"You can leave your pump on your bike."

The official Metro rules for the use of the bike rack states that you should take anything off the bike that might fall off, so I took that to mean my pump, which has fallen off before just riding around, however, my favourite bus driver said I could leave it on there. Perhaps he was just worried about me using it as a weapon as it looks quite formidable, almost like a nightstick.

Tonight's ride home was completely without incident, but I kept vigilant as I tried used my limited Spanish vocabulary to try and decipher some loud talker who was speaking with a fellow passenger. Alot of good knowing German does you on a bus in Texas. Why did I not take Spanish in High School?

I happened across a documentary on TV tonight called Baghdad High that followed the lives of several senior high school Iraqi boys who were given video cameras to document what looked to be about two years of their lives from 2005 to 2007. The fact that they were able to concentrate well enough to go to school and go about their day-to-day lives with explosions and kidnappings happening all around them was almost unbelievable. I'm afraid the old adage holds true; "You don't know what you got til it's gone." According to the film, Baghdad used to be called the City of Peace. You should savour any freedom you have, for one day, you may have to fight to keep it, but why wait? Fight for what you love or what you believe in now and maybe that day will never come as a result of your vigilance. Your children will thank you, so make it a point to hold people to a higher standard and everyone will benefit.

Take for example this article I read today about fraud and how it costs the country an estimated 400 billion dollars per year. All of this a result of skimming or expense report abuse or just good old fashioned corruption. One article written by an examiner who presided over a class that administered CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner) tests that, if passed, would grant the student a certificate and be able to integrate the coveted CFE title into their resumé, (and could therefore add substantially to the person's pay) demonstrate just how important telling the truth can be.

During one of the workshops, a student reported that he saw a guy signing the attendance sheet for his friend at the workshop who had already missed a couple of days. It was painfully obvious the same pen had been used and both names written by the same guy. During the conference, the examiner called out the absent fellow's name and he naturally didn't respond. The fellow who'd written both his name and his absent buddy's name shrank into his chair. Then the recruiter called him out and asked if he knew where his buddy/coworker was and he had no good answer. He then asked to see him after the workshop and naturally, the guy never showed.

The guys ended up taking the test, but the examiner denied them when he saw their names come across his desk. It ended up costing he AND his friend a certificate as a result of their collaboration. And although the perpetrators didn't see it as a big deal, the examiner saw it from the perspective that if you'd cave on something as trivial as this, how would they hold up under pressure where thousands if not millions of dollars were on the line. Sure gives one pause insofar as just how far one should go to cover for someone. How many lies do you tell in a day? How many do you tell for someone else?