Wow, here it is the last day of 2008, how did time fly so fast?

I have so much to be thankful for this year. Starting with the most significant change this year, I started law school in August. Not only did the Lord open the door for me to be able to work during the day and go to law school in the evening, He provided a study partner as well. Chuck and I took turn driving each week and while commuting, we discussed the materials we read, the things we heard in classes, almost everything law school related, and of course, politics as well. We are both committed born again Christians, both Republicans, and both starting law school mid-career in the IT industry, couldn't ask for a better like minded study partner.

The second most significant thing I must give thanks is that the Lord had provided and I have been to Israel (check my May entries). I've made it to Jerusalem. I stood on the temple mound. I stood looking toward Syria from the Golan Heights. I stood at the most northern point of Israel, looking toward Lebanon. I've been baptized in the Jordan river. I was on a boat cruising the sea of Galilee. I've prayed at the Western wall. I visited the tunnel under the Western wall, prayed at the point in the tunnel that is closest to the Holy of Holies. I walked and prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. I've walked the Via Dolorosa. I've walked through the old city and all its gates. I've visited the Knesset. I've been to the Israeli Supreme Court, even sat listening in on a case of prosecution of Hamas member. I've had my rental car towed in Tel Aviv, an experience not many first time visitors to Israel had.

Got to see my uncle who lived in Frankfurt, Germany, whom I have not seen since 1987 when he left Vietnam for Czechslovakia. Got to meet his wife and kids for the very first time.

And it goes without saying that I am tremendously thankful for my family, parents and brother. I am thankful that my dad has been doing well, no trip to the emergency room. Except for my dad who retired at the end of last year, everyone in the family has a job and doing well financially. I love my job, love what I am doing, and on top of that great boss and great colleagues.

Thank God I've been healthy. My allergy went away too, thanks to my mom for all her fervent prayers on my behalf. I ran the Dallas YMCA 8-mile Turkey Trot in 82 minutes. If it were not for the cramp in both of my legs, it would have been better results. I am taking magnesium supplement and hope that will help ease the cramp if not eliminating it. I should be able to post much better result for the half marathon this coming February.

The balance in my 401(k) dropped about 29% but that's expected. Anything that goes up has to eventually come down. This is the time to buy and I've scraped together as much cash as I can afford to buy, and buy, and buy some more of the stocks that folks are dumping. I am thankful that I still have plenty of time ahead of me for my retirement account value to go up before I need to withdraw.

My new year resolution for 2009:
1. Continue to focus and do well in law school.
2. Get back on the band wagon every time I fall off in memorizing Scriptures.
3. Train for and run the Cowtown half marathon in February and then go for a marathon either in 2010 or 2011.
4. Run the 2009 Dallas YMCA 8-mile Turkey Trot at faster pace, hopefully under 9 min/mile.
5. Saving up for the next car, which in all likelihood will be the X5.

Long term things I want to do here before going home to my Lord, Savior and Creator:

1. Speak Spanish fluently.
2. Get my private pilot license, first single engine VFR, and eventually multi-engine IFR.
3. Continue to practice my guitar, and hopefully I'll be able to play some classical pieces eventually.
4. Learn how to play the piano.
5. Read and write at least another language: French, German, Chinese or Russian.

Just finished watching and I have to say White, the middle of Krzysztof Kieslowski's trilogy "Three Colors" is one of my favorite movies of all time.

This is funny but this is serious.

I got me an IOGear GCS1782 KVMP switch today. Plugged it in and got my Mac mini up and running in no time but found out that my openSUSE box won't output to the DVI. Spent a couple hour searching the net until I found this simple fix.

A great article by the Texas Lawyer. I believe what can be taken from the ruling by the Texas Supreme Court is this: "the government cannot assume people are doing things bad, take away their children, and make them prove that they are not." The burden is on the state to provide sufficient evidence to prove that people are doing things badly enough to warrant removal of children from parents. Thank God for the justices on our Supreme Court. This goes back to before this past November election, when the Democrats running for the Texas Supreme Court ran an ad accusing the Republican justices of overturning the trial courts' decisions a majority of the time. The fact that the Supreme Court reversed the trial courts' decision a majority of the time is not bad in and of itself though that was exactly what the ad implied: undoing the will of the people as expressed through the juries. In this case thank God they did. It's hard enough to raise kids these days, we don't need anymore government intrusion unless the state can justify it with sufficient evidence.

So my first semester of law school was over as of last Wednesday night, when the Torts final exam ended at 10:30 pm. I was not so sure I could do it at the beginning of the semester, full time job and evening school. Hearing from a few part time evening students that I met, they all said it was manageable but one of them said by the time October was rolling around, he quit his job to concentrate on studying since he didn't have enough time with a full time job. Well, I am here to tell you that it is manageable, if you are discipline and stick to it. Don't have to worry too much about elaborate scheduling like I was told by some but as long as you keep up with the reading assignments, updating your outlines, and keep up with a study aid of your choice, week after week, you should be just fine. My study aid of choice is the Examples and Explanations series, recommended to me by Josh Andor, who made it to law review. I found the books to be thorough, very relevant and really help you understand the subject matters. Because my Torts professor chose to test us on a final exam that is an even mix of multiple choice questions, short answers, and long essay, I had to buy the Finals series to practice multiple choice for Torts but I imagine if the professor only do short answers or long essay, like my Contract professor, the Examples and Explanations would be sufficient.

It takes between one to four barrels of water to produce a single barrel of oil from oil shale, quite reasonable compare to 1,700 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of ethanol. And one barrel of oil developed from oil shale will cost somewhere between $37 to $65, pretty reasonable. Also, the federal government, reads our tax dollars, doesn't need to subsidize oil shale development the same way it did for ethanol. As far as proven technology, a Brazil company has the technology. I say go for it the same way Thomas Edison developed the electric light bulb instead of sitting around waiting ...

The race for chairman of the RNC will be decided at the January meeting of the RNC. Former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele may seem to be a perfect candidate but take a look at this before you decide.

Watched on FoxNews the interview of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal during the Republican Governors Association meeting in Florida. I think he would be a good match for Obama in four or eight years. Whenever asked about Sarah Palin in the context of 2012, he would say it's not important who the messenger is but it's the message that's important and gave examples of how he as governor has been able to implement conservative policies in the state of Louisiana. Pretty shrewd!

I've heard a lot about him from my friends who are Louisiana Young Republicans during his second run for the governorship of Louisiana. He was too nice and did not respond to negative ads in his first run. Lost the first time and learned his lesson and won the second time around. During the open primary, opponent was running ads attacking him for his Catholic faith in the northern part of Louisiana, where the majority of the voters are Protestant. That prompted me to search out and read his article where he expounded on his Catholic doctrinal beliefs. I found the man had true conviction in his faith and not just Christian in name only or worse, faith that is convenient for election like many of our politicians. More importantly, I as a Protestant found nothing really offensive but rather nodding my head a lot in agreement with what he had to say.

I would say Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin or another conservative Republican female candidate would be a good ticket in 2012 or 2016.

A worried woman went to her gynecologist and said: 'Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your help! My baby is not even 1 yr. old and I'm pregnant again. I don't want kids so close together.'

So the doctor said: 'Ok, and what do you want me to do?'

She said: 'I want you to end my pregnancy, and I'm counting on your help with this.'

The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said to the lady: 'I think I have a better solution for your problem. It's less dangerous for you too.'

She smiled, thinking that the doctor was going to accept her request.

Then he continued: 'You see, in order for you not to have to take care of 2 babies at the same time, let's kill the one in your arms. This way, you could rest some before the other one is born. If we're going to kill one of them, it doesn't matter which one it is. There would be no risk for your body if you chose the one in your arms.

The lady was horrified and said: 'No doctor! How terrible! It's a crime to kill a child!

