The Department of Redundancy Department

I'm trying to work this morning, but concrete saws have been going for hours just outside my office window. I feel like I'm two hours in to a dentist appointment of non-stop drilling. My ears are ringing.

Our house is on a corner. Workers are shaving off the curbs recently installed along the intersecting sidewalks.

A month ago we had neighborhood sidewalks which sloped to the street at every intersection, allowing easy movement for pedestrians, strollers, bikes, skates and the rarely seen wheelchair. Several years earlier, most offending sidewalks, those that required a step-off, had been replaced. So we have had politically correct, ADA approved sidewalks for some time.

A couple of months ago city crews began going through the neighborhood, tearing out corner sidewalks and replacing the concrete, rebar and slope with new concrete, rebar and slope. They added a doormat sized textured section near the street and added about two feet of curbing in each direction. Today they're lowering the curbing.

Essentially our city is spending months of man hours digging holes and filling holes.

Stimulus dollars at work.

My head is about to explode.

How sick am I?

Just received a news flash.........

April 15, 2011 is on a Friday. However, that particular day is a holiday in Washington, D.C.

When a tax return due date falls on a holiday or weekend, the actual due date rolls to the next business day.

The due date for 2010 non-corporate tax returns is April 18, 2011.

Should I be concerned that my friends and I are giddy over having THREE extra days? That's at least 40 extra work hours to get done what has to be done.

It's a good thing, since our "dear leader" can't see fit to finalize (finalize, what a joke!) 2011 tax rates. Maybe by April 18th we'll know enough to make reasonable first quarter 2011 estimates, unless of course they decide to add even more holidays for the District.

Hmmmm.  More holidays in D.C. - could be enough side benefits to that to more than compensate for delayed and retroactive tax law changes.

10 Two-letter Words

Feeling sorry for yourself? Wanting some of the handouts others seem to get?

If It Is To Be,

It Is Up To Me.

- Paul LePage, Candidate for Governor of Maine.

For a little personal motivation, check out the short video of his life story on his campaign website.

I think I'll put the pedal down and get my September 15th work done without complaint.

Reaching for Hope

Reaching back to the past.

I was young and oblivious at the time, coming of age in the Carter administration and having three of my four babies during Reagan's presidency. (Brian was born on George H.W. Bush's election day. Ricky cut in line to vote before taking me to the hospital.)

I do remember our first mortgage at 16.25%, the second, in 1985, at about 8%. I was confident enough to start my own business in 1989.

Once again people are speaking truth to power. You may disagree, but it's worth thinking about.

Obamanomics at work

This is my studly husband, laying flagstone to convert a dead space to useable patio. Several mornings our son has helped, and the dogs are always ready to dig in. Winston likes to get his nose up to his eyeballs in sand. We have to throw him in the pool before letting him back inside.

Ricky's also stained 220 feet of fence and helped our sons remove about 75 feet of shrubbery in an effort to update the looks of our 25 year old house. When we get ready to plant, he will do much of the labor then, too.

A few years ago we might have paid to have most of this work done. We have the resources to hire it done now. Our jobs are somewhat recession proof. Schools and, unfortunately, the IRS are permanent institutions. He's a teacher and I prepare tax returns.

But tax rates are rising, our retirement investments are a little shaky and we still have another child's college to fund. We also need to start saving for when we are in our 70's and have to go to Costa Rica to buy the health care procedures we won't want to wait for. So we are retrenching and doing more ourselves.

Government economic policies really do affect behavior.

Another day, another five hundred miles

The boys are off again today, visiting college campuses. Up until a week ago, Wiley had only seen one college campus, that of our alma mater Rice University. Before he narrows down his choices next year, we wanted him to get a feel for campuses of different sizes.

Last week, they went north, visiting Austin College in Sherman, Texas and the University of Oklahoma in Norman. They were gone about twelve hours, covered about 500 miles.

Today will be the same, except they've headed south - first to Baylor University in Waco, then to Southwestern University in Georgetown and finally the University of Texas at Austin.

A five hundred mile day trip is no big deal for a Texan. Throw some cold drinks in the cooler and head out. I have often gone up to see my parents for a day - three and a half hours each way. On other family trips, we will routinely drive 1,000 miles in a day, leaving Orlando or Tucson or Keystone at 6:00 am and sleeping in our own beds that same night.

One summer day, when the kids were a lot younger, I made the six hour round trip to Abilene to pick up kids at camp, then made another two hour round trip to pick up another child at a different camp, then headed north with the whole family to spend the weekend with my folks.

That's what you do if you live in the south - a land of vast open space and scarce urban areas.

