Saturday, September 13, 2003

Also put in the Tae Bo 8 minute workout. Boy, it really did the trick. I felt better afterwards. At the end of the tape Blanks said that even though you may not have 20 minutes, you surely do have 8 minutes to take care of your health. He's write. I'll try and Tae Bo every day.
Watched the Time Machine with my wife (the new one starting Jeremy Irons). It was okay. My big problem with it was how the Earth was destroyed. Ready? It was blasting on the moon to create moon colonies. Supposedly, it blew apart the moon and destabilized the Earth's orbit. I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty darn sure that's pretty close to impossible.
Stand Up For The Flathead


This is my challenge to citizens of the Flathead Valley: Stand up for the Flathead. No, not the Flathead as idealized by leftist anti-development beatniks but as place where people can make a living and young families can survive. All over people have told me that they're sad about my departure. But I wasn't the first and I certainly won't be the last.

Of my 2002 graduating class at FVCC, most had already. The only one I saw after graduation was Heidi Rhodes, who received her A.S. in Criminal Justice and landed the dream job of Stream International Security Guard before leaving for New York where she could get work.

There can be economic opportunity but citizens need to stand up against the extreme anti-development crowd. FVCC is a great college, but to be honest, it's not really helping the Flathead. You're training other communities police officers, businessman, and network administrators. You're not training people to work and pay for the education that was financed through property taxes, because there was no way they can make a reasonable living there.

Wake up and stop Citizens for a Better Flathead or it's young people will continue to be the Flathead's greatest export.
Saying goodbye is a hard thing for me. Some people say they don't like goodbyes. Even though they hurt, I do. I think they're important, especially when you've known people for a while. Some good friends of mine left Montana to go to California, and we didn't get to say goodbye. It feels like there wasn't closure.

At the church I was attending in addition to Living Water Christian Fellowship, they prayed over us and had cake. People who I'd said barely a word to in the year and a half I'd gone there, let me know that I'd blessed them. It was very humbling and I felt very loved.

My mom cried when I hugged her goodbye. My brother didn't. To be an honest, I don't think he cries at all. My dad drove the Ryder truck down to Boise, which was a good thing, cause I could not have driven that truck, towing my Mazda behind me on that tow bar, or even without the Mazda. After we unloaded and returned the truck, I drove my dad to the airport.

He had this silly little rhyme he always tried to coax me into reciting. It got embarrassing after I turned eight (thus why I'm not posting it), so I stopped doing it. Without coaxing, I hugged him and said it at the airport as we both were crying.

I miss my family, but I think I've got a good perspective on it. Even though it's sad, it's part of growing up, of coming into my own. Of finding God's perfect will for my life. I often felt like a Prophet without Honor in Kalispell. I was too well known, I'd been there too long (since I was 12) and been a political agitator for far too long. People there had seen me grow up which was part of the problem.

Kalispell is a town where people come to relax. I've poured my heart out more times than I could count trying to get an event organized and got little to no response. Anyone organizing anything other than the Liberal busybodies "Citizens for a Better Flathead" will tell you that getting anything organized is like pulling teeth.
If you go down to Western Montana in the Summer tp see Glacier National Park, visit the Miracle of America Museum. It's $3.00 to get in and well worth the price of admission (especially given what tourist traps around Glacier charge).


You enter the museum and it takes a full hour or more to get through all the stuff in there. Let me tell you it's a great collection of historical items, including plenty of World War II posters and memrobillia. They even have a tank and an old car in there. Also, they have several old machines that work including an early video game from the 1960s, as well as several music playing machines from the early 20th Century.


Once you get into the cafe portion of the museum, you may think it's over. You could be more wrong. Because through the back door is the yard, full of historical stuff. They have made historical buildings with schools (the school had a NEA newsletter from teh 1940s talking about the importance of religion in school). Also had a lot of stuff out there. The only negative about the museum is that the yard is very eclectic. It has the stereotypical design of a redneck's back yard, but few rednecks have Fighter Jets, Tanks, and Helicopters on their front yard.


You can't sit on a lot of the cool equipment, the tanks and fighter jets are sealed, but you can sit in the helicopter and there's a huge tug boat you can climb on.


More than that, the museum is very conservative and it will remind you why you should be proud to be an American.

I've moved to Boise and there's a lot to write about. Boise is quite a city. I went downtown to visit the Job Service. The Skyline of the City really impressed me. You would never know how big Boise as you drive into it. It's all hilly and rustic. Inside though, it's a thriving and growing city. I know it's also probably big, cold, and cruel. But, right now I'm just impressed