Beautiful wife, 2 daughters, house, pets, PTO… How did I get here?

OK, so as a younger version of myself, had someone told me that before I was forty, I would be married (for the second time!), have two gorgeous daughters, a nice house (that has a seemingly never-ending list of improvements to be done), six (yes I said six) dogs, a kitten, and be a member of my daughters school PTO, I would have probably burst out into despairing laughter, while bitch-smacking you for trying to make fun of me! Yet here I am, not even 39 yet, and all of the above is now part of my life! Now don't misunderstand, this is not a post bemoaning my life, quite the contrary, it is a celebration of where my life is. I asked myself this rather poignant question as I found myself becoming excited about taking over my daughters' PTO Box Tops For Education project, while simultaneously creating my PTO's Facebook page… I know, it's kinda disturbing isn't it?
Now before you all start saying that I've lost any concept of what a well-adjusted adult's life is, I will say that this last weekend I spent 24 hours working security at a large event in Terre Haute, IN. Wait, I'm not sure if that justifies my well-adjusted adult comment or not, but that's what I've been up to. And yes, I am an odd man… I spend my work week embroiled in servers, switches, and SANs… then spend some of my weekends doing physical security, and by physical security, I'm not talking IT security, I'm talking the sweating your ass off, running down dipshit drunkards, and bouncing them off the property kind. Any of you that know me in person can probably understand why security companies LOVE me for these type of events…. 6'6"+, 360#, 55" chest, and a really intimidating presence tends to resolve most disagreements long before any kind of physical confrontation even enters the drunks mind! But alas I digress.
I was creating the first status update on my newly created PTO page when it hit me… I am now, minus the whole security thing, a modern middle aged man…kind of… You have to also discount the whole constitutionalist, conservative minded, second amendment supporting, personal liberty loving things… well hell I guess that puts me squarely back in the Middle Aged Madman category doesn't it? By the way, in case you haven't figured it out, I absolutely love sarcasm! :)

 
Anyway, this song popped into my head as soon as I posed my internal question to myself:

 

 
I really do not know how I managed to end up where I am… I'm fairly sure most people would have considered me one of those that would end up dead at an early age, or incarcerated! To be honest there were a few situations that either of those situations were very nearly the case. I can only attribute my successes to some incredible luck to have found my wife, and then everything else is her doing! I don't think I would/could have been as successful as I have become without her!

 
Live your life to the fullest, because you not getting out of it alive, and you might just end up asking yourself "How did I get here" ;)

Older, wiser, (?) and mellower classmates

As I prepare for my twentieth (dear god I'm getting old!) High School reunion, I have found that a lot of my former classmates have become far more "normal" than I thought they were. In my high school, like all high schools I suppose, there were the normal cliques. There were your jocks, your preps, your prep jocks, nerds, freaks, band geeks, choir peeps, the uppity goodie-too-shoes, and all the others. Now some of you may be shocked by this, but I probably fell more into the freak category than anything else, I know, I know I'm sure you are saying to yourselves, "Jason, this can't be, you are such a "well-adjusted" adult!" Utter sarcasm aside, I was a freak, I didn't fit in well, rebelled against authoritative rules, etc… I attribute part of this to my home life, and part of it too just not giving a damn what people thought of me after a while. You see I was one of those teens that now a days would probably end up expelled and arrested for my "hobbies". I mean it's not every day that a high school junior or senior brings fencing foils and swords to be stowed away in their locker until after school for fencing and swordplay. Yes, I was one of those! I played Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (none of that babyish regular D&D for me!), Magic the Gathering, watched the Highlander more times then I care to admit (even with the cheesy 80's era graphics it was a damn good movie!). I took part in some very, very questionable pranks, some of which may still get me in legal trouble if anyone ever knew the details! In short, I was a school administrator's worst nightmare… not to mention I know I caused my parents many nervous evenings of listening to the police scanner wondering if I was involved with what they were hearing about the police discussing!

    I began to notice I was "different" very quickly after starting Plymouth High school in the fall of 1989 (damn just typing that makes me feel like an old fogey!) I didn't really seem to care about the same stuff as most of my classmates. It also didn't help that over the summer between my 8^th grade year and my freshman year I grew around 8 inches, (my knees still hurt from that) my eyesight was beginning to betray me, although at the time I didn't realize it/was in denial, I was of course skinny, I mean I was a teen ager who grew 8 inches in a 3 month period, what did I expect? Anyway, I didn't fit in with the jocks because I had no interest in most sports. I didn't fit in with the preps because I was poor. I didn't fit in with the Band and choir folks at the time, because I was about as musically talented as a cat in heat with its tail caught in a door. I didn't really fit in with the geeks because I didn't care enough about grades to bother trying… after 8 years of elementary and Junior high with good to decent grades and a father who only ever saw the negatives (at least to me at the time it was the only thing he ever saw) I just quit bothering to try and get good grades, I could do it, fairly easily even, but I just didn't try. Now I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I'm a fairly intelligent person, in some ways it could be stated that I'm brilliant in a savant'ish sort of way, but I just didn't see the point. At that particular time in my life I couldn't see past the next few years of my life, too be brutally honest I didn't think I'd live this long, but that has been touched on in a couple other posts.