'I agree', the doctor replied. 'But you seemed to be ok with it, so I thought maybe that was the best solution. The doctor smiled, realizing that he had made his point.

Michella Obama, the next first lady of this country, was not proud of this country when in whole or in part it collectively

elected a black governor of a state that formerly had the capital of the Confederate,

appointed a black justice to the US Supreme Court,

appointed a five-star general as the chairman of the joint chief of staffs,

elected a black senator who is her own husband to the US Senate.

Only when the entire nation nominated her husband to be the candidate for the highest elected office in the land can she be satisfied, what does it say about her?

And please do not tell me a Harvard law school graduate in a public setting misspoke something like this.

The morning after, I pledge to accord president-elect Obama all the respect due the office of the president but will work with everything I've got to make sure he fails to implement any and every of his policy proposals to the maximum extent possible. And will keep track of what he promised during the campaign and what he's able to achieve while in office so we can have a record four years from now to compare.

You think it couldn't get worse but then it did. Obama started with no rap sheet, in the words of Joe Biden, first mainstream African-American who is articulate, bright and clean. Then it seems Obama hasn't learned scandal 101: it's never the sin but the cover up that does you in. If you don't believe it, ask Republican president Richard M. Nixon about Watergates or Democrat Bill J. Clinton about Monica Lewinsky. So far, Obama claimed:

himself to be a natural born US citizen but refused to produce a certificate of birth

not to know that his very own beloved aunt is an illegal immigrant

not to know that his very own beloved aunt is a foreign national, and therefore it's illegal for him to take her campaign contributions, which leads me to question from how many other foreigners did he "unknowingly" receive campaign contributions.

Vietnamese has a saying that for every time a wrongful act is caught, there must have been at least ten that went unnoticed.

Very interesting article. It seems everyone from Joe Biden to Nicolas Sarkozy agrees that Obama is an empty suit.

I find it both amusing and hypocritical how these bleeding heart liberals always ready to help the poor with other people's money but never seem to be able to spare some of their own. Obama couldn't help out his beloved aunt and uncle who live in a rundown public housing estate in south Boston according to this article.

Joe Biden is on the record of having a total income of $2,450,042 from 1998 to 2007 who gave a total of $3,690 in the entire ten years. To put things in perspective, his charitable contributions for the entire 10 years is less than one third of mine in one year.

If you are a black guy, a Columbia and Harvard law school graduate, running with the novelty of being the first black president, against an opposition party candidate who is stuck with a very unpopular termed out lame duck incumbent, whose political brand is very much damaged, spending upward of $650 millions compare to $84 millions by your opponent, and only leading by 4 points in the poll, it's not so impressive, is it?

Check out this yard sign in east Texas:

Quoting secretary Williams, for the Democrats to say that domestic drilling won't make a difference for at least 10 years so we shouldn't do it is like for John F. Kennedy to say that space exploration won't help us putting a man on the moon until the end of the decade so we shouldn't be doing it. See how absurd that is? Take the time to think through every policy that these Dumbocrats are telling you.

Thanks to my buddy Jeff Turner, here is a great story:

"Once upon a time in a place overrun with monkeys, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each. The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers stopped their effort. The man then announced that he would now pay $20 for each one. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. But soon the supply diminished even further and they were ever harder to catch, so people started going back to their farms and forgot about monkey catching. The man increased his price to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so sparse that it was an effort to even see a monkey, much less catch one. The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf. While the man was away the assistant told the villagers, "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has bought. I will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each." The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys. They never saw the man nor his assistant again and once again there were monkeys everywhere. Now you have a better understanding of how Wall Street works."

Regardless of what is being said about Collin Powell's endorsement of Obama, I believe it's as simple as a black man endorsing a first black candidate running for the highest elected office in the land. I am not defending general Powell by any means but I can imagine the kind of pressure he's under from all the leaders in the black community. My friends are calling him closet Democrat, traitor, deserter, ... but I took the time to remind my friends that until you are in his shoes, you shouldn't judge him too harshly, quoting Dale Carnegie, the author of the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. Abraham Lincoln during the war between the states told people not to judge southerners too harshly because northerners put into southern's circumstance could very well behave exactly the same way.

With all the phone calls, emails and whatever other means employed to put pressure on him, maybe even pillow talks, he caved in. Yeah, maybe he's not that strong of a Christian to stand up for his pro life conviction and refuse to endorse a candidate who favors killing 1.2 million babies each year. It may be that he's not that committed a Republican. But he's only human. Until I stand in his shoes, I wouldn't want to be like Peter, telling Jesus: " ... even if everyone denies you, I go with you even to death ... " and then denied Jesus three times before the rooster crowed.

Black folks are only hurting themselves if they continue to listen to all the lies Democrats are telling them. They should instead listen to folks like Bill Cosby and Wayne Perryman. Black families before 1968, before Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty used to have the rate of children born out of wedlock at parity with white folks. Black children used to grow up in loving two parents home. Black males did not comprise 40% of the incarcerated population. Black children used to fear God and poor folks depended on God's faithfulness and provision through His churches. Everything turned upside down when government took the place of God.

I've said it and will say it again. I feel really really sad but if Democrats want to continue to kill little unborn Democrats, it's their choice. All those babies will be in heaven with God. They just won't have the opportunity to be born, to grow up and become voting Democrats.

I keep hearing most small businesses do not make more than $250,000. I don't care. Fiscal conservative folks like me oppose Obama on a policy level. We just don't believe in robbing Paul and giving it to Peter is the right policy. Heck, I didn't escape communist Vietnam to come here to vote for a guy who wants to implement exactly the policy which I ran away from. When Arnold Schwarzenegger first came to the US in 1968, Lyndon B. Johnson was on TV. He didn't understand much English so his friend translated what LBJ said. After hearing it all, Arnold asked which political party LBJ represented. His friend told him Democrat. He's been voting for the other party ever since because all of the things LBJ wanted to do were the things he ran away from in Austria. There's nothing wrong with helping the poor but after the Social Security program, which is run by the government and realistically I will have no chance whatsoever to see that 12.4% of my income again, I am not inclined to have the government run any program whatsoever. I am all for private non profit charity organizations, especially faith based, helping the poor, the addicts, .... I am more than willing to give to private charity. I am however strongly oppose to the IRS taking money away from me by force. Additionally, rich Democrats like Joe Biden, Al Gore, ... have become famous for giving almost nothing to charity from their own pockets. They only like to take other people's money to help the poor. LBJ declared war on poverty in the 60s. If they had succeeded, we should have no more poor people with us. If they had not succeeded, why the hell do we continue. We should scrap the program altogether.

With all the color 4D sonogram devices, we can pretty much figure out if a baby is boy or girl sometimes after week 16 of pregnancy. But senator Obama refuses to protect a full term baby from being partial born, then the skull punctured, and brain sucked out, and finally killed. To realize how ridiculous it is, let's replace the word abortion with slavery in senator Obama's answer to the question at the last presidential debate: "I think that [slavery] is a very difficult issue and it is a moral issue and one that I think good people on both sides can disagree on." Can you agree with that statement?

I thought senator McCain did pretty well last night in the debate. He hit Obama again and again and you could see that Obama spent half the time defending his record, especially on the pro-life "woman's health" issue, on the Joe the plumber tax and health care, on the ACORN, .... It's spectacular when senator McCain again and again praised Obama for his eloquence because it's obvious to everyone watching that Obama pretty much got nothing more than his eloquence.

