So enraged at the bailouts I bought myself a nifty yardsign from cafepress. I’ve had several passerby’s knock on my door and ask where I got it. Even a few cars stopped and inquired.

Last Friday night we had just crawled into bed (was a rough week), and there was a knock at the door. It was one of those "Are you kidding me?" moments. Anyhow I went to the door. As I approached it I heard my next door neighbor lady giving a scolding. Now I was curious.

I turned on the porch lights and found her surrounded by 4 teenage boys, and she was still ripping them a new one. She spotted a strange vehicle parked along the road and had observed the teens yanking and ripping my sign from the ground. She basically arrested them, and brought them to my door. Most of them had a "ruh-roh" look in their eyes. She had asked them if they knew what "restitution" meant. One of them who seemed to care less what happened to them attempted to answer.

Then it dawned on me. It was getting colder, and the leaves on my silver maples finally fell, and I have been incredibly busy with life lately. Perfect! I suggested to the young men that 1/2 hour of raking from each of them would cover the expense as well as the inconvenience. However, it was late at night. My neighbor reminded the boys that she got their license plate. I asked them to return the next day on their honor to come and rake. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my share of mischief in my youth. So in a way I was thinking "awww you are sooo busted". Then I thought about the $30 the sign cost me, and how I don’t work for someone else to throw my work away. So then I was getting upset, especially since the sign was specifically about bailouts.

Much to my surprise 3 of the 4 showed up while I was at work. My wife handed them all rakes and away they went. I just want to say how proud I am of the young men who showed for their correction. These boys will go far in life if they continue to abide by such morals (which certainly means they don’t fit the bill for a congress person).

My wife gave them all bottled water. My toddler even went out and talked with them. One of them was aspiring to be a dentist. Funny how it struck me. At first I could care less.  After the whole thing was finished I realized it worked out exactly how it was supposed to. No bailouts for them, no grudges on both parties. Just facing the music, like men, and moving on.

As for the one that had no spine… I’m quite sure that he will someday be forced to grow one, but it’s too bad that it will probably be in a much severe way later in life. If he doesn’t learn life lessons now, he’ll end up in congress.

I’m so glad there are people like my neighbors and that there are young men like this.

• blackfday.com
• blackfriday.info
• bfads.net
• gottadeal.com

How much shopping will you be doing online this year?

I’ve found the novelty really wears off after about 2 minutes when it comes to shoveling snow and raking leaves (we live on a corner lot). The lot is a size thats small enough that it doesn’t really require a tractor mower. We have 3 silver maples that tend to hang on to their leaves until early December depending on the weather, and that is rarely predictable in Wisconsin. The trees are large and provide wonderful shade in the summer for the entire house, and they are nice to look at. In the spring they litter the yard and the gutters with helicopters. In the fall the leaves cover the land but not all at once. Some are from neighboring parcels.

It’s hard to get a nice weekend to rake where I’m home, and most of the leaves have fallen. Often if the maples haven’t lost their leaves it’s futile to get out there. Not knowing if it will snow soon (never know in WI) this Saturday seemed like the time to get out there. The best thing about the project is the family time.

(The day after raking)

A few years ago I invested in some ‘lattice’ type covers for about $0.98/foot. I tried it out on one section because if they didn’t work well, I didn’t want to remove the entire length of the house. They worked fine for the first season. But now in the spring the helicopters fall into the slots and stick there from the sap. It looks like I’m growing a garden of helicopters in my gutters. They keep larger leaves out, but twigs and smaller debris gets gummed up in there from the sap and I have to remove them, clean it out and replace them again. My advice: don’t bother. It’s just easier to get up there 3 times a year for about 2 hours cleaning them out.

I’m too cheap to opt for the ‘leaf guard‘ or ‘gutter topper’ type devices. Have any of you had experiences with these? Do they truly work as promised? I’ve heard some pretty pricey quotes on them, and I just don’t trust them.

Fall, leaves, raking

The idea started as a “what if” and has now become a reality.

