Brb

Business Trip. Be back soon.

Retail Warrior

I have been home in Cary, NC these past few days hanging out with my folks and friends. That is why the blogs have been rather short, because I have been on the move a ton. It has been a really good time to just be with the people that I am very close with. While I have been here I have been going to the thrift stores with the my folks a good bit and bought a few really good things. Today, I needed a piece of luggage to use when I travel to Texas in the next few days, so I bought a Samsonite bag, for 4 dollars. That is a rather large discount. I thought about the fact that someone paid a lot more for that bag at some point. I have reached a point in life where I am now unable to pay retail prices for anything but gas, and sometimes food. Especially after looking through the thrift stores these past few days, I am just amazed about what I have been able to buy. Also, add a REI "scratch and dent" sale in there and I am a deal warrior. I am on cloud nine of deals.

Bathroom lady.

Folks I am without computer and do not want to type a Ton I. The phone tonight. I saw a lady today get really mad in the thrift store because they wouldn't let her kid use the potty. She was a total ass. There was a sign that said " no public restroom ", guess she can't read and so she can be a jerk and tell about it.

Doulble Speak.... Be afraid

"absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed"

- B. Goldwater

What is redistribution of wealth really mean... Taking more money from the ones who already pay for every thing and pay for some more people. Constitution doesn't mention anything about fixing peoples problems or a right to tangibles.

Like a good cup of coffee

Due to the fact that I am going to be getting up tomorrow morning at 5am to drive to the wonderful North Carolina to see friends and family I will not be writing as much as I would like to. Tonight I share about something that is my favorite thing in the world. After work tonight, I was sitting down in the office with a friend of mine, of whose identity I will protect, we will call him... Jacob for code. We ended up talking about all kinds of things, from rights, to privileges, health care, deficits, spending, economics, history, I mean it was a great conversation full of many different topics as you can tell. The best part about the whole thing was the exchange of ideas that took place, one idea to the next, tweaking, revising, questions and the respect of varying views. As we were walking out to ours cars to leave for the night, I paused to make one last comment, of which I admit is self gratifying... I told Jacob that these types of conversations are what gives me hope for America. The hope that people are having them and not afraid to talk to one another and exchange ideas. The hope that people have not either put themselves above talking about the world around them and the society and cultures they are a part of, or put themselves in a box where they only talk to those people who mirror what they do and have no variation outside of a set of views. We can't ignore the world and we can't ignore that there are all kinds of people waiting to have good constructive conversations. I think when Americans give up or are too stubborn to practice the art of two way conversation we have long since lost the idea of America. I bet right now you are wondering if the national anthem is playing in the background and the flag is slowly being lowered behind me as I type. Although, I admit that I might have leaned to the redundant side, I guess passion can be wordy sometimes, and I might lack a lot of things, but I tend to overflow with passion... for better or for worse.

Childhood Story

I was reminded this morning about a childhood memory from when I was between the age of 4-6, respectively. I was talking to a friend of mine about imaginations this morning from when we were young, which led to talking about monsters under the bed etc etc. I recalled a story of how I used to ward off the monsters that lived under my bed's sneak attacks. I would make sure to pull the sheets and covers all the way up to my chin, I would sleep on my side so an attack from the backside of the bed was probable. I would then, make sure that I had a sufficient tuck along my backside. From here I would take my trusted friends, huey, duey and luey and put them out in no mans land. I guess I figured if someone had to go, it should be one of them instead of me, so out they would go to face the unknown and monsters. I mean there were three of them, they had strength in numbers. As far as personal pertection, I had snuffaluffagus. (total badass, nobody has a run in with the "snuff" and comes out happy)

The End is near, again and again and yet again

I have been thinking for the last few weeks about how people continue to find reasons to say that the world is going to end. Every time a new change arises or something we are not sure about, someone will make the comment about the world is going to end and here is why. The most common claim for this is, "look how much bad stuff is happening in the world, it cannot get much worse." I find this argument to be rather weak and here is why. If you look back over the history of the world, some horrible things lace the time lines. Kings, Cultures, groups, "bad guys" have been killing and stealing and dreaming up horrible things to do to each other and those who do not agree with them for thousands of years. The only difference in the world is the ability to access what is happening around the world to watch and read about it. I think that all this "bad stuff" has consistently been caring on for the existence of civilization, we just know about it now due to the media. The exponential growth that we continue to witness on the television and the internet in most regards, is just the growth of coverage around the world. As we are able to see more and more of the horrors of humanity, we are more convinced of growth and things getting worse... but I am under the impression it has been rather steady across history. I know this seems like a morbid topic to write about, but I think it can also be seen as a observation of how the media has changed our view of the world around us and opened our eyes to the other parts of the world.

