If you spell God backwards you get...dog!

We have two dogs, we lost a great cat about a year ago. We have a male rat terrier named Maxwell and a female Shitzu named Molly.  Molly is an actual Champion, but what that means I don't know. She was a show dog!

My wife got Molly when she, my wife,  was looking for a dog for her son, (now my step-son) and she heard of a lady who raised show dogs. The lady just happened to have a heart attack and her family was trying to place her dogs.  My wife took Molly. She is a lovable quiet dog who lays around, except when she goes out to pee.  I can always tell when she has done her number 2 business, because she runs back to me with great excitement. As if to say, "I have done it again."

Maxwell or Max as we call him is a rat terrier and he is one loyal, but usually scared dog.  We don't know why but if he hears a beep from anything, like a fire alarm, he gets up from wherever he is and hides in the closet. Thunder will do that to them both.  We have never scared him with anything.

When I grew up, I had an Irish setter, but he really wan't my dog, he was a family dog and he was kept on a chain in the back yard. He would go on hikes with my brother Geoff and I though, with no chain.

  We found him or he found us by sitting at an automatic egg machine that the chicken farm had across the road from us.  It was summer and we think he was looking for some shade.  We took him in. He was a well behaved dog. We thought he was someone's bird dog, because he was so well behaved and he always stayed with us when we went on hikes.  We named him Brownie, but like I said I didn't think of him as mine, but then I never thought I really owned anything in our family. We were a family and families share everything.
I mention this because I didn't have a close relationship with him. He was usually out of sight and out of mind in the backyard.  I don't agree with this practice now.

We did get a second Irish Setter when Brownie died. I believe my folks had him put down because of some complications with cancer. The next setter we got we bought and she was the runt of the  litter. Her name was  Ginger and she was very high strung, but then most puppies are.

When we moved from PA to NJ,  my sister, my  brother Geoff and I traveled with my Dad in the station wagon. Ginger road in the back. I don't remember why she would not settle down, (she probably had to go to the bath room) but my Dad stopped the car and he was angry. Because we kept telling Ginger to settle down, I assume making a continuous complaining noise in the car, Dad took it out on Ginger. He hit her several times.  I felt terrible about that and can still remember the hitting.  Puppies and especially Irish Setters are high strung...

Back to Max and Molly. I love them both. Molly is attached to my wife and we understand it is a trait of the dog to attach themselves to the first person they meet. This is why my wife got Max, she wanted a dog for her son.  Max is so lovable and I just enjoy him tremendously.

 I have lost my temper with him a couple of times and jerked him around in his halter.  I don't like that part of me, it is an anger that just spills out when he is being stubborned.  Does that anger sound familiar. It is rare with me, but it has happened a couple of times. I am sorry for it too.

Max has always forgiven me and loved me again. This is where I started thinking that maybe our dogs are God.  I think a dog lover would understand this, but I am not suggesting a new sect of religion.

They love us always, the forgive us always and are always excited to see us, even if we just went our the door and had to run back in to get something we forgot.  In all fairness, the cats I have had in my life we like that. They always were glad to see me and they waited for me to come home.  But they never sat with me, in my lap.

Dogs require walking, which at first I found to be a burden, because I never had to walk my cats.  But no they are my friends and I enjoy the time alone with them. I actually walk with them or they walk me. I do an early walk at 6:30 AM and I do the evening walk, 10:00 PM with two in between, which usually my wife does, though I also go on most of those too.

With us both being unemployed, (remember that is why I blog now) the walks give us time out of the house and time to be with each other and our dogs.  If you don't have a dog, consider getting one. They are a friend and like I said you may find some similarities to the teachings of what God is like.

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"We're walking and walking...Oh look it's the Chief of Staff, what an honor for you"

My wife and I have been walking every day now for about two weeks.  We decided to start for health reasons and it seems to be working. We are walking now three miles in the neighborhood. It is not a fast pace as we take almost an hour to make the trip.