    So there I was, a freshman that didn't fit in anywhere well, I know it's the most original story ever, right? Any way I made some friends, made a few enemies, some accidentally, others, not so much, but I had people to talk to. As I grew older and we all began advancing through the grades I noticed that some, a very small few, in my eyes at the time, of the more prep'ish group seemed to be growing more tolerant of my freakish ways. Some of the Jocks started to pay more attention to some of us freaks, and not the "we are going to kick your ass for being a freak type of attention". By the time we reached senior year, most of my class had already graduated to the "just don't give a shit" phase of our youth. It was a good time to be an angst ridden teenager, I mean we had the grunge scene exploding all over, people like Kurt Cobain telling us that we really weren't bad, or wrong in our ways, that it really was "normal".

 

    My senior year I had study hall first thing in the morning for the second half of the year. In the infinite wisdom of our study hall teacher, they placed all of the seniors above everyone else on two or three tables on the "stage" of the cafeteria. Now this meant that there were one of two or three activities going on during study hall; Sleeping, I personally took advantage of this activity on a fairly regular basis, (sorry to all my classmates who had to listen to me snore!) what I like to call the Exchange (more on this in a moment) and then there was the listening to music and sending out underclassmen to get donuts and McMuffins. Now the Exchange activity was a rather perfect setup, one that I'm sure almost every high school in America has. What would commence during the "exchange" portion of study hall went something like this: "Who did the econ assignment?" some of the others at the table would respond in the positive or negative, and on more than one occasion "What econ assignment?" Then we would all run down the list of the other assignments, and "exchange" what we had done for what others had done. This activity is where I began to see glimmerings of some of the caste system breaking down, with some of the "preps" happily exchanging homework with a freak like me, sometimes even chatting and bantering about classes and what not. Now I was, and still am, a rather untrusting, suspicious kind of person (This comes from a long history of getting smacked down by life, seeing my father get screwed over time and time again by being overly trusting, etc…) I was extremely cautious about these interactions, as I was always waiting for the vicious teasing and ripping to begin. After a while I started to get the sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe they weren't all out to make my life more hellish than it already was!

 

    Fast forward five years after graduation. I saw somewhere that there were plans for a 5 year reunion… I personally thought that 5 years was nowhere near enough time to make me want to spend time with most of my classmates again, I mean the ones I wanted to associate with I still talked to, and the ones I didn't, well, I didn't like them then, why the hell would I want to spend my free time with them now! I didn't even respond; IIRC the reunion ended up canceled for lack of response, leave it to the grunge generation to not even bother responding to reunion invites. I took this as a sign that the rest of my classmates must be in agreement with me that 5 years was just not enough time. Fast forward a "few" more years I, like everyone else in the known world, spend too much of my time on Facebook. I start seeing some of my classmates on FB, start friending some of them, find out that they too have the same crap going on that I do, too much work, not enough time, children, houses, pets, spousal nightmares, etc…. I start to cautiously friend some of those that I always assumed looked down upon me, thought me to be below them, etc… Well what do you know, some of them were actually happy to chat, share experiences, opinions, and everything else you could think of… in short they were normal people. Now I'm no social butterfly, but at the same time I'm not a pariah either, and I have a myriad of friends and acquaintances, but I just never thought that my high school classmates would ever change, I know, that's a narrow minded, short-sighted way to think, but sometimes even the most enlightened people stumble around in the dark because they are too damn stubborn to turn on the light! I have found that many of my classmates share many of my personal political beliefs, not all of them, some are diametrically opposed to my views, and that's OK (OK, OK, it's really not, it shall be my viewpoint and my viewpoint alone! Yeah, I know, I'm an ass! LOL just kidding with you all, if we all agreed on everything life would be boring as hell.) Most of us have all grown, learned from our experiences, and some have even realized that they were not very good people back then, hell, I know that 90% of the time I was just a pissed off punk, who would sooner take a dump on you than talk to you as a normal human being. I'd like to think I've grown and matured since then, now don't get me wrong there are still some people that I'd sooner shit on then talk to, but for the most part I'm a mellow middle aged mad man! A few months back I login to my FB wall and low and behold I've got multiple invites to our 20 year reunion. My first thought, was nah, someone must have made a mistake, and surely it couldn't be twenty years, could it? My steel trap mind quickly did the math, triumphantly I knew there was a mistake, it had only been 10 years… then I remembered the year was 2013 and quietly sobbed on the inside! I clicked on the link and did a quick recon of the posts that were there… looking for the tell-tale snobbish remarks, the uppity "I'm better than you and always will be" tone, and the dreaded everyone is welcome except for you mentality. To my shock I found none of that, I found some of the people I had friended over the years saying that they were going to go, some that I had only just recently started talking to, finding out that they had been reading this little slice o' mental masturbation that is my blog, and generally people just wanting to reconnect. I discussed attending with my wife, which meant I basically just told her that my 20^th HS reunion was coming up and being as vague as only a middle aged madman can be. I thought about it, I stuck it in the back of my mind and would poke at the idea of attending, as if it was some odd, unknown creature that you poke with a stick to see if it is alive and if it wants to eat your face off for fun! Around this same time, our foreign exchange student from my senior came back to the states, now since I hadn't seen her since graduation, and I had very strong feelings for her, I had to go and meet her back in Plymouth. It was a delightful time, and I found it very relaxing and somewhat therapeutic. In talking with her, the idea of this blog actually came into being, she inspired me to give it a try, as she has a couple of blogs that I had perused in the past. That experience, coupled with the beginning of this blog and the responses I had received from writing it compelled me to take the why not attitude and decide to attend my high school reunion.

