I've been neglecting this little bit of giggles for several weeks.
I have however been posting a few thing over on the other blog that relates to starting over if you are of the opinion that we are going to have to start the political process in this country over in a fashion more in line with the founders intent, as am I.
I don't think our Creator ever intended for us as sovereign individuals endowed with free will to ever become slaves to the largess of a Federal Government, and certainly if you look back at history you can see that the times of our greatest peace and prosperity were in times when individuals were free to create and keep most of the wealth they created.
We were created (if you prefer not to believe a divinity it doesn't matter to me, you can instead say "we were born") with the right to our life, if we can keep it, either through our own efforts or with help from parents, with the right to liberty (again if we can keep it) and the right to property (need I say it) that we acquire or create through either the sweat of our brow or the use of the brains within that brow.
We (as a collective of sovereign individuals) have the right to defend our lives, our liberty and our property from the encroachment of any other individual or group of individuals to the death or to the point at which we choose to give of our free volition any of that property to anyone else of our choosing.
Today we are faced with the prospect of having those with whom we have entrusted the obligation to defend us with the force of law (which if you think about it includes the right of lethal force) using their power, to violate us (their lawful masters) against our will. (read the polls)
Will we stand for it; or will we resist in ways that are at this point in time unclear.
Those ways might include the use of the ballot box, or the use of deadly force, or passive resistance, or simply ignoring the dictates of what has increasingly become a class of people who are not deserving of either our support or respect.
We could begin with such a simple thing as beginning to grow a bit of our own food; perhaps a couple of tomato plants in the back yard. You can grow them in a big planter or if you wish stack two or three old tires atop one another and fill with soil and compost. All it'll cost you is a bit for the plants or seeds and a little of your time and effort. Water can come from used bath water if you don't choose to pay for additional water from the city or county.
If you think about it for a bit you could probably thing of several other items that wouldn't require a lot of effort to produce.
You can carry these effort as far as you wish and have the ability, right on up to the point of buying a piece of land big enough to feed yourself and your property.
You might also begin to do without that cup of coffee from McDonald's every morning.
Search your own mind and heart for things you can do that will in some small or large way re-establish some control over yourself.
It might even become fun.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Are you copying their ideas?
Who's ideas?
Why the Governments of course.
Even though the law has been passed and signed many years ago that the Federal Government is supposed to balance the budget every year, can any of you think of a time when that has actually happened?
I ranted a little on Red Hill Kudzu today about some of the shine they try to put on their numbers for the sake of those who are still true believers.
You can google the Chart on the budget and deficit for your self.
The question is....Are you trying to do the same thing with your finances? Does there seem to be just a little too much of the month left when the budget runs up against your stops.
If you are not in that position now......how many paychecks would you have to miss to reach that point?
It's not uncommon......I've been there. I know what it feels like to be pulling out the cushions on the couch for loose change to pay the light bill with on the day before they cut them off. I've been behind on the mortgage......far enough behind that I got those lawyer letters; and not just on one mortgage.....on two or three at the time. (I once had seven mortgages at one time) The banks reached the end of the line and sold my property (63 acres0 on the court house steps along with one of the rental properties I had. I sold two properties for $20,000.00 less than I owed on them just to get a little breathing room. Had to pay off the balance at $500 a month for another 4 years. This month was the final payment. (Thank you Lord) We sold the remaining property worth at least $100 K for less than $20 K and moved into the only rental property I had, which thankfully had a 30 year fixed rate mortgage on it. The renter was behind anyway and so was I. The end of the rope was slipping out of my fingers. There didn't seem much reason to go on other than the fact that if I ended my own life I'd leave my wife in a worse situation than if I lived. Alive, there was at least hope..
...as well as a burning determination to turn things around.
We're still in that house (although we have a dream of moving one day), the mortgage is caught up (we're paying a little extra each month) The taxes are paid and the insurance is withdrawn automatically each month.
I'm not bragging, just letting you know that I've been there, seen the movie and ate the popcorn.
When the end seems near you have to really decide what is important in your life. Most of the things you think you can't do with out.....you can. Food for your family first, secondly a shelter of some kind for them, third some source of income to keep the first two thing a part of your life. Everything else comes next.
We were fortunate, while I had not much education beyond high school, the time in the army and all the business I'd been in over 35 years taught me that I can do anything I set my mind to. One thing I had picked up was a small skill that could literally be used almost anywhere. I had for all those years been learning new things, taking on new challenges, then when I had a passing acquaintance with that one going on to the next.
Are you a one trick pony. Have you only one thing you are trained for? Better make sure it's a good one then. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to take a correspondence course in your spare time..
...a couple hours a night for however long it takes. It is too late for that when everyting is falling down around you.
What are you doing to prepare for whatever may come? I'd love to read your ideas.
