Jaiden and Seth - Best Buds



Anna, Hailee and Myself with Sensei Robert for our belt promotions.




Jaiden removing her old belt.

Anna, Hailee and Jaiden making Nicole into a snow girl

Us in the Dojo for our belt promotions

Stuff

Hello All-

I know it's been a awhile since I wrote anything- sorry. Here's whats been happening:

1. Report cards- the girls got their report cards, Anna and Hailee are B+ and As. Jaiden received her first Kindergarten report card and is slightly above grade level. We are so proud of all of them.

2. Karate- Karate has become very big in our lives. We go three times a week and are progressing nicely. All of us are testing for our belts next week and should do well. Since starting Karate I've lost about 25 lbs. The weight lose isn't due solely to karate, but because I've been exercising at least 45 - 60 minutes per day. to test for your black belt you have to run 3 miles in 30 minutes, do 100 push ups and 150 sit-ups, so I'm preparing.

3. College- I have two more classes to finish before I start gathering information for my dissertation, so the PhD is moving along nicely.

4. work- well work is work isn't it.

We went to go see A Christmas Carol on Saturday. We didn't go to Trinity like normal, we went to a little play house here in Westerly. It was very nice. I don't know what it is about me and A Christmas Carol. I love the story, a classic rebirth (Phoenix arising) story.

I'll post some pictures and videos from the belt testing.

Dave

Kids

Anna going to the Halloween Dance

Jaiden trying on some new sparring gear

All I want for Christmas is my.........

Tooth Fairy!

The Tooth Fairy visited last night.

Karate!

Well we are all involved with Karate now. Jaiden and Hailee tested and got their gold belts, Anna and I just started and are only white belts. We are having a great time and learning allot. I never realized how closely they work with the schools. The girls have to bring in their report cards to test and their teachers have to sign paperwork on the kids character. I'm so excited and happy about the program. It's all worth the money just to know that my girls could protect themselves when they are off to college or later on in life.

Here's a video of Jaiden testing.

Scup fishing

Anna and I went fishing for Scup with my friend Jason and his Dad. the water was little rough and it was Anna's first time out on the water, but she was a trooper and had a great time. She caught the first fish.

Me and some Scup. I ended up catching the daily RI limit of 45.

Anna and I

Jaison's Dad with a Great Sea Bass Catch! At least a 5 pounder!

I am David Plouffe

I have to repeat myself even though some of my other post below same the same thing. I am NOT Obama's campaign manager. Even though we share the same name I am in no way involved with the Obama campaign.

This morning Google sent me an email saying they were suspending my adsense account due to suspicious activity. I believe that some people may believe that by clicking on the Google advertisements you may some how be contributing and raising money for Obama. That is not the case. I installed the Google adsense bars just to try raise some extra money for my children's education. I am now appealing Google's decision to suspend my account since this also affects many of the other sites I write for (which I had to use a pen name since I was always getting Obama questions).

Karate Bean!

Some Pictures of Jaiden at Karate.

The REAL Dave Plouffe please stand up!

For everyone knows, I am not the David Plouffe that is Obama's campaign manager. My political views are very far from Obama. I do not consider myself a Republican or a Democrat. The core values of both parties have changed with every election that it is difficult for someone to stick with one party. I know that many people right now are saying something like Republicans have always been against abortion. However, I am not talking about social issues.

Republicans are supposed to stand behind smaller Federal government and more power to State Governments right? That was the issues throughout the 1970s and 1980s. But Lincoln the father of the Republican party was for a strong federal government. And now many of the Republicans vote for smaller government (government never gets smaller).

but there are things we want a strong Federal government for- military and education. I know everyone recognizes the need for a strong federally supported military but I'll need to explain myself on education. Before the No Child Left Behind Act there was no standard curriculum for our children. States may have had curriculum for their state. But in today's world our children need to compete with children from other states. They need to get the same education no matter what state they are in. This creates an environment that allows children to move from Rhode Island to Massachusetts without losing education. It also allows high school graduates the opportunity to move to other states without losing creditability in their degree. This is the responsibility of the Department of Education which many republicans are against.

As for the Democrats that want a large Federal government and small state governments, I question why they desire a large federal government. They are routinely anti-military the primary reason for the existence of the federal government.

Now as for Obama and McCain. I do not particularly care for either of them. I am insulted that Obama is even considered for the highest office in the world, the Commander and Chief of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world and he can't even produce a birth certificate to prove he is qualified for the job. Should a man who doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance be in control of enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world?

McCain has always been to wishy washy on issues for my liking.

911

Wow, seven years since the terrorist attacks of 9-11. We all have our stories, we all remember where we were. We were lucky, we made it through. We had friends that had family members in the Pentagon that were killed, but we made it through.

I think often about what could have been. Imagine if the heroes of Flight 93 did not sacrifice themselves and let the terrorists fly the plane into the intended target - The Capitol. the morning of 9-11 Congress was in the Capitol. If a plane crashed into it we would have lost at least half of Congress, their administration staff, and numerous other lives. Not only would the terrorists have succeed in attacking the head of the financial district (The Twin Towers) the head of the US Military (the Pentagon) but the US Political system (the Capitol). This would have required emergency elections after the terrorist attacks and would have put America in a much different situation had flight 93 succeed.

If we had to elect a new congress before retaliating for the attacks of 9-11, our attacks would have more likely been more servere. Lets face it, half of Congress would not have bene present, many of them would have been injured, and they would be more vengeful then they already were.

We are very lucky for the heroes of Flight 93, they made the world much safer by their sacrifice.

