"What have you been up to?" is a question I hear from friends and family I haven't spoken with in a while. This is my response...

My wife and I have been together for a little more than five years. We've had two kids together, giving us six in all. Our children are ages 16, 14, 12, 9, 2 and 1.

I recently went on a diet and I'm down to 167 pounds. It’s something I wanted to do for a long time, but finally started in earnest after a summer visit to the emergency room. I have a severe case of gastroesophageal reflux, and being overweight wasn't helping things!

I'm in my sixth year of teaching Special Education. I'm still in radio, but only on weekends, and only because I've been there so long that the staff have become family. That, and because I've been in for radio so long that I can't imagine not doing it.

This spring, I'll take my last two classes toward my Master's Degree, and hopefully that will lead to better pay. If not, I'll die owing Uncle Sam for my student loans! Seven years at a private university was anything but free.

With my jobs, the kids, my wife, and my Master's classes, I don't have time for music, so my songwriting and recording have been put on the back burner. And it's been turned to “low simmer”. I was recording an album and the producer lost everything, so we'd be starting from scratch; otherwise, I would have finished a few songs this past summer. Now, I don't know that I ever will record a single song.

Photography has also taken a backseat in my crazy life. Don't get me wrong, I still take hundreds of pictures every single month, but they're of our kids, not of models, actors, high school seniors, or weddings.

WHAT?!

California to Use Anesthesiologist to Make Sure Execution is Painless
Thursday, February 16, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO — California's attorney general told a judge Wednesday that the state would employ an anesthesiologist to make sure a death row inmate suffers no extreme pain during execution...

Morales is on death row for the rape-torture murder of a 17-year-old San Joaquin County girl 25 years ago.

I WONDER HOW PAINLESSLY HE RAPE-TORTURE MURDERED THAT TEENAGE GIRL!

I THINK MORALES SHOULD BE STRIPPED NAKED IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE, CASTRATED, AND TIED TO A TREE WHERE PEOPLE CAN THROW STONES AT HIM - UNTIL THE POINT OF DEATH.

PAINLESS EXECUTION... WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT?

I say we give Joseph Smith all the cocaine and herion his body can possibly take - and then just a little bit more...

Carlie Brucia's Killer Pleads for His Life
Tuesday, February 14, 2006

SARASOTA, Fla. — A weeping Joseph Smith apologized Tuesday for the abduction, rape and murder of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia two years ago, telling a judge he had taken large amounts of cocaine and heroin that day in hopes of killing himself.

Carlie's friends and family members talked of their desperation and grief.

"Carlie's future and life have been stolen from her and from her family," her aunt Lori Brucia read on behalf of the girl's grandmother, Andrea Brucia. "We will never know her as a teenager. Our family is forever broken. Our nightmares about what you've done to her — our hearts will never heal."

Dena Schlosser and Andrea Yates should share a room - in Hell.

Woman Accused of Cutting Off Baby's Arms Pleads Not Guilty
Monday, February 13, 2006

McKINNEY, Texas — A woman accused of killing her 10-month-old daughter by cutting off the baby's arms with a kitchen knife went on trial Monday.

Police found Dena Schlosser covered in blood in her kitchen, still holding a knife...

That's where the story should have ended! Someone should have drug her into the room where her dead baby lay, made her look at the body of innocent baby she murdered, and then sliced her throat, leaving her to rot in a pool of her own blood.

Now that's despicable and un-American!

"The remarks of some guest speakers at Coretta Scott King’s funeral yesterday were a shameless, brazen attack on the spirit of Mrs. King herself. Regular readers know that I have no problem criticizing this administration when I believe they are not fulfilling their moral duty to lead and to defend the most vulnerable. But to take cheap shots at the president and his wife about NSA wiretapping, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and Katrina, as they attend a funeral is despicable and un-American. Hard to believe preachers and an ex-president wouldn’t have known better." - Father Jonathan Morris

I couldn't have said it better myself...

The deficit be damned, there are programs to fund!

Educators, medical professionals, and farmers are wailing now that President Bush’s 2007 Budget has been proposed.

The deficit be damned, there are programs to fund!

Education and health officials (and many leftwing politicians) are "disappointed", "angered", and "surprised" at the cuts the President has proposed. At the same time, the President is being denigrated for the size of the 2.77 trillion spending blueprint!

What is President Bush to do? Cut programs to the chagrin of those demanding them as “rights”? Keep the programs and raise taxes (a.k.a. let the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire) to annoyance of those requesting lower taxes and the elimination of obvious waste? Or keep just some of the programs and tick off half the population? It is impossible to sustain programs and cut taxes, and at the same time decrease the deficit!

Today, it was announced during what was *supposed to be* a funeral for Mrs. King that President Bush invited Hurricane Katrina to hit the South (because he hates blacks), that he personally wire-taps innocent peoples' homes and businesses (I suppose he wants to know who they’re having over for dinner), and that if he spent less money defending our country, we would have more money to spend programs (not only for those who actually need it, but also on those who won’t do for themselves).

Create more programs, tax the crap out of anyone who actually has a job, and drive up the deficit! That's the answer!! What *was* he thinking?

Don't expect to hear about this in the liberal media... Betcha didn't know:

U.S. Economy Adds 193,000 Jobs in Jan.; Unemployment Rate at 4.7%
Friday, February 03, 2006

In addition, the Labor Department report showed the January unemployment rate dropped to a 4-1/2-year low 4.7 percent from 4.9 percent in December. The last time the rate was lower was in July 2001 when it was at 4.6 percent.

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Jobless Claims Lowest Since Jan. 2001

Thursday, April 08, 2004

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans filing initial claims for jobless aid dropped sharply last week to the lowest in more than three years, the government said on Thursday in a further sign of a reviving employment market.

First-time claims for state unemployment insurance fell 14,000 in the week ended April 3 to 328,000 — the lowest level since before President Bush took office.

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Jobs Grow at Fasted Pace in Nearly Four Years

Monday, April 05, 2004

Today's report on unemployment shows that 308,000 jobs were created in March alone, almost three times what economists expected. Not only that, but the previous two months were revised upwards by another 87,000 jobs, bringing the total number of new jobs in today's report to almost 400,000.

***

GDP Grows at 4.1 Percent in Last Quarter of '03

Thursday, March 25, 2004

WASHINGTON — America's economic recovery ended 2003 on a good note, growing at a solid 4.1 percent annual rate, and is expected to do even better in the opening quarter of this year.