Attention: Liquor Stores - You're on my list

Over the years, I have been witness to alcoholism the likes of which no one should ever have to see. Family, friends, associates... no one is safe from the world of alcohol as it is legal and all around us. However, when laws regarding alcohol are violated, you can bet your bottom dollar I'm coming after you.

Recently, I wrote the Speaker of the House Tom Craddick of Midland, Texas and told him of my experiences with alcoholics in my life. I have seen drunk people, get in their car, drive to the local liquor store, buy a bottle of booze and go home and drink it. The whole damn bottle. Recently, I was in a convince store and the man in front of me was clearly drunk. He could barely stand on two feet, and had a six pack of "tall boys" (16 oz. beers) and was waiting in line to pay. When he got there, the clerk made sure that he was not driving. "You're walking home? You live near here? Okay. Just making sure." And she sold him the beer, for the fourth time that day, and he went on home.

Did you know that that is against the law?

§ 463.001. CONTRIBUTING TO DELINQUENCY OF HABITUAL DRUNKARD; CRIMINAL PENALTY. (a) In this section, "delinquency" means any act that tends to debase or injure the morals, health, or welfare of a habitual drunkard and includes: (1) drinking intoxicating liquor; (2) entering or remaining in any bawdy house, assignation house, disorderly house, roadhouse, hotel, or public dance hall where prostitutes, gamblers, or thieves are permitted to enter and ply their trade; (3) entering a place where intoxicating liquors are kept, drunk, used, or sold; (4) associating with thieves and immoral persons; (5) causing a habitual drunkard to leave home or to leave the custody of the drunkard's parents, guardian, or person acting for the drunkard's parents or guardian without first receiving their consent or against their will; or (6) causing the habitual drunkard, by undue influence, to unlawfully cohabit with a person known by the actor to be a habitual drunkard. (b) A person commits an offense if the person by any act or in any manner encourages, causes, acts in conjunction with, or contributes to the delinquency, dependency, or neglect of a habitual drunkard, regardless of the drunkard's previous convictions. (c) An offense under this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $500, confinement in jail for not more than one year, or both.Amended by Acts 1991, 72nd Leg., ch. 14, § 177, eff. Sept. 1, 1991.

Well, Mr. Craddick put me in touch with Deputy Chief Joel Moreno at the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. Chief Moreno called me yesterday and let me know that he did infact receive my e-mail from Mr. Craddick and would be in touch in the near future for further details.

Among my many irons that I have in the fire at this time, I plan on making this one a particularly hot one. Alcoholism is bad enough. But alcoholics do not need to given any slack when they are 1) endangering their lives and those around them. 2) abusing their family and friends with their behavior 3) committing a prolonged and costly and destructive suicide through their behavior... and I for one have had enough.

Harsher penalties need to be made law and then enforced.
Co-dependent members of our society need to be put on notice that they to, will be held accountable for their actions.
Businesses that sell alcohol need to be prosecuted for contributing to the deliquency of the behavior of alcoholics.

If you want to have a drink, so be it. I have a beer and watch the Super Bowl too. But when people such as my former brother-in-law make a habit of downing a gallon of vodka on a daily basis for 10 to 20 years... by God, someone needs to get loud and do something about it.

I was a kid then. Now my brother-in-law is dead.
I'm an adult now... and by God, I will have an impact on this particular subject no matter what it takes.

Mr. Craddick knows my name.
Mr. Moreno knows my name.
And before everything is said and done, the whole state will know my name.

I'm John Boswell, and I'm shutting down the delinquent behavior of alcoholics as much as I possibly can.

And if you sell booze in Midland, Texas... know that I'm watching you. And this is NO idle threat.

Black Belt Magazine: June 2005 Issue

I went to my local bookstore today and found the June issue of Black Belt magazine... talks about Aikido. Now ask me how I knew that! Go on... ask me! Okay, okay, I'll tell ya: John Riggs Sensei, my instructor... has an article published in there!

