Category: Suggestions

Got any suggestions?

Open Letter to Our Nation’s Leadership

Glenn Beck read an open letter to our nation’s leadership on his radio program a few days ago that expressed my frustration with our government with an honest precision. I agree with the entire letter, except for the part about being a former Democrat… I’ve never been a Democrat, yet I don’t consider myself a Republican, either. The letter is as follows…

I’m a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you’re willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?

Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:

One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I’m not a racist. This isn’t to be confused with legal immigration.

Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.
Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.
Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.
Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don’t you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!
Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don’t you start there.
Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don’t trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.
Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why ‑‑ what do you have against shareholders making a profit?
Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.
Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we’ll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band‑Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.
Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let’s have it. Let’s say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try ‑‑ please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.
Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.
Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let’s just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I’m busy. I’m busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.
I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.
From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don’t want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we’re morons.
We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we’re so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn’t ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when hewill rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.
Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don’t care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

If you agree with the principles laid out in this letter, please take a moment to sign this petition.

Busy Busy Busy

I’ve been doing so many things that I haven’t had the time to keep up with myself.  I’ve kinda spread myself thin working on a few projects that are fun, yet time consuming.  I’ll let you in on it a little more down the road.
Are there any phrases that people get wrong all the time that just frustrate the fire out of you?  I’m talking about phrases such as “don’t take that for granite”.  That’s the phrase that they say, even though the proper phrase replaces “granite” with “granted”.  How about words that are clearly mispronounced, such as “supposedly” being pronounced as “supposably”?  That’s one project I’m working on.
I’m also looking for funny looking stuff on the Internet.  Funny looking web addresses or pictures found on the Internet would help me out a lot.
These projects are fun, but could turn out to be really hilarious if implemented correctly.  Let me know if you have any ideas…  Thanks!
I’m going to slow myself down, but figuring out how will probably include less time on the computer.  I’m glad I dropped MySpace back in November, otherwise I’d be wasting a lot more time than this.

Weekly Cleaning

I can’t seem to keep my desk clean!!!  I get it just perfect and then I realize that I’ve cluttered it back up in what seems like no time at all.  Why is it that I put stuff on my desk knowing that if I’d just put it where it belongs I wouldn’t have to deal with a cleaning job every week or two?
I don’t want to throw everything away because I may need it, so I have to make a concentrated effort to put everything where it belongs.
I’ve read countless stories of how to manage a desk/work environment so that it is always clean and tidy, but I can’t seem to apply the suggestions I’ve read to what I do on a daily basis.
What I am going to do over the next few weeks is try to develop a game plan for constant organization so that I will have a fresh start on the new year.  If you have any ideas that may be useful, please let me know.
Just for reference, right now I have bills, a letter, receipts, my Bible, my Bible study guide, some bank stuff, a t-shirt, some tweasers, a few catalogs, a… thingy… that Alaina made for me, some loose change, a CD case filled with data CDs, and a rarely used external hard drive.

Deleting Friends

I started deleting friends from MySpace.  One of them asked why I kept saying I was leaving and didn’t just leave… she’s gone.  I don’t care.  She wasn’t really a friend anyway, just someone who wanted to date me in high school, but I wasn’t attracted enough to her to actually start anything.  I know that may sound mean, but it’s true.  Her message wasn’t all that nice, either.
It’s funny how easy it is to let go of relationships when you get older.  It takes real effort to maintain relationships now.  That is probably why so many marriages fail these days.  Christle and I determined to stay together until death when we got married.  It seems that most people think they can change their mind 5 years down the road, and look for other relationships while they’re married.
With access to as many friends as you want, there needs to be a new word to describe people who used to be defined as friends.  “Best friends” doesn’t do it any more, because in today’s terms, “best friends” could mean someone you actually speak with on a weekly basis, yet never talk about anything that has any actual meaning.
I’m going to try to think of a new word to use with the old definition of friends.  Let me know if you think of one first.  If it’s a good one, maybe we can build a relationship and become “_______”.
While we’re on the subject, maybe we can come up with a new term for “marriage”?  Maybe we can come up with something that will have a more permanent meaning to society, such as “bondage”, but have a positive connotation, like “candy”.  “Cotton Bondage”?  “Candied Bondage”?  “Iron Love Candy”?  I’d use them, but they sound kinda naughty at the same time, so a lot of people would turn them down based on that fact.  Is there anything that would sound better?

