Socialism... Does It Work??

A friend of mine just posted this on her Facebook page and it so appropriate considering the way our country is being taken right now!

-------

An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked; and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich - a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little.. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.

Could it be any simpler than that?

Spring Break

A couple of weeks ago when Joelle & Natalie were on Spring Break Tracy A called and said they were taking their niece and nephew to downtown Chattanooga for a play day and wondered if we wanted to join them!









Absolutely, was my reply - so we went downtown where they have the Tennessee sledding areas and let the kids slide until they could slide no more!









Then we walked a few blocks over to the Mellow Mushroom for a YUMMY pizza meal!














Of course we had to take some fun pictures along the way.












Then we went out on the walking bridge and as you can see, the kids made it a 'climbing bridge' too!


















...even upside down!





















We stopped for a moment of a Daddy/Daughter Pic.















Group pic, group pic, group pic!





















Tracy even did some 'monkeying' around of his own! :)



















Then we had to head back across the bridge and home to wrap up the day. What fun!

Electrical Retro-fit

Our house was built in 1972 and it's a good house, just needs a few things tweaked here or there.

One of the things we needed to do was have some electrical stuff done. Occasionaly if we turned the stove on the same time the oven was on, the breaker would pop!

The other thing was we had some breakers completely off, others on and didn't seem to be going anywhere and some outlets and switches not working.


So with part of this year's tax return, we hired a good electrician - Rick - to come do some seroius work for us. Here' the old box with about 6 to 8 wires just hanging down going to no where. Also the additional little box on the left, had 4 breakers but nothing! Some of the wires were loose and some of the breakers felt like they were about to fall out. Plus nothing on the panel was marked to tell us what breakers went to what circuits in the house.







Rick came in and put in a new panel, then we chased down where all the original wires went. Then we went through and found which breaker went to what circuit in the house. Turns out the ENTIRE basement was run on one circuit. Oy vai!!!

So we ran a new wire and separated the basement into 3 parts on 3 different circuits. Aaahhh - much better. I feel much safer now.

It took two days to get it all done, but thankfully, we've got it changed and almost right, but Iam much, MUCH happeier about it!

Keyboard Hunting

For Christmas, we were wanting to find a keyboard for our home. (Didn't want a piano to move around.) So we started 'hunting' and didn't make much headway.

So after we found out what our tax return amount was, we renewed our search to find one. We decided to bring in a professional keyboard hunter who knows their ways and their wiles and how to draw one in - Larry (my father-in-law)- who began the chase for the elusive keyboard.

A couple of days later he spotted one, just sitting there, looking like it needed a place to go.


This is the trophy we brought home from Larry's Craigslist keyboard hunting grounds. It's a Casio Clavinova. It's a nice one with weighted keys and pedals and the whole kit-n-kabootle.













Now, next year, Natalie can begin piano lessons that she's been wanting to take for so long!

Awesome!!!

Family Drama - Fingernail Polish or Lipstick

We were headed home from church a couple of weeks ago and all of a sudden Joelle announces to us that Natalie did something wrong.

WOW - what is that and where did that come from? Well, part of it is that Joelle must have learned her lesson well when she got busted hiding one of her sister's secrets from us.

So we ask Natalie what happened and she doesn't want to tell us.

I assume it's 'damage' to the car or she broke something important and start to get irritate and want her to tell us right now.

But a cooler head - Doreen's - prevails and she talks Natalie to tell us after we get home.

We all get home and change and Natalie doesn't want to talk. She only wants to talk with Mommy. Well, we need to work on that - so she can talk with Mommy with Daddy in the room, quiet.

So we sit there, and sit there and sit there waiting. Nothing. Finally Doreen tries to coax the info out of her and after a bit the story comes out.

She said she put stuff on her lips.

"What stuff?"
"Fingernail Polish."
"When?"
"This week."
"Where?"
"I took it to school and put it on there."

Oy Vai!!!

