It did snow yesterday.  It’s a little chilly.  I was wondering if it was Christmas again or not.

I was even more confused when this appeared in our home this morning!

Merry Christmas!

I just listened to Barak Obama’s victory speech that he gave from Indiana.  Okay, it just sounded like a victory speech.  There were a few things that I thought were interesting.  While I can’t quote it, I’ll try my best to paraphrase it.

He said for several decades we have heard politicians talk about change.  People run on a basis of change.  But no change has happened.

I would agree with him on those statements.  But here is my question to all of my reader, especially those who in the Obama camp:  What makes you think that Obama will bring the change that he himself admits has not happened from any other politician?  Will he bring that change, or (if he is elected) will he be like the politicians before him?

Please share your thoughts.

Outside there is thunder and lightning.  It’s fun!  I like thunder storms.  It’s good for our lawn as well!

Yesterday we spent most of the afternoon outside raking the yard, and then I put down some grass seed to help clean up some of the bare spots.  So with the rain I’m hopeful some of the grass seed will start to grow.  We’ll see.  I think it’ll be alright.

It was a nice weekend, or at least a nice Sunday.  The weather was great, warm and sunny.  It was a nice day to get outside and be active.  Having a yard is good for that.  And living in a nice neighborhood.  I think most of the neighbors were outside working on the yard yesterday.  So it was quite nice.

To take from President Clinton’s line.  (Which was “It’s the economy, stupid.”)

I’m watching the debate on ABC right now.  They’re talking about how they aren’t going to raise taxes on the “middle income”, and in the next breath how they’re going to raise the capital gains taxes.  Well, I’m certainly middle income, and I have capital gains.  So you’re going to raise my taxes!  Besides history shows you get more money from the capital gains tax when it’s lower.  So it doesn’t make sense to raise it.

The budget deficit for our country is quite large.  Somewhere around $9 trillion.  It seems to me the government has a spending problem.  It doesn’t make sense to spend more than you make.  If you spend too much you can’t spend as much the next month.  Cut government spending.  Get the federal government back to what it is supposed to do, instead of everything it has decided it should do now.  Even if you don’t cut my taxes right now, but cut government spending, I’d be okay with that IF the extra money paid off the national debt.

We need strong fiscally conservative leadership in our country.

As many people know I can’t wait to get my iPhone. Granted that’s not happening for a few more months, but I’m still really excited. There are many times when I wished I had one, thought it would be handy in a certain situation, or was just bored and wished I could check my email.

One thing I thought of today: It would be great to have the books on the iPhone. I bring a book to work on a regular basis. It’s usually a text book for class, so I can do some homework during my breaks. If I could have the books on my iPhone that’d be one less thing to carry. Of course I would want/need the ability to highlight text and probably make notes about in there too. Bringing the text book to the digital age would be nice to have. Having them all in my pocket would be even better.

So I did a little bit of Googling on the issue. I haven’t really found the solution I’m looking for. Granted, that may come in June when there are more apps for the iPhone. I think it would be useful, especially for those in college, or those who enjoy reading. The only glitch is that most text books probably wouldn’t be popular enough to have in the digital form. But it would be nice to have the option. I like to simplify my life.

Also, I’m testing a new process with this blog posting. Posting from Google Docs. We’ll see how well it works out.

Our fence fell down.  Not a big surprise though, it was half falling over when we bought the house.  Not the whole fence fell down though.  Just about 4 sections of it.  So today we went to Menards to look at fixing stuff.  It’ll be a little spendy, but not too bad.

I’m pretty sure that the same party that left a few holes in the wall to be patched, light fixtures ripped out of the ceiling, and the pool all ripped up is what left the fence half falling apart.  That must have been one heck of a party.  Sometimes people need to learn to grow up.

But if you want to see the silver lining of it all, there is one thing: we found a lawn chair.  It was stuck up in the tree, probably about 8 feet off the ground.  I never saw it before, because it was facing the fence.  But with the fence down I could walk around and saw it.

We’ve been doing some projects on the house, getting some more stuff done.  It’s nice, I shall not lie.  It’s a work in progress though.

We found an application to the nearby gym that the previous owner left.  According to the application 6 people lived here.  If there truly was 6 people living here, how did mortgage payments not get made?  That’s what I’m wondering.  Assuming they had a decent interest rate (let’s say 6.5%) monthly payments would be about $1,740.  That’s less than $300 per month per person.  I don’t understand how you loose it.  Or maybe they should have gotten more for the appliance they took with them.

Oh well.  Our gain I guess.  Happy Saturday!

I thought it was April 10.  It’s snowing out there.  It’s more of a rain/snow and it’s somewhat loud on the window.  We also saw some lightning out there tonight.  It’s crazy.

I’m sure the drive to work tomorrow will be fun.

Or integrity?  That’s what I want to know.

<political rant> I am all for free speech.  Use your freedom to tell me the truth.  Do not tell me one thing, and do a different.  No one likes a politician that lies.

Yesterday at the 6th Congressional District there were approximately 95 people who were running to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention.  Each person running was asked two questions: Are you a Republican?  Will you support John McCain at the convention?  The answers to the questions were displayed for all the voters to see and to use when casting their vote.

If I remember correctly there were only about 6 people who had said they would not support Ron Paul.  The rest all said they would support McCain.  After the votes were tallied all the people who were elected had told the nominating committee they would vote for McCain.  Then it got out that only 1 (of the 3 delegates and 3 alternates) actually supported Ron Paul.

They flat out lied to the delegates and alternates at the 6th District Convention.  They lied to over 300 people.  That upsets me.

I’m all for voting for the person you believe in.  But do not tell me you will vote for one person, but then vote for someone else.

As a convetion we decided to bind our delegates and alternates to what they told us at the convention.  So they will be forced to vote for McCain as they told us they would.  It’s a sad day when you have to force someone to do what they said they would.

What happened to honesty?  What happened to integrity?

For a good recap on the events, please read this.

</political rant>

I’ve really enjoyed the weather this evening.  Currently it is even 52 degrees outside!  It’s nice!  We went for a nice walk this evening.  I’m enjoying the exercise again.  Perhaps breaking out the roller blades is in order soon.

I must say I enjoyed some of the April Fools Day jokes that were going around on the internet.  Virgle was one.  I got a few co-workers and friends online to believe that I got a new job and a move was just three weeks away!  I’m glad that was just an April Fools Day joke.  I don’t want to have to go through the moving process again.

This weekend may be pretty busy.  I’m guessing tomorrow will be a long day at the 6th Congressional District Convention.  It should be an alright day.  But I’ll be honest, if the weather is nice outside it’ll be tough to be inside all day!