There are just a few great documents that represent the foundation stones upon which the American system of government was built. One is the Declaration of Independence, another is The Bill of Rights. But when it comes down to the basics we always go back the Constitution of the United States of America that is our backbone of law.

The Founding Fathers and writers of that Constitution would have to be considered without question the most intelligent and well educated men certainly of their time and maybe of any time in the world.  That document was so well crafted that it has lasted as a legal standard for over 225 years with no signs that its power will diminish for the next few hundred years or more. 

The Constitution is divided into a total of seven “Articles” each of which discusses one of the divisions of government.  Articles one through three discuss the three branches of government including the legislative, the executive and the judicial.  Article four goes into depth about the rights and powers reserved to the states.  It is clear to see that the framers knew the importance of leaving much of the power of governing at the local and state level. They also understood that those rights needed to be preserved at the foundation document of the society, The Constitution.

When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.
– President Richard Milhous Nixon (Tricky Dick) – he was proven wrong.

Do you ever get the feeling that other people feel as if their time is more important than your time. Then you start to feel that you’re being taking advantage of? Sometimes that’s exactly how I feel. I truly understand that we all have busy lives. We all are going in 50 directions at the same time. But to make others feel as if they’re not as important as you or your other colleagues. If you have lunch plans with someone at noon and realize you’re not going to make it on time you should call and let them know, or to reschedule.

Being late means 5 minutes… maybe 10 to the extreme, anymore than that may need to be a reschedule. The golden rule holds true here, treat others as you wish to be treated!

Growing up we called this courtesy. What happens is when you do this to everyone else they start doing it to you. When someone else is an hour late you’d be pissed. How can you complain about it when you’ve done it yourself?

OK… I’ll get my ass off the soapbox for now.

Yes today I qualify for AARP! Yay… I now get all the discounts from AARP! I still don’t qualify for a lot of senior discounts but I’ll take the few that I can get.

I woke up and Shannon had me some coffee going and she made me some Eggs Benedict for breakfast. That is my favorite breakfast of all time. I sat and ate a relaxed breakfast and then we all got dressed to go to PECKS, in Ozello, Florida. Pecks is a seafood restaurant in the middle of nowhere. It had the best almond crusted grouper that I’ve ever eaten. I never have anything else because every time I go there that is all I get. lol

We’ll Thank You Bob and Rhonda for picking up the tab, that was awesome! Thanks Shannon for the cake, and Thank You Richie, Eric, Faith, and Isabella for the Great Birthday cards you gave me. I love all of you so much.

Today a New Chapter of My Life begins… The Decade Era of My 50’s!

Day 1

Tomorrow, February 23, I turn the big 50. It’s not that I mind turning 50 but it just a new number and it make me just a little bit older. We all get there so it’s nothing new but dam…50! I honestly never imagined myself being this old. When you are younger old is in the 30’s…LOL

When you’re 15 – 25 or so you are immortal, after that you just don’t think about it and then at 50 you feel so mortal again.  I have some friend that it seems as soon as they turned 60 they just went to hell. I guess we all fear that to some extent, but I have a 1 1/2 year old baby girl to raise. I don’t want her growing up without a Dad!

When I turned 21 my great uncle Ed told me that the days will start flying by…I thought oh yea right. Now I can remember that day as plain as yesterday… oh my God does time fly by. It seems as if I just turned 40, we had steaks and potatoes up at the office. Now it’s the big 50! Well I can’t stop tomorrow from coming so goodbye 40’s and HELLO 50’s… Welcome the new era of time! The rockin’ 50’s are here for me!

I need to start photographing strangers and finish my “100 Strangers” project. I’ve got 4 so far but need to get at least 2 per month. It does a couple of things, one it gets you used to talking to strangers and getting their photo and two helps you with portraits.

I really love photography…probably to much. I look back and growing up most all of our pictures would fit into a few albums. I have 25 or more albums full of pictures of the family. It’s to a point when I print photos I look and think do I really want a hard copy of this. Is it worthy of print. I know growing up there are years that their is not one picture of me. It goes from like 5 to 9…WTF, and then skips to 12 and then to 19 or so. No photos of me in high school, no photos of me getting my drivers license, or going on my first date. I have photos of every event in my children s life. Hey I lost my first tooth…got it. I got my drivers license… documented for the future. So at least they can never wonder, I wonder what I looked like at 13 years old.

