Sandy

The Lord has been very good to me.

Despite being blown around like a rag doll, soaked to the very bone, and pelted with rain and sleet by Sandy and her unforgiving wrath, my home, my trees, my cars and most importantly my family are all no worse for the wear.

Make no mistake about it. This was the Lord's doing.

Not dumb luck.

Not storm degradation.

Not just a sturdy house.

This was the Lord's doing. Period.

All around us there are trees that have fallen. Our next door neighbor had a relatively tall one fall in his yard (thankfully, not on his house). He was out there yesterday with his yard crew cutting it up and hauling it away.

Along my way to work this morning I saw a lot of trees that had been felled by Sandy's icy, uncaring hand. Shingles ripped from roofs. Streams terribly overflowing their banks. Debris littering the roads. Even a car or two stuck in the mud she left behind.

But we are fine.

Don't misunderstand. We were not totally spared. A leak in our living room window allowed quite a bit of water to seep in and get into the carpet. Thankfully, Jacob spotted it before it could do any damage to our computers, which sit right next that window. We laid plastic garbage bags down on the floor and then spread some towels over those in the particularly wet areas.

I went outside during the height of the storm and tried to stem the tide, so to speak, by putting some silicone caulking around the trim. It seemed to help a little, but I was freezing cold, caked with caulking and soaked to the bone.

But that was it. Literally. No other damage whatsoever.

With 60+ mph sustained winds, 80+ mph gusts and four and a half inches of rain at my house, you'd have thought there would be something more drastic.

A flooded basement.

A downed tree.

A cut or a scrape, maybe.

But no. Nothing but an easily remedied leak in a window, while all around us there was damage beyond belief costing in the tens of billions of dollars.

Why? I don't know. But what I do know is that it was the Lord that spared us.

There were times during the storm when I thought the house was going to blow off of its foundation. I thought for sure that one of our giant oaks in the backyard was

going to blow over on our house, or on one of our neighbors. I could vividly imagine our basement being flooded and having to spend thousands of dollars to get it cleaned up and repaired.

But as awful as it all was, a new day dawned (beautifully, see picture at left), the house is still standing, we are all fine, and we are still VERY blessed of the Lord.

All I can say is "Thank You."

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NOBAMA!!

I'm really ticked off.

I'll get to the reason in just a minute.

First, let me say that I am no fan of Mr. Obama (or is it Osama?), nor his failed policies. I did not vote for him in 2008 and I will not vote for him in 2012. Nor would I EVER vote for him. Tie me to a greased pig and let him run through a briar patch filled with black widow spiders and black mamba snakes and I would still vote for Pee Wee Herman before him. In my opinion he has been one of the worst presidents to ever "grace" the Oval Office. Therefore, you can take what I say with a pinch of salt.

One of my biggest pet peaves with this joker is that our wonderful country is now four TRILLION dollars further in debt than we were when he took over the watch, despite his promises otherwise. Because of him, and other greedy politicians in Washington, we are going to be repaying this debt until the cows come home, and their calves and then their grand-calves, and maybe more. None of them (politicians) know anything about the meaning of the phrase "living within your means".

Don't get me wrong. It's not totally his fault, though I fear that when he reads of Harry Truman he thinks that the phrase "the buck stops here" refers to antlers and venison. No, he's had plenty of help with spending my retirement and that of my kids and grandkids. Four TRILLION dollars further in debt, and in four years we'll be four TRILLION dollars deeper, and my great-grandkids won't have two dimes to rub together.

Do you realize how much four TRILLION dollar is? Let me put it this way. The average dollar bill is 0.010922 centimeters thick. If you piled four TRILLION of those Georges on top of each other (not length-wise or width-wise, but on top of each other like they used to be in your wallet before he stuck his fingers in there), you'd have a stack that was 43,688,000,000 centimeters high, or 271,464 miles high! The mileage from earth to the moon is only 238,857 miles, a relative cake walk compared to our debt. In other words, with that stack you would get to the moon and still have 32,607 MILES left over! Now, tell me, how am I, my kids, my grandkids and on and on and on (ad infinitum) going to pay that money back? You tell me, Mr. Obama!

When you mix in the abysmal unemployment rate, our troubles with the Middle East, lower take-home pay, the staggering economy, Syria, Libya, Russia and our constantly weakening military, not to mention a lot of other troubles we now face, this country is in a world of hurt. I honestly don't think this country has been in this bad of a situation since the Founding Fathers took their own lives in their hands and signed the Declaration of Independence.

But as bad as all that is, it's not the reason I'm so ticked off today. No, the reason for that is that, in my opinion, we have a President who is one of the most condescending individuals I have ever listened to. After watching last night's debate, which I am unbiased enough to call a draw, I am of the firm resolution that he thinks he's A LOT better than anyone else, especially Mitt Romney.

Here's why.

After telling the world that the United States Navy is smaller than it's been since 1917, Governor Romney was forced to listen to the following from our illustrious leader (and I use both of those terms VERY loosely):

"Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go under water, nuclear submarines."

Seriously? Is that the way you treat other people, Mr. Obama? If it is, it explains the awful mess our country is in right now. No wonder no one has any respect for us these days.

I've been thinking about it and I believe that if someone had said that to my face in front of the world, I might have entertained the notion of punching him in the nose. Thank goodness Governor Romney is a better man than me. My utmost respect goes to him for not losing his cool when baited that way by The Community Organizer. I, as hot-headed as I can be sometimes, might not have followed protocol and smiled like he did (and before you get any ideas, NO, I would not his the president, no matter how much I dislike him or his policies).

A few choice words come to mind to describe how I feel about this man. Suffice it to say that I literally feel physically ill when the thought comes to mind that he could possibly win another four years in office.

Please America, wake up! Join the other 47% who are voting with their children and grandchildren in mind. Join the 47% who value America and the standards that were set 200+ years ago. Turn your back on greed and incompetence and raise your voices high in the night with shouts of

NOBAMA!! ----------