OF PUBLIC SERVANTS AND HOLIDAYS:

Today I want to talk about the people who make life worth living.
I know the title is a little misleading in this but what it means is our police officers, firefighters, paramedics, ambulance techs and EMTs, the doctors and nurses, the security officers and the power workers… in short all the people who work every day of the year so that you can be warm and safe and have the nicer things.

See I think we don’t think about them often enough. Remember I said they work every day, that is the crux of the whole thing here… EVERY day.
When you’re kids are out trick or treating, and you are at your party/ies, they are standing by to keep the predators away, while you are sitting around your thanksgiving feast they are waiting for the call to come rscue you from the food you are choking on or to save you from your stupidity in trying to deep fry your turkey, when you are around your Christmas tree opening presents they are ready and willing to come out to save your home from burglars or fire.
And while all these things are going on they are also out there making sure you have the electricity to see by in your house or to light your ornaments, they are guarding your place of employment so you have somewhere to go back to work at after you are done with your frivolity. Often they are sacrificing time with their own families and friends in order to do this.

The thing is, we never really think of them. We don’t think about what they are doing until they drop the bell for a few minutes or we have to rush a loved one to the ER or we need someone to come and save us from our folly. Then they see US when we are in the worst circumstances possible, in the midst of crisis and fear.

And we seldom appreciate them for what they do. We rail at the policeman who in stopping the crook knocked over our snowman.
We scream at the doctor or nurse in the ER because we HAVE to know what is going on with the loved one who was brought in with third degree burns because of the stupid deep fryer. We berate the firefighter/s who took too long to get to our house to save our favorite Christmas ornaments.

So this holiday season I am asking you to go out of yourself. Think about the “public servants” around you in your life.
And not just the ones I listed here, all of them have thankless jobs where we are to ready to gripe and complain about them and we seldom offer any encouragement.
Think of your child’s school interactions, get a present for the teacher for Christmas yes, but don’t forget the bus driver who got your child to and from school safely all this time.
Think about the school nurse the classroom aid and the principle.
What about your mail carrier? Maybe he or she could use a lift of encouragement with a Christmas card just for them, and a small gift would be nice too. (please check if there are any restrictions against gifting first though.)

If you see a police officer regularly (or even better the security officer at your work) bring him or her a thank you note for the safety they provide in your everyday life.

Let these people know they are valued for the service they give. Let them know that they are not laboring in vain.
I am sure if you think of it you can come up with ideas too for things you can do to let them know how you feel.

IT’S MY PARTY I CAN CRY IF I WANT TO

So last week we celebrated Megan’s birthday. (for just about the whole week.) Her Grandpa came to visit (for the whole week) we planned a big party, and we (she) opened presents.
After all you only turn 5 once right?

I was struck by this song and it’s lyrics during her party though, when she lost the second game of musical chairs and had a meltdown. Tears flowing freely and unashamedly down her face, she decided she didn’t want to play musical chairs anymore.
This caused me to think. I have had a few bad birthdays in my life; some of them I would dearly love to change. Is this a trend that she has inherited from me? Is this just a natural issue with birthday parties (so stressful they cause us to break down when we are young) or what?

Now I could attribute it to selfishness; But I am more inclined to believe that this is a stressful situation which a younger person hasn’t got the skill sets to deal with, and so an emotional overload happens.

Of course THAT causes me to wonder; Does this mean that she will be less able to cope with stressful changes than a peer who handles a party like this more calmly? I certainly hope not.

I know there are moments in my life when I have not been as calm as I ought to have been, I have overreacted, and gone ballistic and I have broken down in tears too a time or two.

Of course part of my problem is that I tend to dwell! And I could still tell you in detail most of my bad birthdays and what made them bad. It would be harder for me to tell you what birthdays I have enjoyed.

Well I guess that means I hope that she doesn’t take after my negativity, but I do come by it naturally. I am human and most humans seem to have that streak in them.

Oh well, maybe the next party will be better. She has a new skill set now. She’ll know what is coming up next time an event like this happens.
Until then I hope you all have a great day.

THE CLIMB:

This is the first in my series of musically inspired blogging.

This song (performed by Miley Cyrus) is one that inspires hope. An acknowledgement of trials and strife to be dealt with while also noting the dream that drives [us].
For me I like the tune, some of the lyrics are a little… odd, but they are ok. (“I may not know it but these are the moments I’m going to remember most…”) uuuummmmm yeah if I don’t know it then how am I going to acknowledge it?

But really this song does speak to me. It gives me hope. I like that.

Life today has so little to hope for it seems. The threat of terrorism, the diseases, which while not what my grandparents had to endure they still exist, the tough times ahead and the recession we are in now.
But this song helps us to remember that life IS struggle. The bird, in order to live, has to struggle it’s way out of the egg first. This struggle makes the bird stronger and enables it to survive later.
The butterfly has to struggle out of the cocoon, that struggle gives it’s wings the strength so that it can fly. All of life has to struggle to be.
And “that which does not kill us only serves to make us stronger.”

So today’s song choice is The Climb. I hope that you will remember to keep on struggling… the alternative might not be so nice.

SONG TITLES:

I have recently thought of something, a little experiment I want to try. I am going to use some of my favorite song titles to try to come up with themes for future blogs here.
Maybe that will help me to come up with the blog postings I want to put in here.
We will see huh...

maybe it will cause me to open myself a little more.
Anyway keep watching here for the first installment.

BIRTHDAY SURPRISE:

Well this past week we celebrated our birthdays (my wife and I) and here are the gifts the girls chose to give us.
For Christina’s birthday Faith went ALL out and broke her little toe. This resulted in a trip to the ER on a Saturday and a visit to the pediatrician for the Monday following.
But for My birthday the girls decided to tone it down a little and so they just had Holly choke on a piece of trash carelessly left on the floor. Which prompted me to delve into my CPR training and have to administer real live anti choke techniques on her.

I am glad by the way to have that training to be able to use it. At least that meant we could avoid the ER again.
So on we go swinging onto a new year for each of us. I really hope that this is NOT the trend for the entirety of our year/s at this age. If it is I am going to have to be committed for my next birthday, well if we survive it that is.

WHAT IS MATURITY ANYWAY?:

So I just finished reading the catcher in the rye. My first impression was "wow there sure is a LOT of bad language in that book, and I would sure not want my children to see all of that language."
My second thought was "gee I remember going through all that 'angst' and being a teenager". I really understood the jaded perception/s of Caufield. but then I came across the line that made me think the most.
"the mark of an immature man is the desire to die nobly for a cause; the mark of the a mature man is to live humbly for one.

I pondered the meaning of that statement and I ended up finding myself in disagreement. I would instead say the mark of the Immature is to want to be a hero the mark of the mature is to be quietly heroic.
I think that is actually what the author was getting at.
See I think that when you believe in something (a cause) to the point that you are willing to sacrifice your life is a very mature thing. The United States of America wouldn't exist if not for this drive, Slavery would not be abolished, and no one would be safe to sleep at night because there would be no police officers to keep us safe. (I mean do you really want the immature to carry guns?)

