A Year of Change

Where does the time go, we’re now 2/3rd’s of the way through the year and before we know it, we’ll be starring down 2012. Mom spent most of the day cleaning the house from top to bottom. She even tackled the mud room which tends to collect piles of shoes and coats. I went grocery shopping and came home with lots of basic staples like pasta, risotto, lentils and soups. They had a bunch of stuff on sale and I decided to take advantage of the savings while we could. Today the misses works from 7:15 until 3pm so she’s already up getting ready for the day. She’ll then be off until next Tuesday so that means 4 days off! I’ll be in charge of getting the boys dressed and fed and delivered to school. I did manage to get them both to take their showers last night after a few hours of riding scooters in the 97 degree heat.

We picked them up at 2:45 and headed home to get started on their homework. The oldest dives right in but the little guy still puts up a fight telling us things like “none of the other kids are doing their sentences”. It’s pretty easy to see through his objections but sometimes comical when you hear the things he comes up with. The other day he said something about the Playboy Club. I don’t remember the details of the comment so I’ll ask the misses when she comes down. The point is, how would he even know what the Playboy Club is? There are previews for a new show by that name coming this fall so that must be it. I asked the oldest one if 4th graders like girls yet and he said “I don’t know”. Now this is a far cry for earlier responses such as “no way” or “ick”. Seems like the boys are growing up. I asked as we saw him walking with a girl named Morgan who was in his 3rd grade class and kindergarten. She always seemed like a nice girl but the misses calls her a “fashionista” and says she’ll be wanting Manolo Blancik shoes by the time she’s in High School. (don’t tell the anyone the misses has a few pair of these italian shoes as she would hate to be known as a fashionista!) Anyhow he said they were just talking about their teachers but last year the boys wouldn’t even be seen talking to girls. He’s always been the one the girls like in school. Last year when his friends were all acting goofy trying to get the attention of a girl who’s been his good friend and classmate for years (Jennifer), she just ignored them like they were little kids and would hang out with the oldest. You can imagine how this frustrated all the boys with raging hormones. Both boys have always had the gift (or curse) of attracting the affection of the girls. The little one from kindergarten used to have to run away from this one little girl who would chase him all day trying to kiss him, it was pretty funny.

Yesterday the gang of four (our 2 boys and the neighbor’s 2 boys) hit their bikes hard and were cruising up and down the street like some sort of motorcycle gang. The oldest os the obvious leader of the pack barking out directions to the other three. Next in line of command is the little guy even though one of the neighbor boys is two years older. In a few years they’ll be extorting candy from all the houses on the street! (just kidding)  They’re very polite to all the people on the street and everyone enjoys our kids, especially the older folks whose kids are long gone.

Here comes Mom who has to leave in about 30 minutes and the little guy just walked in and grabbed the tv remote to put on some cartoons. He needs to read with me this morning or else we cannot sign off on his work sheet.

I’m pretty much done with work for the month of August with a few orders to wrap up. I think I’ll come in around $900K which is about $100K short of where I wanted to be but I can only do what I can do, meaning at some point, there’s nothing else I can do and it’ll be what it’ll be. I can’t stress about it anymore as there’s just some things I cannot control. The stress I already have on a regular basis would kill the average person within hours! I’ve just conditioned myself over the years to handle high stress situations. I sometimes even amaze myself how I can just take things in stride, I suppose it’s a gift!

Well, no politics today since I gave you all an extra long read yesterday. Hope you’re all doing well and have some fun plans for the last big weekend of summer. Oh, Grandpa Bob went to the cardiologist yesterday and we’re happy to report that he’s just fine. Apparently the scare he had a few weeks ago (when we had to rush off to California) was a false alarm. Better safe than sorry. Did you see Dick Cheney has a new book out and is doing a media tour on all the shows? Don’t say anything to anyone but I think I’ll get Grandma Dixie one for Christmas as I know she’s a big fan!

Take care, have a great day and God Bless.

Good morning. The Mister just left for the gym and the kiddos are still asleep. Bob and Fred (The beta fish) are still with us…I think they have almost surpassed their life expectancy. This of course is a good thing, you see…in all my beta research….it seems they are very social fish…just not with each other.  It’s funny, but they actually come to the front of their bowls, flare their gills and make eye contact each morning….or whenever someone stops to say “Hello” to them.We hope they make it another year.

The boys had another good day at school. I am amazed at the amount of 4th grade homework.  The spelling list came home yesterday…20 words that first have to be alphabetized and then re-written in cursive and in alphabetical order. Our 4th grader has really beautiful cursive and whipped through the list with a minimal amount of complaining. After homework the boys were off to ride scooters.  They both have figured out how to make the scooters jump while riding. The youngest caught a lot of air and would land the scooter with one leg on and one off.  They were also riding quite fast and we (Hubby and I) were trying to micro-manage the boys speed on the scooters to no avail. The oldest came in on his own during all of the fun to set the kitchen timer, grab his book and let me know it was time for his 35 minutes of reading homework.  Wow…was I ever impressed with his show of responsibility…..It has to be a hard choice…..ride with all of the neighbor kids…or come in and read for 35 minutes.  We did not even mention anything to him…he just made the choice on his own.  What a good kid.

