Maturing Into a Child.

When I read this scripture it changed my life...
11. Verily thus sayeth the lord, seek ye out the learned and the wise. For in them is the secret, for in as much as thou learnest from them, ye shall find eternal life.
It is given unto the teachers of teachers and the professors with doctorates to know the mysteries of heave. 1Paul 1:11-12
Ever since the moment I read that scripture I have tried to do just that. My mind is never satisfied, and most the time when I find an answer to a questions it only causes me to ask more questions. I used to try and study the scriptures and pray to my heavenly father, but now I just ask smart people what they think.
For example... if the atonement is infinite and eternal, and it is, then does that mean the people on the other worlds, past present or future, are reading in there scriptures about earth where the savior Jesus Christ was born atoned for their sins? Well I have never found anyone smart enough to answer that question for me.
I have found the answers to some of my unanswerable questions in books that smart people wrote. When I will need to know some thing and I search and search books by people with genius reputations until I find what I am looking for.

Well for those of you that have never heard that scripture before or have been trying to look it up for the last five minutes, I made it up. It is not real. However this is how I have been acting. I have been trying to find my knowledge in all the wrong places.
What I am about to write may be perceived by those who are learned to be immature or a view taken from an uneducated position. (Those of you that do know me know that I am in fact not formally educated. But also know I am very very well informed on what ever I choose to voice an opinion about.) But let me share the scripture with you that leads me to say; no one should care if you think Im immature because this is what the Lord himself has said.
4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:4
As with all of my post that some may find to be controversial, I do not claim to know everything and most importantly I make no claim that I am even able to practice what I preach just the way that I preach it. All I can say is at times I am trying my best to follow my own direction. This is going to be a story of a lesson that I was taught today while running a dozer and pondering some conversations that I have had during the past couple days. I also want to point out that I really really like all the people that are involved in this story, so if any of them read it don’t get offended. Just think about the above scripture.

For the last little while we have been in an area at work where the government has required us to have a paleontologist to monitor our work. One day my dozer broke down and I had time to sit and talk to one of them while I waited for parts to arrive. Turns out not only was she a scientist but also a returned missionary. This made me wonder how she would reconcile the differences between the scriptures and science concerning the origination of the planet and humans. We had a long conversation. It is not my intent to argue with all you smart people how evolution and creation can work together. It is however my intent to share with you what I have learned about my own dealings with my God while I was discussing the subject.
The first thing that was said by her when I asked her the question was that “God has to operate within the laws of science.” This is a statement that I have heard since I was just a little kid. It is something that I have accepted for a long time. I mean really... it is something that you hear all the time. And when ever someone talks about evolution it is the first line that you hear. So the whole time we worked within that premises. The next statement is always “what, you think that the two cannot work together?” So we also worked with in that premises. (I have to admit, I am intimidated by those who are educated and also I don’t want to look like I don’t have an open mind so what I said my not have represented my full belief at the time.)
Her points were:

• There is a reason that God used evolution to accomplish his goal.

• The whole purpose of evolution was to create man as the goal.

• There is so much fossil evidence of so many extinct creatures.

• Evolution stopped when Adam was finally achieved, because there was no longer a need for anything to Evolve.

• Science’s only working theory is evolution.

• In Abraham it don’t call the days of creation days, it call them “time”. So each step could have been billions of years.

