Post Christmas post

The Wilson's have survived yet another Christmas Season. Some people become stressed, others become depressed, some become victims of the commercialization of the season and still others go to Church for the second time all year (Easter being the other time). I am not one of these people. I forbid holiday stress to control my enjoyment of the season, I have my depression issues but holidays are not one of them, I am too cheap to fall into the commercialization trap and Santa is a downplayed figure in my house so this is not an issue either. I work at remembering Christ each and every day all year long and look forward to welcoming the Christmas/Easter crowd at church in the hopes that they are touched by the Holy Spirit as they fellowship this year. Having said all that, Christmas is still a tiring time of year. I am going to take this time to type out my twelve pains of Christmas as I tell you about the survival of another season.



First, let me tell you about a little thing called Reindeer food. These are the directions.

MAGIC REINDEER FOOD
On Christmas Eve, sprinkle this magic reindeer food on your lawn. The sparkle of the glitter in the moonlight and the smell of oats will guide Santa’s reindeer to your house.
(Do Not Eat)

Ingredients:

Oats

Sugar

Glitter

What has been left out of these instructions is that while on the lawn they might attract reindeer, but while in a baggy resting on Gracie's' playroom floor, they do a great job of attracting Bo (our dog). Dogs love reindeer food, who knew. A few days later its Saturday and Angie's sisters are coming for dinner, turkey has been in the oven overnight and is now out and cooling. Its like 7AM or so and I am greeted with Gracie yelling from her room that Bo has pooped in her playroom again. Mom wakes up enough to tell her to clean it up (yeah right) and the fit then ensues. I am awake enough to catch the phrase, its different poop, I don't want to touch it. Different poop? Different poop! "don't touch it, daddy's coming." Bo has indeed left us an early Christmas present of 3 Bo logs. But these are not just any Bo log, they are oh so special Christmas Bo logs. Like little itty bitty Christmas gifts, all that was missing was the ribbon. The logs in question, the 'different poop' was made almost entirely from undigested oats and glitter packed tightly together by doggie intestinal fortitude. They were white and sparkly, almost pretty, thanks for getting Christmas off to a good start my little fuzzy friend.

The second pain at Christmas is shopping. I enjoy Christmas shopping, black Friday is a wonderful time of year. I like smiling at all the grumpy people. What I detest is the grocery shopping. We cooked two huge meals this year, one for Angie's family and one for mine. I did the turkey and oyster casserole for Angie and she did the rest, for my family I did the dinner and Angie did the dessert. As I mentioned above, I forbid stress in such things as this, my wife,'blink...blink', has no such rule. She fuses, frazzles, and frays at the ends. Most of this is self inflicted because she procrastinates and is not organized in her thinking and doesn't manage her time well. The result is a whopping 6 trips to the Grocery store for me. The last one had me arriving back after our guests were here already.

The third pain of Christmas is the stress fallout from everyone else. Grumpy people want to make you grumpy too. They insist that if they are stressed and you are not you must be doing something wrong or not doing enough or not helping them, or you are just in their way. The dressing is not right, the cheese it too thick, the grocery is too crowded, the room is too hot, the room is too cold, we don't have anymore tape, the presents are not wrapped, the fridge is too full, the parking lot is too crowded and I wanted that spot, I want the spot that your in so please hurry up and move so I can get it before somebody else finds you too. I am not stressed so will you please stop wiping your stress on my sleeves. Thank you.

The fourth pain at Christmas is the decorations. I would put up a ceramic tree or maybe a little one footer with a half dozen ornaments if it were up to me. A wreath on the front door without a bow and maybe a spot light in the yard just to show that I did shed a little light this year. But oh no, I am married and have a four year old so up the 7 foot tree must go with garland and icicles, lights and fake snow. I must put lights on the ceilings and light on the roofs, risking life and limbs to make things a glow. Ornaments that talk and ones that are shiny, ones that make noise, and ones that are piney. I lug all the boxes, bags and totes up the steps, down the steps all of it must go.

The fifth pain at Christmas is the decorations. I lug all the boxes, bags and totes, down the steps, up the steps all of it must go. I must admit I have little more spring in my step as I put them away. I am smiling like the Grinch robbing Whoville as I tear down the lights and stuff them in bags. I have a gleam in my eyes as the Christmas dishes go bye.

The sixth pain at Christmas is the decorations. Its the after Christmas sale season. All those lights that you just bought for 6 bucks are now on sale for 2 bucks and since you had to hang them all three times to get them right this year your going to need more to replace the ones you broke, didn't work, or tried to hang yourself with this year. We will of course look at a new wreath and more garland and more tinsel and snow, I really really really don't want to go.

The seventh pain at Christmas is family. I love my inlaws and I love my family but Grandma didn't get run over by a reindeer by accident. She was the victim of a drive by. Nuff said.

The eighth pain at Christmas is left overs. We cooked a 22 lb. Turkey a 9 lb. ham and had (take a deep breath) corn, mashed potatoes, green beans, oyster casserole, broccoli salad, sweet potato casserole, dressing, mac and cheese, veggie tray, meat-n-cheese tray, shrimp tray, rolls, Italian cream cake, blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream, and a white birthday cake with the words,"Happy Birthday Jesus" inscribed on top with green icing next to yellow flowers. This is best defined by the Yiddish word, "oy"

The ninth pain at Christmas is over stimulation. Particularly with small children but this phenomenon is present with all ages. The expectations of Christmas build for at least a week and then the gifts start arriving. Gracie got gifts for days on end. Each day she would ask and expect more more more. By the time Christmas morning got here she was both burnt out and spoiled beyond and reasonable sense of management. Her first comment on Christmas morning was,"why didn't Santa wrap these, I wanted them wrapped" It didnt get much better. A chorus of I want somebody to play with me was whined off and on all day. Add do this the overstimulated mother who is worn out as well and put us all in a church setting where we need some semblance of quiet and sitting still and, well lets just say I was searching my pockets for a spoon with which to pluck out my eyes.

The tenth pain at Christmas is Christmas cards. We send out 100 cards every year. No matter what we always have somebody that makes some comment about not getting one. We always have a relative (who shall remain nameless) who asked did you send one to so and so and if I say no, then I am told that I really should have. It doesn't matter that I haven't spoken to Aunt Bunny in 30 years I should still have sent her a card. She sent me one with a balloon in it for my birthday when I was 8 so I should sent her a card now. Let me again quote that ever so useful Yiddish phrase. "Oy"

The eleventh pain at Christmas is work. No body wants to be here and it shows, nuff said.