Today is a “Clean up the clutter day”. I don’t know how this house can accumulate so much ‘Stuff” on every bare surface we have…..tables, counters, floors, chairs…unbelievable….I am starting with the mud room and working my way up…wish me luck because I am very good at procrastinating… and with a pirate themed dance for the kid’s school coming up Sept. 16th I could easily become distracted for something much more fun.

I am one of the “Chairs” for the dance along with two of my good friends. I am working on the decorations…Hurray…..it is kind of like building a stage set since we decorate the gym and the cafeteria. It’s a big space, but I have some really fun ideas.  More on that later.

Time to get the boys up…I’ll sign off…Hubby should be here in a moment to offer a “Political view” on the day.

God Bless…llf

Side note….I got hair extensions put in my hair and I finally have the lovely locks that I was intended to have. I love them, but if they look fake to those of you who know and love me…please tell me…you won’t hurt my feelings.

First off, her hair doesn’t look fake at all, in fact, she looks much younger and I catch myself doing a double take every so often. We didn’t make it to the Children’s Hospital event last night as the misses had a stomach ache. We had run up to Vail to do some paperwork while the boys were in school and by the time we got home, she wasn’t feeling well. She would have rallied but I told her not to worry about it, we’ll just go to the big gala in September. I’m reluctant to dive into politics as I don’t want to offend anyone but I was told the 1 person I might offend just skips over the political part anyhow. So, here goes, check this out. It’s kind of long but a good read because it’s from a liberal democrat and is all true! Read on if you dare! I’ll let the article speak for itself, take care, God Bless and have a great day, the boys and I are going to have breakfast now and then it’s off to school.

Well I don’t know if any of you noticed, but we had one comment yesterday from a loyal reader, family member and Uncle. In case you missed it, here it is.

Hey, your ruining the blog! I look forward to the ranting and raving over politics. Please continue with them it makes for good conversation and opens people’s eyes to what is really going on. Just one guys opinion!

Now in the interest of maintaining the small readership I have, I feel it is my duty to jump back into politics. I’m sorry if I offend anyone but I cannot afford to lose such a brilliant reader as Uncle T who posted the above comment. I will do my best to include information about the boys activities (as that’s why most of you read) but I’ll be writing about politics first so you’ll have to read the whole post!

So here we go, yesterday I was reading the Chicago Tribune and stumbled upon an article which talks about how the current White House is trying to blame the poor economy and everything else on a series of natural disasters. I won’t print the whole article but it’s safe to say (from reading the whole article) that looking back at previous administrations, they all faced these type of issues just like the current President does now. I think what’s important to note is that this President has been given a “free pass” for many of the failures of his policies or Obamanomics. Read on,

That’s a mighty wind blowing from the east. No, I’m not talking about Hurricane Irene. It’s the blustery gusts stirred up long before Irene by the constant whining from the Obama White House: Everything but the administration’s own policies are responsible for the faltering economy.

Irene is only the latest of the “head winds” White House officials blame for feeble economic growth and persistent high unemployment. There was the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, the fiscal crisis in Greece, the civil war in Libya on top of Arab Spring uprisings in other Arab countries and, of course, Republicans refusing to go along with President Barack Obama’s spending binge, er, “investments.” One adviser even found head winds from the East Coast earthquake, though its most notable damage appeared to be cracks in the foundation of the Washington Monument.

Now if you’re really honest and think about it, this is pretty much true. Everything you’ve heard from the White House are things like (from the Presidents own lips) “we were headed for a strong recovery and then we hit a few bumps in the road, like the earthquake in Japan, the Arab Spring and more”. Now I don’t know about you but I really don’t think any of our leaders deserve a “free pass” from issues going on in other parts of the World. All Presidents have faced issues like these and some worse. What about the earthquake in Haiti or the tsunami in Thailand or 20 years ago the war in Bosnia and Serbia? I could go on and on but I don’t remember any President, democrat or republican using these type of world events or natural disasters as excuses for problems here at home. I’d better get off this subject now but you get my point. Wasn’t it Harry Truman that said “the buck stops here”? Well, it’s just too bad our President doesn’t take some responsibility for the mess we’re in. I think if he did, a lot more people would understand. If you look back at what he promised all of us to get elected, apparently it was all just talk as he’s done nothing he said he would, it’s really pretty sad. We were all duped by this slick talking man whose promises we all believed. Some still do! You know the old saying, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Somehow I don’t think, no matter who the republican nominee (unless it’s Palin or Bachmann, god help us), the American people will be fooled again.

Alright, let’s talk about the boys and their day. As you know, Mom worked until 3pm so I picked the boys up from school. They were both in good spirits and I was surprised the oldest didn’t call during the day (due to his cold) wanting to come home. Both boys were given supreme compliments from their teachers yesterday. Turns out the little guy was told he’s the best reader in the whole class! Next the oldest one was told he is the best at division and multiplication in his class! Now we know their brilliant (just look at their parents) but this is quite a feat for both! The little guy really is reading well and we’ve been working with him a lot at home and the oldest just has that “numbers type” brain like me. He just see’s the numbers in his head, it’s kind of a natural thing that comes easy for him like it does for me.

