This Week

Since Kira hardly ever writes on here, I guess I will. This week we had Thanksgiving. We invited some friends over and had it with them and then played some card games and watched football. We watched a couple movies this week which we usually do almost every week. Neither of them were that great. We watched "Outsourced" where someone's job was outsourced to India and he had to go there and train his replacement, and then the job is outsourced again to China, so the Indian people lose their jobs. It seemed like a very low budget film. We also watched the new X-Files movie. I like that last X-Files movie better. This film wasn't much different than the psychic shows that you can watch anytime on Tru-TV.

We also went to our last football game at Alabama, the Iron-Bowl between Alabama and Auburn. We tried to sell our tickets, but nobody bought them in time to convert them. Alabama set up a ridiculous system where students have to convert their tickets for $50 bucks in order to sell them and let someone else use them. The last day to convert this last week was on Wednesday. We got calls and contacts for the tickets after 5:00pm on Wednesday, which was too late, even though the game was still three days away.

The game was pretty cool though, so we are glad we ended up going. We've been to a bunch of Alabama games, but this one was one of the most intense for the crowd, because of the Alabama-Auburn rivalry. I thought I was going to lose some of my hearing, it was so loud in the stadium. There were a lot of Auburn fans there. Alabama hadn't won a game against Auburn in six years and this year Alabama was number 1 in the nation. We went home during the third quarter and watched the rest on TV, because Kira has been a little sick the last few days.

(This is a picture we took from an earlier game)

We had to do the primary program at church today. The theme of the month is being grateful to be a child of God. We played a game where we put a number on the back of each of the kids. The kids were supposed to try to get close to the kids with the highest numbers on their backs and stay away from the kids with the lowest numbers on their backs. We then read the book "You are Special" by Max Lucado, where wooden Wemmicks spend all of their time putting stars on Wemmicks that look good and do good or impressive things, and putting gray dots on Wemmicks that are unattractive or mess up and do dumb things. The theme was the theme of the game and the book that as children of God He loves us no matter what we look like or what mistakes we make or no matter what others say just because He is our father and he created us. I thought it went pretty well.

Put Up The Christmas Tree and Lights

We put up the Christmas tree this week. We just used white Christmas lights with red and silver balls. Kira doesn't like using colorful lights on the tree, so we put them out on our balcony. It does look pretty good though with the white lights.


Here's a picture of a our tree. We'll have to keep using this one that we got at dollar general for our first Christmas until I finish school and we can start using real trees.

Honk Your Horn If You Support the Troops and If You Want to go to Jail

I received a ticket for improper use of my horn a couple weeks ago. So I have to blog about it now. I honked at someone who was behind me honking at me repeatedly, and then swerved around me and cut me off. I honked at him when he cut me off and then again after we got past the road block, and that was the end of our encounter, no harm done, except for the fact that the Tuscaloosa police happened to be nearby and got mad at me for honking at that car while they were nearby. They chased me down and gave me a ticket for improper use of my horn. I usually only honk at people about twice a year, when they do something like that guy did.

According to Alabama code §32-5-213, it is a misdemeanor - punishable by up to $500 in fines or 6 months in jail (see codes 13A-5-7 and 13A-5-12) - to honk your horn, unless it is a "reasonable warning." So next time you see people holding signs that say, "Honk if you support the troops," you better not honk or you could be sitting behind bars. Next time you see one of your friends and you want to get their attention to say "hi," don't honk, or you could go to jail. Next time you are stuck behind a red light that turns green and the person in front of you is talking on the cell phone and not paying attention, don't make a friendly honk to let them know the light has changed, or you could get six months in the slammer. Next time you see a person driving aggressively, recklessly, or rudely on the road, don't honk to show your disapproval, unless he or she is about to hit you, or you could be the one that serves time. Even if someone else honks at you first, don't you dare honk back or you could be the one with a criminal record.

Not only could you spend time in jail or pay an exorbitant fee, but regardless of otherwise outstanding citizenship, a misdemeanor will go on your permanent criminal record. This could increase your insurance rates, costing you hundreds or thousands in the long run. It could also cause you to have your license suspended for a period of time. Every time a potential employer does a background check they will see you have a misdemeanor.

