Tubing

Jack and I went tubing with our Willits cousins yesterday at Soldier Hollow. It was fun.

Being Manly and Touching

It's strange to me how most guys including myself would rather not touch anyone who isn't directly related to them and even then, it's circumstantial. However there is a certain fraternal order that allows for touching. Bear with me on this and keep your mind right please. I went on a winter camp out with the young men from church over the weekend and we took some snow mobiles with us. Normally hugging a guy = not manly. However holding on to a guys waist as you rocket down a powdery bank at 60 mph, well, I guess it isn't exactly manly but it isn't UN-manly. Touching a guys butt in jeans, not cool bro. Grabbing a snapped football or giving the universal 'a-ta-boy' booty tap, well this is very manly. Snuggling with a guy while watching a movie and you may as well hoist the rainbow flag (not that there's anything wrong with that). Snuggling with a guy in a tent on a cold winter night so you combine body heat and survive, como se dice manly? I won't even touch on snake bites or Grecko-Roman wrestling but I am saying that even though in typical everyday circumstances real dudes don't touch. There are scenarios when the most manly of men are so because they do touch. It's an eternal paradox. I don't always touch guys but when I do, it's manly.

About 30

I turned 30 a couple of years ago and among my circle of friends there are several that are turning 30 or have recently achieved that age. Not all of the time but some of the time people freak out about that milestone and I don't know why.

For me personally when I hit 30 I was doing exactly what I had been planning on doing all of my life. I was married with an amazing wife and wonderful kids, a good job a house that was livable (okay the house leaves something to be desired - we're hoping on moving within the year). Sure there are things that I had not yet accomplished, you know, those super realistic goals of becoming a multi-millionaire and traveling all over the world and the like.

But in reality my life is exactly on course. That is not to say either that there are not improvements I'd like to make and that everything I have ever dreamed about has come true. We struggle from time to time, we don't get to buy everything we want, drive the trendiest cars or go on seemingly continuous vacations in exotic locations. I don't have giant pecs or a perfect smile or get all the sleep I want. For crying out loud I still break out like a chocolate filled teenager sometimes. With that said I wouldn't want to trade in my life now for any of those things (or the absence of them).

I love this time, as much as it feels like I'm going to lose the last whits I have when I hear a nail polish bottle smack the bathroom floor knowing our little girls are in there or another argument between the kids or dealing with their unreasonableness when its way past bedtime, stretched finances, over busy schedules, etc. This is it! This is what I signed up for and when I walk in to a room and hear the uncontrollable laughter of my kids or when I come home from work and see Sarah cooking dinner through the front window I am reminded about how great life really is and how much I have to be thankful for. Even more I'm glad that things have not been handed to us. We have grown so much through our trials and learned to trust each other. I am glad to have experienced what I have to this point and turning (insert age) should not be a reminder about what I haven't accomplished or a threat of impending geriatric life. Rather it is a badge of honor at what large doses of life I have been able to absorb.

You know there are certain things that embarrass me more than others but overall I'd say I have a pretty high tolerance for humiliation. I've spent a good amount of life in that space and its kind of part of my comfort zone. One thing that is embarrassing to me is just about anything that requires me to go without a shirt. There are several factors at play here, each adding to the embarrassment more than the last. If any one of them were present individually I think I could deal okay. Firstly, my last name is Aanerud. That means that a good part of my ancestry has spent a large portion of history sheltered from the sun since Scandinavia isn't generally a place where there are a lot of dark skinned Anglo's walking around. I almost said shirtless Anglo's but that isn't accurate - there are those. So combine that with the Hank Hill style farmer's tan that I have been carefully perfecting over the years of riding my bike and you have a sweet combo of white and dark (the scale of darkness is relative).

Secondly, I am today the most out of shape that I may have ever been at any point in my life. I sit all day at a desk almost everyday and I have a sweet Dr. Pepper habit (that I can kick at any time if I so choose, just saying). That matrix results in a rockin gut that would rival any pregnant woman's. Sometimes I am so bloated after eating crap and sucking down carbonated beverages that it actually feels as firm as a pregnant belly. And, sometimes, in the still of the night, I can feel the kicks.