    

    Now as the event draws near there are of course the normal mundane issues to deal with, do I just drive up, attend the reunion and drive back? I'm thinking not, as it's a 3 hour drive one way, and it would make for one very tedious day. OK, so I'm going to stay overnight, great, except for one little problem… My home town has a very large festival every year… guess which weekend the reunion is on? Winner, winner chicken dinner! It is on the same weekend, now I fully understand the reasoning for this, as it is a two bird's one stone issue, but it makes trying to get a hotel room within a 30 mile radius a real bitch! Now I could easily get a room if I wanted to spend $200 – $325 for a single night, and while I've been mildly successful in my life, I refuse to spend that many clams on Plymouth Indiana, sorry to all that stayed there and love it, but hell no! I didn't spend that much a night in Vegas, I'll be damned if I spend that much on Plymouth! Then there of course was the initial logistical decisions, what to do with children, going solo, or wife attending, etc. etc... In the end it was decided I would be going solo, that then negates the childcare dilemma and simplifies life. On top of those issues are the other more emotional issues, will I still be the outsider looking in? Will I still fit in as well as a hunchback at a chiropractor's convention? Will anyone remember me? Will anyone talk to me? How long do I have to endure the uncomfortable silences before I snap, and start drinking heavily (Oh, forgot to mention that of course there will be a cash bar to socially lubricate the situation, methinks I will be bringing one of my flasks, otherwise I may go broke!)? Oh well, I guess I'll get the answers to these and other breathtaking questions in eleven days!

 

Till then, Live your life to its fullest, 'cause no one gets out alive!

The Life and Loves of me as a teen ager, or Crushes. Part 3

So my third major crush in my formative years was, I think, the one that molded my personality and character more than any single event in my younger life.

My crush was during my Senior year of high school.  I had noticed the object of my crush at nearly the beginning of the year, however it was not in a crush fashion, just noticing the new girl who was different from the others... Now she had very good reason to be different, having lived her entire life up until then on the other side of the world tends to produce some significant differences then a teen age man-child living in Northern Indiana!  You see my crush was a foreign exchange student, which, as I'm sure you can figure out will, 99% of the time, not end well, what with the inevitable departure back to her home!

My crush was a friend before a crush.  You see there was a group of us in our Intro to Psychology class that got along famously!  The group was very diverse, multiple classes, backgrounds, and beliefs made up our group.  Now many people would not think that a screwed up kid from the poorer section of town would do very well in psychology, but, for whatever reason, I excelled in the class.  I was rather well known in my class for being able to divert the attention of our teacher, Mr. Shockney, from those pesky, mundane activities that are the bane of high school students; tests.  This is how a typical test day would go in Psych class at PHS... Me, or one of the other two "OK, who actually studied for this one?" Various responses varying from "I'm ready" to "Oh dear god I forgot all about it!"  This typically invoked a very quick and quiet round of debate, until our group, and most of the rest of the class would decide if a delay was needed, and how long of a delay.  This would then invoke a quick discussion of which one of the 2 or 3 of us that were skilled at sidetracking our good teacher as too which one of us was going to take up the cause that day.  What would follow would be various questions regarding current news items, on-the-spot generated questions concerning hypothetical situations, etc... typically we would buy anywhere from ten to thirty minutes of time for the joyous activity known as the "mad cram".  Our best record was delaying a midterm for nearly 3 weeks!

Now I went into this as some background of my relationship with the object of my affection.  At times during our class, our teacher would attempt to catch us not paying attention, because to be honest, most of the time we didn't pay close attention to what was going on in the class.  99% of the time, we kept just enough of our attention focused on Mr. Shockney that we would know the generalities of what was going on in the class to be able to correctly answer these questions.  I can think of a couple of occasions that we failed, and failed miserably!  It was one of those failures when we were separated from each other (there were 3 of us that were as thick as thieves, and we were the ones that got busted... go figure!) that I came to the realization that I really, really missed being close to her.  I think that this is when my interest was piqued. I began pursuing, and to be honest, I don't remember a whole lot of the second half of my senior year... this is due, in part, to my activities the summer after my senior year...  That was the summer I learned what "Wake-n-bake" was, let's just leave it at that.

