ItsAlwaysLupus

Sad News

2011-07-13T22:01:00.000-05:00

It sounds cliché but the world lost a great man July 8, 2011.

When the name Todd Fitzsimmons comes to mind one word really resonates with me. That word is potential. I don't mean the potential lost in a man that was taken much sooner than he should have been, because that obviously comes to mind as well. I mean the potential that he saw in everyday that he lived. The potential that every moment could be a memorable one. And every friendship could be life lasting and significant.

Todd lived life with more enthusiasm than anyone that I have ever known. It was that enthusiasm that made him mean so much to us all. He was always up for a good time whether it had been planned weeks in advance or if it was a, spur of the moment, Guitar Hero jam session. His enthusiasm was something that just got a hold of you.

That is why when you look at his facebook you will see many, many pictures of Todd at weddings as well as in them. This is including my own wedding. When you are thinking of one of the most important days of your life you want to surround yourself with people that you know will be there for you as well as make it memorable forever. Todd did just that. Whether he is discussing the talking points of Duke vs. Kansas college basketball with your dad or letting the groom barrow a pair of black socks because he (I) was too absentminded to grab them. Todd made sure you had everything you needed both in clothing and in laughter.

One reason this is so hard is because now I know that is a favor I will never get to repay.

Sooner or later our wounds will heal, and we might not well up when we read your name, or see a picture of you, and the world will keep spinning. But it will be with fewer smiles, less laughter, and without one of the most loyal, dependable, and all around best guys that will have ever blessed us with his friendship.

Jacob, Phil, Me, and Todd in front of ESU the day of my wedding.

For the rest of this life I will look forward to seeing you in the next.

Been awhile.

2011-04-22T15:47:00.000-05:00

It has been a long while since I updated this blog.

Will hold on to it for now but I usually update my new blog:

http://mr-mom-experience.blogspot.com/

As my daughter now eats up all my time it was all too fitting to make her the star of my blog.

Post-election....

2010-11-08T23:25:00.000-06:00

And your 5th District Johnson County Commission is Michael Ashcraft.

We found out 9:45 Tuesday night that we had won on the unofficial final numbers by 86 votes. Feels great to win. Mike will take office Jan 9th. Glad that I was a part of the campaign and I look forward to keeping in contact with people that I have met throughout the campaign.

With the election in the rear view mirror I am hoping to get something a little more permanent and paid. I was alright with doing this because I looked at as an internship, but with a baby on the way and things drying up on my other front I have got to get something.

So basically gotta get that J-O-B.

Football Predictions

2010-09-09T14:35:00.001-05:00

Decided to make some predictions for the NFL season and throw them on here so they are out there and I can check on the throughout the season.

NFC

1. Saints will make it back to the NFC Championship

2. Cowboys will not make it past divisional round of playoffs

3. the 49ers will win the NFC West

4. The Vikings will win NFC north but Packers will go farther in playoffs.

5. Donovon Mcnabb will not help the Redskins to rise, they will finish 3rd or worse in the NFC east.

AFC

1. Tebow will start a game this season

2. The Jets will not return to the AFC championship

3. Colts will not make the Superbowl

4. Eric Berry will finish in the top two or DROY/ Dexter McCluster will get ROW at some point this season

5. Baltimore will return to the top of AFC North

NFC winners

South- Saints

North- Vikings

East- Cowboys

West- 49ers

AFC winners

South- Colts

North- Ravens

East- Jets (as much as I want the Pats and they still could the Jets look good or at least they would have you believe they do)

West- Chargers (I really hope the Chargers don't but they probably will)

Offensive MVP- Aaron Rogers

Defensive MVP- Patrick Willis

Superbowl- Packers vs. Ravens

Winner- Ravens

Movie Chain Update II

2010-08-31T21:38:00.001-05:00

Rolling on with the Movie Chain. Next up Bobby, not sure where I am going to go from there.

