Common Sense

It’s been said that common sense is actually not all that common.  Some people believe that everyone has common sense but that a certain segment of the population just doesn’t use it.  If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time you know how I love nonsense, so this trait likely puts me in the group of people having uncommon sense.

As a member of this group, I’d like to help the rest of you understand why some of us appear to be lacking in common sense. Here are the top reasons why some of us don’t use common sense:

1.) We put all of our common sense in a really safe place and then forgot exactly where that was.

2.) We’ve treated it with rooting hormone, put it in a dark place, and are hoping to grow it into a sixth sense.

3.) We actually do have common sense, but we’re too modest to expose it publicly.

4.) The dog ate it.

5.) Someone else cleaned our bedrooms when we weren’t at home and the person accidentally threw out all our common sense because it looks like old pizza (which also explains why the dog would want to eat it).

6.) Common sense becomes cheap if everyone has plenty of it. Scarcity creates value.  You’re welcome.

7.) It accidentally fell in the toilet and we didn’t want to reach in and save it.  So we flushed. Wouldn’t you have done the same?

8.) It fell on the floor in a place where the three second rule does not apply.  So we left it there.

9.) It’s not in season and, therefore, would be far too cost prohibitive to import.

10.) We’re holding onto it in the hopes of driving up the market price, thereby saving our shares for an IPO so we can go public and get rich selling it.

I hope this helps creating better understanding between the common sense people and those of us who are uncommonly sensed.

School Zones: Isn’t it time we centralized them?

I’ve been looking at real estate and noticed that school zones create a host of problems, especially concerning property values. For example, the same house may be priced much higher in one school zone because the high school is deemed more desirable. 

So what’s the solution?

Completely centralizing all school zones. If we put every student in the United States into one giant high school, there is only one school zone and everyone in the United Sates is eligible for it.  There is no more class distinction. No more school rivalry. Because all high school kids in the U.S. go to the same school 

But where do we put it?
Iowa. It’s the ideal location for several reasons.

First of all, Iowa is centrally (and conveniently) located in the Midwest, thereby providing a reasonable commute for most students. Students from either coast will not need to travel the full width of the country.

Secondly, the winters are very cold. This will keep the kids indoors studying instead of playing Frisbee on the abandoned corn fields (you don’t expect the farmers to stay in Iowa once it becomes a high school instead of a state, do you?).

Finally, this will eliminate the need for curfews in the rest of the United States and save on the tax dollars currently used to enforce these curfews.

Problem solved.  Now all property values will be equal.  Except for Iowa. But we can work that out later.

Daily Dave #66

Some of you know that I used to have a mailing list called "The Daily Dave" that was very popular.  I would send out a daily email that contained a quote from Megadeth front man Dave Mustaine, usually out of context and applied to business in an irreverent manner.

The business world has a lot to learn from metal music, as I've written about in this previous post.

However, some Daily Dave posts were just for fun.  Like this one:

Waste Land

Normally documentaries are pretty much only useful for helping me to fall asleep.  Except documentaries about fine artists.  For some reason I love these.  I’ve been watching them while I run on the treadmill and it really makes the time go by for me.

Since Netflix can read my mind and knows what I like to watch, it recommended the documentary Waste Land.  I saw that it was about an artist (named Vik Muniz) working with some recyclers at a landfill and I didn’t expect it to be terribly good.  I assumed that the film was thinly disguised propaganda for recycling.  I was very wrong.  Yes, there is a message about recycling, but it is more about recycling human lives and giving people hope. This was one of the best films I've seen this year and it was beautiful.

I wasn't familiar with Vik’s work, but I was very impressed with what I saw.  His art holds a lot of interest in the interplay between the level of detail up close and in the idea or concept that can be seen from farther away.  The way these two aspects of his art interact and then also knowing the stories of the people who were involved in the making of this art is what captivated me.  The process was just as interesting as the finished product. 

Even if you don’t like art, there are two important messages in this film that we all need to hear at one time or another and the film is worth watching for these:

1.) No matter how bad your life seems, it can ALWAYS be recycled into something beautiful.

2.) There is always hope when one person reaches out to another. We all have that ability to create hope for others.

Go watch the film on Netflix or buy it on Amazon.  You won’t be sorry.