Anonmity Anymamity Anonymidity... that is, Anonymity

All super heroes wear a mask to protect their identity. I don't claim to be a super hero, but I do think that protection of one's self and family are essential.

This is why many choose to have a private blog. But, with a private blog it is such a hassle to add new viewers to your blog.

For this reason I use the pseudonyms of Mrs. and Dr. Joe.

I do welcome people we know and trust follow to our blog, but do request that these people not write comments that indicate who we are.

Mrs. Joe is quite knowledgeable in the area of internet security and has often told me the damage that can be done in terms of identity theft, credit card fraud, etc. when personal information is found in the wrong hands. Information such as birthday, name, address, and names of family members.
Here is a link to the U.S. department of Justice's website. Which contains additional information of internet fraud.
To quote the Incredibles, " Your identity is your most valuable possession"

Mrs. Joe

Yes, there is a Mrs. Joe.
She is the best part of my life. (if you would prefer to skip a cheesy but true husbands description of his wife you may wish to skip half way down the page) She is my truest friend and greatest confidant. She is beautiful and humble. Strong and giving. Wise and kind. And I really could go on.
I do not know if anyone is jealous of the love and relationship we have, but I think they should be. Not that people do not have what we have, but that what we have is so good, how could any sensible person not want it?

Perhaps you have heard the song, till there was you, from the musical the music man. Or heard one of the many covers over the years. This music describes very well what my wife has meant to me. So much of life and living was opened to me as she entered my life.


Before Mrs. Joe, I would hear a song and the words and the melodies would not have any great significance to me. I liked music, but I did not fully hear what was being said. This among many thing changed as I met, fell in love with and married my loving wife. Music gained a new importance as being the only medium that could correctly express the feeling and emotions that come from love.

We are not perfect and we have many things we have to work at and improve upon. But, I am happy to say my life has a wonderful depth and meaning to it because of her.

I plan on sharing my forever with her.

I invite anyone to respond. Do you hear bells on a hill? Do you have a relationship that makes you better, stronger, or brings meaning to your life and purpose to your actions? Do you have a song which so very well describes your relationship with someone special? This does not even have to be a romantic relationship, just a relationship that makes you more than you ever would be alone. I would love to hear about it.

To Prius or not to Prius?

Have you had the chance to see one of these go by and feel a pang of guilt because you fill your gas tank up twice a week? Should you mortgage your now even less valuable home to afford this green planet-saving car?

One resource claims no. The Recorder an online newspaper, claims that you are better off buying a Hummer over a Prius in terms of how much environmental damage you will do to the environment. They rationalize this claim due to the costly and surprising non-green production inputs of the Prius. They further claim that when comparing the energy spent over the vehicle production and life of the car, a Hummer would use 50% more energy. This is largely based on the 100,000 mile predicted battery life span of the Prius and the environmental costs associated with the battery's production. Check out the article, here. (I am not making a statement as to resources' concreteness)

Not convinced, I don't know if I am either, but I am also not convinced that the Prius is all that it is cracked up to be. I guess what I am saying is that there are always two sides to everything. I find too many people buy into the idea that being green means you own a Prius.

I personally believe that the Prius is a wonderful invention and although I do not think it is the lean green machine everyone thinks it is, I am certain that its production moves car industries in the right direction.

SO ANYWAYS.... I have been thinking about how "cool" it is to own and drive a Prius. Or at least how cool everyone thinks it is. Which has led me to design some new amazing Prius merchandise! So you think your green when your driving car? What about when you leave your car? How will people know your green to the bone? Which is why I've designed this super cool green Prius belt.

The belt not only holds up your pants but gives off low CO2 emissions.


What about for you ladies out there, how can you show your green pride if a belt is not your thing? Well with Prius earnings!

Won't you be popular when people know you are environment friendly enough to buy earrings that run on completely natural energy.

Works for all occasions:
Fancy black tie dinner? You bet!
Sporting event? Of course!
Tying the knot? Don't worry they come in white too!

What to do?

This is the start of my very own blog. I am creating this blog to allow myself the opportunity to talk and discuss whatever it is I feel like talking about. I may discuss worthwhile issues, I may comment on things that bother me or are just plain fascinating. This blog will not be for everyone and in fact it will mostly be just for me.
I am unsure if the female population does this, but men when they congregate they discuss things of no particular importance to anyone but those involved in the conversation. To outsiders the discussions appear to be merely off the wall ideas and pointless debates, to those inside the group, it becomes a fraternity of complex thoughts and equitable philosophy. I hope this blog can be another such place.
Most men do not need to always do something, they are happy enough just to talk about it. If you ask a guy to take out the trash he is just as likely to take it out, as he is to try and start a discussion about the optimal shape and design of trash bags in general. And so, I invite people everywhere and anywhere to share in this blog, send me topics you would like to discuss and I hope this can be a great resource for those who enjoy conversations ranging from electric cars to political issues to great movie quotes and good ideas that we have that we will never really implement.
P.S. I am not a doctor, I am not even a Joe (we can discuss this later)

Swine Flu

And what a better way to start blogging then by talking about the Swine flu nuttiness, so I ask:

What is this Swine Flu (H1N1) madness?

Have people gone crazy? Perhaps people are just bored. Why is there so much hype?

I do not follow the news and yet all I hear is about the upcoming pandemic. This is what I have heard:

(How could these cute guys cause so many problems? You know they most likely have to deal with people flu pandemics more often then we deal with the swine variety)

Source: A personal physician

Informed us that Swine flu is less deadly than the regular flu. People who die from this are usually the chronically ill who might have died from the regular flu. For most people this disease will take its course in 5 days. 30,000 people die each year as a result of the "regular" flu.

From gawker.com, which I can not vouch for: this website mentions that in 1976 we had a similar 'Swine flu' the NYT headlines:February 20, 1976:" U.S. Calls Flu Alert On Possible Return Of Epidemic's Virus; U.S. FLU ALERT SET ON EPIDEMIC VIRUS" Then the next month Gerald Ford, the president at this time, asks Congress for $135 million to try to create a vaccine, Congress approves the money and a new vaccine is created. The new vaccine ends up being linked with Guillain-Barre Syndrome and use of the vaccine is canceled.

What this tells us is that: first, a cure might be worse than the disease and second, the use of the words 'Pandemic' and 'Epidemic' quickly inspire fear in the populace. One thing that is clear is these words allowed a large sum of money to be approved by Congress to be quickly spent to try and fix something which just naturally went away anyway. This is what makes me worry, is this buttering us up to approve some other Congress budgetary issue which will have a similar response? That is, it will do nothing. Or perhaps, as Mrs. Joe has suggested, this is getting people ready to accept whatever health related piece of legislation that Congress or the President wants approved. Such as... universal health care?

Although I am not a big fan of universal health care, perhaps if the government consolidates it's services to be in the same building, we can wait in the same line for stamps, driver's licence renewals and the routine checkup! Imagine the convenience!

What this says to me is that we as a people need to not be so quick to run like lemmings off of the side of the cliff. The media has been quick to make this into as big of a story as possible and the media is only a reaction of the population, meaning that if we make a big deal of a small thing, so will they.

***Swine Flu Update http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/04/swine.flu.main/index.html?eref=rss_topstories