Here's an update article by the Political Inquirer ( http://politicalinquirer.com/2008/10/04/the-philip-berg-lawsuit-against-barack-obama/ ) about this lawsuit: Summary, it has been appealed to the Supreme Court as of Oct 26th, 2008.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Lawsuit Filed Against Obama about citizenship.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Flash Backs
Each day poses it's own challenges and adventures. With the business I'm in I find myself in different cities and states sometimes on a daily basis.
When time allows, or we have a day off in between jobs we try to find something interesting to see and do. Some people find entertainment by shopping or eating out, but neither of these are hobbies of mine. I prefer to cook for myself and find an adventure of some kind instead of shopping for things. I cherish pictures and memories over things.
These are just some of the pictures of the things we have done over the past few months.
Mohican Adventure Slick Track
Mohican State Park. A hawk flying in Clear Fork Gorge.
Big Stone Gap, Virginia
The Point, Pittsburgh PA
Mi Ninos!
When time allows, or we have a day off in between jobs we try to find something interesting to see and do. Some people find entertainment by shopping or eating out, but neither of these are hobbies of mine. I prefer to cook for myself and find an adventure of some kind instead of shopping for things. I cherish pictures and memories over things.
These are just some of the pictures of the things we have done over the past few months.
Mohican Adventure Slick Track
Mohican State Park. A hawk flying in Clear Fork Gorge.
Big Stone Gap, Virginia
The Point, Pittsburgh PA
Mi Ninos!
I've found that life isn't about how much you have, or how much you spend, but all about the relationships you have. Spending time with your family and friends, collecting memories and good times.
I've recently been on http://www.facebook.com/ finding old friends and schoolmates. It's interesting to find out where life has lead each of us over the years. It's been over 17 years since I graduated high school and life has lead me around the States and a few foreign countries. It's been an exciting adventure and I've collected friends along the way. We each have the unique opportunity to make an impact on those around us by exhibiting a good attitude and a helpful hand. I guess that's why the couple of missions trips that I've been on, have resonated so much with me because it's all about making a difference in people.
If you've ever been on a trip to the third world, you understand what I mean. But to see Children play with things we throw away, like a bicycle rim, or play soccer with a tennis ball. To feed a hungry child rice an beans, and get repaid with a hug. Children are just Children and love is a universal language.
Like Solomon, the sum of it all; life has been good to me! I find myself in a nice home, a great wife, two loving beautiful kids, and peace in my life. Life is an adventure meant to be lived! Og Mandino said it best in The Greatest Salesman in the World:
"This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good. What I do today is important because I’m exchanging a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something that I have traded for it. I want it to be gain, not loss; good, not evil; success, not failure; in order that I shall not regret the price I paid for it. May I have sufficient wisdom and courage that this shall be my record for today."
Remember Look Up, Live Life, and Be Thankful
Kevin
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Pratt's BBQ in Kingsport TN
I'm not much of a dining critic but I was in Tennessee recently and found this BBQ place in Kingsport (that's near Bristol for all the NASCAR nuts). The food was good, the price was reasonable, and the service was good.
The waitress in the picture was cleaning off the left side so I offered to draw a picture as an advertisement. Surprisingly they let me. So if you are in Kingsport, stop by Pratt's and order the Big Bubba.
Look Up, Live Life, and Be Thankful
Kevin
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Midnight Angel
"Commercial 15, anybody interested?" I heard squawk over my CB as I pulled back into the hotel after supper. I ask one of my friends who was with me, "what did they say?" Just as if to answer my question "Commercial 15, anybody interested? This is Midnight Angel."
Channel 15 is a channel I use on the CB to talk with my crew as we travel the roads from job to job. I'm not much of a CB talker unless it's to my guys. I sometimes drive a Big truck, Large car, or semi, depending on what you want to refer to it as, but I'm not a trucker. So in my service truck, that usually gets me from project to project, I leave my CB on 15. And there she was.