Google Adsense

Please visit some of the google advertisements on this blog. The Google adsense advertisements are a way to earn revenues to the website. This revenue is going to the childrens college funds and doesn't cost the visitor anything besides a click.

Thanks

Dave

KARATE!

Jaiden and Hailee have been taking Karate classes now for a few weeks. They love it. They go about twice a week and have a great time. Anna right now isn't interested but I think we might do a family package and get my butt over there too.

First day of school

The first day of school was today. Jaiden entered Kindergarten and Anna and Hailee entered the 7th grade. Wow, they are getting so big.

Jaiden's video

Well Australia Zoo is having another video contest. This year Jaiden wanted to submit a video for Robert Irwin birthday party. The rules have changed a bit. Please register and vote for Jaiden. She is already keeping track of how many votes she is getting and is very excited about the contest.

Here's the link: http://freetrip.australiazoo.com.au/?p=watch&v=26937-1219856253

I am so confused

Yesterday Joe Biden said "I have never seen Washington so broken". Hasn't he been in Washington since the 1980s? Why has he not tried to fix it? He's been in Washington for a long time. He is obviously part of the problem. Does Biden believe he'll be able to 'fix' Washington as soon as he's VP if he wasn't able to do it before?

Obama has campaigned for the last year on 'change.' Yet he pick Biden a Washington insider (who has a son that is a lobbyist, another for a hedge fund company) as VP. What will this 'change' be? I think it'll just be a change in their position and paycheck. These two people have not changed anything since they have been in the senate. Obama usually votes 'present' he has made no effort to change anything in his two glorious years in the senate.

Obama talks about redistribution of wealth, yet this millionaire senator from IL has a brother living on $12 a year living in a hut in Kenya! Send your brother $20! Do not talk about redistributing my wealth through taxes when you don't do it. Moreover why is the redistribution of wealth even talked about? Anyone who took economics 101 will tell you that is socialism. Why should I work hard if these jerks in Washington are going to take my money and give it to a Meth head? I guess I should do like most politicians and shelter their money in Off-shore accounts.

The democrats warm us of global warming and the fact that Washington needs to control our thermostats, yet they fly to the DNC on private jets and have huge video monitors everywhere taking huge amounts of electricity. If they really believed in global warming wouldn't they be more concerned. But then again Pelosi didn't even know where natural gas came from! Scary!

It all seems to be more of the same to me. Just a big old fashion pile of BullS$%T

Look at Obama's resume, two years in the senate and before that a community organizer. The majority of his decisions in the Senate have been marked 'present.' He has never made a hard decision in his life. I wouldn't hire him to work for me! never mind accepting his resume to lead the greatest military in the world as Commander in Chief with control of the worlds largest nuclear arsenal! Would you?

How do these people get in charge?

The Democratic speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi seems to be very confused on the source of natural gas of which she is a strong supporter of. On Saturday 23AUG08 she appeared on “Meet the Press” and stated her support of natural gas to rid us from fossil fuels. She states “I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels,” and at another time she stated natural gas “is cheap, abundant and clean compared to fossil fuels.”

Well Nancy, perhaps in the month you had off from Congress (you remember when some of the republicans were trying to discuss the energy policy and you refused to call the house back in session); you could have watched the Modern Marvels episode on oil refining. Natural Gas is refined from oil! Just because it says natural in the name does not mean it is not produced by the ‘evil’ oil companies from fossil fuels.

It really scares me that these people are in Washington trying to debate an energy policy when they do not even know the very basics of energy production. When politicians are stating they want to rid the world of oil, do they realize that jet fuel, plastics, mineral oil, baby lotion, suntan lotion, lipstick and many other products are made from oil? What are we expected to fly planes on, solar?

Pigeon and stuff

Well it seems we have a love connection. The new pigeon, Windy is getting along with our old pigeon, Snowy. Now we are not sure who's a boy, who's a girl. It's like we can look under the tail or something. Snowy is big and aggressive, so we believe he's a boy, while Windy is very quiet. We put them in the same cage and observed their behavior and they seem to get along. Windy has mites in her feathers so we've been spraying her with meds. Poor Snowy the only girls he's seen in years, and wouldn't you know it, she has bugs.

Anna returned from her trip in Florida with Ginger. She had a good time, did allot of back to school shopping. She went to Universal studios and went on a bunch of rides. Anna said she wimped out of going on the Mummy ride though. It's good to have her back, we all missed her.

New pigeon

Oh yeah, on Saturday we got another pigeon. Believe it or not Hailee and Lynne found another carrier pigeon when they were walking out of blockbuster video in Richmond. The pigeon was very ill and dehydrated. It was so dehydrated it looked like her eyes were about to pop out. Well Hailee got a hold of her and brought her home where she ate and drank for about an hour straight.

We still have snowy our other pigeon and the two are being introduced to each other. We have not put them in the same cage yet.

How weird is it that Hailee has caught two pigeons in three years?

Fishing

Well this was a good weekend. The weather was beautiful. Some of my friends and I took a half day Francis Fleet boat out fishing for Fluke. It was great. We were killing them. Fluke, Sea Bass, Pogy, you name it. When we were getting ready to pull back in, I caught something big, most likely a big striper. Well he dragged me around the boat, then he broke free and the only thing on my hook was a small starfish. It looked like that starfish ate my bait and was pulling me everywhere! It must have been one of those Central Falls starfish!

Sunday morning Jaiden and I went to the Aquarium. It was really nice. Jaiden got to play with the new baby sea lion Boomerang. I posted a video of the sea lion chasing her.

