My oh My ! How things change

First off, just a couple of weeks ago we received a good amount of snow. It has been a long time since I have seen this much snow. We received anywhere from 6-8 inches with drifts around 10 inches. The snow was great and the only thing that could have made it better was if the snow fell during the week and I could have gotten out of work.

Anyways, Here are a couple of pictures of the boys..... (stay tuned after the boys pics for a surprise)







In addition to all the fun, we have an addition to the family - thanks to Amy. I would like to introduce to you our newest family member "Chloe". She is precious and a handful, but so cute you just can't get on to her - or atleast I can't, Amy treats her like one of the family members if she messes up the house -- yep, Amy gives it to the rabbit just like she does us boys 8-)

Chloe is a mini lop and won't get much bigger than she is right now. At full weight she will weigh around 3.5 lbs. She is stll trying to get use to us, but she is acting better everyday. (You can click on the pics to make them bigger)

What a difference a day makes

I was suppose to talk about the inaguration of our new president, but an event happened this morning that was a suprise. As I woke up to get ready to go to work, I was suprised to see small snowflakes in the air. Not thinking much about it, I continued to get ready for work. As I pulled out of the garage, I noticed that the snow had picked up considerably and to my suprised the roads were actually holding the snow pretty good.

This is exciting to me as I have always loved snow, it makes me think about how pure everything looks washed in a nice heavenly like white. I personally wish we got more of it.

I wanted to share a couple pictures taken this morning from my truck as I drove the boys to school and then to work.

The Beginning of a New Era

Tomorrow we will begin the era of a new president, but before that happens I would like to discuss a little about the ending of this presidential era. President Bush has been our Country's leader for the past 8 years and he has caught much of the blame for the economy and the shape it is in. Is this really a fair assessment or is this what the media wants you to believe.

Should President Bush be blamed for greedy CEO's stealing money and falsifying documents to make their business look like it is doing better than it really is, causing many people to lose their retirements and jobs? Should President Bush be blamed for the failing housing market with Banks lending more money to people than they can afford and based on future earnings? Should President Bush be responsible for the gas prices to sky rocket? Should President Bush be responsible for all the loss of jobs that are happening because the above mentioned issues?

My answer is simple: NO !! I do think he could have done a little more to fight the issues, but I do not think that he is responsible and nor should I think his legend should be a result of this. I can't say that I have been really excited about everything he has done, but most people do not remember what all he has done.

President Bush first increased every one's take home pay by making tax cuts permanent. These tax cuts are still in affect and if the new President takes this away, you will then realize the advantages this has given us.

President Bush has kept morals in this country by reinstating the abortion policy that was removed by Clinton which provides funding to organizations that perform abortion. Might I add that the new President is looking to overturn this again causing abortions to be more prominent again.

President Bush stooped Stem Cell Research on live stem cells. Without going into a lot of depth, this is basically a good moral move by President Bush. Sure it could possibly provide some advantages, but it would cause much more harm than good.

President Bush has provided stimulas checks to help spur the economy which did show some short term positive affects, unfortunetly, there was too much greed in this country to overcome.

None of these things that President Bush as done is as important as the one that most of you have forgotten about. When President Bush first took office our country suffered the worse attack on U.S. soil than it has seen in many, many years. A lot of this was due to Bill Clintons lack of security policy. President Bush has done an outstanding job keeping our nation safe since the 911 attacks. President Bush raised the level of our security by creating the Homeland security division and creating better communication between the FBI and CIA. Sure we have gone to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, but please remember we are not at war with those countries we are at war with the terrorist groups.

Again, I do not agree with everything he has done, especially in the last few years, but I also don't blame him for a lot of things the media does.

Just remember, we are about to embark on a new presidency which justifies himself based on Change, Well I am afraid we are about to see change and I will explain why in the next post....

God Bless and Protect,

Economics 1-0-1 Why Bailouts never work

I am sure everyone has heard and felt in some way the economic crisis that is happening in the world today. Banks are upside down due to bad loans causing the credit system to breakdown, foreclosures are sky-rocketing, U.S. Automobile industry is quickly becoming a thing of the past, jobless rates are highest in decades and the global stock markets are crashing daily, so what does all this mean?