She's only 6 and she's trying to hide stuff like this from us already.

Fortunately it didn't take very well and she gave up.

We explained that she wasn't in trouble, that doing things like that isn't very good for her health.

If she wants some lipstick, moderate of course, then we'll get her some - but it's not allowed at school.

Whooosh. I cannot believe the drama a couple of little girls produce. Amazing!!!

Well - that's all for now...

...I hope!!!

Flip Flop on Global Warming

Ok - I have waffled. I have pulled a flip flop on Global Warming.

Up until now I have believed that it is only junk science and used by tree-huggers to further their agenda.

I have to apologize to them, I was wrong. I was talking with a friend recently and we got to talking about Global warming and he convinced me from some ancient writings that it has been predicted and beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is true.

Unfortunately it is going to get a LOT hotter than they predict though.

Let me share with you my belief...

2 Peter 3:10 states, "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up."

Whoooo weeee that sounds HOT! Yup, the Bible tells of a coming 'Global Warming' that any stuff we value here on Earth will be toasted. Guess that kinda tells us where we need to put our priorities huh?

The really good part though is this...

Revelation 20:14 lets us know, "Then Death and Hades [the grave] were cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away [by fire]; and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. . . . 'Behold, the tabernacle [dwelling] of God is with men, and He will dwell with them [on the earth] . . ."

Anything we can DO today will not stop Global Warming. We gotta be ready for when the Global Warming will come to be elsewhere and avoid the HOT problem and then get to enjoy perfection, for the first time in our lives!!!

So - now that I've flip-flopped, I can't wait for Global Warming to clean this Earth!!!

End of an Era - Wheresgeorge?

I've come to an end of an era in my life. For the past 6 years I have been active in the wheresgeorge.com community. Basically, when any paper cash passes through your hands, you stamp it, log it on wheresgeorge and spend it and hope someone else hits it so you can see where it's traveled to since you had it.

It's been kinda fun seeing where some of my bills have traveled.

Well, this month, exactly 6 years after I started I have logged $20,000 in bills. I figured it was a good place to stop - finally.

Let's see, that averages out to having $3,333 dollars pass through my hands every year. $277 a month, $9 a day or .38 cents a minute.

My first month, March 03, I logged 10 bills. The highest number of bills I logged was in Nov of 08, 61 bills. The lowest number of bills I logged was Sept 02, 2.

The largest dollar amount I logged in one month was Feb 05, $3,824. That was due to paying the sheetrock hangers who were building my in-laws house in cash. I had to WG it before paying them! ;) The smallest amount I logged in one month was June 03, $10.

Got some change from lunch at McD's yesterday and I put it in my wallet to WG when I got home, then remembered - I'm out, done, fine`! It was kinda sad and yet kind of a relief! :)

It's been fun and if you see one of my bills, go ahead and log it - I'll still watch the ones I've got floating around to see where they go!

.25 Project or Coin Collecting

This past Christmas, Mom & Dad gave each of my girls a book with the state quarters them. (Except for the ones that hadn't been minted yet.) They really liked them and now we have them stashed somewhere safe easily accessable for them to add to them and just enjoy them ocassionally.

Well a few weeks ago while talking with my mom on the phone she asked me to watch out for the Philadelphia minted state coins. She has all the Denver minted stated coins, but is lacking the ones from this side of the country.

So I walked into our closet and pulled out a container I've been saving coins in when I return from my trips.

I went through them and pulled out all but about 3 or 4 Philadelphia minted state quarters she was needing. Very cool.

In the process I went ahead and pulled out a Denver and Philadelphia minted coin from each state I had to start a book for us.

I'm still missing a few Philly coins, but probably a dozen or so Denver coins.

But it was wild, looking through those coins, I had 13 West Virginias, 11 New Yorks, 11 Virginias, 10 Connecticuts and North Carolinas, 8 Georgias and 7 Arkansas, New Hampshires and North Dakotas. I had 5 Colorados and 5 Bicentennal quarters too.

