You've watched the news.  You've read the papers.  Economic doom-and-gloom is everywhere.

Fear not, my faithful.  I give you my theory: It Ain't All That Bad.

First things first: the Gross Domestic Product, the end-all-be-all measure dictating whether or not we are in the throes of a recession, continues to grow.  Yes, it's growing slowly right now.  That's expected, considering a 112 percent increase in foreclosures in the last year, inflation growing fairly rapidly thanks to rising gas prices, and job expansion slowing down.  But the fact of the matter is that we are not in any type of recession, and simply cannot be in one — officially — until the GDP numbers are released for the second and third quarters of the year.  By definition, a recession in this nation is when the GDP shrinks in two or more consecutive quarters.  It grew by 0.6 percent in the first quarter, which means the soonest we could declare a recession is mid- to late-October.

Does that mean you shouldn't be concerned?  Absolutely not.  You should always pay close attention to your financial situation, and the situations around you.  What it means is that It's Not Time to Panic.   There's a lot you can do, now and for the rest of your life, to make sure you remain as unaffected as possible by any economic slowdown or recession.

1. Develop your skills. If you can provide a company with a qualified skill, and you can do your job very well, you are likely to be retained.  It's that simple.  And it makes you far more marketable in the event you are one of the people who gets "downsized."
2. Don't be too proud.  People complain about the job market and sit unemployed for months or years, living on savings — or, unfortunately, landing on welfare.  This can all be avoided if you simply let go of your pride.  Work at a fast-food restaurant.  Stock shelves in a grocery store. Get a paper route.  Heck, do all three!  The simple fact of the matter is that, even in the worst of economic times, there are countless jobs that go unfilled because people let their own pride get in the way.  It is not, I repeat, NOT, beneath anyone to perform any of these jobs.  And if you stop to think about this one simple, sickeningly basic truth, you'll see why: some income is better than no income. Yes, there may come a time when you have to rely on government assistance, and there is absolutely no shame in that.  It's there for the intended purpose of helping those in need.  But leaning on the government in the form of welfare or unemployment insurance while making little or no effort to resolve your situation is just plain lazy and greedy.
3. Open a savings account.  I can't stress this enough.  Even if you can only afford $10 per paycheck, it's worth your while.  Assuming two checks per month, that gives you a savings of $240 per year.  If you get paid bi-weekly, that means $260 per year.  After four years, you've saved about $1,000, and by doing what?  Skipping a Big-Mac a week?
4. Pack your lunch.  Do you run to McDonald's or Wendy's every day for lunch?  Do you know how far that six bucks could go if you saved it?  Assume a packed lunch costs $2.00 for the ingredients (and, if you shop intelligently instead of conveniently, you can eat a hearty lunch for a dollar or less).  The difference is $4.00 — per day.  Assume, as well, two weeks for vacation each year and a week worth of holidays, which leaves 49 working weeks.  That's $4.00 by five days a week, or $20.  Multiplied out by 49, you can save yourself upwards of $980!
5. If you smoke, STOP IT.  Are you puffing through a pack per day?  Cigarettes currently cost $3.50 per pack or more.  Even at that low end of the spectrum, 365 packs of smokes will run you $1,277.50 per year.  It's not an easy habit to quit.  I know.  But in the end, your lungs and wallet will thank you.
6. Don't go out so much!  Find something to do around the house — get some friends together and play poker or something.  The average night out for two at the movies right now will run you at least $30.  A poker game with a $10 buy-in saves you $20 right there.  Three beers at a bar will run you $15, including tip.  A six pack at the grocery store (well, here in the south we can get them almost anywhere) will cost about $7.50 on average.
7. Combine your trips.  We hear this one all the time, but it's making more and more sense as gas prices rise.  Make time in the evenings to pick up groceries on your way home from work, or stop at three different stores on one trip during the weekend.  Plan in advance what you need, and plan where you are going to get them.  Then figure out your route in advance to cut the travel time and distance.  Avoid high-traffic, low-speed roads.  The less time you spend idling, the quicker you can get where you're going.  And cruising at a steady 60mph on the highway or interstate in high gear will use less gas than the stop-and-go route through town, even if you cover a greater distance.  You burn far more fuel getting to a certain speed than you do maintaining it.
8. Spend the extra $1,000 for the more fuel-efficient car.  You can take the sportier, 20 mpg car, or the more efficient 25 mpg model.  Getting that extra 5 mpg will cost you $1,000 more up front (I pulled that number out of my rear, by the way, but this is an example).  Assuming 15,000 miles driven per year, you would need to purchase 750 gallons of fuel at 20 mpg, for a cost of $2,250.  At 25 mpg, it would require 600 gallons, for a total of $1,800 — an annual savings of $450.  Considering interest, even at a low four percent, that $1,000 over a five-year period would actually cost you $1,216.65.  Over that same five-year period, your savings on fuel would be $2,250 — a difference of about $1,000.  You gain about $1,000 by spending more up front.

