first new post (photo test)
This is a photo test post. Here's Hayden & Aubree with Sawyer when we were at Lorne & Kelly's.
posted by Trask @ 10:37 PM
1 comments
Friday, September 30, 2005
This is a photo test post. Here's Hayden & Aubree with Sawyer when we were at Lorne & Kelly's.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Blogs from the Cavern (after Iraq)
09-26-05, Monday
2005-09-26 13:06:34
Back to normal. Well, we supposedly had a Category 5 hurricane heading straight for us. We were worried that our house would either be flooded or torn apart by the wind. Late Tuesday night we made the decision that we better get out of the area soon to beat the traffic rush. We starting checking for hotel rooms, but all hotels in every city we checked were already booked. Finally, I thought I'd give Lorne a call to see if he had anyone headed his way already. I was surprised to hear that no one was planning to go to his house, so I asked if we could go there.We spent several hours that night and all of Wednesday morning securing the house and yard, and packing up as much as we could fit into our two cars. We hit the road at about 11:30am and many of the local businesses were already starting to close down. We knew that we should totally go around Houston and avoid I-45 for as long as possible, so we drove to Brazoria and got on Highway 36. Shortly after we passed through West Columbia, we hit the big slowdown. Most of the trip from there to Rosenberg was at speeds around 5-10 mph. As we were almost out of Rosenberg, we got caught behind a wreck and were eventually told by police to turn around and go another way to get back on 36. When we finally got clear of Rosenberg, traffic ran at decent speeds for the rest of the trip (with brief slowdowns in a couple of other towns).This was the first lengthy trip our kids have taken. We had to stop several times for bathroom breaks and to let them have time out of the car. We also had Grandma following us in our other car and she has an aversion to driving fast. Add this to the fact that we drove way out of the way to avoid the worst traffic, and we didn't reach Lorne & Kelly's house (outside of Dallas) until about 10:00pm, I think.On Thursday morning, the news still had the storm as a Category 5 heading our way. Our kids were being their usual loud and rowdy selves, so we decided to get out of the house for a long time since Lorne & Kelly have a little baby (Sawyer), and we didn't want to keep waking him up. We spent lots of time on Thursday & Friday walking around the mall and other stores just to kill time and keep the kids occupied. We would have liked to be able to hang out with Lorne & Kelly more and to go out and do something together, but with all of our kids being the ages they are, it makes things difficult. A few years from now when the kids don't need constant attention, we can hopefully be more sociable.We started getting the word that the storm had weakened and changed course on Friday, but we wanted to wait until at least Saturday before returning home since those things are so unpredictable. By Saturday morning it was clear that our area wasn't hit hard, so we packed up and hit the road again. The trip home lasted about the same length as the trip up there. We had several spots of bumper-to-bumper traffic up North, but surprisingly the traffic got better the further South we went. I'm sure that it was a grueling trip for the rest of the family, but it didn't faze me much after the long plane trips I've been on the last year.The only sign of a storm at our home was lots of sticks and limbs in the yard. I spent all day Sunday cleaning up the yard. I've been doing yard work weekly all summer, and yesterday (when I had to be out there all day long) felt like the most humid day of all.Today is Monday, and I'm back to business as usual. I decided that I didn't have any legitimate reason not to go back to work today. There's still lots of people who haven't come back to work yet, but I'm guessing most of them will be back tomorrow. The roads aren't as bad as expected, so there's no reason that the city shouldn't be back to normal soon.All in all, Hurricane Rita turned out to be a big false alarm for our area. According to the meteorologists and their computer models, this storm had no reason to change course and weaken like it did. It was either great luck for us, or an "act of God". We did the right thing by evacuating. The traffic problems are going to cause many people not to evacuate next time, but a Category 5 storm is not something for coastal residents to take lightly. Hopefully our home will never be hit by such a storm. If I thought it was inevitable in our lifetimes, I would be planning to move elsewhere. However, I think it's entirely possible that we can continue to luckily avoid "the big one" in our lifetimes. If a career opportunity ever prompts me to move out of hurricane alley, I'll probably do it – but I'm not going to leave our home without having the financial stability to do it. The one good thing about hurricanes is that you do have advance warning that they are coming. The natural disasters (earthquakes, tornadoes, avalanches, etc.) that occur in other places come with no warning.Thanks again to Lorne & Kelly for welcoming us into your home and putting up with us. Hayden & Aubree loved seeing the "tiny baby" (and we did too). Anytime that we were in a different room than Sawyer, they would ask "Where's tiny baby at?" or "What's tiny baby doing?" Like I said, hopefully we can have a better visit sometime soon. We had our thoughts preoccupied with hurricane stuff most of the time we were there. It was good to see you guys again regardless.I'd better end this lengthy blog now. Adios amigos.
