Author: Dale Sackrider

By:  Stephanie Sackrider

(FYI this is my first post for the Sackrider.org Blog.  My husband’s very proud)

Most of our closest friends and family know we have been going thru IVF.  I felt that I needed to share some of my thoughts and the experiences we are gaining.  There is so much to the treatment and process, I’m not even sure where to begin. (more…)

When I was twelve years old I felt a pulling on the inside of me, a drawling toward faith and service to God, a Calling. Since that time, the Calling has pulled and pushed me in one direction – ministry. I went to Bible College straight out of high school – over 400 miles away from home. I met my wife at Bible College, although we did not date until after graduation. After I graduated Bible College (a two year school), I stayed at the local church associated with the school as a volunteer drama minister leading a team of 20-30 young adults and youth. One of the youth on my team was the daughter of the man that gave me my first job working with computers. (more…)

My wife has been going to WeightWatchers for a while now.  She has been losing weight and I’ve been loosely following the diet with her, but I haven’t been going to the meetings.  I’ve been thinking about attending them.  People that attending the meeting loose more weight than those that don’t.  If I do, this would be the most committed action I’ve done to loose weight to date.

I really do want to get the weight off, but I don’t look forward to sitting in a room with a bunch of over-weight women sharing their feelings.  Who knows, those women whom I haven’t met yet might just help me strip this extra 100 lbs off.  In any case, I’m sure it will make for some interesting blog entries…  I’ll keep you posted.

We drove two hours past countless shopping malls, strip malls, and outlet stores to get to beautiful Sedona so we could…. shop at an outlet store.  I took the day off because we were going to head north to see some of Arizona’s most amazing views – Bell Rock, Snoopy Rock, Courthouse Rock, The Chaple on a Hill, just to name a few.  At least I thought that was why I took the day off.

Actually, I was taking the day off as a baby sitter so my wife could spend the day shopping with her mom.  I don’t mind, really – but we could have stayed in town to shop.  I’m glad we didn’t because of all the pictures I was able to get as Zander and I were off sightseeing during the Mother-Daughter shopping extravaganza.

Check out the pictures I took on the gallery site – I hope you enjoy them.

Ok, I’m sure you already know about myspace.com, right?  Well, yesterday I was home sick from work and spent sometime on myspace.com.  It’s not something I have a lot of time for but apparently I’m the only one that doesn’t.  Everyone I know is on myspace.  I’ve had a site there for a while, but I don’t use it — it just points people back to sackrider.org.  Anyway, yesterday I clicked the link to import my gmail contacts to myspace so I can find out who in my contacts has a myspace page.  I was surprised… (more…)

You have to refresh the page to start over. I will upload the album on the gallery section of the site soon.

Stephanie and I went on a bike ride a couple of Saturdays ago.  We left the house around 11 am with Zander in tow and hit the cannals.  We biked a total of 15 miles but we had several stops along the way including a playground for Zander, a basketball court where we realized we aren’t going to be drafted by the NBA anytime soon.  We had a great time – I really enjoyed spending the day with my family.

We were going to do the same last Saturday, but after being out late at the drive-in movies Friday night, we both over slept.  We could have still gone out, but we both wanted an excuse to be lazy.  Anyway, our goal is to be more and more active – one Saturday of staying in is Ok, but with Zander coping everything we do, being active is the example we want to set.

Imaging that you are watching a sports team that you grew up with as a kid play the big game.  Only – they haven’t been all that good in the last few years and you don’t like the new coach.  In fact, you would even think about not cheering for them but they are playing their rivals and you still hate that team more than you dislike the new coaches of your team.  This is how I went into last night… 

We lost.  And how could we not?  As a friend put it – The Republicans forgot to dance with the one that brought ’em.  Conservatives feel like the fat girl on the bench – and since most of us are either entrepreneurs, self-employed or both, we tend to expect results.  When we don’t get them, we fire people.  Republicans were fired yesterday. 

To be honest, I cannot image a result that I would have been happy with last night.  Maybe the Dems can do better… I fear they will do much worse. 

 

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

Go Vote!

There are many issues on the AZ ballot as I am sure there are many on your ballot as well.  We have a proposition to outlaw smoking in publicly accessible places (like restaurants and bars) as well as a prop to make it against the law to have a pig in a pig pin (animal cruelty).  There is a prop to raise minimum wage, several new taxes, as well as grant our great cities and towns the right to draw more credit (go into debt) where more taxes are not available.  If you don’t vote, you cannot be heard.

I know there are those out there that would say, “my vote doesn’t count so I don’t bother”.  To that I say, “Shame on you!”  Chances are you won’t win the lottery but I will bet dollars to doughnuts that if you don’t play, you cannot win.  Same rules apply – maybe you are right and your vote won’t be heard – maybe — but I can promise that if you don’t vote your voice won’t be heard.

Do you want more taxes?  Do you want money taken away from programs you support?  Do you want someone to tell you how to define marriage?  Do you want to defend traditional marriage?  Maybe you were not able to serve your country in the armed forces, but you can certainly serve your nation by getting out to vote!

I recently had a conversation with a co-worker on American views of sex and sexuality (spawned from my “How is that OK?” post).  He has a 15 year old friend who is in a sexual relationship with his 17 year old girlfriend.  When the girlfriend’s parents found out, they banned her from seeing him anymore.  My co-worker believes this was the wrong response on the part of the parents and that America has ‘really dropped the ball regarding sex’. (more…)