A Year of Change

Can you believe some of the crap being thrown around on tv? The candidates legally must have to attach their name to these ads otherwise you think they’d be distancing themselves as much as they can from all the lies. I somehow don’t think our forefathers envisioned an election process quite like the one we have.

Well, yesterday was spent playing football outside with the boys, Mom putting up more halloween lights, a trip to Target and the gas station and some sweeping and raking of leaves inside the house!

Lots of football was on and I can’t believe both the Bronco’s and Packers lost. Add in the Cardinals on Thursday night and the only team that won was the 49’rs. That’s why they play the game.

This morning we all will leave at 8. We’ll drop the boys at school and head off to Vail for the misses doctor appointment. Hopefully we will make it home by noon or so. It should be nice in the mountains with some snow on the ground. It was a nice cool fall day here yesterday but is supposed to warm back up to the 70’s this week.

Taxes are due one week from today which is pretty scary as we owe a bunch. Oh well, what’a another payment plan, right? It just never stops, let’s see, the humidifier went out on the heater, that’ll cost some money, we need to have our sprinklers blown out this week, that’ll cost some money, taxes, enough said, and then all the regular bills. It seems the bills and prices on everything are going up but the income stays the same. It’s subtle as you don’t really notice .50 cents here on milk or $1 here on eggs but it all adds up. Take gas in California, it went up 20 cents a gallon overnight on the weekend. I think you all are paying about $5 a gallon right now. This sounds bad but in Europe it’s about $13 a gallon! There they charge you in liters so you don’t notice plus all the cars are diesel and more fuel efficient. Get ready, the times they are a changing.

The oldest just came down, he’s been reading a Harry Potter book all weekend. It’s great that he’s finally been sucked in by a book. You know, where you get to a point where you don’t want to put it down. Hooray for him.

Time to run, pray for the misses that she’ll get some relief soon. Today we will only get a referral for an appointment, it’s not like they can do anything today to help here but we have to go through these steps as it’s workman’s comp.

Have a great week, take care, stay safe and God Bless.

I was abruptly woken up at 6:30 this morning by Lacey the lab barking for her breakfast. Now she hasn’t done this in a while so I thought she had to go out or something, but all she wanted was some food. It must be my fault as I’m normally up much earlier.

I noticed when going out to get the paper (after feeding the dogs) that the windshields on the cars had a thin layer of ice. It’s about 22 degrees outside right now but feels great.

Yesterday the oldest and I ran down to REI to get him some new snow boots as I had a 20% off coupon. He now wears a mens 8 or 9 meaning his shoes and boots now cost the same as mine, he just has a smaller size. We finally found a good pair that cost us a bit over $100! These were about the least expensive we could find. We did buy the 9’s so he should get a few years out of them and then his brother will use them. That’s the only upside to the expense. We then headed to Old Navy hoping to find him some new pants that would fit in the waist and the length. We tried everything they had on but in order to get pants that are long enough, the waist was too huge. Looks like we’ll have to head back to the western stores. We then grabbed a quick sandwich for lunch and headed home.

Mom was on the couch trying to keep her head from hurting anymore than it already does. Thankfully we go to the doc tomorrow but then it’ll be at least a day (probably more) before anyone can get her in for treatment. Luckily the bad drug that was sent to 23 states and used in treatments like hers, was not sent to Colorado. This is good as many people are getting meningitis and some have died. Nice that you can’t count on safe medicine, food or much else these days.

I ran a couple more errands to get some shotgun shells with my buddy as he gets a military discount on cases which is a big deal. I wasn’t going to spend the $62 but his discount coupled with the sale they had going saved me about $60!

Meanwhile the misses made some lasagna for dinner which hit the spot with the cool weather outside. It rained or misted snow for most of the day so both dogs were in for the entire afternoon. Mojo has a habit of running upstairs and coming down with a stuffed animal in his mouth looking all proud. Yesterday he made the mistake of grabbing Pookie, which is the oldest guys most prized possession, that he found in Italy when he was 4 years old. Big mistake, not only was Mojo scolded, we had to wash Pookie right away to get the dog slobber off him. The oldest really doesn’t care about stuffed animals anymore EXCEPT for Pookie.

