The Concoctions of Chris 

We're Moving!!

Well, after not being able to keep this thing updated the way I should, I'm calling it quits......kinda. I've now moved my thoughts to a collective blog/newsletter called Absolute Opinion. Check it out!

Election Musings

Well, it's finally over. I, for one, am glad; frankly I was tired of it. But, it was during this time that I saw the greatness of America and yet at the same time I saw the weakness of America.

George W. Bush will be our President for the next four years. He received a surprising mandate from the American people with the most votes of any Presidential candidate in our nation's history. Not only did he repeat in the electoral college win; but he also was the first President to have over half of the nation's populus voting for him in over 16 years! (Yes that even includes the Democrat Godfather Clinton) Surprising from the most divisive leader in American history. But anyway about the weekness and the strengths of this country.

I opened the editorial section of my local paper and instead of finding a Kerry for President advertisiment (like I had grown used to over the last year) I found a "I can't believe Kerry isn't President" advertisement. Articles about being "utterly ashamed of my country" and "I hope America remembers this collosall mistake when Bush blows up America" littered the pages. Can't we get over it and go on? All you liberals talk about is unity and how President Bush is a divider and yet you can't even let 24 hours go by without spewing vitriotic hatred. I understand it during a campaign when emotions are high and you want to win but now? Now, when we have troops in harms way who need our help and unity together to win the war on terror. Why does it always have to be "We hate Bush's guts!" all the time. Can we give it up?

Well, that was the bad; how about the good? I went to the polls early Tuesday morning and was struck by something very simple and yet profound at the same time. It was here that I was greeted by the normall friendly poll workers that always seem to be there giving a helping hand. It was there that I saw neighbors, some familiar, some not. I saw those like a family friend, a staunch Democrat, standing by his Jeep with a friendly smile. It was here that I found a sense of community; a sense of commonness. We were all in the same boat; feeling the pride of doing our civic duty......together. It didn't seem to matter that my neighbor was a diehard Democrat and I was a red-blooded Christian conservative. There was a sense of commrodory (sp?) and community. We shared friendly conversation and a few laughs. The division of the campaign seemed so far away. Could this be what still makes America great? Could our leaders learn a lesson from the people they serve? Maybe.

The DNC Rendell Disenfranchisment Machine

I don't know how many of you are aware of the situation going on with PA's absentee and overseas ballots, but in a nutshell, our Democrat Governor is standing in the way of allowing the US Justice Department to extend the deadline for overseas deadline due to the Democrats legal wrangling over Ralph Nader being on the ballot. Many districts decided to take a wait-and-see approach on the legal case before sending out their ballots. Most of them waited too long and now thousands and thousands of military and overseas ballots WILL NOT BE COUNTED. Our great senator, Rick Santorum is going to bat for our military and missionaries, fighting for their right to vote. He has been ridiculed and made fun of by our slimeball governor for "not knowing the issue." Rendell told Santorum mockingly that he could not even come up with two names of disenfranchised PA voters. I CAN, AND THEY ARE MY CHURCH'S OWN MISSIONARIES who will not have their votes counted because of the partisanship of our governor!! I, for one, am extremely angered by this and have contacted both Senator Santorum and Governor Rendell to voice my "concern" and I suggest that everyone else do the same. The governor's phone number is (717) 787 2500. You can also call Santorum's office and voice your support for his fighting for the state of PA. I am utterly disgusted by the actions of our governor and I'm not going to let him get away with this!! Maybe instead of calling people encouraging them to vote straight democrat, he should spend time mkaing sure the voters of his state are counted. It is time that we STAND UP and FIGHT for our missionaries and our servicemen. If there ever was a time to fight, it is NOW! Do it for our brave servicemen who are fighting for our freedom; do it for our missionaries who are standing in the gap for us. Do it for them!! This election is dependent upon our actions. I can't stress this enough!

IT'S TIME TO STAND AND FIGHT!!