Another reason to hate Disney

As if the Hannah Montana craze was not enough to make you hate Disney. Here is an article about Disney manufacturing some "High School Musical" girl's underwear with the suggestive statement "Dive in" printed on them!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1556538.ece

Anna

This morning Anna went to Florida to visit Ginger for two weeks. I was a nervous wreck. This was the first time Anna flew alone. It was a direct flight to Orlando where Ginger was going to be waiting at the gate to meet her. There was no problem with security walking her to the gate. But man, you mind wonders when your put you child on a plane to fly 1000's of miles away!

Everything worked out. Ginger was waiting for her there and they are off to have fun and go shopping. Jaiden cried for about an hour after Anna left.

USS Houston Problems

Well the USS Houston has made the home page of CNN again about the secondary coolent leak.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/07/navy.sub/index.html

For all that don't understand, the secondary coolant is that coolant that never touches the reactor. The primary coolant that touches the reactor core heat ups and transfers this heat to the secondary coolant, which turns the turbines and makes electricity.

Secondary coolant is safe. I guess this valve on the Houston has been dripping for two years (I'm not sure how that happens without notice) and sprayed an enlisted guys in the Engine room. After the Enlisted Men had to field day the mess up, have reconstruct and an investigation on PMS practice, they took him to the hospital (just a joke guys, we all know the Nucs payed World of Warcraft during field day).

Well anyways the news people are freaking out because of the word 'nuclear.' The radiation level is less than a bag of fertilizer or a smoke detector. That's the way it is designed. It is not because the navy caught it before it could have gotten out of hand. It is because the radioactivity of the secondary loop is very small. Admiral Rickover drank the coolant in front of Congress!

Well anyways it is just another reason to clean the bilge.

The Montauk Monster

Man the web sites are blazing with pictures of the Montauk Monster. Many of the web sites say this is some animal experiment from the USDA research facility on Plum Island. Believe it or not, there is no Dr. Morrow crap happening on Plum Island. The 'monster' from the beach is just a poor old dog, most likely it was a pit bull with a decayed nose.

Here's the original photo:

Here is a picture from another angle:

http://forgetomori.com/2008/criptozoology/the-montauk-monster/

Notice in both pictures the sand is altered around the head, someone moved the corpse around. also notice that there is nothing to compare the size of the corpse to. There are no flies on the corpse. Also in the first picture there is something on the forearm of the animal. What appears to be a beak is just the upper jaw of a carnivore.

Awesome Storm

Man, we had an awesome storm last night. We lost power a few times to the house, high winds and a couple inches of rain. I didn't get any storm damages; however, lightning must have caused a fire in the neighborhood. There were a ton of fire trucks zooming down the street.

There was actually a waterspout spotted in Barrington Rhode Island! If is so rare to see a tornado in upper Narragansett Bay. Check out the video at:

http://www.turnto10.com/northeast/jar/news.apx.-content-articles-JAR-2008-07-23-0010.html

Always in the doghouse

Well, I ended up shooting 2 rabbits and as you can imagine, I'm in the doghouse. I think I thinned the rabbit population in my backyard from 20 to 18, that's it.

To make matter worse a woodchuck got into my fenced in area and ate the lettuce. it of course gets worse, the woodchuck on seeing me runs into my fence and gets his leg stuck. I tried to free him, but he was trying to bite me. The kids are in the pool swimming with Lynne, so what am I to do? I get the pellet gun (pellets won't even penetrate the woodchuck skin), I hide the gun and shot the chuck in the ass. it ends up freeing itself and runs into a swamp area. Lynne found me looking for the chuck to see if it was suffering. It wasn't, but it must have looked real bad.

Last night the deer found the garden, they helped themselves to the corn. I was surprised to see that the deers eat the corn stalks at the base. They also eat the ears, but they bite the base of the stalk, it falls, then they eat the ears.

I have tried everything; wolf, fox, coyote urine, motion lights, pinwheels, fake owls, etc. the problem is that the animals are very used to humans, therefore they do not scare easily.

I can't complain, my freezer is already full of squash and zucchini. I already have about 12 quarts of pickles and more acorn squash that I know what to do with. Nothing has touched to tomatoes and I think I'll get allot of peppers.

President George Bush: 'Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter'

This article is from the British Newspaper http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/2277298/President-George-Bush-%27Goodbye-from-the-world%27s-biggest-polluter%27.html

I can't believe Bush said this, even in joking.

"The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

Mr Bush, whose second and final term as President ends at the end of the year, then left the meeting at the Windsor Hotel in Hokkaido where the leaders of the world's richest nations had been discussing new targets to cut carbon emissions.

One official who witnessed the extraordinary scene said afterwards: "Everyone was very surprised that he was making a joke about America's record on pollution."

Mr Bush also faced criticism at the summit after Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, was described in the White House press pack given to journalists as one of the "most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for government corruption and vice".

The White House apologised for what it called "sloppy work" and said an official had simply lifted the characterisation from the internet without reading it.

Concluding the three-day event, leaders from the G8 and developing countries proclaimed a "shared vision" on climate change. However, they failed to bridge differences between rich and emerging nations on curbing emissions. "

COW FARTS

We have all lost our minds! Collecting cow farts to stop Global Warming? We should shut down Taco Bell if we want to control Methane! LOL!!!

