A Year of Change

Well if you think Denver is hot, come to California. We landed around 10:30am and headed straight over to Grandpa Bob’s. he looked a little bit thinner but overall in good shape. He suggested with the heat of the day fast approaching, we go right over to his storage unit to go through some stuff. There wasn’t a whole lot there, some old fishing gear, a couple of old duck decoys (which are very cool), some photos and 2 viking helmets from Norway. We finished going through his stuff and then he wanted to take us to the Home Buffet for lunch. The kids enjoyed this very much as it had it’s own Icce machine and self serve ice cream. We then headed back to his house to review some medical records and go over some things with him that he wanted to cover as he thinks he needs to, as they say, get his affairs in order.

Now I’m no doctor but reading over his tests the words potential and suspecious came up. He seemed to ignore these and instead focus on whatever was potential and suspecious as fact. I understand how he feels as I had to go to a cardiologist about 5 years ago who also put a scare in me until further tests were completed. We always fear the unkown and assume the worst when anything bad is happening. After at least convincing him to wait until his doctor appointment until he convinces himself he’s dying, he seemed relieved.

We hung out a while longer then headed over to Grandma Dixies’s and Pa Don’s. The boys were thrilled to get there as they’re a more comfortable around them. They also couldn’t wait for Pa Done to put up the airbed. We ordered up some thai food, had a nice dinner and all went to bed by around 8. All day long I had a ripping headache that didn’t go away until about 1am. My neck is killing me (today is now all about me!) as Grandma Dix doesn’t have any feather pillows! Well at least we know what to get her for Christmas. (we’re counting on her forgetting reading this by Christmas!) Today we’re headed back over to see G Bob this morning and then will hopefully be back to G Dixies by early afternoon. We have to get the boys to some kind of park today to get them some exercise.

Thanks Aunt B and Uncle T for the help with the house and dogs. We need to call Uncle T to ask him to let Mojo in and open the gate when they mow the lawn this afternoon. I also have a few packages coming UPS if he or Aunt B could grab them and put them inside, it’d be great.

Tomorrow we land around 11am so no blog until about noon. We’ll be getting up around 4am to make our 7:30am flight so not spare time in the am. Hope all’s well, God Bless.

“I believe that “family” means: caring, offering support, help, love, time, whatever you can do within your own means to share with others in your family and most of all…no judgment, just unconditional love and understanding!”

The above is Aunt B’s response to our request of letting us know what family means to her. Very eloquent, now where are the rest of you? What’s it going to take to get a response from you? I mean, it’s easier to get my kids to do the dishes, come on! Thank you Aunt B.

Yesterday was filled with errands, work and preparations for our short trip to the west coast. Mom’s in the shower and both boys are still sleeping. We went to football last night only to have the littlest ones game suspended due to lightening about 15 minutes after it began. The oldest boys game never even started as once again the rains came.

The news of the day was the the oldest and I were involved in a car accident yesterday afternoon. No one was hurt but a young girl (a minor) turned across two lanes and crashed into the right rear of our suburban. This is the second time we’ve been hit inside of a week! Good news is I already have an appointment next Tuesday to get things fixed, bad news is now I’m out two $500 deductibles. Super, this means I need to come up with $1000 next week on top of the $1000 plus I just had to come up with for our plane tickets to CA. On top of this, she hit the left rear wheel of our car so hard it broke a piece of the metal wheel that the tire is mounted on so now there’s a jagged edge touching the rubber. This means we probably shouldn’t drive this car to the airport or anywhere else until it’s fixed. We just can’t seem to get a break. At least no one was hurt.

We need to leave in about an hour for the airport and I need to take a shower and answer some emails before we go so I’d better run. Tomorrow I’ll be posting from Sacramento where it’s going to be 100 degrees.

Take care, God Bless and check out the quotes below, just some fun thoughts for the day,

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality,” wrote Dante Alighieri.

As the campaign heats up, it behooves the voting public to keep in mind President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s seldom quoted, but sobering and appropriate insight, “Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.”

There ya go, think about that! Now get to typing and let us know what “family” means to you. If you don’t respond we’ll have to assume it means nothing, nada, zip. Talk to you all tomorrow.

