Jesse James is Alive and Well

O.K. I have to admit it. Jesse James is a Dead Man is my new guilty pleasure. There is just something about this show that I can't get enough of. It might be how crazy he is. It might be how he's a dynamic guy. It might be the fantastic stunts and things that he does. It's probably a bit of it all. I just love it. If you've got cable then check it out.

Water World is fun

Yep, that's right folks. An amusement park made up entirely of water rides is my cup of tea. We got to the park before the rides opened so we could ride the high demand ones first. That was a good decision because even on a weekday there were long lines waiting for a few of them. There were two that I rode several times- the race one where you are on these lugey like things and then the wave rider one where you bacically are body boarding. That one banged me up a bit, but it was so much fun! Oh, and the wave pool was fantastic!! Bronte and I had so much fun in that, but it really wore me out fast swimming in the waves.
The one thing that I realized (other than that water parks are fun) is that there are a lot of fat teen/twenty somethings who shouldn't be in a bikini. Christ! How can a 40 year old woman have a better body and muscle tone than a 20 year old? That ain't right! Or at least cover it up, girls! Seriously.
Alright. Time to go pass out after "working hard" all day at the wave pools, etc. :)

Thursday afternoon

The rain that 'they' said was coming this afternoon is about to arrive, announcing itself with distant booms and ominous clouds. It's creeping in to ruin the activities planned for later. The rain isn't unexpected or unneeded, but somehow just unwanted for today.

On another note...

I have been known to say that I was 12 lbs lighter when I met my fiance. This is true. I was. It certainly has been an obvious indicator that my lifestyle has changed. I am a part of a we. A comfortable we in many, many ways. Is my weight gain an indicator of the comfort? Perhaps, but there is lot less obvious signal that my life has changed. It is the fact that I am now able to take hikes without becoming hopelessly (and dangerously due to my asthma) winded. I can also gladly and willingly take 10 mile bike rides without feeling as if it might kill me. It's a lot of little indicators that while my size may have slightly increased my comfort, health and experience have been the cause.

Thoughts on a bike

I've been riding my bike a lot again. I love it. Really, it's good exercise and a mostly stress free way to get from here to there. I say mostly because it's not always the case because when people are involved there is bound to be some rudeness. Here just a quick refresher for everyone on the rules of the biking road.

- Always ride on the right. That's right. THE RIGHT, because when you ride against traffic (even bike traffic) you are going the wrong way and you could get hurt or hurt someone else.

- Ride single file. I shouldn't have to be stuck behind your big fat bottom because you want to have a conversation with your riding partner. If you want to chat then stop at the next bench and enjoy.

- Obey the traffic laws. If it says "Stop" then stop!! Nobody wants to see your brains splattered across the street because you couldn't follow the rules.

- Wear a helmet. See the above reason for why. In addition, your family shouldn't have to change your diaper for the rest of your life because you were too self absorbed to wear a damned helmet.

- Yield when you are supposed to. It makes you the hero. Really, it does and again you won't hurt someone else in the process.

- Lastly, when you are passing call out "Passing on your left" before you whiz by. This protects us both. Me from going to jail for assault and you from being assaulted. Besides, you get brownies and other good stuff for being polite. O.K. that might not be totally true, but it is good to be polite anyway.

If you still aren't sure of the rules then here's a handy link to help you out.

Analog

is dead. Long live digital... or is there something faster?

random stuff

First of all, Dan has a cat on his lap. He doesn't even like cats, but for some reason he tolerates Mr. E.

Second, I like the fact that there are actual cobblers out there. There are real people working hard on shoes somewhere right this very minute. Maybe it's just a throwback to all those fantastic stories that were read to me as a child. Who knows?

Third, brie is really good. I especially like the kind with herbs, but any good brie will do. On mini toasts preferably.

O.k. That's all.

Pride, Sense and Persuasion

O.K. The first step is admitting you have a problem. So, here it goes.

