Starting Over

Many of my horse related friends have given me a hard time lately for quitting the horse business so I have decided to let everyone know exactly why and what I am up to know. I originally became a horse trainer because of the love that I have for horses. Not training, not showing and certainly not for the customers. I did it because I loved working with the horse itself. In case you've wondered it's not an easy way to make a living. You do it 24 hours a day. The work and the responsibility never ends. No vacations, no time off for holidays, and no such thing as taking a "snow day" when the weather is too bad. I have been very fortunate to have some really good horses to train. Most of them I hand picked, raised or bought right after they were started and they went on to have very successful show careers. Other times I had to ride some real shit just to pay the bills. Some customers are really great and worth the time, and some aren't worth the oxygen that they are breathing. They characteristically have little talent, little patience, and more often than not too little money. I have quit the horse business before and came back to it because It was all that I have ever done except for my time as a salesman. This time I won't be coming back. The last few years in the business I had become very unhappy with the direction that the AQHA was taking the industry. Yes I think they are directly responsible for the state the horse show industry is in today. I have always enjoyed showing. I've had two AQHA high point winning stallions. Both extremely talented and attractive individuals. I've thought for a long time that too many trainers were too abusive to their stock. They ride them too long, too hard, and beat them up too much. Partially because of unreasonable expectations and partially because the AQHA is unwilling to address the issue, and partly because their owners insist on winning at all costs. I believe we don't have to ride and show such difficult stock. If the pleasure horse industry can breed for traits that promote a level top line and flat kneed deep hocked movement, then they can also breed for traits that include a great mind. Anybody can beat a horse into submission. Very few can train one to perform because it wants too. There are very few true horsemen left, and even fewer training horses for the show arena. Two years ago while attending the AQHA world show my stallion was injured during the first finals event that he showed in. He made the finals in three other classes and I took him to the vet trailer for some help. One of the first questions I was asked by the vet was who are you? Will you get in trouble if we get him sound or are you one of the ones? I always believed that the AQHA would look the other way if you were a somebody. Now I was sure. I had a horse in the barn early in my training career that was an incredible individual. His only flaw was that he was really bad with his tail. I don't mean he used it a little bit, he used it like an Apache helicopter during evasive maneuvers. After winning several world championships and the superhorse award one year. He passed the tail test. I am here to tell you his tail was dead as a hammer. I knew then who you are was more important that what you did. After my experience with the vet trailer and the fact that when I tried to scratch one of my finals classes I had to saddle my horse up again and have the show veterinarian call him lame. Everyone in the warm up pen could tell he was three legged lame. But that wasn't good enough for the show superintendent. Even when the AQHA officials staging the class called up and said the horse is lame lets not saddle him again. I was told do saddle him anyway and have the Vet call him lame. Frankly I paid for the entry and if I choose not to show in the finals it should be allowed. As an industry professional I should be qualified to call a horse lame. I think I decided then and there that even when my horse was healed up I was done. The horse business should be about the horse. Not the rider, or the outfit, or the trainer.

I have taken every penny that I have left and started a new business. I studied, am still studying, purchased software, studied some more and jumped in way over my head to change my life. I've moved out of the way overpriced horse property that I was living in, cut my expenses, stopped racing my car, and moved into a little house in town with a great back yard and a pool that will cost me at least $900/month less that where I was. I am starting from scratch. I had a good friend who was one of the best customers that I ever had tell me one time that life was simple. If you're unhappy make a change. I used to reply "thats easy for you to say your rich" She replied if your really serious you'll find a way to make it happen and the money will come. Well Jane I hope you're right because I am making a change.

Congratulations Congress

Well I think that the investors in the United States and the NYSE have finally given up on the Congress. The congress has finally done it. They are well on their way to bankrupting the United States. They take a vacation but still want the unpaid FAA employees to show up everyday without pay to maintain employment integrity. Well I say bullshit. If I was an FAA employee I wouldn't show up for work again until I got paid. To hell with what the congress wants. I say shut this country down until those sorry elected officials get their heads out of their asses and either show up for work or resign. I am telling you. WE need to get together and get rid of all of them and things aren't going to get better until we do. The republicans are wanting to insure the economy stays in the shitter until after the election because they want to insure that Obama doesn't get elected again. Instead of taking the bull by the horns and doing the right thing they are just going to go on and screw everybody. I'm telling you its time to start marching and protesting. If we don't we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Recess

The senate had to hurry up and pass the debt ceiling bill on Monday because if not they would have had to work into their scheduled recess. That started me thinking about how much they were paid, and how much they actually worked. I decided to google it an find out. What I learned is interesting.