Our country was founded by men and women who felt that to die nobly for the cause of freedom was the greatest thing possible (Nathan Hale and his " I regret that I have but one life to give..." statement leap to mind.) and it has continued thanks to that sense of sacrifice. Slavery was abolished in our country and in England by the same kind of sentiment.

Even the Christian faith, which has done so much for the world though the world would deny the good done, was comprised of people who were willing to die for their belief/s.
In fact when I think of Rome and Christianity and I think of the many Christians who were sacrificed to lions as entertainment for the general populace of Rome I have to say that I find those who were entertained by the violent death to be MUCH more immature than the way that those Christians died, NOBLY FOR A CAUSE.

So I will stick with the idea that it is the desire to be a hero, because you don't realize the sacrifice involved, that is the mark of immaturity. And it is the man quietly, HEROICALLY going to work daily to feed his kids, the mother who goes without a new dress so her daughter can have dance classes, the son who fights the war, the daughter who helps her family, these people are going around quietly being heroes and I think that is the most noble AND the most mature thing there is.

To Wii, or not to Wii...

Lately my wife and I have decided that we are going to splurge for our birthdays and buy a Wii.
We were very excited at the prospect of this purchase though we thought it to be an expensive one. The problem is that the games themselves are VERY cost prohibitive.

I suppose I can understand paying a couple of hundred for the game system, but why do the games themselves have to be so expensive?
I remember owning a Sega Genesis. That was a cool machine! It cost me about $150.00 but once I bought that game system I was able to play a lot of my favorite old arcade games including Altered Beast, Shinobi, And Sonic the hedgehog. The games themselves only ran me about 15 to 20 bucks each.
I also had one of the old Nintendo boxes for a while, same deal only the games there were top gun, Mario brothers and such…
I got rid of them way back when because I thought they were becoming too much of a problem in my budget, in that they were getting obsolete and I wanted the next big thing(that is why they were a budget problem because I couldn‘t afford the next big thing without divesting myself of the old).
Now I am wishing though that I had kept those old systems. The games were good, (at least they were good enough) they were entertaining and they cost a heck of a lot less.
Games for the Wii can easily run 50 or 60 bucks a pop. To me that is ridiculous. But that is what I am going to have to put up with now because of the folly of selling off the old systems. Ah well. That is life.

So we all try to “keep up with the Joneses“, but I still wonder… What reason is there for this kind of expense? I don’t see it. But there you are. Anyway hopefully at the end of the week we will have a new way for our family to “bond” and with any luck we will have the games that we can all enjoy together. I will tell you one thing, the girls are going to have a tough time convincing Daddy that we “NEED” that particular game. Particularly in the middle of a recession.

I wish game companies would learn to think that way too. Maybe, as parents, we ought to be more inclined to say “no that is an unreasonable expense for us.”
Then when the kids CAN’T buy the system by begging, cajoling or threatening their parents, the makers of these systems would wake up and make things a little easier on the pocket book.

Well that is my thought for today.
Hope you all have a great day (week).

JUST WHAT IS MY PROBLEM?:

I hear people talking about homophobes and such all the time and I get the idea that I am lumped into that group. But I really do have a reason for my distrust of the homosexual community and I hope that I can explain it here.
I did NOT start out with this feeling about the homosexual/s I knew. They trained me to that distrust.
I have had a lot of interaction with people of that persuasion, even living in Hollywood for a time and in every experience I have had I have seen them deceive and twist things so they could try to force everyone to follow their view…

For example during the time that I lived in Hollywood I worked for a company that also employed a man who was gay.
He insisted on forcing his beliefs on me and he tried very hard to coerce me to go on a date with him. I said no, repeatedly, and he NEVER accepted that. He kept trying to force me to accept his lifestyle choice, but more than that he refused to let me be straight, it wasn’t enough for me to let him be gay As far as he was concerned I was good looking to him and so nothing else would do but that I become gay to just to satisfy him.
And I have seen the same thing played out time after time.
Before the encounter I had with this guy, I worked at the Grand canyon I had a coworker who was a good friend of mine.
Now my friend was a redneck and there was NO doubt how he felt about homosexuals, namely that as long as they left him alone he would leave them alone. In short he was not interested never was and never would be.
One of our coworkers, who was gay thought my friend was attractive. The gay man did everything he could do to try to force the redneck to become gay.
It didn’t work in that situation either but the attitude of the gay man was that the redneck had to not just accept him (the gay) but also had to concede to the gay man’s lusts.

It made for a very uncomfortable time for all of us working there and in both of these cases this would, in a heterosexual reality, be a clear cut case of sexual harassment, but because they were gay there was no real recourse for the persons being harassed, because of the issue of P.C. ness.
In both the cases cited here neither myself or the redneck at the canyon had the option to try to assert our own sexuality or beliefs because the homosexual in each case was considered to be a protected class because they chose to be gay.

LOVE IS A TIGHTROPE ACT:

I have to tell you that I am not looking forward to having “the talk” with my daughters.
I know, I know… NO parent is looking forward to that; but I have to wonder how many of them have the same reasons as me.

One of the reasons I do not look forward to it is because of what society has done to portray love. Love has become an icky thing, all about emotions and stuff that rather hurts. But I think most people don’t really know what REAL love is all about.

In movies books and on TV we see the idea that love is all about physical infatuation or lust and that when it reaches the scary bits or the parts where we have to work at it we can just throw in the towel and say “this isn’t what I signed up for!” and leave. But that isn’t really love.
Love is abut sacrifice. Love is about caring, love is about putting the needs of the one you love before your own, Love is abut work!

As I have pointed out before this is anathema to today’s society (“think of you think of what you want forget everyone else.”) and to people today (ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME,).

The thing is there are unscrupulous people out there right now who will take that very concept and twist it to their own ends, “If you loved me, you would…”

Sadly they take that which is good and make it bad.

I love my wife and so I do things for her BECAUSE of that love. I deny myself.

Unfortunately I also hate to get hurt so I have learned from her that I need to not ask her to do stuff for me, because if I do she will probably say no, either in words or in actions.
So I have learned not to ask for her to do things for me. And that makes me sad because sometimes it makes me doubt her love for me.

I went through some really tough times as a kid, emotionally, and some of the reasons for that I have already blogged.
But one of the biggest issues I had to confront was about sex. There I said it, it is out there.
My idea of love and sex are occasionally very skewed.
One because of the pervasive attempt by our society to make all things sexual.
Two because of certain people who, during my formative years, attempted to sexualize me before I was ready, while I was still a child (and others who should have stopped it stood by and allowed it).
And Three because of the addictive patterns I developed when I came across some old playboy magazines.

So when the day comes that I have to give my little talk to my girls about the “birds and the bees” I am going to find it hard to NOT superimpose the things I have learned that are wrong. At the same time I need to let them know how LOVE, REAL love enters into the picture.

I suppose that because of my Christianity I have a few fall back positions that will help, because at least in Christianity I have learned that there are several words in Greek that define love and I can use those to tell the girls better what love they ought to be seeking in their relationships and the way that all works, but I still don’t know exactly what I will have to say, and it still makes me nervous.

