Sarah Palin

When John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate, I didn't have a clue who she was. Like most of the rest of the country, I guess.

I fell in love with her when she gave her speech at the Republican National Convention, and I haven't looked back. It didn't take long for me to wish that she were on the top of the ticket. I was never a big fan of John McCain, but given the choice, I was a supporter anyway. I saw McCain as far too liberal. He didn't present as much of a difference from the Democrat as I would have liked. It probably wouldn't have mattered anyway, because Obama was going to be elected no matter what.

I started reading her tweets on Twitter, but soon after, she resigned from the Governor's office and stopped tweeting. I'm not sure exactly why she resigned, but I would suspect that part of it was all of the frivolous lawsuits that were filed against her and the cost of fighting them.

Now, for a while at least, she's giving speeches. Only one that I know about so far, but there will be more to follow, I'm sure. She behaved and didn't really bash Obama, although a part of her wanted to. I'm sure of that, too.

The next presidential election is about 3 years away, although the campaigning will start in earnest in about a year and a half. At least that's my guess. There will probably be a lot of Republicans trying to get the nomination for the next election, since Obama will be so vulnerable. He'll be seen as weak if he doesn't get his big bills passed, like health care reform, and even more vulnerable if he does. The more measures he gets passed, and the sooner he gets them passed, the more vulnerable he will become. The country as a whole is not nearly liberal enough for what he wants to do.

Republicans are already licking their chops at the 2010 elections, even though there are only 2 senators being elected, (or maybe three since Ted Kennedy died). The one I'm familiar with is Arlen Spector. He was a liberal Republican in a Democratic state, Pennsylvania. Recently, it seemed probable that he wouldn't even win the Republican nomination this time, so he switched to the Democratic party. I'm not sure that will help. I'm also waiting to see what will happen in the House. There probably won't be a big movement to the right in 2010, but I believe that there will be a net gain for the Republicans.

I also believe that in 2012, whoever represents the Republicans will have their work cut out for them. The press is overwhelmingly liberal and the Republican nominees will have to weather a year of lies, distortions and just plain bad press. I hope that they are able to weather that storm.

Republicans in the White House tend to forget the lies and distortions that the Democrats spewed during the campaign. On the other hand, Democrats want to go after everyone that they disagree with. They're starting to do that now. They forget nothing.

I hope it's Sarah running in 2012, but whoever it is, they will need to be strong. And if they do get into the White House, they need to remember.

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The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think. - Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Physician, Author

Dieting

I used to be really skinny as a kid.

When I hit 21, I put on some weight. That year, every part of me got bigger, not just the waist. My shoulders, arms and legs all expanded. When I was 19, I had joined the Marines and my uniforms fit fine for a year or so. But by the time I hit 22, nothing fit except my shoes. I had to replace all of my dress uniforms.

As a young man, I drank beer during the week and bourbon on the weekend. I wasn't what anyone would call an alcoholic. I didn't drink every day and didn't get drunk every time I drank. I just liked an occasional beer, and on the weekend, when I didn't have a date, I went clubbing.

When I got married, I mostly stopped the hard stuff, except occasionally with my wife, when we went out. And I cut back on the beer, at home. For a few years, I worked in a place where the men would go out to drink after work. I drank a lot more beer then and put a strain on my marriage. But eventually, things settled down again.

During that time, I started carrying around a little more weight than I should have. The problem was that I never really took it off. I got up as high as 230 about six years ago. At that point, I realized that I'd need to take some of that weight off. I just really cut back on everything.

I knocked off about 50 pounds, to about 180. I hadn't been that low in decades. Since then, it's been creeping slowly back up. I was up near 210 a few months ago. Now I'm back down to 200 and trying to take off some more.

My parents were both pretty thin their entire lives, so I can't blame them. My father was retired for about 30 years, didn't do much, drank pretty steadily until he became diabetic, and didn't gain a pound. I must be a throwback to one of my grandparents.