Today we’ll be watching some football and taking it easy. I do need to try to take the boys to Target for some new pants. Hopefully we’ll be able to find something. The Race for the Cure for breast cancer is this morning and there’s thousands of people running in it to support this great cause.

Friday morning a 10 year old girl was snatched while walking 3 blocks from her home on the way to school. There has been an Amber Alert ever since but no sign of her. What kind of world are we living in these days. It’s just not like it was when we were kids. We really need to get out of the city. Not that things haven’t changed everywhere but in some smaller communities in the mountains, these kind of problems are less frequent.

The youngest guy just came down to join me so time to run. I almost forgot, when I was running errands yesterday, Uncle T and Aunt B showed up with some new sweatshirts for the boys! They’re really cool and both boys love them. Thanks.

Have a great day and cheer for the Broncos over the Patriots today, we need all the help we can get.

Here’s a couple of comments,

1. Blondie says:

   October 5, 2012 at 11:03 pm

   Harry J Enten
   guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 October 2012 08.38 EDT
   Jump to comments (72)

   Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Democratic President Barack Obama debating in Denver, Colorado. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty
   It’s fairly clear that Mitt Romney “won” Wednesday night’s debate against President Obama. Not only did he win a CNN insta-poll by a record breaking 67% to 25% margin, but the press is also giving him a huge win. So what does all of this mean for the race for president?

   Romney gains on an increasingly vulnerable Obama, but the president still leads.

   First, general election debates are not primary debates. If you took a polling chart of the 2012 Republican primary, it would look like a w’s and m’s. Candidate preferences were so flexible that Herman Cain – a man never elected to political office who would leave the campaign because of a sexual harassment charge – led the contest a year ago. The reason Cain took the lead was because he looked good in the debates. When policy differences are small, as they are in primaries, personality matters.

   Personality isn’t anywhere near as important in general elections. Voters can decide on the issues because there are true substantive differences. That’s why most voters have already locked in their choice. President Obama has seemingly held a small, but consistent lead most of this election.

   We cannot expect that this or any one debate will turn an Obama edge into a large Romney lead. Romney is down by about 3 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics average. Only 5% of the electorate is truly undecided. Most of these undecided voters weren’t watching the debate and probably won’t make their choice until election day.

   Second, history tells us that debates probably matter under certain circumstances. Thomas Holbrook crunched the numbers since 1988 and found that the margin between the two leading candidates changed by an average of about 4 percentage points between before the first and after the last debate. The margin between Romney and Obama was less than that heading into Wednesday night’s debate.

   Now, it’s awfully difficult to figure out whether it’s a debate that is moving polling data or some other event(s) over the course of the debates season. Obama, for instance, gained ground over John McCain in 2008 partly because of the debates, but more because of a financial crisis from which we still haven’t fully recovered.

   Candidates seem to gain when they were already gaining before the debate or when they are underperforming the “fundamentals”. Bush picked up steam in the 1988 debates – ,continuing his rise pre-debates. Bob Dole was vastly underperforming the fundamentals in 1996: he should have been showing behind, but not by 20 points. So, it was not a huge surprise that his polling numbers improved after the debates.

   That’s why I think Mitt Romney will make up some ground. Though the 5% of undecided voters may be unreachable, there’s another 5% of “soft” support. Many of these had been leaning towards Obama or saying they were “undecided” since the conventions: Obama’s one-time 1.5-point edge among likely voters doubled or even close to tripled at times during the last few weeks. Those voters are likely to come home to Romney. If they don’t, they likely never will.

   Romney’s also underperforming Jacob Montgomery et al’s ensemble forecast from all the fundamental models. These models take into everything from the economy to incumbency to primary season performance. The ensemble has Romney losing, but only by 0.6 percentage points.