Well Aunt B is so far the only one to respond with a comment. She also offered to buy each boy a pair of jeans, woohoo, but we’re still waiting to see what “family” means to her and the rest of you. (Aunt B, I know you just overlooked this as you’re always great at commenting!) It was hot yesterday and then the rain came. Along with it was lots of lightening and thunder and the grass looks great! The littlest had a play date with his friend from swim team named Mr. T. (his real name is Tendai), that lasted until mid afternoon. The misses went with him since we didn’t know the family. Meanwhile the oldest and I ran to Boulder to do a little business and then went for fish tacos for lunch. Around 2 in the afternoon Mom headed to the doctor for some relief from her 3 day headache. It was intensified when she went to L.O.L. house to give Bunkie a shot. It seems Bunkie had peed somewhere so L.O.L. dumped a whole bottle of perfume on the carpet to make pee smell like perfume and pee! Now most of us know the misses is allergic to perfume so after this, she was in really bad shape. Anyhow the oldest went with her while the little guy and I read some books together.

Dinner was a hodge podge of leftovers. We try to not let anything go to waste these days. I’m super excited for football and thankfully this has diverted my attention away from all the loser politicians in Washington, they just don’t get it. Last night the misses and I were watching the news and they were trying to put our national debt in perspective. It turns out that if you made $4o million a year, it would take 350,000 years to pay off our debt! (make us all feel a little bit better about our debt huh)

350,000 years at $40 million a year! Can anyone comprehend this? Obviously our elected officials in Washington can’t. (sorry, no football on right now) I mean the numbers are so big that these so called leaders don’t even think twice when they vote to tack on a few billion more for some meaningless program such as studying the mating habits of slugs. I hope we’re not already too far gone and that my children are not living in some shell of what America once was when they grow up, but I’m telling you, right now, it doesn’t look good.

Tonight the boys have football from 5:30 to 8:30 and then we’ll rush home and hit the hay as we’re headed to California tomorrow. We’re back in 48 hours but the blog might be late on Saturday. We need to get up around 4am Saturday to make our flight home so I won’t get to it until noon or so that day. I think I have it covered tomorrow and Friday as I’ll be up early tomorrow and will use Grandma Dixie’s computer on Friday morning. Thanks to Aunt B for helping with the dogs, she’s a life saver, again! It seems Grandpa Bob is not doing so well these days and we need to get our family there asap, so the four of us are headed to California!

The misses just came down and her head seems a bit better but she’s now headed down to Bunkie’s and we’re hoping the perfume/pee aroma is all gone. Both boys rashes and bites seem to be fading, thankfully. We’ll still take Benadryl with us on the plane just in case. Work is still tough, lots of choices need to be made daily and some are not that easy. I may lay off a couple people in order to hire a couple more in sales. I’m in Seattle next week and will decide what to do by then. Anyone that tells you the economy is turning around doesn’t own their own business. The hot businesses or opportunities these days are anything that has to do with survival or sustainable living, (small ranching and farming, local food production, alternative energy), dermatology, (tons of skin cancer emerging from the baby boomers who used tanning beds and tried to get as dark as they could when younger) and water, the new gold, there’s only so much. Think about it, if anyone has any other up and coming business ideas, let me know, we’re always looking! It’s a changing world we live in. We’re lucky to be in an industry that people also cannot do without, alcohol! People drink in good times and bad, they just drink different stuff. It’s no secret we’d love to have a little ranch or farm with some animals and crops. We’re under no illusion that this is easy, in fact it’s an extremely hard life, but it seems it would also be a rewarding life, especially for the boys. Funny that most people strive to make money to retire to travel and lounge in luxury by some pool somewhere and our dream is to have horses, animals like chickens and cows, a huge garden and lots of hard work. To each his own but for me, I plan to stay active, mentally and physically for the rest of my life. Our neighbor Roger, a retired minister (he baptized the boys) is 70 years old and is as fit as a 40 year old. This is mostly due to him being active and eating right. I’m sure some genetics help as well.

