Seems if you own a home especially here in Connecticut on the East Coast USA, you  better be ready for almost anything happening. Gutters go and start to form ice damns, allowing and forcing water into your home ruining ceilings and windows,. Then you get light switches that decide to do big time and blow bulbs out too and have to replace  it all. Then when you finish fixing all that the wife comes by and says, I hate to tell you this but, and the next thing you know your replacing internals on a damn toilet.  What is a homeowner to do? All you can do in Connecticut in winters like this one is keep safe and do the best you can to keep things running correctly, and stay warm.

Connecticut with it’s scenic winter wonderland photos of ice hanging down off of homes, and snow covered trees and more is pretty to look at but dangerous to live in. Ice covered ponds can be thin iced, people fall in and drown, roofs collapse under the weight of snow and ice, black ice gets under snow and on roads causing accidents. Yet we all live in Connecticut anyway, silly aren’t we? Each day is a new adventure and trial so to say.

I have lived in Connecticut, Florida, Virginia and even Pennsylvania, each state has it unique and different problems for sure when it comes to weather, yet each panics when snow and ice hits. You would think the Northern states at least would be prepared each year for these snow and ice storms, but alas they aren’t.  In the Northern states it seems people forget what snow and ice is  until after the first two storms of the season. Why is that?

Now In the Southern States the panic is two fold, over a half inch of snow or ice and people go crazy driving in it and have no idea what to do. Sometimes I wonder why Motor Vehicle Departments in each state don’t ask drivers what to do or how to drive in it all. They should make basic question on driving tests for that.

Anyway, today is Saturday, it is Playoff Championship Weekend in the NFL once more. Four teams are now left to fight for a one shot deal and trip to this years Super Bowl.  In the NFC We have two teams who are mid west rivals and division rivals. Welcome to The Green Bay Packers versus The Chicago Bears. Both teams have fine defenses, yet this game in my opinion, will be a shootout between Rodgers and Cutler. While Rodgers I believe has the better team and will probably get his Packers to Super Bowl 45. The only way Chicago can beat Green Bay and advance is if Rodgers gives up the ball by interceptions or fumbles. Watch the defenses folks, this one can be a war in the snow. The second game will most likely be a one sided game, it matches the Pittsburgh Steelers against the New York Jets. Yes I did say the New York Jets, I know hard to believe, but true. The Jets only chance to win this game and advance to the Super Bowl, centers around one thing defense. If they can get to Big Ben and hurry him and sack him and then keep control of the ball themselves they have a chance. If the Steelers have the ball over 20 minutes in this game it will be Pittsburgh in the big game, mark my words.  The Jets need to use ball control, to keep Pittsburgh’s offense on the bench or sidelines, and run the ball as much as possible only throwing short passes  to keep it going. Otherwise Pittsburgh will ram it down the Jets throat and win.

America’s east coast is being plummeted with snow and ice problems, this January. Each day is a mystery as I keep checking for leaks from my new roof and ice dams. The condition has almost ruined a window and has totaled a garage ceiling so far. No help or rest from it it seems. But as life goes on, there is always something that will get you  no matter what it seems.

Health wise my back and neck injuries continue to ache and spasm for me. My Naval injuries get worse with time as the Doctors said degenerative  conditions do that as you age. The arthritis builds in the spine and neck making it harder to do much at all at times. Ah well as I always have said no sense bitching anymore, because  no one listens anyway and you get nothing out of it in the end. SO you move on and do what you can is all and survive.

Five days from now I shall turn 55 years old , hard to believe considering when I was younger I never thought I would survive beyond forty years old. As a child I had more problems then Jimmy Carter had peanuts on his farms. But somehow I over came  most of them.  I survived seizures, 198 of them in my first 9 months of life, then grew up with attention deficient disorder and hyperactivity which made  my parents almost kill me or give me away, and overcame that by outgrowing it all. Then went on to have spinal damage in back and neck and PTSD problems and still continue on, after serving my country for 16 years. I think I did ok.

