Allow me to say Happy Birthday to my nephew! At 8:23pm on Jan 24th, Ashton Nicholas Monte Sackrider was born weighing 8 lbs and is 19.25 in. long. Born in Fairbanks, Alaska where yesterday was 30 degrees above zero but today it was 30 degrees below – a 60 degree swing!
Ashton, we love you already and can’t wait to meet you!
Not much news here since I’m sure you already know – Fred Thompson is out. Many people believe he was actually running to be selected as V.P. for the eventual nominee. I don’t know, but I did find myself disappointed and disenfranchised. The strange thing is that he didn’t endorse McCain whom he has been friends with over the years. Is it possible he didn’t want to put off Romney from choosing him as a veep?
Well, as I said in my last post – I am hopeful, just not for the GOP. Who knows, maybe Romney will take the nomination and the Christian conservative Bible Belt voters will over look his Mormon faith. And if he picks up Thompson as veep, maybe we will actually have a chance at the next four years not being Hilary socialism… maybe.
Well, the numbers are in and South Carolina picked John McCain as their candidate of choice. Second choice was the real disappointment for me – Mike Huckabee. Fred Thompson came in third place with 16% of the vote. Most of the news networks are predicting that Thompson will drop out. He may but if so, he isn’t showing his hand just yet. Is that why I’m hopeful? Nope –
My future is secure and whether we get a Demicrate or a Republican in office one year from now – this Nation will survive… and so will I. I find hope in my faith not my government!
I just saw a commercial for one of the many weight loss systems available in the market today. This one will ship the food right to your door and shows several ‘actual customers’ talking about their 50, 60, even 100 lbs weight loss. But there on the screen are those three little words – Results not typical. My favorite was ‘Results atypical’. Atypical? My eight grade English teacher taught me that he was a theist – meaning he believed in a god, as opposed to an atheist which does not. Atypical means not typical – very clever, but I digress.
Results not typical. What if you saw a car commercial with ‘actual customers’ saying “This is a great car, very affordable, reliable, sporty, and fun to drive!” but the small print said “Results not typical”? Would you buy that car? It’s sad to think that while the rest of the world is starving, we are spending billions of dollars to take off the pounds – but its tragic to think that despite that the results are… not typical. Television shows like “The Biggest Loser” tell us that you can lose 30 lbs in a week, while doctor’s tell us that anything over 2 lbs a week is unhealthy weight loss.
My goal this year is to loose 50 lbs, considering that I am about 120 lbs overweight. I pray that at the end of 2008, I can say ‘Results Not Typical’, but for the last several years I keep getting typical results…
Ok – I don’t normally write political pieces, but with the Republican nomination up for grabs and the South Carolina primary coming up this Saturday, I thought I might put in my two sense worth – no I didn’t misspell cents – I want to inject some common and not so common sense here. While you may like any one of the top guys in the republican race, I’m going on record to say that if the nomination is not Fred Thompson, the Democrats will take the White House. Here’s why Fred Thompson must win the nomination – No one else can beat Clinton or Obama. Lets look at the five top contenders: Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mit Romney, and Fred Thompson. 
Rudy Giuliani – Pro-Choice. I don’t know if I even need to go further here, but I will explain it to those of you that don’t see why this would be a deal breaker. The last two presidential elections were split down the middle between Republicans and Democrats with less than 3% between the two. Now, I’m not going to address the abortion issue head on here, just the statistics for a pro-choice republican. This is a big issue for ultra-conservatives and even the not-so ultra-conservatives. If just 10% of the voting base of the republican party stayed home from the general election, the democrat nominee (not matter who it is) would win. Rudy cannot win if everything else were in his favor. 
John McCain – McCain-Lieberman (Climate Stewardship Act of 2003), McCain-Feingold (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002), McCain-Kennedy (Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006), etc, etc, etc. I know many of you are thinking, “hey this guy knows how to reach across the isle” and I agree that can be a great trait in a president. In fact, I actually think McCain is the republican’s second best chance at the White House. But… He isn’t reaching across, he is living over there. With his campain finance reform bill and his latest immigration bill, I just don’t believe he will be able to pull enough votes to win. Again, it doesn’t matter if he is right on these issues, it matters if voters agree with him. All it takes is 5% of the republican voting base to stay home and the democrats win. 
