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Kansas City Meetup

The snow has canceled school from as far west as Fort Worth, up through Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and then swiped an eastern path across the midwest states all the way to the East Coast and up through New England.

I called my sister in Kansas and she told me that schools are closed there for today, too. She has been home all day trying to learn how to use her new pc, installing her instant messenger and setting up a new email account. She’s learning her way around the internet – finally. She even surprised me with the confession that she’s hoping to start dating by using the internet.

Well, she’s been divorced for over two years. I say its about time she started dating. Especially if she uses a quality dating site like Great Expectations. I know my sister, and she’s not interested in a lot of casual dating. She wants to meet a nice guy and be in love again. If she signs up for Great Expectations Kansas City she can attend some of their local events that let people actually meet in a comfortable, non-threatening environment and really get to know someone. I’m glad she’s making the effort now – she deserves to be happy.

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Caring for Our Neighbors

My neighbors across the street are retired and keep to themselves for the most part, although we do wave and even stop to chat once in a while if we see each other out in the yard. Whit usually drives his truck when they go out, but today his wife Janice was driving when they pulled into the driveway. That struck me as odd and when Whit got out of the passenger side, Janice rushed around the car to help him out and up the stairs into the house. So I knew something was wrong.

After lunch I headed over to see if there was anything I could do to help and they seemed to appreciate the offer. Turns out that Whit is fighting cancer, which I was very sorry to hear.

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Snow Day

Winter storms have been brutal for most of the country this year. We’ve had a lot of cold temperatures and rain, but not the snow that our neighbors to the north are dealing with. We thought all that might change last night, as the weatherman was calling for up to 2 inches of snow for the entire mid state. Of course, officials immediately canceled school and there are thousands of kids sitting home enjoying a snow day. Except there is no snow. LOL

The air was filled with blowing snowflakes this morning when I woke up, but the snow melted as soon as it hit the ground. I’m actually glad that we don’t have the snow to deal with, and I’m sure the kids are happy to have a day at home playing video games and watching TV.

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Military Programs at Luther Sales

Although we almost never see anyone on the street wearing a military uniform, there is an Army base just 40 minutes north of the city. Ft. Campbell is an Army base, just over the state line in Kentucky. The base is so big it stretches down into Tennessee and neighbors Clarksville. But Nashville is the closest “big city” for the base.

Sometimes they send guys down to Nashville to catch a commercial flight from our airport. I saw a couple of officers today eating lunch at Shoney’s before heading out, so I said “Hey” when they got in line at the buffet next to me.

I have friends in the military, so I know a little about how tough it is to be an enlisted man and try to start a family. Just when you get things going you end up with orders that send you overseas for months at a time. So the new wife and the kids stay behind and make do.

That’s why I can appreciate a business like Luther Sales who make a big effort with their special Military Programs to help the enlisted men and women by approving them for LutherCharge. This is an Easy Credit Program so the military families can buy some of the furniture, computers and other nice things instead of having to rent them. This store lets military families buy Computers on Credit so the family can stay in touch with their loved one overseas with emails, VOIP calls, and blogs.

They make Purchasing Furniture on Credit easy, as all Federal Government & Military are approved. Its as simple as arranging for allotments, payroll deductions & direct deposit – they are all accepted at Luther Sales.

I browsed their New Look Website today and found special offers for buying a Plasma TV on Credit. For new families with small children and a loved one overseas, sometimes Easy Credit is hard to find and they have to do without the nice things. Luther Sales tries to help with that, and they even offer Free Nationwide Delivery for everything they sell online.

One last thing that really blows me away. For a limited time, Luther Sales will donate a free ipod to soldiers serving in the Middle East with the purchase of $2,500 from their store. This ipod offer for Soliders is just one more good reason to shop at Luther Sales.

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Tear It Up In Cow Town

Tyler says he’s getting six horses next weekend and that will fill the new barn. He was so excited and I know his folks are really proud of him for coming home to help.

His dad has been sick but actually responding well to the chemo. He’s already outlived the original prognosis of 6 months to live by over 2 years. So that says a lot for good doctors and catching cancer early. Sounds like chemo really wipes you out, but it’s the only weapon we’ve got against the big “C.”

I think one of the worst things about being stuck on a big ranch in the middle of Nowhere, Texas, is that you don’t meet many girls. He says he hardly ever goes into town to just go drinking and dancing. So maybe my visit will help him with that, because I plan on dragging him out to the clubs for at least a couple of nights. Watch out, Cow Town!

