Party at Mike and Norma's

Happy Birthday John!

Yet another one of us has reached the half-century mark. John Lerch celebrated his 50th yesterday, May 3rd.

Tilted Kilt

Happy Birthday Linda!

Happy Birthday to Linda Greer! Unfortunately, no one sent me any embarrassing childhood pictures to share.

Happy Birthday Mike!

Mike Ostresh (husband of Tina Ostresh) celebrates his 49th birthday today! He's seen in this picture when he was just a boy, before he grew his hair longer to cover that point on his head. Happy Birthday, Mike!

Happy 5-0, Rick Meyer!

A belated happy birthday to Rick Meyer, who celebrated with friends last Friday @ Rehab lounge. The under-50 club gets smaller each month...(waiting for pics from Ron Hogue...)

Finally, Universal Healthcare! ...For Your Car.

President Obama fires the CEO of GM, and assures buyers that their car warranties will now be honored by the U.S. government. This after limiting how much money bank CEOs can make, and demonizing workers for accepting perfectly legal contracts that included bonuses, contracts that were allowed for in the legislation Congress passed and the President signed. And, from California, a move to ban the sale of black cars because they use more air conditioning and subsequently burn more fuel. Remember when they called George Bush a dictator?

We now have an administration lecturing companies on how to run their businesses profitably, while they add $9 trillion in debt to the country. This is something akin to taking lessons in seamanship from the captain of the Titanic. We're supposed to believe that these people know best?

Friendly's Happy Hour Coupon-Posted by John Lerch

The Lerch's will be unable to attend the March happy hour. This is regrettable since we haven't seen many of you since last year. If anyone wants to log on to KMOX.com you can purchase a $25 gift certificate for Friendly's at the bargain price of $12.50. It is on the St.Lous half off attachment. Congratulations to Linda Greer on her new job. Hope to see you all in April.

Happy Birthday Marilyn!

A belated happy birthday to one of our own "Girls of Happy Hour", Marilyn Beck. Now if I only had that baby picture to post...Also, I would like to compose a list of birthdays in order to post them as they come up. E-mail your birthdays to me, or enter them in the "comments" below. Even better if you have a baby picture or at least a childhood picture to send me so I can post them as the birthdays come.

Pink Galleon

March Happy Hour

Believe it or not, the site for next month's happy hour has already been set; Friendly's Bar in South St. Louis. We had a good turnout last night at the Pink Galleon (pics to follow on a later post), and hope for an even better one in March.

Tomorrow...????

Well...? What's the word? Is anybody going to happy hour Thursday????

Glitch

I’m not sure why, but I got an e-mail alerting me to a post from back in November as if it were a new post. If anyone else got this, it is not a new post, and I don’t know why it is being sent out as new. It has happened before on occasion, but I’m not sure if it only happens to me. I apologize for the glitch. If I can figure why it happens I will fix it. On another note, in case you haven't noticed, we have passed the 2,000 mark on hits!

Entitlement Nation

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Winston Churchill

My good friend John Lerch asked me a few weeks ago why I hadn't written anything about the new Obama Administration. At the time I told him there wasn't much to write about. Obama had only been president for two days. There was no hurry; I was sure there would be plenty of comical scenes in the near future.

Well, it didn't take long. President Obama last week held a town hall forum in Fort Meyers, Fla., with an audience that evidently thought they were there to attend the taping of a game show. One woman wanted Obama to furnish a car and a house. An unemployed worker who made $3,000.00 a month wondered why his unemployment benefits were only $1,100.00 a month, and why the government wasn't making up the difference.

Then, a college student working at McDonald's wanted the President to increase his benefits (or, presumably, force the company to). I am not exaggerating when I say my 9 year old son is more articulate than this "college student".

It's sad that people are in such desperate straits, and our hearts go out to them. But it's sadder still that the leadership of this country exploits their suffering in order to gain control of free markets, increase government involvement in every phase of our lives and destroy individualism, independence, and any incentive to be productive.

It may be my imagination, but even Obama seemed taken aback by the overall tone of the meeting, and some of the requests, but most probably by the realization that he now has to feed this beast he has created. And, like all living organisms, the more you feed it, the larger, and the hungrier, this beast will get.

As I told John in our conversation, this stuff will pretty much write itself.

Great News!-Posted by Tina Ostresh

As some of you know, my friend Linda Greer was one of the many AB employees that lost her job in December.
She got a new job making $3000 a year more! Yea!

$1,000,000,000,000.00

Most of my disagreements with President Bush were with his domestic policies, in particular his part in the staggering increase in government spending. The President and Congress through the last eight years spent not like drunken sailors, but like drunken Democrats. Well now, real drunken Democrats are in charge, determined to show us all how it's done. This a lesson to us all: Never, ever try to outspend a liberal (unless it concerns national security, in which case they can never find the money). President Obama grew especially testy this week when opposition was raised to his stimulus bill, declaring that the damage to the economy if it did not pass could be "irreversible". Pretty scary, huh? Then, there's this quote: "A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe." Apparently, Obama's inaugural declaration that "we have chosen hope over fear" had a shelf life of exactly 2 weeks, because if this isn't fear-mongering, nothing is. Ask yourself this: if it were really this easy for government to create jobs, would we ever have unemployment? Great column by Charles Krauthammer: here.

Happy Hour

After much effort, we somehow managed to get everyone at January's happy hour in the same picture! Yes, that's correct, all 5 of us. Pretty amazing, I know. It was very chaotic, what with all of us cramped together in a building of only 5,000 square feet or so. Management was so impressed with our turnout that they offered free nachos at the door. They promise to do this everytime we show up (or not). Next month will be at the same place, The Pink Galleon on Butler Hill Rd. and Lemay Ferry.

Pink Galleon

Happy Hour is on for tonight at the Pink Galleon on Butler Hill and
Lemay Ferry. See you there!

Well...?

Where is everybody??? Are we meeting Thursday, or just waiting for the Super Bowl at the Lerch Mansion?

Super Bowl Party-Posted by John Lerch

The Lerch household is having a Super Bowl party and would like to invite the happy hour crowd. If you are interested in the details please call John on his cell phone after 3:30 PM. Mike Chenot just tell Ramona it's a birthday for her,maybe she'll show.

Change We Can Believe In! Hail to the (new) Chief!

It is a new day indeed, and we can all rejoice in new hope for the future. The failures we have suffered, the incompetence and ineptitude of the past regime, the lack of respect from friends and foes alike will soon be a distant memory. No longer will we be ashamed to declare our allegiance. Together, we can succeed, and there are no limits to what we can achieve. Yes, of course I speak of the Ram's hiring of Steve Spagnuolo as head coach. (Who did you think I was talking about?). YES WE CAN (win the Super Bowl)

Back at It...

Hopefully, everyone had a great holiday. I know there weren't many posts in December, kind of a mini break. Now, it's time to start thinking about the site of this month's happy hour. Suggestions???