I particularly, fundamentally and strongly disagree with senator Obama on the court standing up for fairness and justice when no one else does. That's not the job of unelected and therefore unaccountable judges. That should only be the job of the legislature, where legislators will have to face the electorate and answer for what they do each time they want to be elected. Not only that, judicial systems are not designed to address public policy issues because they cannot address all the different fact patterns but rather limited to the particular fact pattern of the particular case that has come before the court. Only the legislature can make policies that are broadly applicable to all fact patterns. Dicta are not precedence and stare decisis will do no good. Also, appellate court's decisions are effective retrospectively back to the original date of the events that took place that initiated the law suit. Law should not take effect retrospectively. Most legislation when passed by the legislature and signed into law by the governor does not take effect until 90 days after the legislative session have adjourned. This is to allow the time for the public to become aware of the new law before charging folks with obeying them.

We turned in our first legal memo yesterday on a case of a child being injured when he trespassed on land and whether he has a valid cause of action, a viable law suit, against the land owner to recover damages, in the state of Minnesota. So that was common law torts, as governed by section 339 of Restatement Second of Torts.

Now we are moving on to the subject of our second memo, statutory issues. To start off, we have a little exercise on state statutes. I have two issues, mainly dealing with marriage license issuance in the state of Nevada and nepotism in the state of Wyoming. The professor didn't want us to get into the habit of using Westlaw or Lexis all the time. He specifically wanted us to use the actual code books in the library, or he will make us do it all over again. So I spent 10 minutes yesterday looking for relevant part of the Nevada code but couldn't find it. The Wyoming statute, the book contain the title I was looking for was missing from the shelf. Frustrating.

So I went online searching with Google and found the relevant statutes in a couple of minutes. Pulled up title 9 of the Wyoming statutes and title 11 of the Nevada statutes, search for nepotism and marriage respectively, and I got it. Now just go to the library, double check the books there to make sure I indeed look it up in the books because the professor said he can tell the difference between someone doing it online and using the books.

Reading all these tort cases in the area of comparative negligence, I can't help but get a sense that we want to allow people’s families to get some compensation even when folks did something negligence to contribute to their own death because of lack of knowledge. So, are we moving away from Darwinism, survival of the fittest then, and want to do as much as we can to protect every life because there is intrinsic value in every life, from conception to death?

So tomorrow and Tuesday are Teddy Bear Immunity days. If you buy a teddy bear, and put it on your desk, you are immune from being called upon by the professors. The money goes toward the summer internship fund which provides stipends for students who work as interns at non profit public policy institutes where they do not get paid $3K a week like law firms do. All the professors conspire together to make it maximum pressure this weekend. Our legal memo is due on Tuesday, Torts reading is 61 pages, Contracts is twenty-some pages, and on top of that you have to memorize as much of your outline as possible to prepare for Torts practice exam this coming Thursday, or Saturday morning if you so choose.

I am sitting here and thinking: people who make $250,000 or more a year aren't people without means and certainly weren't stupid or they wouldn't be there. Why do we think these people won't be able to find a way not to let Obama tax them to death?

A lot of change has happened since I last posted. Alaska governor Sarah Palin has energized the Republican base like no one else can. I am excited going into the voting booth and vote for a straight Republican ticket on October 20th, that's when early voting begins in Texas.

I wish the bailout legislation had not gone through. I understand the president and every Republican leader want to do something to calm the public's irrational fear and allow the McCain campaign to get back to talking about national security, an issue we Republican will always win on. The fear is irrational because there is not one thing that you can do today that you cannot do tomorrow. The loss of employment is always there, that does not make it a national crisis, though it definitely would be a personal one for those who are affected. My take is that you should always keep up your skills, always taking proactive steps to make sure you remain marketable. Making sure you distinguish yourself, put yourself half or one step ahead of the crowd is something you do constantly and never allow your worst enemy, complacency to have the better of you.

But indeed the rescue financial package had gone through. The market has gone down three consecutive days now since the rescue legislation passed both houses of Congress and signed into law by president Bush. I want my refund. The government has never been the answer. It’s so true that there’s no new news, only old news happen to new people. That’s what happened here. People bought into the old saying we all laugh at: “ I am from the government and I am here to help.” Because people do not learn, history repeats itself.

There is still three weeks left. I hope the correction in the market will be done and people will be rational again and take a serious look at Obama, see for themselves the huge discrepancy between his rhetoric and his record, and make an informed decision when they go into the voting booth on Tuesday, November 4th.

Finished the fifth week of my first semester of law school. Working full time and pursuing a JD at night are not as bad as I worried. It's definitely doable if you discipline and keep up with the readings. I do as Jonathan advised, take it one day at a time, don't worry too much. Thanks Jonathan!

Planning to go out of town for a quarterly meeting of the State Republican Executive Committee meeting this weekend in Austin, I even managed to read ahead, finished my Contracts reading assignment for next week and have only about 30 pages of Torts left. My goal is to at least give me one week buffer should anything happen, I won't be behind. I really enjoy law school, enjoy reading and briefing the cases, enjoy the give and take of the Socratic method of teaching.

Caught the majority of Sean Hannity's interview of governor Sarah Palin tonight. The more people listen to her, the more people are going to like her. She's authentic just as Mike Huckabee. These are folks who know who they are, what they believe in, what's right and what's wrong, folks with a definitive world view, the strong and grounded convictions, the proper foundation, ....

Yes, it's been almost a whole month and I haven't posted anything. I believe that's the longest I've gone without posting. But I have an excuse, working full time, going to law school at night, first semester of law school.

Anyway, as the Democrats crowned their "messiah" tonight, I am proud to be a Republican because I already found my Messiah, his name is Jesus, the Christ, Son of the living God. As far as what senator McCain will announce tomorrow, I think if I were in his shoe, I'll probably go with Tim Pawlenty as well. I wish it were someone a little more conservative because there's a joke that Minnesota Republican couldn't get elected even if runs as a Democrat in Mississippi. He's got to find someone who he is comfortable with and does not seek to undercut him, especially consider he might only serve for one term and that's his legacy.

Whoever it is, I am voting straight ticket Republican and do my best to focus on law school and get it right so I too can live the American dream and live out God's calling in my own life.

Just an observation, Mrs. Cindy McCain is 54, tall and slim, looking great. I love to have a picture with her instead of John anytime. But the point is, her daughter, Meghan McCain, 23, who almost registered as a Democrat, is short and wide. The moral of the story? Conservative Republican women are always the better deal!

Heard Frank Luntz spoke tonight at congressman Sam Johnson fund raising dinner at the InterContinental in Addison. During the primary, I thought he was overtly a Mitt Romney guy and trying to steer his focus group so I stopped watching FoxNews exclusively. But I now realized maybe he was just doing his job so passionately and truly believe in his instant dial reaction. Anyway, he's got a few good points and as for most of us, we know but fail to put into practice.

Vacation Bible School is this week at our church. I man the Deep Space memory verse station. The curriculum is pretty good. I am not known for my creativity but I follow the instructions, got quite a few glow-in-the-dark magic wands from the Dollar Tree stores as prize for the best kid from each of the five groups rolling through my station each day. They are quite a hit with the kids. I originally got 5 of them for five days but during the first day, it came to me to give them away as prize so I had to go back to the store, only one particular store of the three I tried, in Arlington has it.

Finally got myself a portable MP3 player. I am a technology guy but I won't be the one who are out there waiting in line to get the first release of anything. There will always bugs to be worked out in the first release of anything, hardware or software. And finding out that my mini Mac won't be supported for instant-play of movies from Netflix, I am not too eager to get the iPod. On Saturday, I was in Costco for some regular shopping and saw the tiny SanDisk Sansa 4Gb was selling for only $59 after $10 manufacturer instant rebate, and it can play secured WMA so I grabbed it. I need an MP3 player that can play secure WMA to start checkout eAudioBook from public library. It's working pretty well, I am listening to The Rough Riders by Theodore Roosevelt, using in conjunction with my little FM transmitter in the car.

I have visited 22 states. Looking forward to covering the other 28 states soon enough, if not campaign with Young Republicans then family vacation should do.

Keeping tab on how your tax dollars are being spent by Texas government entities Texas Budget Source.

