Griffiths Family Mischief

A note about our Debt - To Congress, the Senate, the President, and all the other liars in government.

2011-03-07T11:49:00.000-08:00

Let me make one thing abundantly clear. I am not a mathematician. But I can't help but think that my math skills start looking pretty awesome when compared to all the idiots on Capitol Hill debating the budget.

Take a look at this info-graphic:

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2011/0119-budget/

So let me get this straight. We have a budget of $3.7 trillion. $1.6 trillion of this budget is money that we don't have. We are currently hearing about $62 billion in proposed budget cuts by the GOP. The Democrats think that will sink our economy and that we can't cut that much. We are talking about less than 4% of our ANNUAL DEFICIT here.

Even more interesting, a new report has surfaced that analyzes duplicate/overlapping spending by government entities that have the same mandate. If you haven't read the paper lately, you can catch up here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703409904576174922415224948.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

So we are stuck with a massive deficit that totals somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.6 Trillion dollars this year. Referring to the budget info-graphic again, there are a number of likely candidates for reform, but no one wants to talk about the only ones that would make a dent in this annual debt (Besides eliminating our debt and saving half a trillion in interest every year).

I'm talking about Social Security ($1.11 trillion) and Medicaid/Medicare ($0.8 Trillion). These 2 programs being phased out or completely cut would save the $1.6 trillion we need to save, in addition to leaving a nice $300 billion dollar surplus to start paying back our debts. Supposing we could save another $200 billion dollars on duplicate programs, we might even be out of debt within 28 YEARS. Yes, you heard me right. Even after completely doing away with entitlement programs, it would take nearly 3 decades to pull ourselves out of this gaping hole that we like to blithely refer to as our national debt. (Couldn't we at least capitalize that or something? Mandated italics just for the word NATIONAL DEBT?)

I have little hope that Social Security will survive to pay me more than the cost of lunch by the time I retire. Medical Coverage just got "fixed" by Obama, but we can all agree that there is a problem with the way Medicine and insurance is run in this country - (I say we eliminate insurance and make the doctors compete in a free market for your business!)

Regardless of your thoughts on these programs, you have to agree that something must be done to stop the fiscal hemorrhaging. I don't care who you are or what you believe in, at the end of the day cutting $62 billion dollars to make up a $1.6 trillion dollar annual deficit not only helps no one, but makes the assumption that general math skills in America hold the highest deficit of all.

A Mansion Sized Modular Fort Thingy...

2011-02-06T21:08:00.001-08:00

Have you ever wanted to give someone the perfect gift? It happens to all of us at one time or another I suppose, but this time was different. Why? (I can hear you all thinking...) Well, this time was different because I had an outrageous idea, and I had the perfect skills and tools to pull it off. Little did I know...

My kids love building forts in the family room. Who doesn't? We pull the ottoman close the the couch, stack the couch pillows up, and throw a blanket over the whole mess. At their current sizes, all three kids can fit inside our makeshift "fort".... more like a micro fort... but there isn't room to spare, and they are right on top of each other, so the whining commences almost immediately.

So my brainstorm was a Mansion sized (compared to our standby) modular fort thingy, made out of wood cubes and dowels. Unfortunately, procrastination was my crime, and it definitely led to my sorrow on this one. I let the idea grow and mature for FAR too long :)

So, the Saturday before Greyson's 5th Birthday party, which was also to be Lincoln's 3rd Birthday party, I pulled out the man tools and got to work. Fortunately for me, I had already ordered the 1/2" oak dowels and picked up some 4" x 4" x 4' Fir Posts for the project.

I was so excited to set up my new planer. We bought it a while ago, but I hadn't needed it yet. I was apparently too excited to take any pictures, so I shot one of the planer once I was finished with it. (seriously recommend this Mikita Planer by the way!)

I don't have a jointer, and this was planned to be a project that didn't need to be anywhere close to perfection, so I planned to wing it - the fact that the posts weren't really that square wasn't a problem.

Once I planed the posts down to a mostly smooth finish (minor tear-out, not a big deal), I was on to the chop saw to cut the posts down into cubes. I set a stop so I could make repeatable cuts, and was soon happily on my way, chopping cubes like a pro. That was of course, until I noticed that the weight of the posts was knocking the stop back a tad every time it bumped it.

I reaffirmed my thoughts that we didn't need perfection here, because the way these blocks were fitting together wouldn't make a difference in the scheme of things. As much as I like my

woodworking to be perfect, I swallowed my pride and kept going.

My next project was to drill a 1/2" hole near the center of each side of the cubes. As I had 35 cubes, and each cube has 6 sides... 210 forstner bit drilled holes later I was pretty tired.

I called it a day. I think if I knew how much work it was going to take to get things ready for the kids I might have kept working. At least I had Greyson who loved helping me clean up. Of course, the big shop vacuum is a kid magnet!

The following Monday, I forced myself into the garage after a long day at work to make some progress. The Saturday party was looming closer, and I didn't want to be caught presentless.
Natalie requested that I round the edges on the cubes, as Greyson and Lincoln look at all things as weapons. I guess it is a boy thing. After several nights of sanding the edges of the cubes down, (and my hands incidentally...) I finished 31 of the 35 blocks. Since the first "build" was only going to use 16 I had mercy on myself and left the last 4 until some time in the future.

Next I set up the Lathe function of my ShopSmith, but I don't have any of the right chucks nor do I know how to use a lathe. I just used the lathe to spin the dowels while I sanded the ends to a basic level of fit. Once I had enough to build the first fort thingy, I left the rest of the dowels for later as well.

We did a dry run and everything went together fabulously.

We were all ready for the kids.

The day of the party arrived and I brought in all the parts. It was fun to see Greyson and Lincoln catch on and build the fort with me. We threw a king sized sheet over the whole thing and it was the perfect size.

In the course of that one day, the fort was used as a hospital, a pirate ship, a repository of buried treasure, a tower for a princess that needed saving, a perfect place to unwrap presents, and last but not least, we read the boys their bedtime stories with all 5 of us inside.

The crazy part is that I have enough dowels and cubes to expand our mansion sized modular fort thingy to more than twice its size. Regardless - mission accomplished. Now it only remains to be seen whether this toy has the wow factor to stay at the top of the favored toys list for more than 5 minutes... :)

We can only hope!

Why Handguns?

