Waxing Political Again

In a day and age when everything we say can be replicated and distributed within seconds, we must actually watch what we say.  Even if we didn't live in a world of instant communication, once we make remarks or utter opinions, we can't take them back.  It is perhaps more pertinent now to be cautious with remarks as everything we say is preserved perpetually on hard drives and main frames to be pulled out at on a whim.  It's not just our actual voice that we have to be careful with, but also with our fingers as everything we tweet, post, or email can be copied, scrutinized, and dissected by thousands.  I am sure that most people have at least some personal experience with this.  If anyone doesn't, then I am sure that they have heard of someone who has.  With all this said, how can a potential U.S. president be so crass and unthoughtful while talking over seas.  Yes, I am talking about Mitt Romney again.  He is slowly drilling a hole in his own presidential hopeful boat.  On two out of three stops on a foreign trip to display his diplomatic skills and political acumen, he has managed to upset people with his remarks.   In hindsight, perhaps he should have delayed his trip and taken a few classes in decorum and tact.  If Romney is trying to solidify the world against him, then he is doing a pretty damn good job of it so far.  What we need now, however, is to maintain good relationships with foreign countries, not pit them against us for the remarks of one man.  (I am sure that things will smooth over, but it isn't a good start for Mr. Romney.)

The first instance came in Britain when he made remarks criticizing mildly the security preparations for the Olympics in London.  I personally don't care if he oversaw the Salt Lake City Olympics or not.  When visiting a foreign country, you don't criticize them for their efforts, especially in a public forum.  If Mr. Romney truly did have concerns over preparations and security, then he should have talked to a high level politician in private without news cameras or reporters near by to capture his every word.  His remarks in London were only a precursor as to what was coming unfortunately.  His remarks in London sullied his image somewhat, but that one comment could have been chalked up to inexperience.  His next stop in Israel, however, was more deleterious to him and our country than his London experience was.  While in Israel, he made remarks about a country's success being tied to their culture.  He pointed out specifically the difference in per capita income between Israel and Palestine.  He tied the success of Israel and lack of success in Palestine directly to culture.  It doesn't matter that Israel has played a hand in keeping Palestine subdued through trade embargoes or occupation, it all comes down to culture in Romney's mind.  On that same track, he made comparisons with Israel and Palestine to the United States and Mexico, also to Chile and Ecuador.  Needless to say, his comments were taken by the Palestinians as racist.  There goes his chances of ever brokering some kind of peace between Israel and Palestine. 

All in all, his trip has not been that successful so far.  Romney has one more stop in Poland before coming back to the states and it is anyone's guess as to how things will go there.  All we can hope for is that he keeps his mouth in check and doesn't tick off anyone in that country.  With all this said, I am not trying to slam Romney has a person for frankly that doesn't matter to me.  What I am trying to do is point out flaws in a presidential hopeful where there shouldn't be any.  When it comes to foreign diplomacy, one must think three times as much as they talk.  All comments need to be filtered before they leave the mouth of a candidate or president.  If Mitt Romney gets elected as president, what other missteps will he have when it comes to dealing with foreign countries?  We can ill afford to turn the world against us and while dealing with foreign issues is only part of the large picture (dealing with our own country's woes is a much bigger part), we need someone who can handle both foreign diplomats and stateside politicians with ease.  So far, Mitt Romney doesn't look like he is able to step up to the plate on both fronts.  As much as I don't care for Obama, at least he is capable of watching what he says overseas and not pissing people off when he visits their country.  This might just be the year that I vote for the green party instead of democratic or republican.  Till that day comes when we go out and vote, I will be watching all sides to see who portrays themselves as the most capable candidate. 

Making Political Promises

I have one major problem with almost every political campaign run by almost every politician in this country.  That problem is the fact that almost every single one makes promises that they and everyone else knows are almost impossible to keep.  I understand to a point where they are coming from; they wish to set themselves apart from their competition by setting out specific plans that they will carry out if they get elected.  These plans, however, often times seem so concrete and specific that one wonders how they will be carried out if that person gets elected.  All the plans in the world don't mean a damn thing if an elected person doesn't have the support of his/her fellow politicians in Washington.  Furthermore, their elaborate plans set out for the public to read are often times so grandiose that they would be impossible to implement within a given elected term.  Why is it so hard for politicians to be honest and say, "I will try my hardest to get A,B, and C implemented" instead of saying, "I will do A,B, and C if I get elected."  I am sure that almost every politician who utters a statement including the words, "I will" knows that they will probably not be able to do everything they say.  However, in the United States, it is all about the promises when it comes to getting elected.  The more realistic promises a politician can make, the more likely they will be elected by the public.  It doesn't matter if a politician says they will find aliens and offer them up as a sacrifice to the economic gods.  If they make it believable, people will buy it and vote. 

What irks me even more is when a politician lays out a plan for the people and fills it with so much political jargon and B.S. that it sounds fantastic but in reality means nothing.  There is currently a woman running for the Senate in Connecticut (she will remain nameless as I don't feel like giving her any more attention than necessary) who has spelled out her plan online for everyone to read.  Out of mere interest to see what it said, I perused this woman's plan and honestly couldn't make heads or tails of it.  Some parts made sense, but once you got down into the meat and potatoes of it, you would need a law degree or be versed in high level political jargon to understand it.  It bothers me that I can't go online to read this woman's plan and have it make sense to me.  I don't feel I am an idiot by any means, but when I read this woman's plan, I feel like I am.  I know that not all politicians make their plans complicated and difficult to read in depth, but there are some who probably feel that by making it sound complicated, people will just accept it and vote.  I am not one of those.  If I can't read a politician's plan and understand it, chances are they will not be getting my vote, plain and simple.  Its not even the fact that I can't read it, its also the lofty goals and promises made that turn me off.   One such promise made by this woman from Connecticut is to cut the middle class tax rate from 25% to 15% in one year.  Really?  While I think this sounds great, I don't see any plausible way that this will happen.  Every politician talks about cutting taxes, which is great, but none have been successful in actually doing it.  What makes this woman different?  Nothing. 

One more great idea by this woman which I doubt will ever come to fruition is her plan to end all job killing regulations on businesses.  I would love this to happen, yet somehow I fail to see how she alone will do this.  Regulation has been on the increase for decades and all of a sudden this one woman will come riding in on her white horse and change everything.  If she gets elected in and manages to do this, then I will apologize for doubting her, but until that happens, I will be eternally skeptical.  The problem with politicians is that most of them fail to realize what it takes to make changes in government.  There is no "I" in government.  It takes a concerted effort by multiple individuals to make any sort of change happen.  On top of that, most changes in government takes years to implement and for any politician to say that it will happen if they get elected is simply talking out their rear end.  Maybe one day we will get a politician who makes realistic goals and instead of promising change, promises to make the effort to change things.  Yet promising a solid effort once they get elected is not how politicians get into office.  They get into office by making promises they can't keep and by promoting plans that even they know are impossible to follow.  In any case, I am done talking about politicians today as I just got back from a weekend in Vermont and don't want to spoil the rest of the week with political talk.  Lets all just hope for a little more honesty from our politicians and perhaps a little does of reality. 

Vacation Time and Our Son

I need a vacation.  Yes.  Let me state it one more time, I need a vacation.  Its been about a month since my wife, son, and I headed up to Vermont and luckily, we are headed up today for another weekend in the woods.  This little mini vacation couldn't have come at a more opportune time.  The last few weeks have been crazy, including the weekends, and I'm losing motivation to work.  When the motivation to work diminishes, it usually means I need a break from it all.  This past week has been especially tiring.  In addition to working all day, I have come home to work on the second and last concrete countertop for our kitchen.  I made the final adjustments and preparations to the form and finally poured the concrete on Wendesday evening.  Now we wait.  This countertop has been a little more nerve racking than the first as the measurements need to be more exact than the first one.  With a cutout for a sink, a faucet, and its accompanying sprayer, if the form is off even a quarter inch, I will probably not be happy and need to scrap it and start over again.  Luckily I did factor in a little bit of leeway with my measurements, but I only have about an eighth of an inch play on either side to make it look good.  For the sake of my friends who will be helping me first move it out of my garage to polish and then into the house for its final installation, I hope that I got everything correct so that they don't have to come back and help me do it all over again.   But I am done thinking about the countertop till Monday when we will pull it out of its form and hope for the best. 

