Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Thaw and Freeze
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Illegal?
I was just wondering. What's so different about living in this country illegally, without the proper documentation, and, say, driving a car illegally, without the proper documentation? Or driving a truck without a medical certification card? Or practicing medicine without a license? I think if I told the police officer that pulls me over that I was driving without a license in order to provide more for my family, he might say something like "So sorry. Get the permit, then drive. Until then, here...pay this ticket."
I'm just sayin'.
I'm just sayin'.
Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7
Saturday, February 12, 2011
It's been a long cold winter and frankly I'm tired of it. If it hasn't been snowing it's been so cold my snot freezes. That's cold!
Enough of that. I thought I would bring you folks up to date and share an idea or two. I'm writing this on my phone, between quarters, at the Upwards basketball games I announce every year. Isn't technology cool?
Anyway, here's the news. We are still working on adopting Josh. I've requested a state hearing. Don't know when that'll
be happening. Probably in a month or so. Also, we are in the process of moving some beds and kids around in the house so we have room for another foster child...or two. I've had people question our sanity since we seem to keep taking kids in. But with 50,000 children in foster care in the state of Ohio alone, how can we say we're not going to do any more. We have decided though that we are going to try to take only younger children, 6 and under, with special needs. We just don't have the firmness necessary to meet the needs of the teens that are in the system.
Sheila's been dealing with some tendonitis in her elbow, Isaac has mono again and the flu, Ben may graduate a quarter or two early if he takes classes this summer, and Preston has improved dramatically in school. He's been bringing home almost all A's, most of which have been 100's. We are very proud of all our kids.
So here's an idea I have. Iwas listening to the state of the union address the other day and one of the things the president was talking about was the jobs situation in this country. The fact that we have a large number of people out of work and a number of corporations are sending more and more jobs out of the country. And I believe these corporations still claim to be American companies. So here's my thought.
If a corporation has more than 10% of all its employees out of the country, then that corporation loses its status as an American company and should pay tariffs and higher taxes as a foreign corporation doing business in America.
I don't know all the answers but this seemed like a good idea. Don't we charge China and Japan to bring goods into our country? And if you do business here, provide goods and services, and yet don't provide jobs here, then those goods and services should be taxed/tariffed. It's just a thought. Who knows, it might work.
Enough of that. I thought I would bring you folks up to date and share an idea or two. I'm writing this on my phone, between quarters, at the Upwards basketball games I announce every year. Isn't technology cool?
Anyway, here's the news. We are still working on adopting Josh. I've requested a state hearing. Don't know when that'll
be happening. Probably in a month or so. Also, we are in the process of moving some beds and kids around in the house so we have room for another foster child...or two. I've had people question our sanity since we seem to keep taking kids in. But with 50,000 children in foster care in the state of Ohio alone, how can we say we're not going to do any more. We have decided though that we are going to try to take only younger children, 6 and under, with special needs. We just don't have the firmness necessary to meet the needs of the teens that are in the system.
Sheila's been dealing with some tendonitis in her elbow, Isaac has mono again and the flu, Ben may graduate a quarter or two early if he takes classes this summer, and Preston has improved dramatically in school. He's been bringing home almost all A's, most of which have been 100's. We are very proud of all our kids.
So here's an idea I have. Iwas listening to the state of the union address the other day and one of the things the president was talking about was the jobs situation in this country. The fact that we have a large number of people out of work and a number of corporations are sending more and more jobs out of the country. And I believe these corporations still claim to be American companies. So here's my thought.
If a corporation has more than 10% of all its employees out of the country, then that corporation loses its status as an American company and should pay tariffs and higher taxes as a foreign corporation doing business in America.
I don't know all the answers but this seemed like a good idea. Don't we charge China and Japan to bring goods into our country? And if you do business here, provide goods and services, and yet don't provide jobs here, then those goods and services should be taxed/tariffed. It's just a thought. Who knows, it might work.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
She's gone, gone, gone...
My wife left me yesterday.
Actually, she's just gone for the weekend. The kids and I bought her a scrap-booking weekend with a bunch of other ladies as her birthday gift. I don't think I've ever seen her so excited. She loves scrap-booking and is very, very good at it. Last year a friend of hers got 82 pages done in one weekend. Sheila said she has every intention of blowing that number out of the water. And I imagine she'll probably do it. A creative woman, that one.
So that leaves me at home with the kids for the weekend. And once again, I've discovered how much she actually gets done around here. No, I take that back. I've discovered that she gets more done than I can imagine and I have absolutely no idea how she does it.
It's Saturday, so I set my alarm for 6:30 so I could get up and have some quiet time before Preston and Josh woke up. I got about 15 minutes. Just long enough to get the coffee going and get a shower. I came out of the shower to find Josh awake. So from there it wasn't long before Preston was awake.