Grosse Pointe Blank -> Ice Harvest -> Basic -> the General's Daughter-> LA Confidential-> Sum of All Fears -> Taking Woodstock -> Wolverine -> the Nines-> The Proposal -> Crash-> Ocean’s 11-> Up in the Air-> Dodge Ball-> He’s Just Not that in to You-> Everything’s Fine-> Moon-> The Negotiator-> Pulp Fiction-> The Siege-> Inside Man-> Spider-Man-> Pineapple Express-> Despicable Me-> Gentleman Bronco-> Orange County-> Hot Tub Time Machine-> Operation Endgame-> Ocean’s Thirteen-> The Departed-> Goodfellas-> the Godfather Part II-> Apocalypse Now Redux-> the Godfather-> Bobby

Boredom and update

2010-08-30T15:28:00.000-05:00

As I sit in the office this is how hard I am working, I am updating by blog between page updates. Been a long while since I have been on here.

Things are going pretty well. The wife is preggers and is due on December 25th, move over Jesus Addison Marie is on her way.

Things at work are going pretty well. Been working out of the office for a couple weeks to get stuff done a little faster which is great because it makes it feel a little bit more like a job. Also it has led to pretty steady hours as well as gotten me thinking about how this whole internet thing seems to be getting pretty big. So much for it going the way of the hula-hoop and Communism.

On the heels of that I think that I may try to start teaching myself how to build websites particularly for upstart political candidates as something to do to keep me in the door as well as broaden my scope and talents.

Been working out in a big way and I am down to around 275 from 310 when I got my gym membership about 5 months ago so that is pretty rocking.

With all that just going with the flow and hitting things as they come my way.

Well back to work and possibly reading up on this whole Koch/tea party business.

New Passion and Avoiding the Elephant in the Room

2010-03-23T17:37:00.000-05:00

I will not be using this post to state my comments on the Health Care Reform Bill. While I have thoughts they are not much different from what people have read and I think people have read a ton about it if they want to. With this in mind I wanted to post something that I found today on the interwebz.

Apparently in the state legislature in Illinois right now they are looking at and have passed the idea of going to a 4-day school week. The thought is similar to the same as what many state run systems are doing (such as ESU) and that it will cut the cost. The main thing is how it will effect the kids, obviously. Prevailing thought is that they will have to go to school longer, either longer days of more weeks (i.e. shorter summer).

While I agree completely in saving money I think that this is a sacrifice that is too significant. There are a few different approaches to why I disagree with this plan:

A) there is a ton of waste in districts from what I can see with just my personal experience as a barometer. Simple things such as teachers not being encouraged to shut off the lights when they leave to more complex issues such as the usefulness of things such as instructional coaches. Instructional coaches for those not informed on them, are there to typically supplement teachers with lesson plan ideas, etc. From what I have been told these positions are fairly useless and end up being a crutch for weak teachers or just a waste of time. I understand the need for them but not every school needs one. With the education system that we have now (thanks mainly to NCLB) at best you need one for each level in the district that would then disseminate information to their grade levels.

B) Also what are parents supposed to do with their children on the day that these kids don't have school. I realize that it is not the schools duty to "babysit" but parents have to plan around that and that is extra money out of their pocket, which in a broad prospective could convince people to leave districts if able. I can understand a phased in system in which you give the day off maybe to Seniors and Juniors in the schools because it could do a number of things for those kids. You could set up there classes to be more college-esque as they (hopefully) prepare for the jump to the next level. Now I am not idealized or naive or whatever to realize that all those kids will go to college but it would help the ones that were as well as offer a day off for kids at that age to possibly work more or to get into programs that facilitated a trade such as internships and the like.

C) While a longer school day might work well to save money, it is completely unrealistic to ask kids to go much longer in the day. On the national level Dr. Covington (the superintendent of KCMO) has become very divisive because of his move to close about half of the schools in KCMO. While I agree with the closing of the schools (which is a different issue I may post on later), Dr. Covington also has some "radical" ideas such as a longer day and year round school. He presented the idea of kids going until 5:00pm. While kid's may be able to "make it" to the end of the day I believe fully that it would be detrimental to the education of those children.

