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12:33:51PM on 10/22/2008
25 Comments
| | Scary Halloween Story
In the spirit of Halloween, this post is intended to scare and frighten any who reads it. I will lead this off by saying I do not like John McCain and I once again feel like in this election I am voting for the lesser of two evils. I will not be casting my vote for McCain, however I will be casting my vote against Barack Obama. I hate getting political, but lately it seems everyone around me is throwing Obama in my face and I am finally tired of sitting back and saying nothing. Here is a list of reasons why I will be voting against the media's Golden Calf:
- Reproductive Justice: What a horribly disgusting term for abortion. Obama supports the Freedom Of Choice Act and has stated that it will be one of his first acts as president to get it passed. The FOCA will do three horrible things:
- Allow for late-term abortions (partial birth abortions). People always bring up the question "When does life begin" when the abortion argument is brought about. Erin and I actually know a family who had a child 6 months into the pregnancy. He is living proof to me that third trimester abortions are murder.
- Use tax payer dollars to pay for abortions. In this case we are paying for someone else's mistake. This drives me nuts. I cannot stand the fact that not only do I morally disagree with abortion, but the Obama government is going to use money I worked hard for to fix someone else's "problem". If I make a mistake in life I own up to it and take responsible actions to first resolve any issue caused by the mistake, and to never make it again!
- Allow a pregnant child to get an abortion without parental consent or knowledge! So a teenage girl that gets raped and impregnated by her perverted uncle and is too afraid and ashamed to tell her parents about it can now go get an abortion and her parents will be none-the-wiser. That aside, this is major surgery being done on a child! I don't have kids yet, but when I do I want to be informed every time they get a nose bleed at school for crying out loud. Not only does this have physical ramifications to the child, but it also has lasting emotional ones as well.
- Obama On Defense: He wants to cut and run from Iraq which basically tells the world we won't finish what we started and we are willing to lose this war to terrorism. I took a cab from the airport to my house back in February of last year. The driver was a native Iraqi and he and I discussed the war. He was very much in favor of what the United States is doing in Iraq and says his family in Iraq loves their new freedoms, freedoms we take for granted here in the states. War aside, Obama wants to cut defense spending as a whole. This will either directly or indirectly affect my job as I happen to work for a company that benefits from defense spending doing research for the government and building aerospace technologies.
- Redistribution of Wealth: With the government's recent bail outs we are on a fast track to becoming a socialist society. Obama's tax plans will get us there a hell of a lot faster than the alternative. One quick example: he wants to put an extra $50 - $65 billion dollars into the government's hands. Where is he getting it from? He is getting it from increasing taxes on Americans and American companies making over $250k a year. Damn that's a lot of money, and yes I don't make nearly close to that but simple common sense tells you that a company being taxed extra will be able to employ fewer people, thereby increasing unemployment, stymying the creation of new jobs, and ultimately putting less money into the economy via consumers. In addition to that, common sense also tells us that while Corporate America will be paying higher taxes, they will need to raise their costs for goods and services to make up for the losses they are passing out to the government. So ultimately it will be everyone who will be paying those taxes. Our cost of living will go up as a result. You think things are bad now?
My wife has busted her butt for the past two years trying to start a photography business out of our home. It takes a lot of her time and she is really close to it all coming to fruition. She has been able to do this because we have been fortunate enough to be able to rely on my income to pay for life's incidentals and invest all her earnings into her business. If the cost of living rises, odds are she will need to get a daytime job which will utterly destroy everything she has worked so hard the past two years to obtain. She may no longer have the time or the energy to put into her own dreams and our plans for her staying at home, running her own business and raising our children could be smashed.
- Obama's Associations: William Ayers, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and ACORN. Why is it that Obama has so many shady bedfellows? He claims that he sat in Jeremiah Wright's church for over 20 years and never heard him spew the hate speech that is often part of his sermons. He also claims to have been unaware of unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers's involvement with the Weather Underground, yet has read and commented on one of his books early in his political career. The man is a flat out dishonest scoundrel, not that all politicians aren't, but it really is amazing with whom he is associated. You are only kidding yourself if you believe that these people haven't influenced him in any way.