09-14-05, Wednesday
2005-09-14 12:30:17
Whew, I'm getting really bad about not blogging. I've honestly been too busy on all fronts lately to make time for it. I've been staying constantly busy at work, and the kids won't let me have a minute alone on the computer at home. Hopefully I'll be able to blog more frequently in the future.I'm once again involved in another church play. I was already hoping to be involved in our annual "Winter Wonderland" Christmas play after missing last year's event. This weekend I was recruited to be in the play that takes place during the annual Ladies' Banquet. I'll be playing King David in a play that ends up seeing a handful of noteworthy people being tried in a court before God, with Jesus and Satan being the opposing attorneys. It's a small role, and I only have a couple of lines so it should be quite easy. When I agreed to play David I assumed it would be a good role, even though it was a small one. It turns out that the focus of my part and the two lines I have are all about David's big sin – which is his affair with Bathsheeba (and of course having her husband killed by sending him to the front lines of a battle specifically to put him in that danger). So while there's tons of things for David to be proud of, I only get a reading by the narrator to mention the great things he did. My two lines have me looking at Bathsheeba and saying, "Oh, she's beautiful…who is that woman?" and "Bring her to me." We then walk offstage together while the narrator mentions us "doing it", so to speak. Of course while I'm on trial, Satan (played by Dennis Nugent) uses all of this against me. I'm sure you can guess that David is found not-guilty, but some of the other characters are not so lucky. Overall, I'm sure I'll have fun being involved, but it seems weird acting out the scene above. I've got to present myself as a cheater to an audience of women (including my wife). I don't mind playing a bad guy; in fact I got to play a terrorist during a skit at Celebrate America this year. Maybe I'm just strange, but I thought it was cool to play a terrorist in front of tons of people, but I don't feel that it will be cool to play a cheater in front of a church full of women. I'm sure everything will be fine. Hopefully I'll get a part in Winter Wonderland that I will be proud of.
08-23-05, Tuesday
2005-08-23 09:51:56
I sincerely apologize to my loyal reader for not blogging for the last week and a half. (Yes, I left that "s" off on purpose, ha ha.)We took the kids to the beach on Saturday and had a great time. Hayden likes to get in the water (if I'm holding on to him), but Aubree is still afraid of it. We can hold her out there for a minute with her feet in the water, but she starts to cry before too long. I brought one of those round floating blow-up things that I got free from work. Hayden and I got on it together and floated on the waves (in shallow water) for quite awhile. After that, I used my shovel to dig a hole in the sand and we built some towers. They never stand for long because Hayden likes to knock them down. Aubree decided that she wanted to sit in the hole, and she even let us cover up her lower body with sand. The last time we went, I couldn't get either one of them to do this, but this time they wanted to. I told Kimberly to take some pictures of her and then I decided to build her some silly looking long legs out of the sand. Once she was tired of being buried, Hayden decided that he wanted to do it. I had to re-dig the hole and ended up burying him a little deeper than I did Aubree. I built him a whole Superman body from the chest down. I would have made him some big arms too, but I didn't think he would be OK with having his arms buried for any length of time. I think I would be able to craft some really good sand sculptures if I had lots of time, but when dealing with the kids I have to rush everything. It came out looking decent, but I could do much better. While I was working on it, the ice cream truck came by so we all got ice cream bars. Hayden ate his while his body was buried. Our pictures of this are cute. While I was sculpting his body, he had ice cream dripped all over his face and on his sand chest. We left him buried there while we got most of our stuff cleaned off and put in the car. If he would have cried I would have gotten him out, but it was convenient to have him there while we picked up. I sure do have lots of pictures that I need to post – from the end of my time in Iraq through my newest pics. One of these days I'll get it done. I'll have to renew my membership with my photo site first.I wanted to go see the movie "The Great Raid" this weekend. Unfortunately it's not playing in Lake Jackson. I don't know why this is. I just don't know if I want to drive to Houston in order to see a movie. If you don't know, it's based on an actual prisoner rescue near the end of World War II. Maybe I'll go into more detail on it in the future.
08-11-05, Thursday
2005-08-11 20:44:39
I had to burn a vacation day yesterday. My car's battery died on me so I couldn't make it to work. Trying to coordinate getting myself and Kimberly to and from work and getting the car taken care of in one day is impossible to do with only one vehicle. Therefore I just decided to stay home and take car of the car. I ended up not only getting a new battery at Wal-Mart, but also having one of the battery cables replaced at an auto-shop. This car ends up breaking down on me at least once a year it seems. But however much we have to spend to get it fixed each time still comes out immensely cheaper than buying another car and making a monthly payment.Happy Birthday Shawn!
08-08-05, Monday
2005-08-08 15:20:04
Another weekend has come and gone. Since, as usual, we didn't do anything out of the ordinary, I'll tell you what our normal routine is. Over the course of our weekend we usually go to a store (often Target), we go visit my parents, we go to church, Kimberly takes the kids to Karla's house while I do the yard work, we get whatever projects done around the house that we find time for, we take care of whatever errands we need to, and we spend lots of time playing with and dealing with the kids. All of these things fill up our time.Kimberly did do something extra on Saturday that I just remembered. She went to the church that morning to work at the annual school supply handout that our church does.
08-04-05, Thursday
2005-08-04 15:40:20
The Supremes (part III)I had plenty I wanted to say on this issue, but I think my first two blogs on it were quite long and I don't want to bore my one or two readers to death. I'll be happy to discuss it further if anyone so desires. I'll just finish this up by letting you know (if you didn't already) who the originalists currently on the Court are. In order from the greatest originalist to the least greatest originalist they are: Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and William Rehnquist. It's iffy whether or not Rehnquist is a true originalist but he's close enough that he's far better than all of the remaining Justices. The liberals absolutely hate these men with a passion – especially Thomas and Scalia. The liberals have done and will continue to do everything in their power to keep these kinds of justices from being appointed to any federal court position. If just two more originalists could make it to the Supreme Court, the Constitution could start to be restored to its original intent. The Democratic Senators have been filibustering nearly all of President Bush's appointees to federal bench positions ever since he took office. Their blatant misuse of the filibuster is another topic that I could go on and on about, but I'll spare you that topic for now. With his first Supreme Court opening, Bush has purposefully chosen a "stealth" candidate (John Roberts) that we don't know enough about, specifically so that the liberals will have a harder time opposing his nomination. Bush had always promised to appoint someone in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. However with this "stealth" nominee, we don't know for sure what we're getting. Stealth nominees have never worked out well for Republicans in the past. All of them in recent history have ended up becoming liberal activists once they made it to the Supreme Court. We can only hope that Roberts is truly an originalist and will not turn out the same as previous stealth nominees. At this point, there's evidence that he will be an originalist, but there's also evidence that he might not be. Bush should not have been scared of the liberals and he should have appointed a known quantity. The stakes are much too high to take chances with the people who become Supreme Court Justices. After all, they're unaccountable to the public and they serve for life.
