I know this spoof is making fun of Windows – I get it. And they’re right, Windows can be terribly frustrating and wonky and Windows users definitely have these issues, but here’s the thing – I’d rather be a free-thinking Windows user than belong to an electronic cult.
Because speaking as a non-Mac user from outside the hoopla that surrounds every Apple product? (I own an iTouch. That’s the extent of my Apple enthusiasm). It’s a little bizarre to see people into their electronics THAT much.
You know?
P.S. No disrespect to Mac users – I’m sure ya’ll are the bees knees, but seriously? The crazy devotion to one control-hungry brand is a little creepy. Just saying.
Yep. We jumped through government hoops and he got his driver’s permit.
I told Jazz that Thursday (today) I was going to take him to the DMV so he could take his test and that he better start studying for it.
But when this morning rolled around, the headache that I’ve had for the past FOUR days (!!!!) was so bad that I wasn’t sure if I felt up to dealing with the DMV so I hem-hawed around until about 11:30 when I thought, “You know, I told the boy we were going to do this and I need to stick to my word.” So, I ignored my pounding head, hustled Jazz along and we left the house at 11:30 this morning.
I had to run by the bank and get his Social Security card out of the safe deposit box, then we grabbed a couple of sandwiches from Subway, went up to the office to eat them and he took the sample test in the book. (Jazz read the rest of the book while we ran our errands – that’s how close he cut it).
He missed four and we went over the answers. (Not bad for a kid who basically just skimmed through the book and didn’t take Driver’s Ed – which, incidentally, it doesn’t look like he will get around to taking. I’m sort of glad and sort of disappointed. I’m disappointed because he would have likely learned a lot from the class, but glad because I’m convinced that Driver’s Ed scared the beejeebus out of Dude with all of their grotesque footage of teenagers getting their heads chopped off and that was one of the reasons Dude was so scared to drive).
I figured he was probably as ready as he was ever going to be.
We arrived at the DMV’s at about 1:30 this afternoon. I knew where to go (since I was there two years ago with Dude), and we got him checked in. I think when we walked through the door and Jazz saw the officers and other people taking the test (along with one kid who didn’t pass and was told in front of the whole room – ouch), it finally hit Jazz that this was serious. It was one thing to talk about getting his license, but here we were taking steps to make it happen.
I went to the waiting room and settled in to wait for him to finish taking his test. I knew that if he came out with a piece of paper, then he passed.
It wasn’t ten minutes later and he came out of the room … with a piece of paper. He passed!
Barely.
He missed five and was pretty disappointed in himself. He said that the five he missed weren’t covered in the book we had for him – but no matter, he passed and that was all that mattered. We then proceeded to go upstairs to finish the paperwork and to get his photo ID.
The room was small and there weren’t that many people waiting. I was optimistic.
I should have known that nothing moves fast when it comes to government.
They were on number 69 – we were number 80. They had two women working the booths, but shortly after we arrived, one of them left on break. The woman remaining was obviously not in any hurry and I thought I would go mad as I watched her walk back and forth between her cubicle and an office. She was not in any hurry. The other woman was gone for an hour and in that hour, the woman on duty didn’t even help ten people.
To make matters worse, I happened to be sitting next to Chatty Cathy and though she was friendly enough, she talked, NON-STOP, the entire time we were there until her number finally, FINALLY, got called.
(I turned to Jazz after listening to the woman for nearly 30 minutes and mouthed, “Shoot me.” He thought that was funny. I was serious).
It’s so interesting going to the DMV – there are so many, erhm, interesting characters. Since the room was small, we overheard a lot of conversations and I think it really made an impression on Jazz – we have it pretty good compared to a lot of people. Some of the stories were pretty hardcore down-on-your-luck stories and there were some people who were obviously trying to play the system and were quite bitter that they were “caught.” It’s hard to feel sorry for people who are given so many chances and end up blowing them to just see if they can get away with it.
Over an hour later, it was finally our turn. I walked up to the cubicle with Jazz and presented his documents, then signed as his legal guardian. He got his picture taken and two minutes later, we picked up his permit.
He’s “officially” in the system.
He asked when we could go out and practice driving as soon as we got into the car. I had to laugh – I had to drag Dude out to practice driving and it looks like that’s not going to be an issue with Jazz – our boys are SO different!