Hope everyone had a great celebration of America's 232nd Independence. I went to the Lakewood parade in the morning with congressman Jeb Hensarling, then home to replace the food disposer under the sink. Then out on the driving range at the Mansfield National Golf Club with Ken and my brother. Came by Jason's place, had something to eat and back outdoor for a few games of basketball until the sunset. We were too tired by then so we settled for fireworks in the living room at Jason's house.

I am disgusted with this singer Rene Marie in Denver, Colorado. Let's see, she sings professionally so she should know, if she had signed a contract to perform song A, then she sang song B, what would that be? A breach of contract. In this case, a break of promise, a non delivery on a commitment. The integrity of the person is questioned, no? That's not to say of the disrespectful attitude she has for this country, of the thousand upon thousand of men and women, especially black men and women, who have fought and died for that flag to fly high and for that song we call the national anthem to be sung.

A bunch of us members of the Texas Young Republican Federation were on hand and ready to debate the Young Democrats at the National Association of Student Council Annual Conference but only one young Democrat showed up. So the format had to be modified and the students mostly hear from us young Republicans, which is great, we are not complaining. But we were prevented from speaking anything partisan. Wish we could have creamed them ....

Great decision by the US Supreme Court today in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. Those in government do well to remember that all rights are endowed by the Creator to the individuals, that government exists only by consent of the governed, and that any right not explicitly enumerated as delegated is reserved to the individual as in the spirit of the 10th amendment to the US Constitution.

I went sky diving. Check out the video.

Saturday morning, May 24, we had Kay's teaching at the Saint Peter in Gallicantu. We then went on to visit the Israel museum where there is the model of the second temple and the Shrine of the Book, which also connects to the Billy Rose Art Garden. Our next stop after lunch was the Garden Tomb, where we had communion together at the end of the visit.

Sunday, May 25th, last day of the tour, we had Kay's teaching in the morning before visiting Yad Vashem. We only had about a couple of hours there but to see everything there, one must spend at least a whole day. We went back into the old city for lunch before everyone was given free time to either pack or do some more shopping. We had our farewell banquet at the Inbal where we have had dinner every night we stayed in Jerusalem. Folks who are not going on to Eilat got on buses after the banquet to head back to Tel Aviv airport for their flight back to the US. My flight isn't until the next morning so Avi arranged a Nasher Taxi for me to head out to the airport much later.

Check out my album for all the pictures.

First arrival in the holy city of Jerusalem late the afternoon of Monday, May 19th, we had teachings from Kay Arthur on Mt. Scopus.

May 20, we queued up in the morning outside of the Dung gate for security check before entering the old city. Visited the temple mount, the Dome of the Rock, before walking down along the Via De La Rosa, stopping by the place where Pontius Pilate washed his hand before condemning Jesus to be crucified. We had lunch at the Fountain Coffee shop in the old city, No. 62 Dabbagha to be exact. We walked through a few of the old city gates, and I got to see what Jesus meant by the eye of the needle, which is more or less a small door in the big gate that would still open even after the gate is shut and sealed after sun down. We shopped at Cardo, then saw the golden menorah and the western wall. Got to pray at the western wall, which had separate section for men only and women only. Afterward we had Kay's teaching on the southern steps of the temple.

In the early morning of May 21st, we had Kay's teaching on top the mount of Olives, at the sanctuary of the Dominus Flevit. Then we walked down the Palm Sunday road on which Jesus rode the young donkey into the city the beginning of the week that he was crucified. We entered the garden of Gethsemane, spent sometimes praying individually.
Then we headed out to the tower of David and visited the History of Jerusalem museum. We took a walk through the old city again, had lunch and then we went into the western wall tunnel. I got to pray at the foundation stone of the temple in the tunnel, which is the point closest to the Holy of Holies.

Day 8, Thursday May 22nd, it's our free day in Jerusalem to do whatever we want. Some choose to rest, some went back to the old city to shop some more. I, Beth, Dolly and a couple other folks went to visit the Knesset, basically the Israeli parliament but they do not like to call it parliament like any other nation. Knesset is a word found in the old testament, basically meant a big assembly. It has 120 members, 12 tribes, 10 men each tribe. It takes 10 men to assemble a synagogue, which came from the story that if had there been found 10 righteous men, God would not have destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. The member's desks were arranged on the floor in the shape of a menorah. The seating arrangement is as followed: the speaker is on the dais. The prime minister sits in the middle, facing the speaker. The coalition are on his right. Opposition on his left and the independent are behind him.

Afterward I and Beth went to visit the Israeli Supreme Court. We went into one of the courtroom and listen to one of the case's proceeding. We thought at first it was a military tribunal of some kind but then later we realized it was an appeal case of a Hamas member.

Thursday night, we went to see a dance performance at the YMCA, which Avi our tour guide told us about. His daughter would have been one of the dancers had she not taken ill that evening.

Friday, May 23, we went to visit Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered. We went on to Masada, the last Jewish holdout in the rebellion against Rome that started in 66 AD and ended in 73 AD, three years after the Jerusalem temple had been burned to the ground in the year 70 AD. They have a slogan that Masada shall never fall again, ie. there will always be a nation of Israel from now on. We rode a cable car to the top and back down. We ended the day at the Dead Sea. The water is as clear as can be but feels like oil in your hand. I actually floated. They told us not to get our heads in the water nor try to swim. I did it anyway to see what it's like. The worst is when the water got into my nose. It cleared my sinuses like eating wasabi. It tasted bitter in my mouth and it got my eyes watered.

First day of the tour, May 15th, we departed the hotel right at 8:00 am and went to visit Korazim. This is the city where Jesus said that Sodom and Gomorah would be better on the day of judgment than it because if they had heard what they heard, they would have repented. Some sixty synagogues facing the wrong way, north, instead of Jerusalem, which is south of the Galilee. The graven images inside the synagogue.

We then had lunch at kibbutz Kfar Blum. From there we went on to visit Tel Dan (or Laish), the northern most city in Israel. We can look across and see Lebanon. We also visited the Golan Height, and heard the story of Eli Cohen, a man the Mossad planted in Syria's highest leadership echelon, ...

It was pointed out to us that all tombs in a Jewish cemetery would have the feet of the people being buried point toward Jerusalem so that when Messiah comes, they just get up and go without any need for GPS.

Next day, May 16, we visited Mt. Carmel, where the prophet Elijah called down fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice and slew 450 of the Baal's prophets....

Had boxed lunch and we visited Ceasarea Maritima, the Roman sea port, Herod's palace, the Hippodrome where we had Kay's teachings, ....

May 17, we visited Meggido, or Har Meggido, the site of Armageddon, where the nations will gather to go to war ....

We had lunch in Nazareth, which is now an Arab town. The fresh dates for desert tasted so good that I no longer want the dried ones. Brought the seeds home, hope to grow a tree in my backyard!

We went to the site on the bank of the Jordan where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist .... I had my Jordan Baptism. Check my Facebook for the pictures.

May 18, we went to Capernaum, the synagogue where Jesus read the Torah, where the house of Peter and the healing of his mother in law took place, and there is a Catholic church on site, then the mount of Beatitudes, lunch with the sisters of the convent, spaghetti and potatoes, we also got to see the Jesus' boat, then we were transported by boat back to our hotel in Tiberius and went to dinner at Decks at night.

May 19, we visited the ruins of Bet She'an, one of the ten of the ten cities composed the Roman decapolis at Jesus' time. We saw the Roman bath houses and how people then led a life of such unconstraint behaviors, .... Then we were on our way up to Jerusalem, stopping by and had lunch at Genesis Land. Along the way, we saw the border fence with Jordan, which still had plenty of land mines all along, though it is all mapped, unlike it is on the Golan Heights or along the border with Lebanon.