The twelfth pain of Christmas is that football is almost over. A myriad of useless bowl games and a few lame NFL games from now its all over and the sports world goes blank for months. The best part is after its all over I still wont know who the best team in college football is. I am going to just decide now and get over it. Go Bucks.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a speedy recovery.

Christmas with the Wilsons

My heart doth swell

at that sweet little voice

a message from Gracie

may we all now rejoice

from China with love

this message is true

from the mouths of babes

to the spirit in you.

Bless you all on the Christmas Season.

May God cover you and keep you all of your days. May you rejoice in the birth of our Saviour and the coming of the King of Kings. May your hearts be warm and your spirit joyful in this coming new year. In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

and

Amen.

Christmas with Mike.

Thanks Mike.

I love that he spent his money to do this and if the others follow, which they might, I know who set the standard.

I believe he is being sincere. If he is fooling me, thats okay too.

Cheer?

The current climate of Christianity is full of argument. Do we ban and boycott Harry Potter. They promote witchcraft and the gay lifestyle so we should ban the movies and boycott the outlets and burn the books. We have Santa coming out against the newest abomination called "the golden compass" We must not let the children learn to kill god, we are doing well enough killing Gods Will on our own. Halloween is another "issue". The conservative Christians come up with "fall festivals" and "harvest parties" to avoid some Halloween stuff, really Conservatives keep their kids away from it all together and go do something else instead. Santa is even an issue, "lets put Christ back in Christmas" ( I should credit my friend Amy www.atypicalgirl.wordpress.com/ with the inspiration on this as well as the Todds' "extremely hot wife" Kim www.mrssnuffy.blogspot.com/ , his words just too keep myself out of trouble. You can read their more sincere commentaries on the issues of "The Golden Compass" and "Harry Potter" on their blogs, they are well done I might add) Now, I bring forth a different issue, I think as Christians we need to focus on the truly evil things in the world, we need to band together and ban Cheerleaders.
Yes that's right, cheerleaders are the creation of the devil himself and we need to gather ourselves and stomp out this abomination. They do nothing but cause havoc and serve no real purpose except to assist in total economic collapse of our nation, the moral bankruptcy of our youth, and the imprisonment of our young adult. Yes, cheerleaders are going to be the cause of destruction of life as we know it. Why? you might ask. Well think about it, what exactly do cheerleaders do? Well, by definition, they lead cheers. Do we really 'cheer' at sporting events? I think not, we root for our team, we woot for good plays, but 'cheering' is only ever done by the cheerleaders. So, I submit they have no purpose because they have no followers right? Now, we have established with some certainty I believe that since we dont sit in the stands and 'cheer' go team go that we are not following their lead. Now, some may say, but we chant things like "de-fence" but we do not follow or require cheerleaders to do that. The chants are always prompted by that really drunk guy in the front row who won his ticket to the game by being the 16th caller on some pop radio station game. Its his job and he knows it, he does it well. So, cheerleaders have no purpose, but then why are they still around? Its an evil conspiracy I tell you and we need to end it now.

How can you not like cheerleaders? They are so cute and perky and bouncy. They are being used to destroy us all. The most deceptive part of it is that even they are not aware of their roll in the path to oblivion. Did you know the most common sport related injury is to cheerleaders? Think about it, they are always jumping and flying around and twisting up those frail little bodies of theirs. They get nailed on the sidelines by football and basketball players alike, but rarely to you ever see a game stop to haul one of them off, they are just drug by their perfect hair under the stands someplace never to be seen again. Eeeery isn't it.

So, how are they destroying the world. First off, they are skewing the self perception of young and old women alike all over the country. Real people don't look and act like that. I have heard women say, "look at that fat roll hangin out on her, she doesn't need to be out there." She weighs in at a whopping 115 lbs. people, that's not a fat roll, those darn spanky pants are just too tight. People in this country think cheerleaders are beautiful and want to emulate them. They are not real, its an evil demonic rues. We must destroy them.

Next, moral depravity is their greatest weapon. Nobody pays any attention to cheerleaders during the game, we came to see the game remember. However, life size posters, Internet web sites, commercial endorsements all selling what, sex of course. What does a scantilly clad young lady with her stuff all hangin out go to do with sports? Nuthin. It is there just to tantalize and titillate. It is there to lower the moral standards of America and send us down the long spiral to depravity and doom. Young men who cant help themselves chase after these young ladies and end up in prison because of things such as these.

Stop the madness.

Stop hurting the young girls.

Stop torturing the young boys.

I suggest a boycott of all sporting events with cheerleaders. Dont buy their posters, dont visit their websites, and when they come out at halftime, stand up and turn around. Together we can make a difference.

Destroy the cheerleaders, save the world.

Service

For those of you who do not know, I work in what is called a job shop, machine shop. I am the foreman, machinist, shipping receiving, expediting, purchasing, inspecting, customer relations, engineering and administrating guy. We are a small shop with one part time engineer, 6 machinists, one truck driver and one owner who does some drawing, some sales, and a lot of really good PR. Job shop means we don’t have a product line, we just make parts to fix, repair, upgrade or modernize other peoples equipment. We do some engineering design work to try and solve other people’s production or safety issues. You break it, we make it sort of thing. People use our services because the machines they use to make whatever it is they make, (hot dogs, playing cards, drugs, steel, soap etc.) are either made by companies who longer exist or by over seas companies who take weeks and months to send replacement parts that broke. That is the issue at hand. Simply stated, nothing is made here anymore and I view this as a problem. As I sit here thinking about this issue I decided to take a look around my desk. My monitor was made in Japan, my mouse was from China, my keyboard-Canada (Oh Canada, my home and native land……………..sorry) My pencil sharpener, Taiwan. The desk itself, you guessed it, China. The notebook on my desk, India. The speakers on the computer are China as well. The taps on my desk say Britain, and the end mills say Korea. The Chrysler I drove to work this morning was assembled in Canada. I can find literally nothing nearby me that says made in America on it. We manufactured a shaft for Siemens last week that required us to send Certification of material type with the part. When I received these documents concerning the large piece of steel I had just purchased from a local steel distributor, it listed the location of origin as China. Now, in the global economy its not a problem to find things made from all over the world, but, I cant find anything that we made here. Well, I am told that this is because we have switched over to a service and information economy and have left the industrial age behind. I think this is dangerous for several reasons, not the least of which is that we totally stink at these things. I spent an hour this very morning trying to get my Windows XP to stop crashing and just open up. If I had not been able to fix the issue myself I would have had to call Microsoft technical support and hope for a little service. This brings me, finally, to the subject at hand. By and large as a sum total, we stink at service. Everyone who is in the service industry thinks they personally are doing a fine job, but usually this is not at all the case. Let me run some things past you, lets call them rules for good or at least adequate service.
If you have hours of 9 to 9 posted on your front door that means you are open from 9 until 9 at a minimum. This does not mean you unlock the front door after a donut and cigarette at around 9:15. This also does not mean you stand just behind the door and stare at me for 3 minutes until your watch says its 9 and then open the door. It also does not mean you lock up and stop answering the phone at 10 til 9. If you are there, answer the phone, you might make a sale or do some business and that is why your there in the first place, just in case you forgot.

