Roughly $770,000,000,000

I'm not an economist.

I'm not really all that affected right now by the Dow Jones plummet yesterday. I have no credit cards, no car loan, no mortgage, and no stocks.

I have a decent amount of savings, nothing that will keep us going for 10 years, but enough to live on for about a year if we needed to do so.

But I started thinking about this close to $770 billion dollar bailout plan, and how much you could buy for it. Here's some figures I came up with:

- In 2007, the average home price in America was $220,000. With the bailout money, you could by 3,500,000 average price homes.

- The top of the line 2008 Honda Accord, brand new, costs $28,384. That's brand new, no negotiations. You would be able to purchase 27,147,088 top of the line 2008 Honda Accords.

- The average gallon of gas around North Alabama right now is $3.60. It takes 18 gallons to fill up my Accord. That equals $64.80 to fill up my car. Even though I don't, lets say the average person fills their car up once a week (for me its more like once every 2 weeks). That would equal $3369 a year to fill up my car once a week. With the bailout money, I could fill my car up once a week for 228,554,467 years.

- The average cost for milk across the nation is $3.81 a gallon. You could buy 202,099,737,532 gallons.

What other fun numbers can you come up with?

- According to the WFP School Feeding Program, a program that feeds orphans and needy children in Africa, it costs, according to March 2008 prices, $0.25 to feed a child per day. We could feed 308,000,000,000 with the bailout money.

Let's look at this way, as many of you think as well, if I don't pay my bills, I could go to jail. If I don't pay, then I will be punished. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Here's a number for you: I pay right at $3000 to the government every quarter. Why? Because as a minister, I'm technically "Self-employed". You can do the math. $12,000 a year to the federal government for taxes, and that's with all the great benefits we get. Since my wife is self-employed also, we pay close to 40 cents on the dollar to taxes.

Now, i don't like it, but its the law. I pay what the law asks me to pay. However, its hard to make it sometimes when almost HALF of your money goes to pay taxes. There's got to be a better way than what we're doing, especially if my taxes are going to pay for the mistakes of people making millions more dollar a year than I make.

I don't know how I feel about the bailout plan, because of all the mis-directions we're getting on it. How can we trust these guys when they've put us into this position?

Thoughts on the bailout? Thoughts on the fact that they won't meet again until THURSDAY AT NOON??

Introducing Josie "Michael Phelps" Widick

So I'm on the phone with a friend I haven't spoken to in about a year, and Kristen is giving Josie a bath. She yells for me to come into the kitchen, I rush in, and this is what is going on:

5 Years Ago

Five years ago, on a Saturday afternoon, September 13, I was fortunate enough to marry my best friend.

Five years has brought us much joy, happiness, and a new member of the family.

Today, we celebrate five years at one of Kristen's favorite places, the beach. Later today, we'll go and eat some shrimp and walk on the beach, but for now, we're relaxing in the Lighthouse, room 1217, watching the waves, and doing nothing but enjoying each other.

I don't have access to my pictures, so I'll post those later on in the week when I'm back at the office.

Here's to many more anniversaries. I love you, Sticky!

Vacation Time for the Widick's

This will be a lengthy post, so bear with me...

Saturday morning, Kristen, Josie and I left for our first family vacation. Our first stop was from Guntersville to Franklin, TN. We stopped and celebrated a monumental birthday for my mom and Buca di Bepa, an Italian place that has tremendous food. All the family was there, and we were able to sit around one large table with a lazy susan in the middle of it. Its family style food, so we all ordered different things and shared with each other. After that, we went on to Lebanon, TN, to enjoy the afternoon with my family and have cake and ice cream.

Sunday morning, I was able to worship with my family at the Maple Hill church of Christ. Being a minister myself, I don't have many opportunities to worship with my family at their local congregations. It was a wonderful service. They have worship first, which I really enjoyed.

After worship service, Kristen and I left Josie with my parents (this was the first time we left her with anyone) and we went to the Tennessee Titans vs the Jacksonville Jaguars game. It was amazing! I never really did anything like that growing up, and my eyes actually started to tear up when the game started. Here are a few pics from the start of the game:

Here come the Titans!!

Really cool American Flag for the National Anthem sung by Martina McBride

The airforce flew planes over at the end of the national anthem. This was so cool!

We were there amongst the boos for Vince Young, and the cheers for when Kerry Collins came in. Sure, Vince stunk it up, but that's no reason to treat him the way some of the fans were at the game.

After the game, we drove down to Birmingham and stayed with Kristen's aunt and uncle. They grilled out for us, and we had a wonderful time. The next morning, we drove down to Gulf Shores, AL. We're staying here till Monday of next week, spending our FIFTH anniversary at the beach.

Here are some pictures of us and first few days at the beach:

Us after eating at Sea N Suds.

Mommy and Josie at the beach!

Daddy and Josie at the beach

Mommy and Josie at the pool

Daddy and Josie at the pool

Hurricane Ike is supposed to miss us, but it might rain for the next two or three days. We're about to go walk on the beach, and then off to lunch.

**Prayer Request**
We just got word today that Jenny Finley, grandmother of two kids in my youth group, and sweet Christian lady passed away. Miss Jenny was informed she had cancer around Thanksgiving, and the doctors did not give her the best prognosis. She has been a fighter, but more importantly, she has been an example of courage to so many. God bless the Finley family at this time.