Mike Huckabee – Wayne Dumond, In-State Tuition for illegal immigrants, higher taxes, bigger government, Huckabust! Wayne Dumond likely wasn’t Huckabee’s fault, but it won’t matter. Remember the swiftboat captains in the 2004 election? All it would take is one commercial showing that Huckabee urged the parole board to release Dumond (supposedly, Dumond had found faith in God). Dumond went on to kill and rape. Beyond that, he supports policies friendly to illegal immigration, higher taxes, and government restrictions like a national smoking ban in public places. The only reason you know his name today is Charisma magazine has posted several articles in favor of Huckabee. You may not read Charisma or even know what it is, but I bet your pastor does. And I believe the late boost in Huckabee’s compain is due in large part to Charisma, but just being a Christian doesn’t qualify you to be president. Many of us ‘evangelicals’ voted on President Bush based in part on his faith, but have found ourselves dissatisfied with the current situation. Leaving all of that aside – do any of us really believe Huckabee can beat the democratic nominee? I don’t. 
Mit Romney – Mormon. I know many people don’t have an issue with Romney’s faith, however many of the core republican voters do. If Romney were to take the nomination, you can bet your last dollar that you will see one of the 527 groups (example: swift boat vets) that will sound something like this: Mit Romney is on a path to become a god! Don’t believe us? Here’s what his faith says: The Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Savior, has given us our map—a code of laws and commandments whereby we might attain perfection and, eventually, godhood (LDS.org). All the democrats would need is to put off 5% of the Christian conservative base. Romney cannot win! 
So what makes Fred Thompson the right choice? He is conservative, he supports limited federal government, stronger states rights, and lowering taxes, he has a voting record of 100% pro-life, and he believes we should secure the boarder first. But hey, some of these other guys have similar platforms, right? Duncan Hunter is very close on the issues that I believe really matter to conservatives – but just like the front runners – he can’t win. Fred Thompson is charismatic, has name recognition, is well spoken, and truly conservative! He won’t be perfect, but he can win against Obama or Clinton. 
Ok – some of you are saying “but what about Ron Paul?” Here is the short of it – he has some great ideas (I’d love to see the IRS get the boot) but no matter how great his ideas sound, if he can’t get them done. He was voted one
of the “50 Most Effective Members of Congress” by Congressional Quarterly, but it seems from those I’ve spoken to, most people have never heard of him before this election, don’t know what he stands for, and when they hear him, don’t believe he can do what he says he will. He can’t win. So, while I’m not telling anyone who to vote for (most of you won’t vote in the primaries anyway), I did want to go on the record as stating that Fred Thompson has to win the nomination or the Republicans don’t have much of a chance in winning the White House.
Ok – sorry to rush these last few days, however its been a while and I don’t want to lose the memories altogether. I will post one more blog about the Alaska trip titled Alaska Trip: Day 12. It will address the chapel service and the flight home. Until then, here are days 7 through 11:
Days 7 and 8: The process, Things were going well until…
The Process
From here out it was a lot of work. The truck showed up on Day 7 and Jeremy and I were able to unload most of it the first day by ourselves. It was between 30 and 50 below zero the entire time. Jeremy and I wore long johns, jeans, long sleeve shirts, heavy coats, gloves, and ski masks.
At 50 below, you have to address unloading a truck in a special way. Most movers will tell you not to touch a heavy item more then once, meaning when you pick it up, don’t put it down until you have it where its going to go. That won’t work at 50 below. If you have your garage open, and your house door open at 50 below, you are going to freeze you house up. I don’t mean your house will be cold. I mean your pipes will freeze, your toilets will freeze, and the warmest part of your house will be in your fridge! This picture is of the ice on the door hinge – it was 70 degrees inside, but the hinge is also outside at 50 below…
So, how do you unload a truck at sub-arctic temperatures? Well, you have to open the garage while keeping the house closed up tight, even then you turn on the water in the house because there are pipes in the garage. You unload the truck for about twenty minutes at a time, placing all your boxes and furniture in the garage. Then you close the garage and let it start to warm up. You open the house and move things into the house. After you have moved everything in the house, you close up the house, reopen the garage and start the process again.
