Category: Uncategorized

Guest Submission Number Two, Submitted by Troy Evans


I understand that economic times are hard and some people have lost money. Some have lost a lot of money. I don’t, however, understand how State Treasurer Kay Ivey believes education budget money should be used to bail out the PACT Program. I applaud anyone who invested money for their child’s education, but that is just what you did, you made an investment. An investment involves risk. These paragraphs taken from the PACT 2007 Enrollment Kit clearly state this fact: 

This Disclosure Statement provides important information concerning certain material risks associated with the purchase of PACT Contracts. Contract Purchasers are strongly urged and expected to read this Disclosure Statement in its entirety before purchasing a PACT Contract. The obligations of PACT are limited obligations payable only from proceeds received from PACT Contract sales and earnings from investment performance. Neither the Contract Purchaser nor Beneficiary has any recourse against the Treasurer, the Board, the PACT Program, any other state or federal government agency, or the State of Alabama in connection with any obligations arising out of the PACT Contracts. The obligations of the PACT Contract are not backed by the full faith and credit of the State of Alabama.

No Guarantee; Not Insured: Participating in PACT entails risk of return. The Trust Fund and investments under PACT are not bank deposits, and are not debt obligations of, or insured or guaranteed by the FDIC, the State, the Board, the Treasurer, the PACT Program, or any other state or federal governmental agency. None of these entities or persons has any legal or moral obligation to ensure the ultimate payout with the respect to the purchase of a PACT Contract. 

Today on the WSFA Website there is an article which states: “The chair of the Prepaid Affordable College Tuition Plan, State Treasurer Kay Ivey, says a three-member committee of the PACT Board is working on legislation that would provide up to $25 million a year from the state education budget.” How can you take 25 million dollars from the education budget that every year is in trouble itself. Again, I feel for the people involved. I am not trying to sit here and say, “Too bad for you.” But I also don’t think people who were not enrolled in this program should now have to donate to the ones that were. No state funds, especially education funds, should be used to correct this problem. If the fund would have made an excessive amount of money would they have given money to deserving students who did not enroll? No. People who were not in the program would have had no right to any excess money nor should we incur any loss since the fund lost money.

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Run For A Good Cause!!!


 1st Annual Power of Purple

5K Walk/Run 

April 25, 2009

10:00 a.m.

Wetumpka High School Football Stadium

NW Main St. & W. Osceola St. 

Race Info:

Course:

Mostly flat run through west Wetumpka neighborhoods.

Water station at approximately 2 mile point.

Time:

Registration and number pick up:    8:00 am – 9:30am

Race begins:                                      10:00 am

Awards:                                             11:15 am

·         stay for opening ceremonies of Relay For life at 12 noon. 

Entry Fees:

Pre-registration (mail-in or Active.com)         $15.00

Race Day                                                        $20.00 

Benefits:

All proceeds go to benefit the American Cancer Society – Wetumpka 

Contacts:

Jeanne Dulaney                relay@beignited.net                334-294-1583

Julie Bridgman                 jbridgman@elmore.rr.com        334-567-6639 

Further information:  http://www.beignited.net/powerofpurple.htm

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What’s The Deal With The Dollar Stores?


I thought I’d repost an old blog entry from way back on April 9, 2009, just after I started this here blog. I still wonder about the “Everything is only A Dollar” stores. Enjoy…

I just got home from church and eating Mexican for the second time today. Just in case you didn’t already know this, if you eat at a Mexican restaurant, at least this one in particular, you ain’t gonna’ be able to hide it from anyone. As I sit here writing, I can smell myself. I can only imagine how the people at the grocery store could smell me. Anyway, let’s move on.

