On a better note…I have just purchased my second vehicle from Bob Tomes Ford in Mckinney, Texas and can honestly say they “rock”…everyone is very professional, courteous, friendly and above all doesn’t try and put you in a vehicle you don’t want. And as far as salesmen and finance managers go, both my purchases could not have gone more smoothly and hassle-free. I go in, pick out the vehicle I want, the finance manager does his job well and I’m out the door with one of their vehicles until mine is detailed and “filled up with gas”. Yep, they let you take one of their new cars home until they have your’s completed and ready to go for you. No hassle, no fuss, no argument, but most of all the entire staff is amazingly courteous and helpful. Something the employees of Troy Aikman Ford could certainly learn from. Maybe Troy needs to send his potential employees to Bob Tomes Ford for orientation and training before hiring them at his dealership. He could probably have alot more satisfied customers and sell alot more cars.

Well here’s another outrageous post. However, this time this actually happened to me and my son. About three weeks ago my son went to Troy Aikman Ford to purchase a Ford F150. He told the Finance Manager what he wanted his payments to be and no more because that is all he could afford. They found and agreed on a truck that the Finance Manager guaranteed was “do-able”….after a few days of waiting to see if it was in fact “do-able” they finally advised him that he was approved and he could come and get the truck. He asked that I meet him there to help look over the papers, etc. When we got there the truck that was “do-able” wasn’t. Well it was, if my son wanted to pay $200.00 more than he had previously told them that he could afford to pay. They didn’t bother telling him that before he drove all the way over to the dealership after work. So, he had to then get another truck that “they” picked out. He was fairly happy with it and decided to go ahead and get it even though it wasn’t the 2007 that he picked out originally. But it was something he decided he could afford alot better than what they figured on the 2007 in the end.

Now here is where the “beware of buying from Troy Aikman Ford” comes in. My son signed all the papers, got ready to go and they told him they “do not fill the gas tank up”. (I mean wth??…that was a first for me. What sort of dealership doesn’t put gas in a vehicle you have just purchased from them? )…after my telling them that I had never heard of such a thing and that I had never purchased a vehicle anywhere that the dealership let me drive off the lot without filling the gas tank up. I figure that’s the least a dealership can do when you have just spent over $20,000.00. Anyways….reluctantly they filled the tank up. The salesman only gave us one key to the vehicle and said he would see if the Sales Manager had the other one (it was closing time) but if not, not to worry he would get us another key to the vehicle.

Almost 2 weeks later, my son calls to see if he can get the spare key. The salesman tells him there is no key and “we filled your tank up with gas, what more do you want?”…(Again wth?)…so my son tells him that he wants the key and if he had to talk to Troy himself that he would get the key. The Salesman tells him to do what he wants to do. Okay, so my son calls me pretty upset that the salesman is a liar and refuses to now give him another key to the vehicle. So I call the salesman, he’s nice enough to me and says there isn’t another key, blah, blah, blah. I, in turn told him that I recently purchased a vehicle (after being at Troy Aikman Ford) and the reason I didn’t purchase a vehicle from them was because of the fact that they didn’t even want to put gas in a vehicle you purchase so I figure the service would be pretty pathetic. After listening to the blah, blah, blah about him not making the rules and there being no key I finally just hung up. My son calls the Sales Manager (again to try and get the spare key), the Sales Manager tells him “we bent over backwards to get you in the vehicle”, blah, blah, blah…(one more time, wth???)…They bent over backwards??…isn’t that what they are suppose to do to make that “Commission” they are trying so hard to get…but he says he will call the previous owner to see if there was a spare key. (My thought was: are they too stupid to know how to make another key?) Anyways….

The very next day, the finance company where my son had the car he traded in financed with calls him at work to tell him he is late on his payment and that it will be put on his credit report if he doesn’t make his payment soon. Yep, you guessed it almost two weeks after we traded the car off and picked up the F150 and Troy Aikman Ford still had not paid the other car off nor made an attempt to according to the finance company.