A big problem for me is that when there's enough food for seconds, I'll have seconds. My wife always cooks too much, so I always have seconds when she cooks. If I cook for myself, I always cook too much, too. That's why, starting about six years ago, I began eating small Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice frozen dinners. I have these 5 or 6 days a week with a piece of bread. The other days, I'll make something different or my wife will cook.

It's helped both of us because Kathy doesn't cook a big meal when she's cooking for herself. Sometimes, her meal is mostly a salad.

The only problem now, and one of the reasons I started to put the weight back on, is that after six years, I'm starting to get tired of the frozen dinners.

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Courage is the greatest of all the virtues. Because if you haven’t courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others. - Samuel Johnson

The Engravable Gift

I have a website at http://www.TheEngravableGift.com. I've had it for a few years but have sold virtually nothing from it. The problem seems to be that no one is able to find it.

I work on it from time to time and it now has over 500 items on it. As the name suggests, all items on the site are engraved or printed with names, dates and special messages, depending on the size. Some shot glasses, for example, have only an initial.

I've had business cards made up and virtually all of my relatives and friends know about it. I pass out cards as often as possible, but so far, I've gotten very little activity. My tax guy says that if I don't start making some money from the site soon, I won't be able to deduct my expenses, so I need to get some activity soon.

I provide the products through a wholesaler who engraves and ships the product. I just sell it and get a cut of the profit. It would be a nice income if I could actually start selling some of the items there.

That's one reason I've decided to blog and join Twitter. I'm hoping that as more people find me, I'll get some sales. I've actually not pushed too hard on Twitter yet, and not at all here on my blog. I wanted to get some experience and some followers first.

Now, I've got to build up my followers a lot further. I've considered some of the outfits that claim that they will get me tens of thousands of followers in 90 days or something like that. Maybe they can, but what will be the quality of those followers. I need real people but what I'm afraid of is that I'll get mostly porn sellers, teenagers and other people selling stuff.

I don't even know if it is possible for a third party to have someone else follow you. Will the people that follow me even know who I am? I know Twitter is very strict about some things, but I also know that there are a lot of third party applications out there and I don't really know what is allowed to happen. I'm really a newbie in a lot of ways.

A couple of years ago, I signed up with an outfit that promised me first page search engine placement for my website for X amount of dollars. The only reason I signed up with them was because they had a monthly charge following the first page placement. I forget what for. I reasoned that they probably weren't scamming me if they wanted to collect the monthly payment, but I reasoned wrong. They came up with a convoluted 3 word keyword that had me on the first page of search engines pretty quickly, since no one else used it. They did what they said they would do so I had no recourse, but I told them to drop me so I didn't need to pay the monthly fee.

Right now, I'm mostly following back people that are following me, and most of them are selling something. It's not a total waste, since somewhere down the pike, I'm probably going to sign up with one of the outfits that can get me more followers. I just hope that whoever it is, they are legitimate.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

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Don't forget to visit http://www.TheEngravableGift.com Use the discount code Twitter for a 15% discount on everything on the site.

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Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all. - Sam Ewing, Writer

Vacation - Part 2

This is the second of a two part blog that covers our vacation. This is our time in Chicago.



Our vacation lasted 10 days, 8 days aboard the ship that took us around Lake Michigan and 4 days in Chicago. It doesn't add up because 2 days were on board the ship in Chicago.



We got into Chicago the day before our boat left for the cruise. Since we were flying in, I didn't want to take any chances that there would be a foul up with the airline. The cruise line let you board a day early and didn't leave until 6 the next day, so we had a day in Chicago before we left and planned to stay there for 2 days when we got back.



The time before leaving, we stayed pretty close. The boat was parked at Chicago's Navy Pier. This is a large pier with a lot of different stores and things to see. It was very heavily trafficked on the weekend. They had a stained glass exhibit that was interesting. The first night we just walked near the water and the next day, we went up onto the pier. We also went to a store to buy a small bottle of gin and two 6 packs. Just in case we got thirsty.



Later that day, in front of the pier, the Budweiser clysdales were hooked up to the wagon and they walked around that part of Chicago. It took a while to get them all hooked up and it attracted a large crowd. A good way to start the vacation.



