Yes, yes, I’m long overdue for some pictures. I’ve been too busy bemoaning the demise of our country (see the Politics topic for more info ).

So below are a few pictures, but for more, visit these three albums I just posted on Facebook:

A Few Photos of Allen
Silver Dollar City 2008
Reformation Day 2008

(yeah, we had a Black Widow in our house… NOT COOL!)

And there it is! The tower that has improved my quality of life!

I can’t actually see it from my house, but that’s just because of the trees. It’s less than a mile the way the crow flies!

I’ve had a cell phone for over five years now, and today I saw the first evidence that cell providers are actually expanding their coverage!

You see, as far as I can tell coverage has been more or less the same for the last five years with the exception that I got significantly better coverage in Fairview when I switched to AT&T;. And around the country I’ve seen some places where AT&T;is better, and some places where Verizon is better. But I have not personally seen any change or progress on either network until today.

Previously, signal was scarce at our house, and couldn’t be had at all further into Lyles. We limped along by holding the phone a certain way in certain places of the house, though my wife’s junky Samsung is considerably worse at picking up signal than my iPhone…

Well that changed today! As I was getting out of my car I noticed that, quite unusually I had full signal strength. Carrying the phone around the house, under the bed etc. I could not get signal to drop by even one bar. Apparently someone flipped the switch on a new tower.

So there you have it! Hurrah for cell coverage!

It still just blows my mind, and yet here we are. I don’t think I predicted this here on my blog, but I know that there has been talk among many of us “fringe” conservatives about this coming up.

Have a gander at THIS.

So now we gotta bail out the auto industry. Lets prop up some more mediocre businesses instead of letting a company more qualified step in and fill the void. Forget all this free market crap, it works too well. We gotta take the American people’s money and give it to irresponsible companies that make mediocre products. Let’s not let the manufactures that make better products step up. Let’s not let the American people decide what type of products they need, and when.

Socialism, you gotta love it… wait, no you don’t!

I can’t remember the last time I actually waited as long as possible to get gas because I knew it was only going to get cheaper.

So far, I’m having a hard time feeling bad about this economic downturn…

Every once in a while I come across a gem so good, I have to repost it here. This hails from the blog of Doug Wilson.

A friend sent me this little thing making the Internet rounds. Thought I would pass it on.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers, he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).

The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

‘I only got a dollar out of the $20’, declared the sixth man.

He pointed to the tenth man,’ but he got $10!’

‘Yeah, that’s right’, exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!’

‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’

‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.

Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

HT: Bill Garaway

Source

I’m not sure how this will work having never posted a picture from iBlogger…

I’m audio mixing this project at the moment.

On edit: it made the pic smaller than I would have liked… Oh well.

1. Drive 1,700 miles round trip
2. Hang out with the Fam at Silver Dollar City
3. Ride Roller Coasters
4. Crack Windshield in Car

Wait, HUH?

Yep!

My new car (55,000 miles), decides it cannot strike at my finances mechanically, it being so new and all. So it went and found probably the only rock flying around on the Interstate and ran right into it.

Little rock at 70 mph equals cracked windshield.

I didn’t actually get a picture of it after it spread, but I did get initial pics:

That cost me $250.00 to get the windshield replaced.

Fun times!

(Thanks to James Lansberry for posting this in his Google Reader shared items!)