It's get Josh on to the commode, (still working on potty training), get Preston his medication, get Josh his medication, feed Josh, feed Preston, empty the trash so it doesn't tumble off the top of the mountain the kids have piled up so that they don't have to take the bag out. And then discover the last time Isaac took the trash out he used the last trash bag and decided not to tell anyone that we had no more bags. So I shove as much of the new trash in the last bag going at as I can get to fit and leave the rest on the counter.
Empty the dishwasher, load it again, set the timer for it to start in about an hour since I've used up all the hot water in my shower and the subsequent cleaning of crusty dishes so that the dishwasher can finish cleaning them, wonder what sense that makes.
Get a cup of coffee, listen to Preston tell me about the cars that are cool and that he thinks I should buy from the Ohio Auto & RV sale magazine. Find Josh asleep on the couch buried under the cushions. Change him again since I missed his pottying time, apparently. And it's not even 8:30 yet.
And my wife does this every morning, even on the weekends. I don't know how she keeps going.
I hope she's having fun and I can't wait for Sunday afternoon to get here... so I can see her again.
Actually, she's just gone for the weekend. The kids and I bought her a scrap-booking weekend with a bunch of other ladies as her birthday gift. I don't think I've ever seen her so excited. She loves scrap-booking and is very, very good at it. Last year a friend of hers got 82 pages done in one weekend. Sheila said she has every intention of blowing that number out of the water. And I imagine she'll probably do it. A creative woman, that one.
So that leaves me at home with the kids for the weekend. And once again, I've discovered how much she actually gets done around here. No, I take that back. I've discovered that she gets more done than I can imagine and I have absolutely no idea how she does it.
It's Saturday, so I set my alarm for 6:30 so I could get up and have some quiet time before Preston and Josh woke up. I got about 15 minutes. Just long enough to get the coffee going and get a shower. I came out of the shower to find Josh awake. So from there it wasn't long before Preston was awake.
It's get Josh on to the commode, (still working on potty training), get Preston his medication, get Josh his medication, feed Josh, feed Preston, empty the trash so it doesn't tumble off the top of the mountain the kids have piled up so that they don't have to take the bag out. And then discover the last time Isaac took the trash out he used the last trash bag and decided not to tell anyone that we had no more bags. So I shove as much of the new trash in the last bag going at as I can get to fit and leave the rest on the counter.
Empty the dishwasher, load it again, set the timer for it to start in about an hour since I've used up all the hot water in my shower and the subsequent cleaning of crusty dishes so that the dishwasher can finish cleaning them, wonder what sense that makes.
Get a cup of coffee, listen to Preston tell me about the cars that are cool and that he thinks I should buy from the Ohio Auto & RV sale magazine. Find Josh asleep on the couch buried under the cushions. Change him again since I missed his pottying time, apparently. And it's not even 8:30 yet.
And my wife does this every morning, even on the weekends. I don't know how she keeps going.
I hope she's having fun and I can't wait for Sunday afternoon to get here... so I can see her again.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Why do I keep getting comments in Japanese? Do I look Japanese to you?
I’m very proud of my kids. All of them. Although they scare me at times, and sometimes they just make me laugh.
I was having a problem with my Blackberry, and not having time to go to the Verizon store and get it worked out, I switched phones with Hana. She has the same model and doesn’t need the alarm function anyway, since she usually wakes up when the setting sun comes through her window.
I finished my book at dinner tonight and looked up the order of the Lucas Davenport series written by John Sandford so I could read them in order (I’m that kind of guy) and I stumbled across some memos that Hana had put on her phone. I thought I’d share them with you.
Under the heading “On Haikus”:
I can’t write haikus
Because I’m not Japanese
Hey, wait a minute.
Haikus are easy
But sometimes the don’t make sense
Refrigerator
Under the heading “Memo to self”:
Talking to self is bad.
Oh Crap!
I would love to see her dreams sometimes. She must have some really weird ones. The nice thing is she usually writes them down. But apparently, she sometimes just jots down some notes about her dreams. I found this memo entitles “Dream 18”:
Alley. Bloody Slug. Hobo Women. Ran Off. Door open. Job Opportunity. Application. Tom Cruise. Alien. Chase (could be the verb chase or her cousin Chase). Robot. Escape through sewers. Lake. Modeling Photo shoot. Sean and Gus (from the TV show Psyche.) Join. Pass out. Airport. All my stuff is ruined. Stranded. Good Samaritan. Model boss. Fight. Missed Flight. Christmas. Puppies. Apartment. Moved. Pink. Emily. Kittens. Kate and Mike. Rotweillers. Chase. Hurt Diana. Lock Door.