Olympic Beef

OK, so I'm watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony (yea - I do have that much time to blow) I do have to admit I channel surfered during the extremely stupid parts, but kudos for the fireworks at the end. Pretty cool. Anyway, I'm here relaxing when something really gets to me. All throughout the march of nations, much was made about the reception of the Americans, given the "world's disapproval" of the Iraqi Liberation. And you know what, I'm fine with that. They have the right to voice their opinion. (And BTW, the Greeks gave the Americans a very warm response) But this worldwide pandering is disgusting. We take the flags out of our athletes hands in an effort to soften our approach!?! After all we don't want offend anyone with our flag. OH PLEASE! Give me a break. Then comes my my major beef as the Iraq delegation marches in; the crowd gives a rousing welcome; and the announcers talk about what a great sports story this is and how much of a victory this is for Iraq and for the Olympics. OK, OK, I'm fine with that. But, excuse me, hello, anyone there; why is this not a victory for the US? Why are not these Iraqis a tribute to the Military of the United States? All we can talk about is how the world disaproves and how great it is to have Iraq back in the Olympics. You've got to be kidding me!! Can't anyone connect the dots? Why is it a crime to praise America? Why? I guess we'd rather have the Iraqi team tortured by Udai for not winning enough medals. I guess that is what the world wants; and without the US it'd be happening. Can't we be proud of America or is that somehow a violation of IOC regulations? Give America some credit, will ya??

Oh, and uh, while were on Olympic beefs, what's is with these communist country names? We all know about the People's REPUBLIC of China, but the REPUBLIC of Cuba and Lao People's DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC??? Come on! Who you guys trying to fool?

Camp

Went to camp as a counselor; there ain't nothin like it. Sleeping on a damp pillow on a moldy, soggy mattress in a cabin that was probably built by one of the three little pigs. Didn't one of those guys use sticks?? Anyway, I really did enjoy it. The best experience has got to be launching water balloons from atop a huge rock onto the campers trying to cross the river on make-shift rafts. Bombs away! That was fun! Of course, being the jailor in the underground church game was pretty cool too. Food was good, preachin was good, and to top it off three of my guys from my cabin got saved! It was truly a great week.

A Week in the Life of Chris Gable (continued)

Monday - July 5 - Got to sleep in till 9 (no work because of the holiday) Met a bunch of friends and went to Gettysburg for a little history roadtrip. It was quite an experience; although quite tiring. There's is nothing like driving through a battlefield listening to the soundtrack of Gettysbirg and God's and Generals on the stereo.....OK, maybe it's just me.
Tuesday - July 6 - After work I met up with the guys from my singing group and drove a couple of hours to the Lackawana County stadium where we were scheduled to sing the national anthem for a Red Barons baseball game. Except for our bass being a little late, things went really well, and the people really seemed to enjoy it. Watched the game afterwards with about 40 friends and family. The game went 12 innings, so it was another late night-12:00AM to be exact.
Wednesday - July 7 - Not too eventfull, although I found out that one of my friends sisters was struck by a car in a hit-and-run accident. She suffered some pretty severe injuries including a fracture skull. Thankfully, though, it looks like she will make a full recovery. You can read the police report here.
Thursday - July 8 - At the encouraging of a friend, I voluteered to be part of the event staff for President Bush's visit to Kutztown University on Friday. I was told to be on campus at 7:00 that night to meet with the secret service and the advanced appearence team to get my assignment. Needless to say, I had no idea what to expect. After listening to the possible jobs (including one as a rally squad member who would surround any would-be hecklers, surround them, and drown 'em with cheers of their own)I chose to be a human arrow, because I thought it would keep me in the arena so I could at least see the speech. Tomorrow would be an iteresting day.
Friday - July 9th - Had to get up at 5:30 in order to get to the university by the required time. Check out the pictures I signed in, got a really cool ID badge, and went through security into the arena. As it turns out, my assignment put me right next to the path that the President would walk to the podium. The campaign bus finally arrived at the arena at 11:00, and sure enough he walked right by me and on top of that he shook my hand! That was awesome! I think I said something really stupid like "How are you, Mr. President?" but, honestly I don't remember. The speech that he gave was excellent; he was really on top of his game, and I sat about 15 feet away from him the whole time. What an experience! I thought about not ever washing my right hand again, but eventually decided not to. Maybe next time. :-)
Saturday - July 10 - So what's next? After quite an eventful week, Saturday included fertilizing the grass and waxing my car......OK, OK maybe my life was returning to normal again. Good thing, though.....I don't know if I would have enough energy to keep up.

A Week in the Life of Chris Gable

Normally I don't like to write about myself, but after the prodding of a friend and the host of happenings this past week, I have decided to make an exeption. But, don't worry, this should only happen on very rare occasions. My life, normally, is pretty boring. Work, sleep, church, and a little TV; you know the routine, but this week....well, it was different. Let's just start with Friday the 2nd.