Grasp and understand the term “rush” It is that temporary influx of people that lasts briefly. Examples, rush hour, dinner rush, pay day rush. This is what happens when a lot of people try to accomplish a logical task in a logical time frame. It happens at restaurants, banks, grocery stores etc. The thing that needs observed is that a rush is temporary and will only last a little while. So, having said all that, here are a couple of do nots and I don’t cares. Do not close you teller window with 30 people in line because its you break time, you don’t need that donut anyway. Do not close your check out lane because you have already put in your 4 hours and its time to go, if the boss isn’t in your kitchen closing the drawer for you, stay put, if the boss is there then we customers can shout them down and make them run the register. Restaraunts, if its dinner rush or lunch rush, I don’t care if you need to go to the bath room, tough it out. Most of us only have 30 minutes for lunch and you should have taken care of that before now. Lunch rush is always going to be, well, at lunch time. Pee before 11 and after 1, otherwise tie it in a knot or cork it off, I need my food.
Speaking of food, rule number 3, if you wont eat it, don’t give it to me. I don’t like tomato cores or pickle butt stems on my burger. Fries may be crispy, not crunchy, if I want crunchy potatoes I will eat chips. Ketchup and mustard are to be inside the bun, not on it. Cold food should be cold and hot food should be hot, duh. I don’t want warm cole slaw and cold bar b que, you wont eat it, don’t give it to me. This one may not be as obvious, if its ugly, do it over. Ugly constitutes many different sins. Messy, burnt, too small, fell apart, etc.
At a sit down dinner, any level of sit down dinner, you have a fixed allotment of real estate to work with. The table only holds so much, so, believe it or not as my so called server, its your job to remove the stuff I don’t need anymore. You know, those empty glasses, those bread plates, the menus even when appropriate. If you do not, I do have recourse however. I can pile up all the plates and stand at the end of the table until you show up, if you do not show before my feet get tired I will simply set them back down, on the floor of course.

Rule number 5, the “service counter”. If you work retail and work behind the service counter, please at least acknowledge that I am there. I have been to many a service counter with people doing anything but talking to the people in line, or better yet, talking to me when I am the only one there. It is especially unforgivable to make eye contact with me and still not do anything or just keep chatting with other “service providers” It not my job they may think or maybe they just want to finish what they are doing or not doing before talking with me, fine, but say something, “I’ll be right there, be right with you, coming as soon as I finish scrapping fungus out from under my nails”, something, anything. To just look at me and keep going is to say to me, “just stand there dork boy, I might get to you and I might not but you’re a waste anyway”

Grumpy people, stay home. If you cannot manage a smile or at least a pleasant demeanor, don’t deal with the public because what ever you might be doing ceased to be called service. I know you need to be paid to do this because you wouldn’t be doing it otherwise, but without me spending my money, no body would be paying you, understand the relationship? I don’t require you to be my friend, my buddy, or flirt like you want to be my lover, but, being friendly is certainly not asking too much, and honestly a little flirty is even okay as long as its an obviously harmless flirt. Its like me flirting with teens and old ladies, its obvious the middle aged homely fat man is just being friendly. (keep in mind, flirty and suggestive are too terribly different things)

(And I will call you my squishy and you shall be my squishy, ouch, bad squishy, bad squishy) Okay, if you have a heavy accent of any kind and you have difficulty speaking or understanding English, do not work in a call center of any kind. It is not that much of a stretch I don’t think. If your job is to talk to me and convey information to me, I need to understand you and you need to understand me. Nuf said.


If I say no thank you to what your hockin, stop. I don’t want it, I don’t need it and I will not be changing my mind. This applies to warranties, the newest and latest whatever and the upgrade that upgrades what shouldn’t have needed upgraded.

Rule number 9, appointments. If I have an appointment with you for a certain time, it means that time. 5 oclock is just that, not the next convenient opening after that. Telling me that you will be arriving between 9 and noon is not an appointment either. If you tell me 9 to noon I want a call that narrows that down as soon as it is obvious to you, particularly if your going to be late.

And the last rule on the top ten list of poor service practice is for employers. If its broke, fix it, if its not broke, don’t fix it, and the most important one,


“you cant fix STUPID”

Now, lets all have a really nice day, and I am smiling politely when I say that.

things kids say.

Well, it has been a long and tough weekend. We spent all day Saturday at a new members class for a Lutheran Church and right now I am concerned about things but that's a different blog. During the class Angie got a call from her sister saying her Granny was not doing well at all, gangrene has set it. Granny is 86 years old and not up to a major infection like this. I may speak more on this later, but for now I want to provide an update on Gracie. For the uninformed Gracie is my 4 year old daughter. She is adopted from China and the highlight of most of my days. She has a certain wit about her that is priceless. I understand that all toddlers live life through their limited understanding of things but this has been a week of note on things kids say. Below you will find comments about panties, poop, Grannies toes and last but not least, raisins.
First off, earlier my wife had taken Gracie on one of her favorite adventures, shopping. Angie needed to go buy Christmas presents for dad. I got (yes I already know) a shop vac for the mancave and fireplace, a couple pair of PJ's and a couple pair of boxer shorts. Angie calls me from the store to ask a question about something and while talking to daddy on the phone I hear Gracie say, in a loud voice of course, "and we got new panties for daddy, with Grinch on them" Priceless I am sure for all those who were near enough to catch that one, new panties for daddy. HMM.
Next we come to Saturday night, Gracie has been at the neighbors all day and thus has had no nap and too much sugar. She goes off to bed with some protest but gets us a while later to go to the bathroom. She is in there quite some time before the festival starts. We are downstairs and can hear her talking to herself, not that unusual but its longer than normal and getting louder so we turn down the tv to listen.