Pictures

I've been scanning some of my old slides from throughout my naval career. My friend Kevin let me borrow a negative / slide scanner. It works pretty good. The Widget to the right will link you to some of my pictures. These were taken with my old Pentax 35 mil. I enjoy looking at some of these; hiking through MT. Furon in Tulon France, Exploring the ruins of Pompeii and Hereculean, and more. As I find pictures, I'll scan them.

Dr. Joyce Brothers Wrote The Following About Submariners

I wanted to share this story from Dr. Joyce Brothers about what drives men to stay on submarines. She wrote this in the 1960's after the lose of the USS Thresher.

RISK IS AN INSPIRATION IN SUBMARINE SERVICE

The tragic loss of the submarine Thresher and 129 men had a special kind of impact on the nation…..a special kind of sadness, mixed with universal admiration for the men who chose this kind of work.One could not mention the Thresher without observing, in the same breath how utterly final and alone the end is when a ship dies at the bottom of the sea…..and what a remarkable specimen of man it must be who accepts such a risk.

Most of us might be moved to conclude, too, that a tragedy of this kind would have a damaging effect on the moral of the other men in the submarine service and tend to discourage future enlistments. Actually, there is no evidence that this is so.What is it, then, that lures men to careers in which they spend so much of their time in cramped quarters, under great psychological stress, with danger lurking all about them?

Bond Among ThemTogetherness is an overworked term, but in no other branch of our military service is it given such full meaning as in the so-called “silent service.”

In an under sea craft, each man is totally dependent upon the skill of every other man in the crew, not only for top performance but for actual survival. Each knows that his very life depends on the others and because this is so, there is a bond among them that both challenges and comforts them.All of this gives the submariner a special feeling of pride, because he is indeed a member of an elite corps. The risks, then, are an inspiration, rather than a deterrent.The challenge of masculinity is another factor, which attracts men to serve on submarines. It certainly is a test of man’s prowess and power to know he can qualify for this highly selective service. However, it should be emphasized that this desire to prove masculinity is not pathological, as it might be in certain daredevil pursuits, such as driving a motorcycle through a flaming hoop.

Emotionally Healthy There is nothing daredevelish about the motivations of the man who decides to dedicate his life to the submarine service. He does, indeed, take pride in demonstrating that he is quite a man, but he does not do so to practice a form of foolhardy brinkmanship, to see how close he can get to failure and still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

On the contrary, the aim in the submarine service is to battle the danger, to minimize the risk, to take every measure to make certain that safety rather than danger, is maintained at all times.Are the men in submarines braver than those in other pursuits where the possibility of sudden tragedy is not constant? The glib answer would be that they are. It is much more accurate, from a psychological point of view, to say they are not necessarily braver, but that they have a little more insight into themselves and their capabilities.

They know themselves a little better than the next man. This has to be so with men who have a healthy reason to volunteer for a risk. They are generally a cut healthier emotionally than others of similar age and background because of their willingness to push themselves a little bit farther and not settle for an easier kind of existence.We all have tremendous capabilities but are rarely straining at the upper level of what we can do; these men are.

The country can be proud and grateful that so many of its sound, young, eager men care enough about their own status in life–and the welfare of their country–to pool their skills and match them collectively against the power of the sea.

Be very, very quiet, I'm hunting rabbits

Well I've tried everything. I have a fence around my greens (actually two fences, one large another chicken wire). I triend wolf urine, fox urine, pin wheels, decoy snakes, liquid fence (guarenteed it says). Still the bunnies keep attacking. They have been moving on to eating the cucumbers, the pumpkins, and the eggplants.

I had to buy a pellet gun last night to do some rabbit hunting.

When I can go out in my backyard and see 8-10 rabbits, it's not wildlife, it's an infiltration. I did not spend hours after work everyday tilling land by hand, spend hundreds of dollars on fertilizer, plants and materials, just so rabbits can eat it. It wouldn't be bad if they just stuck to one or two plants, but they will strip plants clean and keep going.

The same is true with woodchucks. My major concern with chucks is that they will eventually dig and bite the liner of the pool (where they like to dig) causing me to spend another 5-6 grand on a pool liner.

The whole issue is not fences, its not organic deterrence, its not guns. It that I don't have a dog. there is something to say for a large meat eating predator roaming your property that keeps the rodents away. However, dogs are expensive. It may be the way to go. I can't fence in the entire yard with chicken wire hoping to keep the woodchucks and rabbits out. So I need to control the population.

Perhaps I'll get a dog, I haven't decided yet. I remember as a kid we had problems with chucks and my dog Shena took care of it. Lynne mentioned other people that have gardens but didn't have problems with rabbits (they all had big dogs).

I really don't want a dog though.

A great Anti-Obama Video

Below is a link to a great Anti-Obama Video. It shows how he doesn't want to put his hand on his heart during the National Anthem, how he refuses to wear the American Flag, Rev. White, etc, etc, etc.

What a SCUM bag!!!

How is it that someone whom voted 76% of the time as 'present' can run and be in any public office?


http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?RsrcID=2036

More dead birds

I while ago I wrote and posted pictures and videos of a beautiful male blue barn swallow. This male built a home in a ceramic bird house that was by the pond. Everyday his woman and him would greet me. When I would mow the lawn they would dive bomb me telling me to stay away from their nest.

We counted five eggs in their nest.

Yesterday, after noticing the flies around their nest, we pulled out 4 dead baby birds.

I don't know what happened. Perhaps the ceramic bird house got too hot for them in the summer. Perhaps there is some kind of bird flu going around and affecting the birds. Perhaps there was too much traffic for the parents by the pond. I don't know but the birds are acting strange to me.

WOW!

