Being diagnosed with empizema is the quickest way to quit smoking. At least for me it is. I haven’t quit completly because I just can’t quit cold turkey like that but I’ve cut back to maybe 4 smokes a day. Anything more and I can’t breath. Those 4 smokes are 2 in the way into work and 2 on the way home. I can’t smoke during the day at work because it takes up all my energy walking downstairs and that’s kicking me in the ass.

Having empizema is weird for me. I’m not sure what to think right now so I’m just going to have a very short post today. I’m just trying to make it through the day and then Thanksgiving with my parents and brother with his family for the first time in a couple years and hopefully we can do this without a big fight. I’ll br bringing my Canon EOS D40 along with us to get some family photo’s. I hope I can just get through the weekend without making a ER visit.

As I sit here and get a news alert to my Blackberry letting me know that congress has denied $25 million to the Big 3, it makes me wonder if this is what our parents went through during the depression. I for one feel like we’re in a major depression and there’s not a day that goes by where I’m not thinking about if I’m going to be able to continue to take care of my family. My company is smart as they saw this coming and starting looking for contracts in other area’s because we had a lot of consultants at the Big 3 and now we have maybe a handfull.

So how does this affect my family and myself? Well Karen’s lease on her car is up soon and we’ve already been told that there’s no way we’re going to be able to get another lease, not unless we want to pay $1500 month for a low line Pontiac G6. Yes I’m correct on the numbers also, I good friend of mine was telling me over the weekend that his credit score is in the 800’s, he offered to put down $5k on a basic car and they still wanted him to pay almost $1000 month for a car. The car was only $18k to begin with. Now he’s trying to figure out how he’s going to get to work because his lease is up next month and he can’t afford that type of payment. For christs sake, my folks Yukon isn’t that much for their lease and he has better credit then they do. It also affects us because that leaves us with 1 car, mine…. My car needs a new transmission, 4 new tires and brakes done on it. Not to mention it’s a 2 door with VERY little room in the back seat. My 12yr old son and 10 yr old daughter can’t even fit back there right now. My car was bought for me to use for work and not as a family car. I don’t even trust driving it to work 1/2 the time much less putting my family in it for a vacation.

As pissed as I am at the Big 3 for getting into this situation, I’m even more pissed off at the exec’s. All exec’s to be fair. I’ve lost count on the amount of exec’s that I’ve worked for that give themselves nice bonus’s and raises and then cut back on the people that work for them so they can have their fancy golf club memberships, fancy cars, vacations, etc. Note to those people; If it wasn’t for us busting our asses everyday earning you $ and keeping things running smooth, you wouldn’t have those fancy toys. How about showing some love back to us for all we do for YOU!?!?!?!?

So now Christmas is almost here and my wife’s asking me what we’re going to do for the kids. I told her one word, layaway. That’s the only way I can see our kids getting anything from us this year. I myself don’t care if I get any gifts or not because the holiday’s don’t do nothing for me except cause me more stress as well as my wife.

As much as I’d like to ask my parents about how it was when the great depression hit, I won’t because we’re living in a completely different world then they were back then. It just seems like the mountain people have the life since they don’t worry about this type of crap. I’ve always said that if we ever hit the lotto, I’m buying a ranch somewhere and raising cattle, horses, chicken, etc. Then we’ll live off our own food. About 300 acres of land and I’d also have plenty of Venison for my daughter and myself to live on.

Our country is hurting, why are we spending so much rebuilding other countries when we can’t even take care of our own? That’s the million dollor question.

For all those that I have served and are still serving to protect our country and rights, I commend you.

This weekend, our 12 year old son stood next to my wife in the kitchen while she was getting some meds for him since he’s been sick the last few days. She turned and went to give him the meds and was staring at him at eye level. Once she realized how tall he is now she almost fainted. Now I was laughing my ass off during this entire thing because I knew that time was coming and was just waiting for my wife to see how big he’s grown. I stopped laughing when she almost passed out though.

I’ve been telling Karen now since school started that each time we “blink”, the kids grow that much more and we get that much older. It’s getting harder to spend time with the kids now because they have their own friends and things they like to do that just don’t fit with the “parents”.

Last night was some great quality time with both the kids as Brian had a homework assignment based on the first few years of his life, so out came the pictures and memories. As our 2 kids were going through the pictures, I was tearing up remembering them as babies like it as yesterday, I can remember both their births like they just happened 30 seconds ago. I also remember that i didn’t have a cell phone during each of their births and had $10 in quarters with me to make calls after each one was born and we made sure both mom and baby was healthy and doing good.

Now 12 years later and so much has changed. I was up until 4am this morning just laying in bed trying to remember everything over the years and realized that I couldn’t. There’s so much that I forgot due to health issues. I know I’ve been there for 95% of all the important things in their lives but due to work, I’ve also missed so much because I wasn’t able to be their for their first play or something school related.

Our son has 5 more years of school left and our daughter has 7, that’s a long time but if you think about it, it’s really a short time. Before we know it, we’ll be at their graduation’s and then weddings. Of course I’ll still be working if I’m still alive and able to work and by able to work, I mean as long as a company will still keep me as an employee. Now as I sit here looking at the calender, I have a little over 3 months until I hit 40 and then the jokes start coming in. My kids already call me a old man because I can’t move around like I used to and play with them like I used to be able to.

So I leave you readers with this thought, can you remember your kids birth’s and all the special times with them or what they considered special times? Can you believe how fast things have flown by since you changed their first diaper? And last, would you change anything?

Now before I get flamed for the title of this, ask yourself that question. Yes we’re all tired of Bush or at least everyone that I’ve spoken to is. Obama has his good points and so does McCain but who do you believe? They are not the second coming of Jesus and we all know polititions don’t exactly tell us the honest truth. Today’s going to make history and that’s one thing that is for sure. I guess I’ll just sit back and wait to see what happens. Either way, our economy is getting worse and worse and i don’t see either one of them being able to save that within the first year.