And some more that I cannot remember right now.
My points were very provocative to her, most of them caused her to change what she had said to the points that I listed above. Some of them she told me she just didn’t have an answer for. We discussed the matter for awhile. I came home and talked to my wife and told her how impressed I was with this scientist, and was very interested in her way of thinking. I started to buy into her way of thinking. After a few hours I started to find peace in the matter. Then my wife said something about the conversation to my in-laws, and in unison they asked “what, you think that the two can’t work together.” I said some things I think, and my father-in-law thought it best to end of conversation.
Then today I was at work early in the morning and thinking about the subject again. As I was pondering the matter (pondering is said to be one of the truest forms of prayer), a thought came to my mind. “I should be careful of the things I start telling God that he cannot do.” For example, “God must work within the laws of science.” This may or may not be true. Through history there have been a few people that have seen and talked with either God or Jesus Christ, and I cannot recall in one of the written account that it was relayed that the source of Gods power is his knowledge of the laws of science. I am not saying that knowledge is not one of his strong suits. But what is the source of his power? Does God have the power to create the earth and everything in it in 6 days? Or does he not have that power, and only enough power to organize it all in 4.5 billion years?
...for he rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power; and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency;
D&C 29:36
1 And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That Satan, whom thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is the same which was from the beginning, and he came before me, saying—Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.
Moses 4:1
When my mind had caught upon these two concepts another scripture sunk into my head. I couldn’t quite quote it just right then, but I remembered enough to find it on my Ipod touch. Something about “having a form or godliness but denying the power there of”? So I looked it up. When you read these verses you might notice that I have them mixed up a bit. This is a pet peeve of mine because people always do this kinda thing to make the bible mean what they want it to mean at that very moment. And if it weren’t for two things I would not do this myself right now. ONE, this is how they came to my mind while pondering, I think I might have been guided in that direction. TWO, I have read the whole chapter and the one before and after and I don’t think that it changes the context of the verses at all.
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, [and] proud... Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth... Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away... But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them.
2 Timothy 3:1-14
Knowing of whom thou hast learned them.... For far too long I have been learning of men. Trusting in things of science. I have been looking for answers in the writings of uninspired but well meaning people. I have been trusting the words of those who,well; honestly I trust. But that has lead me to try and force MY GOD into a box. Supposedly I am a man of faith, but have been trying to justify my faith through the learning of fallible man. A person that is faithful should be trying filter the learning of man though the truth of faith. Not trying to filter what is already true to fit some idea that makes sense to our minds right now and will be proved wrong later.
I just looked this up. Did you know there are 18 actual LAWS of physical science? Every other thing that a scientist says is just the best knowledge that we have at this point. Do you know how the scientific method works? One comes up with an idea and then try’s to prove it wrong. If they can prove it wrong then they change the idea and start over. The proponents of evolution do it the opposite way. They have the idea of evolution and thousands of ways to prove it wrong, but they are working tirelessly to try and make the damning evidence fit their bad idea.
I have come to an understanding of where I think the lines of Gods power and evolution cross. I feel good about it. But what I feel better about is from now on I will not question the ability of my GOD. He is omnipotent. He is omnipresent. He is omniscient.
My paleo friend made mention that in Abraham it refers to the creation as just time periods, and not days. There is one other way to interrupt the phrasing.
13 And it came to pass that they numbered the days; from the evening until the morning they called night; and it came to pass, from the morning until the evening they called day; and it was the third time.
Abraham 4:13
Now that I am seeing things differently I think this is even clearer than in genesis. In Genesis when it said days, one could say that is by the time reckoning of Kolob’s time. 1day = 1000 years. But here in Abraham it is saying that on earth the sun went up and went down then came back up again for the third time. Leading up to this scripture it said the same thing except for the second and first times. After this scripture the sun came up, went down and back up again for the fourth through the seventh times. Sounds to me more like God did have the power to make everything just the way it is and just as we know it in only six days and then took a well deserved brake on the seventh. I would have been way tired after all that work.
I hope I remember this lesson I was taught. I still wont tell you the way I think our existence was brought about. But you can trust me that all the rebuttals you have, I have already thought of and answered them to my satisfaction. I love my God in heaven, and pray that I can be a more faithful man. I want to trust him above all else so that I can lead my family to exhalation.

Learning from teens

Parenting.

I was teaching a class full of 14 and 15 year olds the other day and asked them a provocative question. I was not expecting such fair and wise answers, but sure enough the way the children said what they did surprised me how enlightened and unselfish they are. See we were discussing a story in the old testament about a dad and his two sons. In the story the dad was not only their father but the nations spiritual leader as well. He had been a righteous man and lead the people well. But when his two sons grew up to be spiritual men as well they weren’t so good.
The two sons only wanted to serve themselves. They were doing things like taking peoples sacrifices by force and eating them. It was also later learned that they were kinda forcing women that came to the tabernacle to lay with them. They were completely self serving men.
Their father was still their dad and the prophet. It was his job to go down and set his children right. He talked to them and told them that they were doing bad things and that was it.