At almost 55, give me the 5 days now laughing, I have seen the world, protected my country the best I could and honorably, overcome childhood problems and now adult injuries incurred in service with Uncle Sam’s help of course. I originally dropped out of high school and went to work. Then got my GED, then served my country, got out injured went back to college and got an Associates in Hotel and restaurant Management thru Naugatuck Valley Community College. I won awards in college for different things and they now hang on my wall.  Recently I completed a Writers Course thru Long Ridge Writers Group and got a diploma for that also.  I think for a male who had so many problems I overcame just fine and survived long.

My blog I do when I have time these days, and I may rant, rave, complain, bitch, moan, about politics, economic woes, or health issues, or even mistreatment of Veterans like myself, but I survive.

Life has it’s own mysteries as you grow older it seems and the longer one is around! When I stop and think of the mysteries of life, it’s funny how the biggest mystery is really death! 

No one know why or how people really die, or where we go once we die, but, we all know we all die  or expire.

No one knows what the weather will be either or really why it is so when it changes, we are just forced to deal with what ever happens.

No one can predict who will get sick, or who will be well, no one can really tell.

Wars are fought, millions die at the hands of others, yet people forget what they were fighting over or for, and the wars just continue on, no end in sight.

People have nightmares of past events  and can’t sleep and others sleep soundlessly and peaceful every night.

Why is the only dinosaur to survive the Ice Age, and meteor storms that wiped them out the birds?

Why is it Presidents get shot at only every few years like even even year not odd?

Why is it like Billy Joel said in his song, Only The Good Die young!

Why is it mankind is the most intelligent species on the earth as far as  use of brains and social skills, but we kill each other off like idiots at a shooting gallery for no real reason?

All these and more are mysteries of life that goes on everyday, why? Maybe because like one person told me many decades ago, there are some things mankind can not control or make do what we want, we have to except them and deal with it in the most positive manner and move on. We can grieve people who leave, we can deal with shifts in weather and wars,  but mysteries that come and take away people, change weather, or make people ill or well we have no control over. Why?

Mankind is still the only being on the planet that has a brain and thinks and walks and is supposed to have social skills enough to survive this planets weather systems, at least for life time periods. But if mankind is really the most intelligent species on the planet earth, then why does mankind not help each other instead of war with one another?

America in the 1950s/ 1960s and 1970s, was run and built on a us society, team work and helping others was big. You got a flat tire someone stopped to help you change it, you saw a hungry person you gave them a few bucks and fed  them a meal You saw someone injured or sick you called 911 or for help!  That was those days in America and they were good days, bread was affordable, food was affordable, and so were clothing and medical supplies.

Then came the 1980s and Bill Cosby and The Cosby Show hit the air waves. Bill’s talk to your children, don’t hit your children theme may have been good for physiological reasons and the right thing to say and do, but it stunk as far as discipline and direction for our children and produced the problem people of America of the 2000s.  A child who does wrong when they know they are doing wrong needs a good swat now and then to go the right direction and way. This permissiveness bull, is ruining American society in many ways and producing madmen and maniacs who are killing and hurting others. Sadly America is failing it’s children in more ways then one.

Today American children have cell phones, computers, video game systems and more and can’t get off their rear ends and do a damn thing. The cry when you take it all away from them, but ask them when they last read a book, or shoveled a walk, or helped build something, or even cleaned a car or yard, never will be their answer or oh that was long ago. Their hands and eyes and minds are tied to video games, keyboards and cell phones. They have to keep up with their neighbors and friends in the electronic gadget world of today in America.  Why? What ever happened to work won’t hurt you, earn what you want you will value it more? Sadly, when America’s society started enforcing laws that allow children to file for divorce from their parents, and to get their own parents arrested for spanking or smacking them, well we have gone too far.