Now it is time to forget about work for a few days and focus on getting our stuff ready to go to Vermont.  This will be our son's third trip camping and I am sure he will love it as always.  I only hope that he goes to sleep a little easier than he did last time and stays asleep the whole night.  It should be interesting this time as we are supposed to get some rain up there, but we have some shelter if necessary so it shouldn't be too bad.  The only part I am worried about is if the storms roll in at night.  If there is thunder and lightning, there is a good chance that our son will wake up.  At this point, though, I am just hoping the rain and thunder keep themselves to a minimum so we can enjoy ourselves thoroughly over the weekend.  Maybe this will be the weekend that our son decides to take his first steps solo.  He has yet to make the giant leap to walking even though every week seems like it might just be "the week".  Trust me, we are not rushing him by any means, mostly we are just trying to save our backs.  Currently, all that our son wants to do is grab our fingers and walk around.  While he is growing taller, holding his fingers does require a little bending of the back to make it possible and remaining hunched over like that does not feel very good after a while.  But we will keep holding his fingers as long as it takes him to take those first unaided steps. 

In addition to almost walking (yes I have been saying that for the past month or so), he added some new consonants to his vocabulary.  For a good while there, he would babble da da da da, and so on and so forth.  While it was nice to have him look at me and say da da, he would also look at a our shelves, dogs, or cardboard and say the same exact thing.  Now he has taken to calling everything ma ma ma ma.  He is building his vocabulary a little bit at a time and eventually (I am going to state the obvious here so watch out) he will figure out how to form words and sentences and the like.  What has been really cool that I have personally not experience myself is our son grabbing his favorite book, carrying it or pushing it over to my wife, and sitting with her while they flip through and read the book.  He has even taken to grabbing books and flipping through them himself.  I definitely couldn't be happier about his interest in books.  Hey, maybe he will be reading a little Dostoyevsky soon!  Probably not as he would try to eat the pages, but one day maybe.  Last but not least in regards to our son, we think the newest occupation he will be trying out for is rock climbing.  He as taken an interest in attempting to climb everything he comes across whether it be people, chairs, dressers, couches, changing tables, crib, gates, etc.  You name it, he tries to climb it.  I guess soon after he is walking I will have to get him into a tree and start teaching him how to climb trees properly so that he doesn't fall out of them.  He probably will as that is what I did on a number of occasions.  All we can do is hope he doesn't fall to hard.  In any case, time for me to wrap things up and carry on with my day.  Hopefully everyone has a fantastic weekend. 

Pondering the Natural Way

I guess the title of this blog could be taken many different ways, but as always, there is one direction I have in mind for this post.  What I have been pondering over the last few days has to do with the nature of our world, human overpopulation, and diseases / medical conditions.  Sounds like a random bag of tricks when I look at it written out, but maybe I can put all the pieces together and make some sense out of it.  So here we go.  If we look at the human population in the world, it is growing at close to an exponential rate with no signs of seriously slowing down.  Through this increasing population, we are inherently taxing our resources; from electricity to food to water to land to pretty much everything.  All in all, there has been no serious check on our population increase.  Cities, especially in developing countries, are growing beyond their capacity to support the populations who live there.  Farms the world over are having a harder and harder time producing enough food to satiate the world's demand.  And lets not even get started on utilities which need serious updating and installation in developing countries.  Even in countries like the United States and Europe, there is a constant struggle to ensure that enough electricity is produced to keep the wheels turning.   At this point in history, it seems that humanity is on the brink of either figuring out how to move forward in a successful manner or crash and burn due to an excessive overload of people.  So what ever happened to the system of keeping humanity in check?  If we look at all the other species in the world, every single one has a predator or some outside force to in some way keep their population in check.  If you remove one predator in the food chain, some species then has the capability of growing their population beyond healthy limits.  Humans have no predators as we are at the top of the food chain.  There is nothing to keep the human population in check, or is there. 

Up until the 1800's, humanity did have a natural check to its population growth.  That check, as horrid as it may sound, was diseases and viruses.  Think back to the bubonic plague that wiped out a good chunk of the European population.  While the plague wiped out almost everyone it came in contact with, there were those that survived, namely the strong and healthy.  So what did the plague essentially do?  It placed the human population back within the boundaries by which it could sustain itself.  However, over the past few centuries, humans have been doing their best to prevent anyone from contracting a disease or virus in the hopes of allowing every human being to live out a full life.  While I feel that it is a lofty goal, was every human being meant to live out a full life or were some meant to succumb to a disease or virus because they were not strong or healthy enough?  I am not advocating at this point taking the weak out back and shooting them because that would simply be Satanic.  However, in preventing nature from taking its course in many cases, are we allowing our population to grow beyond our ability to sustain it?  Have we gone too far in preventing diseases and viruses from trimming off the excess if you will?  Perhaps we have.  In altering nature to our ideals by creating medications and vaccines to prevent death from ever touching our doorstep, our we inevitably setting ourselves up for disaster?   We already know that most areas in the world that can be farmed are being farmed and we can't simply create more earth on which to grow food.  How are we supposed to supply food to an ever growing population when there is no where else to grow food.  The same goes for water, heat, etc, etc. 

So what is the answer?  At this point in history, we can't exactly eliminate all medications and vaccines that ward of illness and death.  We must simply cope with our condition and move forward somehow.  I do feel, however, that diseases and viruses do have a place within this world to get rid of the weak and allow the strong to survive.  For thousands and thousand of years, this is how humanity got by and slowly grew.  The strong survived and the weak didn't.  Now we have almost everyone surviving with only the seriously weak dying.  Its not necessarily fun to think about as I am sure most of us have had to deal with sickness and death in some way, but if we look at the broader picture, it makes sense.  I think the problem with thinking about this issue lies in one's perspective.  If we look at this issue only through the lens of the present, then of course it looks inhumane, diabolical even, and not relevant.  However, if we take the time to step back and look at humanity over the course of its history, perhaps what I am saying will make more sense.  As I said before, its not like we can do anything about this issue now as we have come too far and "progressed" as a human people, however it does offer some interesting food for thought I think.  And before I finish up for today, I am not slamming the medical profession as I feel they do some great work.  All in all, when looking to the future, lets consider not just our situation, but that of everyone around us and how we all fit together in this big puzzle called life. 

Insecticidal Paint

If you are wondering if you misread the title of my post this morning, you didn't, I really did mean to write insecticidal paint.  I had never heard of it either until I came across an article this morning regarding this type of paint and the wonders that it can work, simply by being applied to a house.  It obviously caught my attention a little quicker than it might catch anyone else's due to the fact that I am a painting contractor. Regardless, I read the article.  It appears that this paint, Inesfly, made by a Spanish company, contains micro capsules of pesticides that release slowly over time, killing almost any type of bug in your home.  If you are about to turn off the computer and rush to go buy this stuff, don't, it isn't available everywhere yet and that includes the United States.  The areas that it has been most heavily used are in tropical areas so far, South America, Mexico, and soon to be Africa.  Or in other words, it has been used in areas that have large problems with bugs and the diseases they carry and transmit to humans.  The paint itself has proven much more effective and safer than fumigation and has actually succeeded where fumigation efforts have failed for decades.  The key to the success of the paint is that while it contains slow release pesticides, it also contains a growth inhibitor for insect larvae which regular pesticides don't kill.  With these two killing agents trapped in the paint, the product has been proven effective for up to two years before needing a fresh coat of paint. 

Being someone who likes to lead as natural a lifestyle as possible, I have certain concerns as to the safety of the pesticides being released and its effect on humans.  However, if the paint can eradicate bugs that contain potentially life threatening diseases from a house, then I would say it trumps any long term side effects to humans.  So far, it has been utilized to eradicate scorpions, kissing bugs, and certain types of mosquitoes.  It is currently being tested now to see if it will work against the mosquito that carries malaria.  If so, it could be of great benefit in Africa where malaria seemingly runs rampant.  All in all, people are simply amazed at how effective this paint is in eradicating bugs from the home.  In the United States, it could potentially be utilized to eradicate cockroaches and other annoying bugs from the home.  How wonderful would it be to be able to paint your house in stead of fumigate it to get rid of all the bugs.  I think it would be great, although seeing as my house is not infested, I probably wouldn't use it unless absolutely necessary.  So far, it seems like this paint would be best utilized in the Southern United States where bugs and diseases flourish much more easily than they do in the North.  Now all we need in the United States is for the EPA to approve the product and allow it to be sold.  We will have to wait and see how long that process takes and if it ever passes their approval. 

It is technologies like this that will hopefully save many lives from insect born diseases.  This also shows a great deal of ingenuity in being able to encapsulate a pesticide within a paint in a manner that allows for its slow release.  I wonder what's next when it comes to paint or any home improvement product for that matter.  It seems that people keep on coming up with new and better ways of doing things.  Some I feel are a waste of time while others are game changing in their approach and application.  For now, we will simply have to wait and see if this product eventually makes it to market in the United States.  I for one hope that it does because as bad as the pesticides in the paint may be, fumigating your house is a much worse experience and proven not to be as effective as this paint is.  In any case, if you want to check out the article that I read, follow this link to the New York Times.  Let me know your thoughts on this product. 

