Waterlogged

Check out this slide show from the floods in Georgia.

Your Flooding Pictures .

My Toes in the Water…. Not A Care in the World

Kari and I decided that a change in scenery might be good to put the past 3 months behind us. So we and some friends of ours have headed down a little lower in the latitudes to the land of the sun, where pirates and Spaniards once roamed, on a small strip of land named for the patron Saint of England. So far so good. Spent the day listening to the waves crashing and watching my girls collect shells in the sand. Life is good today, life is good.

A Little Good News Today

Am I the only one tired of hearing all these doom and gloom news stories everyday. I went looking for a little good news today and here is what I found:

Here is an amazing story of an amazing litte girl who survived an amazing ground-breaking surgery

Here’s another amazing kid  

I wouldn’t necessarily call this one “good news”, but it’s pretty amazing

Here’s one that is definitely good news, highly unexpected

Abe Lincoln has been in the new a lot lately. Here’s this one and then this one is pretty cool

Government “Investing”

Let me preface this short post by saying, I have been extremely busy lately and I have not looked at the proposed “Reinvestment Act” in great detail. I have heard bits and pieces on the news here and there. I know that it is an enormous amount of money that my grandchildren (Lord willing I get grandchildren) will be paying off in the distant future. I just heard President Elect Obama speak about it for the first time. It didn’t dawn on me to count the number of times he says “invest”, or “investment” when referring to the government spending tax payer money.

Next time you listen to him or any of his representatives speak on this act, try this. In your mind replace “invest’, “investment’, or “investing”, with spend or spending.  It tends to change the tone of the speech.

Friday Flashback (Early Edition)

This song came to mind this morning

Friday Flashback

In honor of the King Tut exhibit opening this weekend, I present to you….

 

 

Steve Martin

Alright, confession time.  How many of you did the King Tut dance growing up? (my hand is raised)

A Powerful Post

A powerful postby Rindy Walton.  Please read and watch the video

Danger Lurks Around Every Corner

Today after my girls came in from playing outside, I went around and was putting away some of the stuff they had been playing with when I came across this little bucket.

Something caught my eye inside as I picked it up.

Can you make out what kind of spider it is?  It’s a Black Widow.  I’m not sure if the girls were playing with this bucket or not. But it was with all the other stuff they were playing with.

This is not my first encounter with these things.  When we first moved into our house it was built in a former pasture. I had to clean it up a good bit in order to have a back lawn.  It seemed like every rock or piece of wood I picked up had a Black Widow under it.  I must have killed fifty or so.  I was beginning to think they were after me.  This is the first one I’ve seen in a while, but apparently they’re still after me.

DOES YOUR PAST = YOUR PRESENT?

I’ve been connecting with a lot of my old high school classmates recently through the Facebook website (see link to the right).  Facebook, for those who don’t know is a social network site much like MySpace only better (in my humble opinion).  And a lot of others my age aparently agree with me. 

So now this is not just a plug for Facebook, but it has got me doing a lot of reminicing lately about my past years.  There’s a lot in the news (depending on where you get your news) lately about a certain politician’s past associations.  I don’t want to get into a political debate here.  I know what they are trying to correlate with these associations.  I’m just not so sure he subscribes to the ideology of some of these folks that he is being linked with.  I’m getting off track here.  My point is, does your past, or even past associations equal who you are today?  I certainly hope not!

As I said I have been doing a lot of remenicing about my past recently.  I had some really great times back then.  But then I was also pretty much of an idiot too.  I shutter to think about some of the stuff I did, believed, or even supported back then.  I would hate to think that I were to be judged today for the way I was from about age 16 to 25.  I am not the same person today that I was back then.  I wonder, and I may even do this. I wonder if I were to ask some of these people who knew me back then but haven’t seen me since, to describe me.  What kind of responses would I get?  Maybe I don’t want to know.  I’m not saying I’ve got it all figured out now. I’m sure if you asked some of my current associations they might say, “Yeah, he’s an idiot”. Thankfully my Lord and Savior doesn’t judge me on my past, or present, but on who I am to become through Him.  It’s a process, a journey if you will, and I sure am enjoying the ride!

Gas Shortage Woes

I’m not sure if most of you outside the southeast realize the severity of the situation we are in, since there is little mention of it on the national news broadcast.  Well….  it’s bad.  I am not one to panic about every little thing the media calls a crisis and I do think they are partly to blame for some of whats going on.  As soon as they cry wolf, there is a mad rush to the gas stations and everyone brings every gas can they can fit in their trunk and very shortly, the station is dry. 

We went through a very similar shortage after hurricane Katrina a few years back, but not this bad.  I think it is ridiculous that one storm can cause this much damage to our fuel supply.  There has got to be new refineries built, new pipelines and yes long-term there has got to be developement of new sources of renewable energy.

I have written a few emails today, something else I don’t do often.  Below is an example.

Congressman_______,

 

I am writing today concerning the current gas shortage in our state. I am sure you have received countless emails already, but I am compelled to write and have mine added to the many.

 

I would like to urge you to call for a release of the Strategic Reserve as a short-term relief. I know that this would be a short-term fix and that the reserves are held for national crisis. I believe that we are in a national crisis.

 

I have been on the phone all weekend trying to find a station in my vicinity with gas. I have not found any. I am currently unemployed and my wife is supporting our family. Unfortunately, she has a 20-mile commute and I am not sure she will have enough gas to get to and from work tomorrow. I have spoken with several families in our neighborhood who are in the same situation.  Talk about bad for the economy, our workers can’t even get to their jobs because of the lack of gas.

 

Long-term I strongly believe we must pursue drilling off of our coast and in Alaska. Also developing alternative renewable sources of energy to free us from foreign oil dependence is a must!

 

Thank you for your time.  I would love to hear your thoughts on the issues of the current shortage and the long-term solution for our energy independence.

 

Regards,

 

Brad Bobo

I realize that even if they released some of the reserves, by the time it actually made it to us the shortage would be over.  But hey it would maybe help with some of the high prices we being hit with.  It’s worth a shot eh?