Now I have several memories, including hanging out with a group us at a friends house watching the Animaniacs, and another member of the group was shamelessly flirting with my sweetheart.  Now, to be fair, he had no idea that I was interested in her at the time, I had not directly declared my feelings to her, and I have apologized to him for what I did, which I will detail now.  He was lounging on the floor, I was on a couch to the right of him, and my desire was, IIRC sitting to my left in a recliner. She excused her self to go to the restroom... as soon as left the room, I raised my rather large and heavy leg, and sent it crushing down on my friends upper thigh.  Now I know good and well that had to hurt like hell!  He of course yelled bloody murder and asked what the hell that was for... again, IIRC, a couple of my friends quickly explained the situation... now of course he wasn't happy, and didn't talk to me for a while, but we got over it.

This went on for awhile and I finally worked up the courage, with some cajoling from friends, to ask her to the prom, now again, I was (and really still am) a screw-up... I was odd, and ungainly, and had no money...  So, the prom was a big freakin' deal to me... lots of $ to scramble to beg, borrow or steal.  I did it, I don't even remember how I did, but I did.  Much of that evening was a blur, I know we went out to eat somewhere... went to the prom, and then hung out at various friends houses, afterwards.  For once in my delinquent youth, there was no drinking, or shenanigans to be had, as well as none of the "traditional" after prom activities!  I remember being sooo nervous, and thinking that I must have looked like a complete idiot!  Of course now looking back I can realize that she was almost as nervous!  There were more than a couple of uncomfortable moments when others in our group were sharing more intimate times, nothing like having a hellacious crush on someone, and having your friends all kissing their girlfriends!   I remember after everything was done, and we were all back at our homes (By this time in my life, I was no longer living at home, but that's a different post for a different day!) thinking that it would be nice to do that again, only without so many nerves and expectations involved! 

The next couple of weeks were a flurry of activity, preparing for graduation, trying to keep myself from getting expelled due to a dumb-ass teacher pushing the wrong button at the wrong time (another post for a different day), rushing down the halls of the school to my Econ class to see if I actually passed or not; planning and executing an unauthorized prayer during the graduation ceremony, etc...  The day that my crush had to leave was miserable... it was as if the heavens themselves knew our grief, and made the weather act accordingly.  It was gray, pouring down rain, and much chillier than a normal Northern Indiana June day.  As we drove (actually my friend Rick drove, I rode in the back with her) there were numerous times when there was no visibility, and speed was reduced to 10 miles an hour on the highway.  It was a torturous drive, and as we arrived at the destination, I was a mess, too many thoughts running through my head to be able to focus on any one thing, the overwhelming feeling of utter loss, knowing that I would never see her again (luckily this turned out to be untrue) and generally turning into a 6'7" blubbering mass.  You see this is one of the other fairly rare times in my early years when I openly cried, and didn't care who saw.  I guess it was a "lucky" thing that everyone else there was crying as well!  I remember seeing her board the bus and feeling completely devastated, utterly alone for the second time in the space of a year. 

I learned a lot in this time, including her leaving, although it took years to realize how much I learned.  I have memories that will last my entire life, I have learned that trying to compress events, feelings, and emotions into a small amount of time does not work well; I have definitely learned how to cope with loss, and that no matter how much you want to hang on, it will never be the same as that original moment. I also learned that phone calls half way across the world are pricey, and that time zones are your enemy!


Remember all, that life is short, live it like you mean it!

A little introspective musing this morning

So I'm browsing my NSA watched Facebook feed this morning (sorry, gotta get the dig in where I can!) and I come across a story concerning Ashton Kutcher's acceptance speech at the teen choice awards.  Now any of you that know me, probably are thinking "Why the hell did he even pause at that, he's not into all the Hollywood BS?"  And you would be correct, I'm not; 99% of the time I could give a shit less about what most of the "celebrities" are doing.  My view on celebrities is the following, I (may) pay to see you entertain me for a brief time, after that, I don't give a good goddamn what you do, as I'm sure they would all say about me as well (I will say that I'm getting really sick of the hypocrisy in Hollywood, but that's another post all by itself!) Now what caught my eye was the fact that this article was from a very conservative outlet, and, on average, their opinion on Hollywood celebrities closely mirrors my own.  I clicked the link and read the story. 

The gist was that Ashton, who revealed that his first name is actually Chris, and that Ashton is his middle name, actually put himself out there with some decidedly un-Hollywood beliefs.  Ashton stated that there were 3 important things that he learned as Chris, that are still very important to him as Ashton:

1. Opportunity looks a lot like hard work.
   
2. The sexiest thing in the world is being smart, being thoughtful, and being generous, the rest is crap!
   
3. Create your own life, don't live in the world.
   

Now I've greatly simplified, and shortened this, and, I can almost not believe I'm suggesting this, but go watch the video, it is very worthwhile!

