The Bottom Line

Nobody owes you a living. What you achieve or fail to achieve in your lifetime is directly related to what you do or fail to do. No one chooses their parents or childhood but you can choose your own direction. Everyone has problems and obstacles to overcome but that too is relative to each individual. Nothing is carved in stone. You can change anything in your life if you want it badly enough. Excuses are for the lazy. If you aren't willing to work for your goals, don't expect others to do it for you. Those who take responsibility for their actions are the real winners in life. Winners meet life's challenges head on knowing there are no guarantees and give it all they've got. It's never to late or too early to begin. Time plays no favorites and will pass whether you act or not. Take control of your life. Dare to dream and take risks. Believe in yourself and you'll go far.

P.S. Thanks Rick for sharing.

It's a girl!

We finally found out that our little one will be a girl. This has me super excited, yet scared, because I have no willpower versus little girls, and I can't imagine having one of my own. Damnit, time to fall in love again. My wife continues to look beautiful, in not more so, each and every day. I can't really explain it. We painted our little one's room, and I'm starting to see the nesting gene kick in with my wife, and I guess I'm starting to do it to. All the books were right, imagine that. Let's hope everything goes as planned, although it never does. We start birthing classes in a few weeks, those should be interesting.

Now, lets talk about this movie Inception. What a total mind f**k of a movie. I can only describe it as a mix between The Matrix, Willy Wonka, and Twilight Zone. Without spoiling the movie, it's about a group of people who specialize in invading dreams to discover your innermost secrets without you knowing it. The science of how they do it is never really explained, but the journey itself, is a great ride. I can gladly say that I highly recommend this movie to anyone that enjoy's a psychological thriller, and to call me after you have, because I wanna hear your thoughts on the ending.

That's it for now.

Sports and Baby Equipment

So, after a year of silence, the famous "It's Hockey Time in Oklahoma City!!" voice will be gracing the Cox Convention Center this coming October. For those that don't know, Oklahoma City is getting an AHL hockey team (finally!). It will be the farm team for the NHL Edmonton Oilers, who just got the first draft pick this year, so we might actually see Taylor Hall, but I doubt it. Even if we don't, at least its AHL hockey and not some lame old dudes trying to play hockey (*cough* Blazers *cough*).

In other news, the U.S.A. got beat in the World Cup by Ghana Saturday afternoon. Just goes to show, Football (soccer) is a game based upon true skill, not on how much money you have, or the high-tech equipment you can buy. I think that's why I still enjoy it so much.

Baby stuff is to expensive, a big thanks to my Father and the Berger's for donating so much to us in preparation for the little one. We find out the gender on Friday!

That's it for now, no hot-button political complaints from me today!

Let there be blog!

A good friend of mine has recently started a blog about this life and in turn, encouraged me to start writing again (Thanks Mike!). I had a few people ask me a while back why I stopped because they found my posts insightful, so I shall humor them once more with my ranting about the world around us, and maybe even throw in a few thoughts about my life into the mix.

For those that don't know, me and my wife are expecting our first little one this Thanksgiving, and we are super excited about it. Not sure of the gender yet, but we get to find out on July 2nd. Wife thinks it's a boy, and I think it's a girl, guess we shall see! I'll keep you guys informed.

Now on to my political subject that has been bothering me lately. Oklahoma Lottery and Education funding. This thing is complete and utter BS! Okay, maybe its not that bad, but it's still a big mess. For those that don't know, the lottery is split 45/35/20(%), which goes to Prize Money, Public Education, Administration respectively. 35% is quite a bit for public education, all those commercials the public sees says public education get all kinds of stuff with that money. Here's how it really works: Of the 35% public education gets from the lottery, 85% of that goes into the general education fund, essentially, where it gets lost. (The other 15% go to misc. education funds) The lottery money is combined with all the other tax money that public education gets, so we don't really know where the money goes, or who it goes to. There are estimates out there available, but again, these are just guesses. Here's where it gets messed up, since 2005, the funding for public education from the state has declined according to Sandy Garrett, it was 37.5% of the states total budget in 2005, and in 2008 it had declined to 35.5%. Consequently, they gave public education teachers a much needed $3,000/year salary increase in 2007, but decreased funding. So..increasing salaries, and decreasing funding...a 4th grader could figure out what's going to happen here. The money to pay the teachers had to come from somewhere, and guess where it came from! Your right, the lottery money. So...we are effectively taking the taxpayers money dedicated for education, allocating it to other parts of the state's needs, and letting the lottery (read: tax on the poor) pay our educators. That just seems like a bad idea to me.

What can be done? Well, let's indulge Mrs. Garrett with her request to separate the money from the lottery out of the general funds assigned by the state, so we can at least track it. Then maybe lets at least stop cutting funding (or heaven forbid, increase) from the Public Education system. And last, but not least, maybe investigate why we increased funding to Public Education, and now are having to lay educators off.

Sources: Urban Tulsa Newspaper, Oklahoma Lottery Numbers, Oklahoma Legislature, Oklahoma Lottery Commission

Privatized Elementary Schools?

Yeah....we all know they exist, primarily for Christian based religions and what not. But, after Hurricane Katrina, did you know New Orleans shut down all but 4 of its public schools, and opened all Charter schools which people have to pay for now?

Read up on it, and tell me what you think

http://www.counterpunch.org/davis08302006.html

Housing Crunch?

After watching the morning news, I have to speak my mind on the current housing crunch and all these people wanting to throw money at it. I highly disagree with this approach. I mean, it all started back when Clinton passed the law that allowed homeowners to not pay taxes on the first $500k of profit when selling a house. This caused investors to flip houses like mad. This shot the price of homes up in some areas, and these investors were getting lots of loans which created capital. This led to banks becoming more comfortable financing some of the more "questionable" people because they had more capital on which to grant. Well...those "questionable" people started to default, and investors stop investing because of the slowing economy, and look who's left with all the problems. Banks and consumers are both gonna get a kick in the pants over this one, and why should the government save them? Who's gonna come save me when I cant pay a bill because I made poor choices? Why should my tax dollars go to help people who try to live beyond their means and fall on their ass?

My 2 cents

Interesting hypothesis about gas prices

Found an interesting article in the Daily Oklahoman on gas prices today. It was from yesterday's(3/31) paper. It was kind of demeaning to Democrats as a whole, but their are some good points that really hit home.

Here's the article:

High energy prices are primarily caused by ecoterrorists,
environmentalists, and their ultimate enablers, Democrats. Drilling is restricted in America, even in Alaska, where the locals want it. Environmentalists stop the oil companies from looking here at home.

Investigate where your fuel money is going. Taxes are the biggest single item. Government takes more than oil company profits and oil folks take the risk and do all the dirty work. Enabling drilling will immediately drop the price of oil. This country has 200 years of coal that can make electricity or be gasified. More can be found in Canadian oil sands. But no, we must import Middle East oil from Muslim dictators and fund their terrorism against us.

We cant even install offshore wind mills to generate "no fuel" electricity. Ted Kennedy doesnt want to see them! No nuclear power plants are even being planned. Cuba drills for oil off our shores, but we can't. All voters should remember their energy and gasoline bills and throw the Democrats out. They have such good intentions and get everything wrong. And I'm a registered democrat.

While I dont agree with some of the article, the part about the environmentalists really irritates me. I wouldnt care if there were offshore wind mills generating electricty, hell I drove through Woodward, Oklahoma a few weeks ago and was amazed at the wind-power generators there. After talking with a co-worker about this, he informed me of Oil Shale and its renewable energy, of which we have a ton of here in the United States. This might even be something to invest in.

Well, thats enough for today,

Ciao for now