Thirdly, when I was 18, in fact it was on my 18th birthday I did the most rebellious thing I may have ever done in my life and got a tattoo. The subject of the tattoo is not that bad, it's placement that's embarrassing. I was not myself when I got it. You know the story, a teenage kid all jacked up on Dr. Pepper, I've heard it a thousand times. Next thing you know there's money missing off the dresser and your daughter's knocked up. Sorry, that was off topic. Getting back to the point - so I have a lot of freckles and whatnot on my shoulders and back which is where I originally wanted it but because of that the 'artist' would not put it there. So it ended up on my lower back. By the way its a griffin. Bitchin huh?!

So my in-laws in their infinite generosity are taking all kids and grandkids on a cruise in February in which I will be sorely tempted to take my shirt off and swim with my kids. I did this a few weeks ago in California but we were literally the only ones at the pool so it didn't matter. It's funny though how you can still be embarrassed in front of your kids who are all oblivious to almost everything.

That's the trifecta - crappy coloring, crappy gut, crappy tattoo. I have to be the triple crown winner of idiocy right? Maybe I should get one of those awesome 20's style one piece jobs. Let me go check Amazon.

Politics

The last half of last week we were in Cheyenne as I proudly represented Uinta County as one of our delegates to the Wyoming Republican Convention. I was asked to serve on the Resolutions Committee which met all day Thursday and Friday as we culled through approximately 1150 resolutions to get down to 250 which were passed on the convention floor. It was a fascinating process and experience to see where the conversation is within our state's Republican party and what bothers people. It was also a lot of fun to put my philosophical paradigm against real issues and problems and see how it all shakes out.
It was frustrating at times to be in a discussion with some of the old school establishment folks and get the condescending proverbial pat on the head as if I had said something completely naive and their wisdom on the matter trumped all objections. Some of the time I wanted to thank them for the exquisitely executed plan they had been party to which has plunged mine and my children's generations into the worst mess any generation in our country has every known. So, yes, thank you for your wisdom, you really nailed it with the debt spending, the growth of government, regulations, taxes, wars and lies. What I should say to a lot of these folks is no matter what you believe, I will believe the exact opposite because nothing you are posturing for has worked. I have a place in mind for you to put your precious wisdom. When was the last time you shut off Glenn Beck or Limbaugh and actually learned something? What was the last book that you read that was by an actual scholar or a primary source instead this seasons compilation of punditry vitriol?

I went to the convention openly supporting Ron Paul. There was somewhere between 120 and 140 Ron Paul delegates at the convention out of about 425 voting delegates. The Romney campaign was scared out of their mind and while the Ron Paul campaign spent virtually no money on a presence at the convention the Romney campaign by contrast had 3-4 full time staffers, an attorney, a courtesy room open at all times filled with snacks and drinks and they were vomiting swag all over the place. They flew in Josh Romney to speak to the convention and from the convention podium Romney was endorsed by Enzi, Barrasso, Lummis, Geringer, Mead and they even scraped old Dick Cheney off his death bed (he had a heart transplant 2 weeks ago) to come and speak to the convention and give Romney his endorsement.

Romney's people were head hunting us the entire convention trying to figure out the real positions of several of the uncommitted delegates. After all that they barely won all the delegates to the national convention and we won every alternate spot. If we had 20 or so more Paulians able to vote we would have taken it. They presented a slate of delegates that was like a who's who of Wyoming Republican politics. There were current and former congressmen, a runner up to our present governor and our present governor, both senators, blah, blah, blah. We had people. Just people. Everyday normal, working class, family raising folks with no money and no political connections and many of them were under the age of 40. It was a ton of fun to watch the Romney machine squirm and have to spend so much effort and money to barely edge out a band of nobodies.

As currently constituted the system is fixed so if you want to get involved the deck is stacked against you. Those going to the national convention will have to spend a week in Tampa and the overall cost is somewhere near $4000 and probably at least double that if there is a brokered convention. The time and money commitment alone keep most people out of the running for that. Then you have to be politically well connected to get the nod from the right people to be nominated.

