I've always wished I'd been more musical, but the talent was just never introduced into my DNA. When I had kids, I did what many parents do and tried to encourage them to take music lessons with the hope that something would stick. It would be a shame for the world to lose out on the next Mozart because his parents never put him in front of a piano.
So when Samantha was 8 or 9 we decided to give her piano lessons. She was mildly enthusiastic about it at first but lost interest after awhile and it was difficult to force her to practice. Finally I told her she could quit as soon as she learned to play Greensleeves for me. The song has always moved me ever since I was a child and heard it in a movie. She said she'd do it, but eventually the lessons stopped without her fulfilling her end of the bargain.
This year she warned us all that she had no money and her Christmas gifts would be extremely inexpensive which I thought was a good idea. On Christmas morning after all of the gifts were exchanged she went out to her car and brought in a guitar and sat beside me on the sofa and played Greensleeves for me. I had tears in my eyes as I hugged her for the beautiful gift.
Thank-you honey, I love it!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Really Very Stupid Things
The following incidents may or may not have happened but I will not admit to doing any of them.
tubing with no life jacket in a flood swollen river, contest to see who could hold a lit firecracker the longest, playing chicken head-on on bikes to see who would swerve first, tying brother backwards to a tricycle and pushing him down a hill, poking jailed drunks with a sharp stick, rolling bowling balls down the highway at 60 miles an hour, walking across steel beams 8 stories high, tubing down hill with barbed wire fence at the bottom, tying brother upside down in a tree, waking up at 70 miles an hour and 70 feet off the freeway, trying to knock each other off speeding snowmobiles, teach brother to yell "jack ass" at the mean neighbor lady, cementing the neighbors doors and windows shut, spending two hours at the top of a tree while the girl that someone called a cow tries to knock you down with rocks, folding my brother into a sleeper sofa, launching bottle rockets from the car, streaking, contest to see who could hold onto electric fence the longest, throwing knives at brothers feet, reasoning that the lakes thin ice will hold if you just drive snowmobile fast enough, getting into a car with drunk hillbillies, bb gun wars, jumping bikes over friends laying lengthwise, jousting from bikes, riding on the hood of a car, riding on the highway on the top of a tall stack of hay bails in the back of a truck, training to be a stuntman by jumping out of a moving car, laughing while drill sergeant screams in your face, breaking into vacant apartments to sleep and shower, slowing down but not stopping the car when dropping brother off, contest to see who can pass the most motorhomes on bike going down mountain switchbacks, pushing fully clothed bully into swimming pool, stopping fan blade with tongue, rock fights, running through pitch black mile long tunnel with just a stick to guide you, competing in triathlons without learning to swim, car races, sleeping in cemetary, blindfolded boxing, shooting arrow straight up and dodging its return, trying to outrun a cop, blowing things up in a variety of ways, sleeping under a hedge in downtown Los Angeles, making drill sergeant remember your name by pissing him off on the 1st day of boot camp, hitchhiking at 14, wandering through a bronx ghetto at midnight, getting a ride to California with crazy man who claims to be a hit man on assignment, sleeping under freeway over passes, misreading arrival time as departure time for family trip, packing remote control instead of camera for birth of child, publishing list of really very stupid things that I may or may not have done.
tubing with no life jacket in a flood swollen river, contest to see who could hold a lit firecracker the longest, playing chicken head-on on bikes to see who would swerve first, tying brother backwards to a tricycle and pushing him down a hill, poking jailed drunks with a sharp stick, rolling bowling balls down the highway at 60 miles an hour, walking across steel beams 8 stories high, tubing down hill with barbed wire fence at the bottom, tying brother upside down in a tree, waking up at 70 miles an hour and 70 feet off the freeway, trying to knock each other off speeding snowmobiles, teach brother to yell "jack ass" at the mean neighbor lady, cementing the neighbors doors and windows shut, spending two hours at the top of a tree while the girl that someone called a cow tries to knock you down with rocks, folding my brother into a sleeper sofa, launching bottle rockets from the car, streaking, contest to see who could hold onto electric fence the longest, throwing knives at brothers feet, reasoning that the lakes thin ice will hold if you just drive snowmobile fast enough, getting into a car with drunk hillbillies, bb gun wars, jumping bikes over friends laying lengthwise, jousting from bikes, riding on the hood of a car, riding on the highway on the top of a tall stack of hay bails in the back of a truck, training to be a stuntman by jumping out of a moving car, laughing while drill sergeant screams in your face, breaking into vacant apartments to sleep and shower, slowing down but not stopping the car when dropping brother off, contest to see who can pass the most motorhomes on bike going down mountain switchbacks, pushing fully clothed bully into swimming pool, stopping fan blade with tongue, rock fights, running through pitch black mile long tunnel with just a stick to guide you, competing in triathlons without learning to swim, car races, sleeping in cemetary, blindfolded boxing, shooting arrow straight up and dodging its return, trying to outrun a cop, blowing things up in a variety of ways, sleeping under a hedge in downtown Los Angeles, making drill sergeant remember your name by pissing him off on the 1st day of boot camp, hitchhiking at 14, wandering through a bronx ghetto at midnight, getting a ride to California with crazy man who claims to be a hit man on assignment, sleeping under freeway over passes, misreading arrival time as departure time for family trip, packing remote control instead of camera for birth of child, publishing list of really very stupid things that I may or may not have done.