We discussed some of the story in more detail and how God had reacted to these three people differently. The lesson manual had asked me to ask a question to the class on how we as parents can do a better job at raising our kids. Since I was teaching a class full of kids I decided to ask them this.
I said; lets say, if your mom and dad would listen to you, how would you teach them to be a better parent. Keep in mind that their biggest worry and priority is to make sure you turn out to be a good adult. You are at the age right now everyone says is the hardest age to have kids at. They want to help you and be your friend, but they can’t just let you be free range kids. Like in the story we just talked about God was upset with the prophet for not doing more to help his sons be righteous. So I guess the real question is what would you tell your parents to do to help you grow up to be a righteous and successful adult. I want an answer from each of you in the class.
I gave them about 2min to think about it and called on a class member.
The first answer was from a young woman. “I would tell them that when they give out a consequence to actions, make sure they follow through with it. Whether it be chores, time out, grounding, or even a reward.” This answer really surprised me. At 15 years old this child felt like she needed more structure in her life. I have been told that kids really need this kinda structure to fell like their moms and dads actually do care about them.
Next was a young man. “Instead of sitting around the house and being bored, go out and do something with us.” Which seams like an average answer. So I asked, “I remember being your age and at 14 I didn’t want to go do things with my family. So why would that be your answer? Tell me how to get a 14 or 15 year old to go out and actually have a good time with their parents. When I see other families trying this the teen seems to want to be anywhere but there.” This opened up a pretty long discussion. There was not one of them that disagreed with this answer the young man gave. The one thing they all seemed to say is that there seems to be a tension between them and their parents, even while at play. They said to not be so reactive/explosive. To just have a good time. Not worry about what time it is or how the activity is being done, and don’t try to always be the coach or the know it all. Just play like you did when you were that age. Or like you do with men or women you own age now. One explained that if they were out rough housing somewhere and dad accidentally got banged up by a silly mistake of the kid, there was heck to pay for it.
We talked awhile on this one because this is one where I struggle. My boy wants to just be with me, doing... well... nearly anything. And I have found that I am way too short fused with him. When we go riding his four-wheeler I am always trying to push him to get better. Or force him to do things he doesn’t feel ready for. I have gotten mad and yelled at him when we were just playing soccer. Or I don’t just go spend time with him when he asks. Soon enough he will be like I was and stop asking, then stop desiring at all to spend time with his dad. One of the last points that came out is the kids sometimes felt that when they are out with mom and dad that it feels like they are the duty of their parents. Not some one of mutual respect and love. When this young man said play, I think he defines the word differently then you might define it.
The next answer was from another young man. His was kinda on the same line as the last one. “I would have to say do things to prevent problems.” I think kids feel like they are always in trouble and are scared to be in the same room as mom and dad. This was a tough one to interpret what he meant. But it had to do with filling your kids life with wholesome things and not letting them have the chance to fill it with dark things that lead to problems.
The next one I was expecting. The young woman said “just talk to us.” She went on about how her friend could just sit and talk to her mom or dad and they had this warm and fuzzy relationship. “Like best friends, she can tell them anything and they don’t get all mad and stuff.” I asked her “now remember that it is a parents God given duty to be more than a friend. So how can a parent still fulfill that role and then just sit and talk to you no matter what?” This is where it got somewhat interesting.
She said “first of all let us talk”, and every single one in the class started agreeing and nodding and expanding on this point. After listening to them I can completely understand. See while I was a missionary I often complained that I would ask someone a question or answer a question they asked me, and they would immediately tune me out and start thinking of what to say next. And their response would be to either interrupt me while I was speaking or didn’t even pertain to what I said. Or they thought I was speaking in code or something and tried to find secret meaning in my words. Also with my own dad right now. I cannot have a conversation with him because he thinks he knows what I am going to say before I say it. He goes ahead and lets me speak but doesn’t hear a word I say. Im 28 years old and we still have this problem.
I shared those two things with the class and universally they said that is the exact problem they have with their parents. She went on to clarify her answer, “if you are going to talk to us let us at least get the story out before you get mad or try to fix everything. I understand its really important to you to make me a good person, and I understand you can’t be my best friend, but at least respect me enough to let me speak.” One boy jumped in and said “Its hard to talk to my mom and dad because I feel like whether its good or bad I am going to get a lecture. Kinda like they just want to get the conversation out of their way and put a fixed stamp on the file, then move on.”
I then told them when I was younger my mom asked me everyday “how was school?” I really think she wanted me to talk to her. But I came home everyday and said “fine.” and that was it. I didn’t want to talk. How do we as parents help our kids want to talk to us? You say you want that, but then when your mom or dad asks you a question I bet you answer just like I did when I was your age.
The same girl said “get more specific. I hate that question too. But if you are involved enough in my life that you can ask me about something I care about, I will talk.” Again when I was a missionary, the first thing they tried to teach us in the mtc was how to ask meaningful questions. That was HARD. It was really a battle, for a whole 6 months of my time serving as a missionary, to figure out how to ask good questions. Think about this. How do you ask your kids about their day? This was another point that the whole class agreed with and give their own examples on how a parent asking better questions would help them open up.
I find already with my 5 year old he wont talk to me when I ask him “how was your day?” I get a one word answer. And then when he wants to talk I don’t feel like it.
These kids said having a good relationship with them was more than talking or playing or punishments. It’s a combinations of all things. I remember being at this troubled age, and not feeling comfortable around my family. I felt like what ever I did I was in the way, so I got out of the way and did my own thing.
It seems to me that these kids feel somewhat the same as I did. They understand that we can’t be besties, but it is our JOB not theirs to make sure we don’t make them feel the way I did back then.
This was the end of class and a couple kids didn’t get to give their answers. But I felt surprised by the maturity of their answers. You hear these answers all the time if you just take the first line of them.
-Stick to your punishments
-Play as a family
-Fill your lives with good things
-Talk to your kids
-Be their friend.
But as parents I think we feel like some of those things just don’t work with our kids, or they just don’t want to do those things. But, now I think we are just going about it wrong. I think our kids feel a tension, the same tension and frustration we feel. And that is the source for the things that divide us. It is our calling to figure out how to force those feelings to melt away. A good relationship with our children is really what we all want. And by we, I mean us and them. Trust me even though you might think your teen doesn’t want this type of thing they do. Its for sure worth the time to try, even if you don’t feel like you are good at it.

