Christmas 2007

Greetings and salutations this Christmas season

I hope this message finds you all well and enjoying the experience. It is a wonderful time of year for many folks although a bit stressful for some. Life is often full of stress and we have to deal with problems from day to day that make things a bit tough on us as individuals or as families. I have found as a Christian that the best way to deal with trouble and turmoil in my life is to ask Christ to takes those burdens from me and help me deal with it all. Once you do that, give it all up to him you will find a peace you have never known before.

Let me tell you a story about an experience I had recently. It was a few weeks ago. My dear, sweet grandmother Grace Britt, God rest her soul, had passed and life was knocking me around a bit. My wife had wrecked her car (she was not injured thank goodness) and a large tree had fallen in the back yard onto the neighbors shed. I had also had a minor accident in my van and I was in training to become an Elder at Church while my only son was in Navy boot camp near Chicago. Of course all this was on top of the normal day to day stress of running a small courier business where I am the CEO, salesman and accountant as well as the primary driver who does the bulk of the deliveries. So needless to say I had allot on my plate and was becoming kind of frazzled around the ends.

One morning I walked out on my deck at home and it was a cloudy day. I raised my head up to the sky and spoke a silent prayer asking our Lord Jesus to please help me shoulder all that was burdening me. I said I knew I was unable to handle it all without his help. With me eyes still closed I suddenly felt a warmth on my cheek as if a hand was caressing my face and in my heart I could hear the words do not be troubled my son I am here with you. I opened my eyes and looked up and the sun had just peaked through the clouds shinning down on me for a few minutes. It truly felt like the hand of God on me, as a father would caress his child.

Of course I knew then I would get through it and all has turned out well. My wife has her car back, my son has graduated and moved on to Florida, I am now a fully ordained Elder and the neighbor said do not worry about the tree. Finally of course Grace Britt is with the Lord preparing for the day we will all meet her there together with many others that have gone before, singing praises to God in our mansions beyond this earthly realm.

Life is good if you have the proper perspective and know who to turn to when the going gets rough.

Have a blessed Christmas and a safe and happy new year!

Peace to you all!

Changing and evolving

The world changes, evolves, moves on. Each of us who live here upon this planet have some kind of destiny or fate I presume. Why else would we be here if it is not to complete a task or mission while here on earth? The sad thing is many if not most of us do not know what our mission is. We must learn this as we grow older and with age comes wisdom and enlightenment. The purpose becomes evident as time goes by and we learn from the mistakes made in our youthful arrogance and ignorance.

What part does God play in this? As a Christian he is the central figure in my world. He is the great creator of all things in the universe and gives me life and hope. His love is the most powerful force in this universe and it was proven when he became flesh and died on the cross to exonerate me from my sinful ways. Blessed be the name of the Lord! Once I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior it opened up a whole new existence for me and I found the way or the path. The void within me was no longer aching to be filled with carnal or worldly goods but is now overflowing with pure love and truth. Amen!

Now my path is clear. I have accepted my fate and I am pursuing it. As a leader, an Elder, a Christian, a Father, Husband, Brother, Son and Friend. I am many things in this life and have begun to walk the true path. In life we take many roads and one of these roads has lead me to meet a man who has become a friend. I will not name him here as I do not have his permission at this time but needless to say he is a wise man and has become somewhat of a mentor and teacher to me. He is a devote Christian and was an instrumental part of me turning my life around and receiving Christ. Since that time I learned that he was a Sifu (teacher) in Aikido and I have begun training in this martial art under his tutelage. I have wanted to learn a martial art since I was a teenager and have dabbled in it from time to time over the years but never found a school that I felt comfortable in. However I truly believe that now I have found the right art and the right teacher to advance within the world of these ancient martial skills.

The art that I am now studying is called Aikido. This is one of many arts such as Judo, Jujutsu, Karate, Kung Fu, and there are many more. These are some of the more well known arts in America. Aikido was created by a Japanese man who is now referred to as simply O'Sensei or Great Master. His true name is Morihei Ueshiba and he was a very religious man. He was born in 1883 and died in 1969, it is said he trained until his last days and was always in great fighting shape. He began training in his late teens in traditional jujutsu and kenjutsu he joined the military soon after that and was a great soldier known for his toughness and character. He continued his study of martial arts during that time and after he left the military. He studied under many masters where he learned various styles including the kodokan style of judo. He also earned a certificate in yagyuryu jujutsu.

O'Sensei eventually began to mix his considerable martial arts skills with a more spiritual philosophy and developed his own methods then known as aiki-bujutsu as he continued to hone his skills and develop his system it became known as aiki-budo and around 1941 his art had become known as Aikido. Ai (joining or harmonizing) Ki (energy or spirit) Do (the way or path). Needless to say he was revered in Japan as a great master of martial arts and many people came to train under him.

One of his students was Kenji Tomiki. This man also studied under the founder of Judo, Jigoro Kano. Sifu Tomiki was a great martial artist who founded the style of Aikido known as Shodakan. He wanted to incorporate some competition into the art so that his students could test their skills. It is said that he and O'Sensei
had a disagreement over this and parted ways. He was awarded the first 8th dan in Aikido and also held a 8th dan in Judo. He like O'Sensei was a superior martial artist who was renowned in Japan and around the world. He was born in 1900 and died in 1979. It is the Tomiki or Shodokon style that I now am learning.

What I have learned about Aikido so far is that it is more of a defensive art than an offensive style such as some of the Karate styles I have studied. Where many Karate arts use kicks and punches to decimate your opponent, Aikido uses your opponents energy and aggressiveness against him. Many joint locks and throws are used in Aikido that were derived from O'Sensei's training in jujutsu and judo. The training allows the Nage to flow with the energy brought by the Uke when attacked. If you use these skills properly you can easily subdue your opponent with minimal force in various ways. However depending on the force needed in any particular situation Aikido can be applied with deadly force that can easily break bones and dislocate joints causing very painful injuries or even death. We are taught only to use this kind of force if our lives or the lives of the innocent are threatened. Each situation is different in the world but if attacked, a skilled Aikido practitoner can size up the situation and decide what kind of force is needed. Aikido also teaches one to deal with multiple attackers.

Of course I am just a novice and have many years of training to develop the skills to become proficient, however I am eagerly learning and hope to continue training for many years to come.

Peace be with you.

October and Fall is finally winding it's way down into the Carolina's. It is still too hot for this time of year but it has cooled substantially from what it was last month. However now that Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize I am sure that the man who invented the Internet will find a way to stop global warming an all will be right with the world. Just think, if he had been elected President in 2000 he would not have been able to win this prize or make his movie that won the Oscar and Emmy. So do you think he would trade all that in for the Oval Office? Who knows but I digress.

Things are going well for me these days. Work is steady and life is chugging right along like an old steam engine train moving down the tracks. Church is really good. I have my last week of Elder training coming up and I will be ordained soon. Then I will find out what committee I will be placed on. The Choir is sounding great and we are preparing for the holiday season. Operation Christmas Child is under way and we brought our boxes home last Sunday.