I am obsessed w/ Jane Austen novels. I've read several of her novels before, but never have I just breezed through all of them. I might read them again after I finish the last one- Northanger Abbey.

I think these are what are keeping me going for the wedding. O.K. back to reading.

Plants

So, it's begun. The annual planting and insanity of buying said plants. We usually buy our annuals at our local Home Depot, but this year their selection is...well it sucks! Yeah, they have your basic petunias and impatients, but other than that it's no good. The only daylilies they had were HUGE and $15. I'm a patient gardener. I'm happy to pay $5 for a smaller perinneal because guess what? They grow. I guess next weekend I'll be heading to a different store. I did get a few things.
The main thing that I got was my Mother's Day roses. I love getting rose bushes for Mother's Day. That way I get to enjoy the roses all summer. Unfortunately, I think we are about out of space so these may be the last of the new bushes I'll get for awhile. Even so, I have all the beautiful plants to remind me of how much I'm loved.
Alright, I have some holes to dig and pots to fill.

update

I was just sitting here watching "The Highlander" and thought that I should write a blog post. No correlation really. I actually have been thinking I should blog more often. Like weekly or even maybe daily when it occurs to me.
On my way to work this morning I had a number of thoughts on what I should write. Most of them were things that annoy me so I think this time I'll refrain on posting my brains ramblings. (This is such a bad movie. I don't remember it being so bad.)
O.K. Maybe this is a good start. Truman just galloped in and wants to play. Who knew that my new boxer would be a horse in disguise?

sick day

The cat and the dog are sitting close sharing a sunbeam that is streaming through a high window. The cat is perched on a bare spot on the TV stand. The dog sitting next to that. Generally, they don't share space, but on a day where the thermometer has yet to break 0 degrees it seems appropriate that oddities like this will happen.
My daughter is home with strep throat. She's just hitting the 24 hour mark on antibiotics so I thought it best to keep her home. My activity to this point has consisted of folding multiple loads of laundry, helping my daughter pack for her upcoming visit to her dad's house, and half way cleaning the kitchen. The cat and dog distracted me from the last one. And that is my day to this point. A sick day although I am not sick.

I passed!

For a good portion of my working life I've been working in Human Resources on some level. It's been a goal for awhile to get my certification, because as with any profession you can become certified through an amazingly hard test given by the oversseing regulatory body of that profession.
September 3rd I began a class to help me prepare for that amazingly hard test. The class was 3 hours a week for 10 weeks with about 10-15 hours of prep between classes. After the class was over I had 4 weeks to study and stayed on the 10-15 hours a week of study time. Not an easy task with all of the activity that my kids seem to generate. After all of the study and work- yesterday I tested. I'm very, very pleased to report that I passed. At least that's what the piece of paper said. After studying, for what seemed like an eternity, I actually passed! I won't know my score for a few weeks, and really at this point it's just sort of a bonus. The point is I am now a CERTIFIED HR Professional. Woohoo!

Let America Be America Again!

This was sent to me by a very dear friend. I think it really embodies what this campaign was about and what we as a nation need to remember in the victory. Yes, we can!



Let America be America Again
by
Langston Hughes


Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

President Obama

That sounds exactly right. Congratulations, Mr. President-Elect.

Well Wishes

I think one of the things that I recognize in Barack Obama that I see in myself is that we both had grandparents that were key figures in our upbringing. In particular, I was very close with my grandmother. She was, as Sen Obama has described his grandmother, a key element in later success. So when I heard that he was flying to Hawaii to be with her on Thursday I was particularly touched by his action. This late into the election he's decided to do the right thing and go be by his grandmother. Despite what the talking heads have to speculate about the whole deal, I for one am wishing Senator Obama and his grandmother the best. I hope she can recover to see him through the election and beyond.