From Fox News:

"When Capt. Ivan Castro joined the Army, he set goals: to jump out of planes, kick in doors and lead soldiers into combat. He achieved them all. Then the mortar round landed five feet away, blasting away his sight.

"Once you're blind, you have to set new goals," Castro said.
He set them higher.

Not content with just staying in the Army, he is the only blind officer serving in the Special Forces — the small, elite units famed for dropping behind enemy lines on combat missions.
"I am going to push the limits," said the 40-year-old executive officer at the 7th Special Forces Group's headquarters company in Fort Bragg. "I don't want to go to Fort Bragg and show up and sit in an office. I want to work every day and have a mission.""

What a great man!

Semi-retirement

During my 20 years in the military it was difficult to visualize what normal life was like. Even when I was on shore duty, the hectic work schedule of the military made a 60-80 hour work week the norm. Many people don't realize what the average person goes through just to be in the military. People only hear about military members being deployed, that's it. But the military life is so much different than civilian life there is no comparison.

For instance on a submarine (my experience) the majority of the crew stands 3 or if you're lucky 4 section duty. What this means is that on top of your normal work day, every 3-4 days you have to stay overnight and man watches on the submarine. So a 'normal' day on an in-port submarine is 0600-to about 1600 (a 10 hour day) then every 3-4 days a 24 hour (including weekends). this is normal peace time, in port work days. It equates to about an 80 hour week. I know there are people that will say 'but you sleep during a duty day'. - sometimes you can get a few hours. When I first joined the navy in the 1980's we used to be able to grant 'day after duty' meaning that if you had the duty and your worked hard during that time, you could leave after you got relieved by the next duty section. Those days are gone. There is so much work to do that no one leaves early.

At sea the submarine crew is in a three section rotation. The crew stands 6 hours of watch, 6 hours of off watch training, maintenance, cleaning, and then 6 hours of rest. Not necessarily in that order. Myself as a Sonar Supervisor had to spend many hours in 'reconstruct' analysing all of the information gathered from my watch.

Looking back I am amazed that I made it through and I am even more amazed at the young men that continue to make it happen. I see these young men that are in submarine school and here is their schedule: PT at 0600 in the ball field, class 0800-1600, dinner at 1700. If they are on extra study then study hall is 1800-2000. if they are still behind they are required to be at study hall 1800-2200. I can't think of anyone that wants to be at work 0600-2200. Oh yeah, these students also have watch standing duties on top of that. I can't think of any college student that does that.

I think that is why many veterans have trouble adjusting to civilian life, I know I am. It is really hard for a military guy to understand the importance of things like 'don't mix whites into the laundry.' It is not that we can't follow instructions, we are very good at that, it is just that it seems so mundane, ridiculous, meaningless, it is that it doesn't fit a mission.

I find that I just have to continuously keep myself busy with school, garden, the yard and the family. If not I become idle and nothing good comes of that.

Renee

Renee was in town from MO for the weekend. It was a great time to see her after 10 years and finally meet her boyfriend Frank. This is the first time Jaiden and Hailee met Renee. Afterwards we went to Capron Park Zoo.

The Birds are acting strange?

I'm getting a little concerned.

First there were the baby grackles that we were able to catch. Then there was a dead chickadee I found with no signs of attack. Yesterday I found a large Grackle dead with no signs of attack.

Last year there was allot of press about bird flu. I am getting concerned that I may be seeing signs in nature of it. Birds will kick their off spring out of the nest if they believe they are sick (was this why we caught the baby birds?). Now there are the dead birds? Next time I find a dead bird, I'm calling animal control.

Just another sign of end! oh yeah Obama is the Anti-Christ check it out http://www.barackobamaantichrist.blogspot.com/

Meghan's party

Yesterday was Meghan's graduation party. It was very nice. Colleen and Bobby had a tent outside and everyone was there. Elaine and Fred was up from Florida, my brother Ronnie was there, and all of the rest of us. It was very nice to catch up with everyone and to talk about how we are all aging. It happen to the best of us - getting old.

Meghan is off to college to study to be a math teacher.

Anna and Hailee are blogging now. Anna has a blog to share her cheat codes and video game tips, Hailee has I-waffle which is about anything and everything. It's good to see them doing something else with computers than just playing games.

not much happening

Yesterday the girls went to see the Animal Planet expo up in Warwick. they had a good time, there was demonstrations and slides and and typical fair style stuff. I stayed home and mowed the lawn and cleaned the pool. All of the rain last week really messed up the chemicals in the pool so I had to do some major cleaning.

The yard is looking really good. The fruit trees are producing. I have to figure out how to keep the birds away from the plum trees though. I can never get any plums since the birds eat them right away when they are little. We've been picking musculin and arugula from the garden. The arugula is really a surprise. It is so easy to grow, it last really long and the kids love it. Who wouldn't love lettuce that tastes like peanut butter?

One of my tomato plants has signs of early blight. All of the Ortho books recommend chemical treatment to restore its health. I'm still searching for an organic method for it. If anyone has some ideas, please let me know.

Huck Finn Day

Today was Huck Finn Day. The local sportsman club hosts an event at Crandel Field that has all of the old time kids style games, like three legged races, wheelbarrow races, etc. They also have a Huck Finn look-a- like. After the games the kids have a little fishing derby where they have to use cane polls and worms and they all fish a small area for sunfish.

Baby bird

We found a baby bird out in the field yesterday. I seems he left the nest a little early and wasn't ready to fly. We didn't keep him. Baby birds do not do very well with humans.