Why the Governments of course.
Even though the law has been passed and signed many years ago that the Federal Government is supposed to balance the budget every year, can any of you think of a time when that has actually happened?
I ranted a little on Red Hill Kudzu today about some of the shine they try to put on their numbers for the sake of those who are still true believers.
You can google the Chart on the budget and deficit for your self.
The question is....Are you trying to do the same thing with your finances? Does there seem to be just a little too much of the month left when the budget runs up against your stops.
If you are not in that position now......how many paychecks would you have to miss to reach that point?
It's not uncommon......I've been there. I know what it feels like to be pulling out the cushions on the couch for loose change to pay the light bill with on the day before they cut them off. I've been behind on the mortgage......far enough behind that I got those lawyer letters; and not just on one mortgage.....on two or three at the time. (I once had seven mortgages at one time) The banks reached the end of the line and sold my property (63 acres0 on the court house steps along with one of the rental properties I had. I sold two properties for $20,000.00 less than I owed on them just to get a little breathing room. Had to pay off the balance at $500 a month for another 4 years. This month was the final payment. (Thank you Lord) We sold the remaining property worth at least $100 K for less than $20 K and moved into the only rental property I had, which thankfully had a 30 year fixed rate mortgage on it. The renter was behind anyway and so was I. The end of the rope was slipping out of my fingers. There didn't seem much reason to go on other than the fact that if I ended my own life I'd leave my wife in a worse situation than if I lived. Alive, there was at least hope..
...as well as a burning determination to turn things around.
We're still in that house (although we have a dream of moving one day), the mortgage is caught up (we're paying a little extra each month) The taxes are paid and the insurance is withdrawn automatically each month.
I'm not bragging, just letting you know that I've been there, seen the movie and ate the popcorn.
When the end seems near you have to really decide what is important in your life. Most of the things you think you can't do with out.....you can. Food for your family first, secondly a shelter of some kind for them, third some source of income to keep the first two thing a part of your life. Everything else comes next.
We were fortunate, while I had not much education beyond high school, the time in the army and all the business I'd been in over 35 years taught me that I can do anything I set my mind to. One thing I had picked up was a small skill that could literally be used almost anywhere. I had for all those years been learning new things, taking on new challenges, then when I had a passing acquaintance with that one going on to the next.
Are you a one trick pony. Have you only one thing you are trained for? Better make sure it's a good one then. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to take a correspondence course in your spare time..
...a couple hours a night for however long it takes. It is too late for that when everyting is falling down around you.
What are you doing to prepare for whatever may come? I'd love to read your ideas.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
I'm not jealous
...really I'm not.
But Pam just has a better way of writing and describing someone than I.
Partying Pig Pelosi at the Taxpayer Trough: Hundreds of Thousands on In-flight Booze and Food
But Pam just has a better way of writing and describing someone than I.
Partying Pig Pelosi at the Taxpayer Trough: Hundreds of Thousands on In-flight Booze and Food
With No Money
If you lost all you had in your bank account and had to leave your home to foreclosure, what would you have that would allow you to start over.
It may not be in the immediate future for you and pray God it never does, but it might be worth while to give at least a little consideration to the question.
The Bank I have been using for checking and savings for at least 5 years was closed by the GA Regulatory Commission and assumed by another bank yesterday afternoon at 5:00 pm. Of course no one at the bank called ahead of time to warn me. Of course through friends who also bank at other branches I had been hearing rumors for a while and one friend called yesterday and passed the word that is would be taken over yesterday.
I hustled my butt down and drew out all but enough to cover any check outstanding. Not so much worried that I'd lose any of my very small account (that's what the FDIC is for, doesn't that make you feel better) but the fact that I prefer to bank with a local bank and this bank while a large bank with quite a few branches, it had a reputation of value in the local town where it originally started.
But suppose you had to leave your home with no bank account? Would you be able to provide your family shelter the next evening? Could you purchase food for your children? Would you have enough money to put gas in a car.
It might be a good idea to have something portable you could take with you that had some value. A stack of money you'd hidden under your mattress, maybe a pocket full of silver coins to use as trading goods. Maybe a single gold coin tucked under a flap in your wallet. Maybe just a laundry basked of canned goods and a few matches.
Maybe it's past time you started asking yourself some of these questions.
It may not be in the immediate future for you and pray God it never does, but it might be worth while to give at least a little consideration to the question.
The Bank I have been using for checking and savings for at least 5 years was closed by the GA Regulatory Commission and assumed by another bank yesterday afternoon at 5:00 pm. Of course no one at the bank called ahead of time to warn me. Of course through friends who also bank at other branches I had been hearing rumors for a while and one friend called yesterday and passed the word that is would be taken over yesterday.