A week later, when we got back after the cruise, we had breakfast and then were expected to leave the boat promptly. We went to our hotel and stored our bags until we could get into our room. Then we went out walking. During our two days walking around Chicago, we walked MILES.



For the most part, I'm not completely sure what we did on each particular day. On the first day, we went up the Hancock tower and looked around. On the second day we tried to go up the Willis tower but there was a 2 hour wait, so we decided to skip it. It's a shame because I wanted to go out onto the glass ledge and look down. Unfortunately, we were in Chicago on a weekend, so I guess everything was more crowded.



We had some good meals. We went to Giordano's (I think it's called), for lunch one day. It's a famous pizza place, according to my wife and the pizza was excellent, according to me. Unfortunately, I could only eat half of it. They put the rest of it in a box and I gave it to a gentleman playing the saxophone on the street.



Another time, we ate outside at an Italian restaurant near our hotel. I don't remember the name, but the food was very good. The last night, we were tired of big meals and went to a place that serves mostly burgers and such. Unfortunately, the burger was huge and also very good, so I wound up eating too much again. The diet didn't start again until I got home.



We spent some time in Millennium Park. I took some pictures of the flowers and the Bean. The Bean is a bean shaped sculpture, large enough to walk under and fully reflective. They were having a free concert there the first time we walked through. It's actually a very lovely place, although very crowded on the weekend during the summer.



We spent quite a lot of time one day in the Art Institute. It's a lot larger than it looks and we didn't get to see even half of it. They have several different areas with different types of art. We started in the section that had ancient Indian (from India) art. Some of the pieces were over 1,000 years old. We also made it into the more modern sections. I like representational art. Blobs on canvas don't do anything for me. A lot of it didn't seem like it belonged in a museum, frankly, but that's just personal taste. And there were some pieces that were exceptional. All in all, well worth the time.







We also spent some time walking along the river that runs through downtown. It's nicely built up and very pretty. There were a lot of boats on the river, both personal and party boats. That's one thing that Philadelphia doesn't do. Philadelphia has 2 rivers, the Delaware and the Schuylkill. There's basically nothing on the Schuylkill and less than there could be on the Delaware. One problem is that the rivers border the downtown area in Philadelphia but run through the middle of downtown Chicago.



I went into the Harley-Davidson store before we left and got a t-shirt and a hat. I always visit a Harley store any time I see one, even though I don't have a motorcycle, (yet). The rest of the time, we just walked and window shopped.



I like Chicago and hope to get back there someday. We walked a lot during those two days and didn't see much at all, although we saw as much as we could. Downtown Chicago seemed to be larger and more built up than Philadelphia.



We took an afternoon flight out the last day so we didn't have to rush around in the morning, but somehow, I hurt my back lugging the suitcases to the hotel elevator. I hurt all of the way home and it took 3 weeks, a trip to the doctor and 40 pills to get me back in shape.



So that's the story of our summer vacation. It was a great trip and I hope to do it again. Hopefully, we won't wait another 10 years, next time.



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Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence, he is just using his memory. - Leonardo da Vinci

Vacation - Part 1

At the beginning of August, my wife and I went on our first real vacation in about 10 years.

While we like Virginia Beach and have gone there a few times over the intervening time, we never spent more than 3 or 4 days there. This vacation lasted 10 days. We took a cruise on Lake Michigan and then spent a couple of days in Chicago. Today, I'll be talking about the cruise and Friday, the time in Chicago.

The cruise was on a small ship that holds a maximum of about 100 passengers but this time only held about 50. The crew was excellent. Not a complaint about any one of them. And, as luck would have it, the weather was excellent also. We had rain during the time we were awake for about 2 hours over the entire 10 day vacation. (Our friends said it rained practically the entire time back home.)

The cruise line was the American Canadian Carribean Line. They gave us everything we needed regarding the cruise. Since this was our first cruise, I don't know whether that's the norm or not. But we certainly don't have any complaints about how things were handled this time. We were even allowed to board the day before, (which we did), to avoid any last minute travel glitches.