I could go on and on.  And, over time, I think I will.  That's why I'm creating yet another new category on the site called "The Good Life on the Cheap".  But what I'm ultimately getting at is one of the central themes of this site lately: getting out of the Need-It-Now lifestyle is good for you in countless ways.  You are only guaranteed three main things in this country outside of the protections in the Bill of Rights: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  You are not guaranteed the happiness, only the opportunity to pursue it.  How you go about finding your happiness is up to you.  And even in the worst of economic situations, you can find it if you figure out where to look.

Edit: Did I actually spell it "porkshops" in the subject?  Yikes!  Fixed now.

Thank you, Alton Brown, for the head start.

Pork chops are my nemesis.  I've grilled them.  I've baked them.  I've Foreman'd them.  No matter what, they wind up about as dry as cardboard in the Sahara during a seventeen-year drought.  You could soak up spills with them.  And that's shocking, because I've come to realize that I'm a damn good cook.  A little arrogant?  Maybe.  But I've always had great reviews.  My chili won second place in a cook-off, and a certain group of people used to excitedly ask if I was going to make said chili when I would come to visit.  I know what I'm doing.

But the chops…man, the chops.  Thanks to the long-term breeding of American pigs, we get pork that's leaner than a marathon champion.  Lean means very little fat.  And very little fat means very little flavor.  And almost no moisture.  And the one time I tried brining my chops first, they came out tasting like someone left them out in the sun sitting underneath Shaq's left foot for a day and a half.  It turns out I had a few things wrong: the ratio of the ingredients, and the wrong cuts.

I hate bone-in meat.  It seems like too much work for the reward.  So it was a real kick in the cajones when I realized that pork chops are better with the bone intact.  And about an inch thick, just like a real, good T-bone steak.  Anything less than that, I can confidently say from much experience, is best used as a coaster.  So say it with me a gazillion times to make sure you've got it right next time: bone-in and an inch thick…bone-in and an inch thick…

But I want you to see…err…taste for yourself.  So plan a romantic dinner for two (yes, this is for two; double the brine recipe for four) with your spouse or significant other and follow these instructions (changed considerably from Alton Brown's recipe on Good Eats):

1. Use center-cut chops.  They will be made primarily of a single muscle, meaning consistent flavor, consistent cooking throughout, and less connective tissue to carve around while eating.
2. Combine 1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of mustard powder, 1 teaspoon of ground black pepper, and 1.5 cups of almost boiling apple cider vinegar and stir until the crystals dissolve.
3. Add two cups of ice cubes and stir until melted.
4. Submerge the chops completely.  If they won't go comepletely under, flip them halfway through brining.  Leave submerged for two to three hours.
5. Turn on grill to high heat and warm for ten minutes.  MEANWHILE, in the kitchen, hold each chop on end with the bone against the plate or cutting board, and insert a boning knife straight in through the layer of fat on the outside; push down until you feel the bone.  Swing the knife upward along the bone and also along the other side, being careful not to cut clear through at any point.  This will be a pocket to hold the filling.
6. Stuff thin-sliced apples and dried cranberries into the hole.  If you desire, spoon a small amount of brine into the pocket as well, to add a little moisture (the cranberries will soak a fair amount from the meat, so this is probably a good idea).
7. Place in center of grill.  After two minutes, rotate 90 degrees.  This is purely for aesthetics; it created those nice little grill marks on the meat.  Cook this way for another two minutes, then flip and repeat the process on the other side.
8. Move meat to top rack and turn heat to medium-low.  Allow to cook for up to another five to six minutes.
9. Eat soon after removing from the grill.  Pork dries out quicker than other meats.

If you do it right, I promise these will be some of the best chops you'll ever eat.  I shared them with my next-door neighbor andher first thought was that it didn't taste at all like a pork chop –it was that good.  The meat has just the right level of saltiness, and the sweet fruit inside is the perfect compliment.

Maybe I'll actually follow through one day with that promise to write a cookbook… 

This is pathetic, I know.  But, since most of my faithful readers are either family or friends, I thought I'd take a moment to remind you all in an incredibly-not-subtle manner that I write elsewhere: check out my fairly regular ramblings, along with fellow Raleigh resident Jim Pete, at The Steel Tradition (a Steelers blog) on the Most Valuable Network.  And, no, I'm not getting paid for this advertisement.

More than once, I've arrived at the sitter's house to tales of horror.  The worst of these were a result of her getting bored while laying down for a nap and proceeding to finger-paint with whatever she had available — usually found in her diaper.  That's what I would call being a kid.  Today, though, she got ballsy.

Saint or Sitter (SoS): "Did you go poopy?"

Her Cuteness: "No."

Conversation over, right?  Well, yeah, at least the pleasant part.  The little turd Her Cuteness turned away, waited for the sitter to do something else, and then reached into her pull-up (clearly, elastic was not our friend today).  Out came a fist-full of excrement, that then got ground into the carpet, and onto the coffee table, and — according to the debriefing — over everything else within reach until the sitter saw what was transpiring.

