Thursday, October 9, 2008

New Idea

I've been thinking about the election - a lot! The lead up to it is getting nasty. "he did this" and "he did that". All we want to hear about is what are they GOING to DO for the country when they are President? Not who they spoke with back in college.

So I have an idea that won't work for this election as it is too close but definately should be proposed for the next one.

- Each candidate will be given a house in the suburbs to live with their family

- They will be told that they earn $35,000 per year
- They don't have to earn this money but they are not allowed to use any other money to live on.

- They will need to pay the mortgage on the house

- go out and buy groceries (not send someone else)

- pump their own gas

- etc

Basically live like any other American. This can be done before we narrow it down to a candidate for each party so they have time to do this - it also stops them from campaigning soooo much (which is a drag!)

This little experiment (like Survivor) will let us see which of the candidates has their finger on the pulse. It will bring them back to realty instead of them being chauffeured around and living in their big mansion with all their money. They will get a hands on experience of what is going on.

Can you imagine McCain trying to live under these perameters? He doesn't know how much a tank of gas costs. He's never had to struggle (or he forgets cos he's so damn old!).

This would be a great test of their abilities to handle the budget and make decisions.

What a plan! I wonder how I get this passed in Congress??????

Trying to stay sane for 26 more days!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

What If.......

What if Barack Obama's name was Robert Jones?

What if Barack Obama was white?

What if Barack Obama was 15 years older?

Would he be more acceptable?

It's exactly 4 weeks to the Presidential election. That's 28 days. and I am still sick to my stomach when I think of it.

How can the minds of so many people be changed to a less biased outlook so they can see the politics and not the color of a man skin in 28 days?

How can we convey the importance of this election and how the United States of America will be seen by the World once this election is over, in 28 days?

Is it really the color of the man's skin and his name and his youth that have people looking to vote for McCain? Are they really that shallow that they can't see past these things?

Here's What I believe:

1. If McCain is elected as President the World will realize just how shallow this country is. They know that Obama has a wider view of the World and will bring change. Even if he doesn't bring change - at least we would have moved from the republican mindset that has corrupted this Nation for the past 8 years. The World is looking for us to change. The World is looking for us to be less of a bully to other Nations and I believe that Barack Obama will offer these things.

2. I believe the stock market will not stabilize until the election is complete. When I say complete I mean when Palm Beach (Florida) finally counts it's votes and that could be the end of December or even into January! If the decision is not clear prior to the Inauguration date the Speaker of the House stands in (and that's a Woman!) After the vote the market will stabilize. If Obama is elected the market will rise! If it's McCain I think the World will be scared and confidence will continue to drop.

3. McCain is against stem-cell research - The World is surpassing us in education and Science. Another 4 years of anti stem-cell etc will put us WAY behind the World. This is his religious beliefs that are obstructing an unbiased opinion.

4. Palin is against abortion - even if it's for a woman that is raped or even incest! This is her Christian beliefs getting in the way of Government. Just because she believes this is against God does not entitle her to tell me what is moral for me.

5. McCain doesn't know how many houses he owns. Ok his wife has money - a lot of it - but this just shows how disconnected he is from the Nation and the Middle Class. He thought that it would take a citizen to have $5,000,000 (that's 5 million dollars) for them to be rich! WHAT???? He has no clue. Barack and Michelle Obama have one car that they share. McCain has 13 cars!

6. McCain wants to protect the rich. Obama wants to tax anyone that earns over $250,000. The rich are complaining. If you can't afford to pay taxes on $250,000 you are living way above your means. This was a main concern for the financial mess we are in today. People living above their means.

7. Palin doesn't have a clue! At the VP Debate last week she didn't answer one question. Yes she did well - as in she didn't stand there like a dear in headlights as expected - but she could not answer one single question. She had a list of things to say and she avoided the questions by spouting off what her trainers told her to say. And what VP in the past has ever given a "Shout Out" to any one? Ridiculous!

8. If John McCain is elected he will not make it through 4 years. And you all know what that means. Palin would be our Commander in Chief! COMMANDER IN CHIEF for God's sake! For that reason alone there shouldn't be any votes for McCain!

9. John McCain wants to deregulate Health Insurance and give us all $5,000 to buy our own health care! Is he crazy? You can't get decent health care for $5,000 a year for a family! Through the company I work for the rate for someone my age (39) was going to be over $600 per month - that's just for me! No family coverage. Reason - My age and because I am a woman and I might get pregnant! This rate is through an employer so it is heavily discounted! I had to go with an independant coverage and swear that I would not get pregnant and if I did agree that they would not cover it! That I got for $225 per month. There are not many people out there that need individual coverage and don't plan on getting pregnant. One of my co-workers has coverage for himself and his 2 girls. His discounted coverage is just over $1,000 per month. So where is John Mccain getting his numbers from? Yes if he deregulates insurance we can shop around but what kind of coverage will we end up with?

I get so frustrated with the whole situation. Maybe I'm ignorant. Maybe I'm wrong. Write in the comment section below. I would love to hear what everyone thinks.