D) I am sure smarter people have looked at this but I am curious as to how much money they could really save if they have to go longer into the summer or longer during the day. If you have to spend so many hours in school and they just shuffle the days I am curious how much they will save. I am sure they have calculated that but more of a curious note then a critissim.

I find I am becoming more and more a "champion" of education if you will and more can be expected.
Those were my thoughts. Yours?

Movie Chain Update

2010-03-21T17:19:00.002-05:00

So Spring Break kind of put a pause on the chain and I will have to amend it because when Danica is home it changes the chain as she does not ascribe to the chain as I do. So movies I watch with her will either fall out of the chain or I will have to go back and connect them to include them. This is the effect of marriage.

The Chain so far goes as follows:

So my next film will connect to Everything's Fine. I am going to tag link some of them that I think people might enjoy so you can go to IMDB and check them out if you want. If you have any questions as to my thoughts on any of the films just give me a comment.

Loud Minorities (I promise not what it sounds like)

2010-03-12T00:24:00.001-06:00

I just read an interesting article by Mr. Harrison George about our quite generation. I find it hard to compare our generations because of the differences that generations face especially with the accelerated world that has built up around us. Since about the Civil War era people migrated for better jobs, began to deal with electricity, were offered mobility by the car, and changed the Earth with the PC. All of these things lead to the different cultural impacts that we see, most obvious in the 60's where it was loud and proud to today where people take to about a thousand different forums to complain about thousand things.

In the counter culture era the topics were much more prevalent with race and the war predominate. Now it is hard to pin down because there are so many topics out there and so many ways to speak to them that I think the protest ends up being a few loud people and a ton of people that do it online via Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. I would argue that our generation is far but silent but we are just all screaming something different which makes it hard to decipher.

Maybe you're: a vegetarian, a friend to the eco-system, anti-war, a tea bagger, a computer nerd, maybe you are a politico, etc. Maybe you are a combination of them. The fact remains that there are so many issues with the issue of the week one thing or another it is hard to keep up. I think people do protest in their own way I just don't think that their is one marquee thing to protest about. With the insane organizational power the Facebook and Twitter weld (see Iranian Summer Revolution this last summer, or the mass effect of the name Obama on Facebook) I find that our protesting has become more worldwide and in doing so not as loud as we all yell something different.

I would like to say that if a huge issue cropped up, such as a war in which people were drafted if they were poor, the wrong color, or not wealthy enough or smart enough to get into a college, the fires of protest would ignite in this country. But I can't say that because I feel it is hard to test how someone will respond in a situation unless put to the test. So I guess in the above circumstance maybe we all would blow up on Twitter and on Facebook, and print t-shirts, and wear red on Fridays, etc. Or maybe we would all be Canadian...

And now I will leave you with an amazing speech from the movie the Network that I think still applies and is still an interesting watch.

PS3 advertising

2010-03-11T01:31:00.002-06:00

While I am not a Playstation owner I will say that they are knocking it out of the park with their commercials. Video to commence below.

p.s. kind of wanted to post something but really just wanted to show off some simple HTML stuff that I have picked up from my job.

The Chain Continues and Oscar Thoughts

2010-03-08T16:53:00.000-06:00

My chain is continuing and the next challenge will be getting from The Proposal to Up in the Air by tomorrow.

Watched the Oscars last night and had a few thoughts:

The first being that the Hurt Locker cleaned up and I thought that that was great because I was impressed with the movie and I believe that Renner would have won best actor if Jeff Bridges was not so good in Crazy Heart (from what I hear as I have not seen it yet).

My second thought is the idea of a good movie vs. the popular movie. While I thought Avatar was great I am glad it did not win the best picture because it was visually appealing the story wasn't great and I think the best picture should have all the contents of a great movie not just neat-o 3D effects.