Oh well, the boys are up and I need to get on the phone, sometimes it seems like that thing is glued to my ear! The oldest is still itching from his bites or some kind of poison ivy or sumac or something. I just put some cream on them for him. Mom’s back from Bunkies and now it’s time for breakfast. I’m getting my haircut this morning and Mom’s now walking around the house burping. It seems she has some bad gas problem in her stomach from whatever she ate, and it has her feeling all bloated. At least she’s not farting, oh wait, girls don’t fart, so I’m told.

Take care, have a great day God Bless and get off your ass and email or comment! If you don’t know how, call us, we’ll help.

Well here we go, about the  only thing to make me stop talking about politics is, you guessed it, wait for it, FOOTBALL! For me, fall officially begins with football. College football is special in it’s own right but there’s nothing like the NFL. Too bad our politicians can’t take a cue from the NFL players and owners and get a deal done. Fall is my favorite season of the year, yes for football, but also for a number of other reasons. The change to cooler weather, a new school year, hunting season (this year we drew a 2nd season elk tag) and the great family holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all make for a great time of the year. It’ll be here before you can blink so get ready. We’re already late on our Halloween costumes! We did see some Christmas wrapping and ribbon for sale at Costco yesterday, they’re on top of it!

Speaking of Costco, the boys and I ran some errands yesterday while Mom was working and Costco was one of our stops. The kids love it because of all the samples available, it’s kind of like a smorgasbord of treats on every isle. The only problem with Costco is you can’t get out of there under a few hundred dollars. Anyhow we loaded up the truck and headed home with our 10 lbs of coffee, 6 gallons of laundry and dishwashing soap, 4 lbs of orange chicken (this was the boys choice), some more tp (can never have too much of this!), some vitamins and Mom’s favorite imported cheese. Buying in huge quantities kind of makes you feel like settlers in the old west stocking up on supplies for the winter or something. We all remember the scenes in the movies of cowboys or settlers pulling into town and getting 20 lbs of coffee, 20 lbs of bacon, a sack or two of flour and 1 small piece of candy for each child. Next it was off to the grocery store where the boys convinced me to have lunch at the Japanese counter inside the store. They love those udon noodles and chicken on a stick. I gave in when I  checked the time and realized it was after 1 and none of us had eaten since breakfast. After a bite to eat, we picked up some essentials like bread, eggs, and a chicken for dinner and then headed home. The littlest one ate all his food and then some of mine and then said he was saving room for a sandwich, he reminds me of me when I was a kid. In fact, both boys do something every day to remind me of me, sometimes good and sometimes not so good. They’re definitely my boys.

We got home and all pitched in to clean the house (again) before Mom arrived home. I did three loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, did the dishes, and washed the hard wood floors. The boys helped by picking up all their stuff that had accumulated around the house over the past 2 days. The oldest has really become a helpful guy around the house. He’s now at that age where he pitches in on his own and does something that needs to be done without being asked. The youngest is still more interested in playing video games but after a little push, with a cattle prod, you can get him to pitch in too! (just kidding about the cattle prod, I save that for the misses)

We’re now officially kicking off our back to school drive. This is where you all send us money for school clothes and supplies for the boys. I came up with this ingenious idea after Aunt B sent the boys home with some new clothes the other day. I thought to myself, I’m sure everyone of you would also want to feel the joy of contributing to their wardrobe or the essentials they need when school starts in about 3 1/2 weeks. So we take checks, credit cards, Paypal, and yes, even cash. The littlest wants to move into his own room and needs a new bed and both boys want desks to do their homework in their own rooms. All this takes money so don’t be shy, what are you saving it for anyhow, it’s going down in value every day! In case you don’t know, I’m just kidding here, we’ve been saving a little bit here and there for a few months to handle these expenses, but thanks again Aunt B!

The little guys hives or rash was pretty much gone yesterday but did need just a small does of Benadryl around bed time. The surprise was the oldest had a bunch of bumps or bites or some kind of rash now on his legs! He too took some medicine but mostly toughed it out. Turns out our friends called and their 12 year old also now has the same hives or rash. This is where they boys were playing the other night when the little guys first appeared. Must be something to do with all the moisture around here.

It’s already in the 70’s and just now 6am. 95 degrees is the forecast for the day and the air conditioning is already humming outside. I’m sure the power bill will be $300 or $400 dollars this month. Everyone needs to drink a lot of water in this heat, don’t wait until you’re thirsty.