Stupid Dog

Today, Sarah and Maple and I went to a park here in the Jasper area. I have noticed something about the people who live in Jasper, they like to stare. This park area was a huge asphalt path around four or five baseball fields. Groups of people were practicing with their kids or something of that nature on multiple fields. As we would come around each time, they would look at us from the bleachers in a way that was odd. Maybe we look funny or something or it was odd that I was on my bike and Sarah and Maple were walking beside me... I am not sure, but they stare none the less. I do not understand the culture completely. So anyways onto the stupid dog. As we were walking around the park this stray dog took a liking to Maple and keep trying to come around and "sniff her." After a while, I tried to get rid of the dog. I would say, "get" or "go away" and it would back off or run ahead and hide around the next corner only to jump out as we passed and go after Maple again. I even tried to give it tire burn with my bike to make it go away. At one point this dog dropped its butt on the ground and dragged it for a while and that is when we decided to move to another part of the park via my truck. Stupid dog...

By the way, Sarah learned how to throw a mean Frisbee today.

Farmers Market

Today Sarah, Maple and I went down to Atlanta to have a fun day in the city. It was a really relaxing day of walking around some neat areas, chick-fila and some gelato ice cream? or something like that. On the way home we stopped at this farmers market. This place was huge, I would say about the size of a football field, maybe a little bigger. Everything in this place was organic and fresh. All the spices we bought were process the day before and all the bread was baked this morning, all ingrediants were natural etc. It was really neat, you name it they had it and the odd part was it was all really cheap. We bought a bunch of stuff for a lot cheaper than it would have cost us here at our normal grocery store. But the really fun part was I bought a coconut... yeap thats right. I am about to open that bad boy up throw a straw in there and enjoy my beach like drink. Also, I found out tonight that some people eat goat, yeah I thought that was weird. I also found out that some people do not wear deoderant and carry quite a cloud of stinkness around with them. It made me think of pig pin from charlie brown.

Forgot to add something.

Forgot to add that the current budget committee said today that if the 9.3 happens it will put USA in a " unsustainable state".

Letting out a little D.C. Steam.

Tonight, I make a tribute to the number 9.3 and also to our President who's new favorite number is 9.3............. Trillion dollars. Way to go there ol chap, it's only taken you forty some days to have a future deficit 4 times the previous 8 yrs. ( damn that Bush and his careless spending.). Good thing we listen to campaign promises, listen to them yes, expect them to happen, not a snowball chance in hell. Had to get a little frustration out with washington and how they are screwing over future grandchildren across the country.

Coffee Talk

I think that I blogged about this before, but today it came to my mind again through conversation. This morning my friend David and I went to our usual Wednesday morning time and had the usual. I have bacon, egg, and cheese on wheat with the muffin of the day, and David have Jacks French Toast with sausage and fruit of which he never eats. So during our time this morning we talked about all kinds of things, from church history to how the public eye can manipulate many pieces of info or history to distort them to their liking. This is what lead into what I consider one of my favorite and interesting conversation pieces... Privileges versus Rights. Although these two ideas are different in meaning, I have come to believer that we as a culture and society are shifting the scale of how we look at each of them. I think that over time, what used to be a privilege has become to some a universal right. The part of this discussion that really keeps me interested is to look at the cultural shift over the last hundred years. As a culture, we have shifted and moved, grown tolerant and grown intolerant, hateful and all accepting. (and many more ideas could be mentioned here) Somewhere along this journey the view of rights has slide into the mainstream world on a much high level than I think the country intended. Now I understand that certain rights are part of how things should be, right to live etc. But when you begin to think about what a privilege can be the result of, the shaping of a very odd look can begin. For instance, I know this is very basic... but, you go get a job, you provide a service, then receive money for the service and now have the privilege to spend that money where you see fit. A few things here, "the job" is sought after, "the service" is learned over time, "the money" is a result of what you work for. I am going to stop because I am sure that you get the idea without me rambling on for another moment. If you have made it this far, where have you seen the shift.