The biggest news is that Jason (my son) has joined the Navy and is in boot camp. In fact today is the first day of his third week. He has about five more weeks then he will graduate. I am very happy and excited for him. I hope he does well and I am praying hard for him every day! I'll bet he's doing more push ups than I am these days!

Janet and I are doing great and really enjoying our new house. The dogs have adjusted and are lazier than ever! I have increased my workouts and am up to 60 push ups a day, I made 70 one morning but I have to do them first to make that many at one time. I am benching again too. Still working on the diet. That's that hardest part to control. I am at 185 steady now. I have cut way back on the juicing and it is taking it's toll. I need to get back into it again. The move kind of discombobulated my schedule and I never have gotten back on track. Shame on me! I will get back to every other day soon. I have been taking Aikido lessons from a private instructor who is a good friend of mine. I guess we have been doing this for about four month maybe five now. I have another lesson on Thursday. I am really enjoying this martial art more than any I have studied. I hope to stick with this one for many years. It is more a defensive art than offensive but it is very effective.

The Lord has blessed me no doubt. My life is great and I thank him for it. I am having Thanksgiving here this year and inviting the family up for a feast! Janet and I are going to the mountains this weekend to enjoy the scenery and eat at the Daniel Boone Inn. We have scheduled our next vacation for Sedona Arizona next September. I am finally going to get to the Grand Canyon! Yahooo!


I'll check back in later.

Peace be with you!

A fool such as I?

I must be a fool to come back from such a great vacation.

Maybe I should just pack my bags and go back to Nashville tonight!

WOW!

It's tough to go from a relaxing seven day vacation to a hectic work day in just a matter of hours but that's the way it is. After leaving Nashville, Tennessee Wednesday afternoon we arrived back in Charlotte around 10:30 PM. In bed by 12:00, I was up early and back at it making deliveries and picking up where I left off the week before. Thursday and Friday were both hectic and very busy days. I have to close my eyes and only believe I am back in my cozy hotel room in Memphis to get away from it all but hey, that's alright.

The guys who took care of things for me while I was away did a great job with little or no trouble although they were very busy. Looks like I picked a bad week to go away but it is hard to predict when business will be slow or hot in this line of work. My hat's off to Bob, Ken and Harry for taking care of business while I was away.

Janet, my good luck charm, and I went to Memphis Tennessee for a few days, had a side trip to Tunica, Mississippi and then finished up our vacation in Nashville. The Memphis part of the trip was centered around the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. We went to the BIG concert at the fed ex forum on the 16th after visiting Graceland that morning. This was my fourth trip to Graceland and Janet's first. She really enjoyed it and so did I. We will have great memories from this trip for a long time to come. Check out this site to see more.

Graceland - Elvis

Here is a couple of pics from inside Graceland I took.


The concert was fantastic and we met people from all over. I plan to do an in depth review of the concert later but for now trust me it was Awesome! There were fan clubs there from nearly every country in the world. To name just a few there were folks from Canada, Japan, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, and many more of course. Many folks decided to follow that dream and come to Memphis for this one and I am sure they all found it too much to handle in one trip. Many will return again once they have been to Graceland, the promised land of rock and roll.

Here's some from the concert.


We toured Beale street where the Blues music style was born and later had lunch at Corky's BBQ on Poplar St. We also visited the Peabody Hotel downtown and saw the famous Peabody ducks. We went to Sun Studios waydown Union Ave., where Elvis recorded his first records and was discovered of course by a young lady named Marion Keisker. Sam Phillips owned the studio and was not really interested in Elvis but the persistence of Marion finally broke Sam's will and he had Elvis come in about a year later and record some songs. One thing led to another and Elvis started singing "That's Alright Mama" and Rock and Roll history was begun. It was fun to see all the history of Rock music right there including the very same microphone Elvis sang into. I myself was able to sing a few bars from Jailhouse Rock into that very mic Elvis used. I was glad they let me be there do just pretend I was Elvis for a moment in time.

This is the mic as we saw it, standing in the middle of the room and then in the past as Elvis used it.


Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash also used that mic and were artists that got their starts at Sun Studios. You can't really mention Memphis and Sun Studious without mentioning that Sam Phillips was into the Blues. He started the studio to record the black blues artists of the day, living in Memphis playing down on Beale Street. Some of those included BB King, The Howling Wolf and even Ike Turner playing piano with a band who recorded what many call the first ever rock and roll song entitled "Rocket 88". Later when the studio had closed then reopened again in the 80's many more recent artists recorded at Sun Studios like Tom Petty, Def Leopard and U2. Check out the website it is a good one

www.sunstudio.com



Here is an interview with Scotty Moore Elvis's first guitarist if you want to read something nostalgic about the early days of Elvis.

Moving on I must say that Memphis is a nice city in places but all in all it is a poor city with most of the areas we saw being very downtrodden and in need of a Renaissance. It seems that Elvis is bringing a much needed influx of money to the city but I do not see where the local political structure is using it. Perhaps they are spending it all downtown but it is hard to tell. They are in dire need of major change in that city. I would venture to say if it were not for Elvis Presley, Memphis would be in serious trouble and on the verge of becoming like New Orleans before Katrina. There is a great history of the Blues in Memphis and from the looks of the city I can understand why people were always singing the blues. For the most part however when your in any particular part of Memphis you'll find yourself in the ghetto.

We stayed at the Memphis Hilton right off Poplar street and let me tell you it was as nice a Hotel room as I have ever stayed in. The bed was so comfortable I hated to leave. We picked a good place although it was about 8 or 10 miles from downtown. For the price it was more than I expected. It was more for business folks than Graceland tourists but we enjoyed it anyway. Our room was on the 14th floor so we had a nice view out over the area.



We went to Tunica for one evening and gambled a bit. We wound up winning a little money while we were there and ate at one of the buffets. It was fun and I hope to go back there again someday. Tunica was only about 45 minutes from Memphis so it was an easy drive for us. There were three casinos right next to each other in one spot so we settled in there and tried them all out. It was over 100 degrees outside so it was nice to spend the day indoors where the air conditioners were on full blast.

We stayed at the Wyndham Resort of Nasvhille just across from the OpryLand Hotel and where the knew Opryland building is located. The Hotel was amazing, I've never seen anything like it except maybe in Vegas. I would like to stay there next time I go to Nashville.

Inside the Opryland Hotel complex.


While in downtown Nashville we toured a place that is legendary to Country music and Elvis fans alike. It is called Studio B and Elvis recorded over 250 songs there. many more folks recorded there including Jim Reeves, Waylon Jennings, Roy Orbison, Charlie Pride, Chet atkins, Floyd Cramer and Dolly Parton to name only a few. The tour guide told us about Dolly's first recording session. She was so nervous when she pulled into the parking lot she hit the wall and knocked some of the blocks out. In other words she had a tremendous impact on country music and the studio itself! (hehehe) They had some of the original equipment set up in the studio that these famous artists used to record with. There is a 1939 piano that Floyd Cramer used and Elvis also played many times during the 20 years he recorded there.