Well since I’m refraining from politics for the day, I’m about out of things to say. We had some unexpected expenses pop up this week so I think I’ll sell one of my shotguns today to cover the bill. I’m determined to keep my emergency fund in tact and although it’s not much, I need to keep it whole. I guess that’s what an emergency fund is for, emergencies, right? So time to run, we’re burning daylight and there’s lots to do today so I might as well get a jump on it while everyone is still asleep.

Take care and God Bless, and remember, drink lots of water.

Today marks the beginning of another week. The kids will soon be in school as there’s only 4 more weeks of summer vacation. Yesterday was a busy day that started with a long family walks with the dogs. After grabbing a bite to eat and some quick showers, we headed up to the hills to see our friends in the saddle making business. The kids ran around the mountains and particularly enjoyed crawling in and out their doggie door. We sat on their wrap around deck and enjoyed the day as it was a bit cooler at 7000 feet. Heading home around 2pm was a chore because traffic was only moving at about 5 miles an hour. It seems some motorcycle had crashed into the middle divider on the highway and this caused a 5 mile backup. We finally made it home and then loaded up once again and headed out to our friends Libby and Carl’s, for another visit and to see her daughters new 9 week old baby.

By the time we got home it was getting on 6pm so we warmed up some leftovers and then lounged around watching a little tv. It’s now 5am and I’ve been up since a little past 4. Today I have calls starting at 6am that’ll run until around 9. Then I’ll box up Nebraska’s wine and head off to Fed Ex. I’m looking at airline tickets on United’s web site to see if we can make it to California tomorrow. The misses is really worried about her dad. Every time she talks with him she says he doesn’t sound so good. I told her she needs to get in touch with his doctor and speak directly with him. He’s not going in until the 15th but I think we might have to go now anyhow. Next week I’m in Seattle and the week after also looks bad and then school starts. I’ll know later today what the plan is.

Yesterday we had no rain and the mid 90’s are supposed to continue all week. Hard to believe in 90 days we could have a couple of feet of snow on the ground. Just as the summers have been hotter, the winters are forecasted to be colder. Funny weather everywhere these days.

How about the debt deal, this is a real circus isn’t it. All this fuss to raise the limit on the country’s credit cards because right now we’re over the limit. It’s all theater, no way the country will not pass an increase, even the politicians aren’t that stupid. The sticking point right now is that Obama wants a deal that’ll take him past the 2012 election because he’s got enough problems trying to get re-elected and if this is still out there, he’s almost guaranteed to lose. You can’t blame him, (self preservation is what politicians are best at!) but where was he for the past few years? He shouldn’t have waited until the first of June when we were already over our limit, to get involved. It’s no secret I’m no fan of the current President as I think he spends way too much, but the other side has it’s issues too. Once again politics trumps all. No one wants to give in on anything that’ll make the other side look good. Forget about what’s best for you and me and the country, they’re just worried about what’s best for themselves. Don’t get me wrong, even with all it’s failings, democracy is still better than socialism or communism or living under some dictatorship, the system’s not broken, just the people in charge of running it. When was the last time we saw anyone break from party lines in a crucial vote? We should kick them all out and just start over, we could do a lot worse.

Oh well, another day here in Colorado. My concerns are getting the kids some new school clothes (thanks Aunt B for getting both boys some shorts and shirts the other day), buying groceries, allocating some cash towards airline tickets, buying more groceries, getting the dogs groomed, etc. You get my drift, life goes on, do what you can do to take care of everything in your part of the World. I have enough to worry about right here, right now. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail and Washington will come to it’s senses and just get out of the way. I’ve said it before, just let America do what America does, we innovate and create like no other country on the planet. Stop hindering growth and progress with all the regulations and restrictions and we’ll get out of this mess, just look at history, it’ true.

All right, I’ll stop now, I haven’t seen any of you comment on what family means to you, where are you? Come on, everyone of you knows how to use email or leave a comment, we need a little feedback or participation here, don’t let us down.