   Another plus for Romney is that he looked to have been picking up a little steam before the debates began. Obama’s lead in the Real Clear average has shrunk from a lead close to 4.5 points back down to 3.

   Third, underlying voter sentiment may not change, but enthusiasm probably will and that could change polls. You can go on Twitter and see dejection among many Democrats. Many likely voter models rely upon some level of voter interest or enthusiasm in the election. During the 2000 campaign, Gallup’s likely voter model went absolutely bonkers because of enthusiasm differences. One day, Republican enthusiasm was up because of the debates and the next, Democratic excitement went through the roof.

   The registered voter numbers, however, didn’t move anywhere near as much. With Republicans potentially gaining back the enthusiasm edge they held earlier in the cycle, don’t be surprised if an already ridiculously wide likely/registered voter gap actually expands.

   Fourth, and most importantly, any president whose approval rating is less than his disapproval rating remains vulnerable. This, folks, is a key point and remains tied to point four. If you read Real Clear Politics, you’ll notice that many polls that ask about the president’s approval are among adults or registered voters. Those polls are fine when enthusiasm ratings between Democrats and Republicans are near equal. They are not an accurate representation of the electorate if Republicans make a surprisingly large share of the voters come November.

   I would not be surprised if a likely voter model average at this point had Obama’s approval rating below his disapproval, given the large likely voter/registered voter gap. That’s a problem for Obama because no president has won re-election with an approval rating below 50% among the voting (a smaller group than adult) electorate.

   The question, then, is whether or not Romney can yank up his favorable rating above his unfavorable. If he can’t, Obama’s going to win. You don’t trade in the bad steak that doesn’t make you ill for a bad steak that may give you food poisoning. If Romney can present himself as a viable alternative, then a lot of us might be surprised by the final result.

   At this point, however, my belief is that we’ll return somewhere close to where we were before the conventions: a small Obama lead of about 1.5 points. There just aren’t that many minds that Romney can change at this point. Democrats can also take heart that Republican excitement eventually rebounded a few weeks following President Bush’s 2004 debate debacle.

   Still, my confidence in an Obama victory is at least somewhat shaken right now. Obama’s lead is probably not big enough for him to play the super-cautious game he did on Wednesday.

   Reply
2. Tom says:

   October 6, 2012 at 5:59 am

   Glad to hear you like all the ads, Colorado will lead the nation with 26,000 political ads between now and the election. Hang in there and keep the mute button handy.

   There you have it, it’s getting really nasty out here. I’m skipping politics today.

   The misses head is really hurting. We’re counting the hours until we can get in to the doctor on Monday. She has a spot on the back of her neck that looks like a mosquito bite where it itches really bad and feels like her nerves are all running out from there. We’re keeping a close eye over the weekend.

   Last night we went to some friends house for fajita’s with the kids. We had a nice time and were home by 10. It’s cold outside and our heater was making loud noises all night. I went down this morning to the basement and unplugged the humidifier which was making all the noise. It’s always something. Today we’ll take it easy around here and I think make some buffalo lasagna.

   The boys are still sleeping and the misses and I are sitting on the couch, her with an ice pack on her head

We all woke up at 6am to about an inch of snow. It’s in the high 20’s outside, lucky I turned the heat on last night for the first time this year.

Well it didn’t take long for the endless stream of political ads full of lies and more lies to start up again. At a rally here yesterday, the big O called Mitt a lier! Unbelievable, nice real nice, that’s the character we want in a President. I am so so sick of being told every republican is against abortion, even in cases of incest and rape (not true) and to be fair, that every democrat is 100% responsible for the economic mess (again not 100% true). It’s so the American people can’t make an intelligent decision because they can never get the truth! No one wants to tell us the truth no matter what, medicare and social security needs to be changed. Both sides are afraid of losing voters if they tell the truth. It’s just all whacked up! Here’s a comment from Grandma Annette,

Yesterday morning we hit the fields around 8 am with a female lab named Mary and a German Shorthair pup named TK. It wasn’t long before pheasants were flying and the shotguns were blasting. In the end we brought home 15 pheasants and 1 chukar. We finished up around 11am and I was home a bit after noon.

