Friday, May 6, 2011

Ending 7 Months of Silence

Wow - it's been a LONG time. Why? I don't really know. Have I been remarkably busy? Sort of, but not exactly. I have just been...away. What's happened since we last met? Well, obviously, we've had Thanksgiving and Christmas - totally GREAT experiences with our "local" family. Then we've had my daughter's b-ball season which was awesome...made it to the championship game of her first AAU season. Then there was my son's school b-ball season. Fun bunch of games! So, we're to March now...we took an awesome trip to Cali!! Then, back home, we started boy-o's AAU season. And that's about where we are now. Living life to the fullest - blessed beyond belief and looking forward to an amazing future...whatever it may bring!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Unforgettable

I imagine when one hears the term, "unforgettable" it brings to mind a song, or a memory of some time or event that is permanently embedded in the brain. Usually it's a good thing. Sometimes, however, there are events and dates that become unforgettable in a not-so-great way. I'll never forget Friday October 1st, 2010. When a doctor looks at your firstborn and says, "Mr. Blake, you have a very rare disease called scleroderma", you don't forget that. It stays with you - it's unforgettable. It's hard to think about. It's hard to know what to do. It's hard to keep from reading all the material available on the internet and not totally freaking out! But...you don't forget it. That's the hardest thing of all - just trying to not think about it. When I wake up, I'm thinking about it; when I drive to work, I'm thinking about it. When I drop him off at school and watch him walk in with his backpack, checking his hair and trying not to over-wave to his dad, believe me - I'm thinking about it.
God can do great things - I know that. So, at this point, we know it's in His hands. We'll do our part and get the meds and the treatments and buy the lotions and socks and all. But ultimately, I know God has a plan. Blake will be fine, regardless. Not because I'm a great dad, but because he has a great Father. A Father who is amazing, and loving, and truly unforgettable.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Wish I'd Written This!

Hey - LONG time away! But, I'm older and more mature now...whatever. Anyway - many of you have probably seen this. It's a letter that is going around the email highway supposedly written by a 4th grade teacher (she didn't write it). But - it is something I wish I would have penned! Whomever the author is makes a great point!

April 27, 2009
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Mr. Obama:
I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally. You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America. You are responsible to the citizens of the United States.
You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth. I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe? Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about?
Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century? Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this?
Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia. You don't show Great Britain, our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia. How dare you, sir! How dare you!
You can't find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you don't want to offend the Germans but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey. You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. What's the matter with you?
I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you. You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them? Anything? I seriously doubt it.
What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members -- on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You haven't said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn't! Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that's $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million -- not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven't you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now.
I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do. We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you. I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities. I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.

Sincerely,
Every Real American

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Yes, More Stimulating Info...

We are being sold a line of...well - a line! This "strangulus" bill is just a horrible idea, and many, many Americans think so. But, our elected crooks are NOT listening to us. They're listening to the special interest groups that will benefit from this "rescue" package. What our government is doing is unconstitutional! There are no provisions in the Constitution for the government to spend our money on what they're spending it on. And if this whole thing is about getting money back in the banks - do THAT! Better yet - let the American citizen put their money back in the system! I'm sorry Newsweak, (I know how it's spelled!) but we are NOT all socialists now - not this guy and not millions of others who are thinking still, anyway.
Anyway...the following is from Nathaniel Ward, writing at www.myHeritage.org.
President Barack Obama urged Congress to move quickly on finalizing the legislation, saying that failure to act would mean still further economic decline. This just isn't true. In fact, Heritage economist J.D. Foster told a conference on economic recovery today that the Trillion Dollar Debt Plan will only deepen the recession. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office agrees, arguing that it will depress economic activity. Worse, Foster argued that the massive spending could drive up interest rates to crippling levels, while the tax increases scheduled for next year will not advance the recovery one bit. On Heritage's Foundry blog, Conn Carroll looks at other "stimulus" myths repeated during the press conference.
In his remarks yesterday, the President said that most economists from across the political spectrum support this sort of massive government spending to "stimulate" the economy.
Writing on National Review Online, Heritage budget expert Brian Riedl debunks the myth of "bipartisan consensus" on this legislation. Nobel Laureates Ed Prescott, James Buchanan, and Vernon Smith recently joined 200 other economists signing a letter opposing the legislation. Other notable economists critical of the stimulus package include Nobel Laureate Gary Becker, as well as Robert Barro, Greg Mankiw, Arthur Laffer, and Larry Lindsey. Martin Feldstein, who had been the only notable conservative economist loudly supporting the stimulus, has since changed his mind.
More liberal economists such as Alice Rivlin and Alan Blinder have also strongly criticized certain aspects of the spending bill.

