The Land of Ozz

Our family hosted a pizza party this passed weekend. The party was very family friendly and did not have any beer, but did end up with a deer. More on the deer in a minute. We had about twenty five friends over for lunch including their children. It was a great time to celebrate the beginning of a New Year. The weather was great for grilling the pizza. Sherry and I have decided to make this an annual event. We intended to have the party on New Years Eve, but ALL of our boys ended up sick enough to be put on antibiotics a few days before the big event. Our two oldest, Riley and Caden were even put on breathing treatments due to wheezing. The big plan was to have a mock up of the “ball drop” at 7PM on New Years Eve in celebration of Zulu New Year. The Zulu New Year was an idea some of us dad’s came up with we would not miss out on the coming in of the New Year…somewhere.

Anyway, about the deer. The big event of the day for me came when I sat down with my good friend Chad after most of the guest had departed. Chad and I were enjoying the cool breeze on the screened porch as we looked out over our backyard into the wetlands protected area behind our house. Chad asked if I had ever seen any deer in my backyard or in the wetlands. I told him no, but I had seen deer tracks. He went on to tell me about the deer he saw in his backyard a few days earlier. Well, it was about 5 or 10 minutes after Chad asked me about the deer when we both just happened to be looking in the same direction at my next door neighbor’s yard. My neighbor has a privacy fence and we were entertained by the leaves swarming up over the hight of the fence as he used his leaf blower. Then, in the flash of an eye, a full grown whitetail doe came flying through my yard (front to back). I could barely believe my eyes. I told Chad that I was so glad we were both looking in that same direction at that moment because he would never have believed me if he had not seen it for himself. I have lived in this house for six and a half years and never once seen a deer. I had not five minuted earlier told Chad as much and then there comes a deer out of my front yard.

A few minutes later my new neighbor from three doors down came walking up. He introduced himself and asked if we saw that deer run through the yard. He said it came running right past him as he was sweeping his driveway and then it took a hard turn into my yard. I think he was as surprised by it as we were and maybe he just wanted someone to verify that he was not crazy.

It was an unbelievable end to a great pizza party to see a full grown deer run through the yard at 2pm. I think the next time Chad comes over, I would like for him to ask me if I have ever seen bags full of $100 bills fall from the sky into my backyard.

I meant to post this a couple of hours ago, but could not get to it until now. I guess some sailors in the mid Atlantic will be turning the calendar over to 2008 in a few minutes.

For all you non-military types, Zulu is the equivalent of Greenwich Mean Time.  We are in Romeo Time also known as EST which is Zulu minus five hours.  So the New Year celebration would have happened at 7pm if I had been on my game.

All joking aside. I do wish all of my readers a very happy and safe New Year and many blessings.

Below are the comments I left over at BigDaddyGib on this subject. I felt it was worth blogging about after finding other bloggers with similar concerns.

“I got an email on this at work last week. It is a great campaign, BUT it has raised some concern in the deaf and speech impaired community.

We use ASL (American Sign Language) in our home. Our three year old son Caden hears fine, but has serious problems with speech that are linked to a genetic defect. Due to my exposure to ASL over the past three years, I was puzzled when I saw the way “Thank You from the bottom of my heart” was signed in this campaign. Come to find out, the creator of the campaign did not do his homework. Due to some questions of those in the ASL community, the creator of the campaign has placed a message on “The Sign” link within his web site.

Don’t get me wrong. I think this campaign is great. I just wish the guy had done his homework BEFORE getting so well publicized.”

It appears that my gut feeling about this gesture seeming odd was right on the money. Some members of the deaf and speech impaired community have been all over Scott Truitt “The Gratitude Campaign” site owner like white on rice. There were some strong criticisms misleading verbiage on his web site that could make people believe that this gesture was linked to ASL (American Sign language). One of the more polite critics of how this gesture was presented is from Raychelle over at Rays of Raychelle. Raychelle has posted some detailed email exchanges with Scott Truitt.