Vernal Temple

I have been busy working on a new project. I have finally gotten a product that I am pleased with, and feel comfortable selling to the public. These pictures are 16X24 inches. We had originally planned on selling them framed, but have decided there was no way to produce a quality frame for affordable prises. So we decided to sell just the prints.







this one compares the colors of the photo. The left is a sepia and the right is black and white. The one in the middle is the color of the portrait print. I call it a soft black and white.

Who pays for the sick insured?

I think that is a good question to think about.
Last night, well this morning, the congress voted for a new health insurance make over bill. There are many many many problems with the bill. Most of all it doesn't do what the POTUS promises it does. He is leading us to believe that the bill will lower health care costs for all Americans, and for the government.
Tell me if cutting 500 billion from Medicare will lower costs for the elderly. Or if that will improve the quality of their care. What about the billions of dollars in tax hikes? Does that count as lowering costs? Or how about the requirement that every single person in this land purchase a insurance plan? If your boss doesn't provide a plan you have to buy it, or pay a fine. Or the fact that it is now going to be made law that no one can be rejected for having a preconditions.
Witch brings me back to my first question. Who pays for the sick that already have insurance? Well the answer is the NOT sick, or the well that are insured. Same with car insurance, the people that don't wreck pay for the ones that do. If you and I have the same provider and I brake my clavicle, your premium pays for my treatment. The more people that use up those premiums the higher the premiums have to go.
So... If everyone will have insurance, even those that have preconditions like cancer and heart problems and so on, that cost lots of money and that go to treatment often, what will happen to our premiums? I seen on the news today that a healthy person's, age 25-30, health insurance premiums will increase an average of 176%.
Add that to high taxes and the hundreds of bad things in this bill, and this thing becomes a complete joke. It needs to be killed in committee. Please help in opposing this bill. It is not helpful to any of us. President Obama actually said that he just wants a bill, and that he don't care what it looks like because anything is better than nothing. It seems that in Washington now a days the victory is in just passing a bill, even if it harms the country instead of helps it. For me the victory needs to be in passing a bill that works! This bill harms everyone, even my granola brother in law. In fact is will affect him and I probably the most in its bad ways.
"Kill the bill" to quote Howard Dean.

My latest gig.

I had a friend ask me to do their family portraits. I think they are turning out okay. I don't know for sure though. Here are a couple of examples. I hope that they like them. I told them the only way that I would do it was if they didn't even attempt to try and compensate me for the work. I am not confident enough in the quality of what I do to accept money for it.

What a raggedy summer

It's been a interesting summer.
We used to say our blessing from tithing was that we never had to go to the hospital. From the time Heidi and I were married we would hear couples near our age taking kids to the hospital. Or having some big medical issue them selves. We never did have one problem with us or our kids.
Well this summer has been a doozy.
I got ran over early this summer in Tooele, then four weeks later I broke a rib at work. I had a couple minor injuries with my back at work as well. Heidi had a major back problem, climaxing with it being necessary to take a ride in the ambulance to the ER. Plus we had Syeira.
This last week end I had a little oops on my dirt bike. I broke my collar bone right in half. Well today the doctor said it is in four pieces. So tomorrow morning I have to have surgery.
I don't know what we need to do to qualify for the blessing of health again but we desperately need it.

its funny how true this really is

I have joked with my hot wife for awhile now about how I don't even have a corner in this house I can call mine. Not even one spot anywhere in this house that is not crowded out by her stuff or the way she wants it. She tells me I have the garage, but all my stuff is on the ground because all her seasonal decorations are in totes on the shelves.
Well... I finally got something my way. I have slowly been remodeling the bathroom upstairs and a few weeks ago I got the shower put in. I quickly claimed my spot in the shower. I have 1 bar of soap, 1 bottle of shampoo, and 1 razor. I put those three items on the top shelf closest to the shower head.

It was just last night that I was thinking to myself while showering, "wow this is the first spot that has been mine in this house." It had been weeks and my stuff was still there

Tonight however I get in the shower and something has changed. Heidi has about ten or twenty things in the shower, and my three things have been replaced.