Tour of Sub School

The girls had allot of fun. We got to tour sub school and check out some of the trainers. The girls enjoyed the fire trainer (even though they couldn't start the fire), the gun range and the ship control trainer.

baby bunny

We caught a baby bunny yesterday while I was working in the yard. We didn't keep it.

What's been happening?

I've been gardening alot recently. Since it is still so early, I've only been harvesting sod and rocks. The land I've been getting ready has never been gardened. The place with the best sun, actually has the worst soil. Under the layer of sod was construction grade fill. I guess the previous owners when filling the swamp area and diggin ghte pool took the fill and dumped it back there. I've been conditioning the soil, I do have some greens growing there, put it'll take a year to get it ready for some real planting. I planted some arugala, I always heard how easy it was to grow. I planted last week adn the seeds are breaking the ground. I guess it is pretty easy.

I started tilling up around the barn. The soil is good, but the afternoon sun is not. I think this place will be good for Tomatoes and cucumbers. An area by the stone fence is lacking afternoon sun, but it will be very good for peppers. Next year I want to use the area by the barn as a perennal bed for asparagas, rhubard and horseradish.

The fruit tree are doing good. The apples and peaches are about to be in full bloom. The dwarf peach trees didn't make it through the winter. There were always struggling back there. The full size peaches are doing much better. I had good edible peaches last year.

Now the hardest part of gardening is teaching the kids to get off the prepackage junk food and eat some real food.

The kids are doing well. Hailee has been fighting allergies and sinuses. I think it might be more like her adenoids, we are going to get her checked out if this antibiotic doesn't work through. I took Anna and Jaiden to see Iron Man. Jaiden's new superhero name is Iron Bean (her secret identity).

I've been writing and recording a bit. Same old, same old. Work is going well. Same old, same old.

www.dealsncash.com

Review of www.dealsncash.com

www.dealsncash.com is another website that pays you to view emails. But this one’s a little different, it works, and you don’t get sick of seeing the same tired emails. I believe this company and www.hits4pay.com are the same company, the web pages are designed the same and they both have the same type of emails they forward to you.

Sign up is easy and does not require much time or personal information. The site puts $5 in your account when you sign up.

This website will inform you daily through your email that there are emails to view in your account. On average I have about 20 emails to view a day. There emails pay .02 each, approximately .40 a day. For referrals you make .01 on every email that they view. You can have up to 3 referral levels. Not enough money to retire on or make a million dollars, but every little bit helps.

When your account reaches $25, you request payment to your Paypal account.

From their own website they state that they are not an employment opportunity or a get rich scheme, they are just a way to earn a little extra money.

It’s not very difficult at all and can add a little bit extra cash. I mean how hard is it to open up an email and let it sit in the background for a minute. The emails are usually focused on money making schemes wanting you to sign up and send money. When I get those emails I use the tab function on my browser an visit other websites.

If you wish to give this website a try, please click on my referral link below, Lord knows I could use the referrals.

http://dealsncash.com/members/index.cgi?deadheaddave

Thanks.

Gardening

I've been working the soil. I got a pretty good garden going.

Here's some pics.

The garden bug

The gardening bug has hit me hard.

We’ve had beautiful weather in Rhode Island for the last few weeks. I took last week off from work and spent the time with the girls at the house. I had to catch up on a lot of work I’ve been meaning to get to. I did a lot of concrete work on an old stone fence by the yard. After that I started gardening.

Even though we have a good size yard, it has never been used for gardens. The previous owners kept horses. Needless to say whenever you start digging into virgin soil, you never know what you’ll find. Much of the soil is horrible! I have pulled out large granite rocks. The soil is sandy in some spots, muddy in others. It seems that when the back was filled, they used construction fill, then covered it with sod. A good economic plan for raising horses, not good for farming.

My pitchfork and I ended up double tilling a 30X30 square and planted the usual: corn, tomatoes, peas, beans and lots of greens. By the barn I tilled a 5X30 square (much better soil, not much good afternoon sun though) and plan to plant cucumbers there. By the stone fence I tilled another 5X30 (good soil and good sun) and planted about 10 different pepper plants.

This weekend I plan to enlarge the 30x30 some more and plant more corn.

Hailee's Blog

Here is a link to Hailee's blog that she is maintaining for a school project. She has done very well with it.

http://i-waffle.blogspot.com/

April vacation

The kids and I have the week off this week. I took leave to spend time around the house with the kids. Lots to do at home. I've been concreting an old stone retaining wall by the house. Too many critters living in there, too close to the house. Also did allot of cleaning around in the yard.

I would like to get the garden going but my Tiller doesn't want to work. It's locked up. It was turning over fine when there was no fuel in it. As soon as I put fuel in it, it locked up.

I started my new course on Educational research. It seems to be going pretty good. I have another paper due soon and I'll start writing it today. We are not going to go anywhere, the girls have invited half the neighborhood over.

Some of the sites I've been writing on

Some people have asked about some of the sites I've been writing on and if they are working. They do work and I am making money. Granted it really is nothing to retire on, but it helps.

Associated Content:

This is the first writing site I started with. AC offers the producer the ability to post not just written articles, but video, slide shows and audio. Material on AC can be exclusive or non-exclusive to their site. They also offer up front payment for some articles and videos. Typically a producer can earn between $3-$5 for a well written article or video. The company also offers performance payment where the producer earns for every click his submission receives. The performance payment can add up, it is not difficult to earn an easy $20 for your article submissions.

AC will not allow you to edit articles once you have posted them. Therefore ensure that your material is the way you want it before posting.