"Aikido: Striking and Pressure Points - Getting maximum efficiency from the gentle art."

For those not familiar with martial arts, there are nerve spots on the body generally called "pressure points." When pressure is applied, it can have good results or bad results, depending on who is doing the pushing and why. The usage of the points has many purposes and well worth knowing. In my three years of studying aikido, I've barely scratched the surface on the subject.

Many people steer clear of the idea of "martial arts" altogether because they immediately associate it with violence. Violence is the exact opposite goal when it comes to aikido. Aikido can be a way to achieve peace. Example:

Say you are a teacher or mother and two boys are fighting. If they are young enough, they may listen to you and stop when you tell them to. If they are older and afraid to back down, aikido could be the way to pull one off of the other. Through a proper grab of the opponents hand and squeezing on pressure points, the pain they feel will cause them to stop fighting and distract them enough to get them under control.

Or say you encounter a mugger that grabs your wrist; you don't have to shoot the guy or break his bones to get him off of you. Aikido teaches skills to throw that punk to the ground and give him reason to think twice about trying to come after you and your money.

Anyhow, my congratulations to Dr. Riggs and his publication of this article. Striking of pressure points is a controversial topic in the world of martial arts. People are either for it or against it and both make good cases. As for me, I'm a student and I WOULD like to learn for myself. Should I ever be place in a position of needing to know about these pressure points, it will become MY decision as whether or not to use them. And personally, I'd rather have a tool and not use it... than to never have a tool to use at all.

Domo arigato

Pope Benedict XVI : Long Road Ahead...

Hello again! And allow me to thank each and every one of you that check out my little blog here. I have received e-mail from friends and family in addition to posts and e-mail from people as far as Dallas, Houston and a few from out of state! Incredible! And thank you!

Now then, today is an historic occasion. Two days of voting have occurred in Rome and already a new pontiff has been selected: Pope Benedict XVI (the 16th for anyone who don't know roman numerals). His given name is Josephus Ratzinger, former Cardinal and right-hand man of Pope John Paul II.

Much to my dismay, people have already started the jokes and taking slap shots at the new Pope. He is a man who grew up in lower Bavaria in Germany. As a teenager, he was "recruited" into the army and manned anti-aircraft guns toward the end of the war. He got out and soon became a priest. But of course, that hasn't stopped today's smaller minds from equating him with a Nazi or calling him the "Panzer Pope." He does have a reputation for holding a strict line on Catholic beliefs, but that is no reason to condemn him before he even spends one day in office.

Comments such as these, and I'm sure many more to come, only further delineate the depths of which Man has succumbed to. Why bother with logic, reasoning, researching facts and actually meeting someone... when you can just make generalized statements and stabs at an individuals character? Much easier that way and requires far less work.

Far be it for me to hold myself as an example of "good character." I have been known to jump to conclusions and have later regretted them. Other times, I may have been proven right, but it still doesn't justify lack of homework.

My point is: Pope John Paul II was an incredible man. He held church services in communist Cuba for crying out loud! He was a man true to his faith, true to all mankind and prayed daily for the good of all. How can anyone follow in the shadow of that? And given the state the world is in, Pope Benedict will have a lot of work ahead of him to progress from where John Paul left off.

If you are a believer of prophecy, St. Malachy speaks highly of this new pope and the good that he will do. If you don't know what I'm talking about, punch "St. Malachy" into a Google search engine and read for yourself.

Now, if you aren't into prophecy, then we have to at least let the man get started before we jump off and judge him for what he does. He showed up and said,"Thank you for this honor" and now we have to see if he is truly worthy of it... not that anyone can change it.

Anyhow, the choosing of a Pope is an historic event. Catholic or not, the whole world stops and listens to the Vatican at such a time as this. That is reason enough for everyone to pay attention themselves. I believe if we all knew more about what was happening in the world and cared enough to learn more and perhaps act on the facts, the world would be a better place.