We ate 8 at a table, and the first night, we found that 3 of the men were ex-Marines, one of them a retired lifer. The next night, another ex-Marine joined our table and the four couples stayed together more or less the entire trip. On the last day, we met the entire crew. While we hardly saw some of them, these young women were 3 of the 5 that rotated serving duties in the dining room.


We cruised the entire circumference of Lake Michigan, stopping at 5 towns in 6 days, counter- clockwise from Chicago.

The first stop was in Holland, MI. The town was nice, but the real attraction was the windmill. Because of their name, they have maintained a relationship with Holland, the country. Due to this relationship, Holland sent them an actual windmill. The windmill was set in a large area that included a few buildings selling souveniers and such. They also had clog dancers that came out and entertained us. I climbed up inside the windmill for a look at the works. Very interesting.



Next was Manistee, MI. We signed up for a tour and saw a lot more of this town. It was fortunate that we signed up for this because we wouldn't have found these places by ourselves. The first stop was this gorgeous church that's over 100 years old. We both said that if we had a church like that near us, we'd probably go more. The stained glass throughout was exceptional.


Then to a small theater that is also about 100 years old, and is still working. James Earl Jones was apparently born in or near Manistee, worked in this theater and still supports it. It was once almost demolished, but has been renovated and is beautiful. We spent over 1/2 hour in each of these two places and both had someone there to tell us about their history. The rest of the tour looked at some of the old houses and after lunch, we walked the town nearer the ship.


Mackinac Island, MI was the third stop of the trip. It's main claim to fame involves autos. Mainly because there aren't any. When automobiles first started coming to the island, they frightened the horses. So the powers that be, back then, outlawed autos. There are still none on the island, except for the police, fire and ambulance corps. And they don't use the sirens because they frighten the horses.


I heard a rumor that during the winter, there are only 50 full time residents. Nevertheless, in the summer, it's a full blown tourist haven. We took a tour on a horse drawn buggy, naturally, and it took us out of the tourist areas to see a little more of the island. Near the end of the tour, we got out of the buggy to look at a large old fort, then we walked into town. In town, there were a few blocks of stores, including 6 or more fudge shops. All in all, a very interesting place.




The next stop was Sturgeon Bay, WI. We took a tour here too. One of the stops was a winery where we bought 2 bottles of a dry red wine that we shared with the table at dinner that night. Across from this was a cherry farm with 3 different kinds of cherries. We took some back to the boat. This was our rainy day, and I got pretty wet looking at a lighthouse, so we didn't do much in the afternoon. We were getting pretty tired by then, too. There was a lot more to see there, but unfortunately, we didn't.


The last stop was in Milwaukee, WI. This is a beautiful city and we took an excellent tour of a lot of it. There are many old houses there and we saw many of them. The tour bus also had two 45 minute drop-offs. One was at an old house, and the other was at a farmer's market. We opted for the latter but were somewhat disappointed. It only took a half hour or less to go through the entire thing, and that was stopping to shop. If I went by myself, without my wife, it would have taken 5 minutes. I'm not much of a shopper.


We bought a few things, but spent about 15 minutes outside waiting for the bus to return. I guess we're just used to Philadelphia. In the afternoon, we spent some time near the boat in a science museum. It was interesting, but filled with kids so it was hard to get a good look at some things. (Am I getting old, or what?) You can't really get a feel for a city the size of Milwaukee on one day, but what we saw, we definitely liked.

Overall, we took about 450 pictures. the few we included here are just a smattering. In Friday's blog, I'll tell you where there are more.


A few other comments. The boat did not have a paid bar. We understand you can spend a lot of money there on larger ships. Two nights, the cruise provided free drinks during the happy hour before dinner. The other nights, you were able to bring your own and cool it off in the fridge in the lounge. They provided glasses and mixers. They also had nuts and other snacks available.


The top deck was open and set up with tables and chairs. The pilot cabin was also here. You could stand outside and watch the captain steer the ship. We were up there after dinner watching the sun set most nights. The cabins were on the small side. It didn't bother me much, because we didn't spend much time there. But the bathroom, especially, could have been larger.