Leaving Frankfurt for Tel Aviv, when I checked in my bag at the counter, the El Al employee marked a code on a plastic card which I gave to the guy at the security checkpoint. And based on that code, a bunch of us got selected for additional security screening. We were made to sit and wait for "English security screening" and so we talked among ourselves and figured as much, that if you spoke English and traveled by yourself, then you will be subjected to additional scrutiny, regardless of whether you are male or female, American, German, Norwegian, .... My plane was supposed to be taking off at 14:20 but I didn't get on the plane until 16:10. When we told the security guy about our worry of missing our plane, he assured us if that's our main concern, put it out of our mind and do not worry about it. And true to his word, they held the plane for us. And the passengers on the plane were pretty good sport about it. No one grumples, no weird look, .... I guess they've learned to get used to it. And it wasn't just me, there were like 15 people on that plane being held up by security. The security staffs were courteous and kept it pleasant. They went through everything and swiped for explosive residue very carefully. Checking out all the batteries, for my camcorder, my laptop, my camera, ... through X-ray machine.

The flight obviously arrived late at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. Adam didn't find his bag from the baggage claim so he went to lost and found. His bag never left North Carolina so they compensated him a few Euros. I picked up the rental car and since I had forgotten all my MapQuest printouts at home, we had to ask for direction to my hotel before we can figure out how to get to Adam's hostel on Ben Yehuda street. Adam and I met on the plane coming in from Frankfurt. He too had been subjected to additional security screening since he spoke English and traveled all by himself. He's from North Carolina, had one more semester in college and he's going to bump around Israel for two months, trying to learn a little Hebrew and working whatever jobs he can find to get some money for room and food. Got to my hotel, which is the Crown Plaza at 145 Hayarkon St. in Tel Aviv, right on the beach. Asking for direction is rather involved since we have to listen to what people say, and write down best you can the name of the streets in Latin alphabets because people can't spell out the street name for you since they only know it in Hebrew. I managed to drop off Adam after a few rounds driving around the three main streets, Hayarkon, Ben Yehuda, and Dizengoff, and many smaller streets, a lot of which are as narrow as alleyways in the US.

Got back to the hotel, which I got the night for free since I had converted my AA frequent flier miles into hotel points before they expired. Took my carry on bags up. I was upgraded to a suite, 1705, so I checked out the suite and all the goodies left in the room for me by the general manager. By the time I got down, my car was gone, with my big checked baggage with all my clothes still in it. Talked to the valet guy in front of the hotel, he told me he saw a car got towed, maybe it was my car. Found that the towing company had a lot at 5 Hayarkon St., a good half hour walk up the street. I found out that the city of Tel Aviv generates their revenue through towing fees, about 260 shekels per car every time. Walked to the lot, asked the guy who ran the place, he told me to go around the lot and find my car, then I can pay the fine and have the car back. I walked around twice but couldn't locate the car. He walked also but couldn't either. Since it's a rental car I just picked up, I don't remember what the license plate was. All I can recall was that it's a white Fiat with the middle number on the license plate is 108. Israel plate's format is xx-xxx-xx. So he told me to wait until all of his drivers came back to the lot and if I still couldn't locate my car, I need to call the police and report it stolen as well as notify the rental car company. All three of his last drivers came back, this is about 1:00 am already. I walked another half hour back to the hotel, called the police and reported the car stolen. They came by, asked me exactly where I parked the car. They showed me the sign in Hebrew said that the handicapped lot was 12 meters long, not one car length like I thought. They called the towing company and the company said they have a record of my car on the lot. So they took me back to the lot. I was told to walk around and locate my car. I told the same guy I had talked to earlier that I couldn't find it just an hour ago, after all of his drivers had come in. The police officer was going to leave me there but I asked him not too because if I couldn't find my car, I was going to call him again. So the police officer walked with me, with his flash light. This time I had the full license plate number. We still couldn't locate it. The police officer went back and spoke to the guy in Hebrew. While they were talking, since I had no idea what they were saying, I took one more walk around the lot, a prayer walk it was, then I saw the license plate. Stuck my key and the door opened. So I went and paid the fine, drove back to the hotel, after getting lost for a few minutes as well as getting something for dinner.

I forgot all the MapQuest printouts I had of directions to places I want to visit, among them Independence Hall, where David Ben Gurion read the declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, declaring the establishment of the modern state of Israel. So I called tourism information desk, they told me it's at 17 Rothschild. I was advised that it's closed at 2:30 and that the parking situation is hopeless there. So I checked out of the hotel, stuck all my luggage in the car, left the car at the hotel and took a taxi to 71 Rothschild since the taxi driver didn't know there Independence Hall was. It ended up 17 Rothschild was not the building. Talked to some people around there and they said maybe it's 70 and I had heard it wrong. So I started walking down the street to 70 Rothschild. Along the way, I stopped in to buy a water bottle, now that I had changed my US dollars to Israeli shekels, to prevent a repeat of the problem I had the night before, when some place I wanted to get something for dinner didn't want my US dollars. I asked the guy selling the water bottle and he told me Independence Hall would be back in the direction where I came from. So I went back, stopped by some kind of Jewish museum, asked the staffs there and was told it's 16 Rothschild, not 17. Maybe the girl I spoke to on the phone at the tourism information translated into English wrong. Anyway, I finally found it, paid the 17 shekels admission and was shown a film and then self guided myself on the tour to the main room and we see that picture of David Ben Gurion stood in front of the microphones reading the declaration of independence. There were about 60 to 70 Jewish kids in the room, all singing Jewish song. I spoke to them and found out later it was a ceremony where they got their identity cards at 16 years of age. I found out the night before from talking to the police that the official independence celebration was according to the Jewish calendar, which is the 5th of Iyar, not the Gregorian May 14th, which had happened five days before. Such a disappointment because I was hoping to see the fireworks and witness for myself how wild the Jews celebrate. Well, I learned something new. Afterward, I walked back to the hotel, checking out all the shops along the way and grabbed lunch as well. Saw a whole bunch of IDF gals doing their job at an open market on Allenby street. Had a picture taken with them, check it out on my Facebook, along with many other pictures I update each day as I tour Israel with Precept. Picked up a local SIM card so I can use with my unlock blackberry and Pingo to make cheap phone calls home to the US. Got back to the hotel, picked up the car, drove back to the airport, returned the car, found the Precept folks, got on the bus with them and was taken to Tiberius for a good dinner and good night sleep at the Gai Beach Hotel.

After Mother's Day lunch at church, and a great sand volleyball game, my brother dropped me off at the airport for my American Airline flight to London late Sunday afternoon. Before I knew it, the plane that was supposed to come in from Korea and turn around to fly us to London was late. It was a rather long flight to London once we left DFW International Airport. I sat and there wished the Concorde experiment had succeeded. After getting to London half an hour later than scheduled, we had to wait for a gate. Then for whatever reason, London Heathrow will not announce the gate for my connecting flight to Frankfurt, or any other departing flights, until 15 minutes before boarding time, so I cannot possibly get out and see London since I have no idea which terminal and what kind of security check delay I have to go through. The British Airway flight to Frankfurt was on time so it's not too bad. We landed at Frankfurt and had to be transported by bus to the terminal. It was a surprise since I thought the Germans were pretty proud of their technological advances and their precision and promptness in everything they do. As the plane approached for landing, I see big swaths of yellow on the ground. I thought it was wheat but my uncle who picked me up from the airport said it's mustard.

I did enjoyed the autobahn experience where there is no speed limit. I got to see the old houses, the narrow streets, ... of Neuwied where my uncle lives with his wife and two kids. We stayed up late into the night catching up since I hadn't seen him since he left Vietnam in 1987 for Czechslovakia, then crossed into East Germany and then West Germany.

I did as much as I could before checking all the code in and left my laptop with my manager so he can get it fixed. It's a dual core but somehow Windows only recognizes one core. It should be all good when I come back in two weeks.

