BrandonHendricks.com

After half a year, I’m finally starting up the blog again.

So wher do I start? Democrats won Congress in November. Maybe it will serve as a wake up all to the Republicans. Saddam Hussein was hung. Good Bye. Ron Paul is running for President. While I admit his chances are slim, I have something to be excited about. I’m sure I’m not the only one sick of Rudy McRomney or Hillary John Barrack Roddam Hussein Clinton Obama Edwards.

I guess the biggest thing happening in my life right now is that in November Robin had a seizure and burnt her hand. Third Degree burns and required a skin graft. She lost parts of her little and ring fingers on her right hand. But she is recovering well and improving faster than expected.

Our Lady of Lourdes in Violet will be opening up sooner or later. The process of reopening it has begun. It may take a while. Robin and I are living in Metairie but will be going there sometimes once it opens. Abbey Youth Fest is this weekend. I still have posted part two of of from last year. I won’t be going as a chaperone from Lourdes but rather as a volunteer from the KC’s since no one showed any interest in going.

Louisiana Crawfish Festival is March 30, 31, and April 1 at the old Wal-Mart in Chalmette.

I switched the blog from bBlog to WordPress. The SQL Dump was close to 30 MB. I kept 5 comments that I knew were good and deleted the rest. I used this script to convert bBlog to WordPress. I have also required regustration to post comments. I know some people may not feel like doing that, but it will help fight the blog spam. I still need to set the lay out to match the rest of the site.

Hopefully it will be less than six months before I post here again. Whenever that is.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Looks like it has been almost a month since I last posted here.

I found out this week that a friend of mine died. My mom called me Wednesday morning to tell me she had been informed that our friend Gene died of a heart attack at the age of 65. I had known Gene and his wife Anita for about 10 years back when they use to usher at 6:00 Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes (before Katrina). I had lost touch with them after the storm. The last time I talked to them was in March. Please keep Gene and his family in your prayers.

This week is also the anniversary of two tragic events. A week before Katrina hit, 5 youths from St. Bernard were involved in a car accident, killing three of them. One has made a full recovery while the other was in a coma. I have not heard anything in a while on his condition. And a week later Katrina came. I don’t think I need to remind anyone about that. Some things are getting closer to normal, but somethings still have a long way to go.

I will leave some of the political stuff out for now.

I haven’t posted here in a while (like usual). Busy with married life. Been married two weeks now. And I really did not feel like going to work last Monday.
Wedding went great. But we were tired afterwards. Again, thanks to everyone who participated, attended, or got us a gift.

Pictures can be viewed here: http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?userid=Nikon2005&gallery_id=433440 (pw = cotton ) and here: http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?userid=Nikon2005&gallery_id=441483 (pw - hendricks )

Obviously we are still adjusting to things, but we are enjoying ourselves.

Since my last post a few interesting things have happened. Congress voted to fund unproven embryonic stem cell research, but President Bush vetoed the bill and Congress could not override it. (It was Bush’s first veto.) I can at least see the argument that the children that these stem cells were taken from were already dead and that instead of throwing them away they would be used for a meaningful purpose. But doing this would create more a demand for embryonbic stem cells and therefore would result in the deaths of more innocent unborn children. Not to mention this funding (or funding for adult stem cell research for that matter) is unconstitution (as is a majority of what Congress has been spending money on).

Congress passed and President Bush signed the anti-southern discriminatory Voting Rights Act. I think it passed the House 390 - 30. Only one member from Louisiana, Richard Baker, voted against it. My old congressman (Charlie Melancon) and new congressman (Bobby Jindal) both voted for it. It also passed the senate I think 100 - 0. Way to look out for Louisiana fellas.

Isreal has been at war with Hezbollah. Isreal, a sovereign country has the right to defend itself against Hezbollah, a terrorist organization. I wish Isreal the best but hope they can keep civilian casualties in both Lebanon and Isreal to a minimum.

Coming up on one year since Katrina. Things are starting to improve but are moving slow. Our old neighbor from St. Bernard sent my mom a picture of their house and our house a few days after Katrina. Water went down 1 - 2 feet from its peek at that point. I need to upload and link to the picture so everyone can see sometime.

Advice for all future husbands: when throwing the garter, tie it to something with a little weight because that thing does not fly very far. Robin’s nephew ended up catching the garter because since he was the shortest one there - he was closest to the ground and everyone let him get in front.

Til next time.

