Thicker than blood

My good friend moved this week. It wouldn’t normally be such a big deal when a friend moves except this time he is moving to another state.
This now puts 4 really good friends in different states across the country. Friends that found each other and bonded over music and all came from sorted home lives. It’s sad to think we may not see each other again or even be in the same room at the same time.
One by one each of us left the sanctuary of our small town to chase a dream or change the course of our lives at the time. We have each been succesful In our course of action to some degree and I only wish the best for my brothers.
I know time time will tell our history and each of us will rise to new challenges, but sometimes i just really miss my brothers in arms. We have a bond that can never be broken; to my brothers, I raise a toast.

A new direction

After what seems like an eternity in class I am finally about to begin clinicals. I will be spending the next 6 months on what amounts to a really long job interview.
Fortunately my clnical site is 5 minutes from my house, 7 if I catch both lights red. Good thing considering I have to be there at 6am, for years I have been pretty sure that 6 showed up on the clock only once.
I also have been invited to join an honors society. I’m rather surprised but I worked pretty hard so dammit I deserve it, even though it’s going to cost me.
All in all I’m pretty happy with myself, Fortis college however is another story.

Ataining the ultimate in gadgetry.

The iPhone is absolutely the coolest nerd gadget that has ever existed. How cool is technology.

Health Care and the State of affairs…

I voted for OUR PRESIDENT. I have no problem admiting that. I wanted change, sure I did, as did most of the country as represented in our DEMOCRATIC FREE ELECTION. I wanted something differnet than the previous depths of hell that had brought this country down farther in the last years than the country had been in quite some time. President Obama ran on a platform of change which included health care reform, gettting us out of the muck and mire caused by years of mismangement of companies that failure brought on this Recession, just a safer way of saying depression with out all the recalling of Soup Lines and and bread rations. I applauded President Obama for trying to make a change so early on in his command. Yet I urge him to slow down a bit. The country isn’t ready to move so fast, remeber we are a fat and lazy society slow to accept a change from the norm.

Im not sold on this health care reform, Honestly I dont know enough about it and some of the things I am hearing are worriesome. I am fortunate enough to have a decent health care plan currently, I did recieve a notice the other day and realized how much it would have been had I not had the fortune of  health care.  I could not believe it. I dont know where that money goes. I dont know what my costs are and how are they calculated its insane. Some one is making a good deal on this. But who? The Insurance companies and the politicians in the pockets of these big companies.

That being said I personally have no better ideas at this time to offer, but I am no public servent. Those on the Right that are towing the party line are still so ticked that they lost the election that they are refusing to back the helath care reform process and not bothering to work with the others to come up with a better plan.  There are right wing groups mobilizing with the single purpose of not helping the cause but rather spending money on destroying the whole process. Instead of spending the money on breaking down community meetings designed to gather information from the public on health care reform lets see groups mobilize to bring the needs of the public to the forfront of the debate. This is the type of action that makes me leary of the right wing zealots, The Russlicans , the Hannites and the followers of the Rupert Murdoch Media giant FOX NEWS.

Where are the people who want and need health care reform, the ones that this will help? What are they doing to help this situation? Where is the middle class that needs to be counted and heard?

This country is in peril and if we cant fix it we are screwed!

Patriotic?

I think this guy is on the right track.

CNN Commentary
By Paul Begala
CNN Contributor

Editor’s note: Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor, was a political consultant for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992 and was counselor to Clinton in the White House.

Paul Begala says April 15 is the one day the government asks us to sacrifice for the greater good.

(CNN) — Happy Patriots’ Day. April 15 is the one day a year when our country asks something of us — or at least the vast majority of us.

For those who wear a military uniform, those who serve the rest of us as policemen and firefighters and teachers and other public servants, every day is patriots’ day. They work hard for our country; many risk their lives — and some lose their lives.

But for the rest of us, the civilian majority, our government asks very little. Except for April 15. On this day, our government asks that we pay our fair share of taxes to keep our beloved country strong and safe.

Freedom isn’t free. That’s what the courageous World War II veterans of the American Legion taught me back in Texas Boys State decades ago. That phrase had special meaning for them. Those guys had seen buddies blown apart at Anzio or Guadalcanal.