Went to Fry's and got me a few 8mm tapes, using the gift card I won last Saturday at Dallas Tech Fest. I thought there were 8mm to VHS adapter but apparently I got confused between 8mm and VHS-C.

Thuy's graduation is tomorrow morning at TCU. Then there are at least three election watch parties in the evening but I won't make it since Thuy's having a graduation party in the evening as well.

This Sunday is Mother's Day. Will celebrate at church after the service then I'll head to the airport and fly out to Frankfurt to see my uncle and his family before heading to Tel Aviv. I'll be in Israel the evening of May 13th. I'll spend the day roaming the city and see how the Israelis celebrate their 60th anniversary of the establishment of the modern state of Israel on Wednesday, May 14th before meeting up with the Precept group for a two-week Biblical tour.

Will be back on the 26th. If I get access to the internet and not too tired, will try to post something between now and then.

Here is a great article on who is Becky Miller. Don't forget to get out and vote. In Vietnamese we have a saying, for every time you get caught, there would have been ten times you didn't.

Spent the day attending Dallas Tech Fest. Learning a few new things, among them the Microsoft Robotics Studios. Getting a little more familiar with things like REST, Groovy, and Spring. At the end of the day, I won a $50 Fry's gift card. I rarely ever won anything at these drawings. However, that was different today. The top prize was a Mac mini with 120GB hard drive together with a copy of Microsoft Vista. This fest was sponsored by two notable sponsors, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft, who are now partners rather then competitors, and a few other sponsors. I overslept a little bit and missed the first morning section on Google Android this morning.

Work has been crazy. We are growing so we hired three new developers, two Java and one Axapta. Then two senior developers left to pursue other opportunities. So we backfilled those two positions. We have five new developers who aren't exactly well versed in our system. And I am taking off for Israel in two weeks so ....

The municipal elections are in full swing all around. Tim O'Hare running for mayor of Farmers Branch, Ron Branson for mayor of Carrollton, Sue Richardson for Irving city council.

I am learning so much in my Precept class as we go through the book of Daniel in detail. You should check out to see if there's a Precept class in your area and join it.

We got to hear from State Representative Linda Harper-Brown tonight at the Dallas County Young Republicans monthly meeting tonight. She's obviously a conservative legislator, passionate to serve the people of this great state. She's one of those doing her best in whatever position she's been elected to and not just use it as a stepping stone to that next higher and bigger office. She will give you an honest answer to every question asked. A great listener, willing to work hard, doing her due diligence to read and research every bill before she votes on it.

Finally got my taxes done. 2007 was a very blessed year. My AGI crossed into the six figure territory. I hit the Social Security tax ceiling, however was able to avoid the AMT. According to Turbo Tax data, my charitable giving was more than twice that of the national average of people in my income bracket and I am very proud of that.

All in all it has been good this weekend. Friday, our company's entire IT department moved to the new office location in Richardson. We moved into the facility of a company we bought last year. All they had there is a NOC and a support call center. The cube at the new place is bigger, with more open space, half wall and a lot of clear glass. Will see how the noise is on Monday, when everyone will be there.

Saturday, spent most of the day in class for my real estate license. I want to be a broker, so I don't have to pay anyone when I start buying and selling real estate investments.

Started doing my taxes on Saturday night, almost finish except I realized I need the information on the disk in my desktop computer that crashed about a month ago for capital gain and loss.

Today after church I went to Ron Branson's meet and greet. Ron will be challenging the incumbent mayor in the upcoming May 10th municipal election. Hope we'll get her out of there because she's done nothing good in office but plenty of things to annoy, irritate the good people of Carrollton all around.

Afterward I headed over to Micro Center to grab me 3MB of memory for my Mac mini, and a couple of NAS so I can read the data of the disks. I had two disks in my desktop running Windows XP x64, one old IDE and an SATA, with certain critical data mirrored from one disk to the other. The problem is that the entire box crashed and I need information on long term capital gain and loss to do my taxes. So here I am going with a new strategy, Mac and NAS. I wanted the D-Link DNS-323 for my 500GB SATA disk and the Eagle Consus T-Series ET-CSTNASU2-BK for my 120GB IDE disk. It showed quantity of one in stock but neither I nor the guy who worked there could find the D-Link so I settled with a Vantec eSATA/FireWire/USB2.0 external enclosure instead.

Got home, tried the Eagle Consus, couldn't get it to work. I can assign an IP address to it but can't write anything to it to configure the SAMBA server or the FTP server. Tried to use the USB connection instead but my Mac mini couldn't recognize it and my Windows XP laptop recognized an "IDE to USB" mass storage device being plugged in but couldn't access it. So, do not buy the EagleTec T-Series if you are looking for network storage. The VanTec works perfect with my Mac mini, plugged it in with the FireWire cable, powered on and whoa la, it's right on my Mac mini desktop. I pulled the file I need, and now I need to go finish up my income tax return. Finally opened up my Mac mini again, stick the two new sticks of memory in and whoa la, I have 3GB of memory in my Mac mini. A very happy camper I am indeed.

Lost my blackberry on Sunday when I went to buy weed block fabric from Lowe's in Arlington for our church's volleyball court. So went and got me the Blackberry 8820, the latest BB without a camera offered by AT&T.

Got the 3Gb of PC5300 667MHz but it seems I cannot get it recognized when inserted into my Mac mini. No beep, no error message, just cannot see anything on screen. Will have to figure out why, probably because no PRAM "zapping" since I don't have an Apple keyboard and the video memory is shared with main memory.

I went out and got me a Mac mini to use until I can fix my Windows XP 64 desktop. I enjoyed getting used to this Mac. It runs pretty well consider only on 1Gb of memory.

I was out walking for Randy today and there was this lady, who opened the door after I rung her door bell and just started spilling all the expletives at me. I guess she must have been sleeping. Anyway, I apologized, got the door shut in my face, and moved on to the next house. She came back out, started yelling at me and asked if I have a solicitor's permit. I said no, what I am doing is protected political speech. She threatened to call the police. I again patiently explained to her that I wasn't selling anything and that it's protected political speech, my first amendment right. It's just crazy!

My desktop went dead. I woke up one morning, sat down in front of the computer, moved the mouse, clicked on something but nothing happened. I tried rebooted the machine, that didn't help. Now Windows XP 64 just kept rebooting by itself. Sometimes things are all mangled up on screen. I think my video card just went bad. Will find sometimes to get a new one and put in to see what happen. Until then, my computer use at home will be limited to necessity, not so much surfing on this tiny little laptop screen as I would have on my 24" flat screen LCD monitor. Granted I could hooked up the laptop to the monitor but I am too lazy. Plus, I still need to help Randy with the runoff so no surfing equals more time to help with the race until April 8th. And I am serving in Senatorial District 8 nominations committee so that takes some times too.

Caught the tail end of oral argument in the case of Dick Anthony Heller vs. District of Columbia.

Here is the gist of the D.C. ban:

First, D.C. Code § 7-2502.01(a) generally makes it unlawful for any person to possess an unregistered firearm within the District.

Second, D.C. Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4), which was enacted by the D.C. City Council in 1976, generally bars the registration of any “[p]istol,” which is defined as “any firearm originally designed to be fired by use of a single hand.”

Third, D.C. Code § 22-4504 prohibits carrying a pistol without a license.

Fourth, D.C. Code § 7-2507.02 requires that all lawfully owned firearms—both pistols and long guns—must be kept “unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device unless [the] firearm is kept at [the registrant’s]
place of business.”

Number 1 & 2 basically bans ownership of hand gun.

Number 3 limits to security & law enforcement personnels only.

Number 4 is the most grievous of all. What used is it if you are under tremendous distress, imminently fear for your life and limbs, and for the life of you cannot remove the trigger log, or for heaven's sake, be able to assemble and load your gun in the dark.

