Wounded Warrior Program

I just received an email from a good friend yesterday that I thought I should share with the rest of the world.  I hope that he does not mind that I am going to share it but he knows me well enough to know I just do not give a shit what he thinks.  I know it is a little bit of a long read but I feel it is much worth it so here it is.

John buddy,

 

My wife, Rose, and daughter, Heather, are going to Germany later this month and while there they will volunteer for a few days at the USO visiting wounded troops in the US Army hospital. Rose is a retired Army Command Sergeant Major and still feels a connection with the troops. With the extra troops going to Afghanistan, there will be more wounded going through Germany on their way home.

 

Quite a few of these solders arrive in Germany with little or no extra clothing as they are coming right out of a field hospital in Afghanistan. We are putting together a ditty bag with a sweatshirt and tee shirt for the wounded troops. The bag will also act as a carrying case for any other items that they receive while at the hospital.

With Rose leading the way, we at Pete’s Sport Shop, with help from the folks at the post office and some other groups, put together similar bags a few years ago during the roughest part of the war in Iraq. We mailed about 150-200 bags that had a sweatshirt, tee shirt, sweatpants, socks and some toiletry items donated by Longs drug store. We heard from the chaplains office and even from a few of the recipients thanking us for the bags. It made it easy for the soldiers who could not get around very well to just pick up a bag with the items inside.

This packet will have at least a tee shirt and a sweatshirt. My wife will take about 10 sets with her and the rest we will mail to the USO.

 

If you are interested in sponsoring a packet, we will screen print your company name or personal name on the back of the sweatshirt. You may include your mailing address or email address, in case the recipient wants to send you a thank you note. Each packet will cost about $10 for the items and shipping costs. I can fit about 25-30 names on the back of the sweatshirt.

 

I plan to print and ship the packs next week. With any luck they may arrive by the time my wife arrives in Germany. If not I am sure that the USO will make sure that they get to the solders that need them.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. If you wish to donate, please send a check made out to Pete’s Sport Shop.

 

Thanks,

Paul sends

 

I just feel that this letter has to get out to more people and that is why I have included it in my blog.  Just so everyone knows I have already purchased 10 bags for the wounded soldiers.  I guess the whole point of this blog is to say if anyone feels like they should or need to do something for the wounded troops coming home this is a great way to get it done.  If anyone would like to help you can contact me and I will make sure that it gets to the troops.  Just so you know everything that is collected from us the public gets to the troops.

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Crime TV

To start off I should let you know that I am a huge fan of crime television such as Investigation Discovery Channel and Crime and Investigation Channel.  Those channels have to be my favorite and I could watch them both all day long and it drives my wife crazy but I do not care this stuff can be so amazing how they solve crimes.  These shows also help me to realize, that even in today's society, the types of sick mother fuckers that move around us every day.  I am currently watching a show about a serial killer that confessed to all of these murders but with one problem, someone else was already convicted for one of those murders.  So that got me thinking about how many people are serving time for crimes that they have never committed.  Now my mind is really going in all directions because are any of us really innocent, I know, I break the law everyday when I drive to work by speeding or not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign and maybe by keeping that dollar that I was accidentally given back as change.  Then there are the crimes that maybe we do not consider as crimes but should be, like when you see a weaker person being verbally or even physically assaulted but we decide that's none of our business so we should just stay out of it.  It reminds me of something that happened the other day in the grocery store, I was behind a young couple and this guy was acting like he was going to punch the girl that was with him.  Over and over she told him to stop but he was just some young kid that was thinking he was tough, but I just told myself stay out of it, this is none of my business.  I also noticed that my blood had started to boil and it was time to say something but as my breaking point was reached they walked in the opposite direction than I was.  So now lets take this further and hypothetically this young person decides to act on his aggression by beating this poor girl to death am I just as guilty for her death because I did not try to put a stop to it in the store.  Just so you know I was not the only one that noticed this and chose to ignore it, there was at least 10 people that looked and then looked away.  Have we become a society that says as long as it is not happening to me then it is not happening at all.  Well hell I do not have the answers I guess just read and think what can I do in my daily life to help others around me.  Well I think I have decided to blog once again so watch out world this sick mind of mine has a lot to say.