We beat Mom home by about 10 minutes and started our homework. In 4th grade, they’ve really stepped it up a bit. The oldest now has to read for at least 30 minutes without stopping. He’s finally getting to that point where he wants to read rather than being forced to. The little guy seems to be following in his brothers footsteps too. He loves “Dairy of a Wimpy Kid”. This is a series of about 5 books and a few movies that were all the rage last year. Prior to going to bed (and after a bunch of bike riding outside) we played a few games of Go Fish. First it was Mom, the oldest and I, and then when the little guy came in, he took my place.

The oldest is up early with me and thankfully is feeling a bit better. It seems we might have dogged a bullet as far as the whole family getting sick. He’s now making some breakfast for himself which is pretty dangerous as I’m sure it includes some donuts from the freezer. At least they’re healthy (if donuts can be healthy) as they came from Whole Foods. I think they’re gluten free and have no bad chemicals in them. I hear the microwave going now so yup, that’s what he’s up to. I just asked him what he’s having with the donut and he replied “toast, Gorilla Munch (a cereal) and some bacon probably”.Well he is a growing boy. I’m sure by Christmas he’ll be taller than most of you reading, especially anyone of you referred to as “Grandma”. Watch out as the little guy is right behind him and also going through a growth spurt.

Time to run as Mom is already in the shower and I too need to get moving. I was hoping to get to the gym but it looks like that’ll have to wait until tomorrow. The oldest just asked me if I liked burnt toast? I of course said yes. He said great as he accidentally burnt it so he’s now putting a little butter on it for me and making himself some more. Wow, it’s really burnt, black as the night, but I’ll eat it because he made it for me, even if by default.

I need to get a drink to wash this down so time to run. Thanks for reading through the politics today. I know some of you don’t subscribe to my views but that’s just too bad as I’m the author, ha ha. Just kidding, (kind of), I’ll try to take it easy but everyone in Washington is already in campaign mode and the election is still 14 months away, it’s only going to get worse, much worse! We’re all going to be so sick of politics by November 2012 we won’t know what to do, so hold onto your hats. You can think of this as a “warmup” for what’s to come.

Take care, the little guy is up now too and says hi, have a great day and God Bless,

Been up since 4am but our internet was down so I’ve been on the phone with Comcast getting it re-set. It’s now 5 and I just woke the misses as she works at 7:15. This of course means I’ll be making breakfast and getting the boys off to school. The little one seems to be getting better but now (of course) the oldest has a severely stuffed nose.

Yesterday was a fun filled busy day. Before I get into that, I need to point out that Grandma Dixie replied to yesterday’s post about the num chucks. According to her, the chain was metal (could have been, I don’t remember) and this was in fact a dangerous weapon. Maybe us as parents have become desensitized to how dangerous some of the toys for sale these days really are. Anyhow, I promised not to go out and buy him another set and we’ll trust her judgement that we shouldn’t let the oldest have them. After all, she’s been around a little bit longer than us.

To yesterday, I started the day off with a trip to the gym and Mom worked out down in the basement on our exercise machine. We then got all geared up on our bikes and headed down to the street where the pro cycling riders would soon be zipping by. A few minutes after we arrived to one of the few shady spots we could find, the endless procession of official vehicles and police cars and motorcycles came zooming by. All the side streets were closed so no one could get onto the race course and helicopters were hovering overhead filming footage that was broadcast to over 60 countries. A group of people who lived at the house we were in front of came over to give the boys some thunder sticks (air filled long balloons provided by a sponsor company to smack together to make noise) and offered to let the boys stand on their yard to see better. Soon the photographers on motorcycles came speeding by so we knew the racers weren’t far behind. The peleton (the name for a group of riders) came racing down the hill. They were snaking from the left to the right side of the road all in a tightly nit group. The kids and everyone else lining the street were cheering and smacking their “thunder sticks” together making as much noise as they could while the peleton raced by. One of the riders threw his empty water bottle to the side of the rode to eliminate as much weight as possible. I quickly grabbed this and gave it to the oldest as he reluctantly gave up one of his thunder sticks earlier to our little 4 year old neighbor boy. About 20 seconds separated 3 groups of riders and then it was all over. It was very cool and you felt like you were in Europe. This was a big deal for Colorado as it was the first time that the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners from the Tour de France competed in America at the same time. All the top riders in the World were here and we’re all glad we went down to see it.

Next I had to rush home for the Fantasy Football draft. On the way I came across a guy dragging his bike up the street due to his back tire locking up. I was right in front of our house so I offered to load up his bike and drive him home. he was very thankful. I then drove back down to the neighbors who gave the boys the thunder sticks and gave then a couple of bottles of wine. They were quite happy to see me! The football draft began at 1pm sharp with 12 guys from all around the country. This is the 15th year for our group although I’ve only been part of it for about 6 years. We all get on Skype (the free internet phone service where you can talk and see each other on video) to conduct the draft. This takes between 3 and 4 hours and by the end I was really thrilled with my team. The boys love it and help me choose the team (or guys) we play every week, it’s fun for all of us.

