Sheep farts will kill us all!

Well as the masses continue the green movement, some people have fallen off the deep end.  There are loons in every corner of any public debate but some are just way more humorous than others.  Let me preface this post by stating that Lana and I have done our part, even if it is slim by comparison to most, in order to “go green.”  We have the energy efficient light bulbs in all of our light fixtures, we try to buy energy efficient appliances, we have an electronic programmable thermostat, we don’t cook more food than we can eat and when we do we usually eat all of the leftovers, we recycle when we can, and we try not to be wasteful.    Of course in all honesty most of these measures are an attempt to save us money more than they are a conscious decision to “go green.”  Nonetheless, we try to do our part no matter how small.

Sidebar – There is also a recycling program at work which I whole heartily support due to the monumental waste of paper that is caused by so many people printing to a central printer.  Each time someone prints to the printer the machine spits out a full sheet of paper with only the name, time and date printed at the top of the page.  We take vans full of those sheets of paper to the recycling center each month and every time I think to myself that there must be a better and more cost efficient way to conduct business.  Maybe I will devise a new system that will save the company millions of dollars worldwide and get promoted to some high level executive position.  I’ll keep you posted. 🙂  I digress.

Then there are the folks that only eat organic materials because of the environmental impact of pesticides and growth hormones etc.  I understand organic foods “might” be healthier than scientifically engineered foods, but when did going green become such a religion?  There are more ideas and theories about how to save the earth from its NATURAL progression than there are Elvis sightings.  Just for grins and giggles lets list a few here:

• global dimming – thought to be caused largely in part by the contrails of aircraft which some experts theorize expedites the progression of global warming 
• carbon output – cars and the rest of the industrialized world have been culprits for years but now we see cows, obese people, and even sheep in large part to blame for carbon output.  Just remember, the next time you decide to super-size your value meal you are actually killing the earth that much faster!
• Roof colors affect the environment – just really strange “science” in my opinion.
• “cap and trade” – just another mechanism by which the government can tax the hell out of us.
• Eating certain types of food may kill the earth sooner.

Well the last link is an article that I read today and it really just baffles my mind that people, who I am sure are educated, can really be serious about this sort of “scientific evidence.”  So now “science” has revealed that the CO2 emitted from sheep is far more harmful than that of the CO2 emitted from cows.  So now lamb chops are off limits for the environmentally conscious epicure.  It is always funny to me that these studies that continue to tell us what will and will not kill the earth are always government sponsored studies.  Hmmm.  Who controls the money?  That’s right kids, the government!  Just interesting to me.

Okay, I will admit that mankind and our inventions and our industrial complex and our harvesting of the earth’s resources probably doesn’t help, but how do we explain all of those other natural disasters and cooling and warming of the earth before we started manufacturing $250 million F-22s and 30,000 square foot mega stores? Where did the dinosaurs go?  Are Wal-Mart, Starbucks, fat people, meat-eaters, and various other groups of rich white republicans to blame for their demise?  I just really really REALLY believe that the whole green movement is primarily the invention of profiteers such as Al Gore, who has made a pretty penny by the way, and others in order to capitalize on yet another fear.  There is always some feel good movement that requires millions of dollars in order to remedy.

Al gore has made millions upon millions of dollars and emitted more carbon output than I will ever emit in my lifetime, by way of his private jet, darting all over the world to preach the religion of climate change.  He is not alone.  The government, and in turn the politicians, benefit from climate change because they can institute legislation that controls the population in yet another way, which in turn keeps them in office, which in turn keeps the money flowing in.  The cycle is quite easy for me to see, but maybe I have gone way off the deep end with all of my conspiracy theories.  I don’t know.  I really just wanted to comment on the article about sheep gas because I thought it was funny.

current music: The Libertines – Time for Heroes

Sleepless Nights

Every new parent struggles to adjust to the trials and tribulations associated with being a first-time parent.  Well lately Lana and I have had one hell of a time trying to console our little one at night.  She is an angel during the day but night time is a completely different story.  It is no surprise we only get a couple hours of sleep with this going all night:

But we still love her more than anything!  We think she is either going to be an olympic swimmer or a champion kickboxer. 🙂

The Luckiest

Okay well I guess I must apologize for my long absence.  My life has been completed changed over the course of the last two weeks.  On Saturday May 2nd at 1:07 AM in the morning Lana gave birth to our first child!  We had a beautiful baby girl.  Isabella Grace was born 9 lbs. and 3 oz. and she is the most beautiful thing I have ever laid my eyes upon.

The first few hours of our new parenthood experience were very surreal.  The nerves and the anticipation and the medications had culminated into a very intense evening that blurred into the next morning.  After the complete rush of a psuedo-emergency Cesarean had worn off it really began to sink in that I was a father.  I honestly have yet to completely wrap my head around that concept and all of the implications that go along with the experience.

When she came out of the operating room and was laying on that little bed and the nurses were poking and prodding her, I felt this huge swelling in my heart.  My very good friend Kathy once said that there weren’t any words or any emotions quite the same as the love you have for your very own child.  I tried for the past nine months to think about how it would feel to be a father and how it would feel to be the person responsible for another life.  That swelling in my heart was overwhelming and like no other emotion I have ever felt in my entire 29 years.  I love my parents.  I love my friends.  I love my brother.  I love my wife.  But this love was so very different and so very wonderful at the same time.

It is hard for me to look at that little girl without really wanting to tear up sometimes.  She is the most perfect mixture of Lana and me.  I like to think that she has gained all of our greatest attributes and none of our not so great ones.  It is hard for me to even type this post because every time I think about her and how much I love her I want to get all weepy eyed and mushy.

The entire experience is a compendium of emotions jam packed into a very small amount of time, and quite frankly it is overwhelming and exhausting.  All at the same time I am filled with joy and have become a nervous wreck.  My thoughts are inundated with high hopes for the wonderful life she will lead and fear for the challenges she will inevitably face.  In the hospital the staff and various volunteer groups stop by your room and smother you with a deluge of pamphlets and brochures about every little possible ailment and syndrome and hardship that faces each new life.  As much as you want to know the information contained within the documents in order to be prepared, it makes you a nervous wreck and suspicious of every little cough, sniffle, cry and anything else that might “appear” to be out of the ordinary.  Every time I have a spare second, my head is full of worry over this illness or that illness, etc.  I believe I should have bought stock in Pepto Bismol sometime last month.

I know every new parent usually undergoes this sort of torment with the birth of their first child.  I am constantly waking up four or five times a night and going over to her bassinet to see if she is okay.  If I cant see her breathing I will nudge her just to make sure.  I wish I could regenerate my sleep in about 30 minutes or so, so that I could just stay awake 24/7 in order to keep a watchful eye on her at all times.  I know that isn’t possible so I will eventually become exhausted enough to force myself to let go a little.

I am so thankful that everything with the baby and with Lana has gone so “smoothly” thus far.  There were no complications with the birth and Lana and her have recovered nicely since then.  I am also thankful for my parents and the guidance and the morals and the principles that they instilled in me from a very young age up to this day.  They have done a great job raising two boys that were at times a handful.  (That was the understatement of the year!)  So thank you Mom and Dad for being such wonderful parents.  And thank you Lana for being such a wonderful and beautiful and loving wife.  And thank you to all of our friends and family who have brought us dinner or helped with errands and chores or helped with kind words over the last two weeks.  We are very lucky to be surrounded by such great people!

As Lou Gehrig once poignantly said, “…Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Lana and I thought that this was hilarious and I just had to put it on here as well.  Dramatic Chipmunk and Dramatic Bella!