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This morning while I was still laying in bed, my wife pulled me close whispered Happy Birthday and then got up to take a shower.  I turned over and fell back asleep.  While I dozed off I had a dream. . .

In this dream I was wearing lot of heavy winter clothes walking through several stores in a large mall with the intention of getting “back to my car”.  I was carrying a couple of bags as slowly I negotiated stairs, turnstiles, and multiple sets of doors.

Finally, having passed through about five stores, I get outside the last store and realize that my car wasn’t there.  It was parked back at the first store.  And as I considered how to turn around and walk back the way I came, I had a thought. 

“Wouldn’t it be alot easier just to wake up?”

So I did.  That’s right, I was soo lazy I wouldn’t even walk through a mall in a dream.

So a couple of months ago I attended a conference where a Disney trainer shared their secrets or rules for brainstorming sessions.  I used them several time already and have had a couple of employees ask me for them so they could use them in their meetings.

I thought I would share them here for everyone and document them for my own future reference.

Disney’s Rules for Brainstorming

1.  No Boundaries – Nothing is too far a field of “off subject”.  Go with it and see where you end up!

2.  Be Positive – Nothing will sour a brainstorming session faster than if you start complaining about something or someone.  Everyone is here to find solutions to the problem not to wallow in it.

3.  No Judgements (Positive or Negative) – Negative judgements on someone’s contribution can shut down the individual – Positive Judgements create barriers that limit discussion.

4.  Ideas are Seperate From Your Identity – Once you share it the idea belongs to the team you don’t need to defend it or make your idea better, the entire team can do that.

5.  Everyone is Creative – Everyone Can Contribute to the Discussion

This was on the N & O Website this morning and I thought it was interesting enough to share.

Presidents should submit to grillings

When U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted “You lie!” at President Barack Obama a couple of weeks ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s dark eyes shot daggers. Her scornful message: How dare you?!

And that, not Wilson’s outburst or the veracity of his accusation, is our problem.

Politicians in Washington, as in Raleigh, like to think they’re better than you or me. They demand regal deference — and we comply cravenly.

Worse, we embrace a double standard. Seconds before Wilson’s spasm, Obama himself had said of an unwelcome criticism of his program, “It is a lie, plain and simple.” The response? Applause.

We’ve got our undue deference backward. Our governors owe all their power to the consent of the governed. (That’s us, folks.) So says our defiant Declaration of Independence.

The president isn’t a king, or even our boss. He (or she) is our temporary hired help. We the people are the boss. We are the sovereign.

Yet many presidents bristle at being questioned by anyone — and we acquiesce. The U.S. House forbids its members to call any president a liar, a hypocrite or “intellectually dishonest,” even when true. Even the supposedly hard-bitten Washington press corps often turns meek in the face of presidential pique.

This subservience disserves America.

Instead of performing staged town-hall meetings and delivering scripted lectures, our presidents should submit to frequent, free-ranging questioning by our Congress, as Britain’s prime minister does to its Parliament.

It should be orderly, but wide open. Our democracy needs more accountability, not less.

And that, my fellow Americans, is no lie.

Matthew Eisley is editor of The N&O’s North Raleigh News and Midtown Raleigh News.

Yesterday former President Jimmy Carter again suggested that the feeling behind the recent protest against the Obama administration and their policies are the result of racisim.  This is the second time this week that he has made the suggestion.  He said:

 ”When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs in the air that said we should have buried Obama with Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the bounds”

“I think people who are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by a belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African American.

“It’s a racist attitude, and my hope is and my expectation is that in the future both Democratic leaders and Republican leaders will take the initiative in condemning that kind of unprecedented attack on the president of the United States,” Carter said.

Really Jimmy?  Maybe you are right we could have done something like this:

Or This

Or This

Or This

Or This:

Or Finally, maybe this:

Unprecedented indeed.  

Maybe the bar has been lowered so much over the past 8 years that you fail to recognize your own role in changing the tone in Washington. 

It has been a consistent tactic of the left when backed into a corner cry Racism.  No doubt, we will soon hear how racism is fueling the movement against ACORN, despite the clear evidence of their misdeeds.  To their credit the Whitehouse has said they do not believe that racism has had anything to do with the protests, yet Jimmy Carter is dominating the headlines with this tired old message.  I think the work he has done with Habitat for Humanity is wonderful, but he should retire from the political speaking circuit and leave the real work of governing to adults.