Scott admitted in his responses to Raychelle that not everyone had been as nice on this subject:

“That is very helpful, Raychelle. I have been getting a lot of e-mails on this, and they are negative. I appreciate you telling me about the blog – I’m hoping that I can log on and clarify this a bit. The last thing we want to do is be disrespectful of the Deaf community – and I absolutely understand your concerns.” Source

Raychelle is not the only blogger following this story with concern over the impact it may have on the signing community. You can read more from lolypup, Kokonut Pundit.

The change made to his web site as a result of the concerns go like this:

“Please note that there has been some debate as to whether this sign is a recognized sign from American Sign Language. With the utmost respect to those who know and use ASL, we are currently consulting several authorities on ASL to come to a resolution on that issue. We will update this page with our findings. In the mean time we would suggest that you use this sign only to thank those who serve, and do not assume that who use ASL will recognize this sign.”

The campaign is certainly getting some press from the big fish bloggers and many others. Michelle Malkin, Black Five, WizBang, and Ace of Spades.

Deborah Feldman reported back in September from over at King5.com that Truitt “got the Seattle Seahawks to play it [The Gratitude Campaign video] on their jumbotron before the Seahawks-Bengals game. His hope is for the gesture to become so common, no one even remembers it took a “campaign” to get it started. Do you think it’ll catch on?”

Well Deborah, it looks like it did catch on. Now there are a few big questions:

Will this campaign prove to be damaging to the ASL community?

and

How do you tell difference between a troop returning from war and one that just left high school 12 weeks ago and has just graduated basic training?

and most importantly

Who is going to train the returning troops on what this gesture actually means?

Given the bad press on the war effort by main stream media and some bleeding heart liberal congress members, the troops could easily mistake this gesture as getting flipped off or something equivalent if it does not come with a smile or some other form of positive gesture.

Why don’t people just go up and say “thank you” with the God given communication skills they normally use everyday? It is the least we can do for a person who voluntarily signed their name to a contract with the US government to die for our freedom if necessary.

“I hope my friends will follow my lead and vote for Senator Fred Thompson when the polls open in 2008.”

Those were my words, but I am not sure I will be sticking to them. I wrote that at the end of a blog post on November 24th. Then I saw the debate and really liked what I saw from Huckabee and not so much what I saw from Thompson. Just call it a flip-flop if I pull in behind Huckabee. That’s fine with me because I am not running for office. Right now I am firmly on the fence. One of the questions that I had considered for asking Thompson if I had a chance was, “who would you vote for if you were not running and why?” I would like to ask Huckabee the same one and a few others.

I am confident that either Fred Thompson or Mike Huckabee will win the South Carolina Republican primary this coming January regardless of what the polls say. Out of all the front runners, these two most closely represent the southern conservative point of view in my opinion. I am pleased to see Huckabee gaining ground on the more liberal Republican contenders. Fred Thompson, definitely not a liberal contender, has been my favorite until recently mainly due to my belief that Thompson is more electable candidate. However, I value my Christian friends’ opinions and have looked closely at Huckabee as a result of some of them leaning in Huckabee’s direction. I am now much more on the fence during this primary election than I have ever been for any election. I am also more knowledgeable about the candidates at an earlier point than I have ever been.

One thing is for certain. I am not going to agree with any single candidate on all of the issues. None of them is a clone of me. I do believe that strong family values and a solid commitment to maintaining the security of this country are the most important issues at stake.

One of our family’s favorite things to do during the holidays is to bake. This year we plan to carry on the Christmas season baking tradition by creating the Gingerbread Train once again. Last year was our first attempt and it was a huge success.

There are plenty recipes on the Internet to for building gingerbread houses and gingerbread trains. We got our recipe and templates from FamilyFun Magazine. Their online version gives detailed pictures of the entire process in addition to the train part templates and a gingerbread recipe that will make enough dough for two train cars.

Here are a few recommendations that we think will make the project even more fun:

1. Make extra train cars.
2. Use different candy to decorate.
3. Assemble the train on a movable surface.

In the event you prefer building a gingerbread house, check out Simply Recipes for instructions on How to Make a Gingerbread House.