Throwing Diggers

Lets start this off by having everyone who has ever been the recipient of a digger raise their hand (or at the very least nod your head to yourself as your reading this).  For those of you who don't know what a "digger" is, it is verbal denigration of a person meant to either make the "thrower" look or feel better in the eyes of others or to put the "recipient" in his/her place.  It can be equated to vicious sarcasm in some ways and a verbal onslaught in others.  So now that everyone knows what a digger is, who has been the recipient of one?  Let me start off by saying that I have thrown diggers myself and on occasion still do, but for the most part I try and stay away from them because I know the effect that they can have on others.  I find that at this point in my life, most of the times I throw diggers at people is when I have first been the recipient of one.  This doesn't make it right on my part, but its a knee jerk reaction that sometimes I just can't help.  I guess the ultimate question still remains, why am I writing about this today.  Well, I was the recipient over the weekend of a seemingly endless onslaught of diggers.  I won't relay who exactly was the originator of said diggers, but lets just say that it is someone close to me.  A few here and there usually don't bother me too much, but when they continue ad nauseum for a few hours on end, it gets tiring and frustrating and really pissed me off.   Perhaps the part that pissed me off the most is that if I am with this person one on one, there aren't any diggers thrown yet as the number of people around us increases, the onslaught increases in severity and number.  (For the record, it is not my wife and she knows this.)

For the life of me, I am still trying to wrap my head around how this person can be so nice at times and then such a vicious, selfish prick at others.  Even after a few days, it still bothers me, those diggers thrown casually my way with no thought paid as to their effect on me.   I know I have to talk to this person about it, but there is a part of me that wants to just say screw it and not talk to that person again.  I won't choose the latter as that is not who I am, but it is very tempting at times just to eradicate the source of those diggers so I don't have to deal with them again.  I will say that even over the weekend, I did respond with my own digger or two at the beginning, but quickly realized that it wasn't worth my effort and I really didn't want to drag down everyone around us into the verbal quagmire in which we were engulfed.  The only possible explanation that I can come up with for this person acting the way they did was because they are probably insecure about something or feel the need to raise themselves up on this lofty pedestal while kicking all those around them (or at least me) in the face.  It almost seemed like the person needed to garner as much attention as possible at whatever expense necessary.  Whether it was gloating about their accomplishments or simply chopping me down bit by bit, they needed to feel important, wanted, validated, praised, whatever.  And even though I recognize what might be the cause of all this, it doesn't help in dealing with it.  As a recipient of such an onslaught over the weekend, it made me realize just how hurtful diggers can be and made me vow to minimize any retaliation on my part in the future.

Seeing the actions of another made me think back to when I was younger and insecure.  I know that I acted similarly, but upon talking to my wife who has known me now for seven years, even she has said that I was never as bad as this person was over the weekend.  But regardless, it is now in the past and time to move on with my life.  I will forgive this person, that is not the issue.  The issue I am dealing with right now is how to try and make this person see what they did and try and convince them to change their ways.  All sorts of ideas have been coursing through my brain over the past few days, most of them not very pleasant or nice, but I can't help those thoughts.  I will refrain from being an ass myself, however hard it may be, and do my best to move forward.  The only words of advice I have for anyone reading this is to consider what you are saying before you actually say it.  I know we don't always have a filter on and it can be hard to filter yourself, but once you say something, you can't take it back or the hurt that it may convey.  The old saying goes that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt."  What a crock of bull that is.  Words may not leave physical marks or break any bones, but they do leave an impression, sometimes negative, that is hard to remedy or recoup from.  For the sake of those around you, throw the diggers in the garbage and treat everyone the way you would want to be treated. 

Encounters With New Faces

This weekend was a long one for our son.  Not only did he decide on both Saturday and Sunday nights to stay up in his crib talking to himself for a couple hours after getting put to bed, but he also met a lot of new family members, some of which I had never even met before.  So I guess we should should start with meeting new people before getting into his late night conversations with himself.  Saturday was my wife's aunt's 90th birthday party.  I had met most of the family members on my wife's grandmother's side of the family, but not her late grandfather's (which was the side we encountered).  As is usually the case when her extended family gets together, there were quite a few people there.   I was kind of interested to see how our son would react to being around so many new people and faces.  Well, in short, he did really well.  When we first got there and started meeting people, he pulled the whole "invisible" shy act where he would turn away from whoever we were being introduced to and stare over my shoulder as if no one in the world was around us.  He quickly turned back around however to see who exactly we were talking to and if they were safe enough.  After about 2-3 minutes, his shyness disappeared and he was ready to go into action.  After the initial shyness, he went back to being himself, ready to grab some fingers and start walking.  When I did grab his fingers and start walking with him, he kept on going and going and going, all over the yard, to new people he never met and to people he already knew.  Needless to say, I am glad he wasn't phased by the 30 or so people who were gathered to celebrate the birthday party.  We stayed at the party for a couple of hours before leaving in order to get him home in time to get to bed.   It seems like it didn't matter because even after we put him to bed like I mentioned before (bedtime is 530), he stayed up talking to himself and moving around in his crib till almost 8. 

Yesterday he met even more people at another little BBQ we went to at my parents house.  My cousins were up from Florida and swung by to hang out for the afternoon.  When they arrived he was napping so there was no initial shyness that needed to be overcome.  It was as if people just appeared to him I am sure.  When he woke up from his nap, he was ready to walk around and see who the new faces were.  One of the things I love most about our son is his curiosity about everything, including new faces.  It seemed like he was particularly fascinated by my teenage cousin who is about to be entering her junior year of high school.  He would walk by, stare at her, move on a little before turning around and coming back to stare some more trying to figure out who this girl was.  It was really cute.  It seems like we have a young social butterfly on our hands thus far.  On top of meeting new people yesterday, we also had the opportunity for him to go swimming for his second time at my parents pool.  He really does love the water and can't seem to get enough of it.  When he was walking around the pool area with whoever would walk with him, he always seemed to migrate towards the stairs descending into the pool and try to walk down them into the water.  He would walk right up to the edge and extend his foot as if wanting to walk in and of course, we would oblige him partly, allowing him to at least stand on the top step that had only a few inches of water covering it.  By the time we left the BBQ at around 430, he was completely exhausted both from lack of naps and all the activity he was involved in.  Despite being exhausted, he once again stayed up for a while talking and moaning a little bit before finally falling asleep. 

This weekend was one of those times where I wish we had one of those baby monitors with video capability just so I could see what he was doing up in his crib by himself.  All we get to hear is his babbling and the occasional bang as he walks around his crib or kicks it occasionally.  Those are the times where beyond simply wanting to see him, I would love to get inside his little head and see what he is thinking.  I know that it is impossible, but it would be interesting.  Alas, I will have to simply wait for him to start talking so he can tell us what he is doing up there...if he wants to.  Skipping around a little bit, we also ran into two other 9 month old boys this weekend, one at the party on Saturday and one at church yesterday morning.  What struck me about the other two boys was how chubby they were.  Our son may have a little growth belly, but compared to the other two boys, he is a slender little muffin.  I am guessing that it probably has something to do with the difference in diets.  I can't speak to what the other boy's diets are, but I am guessing that they are following standard pediatrician procedure and eating grains and whatnot in addition to other foods.  Our son has yet to experience any type of grains in his diet.  He has now expanded his diet to include meats, chicken so far, in addition to all the fruits and vegetables that he eats on a regular basis.  But it is what it is, the other boys looked just as healthy as our son does except with really chubby cheeks, arms, legs and torso.  Such is life.  So after this crazy weekend that our son went through, I hope that he is not overly tired today as my wife is home watching him.  If he is overly tired (which we suspect), I hope is is able to take many naps to alleviate the exhaustion and make life a little easier for my wife. 

Little Man Update

Yesterday as my wife was cooking dinner, she showed me a few pictures that she had taken of our son during the day.  Having not had an opportunity to transfer them from the memory card to our computer, I flipped through them on our camera.  After I was done with the few from yesterday, I kept on flipping, starting from the beginning of the memory card which just happened to be when our son was born.  I then proceeded to get through almost all the pictures we have taken of our son over the past 9 months.  In short, the transformation that our son has undergone in just under a year is remarkable.  From the first pictures of our tiny, little 8 lb, 21 inch baby to our now almost 22 lb, 28 inch baby, it has been quite the journey.  Most remarkable about our son's transformation from a little lump of flesh into this high energy, non-stop moving child is his face and head.  If you held up two pictures, one from birth and one from now, it would be very difficult to find the similarities between the two.  When he was born, as with most babies, his head looked a little squished with puffy cheeks and a cute little nose.  Now, his head has expanded, his forehead risen, and his face has developed features unique only to our son (with obvious similarities to both my wife and myself).  It wasn't until I looked at the pictures that I realized just how quickly time has flown from last October to now.  I guess I just find it amazing the changes and growth that a baby goes through in his/her first year.  And our son isn't even done with his first year yet. 