I have never been a big fan of running and because I am now over 200 pounds it would be a killer on my sixty year old knees. When I am down to 190, I think I will start to jog and make it a faster pace.

She an I decided to find a 5 K walk in the area and set  that event as our goal.  I thought I'd let everyone know we are walking and see if anyone else will join with us. I'll let you know what 5K we find. We are in Athens, Georgia so if you know of one and want to make it an event please add your comments.

On a separate note:

       I am planning on meeting the owner of some property that would be a possible location of the modular home plant I have spoken about earlier. As I mentioned before I believe it is the future of housing.  I wan to give it a good try to get a plant up and running and selling homes.  I ideas are welcomed!

See you in the neighborhood as we walk!!

(The title is a quote from a movie, do you know the name of it? )

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Education for today's children...Cost and Government's failure

It is always  easy to blame the Government for public school failures, but if we look in the mirror we'll see the real reason we are failing our children.  We first set around when President Carter, a liberal religious fanatic, established the Education department.

Of course from his small perspective of Plains, Georgia he grew up believing that  the best way to fix anything is to give it to the government. You can see this was a failed program and it would take a strong President to un-fund and not appoint a Cabinet position. The problem with this is we now have federal bureaucrats telling local schools how to educate and even feed our children. Of course the Agriculture Department dictates the  food diet for our children now. Watch the new TV show, Jamie's Food Revolution and you'll see how ridiculousness the bureaucracy has made the lunch hour.

Further problems  have been created by consolidating the schools into larger schools.  This was another 60's brain child, ...economies of scale.  It did create a new level of managers and with larger schools, now small cities, it has created disciplinary problems that needed to be solved by School Police forces.

Let's see what else can we easily identify as a problem with the large area schools, oh yea...busing.  This is a real joke.  Go to schools and see how many parent drive their children to school. Why?  The buses aren't safe  for the children because there is nor way for a driver...one person, to monitor the bus and drive.

So we see a large mass issue reflects unsafe environment for buses, school time in general, diet problems and a larger cost of management.  I haven't even mentioned the quality of the education.  In a word, it SUCKS.

This year we received a letter form the Clarke County School board that told us the school where our son (my step son)  goes to school has not performed to the level of "the no child left behind program."  This program worked well in Texas so President Bush moved it to the national level...Wrong move!!!  Keep it local.  The  liberals got their hands on the program...Teddy Kennedy (remember him, letting the young female aid die in his car at Chappiqudic and he never went to court Kennedy)  this assured it would get passed, but the value of the program was lost.  Remember to keep it local and eliminate the National bureaucracy.

Well ,we got the letter and it told us we could take our son to any other middle school in the county, this according to the Federal law. BUT all the other schools had also failed!!!  Let me say that again, all the other middle schools, four in total, have failed as well.   I felt terrible.

I married my wife, planning on taking care of her and her son and I can't find him a decent school.  The only answer was to see if I could get him into a private school that has a way to help poor families. I say poor because that is where I am. POOR.  I was making a strong salary when the company that wanted me to manage this office, Palm Harbor Homes, but after sales continued to disappear because of the economy, I was moved to a sale person. I was actually making less on their salary that I receive now from Unemployment.

Needless to say we were fortunate to get Josh into the Athens Academy, but we still had to come up with $4700 for the year. I believed I could do that in a year as I believed work would turn around.  Today I am owed $6500 in consulting fees from a non profit I have been helping for a year and a half and I am still expecting to start the construction ASAP.  But I have heard that for a year.  If I don't get the funds to AA by April 30, Josh may not show up in school on May 1st.  

This has been a tough year. The last  eight have been tough financially. I wish God would tell me what I am missing or doing wrong.

I have digressed from the education issue.  The poor education in this county, the very county that houses the flag ship of Colleges in the State, UGA; has driven us to a private school and we are on the hook for more money.  Hey if you're reading this, send money!!  :-)