Kasey's Page of Mindless Rants

I meant to post this last month during Christmas, but I never got around to it. Now that all the politics of 2008 are finally settling down, I thought it would be fun to focus on things that are a little bit more lighthearted for a while.

So, I've decided to create an entry about the model cars and airplanes I've been putting together lately. When I was a teenager I spent a lot of time building models, and I've gotten back into it over the last couple of years. I originally set up my "workshop" in our basement when we first moved into our house in 2005, but recently it's become more of a "studio", since I seem to spend a lot more time putting together models than building anything useful.

So I'll let this post serve as something of a quick photo documentary with some (hopefully) entertaining commentary. Now you all (both, rather) can see just how big of a nerd I really am.


First off, of course, is the General Lee:


The reason I start with the General Lee is because when I began it, it was the first model I had worked on since 1994. (The last model before the General was a really cool P-38 lightning that I put together in my dorm room at BYU my Freshman Year. I'd show you a picture of that, but while I was on my mission, Jordan and Scott dispensed of all my previous models with a couple of 12 gauge shotguns. I would have been mad, but they got the idea from me in the first place. )

I started working on the General in 2001 (while Amy and I were still dating!) and I finally finished it last September. It took me 7 years to finish it, which I believe is roughly twice as long as the series lasted. There is also some pretty cool detailing in the engine, but I forgot to take a picture of it. I may post it later.

Next up is my Chibi Gundam:

The Dauntless was a Navy dive bomber during World War II. I'm pretty proud of this one. It only took me about two weeks to build, but I did a lot of detailing on it. I actually managed to paint the whole thing and without it looking like something Kasey painted, which is quite an accomplishment for me. I even painted the pilot and the gunner on the inside, and I was able to get the decals on without ripping any of them.


The next one is the model I'm currently working on, and it's been pretty entertaining. It's a Japanese Battleship called the JMSDF Shirane.

Amy got me this for Christmas in 2007. This ship has been fun to work on, but tricky for a couple of reasons. First of all, the pieces are nearly microscopic; you may not be able to tell from the photo, but that ship is only about 6 inches long and an inch and a half tall. The other issue both frustrates and entertains me. The only English that came with the kit, inside or out, is where it says "Defence Ships of the JMSDF Shirane" on the front cover. (Notice the British spelling, this model kit is probably better traveled than I am.) Everything else is in Japanese, and try as I might, I just don't seem to be able to read Japanese.

Merry Christmas, Everybody! I'll post a couple of entries over the next couple of weeks, but I really quickly wanted to plug Names in Stone. It's a really cool genealogy tool that some of the guys I work with put together. It's a cemetery map based website that lets you search through all the records of any cemeteries that participate with the site. Right now most of the cemeteries are in Utah, but there are a few others scattered around the US and anybody can map cemeteries right through the site.

I just used it to find a couple of names I have in PAF (Personal Ancestral File) whose burial locations I already knew. I looked them up on the site and found info on them and links to other ancestors whose names I hadn't found yet. Anyway, the URL is www.namesinstone.com . I'll post again soon.

Well, the Election, Thanksgiving, and pretty much November have come and gone. Obama is now President-Elect, and things are settling down politically. Therefore, I'm going to take a break from politics for a while, and move on to topics that are far more important. Like Christmas.

I've got a couple of ideas for some future posts, but I don't have time to do either of those today. However, I may try and get one of them up tomorrow if there is time. For today, I'm going to get away from rants and raves altogether, and just talk for a moment about what Amy, Anne and I have been up to for the past few weeks.

Not long after my last post, we had our "Annual" Hansen Halloween Party. I put annual in quotes because we missed it last year, but other than that we've managed to have a party every year since 2003. We held the party outside since we finally have a lawn in our backyard now. We had about 30 people there, mostly family and coworkers, though this year Paul Werrett and his family finally made it. Believe it or not, it was the first time he had been to one of our parties.

There were some pretty good costumes. Paul dressed up in his paintball camo as the "Swamp Thing" and scared all of the little kids. Neal Fraser was a bowling pin and his very pregnant wife was a bowling ball. My sister Holli dressed up as an overworked Mom and her husband Ryan dressed up as a gun-totin' hillbilly. When they arrived I asked them why they didn't dress up. Amy and I were Fiona and Shrek, but we ended up being the "human" versions because Amy didn't get a mask and mine didn't fit very well (If you recall, Shrek actually became human for a while in Shrek 2. I guess we were trying to represent the antithesis of the whole movie because we dressed up as the superficial human versions rather than the "true-to-their-hearts" ogre versions).

