New Political Soapbox

I've decided to have a new political soapbox. I have been ranting and raving about taxes (especially the Social Security Tax) to my friends, family, neighbors, and anyone else who will listen for years now. I have written letters to my congressman, senators, and Presidents asking for reductions and reform, all with no avail. Actually, my congressman wrote back a somewhat nasty letter where he basically said that I was too ignorant to be able to have an opinion and that I should trust him.

Anyway, that idiot of congressman was up for re-election. I voted for the democrat (there was no libertarian running for the office), knowing full well that my congressman who thinks I am too stupid to form a congent opinion on tax policy on my own would be re-elected despite my vote against him and the fact that I got others in my district to vote against him.

This has spurred me to step onto a new soapbox: Term Limits. I think that term limits need to be set. I don't have time right now to go into all the reasons for term limits and to lay out a plan, but stay tuned because I will. I think if we can get Term Limits enacted (yeah, right - like congress will vote themselves out of a job) then we can actually try to clean up some of the other messes (such as taxes) that government has caused.

GRRRRRR!!!!!

I AM SO STINKIN' ANGRY!!! I just read an article on WorldNetDaily where a fifth grade teacher is suing the school district he works for because the administration of the school will not allow him to pass out copies of the Declaration of Independence. Now, you may ask, why would the Declaration of Independence, the document that started our Revolutionary War, the document that boldly stated a new paradigm of government and is the foundation of our Constitution and our freedom, why would that document be banned from being taught? Well, you see, the Declaration of Independence, realizes that our innate freedoms are gifts of God and mentions that. However, in our postmodern, pagan society there is to be a separation between religion and government. Therefore, any government document that references religion can not be taught.

This is not just an attack by government schools on our freedom of religion, it is an attack on our very freedom. We can not allow for the bedrocks of freedom to be censored. I am sad to say that it is beginning to look like it is once again time to "water the roots of the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and a tyrants". We, as freedom loving people, must hold our government accountable. We are government of the people by the people and when our government become tyrannical and refuses us the freedom of thought by censoring those documents that put that government in place, then a regime change is necessary. I hope and pray that in this situation we can use our laws, our legal processes and procedures to remove these incredibly inept administrators from the awesome responsibility of educating our young people. However, if we must, then forceful expulsion must be an option. We can no longer stand idly by like sheep and wait to be slaughtered by our local bureaucrat.

No, we are not sheep waiting to be herded and led to green pastures to be fed by the hand of our master. We are a nation of lions who will roaringly defend our territory and will be intimated into submission by threats of lawsuits. British loyalist, Byles Mather (nephew of Cotton Mather and fired from his position as minister of Hollis St. Congregational Church following the British Evacuation of Boston in 1776) predicted that one of the effects of a republic form of government would be that instead of being "ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away" we would be ruled "by three thousand tyrants one mile away." This case shows how right he was. And just like we would not stand for that kind of talk 230 years ago, we must not stand for it now. We are to be ruled by laws, not by ever changing public opinion and temporal philosophies of bureaucrats.

So what can you do to respond to this situation. First, read the lawsuit so that you have the facts. Then, I suggest a letter may be in order to this tyrant reminding her of her true responsibility is to be a guardian of freedom by educating children on the cost that was incurred to obtain their freedom and teaching them the responsibilities they have as stewards of freedom. Here is the address of the school, courtesy of Neal Boortz:

Patricia Vidmar, Principal
Stevens Creek Elementary School
10300 Ainsworth Drive
Cupertino, California 95014

In Texas

Erin, the baby, and I are in Texas. I am currently writing this from our hotel room using the FREE high speed internet provided by La Quinta. I know that I have been lax in posting lately and hope to fix that soon. I have been so busy at work that I have not even been listening to the radio in the background. This causes me to miss to the news, so I don't commentate on it.

To bring you up-to-date here is a brief synopsis of the past week or so...

Friday, Nov. 19
Erin and I left Mihaela with a baby sitter and joined two other couples from our small group for dinner and a play. One of our friends, Andy, is a faculty member at one of the local universities in the English department so he gets free tickets to the productions. We met for mexican food prior to the show and then went and saw "The Death of a Salesman." It was a great show and fun was had by all.

