To the guy that called in about nursing care. I live in the Salem area in Oregon. My mother has been a nurse in various assisted living homes for my entire life. I pretty much grew up in one. The key is to tour the facility. Take note on how clean it is. Depending on the type of facility it is, just walk in and take a look, a manager taking you on a tour will show you only the nice things. If available eat in the general dining room, see how good the food is. I will give my mother a call tonight and see if I cant get the names of a couple really bad places to avoid in the Portland area, and get the names of a couple really good ones too.
If you have any other questions give me a shout, I might be able to give some good insight.

Jack- Listening to this episode now. I wanted to add some feedback on the postal service comments. I worked for a common carrier (briefly) that had a contract with the postal service to deliver PALLETS of packages to individual post offices. I was contracted to do this and I vetted but there was practically no over sight to ensure I was not stealing any of these packages. The pallets would be loaded on my truck and I would run them to each post office they were packed for. Some PO would get multiple pallets, especially the larger POs. Most of these packages were from online sites sending the orders to the persons, but some were smaller letter sized envelopes. I could have easily seen something that looked good and just pulled it off the pallet and have it “get lost in mail”. Not in my nature to steal, obviously, or I would not be putting this down for the world to see, but I am sure the possibility certainly exists for some who may not be as honest as myself to do just this. Just putting this out there for the community to be aware of. The PO certainly does not have the ability to handle all of the mail that they deliver any more and have to rely on 3rd party haulers to get the mail from one place to another. At least someone in the PO has the sense to know they have to sub some of the work to save on costs, but then have to rely on the honesty of those doing the work for them, just as you say, not everyone in the PO itself is all that honest. BTW- my dad was a 20 year letter carrier and told several tales of employees getting canned and prosecuted for stealing mail. By PO regulations, employees that possess even undeliverable items like junk mail, magazines and ad mail because a resident moves and leaves no forwarding address, can be prosecuted for stealing mail.

Feeling old when you referred to “distance learning” with the correspondence courses. My 2nd degree was via “2001-2003 distance” where we dialed into a videoconference at 5PM eastern with a 2PM Pacific real class. I also did some correspondence work in the Navy. My MBA though… just like modern work: video conferences with presentation reviews/changes/etc. prior to submission, emailing drafts of papers, online research for reference material, class/group mates from 6 different timezones. Distance learning today is just like distance life… the internet has made education just like the real world if you choose to take that path. If you’d rather go blow the money on booze and girls, more power to you and enjoy the fruits of your pet loan FIdo. But you don’t have to do that to yourself anymore.

Tie the available formal “distance education” in with things like Khan Academy, free courses from universities, and independent learning opportunities like Greg Cecil talked about in Ep 1992 and you have yourself an education unrivaled by any classroom. Go buy a Fido with teeth and a tail instead of one from Sallie Mae.

Agree on USPS theft. In this age of tracking, it’s not a mystery how packages get “lost”