I called Troy Aikman Ford and asked to speak to the General Manager. Of course, he was not in. The receptionist asks if someone else could help. By this time the only people I feel like might be a bit of help would be the General Manager or Troy Aikman himself and I tell her so. She asks if I could tell her alittle bit about what the problem is and when I begin to tell her about the gas, then the situation with the key, she apologized and said that it was unprofessional. At last, someone at that place that agreed with the way I already felt. She then tells me to hold on and she would connect me with “the sales manager” and before I could tell her I would rather not be transferred to him…he was connected and I began to tell him how outrageous I felt we had been treated about the gas, the key, the comments, and now the trade-in was not even paid off and I could tell he was not really listening by the “uh-hum” he said every once in awhile. Then he tells me to hang on and let him find out why the trade-in hasn’t been paid off yet. Then….he hangs up on me…Now I’m really beginning to get pissed and my patience with the morons at that dealership is running out. So I waited and waited and waited and yep, waited some more for him to call me back. (he had my number in front of him on the computer screen he was reading off to me when I first got him on the phone to verify who I was) But surprisingly enough, no call came..surprise, surprise. So I called the dealership back and asked to speak to him. After waiting and waiting and waiting some more he finally gets on the phone and says “sorry, I tried to put you on hold but cut you off”…and my response to that was “and the un-professionalism just keeps coming” …at that point, this 3 year old Sales Manager (I say 3, because that is how old he acted) says to me “ma’am don’t get rude to me, I was going to tell you what I found out about the car, but if you are going to be rude I just won’t bother telling you”….so let’s see, he had a secret and if I was nice to him he would tell it to me…well my patience with this idiot ran out immediately and I told him to tell me what he found out about the payoff on the car an mine and his relationship would be over….so then he tells me that a pay-off would be sent over on the following Monday. I advised him that if this went on my sons credit because a car was not paid off that they had in there possession for 2 weeks and had not even bothered to pay off and get it out of my sons name that there would be a liability. What a bunch of MORONS!. I cannot believe that Troy has the slightest idea that his employees treat the customers so rude and would actually care to have people like that working behind the Troy Aikman name. Does these people not know that “word of mouth” is the best salesman they can have?…I’m thinking they aren’t smart enough to figure that out. Now we still have to “try” and get the tags for this newly purchased vehicle from these morons. That should be fun trying to get that from them since it has been nothing but a HUGE hassle dealing with these people. I can honestly say that I have never purchased a vehicle in all my life and had to deal with anything like I have at Troy Aikman Ford. So all I can say is if Troy doesn’t know about this, he soon will and if he already knows how his employees treats customers and allows it.. well, use your own judgment on whether or not you want to take the chance of being treated rude and lied to when you have already purchased the vehicle .

Someone sent this to me in an email. They had received it from someone else. If it is true…it is outrageous..

UNBELIEVABLE!

Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas is a fairly famous institution and for a variety of reasons:

1. John F. Kennedy died there in 1963
2. Lee Harvey Oswald died there shortly after
3. Jack Ruby-who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, died there a few years later by coincidence.

On the flip side, Parkland is also home to the second busiest maternity ward in the country with almost 16,000 new babies arriving each year. (That’s almost 44 per day—every day)

A recent patient survey indicated that 70 percent of the women who gave birth at Parkland in the first three months of 2006 were illegal immigrants.’ Crikey, that’s 11,200 anchor babies born every year just in Dallas. According to the article, the hospital spent $70.7 million delivering 15,938 babies in 2004 but managed to end up with almost $8 million dollars in surplus funding. Medicaid kicked in $34.5 million, Dallas County taxpayers kicked in $31.3 million and the feds tossed in another $9.5 million.