It was also walk to school day so the misses, trooper that she is, walked the boys along with Lacey and Mojo. About a block before school Lacey’s right back leg went out so the misses had to send the boys on the rest of the way on their own and massage Lacey’s leg before turning around and heading for home. I picked both boys up and the youngest won an award for being a “Positive Prospector” at school. Our school is Prospect Valley and the Positive Prospector is an award they give to students for excellent attitudes and being a helpful student. We’re very proud of him.

It’s cold outside this morning which is great and is supposed to get even colder in the next few days. Monday morning we’re back in Vail for another doctor appointment for you know who.

Meanwhile, last night, here in Denver, the goose was cooked! Mitt Romney, who most Americans don’t know except for what they hear in negative democratic ads, clearly won the debate. The Prez appeared snarky most of the night, he didn’t look at Romney but rather looked down most of the night with a smirky smile on his face whenever Mitt said something he didn’t like. I think he thinks that if he keeps saying something, people will eventually believe it. Romeny had a good line saying he has 5 boys and they too sometimes think if they keep saying something, even if it’s not true, sooner or later Dad will believe it. Let’s be clear, Mitt Romney will not raise taxes on the middle class and will not give any tax breaks to millionaires, which is the Presidents favorite line. Great job to Romney for not letting him off the hook and coming back every time the President kept up with this lie. Even the left leaning networks like MSNBC, CNN and ABC said Romney clearly won the debate, in fact they say he crushed the O. This is the first time in a long time the President was out there in a non scripted format without a teleprompter. Face it, he hasn’t done any press conferences all year (where he has to answer real questions) but instead has gone on the great political news shows like View with Whoopi and Barbara Wa Wa and give magazines like People Magazine interviews. Here he didn’t have any spin doctors to protect him and twist the facts and frankly, he didn’t know how the handle the truth which is what Romney hit him with time after time. Now I’m sure if you are an O fan, you can’t bring yourself to face the fact that maybe, just maybe, Romney will be better for the country. But if you are an undecided independent, last night you did see who will be better for all of us and the country. And after all, it’s the independents who will decide the election, so there you have it.

Next up is the VP debate. I can hardly wait for Ryan and Biden to take the stage. I mean come on, no matter what side you’re on, you have to admit, Joe Biden is an idiot. Then the foreign policy debate, that should be interesting with the administrations recent failures in Libya and all of the Middle East. Maybe Romney does have a chance after all, despite the mainstream medias love affair with the cooked goose.

Oh well, another day, here we go, take care and God Bless.

Today it’ll be close to 90 with snow tonight and a high of maybe 55 or 60 tomorrow. I’m off to go pheasant hunting in an hour and will finish up by 11am. Meanwhile the city is abuzz with the Presidential debate tonight. To me it just means a bunch of roads closed and taxpayer dollars spent.

Yesterday the oldest had his track meet and the misses was there for most of the day. I showed up in time for his first event and then had to go to work. He did really well with the extra weight of his cast. He made the county finals in two events including the 400 meter run which I saw. Some kids are really really fast. I think there were almost 8 schools represented. We were really proud of him. I picked both boys up as the misses headache is back. If you’re tired of hearing this, just think of her. We have to go back to Vail for another appointment before we can get another treatment. I don’t think she can get in until next week so she’ll probably be in pain for at least the next week. I feel so bad for her as sometimes she’s almost in tears it hurts so bad.

On top of that, yesterday we received a call from the hospital saying we owed $6000! We told them no we didn’t but they didn’t seem to agree so we promptly called our doctors office and they were calling them to try to straighten this out. They’d better get it figured out as we cannot pay that! Obama care at its finest. Plus the bitch was extremely rude to the misses on the phone. Nice, taking crap from some lady making $10 an hour threatening to send us to collection if not paid in 3 days while the misses head is pounding. I hope (cross your fingers) it’ll be ok. When we paid, we were told this would cover it if we paid right away, which we did.

