Friday, August 28, 2009

Essays of Freedom Deadline is Approaching!

Essays must be postmarked by September 8th

Signs of Tyranny that Warned a Nation


www. ClunkerCongress.com


Below are actual posters from the 1930s, found and arranged by Dan Ford of Dan Ford Illustration. Please take some time to read the posters and see how it aplies to our government today. To download hi-res images to share goto http://www.clunkercongress.com/

Signs of Tyranny in the 1930s
State Propaganda the Warned a Nation
By Dan Ford
State Control of the Auto Industry
"The Fuhrer promises: to Motorize Germany."

Family Concerns=State's Business

"Volksgemeinschaft" = "The People's Community"

Losing Freedom of Speech:
Opposition Lampooned as "The Complainers"
Messianic National Leadership


National and Social Salvation Through the Power of the State


Nationalized Education System


"Adolf Hitler's Youth Attends Community Schools."


National Healthcare=


Mere Monetary Value of Life


"60,00 Reichmarks is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the People's Community during his lifetime. Comrade, that is your money too."

"The Government Can"

Watch this humorous video by Tim Hawkins:
This video is very funny, but to sober yourself up, read my next post about Hitler's propaganda posters.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Aug 25-Baseball Game (Cardinals vs. Astros)

I'm obviously not a huge sports fan so I apologize in advance for any errors:
Last night we went to a baseball game at Busch Stadium (est. 2006.) The game was against our Cardinals and the Houston Astros. We (Cardinals) are #1 in the division and the Astros are #3, so we expected a close game. Here are some pictures:



However, the game wasn't fantastic. In the first inning Albert Puj
ols got an RBI and put the score at 1-0 and that was pretty much it. Even though it was a close game and the tables could have turned at any moment, nothing really happened. Our pitcher, Wainwright did a great job and pitched to the 8th inning.
We had gotten an extremely great deal on seats and sat with Kate's sister and father and his friend.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Trout Lodge August 17-19 Video


We spent three days at the beautiful Trout Lodge on Sunnen Lake in Missouri. We had a funt time fishing, canoeing, geocaching, swimming and alot of other fun outdoor activities. I didn\'t record as much footage as I would\'ve hoped for, but I still decided to edit a video. The fish you see are carp that are 3-5 feet long and weigh up to 35 pounds!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Yes, More Pictures of Lydia


I'm sure everybody already thinks I'm a wierd dog-lover, but just to make it concrete I'll show you these pictures.

How Much Is Your Liberty Worth?


I received a video Mr. Kish had made and got inspired by his message. I added music, photos and special effects. After spending a few hours on it I sent it back to Mr. Kish. The Constitution Party leaders of Missouri like it and sent it the National CP, who sent it out to their members! I'm thankful I could help spread this message around the nation.
Democrats and Republicans have robbed our country blind. There is not a dimes difference between the two major parties. Don't let them steal your
country. Don't wait around for politicians and pundits to come around to the
truth. Take the lead and push them aside. Join the Constitution Party. Lets get
back to Americas founding principles.They will reform health care as well as
they have run Social Security. They will run it into the ground. They mock you
at your town hall meetings. Tell them you have had enough and vote them
out.Change your vote, vote Constitution Party. -Ray Kish

How Much Is Your Liberty Worth?


August 9, 2009


Kate’s sister, Leslie, is visiting St. Louis from Texas and she expressed a wich to learn how to shoot a gun. So after church we loaded our armory in the back of Miss Wiggles (Kate’s car) and headed for “The Farm.”
We mostly fired .22’s but Benjamin and I did get to fire a 7 millimeter magnum rifle. Watch the video below to see the kick this gun had! Actually, the kick didn’t hurt at all and neither of us were bruised.

August 8, 2009


Today we spent the day with a family from our church (Reformation Christian Assembly). Benjamin and I got some hands-on carpentry training as Mr. Grable showed us how to make the shelves for the cabinets he had made.
I got to use a table saw for the first time after I listened to a short lecture on table saw safety. I learned a lot and had fun.
After dinner we split some scrap lumber and had a campfire. It was already over 80 degrees and the fire sure didn’t cool anything down.

August 6, 2009


In the past I’ve done slideshow presentations for funerals and there always has to be a quick turn around, but this project was more of time crunch than any of my previous projects. We didn’t leave the funeral home with the photo album of my Aunt Jean until nearly ten and it was midnight before we got home.
My Mom helped me to select and scan in the pictures and we made a good team. After I was done editing we tried to preview the video before I burned, but we kept on dozing off in the middle of it. It was half-past four before I clicked “Burn” and went to bed.
We got at the funeral home at about 9AM and started to work. The funeral home didn’t have their own video equipment so we brought our own projector and speakers.
The video presentation played without a hitch!

