I'm a conservative

Everyone assumes I’m a Republican. I’m not. I consider myself a conservative. I don’t know if I would call myself a libertarian. When it comes to the political spectrum I find myself leaning more towards our libertarian friends than I do to the republican wimps in congress.

I honestly feel like the republicans sold out their conservative base. They have spent too much money, not secured our borders and have not fought for our rights. Government just keeps getting bigger and more corrupt. It doesn’t matter what party is in charge. The only difference is the speed in which they drive our country to socialism.

Below is a quote from Anthony G. Martin from the examiner.com site. These principles generally sum up my thoughts on government and what I mean when I say I’m a conservative.

10 basic conservative principles:

1. 'Government money' does not belong to government. It belongs to the taxpayers who worked hard for it, and who had funds deleted from their paychecks even before they got to see them.
2. The government that governs best governs LEAST.
3. Government normally does not solve problems. People do. Big government usually IS the problem.
4. Oppressive large governments are responsible for more murders of citizens than all of the wars in history.
5. The private sector is where the juice of society lies. There you will find ingenuity, creativity, and the creation of wealth--provided government gets out of the way.
6. Government social programs reward pathological dependency. True adults, unless hindered by debilitating physical impairment, seek independent living as free persons who are not stuck in an infantile dependency on the government nanny.
7. The one role of government mandated by the U.S. Constitution is to provide for the national defense.
8. Human rights are not granted by government. They are inherent and automatic. We are 'endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.' Government can only choose to recognize and protect those inherent rights.
9. The right to self-defense, as encapsulated in the 2nd Amendment, is the key to all of the other rights described in the Bill of Rights. Free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and a free press are secured and kept secure by an armed citizenry.
10. Our form of government is NOT a 'pure democracy' or 'majority rule.' In a Constitutional Republic such as ours, the will of the majority is tempered and limited by the rights of the minority, which are always intact and unalienable regardless of the 'will of the majority.'

Oh, by the way, THE GREEN MOVEMENT IS A SCAM!!

Swim Lessons

Our kids had swim lessons this summer. It was kind of scary and exciting. I was able to sneak away from work the other day and watch my kids swim. Andrew and Jaedyn did such a good job!

The swim lessons lasted for a week and a half. At the end of the lessons they had a graduation. All the kids got trophies.

Movies This Year

• Okay... let me just say that Will Ferrell's Land of the Lost was dumb dumb dumb. 93 minutes of my life I will never get back. I now have to make up for this stupid movie by going to 3 chick flicks in the row.
  
• Star Trek is one of the best movies this year - it changed my life.
• I can't wait for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
• I haven't seen Terminator Salvation yet. I will probably just rent that one.
• The Watchmen (yes I went and saw it - I'm sorry!) was kinda dumb but kinda good. If you can get past the naked blue man junk it's not that bad of a movie.
  
• Knowing was okay. Nicolas Cage is not my favorite actor. His best movie was Raising Arizona. Everything went downhill after that.
• Race to Witch Mountain was a pretty good Disney movie. Good Disney movies are rare. I don't consider Pixar movies part of Disney.
  
• Up was great! The kids loved it. It wasn't the best Pixar of all times (The Incredibles) but it was good.
• We rented Taken. I liked all the violence and killin'.
  
• Monsters Vs. Aliens could have been better but it got long and I think the kids got bored.
• Wolverine was awesome but not as awesome as Star Trek (Star Trek changed my life!)
• We haven't seen Angles and Demons. We should have seen that instead of wasting our lives watching Land of the Lost.
• We haven't seen Night at the Museum yet
• We haven't seen Transformers yet

Random

Is it just me or does Office 2007 just suck? I went from Office 2003 to 2007 recently. Oh my gosh! I went from being an Excel/Word/PowerPoint guru to being an idiot. What was Microsoft thinking?

Oh well... I have a feeling in the near future I won't be paying for any software. I will be running Ubuntu as my primary OS and OpenOffice. Everything else will run through Firefox.

I've been playing with Windows 7 for a few months and I really like it. I hope Microsoft doesn't do any stupid pricing thing that will prohibit people from upgrading from Vista. They really need to sell home site licenses so I can install 7 on any computer in the house. I would pay for something like that...

On another note: The Bishop was out of town and I was volunteered to do a Bishop's Fireside on Sunday night. I really love the youth of our Ward. They are all amazing. I am really thankful they were nice enough to listen to my ramblings on Sunday about the importance of Education.

The youth in the Palo Verde Ward are awesome. The youth leadership are amazing.

Andrew

Today is Andrew’s 5th birthday. This blog will be rambling about my Sweet Boy.

Time flies when you have a boy like Andrew. In my blog today I’m going to take a few minutes to talk about my boy, Andrew. Mela and I are so privileged to have such a choice child.

Andrew has boundless energy. He does not slow down for anyone or anything. He doesn’t even slow down to eat. Eating is a distraction for him. He would rather be playing with his trains or in the back yard than eating. Would that be a nice attribute to have? I wish eating was a distraction to me rather than an attraction.

Andrew loves going to Pima where he can explore and play until he just goes to sleep. Mela and I timed him one day in Pima. He woke up at about 7:30 and he played until 11:30 that night. He was full of energy the entire day. Drew is simply amazing! According to my mom the best adjective that describes Andrew is “exuberant”.