Speaking of the boys, they were playing outside for most of the day and finished up by watching a movie over at the neighbor kids house. We had spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner which was great. Everyone was tired and I think we were all asleep by about 9.

There’s three days left in the month and lots of purchase orders to collect. I hope the hurricane (tropical storm) doesn’t delay any revenue coming from the east coast. The flooding does look bad in certain states but thankfully the storm was not what the media had hoped for. All I can say is you’d better be prepared for a bad winter. I don’t know how “bad” it will be, but you should be ready for the worst. The newscasters are making fun of the storm on tv right now saying “what was all this fuss about” ? It’s hard to tell just what the weather will be so you need to be ready for the worst case scenario.

I’m going to abstain from politics again, aren’t you proud of me! I’m really trying hard to take a break from the endless bickering and lack of progress by our elected officials. Whoops, here I go, I’d better sign off now before I slip into a hole I can’t get out of without writing another 1000 words. So in closing, take care, have a great week, think about winterizing your car soon and God Bless,

Ok, let’s say you live in New York and needed to get some food and water in case you’re without power for  a few days due to the storm. First let me say that the media over hypes everything and the supposed “hurricane” is no exception. Turns out the sustained winds are about 40 to 50 miles an hour tops with gusts to 75 or 80. Now this is still a big storm with lots of rain but it is not a hurricane! In fact it ceased to be a hurricane when it hit land in North Carolina. What it is is a good tropical storm. (Category 1 hurricane’s start with sustained winds of  about 80 miles and up) The storm is about to move out of New York and they say 70-80,000 people there are without power. Come on, we have more than this without power here in Colorado on a regular basis with a good rain! Now the point here is that thankfully it was not as bad as projected but there are a few important lessons for everyone to take away from this.

1. the media can and will over hype anything to get ratings, they’re still providing round the clock coverage and calling this tropical storm a hurricane! They keep showing the same pictures of a little flooding as they don’t have any real huge graphic damage to show us.

2. the general public believes everything they see on tv. These people are called “sheeple” meaning they follow media reports and each other like a herd of sheep. Overall they do not think for themselves but solely rely on the person on tv to tell them what to do.

3. The sheeple are not prepared and do not do so until the last minute. Home Depot and Wal Mart stores on the east coast have received a huge economic boost from everyone who was not prepared for even a few days without power.

4. When the unprepared get that mob mentality, they pick stores clean like, well see the photo below. I wonder how many people will try to return items when the storm passes?

A picture from a Queens supermarket taken minutes ago. You decide.

It’s hard to tell what this store has left but this was most likely the water or canned food aisle. I can only imagine the lines and pushing and shoving to get some of whatever was on these shelves yesterday. I’ll bet being in New York, the prices were up too! So, once again, better safe than sorry. The news is so starved for ratings that they’re now interviewing some guy named “Vinnie” on Fire Island (which was supposed to be wiped off the face of the earth!) in New York feeding him questions like “you said your girlfriend said maybe we should leave last night, didn’t she?” and Vinnie responds ” duh yea”. The reporter was clearly frustrated that he couldn’t get more drama out of Vinnie. Now I’m not trying to minimize the fact that it was a big storm and 9 people did die over the past 3 days due to falling trees or other tragedy. However I’d guess 9 people normally die from car accidents or other tragedy between North Carolina and New York in any given 3 day rain storm or period, you know, driving and sliding off the road or something. Anyhow, once again, everyone should have a little food and water, I’m just saying.

Ok, let’s talk about yesterday. The boys had fun playing all though we did keep the little one in trying to kick his cold. Mom had to run downtown to get her hair fixed while I cleaned up around the house. We had hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner and then watched the Bronco game on tv.

The oldest one had been bugging me to call Grandma Dixie and have her send his num chucks (a plastic toy we bought at a costume shop in Sacramento) as he needs them for his Halloween costume. When we called Grandma she said that that toy was lethal and she couldn’t believe we bought it! When we left her house, she said she was sitting on it so we wouldn’t see it so we couldn’t take it with us. Now I applaud Grandma looking out for the boys best interests but this was just a toy with plastic chains holding it together. The oldest is going to be crushed when I tell him it’s not coming. You see Grandma said she tried to break it and couldn’t, so then used “bolt cutters” to take it apart (after she and Pa Don put it around each others neck) to destroy it and then threw it away. She also told the misses that “we had no business buying that toy!”. I guess the misses promised that we wouldn’t go buy another one so hopefully the oldest will forget about it and decide to choose something else for his costume. I had the misses ask if Grandma would be upset if I put this in the post and she said, “go ahead, if you want to admit you bought that”. Oh well, at least she cares!

This morning we have to get ready to head down to to watch the pro cycling race zoom by us on the way to the finish in downtown Denver. This race has the top riders from all over the World and has been going on for about a week. Then we have our fantasy football draft at 1pm. This usually takes about 4 hours to complete and the boys love it and want to be part of it. I need to head to the gym for a quick workout and I think I’m getting arthritis in my right hand. Hard to believe a 30 year old like me can get arthritis!

