A Christmas Wish

To All My Democrat Friends:Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere . Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

To My Republican Friends: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Smarter than a first grader?

A first grade school teacher in Virginia had 25 students in her class. She presented each child in her classroom the first half of a well known proverb and asked each to come up with the remainder of the proverb. It's hard to believe these were actually done by first graders. Their insight may surprise you. While reading, keep in mind that these are first graders, 6-year-olds, because the last one is a classic!

1. Don't change the horses... until they stop running.
2. Strike while the... bug is close.
3. It's always darkest before... Daylight Saving Time.
4. Never underestimate the power of... termites.
5. You can lead a horse to water but... how?
6. Don't bite the hand that... looks dirty.
7. No news is... impossible.
8. A miss is as good as a... Mr.
9. You can't teach an old dog new... math.
10. If you lie down with dogs, you'll... stink in the morning.
11. Love all, trust... me.
12. The pen is mightier than the... pigs.
13. An idle mind is... the best way to relax.
14. Where there's smoke there's... pollution.
15. Happy is the bride who... gets all the presents.
16. A penny saved is... not much.
17. Two's company, three's... the Musketeers.
18. Don't put off till tomorrow what... you put on to go to bed.
19. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and... you have to blow your nose.
20. There are none so blind as... Stevie Wonder.
21. Children should be seen and not... spanked or grounded.
22. If at first you don't succeed... get new batteries.
23. You get out of something only what you... see in the picture on the box.
24. When the blind lead the blind... get out of the way.

and the winner and last one!

25. Better late than... pregenant.

Christmas Countdown

Roll The Dice

Coming up snake eyes



The surveillance car turned chase car turned wait car


Feet, just waiting



I am still at Odell Park. I have been passing time by for about an 90 minutes and still have over 90 minutes more to wait. The longest wait in my life. The biggest gamble of my life.

I am very dysfunctional, I think if I have an idea of what I want in life I can be very methodical. I can clearly see the steps or processes needed to make that happen. I can see the outcomes and I feel I can influence what happens. It is a great feeling when this is successful. Structured, within expected time frames, little to nothing overlooked. This is a big contrast from how I was brought up in my youth. I love my parents but life didn't present the opportunity for them to stay together, and I was raised by my mother, who did a great job considering what she was working with. Very little structure as a result. Which is fine.

For as structured as I like things to be, I love chaos a lot more. I like to gamble. Not so much with money, but with life decisions. I have an instinct for making correct choices at the correct time. I credit this to God. Always. He has had such a huge hand in my life. Timing is everything! So very true. I am impulsive. I have no problem be spontaneous (especially when the mood suits). I would often times in college get up one morning, grab my bag, music and a book or two and head down to the bus station and go just any random place a day would take me. No itinerary, no plan. Just go and enjoy. Out of my control as to what would happen, what I would see or do, but it was okay and fun.

Not at all like today.
Today, I feel like it's such a crap shoot. Everything has been planned by other people. I don't know the whole plan. But I am told bits about it and then find out more, than more, than more. I am told one thing than see another happen. So frustrating! Hard to trust. Hard to believe. Even harder when I am asked to step back an let nature take its course. Fuck. I did so much to persuade and convince, so that the right 'us' scenario happens. All I want is the best. I feel helpless, so utterly helpless. I have actions I can take, but it won't bring me the result I am looking for. The risk is too high to pursue those options. I need to be trusted as much as my trust needs to be given. I am willing to do so. I just cry out to my Lord that the same will be returned.

Rely on each other for life. Tough to do when people are so independent and have their own ulterior motives for taking the steps they take. Here I am waiting. I feel helpless, like I'm being taken advantage of. I feel alone. I see three outcomes and I only like one of them. I feel it won't be the outcome that happens. Sucks.

I have prepared for the moment. I have done my research. I know all the outcomes. I pray to God I have made the right choice. I am so afraid that I have not. And having rolled the dice, I feel foolish.

Tomorrow might be a bigger gamble. One I hadn't counted on. Like, I'll be taken advantage of. Sucks.