When Ricky and I were newlyweds living in Chicago, our best friends had family in Kalamazoo, Michigan, about 150 miles away. They would plan their annual trip months ahead of time, it was such a long way to them. That was the first time I really understood cultural differences.

In England last summer, I visited with a woman on the train. She was quite smug about the British rail system, with its superiority to transportation in the United States. I agreed with her, to the extent you have towns, existing for centuries, every five or ten miles. Our country is quite young and nowhere near as densely populated. It will be centuries more before it is both cost and environmentally effective to build transportation infrastructure outside the packed cities. Give us some time, we'll get there.

I wish our current government leaders would realize that. Instead, we're led by a man who has lived either on a small island or in a large city. For the past five years, he has only traveled locally by cab or limousine, his driving limited to golf carts. He should take a look at a map. His concept of efficient transportation does not apply to the majority of us Americans, sprawled across thousands of miles, who want to remain independent, able to transfer at will from Point A to Point B.

That's why I've started a slush fund. At the first hint of the phaseout of SUV's, I'm stockpiling three of them.

So True

"The best behavioral control you can have is a wife."

- Rush Limbaugh

Who wants to disagree?

Our Calling as Citizens

As posted by Roger Clegg of the National Review:

1. Don't disparage anyone else's race or ethnicity.

2. Respect women.

3. Speak English.

4. Be polite.

5. Don't break the law.

6. Don't have children out of wedlock.

7. Don't demand anything because of your race, ethnicity, or sex.

8. Don't view working and studying hard as "acting white."

9. Don't hold historical grudges.

10. Be proud of being an American.

Have a wonderful Fourth of July!

Quote of the Weekend

“Desirable or not, any end that can be attained only by the use of bad means must give way to the more basic end of the use of acceptable means.”

- Milton Friedman

Unexpected

The boys are at the Dallas Stars' hockey game this afternoon. This is what's going on outside the arena - on this literally freezing, wet and nasty day. These protests are going on all over the county. There are an estimated 30-40,000 people on the mall at the Capitol today, protesting the potential federal takeover of our healthcare choices. (You won't see pictures unless you go to blogs or FoxNews.)

Is there any way we can channel this energy into enacting term limits? Nothing would help stop bad legislation more than limiting the perpetuators. Don't ya' think?

On another note, St. Mary's just whipped Villanova in the NCAA tournament. Watching snippets of the game, I remember both teams from last year's tournament and should have anticipated the result. In my bracket picks, I had picked St. Mary's to win their first round game, but not this one. I'm glad, anyway.

I picked 21 games correctly out of the first 32. How's your bracket holding up?

You're doin' fine, Oklahoma!

Back to one of my favorite topics - reality TV. The newest season of Amazing Race is on. This season, as usual, includes some interesting couples.

Eleven pairs left Los Angeles for Chile. This year's group includes all the usual combinations - black, Asian, old, middle-aged, pretty but clueless, smart but weak, strong but dumb, et.

The "hick" couple is two brothers from Oklahoma. The brothers, cowboys both, always wear their felt hats (with plastic protectors for the rain), custom belt buckles and jeans. They talk with an "Okie twang." (I can say that, I'm from Oklahoma.) There's nary a curse word from their lips. Instead, you hear "good gravy" a lot.

Most of the contestants acted like the cowboys had cooties and were a little "slow." The editing of the first episode, when the cowboys had some rough spots, did leave you wondering how savvy they could be.

But in the second leg of the race - yeeow! Forced to take a later bus, they found one with a different detour, but an earlier arrival time. They sailed through the rest of the course and finished first, so far ahead that no one else knew.

A particularly obnoxious couple, busy being pompous and setting up alliances, assumed they were finishing first and were shocked at their second place. They grilled the cowboys later, purposely using "big" words in the conversation, thinking that was somehow intimidating. The cowboys just nodded and smiled. All the contestants seemed to think it a fluke that the cowboys finished first.

The third episode has just ended, and the cowboys finished first again, making it from Chile to Argentina. Ayipieeay!

What the other contestants and we viewers are finding out is that the cowboys are confident, patient, independent, shrewd and full of common sense. You might even say they're the "real McCoy."

Oklahoma, OK!

