The Richest One....

The song that Wes Lee and the other amazing musicians sang that brought a tear to everyone's eye at Mike "Big Daddy Blue" Chambliss benefit was "The Richest One".

I think it's my new favorite song.......

If I had a dollar for every time
You broke my heart and messed up my mind
I’d be the Richest One
I’d be the Richest One in the world

If bad times paid interest
I’d have you to thank
I’d be driving a new car
Have money in the bank
And I’d be the Richest One
I’d be the Richest One in the world

But money can’t buy love
The kind I dream of is so hard to find
A good woman's touch
In the morning when I rise
And baby I’d give up every single dime

If teardrops were diamonds
From the African mines
If heartaches were silver
My whole life would shine
And I’d be the Richest One
I’d be the Richest One in the world

I’d have yachts in the Riviera
Mansions in Spain
Oil wells in Texas; big diamond rings
I would go where I want to go
Do what I wanna do; be what I wanna be
And I’d be the Richest One
I’d be the Richest One in the world

Wow....just wow!

"Big Daddy Blue"

I spend yesterday doing some of my favorite things with my most favorite person in the whole wide world.

We showed up at Sideline’s at 10:30am to participate in a Poker Run to start the benefit for Mike “Big Daddy Blue” Chambliss.

Big Daddy was a local musician who was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer less than 2 weeks ago.

He died just a few hours after we started the benefit………but he would have liked the party going on for him and I like to think that this way, he even got to see it for himself!

To see the musicians on stage talk about him and break down and cry made for a very emotionally charged atmosphere. Music, at its core is emotional anyway, but to add this type of meaning on top of that was something to behold. Truly it was.

But as usual, I’m getting way ahead of myself.

We started the poker run and went to a few bars and had a libation or three. The nature of a poker run is to get a card at each place you stop and at the end, whoever has the best poker hand is declared the winner.

Guess who pulled 3 aces……..yep, me!!

You see, I’m the luckiest som-bitch in the world. I have the woman of my dreams as my wife and I can also pull aces out of a deck with regularity. The truth is, “ I am the man”!

Of course, I donated the winnings back to the benefit because , well, it was a benefit and that’s what we are called to do.

Anyway, we finally got back to Sidelines on my bike and it was time to go home and take a nap. That is very important for a Sunday afternoon.

My baby needs her rest and it’s my job to make sure she gets it.

Sometimes that means I have to shush up little giggly girls but this time it meant taking her home on the motorcycle and putting her in the bed for a few hours!!

When she got up, we showered and got all decked out in our finest club clothes (and wow, did she look awesome!) and went back out. We got there just as her favorite, crotch tingling musician got on stage for his set.

If you haven’t seen Wes Lee play a set, it’s something to behold. The man has stage presence and he literally throws everything he has into each performance.

I enjoy his shows so much. And he had so many “guest” musicians including Dusty Chambliss, Big Daddy’s son playing guitar with him. There were horns, saxophones and every kind of guitar you’ve ever seen. It was quite a show.

There were a total of 7 bands that played for 11 hours and everyone donated their time and talents to making sure that this thing went off in a big way.

There we auctions of all kinds of stuff. Hell, I bought a 4-foot long broad sword that Conan the Barbarian would be proud to swing around!!

Anyway, it was great to see an entire community come together to literally celebrate the life of one of our great musicians and it was a fine thing to see.

It was one of those community events that makes you proud to be a part of the kind of community that puts on stuff like this.

I love my life.

Peace!

Thanks Man......

Very pumped about this......finally, spending money on something badly needed.

PRESIDENT'S NEW BUDGET PROVIDES INCREASES FOR
TRANSPORTATION

The White House today (February 14) transmitted a proposed budget to Congress calling for $3.73 trillion for fiscal year 2012 which begins on October 1, 2011. In the cover memorandum to Capitol Hill, the President states that the Administration's proposal would reduce the deficit by $1.1 trillion over ten years while still making investments in infrastructure, technology and education.