Here's why I'm more optimistic than I have ever been about the nature of this beast. Last cycle there were reportedly 19 Ron Paul delegates to the state convention. This time as stated above there were (for the sake of argument) 130. As with the vast majority of all other candidates Romney supporters will disband after he gets his butt handed to him by Obama while the liberty movement continues to grow and organize. We will continue to become precinct chairs, county chairs, elected to city councils, state legislatures and yes even to national level seats.

The competition is not passionate because there is nothing to be passionate about. I don't know anyone on a personal level who is a Romney supporter who was willing to take the time and money needed to go to the county convention or the state convention to support him. It is true that he is polished and wears nice clothes and has the (focus group tested) perfect amount of grey on his temples and a bullet proof jaw line, the connections and the money. But he is severely lacking in actual principles. Which is why it is difficult to tell the difference between his voting record and someone like Joe Lieberman. In fact I fail to see any substantive difference between him and Obama. They will both spend us into oblivion, continue illegal wars and likely start new ones to which my children will go fight while theirs enjoy a free pass to Yale, they will continue to placate special interests (they have both been bought and paid for by Goldman Sachs-just look at the FEC reports) at the expense of us all. Most of all they are both hugely out of touch with normal people. They don't get it because they can't get it. They have never walked a day in your shoes or mine so how could they begin to understand the problems you and I face.

It is exciting to actually have someone to support instead of merely acquiescing to the lesser of two evils. I did that last cycle and it felt like I was punching my kids in the face. Whether or not my candidates win I want to be able to look my kids in the eye 30 years from now and tell them that I did everything I could to give them the best possible country to live and prosper in. Not that I simply voted for the left side or the right side of the same two-headed monster. Being popular takes a back seat to being right....and I learned long ago that what is popular is very seldom right.

The whole process from the precinct caucuses to the county convention to the state convention was pretty fun for me. It was a huge learning experience and something I look forward to doing again the next time around. I loved forcing the conversation on some of these issues and standing up to those dusty old farts who have so completely screwed us.

"It does not take a majority to prevail...but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."   Samuel Adams

Kony 2012

If you don't know what I'm talking about with Kony 2012 there is a video on youtube and probably a thousand other places that talks about a guy named Joseph Kony. He is a warlord in Uganda and an overall piece of human garbage and should be killed as soon as possible.

But, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of African warlards with territorial jurisdiction that we don't give a rip about. We, as Americans don't really care that much about human suffering in general. I guess I should rephrase that, we care for a little bit when its brought to our attention and then we get bothered by the inconvenience of it and go back to watching American Idol. Take Haiti for example, or the victims of the Japanese tsunami, we don't care at all about the suffering in Kashmir or Darfur or in oppressive South American countries ruled by horrible regimes.

So naturally when I start seeing Kony 2012 all over the place and the viral response to it red flags go up for me. He has been terrorizing Uganda for over 20 years now. They have not killed him, we have not cared....until apparently now. The Obama administration made it official policy to kill him in 2010. More red flags go up. What business is it of the United States to kill small time thugs in another sovereign nation? On a personal level the guy should be killed. In fact if there were a mercenary group raising money to buy weapons to go kill him, I would donate, readily. But he has nothing to do with our national security. Then I found the answer. In 2009 it was announced that Uganda had discovered an oil field that housed something like 2.5 billion barrels of oil. It is as simple as that. We still don't care about genocide or terrorism or general human suffering but we will go to war for some one's oil.

I hope Kony is killed. I also hope it is by a citizen of Uganda with a sense of self-determination that they will not take that kind of thuggery any more. If he is simply taken out by some foreign military who then leaves there will surely be a vacuum left that will be rapidly filled with another warlord.

Ron Paul in Twin Falls

Late on Tuesday I learned that Ron Paul was going to be speaking in Twin Falls, ID on Thursday. Since that is only about 3.5 hours away and the chance of him coming to WY or UT are slim (due to WY's very low general population and UT's last in the nation caucus) I talked Sarah and the kids in to joining me for a road trip on Thurs. We were able to get some seats about 12 rows back in the auditorium where he was speaking, which is pretty awesome. Seeing Ron Paul speak is a lot more like going to a rock concert versus the somber church like feel I've experienced when politicians speak. It half fulfilled one of my bucket list items. Unfortunately the other half, getting my picture taken with him, will have to wait for another time.