8 Days left until the wedding. Time is flying by. BTW, we registered at [url=http://www.target.com/gp/registry/registry.html/ref=cm_cw_sr_1/601-5651500-5873752?%5Fencoding=UTF8&type=wedding&id=7E16H4IOAHVD&jsebd=1]Target[/url]. We just got a gift in the mail today and I haven’t opened it yet (I want to wait until Robin is here) so I don’t know who it is from, but we didn’t tell too many people we reg’d at Target yet.

Hopefully thing with North Korea and Iran settle down. We don’t have the resources for another battle right now.

Three guys got in trouble for trying to sell [url=http://www.BoycottCoke.com]Coke’s[/url] trade secrets to Pepsi. Perhaps we would have had New Pepsi like we had New Coke 20-something years ago.

If you are a member of the [url=http://www.reformparty.org]Reform Party[/url] then you should consider supporting [url=http://reformparty.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=457]Wyatt Chesney[/url] in 2008.

If you are in Georgia, then I hope you consider voting for [url=http://www.GeorgiaFirst.org]Ray McBerry[/url] on July 18 in the Republican Primary for Governor. Probably a long shot, but maybe my endorsement will influence at least one voter. Or not. And if you are in Cynthia McKinney’s district, please vote for anyone but her.

Not much else going on that I can think of or feel like writing about.

18 Days. Damn.

Here is something on a more serious note. About a month or so ago, one of my friend’s nephew shot himself in the head. After about a week or so in the hospital with no improvement, he died. He was health and had nothing to be depressed over. But he was on a drug called Accutane. Accutane has been known to cause suicide. Another person who committed suicide after being prescribed Accutane was the son of Representative Bart Stupak (Democrat - Michigan - CD - 1). Rep. Stupak has sponsored a bill restrictions on the use of this drug. Please tell your congressman to support [url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-2956]HR 2956[/url].

Here is a story I read the other day about Colorado State Representative Ted Harvey. http://www.family.org/cforum/commentary/a0040927.cfm . On the last day of the legislative session, the House was going to pass a reolution commerating the 90th Anniversary of Planned Parenthood in the state of Colorado. Rep. Harvey knew he had to do something but didn’t know what. Well he was at a pro-life dinner and the guest speaker was [url=http://www.giannajessen.com/]Gianna Jessen[/url]. Gianna has cerebral palsy as a result of her mother’s failed abortion. So Rep. Harvey talked to Gianna and invited her to the House that day to sing the National Anthem. After getting an applause for telling about her struggle with Cerebal Palsy, Rep. Harvey then told everyone how she go cerebal palsy. To quote the article, the silence was deafening.

Lousiana Governor Kathleen Blanco signed the Abortion Ban that only goes into effect if Roe V. Wade is overturned. I really hope this bill actually does more than take up space on paper and hard drives.

It looks like the [url=http://www.constitutionparty.com]Constitution Party[/url] in Louisiana will start going somewhere. As a result of a law passed in 2004, becoming a major party in La. requires 1000 members and 1000 dollars. Currently the Republican Party, Democratic Party, Reform Party, Libertarian Party and Green Party are all major parites in La. Hopefully the CP will join them.

I wrote to Representative Charlie Melancon (Democrat - Louisiana - CD - 3) a couple months ago regarding the Voting Rights Act and the discrimatory pre-clearance requirement placed on Louisiana and several other southern states and got a reply. Well last week a group of Republicans stood up to oppose this requirement in the bill. I don’t have a problem with the bill in general, but I do have a problem with this requirement. Please tell your Congressman to oppose the pre-clearance requirement in this bill. [url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-9]HR 9[/url] and [url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-2703]S 2703[/url].

Well 18 days will be here before Robin and I know it. If I don’t post here for a while I at least have a good excuse.

Yes, today was “one of those days”.

First off, a funny story from yesterday (Wednesday). I was on the Highway 11 Bridge crossing Lake Pounchatrain on my way to work. Well traffic is slow and on the curve of the bridge I could see a white car holding up traffic. When I finally get in I-10 I passed the car and noticed some bumper stickers: “Code Pink” and “Stop (something, probably Bush) Now”. There were a few others I could not make out. Are all liberals bad drivers.

So on to today (Thursday). I wake up and noticed the freezer was not shut all of the way. We have rags on top of the freezer and one got caught between the freezer and the door. So the freezer had a gap in it all night. Ice Cream melted but everything else seems fine.

At work I needed to set up a site for someone. I was getting a permission denied error because there was no default.htm file. (IIS uses “default” instead of “index”. No idea why.) So I added it and got the same error and then file not found when trying to go directly to the file. Turns out while I created a file named default.htm, Windows created a file named default.htm.txt. I was going crazy trying to figure out the problem.

