I’ll sleep when I’m retired, maybe.

As some of you might know, I have a lot on my plate right now and just recently, I’ve had a few more helpings piled on.

In the short term, we’ve decided to throw another Anti-Super Bowl party. I guess that’ll make this our 2nd Annual Anti-Super Bowl Party. Last year’s was a fairly small affair, and there was one attendee who seemed to be unaware that we weren’t going to watch the Super Bowl, but it was fun. This year we seem to have a few more possible guests than last year and so far no one’s confused about whether the game will be on or not. Of course, this means we’ll have to clean the house, which we’ve been doing at a very slow pace. This is partly due to the fact that Emily’s been going to a chiropractor about her back, so she’s in that whole “new pain” stage of recovery. This leaves the cleaning up to me until she can start moving again. Hopefully that’ll be this weekend. I’m sure we’ll pull it off though.

I’ve also begun somewhat of a fitness regimen. At 5:30 in the morning, every day, I get up and go to the gym to workout for a half hour to an hour. It cuts out some of my sleeping time, but it’s the only time I’ve been able to workout. True, this past week I couldn’t get to the gym every day due to my having to start visiting a chiropractor at Emily’s request, but I’m still waking up around 5:30.

In the long term, I recently applied to the Art Institute in Minnesota for a degree in Interactive Media Design. I’m pretty excited about it. It’s all about the design of, well, anything technical, whether it’s websites, or video games, or business software, or even peripherals. The classes all seem interesting and about things I’ve wanted to learn more about. I think this will be a good move in the long run. Plus, IMD majors are in demand right now, ideally allowing me to get a job doing something I like, or at least don’t feel ashamed about.

Of course, this will just eat up the rest of the small amount of free time I have now. I haven’t gone over the numbers yet, but I should be able to quit my job at Southgate (at the very least cut my hours back dramatically). The other problem that needs addressing is transportation. With me taking classes in Minneapolis, it’s not really feasible for us to only have 1 car anymore. I mean, I’m not sure if it’ll actually happen, but I could conceive of a few nights in the future where it would be smarter and just safer for me to crash at Cherish’s instead of driving all the way home, leaving Emily stranded without the use of a car for 2 days. Luckily, we’ve been paying off a lot of our bills, which has freed up some money. I just hope it’s enough. Although, with a fixed back and a car all to herself, Emily at least would have the possibility of getting a job that paid a little better.

Thinking’s an Important Part of Reading

Everybody gets joke email at work (if you don’t then you must not have any friends). The other day at work I was sent this email:

Weather bulletin; Denver

Hear!...Hear!....Good reading....Are you listening.....NEW ORLEANS.?........Take a lesson from the good citizens of Colorado.

From one of my former comrads who lives in Denver. A great example of the lack of human whining by people who have learned how to handle the weather where they choose to live. WEATHER BULLETIN

Up here, in the "Mile-Hi City", we just recovered from a Historic event--- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands, cancelled over 2000 flights which stranded thousands of passengers in the airport.

FYI:

George Bush did not come.

FEMA did nothing.

No one howled for the government.

No one blamed the government.

No one even uttered an expletive on TV.

Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.

Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.

Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.

CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.

No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.

No one looted.

Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.

Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.

No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera.

No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water.

Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.

The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny.

Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it

to the snowbound families.

Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.

We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.

We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".

We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

"In my many t ravels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."

It does seem that way, at least to me.

I hope this gets passed on.

Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living.

Emails like this just annoy me. Here are some issues I have with this email.

• The part where FEMA didn’t help, I don’t think that’s a good thing, especially if you’re going to compare it to Katrina. Shouldn’t the government help when a catastrophe happens?
• I’m pretty sure that the news did report on the blizzard. They might not have been as extensive as the Katrina reports, but that’s probably because it was as a big of a catastrophe. Also probably why there wasn’t a big celebrity outcry.
• So no one looted. How are they supposed to loot when the snow has effectively barricade everybody?
• Great, you melted the snow and drank it, not exactly the same as distilling raw sewage into drinking water though.
• Pulling people out of snowbanks and asking for no money, weren’t there people boating around New Orleans, pulling people off their roof for no money?
• Stuck in a house surround by snow is no picnic, but I’d prefer that over being surrounded by toxic water with no house or protection from the wind or sun. Must also be nice to have kitchens that don’t require scuba gear to use so that you can provide food for local families in need.
• Oh yeah, and people did know that a category 5 hurricane was coming, it was just decided to be too costly to prepare for such a thing.

Don’t get me wrong, the Denver Christmas Blizzard of 2006 was horrible and many people were put through hardships and some even died because of it. It just wasn’t as bad as Katrina. Hundreds of people lost their lives and thousands of people lost their homes, across numerous states. The lasting effects are still being felt. Denver, however, is up and running again, especially when you compare it to the condition New Orleans.

Just don’t compare the two, especially when you’re trying to push your anti-entitlement agenda off on people. Sometimes, through no fault of their own, people need help. They’re not lazy, or greedy, or spoiled, or anything like that. They’re just in need of help. Either give them a helping hand or don’t, but don’t try to act righteous for not helping them.

What happened?

It’s been a while, so let me get you up to date. Christmas was good. We spent a little more then we should have, but not more than we could afford, which is good for us. We like to get people gifts. For Christmas/Birthday I gave Emily 26 days of presents, a present for each letter of the alphabet.
Apple Wine
BT Macenworth chocolates
Chartreuse liquor
Dryer balls (she wanted them)
Eiffel Tower lamp
Fancy pen (quite the stretch I know)
Godiva 2007 tin
Hangers (of the wooden variety)
Iron skillet (and coincidentally Internet)
Jewelry case
Knife (a quality paring one)
Lane Bryant clothes
Massager (handheld kind)
Northfield Arts Guild ceramic studio card
Origins ginger relaxation kit
Pillow (a full body one)
Queen size quilt
Robe
Silicon Strainer (folds up for storage)
T-shirts (Mossimo from Target, her favorites)
Utne subscription
Vest (fleece)
Wall clock (a really big one at that)
X-Men graphic novels (the 2 by Joss Whedon)
Yellow Jar: A collection of Japanese folk tales
Zen (Creative Zen mp3 player)
I started on Dec.3 and ended on Dec. 28 (her birthday). I think it was big hit.

We rearranged the bedroom and organized our clothes, eliminating another couple of bags worth. Oh Emily got me this sweet flat screen TV that we put in the bedroom, we got cable install there and I can now convince Emily to go to bed around 9 (since she can watch TV down there). We had some friends over (Salwa, Erica, David, and Hannah) during the holidays. I broke a shelf on our book case while rocking out to Guitar Hero 2, superstar style. Oh, and New Years, which we were promptly in bed by 11. We watched the countdown on the new TV. We were a little sad that we didn’t get our Conan O’Brien Midwest Countdown though. Maybe next year.
Happy Holidays and all that jazz.