Thank God It’s Over

Can I get a hallelujah my friends?

• No more campaign speeches.
• No more ads that make you feel like the end of the world is coming. 
• No more debates where both candidates avoid the questions and add their own spin on it. 
• No more analysis from “experts” out there on who will win and why.

For those of you who voted congratulations on participating in the process. 

For those who voted for Obama, congratulations to a well fought campaign.

As I watched the television last night and saw so many crying and cheering for their candidate.  My thoughts were, be careful with your enthusiasm. 

When you hoist a man like Obama so high on a “pedestal” with the expectations of so much, you also take the risk of him falling.  We can’t afford for a President to fall at this time. 

And now a little quiet for the time being until the next campaign comes around.  A reprieve if you will for a short time… 

That is until Arnold “The Terminator” decides to run again.  

High School Again?

My eyes were bleary and red from looking at the computer monitor for hours on end.  Spell checking, punctuation, correct grammar (I told you I married a teacher, remember).  Are the pages formatted correctly? 

The mind is going numb and I can’t remember simply facts.  Did I mean to write to, too or two?  How do I indent again?  I made a mistake, where’s the whiteout.  Oh yeah, it’s not a typewriter.

Is this the story of a writer updating his blog?  No such luck.     

Bless her heart, but my youngest daughter is the “Queen of Procrastination.”  She has known for a couple of months that her history class required that she turn in a report on the current presidential election.  Seven to ten pages on the candidates, their backgrounds, where they stand on the issues and then a results page of the election.  All due this Friday. 

Guess what yours truly was doing this weekend?  Go ahead and guess.  Was it watching football?  Relaxing in the backyard with a favorite cigar?  Taking in a movie?  Or maybe some much needed romantic time with my wife?  Nope. 

I’m not a dad who coddles his kids.  Never have, never will.  It’s usually a sink or swim situation for them.  However, I do have caveats to that rule.  I will let them sink but never drown.  They need to know that their parents are here to protect them, no matter how stupid they get.  But they are going to learn the lesson.

So for the sake of being a “dad” I assisted my youngest with her paper.  This was a daunting task for her being that she is being mainstreamed into regular classes.  I didn’t want her to drown.  I needed to give her the guidance in building the paper.  Build her confidence so that she’dl know that she can do it.

I stumbled into bed on Sunday night with visions of the candidates in my head (shudder). I drifted to sleep knowing that the nightmares of Obama and McCain would flood my mind.   I smiled in the knowledge that my youngest had a history paper almost completed.

Would someone pass the eye drops?

Again, I need to send the link love to Daddy Dan and his “Ask the Bloggers” weekly feature.  Yours truly is on his list.  Check it out.  I’m the one enjoying his cigar…

Cigars and Monday Night Football

It just doesn’t get much better than this….

And yes, I’m going with my wife’s blessing.  She’ll just go out and buy more yarn.

It’s Not a Psycho Drama…It’s Just an Election

I would love to take the credit for the statement above, but I need to attribute this to Bill Kristol, Editor of the “Weekly Standard.” 

He was recently interviewed on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” the other night.  Bill and Jon are polar opposites in their political views and Bill’s statement (see above) resonated with my wife and me, also polar opposites (getting cold in here).

Bill Kristol summed up his views pretty succinctly in stating that “If you’re a liberal you should be voting Obama, if you’re a conservative then your vote should be for McCain.”  This isn’t rocket science folks. 

And even though my wife and I have voted early by mail (and cancelled each other out)

Please don’t forget to vote. 

Halloween at the Office

I’m the one dressed as the MIB agent.

For Sale

Imagine sitting in your home one evening.  You’re on the couch with your spouse.  Monday Night Football, Project Runway, Iron Chef, or (insert favorite sitcom) is on the HD LCD TV (hey, it’s my delusion). 

You’re sipping wine, or digging into a bowl of ice cream or both.  I love these fantasies!

Suddenly in barges a real estate salesperson.  She’s dressed in her business suit and blabbing away about real estate prices and views.  She’s dragging with her a cute couple. 

They don’t acknowledge you as they continue walking thorough your home, commenting on the wall color, floor choices, ugly furniture (fighting words) and fixtures.  They openly talk about knocking out walls, tearing out flooring, replacing furniture. 

Nice.

No, this didn’t happen at my home.  It happened at work. 

I work for a “bank” in “California”.  Two very bad words with our economic times as they are.  My bank is on the FDIC hit list.  Come to think about it, just about every bank is on their hit list right now. 

We are headquartered in a very nice piece of property that the bank owns.  Well the FDIC has said we need to come up with some money.  Now…. 

The bank has determined it’s time to sell this property.  It will give them the money needed and then lease it back from whoever buys it.  Great idea I guess. 

We sit close to the ocean, great views, near the freeways, fairly new building. 

Hell, I’d live here.

Wait, I do most of the week…

I’ve Been Thinking…

 As my wife would say, that’s a dangerous thing:

• My youngest daughter’s IEP meeting last week went great.  She is totally mainstreamed which means she takes all the regular classes and is just helped by the accommodations.  In short she gets a little extra time to complete the tests, and she can have the instructions explained to her.  Other than that she will continue with her speech and language tutoring.  With her being a sophomore there are just two and half more years and all the birds will be out of the nest.

• Speaking of birds leaving the nest, my middle child, a junior in high school is exploring colleges right now.  However, with the economy as it is right now, I’ve told her to “open up her possibilities”.  Not only is money tight within our household but colleges are not handing out the money as they used to.  Also student loans are a lot more difficult to come by.  She may need to look at local schools instead of out of state.  She may need to also look at state schools.  I don’t envy the college students right now.  Keep your fingers crossed.

• Being a fan of the “stogie” my email is constantly inundated with offers from all the cigar retailers out there.  One of them is having a contest where if you picked the winner of one of the games in the World Series, they’d send you a free 5-pack of cigars.  Hell, free cigars are the best tasting stogies out there.  I entered and won a 5-pack.  The company sent out my cigars and I had them within a couple of days.  I opened the box when they arrived and found that they had packed them so that moisture had gotten to a couple of cigars and ruined them.  I wrote the company and explained to them what happened and thanked them for the free cigars.  I really didn’t expect anything to come of it.  Got an email apologizing for the bad shipment and that they were sending out another 5-pack to replace the wet ones.  This is what customer service is all about.  I didn’t expect replacements for free cigars but the company is going out of their way to satisfy me.  I love great customer service.  By the way the retailer is Cigars Direct.

• Am I the only one getting beat up by all the losses in the market lately?  I’ve had to move money around just so I don’t lose my shirt.  And don’t even get me started on my retirement account.  It looks just like a colander; money goes in and leaks out all the holes in the bottom. 

Well, at least I have the lottery going for me…