I will not even hazard any predictions about what our son might be doing in three months time as every day and week brings something new or improved.  Yesterday, our son began eating meat.  Not anything heavy, just chicken, but he ate it mixed in with his vegetables.  Now that our son is going to be getting more protein, I figure it won't be long before he really starts growing and potentially walking.  I know that I had guessed that our son would be walking by 9 months old.  Well, that day has come and gone and our son is still working on developing his muscles and balance.  He is getting much stronger and quicker at everything however.  Now when approaching the stairs, he wants to hold someone's hands to get up them.  After either crawling or guiding my wife or I to the stairs, he will then hold our fingers even harder and lift a knee on to the stairs, followed by his other knee (sometimes going right to his foot), then stand and repeat until he reaches the top of the stairs.  Its simply amazing what he is figuring out how to do.  In addition to wanting to walk everywhere, even if it is just in circles around our living room, he has started to want to climb almost everything.  On almost everything he gets to, a gate, shelves, his crib or dresser, he tries to climb it.  Its funny to watch him grab hold of something with his hands and then try to place his toes in or on something in order to lift himself higher.  He hasn't quite figure it out yet, but I am guessing that he will probably start climbing around the same time he starts walking.  In terms of walking, he is getting more daring with letting go and trying to figure the whole walking thing out on his own. 

One of our son's new favorite activities is pulling things off shelves, out of drawers, or out of baskets of any type.  Yesterday when I got home, I found my wife on the floor folding clothes with our son crawling around her.  From what I got, he had taken to pulling the newly folded clothes out of the laundry basket and throwing them on the floor.  My wife mentioned that she had been folding clothes for some time, and I could see why.  It was just too funny to watch our son pull himself up to standing using the laundry basket, reach in, and launch clothes over and behind his head.  The look on his face is priceless to, not as if he is doing anything wrong, but rather just a wide mouthed, wide eyed look as if to gauge our reaction to what he is doing.  Seeing us laughing our buts off is probably reinforcing his antics, but hey, its cute so we are allowed to laugh.  The same thing goes for clothes in his dresser drawers which he likes to pull out, or the DVD's, all of which usually end up on the floor every day.  In addition to emptying baskets and drawers, our son is still on his exploratory track and with him now being able to reach more, we have begun to use the word "no" with him.  To put it simply, he normally doesn't like the word, especially if it is in regards to an action that he is really involved in, like hitting the TV.  Occasionally he will listen, but most times we have to resort to moving him away from the object after which he usually cries for a few seconds before moving on to something bigger and better.  In any case, I am sure that the next 3 months leading up to our son's first birthday will hold big surprises for us.  We are ready, as always, to watch our son grow and develop and will smile and laugh along the way. 

Reconciling Parenting

On Monday I talked about parenting styles, the slew of different ones that people adhere to, and perhaps the path through which we arrived at so many differences.  Well, I am back to parenting styles again, not because I want to talk about all the different ones out there, but rather, because I want to talk about how they relate to my wife and I.  Let me first start by saying that my wife and I stay as far away as we can from society's view of how a child should be raised.  This distance we keep between ourselves and society's view ranges from our refusal to vaccinate to technology and its absence in our son's life to toys.  Let me sum all this up.  We don't believe in vaccinating our son because we feel that his immune system needs to develop on its own and not be "primed" by vaccines and the chemicals they contain.  We also don't believe in allowing our son to watch TV, explore our iPhones, or stare at a computer screen until he is older.  Similarly, we also don't believe in buying our son every possible toy or developmental tool to help him learn about the world around him.  In our minds, experience is the best learning tool possible and as such, we allow him to explore our house, the outdoors, essentially anything that doesn't have the potential to be harmful to him.  Obviously everything has the potential to be harmful, but I am talking more about knives, chemicals, fire, etc.  All this pretty much sums up our views that go against what society deems necessary or essential to a child's well being.  I am sure that there are some other points that I have missed, but these are the most essential. 

Anyway, now that I have highlighted our views as they differ from society, let me move on to talk about our views as they relate to other young parents that we know with children our son's age.  At our BBQ this past Saturday, an older friend of mine said that it must be nice to know other parents with young children and have at least that common thread amongst others with which to relate.  I agreed, but I also said that there is a certain tension that arises, at least within myself, when we encounter other parents with young children.   That tension arises due to the fact that I know how some people react to certain aspects of how we raise our child.  We have encountered plenty of parents who disagree with not vaccinating children, in fact, 99% of our friends have their children vaccinated.  This in and of itself does not cause the tension, but rather its the way that some react to the fact that we haven't vaccinated that causes tension.  Its simply our view that goes against the mainstream and that no one really understands.  There also arises a certain tension in regards to technology.  A good number of our friends allow their children to play with their iPhones, watch TV, and explore the computer all before the age of 2.  This I see as being more of an issue.  My wife once commented to me that she really didn't want to hang out with "so and so" because of the way they raised their child in regards to technology.  It wasn't that she had a problem with the parents, in fact, she like the parents, it was rather trying to figure out how our son would interact with their children.  The comment I had for my wife about that issue was, "you are going to run into many different parenting styles out there, most that don't coincide with what we believe, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't hang out with them."  I don't know if other parents feel the tension or not.  With us, at least, its not an outward tension, but more of an inward one; an uncertainty, a questioning if you will. 

The last point of contention, not a big one by any means, is the amount of toys that other children have.  This raises the least amount of tension, if any, within us.  When we have hung out with other parents and their children, we have notice an over abundance of toys strewn around houses.  There seems to be a basket of toys in every room, some that sing songs, some that make noise, and others that are just, well, toys.  Our son has toys, but they could probably fill one laundry basket if that.  Even when we break out the toys for him to play with, he would much rather grab a newspaper and play with that.  This isn't even to say that we won't buy our son toys in the future, it will just be kept to a minimum.  It seems that even at his ripe old age of 9 months, he would rather play with items around the house than with his actual toys.  Maybe that will change, but it doesn't seem too likely.  So how do we reconcile our beliefs with those of others?  Simple, we keep our mouths shut because everyone has their own beliefs about raising children and the last thing we want to do is cause rifts in our friendships over beliefs.  Nothing we say or do is going to change the way other's raise their children.  The best we can do is raise our son to the best of our ability and hope that what we instill in him (hopefully) will take root and hold.  It still doesn't relieve the overall tension, at least not for myself.  I think that I will always harbor a little, but it won't affect my friendships, that's for sure.  Anyway, I am done with talking about parenting till at least next week or later.  For now, I will simply focus on my son and giving him the best childhood possible. 

And The World Gets Fatter

I think that everyone reading this is probably aware that the United States has been dealing with an obesity epidemic for some time now.  Well, joining the ranks of the worlds fattest country is, well, the rest of the world.  According to a report published last month and just reported on in the NYTimes this morning, more and more people worldwide are leading increasingly sedentary lifestyles.  What this essentially boils down to is that the world's population is slowly becoming more and more unhealthy.   I found some of the statistics both fascinating and quite disturbing at the same time as I live in the United States.  It is projected that the approximate weight of all human beings now exceeds 287 million tons.  Now comes the fascinating part.  Of that 287 million tons of human flesh, the United States claims a third of it with only 6% of the world's population.  Both fascinating and disturbing.  According to the report, we are not quite at the top of the list of most sedentary nations, but we are real damn close.  So it seems that not only is the world's population continuing to grow, but we are also getting fatter, putting more of a strain on economies world wide.  How could an increasingly obese world put strain on our economies?  Fairly simple, the heavier people get, the more health problems they are susceptible to and as a result, the more medical assistance they need.  With more and more people needing more frequent visits to doctors and hospitals, someone has to take that burden and often times it is distributed amongst the masses. 

Perhaps most eye opening about this report is the amount of deaths associated with weight related issues such as diabetes, heart failure, stroke, etc.  Currently, about 5.3 million people die each year from diseases tied to physical inactivity compared to the 5.1 million people who die from smoking related issues.  People are essentially just sitting around more and letting their health go down the tubes.  How many people in the world are almost completely sedentary?  According the article, about 1.5 billion people can't manage to fit in 20 minutes of walking a day, the benchmark for a sedentary lifestyle.  That equates to 31.1% of the world's adults.  I don't know about anyone else, but I would go absolutely bonkers if I sat around all day doing nothing.  All in all, the data shows that the wealthier a nation is, the more likely they are to have a population that leads a sedentary lifestyle.  I guess being wealthy doesn't necessarily equate to being healthy.  In the end, this leaves us with a problem as I mentioned above.  With more and more people becoming more and more unhealthy, how are countries supposed to shoulder the weight of dealing with their medical issues.  As if we didn't have enough economic troubles to deal with, now we have to deal with the added burden of assisting those who can't figure out how to walk around the block and shed some pounds.  Personally, and I have mentioned this before, if people are obese, they should be taxed.  I know that there is the inherent problem of people choosing to live this lifestyle and as such, they shouldn't be penalized for their choices, but what about the rest of us whose insurance premiums go up because more people need medical help?  For those of us who lead a healthy lifestyle, get the proper amount of exercise and rarely see the doctor, why should we end up paying more in insurance for someone else?  There is a certain unfairness in my mind to the whole equation.  Yet what are we to do?  If we let people become heavier and heavier, we will all suffer economically.  Yet if we tax them or force them to pay their own way, they will complain that it isn't fair to them. 