Saturday, Nov. 20
I worked for MCS and implemented a technology that we had not used before to allow full-text searches of a SQL database and return results in ColdFusion. It has been awhile since I have had to use a new technology to perform a task. It was exciting and refreshing to attack and solve this problem.

We then had dinner at Erin's parents house. They wanted to celebrate her birthday early since we wouldn't be with them on Thanksgiving. They gave Erin a new set of pots and pans, from the Wolfgang Puck series. She loves them. We threw away all of our old equipment.

Sunday, Nov. 21
Went to church (duh!). Then, Sunday night was a big joint worship time with five other churches in the Montgomery area. We had Jerome Williams come and lead worship. Prior to going to that, our small group met and had a heavy snack get together. We then all went over as a group. The singing was incredible and the worship was awesome.

Monday, Nov. 22
I had an all-day meeting at one of our colleges in Birmingham and was out-of-the office all day.

Tuesday, Nov. 23
I was in the office, but had to catch up from being gone the day before as well as prepare to be gone the rest of this week. I followed up on many tasks from my previous day's meeting. After putting in a full-day at work, I went home and helped Erin finish packing. We left about 7:00 PM to drive to Jackson, MS on our way here.

Today
We finished the trip. The trip was very uneventful, which is just how trips should be. We met my Mom and Dad at the hotel. While unpacking the car I spotted some other family members who were staying at the same hotel. We talked for quite a while. Then, we all went to Aunt Prissy's house for dinner and fellowship. Erin, Dad, one of my uncles, and I left early to put the baby to bed. She is sleeping now and that is why I have time to type.

Tomorrow will be a big day as we all get together and eat turkey and stuff. It is also Erin's birthday. I do not have her gift yet. I was waiting on a check I was expecting to come in to use it buy her present, but it has not arrived yet. Hopefully, I will get it when I get back and will be able to go buy her the present I have picked out for her.

Spiritual Emphasis Day at ACA

Erin has been invited back to Alabama Christian Academy to teach a girl's class for ACA'a annual Spiritual Emphasis Day. She has been working on it for about a month, very intently the past two weeks. She worked very hard on this and it looks and sounds really good. She made a little postcard that the girls will be able to fill out and keep.

I'm sure she will do a fantastic job. I am uploading her slideshow so that she can download it tomorrow. She went to ACA today and to test her slideshow and had some problems. I am making three different formats available in hopes that at least one will work.

• Get Up! Stand Up! - .pps file
• Get Up! Stand Up! - Office 97 - Office 2003 format (.ppt)
• Get Up! Stand Up! - Office 95 format (.ppt)

Quote

"The government says to the citizen: "Your earnings are not exclusively your own; we have a claim on them, and our claim precedes yours; we will allow you to keep some of it, because we recognize your need, not your right; but whatever we grant you for yourself is for us to decide."

- Frank Chodorov

Small Group materials

OK - so I was bad and did not get last weeks materials posted at all last week. I am so ashamed. :( However, it was a busy week last week because I only worked 2 days and had just returned from being at the work retreat. Then, we had the court date on Wed. and spent the rest of the week planning for the party on Saturday. I just didn't have a chance to blog much and that included posting last week's materials. However, enough excuses:


Week 6 - "The Suffering Church: Smyrna"

• Teacher Notes
• Slideshow
  

Week 7 - "The Carnal Church: Pergamum"

• Teacher Notes
• Slideshow
  

Party Today

I've been off work since Wed. and I am just now getting to a post. How bad of me. It is not even like I can use the excuse that I was busy. We had a few errands to run to get ready for Mihaela's party today, but I had time to post. I think, though, that I will use the excuse that my Mom and Dad were visiting and I was entertaining them. It would've been rude to blog while they were here. Here is a brief update of the week's events:

Wed.
We went to court to finalize Mihaela's adoption. It was a bit hectic in the morning because I had forgotten to pickup my jacket and dress pants from the dry cleaners. Also, I had asked to borrow a video camera from a buddy of mine and needed to go it pick it up at his house. I left early to go run those errands and then met Erin, Mihaela, my parents, and Erin's parents at the lawyers office. The lawyer briefed us on what to expect in the court room and we drove to the court house.

