OK, so a bit dated here (read my blog... I've been BUSY!).  But I just have to comment on this story. 

Many weeks ago John Edwards admitted being involved in an affair.

Now I won't even touch on the affair itself, but a comment made by the mistress's family is just so laughable its sad.

They said that she is being falsely portrayed as a 'promiscuous person'.

Excuse me??

What else would you call it?  She slept with not one, but at least two married men in course of a year.

Call it what it is... much worse than promiscuous.

HT: MMI

OK, here's the story a guy by the name of benjaminalanbest goes state to state on his bicycle asking for money and such because he is doing this for Matt Maupin. 

He recently came through my neck of the woods and I got to talk to him.  Then I started following his blog.

He's got a drinking problem.  So money you give or save him, is going to booze. 

His problem is so bad he actually showed up at Matt Maupin's parents house 'blitzed' (his words).

So please, if you see him.  Be aware, he's got a bit of a drinking problem.  So any money you give or save him will just allow for his drinking issues to continue.

Sorry for what is about to follow.  I am trying to make sure this shows up in search engines.

benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest benjaminalanbest

Well this class was on the policies of the county we live in.  Many of the in's and out's of the county.

Learned many of the financial's about this process.  Going through the county, the adoption is basically free.  And at some level they pay you some money during the process.  Nothing you will get rich on, but enough to cover a lot of the basic cost associated with a child. 

Also learned that we get paid for all of these classes we've been taking, once you get a placement.

Looks like we will be 'certified' by mid October.  Which likely leads to a placement no later then January. 

Now I want to take a moment to publicly thank all the families that helped us during this process.  Literally eight different families helped us by watching our children.  Really, really, appreciative of this.  Couldn't have done this without them.

Now its all about paper work, and our CPR/First Aid class.

So looking at my stats I see I get a lot of visitors from my site.  Many more than I am aware of (and I'm aware of enough...).  But did you know you can save yourself some time and still get to read my blog?  There are two ways, one more technical than the other. 

1. Get emailed my post.  Everyday about 7AM there is a service I use that will email you the previous day's post. Its that easy.  Just click this link and fill out the information.  You'll start getting the post tomorrow.

2. RSS Feeds.  This is a bit technical in nature, but there are programs out there that will allow you to follow any site that supports RSS (like this one, or any podcast, or virtually any blog).  If you fall into this category (ie you read several blogs contact me and I'll walk you through the process. Just ask my buddy Brian Richard about how much time it saves you to use an RSS reader. Now one added benefit to this in regard to my site is that not only can you get notified of the new post, but also the comments on each post.  My two RSS feeds are:

Post Feed.
Comment Feed.

So as you can see there is really no need for you to come to my site most of the time.  The only time you need to come is when you want to read the comments (if you choose option 1) or when you want to make a comment.

Welp this was our final class (sort of).  This was it when it comes to the training classes for me.  My wife still has two to make up and then we both have a CPR/First Aid class to take... then we also have a class this Tuesday to meet with workers in the county.

Class 12 was on Permanency Issues for Families.  Basically how does this affect MY family.  Again, we've been through this.  We have a pretty good idea how its going to affect us.  I'm ready for the challenge.

Now at the end of the class Gail, the trainer, took 10 minutes to give her personal feeling on things.  She has been doing this for decades and has been a fundamental part of changing the lives of thousands of children (if not tens of thousands).  And even now I felt truly valued by her for being willing to help the next child. 

I don't know her religious background, but if she's right with Jesus... she's going to have a special seat in heaven for doing what she does. 

James 1:27 - Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

There are very few things I'm willing to challenge God about, but taking care of orphans is one of those things.  I could list many reasons why doing this is just crazy for my family.  But all I have to do is list the one reason why it makes sense.  IT PLEASES GOD!  I know that once the five children we will have grow a bit and start moving out, this will become a way my wife and I can serve God in our 'empty nest' years.  I could see us having foster children for many decades to come.  Giving these children a moment of peace in what is a hellish life style, while the system tries to find out if their family is ready to take them back or until a 'forever family' is found.

OK, now the no kids part... I am typing this near midnight on Saturday.  We have NO KIDS!  Actually letting my wife get a good nights sleep and recharge some batteries.  After discussing this together it been well over 3 years since we've had this luxury.  And even since we got our first adopted child we haven't been kid free since then but one time.  Pretty amazing that much time can pass and you not even notice it.

Just one more class left for me.  Wife had to make up two classes and we are well on our way to be certified.

I've decided that over the next few weeks I'm going to import a lot of old post into this blog.

For a while I had another blog, then upon leaving our last church I wiped it out went with this new blog.

But I'll warn everybody now... that blog was maintained during some very dark years in my life.  I was spiritually bankrupt, and it shows.  I'll be editing them slightly before they go live, but they will be on this site for archival purposes of my own.  I mentioned names and places in the old blog that I will not do on this blog. 