AC pays through Paypal.

This company is growing fast and every day there are new content producers.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/join.html?refer=121316

Triond

Triond is another great writing site. This site will accept anything; videos, pictures, articles, audio clips, etc. A producer can not post anything that has been posted before or elsewhere on the web. Triond checks and they are very good at finding them.

Triond let you edit material that you have posted. Triond manages many website that they post your material at according to your subject matter.

http://www.triond.com/users/deadheaddave

Thisisby.us

I have just started with this website. This does not offer editing services. They have a weird payment plan that is based on ‘goodness’ levels. This is ‘goodness’ is based on your articles, who views them and if they get votes. Because of this set up, many of the popular articles are about personal relationships, fights between producers or anything to get a response. They also pay you to leave comments on articles.

They pay through paypal

http://www.thisisby.us/register.php?r=12439

www.Reviewparty.com

I’m also new to this website, but I like it. This website you write reviews for music, DVDs or Books. You get a percentage of the add revenue through Google Adsense. But more than that if you become an Amazon affiliate you make a percentage off every purchase that is made by someone clicking on the widget that is in you review. That can add up quick.

Many of the reviews are very short. If you write good reviews it is easy to standout.

I did notice a sharp increase in Adsense since I’ve been writing for this website. It seems that this website gets some traffic.

Hits for Pay

This is one of those Pay to receive email websites. You only get $.02 for every email you receive and read. Of course every email has to do with making a million dollars on the web. But the truth- I usually don’t read them. The emails have to be on your screen for one minute, but that doesn’t stop you from opening another browser and continue what you were doing. You could open Word and type while you are getting $.02 for that email. It can add up.

http://hits4pay.com/members/index.cgi?djplouffe

Tooth Fairy

Big night last night! Jaiden lost her second tooth. I helped her yank it out at around 2000. She wanted to call everyone she knows to let them know. We had to tell her people were getting ready for bed and could not talk. She was so excited!

She woke us up at around 0200 to let us know that the tooth fairy left her some money.

Pics

The Girls with Aunty Elle

Hailee Chillin at Eva's

Hillary Clinton

I don't know if anyone saw Jay Leno last night (I was asleep) but supposedly Hillary Clinton is now joking about her lying!

Here is from AP:

"It is so great to be here, I was so worried I wasn't going to make it. I was pinned down by sniper fire," Clinton said after joining him onstage, referring to her claims—since disputed—that she dodged sniper bullets while arriving in Bosnia as first lady. Clinton later said she had "misspoke."

Every child knows it is wrong to lie; however, Clinton thinks it is not only OK to lie to get what you want, but when caught joke about it! Granted this is small compared to Bill's perjury, but if she gets in it will only get worse!

There is a nother story about how she not only misspoke, but she misheard a reporters questions when she stated that Obama could not win. "Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday seemed to deny that she told New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson that Barack Obama could not win the presidency.
But her campaign later said she misheard a reporter's question" (New York Post).

New Posts

Well it seems that Obama's campaign manager has the same name I do. I was getting emails everyday, I actual got someones resume Saturday from Australia.

Because of this I started to write under a pen name; Deadheaddave. If you do a google on that name you can find many of my videos and articles at other sites. I am submitting more stuff to different sites now, not just associated content.

Michael

Well we got the news on Tuesday that our brother-in-law Michael had lost his battle to cancer. The cancer was fast growing. About a year ago Michael noticed a cough and thought he have had a hernia. Next thing he knew; cancer and spreading fast.

It is always so sad to see someone die so young. Micheal was only in his mid forties and worked hard his whole life to care and provide for his family. He built his own house that he raised his family in and rebuilt a house to use as a vacation home for his family. He was so young with so much to look forward to.

His wake is today in NY and the funeral is tomorrow. Lynne will attend to support her sister and family, I will be staying home with the children. My thoughts are with them.

Michael leaves behind his wife Laura, his two sons Chris who is in college and his 10 year old son Mikey.

The upcoming election

I am very concerned with the potential outcome of the upcoming American election.

Recently Americans are very concerned about rising home prices, raising food prices, raising medical bills, inflation, job loss, the mortgage crisis, the loss of manufacturing, a war that people are tired of and the growth of big government. Throughout history, these have been the reason that people have revolted against their government.

The upcoming election with Clinton, Obama, and McCain could very well rock America’s democratic institution.

Currently Clinton is leading Obama in the Super delegate count. However, Obama is leading Clinton in delegates and in the popular vote amongst democrats. Obama is very moving and his supporters are very loyal to him and his socialistic cause.

During the democratic convention if Clinton gets the democratic nomination due to the super delegate vote, while Obama maintains the popular vote, this might mark the end of the Democratic Party. America will view Clinton’s nomination as a political backroom deal between super delegates and the Clintons. They will feel that their candidate, Obama got cheated out of the nomination due to the established democratic political administration.

I fear there will be riots. The riots in LA in the early 1990s were triggered by Rodney King when home values were at decent prices and people had much to lose. Currently many people do not have that much to lose and they feel that their government is short changing them. If people feel cheated by the Clintons and the super delegates, they will riot.

The only way I see this scenario not happening is by the Clintons. Hillary would destroy herself by her own actions and words (Obama doesn’t seem to be throwing stones). Or Hillary must have so much dirt on Obama that he will destroy himself.

Many of the recent allegations against Obama do not seem to be sticking. Rev. Write seems to have little effect amongst his supporters. Obama’s lack of experience seems to have little effect on his momentum. Hillary will have to get a picture of Obama training with Al Qaeda to stop his momentum.