We took Dana and Logan back to the hotel, but we both wanted to keep moving so, against Dana’s advise, we went back and worked another couple of hours. We actually got more than half the truck unloaded.
Things were going well until…
Things were going well until I pulled when I should have lifted. We were moving his VERY expensive therapeutic mattress which was frozen solid even after being in the garage over night. It has a great warranty unless you tear the handle. The term handle is a misnomer. It has a handle-looking piece of cloth sewn onto the underside of the mattress. I knew not to grab them, but when I slid my hand under the mattress to pull it onto the bed, I really meant to lift it up so Jeremy could push it on the box spring. The tearing sound made me realize that I must have pulled much more than I thought. I felt horrible, but I think Jeremy felt almost as bad for me as he did about the bed… almost.
Days 9, 10, 11: Finally some help, The Kitchen, Some down time
I’m not sure which day it was, but Jeremy finally was able to bring home some of the base guys to help us finish up the move. Two of them are also his neighbors. It didn’t take long to get the remaining furniture off the truck and into the house. One of his neighbors also asked that we assist him in getting a heavy TV upstairs for him, so after we got everything in Jeremy’s house, we helped the neighbor move the furniture there as well. The next several days were spent pulling the boxes in from the garage to the house, unpacking the kitchen, etc. By the way, Jeremy has more kitchen trinkets than anyone I know; several pizza cutters, cheese graters, potato pilers, and a cherry de-pitter. It seems like no matter how many boxes we pulled in from the garage for the kitchen, there were more boxes for the kitchen. Ok – I’m exaggerating, it wasn’t that bad, but it did seem never ending.
We did have an unexpected sewer backup in the garage. Apparently, a few months of being empty wasn’t good on the plumbing. But, Jeremy is renting so it was a stress free fix – call the land lord. A plumbing and thawing company was out in no time and we felt like we were on “Dirty Jobs” watching him do his work.
It wasn’t all work. We did go out to eat where I confused a rerun NFL game on the screens at the restaurant as current – it was the Patriot playing the Giants and the Giants won. I thought I had just witnessed New England loose a perfect season. We also went to an ice sculpture park which was right next to Santa’s House. It was very cool and I got to slide down an ice slide with my nephew (I wanted to slide down it anyway, but having Logan in my lap made me look less like an idiot). At one point, Jeremy and I boiled water and threw it in the air like we had seen in many youtube videos – it really did evaporate before hitting the ground- some of it turned into a snow like ice that fell to the ground – very cool!
This was a great trip. A lot of work, but still a trip I will always remember. I was glad I was able to be a part of helping Jeremy get moved and I really enjoyed spending time with Logan who by the end of the trip was calling my uncle. Forget all the Master Card commercials, that’s Priceless! I also got a few really great pictures (like this one that I took from Jeremy’s new back yard).
If you’ve read my blog regarding New Year’s Resolutions (here), then you know have had a rather cynical view. Each year we make commitments to improve ourselves and most of those ‘commitments’ have been abandoned by February. I tried to not even participate in the New Year hype, but I found it impossible (maybe I’ll make that a resolution for next year). I’ve committed to loose weight, pay down debt, increase savings and charity, go back to school, and give more volunteer time at my church. So, we’re two weeks into the new year and I thought I’d give you an update of how I’m doing…
Personally, I’m off to a decent start. I adjusted my direct deposit to increase my savings and I’ve enrolled in Western Governors University (WGU.edu). I start school next month, so that’s one resolution that might just make it out of January. Paying down debt will take time to evaluate, however Stephanie and I haven’t financed or charged any new debt (which isn’t that big of a deal considering that we are only two weeks into the year, but hey it’s a start). I’ve made it a point to go to Sunday night and Wednesday night church services in addition to Sunday morning and Stephanie signed up to lead an interest-based small group. We also want to host one of the regular (non-interest based) small groups, but I haven’t filled out the form.