We’re in the process of looking at used cars for Jazz. As with Dude, I would feel better about him driving in a car that is already dinged up as opposed to driving my car, which is not. (Much). We spotted a prospect on Craigslist and will likely check it out tomorrow.
In the meantime, he can use Dude’s car, but Dude will need the car whenever he gets a job so Jazz will need something to drive. Our goal is to get him to the point that he can drive himself to band camp next month (not by himself, obviously).
Even though I’ve been through this driving thing with Dude, I think I might be a bit more nervous this go-around. Dude is overly cautious (which is a different kind of hazard), but Jazz … isn’t exactly detail oriented. In fact, he often misses things right in front of his face, so this should be an interesting experience.
I’ve been putting a ton of them on my YouTube channel so I’ll warn you now … I was fascinated with my children. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that Kevin and I produced these little PEOPLE out of nothing. Well, not nothing, but you know what I mean. And I spent HOURS taping them doing NOTHING.
But don’t worry, I won’t subject you to HOURS of mindless viewing … it’ll only feel that way. HA!
If you don’t know, Dude was eight weeks premature. He was in the NICU for six weeks while we waited for his lungs to fully develop, but his nervous system was still a little premature and as a result of that, he had to wear a heart monitor for the first four months of his life (I have a video of that belt to show you later), so handling him was a little nerve wracking. I mean, it was bad enough handling a newborn to begin with, especially when I hadn’t even held a baby prior to giving birth to my children, so I really didn’t know what I was doing. But I learned to adapt and after a while, I developed routines that worked for me – for US.
I can tell you what I did and worked for me, and if some of the tips help you, then awesome sauce. If not, well, thanks for watching anyway.
We had a hard time keeping Dude awake. We would spend HOURS trying to stimulate him enough to eat – it was a real chore to get him to eat 4 ounces at the beginning and even then, it would take so long to get him to eat that much that by the time he finished, it was nearly time to feed him again.
I also worked hard to make sure both boys stayed awake as long as possible during daylight hours so we could try and get on some sort of sleep schedule at night. And when I went in to feed him in the wee hours, I wouldn’t talk to him or stimulate him in any way (well, I cuddled with him and gave him soft kisses, but I didn’t have a conversation with him). I had read (and I read A LOT of baby books before my kids were born) that that was a good way to help the baby distinguish day from night. It wasn’t terribly hard, I was too brain dead to do much more than feed him anyway, but after I fed him, I would put him back in the crib and step out of the room. If he refused to go back to sleep, I’d go back in, tuck him back in, give him his binky and walk back out again. I usually had to do this several times before he would go back to sleep. It took some patience, but it paid off in the long run. Both my kids learned to sleep through the night fairly quickly.
After the sponge bath, I started giving the boys a bath in their baby bathtub. I put the baby bathtub on their changing table, put a heater in their rooms and made sure the temperature was nice and toasty before we got started. I also tried to keep my hand on their stomach at all times because I had read that it helped “ground” them and they were less likely to get fussy if they had that human contact. I talked to them constantly. I kept my voice soft and I just said nonsense things, just so they could hear my voice. That also helped.
I’m using cotton balls to wash his eyes, nose and ears. I can’t remember if I read that, or if my pediatrician told me that, but I was also to use fresh cotton balls for each eye, nose and ear so I wouldn’t inadvertently spread bacteria from orifice to orifice. I didn’t put any soap in the water at this stage, it was just warm water.
Also, I washed their bodies, dressed them and then washed their hair last. Just having clothes on seemed to calm and relax them enough that washing their hair was never really a big deal.
I didn’t push my boys into the whole bath tub thing for quite a while. I didn’t want to freak them out too soon. I think this gradual introduction helped because neither one of my boys really fussed too much when it came to baths.
It’s still really hard for me to believe that Dude (now 18!) was EVER that little.
We live in the city. And the city has an ordinance on the books that says we can’t shoot off fireworks within the city limits.
So where’s city folk like us supposed to go to shoot off the fireworks we HAVE to buy each year? (I have two teenage boys – it’s sort of REQUIRED that we spend money on things we can legally blow up).
Why, to my in-laws, of course.
Way back when, we used to take the boys to fireworks shows – shows that were sponsored by churches or by the city. But over the years, those places have stopped putting on firework shows because they’re terribly expensive and with budget cuts and what not, well, they just couldn’t afford to do it anymore.
