Not the best Shot, but we had a great time. After the concert we hung out at the bus for a bit. Didnt get to meet any of the band, but did get Andy (who works with them) to take some stuff on the bus and get it signed.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Monday Night
Its Monday, about the only quiet evening we will have this week, especially for Yvette.
The babies actually went to bed earlier than they have in awhile, mostly because we insisted on turning off the TV and not watching Blue's Clues for 30 times in a row!
They fussed for a while but calmed down and finally went to sleep. Tomorrow night is the Great Big Sea concert that Yvette and I are going to, then Wednesday night is Yvette's favorite, New Kids on the Block. The night after that is Cheetah Girls for Yvette and Stephanie and then Friday Night is Halloween. Told you its going to be a long week. I think by saturday we will be ready to stay in bed till Monday and not move! Of course the kids probably won't let us do that. Its starting to actually get chilly around here. I forgot to get a jacket this morning when I left, but the jackets work got us (with the company logo) came in so I had something to warm to wear on the way home. Gas is still going down in price, its 2.29 at the cheapest station I saw, 2.36-2.39 most everywhere else. Let's hope it goes down further, below $2 per gallon would be nice. And as I mentioned in another post it might help get the economy going again. If energy prices come down, then other prices can come down too and that will hopefully raise the consumer confidence and stimulate spending. Since this is coming together with the first "payouts" from the bail out package it might turn things around. The stock market is still taking a pummeling, but the dollar seems to be gaining strength in world markets.
On the other hand, Obama seems poised to take the presidency and bring in super majorty in the senate with him. Combine that with an increased majority in the house and just as this country gets its feet under it economically the Left will veer this country sharply socialist with the attendent economic stagnation that brings. Look at Europe, they are moving quickly back toward capitalism after seeing the disaster socialism has brought, especially France.
McCain is trailing in the polls, but not by much and he could make a comeback. I pray he does. I have my strong disagreements with him, but I am much more worried about an obama and Democratic congress.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
--coming up blank
Well, I know I should keep up with this better, probably going to be a short blog tonight. I can't think of anything much to write about, so I will just put down whatever randomness comes to mind.
Right now I am wishing My daughter would just fall asleep already. Its getting late and she is showing no signs of wanting to sleep. This is getting later and later every night. How can you FORCE a 2yr old to go to sleep?
Gas prices are on the way down. We are at 2.44/gallon locally. If we can get it back down to around 2/gallon then things will be much easier and maybe prices of everything else will ease off. Of course if that happens then people won't feel as pinched, maybe consumer confidence will rise and we can get the economy on a real positive note again.
THe alphabet song, twinkle twinkle little star, and "Ba Ba black sheep" all have the same tune.
I am concerned about the presidential election, but more so about congress than the presidency. Yes the president can influence his party to get his policy ideas into and through congress, but ultimately he is has little real domestic policy power. If the democrats get Congressional super majorities and the white house, we are in for some very serious times in this country. But then again I think that happens whenever any party maintains the control of the Executive and legislature. Afterall it was under the republicans this last time that the federal government doubled. Neither major candidate really supports cutting the size and scope of the federal government. Obama appears to be a Marxist, and McCain has a dubious record on really wanting to follow the constitution. Its a shame that 3rd party really isn't viable. It most often reduces the vote to "who one dislikes the least" instead of "who is right for the job."
I am looking into options for getting large prints of some of my better pictures. I created one that would have been about 36x27 inches I think and the framing options and everything brought it to almost $400 dollars (ack).
Right now I am wishing My daughter would just fall asleep already. Its getting late and she is showing no signs of wanting to sleep. This is getting later and later every night. How can you FORCE a 2yr old to go to sleep?
Gas prices are on the way down. We are at 2.44/gallon locally. If we can get it back down to around 2/gallon then things will be much easier and maybe prices of everything else will ease off. Of course if that happens then people won't feel as pinched, maybe consumer confidence will rise and we can get the economy on a real positive note again.
THe alphabet song, twinkle twinkle little star, and "Ba Ba black sheep" all have the same tune.
I am concerned about the presidential election, but more so about congress than the presidency. Yes the president can influence his party to get his policy ideas into and through congress, but ultimately he is has little real domestic policy power. If the democrats get Congressional super majorities and the white house, we are in for some very serious times in this country. But then again I think that happens whenever any party maintains the control of the Executive and legislature. Afterall it was under the republicans this last time that the federal government doubled. Neither major candidate really supports cutting the size and scope of the federal government. Obama appears to be a Marxist, and McCain has a dubious record on really wanting to follow the constitution. Its a shame that 3rd party really isn't viable. It most often reduces the vote to "who one dislikes the least" instead of "who is right for the job."