I am not saying abuse your children or beat them senseless or something along that way, I would never advocate that. But I am saying there are times when a child needs a good cuff upside their head or a smack on the rear to go straight and do right. What we end up with because of a lack of discipline, are children who demand more for less and when they don’t get what they want, they turn into lazy renters, lazy employees, people who can’t hold jobs or pay their bills, who then blame society and all around them for their problems and sit there and say, well they wouldn’t help me, so I acted out, and did something stupid or deadly to another human being. Sadly this is what happened in Arizona and elsewhere, with these madman and mentally incompetent people shooting others. May we one day realize a little discipline and guidance and teaching go a long way!.

America was built and is still built on the Constitution, The Bill Of Rights, and a society meant to be a We The People Society, which means it is us against the world, not me for me, but us against the world. One Nation joined in efforts to improve it’s own society, to help one another, not just yourselves!.

God Bless America, and lets hope we can help our own by pulling back from wars we do not belong in, and applying  that money and funding to housing our own homeless, medicating our own sick and ill, feeding our hungry. Lets take care of America and Americans first and foremost before we had the world help, lets help ourselves!

Every Year I hear New Englanders here in my own state of Connecticut complain about the winter weather and it’s storms. Folks if you don’t like snow and you hate the cold I think you need to move to warmer climates. Try Florida and get hit by hurricanes, or try California and get Earth Quaked then. I mean basically unless you live in the American south west areas , your going to have to deal with some kind of weather problems yearly.

 

Snow when I was a kid was fun, you could sled, slide, skate and build snow men and have snow ball fights. As you grow older though you get tired of shoveling out. It still is a pretty winter wonderland to look at, but you grow to know it is work to dig out of each time it happens.  Many New Englanders head south or even west in their older years, but why, if you grew up in it you should be able to handle it, but I can see if health reasons apply. Anyway next subject.

 

The madness that overtakes this country at time is deafening yet roars out of the dark each time. Murders mass and public in Arizona and else where why? What madness has America created to deserve what is happening?  The numbers of these incidents grow each year as our population grows and our living conditions worsen. Between economic hard times, medical hard times and stupid society traditions of bullying and racism and prejudice and discrimination, it all wells up under a cover on the kettle that is America and, seems to pop the lid and blow up in our faces more times then ever before in history. Why, is it happening? Mental illness in America is rampant these days because we allow our mental patients who are bi-polar, or worse to roam our streets, instead of putting them away or medicating them. When will America understand it must help the disabled and mentally ill to cope and survive in our fast moving world or more violence will happen?

 

Each day, the madness grows, each day another soul goes over the edge and kills another human being!. When shall the madness stop, when can and will America wake up and realize this is what health care is all about not just the physical side, but the mental side has to be addressed also. Killing Obama’s Health Care Reform is not the way to go, what needs to be done is fix it, so it covers all Americans and both physical and mental health care too at least prescription wise. More people have mental illness in America then anywhere else in the world, and few can afford prescription drugs and medical attention to control themselves, so the lid blow and people get murdered and killed, innocent lives get lost because American’s don’t listen and help. The shootings in Arizona and else where in America should wake some Americans up to the problems we need to face, but if we don’t cover the medication and doctor visits for these bi-polar and mentally ill individuals, the death tolls will rise and so shall the price of not helping them. who know it can be your relative who will be shot next by one of them!

Politics has led us into wars just for the purpose of men, trying to prove they are better leaders then other men. Sadly we as patriotic Americans end up following their policies and commands cause these are men we elected to the White House.  Korea was such a war and so was Vietnam. We had no business in either war but we lost millions of Americans to them, not counting the disabled ones who came home. Now we are at the same trap in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can’t continue to police the world!. Nor are we able to police or control other countries in this way, so why do we do it?

 

Afghanistan does care one way or another if we are there and our soldiers and sailors  are dying for what? Their so called newly elected Government there is corrupt as they come, and we still try to install it and keep it in power for what? The Russians failed in Afghanistan and they are closer to it then we shall ever be, so why are we traveling half-way around the world to help a nation that doesn’t really even care about itself, never mind who helps them?