Yeah, Hana. I’d lock the door too.
Ben called me a couple hours ago and said he had landed in Houston and was on his way back home. A friend of his is moving to San Francisco and asked Ben to go with him out there and he’d buy him a plane ticket home. They left last Monday morning. This is Ben. My 21 year old son who got his third learners permit three days before they left. You see, Ben’s never gotten his lisence to drive and doesn’t really like to drive. But it sounded like they had a good time. They spet the first night in Des Moine, Iowa, then spent the second night in Denver where they had dinner with my brother Phil, who Ben hadn’t seen in probably ten years. Then they were trying to get to Las Vegas to see his friends uncle but didn’t make it that day. They stopped in Cedar City, Utah, about 175 miles from Vegas. Drove on into Vegas the next morning and spent the day running around, and then on to San Francisco on Friday.
I was more scared of him making this trip than I was when he was 16 and went to Peru on a mission trip. But all went well. At least so far anyway.
Do you listen to podcasts? If so, do you listen to Radio Lab? If the answer is no to either question, I would recommend you going to the Radio lab website and getting the podcast entitled “Oops”. It’s amazing. Especially the last section about Butte, MT. Actually, I would recommend getting all of their podcasts. I personally think it’s the best one out there.
And for those of you who don’t know it, my wife is a great wife. As I told her on Sunday before I left, she’s the best wife I’ve ever had. That’s probably not as funny now that I read it since a lot of you don’t actually know that she’s the ONLY wife I’ve ever had. So excuse me while I delete this paragraph.
There. That’s better.
I’m very proud of my kids. All of them. Although they scare me at times, and sometimes they just make me laugh.
I was having a problem with my Blackberry, and not having time to go to the Verizon store and get it worked out, I switched phones with Hana. She has the same model and doesn’t need the alarm function anyway, since she usually wakes up when the setting sun comes through her window.
I finished my book at dinner tonight and looked up the order of the Lucas Davenport series written by John Sandford so I could read them in order (I’m that kind of guy) and I stumbled across some memos that Hana had put on her phone. I thought I’d share them with you.
Under the heading “On Haikus”:
I can’t write haikus
Because I’m not Japanese
Hey, wait a minute.
Haikus are easy
But sometimes the don’t make sense
Refrigerator
Under the heading “Memo to self”:
Talking to self is bad.
Oh Crap!
I would love to see her dreams sometimes. She must have some really weird ones. The nice thing is she usually writes them down. But apparently, she sometimes just jots down some notes about her dreams. I found this memo entitles “Dream 18”:
Alley. Bloody Slug. Hobo Women. Ran Off. Door open. Job Opportunity. Application. Tom Cruise. Alien. Chase (could be the verb chase or her cousin Chase). Robot. Escape through sewers. Lake. Modeling Photo shoot. Sean and Gus (from the TV show Psyche.) Join. Pass out. Airport. All my stuff is ruined. Stranded. Good Samaritan. Model boss. Fight. Missed Flight. Christmas. Puppies. Apartment. Moved. Pink. Emily. Kittens. Kate and Mike. Rotweillers. Chase. Hurt Diana. Lock Door.
Yeah, Hana. I’d lock the door too.
Ben called me a couple hours ago and said he had landed in Houston and was on his way back home. A friend of his is moving to San Francisco and asked Ben to go with him out there and he’d buy him a plane ticket home. They left last Monday morning. This is Ben. My 21 year old son who got his third learners permit three days before they left. You see, Ben’s never gotten his lisence to drive and doesn’t really like to drive. But it sounded like they had a good time. They spet the first night in Des Moine, Iowa, then spent the second night in Denver where they had dinner with my brother Phil, who Ben hadn’t seen in probably ten years. Then they were trying to get to Las Vegas to see his friends uncle but didn’t make it that day. They stopped in Cedar City, Utah, about 175 miles from Vegas. Drove on into Vegas the next morning and spent the day running around, and then on to San Francisco on Friday.
I was more scared of him making this trip than I was when he was 16 and went to Peru on a mission trip. But all went well. At least so far anyway.
Do you listen to podcasts? If so, do you listen to Radio Lab? If the answer is no to either question, I would recommend you going to the Radio lab website and getting the podcast entitled “Oops”. It’s amazing. Especially the last section about Butte, MT. Actually, I would recommend getting all of their podcasts. I personally think it’s the best one out there.
And for those of you who don’t know it, my wife is a great wife. As I told her on Sunday before I left, she’s the best wife I’ve ever had. That’s probably not as funny now that I read it since a lot of you don’t actually know that she’s the ONLY wife I’ve ever had. So excuse me while I delete this paragraph.
There. That’s better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