Anne dressed up as Winnie the Pooh, and the other kids dressed up as princesses, super heroes, ninjas, and Riley dressed up as football player with a mullet. We had games, pumpkin sack races, a pinata, pizza, hayrides, and all the other usual stuff. I gave Dad's Chief Wapashah story, and we had Scott dress up as a chainsaw-wielding masked psycho. Again. And he couldn't get the chainsaw started. Again. But it was a lot of fun.

October finished up with the Trunk or Treat at the Church, and November has been a whirlwind. I spent the first week of the month at a conference in Provo, the second week at a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, and the third week working with some clients in Rexburg, Idaho. Then it was Thanksgiving and now it's today. We had Thanksgiving over at Jordan and Kara's new house in Hooper, and yesterday we went out and attempted some shopping right in the thick of "Black Friday".

To cap it all off, we got our Christmas tree last night. I've gotten a live Christmas tree every year since 1997, clear back in the Riviera days. We used to always go to Lowe's or Home Depot to get the trees, but the last two years Amy and I found a nursery about a mile from our house that sell the exact same kind of trees as the big guys for the exact same prices. We figured we might as well keep the cash local, plus it's closer. So now I'm sitting next to a very undecorated tree that will be trimmed as soon as I finish this post.

So that's the quick rundown. Oh, and my parents will be coming home from their mission the day after tomorrow. That year and half sure went faster than my first year and a half in Mexico. Also, I'm very excited for Christmas. I'll post again soon.

All right. Here comes a long one, so buckle your seat belts. This is a post that will probably make a lot of people I know upset or confused with me (or at least it would if anybody actually read this thing). The final debate has been held, the situation in our Country is getting worse, and I've made my decision; I'm going to vote for Barack Obama.

What??? You live in Utah, in TAYLOR Utah, you go to Church every week, and you're going to vote for a DEMOCRAT?!? That's it, I don't know you. Me. Whatever.

Yes, I'm going to vote for Senator Obama. Now, obviously I'm exaggerating the reaction a bit, however around here, especially in the older community in which I live, it's not too far from the truth. So before you tie me to the proverbial stake and light me up, let me explain things for a bit.

First of all, I don't consider myself affiliated with either major party and I try to be as independent minded as possible. I know that's a cliche, but I really do try to focus on the issues at hand when I look at who I'm going to vote for. I can honestly say that I have been following this race more closely than anyone else I know. I saw every single one of the primary debates on both sides, have read hundreds of blogs, listened to hundreds of political podcasts this year, and I think Barack Obama is the person we need right here and now.

First, let's deal with the social issues right out of the gate. The first thing that anyone who opposes Obama is going to say to me is "Don't you know he is in favor of abortion and gay marriage?" Obviously, if social issues were the only thing I took into consideration when I voted, then of course I would vote for John McCain. If that were the case, I would never vote for a Democrat, period! However, I simply cannot be a one or two issue voter; there is simply too much at stake. I think abortion is a disgusting and immoral practice and I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. But right now, I'm not too concerned that some gay guy is going to try to get me to marry him or that somebody is going to try and force Amy to have an abortion (she's not pregnant, fyi -- don't get excited). I am concerned that our economy is tanking, home values are falling, my 401k has lost almost half its value in the last few months, and that most of the rest of the World considers the USA to be the "Evil Empire" that the Soviet Union used to be. I honestly don't think the next President will even have time to deal with social issues.

About the only concern (and it is a valid concern) on that front is that the next President will likely select as many as three new justices for the Supreme Court. However, I'm really not worried about the effect an Obama Presidency would have on that situation either. All three of the justices that are most likely to retire in the next three years are left leaning (Stevens, Ginsburg and Souter). Obama would select three new left-leaning justices, so the balance of power wouldn't change from where it currently stands, almost equally divided between conservative and liberal justices. On the other hand, a McCain Presidency would be a good thing for conservatives because he would try to appoint conservative justices (should liberal justices decide to retire during a conservative presidency). If this was to happen, there is a good chance that Roe vs. Wade would be overturned. I think that would be great, but I don't know if it is realistic; the Senate has to confirm any presidential appointments to the Supreme Court, and since it appears that after November there will be around 60 Democrats in the Senate, there would almost surely be endless filibustering of any right-leaning candidates a President McCain would pick. In the end, he'd end up having to select a more independent-minded fence-sitter, and the hopes of overturning Roe v. Wade will be slim. So to sum it all up; as far as the Supreme Court goes, the odds are that an Obama Presidency would result in a continuation of the status quo and a McCain Presidency would, in a best case scenario, bring in a few more fencer-sitters.

