It's the end of the world as we know it!

Most people don' t know this about me, but I'm a doom and gloom guy. I contemplate worst case scenarios all the time. Such as:
-What if terrorist, an earthquake, a drought, ect took out LA's water supply
-What if the economy continues it's downward spiral to the point that a loaf of bread can't be bought with a barrel full of money (Germany post WWI)
-What if our Socialist gov't grows into Russia (1980's)

It could go on, but these scenarios all lead to one question. How do you survive when the luxuries of modern existence are no longer an option? Up to this point I can say I'm wholly unprepared for such an event. I wouldn't fare better than they guy next door. I have no reserve food supply, no water, no idea how to maintain a live able temp in my home, no emergency plan.

You would think someone who spends so much time contemplating his own demise would have a plan. I've spent so much time in survival mode that preparation mode never seems to get here. I'm getting closer to preparation mode as I watch our economy continue to crash. Is it too late, or is there still time.

http://www.codylundin.com/
This is the man with the answers. And he's been nice enough to write a book on urban survival. BTW, I'd love to have his house.

Maybe like the many doom and gloomers before me, I'm fretting over a hypothetical that will never happen in my lifetime. But then again, maybe not.

Happy Resurrection Day

Soon it will be Easter. I'll be hiding eggs for the kids and the family will be playing and enjoying each others company. But we'll not be thinking about Jesus, or his miraculous victory over death. We'll not be reading his story of what he did and why he did it and who he did it for. No, we'll be celebrating Bunnies and eggs, and whatever else this holiday has become.

I sit here thinking about where I am in life. Why God chose this time, this family, these circumstance for me? Every day I feel my humanity, my vulnerability, my inadequacy at who I am and what I do and who I'm responsible for. Yet, my family is somehow provide for, there is food on our table, a roof over our heads, cloths on our backs. We don't have an extravagant life, but we certainly aren't left wanting. God has truly provided for us.

I'm often told I'm good man, hard worker, good husband, good father, good this good that.... But when I look in the mirror, I don't see any of it. Kinda of like the woman whom is beautiful and everyone tells her so, but she looks in the mirror and can only see her flaws. I look in the mirror and my flaws glare out at me. No amount of blood and sweat can wipe away those flaws. They are like weeds, you pull one and three more pop up.

What are my flaws? Not sure I'm ready to lay them out for all to see. It's enough that I see them.

You know, when I was single I didn't much worry about my flaws. I was much more willing to sweep them under the rug. But as a husband and a father, my flaws become burdensome weights. My errors trickle down to my family. My bad ways and bad habits become my children's bad ways and bad habits. A carefree nomad is not fit to be a father. Yet I find myself longing to be that carefree nomad again. Ignorance is bliss. Irresponsibility, joyous.

But I am a husband and I am father. It's a heavy burden which God has deemed fit for men to bear. It is a burden filled with blessings. Blessings which usually aren't readily apparent when you want to throw your screaming two year old out of the jeep after the third hour of crying.

I guess I'm just tired. And worried. Our economy is collapsing, job security is a phantom, the home and the security I work so hard far, is always on the brink of slipping through my fingers.

I'm making all these plans for the future. Paying off debt, going back to school, buying a home, upgrading our family vehicle, starting a business. Each one by itself seems daunting and unattainable. Throw them all together and I'm beginning to buy into my wife's label of me. She affectionately labels me and my friends "The Dreamers".

But I'm not dreaming. I will achieve my goals. I will succeed and my family will be the better for it. Maybe I'm just looking for my second wind. Maybe I should be recognizing that right now is the calm before the storm. The storm is coming. The cards are not stacked in my favor. But I have to believe in my success. I have to trust God will carry me through. If I didn't have that hope, that assurance that God is in control and that he loves me and that he is driving my life and will drive my success, than I would just crumble into nothingness.

The burden of life; the burden of being a husband, father, provider; the burden of being a corporate leader, the driving force of a major division of my company; the burden of raising my kids to be God fearing adults; the burden of tomorrow, and the next day and the next day; the burden of friendship, being a shoulder to cry on; The burden of struggling to keep God's law which I know I'll never ever ever be able to do; the burden of existence, would crush me to dust. An so on and so forth.

I thank God that the burden is truly his. I thank God that while it may seem that I stand as Atlas with the world on my shoulders, it is truly I who am standing on the shoulders of God and it is he who is lifting and carrying the burdens which I bemoan about. It is He who assures me that I will get through today, and tomorrow and the day after.

And as I stand here tired, and weary with life, I know that I will be ok.

"When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live.
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul

But Lord 'tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul"

Horatio Spafford (you should read his story. He lost 5 children and his successful law business very shortly before writing this)

Happy Resurrection Day.

37 Years

Today we had a retirement party for a gentlemen whose been with my company for 37 years. I wasn't even thought of 37 years ago. What did he do for all those years? He worked the floor and drove forklifts. Day in and day out for 37 years. And in his last year here, the only year I knew him, he was always smiling, always courteous and always safe. Everyday.

Where are the people like him today? Where is the young kid willing to work himself day in and day out, content that he brings home a paycheck for his family? Where is the young man who knows how to be wealthy at any wage? Where is the young man with the commitment to press on for 37 years?

