I am a reading man, have been as long as I can remember. Recently, in the last year, our oldest daughter started reading full books on her own. Reading is a great thing, especially for kids. It gives them a change to use their imaginations. My personal feeling is that much of the toys and games of today stifle the imagination. Many of them take away the thinking and problem solving aspect of playing. This is creating a generation of people that can’t think for themselves or thing outside the box. It makes for easily manipulated people.

I have seen three movies that were advertized recently which were originally kids books. The movies where Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, How To Train Your Dragon. These books were originally written for 8 – 12 year olds. These movies give kids an option to do things the easy way. One one ever succeeds in th world doing things the easy way.

In the past year eight other kids books have been made into movies. Many of these movies have been good movies, especially for people of the age that the books were written for. The problem is, in my opinion, that given the option kids will wait for the movie to come out instead of ever reading. This takes away the ability for form the picture and characters themselves. It also takes way an learning opportunity. When my child is reading they are often presented with words that they may not be introduced to in a scholastic environment. Reading books in the place of watching to movie build a child’s vocabularies and a fashion that can not be achieved without such activities.

I have come to a disision that if a movie is made from a kids book and my daughter wants to see it, she will first have to read the book. May of you may think this will destroy the movie experience. This may be true, I know that I often like to book more than the movie. If that is the case I will be presenting my child with the better of the two experiences. That and it is less expensive to buy a book that they may end up not liking than going to a movie that is not enjoyable.

Take the time to see if there is a book that you next kids movie is based on and have them read it. If they are not old enough to read themselves, read it to them as a bed time story. You may find that there are many other good books by the same author that may never make it to film. Just think about what you and your kids may be missing by just going to see the movie.

Tags: dad blogs, family, Fatherhood Fridays, fatherhoodfrday, FatherhoodFridays

Doctors Urging for a Safer, Choke-Free Hot Dog

I finally got around to reading the news last night and came across and article that I has to just laugh at. They want the federal government to force food manufacturers to add a choking warning to food. Foods mentions in the article are, candy, gum, hot dogs, apples, and other non-food items. The numbers they give do not reach the numbers I would thing necessary to move any organization to actions to change the labeling on food. Only 100 children a year are killed by choking, and those are children 14 years and younger. Lets get real here, Smoking had to kill 5 million people a year to get its warning pushed through.

Lets think about this fo a second. Why are they topping the numbers at age 14, when not check on how many people of all ages choking kills each year? Is there some magic that happens at age 14 that suddenly makes us immune to the choking hazard in food? Then again why are they looking as such a large age rang? Toy choking hazards are warning for 3 years and younger most of the time.

The suggested fix for this food choking hazard it to cut the food into pea sized bits for our children, apparently yo include those up to age 14. In reality food is a choking hazard through your entire life. There is no point where you will suddenly never choke again.

You also ned to look at the fact that people choke on Stake, hamburgers, pizza, anything that you take a bit out of. Why label the individual foods? why not just post a big sign outside the supermarket telling people that they could choke on any food item that is consumded that is larger than a pea.

lets get real here, I am not going to cut my children’s food into pea-sized chuncks for the rest of the time they live with me. instead we will eat as a family, as things should be, and I will see if they choke on food and save them if I need to.

No matter whether there is a warning on food products or not, they will pose a choking hazard for our entire lives. If we force our government to mandate that common knowledge should be listed on food labels it will do nothing but raise our taxes to pay for the effort needed to save 100 children out of 4 million born each year. The number just don’t add up in my book.

One of my problems is that so many people want the government to tell them every little thing. Are we so stupid that we need the government to tell us that we can choke on things that go down our throats? Lets get real here, everyone knows you can choke on food, we don’t need to be told this. Also, if you are still cutting up the food for your teenager you might want to take them in and get them checked out.

Stop wasting our tax money trying to get common knowledge added to labels and grow your own brain. Think for yourself and most things will just make sence. Coffee is served hot and can burn you, people can choke on food, and shooting a man with a gun can kill them. We don’t need laws to tell us this. Learn how to use a gun and teach you children about them, don’t spill your coffee in your lap, and chew your food before you swallow.

Tags: children, Food, hoking

As many of you Know I am an active member of the U.S. Army reserves. I have been since my ETS from Active Army. My first year in the reserves was a bit bumpy, but I found a Unit here in Columbus that I think will work out for me. As of October 2009 I am a member of the 412th Civil Afears Battalion, Whitehall, Ohio. I have been officially attending Battle Assemblies with tem for five months now. So far I feel that this is agreat Unit.

This weekend the 412th went to Ft. Knox for Weapons Qualification. All of the Unit that has not been activated arrived early Friday morning. I showed up a bit earlier than most, due to the fact I had just gotten off night shift at 06:00.

The first big part of any qualification is weapons draw. Each soldier goes to the arms room and signs out their assigned weapon. each soldier is assined their own weapon so that any sight adjustments made for that person will be presuved from one qualification to the next. Weapons draw did not go as smoothly as pland, due to personal issues for other soldiers there was only one person authorized to sign out weapons. We were able to sign out all our weapons prior to the bus arrival, so it did not delay are departure for Ft. Knox.

We loaded on to buses by company. Due to weather conditions all the airborne troops were not able to make a jump into Ft. Knox, so they had to load on the bus. This made for full busses. This was not an issue due to that fact that most of us were going to sleep on the way to Ft. Knox anyway.