2011-01-15T09:12:00.000-08:00

Many of you have read the things I have posted about guns over the years, but I think that a lot of you who don't know me that well would be surprised to hear why I am so serious about gun rights. I thought in light of recent events including the latest public shooting in Arizona that I would spend some time detailing my views on firearm ownership and the somewhat traumatic event that led me to my current stand.

My Dad grew up on a ranch, and to him hunting was commonplace. The stories that I heard included obscenely early starts, and large game being prepped and dressed out by sunrise. But that hunting culture was never passed down to my large family of brothers and sisters due to my Dad's soft heart. After hearing a rabbit scream during a hunting adventure he gave up hunting and moved on. (I think I have those details right.) So in our home the only gun I was aware of was an "investment" shotgun with a beautiful wooden stock - still in the original heavy machine oiled packaging. I think my dad still has it, never fired and waiting for the day when he wants to cash in on that investment.

Other than the occasional foray into .22 rifle range schooling through the Boy Scouts, that was the sum total of my gun exposure until I moved away to go to College. one of my best friends at the time had a Ruger 9mm, and he invited me to go shooting with him a few times my freshman year. I ended up buying my own Ruger 9mm that year, and went shooting with my friend as a diversion on occasion until I was called on a 2 year mission to Guatemala. I left my "semi-automatic" as the news calls them with my parents along with the majority of my belongings and left for my mission.

I returned from my mission and attended a college in another state for a year. Once the schoolyear was over I was transferring to BYU so I packed up my things and headed from Idaho through Utah to my summer sales job in Arizona, where I would work until school started in the Fall. Then back to Utah for school. It was on this road trip that my thoughts about guns and their use took a dramatic turn.

After getting a late start from Rexburg ID, I chose to spend the night in Provo with my cousins before getting an early start to Arizona. I had to open up a bank account in town before I left, and I wanted to do that on the way out of town.

The next morning, through some quirk of fate I was not the only one who had decided to hit the bank right after it opened. I filled out the new account paperwork, and was standing at the first teller. I had just given the woman my money, and she had processed it and handed me my reciept when I heard a man yell from the middle of the bank. He said, "This is a STICKUP! (seriously, that's what he said) Nobody be a hero!"

He wore no mask, no gloves. There was no subterfuge. He had a handful of bags in one hand and his other hand held the same exact handgun that I had learned to shoot with my friend, a Ruger P93 9 millimeter semi automatic handgun.

He moved to a teller that happened to be at the middle "window" though there was no glass, as the bank had more of a solid wall of chest high desks as teller windows. He pointed his gun at the forehead of the girl that was stationed there, I still remember her name. Wendy was slim and had long blonde hair. She immediately began to cry.

The man yelled at her to back away from the counter and hopped the counter, leaving behind a clear shoeprint on the top surface. He progressed to my teller first, and I noted that the gun was cocked and the safety had been removed. He was ready to fire with his finger on the trigger.

They cleaned out the first drawer of cash, including the "bait" pack which is supposed to set off a silent alarm. No one realized it but the banks alarms were not functioning. While all of this was transpiring, someone across the room dialed 911 and asked "Our bank is being robbed... should I be calling you?" 911 dispatch sent the police - not the alarm.

After the man finished pulling all of the money from the tills and hopping to the other side of the counter. It was at this point that one of the paper bags that this man had stuffed his money in split open and the money fell on the ground. (It was a greasy McDonald's bag)

The man knelt for a moment. He set down his gun. He picked up the money and placed it in the bag. There was a perimiter of space around this man- I was nearest to him at 14 feet away. That distance was tempting, and yet it seemed like a vast divide. The man with the gun at his feet had power to control the people around him. We were helpless.

I know this is getting long, but I have to express to you how it feels to be on the other end of a gun. The shadowed barrel seems ten times as big as it looks when it is in a safe environment held under control by someone who knows how to make it "safe". In this situation I feared not the gun, but the deranged man behind it - the man who upon a whim could end life.

He never focused on me. He picked up his gun and his money and went out the door. Short seconds later we heard the screech of a police car pulling up, and a number of shots were fired - one of them hitting the incoming police officer. We learned later that he had been hit and injured, but would be fine with time.

That man robbed a number of banks after learning that he had been infected with HIV. I don't know the whole story, but I heard he had been caught some time later pulling the same thing at a bank in Nevada.

I am not ashamed that I could do nothing to stop that man. I had no power to resist. But I made a choice that day that I would not be left defenseless again. When the summer ended I got a new job - working at a gun store. I found a new hobby, perfecting my aim. And I got a new license, to carry a gun concealed. Standing in front of someone who is breaking the law and threatening me with force is not an experience that I would like to repeat. I carried a gun for 5 years, every day, hidden under my shirt, to make sure that such an experience could be averted for those that surrounded me every day.

Now I live in California, and I walk among other people, just as helpless as I was the day that bank was robbed. Some politician in Los Angeles controls my ability to defend myself as I go about my daily business, and they do not allow regular people to defend themselves in such a way. That which is my desire and my right is taken from me by someone who does not care for my preference.

Now comes news of a young man slaying undefended people at a public venue. Democrats and Republicans blaming eachother for violence that should not be blamed on either. People demand why didn't someone notice him before he went crazy? Why didn't his family see this coming? They cry about political rhetoric causing madness.

There are only two things to blame, and they do not fall in any of the reasoning that you hear on the news today. The blame lies at the feet of a crazed lunatic who made horrific choices... and with the defensless public, who leaves their confidence in law enforcement and denies their right to self defense. I was once like them, and have returned to their ranks not by my choice, but by the choice of others.

I can only pray that I am never in such a situation with you by my side, because if this happens to us, we will be left defended by no more than our wits - and God help us survive such a horrible state.

Finally, time on a plane to update you all!

2011-01-12T19:11:00.000-08:00

I suppose that a convention, with all the travel and downtime, is a good time to update friends and family via this stale old blog. It has been too long since I spoke with a number of you, so let me start by saying that I hope you all are doing well. Here at the Griffiths activity center, we have our hands full with our 3 boys (Greyson - 5 in Feb, Lincoln - 3 in Feb, and Ashton - 15 mos). All around us there is turbulence and upheaval in the world, but at home we have been passed over by the storm and are counting our many blessings.

