Fun stuff

I've been having fun recently playing around with the macro setting on my Canon Powershot digital camera and I thought I would share some fun pictures I took of these close-ups.

He's the one...

Listen to this video. I wish Colin Powel was running for President.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27265369/

A survey for all you parents out there

I have a question for all you parents out there. We all know that as parents we try to raise our children to be polite, not rude, and show respect. The children that always, or almost always, follow all the rules are the easiest to raise.

Here's my question and it pertains to attending school: Would you prefer to have a child that follows all or most of the rules in school, does ALL their homework on time and gets 'A's nearly all the time OR would you prefer to have a child that stretches the rules, breaking a few here and there; picks and chooses the subjects they want to do well in; and only gets 'A's in those same subjects, just squeaking by in the rest of the subjects?

In order to keep the focus as asked above, let's say that all the kids have learned and practice their manners well and know how to show respect to teachers and students.

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on this. I have a theory as to the outcome later in life as to the two (out of many, I know) types of personalities I've outlined.

More counts

I have two walks to report on. Friday's walk was in the same area as my October 9th post, a more affluent neighborhood. It's a very nice area and I saw a couple homes that would suit me just fine. The count on Friday showed the same outcome as the count on the neighboring streets, 12 Obama yard signs, 9 houses for sale, and 13 McCain lawn signs. So a very minute lead for McCain.

Today's walk was a repeat of the previous walk on September 25th. I wanted to see how the signage was comparing given that a bit of time has elapsed. On September 25th the count was 21 signs for Obama and 10 for McCain. The number of houses for sale was 26. I walked the same 3.8 mile route today and found 29 signs for Obama, 20 houses for sale (no sold signs so I'm thinking the other 6 have just taken their houses off the market or I miscounted), and 19 signs for McCain. So we had 8 new signs for Obama and 9 new for McCain and Obama keeps his lead.

It's an interesting thing to do on a walk; it keeps me hoofing it with a rhythm. I'm sure when people see me with my lips moving they either think I'm talking on a blue-tooth phone or singing to myself. Oh, well.

Ahhh! I found a McCain foothold

Today I walked in a new neighborhood for me; it's in my city but about 2 miles from my house. This neighborhood is probably 2 levels above mine. This is where the norm is to have a 3 car garage and where there were a number of houses that had 4 car and more car garages. One house I passed had 6 cars in the driveway. I looked around the side of the house to see if it was possibly a house that rented out space but couldn't come to any conclusions.

So here is today's count: 12 Obama yard signs, 9 houses for sale, and 13 McCain signs. This is the first walk that showed more McCain signs than Obama. Tomorrow I plan on walking in this same area only on different streets.

One uplifting thing I saw was 2 - count them - 2 - houses SOLD! Those house were not included in my 'houses for sale' count. Just to see those 4 letters on the signs were encouraging. I would like to know how much they sold for and what they were worth 4 years ago. We feel very fortunate to be planning on staying in our house for at least another 6 years, until my daughter, Hannah, is out of high school. Possibly by then the market will turn around enough for us to make KILLING (you know, able to pay off what we owe).

We're at the bottom, right? No where to go but up.

Today's count

My 3.5 mile walk today took me through a different neighborhood than I've counted in before. This neighborhood is still in my city but it's in an area with homes a step or two above ours. (I consider our area of Birmingham to be the third level up of about 5 or 6 levels, based on home prices.) It didn't surprise me that there were fewer homes for sale, just 9 total. I did see one home with a bright sticker on it naming the real estate company that owned it so I figured it was a foreclosed home. The area that I previously walked where there were 35 homes for sale is in the area I consider to be the bottom level of Birmingham. So maybe something can be read into those stats.

As for the count of lawn signs, I was totally surprised by what I counted. I figured with the higher income area than my previous counts there would possibly be more McCain signs than Obama. Not the case. I counted 13 Obama signs and....ZERO McCain signs. Zero. That, I think, says a lot. No wonder McCain pulled out of Michigan. Based on my counts, he doesn't have a snowball's chance in my bed of winning here! (I have a heating pad under the covers for my cold feet :)

The Keating story

I know everyone is getting sick of this election but what I'm getting sick of is the Republicans trying to dig up dirt. I think it's appalling and despicable to allow this:

At a Palin rally here, Lee County (Fla.) Sheriff Mike Scott took the stage to introduce the candidate and yelled: “On Nov. 4th, let’s leave Barack Hussein Obama wondering what happened!”


I can imagine how angry this makes Obama and his camp. Even if it is his middle name the reason behind using it is underhanded. McCain's resorting to scumball tactics because he knows nothing else is working.

Everyone needs to keep in mind the role John McCain played in 'The Keating 5.'

Watch this video. It explains a lot that maybe we've all forgotten.