Battling my Foot

I have come to realize that everyone has a disease know as the foot in mouth disease. We are all walking around the world each day beside each other. I would like to think that I am pretty well trained in the is disease, I always tend to find ways to express to those around me that I have it. And today after another good reminder, I started to think about all the things we say and express back and forth as people. I thought, how many things do I actually remember saying in my life. I know that sounds somewhat stupid at first, but when you really begin to look at it, I think clarity comes to the surface. My list was substantial but short compared to my lifetime. I thought hmmm if I only spoke in those times where I would remember, I would not speak very often. So I spend the first few hours of my day tomorrow, I am going to think about what I say. This has constantly been coming to the surface with me lately. But I have tended to think, "is this worth saying?" It has cut down on my comments a good bit, and also helped me work on listening.

Maple: 0 Bed:1

When Sarah and I are getting ready to wash our comforter, we will usually let Maple sleep on the bed. So once in a while Maple will get a treat and get to sleep on the bed. She usually knows its coming because Sarah and I will be talking about it and using her name a bunch. She loves it, she nestles in and rolls around on back and gets in the perfect position for good doggy sleep. So we all fall asleep, except me of course I was laying there trying to fall asleep when I noticed some movement from across the bed. Maple having dreams and barking under her breath and twitching a little bit. Then all of the sudden, I look over to see Maple roll over and go flying off the bed. She flipped off and hit the ground hard. You could tell it startled her when because she was quick to jump up and see what had happened. From there she went to her bed for a little safer sleep. After about ten minutes she was ready to give the bed another try. This time she went to the middle bottom at our feet and was successful for the rest of the night.

My wonderful niece!!

I must share a quick story from yesterday. My mom was over at my brothers house hanging out with the grandchildren and I guess my niece, Jessie wanted to write me and email. It was all kinds of numbers and letters some over and over some all by themselves. I wish I could have been in her head as she typed it out and what her thought process was. I hope it was, "My uncle Brad is the coolest." I love that little girl, can not wait to see her again.

Lazy Sunday

I did today, what I have not done in a very long time... I sat around the house all day and just hung out and relaxed for the most part. Slept in which was nice and then made some breakfast, bacon egg and cheese and cut up fruit... also nice. Then the rest of the day consisted of: laundry, cards, guitar, making a mocha, read a book, cleaned house, and played with Maple. It was a great day, Sarah and I really got some good quality time, it was wonderful.

That mean't to say

it's just fun to make up a song.

Sometimes it's just to make up a Song.

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Stupid people lack common sense and don't listen

Today, I went to the High Museum and saw the Terracotta Warriors display, which was very cool. These statues and artifacts are thousands of years old so you can understand why the staff would have very strict rules to protect them. Well... we were in the first room of the exhibit and there was a gentleman who took his camera out and started to take a picture, he was quickly correct by a staff guy who told him camera were not aloud for this and that reason. This guy was pissed and exclaimed, "that is the only reason I came to this, was so I could take pictures." To this I thought, wow you are a turd with no common sense to grasp what was actually going on. So that guy stomped off all pissed. About five feet from him another gentleman was taking of his lens cap really sneaky like. I saw him doing it and wanted to go tattle tell on him and then call him out and say, "I just saw you watch what happened, you know better." So Mr.Sneaky was trying to grab a few shots and got caught. (he looked stupid at this point) So he is caught red handed and what does he do right as the staff guy walks away... goes back to sneaky picture taker mode again and then gets caught again in the next little bit again. So here is to you Mr. Sneaky picture taker guy, you get the "Stupid" sign of the day. As my Dad would say, "here's your sign."

Sleepy

In the atl chilling with Ashley and michael. I will elaborate tomorrow.

