The Grieving process

I had occasion this week to think about the grieving after the death of a loved one, mainly the length of the grieving process and how generations seem to handle it. I'm sure it varies by a number of things like the individual, him or herself, the relationship of the person we're grieving, our age group and many other things I'm sure.

I think the grieving of a spouse would last much longer for the older generation, not only the loss of a husband or wife but the loss of a best friend, travel companion, the sudden absence of a shoulder to lean on not to mention a long time lover and confidant. The younger generation would miss all of the above also and that's no doubt, but I think they could and would move on in life much faster. That doesn't mean the inward grieving would end but there would be many reasons to get on with your life in their case.

Then adversely the loss of a parent seems to me would have a grieving period that last a bit longer for the younger generation than that of the older generation. The death of a parent of those older is a tremendous lose but one we seem to get over and move on much sooner as we grow older. When your younger and lose a parent it's devastating, it's to soon because there were so many things to do and things to say that we never took care of. When we're younger we don't take the time to really talk with our parents and then when a life ends there are oh so many things we left undone and unsaid and it can eat at a person.

The lose of a loved one whether if be a parent, sibling, spouse, close friend or relative is painful to say the least and it's something we must deal with and move on with our lives. We all miss that person very much and think about them often, but death is a part of life and we can also rejoice in the fact that our loved ones moved on to a better place. Yes, moved onto a place were there is no more pain, sorrow or suffering, a place of love and joy and untold beauty with our heavenly Father.

I never stop thinking about my father from time to time and wishing he were still here, I too left many things undone and unsaid, but I believe he knows all that now and is happy to see I've continued on with my life..............we all need to continue to love but also live our lives to the fullest in the Lord. A passage from the Bible I heard many years ago is still now and always will be my favorite Bible passage, let me share it with you.

Psalms 30, verse 5 ................ "For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favor is life, weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."

We never forget our loved ones and will always love and cherish them but remember after the sorrow comes joy and renewed life.

A few quotes from times gone by...........

Read these quotes from days and men gone by and see how applicable they are to what's happening in and this country of ours today, I particularly like Winston Churchill and of course Jefferson's!

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." -- Thomas Jefferson

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."-- George Bernard Shaw

"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!" -- P.J. O'Rourke

"A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money." -- G. Gordon Liddy

"I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." -- Winston Churchill

You may have seen or read this before, I even had them in a much earlier blog myself but thought they needed pondered one more time.

Face Book

I was just chatting with someone on face book, someone I new growing up, our parents new each other, our Dad's worked together and it's someone I haven't seen or talked to in years. Since my kids introduced me to face book it's been an adventure to say the least, but as it turns out a very pleasant adventure. I know folks in my age group that think it's dumb, think it's something that's going to eat their computers one day, or steal all their stuff and see into their lives. I don't know, maybe those things could happen, maybe it's a way for strangers to acquire information, but I don't think so if you watch who you allow as your friends. There are safe guards and different things you can block so that just those you want to share things with will be able to share information etc. with you.

Since I live 1600 miles across the country from most of my family and a lot of good friends this has been a most wonderful way to keep in touch and up to date on the happening with these folks back home so to speak. Not just those across the country, but those right here in Arizona where I live now, even if you see these folks much more often it's still good to touch base every few days or whenever you'd like to.

Some of you may not feel the need to visit with cousins, nieces, nephews or just friends old and new anymore often than you do, but I so enjoy the closeness that face book allows me and family and friends to share. Sure there are some weird games available to play daily and yes some are very addicting let me tell you but those too believe it or not bring friends and families closer together and even new friends and friendships are made via these venues.

Let me share this with you, face book lets you put things in your profile like for example your birthday..............no big deal right, but everyone love to get best wishes and acknowledgments on their birthdays, other special occasions like graduations or just finishing a good book or having your son or grandson finally potty trained. I've wished a few friends a couple of nieces my sister and the list can go on and on, but the bottom line is if it were not for face book those moments and well wishes might now have happen at all and most likely wouldn't have in most cases. For me face book brings be closer to distant family and friends and to those right here around me on a daily basis, I like it and use it and can't wait to wish my cousin Happy Birthday on Friday!