A third and final thought is how Precious will be viewed after the Oscars. Will it be viewed as the movie that will will have lost because it was against the powerhouse Avatar and The indie-ish gone blockbuster Hurt Locker. Or will people view it as a movie that went against the norm in story and director (an African-American) that lost to the typical Hollywood royalty (this time a woman, although still and important woman in Hollywood). Only time will tell but I think the story of Bigelow as the best director of the best picture will in fact prevail over anything else that people will read into about about the awards show going on as usual so to speak.

Back in the Saddle

2010-03-03T00:56:00.006-06:00

Gonna try to get back into blogging a bit. So I will reintroduce myself.

I graduated from Emporia State University this last May and since I have been doing computer work for a company putting Catholic textbooks online for high school and below. It pays pretty well and it is pretty easy and enjoyable. The best part is that this work has allowed me to help my wife with the big adjustment of a first year teacher who has been bounced around from one school to another. It has also allowed me to take up a position similar to an internship with a County Commission candidate to help run their campaign as an adviser. This is a position that I have really enjoyed and I am really looking forward to it kicking in to full swing the closer the election gets. I am starting to get busy and I like it. It is good to have a reason to put pants on in the morning. I say this literally because when you work from home on a computer it is hard to put on anything other than sweats or shorts.

Also recently while I work I have embarked on a movie project, I am calling the Chain Project.

Every movie I watch, mostly while working to exclude going to the movies or boring Saturday afternoons on HBO, will be parts of a chain. The goal is to link movies together using mainly directors, producers, or main actors or actresses from the film prior. The chain has begun this way:

Grosse Pointe Blank -> Ice Harvest -> Basic -> the General's Daughter

My next film will most likely be LA Confidential.

This project will achieve a few things: It will help that eternal struggle to find the next the movie I will watch. It will also be interesting to see what movies pop up on my radar. And most of all it will present an interesting challenge such as I rented Taking Woodstock and Nines tonight, I have 5 days to get them in the chain. Granted this is nothing more than wasted time and nerdieness on my part, but at least it will keep things interesting.

Movies in chain cannot be sequels of the movie preceding them nor remakes, or reboots.

I will leave you for now,

Thanks for reading.

Political Accountability does not equal "Gotcha Politics"

2009-09-03T14:41:00.002-05:00

Lynn Jenkins has had a pretty rough month.

Stating that the the GOP needs a new "great white hope" to help them take back Washington. Telling Kansas she has a solution the Health Care circus but it was a secret. Among other mistakes as well she recently laughed at a single mother as she presented questions to Jenkins at a town hall meeting. The bloggers and twitter followers have consistently and pretty fairly teed off on Jenkins about these incidents. Jenkins on the other hand is a little bit frustrated and released a quote about this most recent incident stating:

"Instead of playing gotcha politics on blogs and zipping off press releases to MSNBC, and using the young woman's situation as a fundraising appeal for her political party, Congresswoman Jenkins's office is looking into current resources available to the mother in existing programs."

Oh, Lynn, these are not "gotcha politics."

Gotcha politics would be if these bloggers were following you around and just waiting for you to say something stupid, instead these people are going to public events and you are still firing out ingenious comments.

Holding someone accountable for what they say in a public forum is not playing "gotcha politics." Its called having a memory and taking people at their word which is all we have with politicians. Taking a politican's words and using them against them has a long storied tradition but it is not unfair. The only thing we have from our elected officials is their word, we can not dictate what they do. Holding our representatives to their word is not a bad thing.

While we are holding Jenkins to her word let's look at the rest of her statement; "using the young woman's situation as a fund raising appeal for her political party." One she is not a democrat she is an independent. Two does the GOP really want to bring up using regular people as a pulpit for ideas as being bad. This is the party that brought you Joe the Plumber. You are right Lynn the Democrats have exploited this woman through interviews and quotes. What the left wing, liberal media should have done was give her a job, just like Joe.