The following is the flight list I made for the party tomorrow.  I thought I would provide a little preview for those that are coming.

Welcome to the 5th Annual Kovacs Wine Party

Lauren and I are so happy you could join us today as we celebrate 5 years of living in Raleigh and having this great party with wonderful friends. We enjoy wines from all over the world and have selected some from our favorite wines, locations and vintors to share with you. This year we are providing this list of the featured wines so you can note which wines you enjoy the most and seek them out. All of these wines are available at Total Wine. Sit back, relax and enjoy!

The Reds

2006 Bridgman Cabernet Sauvignon – Yakima Valley, Washington
Notes: Ruby/garnet in the glass. Powerful nose of cassis and cherry/plum. Powerful, intense flavors of fruit — cassis and plum, primarily. A bit of cedar on the midpalate, with a touch of tannin and spice on the finish. Balance is just about perfect. with a long finish. Kris’ Note: I’ve noted that I’m becoming partial to wines from Washington State. The Columbia and Yakima Valleys make incredible wines. Look for Bridgman, Apex, and Chateau Ste. Michelle they are all from this region and they may great wines.

2005 Montoya Vinyards Cabernet Sauvignon – Napa Valley California
Notes: Dark berry color in the glass. This Cab has a freshly rained on soil smell with plummy and elegant oak on the nose. It has generous blackberry, plum, currant and berry flavors with a nice lingering smooth film of oak that nicely envelopes the smoky blackberry soft tang. Kris’ Note: Montoya is consistently a good wine and frequently shows up on resturant wine lists.

2007 Terra Barossa Shiraz – Austrailia
Notes: Purple, highly aromatic, showing raspberry, smoke — lots of smoke — and spice in the nose. Powerful, concentrated flavors of cherry, raspberry, smoke, baking chocolate, and oak notes on the finish. Balance is near-perfect; the wine is quite large, but there’s enough acidity and tannin to balance it out most of the way. It’s a little topheavy. Finish is everlasting. Kris’ note: This is the wild card. I asked for a Shiraz recommendation and this is what they recommended.

The Whites

2007 Bodega Catena Zapata Chardonnay – Mendoza, Argentina
Notes: It is the most well known winery from Argentina. Nicolás Catena is like Bob Mondavi from South America. Straw yellow. Shows gorgeous aromas of exotic fruits (mango, passion fruit, pineapple), butter and sweet oak. Mid-full bodied, with very rich sweet fruit, nicely integrated oak and balancing acidity. Long finish. Kris’ Note: I really like the strong bold reds from Mendoza – Argentina so I thought we should see what they can do with white wine.

2007 River Road Chardonnay – Sonoma County, California
Producers Notes: Our Sonoma County Chardonnay is fermented in stainless steel tanks and exposed to minimal oak contact after fermentation. This approach retains the bright, clean citrus and apple flavors.

2008 Villa Lanata Moscato D’Asti – Piedmont, Italy
Notes: Lemon-yellow in the glass. Inviting nose of apricot and nectarine. Slightly fizzy. Bountiful flavors of apricot, nectarine, and some orange zest, nice. Fairly sweet (at 5.5% ABV, not a surprise), moderate acidity, well-balanced. Kris’ Note: This is a previous Kovacs Wine Party Hit. In fact, this wine has celebrity status in our house during the holidays.

2008 Bidgman Riesling – Yakima Valley, Washington
Notes: Ripe pear, green apples and lime up front with honeyed peach on the finish. Kris’ Note: Yakima Valley again, sorry I just could not help myself.

This morning I was on my way to work listening to the local news talk about the “outburst” of Rep. Joe Wilson SC (R) during President Obama’s Healthcare reform speech last night.  During the speech Rep. Joe Wilson took particular exception to the President’s claim that no government healthcare funds would be extended to illegal aliens.  Rep Wilson shouted “You Lie!”.  Unfortunately for Joe that happened to be the one moment when the Democrats weren’t clapping and cheering for the President as they publically slobbered their love all over him.  It was hard to watch as it was Political Porn.

In case you missed it here is the event here is the video:

P.S.  I love the look on Pelosi’s face.  It looks like someone slapped her with a board.  But I digress …..