08-02-05, Tuesday
2005-08-02 17:51:45
(I'll get back to my previous topic later.)I took Friday and Monday off of work, which means that I had a four-day weekend. On Friday, I drove Kimberly to three different appointments. First we went to Houston to see her diabetes doctor. We found out that there is a new medicine out that will hopefully help to improve her health. I won't go into the details of it, but it sounded good. Next, we returned to Lake Jackson for a follow-up appointment at the family doctor. Everything went normal there. It turns out that the physician's assistant that she has been seeing there is Eric's cousin Debbie (Kimberly hadn't known her outside of the office). Finally, we went to the eye doctor for her checkup.On Monday I took Hayden for an early childhood development test at a Lake Jackson elementary school. Because he started talking late and still has trouble pronouncing some letters, Kimberly wanted to see if he needed or qualified for pre-K. After many different kinds of tests, they determined that he is above his age level in all of the categories except for speech. This confirmed what we already knew, but we wanted to make sure that he wasn't too far behind on speech, which would mean that he would need to attend the classes. The evaluators were only concerned about a few sounds that he should be pronouncing at his age. They didn't think that it was serious enough yet to put him in the classes. They recommended for us to continue working with him for another three months, and then to call the school at that time only if he hasn't improved.I saw Shawn for a few minutes this afternoon at work. He drove up to the Houston store with the normal Clute truck driver to pick up a new truck for their store. He told me about their trip to San Antonio last weekend.While I was in Iraq, we had one decent radio station to listen to. It was an Armed Forces Network called Freedom Radio. I ended up getting to know a lot of hit songs that I otherwise might not have heard much of. One of them that I like is "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw. The chorus starts with the words "I went skydiving…" We were listening to it in the car the other day and I told Kimberly that I'm going to go skydiving one of these days. I'll do it for one of my birthdays. I thought about either my 35th or 40th. I decided to go with my 35th because I don't want to wait too long and forget about it. It's one of those things that I want to do just so I can say that I did it. I'm sure it will be great fun, but it's also going to be as scary as it can be to actually jump out of the plane. Hopefully I won't back out when the time comes. Will anybody volunteer to go with me?
07-28-05, Thursday
2005-07-28 15:06:56
The Supremes (part II)The Justices on the Supreme Court should have an easy job. They don't have to concern themselves with the overwhelming number of laws in this nation when considering what their guidebook is. Their only guidebook is the U.S. Constitution. All rulings that they make are supposed to be based on what the Constitution says. If the Constitution doesn't touch on a particular topic, then (according to the Constitution itself) that topic is left up to the states to decide.Considering that there are countless issues that aren't addressed in the Constitution, the vast majority of cases that are presented to the Supreme Court should end up with the Court ruling that the matter is up to the individual states to decide. (This is where our elected lawmakers come into play. It is they that should set the guidelines on issues big and small, not the unelected and unaccountable judges.)On issues that are addressed in the Constitution, the Supreme Court is to decide what exactly the Constitution has to say about that issue. The division among the Justices comes here: if the matter at hand is addressed by the Constitution but this particular issue isn't spelled out 100%, should the Justice (a) consider what the original intent of the written words were, or (b) disregard what the original intent of the words were and reinterpret them to fit whatever his agenda is.Those who believe in using the original intent when interpreting the Constitution are known as "originalists." Lets look at an example of how an originalist would view the beginning of the 1st Amendment – which reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Now you could ask one hundred people to explain what those words mean and you would get some very different answers. In regards to an issue that has come up a lot lately – the display of a religious symbol on government property, what does the 1st Amendment have to say? An originalist would say that such things as a display featuring the Ten Commandments at a courthouse, a cross on a city memorial, or prayers in public schools in no way violate these words "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." In which of these cases is Congress making a law? In fact, it can be argued that preventing these examples would be akin to "prohibiting the free exercise thereof." If these words in the Constitution aren't clear, then let's consider what the intent was when they were written. Did the very founders of our nation who wrote and approved these words have any objections to the above examples when they served in the government? Did they believe that the display of religious symbols on government property was unconstitutional? Absolutely not. While they were in power, such displays were common. Did they believe that prayer in schools was unconstitutional? Absolutely not. Prayer was common in the schools and government functions of their day (and remained common until modern times). Ironically, the actions of the very men who gave us the Constitution would be considered unconstitutional by today's activist judges.Let's look at the part of the 5th Amendment dealing with property rights – "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." This is a topic that has been in the news lately. Note the words "public use." This has always been considered to mean that the government cannot take privately owned property away from its owners unless it is needed for such public uses as a road, a bridge, etc. – and of course just compensation must be given. Well, the Supreme Court recently decided that taking away private property and selling it to a private company is constitutional. The rationale is that if the local government believes that a private company will bring in more tax dollars than the current owner, then this qualifies as a "public use." This effectively means that nobody's property is safe. If Wal-Mart wants to tear down your house and build a store – hey that's "public use" because they will provide more tax dollars than you and your home do. If Bill Gates wants to tear down your house and build one with a higher property value – hey that's "public use." Never mind that you don't want to sell your property. Never mind that you – the owner, doesn't get to decide how much you want for the property. The government can decide that "just compensation" is $100,000 and sell your property for that amount even if you wouldn't consider anything under $500,000. Now anybody who isn't pushing a liberal "socialist" agenda will tell you that it is clear that the framers of the Constitution didn't intend on the 5th Amendment to be taken in this way. Go back and research the things they wrote about property rights and what they felt about it and it should be obvious