We walked up and down Broadway which is the main drag where musicians play and various clubs in Nashville. It is full of bars, saloons, souvenir shops, and restaurants. We ran across a small Charlie Daniels museum there while we looked around and I of course had to go in and check it out. He is one of my all time favorites.



The Country Music Hall of Fame was a very interesting place with lots of exhibits and memorabilia. We enjoyed our visit there and it was fun to see the history of the music I grew up with. Here is a link that that website.

Country Music Hall of Fame


We also visited the Zoo while we were there and it was nothing special, just another Zoo. After you have been to the Zoo in any city they all seem to look the same, it was too hot to be walking around outside anyway and since we visited during the week hardly no one was there. Perhaps it's better on the weekend when they gear up for the bigger crowds.



So that's about it. another vacation under our belts. I am thankful to God that he has blessed us with the good fortune to be able to travel and see things we like to see. Next we plan to go to the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone Park. Still trying to decide which one to go see first.

Well I hope this little blog allowed you to walk a mile in my shoes even if it was only make believe for a few minutes of your day. For now it's over yet if your ever in Nashville or Memphis Tennessee one night and you run into Elvis just tell him Jim said hello.

He'll know what you mean.

Global Warming VS Global Terrorism

Global Terrorism VS Global Warming


It is said that today we live in a global society. It is a true statement and it seems that two of the biggest problems we face today are global problems. Here I wish to examine which of these two problems we should be most concerned about. If you look at it from a left VS right political perspective then we know which side you probably come down on.


Global Warming.


Many Scientists agree we are currently experiencing a period of global warming. The crux of the problem here is whether it is a natural phenomenon or a man made problem. Many environmentalist groups are certain that this problem is caused by man’s use of fossil fuels and they are determined to disrupt our economy by trying to hinder peoples use of energy derived from those fuels such as oil, natural gas, coal, etc. They insist we are destroying the planet’s atmosphere with our greed and need for bigger vehicles like trucks and SUVs
or sports cars that use more fuel than the smaller more energy efficient cars they tend to drive. They want us to take steps that would certainly do damage to the economy in America in order to preserve the planet (in their view). Many on the other side of the argument disagree and point to science that leads to inconsistencies in their arguments. Many scientists whole heartedly disagree that man’s use of fossil fuels has a veritable impact on the earth’s atmosphere and our need for energy to run the systems that keep our economy moving is more important than their diaphanous theory that we (man) might be causing global warming.

The left has blamed just about every weather condition of late on their global warming theory and has taken and alarmist approach to try and scare the public into believing that the most dire consequences are in store for us all if we do not fall into lock step with them and follow their prescriptions necessary to save the planet and all mankind from certain destruction. One example would be the hurricanes we experienced two years ago, Katrina and Rita. Many of the global warming alarmists said that these were a result of our poor stewardship of the planet and we were in store for even more destruction in the next hurricane seasons to follow. However we did not have one single hurricane touch the US coast the following year and so far this year their predictions of wide spread destruction have been just as paltry.

Another example of their trepidation is that the polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate and that the coastlines of our country and around the world will be submerged within decades if we do not stop our burning of fossil fuels. However it has been proven by scientists in Greenland that the temperature has been steadily decreasing there for the last decade or so and the glaciers are in fact getting larger.


Another bit of information that seems to slip past some of the more prominent media is that the temperature readings being used by the man made global warming theorists have come under scrutiny. It has been pointed out recently that many of the surface temperature stations that are monitored by the government, providing data to the global warming alarmists are returning bad data due to the location of the units themselves. The government has guidelines about where these monitoring stations should be and in many cases they are in violation of these standards which in turn returns bogus temperature readings causing the data to be askew. Here is a link to a web-site that points this out in detail.

http://www.surfacestations.org/


In conclusion the global warming phenomenon is something to be concerned about and monitored but the science behind it is not conclusive enough to determine if it is being caused by man’s use of fossil fuels or if it is just another cycle in the earth’s vast and powerful ecosystem which changes and evolves constantly. The people who want to try and raise taxes and cut our energy use by banning fossil fuels or the systems that use these fuels may well have a different agenda than what they pretend. The UN for example has embraced the global warming theories championed by Al Gore and his supporters. They want to take enormous sums of money from the richer more affluent nations and distribute it to the poorer less affluent countries around the globe. As we have seen with the UN in the past, corruption can run rampant when millions and even billions of dollars are at play and they very well may have the same agenda as the left whose global warming scare tactics are currently at their highest levels.


Global Terrorism


Now lets look at Global Terrorism. Just like Global warming it seems that many people come down on this subject differently. The political sides of the argument or Right VS Left have taken opposite stands. The right, lead by the Bush administration and some of it’s allies is heavily behind fighting what it calls a, “Global War on Terror.” Many on the left however seem to take a position that it is not as big a threat as the Bush team says it is and is more of a law enforcement problem than a military problem. In fact many of these folks believe we should let many of the terror suspects held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba go and bring any that need to be tried here to America and allow them all the civil liberties that our citizens are afforded. Most on the right of course vehemently disagree with this approach and want them to be dealt with as enemy combatants.

Most people who follow the news are aware that terrorism has been a problem around the world for decades. In 1983 over 240 US Marines were killed in a bombing in Lebanon, since then Americans and American interests and allies around the world have been attacked over and over again with terrorist style bombings and even more brutal forms of terrorism on individuals like beheadings. Just to name a few more in 1993 the World Trade Center in New York City was bombed by Islamic terrorists. In 1996, 19 Americans were killed in the Khobar Towers bombings in Saudi Arabia. In 2000 the Navy Vessel, USS Cole was attacked and 17 US Sailors ere killed. Of course the big one was 911 and that needs no further explanation. Here is a link to a web-page that outlines many more terrorist attacks around the world.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html


Needless to say it is obvious we and others around the world are under attack by terrorists and Islamic extremists from the middle east and other Muslim nations around the world. This President decided enough was enough and has taken the fight to them and declared War on Terrorism. I can see no other way to describe this other than a Global War on Terror, considering the terrorists are striking not only here but all over the world where they want to bring their brand of war into communities and countries where the governments do not cooperate with their fundamentalist views. Although many on the left here in America want to say the “War on Terror” is nothing more than a bumper sticker slogan for the right wingers it is far more than that in the view of many if not most Americans and others around the world.

The final question here is which do you find to be the biggest most urgent problem to deal with today?

Is it Global Warming or Global Terrorism?

Global Warming - Again

I read an editirial in the USA Today that set me off. Here is the link to it.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/06/god_goes_green.html

Now of course I just had to respond!

First of all you have to accept the left's premise that global warming (GW) is caused by man to swallow this malarkey. I don't and millions of others do not either.

There are a few points to cover here.