Greyson is an intelligent, engaging caretaker who soaks up our behaviors like a sponge and then turns into a mini parent - warning the other kids to follow the rules in his best parent voice. He loves playing any kind of video game be it on my phone, a computer, his leapster, or his recently aquired privelage of playing the PS3 for 30 min each Saturday. His lazy eye is getting stronger with 4 hours of wearing a patch over the other eye every day - he takes his pirate status in stride. His glasses seem to get bent every time we turn around, but so far the first pair have made it through intact. He just endured his first real bout with the stomach flu, it was so sad to watch and yet his bravery and optimism in the face of tough circumstances was inspiring to watch. He is such an observant little boy, and will regularly notice that Mommy did the dishes or vaccuumed - always piping up with encouraging words to tell her how great a job she is doing. The other night I honked Greyson's nose as he was getting into bed... He waited till we were almost out the door to ask for one last kiss. He asked me to get a little closer so he could kiss me back from the top bunk and then honked me back. His laughter still rings in my ears like the sound of the sweetest music you have ever heard.

Lincoln has always been an energetic ball of contradictions. He has always been a stout boy (Grandpa's little tank) that loves to be rough and tumble. He has a huge smile and his dimple combined with those baby blues are enough to melt my heart. He has a hilarious sense of humor and his antics are appreciated by the whole family... most of the time! He loves nothing better than physical contact with his brothers; he is always driving Greyson crazy by trying to sit by him when they watch TV (did I say "by" him...? I meant "on" him!). It can be such a crack up to watch Greyson move away from Lincoln every 30 seconds or so, with Lincoln determined to stay next to him. They both move in tandem around the couches for hours on end until Greyson can't stand it any more and calls for parental backup. Lincoln has a soft spot for Ashton and will always greet him by imitating Natalie by pitching his voice really high and saying "hiiieeee baaaaabyyyyyy!" This can be repeated in conjunction with patting him on the head or any available body part until Ashton screams or retaliates. Lincoln has his favorite blanket that was made for him by one of his adoring aunts that he refuses to sleep without. Early on in his blanket relationship he found a corner that he liked better than the other 3. This caused quite a problem for Nat and I as we couldn't tell which corner was his favorite, and resulted in protracted guessing games about which corner needed to be closest to him. We thought the repeated nightly ritual could be dispensed with when his favorite corner became discernable due to his rubbing it so much that it frayed, but he was adamant about maintaining the status quo and "choosing" his corner every night. Lincoln seems like a force of nature - impervious to outside influences and unfazed by life - but we know better. All it takes is a little disciplinary action to bring out his tender underbelly, he is a softy at heart. WHenever he gets in trouble he wants to give us a kiss while he cries. Last night (the night before I left for a 4 day convention) I spent some extra time with the 2 boys before bed, and as I was tucking Lincoln in I told him I was going away to work for a few days and to be good for Mommy. I watched his face fall and he started to cry. He said, "why you want to go away Daddy?" My eyes tear up just thinking about it. He is serious about being a Daddy's boy, and I try to live up to that honor.

Ashton is expanding his horizons daily. Now that he is a little steadier on his feet, he is quick to exploit any gaps in baby security - temporary though they might be. Nat left the baby gate open for a few seconds yesterday and he baby-sprinted through the opening and made a snap decision to go for the stairs. He was all the way up them in a flash and checking the off limits doors (The bath and our room) to see if they were unlocked. He loves nothing better than those moments of freedom - especially if we growl his name a little as we give mock chase. His newest pleasure is getting up onto our couch by walking up the corner and levering himself up using his hands and head on one side of the corner and his feet on the other. It takes him a minute, but don't you dare try to stop him because he will open up a can of baby anger and hit you in the face with it... loudly. Once up on the couch he makes a break for the end table where he likes to stand and play with the light switches or keep an eye on Mommy in the other room. He has fallen once or twice but trying to keep him down from there incurs serious baby wrath, so what baby wants, baby gets at this point! It seems like all of Ashtons teeth have decided to come in at once, but he is a surprisingly happy baby. He picks up on anyone laughing, and joins it with the biggest mouth wide open mostly gums laugh he can muster. It doesn't matter how far away he is when someone laughs, he is in the joke and laughing with you, often while pointing (another of his favorite things to do)

As for Natalie, she is a busy woman. Keeping the house perfect, the meals cooked, the clothes washed, and all 4 of her boys in line is a full time job! Somehow she finds time in there to make monogrammed jean blankets for all the boys, cross stitch a baby blanket, dress her truth, manage our cahs only household budget (Thanks Dave Ramsey) and host the odd get together here and there... I don't know how she does it, but I try to pitch in where I can. We have been making a resolution to lose the weight we gained over the holidays, but we haven't quite hit our pace yet. We have played raquetball with some frequency - Natalie's reflexes are still as sharp as when she was an MVP pro third-basewoman - which can be annoying to those of us who have been playing for longer than a couple of months as she gets a hold of a ball here and there that we thought we had put away. I have to say, she is a steller Mom and a fabulous wife. All of the things that she thinks she isn't doing as well as she could are so minor. She inspires me. She gets more beautiful as time goes by and our love continues to grow and deepen - I am so blessed to have her.

The business has been pretty flat since March of last year. We took a beating last Jan/Feb but for the last 10 months of the year things ran pretty well. We actually wrote quite a few more contracts in 2010 than we did in 2009 - I think what hurts the most is the level of quality (or lack thereof) that today's customer is looking for. Everyone is on a tight budget and looking for the least expensive way to get things done. On the upside, we have been able to do enough business to justify keeping our key administrative staff while making what we need to make to get by, so we feel like we have been blessed in this downturn. A couple small competitors have already closed there doors in the SCV, and a couple more seem to be headed in that direction, so the net effect of the recession should benefit our business in the long haul. Bless my father for running a business in such an efficient, conservative fashion for so many years. We were as prepared as anyone for the crash and have weathered the storm so far as well as we could hope.

I have to say, that with all of the above there isn't all that much more time left over for me to laze around much! It is a good thing that I love what I do and I can't wait to get home at night to spend time with my amazing family. I even get a couple of hours to play my PS3 one night a week or so while Natalie is off with the young women of our church helping them to work on trying to be as successful in life as she is. They are lucky to have such a great role model. As for woodworking, those night stands are still unfinished... they have languished in the corners of our master bedroom for 2 years now while I refurbished the tools I would need to make the drawers. The last tool, my bandsaw is now ready, and now I just have to resaw a few boards and get going. With the small distraction of my boys birthday presents coming up (Making a wooden fort system out of dowels and wood connectors) I should be back in business and finishing the night stands this year. I'm swearing off large complicated furniture as soon as they are done too. Small projects/toys FTW. I can't muster the energy or the will to ditch my kids and wife in my spare time to work in the shop, so I have a feeling my woodworking will be spotty until the economy improves and I can work less. Here's hoping!