- Promotes Dumbing Down America: Not only does he want to continue the failure that is No Child Left Behind, but he wants to throw more money at the problem. The students in United States of America place poorly worldwide on standardized tests. Why is that? No Child Left Behind sets lower standards for students in order for everyone to "succeed". The educational system has lost touch with it's objective and has become a corrupt and greedy government entity, our children and this country's future are at stake. The results of No Child Left Behind have been mostly failure, even Obama admits to that, yet he still wants to continue along a failed path instead of finding a new one.
Here is a great Wall Street Journal article detailing more things that could come from an Obama presidency.
In super short summary, in my opinion, a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for:
- Murder of innocent babies.
- Possibly getting me laid off and sidelining Erin's photography business.
- Socialism - because it worked so well for Russia!
- Continuing to support a failing education system.
- An inexperienced man with a ton of charisma and a very shady past.
I will reiterate the fact that I do not like John McCain, so replying with crap about how terrible he is really does nothing for me because odds are I will agree with you on many points. And if you do respond with a rebuttal, please do so with facts backing it up. I did my best throughout the post to link my references.
Happy Halloween!
Boo-rack!
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1:14:27PM on 10/10/2008
5 Comments
| | Summer Summary
WARNING!!! Grab a drink and a snack. This will take a while. I have been seriously neglecting my blogging responsibility. I am attempting to catch up on six months of blogging (or lack of) in one post. I know it's ambitious, but bear with me. I'm hoping the pictures will makes this easier :) So, here goes . . .
Back in April, Mom, Lauren, Tommy and I spent some time in California visiting family and friends. It was a much needed break for me and it was so good to see everyone. My mom and I flew out to San Diego. Melissa picked me up at the airport. We spent the first day walking around La Jolla Beach and catching up. The weather was perfect and the scenary was even better! The next day we took Spryte out to frollick in the wild flowers. The photo shoot turned out beautifully and I think Spryte had lots of fun too :) After that, we had dinner with my mom and grandfather. Then mom, granddad and I headed up to Modesto to meet up with the cousins. Lauren and Tommy flew into San Francisco that day and made the trip to Modesto the next day. That night we all took Granddad to a nice Italian dinner to celebrate his 80th birthday. The food was good and the company was better. We all retreated to Jake and Heather's house to enjoy cake, drinks, gifts and conversation. Once the adults left, the kids had fun playing games and chatting. It was a great night. The next day started out with a mini photo shoot of my cousin Heather's daughters, Mackenzie and Kylie. They were adorable and Kylie is such a little model. We even tried for a family picture! After that we decided to head into old town Lodi. We enjoyed bumming around, shopping and a delicious lunch complete with mimosas. Then we headed back to Jeff and Christina's to enjoy a great home-cooked meal with everyone. Although the visit was short, it was long overdue and I can't wait to go back and visit with friends and family again! Thank you Dan, Melissa, Jeff, Christina, Jake and Heather for your gracious hospitality! We can't wait for our summer 2009 visit :) Please look at pictures from our trip in our scrapbook.
There's still so much more to share! The past few months have been a whirlwind of good times! For those of you who didn't know, we celebrated Newton's 7th birthday in July and Charlie's 3rd in August. And for their birthdays, we gave them a new backyard to chase squirrels around! I think that's pretty generous :)
Over the last weekend in July, most of the Lundry family traveled to Chicago to celebrate the marriage of Mark Shoults to Lisa Shelley. It was a beautiful wedding and we had a blast catching up with everyone. The wedding was planned for Friday with the intention of continuing the celebration all weekend. So Lauren, Kevin, Steve, Nick and I all decided to stay for the whole weekend and do some site seeing around Chicago. A few places we visited were Millenium Park with the memorable face fountains, Grant Park with Buckingham Fountain, the Chicago Art Institute and Shedd's Aquarium. We enjoyed some Chicago-style hot dogs-which I loved! For those of you who've never had one, they have hot peppers, tomatoes, onions, mustard, a spear pickle and some celery salt all on a poppy seed bun. Everyone should try one! We also spent Saturday night at Navy Pier. It started with a little mexican food and continued with a great fireworks cruise with all our friends from the wedding. The weather was great and the fireworks were fantastic. After the cruise we all headed to a bar of Mark's choosing called Dick's Last Resort. We enjoyed some tasty beverages into the early morning with some great friends! Thanks for the memories :) Please view our scrapbook here.