First that the human race is like a cancer on the earth. I can see why some folks would look at it that way since they consider mankind as a pariah anyway but I have come to realize that it is not true. We have advanced tremendously since we came to be and the technological society we have become is learning to live in harmony with mother earth to some degree. We do have a long way to go but America imparticular has done wonders in cleaning up pollution in the lakes, rivers and oceans as well as the air. There are many countries who have a much longer way to go in that respect but in time they can be persuaded to do their part.

The earth is a BIG organism we are but a micro-organism compared to the earth itself and all the other parts and pieces that make up the entire Eco-system including insects, plants and other animals as well as climate and atmosphere. The truth about GW is that we do not know for sure if we have any real impact on it or not and it may well be nothing more than the earth's own built in way to evolve and survive, heating and cooling itself from time to time. Floods, droughts, fires and bad weather on this planet are just normal for the earth. We happen to get in the way of these occurrences because we like to build our houses and business in areas that are prone to these types of natural phenomenon. The left likes to use their associates in the media to hype this stuff up and make it look as if we are on the precipice of disaster each and every day. Why? Because they want your MONEY!

Second let's talk about religion and the earth for a minute. Yes God owns the planet and he has graciously allowed us to live on it and use it for our needs while we are here. So we in turn should be good stewards of the resources. In fact I think many religious people are, especially evangelical Christians. Despite the fact that this clown thinks we are pretty much all Republicans out to destroy the planet for our own greedy purposes many of us are willing to sacrifice and try and do our best to not pollute and to live in a clean safe environment free of toxic chemicals, hazardous waste and other pollution. Just because we do not subscribe to the notion that our cars and SUVs are killing the planet and we are not driving Priuses, riding bikes everywhere and wearing hemp clothing does not mean we all hate the planet and want it to die!

In fact I have read that it takes more pollution causing energy to create a Prius than it does a Hummer, mainly due to the large batteries in them that are made in Canada. Here is some detailed information concerning the left's most prize, environmentally efficient automobile, NOT!

Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the 'dead zone' around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles. The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius' battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist's nightmare. "The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside," said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper. All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn't end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce 'nickel foam.' From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?

So does that make you greenies feel better about your carbon footprint? I know where I would like to leave my carbon footprint!

Just ask Red!

Now let's look at the compact fluorescent bulbs they have been trying for years to get us to use. Did you know that some of these bulbs contain mercury? Guess what, mercury is a potent neurotoxin, and it's especially dangerous for children and fetuses. Yes and when you dispose of one, or God forbid break one suddenly you have a hazardous waste situation on your hands. One lady in Prospect, Maine found this out the hard way and when she called the Dept of Environmental Protection, to ask advice on what to do, What did THEY do? They quarantined her house and it cost her over $2,000.00 dollars to replace one what used to be .99 cent light bulb before it was all over. How's that for energy efficiency?

In the end this guy admits that the science is confusing. That is his sly way of telling you that it has not been proven that GW has anything to do with what you and I do, there is not data to support that theory, it is only a theory at this point. The climatologists around the world disagree on this subject and many say our burning of fossil fuels has little or no effect on the atmosphere. For a little comparison there seems to be some scientific proof that there is global warming happening on Mars and the last I checked we were not there with our SUVs as of yet. Maybe someday though!

Also it seems that there IS proof that our planet has been through these kinds of warming cycles before and it was well before the industrial age. So that should give you pause to think about if we are causing GW or not.

So in the end yes, I believe God does want us to be good stewards of his creation. I like many other Christians try and do my part. That's why I do not trust or support most Democrats and many Republicans since they tend to lie like so many politicians do out there, yes I know many Republicans lie too but they will tell you the truth more often than a Democrat. The Dems want your money just like the Republicans but they will not be honest with you about how they are going to take it. They will make up stuff like (GW) and tell you we are causing all this havoc and claim that they need to raise your taxes to solve the problem that YOU created by driving your SUV. All the while they will be stuffing their political pockets with PORK projects amounting to millions and billions of dollars of wasted taxpayers money as they cry and moan that they need more and more money to fix the societal problems they have absolutely no intention on fixing!

GW seems to be their religion of choice at the moment and like some unscrupulous ministers they will preach to us about our tainting of the earth and how if we give up our cash they can try and fix what we have broken. The whole time they will not truly fix anything. They will keep the problem alive and well so that they can continue to fleece us for years to come.

Take the Social Security debacle. They have had plenty of time in the past twenty five years to fix that little problem but have they? No, and when the Republicans tried to push legislation through a few years ago to actually do something about it they stopped it dead in it's tracks. They do not care folks, they want to use these issues to keep blaming the other side and taking YOUR money!

The truth as I see it is that we must all use some common sense on this subject which seems to be sorely lacking in the above article and in politics in general, especially on the left.

What say you???

General rantings

Good morning!

I am up early as usual drinking coffee and reading news on the internet. I just wanted to make a few comments about life in general. I have always been a person who tries to be honest with people, I tell the truth and it often gets me in trouble. Especially where liberals are concerned. I have a friend who passed away recently (God bless his soul) who once replied to my negative email about Bill Clinton saying that he did not want to hear my opinion and for me to delete him from my email list. I have had similar emails from other liberals. It seems they just do not want to hear an opposing view. I don't get it. Is that not how we learn in life by listening to and evaluating both sides of an issue before we make up our own minds on the subject? I would hope that people whether liberals, conservatives or moderates for that matter would be a bit more open minded and learn to debate these issues with folks they disagree with and respect others opinions no matter what side they come down on.

No let me say something about Character and honesty. I will not name names but I have encountered some people lately in my life who are just plain dishonest. They seem like nice enough folks but they flat out lie and then do not seem to think twice about it. I do forgive them of course and will pray for them but it is all I can do to keep from really laying into them for their dishonesty and lack of integrity. What is it with folks who do not honor their word? I don't get it!

Well in truth I do get it I suppose. I know that many folks are under the influence of the great deceiver in this world today. They lie and cheat with giving it a second thought because Satan has a tremendous amount of influence over the world we live in. There is no two ways about this one. Most folks just simply do not uphold the teachings of Christ and the commandments God gave us all to live by and yes I mean in and outside of the Church. They live their lives in the world being a part of this culture ignoring the real truths that we as children of God should hold as the most important truths to live by.

Yeah, yeah I know many folks will say there he goes preaching again. Yet the truth is the truth!

Amen...

Global Warming? Really?

Greetings

I just read an article that compared Al Gore to Elmer Gantry who is a fictional preacher in an old movie played by one of my favorite actors of all time Burt Lancaster. Although I find the comparison interesting it is hard to picture AlGore as the character since Burt Lancaster was well Burt Lancaster and AlGore is well you know, he is not quite as handsome as ol' Burt was. Yet the Charlatan that was Elmer Gantry fits the persona of AlGore in many ways. It is quite obvious that he has managed to persuade many Americans with his movie (that I have avoided watching so far) that the world is about to come to a disastrous end due to man made global warming. Yet the truth is that many scientists disagree on his conclusions and this phenomenon we are seeing may be nothing more than a natural process of the earth's climate change. We as the human species and what we do very well could have no impact at all on the earth's very formidable climate apparatus. In fact many scientists say that the climate here on earth is so complex that they do not even begin to understand it all and how it may or may not effect global warming.