For the Department of Transportation the proposed plan provides $128 billion, an increase of $53 billion compared with what was enacted in FY 2010. Highway spending would increase to $69.7 billion, almost 70 percent more than the $41.1 billion in FY 2010. It also calls for a six year $556 billion surface reauthorization plan to modernize surface transportation infrastructure.

The plan proposes to merge rail spending with the Highway Trust Fund which currently funds most highway and transit spending into a new account to be called the Transportation Trust Fund. The Administration also reprises the creation of the National Infrastructure Bank, which would be funded through the newly reconfigured trust fund.

The Transportation Trust Fund would be comprised of other accounts, including transit programs now funded from the Transportation's discretionary grant program known as TIGER.

What is not in the budget is the source of monies that would go into the new trust fund. Already the 18.4 cents-per-gallon tax on gasoline, with levies on diesel fuel and truck sales cannot support current obligations.

The budget plan also points out that the, "current framework for financing surface transportation investments is not financially sustainable, nor does it effectively allocate resources to meet our critical material needs." It goes on to say that the President is committed to working with Congress to ensure that funding increases for surface transportation does not increase the deficit.

A breakdown of the DOT budget including allocations for their offices and programs can be viewed by clicking on this link: http://www.nitl.org/Budget2012.pdf.

Palinisms - WTF?

Since I'm so short on inspiration I figured I'd give you some of the Republican Party's inspirational leadership........

Enjoy!

"His theme last night in the State of the Union was the WTF, winning the future, and I thought, OK, that acronym, spot-on. There were a lot of WTF moments throughout that speech." -on President Obama's State of the Union address

"We can have individuals and individual character traits within politicians, being able to be made manifest in the way that we express our views."—on the strength of the Republican party,

"You have 435 House members. You have 100 senators. You have nine Supreme Court justices and one president. You add up that number and you look at those 500-some people and you realize they are the ones making the decisions that affect our everyday lives and affect our opportunities to either create more jobs or see unemployment continue to stay consistent at the level it is or even grow, unfortunately, in the future."—on President Obama's State of the Union address

"I've been accused of dividing within establishment in the Republican party, too, for some years now, and I don't see it as division."—on whether Rep. Michele Bachmann is creating divisions in the Republican party

"We don't just have the fighting instincts of a bunch of sheep like I think a lot of Democrats do."—on President Obama's State of the Union address

"That was another one of those WTF, when he has so often repeated this 'Sputnik moment' that he would aspire Americans to celebrate, and he needs to remember that what happened back then with the former communist USSR and their victory in that race to space, yeah, they won, but they also incurred so much debt at the time that it resulted in the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union."—in response to President Obama's State of the Union address

"Both of their messages, too, those conservative common sense messages that they had on how to get the economy back on the right track were really good. They were sound. They were sound because they were in opposition to President Obama's message."—on Rep. Paul Ryan's and Rep. Michele Bachmann's State of the Union responses

"The media's definitely a major part of the problem, if there's a problem with incivility in this nation, definitely, because so many in the media, the lamestream media picking up on what goes viral with lies and innuendo and rumors that are out there in the blogosphere and elsewhere, for the lamestream media to pick up some of these things and run with it without getting facts, that perpetuates the problem that we have with some negative discourse in this country, so definitely the media is a big part of the problem and I certainly would like to see a lot of that changed."—on President Obama's State of the Union address

AND MY OWN PERSONAL FAVE:

"We need to cut these things that aren't constitutionally mandated, that are kind of on the periphery, the fluffery, like NPR and National Endowment for the Arts. Those are obvious."—on President Obama's State of the Union address

It should be noted.......that ALL of these "quotes" came from one short interview on Greta von Susteren on Fox 1-26-11.......ONE SHORT INTERVIEW.

If this is the future, let me chew my leg off now.

Peace (for now)