TBB Best of Web: Falling Man, NFL Team Names, Why Cheat, Finance History, Amazon Camperforce

We bring you the epic read ‘Falling Man’, all the NFL team names, why happy people cheat, learn about finance history and meet the Amazon Camperforce retiree army!

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The Falling Man

This is an EPIC read I am sharing again just in case some of my new readers have not seen this yet. RIP to all the innocent victims of September 11, 2001. Never forget THEM. I do not like it when I see people saying to never forget the event. That is what the terrorists want!

This is an article that will stay with you for a long time, you have been warned!

This is how it begins:

In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears comfortable in the grip of unimaginable motion. He does not appear intimidated by gravity’s divine suction or by what awaits him. His arms are by his side, only slightly outriggered. His left leg is bent at the knee, almost casually. His white shirt, or jacket, or frock, is billowing free of his black pants. His black high-tops are still on his feet. In all the other pictures, the people who did what he did—who jumped—appear to be struggling against horrific discrepancies of scale. They are made puny by the backdrop of the towers, which loom like colossi, and then by the event itself. Some of them are shirtless; their shoes fly off as they flail and fall; they look confused, as though trying to swim down the side of a mountain. The man in the picture, by contrast, is perfectly vertical, and so is in accord with the lines of the buildings behind him. He splits them, bisects them: Everything to the left of him in the picture is the North Tower; everything to the right, the South. Though oblivious to the geometric balance he has achieved, he is the essential element in the creation of a new flag, a banner composed entirely of steel bars shining in the sun. Some people who look at the picture see stoicism, willpower, a portrait of resignation; others see something else—something discordant and therefore terrible: freedom. There is something almost rebellious in the man’s posture, as though once faced with the inevitability of death, he decided to get on with it; as though he were a missile, a spear, bent on attaining his own end. He is, fifteen seconds past 9:41 a.m. EST, the moment the picture is taken, in the clutches of pure physics, accelerating at a rate of thirty-two feet per second squared. He will soon be traveling at upwards of 150 miles per hour, and he is upside down. In the picture, he is frozen; in his life outside the frame, he drops and keeps dropping until he disappears.

Back then I used to officiate local high school soccer games. I loved running around with the kids, teaching them properly and they were paying me cash! Of course all schools and events were canceled for a few days. The very first game after that horrible day, I officiated a game between a local high school and Dearborn Fordson High School, a school with a very large Arab population. I can not forget that day, the tension was intense! Then when the national anthem was played there was the most tense calm I have ever experienced. I glanced around to the players and coaches and fans/parents and it felt like we were all mourning in our own, sometimes obvious, way. After it, we had to console some of the Fordson kids the most…

How All 32 NFL Teams Got Their Names

Admit it, you may have known how your team got its name but you had no idea how some other teams got theirs.

This is how the New York Jets (lol) got theirs:

Eventually the team became the Jets since it was going to play in Shea Stadium, which is close to LaGuardia Airport. According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the name was supposed to reflect the “modern approach of his team.”

Why Happy People Cheat

Excellent article if you are interested on the subject. Author interviews a woman who has everything AND a dude with a truck and tattoos on the side. Mind you, he is the kind of guy she will never date lol. We are all different.

We also live in an age of entitlement; personal fulfillment, we believe, is our due. In the West, sex is a right linked to our individuality, our self-actualization, and our freedom. Thus, most of us now arrive at the altar after years of sexual nomadism. By the time we tie the knot, we’ve hooked up, dated, cohabited, and broken up. We used to get married and have sex for the first time. Now we get married and stop having sex with others. The conscious choice we make to rein in our sexual freedom is a testament to the seriousness of our commitment. By turning our back on other loves, we confirm the uniqueness of our “significant other”: “I have found The One. I can stop looking.” Our desire for others is supposed to miraculously evaporate, vanquished by the power of this singular attraction.

Finance: How it Made Civilization Possible

I know my field gets beat up a lot. And for good reasons most of the time. But I still would not trade (pun intended) it for any other occupation to work in. For some of us it is a calling. Anyways, this is a great history lesson, how it all started!

Meet the Camperforce, Amazon’s Nomadic Retiree Army

I had no idea how many elderly campers work at Amazon, wow! Amazing article, the author got a job along with some workers to research it better. These workers NEED the money. Folks, this is why you invest for retirement so you don’t have to walk fifteen miles a day at an Amazon warehouse in your 70’s, WTF! Watch my comments in brackets, I can’t help myself!

Chuck still remembers the call from Wells Fargo that brought the 2008 financial crisis crashing down on his head. He had invested his $250,000 nest egg in a fund that supposedly guaranteed him $4,000 a month to live on. “You have no more money,” he recalls his banker saying flatly. “What do you want us to do?” Unable to think of a better answer, Chuck told him, “Well, shove your foot up your ass.” Then he hung up. [I don’t know where to begin! This guy worked in McDonalds for years, became director of Product Development for the company, retired in 2002 and he had a nest egg of only $250,000, WTF!!!!!!! Looks like he did not do his homework either to trust a Wells Fargo for selling him something he clearly did not understand, WTF #2!!!!!!! In finance, you can help people. By NOT doing this shit to them and getting them to have better choices in life instead of…having to go work in an Amazon warehouse.]

Barb had lost her savings too, some $200,000 in investments. And with the travel industry flattened by the Great Recession, bookings at Carolina Adventure Tours dwindled. By the time Barb and Chuck got married in 2009, they were upside down on their mortgage and grappling with credit card debt. [Looks like they prioritized fun a lot more? Don’t judge but, really, WTF! Oh, credit card debt too. I read about this stuff and can’t help but wonder how many first started after reading a sales piece in one of the Titan blogs masquerading as “travel” experts while pumping these people more credit cards, sigh.]

Cash was getting tight. Chuck was receiving $1,186 a month from Social Security, and Barb got some money each year from her family. Neither of them had health insurance. That summer, while waiting for a check to arrive, they watched their food rations dwindle to two cans of black beans, a can of corn, and some iced tea. Their account was down to $8. [This is so painful to read, I can not imagine. If they had a financial planner who had their best interests at heart to help them along the way AND, this is important, to get them to change their BEHAVIOR, this would not happen!]

Ever since I saw the movie RV I knew getting one was never part of the plan. And working seasonally for Amazon is sure not part of the plan too! SAVE for the day you no longer will be drawing a paycheck people!

And I leave you with this…Meow!

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