So I went to Metairie to pay off the balance for the [url=http://www.JeffersonOrleans.com/]Jefferson Orleans[/url] which is where our reception will be. Everything goes fine and the owner, T.J. is a real nice guy. I recommend the place. So Robin heads home (in Metairie) and I stop to get something to eat then head home (in Slidell). While I am in [url=http://www.raisingcanes.com/]Raising Cane’s[/url] Robin calls me and says the front door to the apartment is wide open. The last time she was there was yesterday. So we called the police. No sign of forced entry and nothing was missing. The only explanation is Robin did not lock or latch the door when she left, but she is sure that she did. Everything is fine though.

It would be nice to have a dull day once in a while.

I really did mean to do this one last week.

Thursday, almost two weeks ago, my brother got into a car wreck. He is ok, but his car, which was only 6 weeks old at the time, got heavily damaged.

We finally got Zarqawi. He is evil and deserves what he got. Now if we can only get bin Laden.

Last Monday we finally went back to the office at [url=http://www.lsuhsc.edu/]LSU-HSC[/url]. I miss being able to sleep a little later and not have to drive, but at the same time it feels good to get out of the house and I missed the office some.

This past Sunday was Robin’s shower. We ended up with a lot of wedding gifts. The wedding is now 4 weeks, 4 days (as of Tuesday). By the way, you can view our registry here:
http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/pws.asp?id=RobinandBrandon2373964
and a site here:
http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/regGiftRegistry.asp?order_num=-1&wrn=%2D817860976
We need to register at a few other places as well.

Hurricane season is here now. Good luck to Florida and everyone else as the deal with Alberto.

As of Sunday May 28, 6 weeks, 6 days. Things are coming together well. Looks like we have our apartment.

Rep. William Jefferson (Democrat - La. - CD - 2) is involved in a scandal. Some of the Republicans are attacking the way the investigation has taken place because the FBI is part of the executive branch while Congress is part of the legislative branch. It’s too early too tell right now, but I won’t be surprised if he wins re-election.

Speaking of re-election, Ray Nagin won re-election. I’m not in New Orleans and it is not that big of deal to me (though I do work in N.O.).

And speaking of Nagin, Douglas Brinkley released a book a few weeks ago called “The Great Diluge” will explains who screwed up during Hurricane Katrina. Not sure if it covers St. Bernard any. But it puts a lot of blame for what happened in New Orleans on Nagin.

And speaking of Brinkley, I have been reading one of his other books “Parish Priest: Fr. Michael McGivney and American Catholicism”. I recommend it to any Catholic. For those of you who don’t know, Fr. Michael Joseph McGivney is the founder of the [url=”http://www.kofc.org/”]Knights of Columbus[/url].

And speaking of the KC’s (I’m on a role; I need to keep it going, at least a little more.) Our council will be having a meeting on June 10 to decide if we keep it going or not. Katrina has severly screwed us up.

And speaking of Katrina….. not much new at this time. Just pray that it will be another 40 years (or never) before we get another Hurricane like Katrina. (Trying to think of a way to flow to the next topic….) Katrina sucks.

And speaking of things that suck, American Idol is over for this season. More people voted for this than the Presidential Election. I have a suggestion: allow people to only vote in one or the other, but not both. OK, so most of the people that voted in AI probably didn’t vote in the last election anyway.

That’s all for now. I am working an online photo album for the site. It shouldn’t be much longer before it’s up.

Maybe I’ll stick with shorter, more frequent entries.

Britney Spears was in the news twice this week. Why is this even on the news? No one cares.

NSA phone tracking: I am a little uneasy about this, but if the government was only tracking who was communicating with terrorists and nothing more, I don’t have a problem with it.

Gen. Hayden for the CIA: I don’t know much about him but see nothing indicating he is a bad choice.

Louisiana is working on a bill that would ban the sale of offensive video games to people under 18. Read the whole bill. I don’t like it.

Article: http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=12718
Bill: http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/byinst.asp?sessionid=06rs&billtype=HB&billno=1381

Another Article suggesting the Constitution Party has a good shot in 2008: http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27265834.shtml
Vote Jim Gilchrist

The Cannes Film Festival “panned” The DaVinci Code. That means the movie is really really bad or it is actually good since it seems they have bad tastes in movies. Anyway, this movie is a work of fiction. The author can’t even tell John and Mary Magadaline apart. Don’t bother giving Hollywood any of your money. They will just use it to lobby congress to pass more anti-consumer legislation.