The kids did pretty good considering they had just spent the previous 4ish hours in the truck. Jack and Addie were pretty pumped and cheered at all the appropriate times and were even caught chanting 'Ron Paul.' Yeah, you're right I'm brainwashing my kids. No matter what I think it will be a cool thing to look back on, especially for Jack since he is really the only one of the kids who stands a chance of remembering it.

Also, I have the greatest wife in the world. One who let's me be spontaneous with this kind of stuff and totally supports me in it. She bore the brunt of making it go, as always.

I had the opportunity on my mission (I served in Norway), especially when I was in the arctic to get to know many political refugees from North Africa and the Middle East the vast majority of which were Muslim. On ALL counts they were warm people, extremely friendly, welcoming and giving. I actually visited a Mosque when I was in Bergen and traded a first discussion with some gentlemen who were kind enough to teach me and my companion the 5 pillars of Islam. We were there during the call to prayer and the place was full of men praying. This was approximately a year after the attacks on 9/11. In other words when the U.S. was gearing up to go to war in the Middle East. If ever there were a time when we were vulnerable and could have been in harms way surely this was it. However it was fantastic and it continues to endure as one of my favorite mission experiences.

What worries me is that there is a ton of war propaganda being spread all over the media telling us that Iran wants to attack us or Israel or anyone else. There seems to be a widespread effort to make us all very afraid of them and to force us to hate them. I can't remember ever once seeing a picture of Tehran on the news or anything besides Ahmadinejad in front of the UN. Maybe its just me, but there are never pictures or stories of the people of Iran. After seeing what it looks like and listening to Rick Steves talk about his visit there recently, I actually would love to visit there. These are both worth the watch, one is short and the other, much better one is a bit long.

What actually upsets me about it all is another war is completely avoidable. We are the ones stirring the hornets nest. We are imposing sanctions, we are the ones making military blockades, we are the ones that have Iran surrounded and cornered. They don't have a single thing to gain with going to war with us or anyone else for that matter. I don't hate Iran or Iranians, I don't dislike them either. I have no feelings about them other than I think that the average Iranian is a lot like the average American - just a poor sucker trying to slog through another day, put food on the table and keep their family healthy and safe and above all, to be left alone. Before you parrot the war propaganda please at least read something. Listening to Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity does not count. In fact that is probably making you dumber. Above all, we are supposed to be Christians, yet it seems to me that the Christians are the most belligerent, salivating for another war, and this breaks my heart.

I thought this was awesome

Jack and Trains

Jackson still likes trains. A lot.

On Saturday we had to do a few Christmas clean-up type of errands in Ogden. Conveniently, Ogden has a train museum and a pretty good little restaraunt in Union Station. We ate lunch there are played on the trains.

Hi there, I believe we've met before

A few weeks ago I got an iPhone which means that I have actually taken some pictures lately.

This is going to be a little lop-sided in Addie's favor. She is just too dramatic and draws a lot of attention.

The kids

Addie helped Sarah make some Christmas treats.

Addie in time-out for sneaking Christmas treats to her room and eating them.

The kids making gingerbread houses on Christmas Eve.

Eating said gingerbread houses.

Christmas jammies. Yes, Adeline is using her toothbrush as a mascara brush.

Addie's vanity on Christmas morning.

Addie dressed for church on Christmas

We did Christmas at our house this year for the first time since we have had children. We usually make the annual trip to Texas to be with family but decided that we should allow the kids to wake up in their own beds on Christmas morning from time to time. We had a blast. It was a lot of fun to just not have an agenda. I'm not gonna lie, we save a lot of money by staying home too. In fact, we have paid off all debt except for our mortgage (and we owe our parents some money but they are much nicer creditors).