Originally written: 15 August 2007 @ 3:31PM

Yes Or No?

When to Say "Yes" and When to Say "No"
By Michael Masterson
I make a lot of commitments that unnecessarily add stress to my life. Why I find it so difficult to say "no," I can't say. But it's something I'm teaching myself to do.
The first step is to figure out when to say "yes" and when to say "no." Here's what I've come up with...
1. Say "yes" - often but not always - to two people: your spouse and your business partner.
2. Say "no" - as often as you possibly can - to everyone who asks you for help. This would include:
your lazy colleague
your shiftless friend
your spoiled children/grandchildren
your most self-centered customers
anyone who isn't willing to give back
Here's something else you can do to lighten your load and maintain your forward momentum:
Write a list of 20 things - people, situations, responsibilities - that cause you stress.
Reduce that list to 10.
Reduce it again to three.
Now pick one of those three - and stop doing it.
If you are like me, the thing that is creating the most stress in your life right now is something you are doing to help out someone who doesn't deserve it. And if you're like me, you feel guilty about even thinking about stopping.
Do yourself a favor. Call him up right now and tell him very definitively that you are going to stop doing it at the end of this day/week/month/year. Offer a simple explanation. Don't feel the need to elaborate. If he objects, say "I'm sorry that this will be inconvenient for you. I am sure you will be fine in the end. But the decision has been made."
And stick to it.
Try it. You'll be amazed at how good it makes you feel. Do that and don't take on another responsibility for at least 24 hours.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

Not too bad advice. I am on track with agreeing with his statement on saying yes often but not always to your wife, which is something I have always tried to do but sometimes it is harder to do than others and ends up in discord... something for another post, in my head.

On his line about making a list of the 20 things, then reducing it, then again... I just don't see how that works. There have got to be certain circumstances where that is not possible to 'reduce the stress', particularily if it involves family or friends. I know I have some things beening done around me that are causing me stress and I would love for them to be stopped and have even tried to put an end to them -to no such luck, the things are still going on and I am still being stressed about them (along with other things). Maybe he is talking about something different. Not saying it cannot be done, just not sure how it can work.

What Are You Working For?

A job is only a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Most people have only one problem in mind, and it's short term. It's the bills at the end of the month. Money now runs their lives. They have created a pattern of get up, go to work, pay bills, get up, go to work, pay bills. You say you are different than everyone else? Are you saying, "I'm not interested in money."? Then why are you working at a job for eight (or more!) hours a day? There is a denial of truth- if you weren't interested in money, then why are you working?

Most of the time life does not talk to you. It just sort of pushes you around. Each push is life saying, 'Wake up. There is something I want you to learn.'. If you learn life's lessons, you will do well. If not, life will just continue to push you around. People do two things. Some just let life push them around. Others get angry and push back. But they push back against their boss, or their job, or their husband or wife or common law partner. They do not know it's life that's pushing. Some give up. Others fight. A few learn the lesson and move on. They welcome life pushing them around. To these few people, it means they need and want to learn something. If you learn the lesson then you will grow into a wise, wealthy and happy person. If you don't you will spend your life blaming a job, low pay or your boss for your problems. You'll live life hoping for that big break that will solve all your money problems.

Or if you're the kind of person who has no guts, you just give up every time life pushes you. If you're that kind of person, you'll live all your life playing it safe, doing the right things, saving yourself for some event that never happens. Then, you die a boring, old person. You'll have lots of friends who really like you (facebook???) because you were such a nice hard-working person. You spent a life playing it safe, doing the right things. But the truth is, you let life push you into submission. You chose to play it safe.

What will you do?

All In A Word

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae an itnerseting mnid too!Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Winter's Nearly Done

hand over the keys to the freezer and nobody gets hurt

Just about through with this thing that we call winter. Still lots of snow on the ground but the temperature has risen to a more playable level. Sent the boys out to play in the snow for the first time in a long time- it was just over the freezing mark yesterday. Hopefully it warms up a bit more though as we are supposed to have football game outside in less than two weeks.