Jet and Cord

Brothers/Cowboys

Cord McCoy

Age: 29
Hometown: Tupelo, Okla.
Connection to your teammate: Brother
Current Occupation: Professional Bull Rider
Pet peeve about your teammate: He likes to voice his opinion
Favorite hobbies: Riding horses
Achievements: Rode world champion bucking bull, “Big Bucks”
Lifelong to do list: Get married, have lots of babies and live happily ever after
If I could switch places with someone: I wouldn't trade with anyone.
Role Model/Hero: My parents
What are you passionate about: My beliefs
What would you do if you won the million dollars: Buy a big ranch
People would be surprised to learn: I don't have a television or a radio in my house
Favorite place you have ever visited: I love visiting everywhere, but home sweet home is always the BEST
Biggest challenge you and your teammate will face on the Race together: Choosing one idea and going with it
What did you hope to accomplish by running the Race (other than winning one million bucks): Spending time with my best friend and brother

Jet McCoy

Age: 30
Hometown: Ada, Okla.
Connection to your teammate: Brother
Current Occupation: Cowboy
Pet peeve about your teammate: Punctuality or lack thereof
Favorite hobbies: Reading
Achievements: Making it on THE AMAZING RACE
Lifelong to do list: To remain a cowboy
If I could switch places with someone: Nobody, I am happy being me … I haven't worked out all of my own problems so I wouldn't want to start on anyone else's
Role Model/Hero: Cord would be my hero
What are you passionate about? Horsemanship
What would you do if you won the million dollars? Pay off my house
People would be surprised to learn: How much I read. I read every single day
Favorite place you have ever visited: Texas
Biggest challenge you and your teammate will face on the Race together: Communication
What do you hope to accomplish by running the Race (other than winning one million bucks?) To broaden my horizons and gain a better appreciation for the world in general

Wow! Once in a lifetime! (Times 2)

For my Yankee friends this is nothing new, but 12.5 inches of snow in 24 hours is a record for north Texas. We have no plows, no salt, just sand for bridges and overpasses. Needless to say, there is no school today. We had no power from about 9:00 pm yesterday until about 3:00 am today. For the first time in years I slept for over nine hours. Life is good, I needed the rest.

My dog is in heaven.

The snow started early Thursday morning. We swept all the snow off the windshields about 4:00 in the afternoon on Thursday. But the snow kept coming and coming.

The bushes are bowed with the weight of the snow. Power has been out all over the place from tree branches falling. You might notice a ladder in the backyard. Doesn't everyone have one? That's our tethering base for the dog, since we haven't yet dog proofed the fence against our little escape artist. A spring break task?

Global warming? You've got to be kidding. It will be interesting to watch all the ways the record cold and snow of this winter will be spun as a side effect. Some people need to find real jobs rather than creating a self-serving "green" industry.

Trapped in Oklahoma City on December 24, 2009 during its record setting snowfall and now this. What's next?

Enough Said

"Government's view of the economy
could be summed up in a few short phrases:
If it moves, tax it.
If it keeps moving, regulate it.
And if it stops moving, subsidize it." -Ronald Reagan

And that's what you want?

I was speaking with a friend who was pleased with the progress of healthcare "reform." I asked what she knew about it and why she was in favor of the House bill that recently passed.

She reads headlines. She cited the "fact" that hundreds of thousands die because they don't have health insurance. (That reminded me of the Congressman in a speech referring to the "hundreds of millions" of Americans who do not have affordable health insurance. Since there are only about three hundred million people in the United States, I believe that statement is not credible.) I reminded my friend that most people do, in fact, get treated.

She referred to the inconvenience and long lines in emergency rooms, none of which she had personally experienced or knew of. (Have you read those polls where a majority of people are not experiencing a certain problem, but think everyone else is? Ah, the power of the media.)

Finally, she cited the experience of her nephew in the military. He had a brain tumor and it took months and months and months before the military would authorize his treatment with an "outside" specialist, since there was not an appropriate specialist available within their system. Perhaps they were waiting for one to graduate from medical school, I don't know. But his treatment required approval from within the military hierarchy and it took a long time. Approval was finally granted and the tumor, thankfully benign, was removed.

I don't understand how that anecdote translates into a preference for government supervised healthcare.

When our daughter was diagnosed with cancer at age fifteen, we did not have to wait in line for a specialist or outside approval for treatment. We had the choice of where she was treated. We were able to do enough research on our own to determine if we would benefit from a second opinion or treatment at a different facility. Thank God there were specialists available, doctors who had put in hard years of training in order to be able to diagnose her rare condition and offer a path to healing.

Had we been dissatisfied, we could have changed her course of treatment during the process. Unlike medicare recipients, if our insurance did not cover expenses, we had the option of paying for costs ourselves. If we had needed to sell our house or liquidate our retirement plans to pay for her life, we would have done it. To put it bluntly, life is not fair. And when you're the unlucky one, you do what it takes.

I don't regret having to pay for her treatment while the indigent child in the next room was served without payment. That's part of life, too. I don't begrudge any of the doctors their incomes, either, these men and women who make life and death judgments every day.

I would be ballistic, however, if I or someone in my family was denied or deferred the opportunity for treatment. There is no "one size fits all" in the world of medicine.