Throughout the day I absent mindedly started searching for my Aunt Jean at the funeral home. It was odd that she wasn't going around and comforting every body.
The funeral home wasn’t big enough for all of the visitors and there were people standing in the back hallway. It was quite a funeral possession. We had three police escorts who blocked traffic at the intersections and kept back the incoming traffic on the entry ramps to the interstate. In fact, when a vehicle that wasn’t part of the procession would cut in one of the escorts would pull alongside and yell through a mega phone to “Get over!” One time, while the hertz was changing lanes an escort stopped in the middle of the lane we were currently in order to let us over. The procession was so large that we should have twice as many escorts.
It is amazing that the tradition of respect for the dead is still held in reverence and that it is protected by law enforcement. There is always a large contrast between funeral possessions in the city and in the country. In the city cars are constantly cutting in and being obnoxious. However, in the country cars will pull over unto the shoulder and quietly wait. Actually, one time a man pulled over his truck got outside and took off his hat and put it to his heart!
On arriving at Shepherd Hills Cemetary there was a short service and everyone was dismissed. There are so many familiar names on the gravestones. My mother’s family seems to have a lot of deaths, but most of them are of young people that are killed tragically.
Our house isn’t too far away from the cemetery so we had all of my aunts and uncles over. It was great for all of the siblings to be together.

July 25, 2009


The family was tired from the work this week, so Mom took the day off-but my brothers and I sure didn’t.
We started a game of soccer, but it was really hot. Benjamin and I ended up working on a Lego movie. I usually dislike making Lego movies because I’m the post-production man and Legos don’t give you much of a head start when it comes to dialogue, sound effects and ambience. However, maybe I’ll post some of the rough drafts of our LEGO movies on this blog.
That afternoon Benjamin wanted to go down to the creek and fish. Three children of one of our neighbors also came along. A 9 year-old boy, a 7-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl. The fishing spot that Benjamin wanted to try was about three quarters of a mile away. It’s a little difficult to get through the fields now that there are soy beans planted, but we walked along the edge of the fields and made it to the creek.
The fishing wasn’t great, but that may have been caused by our neighbor’s dog who kept on jumping and swimming in the water and probably scaring the fish away. However, Benjamin did catch one good-sized Sunfish.
I had hoped to make a GTC Outdoors episode while we were at the creek, but it would have been hard with the company. However, I did squeeze out a promise from Benjamin that during our 8 night stay on Table Rock Lake in September Benjamin would help me produce three GTC Outdoors episodes.

July 24, 2009


We had my Grandpa over and had a good dinner. (By the way I made sweet tea and cookies.) Our grandpa gave us an enormous model of the Mayflower to commemorate our trip to Massachusetts. While we were in Plymouth we got to tour Mayflower II-an almost exact replica of the first Mayflower. I believe that the decks were raised a little bit when they made Mayflower II. On board “Master Jones” and the First Mate were played by hilarious re-enactors.

July 23, 2009


I began by cleaning off the roof with the leaf blower. Meanwhile Mom started painting the first gable.
We have a small pond with rock around it that we want to get rid of (I’ve wanted to get rid of it for years-so I’m really excited.) So my brother’s and I set up a little system to filter through all of the dirt and keep the landscaping rocks. It goes something like this:
I use the pick axe, shovel and rake to beat up the dirt and scoop it into a little bin. Next, Noah shakes the bin to get rid of all the loose dirt. The loose dirt lands in a box so we can use it to fill in the pond later. Noah hands the bin to Benjamin who dumps it into a big Rubbermaid box full of water. He shakes the bin around and skims off any leaves that come to the surface. Then he dumps the clean rocks into a box.
Anyway, we almost got the whole pond area done, but it’s pretty back-breaking work.
We had to cut this day a little short because Lydia had to go to the groomer and Mom and Kate went to go see a movie. So my brothers and I stayed at the house and tried to surviveJ. We played a good game of soccer that evening, but it had rained and we were constantly falling and tripping-a good game like I said.
Lydia also got groomed tonight. As you can see from the before/after pictures she almost looks like a new dog. The entire family would rather that she had long hair, but when her hair’s long it get knotted up.
Paint gables I of III
Rake out around pond
Blow off roof

