Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
3rd Grade Class Trip
Diane and I chaperoned Mitchell's 3rd grade class trip to the YMCA and Children's Museum today. At the Y they were able to learn about log rolling. Check out these photos.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Memorial Day Fishing
Kurt and I did some fishing around Cassville on the Saturday before Memorial Day. It was tough fishing and we got zilch for bass bites and walleye. We finished the day bottom fishing and got a couple of nice catfish.
Sunday on my way home to Onalaska I decided that I hadn't had enough fishing yet so I drove down to Lake Onalaska at the end of Airport Road. After only seven casts with Colorado blade spinner fishing it right under the surface I hooked into my biggest Northern Pike ever. Thank God I was using my new medium/heavy rod with Fireline because that monster went right for the weeds and cabbage growing in the little bay there. I struggled for about 10 minutes to bring that monster to shore and my heart was going about 100-miles per hour. Wow! What a fish. I couldn't hang onto him well enough for a picture though so I just let him go.
I went back again today, Memorial Day, but someone else beat me to that same spot so I went down by the Lake Onalaska spillway instead. I fished the spinner again with nothing. Then I down-sized to a tube bait and started fishing slow. After about 15 casts I hooked into a fairly decent 2-pound bass. Nothing extraordinary but catching it was fun. I noticed that his tail fin was all bloody so I assume he was busy scraping the bottom for a spawning bed.
The next time Dad and/or Kurt want to do some fishing how about coming up to the Lake Onalaska area where everything seems to be biting?
Sunday on my way home to Onalaska I decided that I hadn't had enough fishing yet so I drove down to Lake Onalaska at the end of Airport Road. After only seven casts with Colorado blade spinner fishing it right under the surface I hooked into my biggest Northern Pike ever. Thank God I was using my new medium/heavy rod with Fireline because that monster went right for the weeds and cabbage growing in the little bay there. I struggled for about 10 minutes to bring that monster to shore and my heart was going about 100-miles per hour. Wow! What a fish. I couldn't hang onto him well enough for a picture though so I just let him go.
I went back again today, Memorial Day, but someone else beat me to that same spot so I went down by the Lake Onalaska spillway instead. I fished the spinner again with nothing. Then I down-sized to a tube bait and started fishing slow. After about 15 casts I hooked into a fairly decent 2-pound bass. Nothing extraordinary but catching it was fun. I noticed that his tail fin was all bloody so I assume he was busy scraping the bottom for a spawning bed.
The next time Dad and/or Kurt want to do some fishing how about coming up to the Lake Onalaska area where everything seems to be biting?
Friday, May 23, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Well how about that...
I just did an innovation style questionnaire to see how I work and it turns out I'm into "experimenting & exploring."
http://www.creativeadvantage.com/experimenting.htm
http://www.creativeadvantage.com/exploring.htm
A very interesting combination that apparently indicates a battle within myself between process and risk taking. Apparently on the one hand I like to experiment step-by-step with controlled criteria but on the other hand my "balls are bigger than my brains" and I just jump into problems to see what happens. Very interesting...
http://www.creativeadvantage.com/experimenting.htm
http://www.creativeadvantage.com/exploring.htm
A very interesting combination that apparently indicates a battle within myself between process and risk taking. Apparently on the one hand I like to experiment step-by-step with controlled criteria but on the other hand my "balls are bigger than my brains" and I just jump into problems to see what happens. Very interesting...
Monday, May 12, 2008
How sad
I just got this email and thought it was pretty sad. I really hope Wisconsin citizens are smarter than to do something like this:
Last week, the Michigan Supreme Court declared that its constitutional amendment banning gay marriage also prohibits Michigan's public employers from offering domestic partner health insurance.
For several reasons, the Michigan Supreme Court's decision has absolutely no bearing on the domestic partner benefits that numerous Wisconsin public employees fought hard for and won. This is a terrible decision for the people of Michigan, and contrary to what they were promised during their amendment battle.
Here is the background on the Michigan case. In 2004, Michigan voters amended their state constitution to provide that "the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose." During their referendum campaign, proponents of the Michigan amendment made numerous public assurances that the amendment would not impact domestic partner protections and benefits. The Michigan Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision, said that those assurances were irrelevant to what they said was the "clear" wording of the amendment. Interestingly, it took the Court 14 pages, breaking the single sentence down into five separate parts, to reach the conclusion that the wording was clear.
Read the entire 54-page opinion of the Michigan Supreme Court.
Wisconsin is not Michigan. There are significant differences in the wording of our "marriage" amendment and in what our Supreme Court must consider in interpreting it. Our amendment limits the status of marriage to heterosexual couples, and prohibits the state from extending all or substantially all of the legal rights and protections of marriage to unmarried couples. The Michigan amendment focuses only on who may marry or have a "similar" union that is recognized by the state, and does not address the benefits that flow from marriage or similar union at all. This difference in focus allowed the Michigan courts to look only at whether the nature of the relationship between domestic partners "looked like" a marital relationship, rather than also looking at whether the benefits provided by the government were "identical to or substantially similar" to those provided through marriage, as would be the test under the Wisconsin amendment.
