Deficit Spending

Everyone is clamouring for deficit spending. I wonder if this is really because they believe it will jolt the economy back to health, or because they have a list of things they really want to buy.

As for Harper, he's not in a good situation; no matter how irresponsible he gets with running a deficit the Opposition will be saying it isn't enough. Likewise, no matter how much extra debt he takes on, someone won't get the money he was expecting and the press will be there to capture him saying that Harper doesn't care. Number one in the line of people to explain that they didn't get their fair share will be the BQ and the PQ.

Remember folks, deficit spending is not a panacea, and this debt is an extra tax that we are taking on for ourselves and our children (it will need to be paid back with interest, out of the taxes we pay). The way we were going, it looked like our national debt might have gotten paid off in time for me to retire. Now it looks like we will stretch it out further; maybe in time for my kids to retire. But not even then if we get addicted to deficit spending again!

Christmas Meals

We started this morning with raspberry cream muffins and coffee. This was to tide us over until the presents were opened.

For brunch we had breakfast lasagna (pancakes, waffles, strawberries, blueberries and custard baked together) with real maple syrup, sausages, scrambled eggs, toast, clementine oranges and more coffee with french vanilla cream.

As if this wasn't enough, Karen pulled out all the stops for supper. Roast turkey, sage stuffing with mushrooms, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans in a bacon sauce, corn with butter and cranberry sauce, with sparkling grape juice and ice water, served on Royal Albert bone china with Pinwheel crystal. For dessert we had homemade pecan pie and plum pudding with white sauce, and some orange flavoured chocolate.

Yes, I am stuffed! And very, very blessed.

Snowblower

For those who are curious, I did get my snow blower back and it does run. I made a personal visit to the store, talked to the service manager, went in the back and talked to the guy who fixed it and watched them start it. They did manage to send the truck by my house to pick up a snow blower (instead of dropping it off) and copied down my credit card number wrong (requiring them to phone me about why the card didn't work), but another truck showed up and I do have it back.

100 Things I Would Like to Do

1. write a book (isn’t this the first item on everyone’s list?)
2. visit the British Museum for 3 uninterrupted days
3. befriend my cat (a.k.a. Lexi the Slasher)
4. start a seminary
5. fix the whining noise from the audio output on my laptop
6. run a political campaign
7. discipline myself to read my Bible more regularly
8. go back to school to study architecture
9. make my wife and children proud of me
10. vacation in the Turks and Caicos Islands
11. shave my head
12. watch the entire Star Trek Voyager series, beginning to end
13. wrestle with my children without getting scars
14. win a game of Strategic Command 2
15. tour Italy
16. exercise daily
17. put interlocking brick at the side of the house (where nothing will grow except weeds)
18. offer a course on Christian worldview
19. do an MBA
20. take the Le Cordon Bleu Cuisine Diploma
21. read the great works of theology
22. become a CMA (Certified Management Accountant)
23. write a song (that’s actually worth listening to)
24. do a Masters in Theology
25. improve the “Brethrenonline.org” web site
26. try “the durian”. Foolishly I missed my previous opportunity.
27. learn Latin
28. convince my youngest child to eat meat without a fight
29. learn another programming language
30. play with some Linux applications
31. visit the National Gallery & Smithsonian in Washington
32. run a half-marathon
33. tour the original Marathon in Greece
34. start drawing again
35. take a cruise to Alaska
36. lead someone to Christ
37. visit Israel. See the Valley of Megiddo
38. help my children graduate from university without debt
39. tour the Hermitage in St Petersburg
40. read Calvin’s Institutes
41. keep my desk clean for one week
42. build a study in the basement
43. take an early retirement
44. learn to play a musical instrument
45. go to the Torah Museum in Brooklyn
46. make another good friend
47. lose 20 pounds (and keep it off)
48. restudy the Epistle to the Romans
49. memorize the Epistle to the Romans
50. clean my garage
51. organize a conference
52. learn New Testament Greek
53. develop some reasonable level of skill at chess
54. see the rings of Saturn through my own telescope
55. spend a whole day in worship and prayer
56. start writing with a fountain pen
57. pay off my mortgage
58. have a mortgage burning party for a hundred of my friends
59. restart the “C.S. Lewis Study Group”
60. take Karen somewhere nice for our 15th anniversary
61. prepare some home school curriculum that I can sell as an income stream after I retire
62. finish reading Toynbee’s “A Study of History”
63. keep my job. Some days it’s hard to make a living.
64. make a difference in someone’s life
65. increase my charitable giving each and every year until I retire
66. execute on a plan to deconstruct the Canadian culture
67. test drive a BMW (not to buy, just to try)
68. spend a day phoning everyone I know to give each person a genuine compliment
69. make an impulsive decision (just once)
70. take a ride on a Boeing 787
71. the next time I get a wedding invitation from a friend in India, accept the invitation
72. run “The Theology Program” in Ottawa (from Stonebriar Christian Church)
73. get my PMI certification
74. send my parents on a nice vacation. They’ve done so much for me.
75. listen to all of S. Lewis Johnson’s New Testament expositions (on mp3)
76. play with my grandchildren
77. “rock and roll” with an AK-47 (on a legal shooting range!)
78. make French onion soup from scratch
79. host a home Bible study
80. take up model rocketry
81. fast for a day
82. speak at a homeschooling conference
83. get more traffic on my blog
84. rewrite Master of Orion 2 so it will run under Windows Vista
85. sell automobiles as a way of learning negotiation skills
86. be free from the love of money
87. eat supper at “Signatures”, Ottawa’s only 5 diamond restaurant
88. finish painting the house
89. find the world’s best chicken parmesan
90. come up with an innovative way to use the computer for Bible study
91. organize my library
92. disciple some young men in the Scripture
93. finish reading “Wealth of Nations” and “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”
94. learn to fly a plane
95. get my snow blower fixed. Grrr!
96. become a recognized expert in... something
97. help develop some open source software
98. visit Cardiff Castle (it was closed for renovation when I visited when I was 13 years old)
99. take a guided bus tour of the UK
100. live in truth, humility and holiness, worship God, love my family, strengthen my local church and serve my fellow man

Kudos

It's been a while since I blogged. Things have been crazy busy for me at work, leaving me totally drained when I get home. That's not likely to change, but I did want to do some blogging tonight because I'm still alive and still have opinions!

First I would like to offer some kudos. The power window on my van broke on the weekend, leaving the window half dropped down into the door. The closest GM dealer said that they couldn't possibly take me into their shop, which would have left me with a half-open window in the middle of the Canadian winter. No kudos for them. But when I phoned Myers Cadillac Chevrolet, they told me that they wouldn't be able to fix the window on the Saturday but they would try to get it closed for me. After a very frosty ride across town, they did exactly that. Kudos to Myers for getting my window closed for me.

The second kudos is for "Mosaic Buffet". This is a Chinese / Indian buffet in Kanata. I offer a kudos on a couple of scores. First, it is innovative to offer both types of food. Second, the price is great, particularly Monday to Thursday, plus children 5 and under eat free and 12 and under eat for half price. Third, the food is good. Yes, I've had better food, but typically in places that charge twice as much. Fourth, the owner has the strength of his convictions. He is a Muslim and does not serve pork or alcohol. Pork isn't such a big deal, but not serving alcohol will hurt him in the pocket-book. Still, I have an admiration for a man who is willing to live by his own convictions. The meat is halal.

Tomorrow I may have another update about a merchant in Ottawa, but if they don't have my snow blower fixed it will not be a kudos! If they manage some minimal level of customer satisfaction, I will refrain from naming them and just keep silent about the matter.