It means that greed has taken over the world and the government thinks they can bailout the economy by throwing billions of dollars at the issue and it will just go away. My answer is very simple ! The government has the wrong answer. Economics is about much more than just money, it is about attitude, risk, and keeping the see-saw leveled.

Bailouts are never the answer rather a band-aid approach to a much deeper problem. Think about it this way, If the government of Mississippi were going to hand out money to the Desoto School system because they were having issues, how long would it be before all the other school systems would be crying they need some money. This is exactly what is happening. The government tries to bailout a couple of banks and all the other banks start screaming, which then give investors a gloom and doom picture of the economy and it trickles down from there. The other issue is that this is our tax paying dollars going to banks and other businesses that were mis-handled thanks to the new breed of greedy CEO's, but that is for another post.

It is time for the government to quit thinking about themselves and come up with a plan to help resolve the underlying issues and give confidence back to our investors. The investors are the key to this whole issue, when the investors have confidence in the market they buy causing the whole economics chain to fall back inline and when the investors lose confidence they quickly sale and do not buy causing the markets to crash. A lot of these issues just need too be worked through over time and not fixed overnight. If we lose a couple banks and an auto dealership in this turmoil then another one will eventually take it's place, but to try and bailout these companies that have managed to get themselves in this position is ridiculous and a waste of tax dollars. The money would be better spent giving it back to the tax payer who are ultimetly suffering due to a corrupt and greedy government and CEO family.

Wow, has it been that long !!

Okay, sorry to all my one Amy)faithful follower as I have not kept up with my blog site. I am rededicating myself to this blog site and have a lot to talk about. I don't want to mess up this blog by talking politics and the economy, but over the next few months, I will start picking apart the economic crisis and political woes that our country has and is facing; but for now I digress.

Everything at the new house is great. We are finally settled in and the dogs have found their new home. We are still trying to get everything in order and probably will be for the next few years. Amy is acclimating to the new surroundings okay as she has hit some bumps and bruises along the way. I think she has been educated more in the last months living here than she ever was living in Nesbit.

For all you deer hunters, I am happy to say there are tons of deer around here. There is not a day that goes by that we don't see deer venturing through our backyard or in the roadways. We have to be extremely careful around here when we are driving. Reportedly, there is a monster buck that stays in the scope of woods behind my house, but thus far he has eluded me. If I happen to see him, I would like to apologize to my family and neighbors when they hear what might sound like a war with the deer :-)

For now I am going to sign off, but I will be posting more regularly and actually might add some substance to my postings.......

God Bless,

Update on Everything

Well, I was just talking to my sister, Dirkje (yeah pronounce that name), and she reminded me that I have not posted on my blog in a while. I guess between work and building a house my mind has gone crazy.

The time has finally come and we are in the new house and man has it changed since the last pictures I have posted. I will try and get some more up to date photos on the website as soon as possible. The house turned out incredible (not that I am biased or anything), but it awesome to have ideas turned into reality and actually get to see what they look like when they are finished. Amy has outdone herself on this house and everywhere you look I catch myself going oohhh and ahhh.. (haha).

We still have a ton of work to do on the house, but atleast we are at this point and can actually start doing some things. My builder still has a small to-do list, but we could not stand it and had to go ahead and move in.

Hope all is doing well and I will try and get back to regular postings as soon as we have internet hooked up at the house.

Making Progress

We are making great progress on the house. The trim work is just about complete, the floors (except carpet) has been laid, the pool actually has water in it and we have roughly 4 weeks till move in. There is still a lot to do, but things are getting knocked out quickly now. I have also decided to post newer pics of the house and pool.

The guy that is putting in our pool is also putting in Eli Mannings pool in Oxford. Eli actually signed the paperwork for the pool the same day we did, but needless to say, mine is a little cheaper than what he is going to be putting in.(haha)

The pool system that we are putting in is pretty neat. This is a nature/mineral pool which means it only requires a very small amount of chlorine which in turn will give you a much cleaner look to the water, will not burn your eyes, dye your hair / clothes and make you feel more refreshed after swimming.

The back of our lot slopes some in the back causing us to need a retaining wall for the pool. The gray blocks you see in the picture are the beginning stages.

I can't wait to see the finished product as we have been working on the plans for about 7 or 8 months now and it is all coming to reality.