But again, that's not why I'm voting for Obama. As I said before, if it were the only issue, McCain would be my pick. Now, before I get too far into this, let me make it known that I really like John McCain. By the time the first primary rolled around, McCain and Obama were my favorite candidates from their respective parties. My Dad and I actually saw John McCain speak two years ago, and at that time I told Dad that I thought he'd be the next Republican candidate for President. I can honestly say that I won't be disappointed if either one of the candidates are elected, because I think that they both could be excellent leaders. However, given the choice, I think the leader we need right now is Barack Obama.

My first real reason for voting for Obama is Leadership. The Country is in a tough situation right now, both at home and abroad. We really need somebody who can bring us all together, and to accomplish that we really need to have a President that is LIKED. Think about it -- President Bush is liked by very few people; by most the rest he is either tolerated, disliked, hated or completely despised. Seriously, many people talk about Hitler or Stalin in nicer terms than they do about our own President! How in the world do we expect to be able to get it together as a nation if everybody hates our leader?

Now, the media is to blame for a good portion of that hate. The media and Hollywood are so liberally biased that nearly every source for hearing about politics makes the Democrats look like white knights and the Republicans look like bloodthirsty trolls. So let's face it; media-influenced or not, most of the nation really likes Barack Obama. He's a very charismatic person and I honestly think he would be a very popular President. John McCain, on the other hand, has gone from being portrayed as the independent/maverick media-darling senator of 8 years ago to a crotchety, angry old man that would fit in really well here in Taylor. And we need a charismatic, decisive, popular President! We need somebody that will make Americans say "See that guy? That's OUR President!"

By the way, this is the very reason why I simply cannot stand Hillary Clinton. If she had won the Democratic Primary there would have been no decision for me. Her personality, politics and the airs she puts on are more divisive than even that of President Bush, and that is DEFINITELY not what this country needs!

The second issue is the Economy and Taxes. This issue was my biggest struggle in deciding who I would vote for. It's no secret that Democrats like to redistribute the wealth, and Republicans like to leave the system alone. McCain wants to leave taxes the way that they are and Obama wants to raise taxes for anybody making more than $250k per year and lower them for everybody else. Personally, Obama's plan is great for me, and it probably is for anybody who would actually read this as well. I don't make over $250k in a year, and I'm not sure I ever will. That's not the issue for me; the issue is that most businesses (including the company I work for) make more than 250k per year and will therefore be taxed more heavily. I do worry that those increased tax costs will trickle down to employees, so even though I will be paying a lower amount of taxes personally my company might take a hit.

But here's what helped me to make up my mind -- Barack Obama has a plan to use these increased taxes to create all kinds of public incentives and grants for infrastructure improvement, public works, education, and so on. This means more federal money and grants will be available to our local communities, giving such communities incentive to start up more public works and capital improvement projects; work that can be performed by companies (such as my own) in the private sector. Basically, I would rather have to pay slightly higher taxes but have the promise of more work rather than keep the same tax rate and have business dry up completely.

On the other hand, John McCain wants to cut taxes across the board by eliminating earmarks. I am certainly not a fan of pork barrel projects (see my last entry) but I really don't see how we can cut taxes across the board and still fund our government by simply eliminating wasteful spending. The current economic crisis is bad enough that some government programs are going to have to be funded; I don't think McCain can pay for his plan, and I certainly don't want us to continue to fund our government by borrowing money from foreign nations.

The economic crisis will eventually subside, but it has been caused by a lack of responsibility of consumers and business leaders alike. With all the deregulation of business, banks and loan institutions have greedily loaned money to people that can't afford it, and people who can't afford loans have greedily taken them knowing full well they would never be able to pay the money back. Interestingly, if everybody in the Nation had followed the LDS Church's advice to "live within your means" and "stay out of debt" we wouldn't be in this predicament. But we are, and there simply needs to be more regulation and positive action on the part of the Federal Government rather than just stating that "the fundamentals of the economy are sound and everything will eventually just fix itself". Both candidates want to be proactive, but where Obama wants to revise the whole system McCain just wants to cut spending. I really think we need to shake things up and effect more change than McCain is willing to provide.