Not gonna become a coin collecting geek, but it is kinda fun! :)

I'll post a pic on here when I've got 'em all!

In Memorial - Jim Scriven

Today, our family will be remembering our Cousin, Jim Scriven. (He was my Dad's cousin, so that makes me a 1st Cousin Once Removed.)

Jim passed away last week while he was having dialysis. He became quite ill & had to be rushed to the hospital. He was admitted & at this time they say he had a blood infection & other complications. Sadly he never recovered.

But I just want to take a sec and share a couple of memories of Cousin Jim.

I rememeber the beard. You can see it in the pic, I'm not sure I have a memory of him without one.

I remember one time, just after we moved back to Colorado from Ohio, Jim came by for a visit. He took my best friend and I for a ride and we happened to spot some prairie dogs just hanging out in some nearby adobe hills. Jim stopped his car, ran to the trunk and pulled out a bag. From inside this bag he pulled a .357 pistol. Handed it to me and said, "get one." Farmers on the western slope of Colorado don't like prairie dogs - but that doesn't much matter. I took a couple of shots and missed them completely. They scattered and were back a couple minutes later and my friend tried his luck and missed too. Jim got a good chuckle out of that, put the gun away and we headed home. Good fun!

Another time on that same visit, he ran me into town so I could buy, with my own hard-earned lawn mowing money, my first pair of Nikes. They were a $70 dollar pair then. Pretty pricey for those days. (And at only making $2 an hour, a lot of work too.) Nice shoes, I liked them. I seem to remember my folks were kinda unhappy, more at me for actually 'blowing' my money on them, than at Jim for actually taking me.

The other thing I remember about Jim were April and JJ - my 2nd cousins - his kids. I loved being around them, so I thoroughly enjoyed it when we were around Jim cuz I got to have some good cousin time.

Jim Scriven had a lot of challenges in his life, but he left his own special mark on each of ours. Jim - you will be missed. Wish we could be there in person to say goodbye, but that's not possible. Thanks for being a great 'cousin!'

Dental Hygiene Process Evaluations

In Doreen's Dental Hygiene course they have specific tasks they need to complete in clinic to show they are competent in each area of Dental Hygiene. One of them is they have to work on children.

Who better to schedule than your own kids. (It is MUCH better than being assigned a random one that might not be as easy to 'work' with and get the task done properly.)


A couple of weeks ago, when the girls were off school one day during a Teacher In service day, I hauled them into the clinic for Doreen and one of her classmates, Whitney, to work on our kiddos.



Here Doreen and Natalie are all done and Natalie's getting a chance to pick out her new toothbrush. They both did great!(Doreen and Natalie that is!)









Whitney did some work on Joelle and you can tell by the big grins, they had a ball and both of them did fantastic as well.

Me, I snoozed in the waiting area the whole time.

It was a successful day - for all! :)

Teddy-Bear Tea Party

For Valentines day, the girls school held a Teddy-Bear Tea Party for all the students in grades K-2nd. (I'm guessin' the older kids have kinda outgrown that kinda thing.)

Many parents helped with lots of aspects of the event.

Here's Natalie with Goldilocks getting her recoginition for the 'most cuddly' teddy-bear. It was a tiny little thing! :)








Here's Joelle with Goldi, getting her recognition, and even wearing some her gold locks, for the most "Tennessee Titan Teddy."

A delicious meal was had, and they heard some stories and a song and then did a great big Teddy-Bear March around the inside of the school and all around the outside. (To give the workers a chance to 'reset' the rooms for the other activities.)

They got to play Teddy-Bear beanbag toss, and Musical Bears and do a Teddy-bear craft.







They even recruited Natalie to play a part in a little skit about "My Friend Bear." Oh yeah - the bear on her left (the light brown one), yup - that's me! I was her friend bear.

It was a really, REALLY fun event!

Can't wait for next year's Teddy-bear Tea Party!