One thing I will tell you all right now though, love needs to be a two way street, and you need to try to see not only what you can do for others but what they are doing for you.

Sometimes I find it difficult to see when my wife is doing things to show her love. Earlier I said that I cannot ask her to do things for me because the “no’s” hurt, a LOT. And it often seems to me that I am doing more of the heavy lifting for our relationship than she is. Part of that is my own selfishness and my thoughts about me instead of focusing on her and I do not blame her for all those feelings, they are my feelings and I do own them.
But she does try and there are times I can see it. I need to let her know more often that I do appreciate her, and what she does.
But here is my big tip on that issue for you in your life. Be ready to deny yourself, try to understand what your loved one likes or wants and maybe once in a while give that person exactly what they want. Even if that seems a little weird or creepy to you. (like going on a roller coaster, or trying something new NOT TOO NEW in the bedroom. DO NOT TRY THE NEW BEDROOM THING ON THE ROLLER COASTER THOUGH, I mean there ARE laws and decency and quite frankly I don‘t want to see that…)

When they ask for something, don’t make excuses, don’t put them off because they need to know they are loved, and if you do not let them know that then who will? (supposed to be a rhetorical but think about all the people who get a divorce every day).

On the other hand, if you are the one asking, when they can’t give you what you want, don’t go looking for it somewhere else. That is a dangerous road that will lead you straight into trouble. And that is a trouble you do NOT need.

IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE:

O.k. let me explain why I am concerned about a lot of people most especially Homosexuals and liberals. It is well summed up in the children’s book “If you give a mouse a cookie.”

And the long and short of it is if you give a mouse a cookie he’s gonna want a glass of milk.
See no matter how much you give these people it is NEVER enough. They are going to want more. And it never ends.
It doesn’t matter how much suffering or effort you have to go through, they are never satisfied and they will want more. And this is something I speak of from experience BTW... see my later post on this subject.
This attitude actually makes for good reading more than you would think. The First book did so well that there is now a whole series with moose and pigs and mice and more.

3D OR NOT TO 3D:

Lately I have been noticing a tendency for movies to start trending to the 3d thing. Like someone quipped though the whole idea seems to be “instead of making a good movie let’s make it in 3d so people will want to watch it. Instead of trying to make a quality product these people are trying to use gimmickry to draw in viewers.
Now don’t et me wrong here! There are good movies being made in 3d format, And I look forward to seeing some of them, but I prefer the good old 2d method for a couple of reasons. One they are cheaper. the theaters have taken this gimmickry and used it to make more money then they do with 2d formats by charging you a rental fee for the 3d glasses you use. And they don’t care if you save your glasses and bring them back to watch another 3d movie, they will still charge you the extra 3 bucks for the glasses anyway.

To me this seems like a scam. Why would they do this? Except to make extra money off the moviegoers. They don’t seem to realize that the economy is not booming right now, and they ought to.
All their sales are in a slump, that is probably one of the reasons they charge more, to try to make up the difference.
But they think (I guess) that the reason people aren’t going is a lack of gimmicks when the real reason is a lack of funds. So raising rates is NOT going to solve the problem, it will make it worse! What they need to do is to make the movies more affordable so people can get out and see them without spending all their rent money.

OH WHAT A TANGLED WEB THIS IS:

Recently I heard about a woman in Southern California who has decided that she wants to wear her Hijab during Ramadan. The problem is she works for Disneyland and they have a dress code (uniforms) which forbids the use of a garment like that.

When I served in the military we had uniforms and there were a lot of restrictions on what we could and could not have on, in or around those uniforms. We were not given the option of wearing a cross unless we were a chaplain, we could not personalize the uniforms beyond the nametags they gave us and even our underwear was issued to us. That is just the way it is.

Anyway long and short of it she said that “[They] sent her home and would not let her wear it, thereby infringing on her freedom of religion.”

Now I believe that a person or A private business, ought to be allowed to do things the way the business or the person wants, WITHIN REASON, the needs of the business though outweigh the wants of the person. And if a person cannot abide by the needs of the business they ought to find another job where they can.

the whole purpose to our country’s laws and ideals is individual freedoms. The problem is people today are unwilling to let others have their freedoms, “that can’t happen”.
They will sue a business for making the person conform to a dress code. Where I would say YOU knew about the dress code before starting to work there, If the dress code was unsuitable to you then you should not have taken that job, they would say no that employer hires people so he or she has to do it the way WE want him or her to do it.
SORRY TO TELL YOU BUT, YOU CHOSE TO WORK THERE! LIVE WITH IT, or get another job.

I think the way it works (and ought to work) is that, as an employer, it is MY money And therefore MY choice.
Same with property or goods, I chose to buy this stuff and NO ONE in this world ought to be able to tell me that I cannot use the item I BOUGHT or tell me how I should use it. It is my stuff, it is my property it is my choice.
If you do not want people being able to choose how to use that which they spent their money on, DON’T SELL IT TO THEM.
I get so frustrated at all the people who want to say, “yeah you just purchased that land for 3 million dollars but you can’t build your house on it because we think it ought to be used for a park instead. If you want to build a park there then YOU need to pay the three million to buy it so you can put the park in. But until then shut up and let the owner do what ever he wants.

The ONLY possible exception I can see is when there is a negative impact on the people or property around there, and it has to be an extreme level to count.
In other words if you are pumping hazardous waste into the stream on the back of your property then that is a no go because that stream doesn’t really belong to you. The water doesn’t just stay on your property, it will flow down to the sea and once it is off your property then it is no longer for you to use. In that kind of a case you are poisoning the property of your neighbors or even the neighbors themselves and that is not good.

But just because YOU like trees doesn’t mean you have the right to tell the property owner he HAS to leave them alone. Their loss is not necessarily particularly damaging to nature or other people (unless it is the last of that kind of tree period end of story.)
There is no carry over to other things in other words. So shut up it’s his/her property leave him/her alone.

Likewise if someone has a business, how or she chooses to run that business is no concern of your’s. If you do not like his or her hiring practices or the way he or she treats his or her employees then you can tell him or her how you feel and then decide to NOT use the product that business puts out.
BUT you DO NOT have the right to tell the owner that he or she HAS to abide by your choice.
You want to tell people how to run a business? GET YOUR OWN $%#@ BUSINESS!

Too many people want to tell others what to do and I for one think it’s time that we start looking to our own selves and doing what we think is right for us, each, individually instead of focusing on what everyone else does.
Some people would say that this is a shortsighted outlook, but it isn’t really. We can still show concern and we can still try to help others to see their mistakes.
But unless it is truly causing great harm, if the business has the practice of going out and hitting people on the head and putting them to work against their will, if the business is making life unlivable for people who have no choice to change it through pollution, if the business is stealing from people, or if the business is specifically hunting resources to destroy all that is needed all over the world, or if they are buying up all of something and destroying it to create scarcity. Yeah that kind of unethical immorality needs to be stopped.

But if they don’t take good care of the employee, the employee can quit. It is the employee’s choice to work there, if the business is making a product you don’t like then you can just not buy that product, if the business has a restrictive dress code then you can choose to not work there. And in each if these cases you have the choice, as a consumer, to not shop there.
I do not think you ought to have the choice to sue them for deciding to do what they want to do when it comes down to an issue of personal responsibility or choice like that.

