Urgent Need For Some Friends of Ours

Dear Friends,

Rosetta and I have some friends by the name of Chad and Autumn Van Cleave. They have three small kids and live in Cameron, TX. Below I'll tell you whats going on with them, but their immediate need is someone who would be willing to trade about 4 hrs a day of work in return for room and board (they can't pay in money). My understanding is that it would involve basic things like dressing the kids, making lunch, and then getting the kids down for a nap.

Now for whats going on with them. Chad recently went to the hospital with what appeared to be a heart attack. After investigation it turned out to be a virus that damaged a significant amount of heart muscle. The doctor has told him he needs to be on complete rest for 6 months. This would be possible except for the fact that around the same time Autumn has been diagnosed with something similar to chronic fatigue, only it effects her body in other ways too. The result is that she can't really work around the house either. I don't pretend to know everything about their conditions, but they're pretty serious.

The result is that Chad is doing all the day to day work around the house. This is not allowing his heart to heal but right now they do not have an alternative. Fortunately, he is self employed so if he can get someone to help around the house, he can direct his energies to working again and get some money coming in for the family. The work he does is rather low energy and low stress so thats not a problem, but he has no time for it at present due to household duties.

First of all, please pray for them. Second of all, please distribute this email to your friends who are local to Central Texas. The sooner they can find someone to help around the house the sooner they can get back on track both health wise and financially.

Name Change

Some of you will have noticed that now that I've decided to start using this blog, I changed the name to "A Libertarian in Exile". This is a take off on Sean Hannity's calling himself a conservative in exile.

This is an apt description considering that we're all about to get steamrolled by liberal socialistic policies for the next four years and they won't even ask for our input since they have such control of the government.

Hang on for the ride folks. It's not going to be pleasant.

HDTV

I decided a few weeks ago to take the plunge and upgrade to HDTV. It was great for the stations that I already had a strong signal for, but those that had been fuzzy were now either unavailable or so choppy it wasn't worth watching.

I got fed up with it today and started looking around for a commercial antenna to purchase that was better than rabbit ears. I found out that not only would I have to order it, but it was going to be more than I wanted to spend (minimum $70, more by the time I bought cable and what not).

I then did a seach for building your own, and found the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQhlmJTMzw

Believe it or not, it works great. It is directional, so in my case I have the boom facing north and I now get a beautiful signal on all the local stations. I did put it on my roof to get it up higher, and also it seems to need to be horizontal, not vertical. Project cost about $20 and took just over an hour.

Update

Well, we finally joined a church. Its been quite a while that we've been looking for one, but finally settled at Grace Community Church in Waco (www.gracewaco.com)

I'm still working at Sprint, and so glad that I chose to go there. Advantage Rent A Car, who I used to work for, shut down operations in Temple on July 11. I saw the handwriting on the wall, but I just didn't think it would be quite that fast.

We finally finished remodeling our house. The back room got a new roof, drywall on the ceiling, paint and tile. The kitchen also was re-tiled. I have to get all the stupid glue removed from our hardwood floors. I still cant believe that anyone would put carpet over those floors. We're happy to have the house back in somewhat of an order.

I'm going to try to post more often. I like movies and I may start posting my thoughts on them as I watch them. We'll see. All posts related to Sierra will be posted on her blog at http://sierrarose-miraclebaby.blogspot.com/

Hello

Just starting a new blog here since my daughter has one here too, and its all linked to my gmail. I dont update too often so dont hold your breath.