Monthly Archives: July 2006

dissention is patriotic

  By Chris | July 30, 2006 - |
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The price for regular gas is now $3.03 in Fredonia. In unrelated news, Exxon has posted record profits. I’m glad to hear that King George’s Texas buddies are raping the middle-class and working poor to line their pockets. I hope that our current George and his hypocritical political party and followers will learn what happened to another George who pissed off the American people a long time ago.

November will be fast upon us. I can only hope I won’t be seeing red when all is said and done. How dare the Republicans tie massive tax cuts for the wealthy to an increase in minimum wage? It is unconscionable. There is no reason to keep giving the rich more and more tax breaks while the working-poor are forced to shoulder an ever increasing burden. Everytime I see some redneck jackass with a Sportsmen for Bush sticker on his gas guzzling truck I want to pull them over and ask them why they hate our country so much. It’s amazing how the very people who support this regime are duped into it. Quick, don’t look at the economy or the rising class seperation, John and Billy want to get married. Isn’t that awful? Um, excuse me, but I’d rather have a stable economy and not be at war thank you. I really don’t care if people are *gasp* homosexual. I do care, however, that people are dying because of a war brought on by false pretenses and that it costs so much to put gas in my car that I can hardly afford to buy anything else.

fun in the sun

  By Chris | July 30, 2006 - |
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We took the girls to Midway Park on Saturday. It was a fun time. The park isn’t too far of a drive, we went and had a picnic lunch. Then the girls rode the rides for a couple of hours. It was a very hot day, so after about two hours they were pretty tired. We went down by the lake for a snack and to relax by the water. We played some games and went home. It was a fun day. The nice thing about Midway is you don’t have to spend a fortune to go and it has a lot of rides for younger children. My only complaint is that some of the ride attendants did not seem as if they were happy about working with children. It’s one thing to be a grumpy teenager at an amusement park for adults, but it bothers me when it affects children, mine included. But all in all it was a good time.

John Q

  By Chris | July 19, 2006 - |
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We watched John Q last night. What a good movie! My preference was leaning towards someting I’d seen already, preferably a comedy, something light-hearted that doesn’t require much thinking. So I wasn’t all too thrilled with the prospect of watching this movie. However, it was very compelling, especially once the action picked up towards the middle to the end. The premise of the movie is that ‘John Q’, played by Denzel Washington, is a father of a boy who needs a heart transplant. His health insurance won’t pay for the surgery and he and his wife are left with the decision of letting their son die or paying $250,000+ out of pocket. Underlying the story, action, and drama was the fact that there is a big problem with health care, or specifically the lack thereof, in the good ol’ US of A. I like movies like this because maybe it makes people think about real issues and still get entertainment as well. If you haven’t seen it, this movie is definately worth watching.

more vacation thoughts

  By Chris | July 10, 2006 - |
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I took today off as well, because at first I wasn’t sure when we would be getting back. But it is a good day to get caught up on laundry and mundane stuff like that. Also to reflect on time off and other things.
It is very important to take time off. I used to feel very weird/guilty about taking time off and found myself wondering about work while I was away. But now I totally unplug for a week. No cell phone, no computer, no TV, etc. It’s a great way to recharge oneself. I think that is a big problem with many people. Too much stress and not enough rest makes for a very unhealthy situation.
In my previous post I didn’t really mention much of what we did other than the touristy things we did. Most evenings we spent playing various card/board games. It was a fun time. A few days I took a nap in the afternoon, and I am adjusting to not having a nap-time anymore. :-) I think that’s the hardest part of vacation, is adjusting to a more ‘normal’ sleep schedule when it is over.

unplugged

  By Chris | July 8, 2006 - |
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Just returned from almost a week away. We went to Virginia (Williamsburg area specifically). Not too bad of a drive. That’s what we did on Sunday, left at 6:30 AM and arrived at 4:30 PM. The girls travelled well and it went pretty fast. It is really hot in Virginia in July, 100 degrees most days. Very uncomfortable for us northern folk. :-) Monday we spent acclimating to the heat and went shopping. There was a Pottery world or something that boasted 200 acres of pottery stuff. Karen, Gillian, Jessica (my sister-in-law) and I went. We saw some neat shops, but ironcially no pottery. Nothing. Granted we didn’t go through all 200 acres, but the first 10 buildings had nothing to do with pottery. Ironic. Then we went to a candy store. I got some roasted peanuts in a burlap bag. Mainly for nostalgic reasons although they are very good peanuts. Nostalgic because I remember getting those when my dad took me there when I was 10. I also got some candy. Mmmm, candy. :-) Then we went to the Prime Outlets there. The place we stayed was pretty nice. It was billed as a ‘lodge’, it had a really big living area, a kitchen, a nice deck and 6 bedrooms with bathrooms attached. Very nice since Karen has a large family and it was nice to have a place where we could all gather away from the heat. Tuesday we went to Colonial Williamsburg. We were there for 4 hours and it felt like we didn’t see anything. It was so hot we called it quits and went back. Wednesday we went to the Jamestwon settlement. That was pretty interesting. On the 4th (I lost track of what day that was and don’t feel like looking it up) Jess wanted to see fireworks and Bella wanted to go to. So I drove and cousins Tyler and Chelsea also came with us. We found a fireworks show that had only just started, lucked out and found a good parking spot and got to see most of the show. It was a good fireworks show actually, a very good finale. Thursday it rained for most of the day which killed our plans to go to the beach. Bella was pretty disappointed, but she got to go shopping with Uncle Drew, Aunt Wendy and Tyler and Chelsea so she was happy. Karen, Jess, Gilli, and I went to Basketville, where Karen bought some baskets and Gilli got a peppermint stick. Then we went to an antique store and needed to take the peppermint stick from Gilli so she wouldn’t get everything all sticky. Whoever coined the phrase ‘as easy as taking candy from a baby’ must have never tried to actually take candy from a baby. She would not let go. :-) Then we tried to find the Williamsburg winery. We didn’t have the map but we remembered seeing signs. Of course that only helps if there are enough signs. So we wound up going for quite a drive before getting directions and getting there. Then we had to wait for almost 40 minutes for a tour, which we didn’t take. So then we figured we do the wine tasting even though they wanted $7 per person. But that was part of the tour, so even if we didn’t go on the tour we’d have to wait for the tasting. So we just bought some wine and left. Friday we drove back and everyone was glad to be home. It is nice to spend some time away to unplug from the daily grind and recharge. But it is nice to be back too.