Daniel J. Summers » Charter Member of the VRWC

I found an excellent series of posts entitled “What is a Liberal?” In the first installment, Mr. Freeberg sets up three scenarios, then describes what the liberal and conservative solution would be to each. In parts two and three, he recounts reactions and things that have happened since his initial post. (Part III has some language in it that may be offensive - you have been warned.)

I had originally planned to post something on the 4th of July, but that day came and passed with little time. So, a week later, I thought I would post it less as an Independence Day item and more of just a general item.

I am currently out of the county - have been for about two months, with another two months to go. In my day to day life, I tried to be appreciative of people and things, but this has given me a perspective that I didn’t have. There are four or five of us that work together, and on the 4th, we were all down. We missed our families, and we missed our country. We didn’t see any fireworks, no parades with American flags, no concerts, no cookouts, no little kids in cute, patriotic outfits.

I’m not looking for pity - I’m doing what I swore an oath to do, and am fortunate to have not had to do it before now. What I am saying, though, is to stop and think about the familiar things in your life. Do you hug or kiss your spouse before or after work? Do your kids shout “Daddy!” and come running to you, and almost knock you over because they’re happy that you’re home? Do you get to sit down at a table with your family and eat? Do you wear a t-shirt that has the American flag on it? Do you pick up the phone and call your friends? Do you go to church with your family on Sunday mornings?

These are all things that I would be doing this summer, were I still at home. And, they’re also some of the things that I’m missing (though there are many, many other things as well). So, for my sake - make that hug or kiss count. Fall over and roll around in the floor and tickle those kids. Talk to those people sitting around the dinner table with you, and thank the Lord that you can display or even wear the flag without making yourself a target. Go to church, hang out with your friends, go to the grocery store, mow the grass, take a walk with your family - then ask yourself how you might feel if you could not do those things. I can tell you how I feel - it’s not good, and it’s the reason I’m taking the time to post this here.

Carpe diem is not just for intellectuals or party-hearty-ers. Enjoy the people in your life, and the things with which you have been blessed. Take that little extra time to take in the things you enjoy, and let the people who mean the most to you know that. You never know when you may not have the chance again.

Those of you who visit regularly may notice something different about this site. The last time I did a major upgrade, I upgraded to use something that I had written. There were still a lot of features that I wanted, but didn’t have time to write. Finally, a few weeks ago, I was looking around at some of the packages offered by my hosting company, and it hit me - why waste time writing something when packages exist that will do what I want?

So, this is what I’ve got for now. I’m using an open-source blog generating tool to run the site, and it has all the features I was going to build - the ability to leave comments, a way to search all the posts, and a way to arrange the posts into categories. As far as the look, I was going to try to make it look the same, and just use this tool to manage it. I may still do that, but designing a theme for this package is more than I have time to tackle at the moment. Besides, I’d rather put my time into the content of the site. (This is my first post since mid-March…)

Another feature that this has is RSS feeds. These let you “subscribe” or make an “active bookmark”, then you’re notified whenever there’s a new post. There are feeds built in for the main blog itself, the comments, and each of the main and subcategories. I hope that this will allow me to write a bit more frequently, and this will keep you from having to check back if you’re curious as to what I’ve said recently.

The old site still exists - it’s at http://www.djs-consulting.com/old_personal/, and will be for the foreseeable future. I will be importing the older posts as I have a chance - I’ve brought over a few, but they don’t look quite the way I want them to, so it looks like I’ll have some cleaning up to do.