Jiffy Lube Scam Video

I know that a lot of people use places like Jiffy Lube and other quick stop oil changers like it. I think it is imperative that you see this video. I don’t think it’s wrong to go to them, but you should definitely watch their every move.

Click Here to watch the video

This type of scam is not isolated to that area of the country.  I plan to keep my eyes on my vehicle when it’s being serviced, especially when they try to sell me extras.

Sweet Seat

This has got to be the coolest chair ever.  I used a chair similar to this one a few years back, and it was the most comfortable chair I’d ever used.

 http://www.bizchair.com/gg-b078-silver.html

The chair I used was plastic, while this one is constructed with solid metal.  I personally like the cool metal finish that helps keep from getting hot while sitting in front of my computer.

If you haven’t used a chair like this, I would suggest getting one right away to see how much more comfortable sitting can be.  Hey, there’s a 60-Day Guarantee, so there’s nothing to lose, right?

Have you ever used one of these?  How did you like it?

Filing Taxes

I just filed my taxes for 2005. It was relatively easy, and I did it all online.
I used www.olt.com to prepare and file all of my paperwork. If your income falls between $10,000-$50,000, you can e-file for free. Otherwise, the cost to e-file is only $7.95.
Here in Texas, we don’t have a State Income Tax, but if your state does have an income tax, it’s only $7.95 to file at OLT.
I’ve used software (Tax***) that I’ve bought for the past few years, and this was just as easy as those. The website automatically filled out extra forms without my having to tell it to. I had the option to remove them, but I didn’t need to.
There are other free options for preparing and filing online. You can find the entire list HERE.

Music

I’ve spent the better part of the day cleaning up my office and organizing my music collection. I’ve been ripping my CDs to mp3s and getting the CDs ready for storage. It’s fun to listen to some music I hadn’t heard in a while, yet know all of the words and the timing of every part of the songs.
I have a lot more CDs than I thought I did. Add that to all of the mp3s I’ve been buying on allofmp3.com, and I’ve got a bigger than average collection.
The funny thing is that ever since I learned about allofmp3.com, I’ve listened to more music than I remember ever listening to. I’ve felt more at ease buying more music because I don’t have to spend so much. The model for purchasing through allofmp3 has enabled me to buy so much more music, that I’ve probably spent more on the music I’ve downloaded than I would’ve put into Cds for the entire year.
It seems like a pretty good example of my views on economics. When you make it cheaper, more people will buy it. The better part is, more people will buy more of it. Over time, they’ll spend more than they would’ve spent had it been more expensive because they can split up their purchases over time instead of having to wait until they have a full amount to buy the expensive stuff.
When I think about buying a CD, I think, “There’s a pretty good chance that I may only listen to this a few times, so I’m not sure if $12 is the price I want to pay for this CD, especially when I only like one song on it.”
I sometimes will buy an entire album on allofmp3.com simply because it doesn’t cost that much more for me to check out the music. I wish that the imbeciles running the music industry would look into selling their music for cheaper than a CD. They’re trying to make MORE money by charging the same amount as a CD and not getting a hard copy of it. It’s just a way for them to get more out of their music, when oftentimes it’s really not worth it to the average (would be) consumer.
I’m confident that if they’d drop their prices for music online and drop the DRM, that music piracy would drop dramatically.

950 KPRC Drops Glenn Beck

The day Glenn Beck is named as the 3rd most listened to talk show, KPRC drops them for a local guy. Apparently people have been complaining that our Houston Talk Radio Station needs to have more local hosts so they can talk about local stuff.
Why they’d pull the best part of their program schedule to get another local host right after the other one makes absolutely NO sense to me. If you’re trying to make people happy with more local talk, spread it around so that the people who listen in the afternoons can hear it. They’re trying to appease some demand but they’re not spreading the locality around. If anything, they should’ve pulled Michael Savage, and put someone local in that time slot.
I really think they should create a new station, and put all the local guys over there. Then, maybe they could fit Phil Hendrie (hilarious – they dropped him a few years ago) into the syndicated station.
I lost my appetite when I heard that other guy this morning. I’ve been waiting for Glenn to get back from vacation for 3 weeks, and they drop his show today?! I’m really glad I’m already an insider, and can download his show every day. It just feels like a big disconnect.

Pre-Paid Legal

I have recently gotten my license from the State of Texas to sell Pre-Paid Legal Services in the State of Texas. The address to check out the awesome advantages of the service is http://bkppl.com.
I hope you check it out because the advantages are far greater than the disadvantages of not having it.