I don't think I know anyone in my generation like that. My record at one job is 6 years, and that is only because I was under a contract that would land me in Ft Leavenworth had i violated it.

Where have all the good men gone?

The next Great Depression

Who remembers the Great Depression? Neither do I. But everyone else does and they seem to believe that 12 years of gov't spending and gov't programs is what got us out of the Great Depression. And that seems to be our gov'ts plan today. Spend spend spend spend spend. Somebody, anybody, please explain to me how spending hundreds of billions of dollars we don't have is going to help us get out of debt. Somebody convinced Obama and all of the Democrats and many of the Republicans. Somebody convince me.

I'm tired of hearing that the Free Market failed. Really it did? When? When in any of your lives has there been a Free Market?

There can be no Free Market as long as there is gov't intervention and regulation. Gov't intervention has been growing since the Civil War. FDR accelerared the process and it's been getting worse ever since. Read 1984 written in the late 40's (I think). There are many that saw it coming, but we are the frog in the hot water that can't see that it will soon be boiling us alive.

A wise man once said, "There is nothing new under the sun". History always repeats itself and those who don't study history are doomed to repeat history. Why we got here is easy to explain. Where we are going is easy to see. How we survive the ride in tact is the question? Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

In the beginning.......... well, isn't that where we are now?


When I started wrting this I thought I was gonna ramble on for hours... but alas, I just don't feel like it. Off to watch LOST.

Buy or Rent

Until recently I was seriously considering buying a house. But there is really only two reasons to buy a house and I'm not sure I meet either of the two criteria. The two reasons you buy a home are
1) You intend it own it long term as your family home
2) You intend it to be a rental unit.

I have no intention of spending the rest of my life in LA so option 1 is out. So what about option two?

Option 2 isn't as sure fire as it may seem. Even with the housing market approaching a 10 year low, there is no guarantee it won't crash even further. If the economy continues to tank to a level that no one can afford the "rent", than I'm stuck.

And since Congress and our beloved President are doing everything they can to prolong and deepen the recession, I have no faith that the economy will hold out enough to pay me rent.

I guess that leaves me a renter for now. At least that means I'm not tethered to any one place.

Peter Schiff on our economy

If you want to know why we are, where we are, listen to this. It's long, but he spells it out for you.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3915119166991168859

40%

FYI of the 4.3 million babies born in 2007, 40% were born to unwed mothers.

I fell into a burning ring of fire

I've had this song stuck in my head since last Saturday. For the first time in two years (basically since Caleb was born) my wife and I went on a date. We joined up with a friend of mine at City Walk at Universal Studios and spent an evening in a piano bar drinking, singing and watching people make fools of themselves.

In retrospect, I wish we had done something a little bit quieter. But it was good to go out. Our next date? Will most likely be our anniversary. Look at 3 days and 2 nights in a quiet little mountain town called Idyllwid. Hiking, picnics, jacuzzi's, good food, critters and of course each other with no kids.

And then movie night.

Daylight Saving Time (DST)

Today I should be at church. Instead I'm at home writing you, dear reader. Why? Daylight Saving time. Both me and my wife forget to change the clocks.

So I decided to look up how we came about this crazy habit of changing time.

Long gone is the day when the farmer woke to the rooster's crow and slept when the sunset, or the days of the sun dial where time was always based upon daylight hours and thus naturally adjusted throughout the year.

Now we live in a calculated time where we live by the clock which is based upon scientific study of how long a second, minute, hour, day and year should be. And so we stopped living by natures clock (the sun) and started living by man's clock (big Ben).

So Big Ben Franklin came up with the notion of Daylight Saving time, though at the time nobody listened to him. In a society that lives by the clock, who lives North of the equator, nature changes daylight for us. So is it wise to live like Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and until 2005, Indiana? Or is it better to send ourselves into self induces jet-lag for the sake of daylight?

The argument for Daylight saving time is twofold.

-We waste daylight if we don't adjust the clock an hour

-We save a whopping 1-2% in energy cost

Indiana used to be divided on the issue. Western Indiana practiced Daylight Saving Time and Eastern Indiana didn't. In 2005 a new law changed that and the whole state no practices the changing of the clocks. A study of the Energy used before and after the time change law show an increase in energy use after the change.

Now the "experts" argue that this finding won't be true of all areas (trying to retain their dignity in proclaiming the energy savings). Now I concede this may be true, but it is also true that the notion of DST being a universal energy saver is a false notion.

And so we are left with the "it is a better use of daylight" argument.

I personally think we would do just as well to spend an extra hour in darkness in the mornings of winter than to juggle our clocks twice a year. Most of us Angelino's are driving to work at that time anyway. This would afford us and our children that extra hour in the evening for outdoor time. And I wouldn't be sitting here at home, researching the beginning of this national if not global phenomenon.

Obamanation

I've been an American my whole life. There have been six US Presidents in my lifetime. I just want to know why this is the first time in my life that every time the President speaks, every channel shuts down all regular programming to broadcast his oh-so-important, professionally drafted, reading via a teleprompter of someone elses words?

Just wondering what makes this President any different than the other five?