Back On The Board

Some my thing I'm crazy, but I don't think I am. I got back on my board last weekend. Cody and I took a short day trip up to Alta Sierra and found some back country stuff to mess around with. It was a blast. It really felt good. It didn't take us long to build a small jump. The good thing is we didn't get hurt. Here is a short video of our stupidity for your enjoyment. It's not much.


1st Snowboarding Trip of 08.09 Season from Erik Adams on Vimeo.

Coal is Bad... Apparently.

I guess there is a group out there charging after the coal industry. Imagine that. I read an open letter posted on Burnside Writers last week that got me thinking. Basically, they want to protest a coal-fired power plant in D.C.. There are some statements in that letter that just piss me off. The letter is only a scare tactic. The main trouble with the letter, they don't supply any credible evidence. They throw out statements and try to single out the coal industry, when it is a statement that includes much more.

I decided to write a response to the letter and submit it to the magazine. I tried to be as nice and open as I could without being a complete jerk. I thought I did rather well to be honest. I haven't heard if they are going to post the response yet. It is going to be really cool if they do. I will let you know what happens with it. If you click on the link above, it will take you to the letter. After that, if you would like to read my response before I find out if they will publish it or not let me know and I can email it to you.

The Beach

A few months back, we took Brad to Pismo Beach for his first trip to the coast. Mom and Dad were over there for the weekend trying to rack up the usage on the motor home. Mikey was off with his Grammy and Papa (Christy's ex's parents). So we thought heck why not. Let's just say, beach baby. He loved it, he already loves the water, and now add sand and sea shells to that. Things don't get much better than that. We had bought a new camera and it shoots some video. We thought we would try it out. It did great, the problem is, I could figure out how to get the clips off the camera and onto my Mac. It would load into iMovie. Then tonight, I figured it out, so here is a short little clip of Brad in the sand and water at the beach. I had to hold him otherwise he would have been off in the water fast than an F-18 in a dog fight. Enjoy.


Bradley's 1st Trip to Pismo Beach from Erik Adams on Vimeo.

Bradley's 1st Haircut

We thought it was a good time to get Brad's hair cut. It was getting long and curly, he was starting to get mistaken for a girl. Now, I wanted to take him to my barber. Dad and I have been going to this guy for many years. Mikey goes to get his hair cut there now too. But, we took him to a stylist. I know, dudes get their hair cut by barbers, not stylists. It was okay though, the lady that did Brad hair also gave Mikey his first cut. Sort of a tradition thing you know. Anyway, Tammy is her name, amazing lady if you ask me. She is Christy's biggest fan at church. She never charges Christy when she gets her hair done, didn't charge for Mikey's first cut and didn't charge us for Brads either. So, Tammy, thank you so much and God bless. Here are some pictures of the event. Everything started out okay, but when Brad figured out that he couldn't get his hands out from under the cover... well lets just say he didn't like that much. Enjoy.

Snow Is Fun

We took the boys to play in the snow. It was Brads first time sitting in the stuff. He really didn't know what to make of it. We didn't stay too long but had a lot of fun. Here is a video of the day.


Trip to the Snow from Erik Adams on Vimeo.

Can You Say AWESOME!!!!

We have had a lot of snow in the mountains around Bakersfield. So much in fact that a lot the ski resorts are calling it an epic opening weekend. I have started to get the itch to run out and hit the slopes, yes even after what happened last year. I have also been watching a lot of snowboard dvds as well. Check these guys out!!

Bradley In His First Christmas Program

I think I may have found a way to get some videos posted on the page. If this doesn't work, I think I am going to build my own blog page. I hope I don't have to do that, it takes too long. Anyway, here we go.

This was Bradley's first Christmas Program. He did better than we thought he would do. He just sat there for the most part. But it was cool to see anyway. Here is the video.


Christmas Program 08 from Erik Adams on Vimeo.

The Hot New Word... Bailout!

I've seen this picture on a few blogs that I enjoy. One is Crainium (yes it's spelled wrong, but that's how they have it). The other is Grey Matter. This is Susan Isaacs' site, she's a Christian author living in Southern Cali (and she's really funny).

There is a small paragraph at the end that may be a bit hard to read so here's what it says,

You probably thought it was smart to by a foreign import of superior quality, with better mileage and resale value. Maybe you even thought that years of market share loss might prod us into rethinking our process and redesigning our products with better quality in mind. But you forgot one thing: we spend a shitload of money on lobbyists. So now you're out $25 billion, plus the cost of your Subaru. Maybe next time you'll buy American like a real man. Either way, we're cool.

It sure feels like that doesn't it? It seems everyone is crying for the government to "bail" them out. What ever happened to using your head and figuring out creative ways to solve problems?

Susan also mentions a quote from Alexis DeToqueville, "America is great because it is good. Once she ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." After that Susan asked a question that got me thinking, here is what she asked, "when did you first have that rude awakening that America was no longer good?"