Friday, July 2nd - I met with a friend after work to finish up work on a 10 minute movie that was to be shown on Sunday. Read the script here. This was exciting. Things had finally come together with some tremendous results. One of these days, we'll get it posted somewhere and you'll see what I mean.
Saturday - July 3rd - My sister rustled me out of bed, cutting into my normal Saturday sleep in time. I had agreed to go with her to her friends graduation in Harrisburg. Well, we eventually did go, and for the most part it was pretty fun. Well, except for the graduation part; it was 3 hours long. Ugh! And some of the fellow grauduates...talk about strange! How could anyone find enjoyment in studying social insects their senior year? Some of these homeschoolers need to get out more. Anyway, I digress. And BTW, we came home to see that our pool had exploded dumping about 15,000 gallons of water on our nieghborhood! Whoops.
Sunday, July 4th - Wow! Talk about a long day! It started at 6am, my normal wake-up time on a Sunday. It didn't end till I got home the next morning at 1:15am! We had special services at our church under the tent. For the morning service, I sang in the choir and showed our video. For the most part everything went off without a hitch. Then came the afternoon service. My quintet was scheduled to sing the national anthem and I was supposed to preach. Much to my surprise, they decided to start the service early leaving our group to show up late and leaving me with no time to clear my head and prepare to preach. Add to the fact that I had laid down my notes somewhere and didn't know where to find them. By this time I'm out of breath and starting to pull my hair out. Thankfully, I found my notes and, much to my surprise (and the alot of prayer, I might add) it went really well. Afterwards, we started a volleyball tournament. Normally I enjoy that except for the fact that my team stunk and we only managed to win 2 games in the four hours that we played. Needless to say, I was pretty tired and ready to head home and relax a bit, but that never came to fruition. At the prodding of some friends I agreed to go to Bethelehem to see the fireworks. It turned out to be and awesome experience. Check out some pictures. There was a large group of about 20 of us plus some international students from Lehigh University! I had never been closer to the launch site in all my life. Talk about loud! We then hung around on campus playing the game "Mobsters" with the international students and interestingly enough had a policeman stop by and join in. It was hillarious! It was getting late, so we decided to head out; I stumble into my house at about 1:15. What a day!
OK, now it's getting late, I promise to write more later.

Bush Ad Reaction Just Plain Stupid

All this crap reaction about the Bush ads is really getting under my skin. Here was a tasteful ad that was extremely well done. It emphasized how America came together and weathered the storm. When I first saw it, it made me proud to be an American. It was not negative nor was it an attack ad. So, when I first saw these partisan family members parading this criticism across the airwaves, I was shocked. My opinion is that America NEEDS to see images of September 11th to remind us of the events. It is my belief that America has forgotten the danger that exists out in the world. This political correctness crap is blatently partisan and disgusting. September 11 happened, GET OVER IT!! And like it or not, President Bush provided the strength and the leadership that this country needed. It was he who provided a strong and steady hand in a very turbulent time in our history. I will never forget the image of this President standing on a heap of rubble with his arm around a weary firefighter rallying other firefighters who could only cheer and wave American flags as a response. I just do not understand this "outrage" .....well, except for the fact that it was just a ripe opportunity to to pot shots at our President. It's just plain stupid.

Marriage

Allot has been said about this whole gay marriage thing and marriage in general. Right now we got two snot-nosed pompous mayors running around out there breaking their own state laws all in the name of **LOVE**. Ah, what a beautiful thing. I want to puke right about now. Seriously, this whole movement is shaking the very foundations of our society. Marriage is an institution begun by God (not the government or any stupid mayor for that matter) as a way to supply meaningful family structure for the population of this earth. It has functioned adequately for over 6,000 years. I am not at all saying that it hasn't had its problems especially when we screw it up with divorce and remarriage. I am saying that this very movement places us on a dangerous path whose end in unimaginable. If marriage is just "a loving relationship" as the gay movement claims, why not have marriage be between brothers and sisters, adults and children, mutiple wives, or even multiple husbands." Why not? You tell me. Where does this end? My point is that if you redefine marriage to be whatever you want, it will cease to be marriage period. The very foundation of our society will be eroded away. We have already begun that erosion will divorce and remarriage, I guess this is just the next step.

OK....Let's Start at the Beginning

It has become abuntly clear to me over the past few days that I need to clear things up a bit. After a post that I was forced to delete when a bent-out-shape responder commented using profanity and insults, I realized that it is something I must address. This blog is not supposed to be serious but fun. It will include a host of sarcasm and poking fun. It is for others' enjoy enjoyment. If you are easily offended by sarcasm; go somewhere else to get your blog-reading enyoyment. If by chance you do get offended by something posted here........PLEASE, get a life, it's just a blog. Oh, and one more thing, keep the profanity to yourself, I don't need to hear it and you don't need to write it.