Okay, let's back up a step: a trend we've both noticed is that her mood changes dramatically after her nap.  Most kids go from whiny, tired messes to adorable little angels after a good snooze.  My daughter, though, turns into a cross between the critter from the movie series Predator, Fred Sanford and Archie Bunker — only with a less sunny demeanor.  Do not — I repeat, not — turn your back on her at this point.  You can literally hear All Hell Breaking Loose™.

I tell you this, because there are three simple signs of A Bad Day at the Sitter's House (I think I'll trademark that phrase, too):

1. My lovely daughter wearing different clothes than what I dressed her in that morning;
2. A little blond monster cooped up in a Pack-and-Play in the livingroom;
3. My Little Ray of Sunshine mysteriously sitting quietly on the couch when I arrive

There's one sign far more telling, though: the volume of her ecstatic cry of "Daddy!" when I ring the doorbell is directly proportionate to the amount of trouble she got in that day.  If I can clearly hear her over the television and four or more other rowdy kids, I know not to make eye contact with SoS. Today, she was louder than ever.

Okay, I got her out of there in one piece.  I was royally ticked because, on top of the poo-painting, there were other incidents we won't even get into.  But, she's two now.  Lately we've been getting uber-serious about her behavior, and today she spent 10 minutes confined to her room.  I let her out and gave her some grapes — but, if you asked her, they were undoubtedly sour grapes.  Dad's not happy at this point, either, but he let's that slide — that is, until she picked up the bowl and threw it across the kitchen when I wouldn't give her more grapes before dinner.

Use the potty before bath time?  Nooooooooooo.  Give her a pacifier?  Not a chance.  After her bath she spent another three minutes on the couch in timeout, and nearly made me melt when — without my prompting or prodding — looked at me with soggy eyes and said, "I sorry Daddy."

So we went through our nightly ritual — an episode of Garfield and Friends while she lays in the dark on the couch.  She went to bed pretty easily.

Too easily.

Up.  Down.  Up.  Down.  Then, after 20 minutes of no noise, I hear the sound of her bedroom door open.  I'm angry at this point, but when I saw her I had the hardest time staying that way.  There, on the dark side of the bedroom doorway, I saw my little blondie with her shirt collar pulled down around her waist and only one pants-leg on.

Damn, that cute smile.

After a lengthy fight (okay, it felt like an hour but really covered about 53 seconds), I got her back to bed.  Five minutes of babbling later, I went to her door to tell her once again to be quiet and go to sleep.  Darn, if the little girl didn't figure out the fake-like-you're asleep maneuver.  I saw her rapidly roll over and close her eyes as I swung her door open.

Amazingly — and finally — she fell asleep just like that about 10 minutes later.  Holy crap and Hallelujah.

The judicial branch has gone too far.

People can argue that the executive branch of the U.S. government has become substantially more powerful than the other branches since George W. Bush became our president.  Maybe, maybe not.  But the judicial branch's state-level courts have begun to weild a far greater power.

You can claim that George Bush has stomped on your civil liberties by instituting warrantless wiretaps.  That's an argument for another time, although I can tell you right now that it's not as big a power as the media would have you believe.  But now the courts are forcing ambiguity on individual citizens, and it's starting in San Francisco.

In the U.S., we have the freedom of religion.  We have the freedom of speech.  We have the freedom of peaceful protest.  But apparently we do not have the freedom to choose our roommates using sexual orientation as a criteria.  I, as a conservative Christian, believe that to be of critical importance.  You can call me a bigot all you want; I'm not out plastering the city with anti-homosexuality posters or holding Straight Power rallies in the streets (although they would likely be barred from happening in this modern United States).

This angst comes from a story out of (where else?) San Francisco: Reuters is reporting that a San Francisco court has ruled that Roommates.com cannot ask a registrant's sexual orientation.  The argument made by the judge is that, "not only does Roommate ask these questions, Roommate makes answering the discriminatory questions a condition of doing business."  Okay, maybe that's true, but they are not discriminating based on it.  They are classifying a person based on the answer they give to help those seeking roommates weed out orientations they may not be comfortable with.  Roommates.com is not denying gays or lesbians, and therefore cannot be subject to a discrimination lawsuit.

Here's the real kicker: the people who may or may not "discriminate" against others based on this information are the roommate seekers.  A roommate relationship is not a business relationship.  I have every right to disallow someone from living under my roof based on any criteria I choose, and I'll be damned if this overtly liberal government we're forced to live under right now is going to tell me different.  And if you give a damn about your civil liberties, then you should be up in arms too.  Because this is a much further reaching issue than Bush's warrantless wiretaps — but, while that one spends day after day in the spotlight, this one won't get more than 24 hours' worth of headlines.  I guarantee it.