If you don't face book because of fear of being ripped off or stuff stolen, get over it and give it a honest try, no one or two days but a few months and get yourself some friends and friends of friends and so on! Don't go on being an old fuddy duddy and live in fear of the Internet spook, you only go around once in this life and we need to have friends and family close! One last thing, pictures, you can share pictures of yourself, grand kids as they grow up and different outing those miles away might have missed but can share through pictures. I mentioned in the beginning chatting with an old friend, come to find out he now lives in San Antonio, I shared an old picture of his Dad and my Dad at a party where they worked. I shared the names of others in the picture and for that moment it brought us closer together as if the 40 or 45 years we haven't seen each other where a mere handful of years. I will look him up next time we're near San Antonio in our travels and maintain communications via face book until that time, and we'll continue to share a picture now and then which I'm sure will bring smiles to each of us on those occasions.

Batteries for cars..........

I just heard our president tell us how great it was to spend 800 million dollars in stimulus a year ago because our economy was in dire straights. He said some guy named Chuck from back east bought some new equipment and hired 8 more people to help with the government contract he received due to this recovery act. There wasn't a mention as to TARP signed a year before that, another big expenditure that had already according to these folks in Washington started turning things around. We all know that's neither here nor there, and no matter who signed what gigantic expenditure Bush and Obama, it will all start turning around when housing starts moving again and small businesses can get loans to operate.
But I guess what got me thinking the most was batteries, fuel efficient cars and long lasting batteries that make them go! According to our president we are producing 2% of the worlds large batteries, the type needed to operate these hybrid vehicles. What he was saying is that it is his stimulus spending that has made all this possible, by letting companies built plants to product more of these batteries which would otherwise come from an Asian country. There was also the contention that by next year at this time we would be producing 20% of these batteries for the world. Now I may and usually am all washed up, but it seems to me that like anything else that comes into demand and grows in popularity there are folks out there going to build more and better businesses and products to fill these demands. If we only have a very small percentage of vehicles on the road that require these types of batteries, no body's going to open a business or plant making something we really don't need much of or use. Now on the other hand if you see more and more of these cars being produced, bought, used and on the road and there is going to be a need for more batteries produced and all that goes with them.............well lets jump in early and expand. In other words I contend we didn't need to spend 800 million dollars to help things along that most likely will take place with or without TAX PAYER DOLLARS being spent. If there are going to be more cars on the road needing larger batteries these places would have been expanded or built regardless so don't try and justify spending my Grandchild's money on something that would happen with or without money they haven't earned yet!

Now when your driving your battery powered car on vacation and run out of juice are you going to fill up at a gas station with the other antiques? We need to start working on quick charging machines and have stations for these cars to stop and get charged in a hurry.

"EAT AT JOE'S............WE'LL CHARGE YOU WHILE YOU DINE!"

"BATTERY CHARGING WHILE YOU SLEEP.............WE'LL LEAVE THE CHARGER ON!"

RAGBRAI

My brother in law has been participating in RAGBRAI for I believe each year of it's existence which will be 38 years with this years running. RAGBRAI for those that might not know and that most likely includes most of you........stands for: Registers Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, the Register being the Des Moines news paper.

Talking with him and his daughter last time back in Iowa we threw out on the table the idea of using my (our) motor home as a team support vehicle in a RAGBRAI some day.............well we committed for this year and we're counting down the days, 158 from this writing. Sounds like with even 158 days to go (like 5 1/2 months) the team, "Team Ackelson Family" is getting geared up and ready to go! We're to the point of even talking Bloody Mary's for breakfast and Brats for Dinner, now tell me that doesn't sound like a good weeks ride across the state of Iowa.

Now for those of us joining our friends and family in Iowa for this journey, we here in Arizona can't help but wonder if all this NOT so wonderful COLD and SNOW will be gone and done with by then...................we can only hope for some good old Iowa HUMIDITY now I guess.

You can check out RAGBRAI and learn more at ragbrai.com

What would Bill Clinton Do?