I just ask for people to be open minded. See passed the color and listen to the facts. Do you want the World to look at us as a laughing stock?

What's important to you?

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

My 16th Birthday!

I was driving home from work today - listening to my favorite radio station (WZZR Real Radio - 94.3 fm). It's a talk radio station, so no music, just people calling up all day to talk about stuff that is on their mind. The Love Drs are my favorite hosts from 10am - 3pm and I get to sneak a listen at work (Shh). On the drive home it's the home team with Josh Cohan, who is horrid but it's better than music radio! Anyway - today they were asking people to call in and tell stories of things that happened to them that they tried to cover up. This reminded me of a story.......

During the time leading up to my 16th birthday I was still living at my mom's house in Glasgow, Scotland! I was at that stage of trying to impress my peers and decided I should have a house party. Now back in those days, and probably still now, there were "gangs" in our neighborhoods. I'm not talking about the "Bloods" or the "Crips" but still there were factions of people that didn't get along with each other. I remember I had a boyfriend, slightly older, that I used to walk to his neighborhood to see him and I always felt safe because people knew who I was dating. Anyway, I invited a bunch of people to my party and my mom agreed to go out and stay at a friends that night as long as my sister Shona was going to look out for me.

The party began well but very quickly got nasty. I kept running into people I didn't know, who were asking who's party it was. :) My poor sister was running around like a crazy person trying to stop people from stealing her clothes! She had a lot of designer stuff that kept getting put up other peoples tops - a la shoplifting.

Needless to say amongst the people there were people from opposing "gangs". One group boarded themselves into my mom's bedroom, on the second floor, using my mom's armoire against the door. The people from the other group went into the the bedroom next door, that had bay windows, and tried to get into my mom's room through the window. Remember - this was on the 2nd floor!!! By this time my sister had had enough and had called the police. When they came they threw everyone out and at that point we discovered that all the kitchen knives had been stolen. I couldn't stop thinking what a huge success my party had been. Just think of how people would be talking about MY party for months to come!!!!

The next morning I woke up and realized I had slept on the living room floor (I'm pretty sure I wasn't drinking coca cola back then either). The house was a disaster. There was blood sprayed up the walls in the hall and people had graffiti-ed the walls too :(. My sister was right there for me even back then. She wanted to kill me but helped me make a plan. My mom was coming home within hours and we needed to to get the house back in order. Shona sent me off to the home improvement store to buy paint to paint over the blood etc. I took a sample color and ran off to the store, came back and painted over the blood splattered areas of the walls (not the whole wall though). We barely got the house back to normal when my mom came home. Everything looked great..... until she asked what was different with the walls. We took a closer look and realized my mistake.......... our walls were satin paint but I had bought and touched up patches using gloss!

We were so close. We had a lot of explaining to do.....................

Friday, September 26, 2008

Busy Busy Busy!

I've been having so much fun recently so I thought I would share it with you all!


Last weekend Jason and I participated in a Charity fun run. Now I know you're all thinking "Run? the only place those to would run to is the pizza shop!" so to clarify - it was on the Harley! Jason driving me sitting back enjoying the view! It started at 7:30 am and ended at 1pm. What a hot and sunny day it was! Of course Miss Queen of the skn cancer (me) didn't put any sun screen on so I was fried! We went North then West out to Lake Okechobee and then back home again. Really relaxing. We saw this huge Gater in the Lake. You can't really tell from this photo but the part of his back that we saw was as big as a coffee table!
If image is too small try clicking on the photo to enlarge it!





After that Jason and I had to run to my boss's house for baby Jake's christening. We didn't get to stay long because I was having gorl's night at my house that night! We didn't even stay for the food!!!! Look at all that hair!



Saturday night was so much fun and I have to thank all of my girls for showing up in their jammies!!!! Amanda even brought a huge teddy bear. Sorry guys - no photos of that! I love when we all get together and chat and laugh and tell jokes. I was so happy that everyone made it all the way out to the Farms. I know it's a bit of a trek but I LOVE it here! Tanya, Tracey and Cheryl all stayed over!!! and on Sunday morning we headed out for breakfast to try and control the hangovers :) Tracey and Cheryl stayed in their Pajamas and we managed to get our breakfast paid for thanks to Tanya!!!! I will not elaborate on that! :)

Tomorrow night is Joey's 30th birthday and his beautiful gorlfriend is throwing him a White Trash party! Hopefully there will be plenty of fun photos of that I can post at a later date!

Other than that all is well. it's only 39 days before the US election. Every day I vow to not discuss politics with friends and family but every day I end up arguing with someone. I can't wait til it's over. It's going to be interesting to say the least. I can't wait for the debates tonight now that McCain has decided to join in. I guess his ploy to delay the VP debates didn't work so he didn't want to hand it on a plate to Obama.

Stay educated people! Learn the candidates standings and don't just vote the party!

See ya!

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Donor

You know my blogging started after reading Adrian's blog re: Bone Marrow donation (who have never called me back by the way!). Now I'm talking about organ donors.

