Bert Garcia^2.0

It’s March, where’s spring?

As I sit here in my home office looking out over my backyard pond, where the Kois haven’t broken the surface in months, I long for warmer weather but mother nature has a slightly different agenda. At least I can be thankful for not living in the Northeast where two feet of snow has been the norm this winter.

Next week calls for warmer temperatures, I can only hope that the forecast holds up. I do enjoy the changing seasons but winter needs to give way to spring, so we can shed the pounds we’ve gained, so we can feel renewed.

If spring can take the snow away
Can it melt away all our mistakes?

You’ll never look at dinner the same way.

After watching this documentary, I can say that the movie’s catch line is so true. Though I had given up on fast food many years ago, I’m reading the ingredients on every item I buy at the groceries and leaving on the shelf anything that has high fructose corn syrup.

Last month I wrote about how Great Value brand items from Walmart were so cheap but it so happens that most of the items I was buying had high fructose corn syrup. So you save at the checkout counter but later on your health suffers because of dangerous ingredients.

Food, Inc. is an eye opener and should be viewed by anyone that cares about their family’s health. Makes me want to buy a small farm and start growing my own food after seeing how chickens are raised. No wonder this country has such a high obesity rate, we’re killing our population slowly and there’s nothing the FDA can do about it.

Living in a fast food bag making friends with the ketchup and salt
People say that I’m crazy for not moving on to better things
Instead I’m sitting around trash talking with the onion rings

Snowball fight after school today
Pack it fucking hard
Throw it at your face
Snowballs turn to ice
We’re at war
Blood in the snow
Water mixed with gore
The kids are dying
Violence in the snow

On Friday afternoon, the snow started coming down and continued throughout the night. By Saturday morning, we had over 3 inches of snow on the ground in our neighborhood and for most of the weekend, Charlotte came to a standstill.

We took our vintage Flexible Flyer out of storage, oiled up the rails and tightened all the bolts. The streets were ours to play on, all of Saturday we spent it sledding down every incline in our neighborhood. On Sunday we headed into the McAlpine looking for fresh snow, the long incline heading up towards Boyce Park served as our luge run.

I want to roll around like a kid in the snow
I want to re-learn what I already know

So let me start the discussion of government spending by setting the record straight. At the beginning of the last decade, the year 2000, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion.

By — by the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.

On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. All this was before I walked in the door.

But what frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is Election Day. We can’t wage a perpetual campaign where the only goal is to see who can get the most embarrassing headlines about the other side, a belief that if you lose, I win. Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can.

To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades and the people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills.

And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, a supermajority, then the responsibility to govern is now yours, as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership. We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions.

The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates to silly arguments, big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.

No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there. No wonder there’s so much disappointment.

Those of us in public office can respond to this reality by playing it safe and avoid telling hard truths and pointing fingers. We can do what’s necessary to keep our poll numbers high and get through the next election instead of doing what’s best for the next generation.