First. There doesn't seem to be an actual website that lists what they get paid. You can find the salaries, but not the benefits, then you can find the retirement pay, but not everything put together. My figures might not be accurate because they really don't admit how much they actually get paid. Basically the base salary earned is $174,000.00 per year. and every year they automatically get a cost of living increase unless they vote to stop it.

Second. The house has 10 weeks of scheduled recess and the senate has 13 weeks of schedule recess.

Third. There are no attendance rule for our elected officials.

People I am telling you they is now F*****g way we are getting our moneys worth. There are industries all across this country where people are working 80 hours a week and only getting two weeks vacation and they aren't getting paid $175,000.00 a year.

We do not have time to wait until the next election and vote in or out a new administration. We need to get active now and make our voices heard. If we don't take back our government we are going to let them destroy the way of life that we have become so comfortable with and worked so hard to preserve.

Civil Disobedience

I haven't blogged in a while, I've been busy sorting out the more important experiments in my life. I know that I complain and bitch a lot and sometimes you get tired of listening to me, but this time I have something that I think is important. We need to think about it and find a way to get together and make this happen.

I believe in American. It is a GREAT country. We have opportunities and liberties here that they don't have in other parts of the world. But I think we are in danger of losing some of the advantages that we have. I think it is the fault of the current administration, and most of the administrations that we have had in Washington for a long time. It is time that we get together as Americans, not democrats or republicans, tea party, or independents and come together as a country and make a statement.

There has been the million man march on Washington, Protest about Illegal Immigration, Millions of Americans walk for three days every year to stop breast cancer. Well we have a kind of cancer right now in Washington and it is eating away at the American way of life. Our voices are not being heard. Our elected officials are selling us out every day. All the talk of listening to the people and the bullshit of holding town hall meeting is a tragic joke they used to get elected and re elected. It's time we stood up as a people, the American people and walked down main street American and make our voices heard.

I propose the Main Street America March. Every CITIZEN takes a week day in November or December or even January, but we can't wait too long, and peacefully walks down the main streets of their towns for a day. From one end of main street to the other, from one end of America to the other. Protest have toppled governments and changed policy. It's time we took back our government and made our voices heard.

Start a conversation about this. Find out when its possible, stir up the passive and get them involved in the best form of government, and country in the world. There is no sense in bitching unless your willing to act. Pretty soon if we don't act. It will be too late.

The Vanishing America.

We used to take summer vacations when I was a kid. Unfortunately I didn’t realize how much that I enjoyed those trips until much later in life. When I became a horse trainer I had the opportunity to travel around America again. Small towns, farming towns, oilfield towns, Americana at it’s best. When I became a territory sales rep. I continued to travel around and see the United States. Recently I’ve taken another trip halfway across America and I’ve noticed some very disturbing trends. The America that I thought I knew and remembered is vanishing.

America is a beautiful country and it is slipping away right in front of us. Small towns are literally dying and disappearing right before our eyes. I traveled the back roads and secondary highways on my recent trips and good hardworking Americans are losing their businesses everywhere. Beautiful small town buildings are standing empty. Lonely and forlorn looking for new tenants. Some falling into disrepair and turning into empty monuments to what was once great about America. Small town churches are empty. There are no parishoners to sit in the pews on Sundays. Old car dealerships once majestic and exciting with full glass fronts filled with the latest in automotive splendor are sitting empty. Occupied only by memories and dust. I can only imagine what outstanding restaurants and local dress shops they would make. America was once a country of manufacturers, small town machinists shops and sporting goods stores, florists and grocers. It is the place we need to be again. There are brilliant people in America. Internet access gives them the power to communicate with the world. Banks need to start investing in the real American, instead of putting all their interest in a housing and real estate market that is largely hollow investments and manufactured values. We are building some of the best quality cars in the world again. America started the internet revolution and it’s time that we used it to our advantage.

There are hard working Americans in these small towns, and they are fighters.

