Backpacking through Europe

     As I'm sure you have all heard me say many times before, last summer I visited Germany for a month and fell in love with it. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I am planning another trip to Europe this summer. I want to go on a 31 day backpacking trip through all of Europe. The trip would start out with me flying into London. Since backpacking is all about being free and doing what you want, I do not really have a set plan for what I will be doing. I do, however, have a basic outline of the cities I want to visit. They include: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Venice, Rome, Monaco, Barcelona and Madrid. I have mapped it out and if I travel to each of these cities in that order I will have essentially made one big loop around Europe. This will also allow me to fly out of a major airport back to Chicago on my last day- Madrid. While I am in Europe I will be traveling city to city using trains. The train system over there is much different than ours and, if I may say so myself, much better. I would purchase what they call a "EuroRail Flexi Saver Pass." This pass is good for 15 full days of unlimited travel within a 2 month period. It cost roughly $800.00 and is good for 2-5 people. Therefore, the more people you have the less the train cost. I plan on staying in hostels when not traveling. Hostel's are a great way to meet new people and, contrary to popular belief, are nothing like what you see in movies; in fact there more like motels. However, while I am in Berlin I plan on staying with friends since I have a lot of them there. This will ultimately save me some money, while at the same time allowing me to catch-up with old friends. All in all, I am really looking forward to this trip. I estimate that after the expenses are added up (plane/train tickets, hostels, food/necessities, gear, souvenirs, etc...), the trip could cost anywhere between $2500.00-$4500.00. It all depends on what type of deals I can get on tickets and how much money I spend when I am over there. Nevertheless, I plan on doing this kind of thing the rest of my life (hopefully every summer) and in 2014 my friend Kurt and I are planning on backpacking through Brazil, then going to the World Cup since they will be hosting it. Anyways thanks for reading!

-Jake

Criminal Justice

      While I am not one hundred percent certain I am going actually major in Criminal Justice, as of right now it is my major and I am fairly happy with it. There are many topics that one could write about when thinking about criminal justice. For instance: "Are America's prisons too crowded?" Many people belive that America's prisons are too crowded and that we need to stop imprisoning as many people. Much of the overcrowding has to do with America's harsh punishment for parol violators and second time offenders. If we lessened the punsihment imposed for these minor crimes we could save our country a great deal of money and space. This would be the main topic of my paper- Why America needs to decrease its prison population.
    Another possible criminal justice topic could be: "Are there too many criminal laws?" It seems like almost every day a new law is made and that it is nearly impossible to go a week without breaking at least one of them. If I were to write a paper on this topic the main focus would be "Why we do not need so many laws." I would write about this because I feel as though our government has too much control over us and we are losing the idea of being "a free nation." Yes laws are necessary to keep order, however, we do not need anywhere near as many as we have now.
     My third and final idea for this project right now is: "Are cops too corrupt?" We give the police a lot of power and at the end of the day they are merely the same person as we are; just with a badge and a gun. Our nation is full of dirty cops who abuse their athority and do what they please. In this paper I would focus on why cops are too corrupt and what we can do as a country to fix this solution.

The Miami Heat

As the year comes to a close and the trees begin to turn, the question people are asking themselves is not whether or not they should wear white after Labor Day, but rather is the Miami Heat going to win the NBA title? Yes, you heard me right. The biggest question this fall has nothing to do with politics or fashion, but rather with basketball. Over the off-season the Miami Heat basketball team put in some serious work and spent some serious money. They managed to positively manipulate their trade negotiations and come out of the trade talks with three superstar athletes. Now if you don't follow sports (you could probably care less about this blog) I will go ahead and inform you on who they have acquired. They managed to acquire superstars: Lebron James, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade. For those of you reading this that are not sports fans, allow me to put this in to your terms. If the Miami Heat is America, all the other teams in the league would be like Kazakhstan. However, there is one team that could possibly cause them some trouble. The Los Angeles Lakers are the defending NBA title champions for two years running, and many consider them to be them to still be the best team in the league. A majority of Americans feel as though the Heat have too many stars and that they will not be able to play well together. Furthermore, they feel as though the Heat has no supporting cast (no other good players) to help these three monSTARS (yea that’s a Space Jam reference). So again we find ourselves back at the original question. Will the Miami Heat be able to function as a team and win an NBA title; or will they clash for the spotlight and crumble? I guess only time will tell...