All this leaves us with the issue of finding out if we ourselves are overweight and how we should address it.  You can use the BMI calculator that can be found anywhere on the web these days.  Or I guess you could go to the doctor and have them tell you if you need to lose weight or not.  (If you follow this link, you can find out your BMI and see how it compares to the rest of the world, BMI Comparison)  I for one don't find the BMI calculator to be completely accurate as it does not take into account all variables.  All that it uses to figure out your Body Mass Index is your age, height, and weight.  When I plug in my numbers, it tells me I am overweight (BMI of 26).  I am supposed to weight between 190 and 195 lbs, yet I come in at a balmy 205.  For those of you that know me personally, I don't think anyone would say I am overweight as I am super active and probably have a higher percentage of muscle that weighs more than fat does.  But anyway, this isn't about me, but about the world and what we can do.  The bottom line is, we need to exercise more and eat healthier.  Yes, fast food is much easier and cheaper, but it will be the downfall of humanity if we progress on our current course.  On the flip side, maybe this is nature's way of weeding out the excess slowly but surely and leaving us with a healthier world.  (I know, that isn't exactly the brightest thought, but hey, maybe Darwin was right).  Anyway, I am off now to start my super active day as a contractor and probably shed some pounds in the humidity.  Lets all make a pledge to get more exercise, it will do nothing but good for all of us. 

Crazy Weather

Packaged with all the moribund stories that stream through the news every day are an increasing amount dedicated to extreme weather events.  We have been dealing with these unusual and extreme events since the winter of 2010/2011 and our excessive amount of snowfall.  This past winter was another anomaly with a freak snow storm in the North East in October followed by above normal temperatures for the remainder of the winter.  Now we are dealing with drought, the most widespread in the United States since 1956.  At this point, the middle of July and still plenty of summer to go, 55% of the United States is dealing with moderate to extreme drought.  Yet, if you go a little farther north to Alaska, you will find that Mount McKinley just this month has had 21 inches of snow with a temperature range from 21 degrees above zero to 13 below, a true anomaly.  So what is in store for us as we head into the peak of hurricane season.  At this point it is anybody's guess.  Some say that it will be worse than usual due to the increased temperatures while others say it will be normal.  The only thing we can be certain of is that the weather will be crazy.  It seems, at least to me, that global warming is finally starting to flex its muscles and make itself known to the world.  We just can't tell anymore what the weather will do or what it will be like next month.  So what do we do?

Besides reducing our own carbon footprint, which it seems was a fad that passed most people by, we must simply deal with it.  In my mind, you can either complain about it, which will do you absolutely no good, or get through it and hope next month is better.  As a painting contractor working outside, I can't remember a summer that has been this overly hot and humid.  Compared to last year where I can remember a handful of days where the weather was atrocious, it seems that every week brings at least 1 or 2 days that are packed with almost unbearable heat and humidity.  Its almost as if the excessive rain of last summer and the heat and humidity of this summer have traded places.  Where last year was a bear to work outside with 1 to 3 rainy days a week, at least this year the outdoor projects can progress at a more than sluggish pace.  I am more than willing, however, to sacrifice a day or two of work to get some substantial rain around here.  The only rain we seem to be getting is in short spurts over a few hours that mostly drains off and doesn't really soak into the ground.  As I drive through Woodbridge to work sometimes, I pass a reservoir that is lower than I have ever seen it.  It is at least 7-8 feet below normal exposing mud, rocks, and an otherwise alien landscape.  I can't even imagine what it must be like down in Texas where the drought is ten times worse with sever water shortages.  All in all, I guess we aren't that bad off here yet. 

Personally, I am kind of interested to see what this winter will be like.  I am big fan of snow, even the enormous amount we received 2 years ago now.  Obviously a little less would be ideal, but snow makes our brown winter landscape look more beautiful.  But I guess only time will tell.  The way the weather seems to be shaping up so far, it seems that we might be in for another mild winter.  Such is life.  In a way, all this crazy weather makes me glad I bought property up in Vermont with my wife a few years ago.  With global warming, Connecticut will probably feel like Virginia in 15 years and at that point, maybe it will be time to pack it up and move north where the weather is colder and more to my liking.  Whatever the case, the weather is sure providing interesting news stories as we progress slowly through time and our warming planet.  My only hope is that the Midwest gets some rain soon so that all the crops that have been planted don't have to get scrapped.  That is, if those crops haven't gotten scrapped already.  Be it monsoon like weather or dismal heat, each year is proving to be unpredictable and record setting.  Personally, I need to get myself ready now for another blistering day in the heat and humidity.  Luckily, I have some interior work so the morning will be spent outside and the hot afternoon indoors.  To everyone who has to work outside today, good luck and drink lots of water, I know I will be. 

The Parenting Road

If you are looking for advice on parenting, there is no shortage of it these days.  Bookstores, either physical or electronic, are full of resources for parents.   It seems that everyone these days has an opinion on what the best way to raise a child is and they are not afraid to write a book about it.  From helicopter parenting to your tiger mom and everything in between, it seems there is a book for every type of would be parent.  These days, one can almost match a parenting style to their own personality, essentially finding the one that will best reinforce their own ideas on what it means to be a parent and how to go about actually carrying through with the parenting process.  I think part of the problem with figuring out which style fits a certain person best arises from the fact that we have become a global society that has become greatly diversified even compared with our society a hundred years ago.  Back when families lived close together and grandparents helped new parents raise their children more than they do now, figuring out how to be a parent was probably a lot easier.  Back then, one had only to look to their surrounding family and step into a parenting style that was carried down through generations.   There were adjustments obviously made from one generation to another, but parenting seemed to flow more easily back then as opposed to now.  With the subsequent diversification of our society and the dispersal of families across a nation, two things happened that ultimately paved the way for a whole slew of new parenting styles to be birthed into reality. 

The first, in my mind, was the dispersal of the close extended family.  With more and more families living farther apart from each other, it becomes difficult to get the advice and support necessary for new parents to step in to the role of parenting themselves.  Grandparents might be around every so often, but they slowly drifted away and gave up their role as parental supporters.  They could obviously be reached by phone, but their physical presence, once deemed a great assistance to new parents, disappeared leaving new parents questioning their own parenting actions.  This in turn, I believe, led to a sort of quest for new parents to find advice outside their own family on how to raise their children.  Some decided to go it on their own, struggling through, finding the right way, and in the end possibly writing a book about their efforts to help other parents.  Others, however, searched out every book possible to give them an edge and hopefully raise their children to be prodigies.  In tandem with the dispersal of the extended family came the increased diversification of our society.  With a steady flow of immigrants came new ideas on parenting from almost all regions of the globe.  Some were obviously similar to parenting styles already being practiced in the United States while others were completely unique in their approach and execution of being a parent.  With the influx of new and different parenting styles, new parents had more options from which to choose.  So with all this coming together over the past century and leaving us now with a multitude of different parenting styles, what is a new parent to do?  Which style fits which parent best and how do we reconcile our style with other's styles? 

To me, I think that most new parents at least have a notion of how they will raise their children based upon their parents and how they were raised.  However, it seems most parents these days are looking for that extra bit of advice that might help them make it through as a parent with the least amount of stress as possible.  (I know, being a parent is inherently stressful, but still, the less stress the better.)  I myself have read a few books on parenting, nothing proclaiming to be a specific style with overt methods for me to follow, but rather books based on the basics of raising a child.  That being said, I did not go out a find the books myself, rather they were presented to me by my parents as potentially useful tools.  I read those books because I believe my parents did a decent job at raising my brother and I and as such, probably have some good insights as to how to be a parent.  But everyone is different and my path to parenting may not be the best for someone else.  For most new parents, I feel that if they trust their instincts, they will probably do just fine.  The problem arises when we worry too much if what we are doing is enough or not enough.  This questioning, while good in small amounts, can lead to excessive stress if we question too much.  Every couple is different and every child is different.  If we keep it simple and focus on the  basics of raising a child, then everything will turn out just fine.  However, if we buy into any of the multitude of styles out there, we could potentially turn our own lives as parents into a living hell.  Is parenting easy?  No, not by any means.  But on the other hand, parenting wasn't meant to be this process that we need to get a degree for.  For millennium, parents have been raising their children without extra advice or access to different tools, and you know what, their children grew up OK, had children of their own, and perpetuated humanity.  If parenting were meant to be overly difficult, our society would look a lot different than it is today.  To me, the best advice that can be followed by any parent is KISS or Keep It Simple Stupid.  I don't mean to be harsh, but I follow that advice myself.  Parenting will be hard, but it should also be fun.  Lets try and keep it that way. 