At first, I was taken aback by the lack of decorum in the chamber.  But as I continued to listen , I tired of the bashing the outspoken Representative of South Carolina was taking, so I turned on my iPod and continued driving to work.  Then a song came on and the introduction caused me to reconsider my disappointment in the congressman.  The spoken intro goes like this:

“Yet our best trained, best educated, best equipted, best prepared troops refuse to fight”

“In fact, I think it’s safe to say that they would rather switch … than fight!”

Of course my younger readers will immediately identify that this is the introduction of Public Enemy’s landmark song “Fight the Power” from their 1989 Album Fear of a Black Planet.  Need a refresher?  The video does not contain the introduction that was found on the album but any reason to hear Public Enemy is a good reason in my book.

Then something clicked in my mind.  Maybe we have traded real progress for the “theater” of legislation with all of it’s traditions and codes.  Maybe we need to get a little medieval, maybe to need to say it out loud when we think someone is feeding us bullshit.  Maybe we’ve been a little quiet too long. 

Some believe that conflict should be avoided at all costs.  We fall victim to group think at work because everyone is afraid to rock the boat.  We try to ignore children in our community that misbehave because to a degree we are afraid of what their parents might say to us if we said something to them.   Maybe we as a peopl have lost our stomach for conflict. 

Maybe our troops are refusing to fight.  But the other side’s haven’t … leading up to the election of Barack Obama the left certainly wasn’t congeneal.  Remember MoveOn.Org calling Gen. Pateraus a Liar in a full page Print Ad?  They called a commanding General (not a politician) a liar while he was in full command of 130,000+ troops in Iraq.  Remember CodePink?  Remember every G8 summit for the last 8 years?  Bush was called many things worse than a liar (granted not during a nationally televised speech) but does the venue make all that much difference when they instead stand just ouside the chamber and called Bush a liar for the better part of 4 years.  I don’t think it does.

Perhaps this and the type of conservative outrage at the Healthcare townhall meetings this summer, were the conservative version of what Bush was forced to absorb during his term. 

Perhaps they set the bar so low that it’s easy to step over it

Perhaps our troops are beginning to stir.

And perhaps this is just what we conservatives needed.

By the time I had gotten to work,  I had turned the corner from being disappointed in a conservative politican to getting on Twitter and yelling “Yo, Joe!”  and “Fight the Power!”

P.S.  facebookers will have to click through to see the videos.

When the screened porch was finished my parents came over with two bottles of wine as deck warming presents.

One of those bottles has become my favorite wine of the summer season.

2007 Beringer Muscato

I’m not a huge sweet wine fan. I think Muscadine wines are vile and while zinfindel has very little flavor. But I am in love with this Muscato, we’ve had four bottles since that first one we were given. It has a great fresh flavor with a bit of sweetness. Great for hanging out on the deck with friends after dinner.

And here is the best part of all you can buy it at Walmart for less than $6. It must be catching on because when I picked up two bottles this afternoon there there only three left. Almost every other wine was packed on the shelf with a big hole where this wine is. You should get this wine if you can. You’ll love it.

Kofacts Rating:

It seemed redudant to me to have a seperate Google Mobile application on my iPhone to see the calendar items from my Google Calendar when the iPhone has a perfectly fine calendar built in.  (I would not go so far as it call it perfectly good.)  But everytime I’d re-discover this problem, I’d go to iTunes and under the calendar options it repeatedly told me that “No Supported Calendar Application Could be Found”. 

So, tonight when this issue again bubbled to the top of mind, I started searching for “What are the Best iPhone Calendar Apps” and “Sync iPhone and Google Calendar” and I came across this webpage:

http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138740

If you follow these directions and use “gmail” where they say to use “googlemail” it works perfectly.  Now my Google Calendars automatically sync with my iPhone.  And the best part is …it works for Contacts as well.  Give it a try.

For weeks the President has been defending his healthcare plan by saying that if you have employer provided healthcare and you like it you can keep it.  That this plan of his is for everyone else.

What conservatives know is that there is no business in the world that can compete with the federal government and employers will drop their plan, pay any small penalties they are assessed and their employees will be added to the govern plan, leading to a single-payer system.  The Obama team and their minions including MoveOn.org have decried those concerns as fear-mongering.  Let’s see what they don’t want you to see:

Still think your healthcare is safe?

Facebookers, you will have to click in the picture to see the video.  And you need to see this video.  Click It!