I love it when I come home from work and Andrew, with the aid of his sister, will try to scare me. I will me standing in the kitchen when I hear him and Jaedyn coming down the stairs whispering “let’s scare daddy...” I always act scared. This kind of stuff never gets old.

Andrew is a good little helper. He will help me mow the lawn, wash the trucks and fix the bikes. He doesn’t quit and he will stay with me until the job is done. I have pictures of him helping me push the lawnmower all over the lawn.

Andrew has such a sweet little personality. I love hearing him pray. He will ask Heavenly Father to bless Baby (Jaedyn), mommy & daddy, Olivia, Floppsy (his stuffed giraffe) and his trains. Often he will ask Heavenly Father to give Jesus a hug and a kiss. I am very confident our Savior get’s His hugs and kisses regularly from our Father in Heaven.

We have watched the movie Cars at least a 1000 times. It is Andrew’s favorite movie. If you asked him what he wants to watch it will almost always be Cars. He loves Thomas the Train and Speed Racer also. For the longest time I thought Andrew had very predicable viewing tastes but lately he is into The Biggest Loser and some HGTV show called For Your Home. At least he’s not into Days! Ironically, Jaedyn is my little Sci-Fi fan. She is into Battlestar Galactica Star Wars and Star Trek.

One of Andrew’s most amazing gifts is his ability to forgive. I am so glad my boy forgives his dad when I lose my patience. With Andrew he will get mad or upset and then a minute later it is gone like it never happened. I wish I could be that way.

I love my boy with all my heart.

Father & Sons Campout

This year the Palo Verde Ward decided to have our Father & Sons camp out somewhere out of the heat. My job was to find the location. So, with the help of Google Earth and GeoCaching.com I was able to find a location just south of Flagstaff. It was the best F&S ever!!

Hiking, looking for rocks, finding frogs and getting dirty...

It's difficult

It's difficult when you have the two cutest kids in the world...

Mela

Commitment

I heard a talk from a BYU professor where he asked a question about marriage: “What’s more important in a good marriage: love or commitment?”

...I pause for you to consider your answer...

The professor answered the question stating commitment was more important than love in a marriage. When I heard this I had to digest it. His statement was counter intuitive to me.

This may sound crazy; there are times, I’m sure, when Mela doesn’t have happy/loving feelings towards me. And, this may sound even crazier; there are times when I don’t have happy/loving feelings towards Mela. It is at these times when our commitment to each other overcomes our negative feelings and brings back our happy/loving feelings.

Does this make sense?

Now this brings me to my real topic...

I think commitment is an essential component of our faith in our Heavenly Father and in His church. In part, our faith is manifested by our commitment to the Lord.

I know lots of people who love the Lord. I think that’s great and I’m not trying to take away anything from those people. However, I know people who love the Lord but aren’t committed to the Lord. People need to be committed to following the Lord and His commandments. How could I really love Mela if I wasn't committed to her? How can one really love the Lord without being totally committed to Him?

Personally, and this may sound crazy, there are times when I really don’t want to attend my meetings on Sunday. I may be too tired, the kids are grumpy, my diet coke levels are too low, or whatever. My commitment to my calling and to the covenants I have made to the Lord drag me kicking and screaming to my Church meetings.

I remember reading a story about Brigham Young and how he was publicly chastised by Joseph Smith. Brigham was committed to following Joseph no matter what. Many of the early saints were like this – they were committed to following Joseph. If Joseph asked them drop everything and to go on a three year mission to who-knows-where, they went. They may have had a hard time with what Joseph was asking but they were committed to Joseph and therefore committed to the Lord.

If a similar request was made of me, I would have a really hard time. If the Prophet called me right now to drop everything (my job, my family, my house, my truck, my iPod) and go preach the gospel in Iran, would I say yes? I don’t know. It would be an amazing act of faith and commitment to follow the Prophet.

Fortunately, I am only being asked to attend my meetings, obey my leaders, follow the commandments, be a good husband and raise my kids. Sometimes I have a hard time doing even the easy stuff let alone the hard stuff. I need to be more committed!

Commitment is the glue that binds us to our faith.

Easter Picnic 2009

Snow!!

So...

I put the pictures of the Easter Picnic on a link on the left-hand side of this site.

Camping for Easter weekend is a tradition on Mela’s side of the family going way back (I don’t know exactly how far back). I look forward to it every year.

This year we FROOZE! There was some freak snow/wind/rain/hail storm that blew in Friday night. Mela and I had approximately 1 hour of sleep the whole night in our tents.

Saturday morning as we were huddled in Lon & Karen’s trailer Mela and I both realized why the Lord saw fit to bring us to this world in the 20th century - freezing in the wilderness isn’t our thing. We packed up the kids and went to Denny’s for breakfast.

We came back to the campground a couple of hours later only to decide there was no way we were going to spend another night freezing our A__’s off, so we packed everything up.

I know we are wimps... kudo’s to the rest of the family who sucked-it-up through the cold and the rain. I bet your comfortable trailer’s and fifth-wheel’s helped...

Despite the cold and general grumpiness, we had a great time. On Friday and on Saturday we were able to ride Quads and hike. And, being with the ones you love will make all the difference no matter how cold it was.

Goldfield Ghost Town

Easter Picnic

Every year my wife's side of the family gets together and goes camping on Easter. They call it the Easter Picnic. I have been attending the Easter Picnic since 2004. I put all the pictures I took for each year on the right. Enjoy...