Seeing My Son's Smile

I am sure that by now most people reading this blog have come to the conclusion that I absolutely love my son.  What started off as uncertainty when we first found out my wife was pregnant has turned into a love and affection that holds no bounds.  I can't help but feel that most parents experience this after a child is born, especially their first one.  Seeing a new innocent life brought into this world is an amazing sight and one that I will frankly remember forever.  While that in and of itself is a special moment to be cherished, what follows is simply beautiful.  To watch a baby transform from this wriggling, breathing lump of flesh into an active baby full of personality and zest takes my breath away.  Yet even watching your own baby grow pales in comparison to seeing your baby smile when they see you.  I know that regardless of the type of day I am having, good or bad, that when I come home and see my son smile, all worries will melt away.  I absolutely love walking through the door and seeing our son smile when he sees me.  Its not just a little upturn of the corners of the mouth, it is a wide mouthed smile reaching from cheek to cheek and reflected in his sparkling eyes.  That smile alone makes every day worth living.  Today, I will sign off with that.  Its going to be a busy day today and I personally can't wait to get my son out of his crib when he wakes up and see his glimmering smile!

An Eating Machine

Its time for a dramatic shift from yesterday's somewhat political discourse to the topic of my son.  While politics is all well and good, I can only take so much of it before I feel like yanking my hair out.  So in hopes of keeping as much hair on my head as possible before I actually go bald, I will switch topics.  Let me start by saying again that it is amazing to watch my son grow.  While he is still not walking yet despite his best efforts, he has become an eating machine when it comes to solid foods (or the mush that we like to call previously solid foods).  In a given solid food meal, he can now eat multiple pieces of fruit or vegetables.  On a regular basis, he might eat 2 peaches in a sitting, or the equivalent in sweet potatoes.  In a given day, he will eat 3-4 times.  That is a lot of food for such a small little body like his, yet he obviously needs it all to help his muscles develop and grow in addition to growing taller seemingly every week.  He is currently a bigger fan of fruit than he is of vegetables, so in an effort to get him eating both, we usually mix vegetables in with the fruit for a meal medley.  When it comes to fruit, however, he will eat essentially anything you give him.  By far though, it seems peaches are his favorite followed by mangoes as a second favorite.  At this point, we are starting to blend the food a little less leaving smaller chunks for him to chew on and swallow in preparation for even more solid foods coming very soon. 

We are not quite at the finger food stage of eating yet.  We tried cutting part of a banana into really small chunks for him to pick up and eat.  While he was able to figure out how to pick up the small chunks, he didn't get so far as actually putting the chunks in his mouth.  Rather, he would get them stuck to his hand, show us, and start waving it around trying to get it off.  Guess we will have to wait a little longer for the finger foods to start in.  Till then, we will keep on feeding him as much as he will eat and keep watching him grow.  In terms of growing, we think he might be going through another growth spurt.  The first indication we had was the increase in the amount of food we are feeding him.  The second is that every day he seems to be a little bit taller than the day before.  Not only is he growing vertically, but his face seems to change week to week.  Not a week goes by where I look at him and ask my wife, "Does our son look different to you?"  His features are developing slowly into more of a little boy than a baby and it is so much fun to watch how he looks more like my wife one week and myself the next.  Yet that is not all that he is up to.  I mentioned before that he is not quite walking yet and we are realizing that it is probably a good thing.  Even when being assisted by our hands for support, he will get as close to running on his two feet as possible forcing my wife and I to shuffle along hunched over with him.  Yet on the flip side, we kind of can't wait till he is walking so we don't have to shuffle along hunched over after him, we will simply have to run. 

Perhaps the most amazing development in my mind is the speed with which our son can now make it up our stairs to the second floor.  It used to take him upwards of ten minutes to get all the way up our stairs.  He would pause at each step, look around, gather his wits about him and struggle to get up the next one.  Perhaps it because he has grown a little in height, but he can now fly up the stairs in under five minutes.  He has gotten the hang of putting one knee on the step above him and lifting his other leg up and placing his foot flat on the step next to his knee.  The process used to be more drawn out as he used to have to get both knees on the step and then slowly get to standing.  Not anymore, it seems we have a StairMaster in the house.  The next thing we have to work on with him is showing him how to go down the stairs.  He has no clue how to maneuver himself down the stairs and simply lifts up his arms to get carried down.  All in due time I guess.  Last but not least, two more teeth are starting to make their appearance in his mouth bringing the total up to 10.  The biggest indication we had of new teeth was his shiny chest covered in drool.  All day long he drools and drools and drools.  But at least he doesn't complain about his incoming teeth too much.  I will take drool any day over complaining, not that I have a choice, but I would prefer the drool.  In any case, time for me to wrap up for today and start the process of getting myself ready for work.  Till tomorrow, enjoy your day. 

How to Vote

Yesterday I talked about our corrupt politicians in Washington whose votes on important bills and laws can be bought by the highest bidder, most often lobbyists.  The topic meandered towards the upcoming presidential election and who would be the better candidate, or as I put it yesterday, the lesser of two evils.  Frankly, at this point, I don't know who is the lesser of two evils, Obama who seems to be pretty dead set on turning the United States of America into the Socialist States of America, or Romney who likes to evade taxes as much as possible and ship American jobs overseas.  There is a lot more that can be said about these main two candidates, but for now we will let them waddle around, mudslinging each other in an attempt to gain the upper hand.  What I want to talk about today was sparked by a comment on my link that I posted to Facebook yesterday.  The comment said, "As Catholics, we are to vote for the most pro-life candidate."  As a Catholic myself, I find a few errors in that statement.  While I am pro-life myself and feel that it is important to have a person in office who is pro-life, to vote based on that issue alone is to, in my mind, throw your vote away.  When voting for president, the decision we make must be based on much more than whether or not a candidate is pro-life or pro-choice.  There are a vast array of issues that need to be taken into consideration when making an informed decision on who to vote for.   These range from economic policy to foreign policy and every other "policy" you can think of. 

My biggest problem is that any politician who claims to be pro-life can essentially have their minds changed by lobbyists and special interest groups.  Just take a look at Romney who has gone back and forth between pro-life and pro-choice a number of times.  Obama has proclaimed himself to be essentially pro-choice with his health care law that mandates every woman have access to contraceptives and "family planning".  So where does that leave us if we are to vote based solely on whether a candidate is pro-life or not?  To me, the options aren't that good based upon that one issue.  Regardless, if one candidate was strongly pro-life (which Romney claims to be), and the other was adamantly pro-choice, I would still look at their stances on a wide range of other issues before making my choice.   Lets just say that Romney is pro-life like he says.  Then lets look at his tax evasion and his drive to send jobs overseas.  To me, regardless if he is pro-life, the other issues make him seem like a poor candidate.  If it came down to it, I would much rather vote for a candidate who had a sound plan to restore our economy, keep jobs in the United States, and reduce the size of government even if their candidate was pro-choice.  To me, the bigger picture is more important the a person's stance on one issue.  I can't personally justify voting based on that one issue alone, but maybe that is just me. 

To me, being an informed voter and making the right decision means looking at the whole picture and voting based on the person as a whole, not based on one of their beliefs.  That being said, I feel it is important to stay true to who we are as individuals and vote, if we can, based upon our beliefs.  However, there is a grave conundrum that arises in either case.  If we vote based upon the good of the majority yet put aside our beliefs to do so, or we staying true to who we are?  Or if we vote based upon our personal beliefs and disregard the good of the majority, are we doing are fellow citizens a disservice?  I think that it is a fine line that we need to walk in order to maintain our beliefs and be true to ourselves while also taking into consideration the good of our fellow citizens.  The United States is a widely diverse country and I feel if we vote based upon either our religious or ethical beliefs alone, we might ultimately make the wrong decision.  We aren't guaranteed to do so, but the possibility is there.  To be a more effective voter, I feel we need to look at what will be best for everyone in our country and vote based upon who will have the greatest beneficial impact for the largest amount of people.  It is not an easy decision and one we should not take lightly, but we should savor the fact that we do have the opportunity to vote and hopefully make a difference.  We have the right to vote unlike many people in this world and we need to make the right decision based upon the larger picture.  So when voting this year, I say to try and stay true to your beliefs, but consider every issue at hand and make a decision based upon that, not upon one belief. 

