I understand that people are a bit upset right now.  I understand that for the last few months, the stock market hasn't been doing so well.  (Big understatement, yes.  I just looked at my annual 401k statement.)  I understand that unemployment is rising and that banks are failing.  I get it.  The economy has been better.

Yet this is something that is neither unprecedented nor unsurvivable.

It's a popular thing to blame the Bush administration right now.  But is that fair?

Are you better off than you were 8 years ago?  I am.  My salary is somewhere between 35% and 50% higher than it was 8 years ago.  I don't have $20,000 in student loans and $10,000 in consumer debt that I had 8 years ago.  I don't have car loans like I did 8 years ago.  I live in a house that is 2 1/2 times larger than the one I lived in 8 years ago and I'm not up to my eyeballs in mortgage.  (Yes, I have a mortgage, but it's manageable.)  I just purchased a car, and when I say "purchased," I mean "wrote a personal check for."

Other than the last six months, which, admittedly, haven't been very good for the global economy, I'm way better off financially than I was 8 years ago.  Even with the hit that my 401k has taken in the last six months, I'm still doing well.  Fortunately I have many more years before I NEED that 401k, and it'll recover and continue to grow by leaps and bounds as this correction in the economy finishes its course and it rebounds as it always does.

Some blame the government (i.e. the Bush administration) for not stepping in and stopping this from happening.  That smacks of socialism.  The banks and companies who are being bailed out by the government got in the position they are in through tactics that, though legal, weren't smart and it's coming back to bite them in the butt.  I believe that they made their beds and that they should lie in them.

But seriously...

Are you better off than you were eight years ago?  Maybe I'm an isolated case, but most of the people I hear complaining and hoping for this change that our new president has promised have been caught up too much in a short-term market correction and have listened to the doomsayers in the media.  But if they stopped and looked at their life eight years ago vs their life now, they might not be so rabid in their calls for change.

I'm not saying that I won't support our new president and I'm not saying that I'm against change.  I just hope that change doesn't happen for change's sake.  I hope that if things DO change, that sane minds and cool heads prevail and that we don't leap before we look into a more socialist society.  It didn't work for the former USSR, and I don't think it would work for the USA today.

We shouldn't rush into change without deciding first WHY change should happen.  If the reasons are good.  If the result is a stronger economy without sacrificing sacred freedoms, then I'm all for it.

Do I want Obama to fail?  No.  I'd just like to make sure that any changes he makes will make me say that I'm better off after 4 or 8 years of Obama's leadership than I am today.

In case you didn't notice, I've added a widget to my blog that will track my progress towards riding 2009 miles.

Yesterday, I rode 15.56 miles and today I rode 16.01 miles.  Yesterday I thought that the first ride was always the hardest for me.  Today, I remembered that the second ride is much harder.  My legs were complaining the whole time and until I get my rear end in better shape, I'm going to be saddle sore.

I probably won't post something every time I ride, but I'll update my widget every time I ride, so you can see my progress.  I'm already more than 1.5% to my goal!

I decided today that instead of just riding my bike this year, I'm going to set a goal for how far I'm going to ride my bike this year.  So I've set a goal to ride 2009 miles in 2009.

It's really not a huge amount.  It's just under 40 miles a week.

Indoor miles on my spinning bike have to count in order to make this work.

I'll post updates once in a while so you know how I'm doing.

Stop reading now if you're not in the mood for a whine fest.  But this is MY blog, and if I want to use it to do a bit of therapeutic writing, I'm going to do so.

Last week sucked.

First of all, it was my first week back at work after a two week break.  After slogging through umpteen million emails, I had to get caught up on a dozen things that hadn't gotten done while I was gone.  Why do I even take time off if I have to work extra hard before I leave and after I come back to make up the work I didn't do while I was gone?  Sometimes it seems pointless.

Then, on Wednesday, my cellular phone was stolen...from my cubicle at work.  I'm 95% sure it was the facilities guy that was dropping off blue recycle bins to each cubicle.  He left a post-it note behind explaining the purpose of the blue recycling bin.  The post-it was stuck to my monitor about 6 inches away from my cell phone's "home" in my cubicle.  I was only about 2 cubicles away at the time, but didn't notice that my phone was missing until I left for the day.  So now I have a new phone (same as the old one) but now I have to track down all of the phone numbers and contact information that I used to have in my old phone.  Yuck.

My older son and I also auditioned for a play on Wednesday night.  On Thursday, I was offered the part that I had already played twice.  Talk about a big step backwards.  I was saddened that the director that I've done the MOST with still sees me as "Froggy."  I felt that I had grown a ton as an actor in the last 10 years or so, but apparently, I'm the only one that feels that way.

The director wanted to see my son read with another boy to decide between them for the role.  The other boy is the son of the theater group's board.  After they both read the part a couple of times, the director went out in the hall to discuss something with the other boy's mom.  Do you see something wrong with that?  The other boy got the part and I'm sure my son is learning about politics in theater.

Add to this the feeling that my weekend wasn't really a weekend at all, but a continuation of a hectic, busy life and this week doesn't seem to be starting out well either.

There.  I've whined and griped.   Now I can move on.

I know that Utah is in a drought, but the weather man tells me that a drought can't be solved in one year.  With that in mind, I think we've had enough snow this year.  ENOUGH I tell you!!