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New Boots from Cavender’s

It just occurred to me that I have not ridden a horse since before college. When I go out to Fort Worth to see Tyler and his family I know that riding will be involved. Horses are his life and I need to get up to speed. You don’t just jump up on a horse’s back and ride off across the plains. You have to work your way up to it.

I don’t even have a decent pair of cowboy boots. I have a pair of dress boots, but I need a pair of real, working boots to take out there. Ideally I can find a pair on the internet and wear them around the house for a couple weeks to break them in. Worst case, I’ll have to buy a pair in Texas.

Either way, I’ll probably be shopping for the boots at Cavender’s Boot City. Last time I was in Houston I stopped at a Cavender’s and bought my Charlie One Horse hat. I love that hat, and the girls go wild when I wear it. No brag – just being honest.

Cavender’s has everything for riding and western wear. They have jeans, cowgirl boots, hats, and even the big belt buckles that caught Craig Ferguson’s attention.

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Heading to Ft. Worth

My buddy out in Texas must have been reading my mind while I was thinking about cowboy hats and ranches, because he gave me a call this morning to say howdy. He’s been out in Fort Worth a little over two years – ever since his mom called with the news that his dad was diagnosed with cancer and they needed help with the horses.

They have a big ranch and Tyler had to get a big barn built that his dad started before he got too sick to deal with it. It’s finished and Tyler wants me to come see. I can’t image what a $400,000 dollar barn will look like, but I’m going to find a way to get out for a visit.

I hear that some of the horse’s at Tyler’s ranch have championship lines. One of horses brings in so much in stud fees that they family could give up everything else on the ranch and live comfortably on just those fees. But, horses don’t live forever, and they actually like the other horses, going to rodeos, and boarding horses for other people.

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Tourists, Musicians and Cowboys

A few nights ago, Craig Ferguson was in town for a one night stand up comedy show. I seriously thought about getting tickets to go but blew it off. I like the guy on TV but didn’t feel like blowing a couple hundred bucks to see him on stage.

So last night he was back on TV and talked about coming to Nashville. He had a show in St. Louis the night before and for reasons unstated he drove from St. Louis to Nashville. I can tell you the reason – you can’t get a decent flight from St. Louis to Nashville. It actually faster and a whole lot cheaper to rent a car and drive the 5 hours through Illinois and Kentucky.

So his routine last night was all about the predictable Nashville jokes. He joked on the guys wearing cowboy hats and belts with big buckles. He joked the women wearing fur – except they wear it because they were the ones who killed and skinned the animals. Ha ha.

Truth is, Nashville is a pretty cosmopolitan city. It is the state capital and the county seat, and the downtown is full of lawyers, bankers, stockbrokers and real estate companies. Plus publishing, healthcare and, don’t forget, music business professionals. You have to drive out of town quite a ways to find any farms or ranches.

The only people downtown who wear cowboy hats and big buckles are the tourists, a handful of musicians, noobs, and maybe 1 out of 100 will be a “real” cowboy.

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Paintball Fields

The local paintball field is only about 10 minutes from my house, but with a little searching I found over 30 paintball fields just in Tennessee. That’s exciting, because playing on a new field is what makes it challenging. Besides the field looking different and having different geological aspects – rocks, ditches, shrubs and bushes, trees, there are different philosophies on how they are run by the owners and the refs.

The worst thing about the fields close to me is all the newbies – or noobs. The game does attract a lot of teenagers who act the fool. Best thing you can do is go really early – the fields usually open around 10:00 and close well before dark. Teens like to sleep late on Saturdays, so getting there early puts you in with the other more serious players.

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Paintball Challenge

Some of the guys at work are getting restless with this bad weather and talking about doing something fun to get out of the house and work off some steam. This weekend won’t work – everyone has big plans for Super Bowl parties and the sales manager is even going to the game in Tampa, the lucky dog.

When I want to get outside, hunting, fishing and golf are always options but they are so slow paced I don’t really feel like I’ve gotten any exercise. We want to do something active, so I’m pitching the idea of a paintball tournament. We can make up two teams from the operations side of the company against the sales side of the company and meet up on the paintball field to have some fun.

If you like paintball you probably have bought some of your own gear, although the paintball fields have gear for you on site to use for the day. But when I got started a few years ago, I wanted my own gun and found everything I needed on the internet, especially on the ultimatepaintball.com site.

There are complete kits and all kinds of accessories, like masks, gun stocks, scopes, gear bags, etc.  These are for the serious paintballer and for the beginner, too. They have all the top selling brands of paintball guns, including:

  • Tippmann
  • Smart Parts ION
  • Spyder (my favorite – the MR2)
  • Empire
  • BT Paintball