LOVE IS A TIGHTROPE ACT:

I have to tell you that I am not looking forward to having “the talk” with my daughters.
I know, I know… NO parent is looking forward to that; but I have to wonder how many of them have the same reasons as me.

One of the reasons I do not look forward to it is because of what society has done to portray love. Love has become an icky thing, all about emotions and stuff that rather hurts. But I think most people don’t really know what REAL love is all about.

In movies, books and on TV we see the idea that love is all about physical infatuation or lust, and that when it reaches the scary bits or the parts where we have to work at it we can just throw in the towel and say “this isn’t what I signed up for!” and leave. But that isn’t really love.

Love is abut sacrifice. Love is about caring, love is about putting the needs of the one you love before your own, Love is abut work!

As I have pointed out before this is anathema to today’s society (“think of you think of what you want forget everyone else, oh and by the way while you are at it buy our product to treat yourself.”) and to people today (ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME,).

The second thing that makes this a difficult subject in my mind sounds like it is the opposite side but it isn't really.
See the thing is there are unscrupulous people out there right now who will take the very concept about love being trying to care for other's needs first, and twist it to their own ends, “If you loved me, you would…” (fill in the end of this yourself, we all know how this works.)

See we do need to be cared for and we also need to care for others. That is the simple truth. but to do so can be a tightrope act like you will never see in the circus.

Sadly society and the unscrupulous like to take that which is good and make it bad.


I have many problems myself with trying to do this juggling act.

I love my wife and so I do things for her BECAUSE of that love. I deny myself.

Unfortunately I also hate to get hurt so I have learned from her that I need to not ask her to do stuff for me, because if I do she will probably say no, either in words or in actions, and that hurts.
It seems sometimes that she says no a lot more than yes while I am trying to say yes a lot more than no.

So I have learned not to ask for her to do things for me. And that makes me sad because sometimes it makes me doubt her love for me.

I went through some really tough times as a kid, emotionally, and some of the reasons for that I have already blogged.
But one of the biggest issues I had to confront was about sex. There I said it, it is out there.
My idea of love and sex are occasionally very skewed.

One because of the pervasive attempt by our society to make all things sexual.
Two because of certain people who, during my formative years, attempted to sexualize me before I was ready, while I was still a child (and others who should have stopped it, stood by and allowed it).
And Three because of the addictive patterns I developed when I came across some old playboy magazines.

So when the day comes that I have to give my little talk to my girls about the “birds and the bees” I am going to find it hard to NOT superimpose the things I have learned that are wrong. At the same time I need to let them know how LOVE, REAL love enters into the picture.

I suppose that because of my Christianity I have a few fall back positions that will help, because at least in Christianity I have learned that there are several words in Greek that define love and I can use those to tell the girls better what love they ought to be seeking in their relationships and the way that all works, but I still don’t know exactly what I will have to say, and it still makes me nervous.

One thing I will tell you all right now though, love needs to be a two way street, and you need to try to see not only what you can do for others but what they are doing for you.

Sometimes I find it difficult to see when my wife is doing things to show her love. Earlier I said that I cannot ask her to do things for me because the “no’s” hurt, a LOT. And it often seems to me that I am doing more of the heavy lifting for our relationship than she is.
Part of that is my own selfishness and my thoughts about me instead of focusing on her and I do not blame her for all those feelings, they are my feelings and I do own them.
But she does try and there are times I can see it. I need to let her know more often that I do appreciate her, and what she does.

But here is my big tip on that issue for you in your life. Be ready to deny yourself, try to understand what your loved one likes or wants and maybe once in a while give that person exactly what they want.
Even if that seems a little weird or creepy to you. (like going on a roller coaster, or trying something kind of new in the bedroom. DO NOT TRY THE NEW BEDROOM THING ON THE ROLLER COASTER THOUGH, I mean there ARE laws and decency and quite frankly I don‘t want to see that…)

When they ask for something, don’t make excuses, don’t put them off because they need to know they are loved, and if you do not let them know that then who will? (supposed to be a rhetorical but I think maybe this is why all those people are going out and getting divorces).

On the other hand, if you are the one asking, when they can’t give you what you want, don’t go looking for it somewhere else. That is a dangerous road that will lead you straight into trouble. And that is a trouble you do NOT need.

But also make the time to let them know what they can do for you. But don't force them, if they have to be made to do something then that is not love that is fear and that is not a good thing.

ONE OF THE REASONS FOR THE TITLE OF THIS BLOG

I have been thinking that one benefit to blogging is that it helps to keep me from talking to myself... ;-)

LOL

No really though, sometimes late at night I get t o thinking about things and the trouble is if I do not get them out then they get lost. I am hoping to be able to keep my thoughts and profoundness going so I can revisit them (or others can).

My problem is that I know that I have "lost" about three different thoughts that would have each been a good blog for me to post.

Hopefully I will recover some of them soon.
Until then Have a good day.

(Maybe some reader out there will buy me something that will make it easier to post things, or at least remember them.)

My new problem with Ebay

Good morning everyone.
You know my wife is an awesome person. She is very bright and perceptive!
Recently we decided we had a few items we needed to get out of our lives and so we decided to sell them online ( in fact my old DVD of Braveheart just shipped out this week).
I suggested that we could sell them on Ebay so that maybe people would bid them up and we would get more, but she decided to list them on Amazon at a flat rateand now I tend to agree with her that Amazon was the better choice and let me tell you why.

1. Because Amazon is better to the seller/s.
They do what they need to do to make money yes but they don’t have all the “hidden fees” that Ebay likes to shove into the mix.

And for me more important the recently discovered point number…

2. The integrity, or lack thereof, of the people who sell on Ebay, and the system employed BY Ebay that contributes to people getting stuck with a bad deal.

I recently realized that out of the last 15 transactions I have had on Ebay only about three or four of them have been satisfactory. That’s a dismal number. That means that Ebay’s satisfaction rate for me is only, approx, 5%
Now I know that I am having to face a case of caveat emptor or “buyer beware”, I also am aware that there is supposed to be a description given that gives all the details about the item. But first while Ebay does claim to have a set up that is supposed to look out for the best interests of the customer/s all too often that seems to fail. And second when you are being forced to bid on items in short time allowance and the description given is either long and rambling or worded so it is misleading and you miss the warning/s given then the system does not work.

And I know that often the items being purchased may have been badly used or may not be in the best of shape.

But in the cases of caveat emptor the way that a buyer can beware is through having access to reviews of the seller and/or the product.

Ebay has a review service but it is a one time shot. Ebay will not allow you to correct a mistaken report. Once you have submitted it you have no recourse but removal of the report. So if you submit your report in good faith then the seller or the product screws you over that’s it all is done.
This creates problems in that I have had cause to find fault with something after having given it a good review. But I cannot go back and alter the review or somehow get the satisfaction I am looking for in the product. And that is the key, once the business has your review in hand they have no incentive or desire to remedy any issues or problems come up after words.