Maple and the Vet

Today is a Maple story worth being told, it was he yearly check up... the dreaded yearly check up... It is always an adventure with her. Today was nothing less, as we drove up to the building she was rather optimistic wagging her tail. We walked into the office and she quickly noticed other dogs and again was pretty pumped and began meeting and sniffing with introductions. At this point she was like, "this is the best day ever, dogs to play with and people walk by and I roll over and they scratch my belly... I mean seriously." The mood quickly changed, they called our name and first things first, the weigh in. This is where Maple wised up to what was going on, as I led her to the scale the tail went from the happy position to the "oh shit" position between her legs. She knew at this point she had been suckered again once again. From here we went into our room, we meet with the vet assistant for a minute and she needed to take her temperature... dogs do not get that taken in the mouth or ears... yep you guessed it right in the bum. Maple was strategically placed under my legs as to say you can't get me under here... that failed her. As I started to move her over that way, she locked eyes with me saying, "you sold me out, I trusted you and now this... by the way what are they going to do to me." I held Maples head to keep her focus, that was not hard to do, she kept eye contact with me for this one. As her temperature was being taken he eyes got a little wider and the stare a little deeper as to exclaim, "what the hell are you letting her do to me, this is not cool...oh if the tables ever turn, you are so screwed!" I know that some of you (Mom) might be thinking right now, why the bad language Brad, do you have to do it, do you feel cool using grown up words. My response is this, I believe if I could translate what Maple would like to say into words, these would be pretty close to these. So we made it past the thermometer and then we were alone again. Maple decided that escape was her best option, she paced the room in four circles looking to what she could do, walked up to each of the two doors multiple times and pushed at them with her nose and combed the floor to see if the wood at the bottom was flawed in anyway that she could abuse. After this seemed hopeless she decided that getting up on the bench with me would trying to hide behind my back would be the best option. Round two, titled: "Take this Vet, I will pee on you". The door opens again, Maple perks up and moves closer to me while moving her head in direct line with mine to lock eyes again and try to make a deal. "Hey listen I am sorry I crapped on your floor that time, I won't do it again, PLEASE GOD DON'T LET THEM TOUCH ME AGAIN, YOU HAVE NOT IDEA!" This time they needed to get some blood taken for tests, vet assistant number two comes up and sits down beside Maple and asked for a hug, Maple likes people said, "sure" and then he hugged her and before Maple could do anything vet assistant number one came at her with a needle to get the blood. While Maple had mobility taken from her, she fought back with whatever she had... so she took a pee right on there nice bench and the floor below, although I think it is because she was scared, she told me otherwise and said it was her way to stick it to "The Man". I am going to skip ahead about twenty minutes to the last thing we did, the shots. Maple is really tough, did not even budge with pain from the shots, but the last one was the Bordellio (something like that) for kennel cough. The vet did not tell me this one went up Maple's nose as a spray/liquid thingy. Guess where my head was... really close to Maples. She also did not tell Maples... so when the vet surprised her Maple tried to shoot it back at her with a sneeze like thing and lets just say that I will not have to worry about getting "kennel cough" either for the next year. On to the check out, I was paying decided to wash my hands really quick at the handwash station... tucked the leash into my belt thought that it would hold tight enough for a second. Maple saw an oppurtunity, freedom. She test the strength of the leash to my belt and was gone right to the door and as I walked up to her, she got really excited and was said,"you can end this", I grabbed the leash and led her back to the check out as she screamed, "DAMN YOU AND YOUR THUMBS!." When she got outside she was happy, got in the car and went to sleep for the next hour and a half. What a trip... I am looking forward to Vet Trip 2010.

The Moon

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Hmmm no shirt ..... No problem

Only in jasper can you be missing a shirt and still get service at the auto parts counter. That is why I love America. Also this other picture is the moon. I took a late night walk tonight and wow what a beautiful night. Good for thinking.

Hmmm no shirt ..... No problem

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Humble Pie

I went to the gym today to do a little working off some calories. Every time I go, I watch the Glenn Beck show on Fox. I really like this guys show, he is entertaining yet some what informed and not afraid to call people out. Kind of a common sense kind of guy. So today he had Jeff Foxworthy drop by to ask him a few questions and Jeff said a quote that kind of stuck with me. He said, "we are either living in humility or heading towards it". This has been with me for the rest of today. There is a lot of truth to this, one way or the other we are in one of those places. The part that is interesting to me is that we are either humble under our own control or forced into humility under circumstances we are possibly not fond of. Makes me wonder where I am on the sliding scale right now.

3 is a magic number

I worked this weekend at STC, it was a good weekend, really easy going which was great. I had the opportunity to meet a really nice guy who was our Weekend doctor. He had a three legged Lab. I thought the story of how he acquired this dog was pretty good. It is a very short story maybe not even funny but I liked it. The Doctor was a park one day with his family (wife, two young girls). It just so happen to be the same day that a pet adoption day. A bunch of puppies and a playground, a tough combo for a dad to say no. So his girls went over to look at all the puppies to adopt. His daughters automatically were drawn to this one black lab puppy. It had one interesting thing about it. It only has three legs. It is now only 4 months old and as Richard told me, he does not hop up on people very much due to the only have one back leg thing. Seriously a three legged dog, and all from just taking your little girls to the park.

