A Year of Change

We’re all tired from a long busy weekend. Jag and I made it home a bit before 7pm after going to the game and getting him some new clothes at the mall. Ty took a bike ride and Lori and Mojo a walk. We all work or have school today. Tomorrow Jag and the entire 8th grade, are off to Washington D.C. He’ll be home Saturday. Friday is tax day although I think we have until Monday to mail in payments. Not a whole lot more going on, just more of the same. Time to run, GB

We had a good time in Denver that wrapped up with a visit to my mom. Her arm was bandaged so we didn’t see her injury up close but she is bruised from her hand to her shoulder. You have to be careful at her age not to fall. They say if you break your hip, look out. Lucky she just cut her arm.

Last night Jag went to the party and Warner came over to spend the night. Not sure when they went to bed but it was after Lori and I. Jag and I will head to Denver to the basketball game around 10 this morning. We should be back home by 7 or so tonight.

It was raining here and snowing on the pass when we came back up in the afternoon. Guess I’ll run as it’s almost 8am. Have a great day. GB

This morning Lori and I are headed to Denver with Mojo for a haircut and some errands. We’ll stop and see my Mom and be back by 4 or so. I’d like to use the rest of today’s post to share with you a letter from a 79 year old man to his Senator in Congress. Do yourself a favor and read on and then pass it on. God Bless.

This came from a democrat much to my surprise!  I read it and it certainly

hits the nail where it would hurt.  Google has the letter posted on their

web site.

This is well written…….and should be read by everyone in these United

States!

It will be well worth the three minutes it requires to read this.  It is

quite impressive.

You can be Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, Independent or

Libertarian and I bet this will hit a nerve.  Our country is in real

trouble.

This gentleman is obviously quite smarter than the two senators he sent it

1. All I can say is amen to everything he said.  A very articulate letter

sent to the two U.S. Senators from Washington State.”

Senator Patty Murray

Senator Maria Cantwell

Washington, DC , 20510

Dear Senators:

I have tried to live by the rules my entire life.  My father was a Command

Sergeant Major, U.S. Army, who died of combat related stresses shortly

after his retirement.  It was he who instilled in me those virtues he felt

important – honesty, duty, patriotism and obeying the laws of God and of

our various governments.  I have served my country, paid my taxes, worked

hard, volunteered and donated my fair share of money, time and artifacts.

Today, as I approach my 79th birthday, I am heart-broken when I look at my

country and my government. I shall only point out a very few things

abysmally wrong which you can multiply by a thousand fold.  I have

calculated that all the money I have paid in income taxes my entire life

cannot even keep the Senate barbershop open for one year!  Only Heaven and

a few tight-lipped actuarial types know what the Senate dining room costs

the taxpayers.  So please, enjoy your haircuts and meals on us.

Last year, the president spent an estimated $1.4 billion on himself and

his family.  The vice president spends $ millions on hotels.  They have had

8 vacations so far this year!  And our House of Representatives and Senate

have become America’s answer to the Saudi royal family.  You have become

the “perfumed princes and princesses” of our country.

In the middle of the night, you voted in the Affordable Health Care Act,

a.k.a. “Obamacare,” a bill which no more than a handful of senators or

representatives read more than several paragraphs, crammed it down our

throats, and then promptly exempted yourselves from it substituting your

own taxpayer-subsidized golden health care insurance.

You live exceedingly well, eat and drink as well as the “one percenters,”

consistently vote yourselves perks and pay raises while making 3.5 times

the average U.S. individual income, and give up nothing while you (as well

as the president and veep) ask us to sacrifice due to sequestration (for

which, of course, you plan to blame the Republicans, anyway).

You understand very well the only two rules you need to know – (1) How to

get elected, and (2) How to get re-elected.  And you do this with the aid

of an eagerly willing and partisan press, speeches permeated with a certain

economy of truth, and by buying the votes of the greedy, the ill-informed

and under-educated citizens (and non-citizens, too, many of whom do vote)

who are looking for a handout rather than a job.  Your so-called “safety

net” has become a hammock for the lazy.  And, what is it now, about 49 or

50 million on food stamps – pretty much all Democrat voters – and the

program is absolutely rife with fraud and absolutely no congressional

oversight?

I would offer that you are not entirely to blame.  What changed you is the

seductive environment of power in which you have immersed yourselves.  It

is the nature of both houses of Congress which requires you to subordinate

your virtue in order to get anything done until you have achieved a

leadership role.  To paraphrase President Reagan, it appears that the

second oldest profession (politics), bears a remarkably strong resemblance

to the oldest.