Debt. Why do states and countries have any?

2010-06-17T10:31:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting article. Aside from the "No taxes 100 years ago" part it is a good concept. In truth, 100 years ago there were excise taxes, property taxes, and sales taxes. There were no income taxes or transportation taxes.

The truth of the matter is that most Americans are not opposed to being taxed. The problem with being taxed comes with the perceived value of the services provided by the money that we give to the government, as well as the perceived efficiency of those using our moneys.

For many middle class Americans, what we expect from our government is fairly easy to accomplish; smooth roads, electricity, clean water, sewage and garbage services... We want to know that building aren't going to spontaneously fall down and that our kids toys aren't poisoning them with lead. If the government provided a clear report on the utilities provided(utilities that most persons actually used), I doubt anyone would argue with paying moderate taxes at all.

Where I draw the line is when the government escalates taxes due to poor efficiency, or dedicating our hard earned money to causes that do not merit the application of those funds.

Somehow, our state government in CA has dramatically increased our spending in the last decade - and it is not readily apparent where the money is going. City or highway, driving can be compared to off-roading in many places. I need additional filters in my home for my water because the water here is so bad. All summer long I have to deal with "brown outs" or black outs. My toilets flush, but my kids diapers still stink! (ok, that was a joke) My point is, there is NO PERCEIVED VALUE to all of this extra spending. Specialty groups get the money for whatever purpose - when our society and our economy would be better served by cutting our spending (and thus taxes), and letting the increase in discretionary income have its own positive impact on our economy and society.

OK, with that being said, enjoy the article.

545 VS THE PEOPLE

By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them...Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? Have you ever wondered if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes? You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million who are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress.

In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason... They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits...The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker Of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party... She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red...

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way...

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or" politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone, are responsible.

They and they alone, have the power.

They and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees... We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not a single tax existed 100 years ago(not true, see my comments above), and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What in the hell happened? Can you spell 'politicians?'

Funny Story.

2010-05-20T16:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry about ignoring the world. With the economy the way it is, the only way to make things work is to be doing a crazy amount of the work ourselves. Love you all and hope you enjoy the story/joke!

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A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in Wyoming when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in an Armani suit, Gucci shoes , Dolce&Gabbana sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his IPad notebook computer, connects it to his IPhone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany.

Within seconds, he receives an email on his IPad that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his IPhone and IPad and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a Democrat Congressman for the U.S. Government", says Bud.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter.

This is a herd of sheep...

Now give me back my dog.

Small updates are better than none...

2010-02-13T16:31:00.000-08:00

I have been promising an update for some time. For some of you, the lack of a certain mission "cow story" will be disappointing - but I promise to rectify the situation by publishing that story soon. (You know who you are.)

So many things have happened, it is hard to know where to start. With the economy in the toilet, our flooring store is making it just fine - with the caveat that there are less people to do the work, and more of it falls on the ownership. In addition to the maintenance that falls to the owners, questions about the books, customer issues, installation questions, merchandising decisions, what seems like 100 emails a day... I have the honor of running our insurance program - which is to say that when a home in Santa Clarita loses their floor to unexpected water or fire damage, Famers -State Farm- Allstate, and a number of other insurance companies use us as their flooring vendor. That means that we show up when their house is destroyed by emergency water services (cutting drywall, ripping out anything wet like cabinets, walls, flooring etc) and we (by we I mean... I) make a perfect diagram of the home in the insurance software (down to the inch) and detail in the software what is damaged, what needs to happen to return the insured to their prior state, if the flooring can be repaired or why it needs to be replaced, and then I enter into the software every little thing we will have to do on the way. I cut up a piece of the old floor, and send it to a company that evaluates it for value, and then when I receive the number (value) I input it into the software and upload the completed estimate to the insurance company.

The entire process in the home takes from 1-4 hours, we wait 2-5 days for the value from the company that evaluates the floor, and we usually have the insured in the store picking out new flooring within 1-2 weeks. At any rate - those cabinets I was making more than a year ago are still unfinished, and my wife is happy when I get home in time to help put the kids to bed. It has been a hectic time, but the business is doing fine, and our home is running wonderfully thanks to my beautiful wife. It is hard to complain when we are so blessed.

Soooo, since I last wrote, we had another child, ANOTHER boy... and named him Ashton Ree. Ree is Natalie's Grandpa's name, and a better role model for our boys we could never find. He is the man who has been there and done that, from teaching math, driving trucks, woodworking - he built a cabin @ Bear Lake, and then expanded it... all with his own 2 hands. I will never forget some of the hunting stories he has told us, much less time with him on wave runners, quads, and snowmobiles. I digress...

The holidays season came and went, and life continues to be crazy. Amidst it all, my friends have kept popping up on facebook (its like online crack) and I have to say, it has been wonderful to see you again.

At the end of the year, Nat and I cleaned out our home office, and changed our setup - we got rid of the space taking desk (now the guest bedroom is JUST a bedroom) and mounted an all in one hp to the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. Now Nat can do her building management in sight of the kids, and the kids can play online learning games under our watchful eyes - the last thing we want is our kids hidden away in a bedroom online!

While cleaning out our desk, we found 2 old cameras with undeveloped film in them. Nat's didn't turn out (remember those days?) but I got about 4 pics off mine. They were from 1997, a trip from Rick's ID to the dunes with some friends. Campfire, s'mores, root beer, and good friendship. Can't ask for more than that. I will upload and tag them, but here they are for you guys first.

Birthday Thanks...

2010-01-13T19:03:00.000-08:00

Well, I have to say I am stunned at the rain of friendship that has been falling on me all day today. I feel encircled by the arms of so many friends and family members, that it is impossible to feel anything apart from being on top of the world. I know that it has been a while since I have posted some real meat on my blog or in my facebook notes, and I will rectify that eventually! Either way, for my friends and family, thank you for making my day~ and especially for getting this year off to a good start for me. All of my love and support goes out to you and yours!

Ben

Y a los quenes no hablan ingles... saben que esten en me corazon tambien!

Merry Christmas

2009-12-23T10:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has been so long since I have uploaded pics or anything at all. It will happen soon :)

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010 , but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere . Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wish.