What's interesting is the argument by the proponent of the ban, now they want to leave it in the hand of the legislature(s) instead of the court(s) to make law. It's also interesting to note what the chief counsel for the District of Columbia had to say: "the law is reasonable regardless of constitutional right." Now that's scary! What happens to the protection of minority? Is this now mob rule? The majority can pass whatever reasonable legislation without regard to the minority? Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin said, we are given a constitutional republic if we can keep it.

What puzzled me is the fact that the counsels for Dick Heller kept stressing the fact that the right to keep handgun at home. Heck, I have a constitutional right to self defense, subject to reasonable regulation such as federal building, secure area at the airports, ..., places where I can be sure no one has gun. If I go down to Oak Cliff, you betcha I want my concealed carry piece on my person because there is no cop to cordon off the entire area around me at all times to make sure no one else has a gun either. And for small guy like me, a six foot five three hundred pounds guy can do me serious harm even without a gun so I still need some means of self defense that is immediately available to me unless I have a bodyguard with me at all times.

Sure, if you ask all the cops, every one of them would agree that if nobody else has a gun, their job would be so much safer. But reality is that you cannot prove a negative, ie. it is not possible to guarantee that no one else possesses a gun. Do the criminals care to obey the ban, you betcha not.

Congress already has put plenty of law in the book, let's strictly enforce those:

The most frequently applied provision generally prohibits the possession of firearms by any person “who has been convicted in any court of[] a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.” 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1).

: this is already ridiculous, what if it's non-violent crime, like tax evasion?

Section 922(g) also generally prohibits the possession of firearms by fugitives from justice; unlawful users of controlled substances; persons who have been adjudicated as mental defectives or committed to mental institutions; aliens illegally present within the United States; persons dishonorably discharged from
the armed forces; persons who have renounced their United States citizenship; persons subject to restraining orders that include a finding that the individual is a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner or child; and persons convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence (unless such convictions
have been expunged, etc.). 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(2)-(9).

In addition, Congress has prohibited the private possession of firearms at particular locations. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. 930 (2000 & Supp. V 2005) (federal government facilities); 40 U.S.C. 5104(e)(1)(A) (Supp. IV 2004) (Capitol Grounds and Capitol Buildings); 49 U.S.C. 46505(b)(1) (“concealed dangerous weapon” “when on, or attempting to get on, an aircraft”).

ISI put together an event for supporters in the Dallas area Thursday night. We heard from general Josiah Bunting III, who served as superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute during the time when the US Supreme Court ruling came down forcing VMI to accept women. He talked about what a classic liberal arts education should be, so different from what we see now in America's colleges and universities. He talked about negative learning at the Ivy League schools such as Yale, Princeton, .... Problems with the board of trustees being overwhelmed with liberal professors who have many Ph.D. degrees and not standing up to them when they try to impose their views on their students instead of teaching the students to critically think for themselves. But that problem is starting to be addressed, thank God!

Spent most of Saturday and Sunday afternoons walking and knocking on doors for Randy Dunning, who is in the Republican Primary Runoff election on April 8th, early voting begins March 31st.

I was in Austin Friday afternoon and Saturday morning for the Republican Party of Texas quarterly SREC meeting. Then went on to Gunsmoke in Columbus, Texas for the ATF day, hosted by the Austin YRs. I personally don't smoke or drink but do shoot and I celebrate everyone's right to do so. Government should have no business telling us how to live our lives. I think I am falling in love with the Marlin Model 1894 Cowboy lever action and will have to buy me one that shoots .357 Magnum / .38 Special. We camped out last night and had Cowboy church on site this morning. It was so much fun.

I along with five other guys helped my friend Kelly moved her piano this morning. Then I went home for lunch and then picked up the election judge supply. Afterward walked a precinct for Randy Dunning before heading home to clean up and got ready for the Dallas GOP Lincoln Day dinner tonight.

It's scary during the discussion tonight I discovered that a candidate for National Committeewoman for Texas, telling me that my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are given to me by the US military and US government. I was like, NO, I was endowed by my Creator, the US military and US government secure, preserve and protect those rights. Nobody gives me those rights but my Creator. The constitutional republic form of government and our brave men and women in uniforms and patriots through the ages have shed blood and laid down their lives to make sure evil men like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro and the likes do not infringe on my rights. She must not have read the US Declaration of Independence, the part that read as follow: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ...."

Talking about government, Carrollton mayor Becky Miller hates my guts, even comment I posted on an article in the local newspaper got removed but thank God for the internet, here is a cached version.

I've been practicing my guitar pretty consistent, ten minutes a day, not skipping any day, even if it means from 2:30 to 2:40 am before I hit the sack. Proud of myself!

It's been a while since I last posted. It's unlike me but the primary comes at me fast. Before I know it, I need to pick up the election materials this Saturday, then Monday go to the polling location to make sure everything I need for Tuesday is there. Between now and then, a lot of phone banking. I am turning everyone I know out for Mike Huckabee, Robert Francis, Randy Dunning, and Bill Fay.

On top of that, work has been extremely busy. We were already growing and in need of more software engineers, then two senior developers left, so the problem compounded. My boss is interviewing and hiring as fast as he can. Can't seem to get enough resume of experienced folks, even with all the recruiting firms. It's just crazy but it's a good problem to have compare to what I was facing at Nortel over the seven years I was with them.

And I have been reading as much as I can all the recommended reading materials and watching all the recommended videos before my trip to Israel this May. I cannot stop being amazed at all the miracles God has done with with his chosen people, especially the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the nation of Israel, the UN vote on November 29th, 1947, and then declaration on May 14, 1948; and the six day war in 1967, Yom Kippur war in 1973.

Finished my first half marathon on Saturday. I was aiming for 2:20:00 but just past the 11th mile marker, I had a massive cramp in both calves and so had to limp all the way to the finish line. Every time I tried to run again after that, the cramp would kick in immediately. It's embarrassing and maddening when runners one after another just past you and even at the finish line, where all the cameras trained on you and for the life of me I couldn't even pick up the pace to finish. Being a political animal that I am, I noticed Charlie Geren yard signs were all along the marathon route, and thought what a smart politician. Talking of politician, presidential candidate Alan Keyes came to the Dallas YRs happy hour yesterday. I told his people he should concentrate on running and getting elected governor first.

Had a great time at the TYRF quarterly board meeting in College Station. Heard from great speakers: Dr. Dave McIntyre, Director of Texas A&M University's Integrative Center for Homeland Security, and Justice Felipe Reyna of the 10th Court of Appeals.

It looks like the establishment won out today in Virginia. But this is a state that elected a Democrat governor in 2004, and where George Allen lost in 2006. Maryland and DC are hopeless. I have been preparing for the Texas primary, mostly volunteering for Randy Dunning, but will now put in some additional time for Mike Huckabee as well. I believe Mike will carry the Lone Star state, despite the governor, and both senators going for McCain.

It must be very painful for Ann Romney right now, and if you listened to Mitt tonight, you know she's ready to call it quit. But he's going to carry on, even to the convention, though I hope that will not be the case. He does not need to spend all the money for a lost cause.

It's great day today for Mike Huckabee, starting with West Virginia in the afternoon, and Arkansas as expected. The numbers were slipping the last few days but it looks like the enthusiasm among his supporters in Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, and Tennessee will carry it through. I am glad to hear that there was no direct contact between Huckabee and McCain when Mike was asked about a back room deal with McCain in West Virginia. That way Huckabee is free to choose his running mate and not having to make deal with anyone. The only sad thing is that it does not look like there will be reconciliation between governor Romney and governor Huckabee. Mike Huckabee will need to find a running mate from the north to balance the ticket, I don't know who it would be right now. Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steel was mentioned by some but I am not sure since he lost the senate rate there in 2006 by 10%. But then 2006 was a bad year for Republican overall and the loss was less than 200,000 votes.