One thing that really makes me wonder about all this Global Warming talk is that I can remember when Time magazine published stories about the new Ice Age back in the seventies. How can we go from being nearly extinct by a new Ice Age to being nearly burned up by Global warming in only 25 years? Is that good science? I doubt it. I also understand now how politicians work and I know that environmentalists like AlGore like to take issues that they can peddle to the people like so much snake oil and use it to promote a hidden agenda. These people are tricky and because many Americans seem to fall under their spell for one reason or another they unfortunately are easily persuaded.

All this leads me to compare AlGore to another character played by Burt Lancaster in yet another great movie called "The Rainmaker" where he played a fellow named Bill Starbuck. WOW! What a great movie that was and like Gantry, Starbuck (and AlGore) was a fellow who rode around the countryside convincing people to open their wallets and pay him to do something he knew he could not do, make it rain. This comparison might be even better than the first since it has to do with the climate and he was obviously a BS artist much like our former Vice Perpetrator. If you love old movies this one is a must see, it had Katherine Hepburn as well and was one of Lancaster's best films! I could go on about old movies and Burt but I digress.

These predictions of doom and gloom have been happening since man was young and able to write about the earth. This is just another phase in men trying to fool other men into reaching into thier pockets and handing over the cash.. Mark my words, 30 years from now the left will have found another way to try and squeeze money from their supporters and this global warming farce will be a long forgotten memory...

Peace to you all!

The Move

Finally we are all moved in!

We bought a new house last month and picked up our belongings and moved it all over here over the Fourth. Thanks to some help by very good friends and my trusty van we have managed to get just about everything we owned moved over here and we are no longer living in East Charlotte. As much as I loved it there, the place has changed too much for my liking. No longer the peaceful neighborhood of my youth it was time for a change. Being only a pistol shot away from Eastland Mall you 30 year plus Charlotteans will understand why I had to leave.

Our New home is off Providence Road near the Arboretum. The shopping within a two mile radius is fantastic as well as the fact that I have at least three movie theaters within five miles of me now. The restaurants in the area are great as well. Many places to choose from and on top of that I am now less than ten minutes from Church! The proximity to all these will save us a ton of gas in the long run.

We almost feel like we are on vacation living here. The bedroom is nearly twice the size of our old one it seems and the master bath is awesome! We have less storage space in the house but we now have a two car garage so the trade off it worth it. We also have a HUGE walk in attic. I intend to put in a fan that will cool it off up there so maybe I can use it to make up for the lost storage space.

Anyway I will post some pics soon. I suppose we will be here for the next 15 or 20 years because I DO NOT want to move again! What a pain that was!!!!!

Peace to you all!

JD

Gone but not forgotten!

I have been gone, at least from these pages but I have not forgotten about the blog, completely anyway.

As I am starting to get back into my daily browsing of the internet news I am inclined to comment on some of it along with filling you in on some stuff going on in my own life as well.

First off we are moving this coming week. I am really excited about getting into our new house. I go into detail about it more later but I will say it is a much nicer house although about the same size as this one. It is in a far nicer neighborhood and closer to shopping, Church and many of my friends. I will miss this house but not the neighborhood or some of the neighbors. Although they are mostly nice folks most of them do not take care of their properties. The new place is quite different in that arena and we have some really nice looking houses on the block that should make our new home a much better investment in the long run.

Now the news: Iran is in turmoil and is rationing gasoline. The people are revolting and burning the gas stations. If they will just destroy the refinery Iran's economy will collapse and they will be over.

The immigration bill did not pass in the Senate, it was doomed in the house anyway but this is good news for America. I am glad to see the people coming together over this one and defeating this BAD piece of legislation.

My son just turned 21 and has joined the Navy. May God bless him and protect him is my prayer. Does this mean I am old?

The wife and I celebrated my Bday, Jason's Bday and the closing at Ruth Chris's steakhouse on Wed. night. WOW! That's a great steak!!!!!!


Later


JD

It's Official

Well I have really attained a goal here that I had been shooting for but it is still somewhat of a surprise anyway. I weighed in at 178 this morning down from 199.5 just 4 short months ago.

The secret? Well as you may well know I have been juicing for three months now. I have cut sweet tea and sodas from my diet and cut back on deserts. I also am eating less BBQ, french fries etc., and have had NO fast food in that same time period except some Chick Fila every once in a while....

I have also been working out daily and have only missed a day or two here and there the past few months. Some weights in the evening, bench press, curls, etc., and some push ups, crunches, stretching, and so forth each morning.

What a lifestyle change! I am feeling much better and looking slimmer too! Here is a picture below of me at my largest several years ago. Check out that belly! Looks like I could eat that fish whole!



I'll have to take a new picture for the slimmed down version...

We can all do it you know, it only takes some will power and discipline. If you don't think you have it, you must know that the real power comes from above, all we have to do is ask. Remember these words, Seek and you will find, Ask and it will be given. Just ask, sincerely and the power is yours!


God Bless you all and may you find yourself on the road to good health very soon!

Peace to you!

300 The Movie

I just returned from the movie 300. I saw it again tonight, this time with no children in the theater. I enjoyed it as much if not more this time around. What a movie! This is the epitome of a ancient war movie and the special effects blended with the acting, fight scenes and the subject matter have made this one of the best films I have ever seen. I am truly blown away by the story, with the history behind it, with the cinematography, special effects, acting and directing. This movie is a true example of what a film maker can do with an exceptional script, great actors and a crew of people who know what they are doing....

Now before you rush out and see this movie you have to understand that it is EXTREMELY violent. There is nudity and sexual situations. It is not for kids under 17 or is it for the faint of heart. This movie is for hard core action film fans who do not mind seeing blood and gore as well as some sex. I can deal with all of this if it is in the right context and not done just for the indulgence of a perverted film maker.

I grew up reading Robert E. Howard and other great story tellers who knew how to present these things in a story properly and this is along that vain. So if you are a Howard fan and enjoy writers like R.A. Salvatore, James Silke's "Prisoner of the Horned Helmet", Hercules and other similar heroic adventures you should really enjoy this movie....

It is one for the collection.




Have a great weekend and God Bless!

Still Juicing

Here I am about 50 plus days into my juicing experiment. What have I learned so far? Well I have lost close to 15 pounds. This change in lifestyle has worked for me. Of course you must consider I have dropped soda's and sweet tea from my diet and most deserts. I do splurge once in a while in that arena (deserts) but not often. Since I am still working out regularly I am adding a good bit of muscle to my frame. I suppose muscle is just as heavy as fat so I probably could have lost even more weight than I have. I am at about 185 right now down from 199 a few months ago.