Hope you’re all doing well, send a comment, no politics again, aren’t you proud of me! Don’t worry, I’ll jump back in tomorrow as you can bet some politician will get on tv and say or do something really stupid. Without them the late night talk show hosts would have no material! So, take care and God Bless, until tomorrow…

First off, today is post number 240 meaning there’s 125 days left in the year. Pretty soon it’ll be Christmas, time to start thinking about what you want from Santa!

Now onto lobster fest, about 3pm yesterday Fed Ex showed up with a box full of four 2 lb+ plus live lobsters. According to the enclosed paperwork, they were pulled out of the ocean the same day they were shipped. We borrowed a giant pot from Uncle T and proceeded to cook them up. We of course humanely dispatched them before putting them in the water so they didn’t suffer. After about 16 minutes, we had fresh, great tasting lobster. We gave one to Uncle T and Aunt B who said their’s was rubbery but our’s were great! Maybe the trip in tin foil to their house kept that one cooking or something. Anyhow we loved ours with the oldest chowing down a bunch. I decided I’m going to reciprocate and send some Colorado buffalo to my friend in NY.

Speaking of New York, it looks like the hurricane is headed their way. Luisa (my pseudo little sister) who lives in Virginia was telling me of all the lines for gas and to get into stores like Wal Mart to buy supplies. I guess there were even fights between people over trying to butt in line. I guess the shelves were picked clean with everything gone, not a single bottle of water or loaf of bread left. Guess most people waited until the last minute to prepare. Oh well, I think (hope) you got the point the other day, if you didn’t, you probably never will, until you experience this type of situation yourself.

The little guy stayed home with us yesterday and still had a bit of a fever around dinner time. I decided to run to the store and get some Children’s Tylenol. We can’t believe we didn’t have any as we try to keep this kind of thing around. This was a slip up on our part due to the recall of Tylenol earlier this year. It seems we never replaced our old medicine with the new version. He and Mom ares still sleeping and we’re hoping he feels better today. The boys, especially the older one, are lobbying hard to go to the pre-season football game tonight but it doesn’t start until 7pm and we really want the little guy to get better. I think I’ll call Uncle T and see if he knows anyone who wants the tickets.

Grandma went to dinner last night with Reverend Bob and his wife Jane. Bob is the man who married the misses and I, Uncle T and Aunt B and conducted the funeral for my dad. They’ve been close friends of our family for a long time. I’m glad she got out and hope she had a good time. It is still in the mid 90’s with no end in sight. Frankly it’s nice but we wish it’d just cool down about 15 degrees. I suppose we shouldn’t complain with everything that’s going on in other parts of the country.

The oldest and I are watching George of the Jungle. Anyone remember that from when you were younger, “George, George, George of the Jungle, friend to you and me!” I guess you need to music to have it make sense. Speaking of the oldest, he was riding the little guys bike yesterday and that bike doesn’t have gears like his. When he peddled backwards, much to his surprise, he was hitting the brakes and he and the bike did a flip. He skinned his knee up pretty good but it could have been much worse. Thankfully he was wearing his helmet. He’s pretty lucky as if he’s not zooming down the street on a skate board or a scooter, he’s on a bike and odds are sooner or later he’s going to have a spill. Once again he had a great day at school, he told us yesterday a lot of the kids act like little kids. I guess that’s cause they’re little kids, right? I asked him what he meant and he said some of them act like 3 year olds or baby’s. He’s growing up so fast, both boys are and for those of you that haven’t seen them in at least 3 days, they grew again! Yes they do grow that fast. The oldest has had a number of growing pains to go along with his growth spurt and yesterday had 5 pieces of toast, a bowl of cereal and a quart of milk for breakfast. He’s telling me he’s hungry now as well. I guess I’d better run and get him some food. No politics today, it’s too depressing and nothing’s really changed.

Ok, we expect everyone to have a good day and be thankful for what you have. Take care and enjoy life and we’ll talk to you tomorrow. God Bless,

I picked up the boys from school yesterday as Mom was still at work and the little guy told me he had to go to the clinic twice during the day as he wasn’t feeling well. They were both complaining of a bit of a sore throat in the morning before school. Right then I knew, oh oh, here it comes. You see when you take a few hundred kids and bring them all together after 3 months of summer, it’s like making a big soup with every germ imaginable. Every year right when school starts, kids get sick and this time it caught up with the little guy. His nose is so stuffed he can’t breath through it and he has that heavy cough that goes along with it. Thankfully he doesn’t have a fever but the runny nose and cough was enough to keep him up for most of the night, and us up for all of the night. The misses did take him into his room and went with him so I’d get some sleep but I know she got very little. Looks like he’ll be staying home today and hopefully this will pass quickly.