Having a memory and holding a politician accountable it not playing "gotcha politcs." Kansas deserves a rep that can recognize the difference between the two. Kansas deserves better then Lynn Jenkins.

Accountability

2009-09-03T14:06:00.002-05:00

Political accountability and transparency have recently come under fire in our political world. President Obama campaigned in part on government needing to be more transparent. As this system begins to come in people need to realize that accountability has hit Washington and it has done so in the form of the Health Care Reform extravaganza.

In our world of journalism, blogs, and the more broad internet in general (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) accountability is here in the form of "gotcha politics." While some scoff at the idea that politicians need to be on the look out 24/7 for journalists or something they say may be taken out of context or posted a thousand times by bloggers and Twitters. Most recently we have seen this in town hall meetings on Health Care Reform. As illustrated for us Kansas citizens the town hall meetings are the accountability that this country needs. Recent Lynn Jenkins has been dragged over the coals in Kansas for her comments; ranging from the "great white hope" comment to laughing at the a single mother's question/situation at a town hall meeting. Thanks to bloggers and the media Jenkins' shenanigans are not slipping by. While many would say that it is people nit-picking or taking out of context you can see for your self both incidents as there is video of both. The context can be seen and both are pretty bad on her part.

Political accountability has hit Kansas and thanks to town hall meetings the entire country is picking apart their politicians. This is great because as people talk about holding their reps accountable they are in fact doing so. The meetings hold these politician's to their words and while Republican's talk about taking back government at their meetings both parties are in fact doing so. Thanks to these meetings reps. and senators know that their seat may easily ride on their vote which is what America needs on both sides of the aisle.

With political accountability at an all time high transparency in programs will surely follow. Not just government programs but businesses as well. In this article we see that it is not just the government that needs to be held to their word. Any company or organization that has a vest public interest needs to be able to be analyzed but the public that they represent because that is the public that they could in fact subsequently harm. The time is now to hold your reps, your senators, your banks, your teachers, etc. to their word and to hold them accountable to their actions. These are the people that are building the world around us and as we have seen with the banking industry when one collapses it puts pressure on the whole.

Why I am a moderate...

2009-05-10T00:38:00.002-05:00

Outside of specific issues there is one reason that I am a moderate. Because moderation in politics is what amounts to real change. And I do not mean the twang of a rod as it snaps to the left after being held to the right for 8 years. That is not real change. I am not against Obama by any means but the change we need is not necessarily change that is just change that goes against all that the Republicans have done in the past 8 years. Granted there are definitely policies and actions that need to be changed. Things like universal health care are things that divide the country but we do not see the middle ground. Is universal health care likely in America, probably not, in the next 4 years, no way. Can most of us agree that health care needs heavy reform quickly so that they right people are taken care the right way, I would imagine many would agree yes. Is any of this going to get resolved through the left and right yelling. No. Both sides need to slide towards the middle, it does not have to be drastic but a shift that will help to get things through. This is not one of those read between the lines for Republicans to stop delaying Democrat policies, and this is not to tell the Democrats to push as hard as they can with their control. This is a statement hoping that both sides can turn off partisan politics and a call to people not to change their views but to look at those views and see if having an extreme outlook is really the most practical.

That is all for now thank you for reading.

And so it begins...

2009-04-27T23:09:00.000-05:00

I decided to begin a blog no real reason behind it other than I wanted to and facebook notes just didn't feel right so I will use this as my forum for politics, movies, music, random stuff, etc.

I will begin by listing some of my favorite things:

Dr. Pepper
Chinese food
Food in general
Sports (specifically NFL, but interest in most)
Movies (the Departed, 300, Watchmen, Garden State, most comic book films)
Music (a lot of different things, won't say everything by any means because I do not really like everything and it is cliche)
Spending time with friends doing about anything
oh and my wife (the love my life)