Now I'm not naive, I understand that prostitution happens, and it's a sad reality that for some women it's a living. Call it circumstance, bad choices, lazy, what ever, it happens and it's a pretty lucrative business as I'll explain. I'm just not used to seeing it (or hearing it in this case) first hand. It kind of took me by surprised.
One of my new guys, just in from the trucking world, assures me I'm hearing what I think I'm hearing. So as I park in front of my hotel, I sit and listen. Just to shorten this story a bit, here's the operation. One girl, Bubble gum, is working the CB setting up the trucks, and Midnight Angel is keeping the appointments. They broadcast height, weight, hair color, bust size, and price list all on Channel 15.
My Guys go on into the hotel to watch the presidential debate, but I'm still intrigued, so I sit and listen, and begin to pray.
A million things run through my head, how did these girls get into this position? Is there a Pimp somewhere orchestrating all of this? Doesn't she know she has much more self worth than this? Don't miss understand I'm not pias or self righteous by any means, I'm a non judgemental kind of person. I'm not as interested in how they got there as how can they get out.
A friend of mine is in the Ministry and is helping Girls in Mongolia get out of the prostitution ring. It's apparently worse in that country than this one. For every $300 he can raise, he can bring a girl off the street, put them in an apartment for 6 months, and train them with skills to get a job, and a life outside of prostitution. His ministry comes to mind as I sit and listen.
"Commercial 15, is there anybody else?" From 8:57 to 9:45 when I left my truck for my room, there must have been half a dozen appointments. I pray and think as the time passes. Finally I talk with Bubble Gum over the CB and ask if I can have a private conversation over the phone with her and offer to give her my number (I'm assuming she's not going to give me hers). My intentions is to see if I could just talk with her.
Now before you jump to conclusions, I'm not stupid. My plan was to see if she would either meet me at the restaurant or even in the parking lot out front, and I was going to bring one of the Brothers with me to ensure no appearance of evil.
As it turns out neither of them were interested in having a conversation unless it involved cash, $50 a half hour, and when push came to shovel, they really weren't interested in talking at all.
What do we do when times like these arise? Do Christians really want to help people? Do we care enough about people to go to the streets, get down into the dirty places of the reality of life and offer hope? What I wanted to say to her was that God Really does cares for her, personally. Not for me to judge her about her lifestyle or look down my nose at her, but to see her like the woman at the well, and tell her God cares.
We each have a story. It's who we are and where we have been that makes up our story, the sum of our life's experiences. She might be a single mother just trying to keep her kids fed and the rent paid. She might be an addict just trying to get to the next fix. She might be a battered wife left on the streets. I'm wonder what her story is. Who is the girl behind the Midnight Angel? I know I can't save her, or even offer her a way out, but I do know there is hope. There is a better way.
I saw her car pull into the vacant lot filled with semi trucks CB antennae on the roof across the street. It was a ragged old escort and beat up at that. Unfortunately I didn't get to hear her story, but I'm sure it's one of sadness.
God never intended something so beautiful and intimately designed for a lifetime of marriage to be turned into something so casual and cheap, just to make a dollar or even in this case several dollars. The world turned it into that. God designed this girl to bring hope and happiness to a family and husband, to be a strong woman of God, and to worship him. But yet tonight she's just "Commercial 15, Midnight Angel here, anybody interested?"
God I pray from the comfort of my hotel, that you would find another opportunity to share you plan for this Girl. I know she's as important to you as the rest of us are. And even though she might not find her way to church on sunday morning, that you will find her were she is. I pray somewhere, somehow, you would give her another opportunity to hear how you really feel. I know you know her story, and I know you know her ending, I pray it's a good end. I pray she find your peace in her life, and show her the better way. In Jesus name... Amen
Remember Look Up, Live Life, and Be Thankful
Kevin
Channel 15 is a channel I use on the CB to talk with my crew as we travel the roads from job to job. I'm not much of a CB talker unless it's to my guys. I sometimes drive a Big truck, Large car, or semi, depending on what you want to refer to it as, but I'm not a trucker. So in my service truck, that usually gets me from project to project, I leave my CB on 15. And there she was.
