A Day Late and a Few Hundred Thousdand Dollars Short

If the New York Times can print corrections, so can I... Last week there was a glaring error where I wrote TGIM when I really meant TGIC...my wife made fun of me, "haha you can't spell"...that's the kind of love we share...the mocking-your-spouse-when-they-are-a-bonehead kind of love. So apologies for the poor spelling but that's what you get when I write at 4am after spending 8 hours in a freezer! So the reason this email didn't come out yesterday as per normal was the fact that we were knee deep in "are we getting our house yet?" stress. Today we got it :) We have the keys and it is ours...our own...our precious!! (oops too much Lord of the Rings for me I guess) Anyway, things are great except now it is all about moving *sigh*. I hate moving. Note to self: build transporters as soon as possible! Well so we picked the keys up this afternoon and went to the house to take a look. Within 10 minutes my wife already had me doing chores!!! The grass was in desperate need of mowing. We don't have a mower yet, however Shell met the next door neighbor and he offered the use of his. I was going to go there tomorrow to do it, however they are calling for thunderstorms...so I took care of it today http://stamant.org/P5010021.jpg http://stamant.org/P5010022.jpg Shell grabbed a rake and started at it too!! http://stamant.org/P5010023.jpg Of course, if you know Shell, you know her favorite part of the new house is her huge workshop http://stamant.org/P5010024.jpg Susan is visiting from Denver this weekend and snapped this picture of us and our keys!!! http://stamant.org/P5010025.jpg Well it's been an exhausting day so this weeks TGIF is rather short. We have so much to do. Shell and Susan (and James and AJ will be taking in some Toronto sights tomorrow while I sleep (because that's what I do during the day since I work nights...I miss all the fun). Shell had great success with her garage sale last weekend netting somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 (Canadian) AND (more importantly to me) got rid of lots of stuff we don't have to tote to Georgetown (woohoo!! less stuff to haul). Susan brought me some Oreo cookies from the States (because Canadian Oreo cookies are a fraud...a FRAUD. They aren't REAL Oreo cookies they are phoney cloned ones cooked up by Canadian scientists to fool the population...but my taste buds are keenly designed to spot fake cookies. This week's deeper thought: Vox Populi, Vox Dei The voice of the people is the voice of God. This week some headlines were made when Iraqi public reaction to the new Iraqi flag was decidedly negative. The new flag has colored stripes below an Islamic crescent. The problem? The blue is too close to the blue in the Israeli flag. There are other problems too- the fact that this version doesn't contain traditional Arab flag colors (red and green and black) and also the phrase "God is great" is absent the new flag. The Iraqi Governing Council took submissions from Iraqi artists and decided upon the particular design in question. When Iraqi newspapers printed the new flag design, neighborhood coffee shops were abuzz with debate. Iraqi newspapers were flooded with letters from angry citizens, and editorials decrying the American chosen Governing Council, and America. What is lost in all of this is the fact that all of the above- the debate, the newspapers, the dissent- wasn't possible in Iraq before the US led coalition removed Saddam Hussein. Irony much? Whether you agree or disagree with the war, you must acknowledge the new freedom in Iraq is moving through the people- even if at times that freedom is very anti-American. A recent poll of Iraqi citizens showed, despite widespread opposition to American occupation, well over 60% still believed that it was worth removing Hussein, and nearly as many believe that complete US withdrawal at this point would be as bad for security as the occupation. In the end, Iraqi democracy will rise and fall on the ability of the citizens to accept it, and it will and must be on their own terms. In the meantime however, democracy is hard when authoritarianism has been the rule of the day for nearly a generation. The fact that the people are debating the small issues, as well as the large ones, is the most hopeful of signs and that the voice of people will create a self-defined, self governing system that is secure in itself, and a threat to none. Cheers