 

Iraq was a stupid mistake, made by a stupid American President, who really thought he was doing right by taking Saddam down. In fact we had no business there either and for that war we are suffering, just look in our VA Hospitals in the States.  We have American veterans being sent to Iraq still and even more being sent into Afghanistan and for what reasons, please someone tell me what good reasons we are there!.

America needs to wake up and slap their own faces, we are being foolishly led to wars we have no idea what for!

 

The best solution to all of this is simple America needs to pull back and stop helping others so much, Lets  bring home our troops, bring home our materials, save our troops and money and help our own here in the states. If we stopped feeding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and brought it all home and placed it on the homeless, and jobless we have here, no one would be out of work or a place to live, nor hungry! We ignore our own Veterans, Homeless and unemployed, and give so much to other nations, it is tile we give less to them, and more to our own.

Saturday produced the ends for two NFL Teams. The Saints found their season ending in Seattle. The Seahawks played one heck of a game holding Brees and the Saints the way they did. But The run by Lynch is the real story for at least 5 Saints defensive Players missed tackling Lynch as he powered his way to the end zone.

Then later in the evening as The Colts and Jets went at it in Indy, The Jets made the last seconds count, perfectly and the field goal beats the Colts and Manning, by one point!. Both very good games to watch and entertaining indeed.

Today, two more games will be played. Baltimore will go into Kanas City and see how it fares against the Chiefs.  This one may be a defensive struggle folks and if any team should be favored here  it should be the Ravens. The Chiefs are young and upcoming and Cassel is a decent QB, but the Ravens are built on defense. Look for another low scoring good one here!

Then we shall get the Eagles hosting The Packers, this game will be a shootout between Vick and Rodgers if I am right. Who has the better defense may be the key here, and right now going in to the game that may be the Packers. In the end though look for turnovers to be the decider in this game if you ask me.

The big snow storm got us yesterday, seems we may have a good foot of snow here in our area of Connecticut. Just the reason I did buy my snow thrower a couple of years ago. Ah will take a good hour to two to dig out but I will get it done. Can’t fire it up till 7 am, not right to wake folks earlier then that.

 

Today starts the NFL Playoffs too. But for me not too sure I will watch much of them, although I will probably watch the Super Bowl in February. While I love the NFL, my wife doesn’t so it is a battle every year during football season, but that life, anything you may like or want bad enough you have to fight for! Way I see it anyway of all the teams left this year in playoffs, the favorite is New England Patriots for sure, so maybe another Super Bowl ring for them me thinks, unless they get surprised.

 

Well, the Republicans have taken over now in the House and want to take steps to try and repeal Obama’s Health Care Reform. I doubt very much if they can repeal it, if they are smarter they should try to fix it is all. National Health Care is needed in America it is all in how you do it that really count and on what will be covered or not covered. If Congress has a brain and the Republicans do too, they will just examine it and fix the loop holes in it and make it work correctly. If They do repeal it, medical and dental costs in the USA will fly upwards into billions more then they are getting now. I am not a politician but, even I know Insurance companies and medical, hospitals, Doctors will take full advantage if Health Care does get repealed.

Final line for today, New England gets socked with snow a good three maybe four times per winter here in Connecticut. And it seems to me people are not intelligent enough in a state that gets snow all the time in winter, to realize each year after the first snow storm or two, that you have to leave extra time to get where you are going, it takes time to clean and clear roads and driveways and walks and things do ice up and re-ice after melting each time it happens. So, I think if your smart in New England you prepare for it ahead of time and reschedule as needed and work around it as needed by leaving earlier to get any where. Use your brains folks and keep safe out there.