But to be non-politically correct: Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T09:09:00.000-08:00

A note to all of my family, friends and acquaintances:

This may be a dark time for businesses and families across our blessed country as political and economic storms combine to dampen our spirits and steal our success and vitality. Decisions are made every day that make it more and more difficult for the people of our country to progress and even succeed. I feel deeply that we are coming to a crossroads as a country, and that the decisions we make as a people will have consequences beyond our ability to understand at this time.

Nonetheless, we stand firm in our faith, our principles, and our friendships; strong against the tempest, and we continue to press forward. We are so blessed! The last few weeks since Ashton was born have been a time for less sleep and more thought - and I cannot help but to be humbled before the wonder that is my life. I have an amazing wife, 3 beautiful boys, gainful employment, and you, my friends.

Today, I give thanks to you for the support, inspiration, and motivation that you provide me when I need it the most. My love goes out to you, and I thank God for the chance I have to associate with you all on a daily basis! May we all make memories of joy this week with those we come in contact with. May we all be grateful for the blessings that are bestowed on us. Thank you again for all that you do for me!

Happy Thanksgiving!

~Ben

Freeline 2

2009-04-17T21:46:00.000-07:00

Time for the freeline update.

Bought my freelines a month or so ago, and I've been out on em half a dozen times since. Can't say I'm an expert yet - worse I'm thinking I have a long ways to go.

Let's get to it.

We talked about the 4 foot excursion on that first ride... oh yeah, and the giggling.

The 2nd ride went much better. The first attempt was, you guessed it, a 4 footer. I was actually on the phone at the time, trying to escape a 3 year old. There wasn't much I could do to evade his clutches but to try again.

So I pushed off again... and... magic. It was everything I have heard describing snowboarding on new snow. Floating, gliding, and acceleration. I had to grit my teeth and hold tight, tears streaming down my face from the blast of the 4 mph wind. The glide lasted a block and a half, a little shaky and more than a bit scary. Its amazing how fast 4 mph feels when you're standing on dinner plates the size of your shoes with wheels attached to them.

The exhilaration of the first ride was not diminished by repetition, nor by the difficulty in mastering the technique.

from night 2 through each successive ride, I was able to glide as far as the slope would take me. One of the hardest lessons? These legs of mine aren't nearly as strong as I would like to believe. The first thing you realize is that each foot takes effort to keep under you. If you were to let things take their natural course, you would be doing the splits in about 0.3 seconds, so the first responsibility you delegate to your legs is to oppose such action. After 3-4 rides, the muscles lining your inner thighs are just starting to burn. after a couple weeks, they don't burn as badly, but you definitely realize that that burn isn't going to be all that short lived either.

Now that I have some ride time under my belt, It is easier to see how the learning will progress a little at a time. Still haven't figured out the whole creating forward momentum thing. Watching the vids and comparing the action to my experience I think it will be easy to figure the action as the strength in my legs increases.

Reading on the internet I heard that changing out the bearings would be a good idea. Lowers the friction and makes it easier to push forward AND glide. I read a few articles and ended up buying a hybrid bearing from Rush. 1 ceramic bearing and the rest super high tech metal. Just a hand test, rolling the wheel before and after, the difference was night and day. Rolling a wheel with moderate force would spin it for 5-8 seconds originally. After the upgrade the roll time with the same force of spin was 17-20 seconds. Trying the difference out on the street gave me more than 30% less drag. Less drag = more speed, and as anyone that knows me can attest, I have a serious need in that area!

So far my progress has all been made on what I would consider a bunny hill. I have less than a 1% grade that stretches for a couple of hundred feet. Even so each ride is exhilarating.

The giggling hasn't stopped. The only thing that I am looking forward to more than my next ride, is the option NOT to have to WALK back up the hill.

I'm sure to post a vid when I finally figure it out. I will keep you posted.

Ben

Freeline Skates - or - I'm not crazy... Really!

2009-03-25T20:17:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks ago, bored and surfing the web, I happened across a youtube vid of a guy on some new skates. I can't really do justice to the vid in a simple description, but I was astonished at the freedom of movement displayed by the skater, as well as the incredible design of the skate.

Having been a bit of a skater in my rugrat years (shout out to Little Ben my skate partner in crime) I was immediately intrigued.

To make a long story short, I had some birthday cash hidden under the ol mattress, and I had a decision to make. More woodworking tools (I still need to finish my nightstands...) or dedicate some time on the street with my son Greyson, learning to "skate" while he does tricks on his trike.

The adrenalyne junky / good father in me won out. Enter the skates. They arrived the DAY I came down with the worst strain of the flu I have ever had. I was down a full week. Skating was right out.

Still, pride in ownership right? Greyson calls these my "wheels" and I have to admit they look pretty snazzy. Shown is the box as well, skates side profile, and then top down bottom up shot.

One week later, 12 lbs. less, (yup, nothing like having a throat so sore you can't swallow food to lose big weight!) I was ready to try them out. I had done considerable reading onthe difficulty of learning to ride on these skates, and went out with a realistic thought that it was going to take me a week or two to get proficient on these babies.

So to follow is my experience learning to ride freelines, with more posts to follow as I have progress to report.

I spotted a place right in front of our house to begin. A nice ribbed light post, new asphalt, and a slight slope formed the perfect combination for the push off.

So I lined up the left and right skates in front of the post. One foot up at a time, while keeping a death grip on the light post with my right hand. First discovery, those wheels look big, but they in no way provide a perfectly stable surface. There is a tendancy to tip front or back out of the gate... my first push off I made it about 4 feet before stepping off the skates.

The good part, even after only 4 feet I had this HUGE smile on my face. These skates are going to be FUN.

I was out in the street for a good half an hour, and I had a huge smile pasted on my face the whole time. I even *shhhh* giggled a number of times... actually, probably every time I stepped off the skates.

Towards the end of my 30 min training session I was regularly going 15 feet or so before stepping off, I had a few good 30 foot runs, and one run everything came together and I was 40 feet out and gaining speed. Mind you, I know very little useable technique at this point, I have by no stretch of the imagination gained skill with the skates yet, and yes I was picking up speed... so I stepped off the skates.

Yup, not one fall, not one embarrasing moment (unless you count only going 4 feet embarrasing, I thought it was fun lol).

So verdict day 1. AWESOME.

Tune in later for more updates!

Do you read?