Im not complaining or crying about it. I thought it was worth sharing to illustrate to my wife how right I am on this subject. See when I joke with her about it, she cannot understand what I am talking about.
One of these days, even if I have to build a separate house, I will have just one room that I can do as I please with.

She Likes To Just Scream at Me.

This is what my little baby girl does to me when I hold her. Its every time... I don't know if she likes me or not. She just yells at me. Well actually there is no noise but still she just opens her mouth and scowls at me. Makes me laugh.

B.A.R.M. Being A Real Man.

I wrote a blog titled "unintended consequences" when I first started this blog. I thought it was genius. I really figured I had spelled it all out as to leave no question to the matter. A commenter proved me wrong, in fact my blog had quite the opposite affect on her. She asked a plethora of questions about the text. Most of which I believe are answered in the essay, but here is one question I felt was left unexplained.

"What is a real man? I would like to know this. Perhaps you can enlighten me. Does a real man have his own set of moral that he passes to his children or is he the man that takes what he wants when he wants it. It sounds to me that your suggesting that men cannot be responsible for their own cruelty and missuses of their own power. I don't know though."

I read this comment the day it was left and have been thinking about it sense. Its not an easy question to answer, because most the answers are really long and not p.c. (Politically Correct) But seeing that this sight is titled B.A.R.M. I figure it is a question that need the proper attention given to it.

Here is a BIG disclaimer: I AM NOT CLAIMING TO BE A REAL MAN, OR CLAIM TO BE THE EXAMPLE OF ONE. I don't know that any one man is a real man. But I know where I fall short and am trying to improve on a regular basis. Also, if any of you reading this and find yourself offended, its probably because you are guilty of some thing you are reading. Or that your husband or someone close to you is the guilty party. So... don't cry about it... do something about it.

I have been asking my wife to give me a definition of a real man for months now and she never did. She came up with a real man likes certain parts of the female anatomy (both start with the letter "B"). And that REAL men know how to barbecue. I have those covered.

Here's the meat.

A REAL MAN IS..............

Logical
Men have the genetic advantage of being more left brain than women are. If its an advantage or not we can debate on that, but its a fact that men don't think in abstracts as much or as well as women do. Being logical is making decisions based on data, not emotion. I know too many people that I just cannot talk to because all they think or talk about is how they or others feel about a subject. Take the current debate of the congress; universal health care. Its an argument based on pure emotion. Even I would like to see all Americans given top rate health care. But the facts are its not possible to do with out damaging large amounts of the health care and private systems.

Most of the bad decisions humans make are based on feelings not facts. A real man will learn to separate the two and choose to weigh his options carefully and make the sound judgments that will lead him and his family down a secure path.

Falling under logic, I believe, is honesty. To be a man you must always be truthful to everyone, even your self. There has been a temptation throughout time to justify ones actions to explain away all guilt. When a man has a flaw, he realizes it and takes action. As I alluded to in the open of this essay, men don't get offended, they just make the necessary corrections and get on with it.

Being honest with others is self explanatory. That means in all you do; work, play, money, and if you give your word that is what will happen. All of your dealings must be truthful.

Practical
Practicality and Logic go hand in hand. How many of us know someone that is not to good with their time or their money. Or any of their resources for that matter. It is up to the men to make sure that the priorities of the family are set straight. Which includes money not being spent frivolously, and time being spent in the right portions in the right places.

Men and women have a large variety of things they can focus their time and money on. A mans list should be in this order. 1 Family, 2 Work, 3 Church, 4 Self. Some metro-sexuals my argue that how can a person take care of family, work, and church if he don't take care of himself first. This is not being honest with your self, this is rationalizing bad behavior. If you hear something of this nature it is a boy trying to sway some guilt away he might already feel for lack of action.

Stoic
Don't take this to mean that a real man is not allowed to have feelings or emotions. Its just our job to appear that we don't have any feeling or emotions. Think of it as a professional duty. This quality is where I really fall short. I am a succor for a woman that is crying. I spent a very long time with a girl friend that i didn't like because I met her when she was crying. We broke up like 14 times before it stuck, because each time I broke up with her she cried. REAL men don't cry, at least so others can see them crying, and they are not a sucker for tears. That goes back to not making decisions on emotion.

I think that this section includes gossip, and that sort of talk. We just shouldn't do it... it makes us look and sound like girls. I read a blog entry from a sight called Confessions from a Mormon Bachelor Pad, and this place is just one big puke-fest. These so called guys just rant on and on about chatty chick stuff. It is disgusting. It looks like they found the slobbering diary of a gay teen still in the closet and stole it out from under his pillow, then published it. This sort of dribble my be attractive to some of you liberated women out there, but it is just not acceptable to digress like this then call yourself anything but a childish boy. (And if somehow one of your girly little toads read this, sorry to brake it to you this way but its true. Consider the above statements.)

