Tony Brewer

Mother always hounded me about paying attention to the funds that I invest in and making sure that they are responsible with the money. She was always concerned about helping companies that she considering bad, profiting off of pain and misery. She wouldn’t be caught dead with investments in any fund that included tobacco or drug companies.

I disagree with the drug companies, I am comfortable investing in some of them, and they do stand to make money.

There are mutual funds out there that do spend a lot of time trying to pick stocks that are more green, better for the environment and do not deal in death. I certainly recommend taking a look at these funds, and consider the costs associated with not supported the positive things in our society.

My aunt has decided to expand her business and start to recruit new people to her team. The job market where she lives has been quite depressed for a while, so she is confident that she will be able to hire people who are looking for jobs in Manassas or jobs in Gainesville.  I know that she is going to find some great new innovative ways to get the word out, and I wish her the best of luck in helping her local economy to recover.

My uncle was telling me about his run in with the TSA recently. He is disabled and uses a cane to help him walk. He had to fly to New England from Dulles to go visit his ailing elderly mother. The doctors were telling him that she might not live more than a couple of days, so he was in great distress.

Well on the way out the door to the airport he grabbed one of his favorite canes to take with him. At the airport, he was using a wheelchair to get around. The TSA agents were concerned about his cane – they called in extra agents and with much effort broke it apart and found that inside the cane was a blade that could have been used as a weapon. So they called the police and told the police officer to arrest my handicapped uncle.

The police officer refused to arrest him, and told the TSA agents that they were being overzealous; anyone could see my uncle was not capable of hurting anyone and it was obvious from his distress that he had no idea that the cane was anything other than a cane!

Poor guy – the TSA agents refused to give him his cane back, refused to let him go buy a different cane to use to get around. They DID let him get on the plane, but they were extremely unpleasant to him. Too bad some folks let power go to their heads, isn’t it.

Teri wants to buy some flea traps for our place.  We don’t have any pets, but we have allowed some friends to bring their dogs over from time to time when they came to visit, so it is possible that some fleas came into our place with their dogs.  So I will humor her and buy some flea traps.

My brothers, sister and I grew up in a wonderful house in a great neighborhood, my parents still live at the house that all of us kids all grew up in and one day I’ll most likely be living there myself. My Dad has put a lot of blood sweat and tears into the place and I’d be proud to take over where he leaves off. The backyard is spectacular, my parents and their friends and neighbors still enjoy spending time back there all most all year round.

My father and the neighbor next door took a lot of time looking into wooden garden arbors back in the day and they both decided that they could build bigger and better wood gazebos then what was available for sale at that time back then. My dad’s gazebo is still standing strong, while the neighbor’s has been long gone, a vegetable garden taking up the room that once held one of the nicer gazebos in the whole darn neighborhood. Both of the beautiful arbors are still in place though. Those wonderful wooden arbors will always have a soft spot in my heart for as long as I live.

I’m told that our long time neighbor has just placed a “For Sale” sign on his house. They are heading south to Florida, looking for better weather to live their golden years out in. We will miss our long time friends and neighbors and we can only hope that our new neighbors are friendly people that we can get to know. It makes such a big difference if you can get along with your neighbors, we have always been lucky in that way at the old homestead.