this weeks 5 things i'm thankful for

1. Dillon Music - The whole team at Dillon music is AWESOME. Some very good friends and musicians there help to keep me up with the latest and greatest gear, and advice on all sorts of things related to music. My time there was invaluable and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

2. Anthony Wise - New Lesson teacher. Young, hip, killer player, and it's looking like he's going to be good for me as far as tromboning goes.

3. Iphone - Call me shallow if you want, the iphone is a phenomenal tool that helps me keep in touch with friends, schedule work, remind me of things I would most certainly forget otherwise, and it keeps me entertained with things like Coindozer and I do not apologize for that.

3b. Facetime - AWESOME way to keep in touch with friends/family and see their bright and shining faces!

4. I'm thankful for my desire to workout more and get rid of some of this tummy tum tum.

5. I'm thankful to have an aggressive horn player as part of my quintet. They are usually not. Or if not that, it's always something.

So many things I want to type now!! But I must go. It's time to learn.

5 things

In a recent study (that my mom ran across) - some researchers found that those who wrote down 5 things they were thankful for each week during a 12 week survey, were more successful at achieving their goals that they had set at the beginning of the study, and were also healthier during the course of it. So here goes:

1. I'm thankful for my wife. She takes care of me, organizes my mess that I manage to create for us, and does all this while staying fit, and working on her own fashion line.

2. I'm thankful for the Navy band. I have a job where I play trombone, and that's about it. I have better benefits than any civillian performing job out there, and my salary is greater than most of them also.

3. I'm thankful for realizing that finance was not the field I wanted to go into, and heading back into music. I think i'm much happier because of it.

4. I'm thankful for the finance job I DID have when we first got married, cause it gave me a good wake up call to get my finances in order.

5. I'm thankful for XBOX live. Laugh all you want, this helps keep me connected and enjoy a past time with a few of my very best friends.

Till next time!

I found where cuts should be made....

Salary of retired US Presidents .............$180,000 FOR LIFE
Salary of House/Senate ........................$174,0​00 FOR LIFE
Salary of Speaker of the House ............$223,500 FOR LIFE
Salary of Majority/Minority Leaders ......$193,400 FOR LIFE
Average Salary of a teacher ..................$40,065
Average Salary of Soldier DEPLOYED IN AFGHANISTAN $38,000
I think we found where the cuts should be made!

Now you may say - that's not comparing apples to apples, that's not a soldiers/sailors retirement. Yeah - it'll never be that much until they reach flag officer level...and that takes more than 4 years. try at least 5 times as long.

And also - their job is no more serious or important to our national safety/advancement/integrity. It's BULL.

And they will not point the finger at themselves first. They point it at military retirement. At medicaid. At welfare. At hard-working, high-earning Americans.