I have discovered a new browser that I love, FLOCK! It’s based on Firefox and integrates Blogging and Flickr. Like Firefox, it will pull in your favorites and history from either IE or FF. Go try it out, if you don’t like it, go back to whatever you were using and uninstall it. No loss.

In a positive move, the City Council has moved against the local ambulance service and advised them they WILL allow the fire-medics onboard their ambulances. Thank God. The local ambulances do not have much faith from me. Their employees are good people and trained from what I know, however nowhere nearly as trained as the city’s medics. It will be interesting to see how this whole incident plays out. Hopefully the city will look into providing their own EMS just in case something stupid like this gets pulled again.

The Jaycees have a lot of events planned for the future, and I’m glad to be a part of the organization. There seemed to be some nice forward momentum at tonight’s meeting that I hope keeps going.

I’m debating which I should use in the Jaycees’ haunted house this year. Either one is completely possible and simple, but which should I attempt to pull off? Maybe I’ll decide before we actually open – I think I have the time.

Work is creeping along. I wonder daily what is going on overall. Sometimes I wonder if anyone knows. Thesedays it seems as if everyone is just trudging along scared and wondering what the future will (or won’t) bring. These corporate takeovers are not only bad for small towns and businesses, they wreak havoc on all the families’ lives that they destroy. Soon enough there will be no small businesses left.

Wonderfully enough, you can already track the roots of most businesses to 4 or so corporations. Go to Wikipedia and look at what businesses own each other. It’s quite staggering to see that so much power is posessed by so few. And people wonder why such a small percentage of rich people control everything.

If you sat on 3 of the 4 boards of these companies and had your homies running the lesser companies, how far would the wealth fall? Not very. Hence the richest 3% of the country stays in charge and we stay poor or middle-class at best. It’s a bunch of shit, and I think the general public is going to reach a boiling point very soon.

That’s probably why the current administration erodes our rights to privacy and free speech in the name of terrorism. Gotta keep the serfs in check, just like the monarchy did back in mother England. If you keep the “lessers” under constant surveillance, you can monitor their every move.

I’m not saying that it’s Bush’s fault, it started way before him, but he’s current, so he’s who I’ll pick on the most. WTF is the Patriot Act renewal all about? Congress and the administration have had plenty of time to draft legislation that isn’t so broad and sweeping. There are more civil rights taken away by that single piece of crap than by any other BS law that has been passed in a long time.

End Rant, for now.

I plan on running. If you know me, you’re probably aware of this fact. I find it odd that everyone keeps warning me about all the traffic tickets and other harassment I am likely to receive once the “people in charge” find out that I’m running. While I’m not blatantly advertising yet, I’m not keeping it a deep, dark secret either.

I do really wonder how “they” will accomplish this harassment, but I do not doubt that it’s possible. There are any number of things that can happen and would not look really suspicious. I will say that I’m getting nervous about running. I don’t believe that a person not “in” will make it, but I want to do good for the community and will try my best.

Erich has matured so much in the past year or two. He still has typical kid moments where he acts out tantrums, but not nearly as bad. Also, he will sit down and listen to reason most of the time. He seems to be interested in baseball a bit. He wants to play catch all the time, even in the house. I try to get outside with him at least a couple of times a week to just play catch in the yard. To be honest, I think I enjoy it as much or more than he does. I still need to get a new glove though.

Amaya is still a ding-bat. She is very creative, and is constantly playing with her toys, but just comes off as out there sometimes. As a parent, I look at her and know she is really intelligent, but she comes off so airy. We just got her ears pierced last Friday. Tuesday this week she lost one, but dad made an emergency trip to the evil Wal-Mart and mom got them put in so that we don’t have to get her ears re-pierced. She’s so proud of them and has to show everyone.

The city council has made (or not made) some decisions recently that have ignited my fire. The biggest example is leasing a home to the City Manager for 18,000 over 3 years. That’s not horrible, it’s kinda cheap but I could let it slide. The BS part is that he gets 10,000 back if he makes un-named and non-priced “improvements”. I mean, provided he doesn’t hurt the house and plants a shrub he’s “improved” the home. I’m fuming over that one.

Erich and Amaya got some clothes from Aunt Diana yesterday that she bought on a whim. They were both thrilled and had to show me when I came home for lunch.

Work is the same old stuff for now. Everyone’s healthy and enjoying the summer so far, that’s always a plus.

I get to go to the dentist at 7AM. That’s gonna come waaaaaaaay too early. Not to mention going to work after. Thank goodness it’s just for a cleaning and checkup. Hopefully they won’t have to numb me up for something. I can just see going into work drooling.

Work’s still going well. More and more I hope that Alltel does keep a call center here. They seem to be a fun and growing company that treats their employees well. We shall see how things go.

Off to bed now that the kids are asleep. Oh the joys of going to the dentist…