I have no idea where other people go to shoot off, or see, fireworks, but we’re lucky enough to have family who live on the outskirts of town and who very graciously allow us to come and leave char marks on their nice lawns. 🙂
We have gone over to Kevin’s parents’ house for, oh, several years now. His mom usually has food for us and this year, Kevin took over the BBQ and cooked us hamburgers and hotdogs. While he manned the grill, I helped his mom set the table and the boys took advantage of the time to shoot off bottlerockets.
They set up a PVC tube and used it to systematically shoot off bottle rockets … for HOURS. Dude loves bottlerockets, Jazz loves smoke bombs, and that’s how our boys spend the evening hours, blowing stuff up while we wait for night fall.
Sometimes, Kevin’s sisters’ families join us, which is always a lot of fun, but most of the time, it’s just us, Kevin’s parents and his uncle doing our own thing. The entire neighborhood gets into the spirit of the holiday and before long, the skies light up, fill up with smoke and it looks and sounds like a war zone. We have some pretty good fireworks, (in my opinion), but my in-laws’ neighbors must spend a FORTUNE because theirs is ALWAYS very impressive.
In fact, this year, all of us “old folks” were sitting around waiting for the guys to get set up, when we looked up and there was this miniature hot air balloon floating past us. Apparently, it’s some firework you can shoot up into the air and it expands into a hot air balloon and drifts off; it falls to the ground when the fuse burns out. It was the coolest and most peaceful thing I’ve ever witnessed on the 4th of July.
We’re totally looking for those next year. (I wish we had taken a picture of it).
The boys absolutely love the 4th of July. And they’re at an age now that they completely take over shooting them off. We can just sit back and enjoy ourselves. (Though Kevin, who also LOVES this time of year, usually gets up to “help” after a while. Actually, I got up to help, too, only I wasn’t helping because I enjoy shooting them off, [I’d rather just watch], but because a storm was blowing in and we needed to shoot all of our fireworks off before the rain hit).
I must say, we picked out some pretty awesome fireworks this year. (Actually, Kevin talked to the guy in charge and asked him what was the best – he didn’t steer us wrong), but I think we bought too many. Not only did we buy a lot, but Kevin’s uncle bought a lot, too, so it took us a while to shoot them all off.
We had just shot off the last of our stuff and was walking through the yard, picking up debris, when it started to rain.
We stuck around and had some dessert and talked about the more exciting points of the evening.
My MIL made an ice cream cookie sandwich and Dude ate the whole thing.
(Oh, to be young and skinny enough to handle all of those calories at 10:00 o’clock in the evening. *sigh*)
We finally got home at midnight.
And that was our 4th. We never really do anything exciting, we just hang out with family and stuff our faces.
But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
P.S. Jazz felt bad because he placed his lighted punk on one of the tables to go in and get something to drink, and it sort of marked up the table. I hope my MIL was able to get the black mark out. Oops!)
P.S.S. Since I’ve been digitizing old movies, I’ve been noticing my hillbilly accent (which I never really knew I had before I started watching those videos). Kevin has been giving me a hard time about the way I talk, so I started paying attention to how he talks and though his accent isn’t as bad as mine, still, he HAS one. Ha!
P.S.S. See my in-laws’ pergola? That’s where Kevin got the idea for our pergola. They have have a fountain and everything!
Rush Limbaugh was in Joplin Missouri yesterday and gave this motivational speech:
Whether you like Rush or not is irrelevant. (Do I like Rush? Meh. I think he takes his satire too far at times, but his messages are pretty powerful. Don’t disagree with me if you’ve only heard snippets of his show a few times in your entire life. It’s not an “informed” opinion if you’re not informed). LISTEN to his message. It’s about how great America is and how this country provides opportunities for everyone – it’s up to the individuals whether they take those opportunities or not. (Notice I said “take them,” not stand there with their hands out and expect someone else to give it to them).
Rush delivered a message about American Exceptionalism that focused on the uniqueness of our country’s founding 235 years ago. He spoke of the importance of freedom as well as America’s tradition of helping those in need.
Though I appreciate Rush making an appearance and giving the good people in Joplin a much-needed boost, I think pulling a semi full of his tea was a little tacky. Granted, he gave it out for free, but still, it seems a little unsavory to advertise one’s wares in a disaster zone.