In addition, unlike the Michigan courts, Wisconsin courts are required to consider the numerous public statements made by legislators and proponents that the amendment would not prohibit domestic partner benefits.
Even though we know Wisconsin is not Michigan, this horrendous judicial decision highlights our need to continue the fight for full equality for LGBT Wisconsinites and their families. We will be working with our legislative allies on securing domestic partner protections and benefits, and we will be calling on the legislative proponents of the Wisconsin marriage amendment to reaffirm the assurances they made during the campaign. We are prepared, with your help, to identify and target any who refuse to stand by their earlier words.
Please contribute here to help us achieve full equality.
Sincerely,
Glenn Carlson
Executive Director
Fair Wisconsin
Last week, the Michigan Supreme Court declared that its constitutional amendment banning gay marriage also prohibits Michigan's public employers from offering domestic partner health insurance.
For several reasons, the Michigan Supreme Court's decision has absolutely no bearing on the domestic partner benefits that numerous Wisconsin public employees fought hard for and won. This is a terrible decision for the people of Michigan, and contrary to what they were promised during their amendment battle.
Here is the background on the Michigan case. In 2004, Michigan voters amended their state constitution to provide that "the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose." During their referendum campaign, proponents of the Michigan amendment made numerous public assurances that the amendment would not impact domestic partner protections and benefits. The Michigan Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision, said that those assurances were irrelevant to what they said was the "clear" wording of the amendment. Interestingly, it took the Court 14 pages, breaking the single sentence down into five separate parts, to reach the conclusion that the wording was clear.
Read the entire 54-page opinion of the Michigan Supreme Court.
Wisconsin is not Michigan. There are significant differences in the wording of our "marriage" amendment and in what our Supreme Court must consider in interpreting it. Our amendment limits the status of marriage to heterosexual couples, and prohibits the state from extending all or substantially all of the legal rights and protections of marriage to unmarried couples. The Michigan amendment focuses only on who may marry or have a "similar" union that is recognized by the state, and does not address the benefits that flow from marriage or similar union at all. This difference in focus allowed the Michigan courts to look only at whether the nature of the relationship between domestic partners "looked like" a marital relationship, rather than also looking at whether the benefits provided by the government were "identical to or substantially similar" to those provided through marriage, as would be the test under the Wisconsin amendment.
In addition, unlike the Michigan courts, Wisconsin courts are required to consider the numerous public statements made by legislators and proponents that the amendment would not prohibit domestic partner benefits.
Even though we know Wisconsin is not Michigan, this horrendous judicial decision highlights our need to continue the fight for full equality for LGBT Wisconsinites and their families. We will be working with our legislative allies on securing domestic partner protections and benefits, and we will be calling on the legislative proponents of the Wisconsin marriage amendment to reaffirm the assurances they made during the campaign. We are prepared, with your help, to identify and target any who refuse to stand by their earlier words.
Please contribute here to help us achieve full equality.
Sincerely,
Glenn Carlson
Executive Director
Fair Wisconsin
Sunday, May 11, 2008
An Awesome Prayer
Here is a prayer from Paul to the Ephesians that I paraphrased for myself:
This prayer encompasses so many great things in just a few lines. I kneel before the Father and humble myself before him. I recognize his power and the extraordinary riches that he has given to me and my family. I ask for His continued blessings and for Christ to dwell in my heart so I can stay firm in my faith. And I pray that He give me the right frame of mind to attempt to comprehend the vastness of his love for me and all of humanity.
Prayer is a very important aspect of Christian faith. Through prayer we humble ourselves and we maintain our relationship with God. I heard someone once describe it in this way: God is like a rich and powerful Dad. No matter how badly we screw up as His brat children he still loves us. He's our Dad, why not give him a call every now and then?
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen me with power through his Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith. And I pray that I, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
This prayer encompasses so many great things in just a few lines. I kneel before the Father and humble myself before him. I recognize his power and the extraordinary riches that he has given to me and my family. I ask for His continued blessings and for Christ to dwell in my heart so I can stay firm in my faith. And I pray that He give me the right frame of mind to attempt to comprehend the vastness of his love for me and all of humanity.
Prayer is a very important aspect of Christian faith. Through prayer we humble ourselves and we maintain our relationship with God. I heard someone once describe it in this way: God is like a rich and powerful Dad. No matter how badly we screw up as His brat children he still loves us. He's our Dad, why not give him a call every now and then?
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Mitchell's School Project
Mitchell just finished up his school project to create a model depicting the habitat for an animal. He chose the Great White Shark. It turned out pretty good and the report he wrote was really nice too. Take a look.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
My Ignorant Ramblings... Continued... (that's sarchasm folks)
To say that there is no debate among scientists about the existence of global warming is perhaps one of the biggest mis-characterizations that I have ever seen from you. Either you are grossly ignorant of the debate that is going on or you have been brainwashed to simply believe one side without examining all the information that is available. I hope, for your sake, that it is ignorance because education can easily remedy that. There is a huge debate between scientists about this issue. There are politically motivated scientists on one side who say it does exist and that it's being caused by humans and then there is another side of scientists who use real data to show that it is simply natural cycles of warming and cooling of the Earth.