The oldest one had a good day and was finishing up a week long homework project which is a kind of big poster where he fills in various information about his summer and life. I forget what it’s called but I’m proud to say that one section is titled “My Hero” and he wrote in “My Dad”, or me! He has to put pictures in and then write in the various sections and I feel very honored that he chose me as his hero. Mom of course quipped that she does all the dirty work and of course I’m the hero! Of course she was just kidding as was also very happy he chose me.

Mom had to print some pictures for the poster and the one I took on the first day of school of the two boys is just priceless. I promise we’ll get some more printed and send you each one. I just had to change the channel as I’m getting so pissed off listening to some pundits that act like they’re talking for all of us which could not be further from the truth. I’m trying to stay away from all this crap today for you and I both. Hmmm, what else is going on, oh wait, I know , check this out! Yesterday a friend of mine that runs our distributor in New York City called me from Maine where he and his family are on summer vacation for a few weeks. He called to tell me that this morning I should be on the look out for a box from Fed Ex full of fresh live Maine lobsters! Whoo hoo, lobster, what a treat. I offered to pay for them but he said no way, it was his treat. It’s a good feeling to know that someone you know through work likes you enough personally to go out of his way while on family vacation and send you lobster! After all most business is all about personal relationships. I think this is one of the problems these days as there is little personal trust or relationships between people that do business together. It’s all about who can get the best price rather than who they are. For me, I’d rather pay a little more or get a little less and work with someone I know I can trust. It’s more important to me to know that they’ll do what they say and will listen if I ever have an issue or problem, rather than just getting the best price. I think back to when I was a kid, my dad was so liked, respected and trusted by everyone he did business with, in fact their whole circle of friends were all people he met and knew through work. If you think about it, so are mine as are most peoples. It’s kind of a big statement when someone you know through work sends you a gift with no strings attached. In any case, we’re getting lobster from Maine today! Whoo hoo!

It’s now 6am and I need to hit the gym. It’s still super hot here everyday. We just can’t seem to shake the mid 90’s but at least we’re not starring down at a hurricane. I hope everyone took a little bit away from the post the other day about getting prepared. I’ve been lobbying Grandma to pony up a few thousand dollars to let me buy some larger items I just can’ afford. I figured it out and I can pretty much come up with enough food to feed all of the family members here in Denver for a year for only about $5000. Now this might seem like a lot but think about what you spend on your insurance policies. We alone spend over that just in our household for medical, car and homeowners insurance and if something bad happens, none of those policies will be dropping of food or water at our front door! The say one of the worst potential consequences of the coming hurricane is that the ports might be damaged and then all the grocery stores will run out of food in a matter of days. In fact most are getting picked clean right now by the millions of people who have nothing ready rushing into store buying whatever is left on the shelves. Sorry if it seems like I’m beating a dead horse here but it’s no joke. Trust me, the government will not be there for you in any way shape or form if and when something bad happens. Ok ok, I’ll let it go know, just do me and yourself a favor an buy a  few extra cans of food each time you go grocery shopping. Enough said.

It sounds like the little one went back to sleep and so did Mom. In 10 minutes the oldest will be up getting ready for school. He says his new teacher is tough. I asked how he knew this and he said, “she told us”. Good for her. He also told us yesterday he had a different science teacher and after some questioning we found out he’s been put in an accelerated class. At least they’re “teaching up” as the misses puts it. He also was the only one to finish a complex math test and the teacher said to the class that “he sure loves math”. I think this week being the first, they’re doing a lot of testing and activities to see who knows what and who doesn’t. We know our guys will do fine as they’re extremely smart. (they get that from me, ha ha)

Ok time to run, hope everyone has some fun plans for the weekend. The boys and I have our fantasy football draft Sunday afternoon so we’ll be studying the next two days. Take care, stay safe and God Bless,

Ok, no earthquakes so far today, I hope I didn’t freak anybody out yesterday. The misses thought I was actually pretty reserved with everything going on these days.

Today the misses works at 7:15am so she’s up with me at 5am. I’ll be in charge of getting both boys ready and delivered to school. The youngest (as mentioned yesterday) brought his classmate home with him after school and having three boys here elevated the noise level by 10! It was so loud Mom had to load them up and take them all to the pool for an hour or so. She told me later that she was surprised that they didn’t ask them to leave because the boys were so loud. After we took the 3rd wheel home the boys rode bikes and played outside until bedtime at 8pm. We managed to pull them inside for a quick bite of dinner but then back outside they went.

I was up in Boulder for lunch with my long time friend Bradford who is a talented chef and owns a few restaurants. I think we all might be headed to Italy around the end of October or first of November. “All” means our family and his which means eight of us in total. (Brad, his wife and his two 8 year old kids and the four of us) This is all possible due to some EU (European Union) funds we get and Brad buying about 300 cases of wine from the region of Umbria. This opportunity came up yesterday when I came up short on selling the Umbrian wines in a pre sell and needed to put together a deal to sell them. We’ll keep you posted as we get closer.