At any rate, I thought it was a good speech and thought I would pass it along. It seems the “trend” nowadays is to make America out to be the bad guy and I think it’s high time we start fighting back and REMINDING people just how great this country is.
I skimmed through the comments on The Blaze’s article and I find it terribly interesting that liberals can do nothing but insult the man. They never give a REASON why they dislike someone, it’s always the same “he’s ugly,” “he’s an idiot,” comments.
I always want to say, “Dude, what’s your issue? Who cares what the man looks like or how you rate his intelligence, what exactly is your beef with what he is saying??
I mean, let’s be rational a moment, shall we? WHAT exactly about Rush’s speech offends people so much? He talks about how GREAT America is. He talks about the power of the INDIVIDUAL. He talks about America’s sacrifices and strength. He talks about how Joplin will rebuild and be better than ever and how they will set an example to the rest of the country about how INDIVIDUALS, how PEOPLE will come together and make it happen because that’s what people do when there’s work to be done – they roll up their sleeves and they get it done.
They’re not EXPECTING the government to do it for them.
What exactly is there to take offense to?
I think people who take offense at motivational speeches like these are so entrenched in their own hateful biases that they can’t see beyond their self-imposed bitterness.
This is one of those stories that Kevin and I joke about all the time. He’s convinced he DIDN’T surprise me that Christmas and I’m here to tell you, HE DID.
I had been collecting Precious Moments for quite a few years prior to this Christmas and I never had any place to display them. They stayed mostly in their boxes. So Kevin thought he would be clever and buy me a curio case to put them in.
I know! I married a very smart man. 😀
Only, how do you give your wife something that big? You can’t exactly wrap it and put in next to the tree. She would likely drive you crazy trying to guess what it was until Christmas Day. And can you really hide something that big? I mean, wouldn’t she likely SEE it and wonder, “what the HECK is that huge box doing there??”
Actually. Yes. That’s exactly what Kevin did. He bought it, and stored it in our extra bedroom. And the pathetic thing is? I never saw it!! Honest to God. I’m not just saying that because I know he’ll likely read this – I honestly never knew the thing was in our bedroom. And I think Kevin said it was in the room for several days.
So when I look surprised in this video? I was genuinely surprised because I had no idea it was even in the room.
(And sorry for the squeaky voice. I can’t believe I sounded like that. Someone needed to slap a “CALM DOWN WOMAN” sticker on my forehead).
(And yes. I used to wear Christmas sweatshirts. Hush).
Here’s a picture of the case, in “case” (haha) you’re curio (curious – okay, I’ll stop now).
I love this case. It suits me perfectly. It’s not too fancy, but looks classy. It’s functional without being overstated. It’s modern, without being bizarre.
I stored my Precious Moments figurines in it for 20 years. It’s only been recently (like in the past year), that I’ve taken them out, put them back into their boxes and stored them. It’s weird, but I sort of feel like I’ve outgrown my Precious Moments. I’m thinking about selling them at some point (a few of them are probably worth some money), but I haven’t been able to let them go quite yet.
In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out what to put in my curio case, so that’s why it’s a little bare at the moment. Since I don’t do a lot of shopping, I haven’t really seen anything I liked. Though Kevin and I were shopping at Kohl’s the other day and we both saw this cool bicycle that we had to have. It’s currently our favorite piece in the house.
(Though I don’t know, that flowerpot on the bottom shelf ranks right up there. Jazz made that for me in preschool and I just treasure it. The teachers asked Jazz what he liked about having a mommy like me, so his answers are printed on the petals. It’s really too cute).
Even though I loved having someplace to put my Precious Moments figurines, that’s not the biggest reason why I loved the gift. I loved it even more because Kevin paid attention to what I liked, what I needed, and took the time to find that perfect gift.
This gift was thoughtful and wrapped in love.
Those are the best gifts of all.
(Well, aside from children, but you know what I mean).
So apparently, the Obama administration is collecting “evidence” via mystery shoppers so they can blame doctors when ObamaCare fails. I’m also quite certain that the “survey” is being put together so that the Obama administration will have sob stories to produce during the 2012 elections.
Mark my words.
The “official” reason they are even doing this is because there is an increasing alarm over the shortage of primary care doctors. And there’s a shortage of primary care doctors because the doctors know that if they take patients on ObamaCare, they will lose money because ObamaCare reimburses only a fraction of the cost and being the government, their reimbursement will likely be slow coming.