Jeremy is aiming to count for 16 hours per day (minus break time). Depending on the day’s distractions, we anticipate 12000-15000 numbers per day.

He counts aloud in his home and clicks a hand held device which updates the number on a monitor sitting next to the main camera. His house is stacked with webcams and switches to cover most the viewable area of his home. He counts as he does trivial house duties like dishes and tidying up. He will not be leaving his house until it’s done. Mostly the times I’ve seen him actually counting, he’s pacing in front of his monitor. At the time of this writing he is at 408,262…

The site didn’t work very well for me in firefox. I tried it on 3 different workstations. I’m guessing the video is in a windows native format. I tried Internet Explorer and things went much more smoothly.

Cleverly he and his ‘team’ have it set up in such a way that you can purchase adspace for select targeted numbers. So far it’s a pretty impressive list. Jeremy will personally read advertisments (for the right price) before the selected block of numbers. You can bid for space above his couch, even the bathroom door! The advertising proceeds will go to PUSH America:

Not only is the count to a million a crazy record breaking stunt, but it’s also a great way to raise money and awareness for a great cause. Push America is an amazing organization whose mission is to serve people with disabilities.

According to millioncount.com Jeremy has taken part in charity bike rides in the past to raise money for other good causes as well. Apparently his employer has also allowed him the time off to do this as well.

I’ve been popping in from time to time to see where he’s at. It kicked off on 06-18-2007 and They are estimating it will take 3-4 months to get there. 408,711… 408,712…

count, million, charity

I’m REALLY excited about the last headliner of the night. Pillar! If you are into metal this is a show to see. Here’s a vid from them at GodTube.

Update 7/12/07:Excellent show. It’s more than what I expected. They have a great live show. Also heard some new tracks to their upcoming album. It’s a definite buy!

In a nutshell it’s a story of a little girl in Russia who had an accident that maimed her face. The Russian hospitals are either corrupt, or rediculously expensive. I’ve spoken personally with Mert and Katya who are undertaking the task of getting her assistance.

They have already brought the girl to the states once for plastic surgery donated by a local doctor here in my home state of WI. She needs to have more. I set up a page on this site dedicated to helping her. If you are interested, Angel’s page is here.

I haven’t done any donation or charity campaigns except for when I went to help Katrina victims a few years ago. I’m actually a bit curious how much I can help through this. It’s worth a try because I believe it’s a worthwhile cause!

Just go to wirelessamberalerts.org and sign up. You will only receive alerts that are pertinant to your area. If you like you can opt in for up to 5 area codes. There is no charge to your phone for each alert. Alert coverage is limited to the sites page of wireless carriers. There is also an opt-out option to remove yourself from the list.

This is definitely a positive use for cell phones in the world.

Amber Alert, Cell, Phones, Wireless

My taxes are pretty simple. I used to use H&R Block, but I just got disgusted with paying them to answer step by step questions in a program. Since I’ve bought a house 2 years ago I started using turboTax. It’s actually quite thorough. It asks pretty pointed and detailed questions. Doctor visits Vs. Perscriptions. It also clues you in on additional deductions, as well as warns you of some implications. It includes video help links and IRS links content specific.

You can make a PDF of your return, and of course electronically file. Pretty simple.

How do you prepare your taxes?

taxes, bill gates, tax return

Today they are going to open the city gates. Not entirely sure what that means. They are allowing people who evacuated to come back to the city to check on their homes and belongings. It’s also baby day. We have skids of donated diapers, wipes, and formula.

We were late for breakfast but Gilbert kept the food warm for us. Breakfast tortillas.

This morning we had the first worship in the entrance to the sanctuary since the hurricane came through. Kimberly and the girls led worship and the devotion. For worship we had a cd player that we could play and sing along to. The ad-hoc clinic doctors were excited to join us.

I started on the line again. I wasn’t there too long. In the morning meeting, Carey (COH Leader) said that NASCAR donated about 1.5 million dollars to the Convoy of Hope. Also that the #32 car became an official sponsor. He said that last weekend that car took third place!