I grew up in a different era. There was no draft, and while I have friends and family members who joined the military, most of my peers, like me, opted for the security and prosperity of the private sector.

This country has showered me with the blessings of liberty. So what do I owe my country in return? Paying my fair share of taxes, it seems, is the least I can do. Thanks to President Obama and the Democratic Congress, 95 percent of Americans will get a tax cut this year. No one — not even the wealthiest 1 percent — will have to pay higher income taxes until 2011.

So why are a bunch of Fox News clowns and right-wing cranks hosting “tea parties” all over the country? The Boston Tea Party, in case the clods at Fox didn’t know it, protested “taxation without representation.” Note the second word: without. The goofballs tossing tea bags today have representation. They voted in the election; they lost.

That a bunch of overpaid media millionaires would lead a faux-populist revolt is comical. They somehow held their populist instincts in check as George W. Bush and the Republicans cut taxes on the idle rich and put the screws to the working stiffs.

Bush’s tax policies were a godsend to the Paris Hilton class, but they sent the country on the road to bankruptcy and helped ruin the economy. But now that we the people have decided to set things right, now that we’ve hired Obama to fix the mess conservatives created, now they’re protesting?

Give me a break. Instead of tossing tea bags for the cameras, the Fox phonies ought to go to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. There they would find better, braver men who have truly sacrificed for their country. They deserve nothing but the best — not the shameful and shoddy conditions they endured during the Bush administration. iReport.com: Share your thoughts on taxes and tea parties

You want something to protest? How ’bout protesting how little we give back to our veterans? Or how ’bout protesting that the entire budget of the National Cancer Institute (where government researchers battle a disease that will strike half of all men and a third of all women) is 0.03 percent of what we gave the bandits at American International Group alone? Oh, but veterans benefits and cancer research might cost money. It might require — dare I say it? — paying taxes.

If the whiners at Fox News want to advertise their selfishness, they are free to do so. But please don’t dress it up as patriotism. Patriotism is putting your country ahead of yourself — which is the precise opposite of what the tea party plutocrats are doing.

*The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul Begala.*

Portland!

I also flew out to Portland for Lauren and Lincolns new Brand Launch. It was quite an affair, a beautiful thing to enjoy and be a part of. Those two are a beautiful couple and I wish them the best in the world. They inspire me to be someone not afraid to chase the dream, whatever it may be.

Going to Portland was a great time to get together with some old friends and meet some new folks. I found everyone in Portland to be Awesome. The Beer was fantastic and Portland is the kind of city you can feel good about. It reminded me of a version of Charlottesville with a Real City Vibe to it. Nestled between Mt Hood and Mt Saint Helen’s with a Broad River running thru the middle of the city that manages to merge the new metro type of city with the old architecture that built the city. I loved Portland.

October First Sunday Ride.

Great Turnout today. I love a good Festival. Especially when there is an Italian Festival to go to.

Indian Summer

Indian Summer The scooter rally is coming up Oct 24-26. Here is a video Ryan and I worked up from last year.

Christmas.

Christmas has managed to sneak up on me this year. I knew it was around the corner and was coming sooner than I would expect but this year it has truly snuck up on me. I have avoided the malls and refused to listen to Christmas tunes that have been playing since a few days after Halloween. I am tired of the Diamond commercials littering the airwaves and the countless pages of Holiday specials spilling from the paper. I enjoy the presents and pageantry as much as anyone however I wonder how many people remember why we give gifts, what the tree means what the true meaning of the story of Christmas is meant to teach.

CHRIST CLIMBED DOWN

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit
and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagen sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
and German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
from Saks Fifth Avenue
for everybody’s imagined Christ child

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary’s womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody’s anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest of
Second Comings

-Lawrence Ferlinghetti-

Moving

I haven’t posted in a week or so. I have been preparing to move. Moving the practice of going through all the little memories and objects that make up your life and surroundings, placing them in a box loading them in a truck driving to the new place unloading everything and trying to figure out where your favorite guitar pick ended up. Change is good I will be living closer to work, closer to town which means closer to the bars and ease of going out. Gone is the wonderful wood stove. The dark night to check out the stars and being able to go outside naked if I liked, and I liked. You take the bad with the good. Ill miss the little cottage.