Redeemed

I used to really admire Colin Powell, and then he endorsed the war and stood up for the false evidence that we went to war on. I am not fully convinced that he knew it was false intelligence, but I have never really cleared my mind as to how he couldn't have known. This clip, in my mind, redeems him a little bit.
Here is the clip from Meet the Press where Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama. I'm not posting it soley because of his endorsement. I'm posting it because at about the 5:10 mark he says something that we all need to take to heart.

A Brighter Day Will Come- please vote November 4th

Obama '08 - Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

A Reasonable Request...

Guilty by Association? No, just Plain GUILTY!

Ethics investigation finds Palin abused power

"ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded Friday. The politically charged inquiry imperiled her reputation as a reformer on John McCain's Republican ticket.

Investigator Stephen Branchflower, in a report by a bipartisan panel that investigated the matter, found Palin in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain."

Now, I'm gonna make it real simple. If she was willin' to violate state ethics rules as a gov'na, what do you think she might do as Vice President. Can y'all say WATERGATE? What about IRAN-CONTRA? This is down right unethical. A pitbull that's bit someone once WILL bite agin'.

Reject the invitation of fear!

The attempt at character assassination against Barack Obama have hit an all time low and it's disgusting. What it tells me is that the McCain camp has nothing better to do. They don't have to worry about our economy, the war, or anything else of substance because they JUST DON'T GET IT! McCain's plan is to hit below the belt instead of showing us his substance.

Barack Obama is out there talking about the immediate issues and what he proposes to resolve them, and John McCain is out there telling us to be afraid of the candidate with solid ideas. In the words of FDR:

WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF



Mr. McCain, I'm not accepting your invitation to be afraid. I am voting for Obama!

Guilty by association? No.

I've been watching the new, the pundits, etc. and everyone is talking about Governor Palin talking about Obama's association with William Ayers. Two things disturb me about this whole game of playing association.
The first being that Mr. Ayers has become a good citizen since his radical days in the late '60's early 70's. Chicago thought well enough of him that they named him citizen of the year. The University he teaches at has him listed as a Distinguished Professor. The point being that people can make bad choices out of their passions and then live another day to make up for their errors. People should be given second chances to redeem their bad behavior and I think in this case William Ayers has made good. So, while he did some really awful things in the past, his life of education and working for his community has certainly made a positive impact today. If Mr. Obama is guilty of working with Mr. Ayers on education and helping the youth of Chicago so be it. It has nothing to do with the mistakes Mr. Ayers made as a youth.

Secondly, if we are going to make people guilty by association then McCain has a long list of associates that don't reflect well on him. Keating for starters, but it goes farther, and I'm not the only one who is talking about it.

Why Ayers case is risky for McCain-Palin- by Rollin Martin

"Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., a Democrat from Chicago who serves as one of the national co-chairs for Obama, told me on The Tom Joyner Morning Show that if we are to use the association tag as evidence of a candidate being unfit for president, what about McCain serving and working alongside people with virulent bigoted pasts like Sens. Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd?

Do we have evidence that these individuals committed specific acts against African-Americans during Jim Crow? No. But we do know that their hateful words, and willingness to uphold laws that were absolutely anti-American, did not represent the best of this nation.

Thurmond ran for president as a Dixiecrat in 1948 with a platform of maintaining segregation. Based on Helms' policies, he didn't see blacks as full Americans.

Bombing the Pentagon is horrible and indefensible. But declaring yourself a patriot while you speak such hateful and venomous words against your own countrymen, who just happen to be black, and then trying to oppress them, is just as indefensible.

So, did McCain work with them? Did he not speak with them? Should McCain have declared that he would not work alongside these men because of their past? Should the self-described maverick who believes in integrity and character have taken the honorable stance of resigning from the Senate to protest these hateful characters serving in the U.S. Senate?"

So, while Palin is out on the stump trying to use fear to win people over (Rovian tactics at play again) perhaps she should reflect on the associations of her running mate. And by the way, this doesn't even begin to touch on her guilty by marriage association to the Alaskan Independence Party.