As the hirsute first Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834 –

1902), English historian and moralist, so aptly and accurately stated,

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Great men

are almost always bad men.”  I’m only guessing that this applies to the

female sex as well.  Tell me, is there a more corrupt entity in this

country than Congress?

While we middle class people continue to struggle, our government becomes

less and less transparent, more and more bureaucratic, and ever so much

more dictatorial, using Czars and Secretaries to tell us (just to mention a

very few) what kind of light bulbs we must purchase, how much soda or

hamburgers we can eat, what cars we can drive, gasoline to use, and what

health care we must buy.  Countless thousands of pages of regulations

strangle our businesses costing the consumer more and more every day.

As I face my final year, or so, with cancer, my president and my

government tell me “You’ll just have to take a pill,” while you, Senator,

your colleagues, the president, and other exulted government officials and

their families will get the best possible health care on our tax dollars

until you are called home by your Creator while also enjoying a retirement

beyond my wildest dreams, which of course, you voted for yourselves and we

pay for.

The chances of you reading this letter are practically zero as your staff

will not pass it on, but with a little luck, a form letter response might

be generated by them with an auto signature applied, hoping we will believe

that you, our senator or representative, has heard us and actually cares.

This letter will, however, go on line where many others will have the

chance to read one person’s opinion, rightly or wrongly, about this

government, its administration and its senators and representatives.

I only hope that occasionally you might quietly thank the taxpayer for all

the generous entitlements which you have voted yourselves, for which, by

law, we must pay, unless, of course, it just goes on the $19 trillion

national debt for which your children and ours, and your grandchildren and

ours, ad infinitum, must eventually try to pick up the tab.

My final thoughts are that it must take a person who has either lost his

or her soul, or conscience, or both, to seek re-election and continue to

destroy the country that I deeply love.  You have put it so far in debt

that we will never pay it off while your lot improves by the minute,

because of your power.

For you, Senator, will never stand up to the rascals in your House who

constantly deceive the American people.  And that, my dear Senator, is how

power has corrupted you and the entire Congress.  The only answer to clean

up this cesspool is term limits.  This, of course, will kill the goose that

lays your golden eggs.  And woe be to him (or her) who would dare to bring

it up.

Sincerely,

Bill Schoonover

3096 Angela Lane

Oak Harbor, WA

We have a busy weekend.  Today after school Ty has Mine Craft club, tonight Jag is going to the high school play, tomorrow Lori and I are taking Mojo to Denver for a haircut and doing some errands while Jag goes to a birthday party. Sunday Jag and I are going to the Nuggets basketball game in a box with a bunch of other dads and their kids. So a busy weekend in store is ahead of us.

It’s warm up here considering we’re in the mountains. Not sure what I’ll do today, I cleaned and cleaned yesterday. I thought about going to Denver today to do some business but don’t want to go down and up three days in a row. I’m skipping the gym for a few days as I worked out too hard a few days ago. I think I’ll make a run to the storage unit with some more stuff we can’t live without that we never use.

Guess I’ll run now, hope all’s well, GB.

Well I just received a text from my brother asking where the blog was. I just forgot, so here it is.

Last night we had some drama as my Mom tripped on a cord and fell. She has a cut open on her arm as they can’t put stitches in as her skin is too thin. Good news is she went and had it checked out, cleaned up and came right home. I’m sure she’s sore today a bit but she’s always been pretty darn tough, especially for being so little!

Right now I’m cleaning up around here as it’s a mess. It sure is nice out, must be in the 60’s. I’ve had the door open all day and the sky is blue and the snow is melting fast. Not much else going on. Hillary and Bernie are on tv. I don’t know what we’ll do if Hillary somehow wins the election. On the other side they’re doing all they can to hand it to her by supporting Trump. I get that people are fed up but Trump just isn’t qualified, sorry. In fact, outside of John Kasich, there’s not really anyone I want to vote for, maybe Ted Cruz but he kind of annoys me. Oh well, I’m a ABH guy, anybody but Hillary, heck, I’d vote for Bernie over her! The history books are going to love this election!

Guess I’ll run and get back to cleaning, hope all’s well, take care, God Bless and thanks Tom for the heads up that I forgot!

Yesterday when I headed up the hill around noon, it started snowing. By the time I came through the tunnel, it was coming down. I made it down Vail Pass just in time before they closed the pass. It stayed closed for at least 6 hours. Lucky I made it through.

Today I have lots of computer work and then the boys are off at 1pm. Ty has a friend coming home from school with him as his parents are both teachers at the school and had emailed and asked if their son could come over as they were stuck not having a place for him to go. We asked Ty who graciously said yes as this kid at the beginning of the school year was not very nice to other kids, including Ty. Now kids tease the boy though and I guess some kids don’t like him at all. Ty though, has a really kind heart and said “Peter’s mostly ok to me now but sometimes still mean to other kids but lots of kids tease him since he’s the teachers kid”. Personally I think kids tease him as he was pretty darn mean and teased a lot of them early in the year. The drama of childhood.

