Life on Snow Hill

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, a local family built a gas station/convenience store in a little rural town. Everybody knew everybody, and it was a fairly clean, family oriented place. As time went on, the family decided to sell the store. Some guy from who-knows-where comes in and buys it. His first move was to apply for a beer license.

The entire community went to the courthouse to object to the application the evening it was considered. After seeing the outrage and hearing all the objections to the idea of selling beer out of that store, the owner decided to withdraw the application, much to the dismay of his wife. Most members of the community, myself included, put a couple of dollars on a table for the guy to pay him back for his application fee, since the good-natured guy decided he wouldn’t sell beer in the dry community. All was well.

Until one day, a few months later, the owner is now proudly displaying on his road sign, “COLD BEER”. From that moment on I personally never set foot in the store again. He knew the community didn’t want it, but was able to legally proceed because of a technicality on the laws regarding the distance between school grounds and an establishment that sells alcohol. The store is almost literally in the school’s back yard. Well, it was.

About a week ago I drove past the store, and saw that it had been burned. I hadn’t heard of anyone being hurt, and was concerned about that, but my first thought about the store itself was, “Good. It’s gone.”

Another recent event that I’m sure everyone has heard about is the news about Ted Kennedy. First, let me talk just for a minute about his record – his constant tearing down of America.

He is one of the (if not the) most liberal figures in modern government. His record is one of tearing down Christian values – values this country was founded upon. For example, he voted against a partial-birth abortion ban. In other words, he wanted to make sure it was legal for a baby to be murdered in cold blood during its birth.

He also is a huge supporter of gun control. Without going into a lot of detail on the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, I’ll just say that we are guaranteed the right to own firearms. He voted against a bill that would prohibit confiscation of legally owned firearms during a ‘disaster’. Much like the type of thing that happened after hurricane Katrina ruined Baton Rouge. Authorities started going door to door and confiscating everyone’s guns. The argument about the guns themselves is one for another day, but that is an illegal and communistic act to say the least. It reminded me a lot of what I’ve read and heard of Nazi Germany.

Last, but definitely not least, Ted Kennedy is also a proud public supporter of same-sex marriage. It is a wicked thing that God burned an entire city for, and still hates today. I don’t care what anyone says, God did not make anyone a sodomite – they make that choice on their own. But that is also a topic for another day.

Ted Kennedy’s record speaks for itself. He has done everything he can to tear down this country. As I’m sure most of you have heard by now, he has been found to have a cancerous brain tumor. They say the average survival rate for patients with this particular condition is about 15 months.

With all the wickedness he is allowing, and even actively supporting, I really have a hard time feeling sorry for him. That’s all I can really say about it. It’s poetic justice.

Some of the words and phrases I have used in this post were plagiarized from my dad. He put into words what I was already thinking, though…so I figured it was ok.

Tags: brain, kennedy, ted, tumor

I’ve noticed this email signature showing up in more and more emails lately:

Please consider the environment before printing this email

Why not print the email if I want/need to?  My take on this whole idea is that trees are a renewable resource.  I have a small inclination to print each email that sports that tagline and send it via USPS to the sender.  The only problem with that is it costs nearly $.50 to send anything in the mail these days.

Now, don’t get me (too) wrong.  I’m not for throwing trash out the window of the car unless there’s a prison crew cleaning up trash on the side of the road.  (Hey, they need to be kept busy – my tax dollars are paying for their A/C and cable TV)  In other words, pollution isn’t cool.  But at the same time, I’m not going to put anybody down for driving a gas-guzzling pickup truck or SUV.  If that’s what they want, and they can afford the gas, I’ll cheer them on.

Anyway, I’m getting a little off the subject.  This signature has come from people that seem to me to be the know-it-all, or holier-than-thou type.  That is, in the emails I’ve personally received that include the signature.  To me it’s ridiculous.  Again, trees are a renewable resource.  They’re always going to be around.  I haven’t researched this out myself, but some say that if we don’t use paper, there aren’t as many trees because when trees are cut down for paper, more are planted in their place.  Maybe they’re planted more densely?  I’m not sure.  I do know, however, that new trees are growing all the time.  In fact, I have 5 or 6 growing in my back yard right now.  So there – I’m allowed to print emails now.

For those of you who know me, yes, this is a gripe about the company I work for.  For those of you who don’t know me, it is still a gripe about the company I work for, but I’m just not telling you exactly which company that is.

Also, for the record, I like my job.  I’m just not in total agreement with some of the decisions the company makes, and some of the management within said company.  Now that that’s out of the way, on to the meat of my post.