that they never intended it to be taken this way.The examples are countless of how the Constitution has been distorted from it's original meaning by activist Justices in modern times. The Supreme Court is designed to be the guardians of the Constitution. They are supposed to keep the other branches of government from usurping the Constitution. But what happens when the majority of Justices on the Court are themselves the prime usurpers of the Constitution? The very foundation of our nation is crumbling because this is indeed the case.I'll go ahead and bring up the "biggie," the number one issue the liberals cling to so dearly – the "right to an abortion." Who makes the laws in America? The Supreme Court? No, no, heck no! Our elected representatives are the ones who are supposed to make the law (and these laws must be in line with the Constitution.) Therefore, it was elected congresses of most of the states that used to have laws that made abortion illegal. That is, until the Supreme Court of the '70s suddenly found a "right to an abortion" in the Constitution that no one had ever noticed in there before. This is the purest example of judicial activism. If you can't get your agenda passed through the democratic process, then get likeminded Justices on the bench and go around the will of the people to inact your agenda. This is "legislating from the bench". No matter whether you are "pro-life" or "pro-choice", Roe v. Wade was a bad ruling. The Constitution does not comment on abortion, therefore the Supreme Court had no right to circumvent the will of the states with its activist ruling. What everyone needs to realize is that if Roe v. Wade ever gets overturned, it will not mean the abortions are illegal. It will simply mean that the states would be free (as they should be) to decide the matter for themselves.I'll leave you with the 10th Amendment to the Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."(to be continued)
07-26-05, Tuesday
2005-07-26 15:29:22
The Supremes (part I)With a recent vacancy to the Court and a new nomination having been made, I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about the United States Supreme Court. Sadly, most of you probably know next to nothing about the Supreme Court and could care less. This is most unfortunate, but bear with me and I'll seek to educate you a little bit. With the power that activist judges have taken upon themselves in this country, every one of us should know what's at stake and we should be extremely concerned about who gets appointed to the Court.First, let's talk about the correct role of judges in this country. In theory, it shouldn't matter what a judge's personal beliefs are. It shouldn't matter whether he is a liberal or conservative. If he sticks to his proper role, his job is merely to apply the law – which means that he should decide cases based on what the law says and not be influenced to distort the law to fit his own personal ideology.Activist judges are those that act as if it is their job to establish law. These types of judges come up with rulings that have no solid basis in our established laws. Sometimes it is an instance of them simply trying to "do the right thing" in a particular case, such as not letting a bad guy get off on a technicality when we may have a stupid law on the books that needs to be changed. But most of the time, activist judges are trying to push their ideology even when their ideology goes against the current laws. It just so happens that the vast majority of activist judges come from the "liberal" side of the aisle. This is a tactic that the left embraces because they can't force their agenda on the nation in any other way.The U.S. Constitution is the law of the land here. It is a brilliant document written by brilliant men (some even believe it was divinely inspired). It has served our nation well for over 200 years. Our founders and the Constitution that they established set the stage that made this the greatest nation ever. The Constitution specifically lays out the role of the federal government. It also says that anything that isn't covered within that role is to be left up to the individual states.The laws that are passed in America (either at the state or national level) must not violate anything in the Constitution, or else they are ruled "unconstitutional". The role of passing laws goes to our elected representatives. In this way, it is the people that have the ultimate say: if our elected representatives are not doing the will of the people, then it is our job to elect someone who will. Any representative knows that if he does the exact opposite of what the majority of his constituents want him to do, he will pay the price for it.Because the liberals can't impose their views on the country through the legislative system, they seek to do it through the judicial system. Unelected judges who serve for life hold an enormous amount of power. They are accountable to no one and are free to rule based on their agenda. When it comes to the Supreme Court, their decisions are absolute. If they decide to circumvent the Constitution, no one can stop them. The Constitution becomes what they want it to be rather than what it's original intent was.(to be continued)
07-25-05, Monday
2005-07-25 13:47:53
Back on the blog. I've been absent from blogging for so long that I'm sure no one is even coming here expecting to see anything from me anymore. Darve apparently isn't using this site anymore, and Dan rarely posts here, so I don't know what will become of the Cavern. I was just telling Kimberly yesterday that I'd like to get back to posting photos and to have a site where our family can keep up with us. I'll probably have to find a new place to use, but for now I'll keep using the Cavern.Yesterday we went to Van Vleck to see Lorne, Kelly, and their new baby Sawyer (plus other family members that we hadn't seen in ages). It was great to see them all. It's a shame that we can't see them more often. Tyron & Lorne were like brothers to me when we were growing up. Even though Tyron turned out to be a punk (ha ha), he's still fun to hang out with. I told Lorne that we need to go visit them sometime, but who knows when that will be. It would be a real pain to take the kids on a long trip, and I know that they would be likely to misbehave while we were there, but sooner or later we'll have to do it anyway.It was yesterday's "reunion" that inspired me to get back to having an online presence. As you may know, Kelly has a site (www.aggiefamily.net) where she blogs and posts family photos. She asked if we had been reading it, and I said yes. I've enjoyed seeing their photos and being able to keep up with them. I know that Darve has his own family site separate from the Cavern, and that Karla has long had a site for the Nugent family. However, if people are going to read your site you have to post something frequently. If they check it several times and never see any updates, most people will quit checking altogether – that's just human nature. Therefore, I'm going to attempt to start posting on a regular basis again (which is extremely hard now that I'm back home and the kids don't let me do anything). I'll keep using the Cavern until I get around to setting up something elsewhere.If anyone was using my Halliburton account to email me, you should know that's been invalid for a couple of months or more. My work account now is tsmith@wholesaleelectric.com and my home account is trasksmith@hotmail.com.