Posted via email from jbmendoza's posterous

Sitting here watching The Roast of Joan Rivers normally do not watch these but this one looked funny!

Posted via SMS from jbmendoza's posterous

The Problem with Politics.

Well it looks like it is time once again to speak my peace. Funny that I say peace because that is what we do not have. I remember way back in July and maybe even further there was a man that stood up in front of all of us on TV and started that if he was elected then he would end the war in Iraq. At that same time people were lined up every where saying bring our troops home and end the war in Iraq and all over the news people were saying how much this war is costing us. I just do not understand because all of a sudden this man was elected to be our President and everything just goes away. No more empty promises that the war will end. No more news programs talking about the number of soldiers killed in action today or the cost of the war. Last but not least no more peace demonstrators talking about bringing our soldiers home or blogs about make love not war. Did something happen over night that I did not see like did the war in Iraq end and I did not notice it. The last that I heard was that The President was actually doubling the troops in Afghanistan but no demonstrators protesting that, actually I see people on TV praising him for putting more troops in harms way.

Now I am not hear to write about who we elected or not because in the first place it does not matter both parties have become the same. Insurance companies rule the political parties and that's that. We will never have Universal Health Care in the United States for the only reason that insurance companies have too much to lose. Right now you are saying this guy is crazy but I will prove it to you. What other companies are you required to buy goods and or services from and it is a law, well none but to operate a vehicle you must have insurance and be able to show proof of insurance upon request. Now if the government wanted to make some money then they should get in the insurance business we would have the deficit cut in half in just over a year and probably be out of debt in three years. To be honest if they took over all insurance they would more than likely be able to offer free health care to all Americans. Why is it that my health insurance rates go up by at least eight percent every year even though I never use it? Well that should be enough for today but I will try to add more later. So stay tuned for my crazy thoughts.

My Stimulus Package

When I was first going to write this I was going to give some big long drawn out way to get the economy going again but then I went why am I going around the corner just to get down the street. Now when I say that I mean I don't need to make this longer than I need to so let's get to the point and start their. Okay I have stated before that throwing money at problems never solve problems but I have come up with one way we can get this economy jump started. Now this will require some help from the government but not the way that they normally help. When ever I here giving us stimulus checks or tax breaks or what ever it never solves the problem. Bush tried that last year in June or around June and it did not work then and will not work now. The first thing that came to my mind was an old saying and it goes something like give a man a fish feed him for a day but if you teach a man to fish feed him for a lifetime.



So that is when it hit me we should be creating jobs for people not giving them money or tax breaks or whatever the government has come up with to save us. You ask yourself well how are we going to create jobs when the economy is so bad and people have cut back and made layoffs. It is so simple I can't believe with all these smart people trying to solve it have not figured it out yet. I own my own business and would love to have extra people but because the economy is so bad I can not afford to hire a person to just sit around and be available when someone misses work because of illness or vacation. So here is my idea the government should be giving small business or any business, but small business is necessary for this to work because we need numbers and for every large business there are thousands of small businesses, a tax break for hiring extra employees. Now this would require that business to follow certain guidelines and file extra reports but we all have to help to get this going. The government would not have to cover the whole cost of the new employee only help but here is the great part the government would not have to help forever because you put people to work and everyone starts spending more money plus the government gets taxes from the people that are back at work soon business starts to pick up and you end up needing that employee plus hiring another. People will be able to pay for their homes and Fannie May will not need money plus people will need cars to get back and forth from work so guess what GM can fix it's own problems.

Now I am not going to get in guidelines in this blog, or maybe never, but we need to have to keep people from abusing the system. It should not be so difficult that people will not try for the tax break but it should not be so easy that anyone can do it. I shall continue blogging on this subject until we can solve this problem just remember an idea kept to ones self is an idea that can never be considered. Many people thinking of many ideas is what will solve this problem not one person that thinks he knows it all. So any ideas from anyone should comment and maybe someone will read and go oh shit we can now solve it.