Really any other store where customers were only getting 5% satisfaction would not be in business long.

BTW the transactions that were satisfactory? A set of street lights for an HO scale train set, a classic style view master 3-D viewer and a Peter Pan DVD.
What did I order that was unsatisfactory?
My laptop computer, they sent a faulty power cable… twice! The first cable almost burned up and set fire to the socket it was in!!!
A couple of HO scale train engines that did NOT perform upon receipt.
Two portable DVD players, one lasted three months the second lasted 1 and a half months.
A laptop computer that didn’t have a hard drive in it.

OOHHHHH VACATION!!! I WISH!

The other night I was listening to some reports of what is going on fiscally in our country, I was alarmed at the news I was getting.
Despite Government reassurances to the contrary, 93,000 more home foreclosures and an increase in spending of only .01% shows that the recession is DEFINITELY not over.
The next thing that came up was that The U.S. has less scheduled vacation days than ANY other country. And only about half of them get used because people are either afraid of going on vacation and losing their jobs or they are so overworked that they simply cannot afford to go away for any time because the work would pile up too much.

Meanwhile I hear that in the next couple of days the president and his family are going for a ten day getaway to Martha’s vineyard just a week or two after Mrs. Obama got back from a week long junket in Spain and the whole family went down to Florida last weekend.

I only could wish that I got half the vacation time the president does… heck even a couple of weeks would be nice.

We need elected officials in position who understand the public will listen to the public and who will work at least as hard as the average public person.

This makes 6 (SIX) vacations this year alone!
WOW I wish I could do that.

OF SECURITY AND WEAPONS:

A couple of weeks ago there was a big broo ha ha about another guy who went to work armed and killed some people before killing himself.
On a radio talk show a couple of nights later a caller was trying to say that these businesses needed to allow all the employees to be armed on the job, that would be a deterrent to these people coming in and killing others.
There was quite the debate about it. And the point was made that if the business did that they could be held legally responsible if another shooting did occur. And the host also pointed out that these people often kill themselves in these cases. So the thought of dieing is not as much a “deterrent” as they might be. The man intended to die. What does it matter to him then if someone else pulls the trigger instead?

So then the discussion went to “maybe the businesses ought to all get security guards.”

But then you have the point that the guy is wearing a uniform that just means he will be the first one killed. He is a target. Most security officers are not armed and they are mostly a stop gap measure with orders to call the police or fire department if anything happens. Well any fool can pick up a phone and dial 911 that still doesn’t do anything.
Which led to the idea that the host had which was ALL security officers ought to be armed.

OHHHH KKAAAAAYYYYY. Let’s think about this now. I am a security officer, As such I would agree that I ought to be armed. I know how to handle myself and I know how to handle a gun. I am a firm believer in gun rights and I think that My carrying a weapon would improve my efficiency in the work place and allow me a feeling of security that come what may I can deal with any issue that comes up.
Likewise I think that it is a good thing to have all security officers trained in CPR and First aid… BUT I have also been a leader of security forces in various situations and I have worked in areas where the local law enforcement were pinheads and with that in mind I would be VERY hesitant to say that security officers should be armed.

For example, I once worked with one kid who actually managed to be literally scared of his own shadow. (one weekend he was on duty by himself, the end result made for funny reading but scary thinking.) I would unequivocally state that he should not have a gun PERIOD. Another time There was a disturbance near the place I worked, as I was investigating my perimeter some overzealous cops pulled down on me (drew their guns on me). And I had to explain to them who I was and what I was doing. I believe if I had been armed in that moment they would have shot me outright.

Security officers are generally not given much respect, they are called “rent a cops” or “cop wanabees”. this means that there are people working in this field who are not always the best of the best. You get a certain percentage of riff raff.

Because there is a negative onus and a great need for security, you get people hired who have no business providing security for anyone.

But there you go.
I think in order to get a better breed of security officer as well as many other “service” positions (Janitors, School bus drivers, Teachers, police officers, soldiers, politicians, etc) you first have to give them the respect they are due. That is to say give them respect for what they stand for. That officer (security or police) is an authority, respect that authority, they are prepared to stand between you and danger respect them for that, they will keep you safe, respect them for that.
That teacher or bus driver is trying to help your child to be all s/he can be, respect them for it… and so on. I have served in many positions like that and I have noticed an appalling lack of respect for those kinds of jobs. That means you get worse people in those jobs that means that you, your child, your safety are at risk. All for the lack of respect.
Once you do that you can start arming guards because they will finally have a reason to be good people who will stand there and defend you all the way.

Until then I say we need to be very careful about who is armed in our security forces. It will all need to be done on a case by case basis.

PARENTHOOD FOR MEN PART TRES... THE FINALE

As I posted last time, this series is about the failings of my father figures and how we ought to try to avoid these traps.
Here I will give you a little bit of an idea what NOT to do as A dad.

I am now talking about my mom's fourth attempt at providing me with an immediate "father figure" to learn from.

I think I will call this individual "Stepdad".

The sad fact of the matter is that when it came to being a dad he always seemed too judgmental to me, Yes I know ALL teenagers think their dad is too judgmental, but he really did jump to conclusions too easily.
An example of this is one time, after I had moved out of the house and was on my own, I went and dug through the boxes I had stored away with all my old junk and found the Polaroid camera I had received as a birthday gift when I was 16 years old.

When He saw it He got mad, he never explained to me why, I had to find out from my mom but apparently he was upset because he ASSUMED that I had recently bought it and he didn't think I ought to be spending my money on such "frivolous items".
He never asked where it came from, if he ever had it explained to him, and I understand he did, he never apologized for the way he treated me about it.

What was really frustrating about this was, if he was being a fatherly type that would have been ok, if he had put in the time to try and TEACH me anything that would have even been justified to some extent.

But he didn't earn the right to be concerned, He never tried to teach me anything. MAybe he thought I was past being able to learn.

One of the things I DID learn (after I got married) is that when you eneter into a new relationship with someone you CANNOT expect them to have the same learning, values or life experiences as you.
You have to talk, you have to listen and you have to be open to understanding where the other person is coming from. In other words you have to COMMUNICATE.
that is one of the things I wish I had learned from a "dad" but never did, would'a probably made life a LOT easier for my wife and I in our first year.

Fortunately I like to think that our living situation really helped. we were living in a "studio" apartment at the time so we had to communicate we couldn't just walk away from each other.


But I digress...

I still think that "stepdad" had no right to be angry since he never made the effort, as far as I could see, to care about me. And he NEVER tried to teach me any kind of "fiscal responsibility.
If you read my last post you know what Fiscal teaching I had experienced up to that point.
The problem was that it was just assumed by him, that I ought to just KNOW.

I do not know how I should have known since the only kind of budget advice I had ever received up to that point was literally, "make sure you spend it on your truck or your girl."

My stepfather never seemed to take into consideration any of my feelings or emotions and he certainly never asked me, and every time he did something that hurt me, if I tried to bring it up his response was generally dismissive along the lines of it being MY fault.
As in it was MY fault that I was offended, hurt and depressed when he "deliberately" planned a party that eclipsed my birthday.(Remember this would be from a teenagers point of view, it might not have been quite so Deliberate, but it certainly WAS inconsiderate and it left it's scar as a result.)