This got me thinking about how much we all try to take shortcuts in our lives, and how we, at least in this country, have forgotten that nothing, and I mean nothing, is "owed" to us by anyone. We have to work to get what we want. I also was reminded, that society's definition of beauty is completely ass-backwards, we need to remember to look at the character of a person, and not their physical appearance. Finally, Life is what you make it, not what other's make for you.

 
 

Then, I stumbled upon a post from a friend's
blog:

 
 

There are times when we find ourselves not knowing what to do next.

Sometimes, it is because there only appears to be one option - and it isn't at all a desirable one.

At other times, It is not for lack of options. Indeed, it is often because there are too many options.

In fact, it is only our perception that changes. The mind might be fixated on one thought, one reality. Or, it might be unfocused and unable to choose between the infinite paths that always lie ahead of us.

The practice, then, lies in being able to be fully aware of all possibilities while mindfully engaging with a select few.

The practice lies in this breath.

(I'm still practicing.)

To which I responded:

"breathe deep, keep calm, and live your life well."

As I wrote that response, I realized that the things I read and wrote, could help resolve almost all of anyone's problems… Now I'm not saying that I'm some Zen master who has reached some level of enlightenment, all of you that know me would end up with an aneurism from laughing so hard at the thought of me being "enlightened", but those words that I read, and the response that I typed, in my eyes, are very profound.

I think that all of us would be much better off, as people and as a society if we all slow down for a moment, reflect, and attempt to live our lives the way that we know that we should.

 
 

In closing, as I always post; Live your life to the fullest, as no one gets out alive!

  

Life, family, home, and lack of sleep!

I have learned over the course of my life, that there are times when life, family commitments, and home responsibilities tend to erode our sleep time.  Now this is not a surprise to any of us, at least I hope it isn't a surprise!

Now in my life, I work a full time job, have a family, pets, and a home.  Currently I work about 65 miles from my home.  This means that every day I have approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes of drive time.  Couple that with 7 to 8 hours of work, and a 1 hour lunch, and we come up with at least 10 and a half hours of my day gone, now add into that sleep, and we are at about 17.5 hours, assuming I can get 7 hours a sleep a night.  That leaves 6.5 hours a day for any house work, family time, and any relaxation that I manage to get.  Now realistically I don't get anywhere near 7 hours of sleep, usually I get around 5.5 or 5.75 hours of sleep a night right now.  so that means I get 8 hours a day to be able to assist my wife with things around the house, talk with, teach, and spend time with my daughters, deal with our zoo of animals, attempt to do anything to further my own career options, further my own knowledge of any of the myriad of subjects that interest me.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not whining about this, just offering my experiences on life.  The problem with the schedule I currently keep, is that I am tired about 80% of the time.  Being tired, which should come as no surprise to anyone, leads to me being cranky... You have to understand, me being cranky is not just a minor annoyance, I tend to become a raving prick once I am tired and cranky, my patience goes to zero, my iron grip on my temper quickly loosens, and I turn into a yelling, bitchy, pain in everyone's ass.  In short I transform into my father.  Now anyone that knows me well knows that this is a major issue for me.  My father and I did not enjoy a great relationship most of the time.  One of my goals in life is to make sure I do not become my father.  What further complicates everything is that while I am tired and cranky, I realize that I am being a pain in the ass; this further frustrates my already addled and sleep deprived psyche, which, in turn makes me more annoyed, and more short tempered... I'm sure you can all see that this becomes a very, very vicious cycle. 

I try and be good and go to bed early... but when I have to get up at 0515 right now so that I can get to the office of my current assignment at 0700, it means that I should be going to bed around 2200 (10:00 pm for you non-military types, or those that have never mastered the art of adding or subtracting 12 to the time. ;) )  This proves to be difficult, especially during the summer months when it is still quite bright outside until after 2100   Now I personally can sleep just about anywhere, at just about any time; my Daughters, however, cannot usually get too sleep until it is damn near pitch black outside.  Which means now that they are awake until 2130 or 2200.  We try and send them to bed no later than 2030, but in the summer that is difficult at best.  So when they go to bed at 2100, and then the wife and I spend 10 or 15 minutes getting things organized, we sit down to relax, watch a movie, etc.. it is around 2130.  This means that I should watch around 30 minutes of whatever program is on, and then go to bed.  If I do that, My lovely wife tends to become slightly miffed, which I do not fault her for, as I would be as well.  The catch 22 of it is that the longer I stay up, the less sleep I get, the crankier I become, the less hospitable I am, the less time anyone wants to be around me....  Do ya see the problem here?

Add to all of this the desire to have our family become more self sufficient, by growing some of our own food, rain collection, and eventually, (when I have extra time and $!) setup a grid-tie, backup solar system, and the insanity begins to exponentially multiply!  We know that all of these things are better for us, and will save us money, but unfortunately, like most things, you have to spend some money to save some money; well at least in regards to the rain collection, and solar power you have to spend some cash.  For the gardening, it's more a matter of time, and effort; either way, you see the issues.