They are fighting the economy, fighting to keep the family farm alive, the family diary, tire shops and gas stations with small town mechanics hoping for a good holiday travel season so they can afford to pay the bills the rest of the year. They work 16 hour days for $12.00/hour or less. Show up every day rain or shine and keep us Americans rolling. They work in the oilfields carrying 85# chains and hot oily pipe. Pumping salt water and smelling sulphur all day long. At the end of the day they go home to solid homes to their wives and children. There are some beautiful old motels that should be remodeled and returned back to their former glory, who says staying at a big motel chain is the way to go. Some of the most popular motel chains in the United States aren’t even owned by Americans. I mean American companies. There are plenty of American owned motels that are struggling to survive.

I think it’s time that we started to take back our country and our economy. Use our collective voices and buying power. Write our congressmen, our newspapers, our t.v. stations and demanded that we pass legislation that supports and promotes American owned businesses. We can’t tax our way out of this depression. We need to industrialize our country again, build and invent and produce our way back into the worlds leading economy. We have the power to educate ourselves out of this mess that we are in. We have the natural resources available to produce the best products in the world. We need to bring our manufacturing jobs back home. Irregardless of pricing. If we build a better product, there will be demand, and that means proper wages and incomes. We need to buy American. If we were to produce and buy products made right here we could support our own economy. We don’t have to increase our exports although that would be great too, but producing goods made right here in American would go a long way to reducing our trade deficit. We need to make our own tennis shoes, boots, under wear. We produce cotton right here in farming regions all across the southwest. We should be producing cotton garment here instead of shipping the raw materials off to some foreign country to be processed and manufactured and then shipped back here for our consumption.

The European countries have higher tax rates than ours and their economies are struggling just as ours or worse. They are fighting their governments, their banks, and each other just to stay afloat.

Lucky

Yesterday was Monday. I worked in the office until a little after 1pm and then went to lunch before working out of the office in the afternoon. I thought I was lucky because I wanted to eat at Paradise Bakery and they are usually very busy. I don't like to wait in line for food. Monday was no exception but without the line. I lucked out and found a place to sit in the crowded dining room next to a couple of young women. I was close enough to hear their conversation and being the nosy bastard that I am I ate my lunch in silence, you know that is hard for me, and listened to their conversation. They were talking about their mothers day weekend and their plans for the summer. One womans side of the conversation went like this. Her husband didn't fire up the pool heater soon enough in the week and the pool was still too cold to swim in when they had their bbq on Saturday. So it was too hot outside. 97, and the pool was too cold. Mothers day was a real hard day for her as well because her mother hates his mother and so they had brunch with his mother and then dinner with hers. The regular baby sitter couldn't make it to watch the kids at dinner and so they hired a substitute baby sitter which her daughter didn't like so they just took the kids to mothers day dinner with her mother and it was a nightmare. The thing that was most upsetting for her is the fact that the nanny that they used last year can't work for them this summer because she has to take care of her sick father instead. She doesn't know what to do, when the kids are out of school for the summer. The husband wants her to keep them at home a couple days a week, but she isn't really up to that so she is looking frantically for a new nanny. They usually take a summer trip without the kids and she is really afraid that they will have to cancel if they can't find a new nanny. I sat there and realized just how lucky I was not to have her difficult life. A trip without the kids. How nice. I usually have to take my kids on trips, My three dogs, they are part of my family and frankly I like taking them with me. I can't imagine feeling the contempt for my dogs that she feels for her kids. She has two of them I think. You will all be proud of me that I didn't say anything to her. I wanted to slap her with a carp. I think she needs to be lucky enough to wake up some morning on the north coast of Japan so she can see how lucky she really is.

Disappointment in Others.

First, I had a great weekend. Second, people continually disappoint me. I fully realize that I let them disappoint me, but it still happens. Sometimes I still think I'm right. I watched someone I respect struggle this weekend, and it wasn't their fault. I watched uncountable ego's in action this weekend and that wasn't a disappointment because most of them acted exactly like I thought they would. I watched the owner of one of the clubs that I race with run the club this weekend pretty much like I believed he has all the time, as his own personal private playground with little or no regard for the members actually paying the bills. I hate cheaters, I always have, I have to believe that someday they will actually get caught. The Corvette club was fast this weekend, and Corvettes were very well represented. C4's,C5's and C6's 14 in all, Probably the best represented aside from the Porsche's.