Hurricane Irene looks like it could be a big one with at least a lot of rain. Let’s hope it’s not too bad. In order to spare you from politics today I’m signing off early. It’s almost September which is hard to believe, August just flew by. Here’s a quote for the day, hope you enjoy and God Bless,

“The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force.” – Voltaire

Where were you yesterday when the earthquake hit. Now if you live in Colorado or on the east coast you might answer differently. It’s pretty odd that both Colorado and Virginia had earthquakes on the same day less than 6 hours apart. I called my Mom around 1pm and asked her if she heard about the earthquake and she said “well I was sleeping but I read about it in the blog”. I then said no Mom, the one on the east coast! She had not yet heard about this one but did ask “what’s going on with the world, it seems like it’s coming to an end”. I then pointed out how the word “prepare” is the most common word in the bible. (bet you didn’t know that!)  She said “what’s there to prepare for if no one’s around?”. Sorry Mom for sharing your thoughts with all but I think it’s important as a lot of people probably have the same questions or concerns. First of all, relax, the world is not coming to an end, life will go on. What is going to change is how your life goes on. Many things can (and will) happen such as the economy crashing, natural disasters, (earthquakes, solar storms, flooding, longer colder winters and hotter summers, etc.) increased conflicts (war), civil unrest (riots) and so on. This is nothing new, every generation faces challenges like these it’s just that now with our global society and the advancements in technology, we’ve made a lot of the potential problems potentially much worse. Granted we can’t as easily do much about the weather (except stop generating so much greenhouse gas and pollution) but we can easily directly impact war, the economy, food riots, etc. The problem is mankind is so short sighted that we don’t look at the needs of all of mankind, just our own. So, what do we do about it? First, you pray. Next, you do as the bible says and prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Now what does prepare mean? Well it has a different meaning, depending on who you are and how bad you think it’s going to get. We know two of you that have a “Ship’s Store” that could tide you over for a bit….

You all know that the misses and I probably “prepare” more than most. The main reason for this is we have kids. Also most everything we buy are items we’re going to use anyhow. If we buy extra food, we know we’ll eat it sometime. If we stock up on toilet paper, we know we’ll be using that too! When we buy bandaids in bulk, we for sure know we’ll use them with 2 boys! Others of you feel more secure in our infrastructure than we do which leads you to believe you don’t really need to prepare. I think some of you think no matter what happens, you’ll always be able to go down to the corner grocery store and pick up some meat, milk and bread. You think it might cost more but you’ll always be able to drive a few miles, walk into a store and buy whatever you want. Worst case, you think if you can’t, it’ll be only a small interruption, like a few days until the stores are once agin fully stocked. Frankly we think you’re dead wrong, but you all need to decide for yourselves.

For those of you that live close to us (Grandma, Uncle T, Aunt B, Aunt Shelly) you have an advantage over the rest of you because we try to buy extra supplies when we can knowing that most you don’t. However this doesn’t mean we have everything we need to take care of everyone (it just costs too much, if we had the money, we most certainly would!) for all the problems that could potentially be headed our way. So, we strongly suggest (and hope) that you at a minimum, go buy some extra food, get some bottled water and stock up our your medications. (we’ve been doing this for years and have managed to accumulate 6-9 months worth of extra medicine by refilling ours every 20 days instead of 30) Another easy but necessary habit to get into is, always keep your gas tank at least half full. We’ve now conditioned ourselves to consider the half way mark the same as empty. Whenever we’re getting close to that mark, we fill up. If you can do these few simple things, you’ll be ahead of most people. See this isn’t so scary, you don’t need to go out and buy any gas masks or military rifles, just get a little extra food and water. If you’d like any further suggestions, please feel free to ask us. I don’t think most of you will, but I feel it’s my duty to at least suggest that you take basic precautions to help you through potential troubled times. If you think about all that’s happening, troubled times are ahead. In closing, please don’t think we’re a bunch of survivalists…….. as nothing could be further from the truth. There’s a big misconception about anyone who takes any precautions to protect their family or loved ones from obvious things that appear to be headed our way. There are a lot (millions of people in the U.S.) of people that “prepare”. Many are your doctors, teachers, and friends, you just don’t know it. And what about the government?  The government is preparing like mad for every conceivable scenario like they’ve already run out of time! Here in Colorado they have created an underground compound topped with solar panels…we have been watching the non-stop construction for the last few years. Those of you that are older, remember back when you were a kid, I’ll bet your parents had months worth of canned foods and were prepared for all kinds of problems whether they needed to stitch up a pair of pants or stitch up a cut.

Speaking of labels, what about one Party labeling the Tea Party terrorists. Now I don’t consider myself a member of the Tea Party, but I think most of them are just regular people who are fed up with the runaway spending in Washington and the endless bickering among our self serving elected officials. (hmmm, maybe I am a member) Whatever you call them, they certainly are not terrorists. It’s really sad one group of Americans would label another group of Americans terrorists because they don’t agree with their politics. We’ve really come a long way people, nice. Another fine example of people working together.

Alright, I’ll try to skip politics tomorrow as I wrote so much today, thanks for sticking with me!