I hustled my butt down and drew out all but enough to cover any check outstanding. Not so much worried that I'd lose any of my very small account (that's what the FDIC is for, doesn't that make you feel better) but the fact that I prefer to bank with a local bank and this bank while a large bank with quite a few branches, it had a reputation of value in the local town where it originally started.
But suppose you had to leave your home with no bank account? Would you be able to provide your family shelter the next evening? Could you purchase food for your children? Would you have enough money to put gas in a car.
It might be a good idea to have something portable you could take with you that had some value. A stack of money you'd hidden under your mattress, maybe a pocket full of silver coins to use as trading goods. Maybe a single gold coin tucked under a flap in your wallet. Maybe just a laundry basked of canned goods and a few matches.
Maybe it's past time you started asking yourself some of these questions.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Starting Over
The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!
If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.
Rough weather ahead for tonight. Supposed to just miss us to the north; sure hope so. I generally don't pay the weather much attention now-a-days. Not like I did years ago while running the dairy farm. Back then I carried and listened to a weather radio at least twice a day, especially in the summer and fall when we were cutting hay or getting in other crops.
These days if it's cold I either stay inside or put on more clothes....if hot I stay inside in the air-conditioning and dress a little more lightly when venturing outside...although through habit of many long years and in remembrance of my skinny legged youth I never wear shorts...
today the whiteness of the skin would blind anyone within 300 yards...back then I didn't want to be teased about my knobby knees or be told only sissies would wear shorts. Try bucking alfalfa hay while wearing anything less than denim jeans for a while and it begins to make a little sense.
Oh yeah......Starting Over.
A couple years ago I thought to start another blog chronicling the efforts to start over from nearly scratch and the thoughts on what it would take and any successes or further failures.
Didn't last long as I often have not much to say here less success there. Mostly just a little ranting or observations.
Today, however, the starting over has been much in my mind as when turning off the by-pass onto 441 N I had to stop on the exit ramp behind a semi waiting for the light and noticed a young woman standing in the cold shivering and holding a very small sign made of a single sheet of notebook paper. As I stopped behind the trailer I shouted out the window, "trying to get somewhere"? She shook her head No.
It was not until she stepped closer that I could make out the sign that read "Homeless need help". Not an apparent derelict, wino, druggie, just a young woman probably less than 30 years old and the cloths were neat if perhaps a little less than the weather might have called for.
I reached in my pocked and pulled out a couple sawbucks to give her..to get a 'God bless you' as the truck pulled out and I followed.
As I pulled away heading about a mile north to AirGas to pick up a set of new regulators for my torch I caught myself doing a little mental ass kicking....both wondering if she was just a moocher or if I should have done more like call my buddy who's tied into the local shelters and churches which might have been of a little more help to her.
I decided to make my return trip go past the intersection to stop and ask her if she wanted me to contact my friend........but, she was no longer there. Perhaps the $20 was all she needed to get her next hit or she'd gone down to the convenience store to warm up with some coffee, or maybe something warmer at the package store next door.
Whatever.....I wish her well. But the incident made me think of how close we've been to that same scenario and of all the people in the country right now who are in the same boat or only one paycheck away.
It can be hard to start over.......or it can be a very liberating experience. One can literally put everything but your thoughts behind you and strike out to stand or fall by your own efforts........or perhaps the charity of others.......and in this country now-a-days the generosity of the government who have no compunction about taking the fruits on your labor through the force of law to give however the bureaucrats decide is most politically productive.
I'll probably mull on this some more here in the world wide web. I'd appreciate your thoughts.
If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.
Rough weather ahead for tonight. Supposed to just miss us to the north; sure hope so. I generally don't pay the weather much attention now-a-days. Not like I did years ago while running the dairy farm. Back then I carried and listened to a weather radio at least twice a day, especially in the summer and fall when we were cutting hay or getting in other crops.
These days if it's cold I either stay inside or put on more clothes....if hot I stay inside in the air-conditioning and dress a little more lightly when venturing outside...although through habit of many long years and in remembrance of my skinny legged youth I never wear shorts...
today the whiteness of the skin would blind anyone within 300 yards...back then I didn't want to be teased about my knobby knees or be told only sissies would wear shorts. Try bucking alfalfa hay while wearing anything less than denim jeans for a while and it begins to make a little sense.
Oh yeah......Starting Over.
A couple years ago I thought to start another blog chronicling the efforts to start over from nearly scratch and the thoughts on what it would take and any successes or further failures.
Didn't last long as I often have not much to say here less success there. Mostly just a little ranting or observations.
Today, however, the starting over has been much in my mind as when turning off the by-pass onto 441 N I had to stop on the exit ramp behind a semi waiting for the light and noticed a young woman standing in the cold shivering and holding a very small sign made of a single sheet of notebook paper. As I stopped behind the trailer I shouted out the window, "trying to get somewhere"? She shook her head No.