I encourage you to be more open minded about this subject and to thoroughly investigate the real data that is available. That is what scientists are supposed to do: examine the evidence and draw conclusions. Politicians are the ones who draw conclusions and then try to find the evidence to match.
Take for example the fact that Mars has also been warming. How many humans are there on Mars? How many SUVs and smoke spewing factories?
Read the whole story here.
I guess the (obviously) politically motivated Al Gore forgot to mention that kind of information in his propaganda movie.
What about Dr. Roy Spencer a research scientist and former Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA (you know, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration – big right wing nut jobs, right?)
Read more about Dr. Spencer here.
So, you see, there is a debate and it has been politicized so it really is no longer a scientific question but, rather, a political one where people with anti-capitalist agendas are spreading fear in order to rationalize taking more of our freedom away all in the name of saving the planet when no salvation is necessary.
My opinion that it is an anti-capitalist agenda at work comes from the evidence within the supposed solutions proposed by the environmentalist groups. They insist that government must force all of us into certain behaviors (stop driving big cars, buy only certain kinds of light bulbs, force landowners to give up property for use as wind farms, burn food (corn) instead of fossil fuels, etc). But nowhere do these supposed friends of the Earth mention one of the most efficient forms of clean energy: nuclear energy. I surmise from that exclusion that they are not really interested in sustaining or expanding our energy needs but, instead, are more interested in micro-managing our lives to force us into certain lifestyles that we would not naturally choose for ourselves.
Nuclear energy is the most efficient and effective source of power that we have on the planet. If 20-something year-old Navy sailors are smart enough to safely maintain MOBILE nuclear reactors in our ships and submarines then why is it that you brilliant scientists can't bring yourselves to propose that as an alternative? Answer: because your science has been hijacked by politics and it isn't "politically correct" to embrace nuclear technology since Jane Fonda's China Syndrome.
Now that you have taken it upon yourself to defend these anti-freedom, politically motivated forces, perhaps you can answer this question for me: Why are you so afraid of freedom?
I encourage you to be more open minded about this subject and to thoroughly investigate the real data that is available. That is what scientists are supposed to do: examine the evidence and draw conclusions. Politicians are the ones who draw conclusions and then try to find the evidence to match.
Take for example the fact that Mars has also been warming. How many humans are there on Mars? How many SUVs and smoke spewing factories?
Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says
Kate Ravilious
for National Geographic News
February 28, 2007
Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.
Read the whole story here.
I guess the (obviously) politically motivated Al Gore forgot to mention that kind of information in his propaganda movie.
What about Dr. Roy Spencer a research scientist and former Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA (you know, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration – big right wing nut jobs, right?)
"The people that have built the climate models that predict global warming believe they have sufficient physics in those models to predict the future. I believe they don't. I believe the climate system, the weather as it is today in the real world shows a stability that they do not yet have in those climate models."
Read more about Dr. Spencer here.
So, you see, there is a debate and it has been politicized so it really is no longer a scientific question but, rather, a political one where people with anti-capitalist agendas are spreading fear in order to rationalize taking more of our freedom away all in the name of saving the planet when no salvation is necessary.
My opinion that it is an anti-capitalist agenda at work comes from the evidence within the supposed solutions proposed by the environmentalist groups. They insist that government must force all of us into certain behaviors (stop driving big cars, buy only certain kinds of light bulbs, force landowners to give up property for use as wind farms, burn food (corn) instead of fossil fuels, etc). But nowhere do these supposed friends of the Earth mention one of the most efficient forms of clean energy: nuclear energy. I surmise from that exclusion that they are not really interested in sustaining or expanding our energy needs but, instead, are more interested in micro-managing our lives to force us into certain lifestyles that we would not naturally choose for ourselves.
Nuclear energy is the most efficient and effective source of power that we have on the planet. If 20-something year-old Navy sailors are smart enough to safely maintain MOBILE nuclear reactors in our ships and submarines then why is it that you brilliant scientists can't bring yourselves to propose that as an alternative? Answer: because your science has been hijacked by politics and it isn't "politically correct" to embrace nuclear technology since Jane Fonda's China Syndrome.
Now that you have taken it upon yourself to defend these anti-freedom, politically motivated forces, perhaps you can answer this question for me: Why are you so afraid of freedom?
global warming is real, for crying out loud people
Chris, I think you need to read up a bit on global warming before you say things that might make you sound ignorant. There is NO debate among SCIENTISTS about whether or not global warming is real. There may be debate among some politicians and regular citizens....but that really doesn't say much other than global warming is an inconvenience to them and the way they want to continue living. Seriously Chris, I urge you and anyone else reading this blog to research the topic. You might start here:
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1011
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.html
And yeah, I'm sure you could search the internet and easily find a million webpages that say just the opposite-that global warming is a hoax, etc. etc. However, I challenge you to find a REPUTABLE source without an obvious agenda that says such things.
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1011
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.html
And yeah, I'm sure you could search the internet and easily find a million webpages that say just the opposite-that global warming is a hoax, etc. etc. However, I challenge you to find a REPUTABLE source without an obvious agenda that says such things.
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