I am not juicing twice a day as I had intended. I tried it and it just did not work with my schedule or lifestyle. I am trying to stick with once per day and now I am playing with the idea of moving my juice time to later in the evening. I am one of those folks who will get the urge to eat around 9:00 PM if I have and early dinner which I prefer. Then I put all that food (often a sandwich or a bowl of cereal) in my stomach and it sits there over night turning to fat. If I replace that urge to something substantial with a nice glass of fresh juice I think it will have a tremendous positive impact. I did it last night and I feel great this morning other than a headache from going without food for more than 12 hours. I will get used to it and I may add a banana to the equation in the future or some other fruit. That should also help with regularity.

It will of course take some experimenting and tweaking but I think I am on the right track here to continue my journey back to better health and to great shape. So far so good!

In the meantime go see the movie "300" and you will see the kind of body I am trying to build.


Good health to you and may God bless you, me and the USA!!!!

March 2007

Wow! It is nearly spring time again and I am loving it! It is probably about 60 degrees outside now if not more on March 10th and I hope this is the beginning of the warm weather. I know we have a history of one more cold spot during March but hey, I can be optimistic can't I!

Yesterday I went to see a movie called "300". It was breathtaking! It was Violent and bloody no doubt but it was the context of the movie, so I expected no less. I dislike senseless violence in a movie but when it is about a war I can deal with it. This was done by Frank Rich, written anyway. He also wrote "Sin City" which I thought was over the top in violence yet was still entertaining. This one was more to my liking since I am into ancient history and battles of this nature. I did some research on this historic battle and the movie was surprisingly very accurate historically from what I have read so far. I will do a little more study to see if it holds up.

Update!!! It looks like "300" has broken all March records for opening weekend. I am not surprised, this movie was brilliant in many ways and the story was extremely compelling. I am looking forward to seeing it again on the BIG screen before I get the DVD, this is a must to add to any collection of Gladiator style movies....

I will comment more on this movie after I see it again but I will give it a quick two spears up and rate it an 8.5 for now.

later....

Debate on Iraq and Terror

I have been in a constant debate for quite some time with a friend of mine who I call a Liberal. He claims to be a moderate but I see no real difference. Six of one, half a dozen.....You know the cliche.

Anyway our latest back in forth resulted in me sending him this email. I felt like posting it here today so anyone else who wandered by could read it.

Enjoy!!!!

Like a typical liberal your hatred for Bush unhinges you and your thought processes.

Perhaps you remember that the executive branch under Bill Clinton was the administration that first drew up the plan to remove Saddam. Regime change was our only solution to protect the middle east and America from his WMD. Every Senator who now bloviates about how Bush lied over WMD stood right up on the Senate floor and called for Saddam to be removed and went on and on about what a threat he was while Clinton, said almost the same exact things President Bush said before we went into Iraq.

You might also remember that Saddam ignored about 13 UN resolutions over a period of as many years that ordered him to give up all his weapons programs and fully disclose everything to the inspectors which he refused to do. After 911, the only safe and smart thing to do was to take him down since all the intelligence supported that fact that he either had or could make WMD at the drop of a hat. Keep in mind he had plenty of time in the run up to the war to dispose of, hide or ship his WMD to Syria or elsewhere.

With that being said, Iraq is the perfect strategic base of operations to deal with Iran so that probably was a dream for the military strategists who also knew we would have to deal with the Iranians since they have been trying to go nuclear. Now that we can squeeze them from both sides it really gives us a great opportunity to force that regime out hopefully without a full scale ground war. North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran will get their turn. We can only depose one murdering dictator at a time. Since we are on this subject why is it that you folks constantly complain about us taking out Saddam then turn around in the same breath and criticize Bush for not taking out these other nut cases?

The sad thing is all the anti war wackos in America are trying their utmost to replicate their glory days when they were able to stop the Vietnam war with their marches and protests. The 24/7 news cycle is a BIG help to them now and the fact that the MSM is made up of 98% liberals is also a HUGE advantage to the anti war pacifists.

The fact that Saddam was a brutal dictator and killed, tortured, raped and oppressed the Shiites and Kurds (300,000 or more) while building 50 Palaces for himself, his perverted murdering sons and the many Sunni's he kept under his wing, means nothing to you libs. You seem to conveniently ignore these facts while you spew your vile hatred for George W. Bush, the ONLY President with the courage to take a stand against the terrorism that has plagued this country and the world for the past 30 years or longer.

You folks do not seem to realize the threat that the Islamic Jihadists pose to the world and your country today. Your hatred for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the others seem to leave you unable to think rationally on this subject at all! You never comment on the fact that in a four year ground war we have managed to kill tens of thousands of terrorist insurgents while only taking about 3000 American troop deaths which is less than we lost on the first day of the first battle of W.W.II. You seem to ignore all the Iraqi Kurds and Shiites who have stood up and thanked America for saving them from Saddam and helped them restore most of their country to a peaceful, prosperous place for the first time in 30 years. You seem to ignore the fact that Saddam was a contributor to the Palestinian suicide brigades providing 10,000 dollars to the families of those Arabs who would send their children to Israel or elsewhere to blow themselves up and take out as many Jews as possible. You seem to ignore the fact that in Iraq, 30 mins from Baghdad their was a terrorist training camp, Salman Pak, where jihadists routinely were trained to highjack American and European airliners as well as other terror related training.

It seems today all the left wants to do is criticize Bush because this war is not over yet or because he didn't plan for the insurgency. The plain and simple truth is; we have most of the terrorists in the world, concentrated in one central location in the Middle East, (NOT IN AMERICA) where we can use our military to kill them and you folks want to pull out of it and leave.

That just blows my mind!

I say lets keep them in the desert and continue to take them out for the next ten years if it takes that long. Each one we kill is one that will not be blowing up and innocent civilian in America, Israel, France, Spain, London or Bali. If we stay the course perhaps they will eventually run out of money or terrorists or at least the fortitude to fight us any longer.

If you would look seriously at history and the rise of Hitler you can see how the rise of the Islamic Jihadists is eerily similar to the that of the Third Reich. Hitler grew in power while Europe stood by and did nothing. Diplomacy did not work with him and it will not work with terrorists. Some folks in our government recognize the danger this poses to all of Western Civilization yet you folks on the left or middle or wherever the hell you want to put yourself just do not get it....

WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!

Put your disgust for conservatives and Bush away for the duration of this war and get on board so we can fight and win these battles. We must fight and kill these terrorists in order to survive. Do you want a nuke detonated on American soil? If we do not stop these people that will happen. Do you want a bio-attack in a major city? How about 10 cities at once? If we do not continually disrupt, disarm, displace and debilitate the terrorists in Iraq, Iran, Syria and elsewhere we will surely be attacked again. Stop the constant complaining and whining and stop your morale killing diatribes in the liberal left MSM! The troops need moral support and they are not getting it from YOU!

