glad thats over

Recently we got a power bill that was $409. now i know we have been experiencing an exceptionally cold winter but come on. one of the things that bothers me about this(there are many things that bother me about this, this is just one of them) is that i have put a lot of time and money to fix my cost of heating and cooling my house. we updated out furnace to a new hi-efficiency furnace. we put a bunch of insulation in the attic. we went around the house and added sub walls to all(almost all. 4 still go) the exterior walls. vented the attic. i thought we should be doing good. then we got this bill and i wanted to cry. so we had a guy from a company that does insulation give us a bid and tell us what he would do to fix the prob. i payed close attention. he had a laser thermometer that he shot at the walls to give us a suffice temperature. the outside wall of lydias room at 2:00 in the afternoon was 47. well we spent some more money(that we didn't have) and went to work. i took 4 vacation days and my dad came over to help. first day we worked from 9:00 a.m. till about 8:00 p.m. the next day i was at the hospital all day with renae(she had sugary) third day 8:30 a.m. till about 4:30 p.m.(we figured out what we were doing). day 4 8:30 till 3:30 and day 5 from 9:00 till almost 6:00(we had to clean up and take back some rented equipment). it was dirty. we were in a small area. and it was very labor intensive. im glad its over. one of the hardest jobs i have ever done.

The boys wanted to help(clay was napping). Busting

holes in walls is fun.

My Dad(who rocks) inside the wall blowing in the

new insulation.

Blown insulation gets every ware. Makes

a big mess.

to get into the walls was a bit of a squeeze(being fat does not help)

not fair not fair not fair

i work at a large plant in Illinois. there is a lot of fenced in or otherwise protected areas around the plant. there are also a lot of crop fields and woods around the plant. there are also some HUGE deer inside the plant. they do not allow any hunting of any sort, so all i get to do is look and dream(drool).

this is a typical seen in the plant. there where at least 10

more deer that did not fit into frame that were in plain sight.

there are about 15 deer in the pic. a monster all the way

to the right.

one of the many quality bucks to be seen.

notice the split brow tines. some what rare.

this one is an absolute beast. 15 points(7 points by western counting)

he is huge. there are also 2 very nice ones seen behind him.

another view of the beast. he is grunting a challenge in this picture.

no one accepted.

this one is big and has 12 points, but what makes it truly awesome is that it has 3 drop tines.

very unusual.

whos bad!

last night i was grappling with the big guy i told you all about, and i got him to tap out(made him say uncle) for the first time. i caught him in a hold on his ankle. i was very stoked but could not celebrate very much because he is getting ready for a fight next month and i, as his partner need to help him keep his spirits up too. but it was very cool.

stuff that has been swirling part A

lately i have been watching a lot of political stuff(have been for a while). the first thing i have for you is an observation. we have had many elections won or lost because we don't care about who we are voting for but who we are voting agents. i did not so much vote for McCain i voted agents Obama. when it was bush, the dems weren't voting for Cary they were voting agents bush. voting agents some one does not work. you have to have a candidate that you believe in. if you do you will talk about them or maybe even campaign. we as conservatives(i used to think of myself as a republican but stopped a long time ago) have a chance to turn things around in our government right now. the libs have shown what their ideas and plans are and most people don't seem to like it. granted that if(big if) the economy was doing well we would not have as many people paying attention. BUT, if the republicans put up a bunch a dorks(i like the term "democrat lite") , they are in trouble for the foreseeable future. i will not trust them at all(not that i do much right now). i want conservatives running the joint. i don't want politicians to play politics. i want them to actually do some work. if they get into power(and it looks like they will), and if they do not try to swing things way WAY back, it may be the end of the republican party. i will truly be looking to start or support a different party. what worries me are statements like i heard the other day. a candidate was promising to "scale back the RATE of increased spending." that is not what i want. i want to scale back spending. i saw where some city spent $250,000 to advertise the fact that it was facing financial ruin. hello! any body in there? the days of good ole boy politics need to be over. listen to the people. fix it quickly or we will try to find some one else to do it. it looks like your about to have your chance. don't screw it up.

is it wrong to think this is funny

i know i should not laugh at other peoples misfortune, especially death. but......come on this is funny and you know it. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39377851/ns/world_news-europe/?GT1=43001

i hate to say i told you so, but....

heard a news story yesterday. the stimulus bill that is helping our economy so much(i hope you hear the sarcasm in my voice, or in this case, my fingers), is being used for so many wonderful things(more sarcasm). a grant was given to a university. the grant was for over $800,000. what was the money used for you ask? they put together a team to teach uncircumcised men how to properly wash their genitals. yes you read that correctly.
with great projects like this, i cant imagine why the economic recovery hasn't blasted off. i mean, teaching some guy in Africa how to wash his junk clearly is a fantastic was to create jobs here in the USA(more sarcasm).
shame on you people for not trusting the government to spend our money wisely. you know you just need to give plans like this time to work. remember, your just a bunch of racists if you don't agree with how the president is doing things(sarcasm, sarcasm, sarcasm).