In short, I need to find employment closer to home, and/or not have to work!  The only problem with working closer to home, is then I would want to pick up a part time job, to fund hobbies, home improvement, and be able to afford the PV array system faster!  ACCCKKKKK  someone tell me how to juggle it all and still atain the goals I want to, please!


Oh well, for now I'll just keep yawning.  Remember all, Live your life to the fullest, 'cause no one gets out alive!

IRS corruption, US debt, and the hell that is day to day life.

*NOTE* This post has become very long and rambling, for that I apologize, but what can I say, my mind tends to ramble and wander frequently... I always have various things zipping through my mind... always thinking about something, and unless I make a concerted effort to reign it in, you get posts like this one. ;)  unfortunately for you, I didn't feel like concentrating on it this morning!


Not that any sane person that has a brain in their head couldn't have figured this out all on their own.  We have now "learned" that the head of the IRS Exempt Organizations division overruled the IRS' own lawyer, and forced conservative, Tea Party, and libertarian organizations to go through a non-standard "multilayer" review that included the Obama appointed chief counsel.  Now if anyone thinks that Obama himself didn't have something to do with this, or at the very least direct knowledge of it going on, they are deluding themselves!

Personally I, and several others I have spoken to believe that this is election tampering and fraud!  Someone, or several someones more than likely, need to be imprisoned for this.  Couple this with the DOJ's lack of desire to prosecute the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation, and the people who voted multiple times for Obama, supposedly with the assistance of the Obama campaign, you can come to only one logical conclusion... the 2012 United States Presidential election was rigged!  Not that every election is rigged... popular vote, contrary to popular opinion, means exactly squat!  Every man woman and child could vote for a single candidate, and they could still not win.  You may say, "but Jason you just invalidated your own point" In a way, yes I did, but you have to understand how, at least how I understand it, it all is supposed to work... If the populous want's a certain candidate, they all vote for that candidate.  Then their reps are supposed to see this and vote accordingly in the electoral college, obviously this is a fundementally flawed system, as there are far too many people to be able to tabulate the popular vote in a small enough time window so that the reps can then see who they are supposed to vote for, and then of course you have the fact that most of our government is corrupt, and votes strictly with the party, thus insuring that there is always a good chance that we are not getting:

1. The President that we the people actually want.
2. The President that is best for the country.

Such is the case, in my opinion, with the 2012 election; What was best for the country most definitely did not happen... anyone that thinks that I am wrong only needs to look at the facts as they are now:

1. Current US National debt 16.8 Trillion dollars! (it was $9.8 trillion on this day in 2008)
2. The "official" Unemployment rate, not seasonally adjusted as of May 2013 was 7.3% (I would counter that this number is much, much higher if you actually include all of the people that have run out their unemployment benefits and still don't have a job!) in May of 2008 we were at 5.2%.
3. Over 47.5 million Americans are on SNAP as of April 2013 contrast this to the 28+million that were on SNAP as of April 2008.
4. The US stock markets are up, but many wonder if that is solely due to the Federal Reserves open ended quantitative easing of $85 billion per month!
5. The employment-population ratio is at 58.7% as of June, this means that almost half of all Americans are not working!  Does anyone else see this as a disaster in the making?

This country has become a whiny, entitled, shell of what it once was... If this trend continues, how can we continue as a successful country?  In short, we cannot!  Other countries are beginning to abandon the US dollar as the reserve currency; if this continues, and spreads, our "money" will be exposed as the fiat currency it has become... The USD has been a fiat currency for over 4 decades, and most of the general public is unaware, or doesn't care about this issue!

This country, the United States, my home for my entire life is run on faith, faith that we will maintain our place as the largest super-power on earth, Faith that we can repay our debts, faith that the political system is not corrupt.  In short, we the people are fucked!  Currently the individual share of the US Debt is over $58,00.00 and it is growing every second; I fail to see how, in our current condition, we could ever hope to pay off our debts.

Sadly the government's spend, spend, spend attitude has directly affected it's owners.  Most US households run in the red to the average tune of $70,000.00!  This includes over $15,000 in credit card debt!  Now of course this only counts households that are in debt, but since over 60% of US households carry debt, that is a astronomical amount of people and money!  We have to change, if we do not change ourselves, we will never be able to change the government.  So I say to everyone, QUIT SPENDING MONEY YOU DON'T HAVE!!!!  Learn to wait for gratification, if you can't afford it, don't freakin' buy it then, save your $ and get it later.  Pay off your debts, start with the smallest and pay it off, then work your way up, it's not rocket science, it just requires discipline, lots of it. 

One of the quickest ways to "add" money to your budget is to stop eating out, I know that this is very hard, I'm just as guilty as anyone.  I commute about 2 hours a day, it makes meal planning a challenge to say the least.  It is so much easier to just run out and grab food for the family then cooking something at 6pm when I get home... (not saying that my wonderful wife does not cook, just that it's hard to plan when to have food done, when I never know exactly when I'm going to be home) couple that with the normal things going on in a family, and a couple home improvement projects and you quickly run out of time to accomplish any cooking at home.  We all have to work on this, or we will quickly find ourselves living in a colony of China!