Work has been nuts. Ron Paul rules the earth whether you like it or not. I haven't been able to read nearly enough this year. Work, school and church have taken a lot of time throughout the year. The Mav's are looking shaky but no worries, we are setting up to make some big moves next year.

The first 30 seconds of this song are awesome.

We have always been big fans of music but have been mostly off the grid for hmm, about a decade. There are a few songs that we have found lately that we enjoy. Such as:

Here's a sign that we are getting old. I recently got a free Xbox and I returned it for grocery money. Yes, I would rather have money for groceries than play video games.

Winter set in about 2 months ago and we are beginning to get a bit stir crazy from a lack of outside activity.

I play basketball most Saturday mornings and feel every bit of it most Sunday afternoons. Creaks and cracks, pops and swelling are now commonplace on my crappy 30 year old body.

When Ellie snuggles with you and you are laying on the ground, she sits on your head.

This isn't the best representation of it but you get the idea.

Sarah was in our room the other day which is consequently also where my "office" is. Jack came in and sat in my chair and asked Sarah if he could be an appraiser one day. She said something along the lines of 'yeah sure, if you want to.' Jack said that he wanted to be an appraiser so we could be together all of the time. It made me cry. I cry far more than I probably should. I blame the kids again. I worry that I don't use time with the kids well enough. I worry that before I know it they are going to be screaming that they hate me and slamming the front door as they storm out. I realize that there is such a short window of time that kids, when they are still kids want to spend time with their parents and actually believe we can do no wrong. I hope we use that wisely.

The good news is that Jack is becoming helpful with 'man' tasks and when I'm splitting firewood or building a shelf his assistance is of benefit. I like how most of the time when I ask him to bring a tool or something he actually brings the right one.

Jack is addicted to my iPhone. Maybe more than I am. Angry Birds has got a hold on that one.

Sometimes I wish we lived in a place that had more cultural diversity. I want our kids to be able to have many friends with backgrounds from all over the world.

All 3 of em giving Grandma Great's recliner a workout.

How's that for random?

You can vote for any one of a dozen war mongers and statists, or you can vote for Ron Paul

Hot Pockets

Sarah and the kids return home tomorrow night. It would be impossible to overstate how excited I am for them to come home after their extended visit to Texas. There are a few things I have learned in their absence though. The first and perhaps the most important is: Don't mess this up! - that is my marriage. Getting a glimpse of how life would be for me without Sarah and the kids is so depressing. Another is, and some of you may be firsthand witnesses to this: after you're alone for a while, you start getting weird. You say things that may be pushing against the boundaries of acceptable social behavior, you have less tact, you care less about how people perceive you and if you are me, I am constantly talking and singing in opera voice to myself. (Last night I was outside watering the garden and I heard the oven timer go off inside the house and it isn't that loud. I realized I should probably be embarrassed for all of the music I've treated the neighborhood to lately). While there are myriad other reasons why I am happy to have my family back tomorrow, I would be lying if I said that a good meal wasn't one of them. Let's just say I've gone through a lot of toilet paper since they left. Below pretty much sums up my diet over the past few weeks.

The smelliest house of all time

Elaine: Can you die from an odor? I mean like if you were locked in a vomitorium for two weeks, could you actually die from the odor?
Jerry: An overdose of odor? Good question.
George: Do I smell?


I wish I could have found the video for that little bit of dialogue. The reason for this post? Well, I recently had the fine pleasure of inspecting the smelliest house I have ever stepped foot in. I have literally been in thousands of homes and seen the entire spectrum of living conditions and this one, at least as far as smell goes, takes the cake. 


How do you obtain such an odor? I can hear you all asking. Take 4 large dogs, let's say Akita's or German Shepherds, something along those lines, lock them in your house with you and let them urinate and defecate on every surface of your home. Do not remove the doge feces, just pile it up next to the front door (inside still). Allow all shed hair to remain on the floor to provide a nice, absorbent, mat like covering that will really hold on to all urine and feces particles. Smoke, heavily for years on end. Preferably have 3-5 heavy smokers in the house, yes, you teenagers need to pull your weight too, spark up there junior. Now live like this for, say 8 years without ever cleaning your home and you will have achieved the total destruction of your home by dog. I won't give you too much but here is one picture, apparently this was one of the dog's favorite spots to unload. What looks like dirt on the newel post is actually some kind of urine, fur, smoke residue. Pretty awesome. 

