A Picture is Worth…

The pictures coming out of Haiti the last couple of weeks have been heart wrenching.  They were intended to be.  The media, wants your rapt attention.  The Red Cross and others want your money.  They want it to be able to help.  I get that.

However, there’s another group that needs your help.  A group that saves children’s lives every day and has been doing it for years.  They struggle to pay the bills, they watch children waste away and die.  Every… Day… Right next door.

They watch populist outrage over a natural disaster rip those dollars away to help a foreign country. 

Do you want to help?  Do you want to do it in memory of the tragedy in Haiti?  Simple enough.

Click Here

Select Sympathy/Memorial from the dropdown menu and then click “Go”

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Click on your preferred remembrance card.  I selected this one under “Print-Your-Own Cards” at the bottom in order to save them money:

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On the next page click the big red button that says, “Select This Card”

On the next page, fill in the required information.  Note, only the First and Last name of the tribute to and your name is required.  Here’s how I filled it out.  Feel free to do the same:

 

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Click the big red “Preview” button.

On the next page click the big red “Add to Cart” button.

On the next page click the big red “Checkout Now” button.

On the next page click the “Guest Checkout” button:

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On the next page fill in all of the fields with a image next to them:

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When you click on Submit a new form will be added to the bottom of the page.  Fill it out with the appropriate information:

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From there, things get obvious.  Just click continue, or submit as requested and until you’re done.  They’ll even let you print off the card that you requested so that you can post it on the refrigerator.   You’ll even get a receipt for your tax deductions next year.  There, now I’ve appealed to both your sense of Guilt and your sense of Greed.  That should be enough to get anyone moving.

If I could make this any easier I would.  If you mail me your credit card information I’ll fill out the form for you.   Still, they make it easier.  If you don’t care about the printout, just use the express form located here.

I feel better.  You should too.

News…

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama proposed new limits on the size and activities of the nation’s largest banks, pushing a more muscular approach toward regulation that yanked down stocks and raised the stakes in his campaign to show he’s tough on Wall Street.

CHARLOTTE —Citizen Jinksto in a bizarre move reviewed his retirement account and changed his targeted retirement age to later in life.  "it’s unclear… but it’s looking like 90 something" said Jinks in an exasperated tone.  "I’ve been working for about 23 years and suddenly this guy takes 10% out of my retirement in 3 days.  There oughta be a law." he continued.  

The presidents frantic grasping for populist support after a year of repeated failures is costing the taxpayers in a big way.  "With the markets back to the levels they were last March, we seem to have lost the only gain that the president could have claimed credit for this year.  What was he thinking?" questioned Jinks in a daze. 

EXTREMIST

On a Boston Herald page I saw an ad that the same extremist group supports both Sarah Palin and Scott Brown. The ad is produced solely by the SEIU (aren’t they a labor union?) a.k.a. ACORN 2.0. Interested in who this "extremist" group was I investigated and found out that it was…

Me.

Nice.

Idiots.

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Here’s the video if you can stomach it.  I find it interesting that they felt the need to label clearly that the ad wasn’t sponsored by Coakley.  I guess the thought is that she can say whatever she wants as long as she doesn’t actually say it.  Didn’t notice a lot of outrage from her over someone using her image illegally.

Extremist.  Another word for the Top 5 Overused Words for 2009

As I’ve noted elsewhere all of the teaparties that I’ve been to seemed more like a family picnic with cute signs than a political rally.  Liberals can’t seem to understand a “protest” that’s not full of hate.  Being nice and neighborly when you meet up at the local courthouse for a day of patriotism and conversation probably does seem like an extreme way of going about it to SEIU.

Or, to quote my favorite move of all time:

A year…

Newsflash.  In case you’ve lost track, come Sunday I will have avoided killing myself for another 365 days.  I’ll admit.  I tried for that accomplishment.  Heck, I almost DID manage to kill myself  a couple of times.  Still, all that ends well…

So, since I wrote “Happy Birthday…” a year ago my opinion hasn’t changed much on birthdays.  I’m turning 40 this year.  I thought about writing a “life review” and working with Jimmy Buffet’s “A Pirate Looks at 40” as a theme but honestly I didn’t get that far.  I don’t look 40 (quite).  I don’t feel 40.  At least, I don’t think I do.  I’m not sure what 40 is supposed to feel like. 

I HAVE noticed that 5:30 comes a little earlier lately but then, I’ve been staying up past midnight so I can blame that instead.  I also got a bit out of breath carrying a deer stand out of the woods last week but, on the good side, I was able to catch my breath while waiting for the 17 year old stud with the lighter load to catch up so  I guess I’m doing ok. 

The year has been good to me.  I went to Louisiana and back 7 times.  That was painful but the reasons for the trips were generally pretty good.  The trip is 950 miles one way or 1900 miles round trip.

We had a new niece join us.  One of my trips was to go and see her before she was born.  We(?) did one of those nifty 4D ultrasounds so Mrs. Jinksto and I drove over for that.  After her birth I drove over and saw her “for real”.  Fantastic.

My Nephew came and spent a couple of weeks with me over the summer.  That was the first time that he’s stayed with us for any length of time and we all had a blast.  It was so much fun in fact that he came back for Thanksgiving and I got to take him hunting.  Each of those visits required two round trips back home.  The Thanksgiving trip was hellish because I had to do the two round trips over the course of a week.   Completely worth it.  I’d do it again in a second.   In fact, he’s on tap to come back for a month or more next summer. Again Fantastic.