Nothing really exciting happened at the court room. We sat down at some tables. The judge entered and asked the lawyer to intorduce everyone and outline the main points of the case. After the lawyer did that, the judge asked him to question us. The lawyer asked me who I was, where I worked, where I lived, and then asked if I had been providing financial and emotional support for the baby and if I were aware of that it would be our sole responsibility from here on out. He then asked Erin the same set of questions. The judge then decreed that it was in the best of intrest of the child for the adoption to be finalized and signed the paperwork.

YEAH!!!! She was finally ours, legally.

Thur
Veterans day. We basically just kicked around the house. Erin cleaned the house to get ready for the party.

Fri.
Yesterday we ran around town running errands to get ready for Mihaela's "Gottcha Ya" day party. We had to go get some pictures printed, buy party supplies (we went with "Baby Einstien" party ware), get food, and order cakes and balloons and stuff. We made some of the food for the party and ate dinner with both my parents and Erin's parents.

Sat.
That brings us to today. The party is today. The turkeys are smoking in the smoker and everything appears to be developing as planned. We have a busy morning ahead of us as we have more food to make, decorations to display, and a few more errands to run. So, I guess I should go.

Tomorrow is the big day

Well, tomorrow is the BIG day; Mihalea's adoption will be finalized. We are so excited. I am taking off tomorrow, Thursday is a state holiday, and I'm taking off Friday. Since I was gone 3 days last week for the work retreat, yesterday was very busy I spent the day catching up.

Today I wrote a web app completely from scratch to allow us to create and manage our data dictionary for our new project. I had to get that done before I left today so that other committee members could start filling in the defintions while I am gone. My boss had a big deadline tomorrow morning and needed data that only I could query for him, so I ended up working late to get him his information so I could be off tomorrow.

Hopefully I can rest a little this week, though I don't really expect to. We have to prep for Mihalea's "Gotcha Day" party on Saturday. I have to get over to PCA and fix thier email and get my Small Group materials from last week posted (tomorrow, I hope) and get ready for Sunday's small group. Always busy these days. Usually, though, December slows down at work... sigh

Been at a Work Retreat

I've been gone since early Wed. morning to the Lake Guntersville State Park for a working retreat. We are redesigning the way we collect data from our colleges and had to meet with the steering committee to pound out some details. The State Park facilities are great and they only charge $25/night for state employees conduction state business. The only sad thing is that there was no internet connection. Man, was I going through withdrawl. Anyway, I'm back...

It Just Might Be Over

The FoxNews website has called Ohio in favor of Bush, which means that the election is over. He will probably win the Electoral College outright. He's up in the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes (that will narrow as California reports), and he should lead the popular vote when all is said and done.It is difficult to see where Kerry can go from here. Before he can even think about contesting the election, he'll need to run the table and pick up Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa, and Wisconsin. I just don't see New Mexio going to him as Bush is up 17.5 thousand votes with 80% of preciencts reporting. The other states all look to be leaning toward Kerry.

I surely am praying that Fox is right!

Not watching THE results...

Erin gets too involved and too emotional, jumping to conclusions long before results are finalized. Add to that the fact that we don't have cable, so no FoxNews, we decided not to watch the results and rented and watched a movie instead.

However, being a political junkie, I have been paying close attention over the internet. I have 5 browser windows open, one to FoxNews, one to CNN, one to ABCNews, one to CBSNews, and one to MSNBC News.

It is kind of intresting watching the differences between them all.

Communion

It was my turn to share the Communion thought yesterday at church. I did something a little bit different. Usually, the person who leads communion shares a thought, prays over the bread, and then we sing while the plate is being passed around. He will then either continue his thought and pray over the juice, or just pray, and we will sing while they pass that around.

Yesterday, I said a few words and prayed over the bread. Then instead of singing, I showed a PowerPoint and read scriptures outloud. The PowerPoint was timed to my speed of reading and the ending was very powerful as I was dramtically emphasizing the scriptures. Then, I prayed a very short prayer and we sang a song that is new to us, "All Praises Be." It was really good. Anyway, here are my thoughts and the PowerPoint.

• Introduction, Prayers, and Scriptures
• Slideshow

Classes and Small Group

I substituted for our regular Sunday School teacher yesterday and covered John 6. Here are the class notes:

• Class Notes

Here are the notes and slideshow from last night's small group.

Week 5 - "The Church without Love"

• Teacher Notes
• Slideshow