No More Soda Or Pop

What You Drink Is as Important as What You Eat

By Al Sears, MD

A few days ago, a patient walked into my office with one of those super-sized soft drinks from a fast-food place near my office. It wouldn't have surprised me - except that it was 8:30 in the morning.

I wondered how common this breakfast-soda habit has become, so I did some research. It turns out that more than 15 percent of people now order a soda when they go to a restaurant in the morning. That's a jump from less than 8 percent in 1990. And there's an even bigger jump in the number of people who open a can of soda at home every morning: 2.5 percent, up from less than 0.5 percent 20 years ago. That's a 500 percent increase!

What you drink is just as important for weight loss and overall health as what you eat. And both diet and regular sodas are dangerous... for different reasons.

Regular sodas spike your blood sugar almost immediately, which triggers your body to produce waves of insulin. Insulin stimulates fat production and fat storage. Diet sodas usually contain aspartame, a neurotoxin that prevents the hormone leptin from communicating with your brain. This is critical, as leptin is the messenger that tells your brain, "I'm full." As a result, you are far more likely to overeat.

The best thing to drink with breakfast is water. It's the way I start my day. But if you need a pick-me-up, green tea is better than soda. It gives you a gentle energy boost and is full of disease-fighting antioxidants. (Even regular tea or coffee is better than soda.)

[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears, a practicing physician and the author of The Doctor's Heart Cure, is a leading authority on longevity, physical fitness, and heart health.]

I drink a lot of pop. A lot. It's not good for me, I know. It is just so tasty.

I Don't Drink Diet Pepsi

I'll stick with my life, thanks

There are a lot of things I don't do and drinking Diet Pepsi is one of those things. If you have seen any recent television ads for Diet Pepsi you will see a person asked to drink a can and they get asked if there is anything in their youth that they want to relive or have back again. The commercials cut to a shot of them in their desired state but with the awkward twist of being who they are and it doesn't work the way it used to. Wearing the tight (leather) jeans of the '80's and going to a business meeting in the '07's and falling on the floor because the pants were so tight and they couldn't sit down. When the flashline stops the commercial cuts back to the person and they say 'on second thought, I'll just stick with my Diet Pepsi'.

Great ad series really. Somethings never change and most other things always do and it's best to let things end where they should instead of trying to recapture the glory days gone by. Pepsi of course is saying that their Diet Pepsi is still the same as it was in the old days and that of course it is an easy thing to work into your life of today.

All of this is to say that I am having my Diet Pepsi moment right now. Not with something to do with me directly, but with my wife. She wants to become a respitory therapist someday and will have to go to community college at some point to pursue this desire. One of the classes she needs to take is either chemistry or physics. To take those course at the college would cost a couple of hundred bucks plus books and time to get to the school (45 minutes away). So enter the Diet Pepsi moment: I am married to a high school student! She can take either of the classes at our local high school (8 minutes away) for free and have it count to her requirements for the respitory therapist qualification. So she is taking a physics class at the high school with everyone else in the class being half her age (except for the teacher, maybe?).

Nothing wrong with persuing knowledge or bettering yourself educationally and she seems to be doing well with the course. It just seems that we are going through a series of Diet Pepsi moments with everything from the clothes see wears to class, how she hauls her books to class, the new lingo, dangle earrings, music interests and more. Not to mention the MILF factor that I know is running through the halls, which is kind of cool- knowing that I have a hot wife- but not in that I cannot capitalize on it. The changes are a bit overwhelming to me and makes it difficult to know who is coming in the door. Basically, keep your Diet Pepsi and your flashbacks, I'd like my life back.

The flipside of this maybe she will ask me to her prom or the any of the dances they might have. Better go get some lessons.

A New Year Of Whatever

A new year of more whatever. A quick look back at 2006 brought very little in the way of surprises for me. It was however a year of changes for me and my family. A new job for both my wife and myself mark the biggest change. We added a new vehicle to haul ourselves around.

What will this year bring? Hard to say. Maybe more posts here. I didn't put as much on this spot as I thought I would, but that I am still contributing to the thoughtbasket says enough for me.

Make this year your best.