I hope this little note has given everyone something to at least think about. And if not, feel free to move on! ;)

Have a good one! :)

WARNING: Phishing in progress...

Take a look at this:

Phishing
Last modified: Friday, March 11, 2005

(fish´ing)
(n.) The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely
claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the
user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.
The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are
asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit
card, social security, and bank
account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and
set up only to steal the user’s information.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/phishing.html

This recently happened to someone close to me, though I'll not disclose whom. I've heard of "scams" and "identity theft," but this was the first time I had ever heard the term "phishing." Pretty evil, if you ask me.

For whatever reason, a local credit union appears to be the target of this scam. When confronted by a victim, the union employees seemed baffled, were very unhelpful and claim to be unable to determine WHERE the money was sent, once it is taken.

YOUR MONEY could easily be taken from your account, should you fall prey to this phishing scam, and be sent over-seas or anywhere... and leave you out in the cold. Now, the credit union is FDIC insured, but may claim you "gave your information (and thus your money) away."

VISA has a commercial out saying if your card is ever stolen, you'll get the money put back into your account. But what about victims of THIS crime?

So, all someone has to do is copy and paste your banks logo, type up a convincing e-mail requesting information from you... and you get taken for everything. Doesn't sound like much fun, does it?

Be on your guard. And when it comes to finances... be OFF of the net.

That's my 2 cents anyway...

April 12th, Midland Civic Center: 7:30pm BE THERE!

Yes ladies and gents, the smoking ban is going before the City Council on April 12th at 7:30pm. The place is the Civic Center in downtown Midland. They are expecting enough people to show up that City Hall will be too small and soon over-run.

They're right.

Listen, like the ban or not, the end result is that it would be big brother put in charge of telling us... ALL of us, how to live our lives. I think that in and of itself is just wrong.

But get this! Dr. Vogel is quoted as saying that if the City Council does not vote themselves to pass the ban, that they will not push for a vote. However, they will continue to pursue the ban itself in the future and believe it is inevitable.

IN OTHER WORDS: Vote for it Now... or Vote for it Later... but you will Vote FOR it.

How's that for democracy in action?

Forget about teenagers running around with shot guns in town...
Forget about teens and alcohol and D.W.I.'s and all that...
Forget about child predators driving around the schools asking little girls if they "need a ride"...

NO! LET'S STOP SECOND HAND SMOKE!! Yeah... that's the real danger out there, hmm?

Okay, hoping down off my soap box. Have a nice day!

What is: Busy?

Busy is not getting home until 9:00pm or later any given week night after being at work, then shopping, then running more errands, etc.

Busy is answering e-mails from people you've never met in real life, in-between phone calls, collecting rent and handling faxes.

Busy is walking your poor dog at 10 o'clock at night because that's when you finally got a chance to, and the poor critter has been busily tearing down the back door because... he's gotta GO!

Yes, I've been a bit busy lately. Real estate in Midland is going bananas! I have people coming in out of the blue wanting us to build homes for them, wanting to sign contracts now... before we've even broken ground! Two years ago, we would have laughed at the prospect of things being like this. I'm not laughing anymore. In fact, it's getting down right serious.

Last time I reported in, there were some 380 properties active on the market in Midland. Today: less than 320. Yesturday, I checked the numbers in Odessa and you are not going to believe this: less than 120 !! IN ALL OF ECTOR COUNTY!!

Builders are doing their best to keep up with demand, but boy we could use a little help. And now we have the prospect of new business opening up along I-20 at Rankin Hwy. due to the second Wal-Mart Supercenter coming in over there. There is also talk of not just one, but TWO screens for a Drive-in theater going up out on Hwy 80?

Things are hoppin' in Midland. Oil is going up, people are making money and things are simply hoppin...

Busy is going to become an understatement before too long. So much for this year's resolution: Chill out!

That's shot all to hell... !

OH YEAH! Did I mention I've been too busy to post on my blog? But you probably figured that one out. Sorry.... 8(