On the way out we tried to start a Movie for those that did not plan on sleeping (got to love charter buses), but their was no sound. After trying another DVD I check the cables, which were not connected properly. Once that was fixed the trip when smoothly, almost.

About 30 mile from Ft. Knox our bus ran out of gas. apparently we had a new driver. He did not know if the tank was filled before he left, and had forgotten the charger for the radio the company uses to call maintenance. about half hour later (and one attempt to get fuel from a local gas station) the second bus returned to pick us up. We managed to arrive just in time to make it into the Chow Hall before it closed.

And that was the end of the First day.

The Next day was the QUalification rang. This was the second time I have used a Combat Optics sight on an M16-A2. YOu may remember my first, I did not think highly of it. This time I was able to finally zero the sight correctly, which made all the difference. I was able to QUalify with 30/40. The only time I had an issue was in the pron-unsupported firing position. I think I have found a way to improve that position next time I qualify.

The qualification rang took most of the day. The endo f the day was taken by classes required by the DoD.The day was over for us after the classes we complete. Sunday was just the return trip. Over all it was a good BAttle Assembly. Unit cohesion and team building is excellent within 412 CA BN. We also qualified 100% of all firing soldiers at this rang.

After being to the rang I have thought about teaching the girls about firearms, what they are and how to use them. I feel that one of the biggest problems with children and firearms is that they are not tought about them. Many children( mostly boys) are given toy gons and ever see the use of a real weapon.

With this in mind I want to take the time to let the girls know how dangerous real weapons are, and hopefully instill in them a respect and knowledge of how to use them properly, either for hunting or self defence.

The right to bare arms if one of our constitutional right, and I feel that our nations children are not educated enough about weapons, which is why they may accidently hurt or kill others when they “Play” with firearms. Teach them early an they will know how to properly use a weapon, neglect this teaching and you may regret it in the future. If they know the respect and fear due to a real weapon, they will know what to do if they have a friend that does no know, and it may save their life.

Tags: 412 CA, Army Reserve, Battle Assembly, children, drill, Firearms, Weapons Qualification

Over my short life (32 years) I have seen our nation’s people move from one “We are Destroying the Earth” theory to another. I remember when everyone was screaming “Over Population”. We were worried about not being able to produce enough food or have enough land for the population growth. The fact is, if where you are living is too crowded for you, move. There is plenty of land all over this nation ready to be developed. The problem is that most people either can’t afford to move to a less populated area, or they don’t want to take the risk of leaving what they have for the unknown.

The most recent theory we have been complaining about WAS global warming. If you have not been paying attention to the news, man made global warming has been debuncked. Top officials in the U.N. and global climate organizations have recently admitted that the global temperature has not significantly increased over the past 15 year, even though greenhouse emissions have increased dramatically. The fact is that the past few years they have actually seen a drop in global temperature. So we are not destroying the climate as so many people may thing we are. God made this world for us, when he made the world he know what was going to happen. Now I am not saying go out and deliberately pollute, that is still wrong. Just don’t gripe at me for driving my CO2 spewing clunker.

Another thing We hear all the time is that we are running out of Fossil Fuel. All the data that I can find shows that we are not running out, we keep discovering more reserves. The gas prices are not driven by the amount of Fossil fuels available to us, it is driven my companies that charge what we are willing to pay. You want to bring the price of gas down in this country? Build’ a refinery in you state so we don’t have to buy fuel from over seas. This will also creat some jobs, and people need jobs these days.

The are not the thing I worry about when I look at what we are going to leave for the future generations of this nation. I am looking at the fact that our nation is going farther into debt, and not to ourselves but to other nations like China. China is not one of our allies nations, in fact some hard drives manufactured in China contained password stealing trojans.

Our national debt is only the start. We are slowly letting the federal government take away our freedom and will to succeed. The current administration wants to “Redistribute the Wealth.” This basically means taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor to make all men equal. If you knew 50% of your income was going into the pocket of someone who does not work for it, and does not want to work for it, are you going to willingly give it to him? Why would anyone work if we are going to get our fair share of everyone elses income?

Some people in this nation think that the government should control healthcare. What has the government ever controled that the people of this nation are happy with? The U.S. Postal Service is going bankrupt and having to close offices. People who are not on welfare do not like it because it is taking our tax money and paying for the lifestyle of many people who refuse to work. I am not saying all people on welfare need to get off, but if you are fit to work you would not be given free money.

The federal Government has given us Stimulus Money, money that was suposed to save and creat jobs. These jobs have not come and more people lose their job every day. The government spending money does not fix the economy, people spending money does. Stop giving money to companies that have shown they can not manage themselves, and give it back to the people that gave it to the government in the first place.

If we allow our nation to continue on this path of spending and borrowing money, our children and their children’s children will be the ones to pay for it. Our federal government gets money to pay the national debt and national budget from one source, the American tax payer. All the money that our government spends come our of our pockets. What we are allowing to happen within our nation is going to fall on the future generation to fix.

Take a step forward and stand up for what our nation used to stand for. Set our children back on the right path. teach them that hard work bring success and wealth, and that nothing is ever truly free. If we can instill this in our children now, and elect government officials that truly care about the people, we can make our nation great again. Lets do what we can to make America something to be proud of. Vote in ever election, pay attention to what is being pushed by our government, and Stand-up for what you believe in.

You may not agree with my views, but you must agree to some degree that our nation is on a path to destruction, and only “WE THE PEOPLE” can get it back on the streight and narrow.

Tags: children, Fatherhood Fridays, fatherhoodfrday, FatherhoodFridays, future, government, Political