Gigi and I went to one of the 28,352 Dollar (fill in the blank) stores in our area the other night. I love going to these stores because where else can you buy a watch, or a toy, or party favors, or pet supplies, or any number of other things for only a dollar? We bought some things for my daughter’s 3rd birthday party Friday night and may I just say, WHAT A BARGAIN! We also bought some Dial antibacterial bars of soap and a few other items. As we walked around the store I saw many items that we normally buy at Wal Mart or the Winn and Dixie (as a friend’s grandmother called it) and the thought entered my mind, “Why don’t we buy everything here at the dollar store?” Does anyone have the answer to that question? I’m sure there is a logical explanation. Here in Wetumpka, there is a Wal Mart Supercenter right next door to the dollar store. I wonder why the dollar store isn’t overrun with people buying all the things there for a dollar that cost a good bit more at Wal Mart.
Anytime I stand in any line at any store like Wal Mart or Target I am always tempted to buy, and often do, a Twix bar or some chewing gum or maybe one of those various sticks of meat that are always near the check-out line. I realized the other night that when I’m in line at the dollar store, I never even consider the items there because apparently the candy and gum at the dollar store is not up to par with the candy and gum at the big-box retail stores. I mean, if I can buy the four-pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups at Dollar General for a buck when they may cost four times as much at Wal Mart then something has to be wrong with them, right?
If I buy the toothpaste at Dollar Tree, will it cause the enamel to just slide right off of my teeth into my Diet Dr. Pepper, purchased at Winn Dixie by the way, resulting in my never being able to eat Mexican food again? Not that no Mexican food would be a bad thing necessarily.
Do the gummie bears contain an unusually high level of DDT or some other birth defect causing chemical. Benzene, maybe? Perhaps strychnine?
What happens if I somehow muster up the courage to buy a bag of the various kinds of potato chips they have at the dollar store? Upon putting one of these chips into my mouth am I going to suddenly be stricken ill by salmonella or trichinosis or develop some horrible Olestra type symptoms?
Is the bottled water there flown in after being scooped directly out of a mud hole in the most impoverished, malaria-stricken, desolate, built-on-a-dump African nation? Will I get leprosy just by getting a drop of it in my skin and suffer a horrible, rapid death within minutes if I dare take a sip?
Is all their merchandise made in China?
And the soap. We bought the soap. I have now bathed with the soap no less than four times. Did anyone who saw me at church today think that I didn’t look clean the way that Kid Rock never seems to look clean. Did I stink? More than usual, I mean. The bar looks and feels just like the ones we always buy at Wal Mart. Since it’s anti-bacterial, does it only kill 75% of the germs rather than 99.9% like the good stuff? I need to know.
It’s tough to beat the price at the dollar stores. There aren’t many things in the world you can buy for a dollar anymore. To have a store where everything they sell only costs a dollar seems like a deal that is just too good to pass up. Which brings me back to my question: Why aren’t people just breaking down the doors to buy the merchandise in the dollar store?
Here is what I know for sure. We ventured out and bought soap this time. We haven’t ventured out and bought much else other than a pack of green army men or some skewers or something. Anything that you eat or drink or put on a cut, those type things we always get at a big store. I’m not sure why and I’m hoping someone out there can shed a little light on the subject for me. Anyway, gotta’ go now. I’ve developed several oozing sores on my back since my shower this morning. Not sure what’s going on with that but I need to run to Wal Mart and get some Neosporin.
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Baptist Nap Day!


I had planned on running this afternoon but if the rain continues I guess I’ll just HAVE to take a nap. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I realized that not everyone actually takes a nap, or at least tries to, on Sunday afternoons. Go to church, eat lunch and gossip, go home and take a nap. I really thought that pattern was universal. But I also used to think that when my dad would baptize someone in church, that he would say, “I baptize you John Doe, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (dunk), to walk in Eunice of life.” That would be “newness of life.” I figured this out at about the age of 35 or so. I’m pretty swooft! Go to church today and if you see Gladly, the cross-eyed bear, tell him I said hello!

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I got a mention on one of them there, sho’ ’nuff big city NYC blogs!