Next, there is the issue of Foreign Policy. I'm actually comfortable with either candidate on this one. McCain has more experience here, and if the War in Iraq were the only issue at stake I'd vote for him. But it isn't--while situations surrounding the War in Iraq have been improving, the issues of Afghanistan and our relationship with the World as a whole have been getting worse and worse. I really think we need a figurehead on the world stage that can be respected, and it is no secret that Obama is as popular abroad as he is in the US. His visit to Berlin drew in a bigger crowd of Germans than a combined Scorpions/Falco/Alphaville concert. I know that Obama preaches the doctrine of "Get us the $@&& out of Iraq", but I think people tend to forget that regardless of which candidate gets elected, the Generals in Iraq are going to hold a lot of weight on how we proceed. Will Obama listen to a General that tells him we can't bail out as quickly as he (Obama) wants? Maybe, maybe not, but I'm sure that he won't forget that Bush's biggest blunders in Iraq came when Bush and Rumsfeld chose to ignore the advice of military leaders and pursue their own course of action.

Finally, there is the issue of the Vice-Presidential Nominees and the Campaign Itself. Like the economy, this issue puts me squarely in Obama's camp and is another major factor in my final decision. Throughout the campaign, Obama has been steady and on-message. Even during the Primary season, he stuck with the same general message (Change!) as he started out behind Hillary Clinton and slowly worked his way into the position of front runner. There was no major "moment" that gave him a boost to pass her and win; he just kept at it, and after passing her in the polls he continued at the same rate. McCain has changed his strategy with every wind of change. He started out claiming he would run an honorable campaign, but as he has fallen farther and farther behind his commercials and ads have become more and more negative. Obama hasn't been a saint, but McCain's ads have just been downright mean. It seems that as Obama gets further ahead, McCain's campaign gets proportionally more desperate.

This is nowhere more evident than in McCain's selection of a running mate. I'm sure Sarah Palin is a nice person, but seriously, Senator McCain, what were you thinking? I'm sorry folks, but choosing her as his Vice President is nothing more than a gimmick. Do you really think that he would have picked her if he was 15 points or more ahead of Obama? His personal choice was Lieberman, the "safe" choice was Romney, the desperate choice was something else. The selection did energize the base for a while, but lately I don't think she's winning any points. She simply doesn't have enough experience on the national scene -- ironically, that was one of McCain's attacks on Obama before he made the VP pick (and if I had to pick between those two, I think I'd rather have the lawyer from Chicago negotiating with foreign powers than the hockey mom from Alaska, even if she does think living geographically closer to Siberia makes you an expert on Russia). After just two interviews with major anchors, her lack of understanding became clear. She couldn't even name any Supreme Court cases other than Roe vs. Wade! Granted, the liberal leaning anchors totally set her up, but she should have know that going in and been prepared for it. Now, she doesn't do interviews and the McCain camp has her campaigning in important swing states like Nebraska. Yet the McCain campaign continues to exploit her. Just yesterday I got onto CNN.com and saw this ad:

All right, all right, so my whole "one post per week" thing has been almost as successful as Congress lately. Lately being since the second weekend of August. I seriously have meant to keep this thing updated, but it just isn't happening so much.

Of course, that changes today.

Why today? Well, since I just compared my ability to update my blog with the ability of the United States Congress to accomplish anything, it only makes sense that I actually start being consistent on the day that Congress finally got the bail-out bill passed. That's right, earlier today the House finally pushed the 700 Billion Dollar monster through and saved us all. Right?

I understand that there were a few "concessions" made on either side. Apparently, the original document was amended somewhat, and went from three pages to just over 400. They had to make sure all the important groups out there are being taken care of during these difficult times. In the end, the benefits in the new bill included groups critical to the stability of our economic infrastructure such as wine bottlers and wooden arrow makers. Finally, somebody's thinking of the children! So take a deep breath, everybody, because it's all going to be okay. The stock market just closed and hey-- the Dow only dropped 157 points.

In all seriousness, I know that we do need to take action to fix the mess we're in, it just becomes frustrating when the emergency bail-out bill gets loaded down with more pork than a farm in Milford. But the gloom and doom of our economy is not what I'm going to complain about today. That's much too depressing, and it's a lot more fun to rant about things that don't really matter.

However, as I don't have much of a topic for today, I don't know if I'm going to go much further than this. I considered a few different things, but the one that came the closest was my frustration with the way the instructions for a model boat I'm trying to put together have been translated from Japanese. I think I'll save that one for later; it's a lot to take in and I don't want to wear you all out. (Notice me speaking as if someone were actually reading this)

Anyway, I'm going to try and keep up with the Friday thing. We'll see.