Hope your week is good and try to stay cool if you’re in a hot part of the country. God Bless and take care,

The littlest one is still battling his bout with hives. They seem to come and go during the day. The doctor said it could take 4 or 5 days for the proteins of whatever it is that’s bothering him to get out of his system. He told us to keep up with the treatment of Benadryl and the anti itch cream over the weekend. We’re spacing out his doses as we want to give him as little as possible. The poor little guy is taking it all in stride, he’s a real trooper. We’re also trying to rack our brains to figure out what he had that was different that he could be allergic to. We’re also limiting certain foods to see if it’s something new. Hope this is all over in the next few days, it seems to be getting a little better as time passes.

Yesterday I headed up to the mountains to the machine gun shoot for breast cancer. There was so much traffic on the road that a 20 minute ride took twice as long. While I was gone Mom took the boys to the new Harry Potter movie, I guess it was really good. The rest of the afternoon was spent putting away laundry while the boys headed down to Uncle T and Aunt B’s. Soon the littlest came home and fell asleep on the couch (Benadryl) while the oldest stayed down the street. He eventually came home around dinner time and we all ate some leftovers and then lounged around until it was time for bed. Overall a pretty uneventful day.

It’s so sad what happened in Norway. It seems the shooter was convinced that muslims were taking over Europe (which they are) and he felt that he had to take action to drive them out. Personally I don’t understand how killing a bunch of teenagers is going to drive muslims out of Europe. This right here should be the first sign that this guy obviously wasn’t thinking straight. He clearly had some sort of delusional thoughts in his head and needed help. We feel so sorry for the victims and their family’s and are praying for them. It seems every day there’s another story of some kind of tragedy. More and more people seem to be “losing it” everywhere you look. Any tragedy here is always amplified (when in the U.S.) as no matter what happens whether a shooting, domestic abuse, food poisoning, a suicide or whatever crime or event, some politician is quick to pounce on the tragedy and exploit it to his or her own agenda or advantage. For example, in the case of any kind of shooting, the guns are quickly singled out as the fault of the problem. They way they talk, you’d think guns can think, and walk and talk and make decisions on their own! Forgot the fact that the person pulling the trigger is usually someone not allowed by law to have a gun, (like the kook in Arizona) or has a previous criminal history or some sort of mental illness, it’s always “take away the guns” and that’ll somehow magically solve the problem. Now this is clearly delusional. The root of the problem is in people’s heads, we need to catch this type of thinking before someone acts. There’s usually always some sort of sign but everyone just ignores it or doesn’t want to get involved. Look at the guy in Norway, we now find out he had a 1500 page on line story for months outlining all his thoughts basically telling everyone what he was thinking and what he was going to do yet no one took notice or any action.

In these times more and more people are losing all hope. Once someone loses hope, not much else is left and it’s easy to see how they can then slip fast into unwanted territory. Those of you a bit older than I might remember the Great Depression of the late 1920’s, here’s a quote that puts today’s situation in perspective. “In 1929 children had hope for the future. Today they are hopeless, helpless and clueless – an entire generation that only knows drugs, gangs, rappers, government handouts, teen pregnancy – and it goes downhill from there.” When someone loses hope, things just seem to spiral out of control. Our system now (government) is so big that the individual really doesn’t stand a chance of getting any help. This is why it’s so important to stay close to your family and your church. (If you don’t go to church, at least stay close to God, without him you’re really lost!) Talk to your family if you have problems, ask for help, you might be surprised how compassionate people really are, most do care. As far as our family goes, if you feel you can’t call anyone or don’t have anywhere to turn, call us, we will always help if we can. By the way, this doesn’t always mean financial help (don’t call us on this one, ha ha) but rather emotional help, like if you just need someone to talk or vent to, or help getting something done like moving furniture or needing a ride to the doctor, this we can and will do. The point is people, especially family, need to stick together and support each other. Think about it, what does the word “family” mean? What does it mean to you? Hopefully it means more than just the biological designation of being related by blood. This to me is almost the least important aspect of the word family. Send us a comment with what family means to you, this’ll be fun as I’m sure the responses will be all over the map.

Here’s another fun quote for the day, it’s particularly relevant to me being a dad, and something I take very seriously, check it out,

“The most important, rewarding, hardest,and heart wrenching things, a Man can do in life are one and the same: To raise a child to be a fruitful member of society. It is an honor and duty and not to be taken lightly.”

