Good morning everyone from Texas where it is sunny,clear and 61 deg. at present, no envy please, we will have 100 days of 100 degree weather soon enough with no rain but today’s days are the days we live for.
The secret of storage is putting things where you can see them. I mean if you have shelves put the things that are tall in the rear and shorter objects in front. Just to be able to see them even if you cannot organize similar items together. I am 63 and too late in life realized that if you have “stuff” and know what you have but cannot find it you might as well not have it. Paying for storage is ok if you need it temporarily but long term is insanity. The worst thing in regards to storage is when you need something you are sure you have stored but have to buy another because you can’t find it. I speak from late in life experiences upon having owned a 7500 sq. ft. warehouse completely full but with surplus Wal-Mart type steel shelving which made everything a breeze. Overkill I suppose but when things are visible, not necessarily handy, you feel good about it.I sold the warehouse and am down to less than 3K sq. ft. and am managing ok although the other secret to storage is when you use something you MUST take the time to put it back from where it was found. That way if you follow the 18″ rule(more often than not whatever you are looking for is within 18″ of where you think it should be,sometimes on the floor), in finding things you will be ok. The only downside to my method is I would say conservatively I spend a good bit of my time 10 – 15% putting things back where I found them. Another key to storage is drag every thing out you wish to organize so you can get a feel for what you are doing and then put it all away. We all know the gratifying feeling from organizing which is not dissimilar to throwing things in the garbage for good never to be worried over again. Good luck from Texas

There is no doubt atrocities are happening daily and need immediate correction however I believe solitary confinement may be the panacea for our institutional problems.
Bear with me in what I consider the best solution for those incarcerated. I am going to make this case as simple to understand as possible where one is put in solitary confinement in a cell perhaps a little larger than the one in the article complete with a radio, all the books he might want, of course toilet facilities, and a good bed and not to be let out of the cell until his sentence is up or for medical reasons or have communication with the outside world.
The only way this would work, keep in mind, is if any particular sentence length is reduced by a considerable amount to be determined. Reduced I would say in a wild guess to a maximum of 20% the original length.
This may sound inhumane although I would consider it harsh but it would solve many problems.
The first thing it might help is keeping recidivism down since I figure once a person is in solitary they would find it so abhorrent they would not want to do anything illegal knowing they would have to endure it again.
The cost to feed and house would be minimal because the prisoner would get a plate through the bars and be collected when finished so no guards would be necessary other than the one whose job is to deliver and collect the plates for however many prisoners he is assigned.
Solitary for everyone means no gang related communications, no brutality from guards hopefully since a lot of that comes from inmate fighting, no sodomy or fighting between inmates, no heirachy. I think the cells could even be across and next to each other so they could talk to each other.
I warrant that if the political will would be there, this or something like this might work.I am not advocating cruel and unusual punishment other than when a person goes to jail he stays in one jail cell till released. As I stated earlier the stay in prison I believe could be reduced extremely and the ex-cons would have a better go at than what is being called incarceration today.
Let me know what you think and I may share my idea of fixing the health industry with free med school for those who can make the grade willing to repay their education with service in government run hospitals for a given number of years and enough salary to live on till that service is completely repaid.