Friday, February 6, 2009

More Borrowed Info

So I don't have any unique thoughts lately...so what. My brain is over-stimulus-ed! This spending bill is killing me. "What do you think stiulus is? It's spending! Seriously." Loosely quoted from Pres. Obama, but the gist of his statement nonetheless. OK - seriously? We get it that "stimulus" is spending. But this is just WRONG! The money being spent here is NOT job-creating! It's special interest spending gone wild. Anyway - here's something from The Foundry from The Heritage Foundation (there are hyperlinks in this article, too that have additional information):
"Morning Bell: Stop Digging
Posted By Conn Carroll On February 6, 2009

Another day, another poll showing public support for President Barack Obama’s Trillion Dollar Debt Plan sinking fast. Trying to turn these numbers around, Obama went on the offensive yesterday delivering some red meat to House Democrats at their posh Resort and Spa retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia. Defending his plan, Obama told Democrats: “[We] are not going to get relief by turning back to the same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin. … I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office. … What do you think a stimulus is? It’s spending — that’s the whole point! Seriously.”
Seriously, where has Obama been the last eight years? What does he think got us into this mess? Where does he think those deficits came from? Here are the facts. Before President Bush took office, the federal government took in $2 trillion in revenue in 2000. In 2009, the federal government is expected to take in $2.4 trillion.
After eight years under President Bush, the federal government is taking in $400 billion more a year in revenue. So why did Congressional Budget Office project a $1.4 trillion deficit for the 2009 budget? Massive spending increases. As McClatchy reports “George W. Bush, despite all his recent bravado about being an apostle of small government and budget-slashing, is the biggest spending president since Lyndon B. Johnson. In fact, he’s arguably an even bigger spender than LBJ.” McClatchy goes on to detail Bush’s spending binge including an 18% increase in education spending, a doubling of agriculture spending, the 2003 Medicare expansion which was the “biggest single expansion in the programs history”, and the $295 billion 2005 infrastructure bill.
So to recap, in 2000 the federal government spent just $1.8 trillion.
Now the CBO estimates that the feds will spend almost double that, $3.5 trillion, in 2009 (and that does not include Obama’s Trillion Dollar Debt Plan). Combining the increased $400 billion in revenue with the $1.7 trillion increase in spending, we see that the mountains of debt Obama is whining about inheriting all came from massive increases in federal spending. It was borrowing and spending that got us into this mess. Obama’s Trillion Dollar Debt Plan is not a ‘change’ from Bush, it is Bushonomics on steroids.
And the $816 billion price tag is a completely dishonest scoring of the plan’s real size. This is because the stimulus bill pretends that most of its welfare benefit increases will lapse after two years. In fact, both Congress and President Obama intend for most of these increases to become permanent. The notion that Congress intends to temporarily increase Pell grants and Earned Income Tax Credit benefit levels for just two years and then let benefits fall back to their original status is out of touch with Washington reality. Any Congressman who, two years from now, suggests that the new welfare spending be allowed to lapse to pre-stimulus levels would be pilloried for slashing welfare.
According to a
new study by Heritage senior research fellow Robert Rector, once the hidden welfare spending in the bill is counted, the total ten year fiscal burden (added to the national debt) will not be $816 billion, as claimed, but $1.34 trillion. Where is Obama going to find all the money to pay for this spending? Right now Treasury securities are selling at high prices and with low yields. But how long will credit be cheap? Will it still be when the Treasury is scrounging around in the international credit markets six months or a year from now? China and Japan account for almost 65% of total Treasury securities held by foreign owners. But their economies are also slowing. If they even start slowing their appetite for U.S. debt, a drop in world market demand for Treasurys could drive borrowing costs upward, and there could be a ballooning of the interest cost line in the budget that will worsen an already frightening outlook.
Last night Obama told Democrats, “If you’re headed for a cliff, you have to change direction.” That’s a decent analogy, but the problem is his Trillion Dollar Debt Plan is not a change in direction. It is a foot on the accelerator. Instead, the Senators voting today should take another saying to heart: “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Letting Go and Pressing On