Honestly, I pray that my fellow Americans be they liberal, moderate, conservative or just plain ignorant about it all will see the importance of what we face in the middle east. We must all come together to win this war and stop the forces of terror in the world who have SWORN to destroy Israel, America and our allies....

God help us all!

Oh yeah and one more thing!

Have a nice day! (smile)

15 days

It is the15th straight day of my juicing experiment. I have to say this has been quite a life changing experience for me. What started out as another of my excursions into the unknown has become something that I have decided to incorporate into my lifestyle. Here are some of the benefits I personally have found thus far.

I have lost about 6 pounds
I have lost about 1 inch off my waist (maybe more)
I have lots more energy
My body and mind are rejecting bad foods
I am eating less meat and am off fast foods
I am drinking less sodas and sweet tea
I am drinking more water
Taking Bee Pollen every day
Eating at least one banana per day
I am getting my daily recommended allowances of Vitamins B, C, D and A
My skin is less dry than normal for this time of year
My stomach is not bothering me like it normally does
I am almost completely off the acid reflux medicine
The normal lethargic feeling I would have at the end of the day has disappeared
I am exercising more and daily
I have gained a good bit of muscle tone
My attitude is great!
My mind is clear and my health goals seem very reachable

Now I know that is a lot of positive feedback from juicing and it my sound a bit over the top but it is exactly on target. I have been out of shape for about 6 or 7 years and getting bigger each year it seemed, never really finding a way to commit to an exercise routine or diet that would stick but it looks like this one is going to work.

Here is what I am still eating from my normal lifestyle.

Chinese food twice a week for lunch
Chicken Marsala last night with all the trimmings and a glass of wine
Pop corn and a coke at the movies on Friday
Country style steak w/gravy last week for dinner
Breakfast including smoked sausage and hash browns once last week
Cereal and milk for breakfast or dinner a few times (Special K and Cherrios)
BBQ for lunch one day last week (with broccoli and apples instead or fries and beans)
Fried fish sandwich and Fries one day for lunch
Smoked Turkey sandwiches with mayo and chips for lunch and dinner once or twice last week

So you can see I am not depriving myself of the things I do like for lunch and dinner most of the time. However I am drinking water with these meals now instead of sweet tea. I also have cut most all of the soda out of my diet. I had the one at the movies and a few small glasses of JB/sprite the other night at the poker game but that is about it for sodas.

Now if I go hard core and really start cutting out some of this regular eating of mine at lunch and dinner and replace it with something less fat and more healthy I could probably double the weight loss and inches too but I am in no hurry. My goal is to do it slowly and just peel away some of the bad stuff from my lifestyle one layer at a time until I get down to a comfortable weight of about 185 or 180 and beef up my muscle tone a bit more especially in the mid section. The health of my insides is even more important as I want my kidneys, liver, heart, lungs and stomach in the best shape of all.

My current goal is to continue down this path of one glass per day until I hit 30 days and then kick it up to two glasses per day. That will in turn allow me to cut even more of the fat and excess from my diet. I will make sure to continue to get all the fiber I need from bananas and cereal as well as fresh veggies for lunch and dinner on occasion but much of my nutrition will be derived from my juicing, bee pollen and bananas.

Around the end of next month I hope to work on my first real juice fast. A short one at first, maybe two days. The purpose is to completely detoxify the body. I have been reading up on this and it is very good for the body to get rid of these toxins and replace your body's fuel with healthy and nutritious juice. The blood and all the major organs will be cleansed and detoxed. It is a good way to cleanse the spirit as well by spending quiet time praying, meditating or reading. There are folks who do this for 30 days but I am not that advance or do I even really want to go that far at this point. I will take this one small step at a time.

Well that is my progress report.

God bless you all and good luck on your own journey back to good health!

Wanted: Alive or Dead

Just a small twist with word play there to grab your attention.

My topic is not terrorism, well maybe it is really, terrorism of the body! We as a population have been ingesting such terrible foods and drink for so long it is nothing short of terrible for our health. Even though some of us live to be 80 or 90 (a smaller percentage even past 100) the larger majority of folks in this country are obese and will drop dead in their sixties if they make it that long!

Did you know that the human race is actually supposed to live to 120 or 140 years of age? Due to our bad diets and all the toxins we live with it is a rarity indeed for a human to live to be 120 although there are recorded cases of it.

Most of this early death today is due to obesity, toxins in cooked food, chemicals, pesticides, etc. Here is a quote from an article I found on the web from a press release from the University of Pittsburgh.

During the past 20 years, obesity rates among U.S. adults have skyrocketed with 30 percent of adults 20 years of age and older over 60 million people now categorized as obese and 9 million as severely obese. Over the past 25 years, the percentage of young people who are overweight or obese has more than tripled.

Need I say more on that subject. Well I have found a weapon to fight off this monster and it is called juicing! Of course if you know me you know I have been doing this for a few months now off and on and my last two blogs of course are dedicated to the subject.

I am at about day 10 of regular daily juicing now and I feel great! I am working out daily too and that is a result of my higher energy levels and my more focused mind. The psychological aspect of knowing I have this healthy juice in my body makes me want to eat better and exercise more.

Now to the main topic. Live Juice Vs dead juice.

One of my friends told me he was having a V8 each day now instead of sodas which I think is fantastic! Yet don't celebrate too much. If you in turn get a juicer and replace or add to that V8 some live juice (you will forget all about the V8 once you have tasted live juice) it would be so much better for you body!

Here's why.

When you choose live juice you get all the live enzymes that go with it. These live enzymes are what the body uses to rebuild and repair cells! In other words dead foods or heated, cooked or pasturized foods and juices have had all the enzymes along with much of the other nutrients, killed by the heating process and is not nearly as nutritious for you body.

While grape juice, orange juice and a V8 are much better than coffee and soda all day it is not nearly as good as fresh juice made from carrots, apples, celery, etc... When you get the live juice it will make your body feel live and energetic again! Dead food and juice is just that, (mostly DEAD) and your lethargic body will not respond to it like it will to live juice.

Here is a link to a lengthy article that goes into detail about live food vs dead food. It is more centered around food than juice but you can learn a lot from it.

OK, I am NOT an expert by any means but if you are curious go on the web and look it up. Here are some links that might help you.


http://www.healingdaily.com/juicing-for-health.htm

http://www.rawveganbooks.com/

http://www.living-foods.com/articles/benefits.html

And one more thing!

If you want a juicer try Ebay, the books can also be bought used on Amazon.com!

God Bless you and Peace be with you!

Good luck on your journey back to good health!

The Juicing continues

It is about day 8 now since I started shooting for a daily dose of fresh juice. After a couple of months of juicing off and on a couple of days per week I finally have gotten serious about it. I am feeling real healthy and good about this experience. I have also been taking 1000mg of bee pollen with my juice. I had a glass of juice with a light dinner yesterday and it went down quite well. Although I have lost a few pounds and will probably lose more I am not really focused on that aspect of this new diet. It is more about quality of my health than the quantity of what I weigh.