"get out, get out, get out" (some tears and crying here)
"Gracie, whats wrong"
"poop wont get out of my butt, it wants to stay there forever"
"Gracie, can one of us help you?"
"Nooooooo, I sit on toilet forever, I stay for long time, it takes a long time"
(more tears, more crying, mom goes upstairs)
"no, no , no, NNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHooooooo. I don't wont medicine, my butt doesn't like medicine. Poop is stuck in my butt and wont come out"
"Gracie, there is nothing there, does your belly hurt?"
"no, poop is stuck in my butt, my butt hurts"
"Gracie, let me clean your but and you can go back to bed and try again later"
(none human sounds pierce the night sky as this evil practice of butt cleansing takes place)
Gracie goes back to bed, sort of.
A short while later, back on the throne she goes.
(cries and tears from upstairs)
"Gracie, whats wrong?"
"poop wont get out, my legs hurt from sitting here too long. It takes a long time"
Repeat process with dad taking his turn, except the butt cleaning part. Gracie goes back to bed, dad goes to bed, mom goes back downstairs, process starts all over again. It is now something like 1AM. Gracie goes downstairs to cuddle mommy on the couch and dad goes back to bed, again. Mommy and Gracie come to bed, who knows what time at this point, but we are far from done with this little adventure. Gracie gets out of bed and goes back to bathroom, fit ensues again. Dad's turn again. This time I sit on her little stool and talk with her a while, convince her to stand up and walk towards me. I then take this opportunity to flop her over my knees with her butt in the air. I discover a really really hard little turd ball the size............... and consistency.......... of a jaw breaker, wedged half in half out. I grasp a piece of toilet paper and grasp hold of the offending turd and with no effort at all the turn jumps right out and lands on my big toe. Nice. Now I have her here so I might as well wipe the butt for her, but not gonna happen. Those little cheeks slammed closed tighter than Ebenezer's wallet on Christmas day. Gracie managed to wipe her own butt, yet it was not time to come back to bed yet. She needed to wash her hands, change her clothes, and brush her teeth. People, its almost dawn now and she wants to disinfect, sanitize, and brush. I really am raising a girl. As for me, wipe off the toe, flush the turn, rinse off the hands and I am back asleep. Oh, but the sleep wont last for long, back to the bathroom she goes, mommas turn. Momma moves slow at this time of the morning so it takes her a while to reach the local center of constipation crisis management. Once reaching it she is greeted with, "the poop left my butt, all by itself, I don't need your help" Yeah, crisis over. We didn't make church this morning, too tired. We did make it to see Granny in the hospital. We had to explain why the toes looked like that. Gracie wanted to know, well, everything. We explained that the doctor was going to help her and then put a bandage on it so it could heal. Gracie just turned around and walked towards the door while saying "I dont think I need to see that" again, priceless.
But, we are not done yet. I have saved the best for last. We had to stop buy the store and buy some groceries for tonight. We got potatoes, juice, toilet paper (seems we ran through some) and raisins. Raisins are not something we normally would have in the house, but for some reason this just sounds like a good idea. Gracie, on the other hand, asks me the question,"why do we need raisins" my answer was honest if not well thought out, "Gracie, they will make your butt not hurt anymore"
Gracie" I don't want raisins in my butt, don't put raisins in my butt."
Daddy" they will make your butt not hurt baby"
Gracie : I......... dont.........want..........raisens........in.......my.....butt"
Daddy," Okay honey, but they will make it feel better" (we have now caught up to momma and momma hears this for the first time)
Gracie " But I don't want raisins in my butt, don't put raisins in my butt please don't do it, I don't want raisins in my butt"
Daddy" okay I wont, but it would.............."
Gracie, "no,no,no I don't want raisins in my butt.... are you teasing me?"
Daddy, "no, raisins.....
Momma," stop it........ both of you"

Okay, so maybe that was evil but it was fun. The public at large seemed to enjoy it, even if they couldn't grasp it in its entirety.

Thus ends the update on Gracie.

Oh Fernando.

I just love saying the name, Fernando, Fernando, Fernando. I say it over and over again with a terrible accent that is probably not even geographically accurate. Fernando Servanti is the name. As was discussed in my post "Nissan Calling" Fernando assured me he would take care of the problem and call me back. He told me he didn't think it was possible to send me a letter stating the problem was solved but he would address it and get back to me, give him until Monday he said. I have been brimming with confidence and counting every breath until I get to speak with my main man Fernando again. I just kn0w he has everything settled, a great big fat apology for me, and a discount on my next Nissan lease or purchase. I am all giddy just thinking about the marvelous customer service Fernando is going to bestow upon me to keep me happy and keep me buying Nissan's. I know in this tough market he will bend over backwards to make sure I am satisfied to the best of his ability. He is in a different time zone, an hour behind at least to I shouldn't expect his call too early, but I know he will take care of it first thing Monday morning.

"One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small................."

"Follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road, follow follow follow follow.............."

Well noon on Monday comes and goes and would you believe it, Fernando still has not called me. I don't want to butt line into all the people he is rendering wonderful customer service to but I think maybe I should just go ahead and call him. He might appreciate the initiative and it might keep him from having to look back up my phone number that I am sure is posted someplace important on his desk.

"Good day to you so nice of you to notice me, looks like rain wait and see, likely rain all over me, guess that's just the way that it has to be here in my glooooomy place. "

"Hello this is Fernando Servanti at Nissan customer service, I am not available right now but if you leave you name and account number I will return your call"

Not available Fernando, not even for me? Hmm, you must be really busy making people smile right now. Actually, the first thing I noticed was that the end of your message needs a little freshening up. "I will return your call" is just not all that refreshing. Maybe you should say "have a nice day" or maybe you should say "thank you" maybe you could say "as soon as possible" you could even tell me to kiss your arse but saying you will return my call, when you work in a call center is a bit on the skimpy side my brother. Well, maybe he works an odd shift or something, I will wait a while longer and call again. I am sure he will answer the phone this time.

"I don't mean to toot my own horn but I am a rather excellent surgeon. I might be able to help you with that hump."

