Welcome to the 21st century

I stopped by Safeway today to pick up a couple dozen eggs - we seem to go through them really quickly. They've added something to the store since I was there last week, self check-out aisles. These are the first of these kind of things I've seen in any of the stores on our island, I don't think they even have them at the new Target. I'd never used a self check-out before and since I only had 2 items, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to try it out. It was fun playing store lady and bleeping and bagging my own items. I even managed to do it without needing the help of the employee they have standing there helping people get used to the new machines. I know these things are all over the place on the mainland, but we're just a bit behind the times here in the middle of the Pacific. We do catch up eventually though.

I just found out that the states solution to saving money is to have what they're calling "furlough days" at the schools. This means that, starting in the middle of October, there will be no school every other Friday. By doing a little math, I've already figured that the kids down here get 1 days worth of school LESS per WEEK than our kids got when we lived in Wisconsin. Now it's going to be even worse. Is it any wonder that Hawaii ranks in the bottom 5 in education among all 50 states? Angel #1 compares going to school down here like going to a commune hippy college vs. going to Harvard. He's also glad that high school diplomas are pretty generic and that employers don't put much stock in WHERE the diploma came from, otherwise, he'd be screwed. It's got to be pretty bad when a regular, just putting-his-time-in, high school kid is complaining about the quality of his education. Sad thing is, with the way this country is heading, it's going to get worse before it's ever going to get better.