2005-09-26 13:06:34
Back to normal. Well, we supposedly had a Category 5 hurricane heading straight for us. We were worried that our house would either be flooded or torn apart by the wind. Late Tuesday night we made the decision that we better get out of the area soon to beat the traffic rush. We starting checking for hotel rooms, but all hotels in every city we checked were already booked. Finally, I thought I'd give Lorne a call to see if he had anyone headed his way already. I was surprised to hear that no one was planning to go to his house, so I asked if we could go there.We spent several hours that night and all of Wednesday morning securing the house and yard, and packing up as much as we could fit into our two cars. We hit the road at about 11:30am and many of the local businesses were already starting to close down. We knew that we should totally go around Houston and avoid I-45 for as long as possible, so we drove to Brazoria and got on Highway 36. Shortly after we passed through West Columbia, we hit the big slowdown. Most of the trip from there to Rosenberg was at speeds around 5-10 mph. As we were almost out of Rosenberg, we got caught behind a wreck and were eventually told by police to turn around and go another way to get back on 36. When we finally got clear of Rosenberg, traffic ran at decent speeds for the rest of the trip (with brief slowdowns in a couple of other towns).This was the first lengthy trip our kids have taken. We had to stop several times for bathroom breaks and to let them have time out of the car. We also had Grandma following us in our other car and she has an aversion to driving fast. Add this to the fact that we drove way out of the way to avoid the worst traffic, and we didn't reach Lorne & Kelly's house (outside of Dallas) until about 10:00pm, I think.On Thursday morning, the news still had the storm as a Category 5 heading our way. Our kids were being their usual loud and rowdy selves, so we decided to get out of the house for a long time since Lorne & Kelly have a little baby (Sawyer), and we didn't want to keep waking him up. We spent lots of time on Thursday & Friday walking around the mall and other stores just to kill time and keep the kids occupied. We would have liked to be able to hang out with Lorne & Kelly more and to go out and do something together, but with all of our kids being the ages they are, it makes things difficult. A few years from now when the kids don't need constant attention, we can hopefully be more sociable.We started getting the word that the storm had weakened and changed course on Friday, but we wanted to wait until at least Saturday before returning home since those things are so unpredictable. By Saturday morning it was clear that our area wasn't hit hard, so we packed up and hit the road again. The trip home lasted about the same length as the trip up there. We had several spots of bumper-to-bumper traffic up North, but surprisingly the traffic got better the further South we went. I'm sure that it was a grueling trip for the rest of the family, but it didn't faze me much after the long plane trips I've been on the last year.The only sign of a storm at our home was lots of sticks and limbs in the yard. I spent all day Sunday cleaning up the yard. I've been doing yard work weekly all summer, and yesterday (when I had to be out there all day long) felt like the most humid day of all.Today is Monday, and I'm back to business as usual. I decided that I didn't have any legitimate reason not to go back to work today. There's still lots of people who haven't come back to work yet, but I'm guessing most of them will be back tomorrow. The roads aren't as bad as expected, so there's no reason that the city shouldn't be back to normal soon.All in all, Hurricane Rita turned out to be a big false alarm for our area. According to the meteorologists and their computer models, this storm had no reason to change course and weaken like it did. It was either great luck for us, or an "act of God". We did the right thing by evacuating. The traffic problems are going to cause many people not to evacuate next time, but a Category 5 storm is not something for coastal residents to take lightly. Hopefully our home will never be hit by such a storm. If I thought it was inevitable in our lifetimes, I would be planning to move elsewhere. However, I think it's entirely possible that we can continue to luckily avoid "the big one" in our lifetimes. If a career opportunity ever prompts me to move out of hurricane alley, I'll probably do it – but I'm not going to leave our home without having the financial stability to do it. The one good thing about hurricanes is that you do have advance warning that they are coming. The natural disasters (earthquakes, tornadoes, avalanches, etc.) that occur in other places come with no warning.Thanks again to Lorne & Kelly for welcoming us into your home and putting up with us. Hayden & Aubree loved seeing the "tiny baby" (and we did too). Anytime that we were in a different room than Sawyer, they would ask "Where's tiny baby at?" or "What's tiny baby doing?" Like I said, hopefully we can have a better visit sometime soon. We had our thoughts preoccupied with hurricane stuff most of the time we were there. It was good to see you guys again regardless.I'd better end this lengthy blog now. Adios amigos.
09-14-05, Wednesday
2005-09-14 12:30:17
Whew, I'm getting really bad about not blogging. I've honestly been too busy on all fronts lately to make time for it. I've been staying constantly busy at work, and the kids won't let me have a minute alone on the computer at home. Hopefully I'll be able to blog more frequently in the future.I'm once again involved in another church play. I was already hoping to be involved in our annual "Winter Wonderland" Christmas play after missing last year's event. This weekend I was recruited to be in the play that takes place during the annual Ladies' Banquet. I'll be playing King David in a play that ends up seeing a handful of noteworthy people being tried in a court before God, with Jesus and Satan being the opposing attorneys. It's a small role, and I only have a couple of lines so it should be quite easy. When I agreed to play David I assumed it would be a good role, even though it was a small one. It turns out that the focus of my part and the two lines I have are all about David's big sin – which is his affair with Bathsheeba (and of course having her husband killed by sending him to the front lines of a battle specifically to put him in that danger). So while there's tons of things for David to be proud of, I only get a reading by the narrator to mention the great things he did. My two lines have me looking at Bathsheeba and saying, "Oh, she's beautiful…who is that woman?" and "Bring her to me." We then walk offstage together while the narrator mentions us "doing it", so to speak. Of course while I'm on trial, Satan (played by Dennis Nugent) uses all of this against me. I'm sure you can guess that David is found not-guilty, but some of the other characters are not so lucky. Overall, I'm sure I'll have fun being involved, but it seems weird acting out the scene above. I've got to present myself as a cheater to an audience of women (including my wife). I don't mind playing a bad guy; in fact I got to play a terrorist during a skit at Celebrate America this year. Maybe I'm just strange, but I thought it was cool to play a terrorist in front of tons of people, but I don't feel that it will be cool to play a cheater in front of a church full of women. I'm sure everything will be fine. Hopefully I'll get a part in Winter Wonderland that I will be proud of.
