Christmas Joy

Christmas at the Sage home was even better than last year. We were able to spend time with all of the family, and Jackson just had a blast with his new toys. Amber was ecstatic over Jackson's new clothes, and I was thrilled with my new 6.1 megapixel digital camera I received to take pictures of Jackson for the website! As you can see, life is still revolving around our little one.



As you can imagine, I took hundreds of pictures over Christmas, but I wouldn't bore anyone with that many. I've put up a few select photos in the photos sections. We also have three new movies up in the movies sections, which I'm sure you'll enjoy!

Merry Christmas to all, and have a safe and happy New Year!

Photo Section Re-done

Well, a lot of new photos have been added to the website. All of the "behind-the-scenes" organization has been revamped also. You can check out all of the new photos here.

I'm still looking for a better gallery script for displaying the pictures. I like the simplicity of what I'm using, I just don't like how the window pops up to display individual pictures. I'll have to look around some more.

AFP Recruitment "Reporting"

In a great show of biased journalism, the AFP reports that the "US Feels Impact of Iraq War as Recruitment Slips." The story starts out with the fact that the National Guard fell 7,000 persons short of their 2004 goal for recruitment, which puts their strength at 10,000 less than hoped for. The next line in the story:



"The declines suggest that the Iraq war is beginning to have a long-feared impact on a part of the force that the army in particular has drawn on heavily for both support and combat troops."

So, we are led to believe that the military is no longer able to recruit soldiers. Americans no longer have any desire to fight in the Iraq war. In short, it's another Vietnam. Well, what does the military have to say about why the numbers are falling short?



"'We have the active duty army that is growing by 30,000. So obviously we're looking at the same pool of people.'" "Another factor is stop-loss orders '...soldiers who normally or typically come off of active duty into the guard... are not doing that in as a big a number.'"



In other words, the active duty has increased 30,000, but the National Guard is down 10,000, so that means that Americans no longer support the Iraq war? Huh? Looks like a net increase of 20,000. The real story here is that most of the men and women want to actually serve as active duty, rather than National Guard. The AFP is being very dishonest by slanting the story with their headline and first paragraph.

Unbelievable

Some website have to be seen to be believed. This one is absolutely amazing. You would think it was a hoax, but it's not!

U.N. to the Rescue!

Thank goodness the world has the United Nations. All those suffering from genocide in the Sudan can rest easier tonight knowing that the U.N. is going to "probe" the situation. The U.N. is going to act quickly. They have already appointed a commission and will report within three months.



And the liberals in America want the United Nations to direct our foreign policy?

Wish I Hadn't Said That

Jimmy Breslin wrote a great piece for Newsday on November 2, 2004, the day of the Presidential Election. It looks like he might have a been a tad too confident.

"One day last May, I assigned the election to John Kerry...Now I am so sure that I am not even going to bother to watch the results tonight...Besides, if I was up, so many people, upon seeing every word I said of this election coming true on television in front of them, would be kissing my hands and embarrassing me with outlandish praise."

You just can't make stuff like this up. In this column Mr. Breslin lambasts everyone from the liberal media to the conservative pundits for calling the election so poorly and not understanding the American people as well as he does. How embarrasing. It looks like he should have stayed up and watched the results before he wrote his column.

A final quote from Newsday:

"This is Jimmy Breslin's last regular column for Newsday. He will write from time to time."

"Congratulations, Mr. President...."

were the words John Kerry has reportedly said to George Bush just minutes ago. We would also like to extends our congratulations to our President, and to thank John Kerry for not dragging this election out longer than necessary. Behind 135,000 votes in Ohio, with 135,000 provisional ballots to be counted, the chances of John Kerry taking Ohio are very slim to none.



We're glad that the American people have spoken so decisively. Hopefully President Bush and the Republicans will act like they won decisively and use the power that a majority in the House and Senate affords them. Americans are sending a clear message: Conservative values and smaller government are what is wanted, and President Bush needs to take us there.

Don't Forget to Vote!!!

It's finally election day! Our family have all been to the polls already. Even Jackson shared his opinion, too bad he has to wait 18 years before he can officialy vote! He doesn't care too much who's running our country at this stage of his life, as long as the bottles keep coming.



We hope that everyone remembers to not only vote, but more importantly to actually read about each candidate, proposition, and issue. There's no point in voting if you don't know what you're voting about!

Saddam Hussein & Terror

Browsing through the Little Green Footballs Weblog, I came across a post about the link between Saddam Hussein and terror. This page is wonderfully done, and does a remarkable job at explaining why Saddam needed to be ousted. I learned that U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer, Jr. ruled that the evidence presented was sufficient to award damages to two plaintiffs suing Saddam over the 9/11 attacks. That should be breaking news! Kudos to Stephen Hayes and Deroy Murdock.