B.M.I.A.

Hey, anyone still there?

Yes, I've been B.M.I.A. (Blog Missing in Action) recently, well for the last two weeks. We've been busy, I've been sick and I've been on Facebook.

Hello - My name is Steve and I'm a Facebookaholic.

I don't spend much of my time on FB playing lots of games. I do play one or two, but most of the time I'm commenting on friends status updates, leaving my own, and just spending time re-connecting with friends I had not been in touch with for YEARS!

Got some posts to kinda catch things up with, so I'll just start with a quick sorry, then get back to posting, pics, fun stuff and family news! :)

What Do Joelle & Natalie Think of Mommy!

Answered by Joelle age 7(½) & Natalie age 6 (They were asked these questions separately so not to be influenced by the sister’s answers.)

1. What is something Mom always says to you?
J) I Love You
N) I love You

2. What makes Mom happy?
J) That I love you.
N) When I give you hugs.

3. What makes Mom sad?
J) That I don’t do my stuff when you tell me.
N) When I disobey.

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
J) When you act like a witch.
N) When you do weird faces.

5. What was your mom like as a child?
J) Outside girl
N) You liked to be outside.

6. How old is your mom?
J) 37
N) 37

7. How tall is your mom?
J) A few inches lower than daddy.
N) 39 feet

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
J) Play with me
N) Play with me

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
J) Work, work, work
N) Study Sometimes

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
J) For our Family
N) Being a dental hygienist

11. What is your mom really good at?
J) Hugging me
N) Hugging me

12. What is your mom not very good at?
J) Neat handwriting (J said she said that to be funny)
N) Not cracking my door the right way at bedtime.

13. What does your mom do for a job?
J) Clean People’s teeth
N) Dental Hygienist

14.What is your mom's favorite food?
J) Salads
N) Gluten

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
J) When you say good things about me.
N) When you help me.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
J) Chip Monster
N) A Silly Monster

17. What do you and your mom do together?
J) Play games
N) Talk with each other

18. How are you and your mom the same?
J) Our eyes
N) Our faces look alike

19. How are you and your mom different?
J) Your ears are bigger than mine.
N) Our hair is different colors

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
J) You show me.
N) You say, “Do you know that I love you” every night.

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?
J) That he thinks you’re funny.
N) That you can help him whenever he needs you to.


22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
J) Los Potros
N) Places that I like to go.

What Do Joelle & Natalie Think of Daddy!

Answered by Joelle age 7(½) & Natalie age 6 (They were asked these questions separately so not to be influenced by the sister’s answers.)

1. What is something dad always says to you?
J) Get your stuff done first.
N) I love you.

2. What makes dad happy?
J) When I get my stuff done first.
N) Natalie hugs.

3. What makes dad sad?
J) When I don’t get my stuff done first.
N) Disobeying

4. How does your dad make you laugh?
J) Tickling
N) Tickling

5. What was your dad like as a child?
J) The same as I am.
N) Baseball?

6. How old is your dad?
J) 39
N) 38

7. How tall is your dad?
J) 75 feet tall.
N) 68 Pounds

8. What is his favorite thing to do?
J) Play with us.
N) Computer

9. What does your dad do when you're not around?
J) Do computer, watch TV and miss me.
N) You do the things you need to do.

10. If your dad becomes famous, what will it be for?
J) Me
N) Working for Little Debbie.

11. What is your dad really good at?
J) Football
N) Catching a ball

12. What is your dad not very good at?
J) Blurt (Board game)
N) Not cracking my door the right way at bed time.

13. What does your dad do for a job?
J) Drives around putting cookies in warehouses and slip on ice.
N) Bringing Little Debbies to the bakery.

14.What is your dad's favorite food?
J) Tuna
N) Cucumbers

15. What makes you proud of your dad?
J) When you give me a hug.
N) When you bring Little Debbies home for us to eat.

16. If your dad were a cartoon character, who would he be?
J) Scooby Do
N) A bear

17. What do you and your dad do together?
J) Play Blurt and football with each other.
N) Play games and things like that.