Ok, now to the day, Mom worked until 5pm and I picked the boys up at 2:45. We came home and all pitched in to clean up the house which was pretty much a mess. We stopped by Grandma’s around 4:45 on the way home from the bank. She was sitting outside on the phone. Both boys had another great day at school which is no surprise. They sure look good in their button down collared shirts. Everyone is still wearing shorts as it still hot with the temps in the mid 90’s. The little guy has a play date with his friend Scott after school today so we’ll be bringing 3 boys home. This for sure will make for some good stories tomorrow. I almost forgot, yesterday right before dinner, the little one came running in saying his brother just caught a big snake with his bare hands! Sure enough he had one by the tail and was holding it up for all to see. We made him walk down to the ditch and let it go. It wasn’t 5 minutes later and lo and behold, he had another one! The neighbor lady was thrilled as he was catching these in her yard and I think she feels the same about snakes as my Mom, iccckkk! We then all sat down for dinner which was some leftover green chili on brown rice, it was really good. Both boys are still sleeping in their own bed (primarily meaning the little one here) and taking showers every morning! (That’s a big one) We’re also using the threat of taking away some of their allowance if they don’t eat all their breakfast which seems to be working too.

Mom’s going to walk the boys to school again today, we might as well let them do this while they can before the snow comes. We might try to get to the gym this morning but the phone’s already ringing off the hook and Mom I know wants to get cleaning.

Hope everyone is doing well and isn’t too put off by the start of today’s post. I figured with the earthquakes, no better time to share my thoughts on preperation. Here’s a quote for the day, take care and God Bless,

“In the age of lies, even the clumsiest frankness is preferable to the best-orchestrated ruse.”

School was great according to the boys who both had a great day. Mom walked with them yesterday morning as they were ready so early and wanted to get some exercise. We picked them up at 2:45 and took them for some ice cream to celebrate. The day was filled with a bunch of phone calls for me and some laundry and house cleaning for the misses.

Today the misses works from 8 until 5 so I’ll be driving both boys to and from school. I’ve got some real radical plans in store for work over the next few weeks as I’m planning on clearing out over a million dollars worth of inventory at reduced prices. I’m installing some pretty aggressive tactics and changes to the way we do things due to the ever changing economy. Someone has to do it and it looks like I’m the only one in the company thinking out of the box right now.

We had the largest earthquake to hit Colorado in over 40 years last night. It was a 5.3 quake southwest of Trinidad which is about 180 miles from Denver. This is odd as we usually don’t get earthquakes around here. They say all the seismic activity is due to events in the solar system. These reasons (without getting too technical) include gravitational pull due to planet alignment, and other forces that affect pressure on our planet. I guess they had about 4 smaller earthquakes in the hours before this hit. If this would have happened in California, things could have been much worse as the faults there are much more susceptible to large quakes. Thankfully it wasn’t worse. This all explains the bad dreams I had last night. I didn’t sleep very well and woke up twice. Both times the misses was up with leg cramps so I need to let her sleep as long as possible.

Rather than jump into politics I think I’ll go get some exercise in before everyone wakes up. Sorry for the short post today but I have a lot going on and am too tired to think of anything else to say. Hope you’re all doing well. Since I’m signing off early I think I’ll insert some reading for the day from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).  Check this out and God Bless,

What causes riots? That’s not a question you would expect to have a simple answer.

But today, Marco Lagi and buddies at the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, say they’ve found a single factor that seems to trigger riots around the world.

This single factor is the price of food. Lagi and co say that when it rises above a certain threshold, social unrest sweeps the planet.

The evidence comes from two sources. The first is data gathered by the United Nations that plots the price of food against time, the so-called food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. The second is the date of riots around the world, whatever their cause. Both these sources are plotted on the same graph above.

This clearly seems to show that when the food price index rises above a certain threshold, the result is trouble around the world.

This isn’t rocket science. It stands to reason that people become desperate when food is unobtainable. It’s often said that any society is three square meals from anarchy.

But what’s interesting about this analysis is that Lagi and co say that high food prices don’t necessarily trigger riots themselves, they simply create the conditions in which social unrest can flourish. “These observations are consistent with a hypothesis that high global food prices are a precipitating condition for social unrest,” say Lagi and co.

In other words, high food prices lead to a kind of tipping point when almost anything can trigger a riot, like a lighted match in a dry forest.

On 13 December last year, the group wrote to the US government pointing out that global food prices were about to cross the threshold they had identified. Four days later, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia in protest at government policies, an event that triggered a wave of social unrest that continues to spread throughout the middle east today.

That leads to an obvious thought. If high food prices condition the world for social unrest, then reducing the prices should stabilise the planet.

But what can be done to reverse the increases. Lagi and co say that two main factors have driven the increase in the food price index. The first is traders speculating on the price of food, a problem that has been exacerbated in recent years by the deregulation of the commodities markets and the removal of trading limits for buyers and sellers.

The second is the conversion of corn into ethanol, a practice directly encouraged by subsidies.

Those are both factors that the western world and the US in particular could change.

Today, the food price index remains above the threshold but the long term trend is still below. But it is rising. Lagi and co say that if the trend continues, the index is likely to cross the threshold in August 2013.

If their model has the predictive power they suggest, when that happens, the world will become a tinderbox waiting for a match.

hmmmmmmmmm,