Handy
This is one more that my good wife thought of. She said that a man should have tools and know how to use them. She said that he need to be able to fix something. Not all men are blessed with the ability to just know how to fix things, but it is not unreasonable to ask that he at least know how to hammer a nail or fix a squeaky door. Something of that nature. In the movie Grand Torino clint eastwood said that any man worth half his life can fix most all that he needs with like a hammer vice grips and some duct tape. And really if you cannot fix something around the house, I bet your woman sees you as little less of a man. Chances are her dad could fix things and she thought that was just the best thing ever when she was little. So if you can't do it, learn how to do at least something.

Provider
Call me old fashion if you want but this is essential. Not only that, but it should be the top goal for a man. Look this is how me and my wife worked it. Before I asked her to merry me I told her that it was a deal breaker for me. I said I had a mom at home and my kids will too. I told her if it was important to her that she work then I would stay home with the kids till they went to school. But she had to make as much as I would so that we could afford to live like we wanted to. And about the school thing, I said its important that if you do get a job that when school is out and the kids come home one of us need to be there daily.

It is so clear to me that I need to do all that I can to make this happen. I will sacrifice a lot so that my kids have their mommy. I will work what ever I need to to make sure my wife can be at home. I am not going to have my children robbed of their childhood and be raised my a day care or the t.v. If we give our kids to a day care we are forfeiting the opportunity to teach them, lead them, love them, and learn from them. And by default we give that chance to the baby sitter.

It is the highest calling of a real man to be a provider for all the needs of his family. Not only money, but also the emotional needs of first his wife and then his kids. He needs to be the source of love to lead his wife and kids to happiness and the ability to stay together.

Strong
Being strong is what being a man is about. I have wrote before about the liberalization of women has caused a backlash against men and their natural desires. It is not p.c. to be a strong man any more. They have given it a name "the alpha male" and have demonized it. It is a problem that needs to be dealt with.

I don't mean physical muscular power. I mean the will to do what is right no matter what the cost. The right thing is what real men do. In the question at the top of this blog it was asked, "Does a real man have his own set of moral that he passes to his children or is he the man that takes what he wants when he wants it." So to answer this directly I would say a "real man" does not take what he wants when he wants it. Thats a silly questions, its a straw-man argument. If a man wants some thing, he finds a way to get it and he works for it and he earns it. Of course a real man would only want the things that are healthy for him and his family. Does He have his own set of morals? No he abides by God's set of morals and passes them on to their children with love and when necessary, reproof.

He would have the strength to stand up to his peers; his wife, kids, father, and yes his own mother. I listen to Dr. Laura and her radio show. The air waves are continually drowned with women that have week men that choose to make their mother happy rather than their wives. This is childish, selfish, and cowardly.

We should have the strength to be respectful and to all people. Our friends as well as our enemies. Its called manners. Although we really don't have enemies any more, the people that we don't like or that bug us should be treated just as well as our favorites. Now matter how much we want to be rude.

I work with all guys. It is rare to hear a guy where I work not refer to their wife as "the old lady" or some other derogatory term. I have to admit that this drives me absolutely nuts. My own dad rarely refers to my mom the way she deserves to be referenced. I want to hit him sometimes when I hear him talk about my mom in public. I am lucky that I went on a mission. If I wouldn't have gone, I would have never learned how good a "real man" can treat his woman, and still have the unmistakable air of strength and valuer. My mission president, President Bradshaw, treated his wife so well and it made an everlasting impression on me. I am grateful for his example. It has helped me treat my wife better than I would have other wise.

A couple random thoughts.
A real man does NOT wear "skinny pants" or those stupid canvas shoes!!!!
He can only hug his wife, daughters, grandmothers, mothers, aunts, and his sons (before the little boys hit puberty). Some times his mother-in-law on days like his wedding or times that are really extraordinary.

If you have anything to add to this section or the rest of the blog, feel free to comment.

My old brand new truck.

In October of 2006 we went to Larry H Miller and got a brand new ram 2500 sport quad cab. Long story there but I wanted a mega cab and Jimmy forced me not to get one. (like i said long story) Well for ever I hated the truck until I finally lifted it and got some sweet wheels for it. Then I fell in love with the truck. Since it was the sport edition it was all one color, no chrome or shiny anything. It had white bumpers and grill, in other words, it was completely white. So I named it Cracker. Get it?

Anyway the truck came with a scary payment, so considering the recession and all I wanted to get a smaller payment. My salesman at lhm called me friday and told me the value of my truck had come way up and was worth enough for me to trade it in and brake even.