18. How are you and your dad the same?
J) Our faces look alike - everyone says that.
N) Same color eyes

19. How are you and your dad different?
J) You have big stinky feet and a license.
N) You are bigger.

20. How do you know your dad loves you?
J) You give me hugs and kisses and you tell me.
N) You tell me everyday.

21. What does your dad like most about your mom?
J) That she’s freaky.
N) Because she helps you when he can’t do things by himself.

22. Where is your Dad's favorite place to go?
J) Home with our happy family.
N) Wal-mart.

Growin Up

The other day I was driving home after we picked the kiddos up from school. We had to stop a couple of times and the girls waited so patiently. Well at some point Doreen happened to glance into the back of the car and kinda gave me the elbow to peek - so I moved my rear-view-mirror and this is what I saw.

My youngest looking like she's a 20 something executive reading over a statement. Oh My Goodness! At the same moment my brains laughing and screaming "STOP" at the same time. She is growing up so fast! Wish I could slow it down, just a bit!

Thankfully I had my phone with me, whipped it out and snapped this photo.

My precious little girl! :)

One of those coincidence weird yet cool unexpected divine intervention moments

So I was planning on leaving for the grocery store right after the girls left for school, but I got a couple of things done and then piddled around and then delayed a bit more. Then I remembered I had two letters that I had to take the post office to send so I grabbed those up and headed out the door.

In the parking lot, I saw a couple of ladies and one looked vaguely familar, but I dismissed it because her resemblance was to my Aunt Jane who is the Principal of Newbold College in England. I parked in a spot and was listening to Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio who was making an interesting point, so I sat for a couple of minutes and listened, when the two ladies walked in front of me and low and behold - it was my Aunt Jane and her friend Mimi!

OH MY GOODNESS! What are the odds that we end up in the same place at the same time? They gotta be HUGE. I could have have headed directly to the store on another errand I was planning to run and missed them completely. But it was one of those weird, yet cool and VERY unexpected divine intervention moments!

So we talked for a few minutes then Aunt Jane had to run to a meeting and I needed to get or errands done - so we made plans to meet for lunch.

So I ran my errands, went and pulled the girls out of school and met Aunt Jane and Mimi for lunch! We had a wonderful time chatting and catching up. Aunt Jane had another meeting and so Mimi came over to our house and we continued talking.

What a MOST awesome and yet extremely pleasant suprise.

Family Fun Day OR Spring Fever

Work has slowed a little bit so they've been asking drivers if they have a bit of extra time built up to take some off to make sure everyone who needs time will be able to get it until things pick up again. So I did and Sunday was super nice weather - mid 60's - so we took advantage of it and went downtown with some friends to go biking!




Here's Natalie peddling her little legs for all they're worth on the walking bridge.












After we rode for a couple hours we stopped and had lunch at Subway - yummy. It was nice enough to eat outside too!











Then of course we had to go down the block to Klumpy's, an awesome Ice Cream store! Yuummmmmmyyyyy!












My precious girls sitting on the milk containers they fitted with a tractor seat. How quaint!
















Then we did some more riding to get rid of some of those extra calories we ate! :) Found a nice spot for a good family photo.











We rode a section we hadn't been on before and found this hill where people were doing a 'southern' version of sledding. Cardboard on a steep grassy hill! Man did we have a ball. The nice thing is we didn't have to deal with cold or snow! :)







I love the look on Natalie's face her first time down. After we went though, she grabbed her own cardboard and slid an number of times by herself.

What a fun day!!!

Misc Fun Family Fotos

One Saturday night in college we were over at a friend place and someone snapped this photo when Doreen was trying to choke me - all in fun of course! :)









I love this photo of my little girls. We had a few minutes to kill before Adventurers, so we went for a walk on the greenway and saw the new Desmond Doss memorial.