After the Hillary and Obama battle is over, if Obama survives and gets the nomination, there is another battle with McCain. I think there will be more turmoil at this level if Obama doesn’t win.

McCain needs to pick someone as a running mate that will affect the racial or gender bias. If McCain picks a man from the GOP, it will look like the same old routine. Like it or not, race and gender are factors in this election. McCain should pick someone like Governor Jodi Rell from Connecticut.

It just seems to be that America is at an implosion point. I fear that this election is the fuse that will light it.

4000 american military deaths in Iraq

While no one like seeing anyone die, I want to discuss the 4000 military dead in Iraq that is being covered throughout the news today. 4000 dead in the last 5 years is not a really high number. I know that the family members of the soldiers that died do not want to hear that, but it is not. More people die every year drinking and driving on "safe" American highways ("In 1995, traffic fatalities involving a drinking driver represented 42 per cent of road fatalities [17,732 deaths]; in 2000, they represented 41 per cent [17,380 deaths]" http://www.safety-council.org/info/traffic/impaired/stats.html). That being said, it is actually safer to walk around Iraq with an American flag tee-shirt than to drive home Saturday night on RT 95.

I found the following from another blog (http://mpinkeyes.wordpress.com/2007/02/20/military-casualties-during-the-bill-clinton-administration/):

"As I write this there have been about 3100 soldiers killed in Iraq fighting for and defending this country. This is from 2003 until now. I know this because we are constantly barraged with the death toll on the news every day. Can you image fighting WWII with the coverage as it is today?
Our enemy killed about the same number of us in one day on our soil, but sadly that has been forgotten.

Here is a list of how many US soldiers were killed when Bill Clinton was in office. We didn’t get constant death tolls the way we do now, so you probably haven’t seen these numbers before.
1993-1,245
1994-1,109
1995-1,055
1996-1,008

That is a total of 4,417 military deaths during the Clinton years."

Remember during the Clinton years the military was in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti and the Sudan. We any of these campaigns successful? It can be argued that Bosnia and Haiti were successful. But that is a high American military loss of life for those small campaigns, compared to the fall of Afghanistan (which even communist Russia spent ten year in and still failed) and Iraq.

Like I said the loss of human life, any human life is tragic. Any of these brave men and women after their military tour could have found a cure for cancer or built cost efficient space travel.

We just have to put things in perspective before we make judgements based on the news coverage.

Death to the virus!!

Well it seems that the flu has worked its way through our family. Lynne seems to be over it. It quickly hit Hailee. Jaiden and Anna seemed to be untouched. I was hit the worst. I am still tired from the flu. I wake up tired, I am tired at work, it takes all of my energy to go work out during lunch. However, it seems to be going away and I'm getting back to normal.

I finished my applied statistics class last week. I was surprised that I was able to pull of getting an A. Next I start an educational research class then I start the dissertation process. Hopefully I can finish by spring 2009.

The girls and I are taking Friday off. Rhode Island has good Friday as a holiday, even though it is not for the federal government. therefore it is going to cost me a day of leave. I'm not sure what we are going to do. It's supposed to be a nice day so maybe we'll go hiking, even though Jaiden hates to go hiking.

The Virus Continues

The Flu has been working its way through the family. Lynne needed to take yesterday off, Hailee had it shortly during the weekend, Anna is battling a sore throat, and I still have a hacking cough. The only person who is untouched is Jaiden.

I finished my last paper for my statistics class yesterday. Hopefully I did pretty well with it. I hate statistics. Perhaps the only subject I dislike more is accounting. My dislike is not due to the actual subject matter, it is because the texts are written by mathematicians and the professors want your answers to written like you are a mathematician. That is not me. I cannot write that way. When I read the questions I have a difficult time understanding what they are asking. I guess I’m not alone, because if it was easy, the world would be full of statisticians!

I haven’t been working out this week because of the flu. Hopefully soon I can get back in the swing of things.

The Flu

I've been fighting the Flu for the last couple of days. I started to feel it on Thursday and stayed home with Jaiden. Thursday morning I felt just a little strange, then by noon, everything hurt and I must have slept for about 14 hours. On Friday I had to go to work for a phone conference. I left after the phone conferance and went to bed. Anna and Hailee took my temperature at about 103 Friday night. But the fever broke Friday night. Saturday and Sunday I've just been recovering (very tired and weak).

Poor Hailee has caught the flu from me. Yesterday around noon she started to complain about being sick. She has all the symptoms of what I had.

It's all my bosses fault, he was the first one to have it and gave it to me.

Weight loss

Well it's been two weeks since I started back on my exercise plan. I feel better of course. I've been doing about 40 minutes of either jogging on the treadmill or riding the stationary bike. I also do about 20 minutes of weight lifting every day.

I haven't lost any weight yet; however, I do feel the pants loosening up and the belt needing more tightening. If I remember correctly from my other weight loss experiences, the next two weeks will hopefully be a big noticeable weight loss as long as I keep exercising every day.

I wasn't able to get the girls signed up for swimming lessons like I wanted to. Registration began at 0900. I called at 0902 and they were all booked up. Must have been the kids that were previously enrolled in level 1 advancing to level 2 classes.

Tonight we meet to register Jaiden in Kindergarten. Hopefully we can bypass kindergarten and just enroll her into first grade. Last year the age requirements changed (had to be 5 years old by Sep vice Dec) and Jaiden had to wait. Jaiden can already read a little bit, write a little bit and spell many words and do simple math. She will be so bored in kindergarten.