The average patient in Parkland’s maternity wards is 25 years old, married and giving birth to her second child. She is also an illegal immigrant. By law, pregnant women cannot be denied medical care based on their immigration status or ability to pay. OK, fine. That doesn’t mean they should receive better care than everyday, middle-class American citizens. But at Parkland Hospital, they do.

Parkland Memorial Hospital has nine prenatal clinics. NINE.
The Dallas Morning News article followed a Hispanic woman who was a patient at one o f the clinics and pregnant with her third child—her previous two were also born at Parkland. Her first two deliveries were free and the Mexican native was grateful because it would have cost $200 to have them in Mexico. This time, the hospital wants her to pay $10 per visit and $100 for the delivery but she was unsure if she could come up with the money. Not that it matters, the hospital won’t turn her away. (I wonder why they even bother asking at this point.)

How long has this been going on? What are the long-term effects?
Well, another subject of the article was born at Parkland in 1986 shortly after her mother entered the U.S. illegally—now she is having her own child there as well. (That’s right, she’s technically a U.S. citizen.) These women receive free prenatal care including medication, nutrition, birthing classes and child care classes. They also get freebies such as car seats, bottles, diapers and formula.

Most of these things are available to American citizens as well but only for low-income applicants and even then, the red tape involved is almost insurmountable.

Because these women are illegal immigrants they do not have to provide any sort of legitimate identification—no proof of income. An American citizen would have to provide a social security number which would reveal their annual income—an illegal immigrant need only claim to be poor and the hospital must take them at their word.

My husband is a pilot for the United States Navy (yes, he fought in Iraq) and while the health care is good, we Navy wives don’t get any of these perks! Car seats? Diapers? Not so much. So my question is this: Does our public medical care system treat illegal immigrants better than American citizens? Yes it does!

As I mentioned, the care I have received is perfectly adequate but it’s bare bones, meat and potato medical care—not top of line.

Their (the illegals) medical care is free—simply because they are illegal immigrants? Once again, there is no way to verify their income. Parkland Hospital offers indigent care to Dallas County residents who earn less than $40,000 per year. (They also have to prove that they did not refuse health coverage at their current job Yeah, the ‘free’ care is not so easy for Americans.)

There are about 140 patients who received roughly $4 million dollars for un-reimbursed medical care. As it turns out, they did not qualify for free treatment because they resided outside of Dallas County. So the hospital is going to sue them! Illegals get it all free! But U.S. citizens who live outside of Dallas County get sued! How stupid is this?

As if that isn’t annoying enough, the illegal immigrant patients are actually complaining about hospital staff not speaking Spanish. In this AP story, the author speaks with a woman who is upset that she had to translate comments from the hospital staff into Spanish for her husband. The doctor was trying to explain the situation to the family and the mother was forced to translate for her husband who only spoke Spanish. This was apparently a great injustice to her.

“In an attempt to create a Spanish-speaking staff, Parkland Hospital is now providing incentives in the form of extra pay for applicants who speak Spanish. Additionally, medical students at the University of Texas Southwestern for which Parkland Hospital is the training facility will now have a Spanish language requirement added to their already jammed-packed curriculum. No other school in the country boasts such a ridiculous multi-semester (multicultural) requirement.

Today is Christmas Eve and I wanted to say I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Joyous holiday season. Wishing you all Peace, Love and Joy this holiday season and a New Year filled with Happiness. May this next year be better than the last.

I have a new addition to my family. My son bought me a Rottie pup for Christmas. This is my second Rot. The first one (Mufausa) passed away almost 4 years ago from canine cancer. I loved my Rot. Still love him and miss him every day. But now I have another one to love. This one is a female and I named her Montana. She is only 6 weeks old as of the date of this post and boy oh boy is she a handful. Its like having a toddler in the house. She’s a bit different that Mufausa was at that age. He was very docile and laid back. Montana is into everything and going constantly when she is awake. But damn she’s a cutey when she’s asleep. (haha) I’ll keep you posted on which one of us gives out the quickest.