The declaration was that this was their wedding party (they got married a couple weeks before,) and it was a "welcome home party for his daughter.

But they still called it my birthday party and then invited a bunch of people I didn't know, and when I cornered Him and my mom on it they said
"1 you don't have enough friends that we know to make this a good party, and we wouldn't know any of them anyway,
2 it is also about us getting married and Stepsis coming to be with us and
3 You need to meet new people anyway."

Total disregard for my position... I know this sounds kinda whiny and I am sorry that it does. But this is the kind of thing I was trying to cope with as a teenager. And teens tend to be self-centered.
Instead of realizing this and instead of trying to create a trusting father-son bond he jumped ahead with a plan that left me in a movie theater with a couple of my friends crying for myself (definitely self centered)because "nobody gave a Bleep about me".
The topper was that I was the "inconsiderate one" because I wasn't there to blow out the candles on "my" cake.

Oh the hypocrisy... but back to the point...

Again,I have to point out, The statement I heard loud and clear from "Stepdad" (and mom) was,"This party isn't about YOU, How selfish for you to expect a birthday party on your birthday... this is about your mother and I getting married, this is about "Stepsis" coming to stay, this is about bringing strangers into our home and forcing you to be uncomfortable and unhappy on this day, even though we refuse to do the same with regards to YOUR friends."

But, still, it was MY fault that I was upset and it was my fault that I wasn't there to blow out the candles on "my" cake when it was NOT MY party and He and his invited friends had chased me away in the first place.

See I had to make the effort to get to know his life and his friends but he couldn't be bothered to try to do the same for me.

Anyway the point there is that you have to develop trust and BE a father.
He wanted ME to do all the work while he sat back and got all the Kudos for being an "involved father" of his new wife's teen aged son.

And that attitude continued until the day He drove me away from the family.
Yes that's right, again HE ASSUMED something, and when I didn't know what he was talking about he got angry and literally yelled at me that I was never to call, write or visit him or his wife (my mom) EVER again.( I still am kinda confused but apparently it has something to do with a decision my wife and I had to make about buying a house and a phone call my mom made to me.)

He did this in front of witnesses... I do not make this up.

To this day he will not have anything more to do with me than absolutely necessary.

(not a big surprise... he has apparently done the same thing to his daughter, I recently made contact with her and between what she has to say and what I heard from him and my mom this seems to be all on his side of the coin, and he was estranged from his own,"abusive", father until his dad was literally on his death bed.)

I can sympathize with him about having an abusive father and I can try to understand, if he would give me the chance to, about the issues he has been through, but he won't try.

Really, when I look back at all the male role models I had selected for me, all together too often in every one of the cases I was shown in my memory, I had to be the Adult... whether I was 6 or 16.
That can be wearing on a kid... Worse that can be a heavy burden when you become a husband or father. What we need is Dad's who will be there for their kids and be THE adult man. As a dad you have a BUNCH of responsibilities.

You have to be the one who cares for the child. PERIOD. It is not the child's responsibility to take care of you.

You have the burden of teaching the Child. You are tasked by God to raise that child, it doesn't even matter if it is your child, one you adopted or just one that has been brought into your life by God or "circumstances".
If you are the male role model in the kid's life YOU NEED TO BE THAT ROLE MODEL.

You need to start by developing real trust with the kid/s. this does not mean you are their buddy, you are more than that. This is where you listen,and this is where you teach.
You do what they NEED you to do. There will be times when They will say "I HATE YOU" (ok ok they will scream it not say it) "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, YOU AREN'T EVEN MY REAL FATHER".(That last one is for all the step-dads, adoptive dads, foster dads or "acting" dads out there.)

But in spite of all that YOU are the one who has to do the work.
YOU are the one who WILL BE HURT.

Kids have feelings, they have emotions they have fears and hopes and insecurities, JUST LIKE YOU.But YOU are the adult, YOU are the one they will look to for learning EVEN when it seems they are pushing you aside, You need to help them learn to cope with all they are facing.

They NEED to have a safe place to let off the steam, and it is up to you to provide that place, that is the awesome thing about being a dad.
You want the privilege of being called dad? you want kudos for raising the kid/s? Then you have to put in the work.
This is tough, ESPECIALLY when they are teens.
And even when you are hurt you YES YOU need to let them yell, let it roll off and be an adult loving them and letting them know through your actions and words that you DO love them UNCONDITIONALLY, and you will be there for them.
YOU have to teach them how to communicate so that at least YOU can understand them.
DO NOT expect the kid/s to do this... this is part and parcel of being FIRST an adult and SECOND a dad.

That is the responsibility that comes with the privilege of father hood.

PARENTHOOD FOR MEN PART DEUX

I want to revisit the idea of fatherhood.

I will probably split this into two posts because I have a LOT of venting to do here, So please watch for the next post coming soon...

Now technically in my life there were four guy's whom I ought to have been able to expect to provide "fatherly guidance" for me. unfortunately they all seem to have fallen short.
Many of the ideas I have on how to raise kids (as far as they come from these "examples) are based on "that's what NOT to do when raising my kid/s".

As a young boy growing up one of the things that none of them ever did was create a bond of trust with me so that I could go to them when I had a question or worry or anything.
That MIGHT have been, in part, because of my mother's influence, and in part it could have been some stubborn selfishness on my part, I admit that I was a little spoiled at times, But looking back I would have to say they also to a man displayed selfishness of their own.

Back then as a son and now as a father I believe that if you are going to be the DAD you HAVE to do the work of the dad! and none of them did.

I barely knew my "biological father" since he and my mom got divorced before ANY of my memories kick in. but from what I have heard he wasn't to great a guy back then, and he was even physically abusive.
I would forgive him if I remembered any of the things that people claim he did.
But as it is I simply state this as a point/matter of fact.

I did meet him once when I had grown up, and I suppose we got along ok, but I never got to know him in any "meaningful" or "fatherly" way.
The time when I did meet him, after growing up, There was only the one time and he never indicated any interest in ever seeing me again. it was a meeting of strangers and that was it.

With the Second Man my mom placed as the male role model in my life, the relationship could be termed more akin to sibling rivalry.
He was too busy "fighting me" for my mother's attention to really turn into a good role model.
Mind you there were moments when he did try, ( he once gave me a peice of advice on how to handle my finances..."you need to make sure that you spend most of your money on your truck or your girl". IN THAT ORDER.)

Of course when he and my mom got divorced the relationship between the two of us dramatically improved.

The one good thing I can say he taught me was how to come to terms with your adult child when that child is now in position to make all his/her own choices. In other words how to respect the maturity of your adult child/ren.

Looking back on it, I really Wish he had taken the time to take me fishing once in a while, or other one on one moments to try to create that bond between a father and a son, Although I did enjoy horseback riding, and so did he.

I wish he would have taught me how to treat a woman PROPERLY, I wish he had taught me the simple little every day moments in life... How to shave, How to know who I am, how to be brave when everything around is going to... well bad places, how to face adversity, how to be a good husband and father. Instead I learned most of those kinds of things by hit or miss, and I missed a LOT more than I hit.



