Robbins Blog

Haven’t blogged in forever. Normally, it is relatives that start in first, then not so subtle hints from friends, but when then wife piles on, well, you know it has been too long.

I’ve been busy people. Not sure doing what, but something. I know I feel tired and that HAS to be because I’ve over exerted something more than the remote control.

Let’s see. November is pretty much the topic since it has been that long. Wait, it has been since October. Okay, that has been a long time.

Yes, I had a birthday. ‘Nuff said.

On the political front. Pelosi and friends continue to lie to the American public and try and screw us as they take steps to socialized the government through their oligarchy. I could go on and on about the Healthcare nightmare, the problems with it, the disdain over the political process that is denying true debate on the subject, lamenting over the fact that it doesn’t solve the problem they keep talking about, etc. but that is for another day.

Obama still doesn’t know what he is going to do in Afghanistan while our troops are being hung out to dry. Eric Holder, who seems to now be a complete idiot (I gave him a sort of pass on the pardon’s he recommended as political pay offs), is endangering America more with this KSM trial being put in Federal court. Now, I do not want to buy into the conspiracy theory but he is not saying anything that in anyway helps him out. He looks like a complete fool yesterday in front of the Senate committee. This is a disaster waiting to happen. Last time it did, we gave out intelligence to our enemies. This time, it could be worse because it truly creates a precedent. Of course, I don’t think they care. I think they are too jacked up on appeasing their liberal friends and continuing to vilify Bush. This will take the pressure off of them (which there has been so very little given the media’s continued love affair with this administration). Oh, the best part, NY, which is broken, even with the billions of free money given to them (or their banks) via TARP, has asked the feds (i.e. you and me, if you pay taxes) to pay up to 75M — yes, freaking MILLION dollars to provide security for the trial.

Speaking of the media, they (actually 11 AP reporters) are off fact checking the times of the day referenced to show that Palin was taking some poetic liberties in her book. Didn’t seem to see that with Obama or Clinton’s books… Hell, they seemed to gloss over the whole Gore global warming BS tour altogether… Now, I was never a huge fan of hers. Yes, she is pretty spunky but I didn’t think she had the experience to run the show (even though, yes, she had a lot more than Obama – and his inexperience shows greatly now). However (and I have not read the book), she seemed exceptional on the talkshows I heard yesterday. Granted, she is well practiced in her delivery but still, it was an impressive performance. Does that mean, I’m ready to vote for her? Nope. However, I think it does show that those that dismiss her as stupid ,etc. are incorrect. I believe that if she doesn’t get ahead of herself, she has a lot of potential. Of course, in today’s world, we tend to jump first…

Oh course, sometimes even if you are in over your head, you have a cloak of invincibility… Sometimes that is because you choose, like Obama, not to get his hands dirty with any of this stuff – much like healthcare, let’s his people do it but then comes in at the end for credit. Well, this time, the disappearing president under crisis, went to Asia (versus Europe) while his AG played the monkey on the hill and his minions attempted to finalized disastrous legislation behind closed doors. So, did we at least make some progress in China, whom we now beg to fund socialist programs? Well, he got basically bupkis there, actually less than bupkis. He got chastised by China, of all countries. No, global warming agreement, no financial reform agreement, no human rights changes, no protectionism changes. Basically, he spent a few million dollars for a photo op. I guess those on the mainland don’t read how great he is in the NYT or maybe his folksy populist (but unsubstantiated) tripe doesn’t translate well into Mandarin.

On the financial front, Joe Biden proves again that one, he is an idiot and two that the federal government doesn’t know what they are doing. He comes out to talk about the “stimulus” package and the transparency around it. First, we have fact after fact showing how dismal the stimulus money has been on the economy and jobs. After all, it was about the jobs, right? These jobs created are costing us on average around 10X what they are actually paying to the worker. Nice ROI. I’d like to run a business that looses $90 on every $10 sold. Secondly, the number of jobs created is several orders of magnitude less than proposed.. Thirdly, this “great” website that describes all of the money? Well, how did it cost $75M ? I mean, really, how can one spend that much money on a web site? Secondly, how can it be so wrong? I think that the fact checkers are still checking but found 5 districts that received millions of dollars that didn’t exist. How does one trust this ? I expected better for 75M…

How can we trust this group to run healthcare ? And they are going to do it more efficiently too….. Bullshit.

Okay, one point on healthcare… who is really stupid enough to believe that this is deficit neutral? Does anyone care about the 400B+ that is being cut from Medicare? Does anyone even care that the CBO even admits some of the programs are likely not to endure (aka, government speak for fantasy language…)? Do people even know that part of the reason it is so “Cheap” is that we pay for it for 3 years before a single service is enacted (and they only count the cost of the last seven years and call it a 10 year projection)? And by the way, on what planet is spending nearly 900B dollars to insure30M people considered cheap? Isn’t that like 30,000 per person? My insurance is not cheap but it is not that expensive. Oh wait, this is the group that thinks 75M is a fair price for an inaccurate web site.

