Local child has died from a gunshot.....

and to top it off they say it may be suicide.

I have issues with this on so many levels.

1. This child should not have been able to load and use this weapon. As a gun owner with kids responsibility is key. This story terrifies me. We have our weapons secured with at the very least trigger locks. Ammo is not anywhere near the guns. Uggg.......

2. In my eyes a child of 10 is not old enough to be considered a suicide. I'm sorry but they just aren't. No matter what is going on no child truly can grasp the consequences and finality of taking their own life. When I was in grade school I had my first "love". We would secretly hold hands and he would sing me beach boys songs. He was my Nanny's nephew. One day my dad pulled me aside to tell me that Peter, at the age of 11, had committed suicide by hanging himself on his swing set. I did not believe that then and I do not believe that now. He was to young to understand what that meant just as this boy is.

3. Adults were home? So this boy was able to load a gun and shot himself with adults in the house? Where was the supervision? NEGLIGENCE!!! Holy crap. This poor family. It makes me want to figure out even more measures to take to secure our things.

Do you actually own your home? Do I?

So Nevada has been one of the hardest hit states in the country for foreclosure. After the discovery of the robo-signing and fraudulent foreclosures came out the big story here was that new owners may now not actually own their homes. A reporter recently wanted to see how prevalent this actually was and went to a local lawyer who works to help owners stay in their home and has been dealing with other owners facing the hassles of not actually owning their homes. His discovery - 9 out of 10 people who have bought a foreclosed home are facing the issue of not actually owning it. In fact he had the lawyer he was interviewing check on his home and in five minutes she found issues proving he was one of those people.

I am terrified now. We had a title company who supposedly made sure the title was clear when we bought a house owned by Countrywide who was bought out by BOA. This means someone could sue BOA for the house back. OR when we are ready to sell we won't be able to because we don't actually own the house. WTF? So far no one seems to have any clear idea what to do in this situation. Do we get our money back and clear out? Does BOA need to pay some damages to us and the previous owner? How do you fix this?We bought in good faith.

Hubby says that if the previous owner still legally holds title and pushes to take the house then we sue the ever loving heck out of BOA. BUT he wants to wait and see. I am more of the mind to want it fixed now. I am not liking this at all.

The Occupying pish-posh.

Those people drive me batty. I honestly haven't paid a tone of attention to them because their basic message is annoying. It is this whole "I am in a bad place because you made me that way" idea that has our country so screwed up. Do I think that Wall Street and other major entities suck? Sure do. Honestly I think they knew collapse was coming and padded their wallets and did nothing for the little people. I also think that if you refuse to take responsibility for your own mess you are stupid. We have 1 credit card. I pay 2 bills with it and then pay it off 2 weeks later. We have some debt. My car. The house. We actually did something we have never done and bought "toys". We got a loan for that as well. We pay above on all of them. Honestly except for the house (investment we hope, though Nevada sucks) we see them as credit builders so while we pay above the payment we don't rush to pay them off either. We chose our debt. My weekly budget is tight with the extra family in the house right now. We haven't put as much away as we wanted because feeding 7 is very different than 4. However we do not lack, we do not go without. We made choices that have us in the position we are in and we are content with that position. Hubby has been through layoffs. We find a way. We don't blame the man. He worked 2 jobs and I worked another and we rotated child care duties between us. We buckle down and we cut back and we improvise when we have to. We plan for leaner times. We don't expect someone to rescue us. We don't blame other's for our hard times. Yes layoffs happen at horrible times and put people in cruddy situations. Finding another job can be difficult. BUT that mound of credit card debt was a choice. The giant house you should never have bought was a choice. Figure out a new life solution. Get creative. Stop whining and start winning.

So dumbnuts....... SHUT UP. Put all that energy into something useful. Seriously.

People are cheering this little **** on?!

Last time I was cruising online, and figured I'd hit up CNN.com before heading to bed. One article that immediately caught my eye was about a small island not too far away. They have had a rash of problems due to a kid whose apparently made it his life goal to drive everyone in the small community to the point of a lynching.

This little idiot was first arrested at the age of 12 for burglary and was given the nickname "barefoot burglar" because he'd leave barefoot tracks in the business and vacation homes he terrorized. He's now graduated onto stealing and wrecking planes, including one that buzzed the Olympic No-Fly Zone before crash landing back on Orcas Island.

All of this seems odd to me, seeing as the kid grew up in the area, but well, it still isn't a large area. How hard could it be? Police put out a huge manhunt after his latest stunt (including helicopters, dogs and heat-signature equipment) but eventually scaled back and never caught a clue.

But the oddest part is, this kid has fans. No more than fans, he has a stinking cult following. He even has a fan club. Why would people want to encourage and support this guy?! He's not some freedom fighter, he's a punk ass kid full of teen-angst who apparently has a knack at getting out of sticky situations.

Today I looked around and read several articles, including his fan club site. I'm reading a lot of things about how he's ADHD, and very smart, but was raised by a single mom who is inattentive and blah blah blah. This in now way makes what he's doing okay. According to CNN, he is suspected of recently breaking into a grocery store for food and supplies. People were cheering the act on Facebook, saying to stick it to the man. The only man he's "sticking it to" is the owner of the small shop whose slept there every night since the intrusion.

Shame on you, Kid. And even more so, shame on your supporters.

WTF Part 3

I'm really starting to wonder who the hell is in charge of our Dept. Of Transportation, if they're even elected, and how the hell I can get them fired. Beyond that even, who looks at county road projects and says 'Ya' or 'Nay', because they are also on my list of people with whom I'm quickly losing patience.

I understand that our weather here isn't the most accommodating when it comes to road construction. We have 3 months of hot followed by 9 months of cold, sideways rain. Everything has to be squeezed into a horribly small time period. That doesn't excuse blatant stupidity. For example, in a very large flood early this year, a portion of road was washed out right outside town, but not on a 'main' route. It was hastily patched, and included a HUGE speed bump asphalt dump type thing. It stayed there for 7+ months. A friend mentioned the other day they had taken it out so I decided to drive out and take a look. They did take it out. They also left in its wake an unmarked section of (now) gravel about 10 feet long at the peak of a hill in a 50 mph zone with gullies on both sides. Smart, real smart.

Friday I drove out to the Logger's to check out the chickens and the garden and came to a section of road that had been completely torn out. It isn't even gravel anymore. It's just ungraded dirt. I drove, and drove and drove. By the end of it I realized they had torn out probably 6 miles or so of road. I'd swear it was longer, closer to 10. The road wasn't in amazing shape, but it worked. It's a back country road that's basically only used by the people who live on it or have a reason to be down there.

I asked around and found out that the county decided to remove a set of 'dangerous s-curves' somewhere in the middle of this mess. To do so, they had to buy out a portion of a family's hay field (that was full of hay). Apparently removing an asinine amount of road from each side was also required. Moreover, they did this prior to one of the hottest weekends of the year, when the road is actually traveled a lot because of its easy river access. Now it has huge potholes and they are going to have to re-grate it all before they do a thing to fix it.

The 'hazard corners' in question

There are a few things in this world that get my goat, but this sort of thing is one of them.