Oh well, just another day. Time to run, hope all’s well, here’s a couple of comments from Aunt Robi and Eleanor. I was hoping for a cat fight but they seem to be being nice!

You can tell fall is on the way if not here, with winter close behind. Sorry to Aunt Robi for not including the Cardinals who are a surprising 4 and 0! We also have Grandma Eleanor who’s sounding a little cocky with this comment, “Hey! robi, Bring on the birds, it’s in the cards,  49′ ers will whip your nest.   Eleanor!” Hmmm, I wonder if they play soon.

Yesterday the boys each went to friends houses to do homework before arriving home around dinner time. This morning we have the oldest guy going to Jefferson County Stadium for the league wide track meet. The misses is going for the whole day and I want to go see him but cannot hang out all day long as I have some work to do. Yesterday we bought the boys some much needed winter gloves at Costco for about $16 a pair! What a score. We had bought them some at REI for about $50 a pair and both of those will be going back pronto. After 20 pounds of coffee and a few other staples, we got out of Costco for about $100 as we had our annual rebate to spend which was $70 this year.

As I said, it’s getting cooler outside and we could have snow tomorrow. I think I’m pheasant hunting with a couple buddy’s tomorrow am at 8 o’clock. It’ll be fun and they’re always good eating. There’s nothing like having a brightly colored rooster spring up 5 feet in front of you with no notice. Should be a blast.

The dogs are at my feet right now after eating their breakfast. Both are happy to be resting comfortably. It’s now 6am and time to get the boys and the misses up. Mojo went to the groomer yesterday and is all pretty in his black and white coat rather than the dusty dirty grey he usually is. Lacey went in last week, we should have a family photo while they’re both clean!

Time to run, hope everyone has a great day, take care and we’ll talk to you tomorrow. God Bless.

First the 49’rs crushed the Jets (who I hate) and then at the same time, the Green Bay Packers held on to beat the Saints by 1 point and the Bronco’s thoroughly dismantled the Raiders. The Broncos were so good, we didn’t have to punt once all day. I left a little early in the 3rd quarter as we had the game in hand and my foot was killing me. On top of that, the misses was cleaning up the front yard getting it ready for winter and then putting up the Halloween decorations. In any case, everybody won, including my fantasy football team, what a great day. Next up is the hated New England Patriots.

It must have rained a bit last night and we’re supposed to get our first frost mid week. This morning it’s back to work and school and before you know it, will be Christmas. The oldest played with Jen yesterday, some at her house and then she was at ours until around 7pm. Meanwhile the youngest was here and there and everywhere from what I understand.

Uncle T said he commented the other day but I can’t find it anywhere, please post it again. So far so good on the headache front for the misses. Hopefully we’ve licked this once and for all. No more running for her. The boys will be skiing a bunch this year as the oldest gets a free ski pass as all 5th graders do. The misses and I are going to switch to cross country skiing as it’ll be hard for her to ski into a tree doing that, we hope!

Lots going on in the next few months, some travel, pheasant and elk hunting season, Halloween and Thanksgiving and finishing out the year strong at work. Throw in a few birthdays and some snow and it’ll make for a busy 12 weeks before the new year.

Has anyone given any more thought to a big family reunion? It’s never to early to start planning. I’m sure Uncle T has started, or maybe finished, Christmas shopping already. He’s always ahead of the curve.

It’s still pitch black as tar outside (how’s that for descriptive language?), and the sun won’t rise for another 30 minutes or so. The good looking one and the boys are still sleeping. I’d better get going on their breakfast. Lacey the lab all of a sudden has pretty bad arthritis. It’s as if she woke up one morning and had it! I think we need to slow down on throwing the ball for her. She’s such a good dog and likes to sleep a lot more now, like a lot of us. Mojo is just the same and needs more exercise which were now getting him daily. Time to run, take care, have a great week and God Bless.