Pretty profound and simple yet there’s lots of kids in this world today that have not been afforded this advantage or properly prepared to be a productive member of society. The way I see it is if you decide to have children, certain responsibilities come with it. Too many people have kids and then don’t properly prepare them to be functioning, productive, responsible adults. Not doing so should be considered the greatest failure of anyone who decides to and does have children. Yet our society is set up or conditioned to measure a mans greatness by how much money he has or how big his house is or what kind of car he drives. Instead I submit you can measure ones life by how kind, compassionate and caring his or her children are to their fellow man and what they contribute to the betterment of society as a whole in their lifetime. (In my case, my Mom did a great job, in case you were wondering Mom!) What better legacy than to have children that hold these attributes.

Oh well, enough life musings for today, everyone here is now up, Bunkie’s had his morning shot and Mom says we all need to go walk the dogs. It’s supposed to rain this afternoon and we’re headed up into the mountains to see our saddle maker friend (we’re not buying any Grandma Dixie!) as the misses and his wife are working on designing some leather pillows out of his saddle scraps.

Have a great day and don’t forget your homework, what does family mean to you? Warning, I’ve figured out how to lock you out of the blog if you do not participate!

Take care and God Bless,

Good morning to all.  Our family…including the four legged variety all slept in for the first Saturday in quite some time.  6:59 a.m….what a treat.

Yesterday was eventful in the afternoon…..the Mister called me at work to tell me that our youngest had what he thought could be poison ivy. The kids and my hubby were at the store and had to immediately get some anti-itch cream and some homeopathic tablets to put under the youngest’s tongue.  I left work early and by the time I got home the welts had spread down both legs and while we were waiting and waiting in the doctor’s office the welts spread to his face, arms, back of his legs and tops of his feet.  He was really good about trying not to scratch.  The doc said it is hives…we gave him benadryl and an oatmeal bath…that seemed to help…the welts went down considerably and the itching subsided enough for him to fall asleep.  The welts have unfortunately returned this morning…not as bad as yesterday…but they are spreading….ugggg! Poor little guy.  The doc gave me his private number so that I can keep him posted today.

I am off to give Bunkie his shot…then back to put away the 5 or 6 loads of laundry that my sweet husband washed and folded…then exercise the critters as well as myself…wash the sheets and find something entertaining for the boys to do.  Auntie B offered to take the boys shopping today and of course the boys are lobbying hard for that option.

Dad has a play date today with some of his buddies to shoot Class 3 weapons (real automatic/machine guns) via Machine Guns for Breast Cancer…all the proceeds obviously go towards finding a cure for breast cancer….way to go boys!!!

We are most likely heading to California sometime soon to see my Dad and opting out of Oklahoma. We can’t do both and with this heat wave it’ll be really hot there, plus we can only afford the gasoline for one trip….sorry mom…but we will be happy to see you when you come through Colorado for a visit on your way home.

Happy Saturday to all and of course God Bless..

LLF

Mom works today and will be home around 5pm. Last night was the spaghetti dinner at the pool for swim team. The food came from a local place named Dino’s. I worked there when I was 14 years old and the food is the same today as it was then. They use these big fat noodles for their pasta. I remember my Dad always picking up some Dino’s take out for dinner, pasta with sausage and meatballs, italian salad and dinner rolls, it was just the same as it was 40 years ago.

Yesterday just for a change, it rained early in the day. It was another hot one and today it’s supposed to hit 97. They say the rest of the country is getting it much worse than we are and even though it’s been in the 90’s as long as we can remember, it’s not all that bad. Thankfully we have air conditioning.

Both boys are still sleeping as it’s approaching 7am. Today I have some conference calls and am planning on organizing the basement. We’re not sure if we’re going to Wyoming or not tomorrow, we’ll decide later today after we hear from our friends.

Not much else going on this morning unless I delve into politics. Since it’s Friday I’ve decided to give you all, and myself, a break. Hope you all have a great weekend. Take care and stay cool.

