5 Things with only 4 Weeks Left in 2012

1. Recovery is going well with my surgically repaired left knee.  When I visited the doc last week for my post op he had pictures of the inside of my knee, just like he had for the right knee.  There were three large loose pieces of cartilage floating around and lots of other stuff that needed to be cleaned up.  Again, I’m bowlegged so the inside of the knee was bad, but the outside looked like new.  The other interesting thing was the last picture.  There were several loose pieces of cartilage, maybe 5 or 6 that came out of my knee immediately as they were draining the fluid.  Pretty bad, but all better now.

2. The Fiscal Cliff is all over the news this week.  Negotiations are happening, they aren’t happening.  The President has his plan, the Republicans have their plan.  Neither plan is close to acceptable to the other.  Every talking head has an opinion about it and a reason why they are right.  Here is my solution to the impasse.  Put them all in a room and tell them to figure it out before they can leave (no bathroom breaks either).  Tell them to only give us numbers for the next fiscal year, not 10 years.  No Congress passes a 10 year budget or is bound to a prior 10 year projection. They just do that so they can claim bigger cuts than reality.  Put a gag order on all those who are really making the decisions.  If you break the gag order, the other side gets one thing they want, no negotiations.  We’re tired of the posturing and politicking, we just finished a 2 year presidential campaign after all.

3. I also think the Congress and President should present a budget that looks much more like real budgets.  Lets give them no more than 10 categories of expenditures.  Each year they should show the projected revenue for the year and then the expenses with a total for each category.  Then compare that to previous years.  With built in increases each year, they will all take credit for cuts that look more like reduced increases in spending.  I think the American people deserve to see the raw numbers.  They don’t have to break down to great depth, but major categories help us understand what’s going on.

4. Christmas is only three weeks away!  That’s way too close!  Most of my shopping is actually done, because we bought some things early and most of it online.  But there are no decorations up at my house.  With the surgery last week I haven’t been able to get up to the roof to put on lights and we are never early buying our tree.  We are real tree people.  I grew up with allergies and so had to have artificial trees, but since I’ve gotten married Julie always wants a real tree and my allergies have never been affected #Godblessedme.  My plan is to get after all it this weekend.  Hopefully we’ll have some good weather and by the time the girls come home for Christmas the house will be decorated.

5. Dropped by phone today. 🙁  That’s usually not a big deal because I have a rubber case for it.  But today, as I was getting into my truck, I somehow squeezed my phone and it slipped out of the case and fell to the concrete.  The face is shattered.  So later I’m heading to the mall to see about getting a new glass on the face or to see if I qualify for an upgrade.  Is there an iPhone 5 in my future?