08-23-05, Tuesday
2005-08-23 09:51:56
I sincerely apologize to my loyal reader for not blogging for the last week and a half. (Yes, I left that "s" off on purpose, ha ha.)We took the kids to the beach on Saturday and had a great time. Hayden likes to get in the water (if I'm holding on to him), but Aubree is still afraid of it. We can hold her out there for a minute with her feet in the water, but she starts to cry before too long. I brought one of those round floating blow-up things that I got free from work. Hayden and I got on it together and floated on the waves (in shallow water) for quite awhile. After that, I used my shovel to dig a hole in the sand and we built some towers. They never stand for long because Hayden likes to knock them down. Aubree decided that she wanted to sit in the hole, and she even let us cover up her lower body with sand. The last time we went, I couldn't get either one of them to do this, but this time they wanted to. I told Kimberly to take some pictures of her and then I decided to build her some silly looking long legs out of the sand. Once she was tired of being buried, Hayden decided that he wanted to do it. I had to re-dig the hole and ended up burying him a little deeper than I did Aubree. I built him a whole Superman body from the chest down. I would have made him some big arms too, but I didn't think he would be OK with having his arms buried for any length of time. I think I would be able to craft some really good sand sculptures if I had lots of time, but when dealing with the kids I have to rush everything. It came out looking decent, but I could do much better. While I was working on it, the ice cream truck came by so we all got ice cream bars. Hayden ate his while his body was buried. Our pictures of this are cute. While I was sculpting his body, he had ice cream dripped all over his face and on his sand chest. We left him buried there while we got most of our stuff cleaned off and put in the car. If he would have cried I would have gotten him out, but it was convenient to have him there while we picked up. I sure do have lots of pictures that I need to post – from the end of my time in Iraq through my newest pics. One of these days I'll get it done. I'll have to renew my membership with my photo site first.I wanted to go see the movie "The Great Raid" this weekend. Unfortunately it's not playing in Lake Jackson. I don't know why this is. I just don't know if I want to drive to Houston in order to see a movie. If you don't know, it's based on an actual prisoner rescue near the end of World War II. Maybe I'll go into more detail on it in the future.
08-11-05, Thursday
2005-08-11 20:44:39
I had to burn a vacation day yesterday. My car's battery died on me so I couldn't make it to work. Trying to coordinate getting myself and Kimberly to and from work and getting the car taken care of in one day is impossible to do with only one vehicle. Therefore I just decided to stay home and take car of the car. I ended up not only getting a new battery at Wal-Mart, but also having one of the battery cables replaced at an auto-shop. This car ends up breaking down on me at least once a year it seems. But however much we have to spend to get it fixed each time still comes out immensely cheaper than buying another car and making a monthly payment.Happy Birthday Shawn!
08-08-05, Monday
2005-08-08 15:20:04
Another weekend has come and gone. Since, as usual, we didn't do anything out of the ordinary, I'll tell you what our normal routine is. Over the course of our weekend we usually go to a store (often Target), we go visit my parents, we go to church, Kimberly takes the kids to Karla's house while I do the yard work, we get whatever projects done around the house that we find time for, we take care of whatever errands we need to, and we spend lots of time playing with and dealing with the kids. All of these things fill up our time.Kimberly did do something extra on Saturday that I just remembered. She went to the church that morning to work at the annual school supply handout that our church does.
08-04-05, Thursday
2005-08-04 15:40:20
The Supremes (part III)I had plenty I wanted to say on this issue, but I think my first two blogs on it were quite long and I don't want to bore my one or two readers to death. I'll be happy to discuss it further if anyone so desires. I'll just finish this up by letting you know (if you didn't already) who the originalists currently on the Court are. In order from the greatest originalist to the least greatest originalist they are: Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and William Rehnquist. It's iffy whether or not Rehnquist is a true originalist but he's close enough that he's far better than all of the remaining Justices. The liberals absolutely hate these men with a passion – especially Thomas and Scalia. The liberals have done and will continue to do everything in their power to keep these kinds of justices from being appointed to any federal court position. If just two more originalists could make it to the Supreme Court, the Constitution could start to be restored to its original intent. The Democratic Senators have been filibustering nearly all of President Bush's appointees to federal bench positions ever since he took office. Their blatant misuse of the filibuster is another topic that I could go on and on about, but I'll spare you that topic for now. With his first Supreme Court opening, Bush has purposefully chosen a "stealth" candidate (John Roberts) that we don't know enough about, specifically so that the liberals will have a harder time opposing his nomination. Bush had always promised to appoint someone in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. However with this "stealth" nominee, we don't know for sure what we're getting. Stealth nominees have never worked out well for Republicans in the past. All of them in recent history have ended up becoming liberal activists once they made it to the Supreme Court. We can only hope that Roberts is truly an originalist and will not turn out the same as previous stealth nominees. At this point, there's evidence that he will be an originalist, but there's also evidence that he might not be. Bush should not have been scared of the liberals and he should have appointed a known quantity. The stakes are much too high to take chances with the people who become Supreme Court Justices. After all, they're unaccountable to the public and they serve for life.
