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February 2007
What are your “Great American Dream” projects?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Home ownership is often touted as the “Great American Dream.”
While I agree, I consider the purchase of my first home one of my ultimate achievements.
I set out looking for a home that would both inspire my imagination and personally challenge me.
Little did I realize at the time, any home would have been a challenge.
I had very little in terms of anything including furniture when I first moved in.
I had the whole proverbial “bachelor working with a blank slate” thing going on.
No couch. No dining room furniture. Hardly nothing.
All I really had was some industrial shelving used as a makeshift entertainment center, two hand-me-down chairs and coffee table, bed frame, and a few other little side tables and such.
It was really pretty embarrassing.
Almost three years later, I have made significant progress in moving from that blank slate to making my house a home.
You would think that living in as close proximity to Furniture Row that I do adding all those elements of a home should have come easy.
Not only am I extremely picky, I seem to have great difficulty in trying to make up my mind on one decorating scheme or another.
Somehow I did manage to put a hodge podge of furniture together including a leather love seat and recliner, dining room table and chairs, a china cabinet and a king sized iron bed frame.
I’ve made some significant in roads on updating and decorating the home too.
The tacky 1980’s wallpaper from both the kitchen and half bath walls are gone. I have added decorative molding to the kitchen cabinets and painted the kitchen, half bath and hallway.
Some of the artwork I have collected thus far include a small Scott Westmoreland collection for the half bath, a Mayan ink print of a lion from Belize, and various other trinkets and thingamajigs and lots and lots of candles throughout the house.
While the entire house will always be a work in progress, the only room I consider “complete” at this point is my half bath. I have barely touched the upstairs.
This year, as I do every year, I set certain goals to meet or be completed by years end.
Some of them include the following home improvement goals:
Upstairs bathrooms: Remove tacky wallpaper and paint; update lighting and other fixtures. Kitchen: Add arches to entry ways, repaint (if I can settle on a color), change faucet, add ceiling tins, and maybe tile the countertop. Create and add to collection of artwork. Gardening including plants, flowers and cayenne peppers.
Those are but a few of the things I have ahead of me this year, but I am as usual looking forward to the challenge.
What projects have you already completed on your home that your particularly proud of or consider a significant achievement? What projects do you have planned for your home this year?
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Woody Bass
I have a plan for more responsible gun ownership
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week I certainly sparked a lively discussion with my blog about gun violence!
Many of you brought up some excellent (and surprising) responses.
As promised, here is my plan to eliminate some, if not the majority, of the irresponsibility linked to gun ownership.
First: Applicants would follow the current application process and have to pass a criminal background check.
Second: If approved, applicants would then take a course taught by a certified instructor where they will learn about guns including laws, mechanics, ammunition, cleaning, storage and safety.
Third: Once the course is completed, the applicant would take a written test on the topics covered in the class.
Fourth: Upon passage of the written test with at least a 90 percent score, the applicant would then be issued a “learner’s license” good for six months.
Fifth: Applicant would then complete 10 hours of supervised personal instruction in an approved shooting range.
Sixth: The applicant would demonstrate working knowledge of firearms including safety, proper cleaning techniques and operational ability. With a score of 90 percent of better, the applicant is then licensed to own a gun.
That’s my plan.
Before you tear into it, first I’ll answer what will most likely be some of your burning questions:
How can this plan take guns away from criminals?
It doesn’t. That’s not the intent of the plan.
You expect taxpayers to fund this plan?
No. If it’s done right, those who want permits would pay for the cost of the entire plan.
You want more government intervention in our lives?
Nope.
With my plan, states would require gun shops to obtain certification from organizations such as the Americans for Gun Safety.
In turn, this kind of organization could require gun shops to have such a plan in place before they will certify each gun shop.
So, let’s hear your ideas for improving and implementing the plan. I’m ready to be impressed.
Permalink | Comments (82) | Post your comment | Categories: Woody Bass
Are guns too accessible?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I can’t turn on the news anymore without hearing about gun violence. It has become too much of an everyday occurrence that leaves me depressed and frustrated.
Last month I awoke to a television report about a man who’d been shot outside St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Norcross.
Last week a 12-year-old boy in Cherokee County shot another 12-year-old boy with a gun found in the home of one boy’s uncle.
On Friday, a bullet fired from a rifle pierced the roof and a wall of an Oxford, Ga. house and killed a mother of three. Two men had been target-practicing about 150 yards away.
I am not going to hide how much guns disgust me. I think they are one of the, if not THE, most vile contraptions on earth.
To give you an idea how much, I wrote three papers in college on guns and gun control in one semester. I cannot begin to tell you how many extremely heated discussions I’ve had with friends and family about guns.
While I strive to understand how anyone can think that any one person should hold that much power - the ability to intimidate and/or take someone’s life with a gun. I can’t deny an individuals constitutional right to bear arms, no matter how painful it may be for me to accept.
But as far as I am concerned, no one needs a gun at all. Not you, certainly not me. Not good people. Not bad people.
The general public has no reason to own firearms such as semi-automatic guns or assault rifles and should be completely banned and destroyed, along with all the other types of guns (as far as I am concerned).
There is no excuse, nor any reason, why guns should be allowed in homes with children. The two simply do not mix, and it is completely irresponsible parenting.
Don’t try the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument with me. I really despise that saying. Power changes people and guns provide more power than any one individual was meant to have.
You certainly can’t use the arguments “well, if we get rid of the illegals we won’t have a problem with guns” and “well, it’s the criminal element that gives guns a bad name.”
Tell those things to the 12-year old boy recovering from a gun shot wound, the family of the woman in Oxford and the countless other families who have lost a loved one to gun violence.
Knowing that guns are as accessible as your nearest big box super store, pawn shop and even the Eastman Gun Show at the North Atlanta Trade Center this past weekend, is nothing short of frightening.
Even more frightening are the number of completely irresponsible people who go out and purchase a gun knowing absolutely nothing about them in order to obtain some false sense of security.
Next week, I will propose my plan to eliminate some, if not the majority, of that irresponsibility.
How do you feel about guns? Do you feel some firearms should be banned and that others are too accessible?
Permalink | Comments (276) | Categories: Woody Bass
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