On my financial front, we changed healthcare coverage to a high deductable. Hopefully, injury and illness will be foreign to us this year (doubtful – see below). I still have not pulled the trigger on a new computer but will (I think) once they arrive from China. I refuse to pay the local tax and third parties are getting sourced after the Apple stores. It is a lot of coin. However, I really really want to get to a computer that just let’s me do my thing without having fuss with stuff. I don’t want to upgrade, get extra drives, or any of that other crap. I want to surf the web, write my book (if I ever start it) and catalog photos (and probably video at some point). I really do not need a Mac to do that but most pros in the graphic arts are Mac people. They must know something. That said, coexistence with PCs is a needed thing since java is not java and people (idiots) still write to certain browsers.

Some of my finances have been spent on some new cabinets for the office, which was recently reshuffled. Of course, I wanted ONE cabinet but they no longer sold it in the color I wanted so I “had” to buy two of them in a new color. We recycled one to our bedroom and cascaded the rest with one soon to find a home at goodwill. Anyway, there was just too much junk in there. I like things simple. Still some work to be done in cleaning that out but hopefully over the holidays.

As part of this process, I started to decompose our budget spend… not on a monthly basis but on a daily one. It was really illuminating. I forget about some bills that are annual (like property taxes, car insurance) or IRA contributions. But breaking it down to cost per day really makes you think. I was surprised that healthcare was 4^th or 5^th. I still pay a lot for it, but not nearly as much as I thought on a per day basis. I did a similar thing when thinking about a new car. Would I really get $14 a day – every day — of enjoyment out of it? As much as a lust for it, hard to say yes to that.

On the family front, the nightmare of holidays (Halloween) came and went. Limited pictures were posted. Surprisingly, our neighborhood was not too Halloween friendly. I would have though suburbia was a wasteland for that kind of thing. Still, there were pounds of candy returned to our house by the little ones. All seemed to enjoy it even if this concept of porch light on was a challenge to understand.

Of course, I would have gotten better pictures with my new camera but it came a day later. Plus, it took my a while to figure out who to use it. Complicated these things are… I am digging it though. Definitely, more meaty than previous generations and I was a big fan of the 50D.

I attempted to take some family photos but they were not exposed correctly due to my playing around with some remote triggers. I think I will be able to figure that out or will go back to the alien bees umbrella. I have time before the Christmas cards have to be sent. This year, I think people will get a choice – kids only and kids plus parents. Not sure yet.

We also have to wait for Max to recovery from his jumping/playing on the bed incident. He smacked his face pretty good (or pretty bad, as the case may be). Blood all over the place. We delayed going to the hospital since it seemed to stop bleeding but finally had him checked out. It is recovering nicely, though ‘scarman’ may be a future nickname. Fortunately, not is a super noticeable place. In some ways, I am glad we did not take him (well, it saved me a lot of money) but they would have put stitches in. I think the scare would have been the same and given the location, it would not have been a pleasant experience for any party.

On the Max scene, he has finally decided not to sleep in his crib any more. He prefers the floor. We were going to get him a racecar bed to go with this décor but we found a different one at goodwill (while dropping off a van full of crap). It is blue not red, but will have to do for now. I just have to put in a base for it.

He got his first or second night terror. Those are not good. His lasted a lot longer than Meghan’s did. That is some weird freaky stuff.

On to Meghan… she continues to be a pain in the butt but I guess that is what kids do at that age. She also doesn’t want to be called Meghan but Mackenzie or Alicia. Not sure why. They have taken up swim lessons (had two thus far). She can’t swim or really kick that well but at least she doesn’t scream or have a tantrum while with the [kid] instructors. We call that a bonus.

On Mackenzie’s side, preschool continues to motivate her. We have collected piles of “craft’ projects that seems to consume their day. Still likes to draw and is practicing writing. They both have dance class once a week. I’m thinking there will be a little 15 minute show soon. As a parent, I should be looking forward to it.

MA and I popped out for a little mini vacation. Photos to be posted some day in the future. A little beach for her and a little trip to NASA for me. Shuttle was on the pad. That was sort of cool. Not sure why I like it so much, but space is just cool. Speaking of which, Star Trek arrived Tuesday on blu-ray. Reviews are good for the transfer. Might make a viewing this weekend. Did get it loaded onto my iphone in case I am ever stuck somewhere and need 93 minutes of distraction.

We are also on a semi-detox program. No processed crap. Nominal artificial ingredients. Fish at least once a week and of course, nominal booze.  Worse thing? Jack in the Box just opened down the road. Once Thanksgiving passes, maybe too will this diet approach? Eating healthy is not cheap but I need to lower my triglycerides.

I had to get a root canal on this tooth that was hurting. Not sure why a “dead” tooth hurts but it does. Took two sessions to do what they do. They found a small crack and are not sure if it is good or bad yet. Still have to get a crown thing added on. Of course, I’m like a big ass dental baby so they hyped me up on some drugs. Didn’t think they really did much for me but I did fall asleep once I got home so maybe I was mellowed out. Maybe I should get the juice in the morning before work. Dental work is also expensive and like many doctors these days, they only do one thing. Of course, that helps since they each get their deductable per visit. Sort of irks me. Of course, at least I get care now.

Work is work and the only good thing I can say about it is that I’m done traveling for the year. Yeah.