I am working out daily and have been increasing my routines, adding new exercises and some additional weights to my curling bar and dumbbells. I will have to dust of the bench soon in the basement when the weather warms up. Right now the dogs sleep down there so I can't deal with the smell but I will evict them come spring time into the back yard and clean it all out so I can start using the bench press. For now my weights upstairs will do just fine.

My wife is sharing in the juicing experience with me and she is really enjoying it. She encourages my quest for good health and is an excellent partner in this. One great benefit I have found is that I do not need my acid reflux medicine every day now. I just went six days without a pill and that is the first time I have been able to do that in over 5 years. I am really happy about it. Once I get more of the bad foods out of my diet I may be able to get off the Nexium once and for all.

I still like to eat Chinese food about two or three times a week and drink coffee in the mornings. These are really bad for my stomach but I will wean myself off the bad stuff slowly over time. I have cut tea and sodas to a bare minimum. I now have water with my lunch each day instead of sweet tea. I stay away from cola most all the time now and have not been to a fast food restaurant but once or twice in that past couple of months. I also have cut BBQ out of my weekly lunch routine. I have only had it once this month and I went to a BBQ restaurant last week and ordered grilled salmon. That is will power! (grin)

We have pretty much gone all organic with our juicing. After doing much reading I have found it is recommended by most all the experts and it only makes sense. Too many pesticides and chemicals in regular farming of the fruits and veggies. They tend to soak it up through the roots and it becomes part of the juice as well as sticking to the skins. Organic is so much healthier!

I just had my glass of Carrot, Apple, Celery and Ginger juice and I can feel the tingle as I type. It is almost like a head rush! I am shooting for two glasses a day by next month. One a day this month will do. Some of the guys I have read about do six glasses a day! WOW, that is a lot! Not sure if I will get that far with it but who knows what the future may bring.

I am in the market for a bigger juicer with a more powerful motor. I have found that many of the newer models get a lot more juice from the fruits and veggies than the one I have is capable of doing. Ebay is a great place to go for this and Amazon.com is the best place to go for books on the subject as well.

Next blog I will talk about fresh juice Vs store bought juice...

Have a great day and be healthy in mind, body and most of all sprirt!

God Bless

Juicing is For Life!

Juicing fad or fate?

I saw a commercial on TV many years ago and was intrigued when the man was selling a machine that looked like a food processor but he called it a juicer. He claimed that the juice was like a fountain of youth and that it was delicious. If you drank this stuff it would fill you with energy and blah, blah, blah.

I was skeptical since I have been bombarded with infomercials over the years with everything from the pocket-fisherman (which I once had) and the Ginsu Knives (which I always wanted). I was snooping around the cabinets one day at home and lo and behold I found a juicer my wife had brought with her when we were married. I cleaned it up and used it a few times and thought it was pretty good. I talked to some friends about it and kept seeing Jack Lalane on TV making juice and looking real healthy and strong in his eighties. Of course he is the picture of good health so I now started getting more curious. I began juicing about once or twice a month on the weekends when I would really try and get up and exercise and eat a healthy meal. A good friend of mine and I were discussing it one day and he too had a juicer but he said it was a pain to clean up after juicing and he just didn’t want to go through all the trouble very often. I knew he was right so we both just kept doing it once in a while mostly on weekends.

Late in 2006 I decided to try and get back into shape and eat better. After being embarrassed by my large manboobs I had had enough! I started buying more veggies and fruits and set the juicer up on the counter permanently. My goal was at least once a week then I decided twice a week. Well today I am shooting for every day now, sometimes twice a day!

I have found that juicing each day gives me a huge boost of energy and most of all it fills my body with live enzymes and all kinds of pure vitamins, minerals and nutrients. The benefits to the human body that come from juicing are tremendous! It acts as a detoxifying agent by causing the colon and liver to expel toxins that tend to build up over time after eating bad food and drinking sodas, alcohol and coffee for so many years. It also rebuilds cells since the live enzymes are the basic building blocks of the cells in your body. It cleanses the blood , lungs and kidneys. It is also said to help eyesight, skin and hair be rejuvenated. There is so much more to write about juicing I could go on and on.

Fortunately for me my good friend Jeff is also enjoying juicing as much as I am and we constantly challenge each other to juice each day. It is fun and so good for you I am hoping to keep this up and make it part of my life. The health benefits are enormous and will provide so much goodness for me and anyone who does it, I see it as a no brainer at this point. God made us to enjoy all this fresh food, not cooked and pasteurized food so when we go back to what our bodies were designed to be fed we are allowing ourselves a chance to heal and get back the vitality we were always suppose to have.

I am also working out again with weights and exercises like crunches and push-ups. I did not have the energy to do that before I started juicing regularly. I am well on my way to being back in good shape and in good health again for the first time in a decade. I hope my story can provide some information and inspiration to you to do the same thing.

My new motto is “Juicing is for Life!”

Tim & Dawn

Greetings and Salutations!

I have been up most of the night unable to sleep after attending the funeral service for my old friend Tim Rhyne yesterday. Tim, a strapping young fellow all of 46 years old was far too young to die. I suppose the good Lord needed a smart and savvy warrior up in heaven to prepare for an Epic battle of Supergalatic proportions. Tim was definitely they guy to help with the preparations for that.

Tim was a guy who had lots of friends and most of them were there yesterday. Many of us went back to his house afterward and had a celebration of sorts with Tim's brother Lyle and his wife Dawn along with a few other family members including Tim & Dawn's (not to be confused with Lyle's Dawn) kids, Dallas and Megan. Dallas was constantly amazing everyone with his playing the drums in the air as his fingers slapped against each other sounding like he was really beating an invisible drum while beautiful Megan was very busy running around with her friends and cousins and also reading some of the many letters her classmates had written to her.

Ray, Mark, Drew and I were hanging around with Lyle, Dawn, June, Marti and others sharing stories about Tim and looking at old photo's of Tim and Dawn's wedding and vacations. Captain Morgan was there and I think Sonic Man was also present somewhere. Of course Dawn passed away only about a month ago also of cancer and again much too soon for someone so young and beautiful. It is a sad tale no doubt and She is missed terribly too. I wish I had a picture of her here on my computer but I do not.

I myself feel lucky to have known them both. Although I was in no way Tim's closest or best friend. Hell at times he did not even like me I am sure. Yet we did go way back and there was a time in our lives, long ago, when we spent so much time together he was like one of my brothers.

Tim was a unique individual, as Mark was saying yesterday he was truly one of a kind, nobody else like him. God broke the mold I suppose on this one. Tim will be missed by so many people but he will never be forgotten. His Timizms will also carry on with each one of his friends.

Squibber, Sclib, Gibby, Baby Rhino, all great nicknames by the way. He was here with us so briefly now it seems but while he was here he made a tremendous impact on all those around him. Especially me. I always admired the guy and felt good knowing he was around somewhere even if I did not see him that often anymore.

Farewell brother Tim, may your days in heaven be long and peaceful.