Talked it over with the family and even though all of us were in love Cracker we decided to trade it in. On one condition, that I came home with a smaller payment. Heidi stayed home and sent me out there to do the sad sad deal. She just said, if you do something stupid, you have to come home with a cheese cake from the cheese cake factory.

So what did I do? I came home with a 2009 Ram 1500.


Let me explain.... I went to LHM with a truck that had 24000 miles on in and was mint. I didn't want to come home with a junker, you know... So I was looking at all the half ton trucks they had on the lot and the only one I could feel good about coming home with had 50000 miles and was in good shape. But the problem was not only did the value of my truck go up so did all the half tons value too. They were about the same price as my trade.

Turns out this new Hemi was only 5000 more than a 2007 half ton truck with 50000 miles on it.

I drove it home and soon as Heidi rode it she liked it. And soon as she drove it she loved it. That is why it is my OLD brand new truck. Its not mine anymore. We are selling her nitro and she will just drive this. I have sellers remorse a bit because I love Cracker so much.

Anyone have a sweet name for my bright orange truck. I am stumped.

P.S. Heidi loved her cheese cake.

more rock creek

Great Surprise.

My hot wife thought it would be fun to go up to the still water damn today. I was a good idea. I had never been there before, and was not expecting to much. Dylan had told me that it was really cool but I was not expecting to see what I did. I was thinking it was going to be a cobble rock damn like most damns are. Well that is not at all what we found.
On the way home Dylan told us there was a cafe in the trees so we went and found it. I was GOOOOD. I recommend any one that loves the mountains and good home cooked food go do this trip soon while Rock Creek is running high. The restaurant was only about a mile from the damn so its like 8000 feet high. It was a cool day. Especially considering I called in sick today. The day took a good turn.

Deegans HERO

I have a good friend, he's one of the best guys around, first class. He is Deegan's favorite friend of mine. He is a fire fighter and had the truck out at a church activity spraying kids with the big old guns. He pumped out 1000 gallons in like 4 min. That gun shot a 2" stream of water like 150 feet. Any way he called me at 7:30 pm and told me to bring Deegan down to help him shoot the water and stuff. Then we fallowed him down the to station and Deegan got a hat, badge, and a sticker to put on his four wheeler. Here are some of the cooler pictures.
(Click to enlarge pictures, and feel free to wonder around the flicker page.)









Thanks Dylan! Glad to have you as a friend.

Pictures of Linnéa

Heidi had the cutest idea for a picture of our fat little baby.
Sucks that she didn't do what we wanted her to do.
When she get ready to cry sometimes she makes the most sad and sour looking face in the world. We wanted to get her with that face. Instead she is just fussy.
Here's MY little squishy girl.





For larger image, click picture then click the "all sizes" tab above the picture. Feel free to comment on any of my photos that are in my flicker photostream.

I said "we cannot not afford Obama"

Cap and Trade...
There was a poll taken by a national news outlet and it found that only something like 13% of Americans understood what cap and trade is just by the mention of the name. Which means education on the subject is not a priority of the white house. The president would rather slip this through without the public understanding just how outrageously left he is before it's to late.

Cap and Trade is a plan by the government to put a limit (cap) on CO2 omissions for companies that use carbon based fuels. When they exceed this cap they are taxed. The cap on CO2 will be set at levels as high as 20% of current levels. Cutting CO2 omissions 80% is impossible for any company.

The trade part is company's can trade carbon credits among one another by what ever medium they want.

Because businesses do not pay taxes. (They just pass the cost on to the customer. If they don't they cannot afford it and go out of business.) The congressional budget office estimate the increased tax revenue at 650 billion dollars. The CBO is most always wrong by about 5-10 times. But just for arguments sake lets say that they are right. 650 billion divided by every house hold in America that uses energy is about $3100 a year. That is not money we save of get back as a stimulious; it is extra money that we pay for power, and water, and gas, and natural gas, and propane.

Like I said in an earlier blog WE CANNOT AFFORD THIS PRESIDENT!

President Obama told the congress leadership that he wanted to push this through by august. Keeping with my earlier point, get it through without the public finding out about it. He and all the dems know that this is an economy killer. Get the word out.

Im sick of this

In 2007, the public debt was 36.8 percent of GDP,^[4] with a total debt of 65.5 percent of GDP.^[5] The debt of the United States is ranked as 12th in the world.^[6]. As of May 2009 the debt was 80.1 percent of GDP based on current GDP.

Okay everyone!!! Its time for each of us as to stop and think for a minute. I know that there is some novelty about there being the first black president, but please look what he has done to this nation in his first 100 days. He has successfully bankrupt this nation. The left is going to have to raise taxes on everyone just to keep this nation moving at an even slower pace than it is now. We need to come together no mater your politics and tell our government stop spending.