I've always opted to be an organ donor on my driver's license and I always make sure every one in my life knows that I want to be an organ donor when I die. I think it's very important for everyone close to you to know your stand on this issue because once you're dead they are the ones that will be making the decisions for you - and if they don't know - or feel that they can't bare for you to be cut up and distributed around - they might not do it!

Now how do you feel about knowing where an organ came from? If you, or a family member, needed an organ would you care where it came from? obviously it would be healthy - the tests are enormous - so that should not be a concern. but would you care if it came from another race? What if the recipient was a member of the KKK would they decline a lung or a heart if it came from a black man? I know that I wouldn't care - it would be my only hope. This is why they keep the donor/recipients seperate. I think as the years pass you can find out the particulars but what would happen then?

I'm reading a book right now called "Change of Heart". It's good. I like it. It's about a woman who's daughter and husband are killed. The murderer is sentenced to death but finds out 11 years later that the other daughter is in dire need of a heart. The murderer wants to make amends to the woman by giving his heart (upon his death) to her 2nd daughter so that she doesn't lose both. He would have to be hung instead of lethal injection but that's what he wants.

Hmmmm. What a conundrum. Would you want to grant this man his dying wish? Would you want to have your daughter walking around with a killer's heart inside her? Would you want to take the chance that another heart comes along on time?

Hopefully these are not issues any of us will have to consider.

Along these lines, I am praying for the Republican party to be kicked out of the White House this November. Amongst many other things, I do not follow their party lines re: stem cell research. They think it's against God. I think if there is a God he would want us to do what we could to further science etc. I don't appreciate how they have delayed the research and this is ONE of the reasons I think they should go. There is too much religion in politics when the Republicans are in office. If you are personally against stem cell research and using the benefits that come along with it then it should be your choice to say "no" whenever you are given the choice to use it to save your life. We have all been given free will and when a government is telling you what to believe, what to eat etc we are in BIG trouble! Did you know that Sarah Palin does not believe in Evolution?

Anyway, I digress!

I AM AN ORGAN DONOR!

Please honor my wishes when the time comes!

Love ya!

:)

Friday, August 22, 2008

How Old am I?

So I'm having a birthday tomorrow :( it's not the big one but it's as close as you can get. I'm not very bothered about it.

really.

But it makes you think about the big one next year. I'm trying to make plans. I've thought about everyone getting together at a rental house in Marco Island (Steve could you get on that?) or maybe at a dude ranch in Central Florida - wouldn't that be fun? Horse back riding. golf. sitting around the camp fire at night getting drunk! Sounds good to me! But I'll keep thinking.

Most of you know that I have a vague goal to be in great shape by my 40th. I've started by using my Wii Fit and I hope to have my Virtual Skipping ropes for my aerobic side (notice that there is no mention of a diet!). So I get on my Wii Fit last night and my BMI has dropped slightly and my weight has dropped slightly and my Wii Fit Age is........................................................ 31!!!! WOW. That made me so happy! 31! Jason laughed and thought maybe the wee white box thought someone else might be standing on it - but you know what? I don't care! it motivates me to keep going! It's actually very fun.

So I come into work this morning and tell Jennifer (my co-worker) that my Wii Fit age is 31! and i'm celebrating to myself as I open up my email. There's an email from my niece (my brother Alex's daughter) and she tells me she and her husband are going to have a baby! WOW! OMG! I can't believe it! I am so happy for her! The excitement is overwhelming - until I realize that that will make me a great aunt!

A Great Aunt? Does that not conjure up images of Old ladies, maybe spinsters that smell like cats? How can I be a great aunt? But come to think of it I've been a GREAT aunt to my nieces and nephews their whole lives (well the ones I see anyway) so it's just a different emphases on the phrase.

No matter what my age (numerically) I will feel only as old as I feel. 39 is not that bad.

really.

Congratulations to Julie and Jonathon. Keep me posted :)

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Adrian Passes

Hi. I know a lot of you have been asking where my blogs have been recently and I have given many excuses. I'm sorry - but it basically comes down to lack of time.


And now I'm writing this short note just to let you all know that Adrian has passed away. If some of you don't remember he is the reason I started blogging in the 1st place. He was so inspirational. Dying of leukemia he always found the time to write and was funny and moving right up to to the end. I am so sad right now. I have followed his story for many months and although I knew the ending before it came it still gets me in the gut!


As the saying goes - Bad Things Happen to Good People (a.k.a. John & Tracey syndrome).


If you want to read any of Adrian's blog click here http://baldyblog.freshblogs.co.uk/


So not to be morbid but in case I don't tell you (my faithful readers :)) enough - I love you all! I believe I have made good choices in my life and if something happened to me I would want everyone to know that I was happy.


I think this is the goal in life. I think that God (if there is one) would just want us to be happy. We have free will to make whatever choice we want to make. Get out of bad relationships! Get out of bad jobs! Have more vacations! Don't stress the small stuff!


Be HAPPY People.


If Adrian can do it as his life slipped away - then you/we have nothing to complain about.


Love you all


I promise to write soon and more often.