As for the third man... My mom uprooted us to move us clear across the country to be with this guy, when he turned out to be looking more for a slave than a wife she turned to me to be the man helping her in life and THAT led to him eventually threatening my life... LITERALLY.
I was told, as we were planning to move back to our home in Arizona, that "if [I] EVER was in the area again, either [he] or one of [his] sons would hunt [me] down and kill [me]".
He blamed me for the rift that HE caused between him and my mom, and threatened me with bodily harm. (I was about 16 at the time.)

That is enough for today... keep watching for the finale. It is a bit of a doozy... partly because up till now everything is past tense... in the final installment we will deal with... "current events" as it were.

HISTORY ALL OVER AGAIN:

I recently thought of something. There is a classic quote, Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

And it has occurred to me that it is clear the people in our government and even a lot of the people in society in general seem to have forgotten most of our country’s and world’s history.

I have heard the current U.S. sociopolitical climate described as being just like early socialist Germany 1930’s or even America of the depression and dustbowl pre WW2 era, or America circa 1860 or America about 1774ish…
This made me wonder if it isn’t just that we have forgotten so MUCH history as a society that we are now doomed to repeat All of it All at once.?
Think about it, what if we are doomed to repeat that which we forgot and we forgot ALL of that… well what is left for us to do but fight WW2, the Civil war and the Revolutionary war all over again while going through the great depression too…SIMULTANEOUSLY! Now there is a thought that makes me shudder.

Diet? NO!

recently I actually linked two different events that I wanted to blog about but until I talked with my wife I did not realize how linked they may actually be.

The reason I linked them was because I heard them both on the news and they both disturbed me. the first one was my alarm about a new dietary practice called carb rinsing.
As best as I can tell the idea is that you fake your body out by making it think you are eating/ drinking carbs but before you actually swallow the item/s you are "consuming" you spit it out. your body will respond by thinking that you ate them so it has to use the "energy" from those carb's therefore you burn the energy represented by those carbs without replacing them thereby burning fat.
The first problem I thought of was... " anytime you try to fool your body, you are heading down a dangerous road." think about it the reason why this would work is because your body "knows" how many carbs are in the item you are "eating". it had to learn this information somehow, most likely from experience. so now the experience it will have is the "carbs I used to get are not going as far... I'm going to have to change the way I burn/use them." that becomes defeating to the problem you are trying to address.
The other problem I saw thought of was, What about all the food you are wasting this way? I mean come on only people who have a total disdain for food (and big pockets) would think that it is OK to waste food by chewing on it and then spitting it out. Especially, and yes I know I sound like a parent here, when there are starving children and people all over the world.

How troublesome is that?

Maybe instead of worrying about the newest diet we ought to simply eat sensibly all the time and exercise regularly.

The other issue was when I heard a news blurb about how girls are hitting puberty at a younger age. the report stated that the age of puberty is down to 7 years old for some of these kids.

I was disturbed by this because I have three girls. but also immediately disturbed because the oldest is 6.

But, like I said, my wife thought of an aspect hat links these two issue even closer.
My wife is a proponent for breast feeding. And all our kids were raised that way. and the thing that bothers her is that too many mothers jump to formula too quickly.
Now don't get her wrong, she understnads the issues facing some mothers out there. she knows that breast feeding can be painful (she's done it she knows what it's like) and she knows that there are some out there who cannot do it for whatever reason.

But her point on this issue was that she believes that the prevalence of formula has led to this new issue of early puberty.

Her point... Women are using more formula, which means more children cannot handle the Milk based formulas (just by the law of averages) so more children are being raised on soy based formulas. as we have seen, soy increases estrogen or estrogen like properties in the body, estrogen is a major factor in women issues like puberty. so my wife believes that the probability is that these children are reaching puberty at such A young age because they are being fed soy based formula at a young age. and I think her reasoning is sound.

So we really ought to watch what we eat a little better and stop trying to make new ways to use food that fool the body... because as sneaky as people might be their bodies are not so easily fooled.

Thinking on the edges.

Well here is an interesting issue for me.

Last Saturday I was up late totally absorbed in a Terry Pratchet book. One of the things his main character in the book was dealing with was trying to think of something that was lurking on the edge of her thought.

It made me think of quite an interesting point, how many times have I also done the same thing? I have often had thoughts on the edge of my mind which I could not quite grasp.

I wonder if that happens to others... I think it does.

But then I wondered why people don't search for those thoughts. most of us, myself included, tend to just write off the issue and don't chase those thoughts down and I wonder why.

I think we all are trying to escape too much. If you think about it our society has been pushing for a long time to make us all easily distracted.

I am aware of my escapism tendencies, I have always looked to reading to escape. Sci Fi Fantasy, mystery... didn't really matter which, as long as I could use those books to get away from it all.

Today there are a lot of other choices to distract and escape. And at each stage it gets more invasive and total.
It started with Radio then it moved to movies, then T.V. then Video/s then DVD's now Blue-ray's. Then there are also the video games... it started with the Commodore's and now you have Xbox and Wii and PlayStation, the graphics are being touted as "awesome" or "lifelike". And they are but this isn't necessarily a good thing.

Maybe as a nation we need to grow up and learn how to face ourselves again.

What a week!

well this last week was quite the doozy. If you read my last post you know what was going on then, but after that post I got a call from the babysitter I had planned for. She said she wasn't going to be able to help out. So even though our 10th anniversary was last Wednesday, we are going to have to go out to dinner this next week instead.

Ah well

Also had some fun dealing with a little more illness as well.

But hey we are all still alive so...
I suppose we had a good weekend, I wish I had gotten something better for my wife but apparently that wasn't going to happen... something I ordered wasn't sent, but at least I wasn't charged for it either.
And a lot of the other things I looked at were expensive ad I wasn't sure if the wife would be o.k. if I bought them. I still suffer from the scars of a time when my dad, wanting to do something nice for my mom, got reamed by her for spending money on the piano he bought.

But all in all I am looking forward to the next week. I have a couple of plans lined up this time and about three babysitters to contact if the first bails... at least I hope I do, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that you know.

School starts soon for the girls and tomorrow we have to meet with a representative of Megan's preschool. that should be fun.

Hope all is well with you, until the next time...

what next?

Well now today isn't being very good to me.

This morning I had planed on several things that I needed to get done but unfortunately they are not working out too well.
At the top of my list I have a problem with a portable DVD player that I received this past father's day.
Barely two months old and it quits working.
It was supposed to be a replacement for the one I had bought before it. That one broke after only three months. they both came from the same seller and if I do not receive satisfaction on this issue I will probably post who they are here and in my other blogs and go on to form a group on Facebook since that seems the in thing right now. But until then...

Faith woke up sick this morning, that was troubling and when I looked into my Blogs here I discovered that the background I was using on one of them had been deleted and I had to restructure that blog. So I have been dealing with those issues all day, (Faith being Ill redoing my blog/s, etc...)