"what hump?"

Well its well into the day now and I sigh strongly and call my close friend Fernando one more time. I receive the same lame voice mail message and leave another message, again ending with ,"I look forward to hearing from you, have a nice day" Any sweeter and I would be a southern bell.

"Just a few more days fo to tote the weary load."

"As God as my witness, I will never go hungry again" (Insert over dramatic music here, in Technicolor of course)

And the day drags on and on and on with mysteriously no Fernando. Should I call the Texas State Troopers and have them start looking for him, surely his momma has reported him as a missing person by now, its been all day. Maybe I should call Chuck Norris and put him on the case. Nah, he is busy working with my man Huckabee right now, the Rangers will have to look for him own their own. I call one last time, still gracious, still full of glee and hope and I still get the same lame recording. I leave another nice message and inform him that I will be calling again tomorrow. My plan is to stay in his kitchen until this is resolved. I will slowly begin to eat his voice mail box until I get him.

"I need more power Scottie"
"Im gibbin it all she got capttum, I dont know what holden her together"

Tuesday has arrived, my patience has departed. Nine AM, call number one, same result. Call number two eleven AM same result. Call number three, lunch time.

Phone doesn't ring, at all.

"Fernando"

(nice phone manners, I am bursting with joy it is the one and only the infamous, Fernando)

"Well, good day Fernando, this is Chris calling from Cincinnati to see if you have resolved our issue yet"

"Yes"

"Yes?"

"Yes, could I have your SS number"

(you should have me on a post it note on your forehead right now, but if I am not the most important thing in your world right now I guess I can play along)

"blah blah blah"

"Yes"

"Yes?"

"Yes, I have an email from our taxation department they say the property tax has been remitted from your bill, but as for the letter, they are less than receptive"

(less than receptive huh, maybe less should be less receptive of my payments, or less respective of my business, or less respective of my referrals)

"it has been removed"

"Yes, it will no longer appear on your statement"

"Fernando, if its on my next statement, you know I will be calling you again"

"Yes, I know"

Well thus ends the saga of Fernando, for now. I have the utmost confidence in the fact that Fernando has indeed taken care of the issue with the valiant effort of sending an email. One little email from the powerful desk of Fernando will have resolved what a fleet of other call center employees could not muster. I have faith in my man Fernando. I did forget to mention to him that his voice mail message was lame and bordering on apathetic, but I will save that for next time because I have this prophetic feeling that the paths of Fernando the powerful and myself have not crossed for the last time. And if they have, and I am truly done with Fernando, I will call him one last time to wish him a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.

"Merry Christmas, every one"

BCS Championship game

Tradition

Opponent

Fear the Vest

Januarary 7th

New Orleans

"This one is for all the cookies"

Go Bucks!!!!!!!!!

O

H

I

O

Nissan Calling

Warning, incoherent rant to follow.

I received a call, at work, today from a call center in Texas about my Nissan lease of a Quest. The caller wanted to know why I was behind in my payments and if I was going to pay them soon. At first I just figured this was a slightly impatient issue because I made the payment about a week late, but then the lady informed me that I was 700+ dollars behind. I know this is not the case and called up my online bank account to check that I was correct and I am. While informing her of this she said my monthly payment was 10 days late and my property tax was long overdue. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, this is not going to be pleasant. First, let me stop here to point out two things, one, we don't pay property tax on vehicles in Ohio, second, this person is apparently from India and her accent is extremely thick so I am having difficulty understanding her and she is struggling to understand a somewhat irritated me at this point. I now ask her to transfer me to a supervisor. I will attempt to relive the conversation from here and I shall name her my "squishy" from this point on.

"Squishy": May I inquire as to why you wish to speak with them?

Me : Yes ma'am, I have called Nissan 4 times already to discuss this problem. Ohio doesn't charge property tax on vehicles, this is an error. Every time I call they tell me it will be corrected. The last time I called was because I was preparing to buy a house and I didn't want something negative showing up on my credit rating, they assured me the problem was taken care of and it wouldn't be an issue. It obviously is still an issue, and besides, I don't mean to offend you but I am having great difficulty in understanding you.

"Squishy": you don't feel your behind on your payments?

Me: no, at least not that much.

"Squishy": Hold please and I will look into it for you.

Me: okay.

9 minutes later I am still on hold, at work, and am expecting a different voice to return to the phone, but oh no, back comes "Squishy"

"Squishy": Sir, are you still there?

Me: yes ma'am.

"Squishy": You are correct, Ohio doesn't charge property tax on vehicles, but we are not the ones charging you the tax.

(Thank you Miss-us Obvious, now scrub some stupid off and pay attention)

Me: fine, but I don't care who is charging me, I don't owe it and I am not paying it, it needs removed from my bill.

(now would be good)

"Squishy": We cant do that because we are not the ones charging you. The charge dates all the way back to November 2006.

(maybe she is starting to grasp it, nah)

Me: I realize that, I have called you 4 times concerning this and have been told it was an error and would be taken care of, its not my error, and I am not paying the bill.

"Squishy": I don't know when you moved, but when you moved from Dublin Connecticut to Ohio the bill came to Ohio.

(the only thing I even know about Connecticut is that they have Husky women)

Me: Connecticut? I have never lived in Connecticut, I have never even been to Connecticut. I lived on Dublin Court in Cincinnati Ohio, that's Court not Connecticut. Ct. not CT. This needs to be removed.

"Squishy": You must take care of this with them.

(And I will call you my squishy and you will be my squishy, zap, ouch, you must be kidding)

Me: OH no, not, nyet, uh-uh, ain't happenen, neeehw neeehw.

"Squishy": You must settle before the end of your lease.

(Abby something, Abby Normal)

Me: Okay, I am having great difficulty understanding you and your not understanding me at all, I need to speak wi.................

(she just interupted me, anybody got a spoon, I need to pluck out my eyes now)

"Squishy": You ............... Need.............to..............take................care................of ..............this...............before.................the .................end....................of .................your..................lease

(she's talking slow 'cause I cant hear fast.)

Me: I now have three reasons I need to speak to you supervisor, would you connect me please.

"Squishy" : (sigh) hold.

The fact that she started speaking slow to me has my blood boiling at this point. Sweetheart, talking slower wont help anything, speaking clear discernible English would help. I don't begrudge immigrants anything, she is here, she is working, God bless America, but why do we put English as a second language people in a call center to call people about bad debts etc who are barely intelligible by the general public at large? I am holding long enough to find grace and regain some sense of moral balance before someone else picks up the line.