Friday, December 10, 2010
You are on Welfare
You are Angry.
You saw the woman in front of you buying junk food with food stamps and now you are on a rant about the welfare parasites ruining your country. You claim the solution to all of our deficit problems is to just stop the welfare.
Now please...take a breath and the mood altering pill of your choice (legally prescribed by your doctor of course) and take a look in the mirror.
Can we all agree that the definition of welfare is receiving financial assistance that you haven't earned? Are you 100% certain that you pay your own way without help from a socialist goverment? Let's take a look. I'm going to pick on Utah for one example because I know the state well, have many friends there and believe that you have one of the more fiscally prudent states in the country. But even as efficient as you are it still costs about $7,500 per pupil per year to educate your kids. So 2 kids for 13 years means that taxpayers (including you ) have spent about $180,000 to educate those two kids. Double that for four kids and triple it for six. So before I believe that the government isn't taking from others to redistribute to you, I'll need you to show me proof that you will ever pay that back in your life time. If you aren't going to pay that back then you have received financial assistance from others to educate your kids.
Your house is the same value as your neighbors, but you are paying a mortgage to a bank and your neighbor is paying rent to a landlord. You get a big interest deduction worth a couple thousand that he doesn't get. You may not consider it welfare but your neighbor probably does.
You live in a state that gets more money back from the federal government than you pay. My friends in Utah get back $1.07 for every dollar they pay. If they feel bad that in Colorado we only get $0.83 back for every dollar collected, I'll let you send me a check for the difference.
If you are 60 something, you are likely collecting some sort of welfare.
If the fire department ever responded to a fire on your property, then you have probably collected more from safer taxpayers than you will ever pay back. Your church provides you with a social safety net and they use roads and infrastructure but they don't have to pay taxes for them. If you have a college degree from a state college then you were subsidized by the taxes of the hard working masses who didn't go to school.
If you have a mortgage, if you have children, if you collect social security, unemployment, belong to a church, have gone to college, work for the government (including schools) then you are benefiting from some sort of redistribution of wealth.
So please stop whining that the single mother in the check out line in front of you bought cheetos and coke with "your money"!
You saw the woman in front of you buying junk food with food stamps and now you are on a rant about the welfare parasites ruining your country. You claim the solution to all of our deficit problems is to just stop the welfare.
Now please...take a breath and the mood altering pill of your choice (legally prescribed by your doctor of course) and take a look in the mirror.
Can we all agree that the definition of welfare is receiving financial assistance that you haven't earned? Are you 100% certain that you pay your own way without help from a socialist goverment? Let's take a look. I'm going to pick on Utah for one example because I know the state well, have many friends there and believe that you have one of the more fiscally prudent states in the country. But even as efficient as you are it still costs about $7,500 per pupil per year to educate your kids. So 2 kids for 13 years means that taxpayers (including you ) have spent about $180,000 to educate those two kids. Double that for four kids and triple it for six. So before I believe that the government isn't taking from others to redistribute to you, I'll need you to show me proof that you will ever pay that back in your life time. If you aren't going to pay that back then you have received financial assistance from others to educate your kids.
Your house is the same value as your neighbors, but you are paying a mortgage to a bank and your neighbor is paying rent to a landlord. You get a big interest deduction worth a couple thousand that he doesn't get. You may not consider it welfare but your neighbor probably does.
You live in a state that gets more money back from the federal government than you pay. My friends in Utah get back $1.07 for every dollar they pay. If they feel bad that in Colorado we only get $0.83 back for every dollar collected, I'll let you send me a check for the difference.
If you are 60 something, you are likely collecting some sort of welfare.
If the fire department ever responded to a fire on your property, then you have probably collected more from safer taxpayers than you will ever pay back. Your church provides you with a social safety net and they use roads and infrastructure but they don't have to pay taxes for them. If you have a college degree from a state college then you were subsidized by the taxes of the hard working masses who didn't go to school.
If you have a mortgage, if you have children, if you collect social security, unemployment, belong to a church, have gone to college, work for the government (including schools) then you are benefiting from some sort of redistribution of wealth.
So please stop whining that the single mother in the check out line in front of you bought cheetos and coke with "your money"!
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