The Question

So today I was asked the toughest question that I have ever been asked in my life. We should back up a few steps and start over so that you can see the whole picture. The other day we had some fairly large and or expensive items stolen and all I thought about is what kind of piece of shit would do something like this. Now I am not a very forgiving person and got mad that someone would steal from work like that and I take work very personally. So here I am ranting and raving that if I ever find out who did this I am going to kick the living shit out of them and a whole bunch of graphic and disturbing shit that would make any horror movie look like it was produced by Disney. So here I am in the middle of all of this and this friend of mine walks up and asked the question of a lifetime that changed my attitude and got me to think but most important made me write about it.

"IF YOUR FAMILY WAS STARVING WOULD YOU DO WHATEVER IT TOOK TO KEEP YOUR FAMILY FED?"

Holy shit I was blown away with that one question and started once again to think about the times that we are in and how hard times are. I guess to put it in perspective Fresno County is at around 13% unemployment that means that you walk down the street and count 100 people and 13 of those people do not have jobs. Then you look at other towns within Fresno County that are running at around 34% unemployment and that means more than a third of the people do not have a job and that figure is worse than you think because that does not count people not working because they choose not to work maybe due to other responsibilities like a disability in the family that someone needs to be around to take care of them. These figures start to blow you away when you look at them. So now I get back to the answer YES I would do anything to make sure that my family eats for one more day. That would include lie, cheat, and or steal. That still does not make it right but it makes you think that I hope I never have to.

The Economy

What a way to start blogging again by talking about one of the most talked about subjects of the time. Now many people are trying to figure out what they are going to do next and what they are going to do in the future. I want most people to remember that this is not the first time things have been this bad but people usually start to panic before they start to think. The first thing we should go over before I go any further is that I already know that this will piss some people off and if you read this and get mad then just maybe I am talking about you.

Now to fix something you have to first know how it broke. In my opinion we did this to ourselves us as Americans believe that we need great riches and all the toys that are available. Three years ago or so people came to me and said you should buy some homes to flip. I guess I should give you some background information. I am the type of person that puts in ten hours a day at work and when the weekends come that is my time to just be me and don't do anything, except maybe now I will start writing about things that I feel. So when someone told me to flip a house all I thought about was this will never get done I would buy a home and it would sit empty for a year, I would never touch it, and then sell it for less than I bought it. So of course my answer to these friends of mine was I don't have the time for this kind of shit so leave me alone. So we broke it by buying way more than we could afford and everyone is to blame for this because we all let it happen. See a long time ago the American dream was a nice home and two cars in the driveway. Someplace that was not good enough people needed more than a nice home and it turned into two or more homes and enough cars that even the baby in the crib has something to drive.

Now that we have determined how the economy was broken we have to figure out how to fix it. Let's talk a little more about me because what kind of piece of shit would I be if all I ever did was bitch about something. I hate those blogs that say everything is wrong and bitch, bitch, bitch and that is it. If you think there is something wrong in this world help people fix it don't just complain about it. So I am going to start with something a friend told me the other day because it really fits in with what I am going to say. He subscribes to some super sales motivational speaker or something like that I really don't know who he is or what he talks about but this guy is brilliant. He told me that this guy had sent an email out that says that we need to start doing things different than everyone else. That if everyone is doing the same thing and it is not fixing the economy then we need to start doing things different and something about that by the time we hear something is working everyone else is already doing it so basically we need to start thinking outside the box. So here is where I was going with this, around a year ago when I felt that this is the place that we were going I started to tell the people that work for me we need to start pricing for six months from now we need to get our prices up now to adjust ahead of the curve not behind it. Now we are not as busy as we normally would be this time of year but we are still here and still working. This was not all planned some was luck but a lot of it had to do with planning for the future. You are saying how does this help me now. Well here is the answer I have been giving all of my friends. This is no time to be proud if you have to do something that is out of your job qualifications then do it. If you have to work at a fast food restaurant to feed your family then do it. If you see someone you know and they make fun of you or look down on you tell them at least you choose this than welfare. See at least you would be helping the economy than hurting it.

Good luck this year but the people that are supposed to know what is going to happen say this year is going to be worse than last year. I am not trying to be negative but I am trying to get my point across to wake up. It is not government that is going to fix this economy but us. We broke it now we have to change to fix it. Throwing money at a problem has never fixed anything it only enables us to keep doing things the wrong way.