In other news, Kellie (Nick's sister for those of you who don't know) delivered little Kyle Adam on Friday August 1st. He arrived at 11:47am at 7lbs and 21in long. He has a full head of brown hair and I think he looks a lot like Alex. Sam and Alex are very proud big brothers! Mom and baby are doing well. They are all happily adapting to their growing family :) Congrats Schillings! He's adorable! Below is his birth announcement shot and designed by yours truly :) Enjoy a few of my favorite images from his first portrait session!
I also have some of Tommy's portraits to post (I know, they are very late). He's moving everywhere now. He's already a pro at walking :) He's also having fun with food and vocabulary. Nana grandma, as she refers to herself, likes to feed him fudge pops and then give him a bath. He also loves music and loves to dance. He's getting SOOOO big SOOOO fast. As many of you know, we celebrated his 1st Birthday over Labor Day weekend and while he wasn't exactly sure of the festivities going on around him, he was adorable as usual. He loved his cake about as much as the helium balloons. The gifts were fun once he started playing with them, but all the activity made him a tired boy. Below is the Thank You card Lauren sent out and a few of my favorite shots. To view the rest of his birthday pics and one year and 9 month portraits, go to my website and type in userID: thomas password: one and userID: ninemonths password: tommy.
And FINALLY . . . about 10 1/2 weeks ago, Nick and I finally completed our big move. We closed on a Wednesday on the house of our dreams in the best area we could have hoped for. We can't thank all our friends and family enough for all their help over the past few months. It's been a long road but we are so glad to be getting off. We are starting a new journey in our new house with all our new blessings. We just celebrated our move with an open house this past Sunday. Thanks to everyone who helped us prepare. And thanks too, to the over 70 people who came out and enjoyed a GORGEOUS day with friends and family! It meant a lot to us to see our full house become a HOME! Please enjoy the scrapbook tour. Matt and Beth were our first house guests and we can't wait for the next ones!
Well, that's the bulk of our updates. I am halfway through my fall wedding bonanza and looking forward to a much deserved break after my last one in November. Many fun and new things have happened for me in my professional life, but I will share that news in a later blog :) Thanks again to everyone who
helped us and supported us over the past year and a half. We feel very blessed to have the friends and family we do :) This is a whole new life for Nick and I. We are living our dreams and loving our life. God is GOOD!
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12:23:50PM on 07/08/2008
5 Comments
| | Old School Brews
Last night Casey, Steve and I went to a concert at the Pageant. It was the second show I've gone to this summer. The first show was out at the Pop's in Illinois. I mostly went to see the opener Dan Pothast (former front man of my favorite local Ska band MU330), but really enjoyed the headliner, Streetlight Manifesto, as well. It was that night that I got the phone call that we had an accepted offer on the house, so I was on cloud nine all night long. Last night's show featured two of my favorite bands, Less than Jake and Goldfinger. Both put on great shows with some interesting flavor added to the mix.
It is funny how going to the shows made me feel both young and old at once. Young because it reminded me of seeing these guys several times during my high school and college years. Old because I felt like I was one of the oldest guys there (there were literally kids there that were probably not even born when I first started listening to these guys). Back in the day I would have been right in the mix of things jumping around dancing like a maniac, last night I stood in the back and watched from afar, then complained as I walked to the car about how sore my legs were from having stood all night.