Nearly every weekend over the summer we had Rob and Tracey and the Hines family over either camping in the pool or here for a cookout of some kind.  Yet again Fantastic.

I switched to a new job that more closely matches the things that I love to do and stayed with my very cool employer while doing it.

I got to travel and spend a few days with Mark and then he drove over from Tennessee for a quick visit.  Yup, again, fantastic.

I celebrated another yearly event with my wife.  That one is actually more valuable to me than birthdays.  For an anniversary, not only does she have to avoid killing me for a year she has to put up with my crap and stick around.  I don’t know why she does either of those things but I’m glad she does.

So that’s a year in Jinksto land.  Between all of those “events” we see friends on a regular basis, enjoy the North Carolina outdoors or just sit and look out the window.

I still feel the same way about celebrating birthdays that I did last year and I still think that this bit sums it all up perfectly:

Dearest Ones,
Thank you for sharing my life and allowing me to share yours.  If I should die before I wake sometime in the next year be sure of this: I have lived and continue to live a full and complete life.  The things that I have done and still do make it full.  Your love makes it complete.  My life is full of things that I enjoy and I have more love in that life than any man has a right to expect. I spend time in God’s outdoors on a regular basis.  I do work that I love. I live in a fantastic place.  I have just enough money to struggle at doing most of the things that I like and, honestly, that makes those things that much sweeter.  The only thing that even comes close to making me sad is that I don’t get to see some of you  as often as I would like.  What, I ask you, could possibly be better than that?

Happy Birthday to me… dammit.

All my love,
jinksto

 

Happy Robert E. Lee Day!

Medical Advances

Four doctors are sitting at a conference discussing the state of medicine in their respective countries.

French Doctor: We can take a kidney from a pig and put it in a man and have him looking for work in 4 weeks.  Is that not amazing?!

German Doctor:  We have devised a way to take a lung from a sheep and put it in a man and have him looking for work in only 6 weeks.  Tell me friends, that this is not unbelievable!

Russian Doctor: We can take half of a heart from one man and put it in another and have them BOTH looking for work in only two months.  Beat that!

American Doctor:  Yes, that is impressive my friends.  All of it.  But we in America can take one man from Illinois and put him in the whitehouse and have half the damned country looking for work in only 8 months. 

SORRY…

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREENVILLE-SPARTANBURG SC
239 PM EST MON JAN 11 2010

...LIGHT ACCUMULATING SNOW EXPECTED IN PARTS OF THE NORTH CAROLINA
MOUNTAINS TONIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY...
.SORRY ABOUT THAT GLOBAL WARMING THING...
... I MEAN IT WAS JUST A THEORY AFTER ALL GIVE US A BREAK…
.A COLD FRONT MOVING INTO THE OHIO VALLEY LATE TODAY WILL SWEEP
SOUTHEAST ACROSS THE FORECAST AREA TONIGHT. COLDER TEMPERATURES
AND GREATER MOISTURE WILL ACCOMPANY THE FRONTAL PASSAGE...AND A
PERIOD OF MOIST NORTHWEST FLOW WILL DEVELOP INTO TUESDAY BEHIND
THE FRONT. LIGHT ACCUMULATING SNOW FROM THIS SYSTEM WILL LIKELY
IMPACT NORTH CAROLINA MOUNTAIN LOCATIONS NEAR THE TENNESSEE
BORDER.

NCZ033-048>050-120500-
/O.NEW.KGSP.WW.Y.0006.100111T2300Z-100112T2300Z/
AVERY-MADISON-YANCEY-MITCHELL-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...NEWLAND...SPRUCE PINE
239 PM EST MON JAN 11 2010

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO
6 PM EST TUESDAY...
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GREENVILLE-SPARTANBURG HAS ISSUED A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 PM EST TUESDAY. SCATTERED SNOW SHOWERS WILL DEVELOP THIS EVENING ACROSS THE NORTH CAROLINA MOUNTAINS AS A COLD FRONT AND UPPER LEVEL DISTURBANCE MOVE INTO THE AREA. THE SNOW SHOWERS WILL BECOME MORE NUMEROUS OVERNIGHT...ESPECIALLY NEAR THE TENNESSEE BORDER...AS A PERIOD OF NORTHWEST FLOW AND ABUNDANT LOW LEVEL MOISTURE DEVELOPS. SNOW ACCUMULATIONS AROUND AN INCH ARE EXPECTED ACROSS THE NORTHERN MOUNTAINS...WITH LOCAL TWO INCH TOTALS ALONG THE HIGHER RIDGE TOPS AND NEAR THE IMMEDIATE TENNESSEE BORDER BY THE TIME THE SNOW ENDS TUESDAY. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW WILL CAUSE PRIMARILY TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SNOW COVERED ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES...AND USE CAUTION WHILE DRIVING. AGAIN APOLOGIES FOR THE WHOLE GLOBAL WARMING THING. DRESS WARM && $$

2009 Summary Review

What has Obama done for you lately? 

If you don’t freeze to death due to Global Warming Climate Change and aren’t killed in the next terrorist attack the Government will fine you for not having healthcare while you look for a job and then tax you to pay for someone else’s GM car (which you can’t afford) but at least you won’t be distracted by planning your 2016 trip to Chicago for the Olympics.