July 22, 2009


This morning Noah took a peek at the other tractor that won’t start up. He played with it a little bit and got it to startup and run just fine. I sure could have used another driver while I was mowing yesterday!
We went into town to pick up the paint we needed for the gables and we also grabbed some pizzas and ravioli to eat while we’re working.
After getting back home in the afternoon, Benjamin began cleaning the white lamp post at the end of our driveway and my Mom began painting above (not on top off) the garage door. I began to wash down the second gable.
Benjamin and Noah had planned to go down to the creek yesterday, but the rain had stopped them and they went down there to fish today.
While Mom painted and I washed the gable we listened to the CDs of Paul Jehle from Liberty Day 2009. He does an excellent job in breaking down the doctrine of interposition and then applies to the government today.
We had also picked up a new door knob from the store to replace the broken one on the deck. I thought it’d be easy, but for some odd reasons it took us a long time to put on.
Replace deck door knob
Wash gable II & III
Wash white lamp post
Paint over garage door

July 21, 2009


After a fairly late night we got up and attached the new mower blade onto the mower deck. After getting the mower deck hooked up I began mowing the yard-it felt good to be on the tractor again!
Some pop-up storms later in the day slowed us down a bit because we couldn’t continue to paint.
We did the following:
Repair tractor blade
Paint screen door
Paint front door area and other trim areas
Mow grass
Tonight I made some excellent cookies and some sweet tea which was quite an accomplishment for me. Because of my slightly inferior housekeeping skills I have been nicknamed, “Domestic Disaster” and “Culinary Catastrophe.”

July 20, 2009

We got up early and after breakfast we wrote a list of projects to work on during the next six weeks before we put our house on the market. However, I’m sure that the list will be twice as long before we’re done because we continually add projects to the list.
Benjamin washed down the garage door and painted it very white-a little too white!
We washed down one of the three gables and hope to be painting it tomorrow.
Noah took apart the down spout of the guttering system and cleaned it out. It had gotten clogged up and the water wasn’t flowing away from the house last time it rained.
I recently cleared some area of our yard that had “grown up” in the past couple years. WE have a few grape vines so I had to be careful when I was cutting all of the underbrush down. There were also a whole lot of thorns so I was pretty thankful for my leather work gloves! Anyway, I dragged all of the branches and thorn-um-plants to a burn pile.
I also stripped some old caulking from a window with a screw driver and utility knife.
“Replace Porch Carpet” is on the list so I pulled off the old carpet and scraped some of the adhesive away. Benjamin & Mom washed the old carpet and put it on the deck.
We have three riding lawn mowers. Zero work. We haven’t mowed in a month (the day before we left for Boston) and although the grass isn’t too tall for tennis shoes it’s still pretty dangerous for sandals.,.
This spring we had gotten two of the tractors fixed, but a mower blade was bent on one and another one won’t even start up. We took off the mower deck and tried to bend the broken blade back in place (try saying that five times fast!!) However, we couldn’t pry it in place plus it wasn’t pliable enough to position it (alright enough with the tongue twisters.)
Tonight we went to Sears & K-Mart to pick up a new mower blade and some paint that wasn’t so white. However, the paint area had been removed and the paint areas at the other stores had already closed down.

Today we marked off:
Replace light bulb in white lamp post
Gather aluminum cans to recycle
Haul away branches
Remove caulking from Noah’s window
Wash down garage door
Paint garage door
Wash down front porch area
Wash gables I II & III
Clean gutter extensions
Clean porch carpet

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Tragic Death of Jean Halloway

Late on Saturday night my great-aunt (my grandpa's sister) was killed in a head-on car collision down in Farmington, MO. Five people were killed nearly instantly.
"Aunt Jean" was returning from a high school reunion. She was carpooling with her high school friend, June Barker and her new husband, Walter. They were traveling on a two-lane road and were about a 3 1/2 miles from home when the accident occured. It took place at about 11:45 PM.
The three passengers were killed instantly.
They hit a Cadillac with a couple inside. Mr. Fulton was taken to a near-by hospital, but was proclaimed dead on arrival. Mrs. Fulton was airlifted to a hospital and died soon after.
This tragic tale was the top story on Sunday. KSDK and FOX interviewed my Grandpa at his home. You can watch the news story from FOX here: http://www.fox2now.com/news/ktvi-fatal-car-crash-stfrancoiscounty-folo-080309,0,6198595.story.
Here are the funeral arrangements:
Hoffmeister Funeral Home
1515 Lemay Ferry Rd
St Louis, MO 63125
Visitation: 2-9 Wed
Service: 11 am Thurs
Burial Service following at Shepherd Hills Cemetary
Barnhart, MO 62012
The investigation is still going on. We're really wondering why the car my Aunt was riding in was in the wrong lane. The police don't suspect that alcohol was involved. There was a slight fog, but the road didn't have alot of turns and the accident occured on a straight stretch of Highway OO. Interestingly there weren't any skid marks which shows that neither driver anticipated a collision.
We appreciate your prayers for the three families,
J. Andrew Wong