Best and Worst of the Weekend – 1 on 1 with Ice and Electricity!

Hey another 3 day weekend, I can get used to this.  It should be the norm! 

Speaking of Norm, the Hawkeyes couldn’t send Norm Parker out with a win.  Though I did think they played pretty well.  Mike Daniels where have you been all year?  When it was 14-24 I thought there might be a chance but then the ESPN Sky Cam attacked Marvin McNutt and it was just gone from there.  With the loss to I had to change my Twitter avatar to Boomer, a fuzzy horse OU mascot for a week.  It’s almost over!

All winter last year and since Thanksgiving my oldest has been bugging me about taking her to Brenton Skating Plaza to go ice skating.  So Saturday I finally gave in.  It was nice out, and she needed to get out doing something.  I was shocked that it was only $15 bucks for the two of us to rent skates and to skate.  Pretty good for the money.  After battling the ice skate with my foot we finally got on the ice.  I went straight for the railing.  I did my internship with a minor league hockey team but never skated, I was always on the ice in just shoes.  Who ever thought of putting on a sharp piece of metal and going on ice is a moron too.  How are you supposed to do that?  I went around once and Addy followed me on the railing.  Stopped and asked her how she was doing, she wanted to skate, not talk.  Second time around I tried to not use the railing so much.  Then I took a break and let Addy just go.  She was trying without help of the railing a few times and was doing ok.  When she did a full lap I went out again.  Half way I was getting a little cocky and veered away from the railing.  Bad idea.  Ice Rink-1 | Matt – 0.  Landed on my butt and shoulder.  The couple behind me even said “ouch that looked like it hurt” As soon as I got out the skates were off and it was all Addy.  She got a walker type thing to help her go around and she flew with that.  Then after 3-4 laps like that she went without the walker and was doing really good.  She stated she wants to go back again, sooner rather than later.  I’ll take her, but next time it’s all her! 

Sunday I decided to do some interior lamination in the laundry room.  There is only one light and no switch or string to pull so every time I have to twist it to turn it on or off.  So after a couple trips to Menards I was working on it.  Let’s say I had some successes and 1 failure.  I got all the lights working!  Score one for me.  Light switch wouldn’t work.  Redid it and got the switch working!  Score one for me.  Lost power to my daughter’s room didn’t work now and only 1 light of the 3 worked on the switch.  After some frustrations and kids asking to do stuff I got it back to normal and will get back to it another day. 

Monday I had off from work while the two older kids had school and there was a full day of football on!  After dropping those off I needed a nice base of breakfast for the full day of bowls.  Went initially to the Waveland but it was packed with a CNN Caucus bus out front.  Next the Drake Diner.  There was CNN there too but only a camera man and a news chick.    While watching them they panned the Diner and me and my youngest got on TV on CNN.  It was only a second but that counts! 

The bowls were good Monday too.  Michigan State thriller in the Outback bowl, the Rose was great and though I missed the end of the Fiesta (crashed hard) it was a great game too.  Even last night the Sugar Bowl was good.  Some of these colleges need to get better kickers though.  So far in my picks I’ve got 17 right straight up.  My 4yo son picked the winners to by logo…well he’s got 17 right too.  Bout how it supposed to go.

Few other things

·         Great win in the Kohl Center by Fran and the boys.  Not “Getting Mad” yet but that was a nice win.  Another big game tonight at Minnesota

·         I’ve started my diet back up again after thanksgiving and have lost 15 pds, still need to get running and lifting again, want to lose 15-20 more before softball starts.

·         Ugly injury and bad way to end the year for Brian Urlacher.  Bears at least didn’t lose to the Vikings but Urlacher I doubt is ready for 2012.

·         Bears also made moves with GM Jerry Angelo canned and Mike Martz resigning.  I wonder how different Halas Hall would be had Jay and Forte would have not got hurt?

·         The Iowa Caucus was last night; the smell is burning rubber of the candidates campaign’s getting out of Iowa.  Dead heat of Santorum and Romney.  Perry and Bachman are done.  Newt needs to come in 2^nd in NH and first in SC to stay alive.  Santorum and Paul need to stay strong too or this will be done quicker than the 8 day war.

·         This week is my most stressful week of the year with Year End, creating tax statements is always stressful.  My 3^rd year doing it and I’m still nervous.

·         Monday night on WWE Raw my fav wrestler returned.  CHRIS JERICHO!  He is by far the best wrestling entertainer EVER! 

·         Also over the past week since Christmas I’ve been on XBOX a lot.  Call of Duty: MW3 and my NCAA football online dynasties.  I still haven’t opened up Batman: Arkham City.

·         Google+ where’d you go?  There is so much cool stuff on google, it needs to attack facebook and not just enhance something facebook offers, give us something new! 