Political Malaise

I don't know how many people reading this watch the show 60 minutes on Sunday night, but this past weekends episode had a piece that made me want to vomit.  One segment of the show was devoted to interviewing Jack Abramoff, the notorious lobbyist who was just recently released from jail after serving 3.5 out of a 4 year sentence.  The segment on 60 minutes essentially laid bare the amount of corruption that is rampant in Washington D.C.  I knew that lobbyists play a big role on Capitol Hill, but I had no idea how big of a role they actually played.  Jack Abramoff, just one of many lobbyists who call D.C. home, admitted to having "influenced" over a 100 members of Congress.  That's not 10 or 20, but over a 100.  To me, it is mind boggling how these politicians and lobbyists can get away with the amount of corruption that they get away with.  What the show essentially told people was that if you have enough money, you can influence laws and bills that get passed.  Supposedly, there were supposed to be reforms that got put in place to stifle the corruption, but they don't amount to much and there are ways of getting around them according to Jack.  He even gave an example of how one can skirt the law and still pull strings in a "democratic" government.  According to Jack, a lobbyist is not allowed to take a politician out to lunch and buy him/her a steak and a drink, however, if you have a fundraiser, you can legally court that politician there, buy him/her that same steak and drink and on top of it, give them money.  Its quite bogus how it all works and the fact that the majority of Americans don't know about it or don't care is disturbing. 

What politicians are essentially doing in Washington is betraying their constituents back home.  Some may say that they are just doing their jobs, bringing money and work to their state or some other state, but by skirting the system, having their votes bought by special interests, they are merely becoming pawns in a culture of corruption that seems to have no end.  It seems that there aren't very many honest politicians anymore, people who will say what they mean and stick to it till the end.  All the politicians talk of changing things in Washington is simply a ploy to get elected into office.  They know very well that they won't be able to change things, yet they say they will be able to so they can get down there and make extra money having their votes bought.  Its downright disturbing.   How are we supposed to trust any politician when you hear someone like Jack say that he alone was able to influence over a 100 politicians?  I don't know that I will ever be able to trust a politician again.  This isn't to say that I won't vote, but it will essentially come down to choosing between the lesser of two evils.  What we need to do is get rid of lobbyists and special interest groups and get back to the basics of running an honest country.  Somehow I fear that we are a long way off from doing that and unless Americans start getting outraged at what is going on in D.C., we will continue on our current path ad infinitum.  The only realistic way that I can think of changing the system is to quarantine D.C., move the capitol elsewhere, and start over.  Unfortunately, that won't happen either.

As I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago about the upcoming presidential election and how our choices seem to be between bad and worse, he said he wanted to see a businessman as president, someone who could run our country like a business.  That would be fantastic except for the fact that in order for a businessman to get into office, he must first become a politician (whether he/she wants to or not), and in the process will be inherently corrupted.  Take a look at Romney.  He used to be a businessman, became a politician, and is now running for president.  Any self respecting business owner will stay out of politics simply because the amount of corruption that goes along with being a politician.  So where do we go from here?  I don't know anymore.  It seems that no matter what we do to try and bring about change down in Washington, our efforts hit the brick wall of lobbyists and money, and nothing happens.  No meaningful change has come about in the halls of Congress for some time and probably won't.  It would mean that the politicians in office would have to change themselves first and I don't see that happening any time soon.  Unless we get rid of everyone in office and start from scratch, we won't get anywhere.  The one idea that I do have that might make a difference is to put limits on the amount of time you can serve in office, not the president, but the members of the Congress.  Currently, members can serve as long as they get re-elected which is bogus in my mind.  Put a limit on the amount of time they can serve and perhaps we can bring back some honesty to D.C. 

We Have a Fish

As I mentioned last week, Friday was our first pool trip to my parent's house with our son to take him swimming.  It was hot and humid on Friday, much like the rest of the week, and it was a perfect day to hit the water and cool off for a bit.  We didn't head down till early afternoon when the temperature was peaking and it was getting a little unbearable at our house.  As we had no swim trunks for our son, we decided that he would go swimming in his birthday suit and hoped that he wouldn't decide to go number two while in the water.  He had his little floating tropical island complete with palm tree for shade, all air filled mind you, and to top it off, there was even a little blow up frog for him to play with.  It was the cutest little thing.  So once we got his island blown up and in the water, our son's clothes and diaper off, we headed right in.   Seeing our son splash around in the water during his baths, we were hoping that a much larger body of water wouldn't cause him any trepidation or angst.  Well, to put it mildly, he loved it.  As soon as we got him in his little seat in his island, he leaned forward and started kicking away, slowly propelling himself through the water.  The look on his face was one of pure joy and I think if he had his way, he would have stayed in the pool all afternoon.  However, that was not the plan for him.  After about 20-30 minutes, we noticed him starting to shiver a little and consequently pulled him out to warm up. 

It wasn't that the pool was cold, rather it was a balmy 88 degrees, just warm enough to be comfortable and refreshing, yet it was still colder than the surrounding air so after a while, I could see how our son could start shivering.  When he was in the water, there was absolutely no fear whatsoever in him.  He played with his little frog almost constantly and when it started to float away, he started kicking in an attempt to move himself over so he could get it.  The only time he got a little freaked out was when he leaned a little too far forward and got a mouth full of pool water.  Neither my wife or I were that far, though, and quickly got him upright and the water out of his mouth.  Once he was done coughing the little bit of excess water up, he went right back to kicking and moving around.  Hopefully the fact that he is already kicking to move around will help him when it is actually time to learn how to swim.  In any case, after warming up for a bit and hanging out on the patio with us and his great grandmother, it was time to head back in.  The second time in the water it was just him and myself, my wife opting to lounge on the patio instead.  Again, he loved the water and kept moving around the whole time.  What we didn't take into consideration was how tiring swimming can be.  Friday finished off wonderfully with our son.  Saturday, however, was a different story. 

Saturday turned out to be a long day for our son.  He was a little more tired than usual, presumably due to the swimming on Friday, and consequently a little more cranky.  Our son managed to make it to his bedtime on Saturday, but it almost seemed as if he would go to bed an hour earlier.  Its a little tricky to figure out when our son is tired and ready for bed.  When he starts to get tired, he actually gets more active for some reason.  He starts crawling faster, taking more risks while attempting to walk, and gets frustrated a lot more easily.  The frustration is our cue that it is time to settle down and start getting ready for bed.  It could be any number of things that sets off his frustration from being taken away from playing with delicate things or even just sitting down from a standing position.  It takes vigilance on our part when he is tired to make sure that he doesn't push himself too far.   Not everyone can tell he is tired unless you know what signs to look for.  My parents came over on Saturday to babysit while my wife and I headed out to a party.  They came over a little early to see our son before he went to bed.  My dad commented that our son didn't look tired and didn't seem to be acting tired either, yet he was.  Its the little moments that paint the big picture with him and luckily my wife and I can catch them and whisk him off to bed.  In any case, it was a fantastic weekend with my wife and son and I can't wait till the next one. 

First Pool Day

Today will be my second Friday taken off to spend with my son and wife.  Last Friday didn't really feel like a day off because it was a little hectic in the morning trying to pack up our car and get everything situated so we could leave for Vermont.  Well, today will be the polar opposite...I hope.  Today there will be no packing of cars or extensive traveling (not that traveling to Vermont is necessarily extensive).  Rather, it should be a nice relaxing day with only a few errands to run and a trip to my parents pool in between.  The trip to my parents pool will be our son's first experience with a pool.  He has seen one before, but has never been in one up until today.  I have a feeling that once he gets in, (in his little floating contraption of course) he will absolutely love the water and probably not want to get out.  However, with him being so young and not entirely able to regulate his body temperature as of yet, he will have to get out after a little while in the pool  to take a break before getting back in there.   In addition to not being in there for too long, the water has to be at least 84 degrees so that his body temperature doesn't drop too much.  Thank goodness my parents have a heater for the pool which will maintain a nice consistent temperature for us.  At this point, our pool trip probably won't last too long, but just long enough for our son to enjoy himself in the pool and for us to cool off. 

I could have taken the fourth of July off like most other people and spent the day at home with my wife and son, but instead, I decided to work so I could take today off.  It was actually quite nice working on the fourth of July because everything was really quiet in the world.  There was absolutely no traffic in the morning and relatively little throughout the day.  Many people wondered why I was working, but understood completely once I explained that I would be giving myself a three day weekend instead.  So today when everyone else is going to work, I will be relaxing and enjoying myself.  Not only do I get to spend the day with my son, but I might actually be able to get a little work done around the house.  I say little just because I know that I will want to spend time with my son and the time in between will not be great enough to make a lot of progress.  So that leaves me with some time this morning and also this evening to work on projects around the house.  We shall see what happens when all is said and done today.  For now, I am going to take my time getting ready, drink lots of coffee, and enjoy my son sitting in his high chair watching me write this post.  He is already showing signs of tiredness even though he has only been up for half an hour.  That's usually how the mornings go with him however.  He gets up, has his morning milk for breakfast, and then gets tired and ready for his first nap of the day. 