Last night a young lady gave her life over to God by being immersed into Christ. It was a pretty cool event. It's always good to see a young (or old) person commit their lives to Christ. I am happy for her and for her parents who have invested their lives in raising their kids to get them to this point - the point of giving it all over to God. But, it makes me think, too. This young lady is stepping into a new life! And by "new", I mean different than probably 95%+ of the kids at her school, most of the people she'll run into in life - we're talking very different!
But, that's what it is isn't it? That's what Peter was trying to tell the Christians he was writing to when he says, "So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy...And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests...You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession" (1 Pet 1:14-15; 2:5, 9 - NLT). We are different. At least we should be. And when you're in the 8th grade, surrounded by either ungodly punks or people who are pseudo-Christian, it's going to be hard. Well, truth is, I'm in that situation and I'm almost 40! That's where we all are. And it's tough to be holy, separate people.
My prayer for this young lady is that she'll hang in there. I think she will - she's a good kid. What I pray doesn't happen is what's happened to too many...the Slow Fade. Do you know that song? It's by Casting Crowns. Look at these words: "It's a slow fade when you give yourself away. It's a slow fade, when black and white have turned to gray. Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid, when you give yourself away. People never crumble in a day. It's a slow fade." (The song was in "Fireproof" by the way.) But isn't that the case. People rarely intentionally fall away from their relationship with God. It just happens...slowly...gradually...then one day they're back in the old life. This won't happen for this young lady - that's my prayer. We won't allow it, as her Christian family.
So, to prevent this Slow Fade, what can we do? Well, I'll answer with words from another "Fade" song. This one by Jeremy Camp: "Let it Fade", "Let this old life crumble, let it fade. Let this new life offered be your saving grace. Let this old life crumble, let it fade, let it fade." Nice words, Jeremy. But Paul says it best, "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" (2 Cor 5:17).

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

A Few Questions from Glenn Beck

Yeah - I'm stealing stuff for two posts in a row. But, I think this is pretty cool. Look it over and see what you think...
WE Surround Them
February 4, 2009 - 9:30 ET
GLENN: So I'm going to just ask you right now just to think of these things and just answer out loud. Just say to yourself yes or no. Yes or no. Is this who I am? Is this what I believe? Because I believe you and I agree on most of these.
1) Yes or no: Do you believe America is a good place, that we've lost our way over the years, that we have done bad things but generally speaking we tried hard. We try to make amends. We have tried to do the right thing. Just like everybody else, we fail from time to time and we have truly lost our way in the last 20 years. But gosh, if you look at America, she's good and our founders were good and our founding documents are good. We've just strayed too far away from them. Yes or no.
2) Yes or no: I believe in God. I may not go to the same church or synagogue or mosque as the majority of people in America, but I believe in God and he is the center of my life, and God does not tell people to behead others or to persecute others that see God in a different way. As long as that god is not telling them to persecute others.
Yes or no.
3) Yes or no: It is my responsibility to try to be better and a more honest person than I was yesterday. Sometimes I fail, I'll make mistakes, but it's my main mission to be better than I was personally than I was yesterday.
4) Yes or no: The family is sacred. I and my spouse are the ultimate authority under God when it comes to my family. I raise my family, and that comes with a grave responsibility. If I fail, I answer to God.
5) Yes or no: If you break the law, you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
6) Yes or no: I have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but that is not a guarantee of equal results.
7) Yes or no: I work hard for what I have, and I will share it with others that I choose when I choose, should I choose. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
8) It is not un-American for anyone to disagree with my opinion, but my opinion or others' opinions may be anti-American. Anti-American rhetoric would be anything that is destructive to the Constitution and our country as our founders understood it.
9) And the last one is the government works for me. The government answers to me. I do not answer to the government.
How many are there? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. There are nine of them. Do you agree with seven of them?
Here's what I want you to do. Step one: No matter where you are right now, I want you to take a picture of yourself. I want you to take a picture, and I ask you and you'll understand as we go in the next couple of weeks, I ask you if you could bring these and ask your children -- can we post these please on the Internet, on the website? I want you to ask as many people as you know, do you believe in these things? Just seven out of nine. Do you believe in them? Then will you please take a picture of yourself. If you ask your family and you ask your children tonight, do you believe in these things. Take a picture of your spouse. Not as a family. Take them one at a time and send them to me, e-mail them to me at -- what is the address, Stu?wesurroundthem@gmail.com. This is how much I believe that you are not alone.
Please, if you agree with these things, please send me a photo. I will explain on, is it -- do we know, is it going to be February 27th? We don't know? We don't have a date yet. And I'll explain on February 27th -- I think it's going to be that date, in the next couple of weeks -- and I'm going to do a special radio show and television show. It's going to be a live show. We are going to also have you have an opportunity to attend. I will tell you about that in the coming days. I will also tell you in the coming days that you don't have to come to New York to be a part of it, either. But this is all going to be grassroots. I believe it's going to be February 27th. Could be a week later. Don't be alone, and you'll understand why on that day. But I ask you today, do this one thing. Do you believe in these things? Do you believe in these things? If you do, then do me a favor, please, do your children a favor. Take a picture of yourself and send it to me at wesurroundthem@gmail.com.