It was really more like Sticky Fingers had Fred Thompson. Presidential candidate Fred Thompson made his rounds in the low country of South Carolina today with stops at a gun show and then a brief visit with supporters at Sticky Fingers in Summerville. I attended the rally at Sticky Fingers and got to hear Senator Thompson speak in person for the first time.

There were no ground breaking surprises in what Senator Thompson had to say today in Summerville, SC, but that is exactly the way he plans to keep things. Senator Thompson is grounded in strong conservative values unlike many of his republican opponents who could have easily switched parties and run on a democratic ticket due to their liberal views. Senator Thompson spoke of his strong support for the idea of appointing federal judges that will uphold the Constitution of the United States above their personal beliefs and prejudices. He ranked the presidential duties of appointing judges right up next to national security in terms of importance.

While appointing judges and national security rank high on Senator Thompson’s list of important presidential duties, it was the immigration issue that seemed to get the most attention today. This grates on my nerves a little since the immigration issues in this country have only been a big concern since September 11, 2001. A large portion of the general population of this country seems to have been put under some sort of hypnosis that makes them think that unsecured borders and illegal immigrants are closely tied to the events of 9/11. I will concede that immigration and border security are valid issues that a president should be concerned about, but in my opinion, these should not be the main issues that determine how people vote in 2008.  The root of the immigration issues did not crop up since 9/11 and will not be solved by the president alone. Unfortunately these issues seemed to be much more of a crowd pleaser than any other issues on the stump today.

I would like to have asked the Senator a few questions, but time and opportunity was not available for more than a few questions. I would like to have heard some specifics on the following:

• Given his experience in Hollywood and in Washington, elaborate on his publicly stated views on how he as president could help strengthen family values.
• What is the first thing he would do as president to help put money back into the hands of the American people the way SC did with the recent sales tax changes that netted my family of five almost enough tax savings to buy a month’s worth of groceries per year.

I have yet to see the heat get turned up on Senator Thompson’s lack of specifics regarding his Christian faith. Many of the front runners claim to be Christians and that may factor into the results here in the deep south when the primary day rolls around. Some big name players in the Christian community have questioned Thompson’s Christianity. I would certainly prefer that our president be a committed Christian. At the same time, I know plenty of self proclaiming Christians who are not qualified to be president of the United States of America. It is entirely possible that many of the presidential candidates are not true believers when they get out from in front of the camera. Regardless of how outspoken Senator Thompson is or not regard his faith, the fruits of his public service support his claims to uphold values that all of my Christian friends hold dear.

Senator Thompson has as good chance of winning SC in the up coming South Carolina Republican primary according to the most recent Rassmussen Poll. I hope my friends will follow my lead and vote for Senator Fred Thompson when the polls open in 2008.

A tip for you die hard shopping fans as we approach Black Friday.

Planned Cost - Sale Price = Savings

No plan to buy - Sale Price = Impulse Buy

A sale price on any item is only a sale price if you were planning to buy the item anyway.

It seems that there is a new tax law in South Carolina. The picture on the right shows a portion of the receipt my wife brought home from Wal-Mart this weekend. I was so shocked by the tax amount, or rather lack of tax, that I called the Wal-Mart store to ask if their registers were malfunctioning. The lady from the customer service center at the Goose Creek Wal-Mart enlightened me on a new tax law that removes the sales tax from our grocery bill.

This new tax code supposedly went into effect on November 1, 2007. Did it get buried on page 23 of section Q of the local paper? While I do not watch much TV, I would have expected to hear about this on the radio or maybe at work among the idle chatter. Is it possible that this tax cut came in so low under the local radar that no one even knows about it?

For a family that spends about $600 per month on groceries, this will help us to the tune of approximately $40 per month*. That is sweet. That is another date with my sweetie each month. If we share a “Tour of Italy” at Olive Garden and only drink water, we might even be able to squeeze out the sitter’s wages for a couple of hours. This tax savings will be put right back into the economy as far I our house is concerned. Thank you SC State Government!

*Note: Not all of our grocery budget is spent on unprepared food so the tax cut will only affect approximately 95% of our grocery budget. This sale tax change only applies to unprepared grocery items “that are eligible for purchase with US Department of Agriculture food coupons.” Source