Fernando: (not kidding this time) Hello, this is Fernando, how are you.

Me: Fine, how are you doing today.

(like I care at this point, oops, struggle for grace, struggle for grace)

Click, he is gone, hung up on me. Hmm, now its time to phone number scramble, but wait the phone rang, its Fernando.

Fernando: Sorry, we were disconnected, how may I help you.

(little accident I am sure)

Me: ( I run through the whole story again, including the fact that "Squishy" is telling me I need to fix it)

Fernando: I see your concern

(Oh happy day, he sees my concern, I wonder if he can see my ears are bright red and my pulse is higher than Pete Rose's gambling debt.)

Fernando: I will look into it and resolve this error for you.

(Just a minute home slice, aint fallin for that line again.)

Me: hold on a sec there boss. No offense, but I have heard that before, repetitively. I need something more from you this time. I want a letter stating that the charge has been removed and why it took a whole year to resolve the issue. I also want an email stating when this letter was mailed so I have some recourse if it magically doesn't show up

Fernando: I don't think a letter such as this is possible.

(Not possible, not possible, you want me to type it for you nit wit. Do I need to send you a box of crayola, big box with 16 new colors maybe and you can jot down a few small words that even "Squishy" can get her paws around. Something like, sorry we are lame and we fixed it now. Eliminating world hunger is not possible, finding a respectable lawyer is not possible, regaining your virginity is not possible, writing me a letter is within you grasp I would think)

Me: well I need something, like I said, your not the first guy to the party, I have heard this all before, but I never can get back to the same person so it always starts from scratch. I am always told it will be taken care of, its not. I believe you will try, but what happened to the other folks who tried? Something happens once I am off the phone, I don't know what and cant find out because there is no recourse.

Fernando : How about I give you my direct line to here in Irving Texas.

Me: now that's progress, give it to me Fernando.

Fernando: blah blah blah ext. blah Give me till Monday and I will fix this for you.

Me: Okay, if I don't hear from you, I will call you Monday, will Fernando answer the phone?

Fernando: yes

Me: wonderful, then I will speak with you Monday, and if need be Tuesday, and if need be Wednesday, and I will keep calling you until we have resolution of the issue, this way we both know we will git-er-done.

Fernando: (muffled giggle) yes we will.

Me: you have a good day Fernando

Fernando: you as well.

Upon conclusion of this waste of 45 minutes work time, my engineer smiles and says when I call Monday Fernando will have never existed and Jose Juan Lopez will answer the phone.

Let me state again, I love immigrants, I adopted one after all. Fernando spoke clearly and as of now I have no reason to doubt that he will git-er-done. "Squishy" on the other hand was not prepared for her job and not capable of doing it. Talking slow because I cant hear fast is not going to do anything but cause me to seize up like a nun in a Turkish bath house.

and now I wait till Monday, I will keep you all abreast of the situation of "Squishy", Fernando, and the Nissan Quest.

Mike Huckabee.

After watching the latest debate last night I am now, more than ever, a Huckabee fan. I have been disappointed and disillusioned with what the republicans have offered up for quite some time now. I can say that Mike will get my primary vote and I hope to vote for him on election day. Is he perfect, no, is he ideologically in line with me, not entirely, is he the best man for the job, probably not. He is however the best running for the job and I am going to comment now as to why. Mike is a man of faith and I believe if he wins its because God put him there to do something. If God puts him there, I believe he will listen to the still small voice and behave as a Godly man. I post this short entry today with a link to his blog.

http://www.mikehuckabee.com/


http://www.mikehuckabee.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blogs.Comment&Blog_id=443#SubmitAComment

The second link is about faith.

I pray, Gods will be done,

Amen

Politics

Okay, time to share my views. Time to save the world. Below you will find my political opinions, uncensored. As always I welcome any comments but I do ask that you keep them clean. I do not wish to offend but odds are I will. I am going to state my opinions about many different political topics and even make some suggestions on how it should be. We can call this the world according to me.

First off, as I sit her playing "play doh" with my adopted daughter, the thing most on top of my mind is abortion. So if you don't want to hear this then stick you fingers in your eyes and say la la la la la la la so you cant hear me. There are no circumstances in which abortion is acceptable. None. Plain and simple, none. For the ladies, yes its your body, but abortion is not a choice. You made a choice that caused the pregnancy, that was the choice, abortion is not an acceptable option. But, but , but what about rape, incest, life of the mother at stake. These rarer occurrences may be unfortunate, but not the problem of the life that has been created. Life is life, it begins at fertilization, end of story. I believe Rowe v Wade is a farce and should be overturned. I do not hold for a minute that it will ever happen, but it should. I also would like to point out that I am not a hater, I bear no malice towards those who differ with my opinion, I know the Lord will forgive those who ask Him and who I am to be angry with those whom He is not angry with. This is my opinion.

Next, Iraq. Did we need to go. Yes. Did we do something necessary, Yes. Are we done, Yes. We should have been done by now, but it is time to leave. They have a government, they have resources, its time for us to go. I believe we should begin a phased pull out of our troops with a phased input of Nato or UN troops in the Baghdad area. We should leave and only stay as long as it takes to teach the peace keepers in blue helmets to take over Baghdad security. We should then take about 40% of those troops right over into Afghanistan. We should station most of them on the Pakistan border to work on the Taliban and look for Osama. The rest can set up a series of training camps along the Iran border. Just a little something so they know we are keeping our eyes on them.