Stephanie and I made a change to the house to assist in our weight loss goals; we’ve converted the TV room into an exercise room. The sectional is out in the garage and the bowflex is in. We also picked up an inexpensive elliptical (Under $200) from KMart (Yes, we paid cash). This picture to the left is me working out on it… well, kind of.
Stephanie and I have also eaten out only once this year and only because we had gift cards. We split a meal and still felt like we ate too much. We have enjoyed eating meals together at the house as a family every day and I have to say its been very refreshing. I’d like to think this is another resolution that will make it out of January.
So, that’s how I’m doing. Every night before I go to bed, I ask myself “Was today different?” and every morning I get up and ask “How will I make today different?” I’ve been ’rounding the same mountain year after year; gaining weight, growing debt, spending savings, and skipping school for another year. So how will this time be different. I’ve decided to make the question a challenging one instead of simply a cynical one. How about you? How are you doing on your New Year’s Resolutions? Have you made today different?
Today Zander turned 4
years old.
Here are a few Zander moments that you won’t want to miss:
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Smells like…
We had just gotten to church and were walking up the sidewalk to service when another group of women all wearing perfumes happened by – Zander sniffed the air a couple of times and stated “Daddy, I think I smell church!”
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Too much TV??
Zander spends most church service with the children’s ministry class, but one service when there was no classes I brought him into the main service with me. Zander enjoyed the song service, he sat quietly through the offering, and was truly on his best behavior. Then during the offering, the church started an announcements video loop on the big screens – all scrolling text with upcomming events while the choir sang a lively chorus. Zander looked at the scrolling text and asked “Is it over Daddy?”
——————
Too Smart for that trick any more!
Stephanie and I trade off putting Zander to bed and he sometimes puts up a fuss about going down. We have a routine like going ‘potty’ and brushing teeth so when we say, “Zander, go potty” at the end of the night, it raises questions like “Am I going to bed?” If we answer with a simple “Yes”, we sometimes face a fit of “But I don’t want to go to sleep” so we often defer him with simple comments like “Not yet, right now you are going potty” Once he is in bed he will ask to stay up or to play. We defer him with comments like, “Well, I will come in a check on you later and we’ll see” and then check back only after we know he has fallen asleep.
One night, Stephanie said to him “I’ll check on you in a bit” to which Zander replied, “Mommy – are you going to check on me when the sun is up?”
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New Mommy?
We’ve been telling Zander that he is turning four in a few days. Today, while riding to the store with Stephanie, Zander asked if he was four yet. Stephanie said, “no, its not your birthday yet”. Zander replied “its very exciting” Then Zander thought for a moment and asked “will I get a new mommy when I turn four?”
Stephanie replied “No – do you want a new mommy?”
“No” he replied
“What do you like about your mommy?” Stephanie asking hoping he would say something good
“She’s beauuuuuutiful” Zander cooed.
——————
First Window Please…
Stephanie took Zander with her to the grocery store to pick up a few items we needed to finish dinner. “We need to get some food, Zander” she explained. When they got to the store, Zander argued, “I thought we were going to get food mommy, I’m hungry”
“We are getting food, Zander. This is the grocery store – they have food – they have lots of food” she replied
“No mommy, we get food in the car”
Apparently, we have gone to fast food way to often lately.
For the second Year in a row, OSU blows the BCS Championship Bowl game to a Southeastern Conference team.
After the loss in regular season to Illinois 28 to 21, they nearly didn’t make it to the championship game. But here we are, the big game was a big loss! Last year I had to take a beating from my wife (a long time Florida Gator fan) when the Gators beat the Buckeyes in the championship game – which was held here in Glendale less then 10 miles from my house.
This year the game was held in New Orleans but the loss still hits close to home. To quote Forest Gump – That’s all I have to say about that.”