There's a lot more I could tell you, I guess, and I'm sure that as soon as I send this, I'll think of something I wanted to say. We disembarked early the next morning and went to our hotel. We stored our bags until we could get into our room and set off to explore Chicago. I'll tell you about that next time.

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Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot - others as a cow ready to be milked. But few are those who see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon. - Winston Churchill

I've never carried a concealed weapon in my life, but I subscribe to Concealed Carry magazine.

One of the things Obama's election has done to me is make me more aware of things I took for granted. They could be taken away very fast, now, if the president and his people get what they want.

One of those things has to do with my pistols. I only have 2 pistols now. I've had them for a few years and wasn't planning on buying any more for a while. However, after the election, I realized that it could become much harder to purchase pistols in the near future. I decided that if I wanted them at all, I better get them now. I've recently gotten 2 permits to purchase handguns, which is what you do in New Jersey.

Apparently, a million other people felt the same, or so it seems. I've read recently that things are starting to calm down. Pistols, rifles and shotguns are getting easier to buy and ammunition, which was a real problem in some calibers, is also becoming more available.

I've also applied for concealed carry permits from two east coast states. I learned about out of state carry permits in Concealed Carry magazine. One of it's writers owns a gun shop in Philadelphia and mentioned classes he conducts for out of state carry permits.

I signed up the day after I saw it. It was conducted at a pistol range so that they could take care of all requirements, not only the class. I was fingerprinted, photographed, fired a pistol and had forms notarized. I sent them in a couple of days later. I've received one and am waiting for the second.

Since I live in New Jersey, the permits will not do me any good in my home state. But hopefully, I won't be in New Jersey forever. A couple of other problems include very high taxes and the fact that they want to put a high-speed commuter train directly behind my house.

Despite this, I subscribed to Concealed Carry as soon as I heard about it. Even before Obama. It is a good magazine and covers a variety of topics, from pistols, holsters and training to politics and the law. They also have an online website with forums that can help people in a lot of different areas. I've never used the forums but will probably do so soon. I haven't gotten much help from the local gun shop regarding a carry pistol. They've tried to talk me into a small revolver that you carry in your pocket. I'd like something larger that I'd carry in a holster.

I'm hoping I can get some advice on the forums. I just hope there isn't so much that it contradicts itself. I'll let you know.

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Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people will always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. - Mark Twain

Politics

As far as politics goes, I'm pretty conservative, I guess.

It's probably because I'm getting older. When I was young, I was much more liberal. I voted for Jimmy Carter and once almost got to meet him. I worked for a large company in downtown Philadelphia and had a group of friends I used to go out to lunch with on Fridays. They went out virtually every day, but I couldn't afford it. One day, I had to call one of them about something and before hanging up, she asked me if I wanted to join them for lunch that day. I thought about it but wound up not going. That was the day that Jimmy Carter had lunch at the place we always ate.

He was President then and running for re-election. I was very disappointed when they came back and said they met him. He was apparently very personable and went around saying hello to everyone there. Now I look back on it with mixed feelings. I still would have liked to meet him but I'm not quite so broken up about it.

I guess I really became a republican when Ronald Reagan was President. I'm not going to go into detail about all of the things I liked, but I think he was a great man and there hasn't been anyone like him since.

I didn't have much use for Bill Clinton and feel pretty much the same about his wife. George Bush got interrupted almost before he started by 9/11. I wonder what his presidency would have been like if not for that, but I'm not sure I would have liked it. In the end, he was spending money like it was his, and he spent way too much, as far as I'm concerned. However, he was honorable and decisive after 9/11 and that counts for a lot.

While I'm not as conservative as some, compared to the Democrats today, I'm conservative. The current president hasn't done much of anything that I like, as far as I'm concerned. I'm apparently not alone. His popularity is fading already. I don't believe that he's going to get his health care
changes passed, I don't believe that after 2010, he'll still have his super-majority in Congress, and I don't believe he'll be re-elected.

I hope I'm right.

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Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States when men were free. - Ronald Reagan