So that’s about that. 

We are too dependent on oil.

Shocker huh?  Yea well we are.  And no one seems to care or they do and make statements, but don’t DO anything.  We have hybrid and flex fuel vehicles that only 10% of the population can afford.  The rest of us are throwing money in to a tank and sending it straight to the middle east.  Something is wrong with that. 

Government is touting Ethanol, which for Iowa and farmers, is good.  But the cost to produce it isn’t really a savings, at least right now.  The politicians do this for one reason, the Iowa Caucuses.  Kiss up to the farmers to get their vote.  So we have that, or we have the way to expensive hybrids vehicles. 

What needs to be done?  A couple things.  If we are going to continue with the automobile, the hybrid and flex fuel vehicles need to be dropped in price, get more of them out on the highways.  The hydrogen car too.  You can’t just have the “rich” be able to afford these, because there are more middle class families that can’t afford it and will still be dependent on oil.

Mass Transit needs to become something again in our society.  Larger cities such as New York and Chicago have the subway and L, but towns like Des Moines and Minneapolis and Kansas City need it too.  I’m going to have my examples be for Des Moines since I’m here.

If I didn’t have to take kids and I had an option to go park someplace close to my home and then hop on some mass transit to work, I’d do it.  I’m sure it would save me gas money rather than driving every day 30 mins each way.  My car would have less wear and tear on it.  I hope that others would be willing to use it too.  Maybe Des Moines is too small for that, but I think it would work.

Then there is mass transit other than air lines to other cities.  I know there are all these proposed railway systems and 36 billion just got cut from the federal budget for it, but I think this would be something that would work. 

There are networks or proposed networks more so in the East and south and west, but nothing for the Midwest really outside of the Chicago Hub Network.  That is proposed to connect Chicago to Iowa City.  But I’m here to say stretch it a little further.

Des Moines is a central city that is a key connector to a lot of great cities.  Minneapolis to Kansas City or St. Louis.  Denver to Chicago.  Along those rails are Omaha, Lincoln, Iowa City, and could extend to Madison and Milwaukee or up to South Dakota maybe.

Here in Des Moines it takes me about 2 hours to drive to Iowa City, 5 to Chicago and 4 to Minneapolis.  If they could cut those in half and make it very affordable like 20-30 bucks or so, how easy would it be on a Saturday morning to hop on a train, an hour later you’re in Iowa City and at Kinnick for a football.

Trips to Chicago or KC or Minneapolis would be easier for me and my family.  But the key is to making it affordable and safe and reliable.  You need to make the users feel like they aren’t going to get mugged like on a subway in New York.  Your also going to have to make the cars with bathrooms for obvious reasons.  And make it a better option for a family to jump on the train than to hop in the car.  Make it AFFORDABLE.  I also think they would need to make cars and seats child and young child accessible.  Child Seats or something.

Now I’m going to throw in my sports view.  Looking at the above map, how many Big Ten fans are connected now for this railway system I proposed?  Nebraska, Minneapolis, Iowa City, Madison, Chicago and Champaign are all connected, along with Indianapolis, home of the Big Ten Championship games.  Hello, Big Ten, support this too!

So that’s my idea, political pitch for the moment.

State Funded Preschool

Ok, so with politics and state budgets and things going on right now, I’ve got one thing that has been bothering me thinking about it more related to that of the Iowa’s state budget.  State funded preschool and free preschool.  Now I don’t think that we should be cutting money on education, I think that is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, but when it comes to funding for preschool I think there needs to be something done when it comes to free preschool. 

Should it be free for everyone?  No.  If you choose to go to a state funded preschool, and can afford to pay something, I think that it would ease some stress on the state.  I’m not trying to be a stickler or anything but if you can afford to help out and pay on a sliding scale, why wouldn’t that be a viable option?  I don’t know what the public preschools cost, but if you charge 50 bucks a kid how much revenue can be made?  100 bucks a week even for those who have a budget that can afford it? 

Now I still don’t think that it should be free either, I think that if you make it like 10 bucks a week for the lowest level of a sliding pay scale, you give that person the sense of responsibility and accomplishment to keep up paying for that.  I would have to do more research on the numbers of kids enrolled and how much those families make but I think they this would be a good move for the state and the budget and to maybe even make some revenue. 

My kids go to a private preschool that they do very well at, and we have to pay weekly.  My next statement and thought is where I may tork some people off, but if you choose to send your kids to a private preschool that receives no state funding or help, why would you allow them special privileges and not having to pay full price like others but make others follow the stated rules in a contract?  I think that anyone receiving state help should be at a state funded preschool.  Anyone at a private preschool should all have to pay the price in a contract and not have state funded rules allowed to them.   Go ahead, rip me now.