New Year's Resolutions

One night remaining and I will have made it 365 days without soda!

I'm having a Mountain Dew tomorrow!

Brandi says I won't like it anymore. I'm not so sure. We'll see. Soda will continue to be a rare thing; which is a good thing.

Now on to this year's resolutions. I have spent some time bouncing them off my wife and a couple of others and this is what it is down to:

1. Prayer, Bible study and quiet time every day. I've been okay at this in the past, but it needs to be more consistent.

2. Daily exercise. Starting easy and increasing slowly.

3. Write a book. It doesn't have to be a good one ;) but just to get writing.

4. No candy/ice cream all year. This doesn't eliminate cookies, cake, Brandi's pecan pie and such, but it cuts out the blizzards, hot fudge sundaes and candy bars that kill me on a daily basis.

5. Less clutter. Buy less. Give away/throw away more. More simplicity.

She takes after her mom

Wow, I can understand not answering questions if you are the daughter of the former president and of a presidential hopeful... but come on! From a kid!? It's not like it's going to open up a tidal wave here. Good grief...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071231/D8TS58V00.html

As it rose... so it should fall

Just as the Mullah led government of Iran came to power with demonstrations and crowds of people in the streets voicing an end to the rule of the absent Shah. The Islamic republic is and has been feeling the pains of a population crying out for freedom.

This is also why the US has not been pursuing the military option and has been encouraging Israel to show restraint. The democratic movement in the country is gaining strength and showing promise. We need to feed this movement. Nothing like brining down the A-Mean-Jihad without firing a shot.

New Year's Resolutions in progress

Last year I did okay, not great. I made good on a couple of decent resolutions. The biggest one that I held to has been tough, especially at different times in the year, but I have stuck with it and I'm down to FIVE DAYS. Amazing!

What was it?

No soda. No regular. No diet. No soda... period.

And I've done it.

I wouldn't have thought it was possible considering the VOLUME that I use to drink, but I did it... well, in five days I will have done it. 360 down... 5 more to go.

Now that brings up next year and what resolutions I will make...

Anyone actually checking blogs right now... and dare to share?

A little after Christmas humor

The Dilbert Blog is pretty funny sometimes. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that the Scott Adams is a little twisted (aren't most comedians).

In any case, his latest post was hilarious.

I've been wanting a new dog lately... maybe I'll reconsider.

Good site... a little biased, but good data

RealClearPolitics.com is the name of the site. I know, it's kind of an oxymoron, but they gather all of the latest poll data as it comes out and they compile it.

Some interesting stuff has happened in the last couple of weeks and even in the last couple of days. John McCain has come out of left field (pun?) to bring himself into a tie with Guilianni and Huckabee. Romney is slipping, but some still give him the best shot at getting the nomination.

In any case... 11 months out from election, this is how the match ups look.

Kind of makes you wonder... is there a difference in taking polls in order to answer the question of who people favor and taking polls in order to influence who people favor.

The other obvious point is that this represents the popular vote, which is not the one that counts. I wonder what the EC numbers look like.

Looking at these polls... I can understand some undecideds suddenly liking our AZ senator. I've personally never been a fan. I agree he is a great guy who has been through a lot. I'm not big on some of the stuff he has DONE. McCain/Feingold is a disaster. Fortunately he got cut off at the knees on immigration reform last summer. As for the rest... well, some of that appears to be developing... we'll see.

I don't think she's a fan

So anyone who has read this blog knows that I was behind Huckabee and he was getting a pretty good wave there for a while. The good thing about bringing a candidate to the front in a close race... they are definitely going to be vetted out.

Up until his stuff on foreign policy started coming up, it wasn't anything that I personally couldn't live with.

Lately he is actually getting beaten on by the conservative alternative media... and slammed pretty hard at that.

Ann takes a smack at him here.

As usual with Ann, some good points combined with a lougie right in the face. Ouch.

Drunken Lemurs

There was a case recently where a guy was fired for posting Dilbert cartoons at work.

Scott Adams, the Dilbert creator commented on it today on his blog.

Check it out.

Special Day Today

It's JACOB'S BIRTHDAY today!

Be sure to check out the family blog.

Good thoughts on perspective

I haven't been able to read all my normal blogs lately, but I did catch Pastor Furtick's this morning. Good stuff.

Keep perspective.

It seems sometimes prosperity is the worst thing for our spiritual condition. In our nightly Bible reading the kids and I just read about Solomon. Blessed with all of the wealth you could ever imagine, more wisdom than anyone else in the world, peace on every side, and if all that wasn't enough, the Lord appeared to Solomon TWICE and spoke with him. Yet Solomon didn't listen to what God had said about foreign wives. Solomon took 700 wives and 300 concubines who turned his heart away from God and had him build temples to all kinds of idols.

Keep perspective.

I've said it before

Ron Paul is a very interesting guy and has been able to raise some pretty noticeable amounts of money. Not sure what he is going to do with all of it when he loses (can you say Libertarian nominee?).

I LIKE a LOT of his ideas.

But some just scare me.

It's this kind of head in the sand foreign policy that has led to huge blunders in world history.

1. A president has to be moral (commonly called a 'social conservative').
2. A president has to show good judgement in order to be an effective commander-in-chief.