08-02-05, Tuesday
2005-08-02 17:51:45
(I'll get back to my previous topic later.)I took Friday and Monday off of work, which means that I had a four-day weekend. On Friday, I drove Kimberly to three different appointments. First we went to Houston to see her diabetes doctor. We found out that there is a new medicine out that will hopefully help to improve her health. I won't go into the details of it, but it sounded good. Next, we returned to Lake Jackson for a follow-up appointment at the family doctor. Everything went normal there. It turns out that the physician's assistant that she has been seeing there is Eric's cousin Debbie (Kimberly hadn't known her outside of the office). Finally, we went to the eye doctor for her checkup.On Monday I took Hayden for an early childhood development test at a Lake Jackson elementary school. Because he started talking late and still has trouble pronouncing some letters, Kimberly wanted to see if he needed or qualified for pre-K. After many different kinds of tests, they determined that he is above his age level in all of the categories except for speech. This confirmed what we already knew, but we wanted to make sure that he wasn't too far behind on speech, which would mean that he would need to attend the classes. The evaluators were only concerned about a few sounds that he should be pronouncing at his age. They didn't think that it was serious enough yet to put him in the classes. They recommended for us to continue working with him for another three months, and then to call the school at that time only if he hasn't improved.I saw Shawn for a few minutes this afternoon at work. He drove up to the Houston store with the normal Clute truck driver to pick up a new truck for their store. He told me about their trip to San Antonio last weekend.While I was in Iraq, we had one decent radio station to listen to. It was an Armed Forces Network called Freedom Radio. I ended up getting to know a lot of hit songs that I otherwise might not have heard much of. One of them that I like is "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw. The chorus starts with the words "I went skydiving…" We were listening to it in the car the other day and I told Kimberly that I'm going to go skydiving one of these days. I'll do it for one of my birthdays. I thought about either my 35th or 40th. I decided to go with my 35th because I don't want to wait too long and forget about it. It's one of those things that I want to do just so I can say that I did it. I'm sure it will be great fun, but it's also going to be as scary as it can be to actually jump out of the plane. Hopefully I won't back out when the time comes. Will anybody volunteer to go with me?
07-28-05, Thursday
2005-07-28 15:06:56
The Supremes (part II)The Justices on the Supreme Court should have an easy job. They don't have to concern themselves with the overwhelming number of laws in this nation when considering what their guidebook is. Their only guidebook is the U.S. Constitution. All rulings that they make are supposed to be based on what the Constitution says. If the Constitution doesn't touch on a particular topic, then (according to the Constitution itself) that topic is left up to the states to decide.Considering that there are countless issues that aren't addressed in the Constitution, the vast majority of cases that are presented to the Supreme Court should end up with the Court ruling that the matter is up to the individual states to decide. (This is where our elected lawmakers come into play. It is they that should set the guidelines on issues big and small, not the unelected and unaccountable judges.)On issues that are addressed in the Constitution, the Supreme Court is to decide what exactly the Constitution has to say about that issue. The division among the Justices comes here: if the matter at hand is addressed by the Constitution but this particular issue isn't spelled out 100%, should the Justice (a) consider what the original intent of the written words were, or (b) disregard what the original intent of the words were and reinterpret them to fit whatever his agenda is.Those who believe in using the original intent when interpreting the Constitution are known as "originalists." Lets look at an example of how an originalist would view the beginning of the 1st Amendment – which reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Now you could ask one hundred people to explain what those words mean and you would get some very different answers. In regards to an issue that has come up a lot lately – the display of a religious symbol on government property, what does the 1st Amendment have to say? An originalist would say that such things as a display featuring the Ten Commandments at a courthouse, a cross on a city memorial, or prayers in public schools in no way violate these words "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." In which of these cases is Congress making a law? In fact, it can be argued that preventing these examples would be akin to "prohibiting the free exercise thereof." If these words in the Constitution aren't clear, then let's consider what the intent was when they were written. Did the very founders of our nation who wrote and approved these words have any objections to the above examples when they served in the government? Did they believe that the display of religious symbols on government property was unconstitutional? Absolutely not. While they were in power, such displays were common. Did they believe that prayer in schools was unconstitutional? Absolutely not. Prayer was common in the schools and government functions of their day (and remained common until modern times). Ironically, the actions of the very men who gave us the Constitution would be considered unconstitutional by today's activist judges.Let's look at the part of the 5th Amendment dealing with property rights – "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." This is a topic that has been in the news lately. Note the words "public use." This has always been considered to mean that the government cannot take privately owned property away from its owners unless it is needed for such public uses as a road, a bridge, etc. – and of course just compensation must be given. Well, the Supreme Court recently decided that taking away private property and selling it to a private company is constitutional. The rationale is that if the local government believes that a private company will bring in more tax dollars than the current owner, then this qualifies as a "public use." This effectively means that nobody's property is safe. If Wal-Mart wants to tear down your house and build a store – hey that's "public use" because they will provide more tax dollars than you and your home do. If Bill Gates wants to tear down your house and build one with a higher property value – hey that's "public use." Never mind that you don't want to sell your property. Never mind that you – the owner, doesn't get to decide how much you want for the property. The government can decide that "just compensation" is $100,000 and sell your property for that amount even if you wouldn't consider anything under $500,000. Now anybody who isn't pushing a liberal "socialist" agenda will tell you that it is clear that the framers of the Constitution didn't intend on the 5th Amendment to be taken in this way. Go back and research the things they wrote about property rights and what they felt about it and it should be obvious that they never intended it to be taken