Snoopy

I went for the first bike ride of the season today. It was a good ride, a little tiring due to it being the first one of the season. One thing about Pickens County Georgia is there are a lot of dogs, big dogs, small dogs, ones that like to chase you and those who could care less. So most of the dogs around are the ones that like to chase you etc, but today I saw one that made me laugh. I was riding and had to do a double take. I was riding by and looked over and there was a dog laying on top of a plastic dog house just sleeping away, slowly looked up at me and then back to sleep. Awesome.

Four Wheeling with Frodo

So this is what I wanted to write about yesterday, but I was to tired when I got home so I did not. Yesterday I went riding four wheelers with my friend Kuban and his buddy who is now my buddy Eric. We rode them up a mountain... yes SharpTop Mountain. Image a very steep hill that you almost feel like you are climbing up and then imagine riding a four wheeler up it. Also, after we rode up this mountian we came back down and went riding through the woods. We rode for hours through the thick woods, it pretty much looked like I was riding in the Lord of the Rings movie, it was amazing. Seriously it was nutz. We passed what looked like "the shack" at one point and then did some dounuts... it was crazy.

Yeah Buddy.

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Tired

I am tired. My eyes are crossed. I am going to write tomorrow.

What does it take to wake up

I was reading some of the news today and saw that the Senate voted to uphold some 10 million dollars worth of the earmarks for a group that has in the past been raided by the FBI for corruption charges. What about that seems right. I have been following all of the current events in the news etc and have been struck by a few things about Americans. I will name a few things that we and our future generations are paying for... 950k for a convention center in Myrtle Beach, 230k for a boat to watch sea turtles, 7 million for conservation of endangered sea turtles in Hawaii, (maybe that will grant a few new jobs to some people) 300k for a recreation area in Ak, 900k for researching fish management, 380k for a new lighthouse in Maine, 800k for finding out more about catfish genetics, 190k for a buffalo bill historical center (thank God!), 47k to remodel a playground, 200k for blueberry research in Georgia, 950k to help sustain Las Vegas, 250k for the Ice Seals, 150k for a rodeo in South Dakota, I have a few more but I just do not want to spoil it to much. I guess my thoughts are this, a couple trillion dollars, and these are the kind of things that our government, Dems and Reps have decided to do for us. This is the future that we are having built, so what does it take for people to have a problem with it. I guess an extra 13 dollars a week for a year and then 8 bucks a week for the next two years make it all okay to piss away the future. I guess because we spend like to have nothing to worry about to hear a billion here or a trillion here is such common language now it doesn't bother anyone. Does it not raise and eyebrow that our country is about to have trillions of dollars tied up for years to come. I mean AIG spent all their first set of bailout money on a bunch of stuff and since they need a second try we will give them 30 more billion to see what they do with it now. What happen to the scalpel. I want the promised scalpel to come out. I think its interesting that we seek to learn from the past and politicians always quote the past great presidents, but they fail to listen to them. Go look to see what the past greats have to say about spending our way out of problems and debt and quick fixes... I just want to add this is not limited to right now either, for the past decades we have turn a deaf ear to what was coming. We are reaping what we have sown and might have had a chance to change but are to politically correct to do anything about it.

Reader Suggestions

So I was thinking about what to write about today and thought I would have a reader suggestion blog. If you are a reader and not to scared to post, I would like some reader requests for ideas. Thought I would spice it up a little bit and post on some ideas other than my own. So with that said, lets see if any ideas are brought to the light.

Me and the couch

I think we all have those days when we hit a wall and think we are getting sick. Today was that for me, I came home from work and cleaned up a little bit around the house and then was trying to decide what to do. I have a sore throat and have been a little tired.... so I decided to do something that I do not do very often, take a nap. I laid down on our couch around 640 and have slept till right now and that is just a quick moment to write my blog on my way to the bed to continue this wonderful nap into the night. So that is that and as my left eye begins to go to bed without me I am off.

Damn weatherman

So pretty much everyone is the southern united states got some snow today.... a few inches or so. Oh wait, everyone and their brother except Jasper, Ga. Freaking Atlanta got some snow a few inches or so. I live in the freaking MOUNTAINS!!!!! NOT A CITY.... I WANT SOME FREAKING SNOW... everybody deserves a snow day here and there.... I LIVE IN THE MOUNTAINS AND NO SNOW. I am PISSED.