After a half an hour hurricane Nancy pulled me off the line to bag groceries. We were gathering donated items from different skids to create a food bag. There were also toiletry bags(toothbrush, a rag, toothpaste, barsoap). I had the opporunity to hand one of the toiletry bags out later in the day. The man who recieved it almost cried. He was so elated!

(“Hurricane Nancy”)

Interestingly enough, some of the the people I did talk with asked me if I knew where FEMA was and how they could get support from them. It must have been on the radio that FEMA was in town. It’s the first I’ve heard of them being here, and It’s Friday. Rita came through last Sunday. I pondered about the paid groups like FEMA. The red tape and the way our tax dollars are handled makes me sick… yet where are they?! Faith based organizations like COH, nightrunners, and the Salvation Army are here.

A whole bunch more volunteers showed up from the Campus Crusade for Christ. They were full of energy,but a bit arrogant to the weather conditions. We warned them on drinking plenty and sunscreen. The timing and organization of the line became a bit messy.

After lunch I broke boxes, helped refill coolers for the volunteers, and re-supplied the line with supplies.

After the lunch hours the NASCAR team arrived. About 6 people. They brought their own video crew.They were all wearing COH t-shirts and hats. Apparently the driver of the #32 car Jason Leffler, was in the mix. I haven’t watched NASCAR in a long time. If I knew any better, I would have got a picture with him.They took places on the line, and then recorded the action. I’m assuming that it was for a commercial? In all they were there for about 45 minutes. They were sweating through there shirts and they would wipe their brow often. Part of me thought that it was kind of cheesey to show them in a commercial helping, when they were only there for 45min. However, the donation they made is most welcomed.

At about 4:50 I spotted a walk up group sneaking in a side way. I couldn’t find Mike within earshot, so I went to meet them. I fet that the quicker I could get to them, they wouldn’t be able to see the goods on the line, and become more upset. In my brisk walk over to them, I grabbed another volunteer who was sitting down to come with me. Only because there were 5 of them. I asked him to come with me without even stopping. He had to jog up to me to catch up. As I was explaining to the group the situation, I felt them staring me down- measuring me up. I was thankful for the other volunteer behind me. They agreed to leave. My confidence was boosted, when the volunteer said I handled that very effectively, and gracefully.

Only 1,450 cars today.

Evening:
We all went back to our site, and for the first time there was a little conflict. Some people wanted to return home earlier, others wanted to work through the Saturday, and leave for home directly after. I was one of them. I had a hard time leaving. If I had the vacation days, I would have stayed another week at least. A few members of our group were in fact staying another week. My vote was to work through one more day. There was a handful who were going to venture home on their own tomorrow morning.

Tonight, we had the most incredible worship. We went in to the sanctuary. As we were walking through the church and the outbuildings, we came across the room where the Camous Crusade students were staying. We asked if they wanted to join us, and almost in unison a groan came from the room. Quite humorous. Those guys were wiped out! We understood. We remembered what day 1 was like. A lot of the students were sunburned already.

But a handful of them did manage to join us. So did the doctors who created and manned the free medical clinic. One of the students roughly knew how to play guitar. So there we were, in a brokedown sanctuary, the students leading worship by flashlight, strumming amateur guitar and singing. I don’t have the words to express what a wonderous sight and feeling that was. It’s was a true moment I will never forget.

Just like the other nights, though becomming less shocking, I’ve had a shower. I’m going to guess its 85 or so. Still sticky. But I think I’m used to it now. The second team has left home and is in route to us now. I’m watching the police officer check the church doors. I’m nervous with the flashlight on as I write this, as not to alarm him.

I called home tonight to speak with my wife. My daughter answered. It was very nice to talk with both of them. It made me miss being home, yet it encouraged me, that there are people and groups out there like the Convoy of Hope in case something should happen to me and my family. Nighty…

hurricane, katrina, rita, relief, hurricane blog, blog, NASCAR