this way.The examples are countless of how the Constitution has been distorted from it's original meaning by activist Justices in modern times. The Supreme Court is designed to be the guardians of the Constitution. They are supposed to keep the other branches of government from usurping the Constitution. But what happens when the majority of Justices on the Court are themselves the prime usurpers of the Constitution? The very foundation of our nation is crumbling because this is indeed the case.I'll go ahead and bring up the "biggie," the number one issue the liberals cling to so dearly – the "right to an abortion." Who makes the laws in America? The Supreme Court? No, no, heck no! Our elected representatives are the ones who are supposed to make the law (and these laws must be in line with the Constitution.) Therefore, it was elected congresses of most of the states that used to have laws that made abortion illegal. That is, until the Supreme Court of the '70s suddenly found a "right to an abortion" in the Constitution that no one had ever noticed in there before. This is the purest example of judicial activism. If you can't get your agenda passed through the democratic process, then get likeminded Justices on the bench and go around the will of the people to inact your agenda. This is "legislating from the bench". No matter whether you are "pro-life" or "pro-choice", Roe v. Wade was a bad ruling. The Constitution does not comment on abortion, therefore the Supreme Court had no right to circumvent the will of the states with its activist ruling. What everyone needs to realize is that if Roe v. Wade ever gets overturned, it will not mean the abortions are illegal. It will simply mean that the states would be free (as they should be) to decide the matter for themselves.I'll leave you with the 10th Amendment to the Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."(to be continued)
07-26-05, Tuesday
2005-07-26 15:29:22
The Supremes (part I)With a recent vacancy to the Court and a new nomination having been made, I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about the United States Supreme Court. Sadly, most of you probably know next to nothing about the Supreme Court and could care less. This is most unfortunate, but bear with me and I'll seek to educate you a little bit. With the power that activist judges have taken upon themselves in this country, every one of us should know what's at stake and we should be extremely concerned about who gets appointed to the Court.First, let's talk about the correct role of judges in this country. In theory, it shouldn't matter what a judge's personal beliefs are. It shouldn't matter whether he is a liberal or conservative. If he sticks to his proper role, his job is merely to apply the law – which means that he should decide cases based on what the law says and not be influenced to distort the law to fit his own personal ideology.Activist judges are those that act as if it is their job to establish law. These types of judges come up with rulings that have no solid basis in our established laws. Sometimes it is an instance of them simply trying to "do the right thing" in a particular case, such as not letting a bad guy get off on a technicality when we may have a stupid law on the books that needs to be changed. But most of the time, activist judges are trying to push their ideology even when their ideology goes against the current laws. It just so happens that the vast majority of activist judges come from the "liberal" side of the aisle. This is a tactic that the left embraces because they can't force their agenda on the nation in any other way.The U.S. Constitution is the law of the land here. It is a brilliant document written by brilliant men (some even believe it was divinely inspired). It has served our nation well for over 200 years. Our founders and the Constitution that they established set the stage that made this the greatest nation ever. The Constitution specifically lays out the role of the federal government. It also says that anything that isn't covered within that role is to be left up to the individual states.The laws that are passed in America (either at the state or national level) must not violate anything in the Constitution, or else they are ruled "unconstitutional". The role of passing laws goes to our elected representatives. In this way, it is the people that have the ultimate say: if our elected representatives are not doing the will of the people, then it is our job to elect someone who will. Any representative knows that if he does the exact opposite of what the majority of his constituents want him to do, he will pay the price for it.Because the liberals can't impose their views on the country through the legislative system, they seek to do it through the judicial system. Unelected judges who serve for life hold an enormous amount of power. They are accountable to no one and are free to rule based on their agenda. When it comes to the Supreme Court, their decisions are absolute. If they decide to circumvent the Constitution, no one can stop them. The Constitution becomes what they want it to be rather than what it's original intent was.(to be continued)
07-25-05, Monday
2005-07-25 13:47:53
Back on the blog. I've been absent from blogging for so long that I'm sure no one is even coming here expecting to see anything from me anymore. Darve apparently isn't using this site anymore, and Dan rarely posts here, so I don't know what will become of the Cavern. I was just telling Kimberly yesterday that I'd like to get back to posting photos and to have a site where our family can keep up with us. I'll probably have to find a new place to use, but for now I'll keep using the Cavern.Yesterday we went to Van Vleck to see Lorne, Kelly, and their new baby Sawyer (plus other family members that we hadn't seen in ages). It was great to see them all. It's a shame that we can't see them more often. Tyron & Lorne were like brothers to me when we were growing up. Even though Tyron turned out to be a punk (ha ha), he's still fun to hang out with. I told Lorne that we need to go visit them sometime, but who knows when that will be. It would be a real pain to take the kids on a long trip, and I know that they would be likely to misbehave while we were there, but sooner or later we'll have to do it anyway.It was yesterday's "reunion" that inspired me to get back to having an online presence. As you may know, Kelly has a site (www.aggiefamily.net) where she blogs and posts family photos. She asked if we had been reading it, and I said yes. I've enjoyed seeing their photos and being able to keep up with them. I know that Darve has his own family site separate from the Cavern, and that Karla has long had a site for the Nugent family. However, if people are going to read your site you have to post something frequently. If they check it several times and never see any updates, most people will quit checking altogether – that's just human nature. Therefore, I'm going to attempt to start posting on a regular basis again (which is extremely hard now that I'm back home and the kids don't let me do anything). I'll keep using the Cavern until I get around to setting up something elsewhere.If anyone was using my Halliburton account to email me, you should know that's been invalid for a couple of months or more. My work account now is tsmith@wholesaleelectric.com and my home account is trasksmith@hotmail.com.
posted by Trask @ 11:06 AM
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