For the first scenario, there is an immigrant that is going through all of the necessary processes to move into the US.  I’ve got no problem with this individual personally, and have no issues with that family moving into my country.  However, I do not agree with the process the company is using.  A new job was created for this individual, but to keep the Department of Labor off the company’s back, the job had to be posted and made available for anyone to apply for.  The general idea of the law in this area is that for the work visa to be valid, the company has to show that no one in the country was qualified for the job.  Now, this process within the company is a joke.  The job was posted, and was very vague so that just about anybody with any experience was qualified according to the wording of the job posting.  But when an application is submitted, some little something is found that disqualifies the individual.  So basically, someone in the US is still without a job so that someone from outside the country could have it.

I won’t go into how unemployment affects the economy other than to say that more money in more Americans’ pockets is a good thing.  One thing is for sure, this practice isn’t the way to combat unemployment – it’s totally opposite.  I just better never hear anyone involved in this process say anything about unemployment in this country or they’ll know exactly what I think about all of it.

The second scenario is based on the fact that large companies look to save money every way they can.  This is always a good thing.  Except for when it causes even more Americans to have no job.  Certain things within the company are outsourced to other countries who provide cheap labor.  While this makes good business sense and gives jobs to those nice folks overseas, it isn’t helping out our own economy at all.

I’ll step off my soapbox now.  Thanks for listening, and good night.

It was a good weekend.  I’m worn out from it, but it was fun.  On Friday, when I got off work I got some new tires put on the truck.  They were needed badly.  I was going to have them do an alignment on it as well, but they told me the lower ball joint on the passenger side was worn and the wheel had some play in it, so it couldn’t be aligned.  Hopefully tomorrow I’m going to be replacing that with Becky’s dad’s help.  The good news about that is that it is a part that is less than $50.

On Saturday, I left about 8:30 in the morning to put some gas in the gas cans so I could mow the yard and work the tiller through the garden.  From then on, I stayed outside until 3 in the afternoon.  I had to replant some watermelon (If it all comes in, I’m going to have a ton – want some?), squash and zucchini.  Hopefully it will all come in strong this time and I’ll have plenty.  I need to fertilize the garden soon – maybe if I can get that done everything will do well.  I’m more excited this year about our garden than I was last year, or even the year before.  In all, we’ll have:

• Watermelon (up to 25 pound melons)
• Yellow crookneck squash
• Zucchini
• Potatoes
• Okra
• Green beans (tendergreen improved – stringless)
• Carrots
• Peppers (Several kinds of bell peppers)
• Broccoli
• Cucumbers (We should have lots and lots of these too – Becky is going to try pickling them)
• Onions (Yellow and white)
• Tons of tomatoes – 20 plants in all.  Becky will can tomato juice this year.

Once I finished in the garden, I mowed the yard.  Although that wasn’t particularly hard work, it still wore me out.  It wasn’t even that hot, but the sun beat down on me the whole time I was out there – I still have the sunburn to prove it.  But it was still relaxing in a way – I mow between 2 to 2.5 acres, and it takes me probably 2 or 3 hours to do it.  So I ride the mower around just thinking about anything and everything under the sun.

Once all the hard work was done, I came back inside and relaxed for a little while.  We bought some spareribs and got them going in the oven for a couple of hours, then I threw them on the grill for a few minutes to sear the outside of them.  Once it was all said and done, they were falling off the bone and were some of the best ribs I’ve ever had.

All in all it was a good weekend, even with the little bit of bad news about the truck.  Hopefully that will all be taken care of this week and all will be peaches & cream, or a bed of roses, or whatever else you want to compare it to.  I know, I’m probably dreaming, but things have to get better at some point.

First of all, I won’t link to anything related to this because there are pictures everywhere, and this is a family friendly site.  But if you’ve seen the news today you’ve probably seen at least a blurb about it.

In Houston, a senior girl planned just like any other to go to her senior prom.  The only problem was, she cut half of the dress away.  Well, probably not literally, but there wasn’t much of a dress to speak of.  The school staff and prom sponsors wouldn’t let her into the ballroom at the hotel where the event was held.  This prompted her to cause a scene and demand her money back since she couldn’t get in.

Things got heated enough for someone to call the cops, and they handcuffed her and escorted her out of the building.  I’m not clear on whether they took her to jail or to her house, but I’d hope she was smart enough to choose ‘home’.  In her own words, they gave her that choice.

Now for the main idea of what I wanted to get at.  First of all, if this was an image I saw on TV while my wife and I were at home watching, she would have covered my eyes.  It was really just about that revealing.  Once I saw how much of the dress wasn’t there, I blushed and closed the page.

So what I want to ask is, “What was she thinking??  Where were her parents?  What were THEY thinking??”  There is no way I’d let my daughter go out of the house dressed even in twice as much clothing as this girl had.