2009-02-13T23:57:00.001-08:00

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X+
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X+
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X+
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh*
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy*
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens *
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X+
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X++++++++ (just kiddding... Hated it - have a good story about it btw)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas* X++ (really DID love this one!)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker X
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath *
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray *
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker * X
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X+
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas * X+
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X+
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X

Funny, not a lot of my favorite books on the list here. In fact some of them I hated / threw things at the people/teachers that made me read them. If you haven't heard my Lord of the flies story, its worth a run through!

48 questions. Got tagged enough that I had to post SOMETHING.

2009-02-03T17:02:00.000-08:00

48 Questions...

Here are the rules – There aren’t any. Those of you too structured to accept that… learn to cope.

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
Yes. Benjamin after the man who married my parents, Brent after my dad. Griffiths after a long line of distinguished Europeans that have mixed over the ages. I think I relate most to the Welsh / Dutch lines.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
Had to start out with the tough one huh? I think it was when I felt really moved to tell my little brother Sam something he needed to hear a couple of weeks ago. You know those times when you have been prepared to help someone else, and the knowledge of that preparation catches you by surprise, and it is overwhelming?

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
It isn’t too bad, my signature is amazing though.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Pepper Chicken, hands down.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Yes, 2 boys. Greyson turned 3 yesterday, Lincoln turns 1 in a couple of days. Both chips off the old block – totally adorable!

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
I absolutely love playing board games / card games… at least someone would be able to keep up for a change! (my wife is going to wipe the floor with me this Friday night now… she is WAY too lucky for my own good)

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
Who?

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Nope, had those out a decade ago… ish. At least I lost those stateside. My Appendix wasn’t so lucky.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
Absolutely. None of that pansy ‘It’s SO high!’ stuff from me! I'm a fear factor wannabe (minus the food, some things just ain't worth it)

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Frosted Flakes, but my wife won’t buy them (too sugary) so I make do with mini wheats and cheerios!

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
I am a little TOO lazy for that one. I figure, buy shoes with the stretchy laces that don’t come undone, save yourself the trouble and just slip em off.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
It is a tie. Cookie Dough or Fish Food. (The only eternal dilemma)

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Pretty much anything weird or out of place. Sometimes it sucks being observant – ‘nuff said.

15. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
Those extra 10 lbs are starting to bug me!

16. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
My family while I’m at work ALL DAY LONG.

17. WHAT DO YOU WISH YOU COULD DO MORE OF?
I think this is a trick question. If they asked what would I do LESS of the obvious answer is WORK. But more of… hmm… that is a LONG list, and not everything on it can be posted here, so I will just leave it at that.

18. WHAT STOPS YOU FROM DOING MORE OF IT?
Another potentially TMI question. But I’m going with the easy out here. WORK.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Blue jeans and my non lace up, soft rubber, hiking shoes made by Merrill (I have 3 pair).

20. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE THING TO LISTEN TO?
My kids and wife laughing or telling me that they love me!

21. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
My wife.

22. WHAT'S THE BEST THING THAT COULD REALLY HAPPEN TO YOU RIGHT NOW?
Lottery? No more taxes for small businesses? A REAL stimulus package for the middle class?

23. WHAT'S THE BEST THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU TODAY?
My wife and kids brought me lunch! THEY ROCK!

24. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SONG?
Today? Angels on the moon by Thriving Ivory – BTW that is the sweetest band name ever. Tomorrow it will be different.

25. WHAT PLACE WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT THAT YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN?
I’m doing ok on this one as I get to travel quite a bit- but I can’t narrow it down. I’m game for travel anywhere that isn’t Hades or a trash dump lol (Although I have seen some good trash dumps / barrancos; viva Guatemala!)

26. WHAT PLACE HAVE YOU ALREADY BEEN TO, BUT WOULD LIKE TO VISIT AGAIN FIRST?
Istanbul? Barcelona? Guatemala? Let’s just say those are my top 3, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

27. HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN SINCE YOU WERE WITH YOUR FAVORITE PERSON?
Lunch.

28. IF YOU COULD RID THE WORLD OF ONE EVIL, WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE?
If I say the stigma against video games, my wife will shoot me, so I’m going to stick with corn syrup. Sugar is SO much better, especially in soda!

29. DOES YOUR BEST FRIEND KNOW THEY ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Absolutely.

30. HOW MANY CELL MINUTES DO YOU USE?
1002 last month

31. HOW MANY SMS?
unlimited but I don’t text much.

32. WHOM DO YOU ADMIRE?
My wife, family, and friends. All for different reasons.

33. WHAT WAS THE BEST NEWS YOU RECEIVED RECENTLY?
I wasn’t president. That's a bit cryptic though, so lets say, sales in January were up!

34. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
I’m going to modify the question. Sweetest movie I have seen lately? EAGLE EYE.

35. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Olive Green.

36. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Summer.

37. HUGS OR KISSES?
Both?

38. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
Right now I'm not reading a book, I'm writing a freaking novel for these 48 questions! Speaking of the whole book thing though, I think I have read 3 books this week, and 3 last week… I did just finish an incredible fantasy series by Jim Butcher called the “Furies of Calderon”. I highly recommend it!

39. WHAT IS YOUR SCREENSAVER?
www.digitalblasphemy.com Yes, worth the lifetime membership in my humble opinion.

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
We don't need no stinking mouse pad. Real men don't use mouse pads. OK, insert inane cliches here.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
Leverage.

42. GMAIL OR HOTMAIL?
Hotmail for junk mail and facebook, Gmail to my cell, Work email for the few privileged souls.

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Who cares?

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Istanbul I think (have to check a globe to make sure I was still going AWAY from home at that point, and not coming back around the other side…)

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
Singing, Speaking, Writing… mostly communication/imagination/logistics based here.

46. WHERE WERE U BORN?
Canoga Park, Los Angeles, California, USA

47. HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE?
Natalie’s roommate was in my a cappella group in college, and we practiced at her apartment.

48. WHAT ARE YOU MOST THANKFUL FOR RIGHT NOW?
The end of my work day.

Truck Trouble...

2008-12-11T17:28:00.000-08:00

So we have a pretty old work truck. Fact is, I'm not sure that keeping it running is any cheaper than buying a new truck, but you know how that goes.

So the latest escapade in our truck breakdown saga happened today. One of my guys calls me from 15 miles away and lets me know he cant drive the truck back cause it's broke. One of the pulleys on one of the belts is moments away from giving up the ghost - it was the death squeals that brought it to his attention...