Over the last month, I've shoveled enough.  I have a steep driveway, and this much snow is making me seriously consider installing a winch in the back of my garage to pull my vehicles up the incline when it's too slick to drive them up.  I can't leave them on the street because 1) they'll be ticketed and 2) they'll get hit by someone taking the curve a little too fast in their urban assault vehicle.

No one is dreaming any more of a white Christmas.

Yes, the weather outside IS frightful, making the mood around here much less than delightful.

NO more snow!  I'll comprimise and wish for a somewhat rainy spring and summer instead.

It's been a WONDERFUL two weeks away from work. That's what I love most about Christmas. Other than hurting my knee and shoveling a lot of snow, this was a perfect couple of weeks.

Tomorrow is Fast Sunday again, so I'll be crazy busy and the next day, I'm headed back to work.  It's going to be a hard, full week of work, but it'll also be nice to get some things moving forward again there.  I could use another week away, I'm sure, but I really can't complain about the time I've had to rest, relax, and recharge.

Happy New Year!

I'm hoping so, anyway.

I turn 40 this year. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Ask me in September.

I get to spend a lot of time with a bunch of Boy Scouts. That should be fun for the most part. I'm hoping I get the budget I asked for. If not, I hope they re-instate our fundraiser.

I'm not teaching this semester, so that should leave more time for me to spend at home with my family. Every time I think about how fast my boys are growing up, I'm shocked. It will be nice to be able to devote more time to them.

I don't really make many New Year's resolutions. Instead, I'm the kind of person that somewhat regularly takes stock of what's going on in my life and I try to make things better. I don't need any particular event like a new digit on a calendar to make me want to make changes where they are needed.

I AM planning on exercising more this year. I've missed riding my bike. Hopefully I'll have the time to ride a century or two this year. Big rides like that are a lot of fun.

I'm also going to give Project 365 another shot this year. My older son got a camera for Christmas and he's excited about it. Hopefully, the two of us will be able to keep each other motivated. There's a new link off to the right. It has the first two pictures of 2009 on it. Don't worry... most of the pictures will stink, but if you sift through them all, I'll bet you'll find a keeper or two.

I think that a major goal for me this year is to avoid surgery. My knee is feeling a lot better. I'm hoping that it'll continue to improve and I won't have to have that repaired. If I can keep away from surgery and associated rehab, I'll probably be able to ride my bike a lot more this year.

I hope that 2009 brings you much joy and growth in your life!

A couple of days before Christmas, I was getting down off a chair to get to something behind our computer and my knee hit a baluster on the balustrade along the top of our balcony.  There was a loud crack and I was in terrible, terrible pain.

Fortunately, my kneecap was stronger than the baluster.  It was the baluster, not my knee that made the loud crack.  The immediate pain subsided and other than a bruise, I wasn't much worse for the wear.

Or so I thought.

Since then, my knee hasn't been quite right.  I've been popping ibuprofen and using heating pads, but none of that seems to be helping.  I can bend my knee just fine, but when I straighten it, there's a point where it seems to catch and pop every time.

And I'm scared.

I'm going to wait until Friday to get it looked at.  Maybe there's still some swelling inside somewhere that will still subside and this problem will go away.  (Also, it will cost less if I wait until Friday for insurance reasons.)  But I'm afraid that the problem will not go away and I'll have to have knee surgery.  I don't WANT to have knee surgery.

I'm probably overreacting, but since my knees have been bothering me for YEARS now, I can help but jump to dire conclusions.  I hope I'm wrong.  Because if not, this little pain is going to change into some serious pain before it goes away.

But for now, I'll learn to deal with the aching and popping until I know more.

The packages have all been unwrapped, Christmas dinner has been eaten, but the excitement hasn't completely worn off yet.  We had a wonderful day, and as I get ready to go to sleep, I'm sitting here wondering how another year has gone by.

I hope your Christmas was as merry and fulfilling as ours was!

To all those who are smarting from BYU's Las Vegas Bowl loss last night, I have but one thing to say:  I don't get it.

I don't understand why people spend hundreds and thousands of dollars and drive hundreds of miles to see a football game when the best seats to the game are in my living room.

I don't understand how the loss so deeply affects anyone other than the guys that actually battled it out on the field.  When did whining and wailing and moping about because of something that one had NO control over become a good thing?  It must be so, because everyone around here (other than the two local Ute fans) seems to be doing it.

Maybe I'm missing something.  Maybe the esprit de corps associated with being a rabid fan of a particular team has its upside too, but it certainly doesn't seem to the day after a loss to a rival or a loss in a bowl game.

Seriously, the way people talked and wept and gnashed their teeth the day after BYU's team was crushed by the Ute football team, one would have thought that they were suffering all of the trials of Job.

It's a GAME people!  Unless you were on the team, the pain that you are feeling is completely in your head.  (If you were on the team, you probably have a few aches and pains today.)  Your loved ones didn't suffer harm from the loss.  Unless you were foolish enough to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars and drive a long way, or unless you were involved in something you shouldn't have been, you're no worse off financially from the loss.  Regardless of your religion, your spirituality shouldn't suffer from a loss by a team from what some call "The Lord's University."  Why take it so personally?

Nope.  I just don't get it.