Sort of a slap in the face kind of question isn't it. I think it is a good one to ask. The only way this country is going to be great again is if the people who live in it start acknowledging the fact that this country isn't great anymore. I though about it for some time and my conclusion is this. For me, this country hasn't been great since September 12, 2001. I feel this country has never recovered for the attack. I know there are people out there that don't what to hear that, but that is the problem, you can't fix something by not acknowledging it first. We can't go around putting band aids on things and covering up the problems just because we don't want to deal with them. FRANKLY I THINK IT'S A LOAD OF CRAP!

Here is the biggest problem with this country (in my opinion). This country doesn't have a budget problem. The budgets are there, and have been for a long time. This country can put together a budget faster than a humming bird flaps its wings. The problem is, this country has a spending addiction. The country wants to spend more money so they make a budget to accommodate. The root of this problem is that there is no money to back that budget because it was spent on something else, which is why the country has to create and spend this new budget to begin with. But their fix to the problem is to go print more money. Which is why the money in my wallet isn't worth the pile of crap the government is feeding us.

This is why I think this country will never be like it was before 9/11. I'm not saying it was fantastic before, I'm just saying it went into the crapper after the attacks and will never be any better (unless they fix the spending problems and that will probably never happen).

Sorry for the depressing post but I thought it needed to be said. I don't care if it makes anybody made it's just the truth. So, to quote The Guy From Boston, "I got the ball to say what your thinking!"

Enjoy the holidays every body Marry Christmas and Happy New Year... oops, sorry, best wishes for the Winter Solstice Holiday and a new calender year.

Mikey Update

I think it has been a long time since the last time I gave anyone an up date on the adoption process with Mikey. Sorry guys, from my uncalled for long absence and now trying to post all the catch-up stuff, I just plum forgot.

Well, as you know, it has been a very long unending road (hence the picture). Well, after some very long and drawn out court hearings we finally got his real dad to just sign over parental rights. That was the biggest obstacle we had to face. We got to see first hand how screwed up the justice system truly is in this fine state of California.

After all of that, there was a brake for all the tension, stress, and anything else that came with. There was a huge amount of weight lifted after all of that, and now it was smooth sailing. Just last month I had my final meeting Mikey’s advocate. Everything when well there too. This week, we got our final paperwork in the mail and now all we have to do is set the appointment to go in and I can adopt Mikey. So, if all goes right and hopes and prayer for Mikey to be an Adams by Christmas.

We have sat down with Mikey through all of this and now that he is a bit older, he understand what a lot of it means. He is still a bit confused, but he’s seven, that was too be expected. I still want to use Bender at school for a while, all of my friends know me by that, he says. That is fine with me; I want all of this to be as comfortable for him as possible. If that is what it takes, so be it.

I will post the date and any further news when I know.

A Tooth Is Missing

Mikey lost his first tooth this week. We had been wondering when it was going to be loose enough to pull because the new tooth was starting to crowd it a lot. But, Wednesday he came from school and said it was really loose. I was still really sick and was in bed so Christy pulled it out. Here are some pictures.

Christmas Tree Is Up

We set up the tree this weekend (finally). I got everything down out of the garage last weekend, but of course, this means that I needed to clean up the whole garage. I was able to get the lights on the house last Monday. But, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I ended up getting sick with some stupid virus that Christy and Bradley ended up with. I had to miss one day of work because of it too. Anyway, I came home from work today and got everyone together and put up the tree. As you will see from the pictures, Bradley is a big help.

Oh No... It's T.O.!!!!

I am sure you have heard me talk about Burnside Writers Collective in the past. It's a great weekly online magazine that has a wide range in topics about Christianity and sports too. One of the main contributers in the sports catagory is a man named Jonathan Adams. This guy is a Canadian, so big hockey fan. On top of that, he is a sports writer and has great insight on a lot of different sports. He posted an artical this past week, "An Open Letter To Terrell Owens". I just wanted to let everyone that is intrested read this letter. I don't think I could have put it any better myself. Click here to read the letter and enjoy.

Our Idea of Black Friday

Who needs all the crazy people, sweet sales, early morning rushes; oh yeah and did I mention crazy people. Anyway, instead of the expected doings on Black Friday, we decided to have our own fun. Cody and I along with both of our Dads went out to a shooting range about 30 minutes north of Bako. Yeah, pretty sad you have to go far out of town just to plink around with a firearm. Well, we traveled, and fun was had all around. We shot through a whole box of clays, about 100 rounds of 9mm, and 4 slugs from Cody’s shotgun. Just it some time and we just might take the commercialism out of Thanksgiving…. yeah right, whom am I kidding. Well it was fun anyway; here are some pictures of the day. (Yes I did shoot, I just ended up taking all the pictures, and no one thought to take some of me)