I am looking into options for getting large prints of some of my better pictures. I created one that would have been about 36x27 inches I think and the framing options and everything brought it to almost $400 dollars (ack).
Monday, October 20, 2008
The one?
A friend asked me today, How did I know Yvette was "The One?"
Its a good question, one I should answer and always remember the answer too.
It wasn't immediate, there was no instant knowledge. But then of course, we didn't meet face to face for months after we first started communicating. First on the havens, then by phone, and letters. We had up and downs even while never having seen each other. Then finally we did meet face to face and spent about 3 weeks together before she had to go back home. I was pretty sure by then she was the one for me. If possible, I would have asked her to stay. As it was, it was almsot 2 more years before we got married.
Love is not a feeling, or perhaps its Far far more than a feeling.
Love isn't just happiness and rose petals. Love, real love, is staying there when you are so pissed off you can barely see straight and not disappearing. Love is giving yourself FOR the other person, not just to them.
1 Cor.13: 4-8
4 Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not want what belongs to others. It does not brag. It is not proud. 5 It is not rude. It does not look out for its own interests. It does not easily become angry. It does not keep track of other people's wrongs.
Now I pray that I can live up to that standard because sadly I fall far short far too often.
Yvette, I love you and how you have forgiven me so much just humbles me.
Its a good question, one I should answer and always remember the answer too.
It wasn't immediate, there was no instant knowledge. But then of course, we didn't meet face to face for months after we first started communicating. First on the havens, then by phone, and letters. We had up and downs even while never having seen each other. Then finally we did meet face to face and spent about 3 weeks together before she had to go back home. I was pretty sure by then she was the one for me. If possible, I would have asked her to stay. As it was, it was almsot 2 more years before we got married.
Love is not a feeling, or perhaps its Far far more than a feeling.
Love isn't just happiness and rose petals. Love, real love, is staying there when you are so pissed off you can barely see straight and not disappearing. Love is giving yourself FOR the other person, not just to them.
1 Cor.13: 4-8
4 Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not want what belongs to others. It does not brag. It is not proud. 5 It is not rude. It does not look out for its own interests. It does not easily become angry. It does not keep track of other people's wrongs.
6 Love is not happy with evil. But it is full of joy when the truth is spoken. 7 It always protects. It always trusts. It always hopes. It never gives up.
8 Love never fails.Now I pray that I can live up to that standard because sadly I fall far short far too often.
Yvette, I love you and how you have forgiven me so much just humbles me.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
a few pictures from Today
A few pictures taken today, from Burt's pumpkin farm, and Amicalola State park
Friday, October 17, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
The economic situation
I guess my first REAL blog post here. My take on the economic situation. Its a highly complex situation with literally dozens of factors and probably beyond what I see. But both parties are guilty of demagoguing the causes and reducing them to one sentence causes. The left blames evil greedy mortgage lenders preying on innocent Americans who only hoped to achieve the American dream of owning a home. And these greedy lenders were allowed to do so because the right stripped away regulation and oversight The right tends to blame greedy home buyers going after loans they cant afford, and the democrats for forcing the banks to lend to people who could otherwise never afford to get a home to increase diversity.
This is my humble take on it. Bear with me, this might get long. For decades Real estate has been seen as the Sure-thing-long term investment. Everyone knew that real-estate in the long term went up in value and for the most part it went up a predictable level. Given how fast real-estate began to grow in the 90s It was inevitable that at some point we would reach a point where the market could no longer sustain ever increasing prices and would move back down.
Here we have the influx of multiple factors all converging at around the same time frame causing the current crisis.
First off, real-estate prices were hitting the upper level the economy could support in the classic signs of a "bubble"
Second Political pressure, combined with greed led to lots of "bad loans" being made witht he expectation that in most of them the people holding them would be able to "flip" the property and get out of a bad loan before it caught up to them.
Third Rising energy prices. With Unrest in the middle-East, the unexpected prolonging of the Iraqi Conflict, and then Hurricane Katrina, Energy prices rose sharply and far faster than many anticipated.
With the rising Cost of energy filtering through to all aspects of the economy and increasing prices for everything, the money people invested with was spent elsewhere on the essentials.
As home buying slowed, prices began to stagnate or fall. People began to be unable to make payments as their ARMs and other loans that are not good ideas unless you sell quickly came due and suddenly the market began to be flooded with homes that were being foreclosed. This pushed prices down further. Energy prices continued to climb and instead of buying people began holding on to their money. Suddenly we find that millions of loans are in default, and major institutions, that were percieved as, if not in fact, holding up the stock market and economy began collapsing. A rush was on to sell as fast as possible to minimize losses and prices plumetted.