Some people really just have no brains.  But more importantly, no morals.  Good for the school and prom sponsors for having at least some morals about themselves and upholding them.

I’ve never heard of Free Range Kids until just a few minutes ago.  Growing up as a kid, I pretty much fit the criteria of what a free range kid is, because I was allowed to ride my bike pretty much wherever I wanted, or play in the woods any time I wanted.  Of course, I grew up in an area where the traffic on my road consisted of a tractor, and maybe a handful of cars every day – including the mailman.

This post talks about how to deal with people who basically raise their kids in fear – not letting them out of their sight.  Ever.  While I also think that is a bit extreme, I’m not sure I’d be as extreme as some parents are either as far as letting a kid ride the subway alone or something like that.  The poster said she quotes stats such as kids being 40 times more likely to die in a car crash than to be abducted.  That may be the case, but my argument would be that a lot of criminals commit crimes of opportunity.  If a kid isn’t out on the street alone to be abducted, he won’t be abducted.  If he is, there is always the chance.  I’m not saying never let that kid out of your sight necessarily, but use some common sense.  If there are more kids out on the streets alone, there are more opportunities for kidnappers to abduct them.

Aside from that type of argument by ‘free rangers’, I totally agree with the idea of letting a kid be a kid, experiencing things (within reason – don’t let them start getting into trouble like getting into gangs or some such garbage) and learning as they go.  I did a lot of that myself growing up, and I survived just fine.

As for common sense, here’s some for you.  If a criminal/thug believes he is alone (i.e., won’t get caught) and sees an opportunity to satisfy whatever impulse he might have, be it stealing something, or kidnapping a little girl, he’ll do it.  I own a motorcycle, and had it sitting at the end of my house in plain sight, just as I had done for a couple of years.  My wife and I were gone for the evening, and upon our return found the motorcycle missing.  If the opportunity presents itself as easy prey, a criminal will take advantage of it in a heartbeat.  So again, while I’m all for not hovering over your kid 24/7, use some common sense, people!

Some guy in Northern California went outside to work on his pickup and caught a big surprise.  A Pit Bull had chewed his way through some wires from underneath the truck and wound up stuck inside the engine compartment.

Just imagine opening the hood to your truck and seeing this thing.  He looks harmless enough, but it would still be enough to put a scare into any grown man.  I mean, who expects to see a dog’s head under the hood of a truck?

I sort of feel sorry for the owner of the truck now – he has to figure out which wires were chewed through and make sure he doesn’t cross any as he tries to put it all back together…

Apparently it costs more than 1 cent to make a penny these days with the rising costs of metals.  I wonder if the metal in the penny is actually worth more than 1 cent, though.

Congress is talking about bringing back the steel pennies they used back during World War 2, and maybe even using steel for nickels.  I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a steel penny, but if it costs me, the taxpayer, less, then I’m all for doing it.

As much as I dislike Microsoft and its products, unfortunately they are here to stay.  I am forced to use them at work because they love paying too much for corporate applications.  But that’s a story for another day.

If you use Outlook frequently, meet Xobni.  I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet, but it looks like a very useful addon.  It has even been called the next generation of social networking by Bill Gates himself.

Xobni makes it easy to find specific conversations, and displays them in threaded format.  It allows you to quickly find phone numbers, and makes it easy to find a free slot in your calendar for a new meeting.  You also get email analytics, giving you statistics on how you and your colleagues use email.

Although it is still currently in beta, I plan on installing it on my PC at work and giving it a test run.  Its requirements are that you have to be running Windows XP or Vista, and Outlook 2003 or 2007.

By now, everyone in the USA has heard that they’ll be receiving an economic stimulus check from the IRS this year.  Some of you may have already received yours.  I’m still waiting for mine to come – it should be soon though.

I’ve been excited about getting this money ever since I heard the plan was even being proposed.  I believe, however, that for the most part it will not be used as the government had hoped for.  First of all, with the rising gas prices, OPEC will be receiving a lot of it.  Credit card companies will more than likely be next on the list of the beneficiaries of this government program.  Third will probably be Walmart – yes, I’m that specific.  I say Walmart because they’re only the largest retailer in the US, and they generally have good prices.  So, if someone needs to buy something with that ‘free’ check, why not get it at Walmart so that they can get a good value for their money.  Now I’m sounding like a Walmart advertisement…

Walmart will probably not see a dime of my stimulus dollars.  The first thing I’ll be doing is buying a set of new, much needed tires for the truck.  The remainder of the money will be used to pay off some debt that I’ve yet to recover from since Christmas.

What will you do with yours?