Elizabeth Spiers, who grew up here in Wetumpka, made a pretty big name for herself by blogging and subsequently becoming the founding editor of a weblog called Gawker.com. Read her bio here. http://www.elizabethspiers.com/about.html  

Anyway, she grew up here and actually went to FBC Wetumpka and graduated from Edgewood Academy. She is involved in all sorts of things now and is a very talented, witty writer. Google her and you can read lots of her stuff and find out all sorts of interesting things about her. Here is the site where she mentioned this blog again. http://spiers.tumblr.com/  Go check it out…
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My First Offended Reader! A milestone!

I just offended someone. An anonymous poster said that he was glad he, or she I suppose, no longer lived in Wetumpka because of people like me. He used more words. Normally I wouldn’t make a big deal out of something like but since this is my first, for lack of a better term, “hate mail” I wanted to share the special occasion with all of you. Check out what the poster said and my response in the comments under the “I Hate the Casino” post.

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Whatever Became of Denny Terrio?


On St. Patrick’s day a couple of weeks or so ago, I celebrated the 40th anniversary of my birth. I had the required plastic crows and the sign out in front of the office and someone sent me some black flowers. On one side the sign said, “Lordy, lordy, Thad is 40.” But you probably already knew that. That is also a requirement for anyone who is having a  40th birthday. The other side said, “Once a hot stud, now an old dud.” Now, after 40  years of living there are things that I have experienced that, for various reasons we won’t discuss here, have exited my conscious memory. Every now and again a particular song may come on the radio that brings some long-forgotten memory crashing into the old cerebral cortex and all of a sudden I’m back in school and my American History teacher is telling a classmate that if she’s going to scratch her elbow she needs to go out in the hall to do it (that really happened by the way). I think the song was Islands in the Stream by Kenny and Dolly, for what it’s worth. 

But I digress. My point, if I have one, is that if there is a time in my past when I was a hot stud, I’ve forgotten about it and that disappoints me greatly! Because on the list of things one wants to remember and be able to tell one’s children (and wife) about, being a hot stud would rank near the top for any guy. Especially when it comes to my son. He needs to know that I haven’t always been a boring, dumb, fat guy. He needs to know if there was a time in his old man’s life that he was able to make someone laugh, or bust a move on the dance floor, or dunk a basketball (again, true). His enduring image of his dad certainly doesn’t need to be of him having a loud, heated argument with a Subway sandwich artist on a Wednesday night after church in front of a store full of customers. But, quite unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced the memory of the time in my life when I was a hot stud. And, if I had to hazard a guess, so has everyone else. I’m sure it’s got to be in there somewhere. I had a pair of parachute pants, man! Black ones with zippers down the outside of each leg that, when unzipped, revealed a beautiful, silky, poofy white piece of fabric that contrasted nicely with the shiny, black fabric that the rest of the pants consisted of. I had a pair of high-top, boat-shoe kind of shoes that, when worn in tandem with the parachute pants, made me feel and look like a light haired Denny Terrio from Dance Fever. Throw in a purple, sleeveless shirt with a huge Japanese symbol on the front and the coolness factor shot up like an AIG executive’s annual income after they got the bailout money from the feds. 
But there is a difference between being cool and being a hot stud. Anyone can be cool. All it takes is a little personality and the proper wardrobe. To be a hot stud requires that the ladies dig you. That’s where my memory of myself is lacking. I don’t remember ever having my phone ringing off the hook with women who found me diggable. These were the pre-cell phone days and it was one of those big ol’ black, rotary dial phones in my dad’s room, just in case you were wondering. I do remember, after I got divorced, sitting down with a pen and paper and writing down things to talk about before I called to ask a young lady out so I wouldn’t freeze up and look stupid. Not particularly studly. All that work and she still said no thanks. At least she was nice about it. I should have just said “Hey. You and me. Friday night. Eight o’clock. Twickenham Station. Be there.” She still would have said no thanks, but I sure would have sounded like a hot stud! Anyway, if someone out there reading this happens to stumble across some record, maybe some hieroglyphics in a McDonald’s somewhere, of me being a hot stud how about giving me a call. My son will be 8 in a couple of weeks and this is something I’d like to pass along to him as any good father would. My number is Klondike 5-1313. Thanks.
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