I miss Abbe. I am heading out in about a half hour to go do my long training run of the week (10 miles) without her. She has to work today, which is in by no means a complaint about her having a job. Don’t get me wrong, hard work is no problem for myself or Abbe. We are extremely proud of the tired feeling in the evening from an honest days’ effort.

We Are the 53% and a fairly very well done response - my take on this is that both sides are making generalizations that are far too broad.

The divide between the wealthy and poor has grown out of control. The middle class has become an endangered species.

I do not fear taxing the rich fairly but I also do not think anarchy is the answer.

On the other side, I don’t support forgiving student loans and as much as I think universal healthcare needs to happen, the infrastructure just can not be laid in the current economy and the healthcare/insurance company backed political interest groups funding so many politicians.

I also do not think telling the Occupy Movement to “shut up and take a shower, you hippies” will fix this problem. I believe in hard work and like the former marine (mentioned in the open letter linked above), I also regularly work 60-70 work weeks. I raise money to fight cancer. I support my local businesses, like the Medford Works festival website I put together to promote businesses in my town (done for free).

A conversation needs to be had, that’s all I’ve got at this point. So if you want to comment and debate, do it respectfully. I am absolutely willing to hear both sides tell me I’m wrong here – but if you call me stupid, I’m not listening any more. I deserve respect, just as you do.

Small Business/Tech Links…

• What Google+ Brand Pages Could Look Like [PICS]
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Funny/Interesting Links…

• ANIMALS TALKING IN ALL CAPS
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Yesterday was insane. 8 different phone/in-person meetings. 10 hours of coding. 2 new piano students coming. 4-6 new projects potentially coming my way. I thought a great guitar lesson to my buddy G-man. Van and Viv had great days at school. Bubs had a great soccer practice. I’m really impressed with his coach – teaches the game very well and instills respect between teammates and does both of those things in a very age appropriate way.

Something really upsetting happened yesterday at Carriage Trade Cheese Shoppe, not at the shop itself, but in the community that makes up Medford businesses. See, Main Street in Medford Village is really pretty, great spot for folks to shop, lots of festivals hit Main Street – it’s one of a couple of nice little epicenters of business for this town. Carriage Trade Cheese Shoppe was visited by the liquor control board and told they can not have wine and beer tasting classes or events because of the business’ classification and our weird liquor license laws here in Jersey. That’s not the bad part.

The bad part is that a liquor store in Medford turned the shop in to the LBC because they didn’t buy their wine for an event from them, they ended up going with a more helpful and knowledgeable store with better prices, Medford Wine and Spirits. So instead of maybe helping a fellow Medford business, and letting them know they could be in violation of  a state liquor law, they went the low-brow, stupid spiteful route and turned them in.

And that’s what chafes me, this store manager was willing to sell the wine to them and be OK with them operating this event “illegally”, but if they won’t purchase from you because your prices are too high you turned them in? If the score got lopsided when you were a little kid, did you take your ball and run home too? Yeah, I thought so. The conscience kicks in at funny times I guess. Take a look at all of the for rent/for sale signs on Main Street in Medford and you tell me if cutthroat tactics help this local economy.

Carriage Trade’s owner, Laurel wrote a great post on this on their website. And like Laurel, I won’t name the rival liquor store, and just encourage everyone in the Medford area to support what actually is the best store in the area anyway, Medford Wine and Spirits (I’ve always loved that place, they are one of the few that carry my favorite Belgian – Duvel).

After soccer practice, Viv gave Abbe a drawing she had made in class that day, and then the two of them hunkered down on the homework table and added to the drawing and Abbe kind of got into making one for Viv too…

I tell Abbe this all the time, but I love how great she is with my children. Living with a single dad with two kids is not easy to say the least. I never thought I deserved Abbe before I introduced her to my kids, but all three of them amaze me a little more every day. I’m the richest guy you know.

• Little Superstar Dances with Transformer – oh and here’s a really cool Transformers thingy too
• No One Like M. Night Shyamalan
• Map of Air Pollution – nice job over there, China
• Apparently, escalators confuse dogs… evidence A and evidence B
• epMotion – thanks Mel

Small Business/Tech Links…

• How Google Makes SEO Guys Look Like Fools

The Phils are now 1 game out of first after beating the Mets last night and the Giants giving us some extra innings help. They are doing this without Chase Utley and Ryan Howard in the order, who are both due back very soon. Raul Ibanez has quietly been the best hitter in baseball for the past two months. Carlos Ruiz is getting into Choochtober form already, getting every clutch hit we need from him. The bullpen… that’s another story right now. Lidge has looked somewhat OK actually the past few appearances, but J.C. Romero and Dennys Baez seem to be in some sort of give up a lead contest. The starters are all giving quality starts, even Kyle Kendrick and Joe Blanton. And last night, we even got help from a former Phil, Pat the Bat. Hear that sound Braves fans? That’s right, we are at your front door and we want our division title back.

So HP’s CEO, Mark Hurd is resigning over investigations of sexual harassment. I bet HP is pretty upset about this. Probably going to have security escort him out of the building right? Oh… HP is giving him a $40-50 Million dollar severance package? This is the kind of crap that is devolving our country into a plutonomy. Why does Mark Hurd and other CEOs make such amazing salaries and severance packages when even in the face of doing things to damage their companies’ reputations and ultimately hurt bottom line? Because these salaries and packages are all voted on by a board of directors made up of who? That’s right, other CEOs with lavish salaries and rigoddamndiculous severance packages.

On the awesome news front, Abbe sold her car last night! That Saab was a nightmare. I really appreciated the way she sold it too – she told the buyer everything that has gone wrong since she bought it and the repairs she has been told it needs. Honesty might not make the most money (right Mark Hurd?), but you can sleep at night.

• Seat Savers
• Blackberry Burqas

Small Business/Tech Links…

• Top 10 Firefox Addons for Web Development

Slowly driving her crazy through bad grammar…

The Underdog by Spoon…

• When Letter Spacing Goes Wrong – thanks Justin
• Bioluminescence and Weather Phenomena
• Shakespalin – Sarah Palin proudly celebrates her illiteracy by comparing herself to Shakespeare
• Damn Static Cling

Small Business/Tech Links…

• Critical Steps to Great SEO
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• All Cheat Sheets on One Page – for web developers

Yesterday, my son left his bike in the driveway, leaning against the wood pile near the fence to my backyard. The same location I had left one of my own bicycles overnight once, only to wake and find it stolen the next morning. Bubs went to go for a bike ride and came in with tears running down his cheeks. He knew it was gone. We looked around the backyard and his buddies houses just in case he had forgotten and left the bike. But nope, it was gone. I told him to hop on his other bike and ride around the block and he lucked out. Someone had apparently stolen the bike to ride about half a block away and then deposited the bike on the side of the road.

I reminded him that Daddy lost his bike and learned his lesson, and that he should be thankful he didn’t have to lose his bike to learn as well. I’m extremely tempted to put a decoy bike and wait for whomever thought it would be funny to steal a child’s bike. If I find you, I’m going to put extra teeth into your mouth (maybe I can find some shark jaws) , just so I can be satisfied with the number of teeth I knock out of your fucking head.

Viv is very excited to be signed up for ballet. My mother was nice enough to spring for the lessons (man, my money situation sucks). She got to check out the studio today and I can’t wait to see her pirouetting all over the place.

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