State of the Union Address

Yup, just another campaign speech.  Does Obama know how to do anything different?  It’s been over a year since he took office and he’s still in campaign mode, still blaming Bush for all his problems, and still as naive as the day he placed his hand on the Bible and got sworn in as our president.  Not only that, but he’s petty, thin skinned.  He takes everything too personally and has absolutely no class.  To dress down the supreme court like he did in front of the entire nation, nay, the world, shows a total lack of class.  There they sat with no way to respond to his vicious attack on them.

He is one year in and still can explain no concrete plans on how he plans to implement his highfalutin ideas for our country.  Of course all his plans require billions, with a B, of dollars to implement.  This at a time when we are trillions, with a T, in debt.  Does he not see this?  If any other person in the U.S. decided to keep spending once they ran out of money, they’d be in jail.  But not our government (Democrats and Republicans).  They just print more money and spend it.  Or they deficit spend.  Lucky, lucky us.  The CBO recently calculated that thanks to our national debt, every man, woman, and child owes $40,000. 

For once I’d like to see a State of the Union Address where the president gets up and admits that his/her plan is not working.  We did sort of get a little taste of that when he talked about healthcare reform.  Thanks to Scott Brown we no longer have the imminent risk of having a socialist healthcare bill rammed down our throat—a bill that 63% of the Americans didn’t want.  They were all ready to ditch one failing government entitlement program for another bigger, more expensive government entitlement program.  We were unbelievably close to basically scrapping the best medical care system on the planet.  What person in their right mind would want to do that?  On top of that, Obama likes to state that he knows nobody who likes, truly likes their medical insurance.  Well here I am Mr. President.  I love my health insurance and wouldn't trade it for anything.  My insurance rocks!

There were a couple of other parts of the speech that bothered me, but I won’t go into them here.  They are touchy subjects in the best of times.  They are things that should be left alone.  But again, naiveté won out and the Obama goes and starts mucking with things he knows nothing about.  It’s easy to fundamentally change things when you know you won’t be affected by the change you’re forcing on others.  Think about it.

Finally Healed

4 Months, 3 weeks, and 3 days after my surgery, I am finally healed.  The final scab on my surgical incision finally fell off today and revealed perfectly healed skin underneath.  Who in the world thought it would take so long to close up completely?  Of course the problem was that there was some muscle stitches left in place that were supposed to dissolve on their own…in fat tissue…which I don’t have…so they couldn’t dissolve and they kept me from healing.  Anyways, what a mess!  But hey, I’m finally healed and I’m thrilled.

As for weight gain, I have officially gained 40 pounds since my stay in the hospital for malnutrition.  My low was 78 pounds.  If you do the math you’ll see I’m now at 118.  My target weight for those who aren’t keeping up with FB is 120-125.  Anything much above 125 and I start to get to real uncomfortable.  You know, trouble breathing, clothes don’t fit, all that stuff. 

So thank you to everyone who prayed for me during this latest health scare.  I believe in the power of prayer and know you helped immensely.  For those who didn’t pray and instead sent their best wishes—well, I thank you too.  Thank you all for caring and God bless each and every one of you.  I have the greatest friends and family a person could ever ask for. 

Massachusetts

Thank you, thank you, thank you to the voters of Massachusetts.  You won!  Not Scott Brown, but the people of Massachusetts won.  They won for the whole country.  Mark Brown is the 41st vote against the socialist healthcare program that the dems are trying to shove down our throats.  This health care bill that they are trying to impose on us is unwanted by 65% of the electorate.  Why the dems insist on pushing forward is a real head scratcher.  They are governing themselves into oblivion.  If they push this through as written, they will not survive another election.  And mid term elections are only 10 short months away.

But with Scott Brown winning the senatorial race in Massachusetts yesterday, we have a real chance of stopping this bill or at least getting a bill that the Americans will appreciate.  And now the dems have lost their filibuster-proof majority, or supermajority.  I believe, like many pundits do, that this is setting the stage for the 2010 elections.  This is a message from the electorate of what is to come if our elected officials do not get their act together and start listening to the will of the people.  We are not here for the pleasure of the elected officials—for them to rule over.  They are here to serve us, to carry out our will.  We hire them.  We pay them a salary, though it is way too much and the retirement way too cushy, we put them in office, and it is us who are to be served by them. 

As for this being a message to Obama—absolutely.  It is a message to him that we do not want the change he is pushing.  His idea of change, a change to socialism, is exactly what our forefathers fought the British to free us from.  The people are starting to recognize this.  Albeit 14 months too late.  I wish I could say I didn’t see this coming.  But I did.  I told every one I knew who would listen that Obama was not the person who needed to be in charge of our country, the greatest country on Earth and the greatest force for good will on this planet.  Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing and it is painfully obvious by his policies.  For the first time during this administration I am truly hopeful that this could be a one term president.  There is nothing about him I will miss. 