This ridiculous, draconian law in Alabama needs to change. Most of the the scenarios above should not even be considered criminal activity and at the most honking one's horn should be punishable by a very small fee. Any cop who has the audacity to give someone a ticket for honking should be reprimanded.

Too Many Police Officers in Tuscaloosa

I (Peter) have been to many major cities in the United States. I have been to major cities in foreign countries. I have never seen as many police on a daily basis as I do in Tuscaloosa Alabama. The only comparable place for the amount of police I have seen each day is Saint-Petersburg, Russia, where they had armed police in front of every bank.

I actually started counting the police last summer that I would see each day, and it averaged between 10 and 15 cops a day. They are just continually driving around the streets or something. I was a political science major and studied the affects of police officers in cities. The mere presence of police officers does not have an effect of reducing crimes. More police officer presence does cause the people to feel safer, even though the police do not make much of a difference. This is only referring to the presence of police walking or driving a beat to just be there and make a presence.

Obviously if the police are doing undercover work, investigations, or solving crimes, or keeping an eye on threatening individuals and preventing crimes from occurring, then this does reduce crime.

When I see a lot of police just driving around on the streets, when I can count 10 to 15 a day my thoughts are that these police officers are not making much of a difference. They are not reducing crime in the city of Tuscaloosa. They may be making some of the citizens feel safer, but only because the citizens don't understand that the presence of the police officers alone is not going to have any effect on the actual crime levels. Really all these police are doing is giving out tickets for minor traffic infractions all of the time, mainly to good citizens.

Personally, I feel like some of the police in Tuscaloosa are causing more problems then they are solving. I had my car broken into a month ago and had some stuff stolen out of it. It cost a bit to replace everything and it was irritating to cancel my credit cards, but that was it, I took a hit and then I dealt with it. It was over. A week and a half later I received some questionable tickets from some irrational police officers in Tuscaloosa. The tickets would cost more than the money lost from being robbed. Not only that but they would go on my permanent record, raising my insurance rates potentially costing me hundreds or even thousands of dollars over the long run, and I could get a misdemeanor which would be on my criminal record for potential employers to see. I would rather have that petty robber on the streets than those cops. What the Tuscaloosa police did was much, much, much worse than what that robber did. Sometimes the biggest thief is government.

The police argument is that pulling people over often leads to the discovery of other crimes. That is very possible. But, if that is the reason, why should a lot of good citizens have to pay exorbitant fees and deal with being treated as criminals and having their insurance rates raised, because the cops want to catch other criminals? The cops could easily keep using that strategy, but the courts should lower the costs for tickets and provide more leeway for people to contest their tickets. The cops could still catch real criminals who are a threat to society without ticking off all of the good citizens of Alabama.

I think tickets have little impact on people's driving other than being an occasional nuissance/reminder. When Alabama does their "take back the roads" campaigns where they give out a certain high amount of tickets a day for a couple weeks, the people start driving slower for a couple weeks. After that they normal speed rates go right back to normal for the rest of the year. All the take back the roads campaigns do is increase government revenues from ticket fees by several million dollars. This also decreases the spending power of Alabama citizens by the same amount. Also, all of those citizens that got tickets have to pay higher insurance rates, further decreasing their spending power over several years by hundreds or thousands of dollars per citizen.

Around June 1, 2009....

we are going to welcome our first baby into our family. I went to the doctor today and they did an ultrasound. Here's pictures of our baby at 11 weeks:





These may be boring to most people but I know my family (or at least my mom) wants to see them. We are really excited!!! It is starting to feel a little more real now that I saw the baby and heard its heart beat!

Redistribution of Wealth

This is from a funny email that someone sent to me about redistribution of wealth. I (Peter) thought it was pretty funny, so I figured I would post it here for the world to see.

"In a local restaurant my server had on an "Obama 08" tie; I laughed, as he had given away his political preference--just imagine the coincidence--because... When the bill came I decided not to tip the server, and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10, and told him to thank the server inside, as I've decided he (the homeless guy) could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful. At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment, I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he earned, even though the homeless guy "needed" it more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application."