So I flew on down there and took a look. Here is what I found.

That first picture is a little bit confusing for some, so here is one that shows the damage a little clearer...

So now we can either gamble our truck engine along with various other (belted together) parts, or we can play our AAA card. We told them what truck we needed towed, and they showed up in what looked like a totally miniature towtruck. Not to be scoffed, our towmaster Farooq actually got our truck up onto his (barely) and he and I chatted all the way back to our hometown.

Just so you could fully appreciate the audacity of the situation.... I took a photo :)

Truck anyone?

Woodworking v. 2.0.0.8 Cabinet w/ Doors whew

2008-12-04T09:54:00.000-08:00

This will be a short little update. Thought I would throw in a couple pics of the kids while posting the progress I have made on the nightstands I am making!

Lincoln and I Christmas Shopping (Natalie is SO happy).

Greyson sleeping in the car - masterful camerawork if I do say so myself! We were parked while Natalie ran into a store and I took this "no look" shot.

Ok, here come the cabinets. The first shot is of a raised panel door frame and will give you an idea of how complicated some of this joinery can be. The difficulty here is making all the parts so that they fit together tight enough that they don't slip even without glue, yet you can pull them apart once you put them together. Time lapse from the first pic to the last pic is about 10 hours of wood trimming, gluing, and more fitting.

So the doors are perfectly fit now (as in less than a 64th of an inch gap - they stay in by themselves). Saturday I will work on the tops and the drawers- Monday I finish hanging the doors. Hopefully I can get these things finished... CHRISTMAS IS COMING lol.

A quiet voice of logic amidst the clamor of Intolerance

2008-11-17T15:14:00.000-08:00

Everyone in the United States is aware of the battle that raged during the elections over Proposition 8 in California. It was a much debated, much reported, and much anticipated vote.

When the votes were counted, the California Constitution was amended to affirm that marriage would only be recognized between a man and a woman... by only 4%.

Did people on both sides conduct themselves perfectly during the democratic process? No. Are there instances documented where things got out of line? Yes. One would think that the majority decision would subdue the passion of both sides, that the losing side would concede and eagerly begin plans to overturn the decision in the next election...

As many of you know, I have bought my way into our family business that my father built over the last 29 years. Our reputation is our most cherished asset, and we protect it carefully.

During the recent campaign, my father made a private donation of $1000 to the "Yes on 8" effort. Though we have very strong beliefs as business owners, we respect the right for others to express their opinions and through our business we cater to individuals of every race, religion, economic status, and lifestyle. We provide the same specified level of service regardless of those very same descriptors, and always have.

Since the election, we have received several abrupt anonymous phone calls deriding my father for his contribution; The business has been listed on anti-gay websites, and anonymous mail has arrived criticizing our company for its stance on this issue. In every case, the people calling made no effort to speak with the owners, and would not leave a name or a phone number for a return call. The letters likewise avoided accountability through anonymity.

While many who are of the same opinion as these commentators may applaud their efforts to 'make a difference' by trying to forward their agenda, as a human being I can only marvel at the disrespect, cowardice and intolerance that is being demonstrated by such communications - as well as the negative impact incurred.

Let me delve deeper into the reasons why I presume make such harsh accusations.

First and foremost, this country is founded on principles that allow people to maintain their own perspective and opinion. Anything other than a reasonable discussion about opinion is futile, in most instances resulting in an agreement to disagree. Fundamental differences in belief or opinion by nature cannot be instantly resolved to the satisfaction of both parties, especially where such profound ramifications are in the balance.

Recognizing that there are differences that can never be mended, anonymously disparaging the opposing opinion can only be considered the epitome of cowardice and disrespect. Furthermore to demand tolerance with one hand while writing criticism of opinion with the other is the worst type of hypocrisy.

Perhaps the greatest irony of all in this situation is the propensity for friendly fire. While boycotting businesses using as criteria the opinion of its owners might seem just, it is tactically the most damaging behavior possible (short of vandalism and violence). Each business employs people of diverse belief systems and backgrounds. How well do you presume to know the employees of any company? Out of the more than dozen direct employees and the 20 other licensed contractors that we use to install our flooring how many voted either side of this issue? I cannot speak for other companies, but our employees are sickened by the commentary that is flowing into our business regardless of their stance on these issues. One person has communicated to me that they felt ashamed to be associated with these people by virtue of their no on 8 vote.

As their employer, I can assure you that I do not know how many of my employees voted against me on prop 8, nor would I ask or even intimate that it is any of my business. We all have different reasons for voting the way we do - and our vote might be for very different reasons than the most obvious.

I respect your right to boycott my business. I respect your right to have an opinion that is not congruent with my beliefs. However, I refuse to respect the cowardice the urges people to behave in a manner unbecoming a citizen of our country. Do not think to join the ranks of the great dissidents who have gone before us if you can but protest the rights of others to have an opinion, a cause, or a belief.

I find it fascinating when people let down their guard and communicate what is in their hearts. As a people watcher, the moments when people open up and show their true colors reminds me of finding a perfect sand dollar on the beach as a child - for a moment time stands still and I can only marvel at the depth and complexity of the moment as it rests in my hands.

But as I examine the true colors of what lies before me today; I can see that while some considered this issue to be about rights, families, tolerance, and equality - It has been reduced to violence, selfishness, disrespect, and yes even discrimination towards anyone that will not lie down and agree.

True colors have never been such a disappointment.

Honesty in Journalism! (Not written by a reporter of course)

2008-11-04T14:52:00.000-08:00

Alert! Due to the popularity of this article on the Rhinoceros Times, we have moved it to a static HTML format. After reading this article, if you would like to visit our Web site, greensboro.rhinotimes.com, Click here.

(EDIT: Orson Scott Card is a democrat and a newspaper columnist)

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

by Orson Scott Card

October 20, 2008
An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Sen. Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" (http://snipurl.com/457to): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Fred Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension -- so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means. That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards' own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women (NOW) threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe -- and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.

Woodworking

2008-10-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

So it has been a while since I decided I would take up Woodworking as a hobby. I have acquired some tools (secondhand (thanks scott) and new) and have started to make some interesting projects.

My first dilemma was where to go to actually learn 'da skiwllz'. After some research, I learned that the only place where adults can learn woodworking in our area is a night class offered by a local high school.