Hi everyone…haven’t posted for awhile as you can see. However, I watched World Trade Center a few nights ago and it was an awesome movie. Brought back many sad memories of 911. Almost makes you angry about it all over again. Nicholas Cage was wonderful as usual. Its a must see for everyone from America. We mustn’t ever forget the fallen heroes and the feelings we all had on that horrible day. I, for one, will never forget where I was or what I was doing when those planes flew into the Towers. At first, I guess I was like everyone else and just felt it was an accident, until the second one hit the second tower. What a scary day that was for everyone. Its even scarier to think there are still terrorists sitting in wait in America. Waiting for us to let our guard down. To strike us again. We have to do something about letting everyone into this country. I know, I know..I keep going on and on about that….but I hate to see America let the very people in that hate us and want to do us harm. Okay, so that is all I’m going to say on that subject (for now)…

Tomorrow is September 11, 2006 and 5 years after the devastation on the World Trade Center. I am very happy that FoxNews.com will be airing the real time coverage of the horrific events as they unfolded in 2001. It’s time for letting America remember (for those who were too young at the time and for those who may have just forgotten) all the fallen heroes who died on that dreadful day at the hands of terrorists. For the people who didn’t make it out of the Twin Towers and for all the fireman, police officers and civilians who lost their lives trying to save whomever they could. May they all rest in peace. What a sad day for American’s. That day changed America and American’s forever. America will never again be the way it was before September 11, 2001. We will no longer feel the freedom that we once felt before that day. We will never feel the security in our nation the way we did before that day. The scum of the world came into our country and invaded our lives and changed us forever. How dare they? I have read blogs of people who hate America that live here but are from other countries. I ask those people….what are you doing here?…Please leave. Americans don’t want you here anyway. If only America would close our borders and have America be for American’s again. What a great day that would be in history. But we have too many “do-gooder’s” in politics who try to please everyone in the world. And because of trying to please everyone and make America “the Land of the Free” and pretty much let anyone that can’t speak fluent English come to America and live – we have events like September 11th, 2001. I fear that terror attacks will continue in our homeland because there are surely terrorists who walk our streets, work in our business’es and eat in our restaurant’s every single day. Sitting in wait until it is their time to wreak havoc on America. Will we ever feel safe again? I, for one, don’t think so.

1. The Notebook
2. Lonesome Dove
3. Lord of the Rings
4. Sweet Home Alabama

Okay, here we go again. I am still wondering why the hell Usama Bin Laden is still wandering around. I just read on Foxnews.com that “Pakistan is both a key U.S.-British ally in the antiterror campaign, and a hotbed of Islamic radicalism and likely hiding place for al Qaeda leader Usama Bin Laden.” So, lets see if I have this right, Pakistan is a likely hiding place for that idiot, yet we still don’t have him? We know that Pakistan is a likely hiding place for him among other places that we know of, yet he is still roaming around free to contribute to more chaos in this world. We charged into Iraq to get another “idiot” and thank goodness we have him, but what about Usama?? How long is it going to take to rid this world of that parasite. And to get rid of some of the other parasites that call themselves “Al Qaeda”. The great disappointment to read or hear about is how some of these recent terrorists were born/reared in Britain. You ungrateful pieces of garbage. You people come into our countries, live in our neighborhoods and have the balls to become terrorists against the very countries that take your sorry butts in. Come on this has got to stop. America and Europe need to quit allowing everyone to come into our countries. The majority of them are not here for “a better life”, and they really could care less about us or our countries.

A couple of years ago I made my first trip to Great Britain. I have friends there and wanted to go for a visit. After my 10 hour flight I was pleasantly surprised to see how absolutely beautiful it was. Not that I didn’t think it was going to be pretty, but was not expecting it to be as gorgeous as it was. I stayed 7 days and wished I would have planned my trip for longer, because I didn’t have enough time to come close to seeing all that I wanted to see. Here are a few pictures of my trip.