Obama’s latest rationale behind why Coakly (-sp?) lost is that the electorate is angry at the Bush administration.  Yeah, this is leftover anger and it is Bush’s fault.  What?!?  And then to make comments about Scott Brown driving a pick-up truck as if it is some sort of dis, what was that about?  So the man drives a pick-up.  So it has over 200,000 miles on it.  So he is not an elitist.  Good on him.  But really, when are things no longer going to be Bush’s fault?  Today was Obama’s 366th day in office.  He wanted this job and the problems are now his.  Bush cannot be blamed forever.  Or can he?  Watch Obama and find out. 

So Massachusetts has likely saved us from a major step toward socialism.  They deserve a lot of credit.  What is more is that 35% of the registered dems voted for Brown!  Independents voted for Brown.  It’s not just a republican victory.  The GOP could not have done it without their help.  So to all the elected dems up for election this year, if you like your job, you need to take a step back and re-examine your position on the issues.  You have now seen that the American people are awake to your back room, shady deals and we don’t like it.  This is not “change we can believe in.”  This is nothing short of sleazy Chicago politics, unbecoming of a U.S. president.  Even one as thin skinned as Obama.

Tampa Aquarium

This little critter is called a sea dragon.  We found him at the Tampa Aquarium on our recent trip to Florida.  We had a good time there.  It really does look like a piece of floating seaweed. 

Believe it or not, this is a fish.  It’s called a bat fish.  Don’t know much about them, other than the fact that are truly unique in appearance.

This little critter is a rescue animal.  Someone had kept her as a pet where she ran into a ceiling fan and got brain damage. 

The aquarium was a lot of fun.  We took lots of other pics but few turned out.  We’re still learning how to get the most out of the new camera.  We did finally get our zoom lens which we’ll be very grateful for in the coming weeks when we go see the shuttle launch.  Though we’re going to be 7 miles away from the launch this time, we’re hoping for causeway tickets next time.  Either way it should be a blast…literally. 

My heart goes out to the people of Haiti.  They were sure devastated by this quake.  It makes me appreciate California building codes because I’ve lived through several earthquakes that were as big or bigger than the Haiti quake and nothing serious happened.  The most damage I’ve ever seen to my property is a few things being knocked off the shelves.  My prayers go to the rescuers who have all those lives in their hands as they continue to try to dig people out from the rubble and attempt to hand out food and water and provide shelter.  Hopefully when they begin to rebuild the savaged country, they enforce some sort of building codes so that they won’t have to worry about this sort of tragedy again. 

Along the Haiti lines, I really believe that Pat Robertson’s comments about Haiti were completely bizarre and way out of line.  How does he know what the Haitian people did or said 200 years ago.  As one reverend put it, instead of seeing God behind the destruction in Haiti, he chooses to see God in the thousands of relief workers that have put their life on hold and risk injury or illness to bring hope to the devastated areas.  Pat Robertson needs to understand that there is a time and place for that type of bogus story and this is not it.  Unfortunately it’s not the first controversial thing I’ve heard come from that man.  Sure, he’s entitled to his opinions, but come on, show some class. 

OK, enough of all that.  If and when I get a good pic of my electric catfish, I’ll be sure to post here first thing.  You guys will love her.  Her name is Sparkplug.  It will give me good practice with the camera. 

One Year Down

Yippee!  Only 3 more years to go, and a week or so, until we get the most sophomoric president out of office.  He is in so far over his head that’s it’s damaging our country.  If he wanted to be a socialist, there are plenty of failing countries around this little globe of ours that he could’ve found a country to accept him.  Instead he wants to turn the greatest capitalist society in the history of the planet in a socialist one.  And that’s despite all the warnings from the countless millions of people who have given verbal warnings to the American people about how bad it is to be a socialist country.  Why won’t the man listen?  I’ll tell you why.  He’s an amateur.  He’s in so far over his head that he’s floundering.  He has no clue what he’s doing and he needs to go.  With proper prayer and true grassroots organization among the masses, we can get rid of Reid and Pelosi in the mid-term elections and then get rid of Obama at the end of his turn.   But stuff like this has to be passed around.  We need to show the people of our society that we mean business.  God willing, Obama will only have 3 more years left.  George H W Bush made a campaign promise one time—NO NEW TAXES!  He broke that promise.  Obama promised 8 times that his healthcare negotiations would take place on c-span.  He promised it 8 freakin’ times!!!  And he broke that promise and his staff just laughed about it.  Bush’s taxes amounted to pennies on the dollar.  Obama’s lie about c-span amounts to 1/6-1/12 of the US economy. 

Obama, January 2008, “Well under my system of a cap and trade program, electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket.  Add a $.56 cent tax on all gasoline, 20-something% for electricity, and one other travesty that I can’t think of off the top of my head.  What a hateful, sophomoric man Obama is.  He needs to get out off and needs to do it at the end of his third year.  The man sucks!!

