I spent last week on vacation in Cherry Grove, SC relaxing with my wife, picking with friends, mooching wi-fi, and swimming with Koa.

This guy loves water. The flow of the Atlantic into the Intercoastal Waterway creates river-like channels with the changing tide.  Lab heaven!  We ran a few miles each morning (off leash) and went out for a long play session each evening.  Two baths a day were mandatory to keep the sand out of our bed.

If you’ve never had or been around a Lab, you’ve no idea what great companions they make. Their temperament is wonderful for kids and other pets. They’re extremely smart, trainable and make good protectors as well.

More On Labradors

From www.boortz.com:

JUST HOW MUCH DO YOU REALLY LOVE FREEDOM? Which of the choices below most accurately reflect your stance regarding each topic?

Planning for your retirement:

1. I want my employer to provide me with a pension plan.
2. I want the government to take something out of every one of my paychecks and then pay it back to me in monthly payments after I reach retirement age.
3. I’m perfectly willing to save some money toward my retirement years out of each and every paycheck and I want my employer and the government to butt out. If I fail to finance my retirement years adequately I’ll have nobody to blame but myself.

Desecrating the American Flag:

1. I believe the Bill of Rights was written by men to tell government what it can and cannot do. Even though I strongly disapprove of anyone desecrating our Flag, I realize the First Amendment was written to protect unpopular expressions, not ones that everyone is going to agree with.
2. I believe that our Flag is the symbol of our country, and anyone who desecrates it ought to be punished harshly. To that end I approve of a new Constitutional amendment, the first one since prohibition that would tell us what we can and cannot do, instead of the government.

Medical Care:

1. My employer should provide me with a health insurance plan covering me and my immediate family.
2. The government should provide taxpayer funded health care for everyone.
3. I should be responsible for providing my own health care and health insurance in a competitive medical marketplace unhindered by government mandates and regulations.

Health Insurance:

1. The government should tell health insurance companies what they must and what they cannot cover in their policies.
2. I wish to be free to negotiate with health insurance companies in order to find the best price for my policy by including matters I wish to insure against, and excluding health matters, like drug and alcohol abuse, which are of no concern to me.

Having No Health Insurance:

1. If I have no health insurance the government should provide me emergency health care paid for by the taxpayers.
2. If I have no health insurance and the taxpayers are compelled to pay for any of my health care the taxpayers should be reimbursed through the seizure and sale of all of my assets. I have no claim on the property of others for the purpose of paying for my medical needs.

Choosing a doctor:

1. I’m perfectly willing to rely on private accreditation organizations to tell me who is properly trained in the delivery of medical services. After conferring with those accreditation organizations, like the American Medical Association, I want to be free to chose any person I want for any medical purpose I see fit.
2. I want the government to tell me who I can seek medical services from.

The right to self defense:

1. But Americans have passed on the responsibility for our individual safety to the government. That’s why the Second Amendment says that the government can own guns so that it can form state militias.
2. Yes, I have the right to defend myself and to protect my family, and the Second Amendment clearly gives me the right to own a gun so that I might have the chance to be at least as well armed as the person who is trying to harm me.

Wages and Employment:

1. I realize that in the free enterprise marketplace I have something to sell just as to all other individuals and businesses do. My product is my physical and intellectual labor. I should be left absolutely free to negotiate a price for my physical and intellectual labor with any prospective employer free of government interference. The only role for the government in my relationship with my employer would be to provide a means to enforce contracts between us.
2. I want the government to set a minimum wage below which I would not be free to work. I also want the government to set my working hours, how I am to be paid for overtime, family leave options and my vacation periods,

I recognize that the most important task I shall have as a human being will be to nurture and raise my child. With that in mind:

1. I want the government to seize my money through taxes and to use those taxes to set up a system of government schools to which I shall be compelled to send my child. I will be free, if I wish, to send my child to a private school, but the government will not let me have any of my money back to pay for it.
2. I want the government to back out of the picture and allow me to accept the responsibility for the education of my child free of government interference and mandates.

Knowing that the more despotic a government becomes the more that government tries to control the dissemination of information. I also know that most American rely on the broadcast media for their news. Therefore:

1. I want the government to continue to license the operation of all radio and television stations and to regulate their conduct so that they don’t broadcast against the common interest.
2. I want the broadcast media in this country to have the full First Amendment rights granted to the printed media.

I am a devoutly religious person and my religious feelings include strongly felt opinions on what other people should and should not do in their private lives.

1. I want the government to regulate the sexual conduct between consenting adults so that said conduct will be in keeping with my personal sense of what is right and what is wrong.
2. I may be disgusted by what some people do to and with each other in the privacy of their own homes, but I do not wish for the government to prevent those perverts from doing whatever perverted things they like to do to each other.

Even though I drink alcohol and smoke nicotine:

1. I want the government to make sure that nobody uses any substance that I find personally offensive. Marijuana, for instance.
2. I do not believe that the government should be involved in what people do, and that includes what people smoke, in privacy of their own homes. I just don’t want to have to pay for it when they screw themselves up good.

You need some legal advice:

1. 1. You want the government to tell you who you can go to for legal advice. If you go to someone for legal advice who is not approved by the government, and that person charges you to prepare a will or to draw up a lawsuit for you, you want the government to punish that person with a heavy fine, or perhaps some jail time, even though you freely entered into an agreement with him for that advice and legal help.
2. 2. You are willing to use your own common sense in choosing someone to represent you before a court, either someone who is recommended by a private accreditation agency such as the American Bar Association, or someone who is otherwise known to you to be informed and capable as to legal affairs, and you are willing to abide by the choice you made.

You’re going to have a child. You understand that having a child will be physically, emotionally and financially challenging. So…:

1. You want the government to used money seized from taxpayers to pay for child care for your child.
2. You want the government to force your employer to give you 12 weeks off from the job in order to care for your new child, and you want your job to be waiting for you when you return.
3. You know that you had the child, not the taxpayers and not your employer, and you are willing to bear the responsibility for raising that child without the government imposing any cost, burden or duty on anyone else on your behalf.

You want to ride your motorcycle without a helmet:

1. You’re willing to take full responsibility for your decision, including the possibility that you might die if you crack your head open and you don’t have enough money to pay for the medical care you’ll need and there’s no private charity willing to step up and cover your costs because they consider your injuries to be essentially self-inflicted.
2. You want to be free to ride without a helmet, but if you do happen to sustain a horrible injury you want the government to force the taxpayers to be responsible for your health care.

Did you choose answers that eliminated government interference and left you to enjoy the freedom we celebrate on the 4th.?

As a follow up to my first post on this topic, I offer one possible explanation for the blatantly annoying voicemail instruction prompts.

Minutes.

The longer you wait to leave a message, the more minutes you are using. I cannot wait for the market to fix this service issue.