That’s not a question that President Obama and his team of loyalists from the 2008 campaign are likely to ask, because they don’t much care about the answer. It is an irony of the Obama administration (given that it is staffed with so many people with high-level experience during Bill Clinton's presidency, including one Cabinet member named Clinton) that its basic attitude toward Clinton-style governance is hostile. Obama and White House aides are courteous to the 42nd President when he calls, but in private many of those aides sound very much like George W. Bush advisers in disparaging the Clinton years. The people around Obama are romantics, they dream of Obama as a transformational figure looming large on history’s stage. They see Clinton as at best a transitional figure, whose poll-tested practical and tested policies loom small. But perhaps they are feeling a bit less cocky these days, after a loss in the Massachusetts Senate special election that has revealed deep problems for Democrats and, arguably, serious miscalculations in Obama’s governing strategy.

I think it's time to stop trying so hard to be the "anointed one" and start doing what you promised your loyal followers...............so many promises not kept so far, least of which is your transparency promise. Let's not worry about being on TV everyday somewhere and talking about something we all know about already. All we have to do is watch you once on TV to see that your just reading what someone else is telling you to say. This president spends more in having someone set-up and take down his teleprompters and input someone Else's words for him to read.......by the way have you noticed that during his speeches he looks from the left to the right and back to the left and back to the right but never and I mean never looks straight ahead at the people at home viewing him, that's because the prompters are one to his left and one to his right and nothing in the middle! I personally feel that in order to be a good leader you need to be able to speak to the people from the cuff/heart and if you'll notice when Obama does this he's full of huh's and stammers all over the place.

Sometimes you need to us time tested strategies from folks with a bit of experience in governing and not just experience in rigging elections with Acorn and community organizing with communist and socialist friends using you as a front man.

Obama's Health Care plan

It's all the talk on the news stations that Massachusetts will probably elect a Republican to replace Ted Kennedy to fill the "peoples seat" in the Senate. Yes, the peoples seat and not Ted Kennedy's seat as Ms. Coakly would have you believe. With a 6 to 1 Democrat to Republican ratio in registered voters in Massachusetts one wonders how something like this could happen if in fact it does since the polls aren't open as of this writing. It may just have something to do with how the people of the country really feel about Obama and his henchmen and the bill they are trying to get us to swallow in such a big damn hurry, in a hurry and behind closed doors! All Americans want health care reform, yes all of us from all three parties, but at what expense do we do this with all that's going on around us right now. With unemployment at a real percentage of roughly 17% counting all people looking for work and those that have given up already, do we really need all these tax increases that everyone one with half a brain knows will come back to all of us tax payers? If your of the liberal persuasion you have to know deep down inside this is true and you too are and have been lied to over and over again.

I also heard again today how if by some way a health care bill like this 2000 pages of junk does indeed get passed 22 state to this point are going to opt out of this program, now that alone will be a big increase to the number of uninsured . Come on people with the bribes and sweet heart deals being made by Reed and Polosi and the anointed one can you honestly say this is the sort of "change" you wanted and indeed looked forward to getting? Now besides the 22 states (to this point in time) that will opt out we also hear today that besides the unions getting to keep "Cadillac plans"until the year 2018, now the Amish do not have to participate either. Yes Nancy Polosi that's what your saying now and you know what the rest of the country will be saying, "we too have religious freedom and want to be exempt also." What a can of worms these crooks have opened up now with the Amish being exempt.................Wow no body is stopping to think before they speak when the do speak, maybe this too should have been kept behind those closed doors!

I'm afraid the Obama health care ship is sinking and none too soon if you ask me, this bill is something that the way it has been written cost way too much for a country in bankruptcy and we shouldn't be strapped with something we can't afford. If you want to get closer to seeing everyone insured, get them jobs so they can afford to buy insurance like the rest of us and for Gods sake don't make those of us responsible with our lives pay for those that don't give a crap and only put their hands out! Somebody tell these Democrats that we have more important things on our plates, Jobs....Jobs....Jobs.....and our Economy.................why are they in such a hurry to spend us into bankruptcy? In times like this we should be lowering taxes and not all the increases up front and hidden or called something other than taxes when we all know their really tax increases!

Massachusetts seems like as good a place as any for a "Tea Party" now doesn't it?