Anyone who thinks it’s a doctor’s duty to help them for FREE needs to wake up from la-la land. The real world doesn’t work that way, no matter how much we WANT it to.
Obama administration officials are recruiting a team of “mystery shoppers” to pose as patients, call doctors’ offices and request appointments to see how difficult it is for people to get care when they need it.
The administration says the survey will address a “critical public policy problem”: the increasing shortage of primary care doctors, including specialists in internal medicine and family practice. It will also try to discover whether doctors are accepting patients with private insurance while turning away those in government health programs that pay lower reimbursement rates.
The government is predicting that 30 million Americans will gain health coverage when the new law (just typing that leaves a sour taste in my mouth) goes into effect.
‘These newly insured Americans will need to seek out new primary care physicians, further exacerbating the already growing problem’ of a shortage of such physicians in the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a description of the project prepared for the White House.
Here’s how the government deception, oops, program, works: The mystery shopper will call a doctor’s office and will ask to see if the doctor is accepting new patients and if so, how long will they have to wait in order to see the doctor. If the shopper is asked what sort of problems they’re having, the shopper is instructed to say they have a fever, are coughing up green phlegm with a little blood in it. In other calls, they will request an annual checkup or a sports’ physical.
I would imagine most doctors would be reluctant to see a patient already spewing blood and would refer them to an urgent care of the emergency room to begin with, but you know, that only makes sense and apparently this administration doesn’t understand common sense so, go figure.
The government is eager to know whether doctors give different answers to callers depending on whether they have public insurance, like Medicaid, or private insurance, like Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
Access to care has been a concern in Massachusetts, which provides coverage under a state program cited by many in Congress as a model for President Obama’s health care overhaul.
In a recent study, the Massachusetts Medical Society found that 53 percent of family physicians and 51 percent of internal medicine physicians were not accepting new patients. When new patients could get appointments, they faced long waits, averaging 36 days to see family doctors and 48 days for internists.
Just another reason not to vote for Romney since he made the template for ObamaCare.
I wonder what will happen if (when) the Obama administration discovers that fewer doctors are accepting government health insurance? Will they MAKE them accept them? They can’t MAKE a private citizen, in their private practice DO anything they don’t want to do. I’m sure some doctors will comply with the “suggestion to take more government-insured patients,” but I’m betting MORE doctors just opt to quit their practice altogether. Why stay in a high-stress industry where you don’t get paid enough to recoup your expenses? Why stay in business if it’s more stressful to try and make ends meet because you’re not being paid enough to make your business stay afloat and just throw in the towel and give up?
And where does that leave us regular Janes and Johns? Fewer doctors and long, long, LONG wait times. Which means more people will not get the help they need and more people will either get sick and/or die.
Sounds like a heck of a deal to me.
And people being people? Will take advantage of the “free” health care and will request a doctor for every little sniffle because after all, it’s FREE! There will be no incentive to stay healthy because going to the doctor (one who will eventually see you), is FREE! Yippee!
Never mind that that “free” healthcare is costing what few taxpayers are left what little pennies they have left.
*sigh* Look. Our health care system is out of control right now. I will not dispute that. It’s expensive and there are indeed people who desperately need health care but aren’t getting it that have fallen through the cracks. But ObamaCare, which is designed to basically screw the doctors and make everyone pay for everyone else, is simply not going to work. It defies every economic factor – business just doesn’t work the way Democrats WANT it to work. It just doesn’t.
So what’s the alternative? For those that claim the GOP haven’t offered any alternatives … I’m here to say they have. The Republicans have been presenting these options from the very beginning but because it didn’t suit the lame-stream media’s agenda of making people more dependent on the government, they didn’t widely report these alternatives.
We have to clean up this mess and replace ObamaCare with something that will be fair to ALL people and that will not scare doctors away.
The question is – who’s got the balls to actually DO it?
I must say, we picked out some pretty awesome fireworks this year. (Actually, Kevin talked to the guy in charge and asked him what was the best – he didn’t steer us wrong), but I think we bought too many. Not only did we buy a lot, but Kevin’s uncle bought a lot, too, so it took us a while to shoot them all off. 
Here’s a picture of the case, in “case” (haha) you’re curio (curious – okay, I’ll stop now). 
So apparently, the Obama administration is collecting “evidence” 
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