Oh guess what!  Your taxes are about to go up due to the fact that the Bush tax cuts are set to expire.  And if you’re reading this, you got money back due to these tax cuts.  But Obama has no intention of continuing them, believing it was only for the top 10% wage earners,   If that’s the case, I must be in the top 10% of wage earners in this country because I got tax rebate from the Bush Tax Cuts.

Obama can just go away…and I really don’t give a crap how or why he does it.  The man is inherently evil and what’s to “fundamentally change the United States of America.”  --his words, not mine.

Pray, pray, pray that this man and his evil big gov’t cohorts disappear off the face of the earth this Noverber and at the end of the term for Obama.

Trip to Florida 2010 v1.0

We took a wonderful trip to Florida.  We spent 8 days gone from my gorgeous little puppy dog.  Thankfully we had a sitter to watch him and the house.  In fact, we never leave home without that.

The trip was great!  We spent the first 4 nights at the Disney Resort in Vero Beach…which actually turned out to be the town of Orchid.  Once we left there (after securing the shuttle tickets I already blogged about) we headed to Valrico, which is just outside of Tampa.  There we stayed with my dad and his lovely family.  It was a cool trip.  We spent the day at the Tampa aquarium and again had a great time.  The best part of the 2nd part of the trip was just spending time with my dad.  It means a lot to me to be able to do that.  On top of that, I met my grandmother for the very first time.  Sweet lady.  Don’t know if she’s interested in adding another grandchild to her list of grandchildren, but I think the meeting went well

The drive home was decent.  It took 13 hours, which with the 1 hour time difference added up to only 12 hours.  And that included stopping to get the oil changed and stopping at the local grocery store just 10 minutes from the house.

While in Valrico, Kathy, my dad’s wife made some awesome spaghetti.  I actually got to eat on twice thanx to lots of leftovers.  They are really gracious people to open their home to us and allow us to upset their normal routine.  Family is great. 

On our 13 hour drive home, things were a bit uneventful.  It wasn’t until Atlanta until we got ice on the roads.  It was icy on the side of the roads all the way from Atlanta to 30 miles north of Birmingham.  The driveway was a little  icy coming up to the garage but we made it.  Tigger has settled in nicely to having mom and dad home.

We only have about 3 weeks before we go do this all over again.  As mentioned in an earlier blog, we got shuttle tickets for the 5th to the last launch.  It’s a night launch and we’ll be down there for 4 days just to make sure we give them time to delay the launch a couple of times.  We didn’t get the causeway tickets that we really wanted, but we got visitor center tickets and it should be every bit as impressive as I have dreamed it to be. 

If anyone reading this is interested in watching a shuttle launch (not on TV), you have to sign up for the launch updates on the Kennedy Space Center website at http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/?ic_campID=4&ic_pkw=GH_STS130_Jan09 and click on the link for receiving launch event update emails.  They will notify you 24 hours before the tickets go on sale.  You will need multiple computers to give you the best chance of getting tickets.  The causeway tickets which are closest to the launch site, sell out in about 6 minutes.  You cannot use extra tabs on your browser to get multiple entries.  That will only delay your entry into the ticket booth.  What you need is friends, lots and lots of friends with computers to also try to snag you tickets.  I had 5 computers working for me and only got into the causeway ticket booth once.  There was only 1 ticket left and since I needed 2, it kicked me out.  The next viewing site sold out in 30 minutes.  That’s where my tickets are for.  We’re going to try again at the next launch, and the next, and the next until we get causeway tickets.  If you are serious about getting tickets, I might be willing to use my computer and time to help you snag tickets.  Just let me know.

Oh, once I get pics of the animals from the Tampa Aquarium downloaded to the computer, I’ll post them here.   We got a couple of really impressive shots.  So please check back often. 

Thanks for your time tonight.

STS-130 Space Shuttle Endeavor

Thanks to my good friend Ed, I have shuttle launch tickets for the next shuttle launch.  It’s at 4-something in the morning so it will be considered a night launch.  Woo hoo!  It was amazing.  With Ed’s help we had 5 computers trying to get in to the virtual ticket booth to get tickets.  The tickets for the causeway sold out in a blistering 6 minutes!  The Visitor Center tickets sold out less than 30 minutes later.  I am looking forward to seeing one of the final 5 launches of the space shuttle.  If this goes well, we’re going to try again at the next launch for causeway tickets with Ed and Deanne.  That would be too cool to see 2 of the final 5 launches, one being from the causeway.  Next time we try we’ll have 6 computers trying.  If any pictures turn out from this night launch, I’ll be sure to post them here.

Disney Resort in Vero Beach, Florida

Woo hoo!  We’re at the Disney Resort in Vero Beach for the week.  It has been a little cold but that’s fine by me since a wound on my belly makes it impossible for me to enjoy water activities.  We walked for 3 miles on the beach today and had a great time.  The temperature was about 45 degrees.  Just a bit nippy!  Tomorrow is a day for me to just kick back and relax and that’s fine by me.  I’m going to stay as warm as possible.  I hope all are enjoying a happy new year.