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After More than 50 Years, a Penguin Killed my Small Business
There is an allure of independence, of freedom, associated with owning your own business. It can be quite tempting to stretch out on your own. But it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I know because I use to have one. And after it had survived over 50 years, it was ultimately done in…
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Why I canceled my Thousand Trails membership after I used it just once and bought a KOA Rewards membership
After 22 years as part-timers we retired early and bought a Grand Design 5th wheel to be our new traveling home. The biggest logistical challenge was finding a place to park every night. There are more people in the RV lifestyle than ever with snowbirds, full-timers and even remote workers. Finding space isn’t always easy, or…
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The Conservative fight against abortion isn’t about Life, it’s about Math.
Conservatives have framed their fights against abortion and all women’s reproductive healthcare as the fight for life. But the reality that they don’t want to talk about is that it is a numbers game. Lawmakers in state houses and Congress alike have even said so publicly, that it is a fight to protect the White…
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On our first trip to Disney World we penny-pinched, brought a hot plate and cooking pans in our checked luggage. Our all-inclusive trip cost less than $2,000!
Even though we had Disneyland in our back yard my fiancé and I had been dreaming of a trip to Walt Disney World in Florida for several years. We’d recently engaged and were to be married in a few months so this was a kind of wedding present to ourselves. But we were young, going…
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Tolerance is killing the Church, maybe we should let it.
The Louisiana law requiring the 10 Commandments from the Lutheran Church be posted in all public schools and colleges is just another spasm in the death throes of a wounded and dying animal. Religiosity is dying out, becoming less important in our daily lives. Christians once made up a super-majority of the US population. Despite…
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Should your next RV have an onboard laundry? The Pro’s and Con’s from a Full-Timer
The first recognized ‘RV’ was built in 1910, according to the RVIA. As far back as people have been camping in RV’s they’ve had a need for clean clothes. For the weekend camper it was sufficient to wait until you got home to do your laundry but things have changed. Today people live on the…
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New In-n-Out restaurants may be a pig-in-a-poke for communities in Western states
As a So-Cal native, birthplace of In-n-Out, I have since 1994 visited one of their restaurants 286 times and have been to dozens of locations across multiple states. One thing I can tell you is that this is not like other burger chains, it literally has a cult following. As the chain has started to…
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Our First Year as Snowbirds
We bought our first trailer in 2002, a Jayco Kiwi hybrid. Every summer I took my wife and son on a 3 week excursion to national and state parks across the western US and Canada, as well as other trips during the year. The first time I heard the term ‘snowbird’ was in 2003. We…
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I’m Worried About What Our Kids are Learning In School, or Not
Concerned about the educational standards in their city, the author relocated to Yorba Linda, California, for better schooling opportunities for his son. Despite active parental involvement and enriching activities, he encountered an alarming incident where a teacher, misinformed about WWII facts, incorrectly graded his son’s accurate essay. This incident highlights wider issues of educational deficiencies…
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OPINION: We don’t have a Housing Crisis, we have a Population Problem.
A former real estate agent challenges the idea of a national housing crisis, instead attributing the issue to regional population imbalances. Numerous vacant homes exist nationwide, yet people concentrate in areas with housing shortages. The author observes varying responses to homelessness and vacant properties, suggesting incentivizing relocation to towns with empty homes as part of…