The End of 2008

Do you ever get the feeling that something BIG is about to happen? I've been so restless the last week or two, even after finding out that I'm not moving back to KC anytime soon. It just seems like everyone around me has been restless too. I just can't explain it.

I have worked for the public defender system now for almost two years. January 8 is the anniversary day. At church yesterday, someone asked me the same question I've heard over and over for the last two years. "Have you ever represented someone you really thought was guilty?" I thought about it for a moment, like I always do, ready with a quick reply like "Sure, everyone's guilty of something but innocent until proven guilty." Instead, I answered, "I think a more appropriate question would be, have I ever represented someone I really thought was truly innocent?"

It's during this time of year that I often wonder what lies ahead in the new year. Will I still be doing this same job a year from now? How will my personal and career life change? Where do I want to go this year?

I am beginning to see that my career has become less of "just a job" and more of a lifestyle. Since Jen and I broke up and she moved away, all I really have is my job again. I've been putting on more weight, which sucks, but I think I've found a gym here in town I can afford again. I see a lot of people, more and more everyday, getting married and having children, and I feel kind of left out. I wonder how much longer I'll be able to hold on to my beliefs, including my unique church and religion, before I really have to compromise or give up on everything just to be happy and fulfill my dream to have a family of my own. Seems like all the girls in my church have been dropping like flies to the marriage swatter lately. I have tried hard to make myself a better person with my education and career choices, but I wonder if it ever really mattered to anyone. Of course, moving away from the "center place" certainly didn't help in that perspective, so there's really nobody to blame except myself.

Anyway, I guess it's kind of a morose way to end the year, but this has been a pretty good year compared to what I've gone through the majority of my '20s. 2008 was the last full year of my '20s and I'd say it's ended better than I thought it would. It may also be the last full year of this blog. I'm not posting as much here anymore and with more and more employers checking up on blogs and such, it may be time to pull the plug when it comes time to renew the domain in April. We'll see what happens.

Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year to all.

Save GM, Ford, and Chrysler

Enough is enough.

The message has been received, loud and clear. Your mother's friend's cousin from work bought a Cadillac Cimarron in 1987 and the transmission fell out. You bought a 1993 Grand Am and the radio stopped playing the Dirty Dancing soundtrack at 50k miles. You bought a new Accord and it's assembled in a factory in Tennessee, so that makes it "American". People who work on an assembly line must be brainless, lazy knuckle-draggers who can't cut it in a "real" job and should make less money and not have any retirement or healthcare perks. I get the rage and the anger. It's not enough to hate America anymore, you've got to hate anything made by Americans for Americans.

Here's my challenge. FORGIVE. If you're in the market, consider a car or truck made by the Big Three. Go drive one. They are really good cars made by really good people. Read GM's restructuring plan on http://www.gmfactsandfiction.com.

GM, Ford, and Chrysler employees have stepped up to save this country from enemies abroad and economic disaster many times in the last 100 years. Allowing these companies, their suppliers, and their employees to go out of business is un-American. Such an idea would never be entertained in Japan, Korea, or even Germany, so why are people so hateful here? Do we hate American cars or do we just hate ourselves? Do we hate America or just the American dream?

I've seen a lot of change in this country in the last few years that greatly worries me. This election cycle has proven to me that people are as cynical and selfish as ever. The Baby Boomers may be the ME generation, but I fear that we are now a ME country. We are in danger of becoming a forgettable nation again, written off as a "former world power". If we become involved in another world war and our manufacturing skill and capacity have been sent to the scrapyard, the controversy over English as an official language will be but an epitaph on the gravestone of a once proud nation.

Intelligence in Politics

Lately it seems that many people, including some dear friends of mine, have been questioning the intelligence of people like John McCain, Sarah Palin, and anyone who would consider voting for them. I have noticed that most of the people doing this are people who have never stood up for anything or even tried to push themselves to be the best at whatever they can be. Somehow they've decided that anyone who questions the group-think and socialism of the Democratic party must be "unintelligent", which I don't even think is a real word.

To my friends and others who believe that Republicans and social/economic conservatives are "unintelligent", let us do a bit of a comparison. John McCain graduated from the Naval Academy, received his commission as a naval aviator, completed numerous combat flight operations from aircraft carriers, lead the largest air combat squadron in the largest Navy in the world, and has served as one of the most respected members of Congress since before most of us were small children or even born.

Barack Obama went to Occidental College, then Harvard Law School, then rejected blanket offers to work for the most powerful law firms in the world to become a community organizer in Chicago. Granted, he was President of the Harvard Law Review, and that alone is an amazing and respectable accomplishment. Other than that, I can see nothing that compares with the responsibility of being entrusted with millions of dollars of military weapons and the command of the personnel assigned to work with that hardware.

The fact is, these men and their running mates are all very intelligent people. I am very suspicious of Big Government. That is why I'm a Republican. Granted, we have not seen much in the way of making government smaller or more efficient in the last eight years, but I believe that the fundamental principles of the party are sound beliefs in what government should be. I'm not the biggest fan of John McCain, but I'd rather have him trying to reduce the size of government rather than Barack Obama working with a friendly majority Congress to make it bigger again.