What a day yesterday. Before I re-cap the day, I’m going to jump right to last night. We showed up at football around 5:30pm and then the rain came. The littlest one practiced with his team in a downpour while Mom, the oldest and I took shelter in the car. Soon the monsoon passed and his game began. Now he’s probably the tallest on his team and one of the fastest. In fact he’s taller than a couple of the players on his older brothers team too! Anyhow he was a force throughout the whole game but last night it was his offense that shinned the brightest. He scored not one but two touchdowns with one of them including some fancy footwork as he hopped skipped and jumped around the opposing defense. It was a great game for him. All the time his game is going on his older brother is practicing for his game which starts right after the littlest ones game ends. The oldest one it turns out has become quite a force on defense. He uses his height and long arms to create a wall most opposing players cannot get passed or throw the ball over when his arms are stretched up to the sky. On top of this he’s turned into a great receiver as well. The catch of the day was one in all kinds of traffic that he caught with his finger tips and pulled in for a huge first down. At the end of both games it turned out both boys were singled out by their coaches as the MVP’s of their game and both were awarded medals for their play! We’ve come a long way since we started in the Spring to the point where both boys are star players on their respective teams. This is even more impressive on the oldest ones team as he has some real good players, especially the coaches sons, but neither of his boys are the force on defense or can out jump other players when catching a pass. It was a great game for both boys and you could tell they were happy. We headed home trying to put something together for dinner around 9pm and then rushed the boys off to bed. The misses wanted to make sure I mentioned the colors of the sky last night as the sun was setting as it was one of those evenings with pink, purple, orange, yellow, magenta, (you get the point) colors that looked like a painting or some famous photograph. It really was beautiful.

Now onto the day, I tweaked my neck turning to talk to the misses in the car and it seized up in an instant. The misses took both boys to swimming in the morning and brought home one extra after practice. One of the oldest boys teammates came home with ours to hang out and play. This turned into an all day play date with him staying until around 3 in the afternoon. They all took the dogs up to Grandma’s for a swim in the pond to cool them down. Lacey had so much fun she could barely walk last night from all the ball chasing earlier in the day.

Tonight is the annual swim team spaghetti dinner which we’re going to and I guess running a wine tasting to help raise funds. I’m not sure what all were doing but the misses has it all handled. Whatever’s involved, the boys will be getting a bunch of swimming in today.

Ok, just for fun,  let’s jump into some politics, here’s a quote from Ron Paul who’s a pretty straight shooter compared to the rest of the words that come out of Washington. He says it like it is, no sugar coating, just the plain hard truth which most politicians never seem to do.

“When a country is indebted to the degree that we’re indebted, the country always defaults. We will default because the debt is unsustainable.”- Rep. Ron Paul, July 19, 2011

If he’s right, and his track record is pretty darn good, we’re in for some rough times before things get better. I won’t go into detail but I hope everyone understands the implications of where we’re at and just what we’re in for to turn this thing around. It’s going to be a pretty rough ride. I don’t know when it’s going to get worse, I just know it will. It looks like Greece, or some other European country that’s in worse shape than we are, will be the trigger, or straw that breaks the camels back. When that happens the house of cards we’re all living in will fall like a bunch of dominos. Now this won’t mean you’re in soup lines (I hope) but does mean a lot of everyone’s personal savings and wealth will be wiped out as currency’s around the World are devalued to reflect reality. On a side note, if QE3 is enacted, (more printing of money by the Fed) gold could go to $5000 and ounce and silver to $1000. I keep telling people to buy some precious metals and take physical possession and I hope everyone’s listening. This means as little as 5 ounces of gold which would cost you about $8000 today could be worth as much as $35,000 overnight. If you don’t have $1600 (who does?) to go buy an ounce of gold, get $40 together and go buy an ounce of silver! Whatever happens, gold and silver won’t go down! Ok, enough of today’s economic lesson as I don’t think may of you listen to me anyhow. I also won’t be one of those that say’s ” I told you so” but don’t take my word for it, do a little research on your own.

