned by the goverment. There would have to be quite a few new ones built to be more than a drop in the bucket energywise. In the same magazine, US news I think it was, the cost estimates for upgrading the electrical grid are 100billion. What would be a better investment? Would the upgrades in efficiency make up for 10 nuke plants? I know there are other benefits, but I was just wondering how much power is actually lost due to using 19th century technology that is crumbling anyway.

They blame it on kids doing "more vigorous" exercising. Thats probably kinda like saying they are doing more homework these days. Or they blame it on the fact that the gym teachers dont have masters degrees in watching kids run around. Our teacher didnt either, he was a retired coach of 30 years. Im wondering why they didnt mention the fact that so many more kids are obese?

my gf insists on keeping the thing cranked up, its disgusting in here, and she says that it doesnt make any difference in how much fuel it uses cause it comes on anyway. I like to keep it lower in the day, and then turn it down another couple degrees when we go to bed, since we are under the covers and there are two of us the heat doesnt need to be up, right? Or am i wrong, and what temp do you keep it on?

I think the idea is a french drain, and how would it work if i dug it out at a decent slope, and after filling it in with rocks i put soil and sod back on top to cover it up. this is on the lawn and i dont want to see the rocks. Its not gonna be a huge drain, probably only 10-15 feet, just sloping down away from the house. I live in maine, and was wondering it the rocks would make their way up to the lawn eventually, if so how could i prevent that, and if it would drain at all or just fill in. I dont want to pay for pipes and stuff, and dont want to make too huge a project out of it.

i just took a trip to florida, they are cutting down anything that doesnt float and putting up buildings. Most of these cost a bundle, bill gates may pay cash for them, but most people will have many payments. Since pools, satellite dishes, and docks if near the water seem to be standard issue, why not a couple solar panels and water heater. It is florida after all, and if you are allready paying a half million or so for a house, what is another 10k gonna mean to you. Why dont they make it mandatory to include these on all new housing and condos and businesses. With that many the price would come down quickly and pay for itself long before the house is payed off and/or florida is flooded due to global warming.

I used to own some stock in bethleham steel, it went bankrupt like many us steel companies. I went to the metal recycling place here in town to dump off some scrap i had laying around. they ship all this stuff over to china or somewhere, they then sell it back to us. This seems not only bad for business but bad for the country, talk about a vital industry, if we go to war with china what are we gonna do, buy metal from them to make tanks and planes and ships?

Is it really a smart thing to not pay off the mortgage because you get to deduct the interest on it? I dont see what the point of paying out extra money to the bank just to not pay some taxes to the govment. Is it a financial thing gain or just the principle of not paying taxes that will probably be wasted and misused?

i have been living in washington state for the past several years, I work as a merchant marine all over the world. Washington is good there is no state income tax. I am thinking of moving to maine, will i have to pay taxes on what Ive already earned this year while i wasnt a resident of maine? Doesnt seem fair if I do. I was thinking of getting a part time job while I am in maine, then shipping out again towards the end of the year. Will i have to pay taxes on the income from the job in maine?

ex husband had the kids on his weekend, he let the little trollop my 13 yo son is seeing spend the night, who can i have arrested here, her parents or my %^%^^&% ex? That has got to be endangering the welfare of a minor or something, I dont even let her come over to my house anymore since they cant keep hands off, and they have to be seperated in school too.