It's mid-August, and you know what that means. No, it doesn't mean that it's been three months since I submitted my last weekly post. It means that the Olympics are here, which pretty much puts me on the tail end of that long description of my busy summer that I provided in my last entry. The Olympics have arrived in Beijing, which means in two weeks we'll be having the Democratic National Convention in Denver, followed by the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, followed by the onset of the College Football season (BYU is actually ranked in the preseason Top 20 this year!), followed by the beginning of Fall, Corn Maze Season, and Bam!!! Here comes Halloween.

So naturally, I thought it would be prudent to add a Countdown to Halloween banner to my blog. Only 76 shopping days left, folks.

Of course, everybody knows Halloween is a harbinger of Thanksgiving, which is in turn a harbinger of Christmas. Therefore, Olympics -> Political Conventions -> Football -> Fall -> Corn Mazes -> Halloween -> Thanksgiving -> Christmas; ergo, the Olympics are a harbinger of Christmas! QED! It could snow any minute.

Okay, okay, back to August. Since I really am going to start posting weekly now, I'll talk about what's going on right now, and that is the Olympics. I've been watching the first week pretty faithfully, and it's been pretty entertaining so far.

It's been neat to see the US wipe out the competition in Swimming and pretty much get our rear ends handed to us in every other event. Obviously, there have been a few medals here and there outside of swimming -- the Women's team in gymnastics has done really well and we swept one of the fencing competitions, but our medals have mostly come from the swimming events (thus far, anyway).

The Chinese, on the other hand, are cleaning house. They've got pervasive wins across the board. I'm guessing that their success must stem from their government's non-interventionist approach to the games and the fact that they haven't tried to turn the Olympics into a political statement by constantly reminding everyone how great China is. Either that or the fact that they have discovered how to bend space and time; after all they have learned how to turn 13-14 year-old gymnasts into 16-17 year-old gymnasts in the space of about 10 months! Pretty impressive.

Anyway, I'm not sure where I'm going with this topic or this post in general. This is, after all, my page of Mindless Rants. I hope you weren't expecting poetry.

That's it for this week. Join me again next week, when I review the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

One post a week, right? Crap. This explains why I'm four years behind in my journal writing. Well, I just posted an update of our visit to Grace on our "main" blog site (yes, the quotes are indicating sarcasm. Amy hasn't posted anything on that site since she created it) so I guess by posting here as well I'm filling my quota for the last couple of weeks. Maybe. Anyway, on to today's rant...

Hiking! I love hiking! I've already been on two or three good hikes this spring, and I fully plan on hiking up to Malan's Peak tomorrow morning. I've been up to Malan's once per year for the last three summers, and I intend to keep the record up. The last three visits have all been July or August hikes, so this one will be quite a bit earlier in the season. I have planned out so many crazy hikes, camping trips, vacations and so forth this year that I actually have to hike Malan's tomorrow or next Saturday, or it likely won't happen (before Labor Day, anyway!) .

Let me bring you up to speed. Amy hates this part.

Either this weekend or next weekend I'm hiking Malan's. The following weekend (2nd weekend in June) I'm planning on taking anybody in my Elders Quorum who will go with me to hike up Lewis Peak. The third weekend in June Amy I will be (hopefully) going to Bear Lake. The last weekend in June will be the Ward/Elders Quorum camping trip at North Fork Park.

Then we're into July. The first weekend of July will be the 4th of July weekend in Grace, Idaho. The second week of July we go to Ohio for 8 days for Amy's cousin's wedding. The third weekend in July I'm doing an Elders Quorum pancake breakfast activity. The fourth weekend in July is Amy's birthday, and it's the one weekend this summer I haven't dared make any plans.

Hey, we've made it to August. The first weekend is the Grace fair, so we'll take Anne up to see the parades and animals. The second weekend in August I'll be in San Diego for a GIS conference for work. The third weekend in August will be our Elders Quorum backpacking trip to White Pine Lake up above Logan Canyon, and the fourth weekend will be my JUB/GMI backpacking trip to Amethyst Lake in the Uintas.

And just like that, Labor Day weekend has arrived. See? I told you! And I can keep going if you would like (Amy groans). That weekend I'm putting sod down in my backyard and watching college football. The following weekend I'm just watching college football. I'll quit now.

Isn't my life great? I just love summertime for all the hiking, backpacking, camping and traveling that goes on. Amy hates every single one of the afore mentioned items, so I guess we balance each other out. But it's all good.

I guess this rant really turned out to be rave. And, fittingly enough, I will end this rave about hiking (that somehow became sidetracked and transmogrified into a discourse on how Kasey plans way too many activities in advance) by talking about hiking. I've already hiked up to Hidden Valley (above Taylor Canyon) and up Coldwater Canyon this spring, and I still have so many others I want to accomplish this year, including Ben Lomond, Mt. Ogden, Frary Peak, and good old Waterfall Canyon. But I think my schedule's a bit tight.