Mavericks

I have lived and breathed the NBA playoffs this year. This is due in large part to the Mav's slicing through round after round and getting to the finals leaving piles of mangled corpses along the way behind the dead eye gun of a 7 foot German man. The way the storyline has played out for the entire NBA this year I believe that the only fans left for the Miami Heat are either those two-bit strumpet, near-the-airport stripclub, bandwagon fans who wear LeBron James' jersey to the mall....and of course those South Beach fans. Everyone seems to be on pins and needles waiting for the Heat to do something stupid, or should I say something else stupid. You know, besides guaranteeing multiple championships in the pre-preseason before any of their team had even suited up. 

Then you have this, this, what's his name? Dirk Nowitzki from Wurzburg Germania who is carrying the entire world on his shoulders. Seriously, the atlas is on this man's back and he has quietly shouldered this burden for years and especially in these Finals. Games when they have been down 15 midway through the 4th and no one is there to help, he pulls out a W on a sweet lefty that the Heat scouting report vehemently warns against. Playing with a fever of 101+ degrees in game 4 down 9 early in the 4th he does it again. This time going right, coughing and wheezing right past Haslem for the game winning points. Keep in mind that the 2nd best player for the Mav's would be lucky to be in the Heat's normal rotation. Seriously the Mav's former center, Erick Dampier, the same Dampier who was the Mav's starting center in the 2006 Finals is now with the Miami Heat and has not played a solitary millisecond in these Finals and very little if any significant time in the entire playoffs. That is how much is on Dirk. 

There are plenty of alluring analogies to make for Dirk but it is what it is. He is a humble guy who instead of selling out his franchise and fans in the offseason went to the gym and got better. There are plenty of those intangible words like will, grit and toughness to describe what he and the Mav's have accomplished this year. You could even go so far as to say this whole scenario is like Rocky V when Tommy "the machine" Gunn who is younger, stronger and more athletic, still can't take Rocky out in a back alley street fight, because after all, Rocky and Dirk just won't stay down. 

Game 5 is tonight and it more or less a must win situation for the Mav's. The media has been trashing LeBron for the past 2 days so I am sure that he will come out slinging and firing. Dirk still has a lingering fever, that pesky torn tendon in his left hand, no consistent help from anyone and he will face 3 dudes all carrying $14,000.000 contracts tonight. Hopefully those home court rims are a little softer than they have been the last 2 games and some help shows up. We sure could use Jet to pull a Gandalf and show up with a raging army of team mates,  ready to destroy the Orks. Let's go Mav's!!

The Season of Faith's Perfection

Yeah, I know....I ripped the title off from Fining Forester, relax. If you know me well, you know that I have been a Dallas Mavericks fan forever. I remember when Dad would score a set of tickets when I was pretty little to go and watch Rolondo Blackman, Brad Davis, Mark Aguirre and Derek Harper. I remember well the disappointments of Jim Jackson, Roy Tarpley, Popeye Jones and that infamous 11-71 season back in the early 90's. I remember going to games on "dollar dog nights" when the parking pass was more than the game ticket back in middle school and high school. I have always been a Mav's fan and at no time have I ever thought about switching up who I cheered for.

The 2000's haven't exactly been a walk in the park either. With several early playoff exits in the first part of the decade hope began to grow with the burgeoning of a certain 7' German.

Going in to the playoffs in 2006 things were good for the Mav's and for me. I had recently put school on the back burner again and had a job I was really excited about and making good money at. Sarah and I had moved in to a house we loved in Salt Lake and were fixing up. Brett was staying with us at the time and Ryan Sparks was over often and we made no qualms about cheering hard for the Mav's during that playoff run and the entire neighborhood knew it. When Dirty was able to finish the Spurs off in the Wester Conference Finals with the drive and the clutchest of all clutch free throws, the Mavericks were headed to the finals for the first time ever.

