Death of USA

Thought this had some interesting statistics -



Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning last November's Presidential election:

* Number of States won by: Democrats: 19 Republicans: 29
* Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000 Republicans: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million Republicans: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2 Republicans: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Republicans won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.

Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

We now have more people not paying taxes than paying them. Those people will continue to vote for those who want to give them more “entitlements” unless we decide to do something about it.

Trash Man

About a month ago Andy put together this image of a "Garbage" man; a figure made from garbage. It is for a campaign to curb underage drinking by the group Parents Empowered.



Last night LaRue was watching the local news and saw a report of the campaign using Andy's garbage man. You can watch the video and read the story here: KSL News

Another Tree Update

Slowly but surely the willow is getting a haircut. Looking a little a little more bare:


Some of the branches in a trailer the tree trimming man is using:


LaRue by the first load of branches:


And a picture of some of the pretty yellow leaves of the apricot tree:

HDTV Fiasco

After upgrading my Dish receiver and switching to the digital output for the HDtv it still wasn't very good. It's like taking a 3x5 picture and blowing it up to 8x10. It loses resolution.
Bottom line - I have put the old tv back and boxed up the HD unit. It goes back to the store Monday. The picture on the old set is much better with my present equipment.
If I could find a new big CRT tv I would buy it instead.

Tree Trimming

We're finally getting the monster willow tree trimmed. Hooray!

Here are some pictures of the work so far. First a couple of the piles of limbs in the yard -





And here's a shot looking up -



"And now for something completely different..."

Our old main tv has been dying by inches lately. First the remote could not turn it on and off. Then the remote stopped being able to control the volume or mute. And, no, it wasn't the remote.
So, I figured it would be a good time to upgrade to HDTV. As a side note, try to buy a big tv at your local "mart" that isn't a flat screen HD type.
A couple of days ago I broke down and picked up a nice new HDTV. I moved the old tv from it's perch and setup the new one. I got all the cables connected, turned it on and.....looks fuzzy. Channels have ghosting around the images. Text is jaggedy.
Well, the problem is my old (10 years) Dish Network satellite receiver. It is only capable of putting out an analog signal.
Long story short - I contacted Dish Network and they said because I have been a longtime customer, I qualify for a free upgrade to an HD receiver. Yep, free with no additional monthly fee. And for now I'm not going to pick up any of the HD channels; maybe sometime in the future. I'm just excited to get a good picture on the new tv.
On a related note, I have a little DVD player (not Blu-Ray) that will up-convert to 1080p. It looks fantastic on the new tv.

October Update

Well, October has been a busy month so far.

It was time to put new plastic on the roof. The new metal roofing will be installed next spring/summer. So, it's another winter of plastic. Gary and Liz plus Andy, Laurie and Asher came out for a weekend to help.

Shortly after, LaRue and I took a 3 day weekend to go to Provo for a doctor appointment and then up to Roy to see Robin, Emily and the grandkids. We took Brighton's birthday presents to him. He was 6 on the 14th. Since he and LaRue share birthdays we celebrated both together.

When we got back LaRue and I had a small birthday celebration for her. We bought her a digital picture frame that holds up to 3000 pictures. It also plays music. We are going to sit down and decide which pictures she wants to put on it to begin with. I also gave her a DVD - The Proposal. We saw this in the theater and both really liked it. I am looking forward to watching it again.

For quite some time Liz has been talking about how she wants to get the old blue truck and take it to Provo so Gary can tinker with it. So, today Gary borrowed a big truck from a friend and came out to pick it up. We bolted a hitch to it and hooked it to his truck. Then off it went.

Here are some pictures of it all: October Pictures

Family Reunion

Over the August 1st weekend all the descentdants of LaRue's parents - Paul and Ruth Hansen - gathered at the Great Basin Experiment Station above Ephraim for a first ever reunion to celebrate what would have been Paul's 100th birthday.

The station is located at approximately 10,000 feet in the mountains outside Ephraim in the Manti LaSal forest. Paul was one of the men who worked at the station. He retired after 40 years with the Forest Service.

Here's a list of attendees:

Nathalie Hansen

Laura & Don McGraw
Adrienne McGraw & Marcus Young with Patrick
Holly & Teddy Perez with Sage
Rachel & Jason Buchholz with Hawthorne

LaRue & John Bailey
Andy & Laurie Bailey with Asher
Robin & Emily Bailey with Brighton, KD, Christopher & Joshua
Elizabeth & Gary Millett

That Friday everyone except Andy, Laurie, Asher, Liz and Gary arrived in Ephraim. The next morning the rest of the kids showed up and everyone drove up into the mountains to the station. We got things put into the houses where we were staying the night. Robin set up a large tent for the kids.
Most of the folks took off on a hike to the area of the beaver dams. Afterward a large buffet dinner was prepared. there was a lot of visiting followed by a special DVD presentation that Andy put together with some old pictures of Paul and Ruth Hansen. It was a really nice slideshow set to music. Nath passed out binders she had put together with information and their parents. LaRue also had packets for everyone to add to the binders.
In the evening everyone gathered behind the houses for a campfire and marshmallow roast.
The next day it was a nice breakfast followed by more visiting and picture taking.
On Sunday afternoon people began packing things up for the return to Ephraim. Marcus and Patrick left early in the afternoon to catch their flight back to California.
Later LaRue, Andy, Robin and Liz drove to an area called the Frog Pond to hike around some more.
At the end of the weekend we all drove back down to Ephraim. Andy, Laurie and Asher opted to drive back to Provo. Liz and Gary also returned to Provo. LaRue and I stayed another night in Ephraim.

There were a lot of fun things that happened and much more than I can write about here. So let's go to the pictures.

We all took pictures and I have put together just a few of almost 500 pictures taken by me, Liz and Don. Here's a link tot he photos: Family Reunion Pictures