For McCain, his anger and profanity, his adultery and divorce, his actions while he was at Hanoi Hilton, giving the enemy more than name, serial and rank, and almost turning his back on the GOP, and his trouble among conservatives in his own home state of Arizona, are very troublesome.

I was running on the treadmill at Bally's and watching the Florida primary return without the audio. Here are the visual observations:

Ann Romney, the wear and tear of the campaign has taken a toll on her. I hope Mitt won't work her too hard. I suspect Ann to Mitt is more like Laura to George W. The young lady right behind Mitt on the other side of Ann, my guess is one of his daughters in law, had a look on her face that said: "there's no way I'll ever let my husband talk me into letting him do this."

Cindy McCain, didn't exactly stand behind him but rather front row with him. She's to McCain as Hillary is to Bill. She's so far the best looking potential future first lady. Coming from a family with old money has its benefit, you know how to take care of yourself. Talking about money, McCain was very smart to marry into the Hensley family and its wealth. But he should be ashame of himself for cheating on his first wife Carol Shepp, who stood strong waiting for him and did everything she could to bring him home from Hanoi Hilton only to have him divorced her later because she was disabled from a traffic accident and gained weight. What happen to in sickness and in health, til death do us part? However, to be fair, he was a gentleman with the divorce's settlement. But if you married a millionairess, you can afford to be generous.

Judith Nathan, had the look of a tagged on mistress, no more and no less. A lot of the young ladies I talked to just cringe at the thought of her being first lady. Rudy should have stayed married to Donna Hanover.

Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida came out looking pretty good tonight, like a king maker. I truly believe if it wasn't for him, Romney would have come out on top. On the other hand, Texas governor Rick Perry gambled and lost. It seems to me Rick just can't seem to catch a break, keep making one wrong choice after another.

Mike Huckabee put a smile on my face when he said "not all will be there but I will be there" in reference to the debate tomorrow in California. His declaration of "we are going to play all nine innings of this ball game" just warmed my heart to no ends.

If John McCain gets the Republican nomination, the Democrats will have a field day with this.

Check out this hilarious video clip in which Romney junior had fun at his dad's expense.

I am sad that Congressman Duncan Hunter has ended his presidential campaign. I wish he had run for governor before attempted the presidency. But I am glad to have him back on the hill, limiting the damage the Democrats will be doing there.

On the other hand, I wish Fred Thompson had dropped out of the race right after the New Hampshire race instead of waiting until now. It would have saved him from further humiliation, as well as saved his supporters all the agony going into South Carolina and finished fourth. And who knows, Mike Huckabee could have used the sixty four thousands votes to come in first place in South Carolina.

I think I pulled a muscle in the left inner thigh when I ran last Monday so I have been ever so slightly limping around since. I prayed about everything else but didn't pray for healing for myself. The pain continued unabated until Friday. I started to worry and thinking about going to my doctor for some muscle relaxant. That's when I started to pray and it was dramatically improved the next day. By Sunday, I was no longer limping at all. Praise God for that. I could be back on the treadmill hopefully Friday.

Staying informed, let's read a few campaign finance reports from the candidates running for state representative district 112:

Republican Randy Dunning, note how many small amount contributions by individuals. Talking about regular guy, who shares your hope and dream, citizen legislator as Texas founding fathers wrote into the Texas Constitution.

Republican Angie Chen Button, note the $160,000 she loaned to her campaign, and the giant sum by fat cat donors. Unless you have that kind of money to donate, who do you think will have Angie's ears? Also check the Federal Election Commission for the names of all Democrat candidates Angie has been helping, from Eddie Bernice Johnson to Regina Montoya, ... The information used to be available on the Texas Ethics Commission public access database but not there anymore, think what you like.

Republican Jim Shepherd, note the equal amount of $15,000 pledge contributions from outgoing state representative Fred Hill and state senator John Carona, and Jim Shepherd himself.

Democrat Sandra Vule, note the out of state interest.

Some background for those who are not familiar, Randy was on the Garland city council, which appointed Angie to the DART board.

Look and see to whom the political expenditures are paid, and see who's out there bashing other candidates, and make the correlation yourself.

Got my little travel study tour guide in the mail today. I am so excited. Will spend two weeks in Israel this coming May. It's a Biblical study tour but I hope to see a lot of 60 year anniversary celebration as well.

Zyrtec will become an OTC drug on January 28, 2008 and will cost less than $25 for 30-day supply, which is good news for a lot of folks who have to depend on it for their allergy.

Making steady progress in training for my Cowtown half marathon. I can keep a running log at LogYourRun.com, and it's intergrated with Facebook.

Hosted the first fund raising dinner at my place tonight for Randy Dunning, who is running for state representative district 112. Charles Lingerfelt catered authentic Texas BBQ.

The Dallas County GOP held an Executive Committee meeting Thursday night to draw lot for the order in which the candidates' names appear on the ballot for the primary election on Tuesday, March 4th. We also had senate district caucuses meeting.

It's time for Fred Thompson to exit before further humiliation.

If I were Mitt Romney, I wouldn't lend my campaign any more money. I wonder if having Bush '41 introduced you at his presidential library, having Karl Rove advising your campaign, having Fox News set up focus group to give your campaign a push, though everyone knows the relationship between you, Bain Capital, and Fox News, poured tons of money into running negative ads against anyone who has better poll numbers than you, ... really helps.

And certainly Ron Paul should start spending some of the money he's collected. I am glad to hear him mentioned transition, ie. terminate government programs in a manner that you don't throw people whose lives totally depend on them, out onto the streets. Now, if he has the same policy regarding foreign policies, it makes his position more palatable.

On the Democrat side, the Clintons had once again proved they are the come back kid. I suspect going down the road, people will vote for the devil they know (Clinton) instead of the devil they don't (Obama).

We had a show of hands and I was outnumbered four to one Democrat to Republican in my small group at work. And after hearing John Edwards spoke tonight, I have two words summarizing the difference between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans believe that government is a necessary evil while Democrats believe that government is a benevolent dictator, ie. the source of all that is good. You never know the day when the benevolent dictator has acquired absolute power and control and you are totally at his whim. You suddenly find another King George III, which your founding fathers pledged their lives, liberty, and sacred honor so they can be free from him.

It was a great win last night by Mike Huckabee in Iowa. I believe that the American people vote with their hearts and not their heads. They do not vote for the smartest guy or gal, they vote for the guy or gal that they can connect with, who understands and shares their hopes and dreams. Negative ads will work if you give them enough time to sink in. Romney hit voters in the head with negative ads. It didn't have time to sink in to their hearts. And it's pathetic when he had to be dishonest about Huckabee's record.

I think I finally nailed down why my gut feelings told me not to support Fred Thompson. It's well known that he's not a church goer. When you want to become the single most powerful person among more than 6 billion people worldwide, and you may not believe in a higher being to whom you have to answer to, whatever you can do without getting caught, you'll do it. That fact makes me uneasy in my guts.

Check out these centenarians, and their interesting quotes. That's one more added motivation for me to work out regularly, eat healthy, so that you can chase women and/or be chased by them when I make it past 100.

I found myself nodding in agreement with Huckabee on C-SPAN when he spoke at a campaign rally in New Hampshire today. People who choose to live an unhealthy lifestyle should pay more for their health insurance than those who choose to eat healthy, work out regularly, and take care of themselves. Just the same way you pay higher auto liability insurance premium if you have a reckless driving record. And I saw him playing the bass guitar with the mama kicks. Someone in the crowd asked how long he's been playing. His answer was since he was eleven. That's a long time, forty some years. No wonder he's good!

Talking of working out regularly, I ran 5 miles in 53:21 this past Wednesday. I hope to be able to bring it under 10 minute mile within the next few days.