So many of our people, those who ensure our safety, security and freedom
every day are still in harms way keep us safe and making sure that we
can celebrate in peace in any way we please if we so choose. They ensure
that if we don’t want to celebrate any religious holiday we have that
freedom as well. They give up so much of their own freedom and even
their individualism to join their brothers and sisters in harms way to
protect those they love and those they have never met. That’s called
dedication. That’s called Patriotism. This, my friends, is true love.
Love of family. Love of country. Love of freedom. May they always be
safe and ALWAYS feel the appreciation that we have for them. God Bless
them all. To every member of the Armed Forces of the United States of
America: Thank You!

In case you haven’t heard it, here is Soldier’s
Silent Night.

Not this Southern Boy. I’ll stick with the nice warm weather
of the Southland. It’s supposed to hit 60F Christmas Day!

Merry Christmas anyway!

Propelled by his strong Christian principles, Millard Fuller used
Habitat to develop a system of using donated money and material, and
voluntary labor, to build homes for low-income families. The homes are
sold without profit, and buyers pay no interest. Buyers are required to
help build their houses, contributing what Fuller called sweat equity.

Locally we have a pretty good little Habitat build in the spring every
year. You can volunteer to help here.
We’ll start signing people up in the near future, so be sure to check
our website for more details. If you’d like to donate money or gifts in
kind, feel free to email me.

You never know what kind of trip it’s going to be and when the day started off like this one did you wonder if you’d be better off staying home. 

I have a large coffee cup that I normally keep at home, but when I’m heading off on the raod I will often take it with me.  I had it full of coffee this morning and put it in the cup holder of my rental car.  It was a tight fit, but it seemed to be in pretty well, so I left it to get the rest of my stuff.  I put my bag in the back, and closed the hatch.  When I opened the drivers door to put my other bag up front with me I noticed my coffee cup sitting upside down in the console.  It was completely empty.  All of the coffee that had been in it, was now in a big puddle in the console.  My driveway is short, but on  a pretty steep incline, so I guess when I slammed the hatch it dislodged my cup and dumped my coffee.  What a start to the day.

I headed inside to get something to dry it with and as I headed. back out my wife informed me that  I had the last roll of paper towels in my hand.  I guess that was my cue to NOT use them, so I only took a few.  It was enough to soak up most of the coffee at least.  When I went back inside, my wife went out and (without being asked) finished cleaning up the mess with a damp cloth.  At least something went well.

All in all it turned out to be a pretty good day, though.  After I’m done here tomorrow, I’ll be heading down to Atlanta, Georgia for a couple of days.  At least one of my coworkers will be there too, so maybe we can get together while I’m there and keep each other from going insane.  Gotta love being on the road.

Conversing with customers is like talking to family that you don’t see that often.  You want to connect with them, but you don’t want to talk politics until you know where they stand.  I have very few customers who aren’t conservative, but I still try not to talk politics unless they bring it up.

I was in Paris, Texas a couple of weeks ago and they were disgusted with Obama-mania.  Today the customer and I talked about guns, taxes, and pirates. 

I’m in the unique position of being able to hear a lot of different opinions about these things and at the very least learn something about people as I go if not about politics.  It really does make the job and life more interesting when you get to meet lots of different people from lots of different backgrounds.  Of course, that doesn’t mean that I like being on the road…

I also managed to smash my right index finger in the door today, so that’s feeling really great right now, but all in all, it was a great day.

My kids also pitched in and between fighting with one another about who was going to get to do what, it was pretty nice having them outside with me.  My 2 youngest daughters are close enough together in age that they are always fighting about everything.  My son is pretty good with it, but he doesn’t argue when they make him mad, he just attacks.  Just living the dream, I guess.

Granted it won’t be for everyone, but I think that it’s a good perspective from a pediatrician about what makes girls tick. As you can tell from the title, it stresses the importance of being a strong father in more ways than one.

If you’re like me, you have inner battles with how firm to be and how to handle different situations in raising daughters. I never had sisters so I never had that experience to help me see it from their point of view.

I think that one of the most important things to I got out of this book was the fact that you do have to be your daughters strength when she needs it most and wants it least. One example given was a good girl who was left alone at 18 in her parents home and her friends decided she should have a party. Being the nice girl she was, she didn’t want to say no to her friends. She didn’t want to disappoint her friends. Unfortunately, she ended up in jail since she was 18 and she had a party where teens were drinking and someone got hurt. The author points out that this happens all too often because the parents put her into a situation that she wasn’t ready for. She couldn’t say no to her friends. These nice girls also don’t say no to sex even when they want to because they are just too nice.

Don’t put your kid into situations like this. Be a parent, be firm, but caring and it can make all the difference in the world when the going gets tough. Be the bad guy to her friends if necessary to make sure that your daughter is safe.

There are lots of points in the book that drive home the point of your being your daughters hero, even when she says you aren’t. In her eyes, you’re the measure for all the men who she will ever let into her life. Scary, huh?

The statistics in the book frankly scare the hell out of me. With 3 daughters, its really scary.

If you have daughters, I would definitely recommend this book. It’s given from a Christian perspective very specifically in parts of the book, but even if you aren’t a Christian I think that this book is a very good guide on being THE man for your daughter.

Where’s my belt!?!  Someone needs a good ass whipping.

SIMPSONVILLE, S.C. — Investigators with the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office said a report of an attempted kidnapping on Sunday night in a Simpsonville subdivision is false.

Investigators said that the 13-year-old girl confessed, in front of her parents and investigators, Monday night that she made the story up.The girl reported that she was grabbed by a man while she was walking a neighbor’s dog around a pond at the Adams Run subdivision.According to an incident report, the girl told deputies that the man was wearing all-black clothing, a black mask and black gloves.The girl told investigators that after the man grabbed her, the dog bit the man on the arm and he fled in a white box-type van.The sheriff’s office said that there is no indication right now as to why the girl made up the story.She could face charges of filing a false police report.

I don’t understand as much about this proposal as I’d like, but from what I can tell McCain is at least partially right on it.  I don’t think that any type of cap and trade system is necessary for one thing, but for another reasonable.

It gets back to the same old line.  The media is beating the drum of the far left and pushing us further to the left by making knuckleheads believe global warming is real.  Then they want you to believe that a huge bureacracy can buy their way out of it by charging people for everything from driving cars to running their home airconditioners or eating beef (cow farts are causing global warming you know).

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of extremists from both sides pushing their bs on the rest of us.  I’m a Republican but on social issues I’m more aligned with Libertarians.  Don’t tell me I can’t buy alcohol on Sunday because you don’t like it.  If it’s legal on Monday, why not on Sunday?  And don’t give me the whole wine wasn’t wine crap either.  Read YOUR HISTORY to see where that mess came from.

Believe it or not, you can’t legislate your way to heaven any more than you can legislate anyone else to heaven or hell, though you can make their life hell here on earth.  Just ask those who lived through Stalin’s rule of the great socialist experiment.

OK, I’m rambling now but since I pay the rent here and the thought police haven’t fully taken over the internet yet, I’ll say what I damn well please.

I had an eye infection of some sort in December that somehow really scewed up my vision in my right eye.  The same thing happened about 6 years ago, but over a few months it got back to normal.  Not this time.  The eye doc told me that my left eye is 20/15, (not too bad for a 43 y.o.), but my right eye is really bad.  He was concerned that if he gave me the full strength prescription, the difference between my eyes would make me dizzy.  Even with a slightly lower strength, I’m having problems getting used to it.  Only time will tell if I’m able to take it or if I’ll give up and stop wearing them.

Does anyone else have a problem wearing glasses?  I wonder…