I'm not sure if the RSS feeds will pick them up or not, so it may not matter to you in the long run.  I literally have over 200 post to import... wow.   You'll see that every post from that blog will be marked in the category, "Old Blog"

Class one for Saturday was on Permanency Issues for Children

Basically what should we expect the effects of adoption to be on the children.  Was a good talk and really having been through this once before we understand a lot of it. Though being so early in the process (our first adopted son isn't even four  yet), we know we have a long road ahead of us.  At some point in life he will have to emotionally deal with the loss of his birth mom and dad, and his reaction to that has very little to do with my wife and I.  Really it will be on his temperment.  He will either take it in stride or have an emotional out burst. 

He's so loving that I really do feel that when it hits him he'll actually lose part of that in him. Not all of the loving aspect of him, but part of it.  So sad really.  I just hope my wife and I are prepared to help him when it finally hits him.

Two classes left.

OK, what a day.  As a good friend of mine has put it, every time I get close to voting for McCain (rather than Donald Duck) he does something stupid.  Over the past few weeks I've been on the verge of committing to John McCain, but didn't want to make that choice until he picked a vice president.

Because he had the potential to put a really bad choice out there that would have chased folks like me away.  Last night there was a leak that it was Tim Pawlenty, Governor of Minnesota. Did a search on him and was not impressed.  Wasn't chased away, but wasn't chased to him either.  THEN this morning they started talking about some lady name Sarah Palin.  Did a search on her and loved what I read.  Then it was official.  The Republican ticket is McCain/Palin.

So regardless of the way this election falls, America will be on new ground come November 5th.  We will either have a black president, or a female vice president.  We are truly in amazing times.

Now this pick has two potentials.

1. Kick the snot out of Obama's campaign.

2. Kick the snot out of McCain's campaign.

Generally a Vice President pick means nothing.  However in this case that does not apply.  It meant everything.

Had McCain picked a pro-choice, gay loving running mate the game would have been over.  He was slowly winning over the base of his party, and the part of the base he didn't win yet (like me) are the far right religious crowd.  So this pick did two things for him.

1. Kept his reputation for being a maverick. Somebody that didn't always do the safe thing, if the better thing was unsafe.

2. Played to the base. While not doing it in a bland or over the top way (ie Pawlently or Huckabee). 

They say Palin is a fierce debater and I think that the debates will determine the effect she has on this run.  If she own Biden during the debates, this election is over.  If she makes  a huge misstep, this election is over.

The argument against Palin from the democrat camp?  No experience in national affairs.  This I find a riot.  She has MORE real experience than Obama (ie, the top of the ticket not the bottom).  What's Obama done?  He gave a speech and got elected in 2004, then basically started running for president.  So during the debates if she shows great wisdom and poise, this will be a landslide. 

This is what Obama doesn't understand.  The reason the inexperience line works on him is because he proves it over and over again. Even when this announcement was made, the Obama camp threw out a line about how bad this pick was.  Then they realized that wasn't going to fly, so they put out a new line congratulating her. 

So its official.  As of right now, I am voting John McCain 2008.

Well had a major shift to our adoption plans over the last two days.  We weren't supposed to take this class.  My wife and I had full plans of adopting through a neighboring, and more diverse county.  However on Wednesday we are told that they don't really want people from other counties!  So we're young and flexible and moved to our home county.  Problem... our home county requires 2 other classes.  Tonight's class on education advocacy and a CPR/First aid class.

So my church came to the rescue again and provided some child care on short notice. 

As mentioned tonight's class was on education advocacy.  A lively class.  We have several home schooler's in our class and there was a long drawn out conversation about the merits of that.  Then we went onto how you deal with the children you get and their learning difficulties.  We were a good resource for this as our middle son has had to use some of the resources in a school system due to some speech issues. 

Overall, probably the second best class so far.

Now another update as well.  Got a letter in the mail today warning us that we may not be approved, so proceed with caution.  Reason for potentially not being approved?  "Previous contact with the child protection agency."  Now they make it clear that this is not a solid warning, but something that will have to be answered.  Wife and I aren't worried about this.  10 years ago, yes 10 years ago, somebody called CPS on my wife and I.  Said we performed surgery on him at home... yeah, performed surgery on him... I won't go into the details, but it was as absurd as it sounds.  We actually, somehow..., were wise enough to keep the letter from CPS clearing us of any wrong doing.  Plus its in their file (we dealt with this during our first adoption). 

So its been a fun two days.

3 classes left.

Ok, so I've railed on the stupid sick pay legislation a few times.  Lets do another.

Recent study says that enforcing seven paid sick days would cost the state of Ohio 75,000 jobs. 

Interesting find is that 20% of those job losses would come from companies not directly affected by the legislation.  But due to the larger companies they feed off of, going out of business or moving out of state... they wouldn't have a reason to be in business either.

Just love the democrats, but hey lets be fair even democrat govenor Ted Strickland opposes the legislation.