Looks like it’s warming up. Hopefully the big snow is gone but you never know. Time to run as it’s 7am. GB

When you live in the mountains you can’t really count on good weather anytime as it can change on a moment’s notice. With that said, we think Spring is just about here. The snow is melting and it was 60 degrees yesterday afternoon. In a few more weeks, or better yet by May, it will be Spring for sure. However it could snow in June or just about any month.

Today Lori has a patient from Singapore so she’s in early. I’m in Denver for a few hours but back up by noon or so. The boys are off at 1 tomorrow as it’s a teacher planning day. I have so much to do I can’t get my head around it all. Our pre sell just wrapped up with about 12,000 cases sold which was about $900,000.00. That’s a pretty good job but we still have work to do. Time to get Lori up so I’d better run. Hard to believe it’s April 5th, time sure flies. Enjoy the day and week and God Bless.

I was supposed to go to the dentist in Denver today but my dentist had a heart attack! They emailed me last night, what a shocker as the doc was so calm and even keeled. You just never know. Hope he’s ok.

Jag had a slight fever yesterday but will go to school today. Ty played most of the day and both boys are back at school. Today both Lori and I have lots of work. Her back is a little better as she’s on steroids but that means she’s like a drill sergeant around the house. She did go for a long walk with our friend Sue yesterday. Everyone up here has a travel trailer and goes camping almost every weekend. We need to borrow one so we can go with them on a weekend. They pack up everyones bikes and head to places like Fruita where they have some of the best mountain bike trails in the World. We love camping but Lori, and most women, need a bathroom!

Our neighbors parents are gone back to Cape Cod for the summer so that means we get to park in front of their house all week until Nancy (the daughter) gets up here every Thursday night, whoo hoo! It’s almost 7am so time to get moving and get those boys up. Mom made great homemade chicken soup for dinner last night and it was good. Have a great day and week and God Bless.

Man we’re tired. We made it home around 4pm and then I had to take Jag to pick up his friend who spent the night. Meanwhile Ty went to Jag’s friends house to spend the night with his little brother so we basically swapped kids for the night.

Lori’s back seems a little better but is still sore. Today we need to do some cleaning around here, as there’s a lot to do. It was nice yesterday with the temps almost 60 up here. I need to run though as we have to be out of the house in an hour for some errands. Have a great day, GB.

Last night when we made it to Denver we arrived at one of our top accounts in town, Ristorante Siciliano. I’ve been doing business with these folks for a number of years. The son is entertaining and handles the front of the house meaning all the waitstaff, while his father mans the kitchen. The father took a break last night and came to sit with us as we’re good friends. He was telling me how after his wife died, he went back to Sicily and was not sure what he wanted to do as he was lost without his love. He then decided to get back on the horse of life and came back to join his son.

I knew the family from at least 8 years ago when they had a restaurant down in Castle Pines. Now they’re on 6th Avenue in the heart of town. On Monday’s, a lot of the Nuggets (our basketball team in Denver) come in, every Wednesday a Senator and during the rest of the week, all kinds of regulars. I basically own the list meaning I have most of the wines they sell and they probably spend a good $75,000 a year with me which is a really good account. Anyhow we had a great dinner with two other couples who are going to Italy with us in July. The father kept bringing out special dishes from the kitchen. He cooks really well. He is old school Italian and told our friends what a special couple we are and is very well mannered with things like sincerely kissing Lori on the hand to say hello like out of some 1950 Italian movie. We had a great dinner as they prepared a special table for us known as the Frank Sinatra table. Roses were everywhere, so many that we had to move some. In addition fresh rose petals were arranged in a heart shape in the center of the table. The father thanked me again for all I do for them and told me how his son really loves me. I’ve tried to help him out for years with advice on his wines and on others that he needs that I don’t sell. I also take really good care of them as they take good care of me. It’s an old time relationship that has evolved into more than just business, very old school Italian. They love the boys too and miss them as the son always makes the kids real Italian cream sodas like from Brooklyn when he was a kid.

Loris’ back is out and we found out she’ll probably eventually need surgery. She’s had a hard time walking after sitting all night. Hopefully through steroids and physical therapy she’ll get some relief. We’re going to run some errands this morning and then have lunch with our friends Jeff and Tina before stopping at my Mom’s and heading up the hill. It’ll be in the 60’s down here which is really nice. Hope all’s well, GB.