Turning 31

Today I turn 31.  As I look back at the last year of my life, I have a lot to be thankful for.  I also have a lot of goals for the future.  I wanted to capture some of my thoughts about the last year and the coming year below - feel free to comment.

Family:

Zander turned four, Lexi turned one, and we hope to be pregnant with number three in the next few months.  We were forced to move when our landlord put the house we were in up for sale, however I thank God that we were blessed enough to be able to make the move to a larger home in another great neighborhood closer to my job and the freeway.

Work:

I still have a great job despite the tough economic times around us. My job in IT has always been somewhat recession proof.  I’ve seen pay raises when others were being laid off, and I’ve gotten bonuses when businesses were filing for bankruptcy.  I don’t take such blessings for granted, I thank God daily for them.

Business:

I would rather own a struggling business and be self employed, than to have a great job!

Stephanie and I have continued to invest in A Baby Connection and the business is strong.  We are currently facing Diseconomy of Scale issues meaning that we have to put more money in the business before we can benefit from lower operating cost, lower per unit (per diaper) costs, and increased sales, increased profits.  But gross sales continue to increase and I believe the business has great potential.

I’ve also partnered with Brandon to start a new company called Kinetic Market, for IT services including website presence (websites, myspace sites, blog sites, electronic advertising), SOHO (small office, home office) services, IT consulting (helping companies to map out their current IT situation and design a blue print for how to get the most from IT for the direction the company is going), and image consulting (translating the vision of small businesses and non profits into electronic media, logo design, printing services, advertisements, etc).  We are just getting started, but I believe there is a great deal of untapped market in this niche.

School:

I’m in school (wgu.edu) and I believe I can finish in the next year and a half.  I actually took a science test yesterday but don’t yet know if I passed.  I would love to finish my four year degree in the next year and start work on my masters from sagu.edu, but even if it takes a little longer than that, I will continue to march forward.

Health:

I’ve not make large gains in the area of my health.  I’ve put on weight, then lost some, then put some on again.  Right now I weight about 300lbs.  My blood sugar has been high over the last few months because I have neglected my bike riding and discarded any real dieting.  In more recent times (the last month), I have started working out again and begun the process of adjusting my diet.

The Future:

I have started school and look to finish.  I have started working out and look to continue to make it part of my regular life.  I have started new businesses and will work to make them successful.  My goals here match the ones I made at the beginning of the year - lose weight, decrease debt, increase reading, increase business, and continue school.  I’m still working those goals - some have made better progress than others but none have left my mind or my path.

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I remember

Its hard to believe its already been 7 years since 9/11.  It was less than an hour after I got to work that I noticed a crowd of my co-workers gathered around my boss’s office.  I walked over and asked what was going on.  Jeff, a co-worker said “some idiot flew his plan into the trade tower”.  I watched the TV in the office as the news anchor commented about the plane, and I can’t remember if it was my co-workers or the news anchor that said it was a Cessna plane.  Then as I watched the live news feed at 9:03 am, the second plan buried itself into the south tower and everything changed.

I wish I had gone home from work that day early.  I wish I had spent that day with my wife.  I worked for Safelite Autoglass in Columbus Ohio and I will never forget my boss walking through the office slapping his hands together with one big clap to brake the somber mood in the room and saying “Let’s keep working, the world still needs windshields!”  I’m sure it was his way of dealing with the crisis, I just wish I hadn’t let it be mine.

I will never forget my wife calling me in tears hysterically sobbing because she had just watched people jumping from the towers.  All I could do was whisper “I know baby, I know” in an effort to comfort her.  I should have gone home.  I remember walking into our call center, normally a loud room full of CSRs on the phones reading scripts about windshields and chatting with each other between calls; silenced by events over 500 miles away.  And I remember waiting to hear if Charley, my co-worker and friend, had heard from his parents, who had been traveling in New York.  They were ok… well, they weren’t near the towers, but none of us were OK.

I remember that day.  I remember those events.  My children won’t.  Much like the events surrounding the attack on Pear Harbor, time will heal and erase those events from our collective minds.  In the weeks that followed, American flags hung from every window or in every yard in the USA and even in much of the world - but as we reflect on the last 7 years, most of those flags are down, most of us have moved on with our lives.  History has recorded the events and our children’s children will learn of 9/11 in a history book… but I remember.

Tags: 9/11, History, New York, Pear Harbor, people jumping from the towers, Remember, south tower, Terrorism, trade tower, Twin Towers, USA

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Lipstick or Egg on this politician’s face?

I found this picture in a news article this morning on the Google News page.  This is great for the McCain gang - but really bad for the Obama crowd.  Apparently, Obama made a comment saying “You can put lipstick on a pig… its still a pig” regarding McCain’s position that the republican ticket is the best for change.  The comment came a week after Governor Palin’s stated at the RNC that the difference between a hockey mom (which she is) and a pitbull is lipstick.  Did Obama mean to imply Palin was a pig?  The answer is Who cares… The damage is done!

In the court of public opinion, its like OJ and murder - did he do it?  You may convince me that there are people out there that don’t believe he did (in fact a Judge right now is trying to find 12 people to sit on a jury that don’t have an opinion on that old trial) but if you ask on the street that same question - some will say yes and some will say no - and both believe he did it.  The same is true here.  But that’s not the damage.  The damage is the picture above.  Shortly after this picture hit the internet, it quickly came down and dozens of similar pictures with Obama and McCain head to head began to show up (based on a page refresh of the google news page).  Why?  In my opinion its because there are a lot of Obama supporters out there that quickly realized that for Obama to win, he has to appear presidential, and pitting himself against the vp defeats that purpose.

The next article I read this morning was Obama’s reaction to the “lipstick” media coverage, in which he called the controversy “phony” saying, “I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage”.  I remember once as a child I went into our pantry and grabbed a hand full of sugar cerial (which we rarely had in the house) and ate it in my room knowing I wasn’t allowed to.  My brother caught me eating it and I quickly denied it.  He wouldn’t let me get away with lying about it.  I was so intent on denying the charge that I went to my mother outraged that he would accuse me of lying.  I didn’t fool her for a second - I was busted!  Obama’s outrage on the matter reminds me of my reaction after getting caught - phony outrage.  So, I find it ironic that he uses those words to describe the media coverage and McCain reaction to the comment.

To accuse McCain of lies and phony outrage while demanding that we get back to the “issues” is like a throwing a punch while demanding civility.

Tags: google news, governor palin, hockey mom, lipstick on a pig, mccain, news article, Obama, phony controversy, pitbull, politician, Politics, republican ticket, rnc

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