I landed at DIA around 11am after a short 2 hour 4 minute flight. I woke up exactly 12 minutes before I had to leave for the airport at 5:18am. My new phones alarm didn’t work or I set it wrong which is probably the case. Anyhow I made it out the door of the rental house in time, showered and with my luggage in tow. It was a good 3 day trip where we had the entire company together, good stuff. I was supposed to go to New York Tuesday but that’s now postponed for a few weeks. (long story)

It was great to get home and see the love of my life. She sure does a great job of writing the blog with all her descriptive words, especially when describing the colors outside. We made a quick stop at the grocery store and then settled in for a restful Saturday afternoon.

Today is the Bronco game and I sure hope we win. It looks like the misses and the boys will stay home as I have a bunch of buddies from work that will be going with me. We have to win this one!

It seems like the boys grew while I was gone! I’m sure they do everyday but it’s hard to notice. Who knew the dogs were overweight? I guess it’s my fault as I feed them every morning.Time to use a different cup. It was nice not to have all the political ads in your face while I was gone, (Washington State is not a swing state so no one is running ads up there),not that I saw all that much tv. The Presidential debate is here Wednesday. I wish it wasn’t as it’ll cause some huge traffic problems and just cost us taxpayers more money we don’t have.

It’s pitch black outside right now. You see I’m always up so early there’s not any color for me to describe. The misses said the colors in the mountains are remarkable. We’re going to try to get up there this week. Hope everyone is doing well, take care, have a good day and cheer for the Broncos, Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49’rs! That should about cover it!

Good morning.  Oh, how refreshing the crisp fall air is.  We’ve slept with the windows open, and lots of cozy covers on top of us the last couple of nights.  I love to breath in the cool air at night.

I picked the up the kiddos from school at 12:15 and we drove up the mountain.  Both boys slept most of the way up which was good for them and good for me..the driver…no distractions.

The fall foliage is amazing.  The aspen trees are in full transformation.  The forest green pine trees are surrounded by seas of gold and orange. Some of the aspens are tipped with red leaves that turn to salmon with a hint of orange and finally turn bright yellow. Spectacular!  I took a couple of pictures of the boys on the deck at the clinic with the fall colors in the background. I hope the camera does  justice to real life.

We didn’t have to wait long at first.  Two assistants came in and took the oldest’s cast off with a very high tech saw.  He was a pro….he knew how to slide the skin gaurd in his cast as not to get burned by the saw. The youngest watched this procedure intently. Once the cast was off they (2 PA’s) took him down to x-ray…then the wait began.  The boys arm wrestled with the cast…half a cast each for a good twenty minutes…not long enough. It was an hour and a half before Heather (the PA that we know) came in to fill us in on the x-ray results…thumbs up…healing well. She then had the oldest choose his cast colors.  He chose blue and yellow.  These are school colors for the big Track and Field Meet.  He got the cast on and then Dr. Viola came in to let us know he only needs to keep it on for 10 to 14 more days.  Hurray!! We were out of there at 4:50 and on our way down the mountain.  This time I put a movie on for them.  There was some traffic on the way down and some very poor drivers on the road.  One lady came speeding up at at least 85 mph and the car in front of her couldn’t have been going more than 70.  I knew what she was going to do before she did it…she literally started changing lanes right into us…thankfully, there was no car behind us, so I could hit my brakes and honk my horn.  Unbelievable….where is the Highway Patrol when you want them.  I did see three cars pulled over for speeding 3/4 ths of the way down.  I held on to the steering wheel so tightly all the way down the hill that I could barely open my hands when we got home. Ugg.

The youngest played with the neighbor for a bit and then we all hunkered down for the night.

The oldest’s arm is sore this morning from all of the manipulation yesterday…and he wants Sushi for breakfast.  Funny.

I have to walk the Big dog over to the groomers this morning and the Mr. should be home around noon. Hurray! Time for more coffee and breakfast for the boys….not Sushi.

Have a great day…my headache is gone…so I will definitely have a Great day!

God Bless