Well, I promised an entry on Saturday and it's now Sunday night. I guess you just can't trust me. I am, however, posting before the weekend has ended, so I suppose that I will redeem myself to some extent.

So what will be the topic of tonight's rant? Why, Cedar City, of course. You know, Cedar City just doesn't get the respect for which it is so justly due. Let me explain.

I just got back from the Utah Geographic Information Council Conference (or UGIC). UGIC is pronounced "You - Jick" by the GIS community and "You - Geek" by everybody else. It was the State's annual GIS conference, and I (being one of the biggest GIS geeks west of the Mississippi) gave three presentations. But that's not my point.

The conference was held in Cedar City. Poor Cedar City is situated just 60 miles north of it's bigger, sexier, shinier cousin, St. George. Cedar City is St. George's under-appreciated often-forgotten sidekick. Cedar City is to St. George as Robin is to Batman, as Jelly is to Peanut Butter, or as Garfunkel is to Simon.

Nobody ever says, "Hey, let's head down to Cedar City this weekend" or "I bet the weather in Cedar City is great right now". The only thing that people recognize Cedar City for on a consistent basis is the Shakespearean Festival, and most people don't even give it that much credit. Poor Cedar City.

While at the conference, I picked up a brochure called "Festival City USA". The first words of the brochure were (and I quote) : "There's a reason that most people in the Country automatically recognize Cedar City as 'Festival City USA'. It's because of the Festivals!" Poor Cedar City. They've developed such an inferiority complex that they've had to invent a name for themselves.

The Shakespearean Festival the city is known for has apparently spawned a motley list of events that cover every type of celebration imaginable and cover such a wide range of time that life in town has seemingly become a big year-round party. In addition to the five-month long Shakespearean Festival, the new festivals include a zany tribute to Neil Simon's plays and "Himmelsk", a bizarre Festival Royale that incorporates a strange mix of Scandinavian and Polynesian traditions. The picture above is the royalty in charge of this wild event. This one even has its own website: http://www.himmelsk.org/ . Other festivals the city boasts include:

• The American Family Fest
• The Utah Summer Games
• Groovefest
• The Cedar City Skyfest
• The American Children's Christmas Festival
• The Cedar City Cowboy Gathering
• The Paiute Restoration Gathering (and Pow-wow)
• The Midsummer Renaissance Faire (Since they don't focus on that time period enough with five months of Shakespeare)
• The Wildflower Festival
• The July Jamboree
• The Cedar City Livestock and Heritage Festival
• The Great American Stampede
• The Thunderbird Film Festival
• Iron Mission Days
• The Cedar City Fashion Fest
• The Gold Wing Rally
• The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival

Well, it looks like my blog-posting has been about as consistent as my journal-writing. So I've missed a few days - around 130 or so to be exact. I would feel worse if anyone had ever actually read this blog, but since my hit rate is still at a big fat zero, it would seem that I've just been talking to myself all along anyway.

Regardless of that fact, I plan to change my ways and am going to renew my posting of rants on a weekly basis, probably around Fridays. I'll shoot for starting that trend tomorrow. Which, since it's 11:50 PM, starts in ten minutes. I'd better get some sleep.

P.S. -- Amy has officially started our family blog - check her (us) out at www.kaseyandamy.blogspot.com. No, seriously. Check it out.

I suppose that in order to keep all things in balance, it makes sense to throw in a few mindless raves here and there. With that in mind, I'm going to rave rather than rant this evening, and what better to rave about on December 21st (Happy Winter Solstice, by the way) than Christmas?

Christmas is just great. My last day of work for 2007 was yesterday, and now I'm taking a break until January 2nd. That makes 12 days (well, now I'm down to 11) of just unwinding and letting the past year go. And what better way to spend a Christmas break than partaking in all kinds of Christmas traditions? If you're Kasey, then it doesn't get much better than that. So for tonight's post, I'm going to list (in no particular order) every single Christmas tradition that I can think of. Put on your seatbelts, folks.