Pretty much everything else is a "should" rather than a "has to"
3. A president should be a fiscal conservative. Wise with money. Lower taxes rates = more revenue to the federal government. Cut the pork. Cuts across the board on spending. Cut entitlements. Pick whole unconstitutional establishments to do away with, the Department of Education would be high on my list. The IRS would be right next to them. FAIR TAX or FLAT TAX.
4. A president should push for smaller government. Less unnecessary regulation. America was built on 'liberty' NOT 'equality'. It's not the government's job to make poor people rich and rich people poor. First, they are not good at it and second, it's completely unconstitutional.
5. A president should preserve the sovereignty of our nation. This comes heavily into play during trade negotiations and border enforcement. We should have FAIR treaties for FAIR trade and they should be ENFORCED. We need a water tight border so that we KNOW who comes in and goes out of our country. Once we have a handle on that then we can discuss what to do with the 12-15 million that are already here illegally. But in my opinion it involves a lot of buses... :)

Hmmm... Mike, you're killing me!

No, not my brother Mike. Mike Huckabee. Sometimes the hardest thing for a politician to do is to keep their mouth shut, or their computer silent. The Huckabee surge could be followed by the Huckabee kaboom if he keeps being symptomatic of foot in mouth. First their was the whole Mormon statement during the NYT interview. I mean come on. The answer to all of the questions about differences in religion between himself and Romney is simply, "It has nothing to do with this race. I am a Christian man of morals and strong convictions that have shaped my character. I do not know what exactly Mr Romney believes, but that is between him and God." That's it. The end. Any more questions on it should be flatly refused. Stick to the issues. Stick to principles. This is not about a debate between Mormonism and Christianity.

Now it comes round to foreign affairs. Evidently not Mike's strong suit. I can tell you that "the base" of the party are the ones that vote in a primary. The base does not want to hear that we have been too rough with people like Iran. The base wants to hear that we are going to stop mad men in their tracks and we will do it alone if we have to. BTW this is one of the ONLY issues that we really LIKE GWB on, so don't harp on him for it. In this regard GWB should be honored and held up. If you want to get on him, pick something easy, like border enforcement (also popular with the base), pick fat government, pick entitlements, pick pork barrel spending, pick stupid moves like Harriet Myers, but then follow up with good things like John Roberts. Come ON PEOPLE!!!

I need to go look at Fred's site again. I hear he has some detailed policy issues up on his site and I like the smack down at the worthless Iowa debate.

Good piece in NRO on this.

Okay, so I did...

I have to admit that I fell off the face of the earth for a while. A couple of weeks ago my wife went down for what we thought was her normal "back episode". Unfortunately it turned out to be so much more. By Friday of the first week (it started on a Monday) she was still in so much pain that she couldn't sit up or stand up, despite the fact that she was on muscle relaxers and pain killers.

So, we waited for the kids to go to school, then we called an ambulance (yes, she was in that much pain while ON the pain meds). The main reason for this was because she couldn't physically sit up for any length of time, just too much pain.

Once we got her into the hospital, they finally decided that someone on that many IV meds and still awake, let alone crying in pain, probably needed to be admitted. So they got her a room and on Saturday morning did the MRI and found a bulging disk that was pushing on her nerves.

We sat down and had a consult with a surgeon, who fortunately said that we should start with the least aggressive treatment of steroids and physical therapy.

Well, it's been a week since we came home from the hospital. Brandi is doing good and making progress. It's slow progress, but good progress. She had a goal the last two days to get up once and hour and walk to the kitchen. Which she did marvelously. She tries to stop by any clutter on the table or counter and weed through it, which I greatly appreciate. She is also completely off the meds, except for OTC stuff. She's a trooper.

The real BIG DEAL through this whole thing is the tremendous, I'm sorry that should have been TREMENDOUS, outpouring of love that we have experienced. God is awesome and amazing and he has used SO MANY people to bless us and take care of us in this situation. Every day last week we had someone who volunteered to keep an eye on the younger kids, while I took the older ones to school and then went to work. After an abbreviated work day (another blessing... a GREAT boss) I picked up the kids a couple of days, but three days someone else did. Then we were fed the most delicious meals every night. It's humbling and encouraging at the same time. God has truly blessed us with a fantastic group of friends who have just reached out in every way shape and form.

This week we have people lined up to help with kids until Friday, which we have an option to fill if Brandi thinks that she needs it. Right now she is hoping that having Bubba around to lift the baby will be enough help, but we are just going to wait and see. The last thing we want to do is go too fast and mess her back up again before it can really heal.

So on that note. If you aren't already praying for her, I would greatly appreciate your prayers for my wife. She is just an awesome wife and mother and she has been so strong through this whole thing. I tell you, you know you married well when your wife is on morphine and percocet and though STILL in pain is crying, not because it hurts, but because she just wants to go home and take care of her kids. She's awesome!

I love this stuff

Classic.

I'm so glad my current job doesn't involve paperwork. I think I'll stay here forever... oh wait.

Good laugh out of this one

If you ever find yourself traveling in a foreign country.

It's good to know a bit about the culture.

Minor issue.

WOW

140 people gave their lives over to Jesus at Elevation this weekend.

How cool is that.

Bubba turned 8

Check out our family page.

I'm getting old. Wonder how many birthdays before he dwarfs me. Ouch. I'm betting he is as tall as me by 12.