In 2001 when I left for a mission, the nations total budget was 1.7 trillion dollars. The national budget grew like a weed under president bush. He never vetoed one bill that came across his desk until the final moments of his 8 years. The right wing base called him out on his spending many times and condemned him for it. But in the first 100 days of this president, he has increased the budget from Bushes 2.9 trillion to a modest 3.8-4 trillion dollars. With an expected 1.8 trillion dollar deficit. Back up to the top of the paragraph, what was the total budget just 8 years ago? Thats right; pres. Obama's deficit is larger than the whole amount spent in 2001.

In the midst of this looming down turn in our economy the white house has decided it is a good time to saddle my brand new daughter with huge amounts of dept to pay. In the midst of this recession the white house has decided that it is a good time for all the liberal (huge government very expensive) pet projects to be enacted. Health care reform, bale outs for the unions, bale outs for banks, and bale outs for wall street. To accomplish this he has raised taxes on small business and big business, aka the people that give you and me jobs, health care insurance, and pay checks.

In Pres Bushes first term he tried to fix social security. He couldn't get the dems on board with him so he failed. The argument was that Bush was just trying to scare old people, and that everything will be just fine. But just today the fed reported that THIS year social security will take in less money that it will pay out. For those of us that pay our own bills what would this mean for us if we took in less money that we owed? It would mean drastic cuts in our lifestyle, would it not? But for the the federal government it means raising taxes, printing more money (causing inflation), and borrowing it from other countries and individuals.

But borrowing money for the USA is not as easy as it once was. With interest rates at basically zero, nobody wants to lend us any money, because the return on their investment would be so small at .5% it is not worth it. Also with our national dept going over the breaking point, the nations triple-A credit rating is falling. We have already slid out of the top spot among nations who are triple-A rated. So what does this mean for you and me. Well again taxes going up, not just on the rich but for everyone. It also means the fed will start to hike up the core interest rates to make lending to the government more attractive. So for the middle class things are not looking to good.

In fact one radio news report today said that the middle class will be pressured more in the future than it will be at the bottom of this recession. Where ever the bottom may be.

Look! Americans deserve better than what we are getting. Our president is doing all he can to establish power for the federal government. He is using the heavy weight of billions of dollars to force states to go along with is policies. Saying do this or your 6 billion will not come to your state after all. He is using the powers of the government to take away the rights of individual citizens. Do you really want the government running health care. Look at how it runs everything else, medicare for example, and tell me if that is who you want saying what kind of treatment you can or cannot have. The government fails at everything it tries, except for winning wars, and we are more and more willing to hand over our freedoms to it for what ever reasons.

Please help stop all this spending. Each of us need to come together for the sake of the future of this nation. The usa is a great country but it cannot afford the policies of the left any longer, and its only been 100 days. They have got the better part of 4 years left, how scary is that?

They used to say "we cannot drill our way out of this" when energy cost were so high. Well now that we are in a recession I say "we CANNOT SPEND our way out of this!"

Syeira's Photo Shoot

Tons more pictures that we took that are cute. I am just not done with any of the rest of thim

Wife=Guinea Pig?????

Just one more before and after.
I just wanted to go as far as I could and still make it look somewhat real. I love my good wife for letting me just be crazy with her face. This is actually a picture that Heidi took of herself. She posted it on her blog here. She called it her thinking face. It is just a picture at the top of her post to illustrate she was having a dilemma.




I was really bored with the day this sunday, so I decided to make a scrap book page in photoshop of some of the photoshoped pictures I had done this weekend. Scrap booking is a girl think I know, but I believe here at B.A.R.M. there is room for this and still being a real man.



Click for larger images.

Statue

Heidi purchased this while we were in mexico last year, but didn't want any one to know she was preggo so she never put it out. I guess chicks get those kinda hints. For the men reading; see there are four figures? well that means that you have two kids, not that the statue was just cool looking.
I took this picture and edited it tonight cuz i was bored. I liked it and thought I would share it.

New Photoshop Stuff

Heidi was really really nice and let me take a picture of her to experiment with. She is also going to be ticked that I put the original up next the the doctored photo. Sorry Heidi. But considering only 5 or 6 people look at my blog no big deal right.? Any way I really enjoy photoshop, so if anyone would like me to play with one of their pictures and send it back to them e mail me the photo. The better quality the picture the better (more mega pixels). Hope yall think I did as good on this as I do. Click on the image to go to a larger better image. Also when you get to the flicker account, above the picture there will be an icon that says "all sizes". Clicky that for a clearer look. Thanks Josh

Click picture for the larger full image