Kasey's Christmas Tradition List

1. Chocolate Advents Calendars
2. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
3. Getting a Christmas Tree
4. Putting up the lights
5. Festival of Trees
6. Temple Square Lights
7. Christmas Specials
8. Christmas Cards
9. Going to see the "Nutcracker Suite"
10. Christmas Village in Ogden
11. Going to "Sandy's" after going to Christmas Village (This one's fairly new)
12. Christmas Movies
13. Caroling
14. The Ward Christmas Program
15. Snow!
16. Christmas Decorations in General
17. Christmas Music
18. Amy and I have a "12 Days of Christmas" tradition
19. Taking Gifts Around
20. Helping Out Those in Need
21. Driving Around to See Christmas Lights
22. The Local Live Christmas Pageant
23. Christmas Eve Eve!
24. Gingerbread Houses
25. Gingerbread Cookies
26. Sugar Cookies
27. Fudge
28. Nuts, Mints, and Other Random Treats
29. Hickory Farms - Cheese and Summer Sausage (Why isn't it WINTER sausage?)
30. Tracking Santa on Christmas Eve (Yes, I'm a map nerd)
31. Making Christmas Lists
32. Christmas Shopping
33. Wrapping Presents
34. Using Funny Names on Gift Tags for Amy
35. Anxiety! (Can't wait 'til Christmas...)
36. Taking time off from work/school
37. My Christmas Puzzle (It's halfway done right now...)
38. Nativity Scenes
39. The Hansen Family Christmas Eve Program
40. Christmas Morning - Organized chaos! It's great.

Well, that's a start. I may append a few more on later if anything else comes to mind. In the meantime, have a Merry Christmas, everybody!

November has always been one of my favorite months. It starts out with Election Day (by the way, the Voucher Referendum was soundly defeated), continues through Veteran's Day and ends up at Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is, in turn, one of my favorite holidays of the year. It means that family will be getting together, that there will food, parades, football, and best of all, it means that the Christmas Season is officially starting. It is a time for being thankful, enjoying life, having fun, and just plain being happy.

And it is a time when all kinds of people are going to make me feel guilty about it.

As retailers start to advertise Christmas, various charities and organizations will start to advertise guilt. You know what I'm talking about. This is the time of the year when hordes of commercials appear, particularly on the radio, that emphasize how we shouldn't be enjoying the holidays because poverty still exists in the World.

Now, please don't get me wrong. I think that it is VERY important to give to charity and to help those in need. My wife and I give to charity, we donate to the food bank, and we always give quarters to the Salvation Army Santa Clauses. My problem is not with any organization looking to do good deeds, but with some of the methods that are used. I have issues with commercials that say "You're enjoying Thanksgiving? How dare you? Don't you know there are children starving in China?" - or - "I see that you actually have PRESENTS underneath your Christmas Tree. What kind of monster are you?" - or - "Are you singing Christmas Carols? Well, the only songs that the impoverished people who live on the Plains of Tajikistan will be singing this year are the woeful dirges of misery!" - or - "Any fool who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled in his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!"

Wait, that last one was somebody else. But I digress.

I just don't think I should feel guilty for enjoying myself, especially when I REALLY AM trying to do my part to help people out! I don't think you deserve to feel guilty during the holidays unless you have actually done something worthy of it, like executing a stuffed dummy named Bob or cooking up Big Bird for your Thanksgiving Turkey (though if you do that second one, you'll probably have a lot people begging you to go one step further and make Barney your Christmas Ham). The advertisers for many charities, however, want you to feel guilty about simply being happy. One of my personal favorites is the Jiffy Lube commercial that comes on the air about this time each year. They start off by saying something about how "We here at Jiffy Lube would like to share a holiday meal with everybody out there". Then they present you a three course meal of morbid statistics. "Our Appetizer today is this -- in 2006, there were over 17 million homeless children in Utah. The Main Course may not be very appealing -- Utah has a higher rate of poverty than all other 49 states put together, plus Puerto Rico, Bolivia, Vietnam, and most of Madagascar. Finally, the Dessert will be hard to swallow -- if one single Utahn had donated just one cent more last year, we would have been able to completely end World Hunger, eliminate AIDS, cure Cancer, fix Social Security, pay off the National Debt, and buy everyone in the country a pet llama." They actually describe their 'meals' using phrases like "Hard to Swallow", "Tough to Chew" and "This'll give ya indigestion", all while playing background music that is more depressing that Mozart's Requiem.

Again, I think charity is good; I just don't like the advertising. I don't dislike WHAT they're trying to accomplish; I dislike HOW they're trying to do it. And I honestly think people as a whole are good natured, especially at this time of the year, and I think that people will give even without morbid commercials. I DO like the radio stations that get donations by forcing their DJ's to sit out in the cold on top of a bus until they collect enough food to feed everybody in Sri Lanka. THAT'S funny. (Hee hee, the DJ's are outside. How can they do their radio show if they're outside?)