And then I fell asleep which was nice, if short, when I woke up I realized I had not put away the leftovers from my lunch from last night. When I went to do that I found that one of the ice-packs in the lunch box had sprung a leak and was literally ALL over everything in my lunchbox.

As I was in the process of cleaning that up I went to hang my lunch box out to dry in the shower and discovered that my NEW bottle of body wash had taken a header from it's storage space and now all the "soap" is covering the shower floor.
I guess to sum it all up I would appreciate your prayers.

Of course, there is more!
What I find most interesting right at this moment is that I am fairly o.k. After looking at all those things that have gone wrong I can still think I am better off than I ought to be and better off than many others. So I guess that means there is a praise report in there too.

Well I better get a little more sleep so until I see you again...

Catch y ou on the flipside.

my new blog schedule

Hello all.
I am so sorry that I have not been following up on my blog/s. the good news is that I will be tring to do a better job of it. I think there will have to be a schedule though. For my general blog I will try to post three or four times a week. The politically incorrect and Christian blogs though will be a once a week option.

It seems that for me I get so caught up in things that I tend to forget these things. (or I get so tired of being online that I give up before I get to the blog/s. so I will try to change that up.
I also sometimes cannot think of anything g to post. So I will have to switch on my brain a little more often. But I do want to post regularly and in such a way that it is pertinent and of value to my readers.

Thank you for your patience as I get my self sorted out.

Your’s faithfully…


Colt!

Movie Ideas

So Lately I have been thinking about a lot of things.

And I have to ask, Why is it that Hollywood is incapable of anything original anymore? All the movies you see anymore are remakes sequels or prequels. But none of them are original.

I think that what needs to happen is that Hollywood needs to get rid of all the writers, actors and directors who have been there for so long. After all they have all had their chance to make it big, give someone else a chance. And that will also give a fresh perspective on how things could be done.

That’s what we need is for a new breed of entertainer.
Maybe we could also get cleaner movies. That would be a good thing! I am very disturbed about moves that are presented as being suitable for children! I mean Tim Burton, In my opinion, ought NOT to be making kid flicks and neither should Johnny Depp. These movies are to dark and disturbed for any children I know.

Same goes for Mike Myers… I mean I really feel the Cat in the Hat movie seemed to be a travesty of what Theodore Geisel wrote. And Shrek???? What The Heck???? Let’s teach the kids how to be totally gross and disgusting, like that isn’t already enough of a problem.

Oh back to the Tim Burton/ Johnny Depp combo… What was the point behind the Charlie and the Chocolate factory remake? I actually heard that they said it was closer to the book and Roald Dahl‘s writing.?! HUH?? How could it be closer to what Roald Dahl was intending when the original was supervised BY Roald Dahl himself? I mean I think if he was sitting on the set telling people how to do things then that is more likely to fit his idea then a movie made that has only an interpretation by someone else?

And what was that with Alice in wonderland?

Some people will say, “well kids today are more mature.” But I do not really think that is a good thing. We should let our kids BE kids. Let them have a childhood, let them enjoy the innocence that comes from such times. They will have to grow up soon enough.

You know I remember what it was like to be a kid and I know they will want to go see the “adult” movies (the 10 year old who wants to look all grown up so he wants to go to a P.G. 13 movie or such) But how about if we make the movies cleaner so a G rated movie is really good for kids (say 4 - 7 years old) then make movies like Shrek or the Alice in wonderland/ Wonka remakes into P.G. or even P.G. 13 movies then it might not be so bad when the 10 year old goes to see them.

a flash of common sense

lately I have been noticing a lack of common sense being displayed on our televisions.

I mean I have seen a worse then usual display of idiocy.

First I want to address the issue/s with Toyota. While I understand that there are problems with Toyota and some of the issues that have come out of that, I have to take a moment to pause and say "but I would rather own A Toyota than ..." you see I look at the Ford pinto or the Crown Victoria and here we have two cars that have shown a tendency to explode when rear ended, there are several GM cars that have also, apparently, displayed some homicidal tendencies.
the worst people can say about Toyota is the vehicle/s may accelerate on their own.

my view is, there is very little I can do about getting rear ended by an idiot. (maybe he is driving the toyota?)but if I am driving a toyota and it starts accelerating I can do something about it.

Once, when I was a school bus driver, I had the throttle on my bus stick open while on the highway. I had a load of students on my bus and teachers as I was driving for a field trip.

When this became an issue I was able to put the gear selector in neutral and pull to the side of the road and come to a complete and safe stop.

I then proceeded to fix the problem and finished taking the students to their destination.
The teacher's comments were that they didn't even realize there was anything going on until we stopped at the side of the road. And I started working on the problem.

ANY good driver who has common sense ought to be able to do this.

You can ALWAYS put the car in neutral, turn off the ignition etc... I have NEVER experienced loss of control for having my vehicle in neutral. So anyone who is "capable" of driving the car they ought to be able to take control if something goes wrong.

It is plain common sense.

The other point is a commercial I recently have seen for a new, hands free, soap pump from, I think, Lysol which states that "you" can avoid the horror of contamination by getting the new pump.
My very first thought was "wait a minute, that doesn't make sense."

If I am using soap then I am already washing my hands. I do not make a habit of touching a soap pump AFTER washing my hands so to have the pump be hands free is ridiculous.
Any germs I MIGHT pick up off the pump will wash down the drain along with the germs already on my hands that caused me to be washing in the first place.

So please people get some common sense. stop letting the advertising people out there take away your intelligence.

Stand and deliver

I think it is really sad that we have lost Mr. Escalante. We need more people like him. he had common sense and was an inspiration. Unfortunately with his loss I believe we All lose out. Anything that lessens people like him lessen us all.


Jaime Escalante was a man from Bolivia who worked hard to become a teacher in Garfield High school. He taught math and got very frustrated at what he saw as the dumbing down of the kids in his school.
He fought the critics and the other teachers, he went against the politically correct and the naysayers, and he single handed, brought Garfield High to being one of the top schools in all of America.
By 1981 THERE WERE ONLY A HANDFUL OF SCHOOLS IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY that could match Garfield in mathematical excellence.

The entire life of Senor Escalante was so inspiring they made a movie "Stand and Deliver" that detailed his life.

Sadly we do not get to know all that happened later. it turns out that finally the politics won and they drove him out of Garfield and they have seen a steady decline in the competence of their students until we reach Last year when only five percent of the students at Garfield High tested proficient at ANY level of math.

This is really sad because when Jaime first started teaching the high school math there he compared the level of math they were learning to be on par with a basic FIFTH grade education in math in Bolivia.

So now we have all lost out. If you are a teacher or parent please push for better standards see Mr. Escalante's life as a standard to reach for and try to teach your kids that well.

I would also encourage you to watch the movie of his life. (remember that was stand and deliver) I only saw the movie once but it was very inspiring to me.

By the way just so you know one of the things that was used against Mr. Escalante was that even though he was from Bolivia he believed that the students of America needed to learn English and classes needed to be taught in English only.
Another point apparently used against him was his advising President G.W. Bush.

How sad that common sense and trying to make a difference in our lives cause so many to rise up in anger, and destroy a great person.