For the record on my intelligence, I graduated from Graceland with a degree in Business Administration with emphasis in Information Technology, Marketing, and a minor in Church Leadership. I then worked for one year with Sprint, formed a tech startup with some friends in Kansas City, then went to law school at Creighton University and graduated in 2005. I am a public defender, which you'd be surprised how many of us are Republicans, and I am undefeated in my jury trial record.

Obama, You Got Served

So the big news of the week has been John McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate for the Presidency. Kudos. I think it was a great choice and it helped breathe new life into his campaign once again. But has anyone else noticed how the press has cranked up the ugliness in the last 72 hours?

They have literally invaded Wasilla, AK like cockroaches in a Dairy Queen. They have been talking to EVERYONE who's ever had a run-in with Palin or her family and the dirt machine is cranked up full throttle. I was watching the Today show this morning and they were literally spending the entire first hour on her daughter's pregnancy. They even dug up pictures of the baby daddy and threw them all over the air. Everytime someone from the media writes something or opens their mouth, it's like a fountain of diatribe and hearsay. Where have we seen this before? I think her name rhymes with Billary Flinton...

Now contrast this with the announcement of Joe Biden a couple weeks ago. The media was hailing him as a Hero of the Empire. He's such a good family man with such a wonderful story of overcoming the loss of his first wife and daughter and becoming a truly great American. There was no mud, no controversy, no nuthin'. The media has treated Obama with kid gloves since day one and it's been extended to whitewash Biden's record of taxes, pork, and entitlements.

For the first time since 2004, the mad liberal media is scared. They are going to pull out all the stops and do whatever they can to sink the McCain/Palin ticket. Whether it works is going to be up to the American voters, but I think if they want to turn a race where all the candidates are preaching Unity into more division, I think they've found their excuse in Gov. Palin.

Thoughts on 'Swing Vote' and 'W.'

So I went and watched 'Swing Vote' tonight. Indeed one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. I don't know what it is about Kevin Costner, but I just don't get bored watching his movies. 'Dances With Wolves' was agonizingly long, but it worked. This movie is two hours long and it didn't really even seem stretched. That's saying a lot for the writing. Predictable? Of course, it's a Kevin Costner film. It's good for laughs and the innocence of both central characters and the strength they find in each other is the real story of the film.

Then there was the trailer for 'W.'. I don't know who thought Josh Brolin would be a good match to play George W. Bush, maybe the same idiot who thought his Dad looked like Ronald Reagan, but it just looks plain stupid. If anything, I'm GLAD that this movie is being released this fall simply for the fact that more people will wake up and see how Hollywood and the Media are trying to rig yet another election. Michael Moore fell flat on his face four years ago, maybe Oliver Stone will this time too.

Either/OR

Vanilla or Chocolate? Chocolate
Dogs or Cats? Dogs
Coke or Pepsi? Dr. Pepper
The Beatles or The Rolling Stones? Stones!
Microsoft or Apple? Linux
Nike or Adidas? Reebok
Coffee or Tea? Coffee
Spider-Man or Batman? Wolverine
Ketchup or Mustard? Mustard
Pen or Pencil? Pen
Soup or Salad? Salad
Books or Magazines? Books
Indiana Jones or James Bond? Bond
Summer or Winter? Summer
New York City or Los Angeles? LA, specifically, Inglewood
Google or Yahoo? Google
CNN or Fox News? Fox News
Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune? Jeopardy (the day is mine, Trebek!)
Mountains or Beach? Beach
Yoga or Pilates? Yeah, right
Star Wars or Star Trek? Trek, baby

Vacations and Breakups

So the beginning of the month started off pretty good. I started my vacation on July 3d and went to Nauvoo to visit my sister and brother-in-law. Since Jen hadn't met either of them yet, she decided to tag along. We had a wonderful trip and the weather was just absolutely gorgeous. I don't think I've ever experienced nicer weather in Nauvoo this time of year. No humidity, 75 degrees, just awesome weather. The only bummer was that the Mill and Bakery ran out of pancake mix :(

The next week, I dropped Jen off in Poplar Bluff and drove out to Branson to meet my parents for the rest of my vacation. While the place we stayed had it's "issues", overall we had a good time. It seems that Branson has been taken over by the timeshare industry. You can't go ANYWHERE without someone trying to sell you one ("No Pressure! What's there to think about?") and it's so bad that even the lounge lizards say "I promise, if you come up and leave me a tip, I won't try to sell you a timeshare!" Anyway, we went golfing, Dixie Stampede, the Branson Belle, Ride the Ducks, and capped it all off with Andy Williams and Ann Margaret on Saturday night.

I will say, without a doubt, the most moving tribute I have EVER seen for a group of veterans was with Ann Margaret. She asked if there were any veterans of foreign wars in the audience. She then talked about going to Vietnam with Bob Hope and named off all the places they went. She then said how glad she was they could all come back to see her again 40 years later at Andy Williams' theater. It was heartfelt, emotional, and real. A man wearing a USMC shirt stood up in the front row and gave her some kind of trinket and said that the last time he saw her was in Vietnam. Amazing tribute.

So moving on, I guess the next bit of news is that Jen and I have decided to go our separate ways. There really isn't any one reason why, but we are both very strong in our religious beliefs and those beliefs just aren't compatible at this time. We'll remain good friends and I'm glad that a relationship is ended on a good note for once. That's all I have to say about that.