I don't need to go in to too much detail about the finals implosion but just to recap the Mav's jumped out to a solid 2-0 series lead and looked fantastic late in the 3rd quarter when the Heat came alive and won 4 straight starting with game 3. Of course there were some very dubious whistles, the phantom time out which Josh Howard never called and a very lop-sided free throw tally in games 5-6 which led the now former Laker's coach Phil Jackson to say that the league was retaliating against the Mav's owner Mark Cuban's criticism of the leauge via the free throw line.

Needless to say it was a tough one to swallow and 2007 wasn't any better with a strangle hold on the #1 seed overall riding a 67 win game season and facing a Golden State team that if Avery Johnson had played starters against in the end of the regular season and gave them one more loss, wouldn't have even made the playoff's. The Mav's lost the series being on a very short list of #1's to be beat by #8's. 2008, 2009 and 2010 were all largely forgettable advancing to the second round just once in those years but otherwise taking a first round ouster every season.

In that time I experienced what was to me an earth shattering awakening with regard to the political scene which you all know something about....If you don't just scroll down some. I think that this has made me very skeptical and even cynical at times regarding the government and their ineptitude. Economically things have been in the Sir John Crapper and this has for me and my business been devastating and changed the face of the industry in which I work. During this time we moved to Evanston Wyoming in a temporary house, in which we still reside which is also bursting at it's ever-loving seams. The primary purpose of moving to Evanston rather than say Rock Springs Wyoming was to be close to my Grandmother who passed away just over a year ago. Government regulation has kept business slow for us and taken most of our clients and forced them to use appraisers whom would normally be their 3rd or 4th choice. Thank you Chris Dodd and Barney Frank for punching my personal finances in the gut.

I have added 3 beautiful children to my life since 2006 and there have definitely been some wonderful experiences and spectacular high notes. But overall stress has been ratcheted up a few notches, the future seems for me to be more uncertain than ever and there are of course those 3 little mouths to feed.

When the Mavericks were heading in to the playoffs this year I was bracing myself for disappointment but hoping for the best knowing in my heart of hearts that this year would be different. The Mav's beat Portland in 6, swept the Lakers in epic fashion and promptly dismissed the Thunder who will be a great team for at least the next 5 years as long as the roster doesn't blow up. All the while the Miami Heat were making their way through the East and finally the stage was set last week and the Mav's and Heat would get to reset the 2006 finals.

I know this is stupid and part of me is slightly embarrassed to even record and publicize this but this year I am cheering for the Mav's harder than I ever have. Not just so they can exorcise their playoff demons but it seems that my life has been a parallel to theirs over a similar time frame. So their playoff destiny is something of a chance at personal redemption for me. If they can win and do it against the very team who has caused them so much mental anguish over the past 5 years maybe there is still some justice in the world. Perhaps there is a reason to allow me to get my hopes up about something instead of just absorbing sucker punch after blind sucker punch.

By the way my truck just broke down.

Let's go Mav's!!

Water

John 4:10
Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.


Scientists are discovering that you can change the shape water crystals take depending on how you treat them, what words you speak or show to them or even what you think toward them. Dr. Masaru Emoto has written several books on the topic and has done extensive research on water. 


This idea has been blowing my mind today thinking about the above scripture. I was also thinking about when you feel the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is likely an actual physiological change in the water content of your body. How you interact with other people and the mood you carry may actually change the physical nature of the water in your body. Here is a video that shows some of the crystals and how they took form depending on how they were treated. 

Hermann Goering quote

Image from here


"Why, of course the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only the Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Gilbert, G.M. Nuremburg Diary.

              New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1947 (pp. 278-279).

When people lose everything and they have nothing left to lose, they lose it. -- Gerald Celente

Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Albania, Jordan, Bolivia and Egypt are all verging on complete revolution.





This story explains most of what is going on.

Most of this is driven by our belligerent foreign policy in those regions and propping up corrupt regimes. Which is why you aren't hearing anything about it in the news.

In other news, we don't take care of our own soldiers (big surprise right). Especially those suffering from PTSD or other mental difficulties. For the second year in a row more soldiers took their own lives than those that were killed in combat.