This post has become very long and rambling, for that I apologize, but what can I say, my mind tends to ramble and wander frequently... I always have various things zipping through my mind... always thinking about something, and unless I make a concerted effort to reign it in, you get posts like this one. ;)

Tyranny in the USA?

In order to have an intelligent discussion on this or any other subject, is to first have knowledge of what is being discussed; therefore here is some knowledge.

The definition of tyranny according to Merriam-Webster's on-line dictionary is:

1: oppressive power tyranny

over the mind of man — Thomas Jefferson>; especially : oppressive power exerted by government tyranny of a police state>

2a : a government in which absolute power is vested in a single ruler; especially : one characteristic of an ancient Greek city-state

b : the office, authority, and administration of a tyrant

3: a rigorous condition imposed by some outside agency or force tyranny

of the clock — Dixon Wecter>

4: an oppressive, harsh, or unjust act : a tyrannical act tyrannies

>The google definition is:

1. Cruel and oppressive government or rule.
2. A nation under such cruel and oppressive government.

 

I am presenting my personal views and opinions on this topic, if you don't agree, please comment and we can have an intelligent and civil discussion.  If you begin to simply regurgitate rhetoric, or begin to personally attack me, I will delete your posts... If you continue, I will do everything I can to track you down, and make your life hell.  This is not said to dissuade commentary, it is meant to dissuade the idiots that tend to troll topics such as these.  Again, these are my viewpoints, and mine alone.

So, now that we have gotten the basics of the word out of the way, let us continue.

Here are the current list of major governmental misdeeds, as I see it, in no particular order:

1. The foolish, misguided, illegal, program known as "Fast and Furious"
2. The purely political wrangling of the Benghazi tragedy where an American ambassador, and three US servicemen were murdered by terrorists, and the ineptitude, dishonesty of the current administration.
3. The complete fiasco that is the IRS targeting people and organizations based on their beliefs.
4. Eric Holder, and Barrack Hussein Obama's "handling" of the George Zimmerman trial.
5. Eric Holder and the DOJ spying on the Associated Press.
6. The NSA spying on freakin' everybody.
7. Eric Holder being in contempt of Congress, and perjuring himself.
8. Out of control government agencies, i.e. The VA going to Disney World, the GSA having the mistaken idea that what happens in Vegas, really does stay in Vegas, and of course the various IRS "conferences".

 Now any one of these would be a stain on the spirit of an administration, two or three, a major embarrassment, all of them combined, well in my opinion, this is the modern face of tyranny.

Let's take this, to me shocking list (which is by no means complete) and go point by point.

First off we have Fast and Furious.  This project, to me and most logical, patriotic Americans was a complete and total cluster-fuck from the very beginning.  Someone in the bureaucracy of our government, thought that it would be a good idea to force law-abiding business owners, who by the way are under constant scrutiny by the government, to sell legal semi-automatic firearms to known felons (which in and of itself is a felony) with the supposed purpose of tracking the movements of these illegally obtained weapons.  Now, let me get this straight, you are handing weapons to a criminal, and then expect them to tell you where they are going, and what they are going to be used for?  Anyone else see the fundamental fail in this idea?  The government, not surprisingly,  lost all control of these firearms the moment after the felon laid hands on these firearms.  Now the next stupendously stupid thought of the ATFE, the governmental agency who thought up this "brilliant" project thought that they would be able to track the weapons once they left the US and headed to Mexico to be snapped up by drug cartels, thugs, and murderers.  Now I don't know how in the hell the ATFE thought that they would be able to track these weapons... we have no power in Mexico, they do not respect the US government, and who in their right mind would go along with such an asinine plan anyway?  On top of the phenominal amount of fail in this plan, at the same time there were many, many elements in our government trying to remove these very firearms from the hands of citizens.  Now I know firearms are a hot button topic, and everyone has an opinion on them, but, until the Constitution of the United States is Amended,

"...the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

I know everyone has their opinion on that amendment as well, but we are supposed to be a nation of laws, if we are not going to follow those laws, or, in my opinion even worse, selectively follow the laws that have been laid out, we no longer have a Constitutional Republic (By the way, this is the type of government we have, despite what so many think, we do not live in a democracy, as our founding fathers, in their wisdom, knew the inherent dangers of a democracy... think mob rule).