In general I try to keep my blogging non-political, but I thought I'd share this observation with you all. Obviously being the evil conservative that I am I expect my views to differ from the artists I listen to, especially in the punk realm. Last night's headliner, Goldfinger, gave two encores to the show. The first they touted as an "anti-war" song. It was a remake of 99 Red Balloons. I love their version of the song, so I was really happy that they played it. They then left the stage and after more applause the lead guitarist comes back and starts to give us this little speech about how Ted Nugent is coming to the Pageant in a couple of weeks and that he wants to fight him. Why?? Because his views differ from the guitarists. Heaven forbid people be allowed to think differently. The rest of the band then came back out on stage and played a song which basically said F--- Ted Nugent and F--- the NRA, etc. I found this very amusing based on how they were up on their "peace" touting high-horse with their first encore and then were preaching hate in their second.
Keeping with the political nature of this blog I'd like to bring up something that is upsetting to me. InBev, a Belgian brewing conglomerate, is taking advantage of our weak dollar and attempting a hostile takeover of Anheuser-Busch. AB is headquartered here in St. Louis, so if this goes through it will definitely hurt the local economy. AB may be a giant evil corporation, but they also do a ton of good for our country, donating millions to charities and I can't think of the last disaster I saw where there wasn't a can of Anheuser-Busch Drinking Water somewhere in the footage.
They also run things like Sea World and Busch Gardens. All this will go away when the money and power hungry InBev takes over. Money is the bottom line to them and if it doesn't make sense financially, it will be tossed. The Anheuser-Busch board has already rejected the buyout offer from InBev and now InBev is taking it to the share holders to try and out the board. Keep our beer American and please take a minute to sign this petition.
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2:33:15PM on 06/20/2008
4 Comments
| | We're Moving To Las Vegas!
After looking at many, many, many houses in the area we have decided to move to Las Vegas. Okay I've had too much fun with that already. We are not moving to the city Las Vegas, but rather, the street Las Vegas here in St. Louis.
House hunting for the past several weeks has actually been really fun. Our agent, Kelly Carbery, is a very entertaining man and has always had our best interests in mind when looking at houses. He is also a saint for putting up with our indecisiveness. He drove us everywhere! And boy do we have stories to tell. My favorite is probably the reptile house. We went into the basement of this house and saw a huge aquarium with a red heat lamp on top of it. I walked up to the aquarium and there was nothing in it! Erin quickly ran back upstairs. We then headed to the second floor and walked into a room of no less than 20 aquariums all with snakes of various types in them. Being the animal lover that I am, I was instantly excited to walk in and check everything out. Erin took one step into the room and all of the sudden we heard a loud rattle start. At the aquarium in the front of the room there were two rattle snakes. Needless to say Erin was out of there like a shot from a gun. I stayed and taunted the snake for another couple of minutes. >:-) It turns out that the owner of the house runs The Reptile Experience (click the link to see pictures of the actual snakes who's home we invaded).
We saw a myriad of houses though, but each seemed to have something (or in a lot of cases several things) wrong with it. Water damage in the basement, price too high, too small, no dining room, backyard you could repel off of, backyard the size of a postage stamp, bad area, house needs major renovation, and on down the line. We actually saw a house that had a horizontally mounted refridgerator that looked like kitchen cabinets!
I bet GE made 10 of these things ever!
After looking at nearly 50 houses over the last month we came upon this
house. It basically has everything we wanted and almost everything we had in Dallas (sadly no turret). The upstairs is three bedroom with two full baths, hardwood floors, a kitchen, dining room and a family room. The door off the kitchen to the backyard opens up to an awesome screened in porch, wired for sound and tons of room for entertaining. My favorite part is the basement though. It has a beautifully finished media room with a bar, a separate office, and tons of storage. There is even an area that is unfinished that we will turn into a studio for Erin. Everything is laid out perfectly.
Closing is set for July 30th and it can't come soon enough. Erin and I are very excited that after 18 months and 7 days (or 555 days, or roughly 13,320 hours, which is roughly 799,200 minutes, which is roughly 47,952,000 seconds, but who's counting?) we will once again have a place to call our own!
Viva Las Vegas!
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