At this point we realize that our entire economy was being held together by an artifically inflated real estate market, which has just collapsed threatening to take the rest of us with it.
So the government steps in and promises 700 billion dollars to guarentee the solvency and stimulate lending and trading. So far it doesn't seem to be taking hold. Is it because we dont actually have the money sitting around? The only way to get it is to borrow it from other countries, or print it up and massively increase the number of dollars floating around which decreases their value.
The threatening meltdown has spooked world markets and is leading to uncertainty in the future's markets. Oil is dropping in price even faster than it rose. If this continues the reducing price of oil will lead to lower overall prices and may help with getting our economy back on track as people feel they can afford to do more than just survive.
We are blessed that I work for a company that is privately held and in good finacial shape, also we are somewhat sheltered from the economic chaos as we provide a service to businesses in an industry, that will takes a hit in poor economic times is not likely to collapse unless things are very bad.
I think if most people will hold on and not panic things will get better.
This is my humble take on it. Bear with me, this might get long. For decades Real estate has been seen as the Sure-thing-long term investment. Everyone knew that real-estate in the long term went up in value and for the most part it went up a predictable level. Given how fast real-estate began to grow in the 90s It was inevitable that at some point we would reach a point where the market could no longer sustain ever increasing prices and would move back down.
Here we have the influx of multiple factors all converging at around the same time frame causing the current crisis.
First off, real-estate prices were hitting the upper level the economy could support in the classic signs of a "bubble"
Second Political pressure, combined with greed led to lots of "bad loans" being made witht he expectation that in most of them the people holding them would be able to "flip" the property and get out of a bad loan before it caught up to them.
Third Rising energy prices. With Unrest in the middle-East, the unexpected prolonging of the Iraqi Conflict, and then Hurricane Katrina, Energy prices rose sharply and far faster than many anticipated.
With the rising Cost of energy filtering through to all aspects of the economy and increasing prices for everything, the money people invested with was spent elsewhere on the essentials.
As home buying slowed, prices began to stagnate or fall. People began to be unable to make payments as their ARMs and other loans that are not good ideas unless you sell quickly came due and suddenly the market began to be flooded with homes that were being foreclosed. This pushed prices down further. Energy prices continued to climb and instead of buying people began holding on to their money. Suddenly we find that millions of loans are in default, and major institutions, that were percieved as, if not in fact, holding up the stock market and economy began collapsing. A rush was on to sell as fast as possible to minimize losses and prices plumetted.
At this point we realize that our entire economy was being held together by an artifically inflated real estate market, which has just collapsed threatening to take the rest of us with it.
So the government steps in and promises 700 billion dollars to guarentee the solvency and stimulate lending and trading. So far it doesn't seem to be taking hold. Is it because we dont actually have the money sitting around? The only way to get it is to borrow it from other countries, or print it up and massively increase the number of dollars floating around which decreases their value.
The threatening meltdown has spooked world markets and is leading to uncertainty in the future's markets. Oil is dropping in price even faster than it rose. If this continues the reducing price of oil will lead to lower overall prices and may help with getting our economy back on track as people feel they can afford to do more than just survive.
We are blessed that I work for a company that is privately held and in good finacial shape, also we are somewhat sheltered from the economic chaos as we provide a service to businesses in an industry, that will takes a hit in poor economic times is not likely to collapse unless things are very bad.
I think if most people will hold on and not panic things will get better.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Inagural Blog
Ok, starting up a new Blog page here, maybe I will keep up with this one more regularly than myspace. Its Wed. and the kids are headed back to school after Vacation and Fall Break. Stephanie has an upset stomach but still wants to go to school. I am afraid I am going to have to go get her later. I am still trying to get used to getting up early again. On the plus side, Sam slept ALL night last night, Jenna still was up a fair amount however.
I am still having to go through all the pictures we took on vacation and clean up and process the good ones. I started a set on my Flickr account for pictures I think would make good Large prints and will need to decide which ones are the best. I need to look up how to register or ensure my copyright on them and then maybe print and see if I could even sell them. I am going to continue to look for photo contests to enter and need to keep up practicing to increase my skills. I still don't get how to evaluate correctly for exposure etc, I may need a light meter. I think a class would be helpful as well.
I am still having to go through all the pictures we took on vacation and clean up and process the good ones. I started a set on my Flickr account for pictures I think would make good Large prints and will need to decide which ones are the best. I need to look up how to register or ensure my copyright on them and then maybe print and see if I could even sell them. I am going to continue to look for photo contests to enter and need to keep up practicing to increase my skills. I still don't get how to evaluate correctly for exposure etc, I may need a light meter. I think a class would be helpful as well.
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