Let’s get back to the pretty colors in the sky. This morning it’s bright yellow to the east as the sun in crawling up over the horizon now that it’s approaching 6am. I have the attic fan running to pull in some of the cool air before we need to lock down the house and turn on the air conditioner. Everyone is still sleeping and I’m going to get some more coffee and grab the paper. I really only read the sports section these days as the rest is mostly opinion. Any facts mingled in between sports and opinion are just depressing stories of tragedy that serve no purpose except to grab headlines and make you sad. I’d rather focus on the good things around me than death and tragedy or crime and corruption. I said it before and I’ll say it again, why can’t we have a paper or news channel that just focuses on the good out there. I guess the answer is obvious, no one will read them. As things get more and more depressing, I’m not so sure this is true anymore. maybe I’ll start one, hmmmm.

Anyhow, have a great day, be thankful you’re alive to enjoy it and stay cool in this heat. God Bless you all,

It’s a little bit after 4am and this morning it feels like I’m up just a little bit too early. The rain and lightening was back yesterday afternoon in full force. This year has been like no other in memory when it comes to rain. Hopefully it’ll pass over today so the boys can get their weekly football game in. Today I’ll be boxing up wine for Nebraska and Arizona, another day, another state or two.

The story of the day, or week for that matter, is the phone hacking scandal in England that goes all the way to the top of Scotland Yard and even the government, surprise surprise. Is anyone really surprised that something like this went on? I think the biggest surprise is that it’s in England and not in America. In fact I’m sure something like this is going on here too, but whoever is doing this kind of stuff here must just be smarter than those across the pond. No one still knows how deep this goes but the head of Scotland Yard (and the #2 man) have already resigned. It’s funny to watch Parliament in the U.K. as all the politicians vocally voice their agreement or displeasure saying “here here” or “no no” with whomever is speaking. We’re such a short sighted society that grabs onto whatever the issue or scandal of the day is, and then everyone gets on their high horse and jumps on the bandwagon while ignoring the real larger more urgent issues facing us as a society today. All the politicians and pundits are more interested in making headlines and a name for themselves than actually solving issues that face you and me. I could go on and on but for example, our government has spent 10’s of millions of dollars trying to convict Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens (former baseball players) of lying about taking steroids years ago. Boy that’s a good use of my tax dollars. Or how about slave reparations? Nothing against those folks that were forced to be slaves in the early 1800’s, it was a bad thing, but come on, you want me to pay for this? I’d better stop as I feel myself drifting off into a long diatribe against our current elected officials.

I just took a break and went to the gym for an hour. It’s now 6am and I feel much better. I think today I’ll open my own investigation as to why I haven’t won the lottery. I’m sure someone somewhere has done something illegal to cheat me out of my rightful millions of dollars, maybe I can sue someone like the State or the lottery commission. (I guess the gym didn’t get rid of all of my attitude!) Just kidding but you get my point, we’re sure a litigious society these days, everyone is suing everyone. I want my check too! Ok ok, I’ll stop, just having some fun here, don’t take this too serious unless you’re planning on sending me a check.

Everyone is still sleeping and I thought the oldest was going swimming the morning but I’ll just let him sleep. I’m not sure when we’re going to California. We were going to go next week but that’s now out. Then the following week I’m out of town for work and the week after that my distributor is out of town. Then we’re supposed to go to Oklahoma and then school starts. Somethings gotta give, we can’t do it all. It might all come down to Oklahoma or California. The boys want to go to Oklahoma but we’ll have to wait and see what the doctor says. I don’t think we can do both, not from a money standpoint but from time. We also found out that Grandpa Bob now goes to the doctor on August 15th so we won’t have any news until then. Good news is it can’t be that urgent if they’re putting him off till then. Oh wait, he lives in California. Their government and economy is so bad that you could be having a heart attack and they’d ask you to come back next week. My motto is don’t get sick and whatever you do, try to stay out of the hospital! I’m convinced it killed my dad! (maybe I can still sue)

Well this is what you get when the misses is still sleeping and there’s no one down here to stop me, ha ha. I think we’re going to Wyoming this weekend at least for a day. I need to get the oldest one shooting his rifle so he gets some practice in. I’m going to sign off now as I hear the troops stirring upstairs. I also need to get to boxing the vino. Once again we hope everyone is well, happy and healthy. Winter’s coming fast so get out there and enjoy the summer sun while you can. I have a feeling it’s going to be a really bad cold winter, hope I’m wrong.

God Bless you all,