Family Tree

I have finally succeeded in getting a family tree up on the website. It's not fully customized yet, but it does what it needs to. Click here to visit it. It was a struggle getting it installed, but after a few attempts, and a little more PHP learning, it's all up and running. All living persons have their data hidden, unless you create an account. Any and all family members are invited to register.

Genealogy

Well, over the weekend I decided to delve into a little Sage family history. We had records going back to David Sage of Wales, born in 1639. I entered all of that data into Personal Ancestral File, available from www.familysearch.org. I always thought genealogy would be a chore, but it was fascinating going over all of those ancestors. Next I need to put it all up on the website.

Jackson Smiles!

Today was an exciting event for the Sage family! My wife and I decided to try to get some professional photos of Jackson. So far, every time we've put a camera in front of him, he decides it's the perfect time to cry, or at the very least look away. We were sure this was going to be a disaster.
Sure enough, he was crying when we set him in front of the camera. As soon as I put him in the spotlight, he decided it was the perfect opportunity to spit up. Then, amazingly, he decided to smile and laugh. We got some great pictures during the photo shoot. We're so thrilled. Sears puts the photos up on the web so that you'll want to buy more, so as soon as I get that link I'll paste it here.

Burnett Blabber

The Burnett Blabber is a biannual tradition of my wife's family. All of the various relatives write a short summary of the last siz months, which is collected by the grandparents. They then send out the entire production by snail mail to all the family members. It's nice to be able to hear how everyone is doing, and what's been going on in life. My wife just finished our six month synopsis:

Hi Family! Our big news this time around is that Jackson Matthew Sage decided to finally join the world on Friday July 30th at 6:22 p.m, ten days late. He was 8lbs 11 oz and 20.5 inches long. At 8 weeks, he is almost 17lbs. and 26 inches and wearing size 9 months--his nickname is Tank (given to him by the Doctor). Matt has selected about 100 of his best photos, available for viewing at our family website www.sagelife.net.

Matt is still working as an estimator. He is no longer the ward's gospel doctrine teacher, but is kept busy as the second counselor in the Elders Quorum Presidency. He also is the computer repair man for most of our ward and now converts everyone's home video into DVDs. His most favorite pastime--attempting to show Jackson how to use a computer.

As for me, I spend most of my day feeding Jackson (it seems to be quite the chore to keep such a large baby full). Many have told us we should invest in a dairy cow. He is a wonderful baby and he recently gave us a great gift--he has begun sleeping 7 hours a night. I am still a counselor in the Young Women Presidency and the Mia Maids keep me busy planning their activities.

That is all from out here! Thank you to all for your help and support as Matt and I have ventured into the wonderful, and often times scary, world of parenting. It is truly been one of the greatest joys in life so far (two months down, a lifetime to go).

Database

It may not appear to be all that significant, but I finally got a MySQL database running for this site. I've never done any dynamic content coding, so it took awhile to get the hang of it. The quotes pages are done through this database, which makes it easier to add and delete quotes. Now I won't need to recode each page. My brother and I have been trying to figure out how to use the things. Now all I need to do is learn the query language so we can search the quotes!

Jackson Blessed

Well, all the family from southern California, and quite a few from other places, made it this morning to Jackson's baby blessing. It was great having everyone there. Afterwards we all headed out to my parent's house for some quality family time. This kid is only a month old and he is already spoiled! At least he knows he is loved, very much. We're glad everyone could make it and share this event with us.

Movies & Blabber

I got a chance to add a few more movies to the website today. I'm still trying to find that perfect balance between file size and video quality. I'd like to put everything in at DVD resolution so it looks real nice, but nobody has time to download a file that size. I guess I'll just have to settle for smaller sized videos.

The call to write in the Burnett Blabber came today. Twice a year the Burnett family (my wife's side) puts together a little newsletter so that everyone knows what's going on with everyone else. Not a bad idea, it's just hard to write the thing on time. I'm thinking I might try and find a spot for it here on the web.

Website Production

Finally getting a chance to get this website underway. I've got a lot of pictures to put up still, and whole sections to create, but it's coming along. Jackson has decided that Colic is the way to go, which seriously hampers the website creation process. It's moving along, though.

First Urgent Care Visit

Well, we had our first visit to the Urgent Care with Jackson tonight. It actually went surprisingly well, only about 20 minutes to get in and out of the place. We just needed some medication for an eye infection, and we picked up some Colic medicine. He was screaming like a wild animal. Hopefully this will help.