Now I'm not naive, I understand that prostitution happens, and it's a sad reality that for some women it's a living. Call it circumstance, bad choices, lazy, what ever, it happens and it's a pretty lucrative business as I'll explain. I'm just not used to seeing it (or hearing it in this case) first hand. It kind of took me by surprised.
One of my new guys, just in from the trucking world, assures me I'm hearing what I think I'm hearing. So as I park in front of my hotel, I sit and listen. Just to shorten this story a bit, here's the operation. One girl, Bubble gum, is working the CB setting up the trucks, and Midnight Angel is keeping the appointments. They broadcast height, weight, hair color, bust size, and price list all on Channel 15.
My Guys go on into the hotel to watch the presidential debate, but I'm still intrigued, so I sit and listen, and begin to pray.
A million things run through my head, how did these girls get into this position? Is there a Pimp somewhere orchestrating all of this? Doesn't she know she has much more self worth than this? Don't miss understand I'm not pias or self righteous by any means, I'm a non judgemental kind of person. I'm not as interested in how they got there as how can they get out.
A friend of mine is in the Ministry and is helping Girls in Mongolia get out of the prostitution ring. It's apparently worse in that country than this one. For every $300 he can raise, he can bring a girl off the street, put them in an apartment for 6 months, and train them with skills to get a job, and a life outside of prostitution. His ministry comes to mind as I sit and listen.
"Commercial 15, is there anybody else?" From 8:57 to 9:45 when I left my truck for my room, there must have been half a dozen appointments. I pray and think as the time passes. Finally I talk with Bubble Gum over the CB and ask if I can have a private conversation over the phone with her and offer to give her my number (I'm assuming she's not going to give me hers). My intentions is to see if I could just talk with her.
Now before you jump to conclusions, I'm not stupid. My plan was to see if she would either meet me at the restaurant or even in the parking lot out front, and I was going to bring one of the Brothers with me to ensure no appearance of evil.
As it turns out neither of them were interested in having a conversation unless it involved cash, $50 a half hour, and when push came to shovel, they really weren't interested in talking at all.
What do we do when times like these arise? Do Christians really want to help people? Do we care enough about people to go to the streets, get down into the dirty places of the reality of life and offer hope? What I wanted to say to her was that God Really does cares for her, personally. Not for me to judge her about her lifestyle or look down my nose at her, but to see her like the woman at the well, and tell her God cares.
We each have a story. It's who we are and where we have been that makes up our story, the sum of our life's experiences. She might be a single mother just trying to keep her kids fed and the rent paid. She might be an addict just trying to get to the next fix. She might be a battered wife left on the streets. I'm wonder what her story is. Who is the girl behind the Midnight Angel? I know I can't save her, or even offer her a way out, but I do know there is hope. There is a better way.
I saw her car pull into the vacant lot filled with semi trucks CB antennae on the roof across the street. It was a ragged old escort and beat up at that. Unfortunately I didn't get to hear her story, but I'm sure it's one of sadness.
God never intended something so beautiful and intimately designed for a lifetime of marriage to be turned into something so casual and cheap, just to make a dollar or even in this case several dollars. The world turned it into that. God designed this girl to bring hope and happiness to a family and husband, to be a strong woman of God, and to worship him. But yet tonight she's just "Commercial 15, Midnight Angel here, anybody interested?"
God I pray from the comfort of my hotel, that you would find another opportunity to share you plan for this Girl. I know she's as important to you as the rest of us are. And even though she might not find her way to church on sunday morning, that you will find her were she is. I pray somewhere, somehow, you would give her another opportunity to hear how you really feel. I know you know her story, and I know you know her ending, I pray it's a good end. I pray she find your peace in her life, and show her the better way. In Jesus name... Amen
Remember Look Up, Live Life, and Be Thankful
Kevin
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