Sarah Palin pardon’s a turkey… She shows she can read a paper, although not very eloquently. After the pardon she steps outside to give further interviews and doesn’t realize that she is standing in front of a guy killing turkeys. The latter half of the video may be graphic.
The final stages of the year for me always starts with the preparation for deer hunting in November…after that comes a stretch of holidays and before you know it the New Year is here. This year has been no different.
The irony of deer hunting is that I really make the trip for the camaraderie, poker, beer and the chance to spend some peaceful quality time in nature. Sometimes this involves napping or playing Nintendo DS games in a hunting blind in the middle of a field. Given the chance, I am not sure if I would shoot a deer - it is messy and only adds expense to the trip to have the deer processed, then comes the trouble of getting the venison home. In the end I figure steaks and hamburger are available at Meijer for a pretty reasonable price.
This year my brother and I drove from Grand Rapids to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to hunt near the Pickford area. The truck was loaded to the brim with garage sale furniture to fill the new hunting camp that our friend, Mark, built to replace the old camp that is showing its age. Maybe the fact that it was built on tree stumps has something to do with the fact that it is shifting and may soon collapse.
Highlights from this trip include:
My friend encouraged me to read Ms. Anderson’s open letter to Obama…I enjoyed and wanted to share with others in case she removes from her site (link to source).
Aside from the terrible grammar and spelling mistakes, I think we can all take a bit away from her sage words. For example, I’m really in favor of the government promoting vegetarianism, and seriously…we need to forget bailouts for the automotive industry and encourage them to pick up hemp farming instead. Thanks, Pam, for sharing your ideas with the world!
Dear Mr. Obama:
My thoughts/hopeful ideas-:
-Free Leonard Peltier- This injustice is just breeding Hate and discrimination. It would be very meaning ful to the Native American people and all of us ho have watched and been saddened by a broken system (There are too many people in jail that don’t need to be there-it IS a broken system- that enrages more people than it helps) - not saying that there aren’t people who need to be jailed while determining their fate- but Jail should be a holding cell for justice and not a lifelong waste of taxpayers money to run a spa for criminals-how does this improve society? Especially when there are real threats to our most precious citizens -our children- in most cases child molesters are walking free. Government must Castrate every molester-or potential molester- error on the safe side- if any child pornography is found in anyone’s possession-or anyone creating such atrocities-or if any child Is brave enough to come forward (at any young age to bring attention to a potential molester- listen) they need to be taken very seriously and see that justice is served-The abuse is way worse than any trial could be- our children need more protection and justice seen. It needs to be PREVENTED not just punished.I think we should Legalize Marijuana, tax and monitor -farm Hemp etc-this would make our borders less corrupt and then I think eventually this will be more secure option and save children in the long run – we should be able to farm Hemp in America- it’s just silly— it would create jobs- and be good for environment.
Bring our Troops home safely- Stop the killing and work with Veterans to secure a peaceful way world wide-using their 1st hand wisdom lovingly across all borders together. It is not a war Economy anymore- obviously-Stop all these garbage, wasteful and ineffective ,ancient animal tests (from 80 years ago?)- create a REAL working dedicated and active group of people assigned to this issue- science is suppose to be progressive? We need to get with it- update like Europe has – it’s an embarrassment and nobody wishes this senseless cruelty to go on.
Please get rid of this private insurance and private health care system- it’s corrupt and doesn’t work-Government should take over both those areas- supplying secure government jobs where people are dedicated to their job and it is a proven system- Canada etc- supplying proper insurance to everyone – It’s much easier and government should supply these services for the taxes we pay- we would all be protected- pharmaceuticals would be affordable- to those that need it/especially our elderly- see that everyone has car insurance (there should not be an uninsured driver on the road) and health insurance- the same for everyone- isn’t this what we pay taxes for?
Promote vegetarianism-which would help end world hunger- crack down on factory farming that is killing the environment and slaughtering so many animals- wastefully and carelessly and it’s unhealthy/and it’s just impractical- to think this is monitored/regulated effectively.Please Shut down Guantanamo Bay-figure it out- make amends/stop torture- it’s time for peaceful solutions- and cooperation world wide sharing resources and protecting each other- education, missionary work- bring the world together help each other- with resources now- its considered a very small place- We are each other’s keeper no matter what side of the border we were born-nobody is less than.
And if people are hard working why cant they work and pay taxes in America- if they have no criminal record- why do we have illegal immigration it should be made easier for people to work here- all they want to do is work- some Americans sure have a sense of entitlement that’s unhealthy, unwise and selfish at times… Thank God it’s a new day!