Next we move on to Benghazi.  Here we have a stunning amount of corruption and political gamesmanship.  We have a consulate that requested increased security numerous times, we have a DOJ that denied the request, the head of the DOJ refusing to admit that she actually was the one and only person ultimately responsible for that denial.  We have a President who did nothing while the consulate was under attack and those four Americans were being, in some cases, tortured, desecrated, and murdered.  We have someone in the DOJ supposedly ordering the stand-down of reinforcements, and then we have numerous members of the administration changing the, now infamous, talking points on the events that were correctly prepared by the CIA.  On top of that we have various members of the DOJ, and even our own president going on live TV and outright lying to us, the American people, about what happened.  Before any of you can say that the president didn't know that he was lying, how does that make it any better?  Either he is so incompetent that he doesn't know what his own appointees are doing, or he is a willing participant.  Either way, it's wrong, and it is bullshit!  The families of these men deserve better, they deserve the truth, and the direct apology of every lying, duplicitous bastard involved in this blatant cover up!  We the American people deserve to know why 4 our our own were allowed to be murdered, and we deserve to have those directly, and indirectly held accountable!  And That is why it matters Mrs. Clinton!!!  The only logical reason I can see for this coverup was to avoid the political embarrassment of having to admit that terrorism was still alive and well, and still targeting the US, after Obama stated that the war on terrorism was over and we won.  I can't see any other reason for this travesty of justice; other than it was right before the election, oh I'm sorry the rigged election.

 The IRS scandals... where to even begin... targeting conservative and patriotic groups and people for illegal scrutiny, lavish parties and conferences on the taxpayers dime; IRS agents negligently discharging their firearms more often then purposefully discharging them!  At it's core this agency is corrupt, always has been, always will be.  The tax code should not be almost 74,000 pages long!  There is no way any citizen can avoid an infraction of some kind!  I am one of those crazy people that believe our tax code needs to be completely trashed and re-written on one single piece of legal paper... every pays X% of their income, to include businesses.  If you are found in willing violation of that law, you forfeit every asset you have, and I mean everything!  The entirety of the IRS could be cut to what, maybe 98% of it's current size?  Oh, and what the hell does the Internal Revenue Service have to do with healthcare?  These idiots are exposing our social security numbers in bulk to the entire world, and you want me to think that having them enforce Obamacare (AKA socialist medical care taxes) is a good idea?  Are you fucking nuts?

The George Zimmerman trial has been a media circus since before Zimmerman was even arrested.  The local police could find no reason to hold him that evening, could find no reason to charge him, and were going to record it for what it appears to be, a clear case of self-defense; until the media and such "upstanding members of our society" as Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson threw a damn hissy and insisted on an arrest, then insisted on a trial, and are now insisting that justice wasn't done... Hey assholes, I hate to tell you, but he was aquited of all charges... that means the JUSTICE system has spoken!  This case has been meddled with by our administration since day one!  You have the president of the United States injecting race into a crime that was not racially motivated, you have Eric Holder sending the FBI to investigate racial overtones in George Zimmerman, then you have Eric Holder sending the CRS (Community Relations Service) to Florida to incite racially motivated protests, Then you have Eric Holder (again with this guy) all but promising to "get" Zimmerman on something, after he had been found not guilty of all charges by a jury of his peers!  Now in sixteen months of the FBI investigating the guy they can't find one shred of evidence that he is at all racist, in fact to the contrary they have found voluminous amounts of evidence that he is an incredibly diverse and kind man leads me to the conclusion that there is not a bit of evidence to support that Zimmerman violated Martin's civil rights.  And now you have Eric Holder (how the hell does this guy still have a job?) going after laws that had absolutely nothing to do with this case!  Holder is now stating that the Stand your Ground laws are the cause of this tragedy... umm this was never a stand your ground case, it was a self defense case... it's hard to claim he (Zimmerman) could have retreated when he was being pinned on the ground while being beaten...   Now before everybody loses their fucking mind on me, let me point out that I stated from the beginning that this entire situation was a tragedy, and that there was plenty of blame to go around on both parties in this event.  However from a purely legal standpoint, the only person that broke the law that night, from the evidence which we have available, was Trayvon Martin.  I'm sorry if that is not what you want to hear, I'm sorry if you think that me saying this makes me racist, again, I'm not racist; I hate everyone equally.  I am not however, sorry that Zimmerman was acquitted.  Again from the evidence available he was clearly defending his life, and I will defend that principle of our country to my dying breath!

Eric Holder... wow, I just cannot believe this guy is still walking around as a free man, let alone that he is still a high ranking government official!  During numerous investigations by Congress, Mr. Holder has; perjured himself, defiantly refused to hand over documents, denied access to witnesses and whistle-blowers, and been an all around arrogant dick!  Spying on the press, being involved with the NSA spying on the whole damn world, etc...  There is just too much on this guy, hell he is walking around after being found in contempt of Congress!!!!  WTF?

Government agencies wasting taxpayers money... I'm not even going to rant on this, as it has been this way since I have been alive.  The easiest way to fix all of this?  Cut the size of OUR government by at least 60%, implement citizen oversight committees for every agency; implement rigid term limits on all members of congress; Politics were never meant to be a goddamned career!

In my opinion, everyone of these items are tyrannical incidents.  This is tyranny, pure and simple, period.  There is a Movie and a Book partially entitled "Enemy at the Gates"  Our enemy is not at the gates, it is in our damned House!  We must take our country back, and demand our personal liberties and freedoms be restored; else we will soon no longer be the land of the free.

*Note* I got tired of looking up links, and doing research on all of the transgressions of our government.  If you are interested, which you damn well should be, all of your answers are just a query away on the Internet.