Next, Heath care. Its broken and getting more broken. We have the most talented people, the greatest technology and most applicable resources, but the system is broken. What is broken is the system of money interchange. Who pays for what and what does it cost. I hate to say this but this is one of only a handful of industries that needs regulated and the first regulation lands with the insurance companies. Plain and simple supply and demand economic theory. Insurance companies receive this mandate. Heath insurance companies may only sell three polices, good, better, best. The price for the policies are x,y,z. Companies cannot deny anyone the good policy. Prices are not attached to age, pre existing condition, or anything else. This will force the insurance companies to compete on a national level to insure as many people as possible because their only hope for profit at that point is in large quantities of people. The government plays no part in paying for anything and the price of the good policy would be set low enough that almost anyone can afford it. Does this net in everyone like a socialized medicine program, no it doesn't, but it doesn't come with the baggage of government run health care. Now, for the doctors, nurses, and hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies. Lets hit big Pharm first. Under no circumstances can you publicly advertise your product if a prescription is required. Your doctor decides what medicine is applicable to your aliment, not the advertising industry or the pharmaceutical companies. Second, alter the patent laws so they don't need to price gouge for the first few years before others are allowed to make the product. They way the system works now, the new drugs are protected for a few years to allow the company to recoup their research investment before competition is allowed. Alter this practice by allowing other companies to buy in as opposed to waiting for the protection to expire. Allow the inventor of the drug to keep the protection until competitors buy in and let the researchers recoup their fund like this instead. If a drug is deemed life saving or significantly life altering, then require the pharm company to donate some percentage of the drug to hospitals for use. A lot of them do this anyway, but it should be a requirement. Next, medical staff. There needs to be some controls on the price of malpractice insurance, as well as a cap on the rewards. $5 million bucks isnt going to bring Aunt Bunny back because the doctor was a dork. The dork in question should have to pay for expenses incurred due to his dorkiness and no more, but then he should be banned from practice if it was truly negligent. This will lower the cost of things, drugs, doctors, hospitals,etc.

Next we have the welfare system. I believe in extensive unemployment pay. I dont believe in welfare. I think the FMLA should apply to all people who had a job and unemployment should kick in after the 12 weeks leave, even if you can go back to the job eventually. I don't believe in the welfare system. Feeding the poor and taking care of the unfortunate is the job of the church and other private organizations, not the government.

Next we have immigration. The system is broken, pitch the whole stinkin thing out the door. If you commit a crime and your here illegally you should be airdropped over the capital city of your homeland by military plane. Parachute provided of course. Okay, that's a bit sarcastic, but you go and go now. If you have not committed a crime then we have a more difficult story. Let me take this one step at a time. First, build the wall. Build a militarized zone complete with a dead zone. Next, ask all people who are here illegally, or here legally on visa, or are here in the system trying to acquire citizenship to report to there nearest federal building. Have one big swearing in party and give them amnesty, a social security number, and start the taxation processes immediately. Lastly, fire everyone who worked for immigration and start the whole thing over with a more streamlined and efficient system that might work well enough to prevent this ever happening again. I hate to give the lawbreakers amnesty, but it will end the problem as long as you have already severed the flow of more.

We must have an energy policy. We must get over our foreign oil dependence. Drill in Anwar or anyplace else we need to. Incentivize the hybrid, hydrogen, and biofuel industries. Force big oil to co-operate, but bio fuels in their stations, put hydrogen stations along the highways. Prop up the industries that are trying to emerge long enough for them to get a foot hold. Help the solar power companies and wind power producers make their products viable. Build new nuclear reactors for energy. Explain to the green folks, not in my back yard folks, and others that we will have less pollution, longer global lifespans, and more cash if we get away from a petroleum based economy. We can turn the corner in less than a decade if we focus all of our resources to this end.

A few random thoughts. Increases in military spending are not always bad. Supply side economics is not voodoo. Lawyers should not be allowed to become elected officials and politics should not be a career. Campaigns should not cost money, advertising, airtime, and all other needed things to run a campaign should be donated by the corporations equally to all parties. Real people should run Washington and serving your country is a privilege, not a job. I want to see more CEO's in Washington and less lawyers. The president, and senate and house should all have degrees from state schools and tech schools, not Harvard Law.

Well, now I will just sit back and watch the sitemeter to see how many hits I get from Washington.

Thanksgiving weekend

This time of year is a love/hate season for me. I find the whole thing a little too trite and stress filled. This year has been a classic example of the roller coaster ride that is the holiday season. Some of this long weekend has been wonderful, some of it has been just stressful, a lot of it has just been plain funny.

So lets start with the beginning of the Holiday, Thanksgiving day. On this day we always travel to my in laws. They live in Frankfort which is about a 2 hour trip for us. Gracie is a great traveller so a couple hours is a piece of cake. My sister in law, Carol, does the whole thing up, turkey, ham, taters, dressing,veggies, salads, gravy, deviled eggs, macaroni n cheese, sweet tea, the whole deal including two home made desserts. It was a grand spread as it always is. I will of course try to one up her when she comes north to our house for Christmas. Carol is newly married so there were a few of the recent additions to the in law line up this year. I wont go into details but this is a source of stress. I just kept saying to myself, God forgave me of all that I have done and this is the place I need to show grace. I did, I will continue to do so, but its whats right, not whats natural.

On the way home is where the real fun part starts. We got to stop by and pick up Carly. Carly is the coolest 15 year olds on the planet. She is one of the PK's and I just love Carly. She is goofy as all get out, her energy level runs astronomically high until she crash lands, usually suddenly, she is moody as can be and often a very opinionated a loudly passionate teen with no sense of boundaries. I love her honesty. She respects you greatly if you respect her. The thing I love the most about Carly is the way she treats boogs. (Gracie). They play together at a frightening pace. Sometimes Carly is running loose acting 4 and the next thing I know Gracie is running loose acting like a teenager. They were upstairs playing makeup and they were both giggling constantly. After a few hours they are both to exhausted to function. Carly is the only person I know of who can were Gracie down all by herself.

Carly spent the night Thursday night so we could go do Black Friday shopping and hit the toy store without an ankle biter in tow. Black Friday at Kenwood Mall is no place for a kid, its not fit for man nor beast for that matter. Its the epitome of commercialism con wrong to be honest and we were willingly diving in the middle of it. We spent several hours chopping through the crowds with machetes and next time I think I will rent football pads from a sporting goods store before I attempt this again. You have to have the vision of Barry Sanders to make it in and out of this kind of crowd. We got 95% of all of our shopping done in one day, with spending only about 80% of what it would cost if done by safer means, so at least there was some payoff to the madness.

Angie and I had a blast to be honest about it. We never leave the house without Grace. This is the 6Th time ever and the 1st time it was an all day event, but we knew she was with Carly and wouldn't even notice how long we were gone. That night I got the pleasure of taking all three of them out to dinner at Red Robin. A unanimous favorite of the ladies. I just felt tremendously blessed to be taking out three such beautiful women. My wife, my daughter and my favorite "girl friend" (please don't misread anything inappropriate into that, Carly is my "girlfriend" by nickname because she is a young girl her and her entire family are my family by default. The other nickname used by Angie and myself for Carly is "sistafriend" because sometimes we take on the roll of big sister or big brother to her when she needs to talk) Anyway, I felt honored to be in their presents that night.