Shouldn't there be many paths to explore in developing better healthcare outcomes for us and our fellow citizens? Do you really think that creating 111 additional government boards and panels with their thousands and thousands of administrators is the first option to try? Do you really think that most Americans are so callous and uncaring that the alternative to government supervised health care is to let people die? I think not.

Rather than reciting headlines and misleading statistics, we all should think for ourselves and investigate source information directly before flippantly assuming the position. With all the research available at our fingertips, there is no excuse for being uninformed or worse, a parrot of others.

In Texas, after tort reform, hospitals are finding their liability insurance costs dropping 20 percent. The hospitals are using these savings to provide additional charity care, upgrade staff, upgrade facilities and equipment, or in some cases simply stay open. Just imagine if you multiplied that across the nation.

If the choices are "lead, follow or get out of the way," I vote for the government to get out of the way. Let the smart, talented citizens of the greatest country in the world work on the problems directly.

Using Common Sense

Which political leader would you agree with?

DOOR NUMBER 1:

"The yearning for peace is universal." POTUS, September 23, 2009.

DOOR NUMBER 2:

"It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans." FEDERALIST No. 4, November 7, 1787.

MY PICK:

I've got to go with Door Number 2.

I've seen the sneaky (and up front) things my kids do to each other. No yearning for universal peace there!

A Woman After My Own Heart

Remember, I said there might be a political comment every now and then, but chocolate has no affiliation, so this is personal, not political.

The following quote was from a Washington Post article about the government spending protest in Washington, D.C. today.

Like countless others at the rally, Joan Wright, 78, of Ocean Pines, Md., sounded angry. "I'm not taking this crap anymore," said Wright, who came by bus to Washington with 150 like-minded residents of Maryland's Eastern Shore. "I don't like the health-care [plan]. I don't like the czars. And I don't like the elitists telling us what we should do or eat."

My point, exactly! Joan is a little more than fifty-something, but she can join my club anytime.

UPDATE: Why, may you ask, is the text of this post larger than the text of my other posts? I don't know. But if I try to fix the text size, the gremlins will screw something else up, so I will let it be. Now that I think about it, that's actually not a bad philosophy when dealing with computers.

The Green State may save me from the Nanny State

Earlier I wrote about my angst related to the proposed national tax on colas and other "sins." I don't think I need to be told what I should eat. You can give me information, but I can make my own informed choices.

I'm also appalled at the environmental lobby run amuck. The Green mantra has become a religion, and always comes with a capital "G." Now I recycle, I minimize the use of bags and packaging materials, keep my thermostat set a at reasonable temperature (just under 80 degress) during the Texas summer and take other actions to avoid waste.

But I have thought the hysteria related to carbon emissions to be completely out of control. That is, until I saw the following in an online article...

"The climate committee is analyzing emissions from farming and will suggest measures to reduce them. However, it has concluded that people will have to change their habits.

The Carbon Trust, a government-funded firm, is working with food and drink companies to calculate the 'carbon footprints' of products - sometimes with surprising results.

Coca-Cola, for example, generates only about half the greenhouse gas emissions of Innocent's 'smoothies.' Cadbury's chocolate generates about 4.5 lb for every 2.2 lb eaten - less than half that from the CO2 of the same weight of chicken."

It looks like the greenhouse gas gurus may save my Coke and chocolate after all! And I promise I'll reduce my carbon footprint by taking several days to eat my 2.2 pounds of chocolate. Now if we can just keep the various government and political organizations busy arguing about what they have decided is best for you and for me, perhaps we can continue making our own decisions like the mature adults we are.

Let them eat cake!

Our lawmakers are considering an excise tax on coca cola, gatorade, etc. Here is my dilemma, should it come to pass...how do I support Coke so it's still around and waiting after a new Congress has reversed the tax?

You see, a coke over Sonic ice is my vice. I don't smoke, I drink moderately, I'm at the very lowest end of my recommended weight. So Congress wants to call my Coke fix a sin? Congress wants to tell me I'm unhealthy?

I certainly have the fortitude to switch vices to avoid a "sin" tax. Chocolate cake works for me.

And while they're at it, tell Congress to pass a dozen similar taxes. The money I'll save from changing my habits to avoid the behaviours Congress has deemed sinful will allow me to reduce my working hours. Since I'm self-employed I make less than sixty cents for each dollar earned anyway.

Our leaders seem to want to use tax policy to change behaviour but don't extend the concept to conclude that I can change my behaviour to influence tax policy.

I'll buy no sinful products and reduce the income and employment taxes I pay by working fewer hours. It's much easier for me to cheerfully adjust my lifestyle than pay for the lifestyle of others.