why the difference

There is a bit of trouble going on right now because a church has gotten a hold of several copies of the Koran(about 150 at last count) that they plan on burning. i would like to say that i agree that this is insensitive and they seem to me to be trying to provoke a response of some sort. having said that, they are within their rights to burn these books. i read a report that referred to the Koran as a "holy book." the government and the press has made a mountain out of a mole-hill on this one. first we are talking about a church of about 50 members. second, we are talking about 150 copies. they are not trying to destroy every copy there is. although they probably would if they could. they story is much bigger now than it every should have been.

my next and real problem with all of this is, how have other such acts been treated? i have seen video of people protesting the general conference for the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints, that have tossed the "book of Mormon" on the ground, stepped on it and set fire to it. why no out rage from the media or government on that one? why are they not worried that the Mormons will be offended and start an uprising? there are several million Mormons that are here in this country that have the means to organise some trouble. Mormons hold the book of Mormon to be a holy book. why are they not afraid of outrage from this group. i have another example. a church group had a few cases of bibles printed up to be handed out to the people of Afghanistan. they shipped them over to a soldier. when those in command found out, they not only said that they could not hand them out(which may be agenst regulation), but they confiscated the bibles. and what did they do with those bibles(we know there are plenty of people that believe the bible is holy)? they had them burned. why were they not afraid of the out rage that would come from burning this holy book. don't they know Christians world wide might be offended by the burning of there holy writings. there are many Christians world wide with the means to organise and support an uprising.
Why the Difference?

always get the rest of the story

if your martial arts instructor tells you that he has a student that is training to do a cage fight in November, and wants to know if you will be a regular sparing partner for this guy, before you agree, you should probably find out that it is the 350lb former semi-pro football player, college wrestler guy that he wants you to work out with. these little bits of info can be important.

It finally happened!

Renae and i have been together for almost 17 years now. in all those years we have been through a lot. On many occasions, she has told me i was crazy. On a few occasions she has told me she didn't want me to do some thing. last night, for the first time ever, she put the two together and said, "that's crazy, i dint think you should do it." i was stunned. is it because I'm getting old and she doesn't think I'm capable of doing crazy stuff any more? who knows. will i take her advice? probably not.

!!Warning!! Graphic Photos

There are some pictures at the end of this. some of them are ugly. you may not want to look. O.K. So i dont know how many of you know this, but I just may be the luckiest man alive. there are numerous reasons I could give for this, like, I have a beautiful wife that I dont deserve. my dad is one of the coolest guys i know. i have the gospel in my life. i have 5 healthy, rockin cool kids. but none of those is the reason for this post. some of you may not know the story so i will tell it. last year i took a week off work to spend a weekend with renae for our anniversary and to do some work around the house. one of those jobs was to burn the burning pile. i started to fire with gasoline. i have done this many times. after starting the fire i went off to do some other things. i came back a goodly am out of time later to find out my fire had gone out. i checked it over carefully to make sure. it was out. no flame. no embers. no smoke. so i got the gas can and went to restart the fire. as i was liberally splashing gas onto the pile i found out my fire was not quite out. the fire ignited with enough force to bring the guy from across the street out of his house(i was in my fairly large back yard) to find out what had just shook his house. when it went up. i saw the fire ball go around and past me. i quickly did the STOP/DROP/and ROLL. i thought i was on fire. my friend that was with me told me "your OK, your OK!" i got up and looked at my left elbow. reached over and pulled a large hunk of skin off. to which he said "oh, your not OK." i found out that if you are a burn patient you go to the front of the line at the ER. i was in, checked, treated, and out in less than an hour. the hair on my head was singed. eyebrows shorter(i had glasses on). eye lashes curled. but my arm took the brunt of the blast. i was burned bad, and it hurt. the swelling hurt more than the burn though. the pressure made it throb when i stood up. but what hurt the worst was the wound care center. it takes a special person to work at the wound care center(evil). they started off with a pair of tweezers and a small set of scissors and then went to a scalpel. they did not cut with the scalpel, they used it as a scraping tool. i just knew i was scarred for life. well here are the pictures. turn your head if you have a weak stomach. i mean it. Im not joking.

DAY 1

i ended up with the bubbles growing and eventually connecting into one big one and then popping.

top view of day one

DAY 3

Day 4

Brown stuff is a protein layer that built up. it had to be scraped off.
i did most of the scraping my self. did not like the wound care center.
the people were great it just hurt. a lot!

DAY 4
reverse view
i did the scraping in the shower. there was often enough blood
that the entire floor of the shower was red even with the water running.

DAY 6

DAY 9
this is what the bandages looked like after my work day.
i did not use the arm during the day. the fluid in just natural oozing
of the wound and bleeding.

DAY 9
it took about 10-15 min to get the bandages off.
they were stuck. had to be ripped off.

Day 15
I figured this is the scar i would have for the rest of my life

1 YEAR
This is what my arm looks like now. you have to look to see a scar.
i think in a couple more years it will have faded completely.

Like i said lucky. Blessed. Watched over. all these are true.