Doreen and I were at the Aquarium and she got a pic of me in the shark cage!

Great memories!

Kindergarten Field Trip - A Grocery Store

I got to go with Natalie and her Kindergarten class on a field trip today. We went to a grocery store and for those in the know, it was the V.M.

Here Natale and her friend Jasmine as we rode to the store.







Man, it was really cool. Here we learned all about UPC codes and stuff. Did you know we are in the middle of a transition from a 10 number code to a 14 number International code? Me either.

Did you know that those codes have to be applied for each new product put out? Me either!

Did you know that every company has its own unique 5 digit code that is the 1st 5 digits of the code and the last (currently 5 upgraded 9) digits is the specific code for that product? Me either. I learned a lot today! Very cool.



We got to go in ALL the back areas of the store. Never been in the back of a real grocery store before. Saw lots of very neat things and storage places and stuff!

For instance this place was extremely 'cool!' Yes, that pun was intended cuz it was the walk in freezer.











Here we got to meet the 'Green Monster.' A cardboard compactor for recycling.












And finally this was the herb/spices room. We got to smell an extremely yummy spearment herb bag. Delicious! Then he shared with us an herb they kept in a 5 gallon bucket with a sealable lid - for a very GOOD reason. It was Velium (I think that's how it was spelled) root. Awwwuuffff! Man it smelled like nasty feet that hadn't been washed in forever! It's supposed to help someone calm down and rest. I don't know how anyone could 'down' that stuff! Oy vai!

It was a great experience and the kids had a ball!

Afterwards we went to the imagination station and let the kids run and play and get LOTS of energy out. Then we had a lunch an back to school.

What a very cool day!

Icy, Slick & Snowy

Ok - that's two trips in two weeks that have gone a LOT longer than they should have! I mean, what is the deal?

Look at what we're sitting in here - SNOW and lots of it. Not only that, but ice came down and kept on a comin. Oh my goodness was it icy!

Ok, here's the story.

We left about 1am for Olney, IL. It took us 45 min to get our truck out of the safety lane and we spent the better part of 30 minutes looking at the weather and other routes to get us where we needed to go. Nothing was looking good. On the weather channel the 'pink' area was right over where we were headed.

So we left and got to Nashville at 3:30am and shut down at a truck stop. I had to 'blind-side' back into the last parking spot there, which is why it was probably open, it was tough. (Blind side backing is backing in on the right side of a truck - there's a point where the end of the trailer completely disappears in the mirror and you hope you set it up right and it's going in the right spot without hitting anything else.)

We shut down for 4 hours, till daylight, and left. 10 minutes on the road and I start seeing ice in trees and grass. A few cars off the road in the medians here and there. We made a good decision to stop.

(Look at the pretty icecicles hanging from the visor of our truck.) The interesting thing was another 30 miles farther and the roads got bad. What should have taken me 6 hours to get too took 8 1/2 hours. Oy vai - some of the roads were really, REALLY bad. We unloaded at that first drop and headed to our next one in Carterville. 82 miles, a 90 minute drive took almost 3. We got empty at 10pm and shut it down at an old Wal-mart in Marion just across from the truck stop. Dozens of trucks already stopped there, we had to the roads were just too icy to continue - especially with an empty trailer.

We got up this morning to head home and with the 4 inches of ice and snow we were on already, another 3 or 4 fell during the night. We couldn't move. So I threw some salt down, didn't help. My partner tried chipping away at the ice and snow - nothing. So we threw on the snow chains. That is NOT a fun job on a semi-truck. Those chains are heavy.

Got the chains on and was able to get out of the thick stuff onto a snow packed road. Had to stop and bang on the brake drum on one of our trailer wheels that froze up. Finally, we put the chains up and headed home.

Saw some beauty on the way home with the ice in the trees all bowing down and what not. HATED driving in it, but made it safely.

My partner and I turned our typical 20 our trip in to a 41 hour trip.

I'm glad to be home!