So this year I'll give to charity, and on Thanksgiving morning I'm going to get up, watch a 400 foot long Garfield balloon float through New York City, watch some football, and then eat enough turkey and stuffing to knock me out for a week.

But I will be sure to pluck out all the yellow feathers first.

Well, here we go! Hello there, and welcome to Kasey's Page of Mindless Rants. Amy and I are planning on putting together a family blog with pictures and everything, but I wanted to have a place where I could speak my mind about whatever I happen to be pondering at any given moment. That's right, whether it be politics, sports, hiking trails, monkeys, rocks or whatever, you're going to hear about it. So, with the exception of a one-shot post on a page from my Hotmail account, this is my first official blog entry.

And what better way to start my mindless rants page than with a mindless rant about something political. It's the first week of November, and you know what that means. Election day is only four days away, and anyone reading this from Utah knows that it has been a particularly intense political season for an election in an "off-year". This has been largely due to the inclusion of Referendum 1, the school vouchers debate, on this year's ballot.

Again, it's likely that most of the people reading this (If I can flatter myself enough to assume that ANYONE will actually end up reading these posts) are fully informed on the voucher issue, but I'll describe it anyway (Because it's my blog and I get to write whatever i want. Like ending a sentence with a preposition if I want to). The basic idea is this: the Utah State Legislature passed a bill in February 2007 saying that qualifying families that want to send their kids to private schools can receive state-funded vouchers that they can use toward tuition. The vouchers are worth anywhere from $500 - $3000, depending on the size and income level of the family. While these vouchers are coming from public funds, the idea is that the public schools don't lose out because they still get to count the kids that leave when calculating per-student appropriations during the first five years of the program. So parents get more choice in education, and the public schools still get funding with fewer kids to spend the money on. Great huh? Well, apparently not so great. A huge debate arose, the bill ended up being contested, the State Supreme Court said "let the voters decide!", and Bam! We have Referendum 1.

So basically, it's all about money. Now for the part that I find the most interesting. My rant is NOT about which side of this debate I think makes sense. I'm actually leaning toward voting against the vouchers. This mostly because I strongly believe in and support the public school system and I don't think that the vouchers will be very helpful to public schools in the long run. But that's not what I'm going to talk about here. What I AM going to talk about is money, and specifically, how much if it has been spent contending this issue.

During the last two weeks I have received 3 pro-voucher ads and 4 anti-voucher adds in the mail. These are full color, full size mailers, some of which have multiple pages. At my company, we've produced similar mailers, and I can tell you that they are not cheap. I can imagine that it becomes even more expensive when you send them out to EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN UTAH. In addition to mailers, there have been numerous television, radio and newspaper ads produced by both sides. As of October 31st, the proponents of the vouchers had spent 4.4 million dollars in advertising, and the opponents of the program had spent 4 million dollars, for a grand total of 8.4 MILLION DOLLARS. (See the SL Trib article at http://www.sltrib.com/ci_7327643 -- look at me citing my information!)

Let's do the math on this, folks. If you take that 8.4 million dollars and divide it by 3000, the maximum scholarship amount, you get 2800 -- 2800 students that could have just been handed the silly scholarship based on what was spent fighting about it! And that's at the MAXIMUM scholarship rate. If you based it on the minimum rate of $500, that number increases to 16,800. 16,800 students? How long will it take before nearly 17,000 students transfer from public schools to private schools using the voucher program? The SLC Trib article that I cited mentions that the program is estimated to cost 5.5 million dollars in the first year. The first year of the program and then some could have been funded by the amount spent on the campaigns.

Of course, you might say that I should only be counting the pro-voucher dollars spent; but they total to 4.4 million alone, and that's almost the first year. And, more than half of the anti-voucher dollars have come from the NEA and teacher's unions. This whole piece of legislation is about helping out the children of Utah by putting money into what each side believes to be the right place; the proponents want to put it in a place (voucher funds) where it give parents more choice in education and the opponents want to leave it in a place where it will benefit public schools. The thing that I find ironic is that in order to prove where we should put that money, the two sides spent more money on the fight than they will on the kids during at least the first year. So what's really important?

I agree that this is an important issue, and I think people should get out and vote on it. I just feel that the campaigning has been so overblown that the whole point of the issue has been missed.

So there it was; my first rant. I promise not all of them will be political in nature. I'm pretty sure most of them won't even be very important. About all I can promise is that they will be written by me. Tune in next week when we talk about the benefits of owning your own toaster oven.