Next comes the most detested part of the season. We always decorate for Christmas on Black Friday weekend. I lug the stuff up and Angie decorates the house. I am charged with decorating the outside. I have become convinced of one thing over the last several years. The devil invented Christmas lights. After an hour or two of the neighbor trying to help me, the neighbor and my wife laughing at me, a few near death experiences, and a whole bunch of wasted money, I was done. Then we have the obligatory approval of the lights which of course means failure by husband and I get to redo at least half of what I had already done that I didn't want to do the first time. I don't like roofs, I cant stand ladders, but I detest lights. UHHGGGGGGGGG.

Then we have my parents over for a fried chicken dinner. They brought Gracie her very own little girl sized Christmas Tree for her room. Its pink with purple balls, little white snow flakes, and little white icicles. Let that sink in for a minute. The tree is pink. Yes pink. Brightly lit with white lights and pink. Even the cord that plugs the thing in is pink. Gracie feels so special because she has her very own special tree. Her very own pink tree. I don't know what else I can say other than its pink.

Why addendum.

It was brought to my attention that I forgot a reason I like to blog. (thanks Jen) I am competing with my wife, ***blink, blink***, Angie for hits. I have gained a much higher quantity of hits, but hers are much more diverse and widespread. She has many more countries and several more states than I do.

I also forgot that one of the other primary reasons for my blogging is to promote adoption. Many of my posts reference the adoption of my daughter from China. I want to take a moment to talk about adoption.

When we started the process of international adoption the first thing many people would ask us was, "why not a child from here?" From some people this question was not offensive. One of our best friends, Diana, was adopted. Another one of our fiends, Steve, was also adopted. From them and a few others this was an acceptable question, but from others it was delivered with an acidic tone that required struggling for grace in order to answer calmly. The answer, or should I say answers, vary wildly. First off is scripture, we are told to take care of the widows and orphans. No where in the scripture does it say to take care of orphans that look like you and live near you. Secondly, the domestic adoptions have garnered a bad reputation for taking a long time without giving good reasons, and not always being final when you thought they were final. My wifes cousin adopted and had her daughter for 10 months and then the courts came and took her away. This is not something we wanted to risk trying to survive. Thirdly, we just wanted to do something about the situation in China. Just a bit of background, due to cultural influences and government regulations, there is a huge need for people to adopt girls from China. China is a wonderful place and by and large the people there understood why we were there and although they were sad for the need of us to come, they were glad that we were doing this and appreciated our presence. As a general cultural norm, adoption is not overly common in the orient.

The second most common question we received was, "how much did she cost?" Yes, people really do ask this. There is a tactful way to do this and many not so tactful ways. We have gotten accustomed to Gracie being the center of attention in public and such not always so subtle questions. We have learned to take into account the person asking the question and we are usually more than willing to provide answers. If the person asking is interested in adopting we will usually give them the name of the agencies we used ( a link to Children's Hope is provided with links to my friends blogs) We tell them some of what they can expect and about how much it might cost. ($16 to $20 grand as an estimate if someone reading this needs to know)

Sometimes we run into the question, "Is she yours?" To this there is but one short answer.
YES. Sometimes we will clarify and say something like, "we went to China to get her when she was 15 months old, but she has always been ours."

Adoption is the most rewarding experience I can even imagine. Yes it was long and full of hurdles, yes it was expensive and risky, yes it was an exceptionally long gestation period, but the rewards are simply indescribable. I can not put into words the adventure that results from making the decision, taking the trip, and then living the new life that results from it. It only takes a moment to make the decision to do it, but the adventure that begins in that moment goes on for the rest of your life. As I write this blog it occurs to me that gotcha day is coming up in only six or so weeks. January tenth is gotcha day.

If I don't know you and you happen to land here because you googled something or linked in from somebody else. let me make you an offer. Leave me a comment with your email address in it and I will answer any questions you might have about adopting from China. If your already in the process and have questions about what happens next, I can handle that too. If you want to learn more but dont necessarily want to ask me, click on the Children's Hope link. If you email one of them, I guarantee you will here from them shortly. They are awesome at what they do.

Why?

Why do we blog, that is the question of the evening.

Well, I can only speak for myself, but there are many reasons that I enjoy the opportunity to blog. First off its an opportunity to express my thoughts and get things off my chest so to speak. It also provides me with a chance to minister to others which is something I have come to enjoy over the last few years. There is also the more carnal side of things, I find it somewhat competitive as well. I check my sitemeter regularly for quantity of hits as well as location and reason of hit. I particularly enjoy when I get hits from foreign countries. I check to see if people left comments often as well. I check the IP addresses of each hit to see if I know who it is so I can keep track of regular readers. I enjoy it when other bloggers link to mine because it always increases my hits.

The ministry opportunity is the most important one. My testimony is posted on this blog under the title, "the story of Grace". I have witnessed in several other of the titles as well. I speak on my blog about my Saviour Jesus Christ as well as my awesome God and the effects they have had on my life.

I use the opportunity to express myself here frequently as well. I talk about my emotions, my past, and other issues that make up me. My friends are not usually surprised by my candor, but people I dont really know all that well are often taken aback by what I share. I find this to be somewhat therapeutic.

As far as the competitive side of things, this is just fun for me. I have had readers from Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Britain, Canada, and Spain. I am looking forward to getting a hit from China for obvious reasons. I have gotten many hits from at least 12 different states. The states most common to view this are Louisiana and California. I am linked to two blogs in California and one in Louisiana that all send me lots of traffic. Thank you to all of them. I really enjoy it when I notice people reading it that I wouldnt guess would bother to spend their time here.

It also provides me the chance to help with issues in some small way. You will find links to several other blogs on mine, but you will also find widgets that connect you to a "free Burma" link, a link to help Brian and maybe other hurting youth workers, and a link to Youth Ministry Exchange which is a wonderful online community of youth pastors, pastors, and volunteers.

I also just learned from a friend of mine that if you post enough political opinion posts you will begin to gets hits from Congress. I will most likely take a shot at this and try and save the world sometime soon.

Well that should conclude my drivel for this evening. I must be off to bed here soon. I have made it through and entire post without using the word urinal so maybe this will raise my reading level score a bit. ( another source of competition)