Each day brings news of businesses going under, companies closing, job loses and unemployment rises, why? America is the best job market in the world really, it is the way the market is changing that is screwing us all up. America was built on Blue Collar Factory work, not white collar jobs. Too many common men and women who only know blue collar work are out of it and can’t switch to white collar, because they can’t afford the education for it. If they get a loan for it they can’t figure how to pay it back and hold the jobs they got, because of  the background they have is only in blue collar areas. Ah whats the sense no one listens anyway!.

The Republicans are taking over again and now want to unfund Obama’s Health Care Reform so it flops. This will only make a bigger mess out of the health care situation not help it. Obama’s Health Care Reform should stay in place and only be tweaked and fixed as needed as it grows and gets in place, not be revoked or repealed. Somehow I think America made a bad choice, changing The house to Republican and leaving the Senate to Democrats and White House too. Americans will suffer for this choice we made  on election day. The Gridlock it will cause will be crazy and jobs and the economy and the American people will suffer big time as all grinds to a halt in Washington.

 

In America’s hey day so to say, this country was built on the backs of blue collar workers and blue collar jobs, not white collar for sure. Americans are always ready to put in a good days work for a good days pay, if they are treated fairly in all ways and aspects. What we need is businesses that can create, innovate and invent products blue collar workers can make. We need to give some tax incentives to the manufacturers  and companies that do this. America needs to go back to the time of elbow grease, inventiveness and hard work for a far pay and benefits. Lets not continue to demand more and do less, lets do our fair share and get paid decently in all ways and make jobs stay!.

The bottom line is, America you want to survive you have to work for it and this country was built on the back of farmers, factory workers and blue collar types, and they are now out of work, shut down and have no place to turn, lets get Uncle Sam to give them incentives, and a helping hand to get going again and encourage them to move forward and do more. As long as no new factories or farms are being made and run in America and we are stuck in the status quo we are in trouble!. Americans unite and tell Congress and our President to stop messing around and lets build the economy stupids!.

A pet peeve of my Step-father’s when I was growing up was this thing they call television or TV. The reason is simple he would say, it was made for watching when all your work and chores and play was done for the day, not all the time. Then he would kick us kids out of the house and make us go play with others. Today, parents don’t do that to their kids, they let the TV, Computer or Video Game System babysit for them. Due to that we now have kids in America who are over weight and mentally behind the world, cause they are not participating in it. Sadly again few parents understand what they are doing to their child and they just keep on doing it.

 

America’s children need to be smacked once in a while to set them straight also. Now I am not saying beat your child till they behave, no, I am saying there are occasions  when a child needs a good smack upside the head to get them going in the right direction. The America we have today is sadly what I call The BIll Cosby Society! The Cosby Show in the 1980’s created an atmosphere of  don’t hit your child talk to them. That leads us right where we are today. We went from a society of  helping one another to the me society of today in America.  In The 1950’s- 1960s and 1970s, we were a all for one and one for all society that would stop and help someone if we could and it worked. We are now the me society and screw you, I come first. The best example of it all is ; Drive down a road anywhere and see a broke down car, and a person stuck. Used to be Americans would stop and help someone change their tire, or give them a lift to a gas station or a phone.  Today people drive right by you and don’t even look twice, leaving one to walk to where they need to go. Sadly it’s now a me, me, me society and America has changed and adopted to it.

 

Folks Video Games and Computers and TVs are all fine forms of entertainment when one has nothing else to do.  They are not built in babysitters for your children, nor should they be allowed to be brain drainers, the way they are. Wake up, kids know more about whats  on tv and on the internet and how to beat a video game, then they know how to add, subtract, or read why? What wrong with making a kid pick up a book and read ? Nothing! Ah I rant and no one listens the truth be, we are becoming a society of nerds and lost souls who can’t survive without electronic devices to play with. Wake up time is here, you child can’t pass his or hers courses in school and get decent grades, well then they don’t need electronic toys they need books and teaching.

Anyway, away we go with 2011, Welcome to it folks!