I think I’ve over documented the life of my family. My future relatives are going to look back and think… wow, great great granddad really took a lot of pictures of everyone! At least that is my hope.

This is for Febuary 20. I guess I was so tired I forgot to press the publish button?

I’m trying to decide is the new iPhone 5s worth the $200 ? I already have an iPhone 4s and it’s working fine. So the decisions is should I upgrade or not. I really hate change and I’m cheap. Poor is more like it…LOL

Whoever has upgraded email me and tell me your thoughts. Was it a good idea or not much difference that the old phone. If I upgrade I will have to upgrade my wife as well so that’s $400 instead of $200

It makes my head hurt just thinking about it…lol

Our IT guy fired himself the other day. He left a note saying that he was unable to perform his work, and he should be escorted out of the building by security, and then said he was fired?

He’s been whacked out for awhile now. He had some medical issues a couple years ago and the drugs they put him on just pushed him way over the edge.

Last year he came in a smacked another Instructor across the face and challenged him to a duel. Now he should have been fired then but everyone just laughed it off and said he was on drugs or crazy that day. I’ve known him for almost 20 years now and saw him progressively getting worse and worse all the time.

Sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don’t.

I use to make fun of the “Conspiracy Nuts” out there. The older I get and the more I learn I start to realize maybe they’re not the nuts that I once thought. I’ve seen the government go after someone to discredit them to make them look like a nut.

Back in the 1986 or 1987 we were on a training mission in Germany with the US Army. A terrorist threat came down and they came took our M16’s , because we had NO ammo anyway, and left us to defend ourselves with axes, shovels, and different hand tools. I could only think at the time what it would say in the paper if we had been attacked. “US Army soldiers defend themselves with screwdrivers from terrorist”. We then moved position and sat in a farmers frozen turnip field and couldn’t move for a week because it started to thaw and if we would have moved we would have destroyed the crop. We ran low on water and had to eat MRE’s most of the time… what a cold nightmare of an experience.

A couple weeks later an article came out in “The Stars and Strips” telling what a success the exercise was. It told of event that never happened? This was about the unit I was in…WTF?

Then it made a big deal out of the US ARMY disarming itself and that we signed a treaty with Russia to get rid of all the Pershing Missiles. The only thing is we didn’t have any… we had Pershing 2’s but we (US ARMY) had given all the Pershing Missiles to the West Germans a couple years before. That lead me to think that most of what I what reading in the paper was only part true. That’s when I realize that what I read I could really believe the full story.

The worst thing about the entire experience was it now has me questioning most things in history. Some things we’ve been told about people or events may only be “PARTIALLY” true.

My wife and I had a great ride today. We rode through the country, stopped and ate at the Masaryktown Restaurant. It really was a great day. I wish I had more day like this. It was the first time I’ve had a good ride on the motorcycle in a long while.

It’s the first time my wife has been on her bike in 3 years or so. We had to have the carburetors redone it had been so long.

I saw this hog head hanging on the bathroom wall at the Masaryktown Cafe. It sort of scared me at first, not expecting a hog head over the shitter. LOL

Her bike has been down for almost 2 years now. But now it’s up and running and she is ready to ride. So IF her tag was renewed last year and IF the weather holds good we are going on a few hour ride. It need blown out a little bit and rode hard. I know how the bike feels. When I’m not ridden in a while I get cracking and don’t want to do anything either.

She has a Honda VLX 600 Deluxe and I bet it doesn’t have 10,000 miles on it. So this is the year I want to put a few thousand on it. I ride a Harley Davidson Electra Glide 2003, Anniversary Edition. I love to ride but sometimes just feel that we never have the time to do it anymore. With an 8 year old and 1 1/2 year old baby added to the picture it’s hard to breakaway.

I’m going to break away and go riding in the middle of nowhere. Find me some back roads and turn on the tunes and ride. Everyone have a great week this week.