It was not until she stepped closer that I could make out the sign that read "Homeless need help". Not an apparent derelict, wino, druggie, just a young woman probably less than 30 years old and the cloths were neat if perhaps a little less than the weather might have called for.
I reached in my pocked and pulled out a couple sawbucks to give her..to get a 'God bless you' as the truck pulled out and I followed.
As I pulled away heading about a mile north to AirGas to pick up a set of new regulators for my torch I caught myself doing a little mental ass kicking....both wondering if she was just a moocher or if I should have done more like call my buddy who's tied into the local shelters and churches which might have been of a little more help to her.
I decided to make my return trip go past the intersection to stop and ask her if she wanted me to contact my friend........but, she was no longer there. Perhaps the $20 was all she needed to get her next hit or she'd gone down to the convenience store to warm up with some coffee, or maybe something warmer at the package store next door.
Whatever.....I wish her well. But the incident made me think of how close we've been to that same scenario and of all the people in the country right now who are in the same boat or only one paycheck away.
It can be hard to start over.......or it can be a very liberating experience. One can literally put everything but your thoughts behind you and strike out to stand or fall by your own efforts........or perhaps the charity of others.......and in this country now-a-days the generosity of the government who have no compunction about taking the fruits on your labor through the force of law to give however the bureaucrats decide is most politically productive.
I'll probably mull on this some more here in the world wide web. I'd appreciate your thoughts.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Phew!!
It is a hot day here in the Kudzu. Was supposed to get up around 91-92, but with the humidity up it feels like more. Could be worse I reckon, I could be working on the highways or up on a roof right now. I've put on several roofs where we had to keep a water hose spraying cool water on it and us in order to be able to survive. That's a tough way to exchange bits of your life for pieces of paper at the end of the week that you can then exchange for other pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents on them.
That's what your doing, you know. Exchanging portions of your life, your time, and your knowledge, skill, and or ability for money. Doesn't seem hardly fair that you have to spend your youth and middle years just to try to have a little something to tide you through the end stage of your life, when you may be sick and feeble and not much in the mood to enjoy it all that much. Maybe want to end it altogether.
Why can't we have our retirement in the middle years. Say from 35 to 60, or 45 to 70. Something like that. We can then enjoy the retirement and look forward to having something to occupy or time in the last years we have. So many people have nothing to do other than watch the tv and wait for the grim reaper. Their children have moved on and the grandchildren have grown up and have their own lives to live. If their lucky their children will visit a few times a year. Better to give them something to get up for each morning.
Or you could spend your time and effort wisely. Ensure several streams of passive income and live the rest of their lives in retirement or semi retirement.
Just my view while resting in the shade of the kudzu and waiting for it to bloom.
That's what your doing, you know. Exchanging portions of your life, your time, and your knowledge, skill, and or ability for money. Doesn't seem hardly fair that you have to spend your youth and middle years just to try to have a little something to tide you through the end stage of your life, when you may be sick and feeble and not much in the mood to enjoy it all that much. Maybe want to end it altogether.
Why can't we have our retirement in the middle years. Say from 35 to 60, or 45 to 70. Something like that. We can then enjoy the retirement and look forward to having something to occupy or time in the last years we have. So many people have nothing to do other than watch the tv and wait for the grim reaper. Their children have moved on and the grandchildren have grown up and have their own lives to live. If their lucky their children will visit a few times a year. Better to give them something to get up for each morning.
Or you could spend your time and effort wisely. Ensure several streams of passive income and live the rest of their lives in retirement or semi retirement.
Just my view while resting in the shade of the kudzu and waiting for it to bloom.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Do you think you can't?
.
If so you are probably right.
But if you think you can...............
.......you're right again.
If you're willing to quit, you're already defeated.
I don't know who said that, but it's true.
"You're not the product of a broken home, a devastated economy, a world in the upheaval of war, a minority group, a family of drunkards or a poverty-ridden neighborhood. You are the product of your own thinking processes, and whatever you're thinking about today is the cornerstone of your tomorrow."
If you can only imagine..........you might have
.....as much heart as this dad has.
If they don't inspire you, you may need to hold a mirror under your nose. You may have died and didn't notice.
If so you are probably right.
But if you think you can...............
.......you're right again.
If you're willing to quit, you're already defeated.
I don't know who said that, but it's true.
"You're not the product of a broken home, a devastated economy, a world in the upheaval of war, a minority group, a family of drunkards or a poverty-ridden neighborhood. You are the product of your own thinking processes, and whatever you're thinking about today is the cornerstone of your tomorrow."
If you can only imagine..........you might have
.....as much heart as this dad has.
If they don't inspire you, you may need to hold a mirror under your nose. You may have died and didn't notice.
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