Labor Day 2008 – Mike describes the origin of mikeroweWORKS.com
Yard work. Never cared for it.
Maybe it’s because I grew up in a giant yard in the middle of a forest? Or maybe it’s because the chores never seemed to end? Or maybe it’s because my father embraced a pointless but unwavering commitment to landscaping and curb appeal? Beats me. I can only tell you that my brothers and I were drafted into this eternal conflict at an early age, with what one might call a conspicuous lack of basic training.
Armed with a vast array of modern weaponry, we were sent out every weekend to confront a determined foe. Acres of grass that refused to stop growing, weeds that laid siege to the perimeter of my parent’s farmhouse, and magical trees that needed to be pruned every few hours. We were doomed to fail of course, and overwhelmed by the futility of it all, which is why I now live in a condo. So then, why did I have so much fun last month, laboring for 10 hours in the back yard of a total stranger? Mostly, because the stranger was this guy – Sgt. Peter Mavropolous.
Peter came back from Iraq a few weeks ago from his second tour, and found his property an overgrown shambles. 
The knucklehead who had agreed to maintain his modest home while he was away had
flaked out, and after two years of neglect, Peter’s yard slowly morphed into a condemned lot. (Can you imagine? I mean seriously – what kind of slacker agrees to look after a soldiers property and then lets it go all to hell while his buddy is off getting shot at in a foreign land?) Happily, a group of volunteers materialized, and spent their Saturday restoring Sgt. Peter’s place back into the home it looked like when he left two years earlier. Read More...
(Please note - this article was written by SRW, a frequent contributor to the website)
SRW’s 4-1/2 cents:
I’m really bugged about something and I’ve decided to throw it out there. Here’s my question – Are the American farmers heading towards the same fate as America’s auto industry? I know some of you are already thinking “What the heck is this guy talking about?” but just stay with me for a few minutes.
I had a real interesting conversation the other day with a friend of mine. She was raised a God-favouring, true blue American gal. She believes in and supports America, proudly wears red, white and blue and even thought about enlisting in the Navy back in 1975 when she graduated high school. She wore a POW bracelet for 6 years (interestingly the name on it was John McCain III). She considers herself a moderate conservative and honestly, truly believes she puts her money where her mouth is. So what happens is she gets hooked on this thread started in our Water Cooler last year called Ford Pays For Its Prudence. (Check it out – it’s still going on.) Anyway, Mike posted there several times and got this gal to thinking about stuff. Turns out she’s owned a BMW for 21 years, is quite happy with it and hopes it lasts her the rest of her life. It also turns out that she had never considered buying an American car because she learned that foreign cars held their value better and, depending on what it was, lasted longer than American cars and she works hard for her salary and likes to get the best bang for her buck. In fact, because of those “facts” she had sworn she’d never buy an American car.
Then this auto crisis slams the country and all of a sudden she’s paying attention. She’s really troubled by the whole deal, the effect on our country’s economy and is concerned about all the folks who lost their jobs and families impacted by the disaster with no end in sight. To top it all off, billions of our hard earned tax dollars start getting pumped into 2 failing companies to prevent them from going into bankruptcy (again). And it’s not like we got a lot of extra dollars to spare, right? (Between you and me, I think we’re throwing good money after bad but that’s another story…) Read More...
