I’ve had some friends move to the US lately. One left for a better job, and another for a special course that he can’t take here in Canada. I try not to look at is a losing a friend but rather gaining a new place to visit.

One of my friends moved to Boise Idaho and he tells me that he’s really enjoying Boise. The people are friendly and there are lots of different things to do in and around the city. He’s sort of a renaissance man - enjoys theater, acting, fine dining, good movies, night life and he says he’s found all of those things in Boise.

I decided to try to find out a little bit more about the city that he’s moved to, and apparently it’s quite a popular place to move to these days. People are moving their for the atmosphere and style of living. I went to the Idaho real estate to have a look around at the homes and as I said to learn more about the city.

I was actually quite impressed by what I found. Boise has a number of cultural and historical activities, great schools, museums, an active art community - great for my friend - and has a number of fantastic sounding sports teams - some at University level.

I really didn’t think, when my friend was moving to Boise that it had that much going on, but it actually sounds like a very nice place to have moved to. Oh the real estate prices seem to be fairly reasonable as well. At least compared to Toronto prices the size of homes and the prices seem reasonable.

I’m happy for my friend now that I’ve had a look at his new city. I think he made a great choice.

It seems that the Head of the Department of Culture in Vrancea county, Romania- Paraschiv Usturoiu, has come up with a unique way to save the government money.

Romanian civil servents were recently told to use newspaper and magazines instead of toilet paper. Usturoiu stated “I can’t afford to buy toilet paper any more, so I cut some local newspapers into pieces and placed them in the toilets. I’m sure they’ll work just fine.”

Employees are offended and outraged, claiming that it’s degrading and that they could hurt themselves or get infected from the ink used for printing the newspapers and magazines. Employees have asked their boss to reconsider.

This kind of government cut could really hurt.