Archive for July, 2008

Are you fucking kidding me?

This is a test.

Unfortunately, it looks like I finished up my GVSU education just under the wire of a terrible decision by the board of trustees. Last week they voted to offer benefits to unmarried partners of school employees. Not surprisingly, the same day they voted to increase tuition by more than 13%.

This is one of the most foolish decisions the board has made since I have been involved with the university. While I do not take a moral stance on homosexuality, I do believe it is immoral to waste other peoples’ money. Which is exactly what they are doing, since they are not obligated to provide these “benefits.”

The board claims the decision was made to attract and keep talented professionals. However, this could have been better accomplished by paying competitive salaries. Instead, they have decided unilaterally extend benefits to domestic partners at the cost of the students, and tax payers. I have no doubt that a substantial amount of private funding will be withdrawn increasing the burden even more.

Luckily, we have heroes out there like Arlan Meekhof, who are not taking the decision lying down. He condemned the university stating, “Not only are they increasing the university’s expenses, but this institute of higher learning has chosen to use taxpayer dollars and student tuition dollars to allow and promote immorality.”

Meekhof is presently conferring with the state attorney general in order to develop a plan of action.

Recently, I participated in the annual family vacation at “the cottage.” Over the past couple of years, since the purchase of “Beach Krazy” and some “tubes” the adventures on the lake have been at least somewhat amusing.

Unfortunately, this year things were a bit more drab than usual. Since my carpal tunnel is raging, I only really got to go tubing once this year, and basically destroyed my wrist. However, to make matters worse, we forgot to bring a halfway decent camera this year, so there are no “tubing” photos to be had. In fact, upon review I did not even get a single photo of “mambo” in the water. A sad state of affairs indeed.

Sadly, this photo of rocks is the most interesting photographic encounter of the trip.

Regardless, it was still a fun trip, just not as “over the top” as last year.