So I signed up to a course that turned out to be 'open tool night for senior citizens'. The teacher made us make a cutting board to learn basic tool skills, and then ceased anything but passive supervision.

So I stopped going to class - what point right?

The nearest actual program with facilities and an actual degree in woodworking is located about 50 miles away - straight through Los Angeles and south of the city center. (yeah, try getting there in time for the 6 pm class!) The place is called Cerritos College - they have a huge facility, and so I tried them out.

We started out simple, making a sanding block and a 'push stick' - both made to exacting specifications and sanded and polished to a gleam - I'm not kidding on the perfection of the finish either, here is the 'push stick'. It helps the table saw blade avoid fingerfood :) as you push wood over it.

So we moved on to the next project, which was a deadblow hammer. They had a plan and schematics, but as those of you that know me will understand, I don't do well sticking to the somewhat boring plans dreamed up by other people. I had to go and make it about 100x more difficult, adding more than just a change of shape or including a different wood... By the time I was done there was a distinct difference between the 2. In the end the class spent so much time on the hammer, that there wasn't enough time to complete the scheduled toolbox - so the rough cut / jointed pieces are sitting in my garage, dry assembled and waiting for attention that will never arrive.

So I kept my woodworking ambitions alive and well and signed up for the next class.

The next class is the night stand class - where the students make 1 night stand (ok, someone tell me if there is sense in making just 1?!? My wife would KILL me).

So I decided to make 2. The teacher just shook his head, and made it clear that I would have a REALLY hard time keeping up in class if I tried to make 2 at once. What he didn't know is that I am superman in the wood shop, so I have been doing just fine. I also happened to modify the design (again) increasing not only its appeal, but its difficulty (exponentially).

The last 2 projects were made with Walnut and Maple. The nightstands I decided to make out of African Mahogany. They are wider and taller than the design states, the 'sled' legs are also a modification... and when we get to the doors and the drawer I will be making even more changes. I thought I would show you guys where we are at, and then I will post again when they are closer to being finished.

Here are the basic pieces I have been working my butt off trying to get finished, and painstakingly fitted together (tight, but not TOO tight). You start off with a rough board (pic 1) and work your way to planks, then panels, then grooving and fitting... well, you will see the pics. My nightstand has a small shelf in the bottom cabinet, Nat's doesn't. There is a blown up view, and a couple after assembly.

I am working on the stretchers now (bottom cross pieces) and will move to the cabinet back next. So far so good!

Ben

Fire

2008-10-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

If you have been watching the news, you may have seen updates on 2 fires in Southern California. So far the Marek and Sesnon fires have burned more than 18,000 acres, killed 2 people, destroyed 49 structures, and cost the taxpayers more than $2.5 million.

Both fires are within a dozen miles of our home as a bird flies - but not close enough for any panic :)

Here is a pic taken about 3 blocks from our home of the current fires - we are only separated from them by a line of mountains.

You may think that we are being a little too calm for having a wildfire within view from our home, but as they say, familiarity breeds... contempt? Whatever the saying, our last bout with fires at the same time last year was closer, worse, and definitely more scary. The smoke from the fires filled our sky, leaked through the microscopic vents in the windows that nobody knows exist, and covered our world! Not withstanding, it was the red flames in view from our home that caused most of the fun. Here are a couple pics from last year...

As for this round, we are safe, it looks like they will get these fires under control soon, and they are headed further away from us in any case. Hopefully this is the last of the fires this season - with our "Santa Ana Wind" weather patterns, (warm, dry winds that blow hard, gusting up to 90 mph) all it takes is an errant power line, or someone with a black heart, and we could see many more this year.

A day or 2 in the Life

2008-08-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

The time has come for the update I have been taking my sweet time getting to... Every time I thought there was a free moment, either something would come up, or I would realize that I had left the camera at home again.
Our family is doing wonderfully, there is always something going on that keeps us on our toes, but we are so blessed. As you will see in our pictures, there is a lot of happiness in our family, (in between the time-outs and the discipline lol) and it seems that things are just getting better as we go along.
The first pic is Natalie and Greyson having a great time at our family reunion - camping just south of the Strawberry reservoir in Utah. Natalie is an amazing mom to our kids, they are incredibly low key - secure that they are loved and taken care of by their mommy!
They get along famously, Lincoln loves his big brother, and constantly focuses on him - every time Greyson even looks his direction he giggles and smiles at his big brother.

Greyson is a great big brother as well, he likes to entertain Lincoln by showing him toys, playing peek-a-boo and sharing his old entertainment table with him.

Lincoln turns over enough to make his way to anything he thinks is interesting, but though he wiggles pretty convincingly, crawling is still a little ways off. For those of you that have been close to our family, you probably remember Gypsy :). She is 4 and a half now, and still is a great dog! She has been relatively trouble free for us, with 1 or 2 little hiccups along the way. Well, recently we hit one of those little rough patches... she has decided that if we are out of the house, she will just help herself to our garbage. We arrive at the house, and trash is all over the place... and Gypsy is nowhere to be found! Both times she has been crouched at the top of the stairs watching, and when we step onto the stairs she whirls away and hides lol! This dog is WAY TOO SMART. She is awesome with our kids though, she puts up with a lot of abuse from Greyson and loves him anyway.

Funny story - We were given a museum piano, the family wanted it to go to a good home. Well, it's a player piano, and we heard of a good restorer that lives nearby. He came by one night at 8 pm to check out our piano... It is a quite rare model made by The Cable Co. Chicago cerca 1914! We decided to do what we could to get it in working condition without spending the thousands it would take to restore it. Well, wasting no time, Larry Broadmore dove in and removed all of the player parts from our piano. He was at our home till about 2am the following morning rofl. They will shore up the vacuum system and we plan to have it up and running by Christmas 2009.

Well, thats enough updating I suppose! I guess I should be... *looks around furtively* working right now... So here is one more pic of Lincoln and I catching a late night show, or at least, I caught it - Lincoln wasn't in the right frame of mind to catch more than a few Zs.

OK OK, 1 update before I go...

2008-07-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

So I put in some info under "about me" and I thought, well, might as well throw a couple pictures up before I go.

So here you are, and I will try to finish the major update when I get back!

This is my hotty wife Natalie...

And the latest pic I have of our two boys.... I think it is a few months old, but more to come!

I'm out of here!

Under Construction

2008-07-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

This Blog is Under Construction.

Time Permitting I will post by the end of July!

-Ben