I have not had a true three day weekend in a long time and am kind of excited about it.  For the most part, the majority of our three day weekends are spent in Vermont, which is great, but I have not had a three day weekend at home doing nothing for a while.  It will probably fly by way too quickly and I will be back at work in the heat on Monday morning.  Such is life.  For now, I will sign off early because my son wants to have a high pitched screaming match with me.  He gets his voice as high as he can, followed by me doing the same, and so on and so forth.  Its a fun little game although for those of you who know me, my voice is very deep and for me to reach a high pitched note takes quite a bit of effort.  Oh well, on to the day and the wonderful weekend.  Till next week, enjoy the weather and be well.

Independence Day

The United States of America officially turned 236 years old yesterday and I think that in light of everything that is going on in the world today, perhaps we should take some time to consider where we came from, where we are today, and where we are going.  I know that I can't possibly take on the task of delving in and exploring every aspect of our country, but I can touch on a few areas that I feel are important.   So to get started, it is important that we look back to our founding fathers.  There are a few main reasons that our country was founded and became what it is today.  Two of the biggest were to gain religious freedom and to escape the burden of excessive taxes (taxation without representation).   To put it even more simply, our founding fathers wanted more freedom than they had across the pond.  That freedom was essential to them, to create a new life for themselves based upon their ideals and morals, and to allow others the freedom to pursue their own interests.  Perhaps the other main reason this country was founded was to keep others from meddling in our affairs, to keep control of our lives to ourselves; which I guess all boils down to freedom regardless of how you look at it.  So taking that into consideration, how have we faired in keeping with the original ideals of our founding fathers?  Have we kept our spirit in line with theirs that they embodied in one of the greatest works in history, the Constitution and its partner the Bill of Rights?   Personally, I think we have come a long way in realizing freedom for many different people in this country, from the slaves who gained equal rights, to women, to offshoot religious groups, to homosexuals, and beyond.  Freedom has been a work in progress almost since our country came into being, and on that note, we have come a long way.  Have we come to afford freedom for everyone in every walk of life?  No, but we are inching closer every year. 

Yet despite our gains in personal freedom for different groups of people, our record in other areas is not where it should be in my mind.  One of the other reasons that our founding fathers created this wonderful country was to free themselves from the burden of excessive taxes and overbearing governments.   Well, my friends, it seems we have come full circle and need an awakening of sorts.  Before I begin, let me first state that taxes are necessary if we are to run a successful country, however, excessive taxation only creates disdain and disgust amongst a populace.  I feel that we have once again reached a point where taxation is at an all time high and in terms of representation, are we really being represented as well as we could be by the members of Congress?  I don't think we are.  Every year sees new taxes tacked on the growing list of items and services we are taxed for.  The latest abomination is Obamacare which as the Supreme Court called it, is really just a new tax.  Part of the problem lies in the fact that our government has gotten too large and in order to sustain a large government and all its services, there needs to be a large amount of taxes.  The two go hand in hand.  If we reduce the size of government to keep it in line with what the founding fathers envisioned, then we can inherently reduce the amount of taxes levied on each and every one of us.  What is the likelihood of that happening?  Slim to none in my mind without a new revolution (I am not advocating that option yet).  However, how much more can we take before we reach a breaking point and all the money we make gets eaten up by our government?  I don't know, but it seems that people in general are getting fed up with too many taxes and too much government intervention.  This isn't to say that efforts haven't been made to reduce taxes and the size of government, its just that those efforts haven't succeeded either because their plans were too complex and divided (the Tea Party) or there wasn't much of a plan at all (the Occupy Movement).  Something needs to be done, but it is an uphill battle and one that most people don't want to take on because it is too draining and to frustrating.

So where do we go from here?  As we approach our country's 250th birthday (still 14 years away), do we just sit by and let history takes its course, beating the populace of the United States of America down or do we figure out a way of making changes to our government and the taxes it imposes?  If we are to do anything, the time is now before it becomes too late and we have no options left.  What is needed is a plan with a simple goal that can be agreed upon by the majority.  Sounds simple in writing, but incredibly difficult in reality.  Part of the problem arises in the fact that we are such a diversified country.  We have people from every walk of life each of whom will have a different idea of what needs to get changed in this country.  That is a far cry from our founding fathers who had thousands, not millions of people to contend with.  What we really need is a leader who can stand his ground in the face of opposition, rally the people behind him/her, and make the changes necessary to revitalize our country (not another turncoat Obama).  But enough about changes for now, we have come a long way since the founding of our country and we should be proud of where we are today.  However, we can't just sit back on our laurels and let things happen on their own accord without our voice.  Let us bring back the spirit that our founding fathers had, the one that craved freedom from oppression, excessive taxes, overbearing governments, and intolerance.  It is only by reawakening this spirit that we can move forward and bring our country back to where it used to be.  Let us begin today, the day after independence day, to begin a new chapter in American history, one that sees the dreams of our founding fathers realized in full, and one that we can all be proud of. 

Here's to the Complainers

Has anyone else ever noticed that people like to complain a lot?  To me, it seems that  not a day go by where I am not subjected to at least one person's complaints about life, work, or something.  I know it seems to be a general issue amongst people, but I have noticed in particular that contractor's, regardless of what trade they work in, seem to complain the most.  Now I may be biased as I have a disproportionately high interaction rate with other contractor's, but I still think they win out with the most complaining.  (To be fair, I complain sometimes as well)  Is it the type of work or something else entirely?  Personally, I think that the type of work has something to do with it as most contractor's are limited in the amount of human interaction they get during the day.     They may be working with a few other people, but for the most part, their day is carried out in relative isolation.  If they don't like who they are working with, it makes it even worse as they have no one to complain to during the day.  Feelings get pent up and aren't released till they see a relative or friend at the end of the day.   From the stories I hear, nothing in a contractor's life goes well; from the clients, to the boss, to the actual work.  Sometimes, I actually find it quite humorous to listen to other's complaints about work, especially coming from a contractor as I work in the field.  Most of the complaints they have can only be blamed upon themselves, sometimes the client, but mostly themselves.   Even better, most of the complaints they have can usually be easily resolved despite their reticence in doing so. 

Amongst all my friends, two are contractor's that I work with fairly regularly.  These two are also the one's I hear the most complaints from, probably due the to the fact that I talk to them more often than others.  Not a day goes by with either of these two men without a complaint.  With one friend, its complaints about customer's and their weird schedules or simply about the customer's themselves.  In fact, I was just privy to a complaint of his last night.   In short, he subbed some work out to me and trying to coordinate schedules with the lady has not gone so well.  The problem arises as her teenage daughter's don't like being alone with a stranger in the house.  That being said, she must be home when work is being done inside the house.  I understand and simply go about my usual day waiting for our schedules to coincide.  My friend on the other hand is being driven to the brink of insanity by this as he wants to be done with the job.  Funny how twisting one's perspective on a situation changes it from "life" to doom and gloom.   The other contractor friend of mine loves to complain about his "business partner".  (Its in quotes because it doesn't really seem like a partnership to me)  Every day, (if I talked to him every day) his bp does something to tick him off.  In short, it seems like his bp doesn't really know how to run a business and the amount of time my friend is working versus the amount of time he is not seems to be about equal.  I keep telling him to quit his bp and go out on his own, yet it seems like he loves to complain so much he will just keep on working for this guy.  But such is life, no matter what we do, something is bound to go wrong and offer us the opportunity to complain about something. 

I personally find that every complaint can usually be solved by changing one's perspective on a given situation and looking at it from a different point of view.  If that doesn't work, move on.  To me, complaining does not solve anything, it merely perpetuates feelings of resentment, frustration, or disappointment.  I do not find it worthy of my time to dwell on things that will make me miserable and cause me to complain.  Obviously there are times when I succumb and complain anyway, but I try and keep those to a minimum.  Complaining will never solve an issue, only make it seem worse and drawn out.  The only way to actually resolve an issue is through action and if we keep on yapping, nothing will get done.  Maybe my friends and other contractor's out there will figure it out one day, and then again, maybe they won't.  In any case, there complaints are occasionally humorous because they are so stupid and they give me something to laugh about.  Today, I have no complaints yet and probably won't.  I prefer to take care of issues rather than perpetuate them through complaining.  But that is me and I wouldn't have as many stories to share if my friend's didn't complain.  So as much as I would like my friends and others to figure out how not to complain so much, there is a part of me that loves to listen to it and get a glimpse into the "horrible" lives they live.