As of Thursday last week Holly and I still hadn’t firmed up plans for this weekend but everything came together nicely.
On the way to Allendale for a Friday morning meeting I heard an ad on the radio for the Grand Rapids Griffins hockey game, featuring $1 beers and hot dogs so I called the office and invited a couple of coworkers. It was a good game, the Griffins beat the Lake Erie Monsters 5 to 1 and the beer was cold and cheap - the hot dogs weren’t bad either. The best part was that tickets were only $10 because we all posed as college students with our old student IDs, and the seats were really good too.
Saturday morning I woke up very early and caught a couple black and white Westerns on the Starz movie channels. Holly woke up a bit later and began a cleaning spree so I tried to clean the basement a bit too. By early afternoon I was a bit crazy from being cooped up all morning so I loaded a couple monitors in the back of the truck for recycling in Rockford. I knew a coworker had a couple monitors to pitch so I picked those up and dropped off 6 old monitors in all at the recycling station - that is a lot of monitors even for two computer nerds. I thought I was being green and sustainable until I watched 60 minutes tonight and saw a story on the pollution Americans are causing in China by throwing away electronics, especially CRT monitors because of the amount of lead in the tube.
Sunday morning I woke up early again, it must be the time change, so I had to wait a bit until the Sunday morning news shows came on in mass. Armed with the power of DVR technology I was able to watch Meet the Press AND CBS Sunday Morning - amazing. Several hours and a pot of coffee later I decided to replace the leaky kitchen faucet so I jumped in the car and headed to Lowes. I found a nice Moen faucet and several other tools that were “required” to complete the project and headed home to start the project. Everything went pretty smooth except for one one rusted nut attaching the faucet to the stainless steel sink basin. The nut turned out to be no match for my new plumber’s wrench with telescoping handle and in no time (2 hours to be exact) I had the new faucet in place. Before pic is on the left, after is on the right.
With that project done all that was left to do was watch football which I’ve successfully done up until writing this blog entry. With opening day coming up I have a couple more busy days in front of me - I’ll be heading to the U.P. Thursday afternoon so I’ve only got a couple days to get everything organized. Organization is not my strong suit so I really mean I have to find everything because it is likely strewn all over the house.
I just helped my mom order tickets to see Wicked in Detroit the weekend after Christmas with a small group of family members…by help I mean order all the tickets and relay to her how much she owes me. If I were spending my own money I think I would have decided not to see the show after seeing how much Ticket Master charges in additional fees!
The ticket price started at $70.00, then you add $9.20 per ticket for a convenience charge and $3.00 for a facility charge. The site was not at all convenient - convenient would have been calling and talking to a person to find the best seats for the money while comparing a couple dates that my mom had available. Ticket Master can’t even be bothered to tell you ahead of time what shows are already sold out for the quantity of tickets you’re looking for! I guess I could have called them, but when I tried the hold time was over 10 minutes and there were additional fees for more convenience.
Next you get to the parking section - Detroit Opera House lets you pre-pay for parking which I thought was pretty cool. $10.00 for parking isn’t bad in Detroit, but wait…there is another convenience fee of $1 per parking pass for this feature. Fine…whatever, what is one more dollar at this point.
Now it’s time to select how you will receive your tickets…the first option is to print them out at home - how convenient, right? Think of how much time and money Ticket Master saves when they don’t have to pay for manpower to print the tickets, stuff envelopes, etc - not to mention the savings in printing and paper stock related costs. Well, in case you’re spotting a trend here, you’re right - more fees. $2.50 to print your own tickets at home, with your own paper, printer and ink. Ridiculous. I choose the UPS option for $14.50 because I want those bastards to do something in this whole ticket buying process.
Finally I get to the bottom of the page and see the submit order button. I am so happy there are no more options and fees to deal with…until I get to the confirmation page and see that to add insult to injury, to rub salt in the wound, they have added a $4.35 ticket processing fee. Really, how is this not included in any of the above fees I’m paying for ordering tickets online? Isn’t that part of the overall convenience?
I really don’t see how, in good conscious, they can gouge so much money out of consumers - in my opinion this should be criminal. I had to order 8 tickets tonight for my mom’s group so by the time all was said and done I paid $103.95 for the convenience of Ticket Master allowing me to order my own tickets on their crappy, clunky, barely-usable website. Thanks so much for the experience!