Crank It Up...

All good things come to an end eventually, and my vacation is sadly no different. Christmas and New Year's were great, with lots of family, food, friends, and all the usual fun-ness that you would expect. But, now it's time to get back into the grind; I'm glad I had the foresight to end my vacation on a Friday, so it shouldn't be too bad. ;)

At this time of year, it's common to reflect a bit on the past year, the upcoming year, and life in general. To that end, I can honestly say that I'm glad to see 2008 go away. A close family member of my wife had a stroke and subsequently passed away, one of our dogs (the one my wife bought before we got married) died, and our third child was also taken from us before we had a chance to meet him.

Quite frankly, I've had enough death for a very, very long time.

Despite all of this, we look around us every day and realize just how blessed we are. It is incredible - our needs are met and then some, we have good jobs, our children are beautiful, our families and friends are wonderful...it makes me wonder how we got so lucky.

There are many reasons, of course, but a big one is the simple fact that we live in America. Despite all its nasty warts and obvious flaws, America is still the best place in the world to be. There is nowhere else that offers so much opportunity, freedom, and blessing to those who are willing to work hard and give life everything they've got.

Over the holidays, a number of people asked me what I thought of the election results. My standard response was that we got what we thought we wanted, but that it won't turn out to be as advertised. I stand by that. I think that the next 2-4 years will be a series of ugly light bulb moments as Americans realize that what they thought they were getting in their elected leaders is very different from what they got. I think that there will be an inevitable backlash against the radical Left agenda of the incoming administration and Congress, and there are only two questions: how fast will it happen, and how severe will it be? If the Obama-Reid-Pelosi trifecta try to push their agenda too hard too fast, it'll be a serious blowback that will put Republicans (assuming they fall back to their conservative roots) back into leadership of the House, at a minimum. If the trifecta moves more slowly, they could ooze along for significantly longer before being busted by the American public.

I can honestly say that I would be thrilled to be dead wrong about what I expect from Obama and the Dem-controlled Congress, because that would mean they're actually doing good things for America.

Time will tell, but 2009 will be a big indicator year. Let's crank it up and get busy!