Saturday, November 01, 2003

I’ve been so busy, not enough time to write. I attended a meeting yesterday where four candidates all running for the 70th Assembly were speaking. The candidate, Dr. Alexandria Coronado was there as well; she is running against Loretta Sanchez for Congress. I like what she had to say, she will need to raise a ton of money to beat Sanchez! Good Luck to her! I may volunteer to work on one of these candidates’ campaigns. Then I could see how a real campaign is run. I’m still learning so much every time I go to one of these meetings; it’s so interesting.

After the meeting I had to bartend till 6:30pm, then run home and get dressed up for Halloween. I was a biker chick, no time to try to come up with something original. Then it was back to bar where I made sandwiches and put out appetizers for the party. We had a blast!

I finished payroll today and am working on all the other month-end paperwork. I’ll never catch up so I can relax it seems. I think I’ll go watch a few movies and forget about finding the bottom of my desk!

Thursday, October 30, 2003

They finally have some progress on some of these fires! The weather is helping out, with a few showers here and there. I saw the sky today for the first time in awhile. Right now it’s cold and looks like it will rain soon-good news!

Busy day tomorrow with Halloween, work, and I have a meeting to attend for the Tustin Area Republican Women Federated. Alexandria Coronado will be speaking; she is running against incumbent Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez for the 47th Congressional District. It would be nice to see her win; Sanchez is so annoying.

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

These fires just keep getting worse! I’ve been watching TV all day; I can’t believe how bad things are! It is now up to over 1600 homes destroyed! A firefighter has been killed, and others injured. My bartender JJ just called because she has a friend who is here fighting the fires in San Diego from Vegas. He said the fires were all merging in San Diego and were 0% contained! He also said that Big Bear Mountain was going to be wiped out. Apparently they can only fight that fire from the air, it’s too dangerous on the ground. It’s just amazing watching the firefighters save homes, and battle these fires. Firefighters from Oregon are being sent in to relieve the ones down in San Diego because they are just exhausted. They are bringing in military planes from Georgia and Michigan. They just said on the news that the fires are unmanageable! Arnold is in Washington asking for Federal help. We need help from God at this point! I’m thinking lots of rain or snow in the mountains would be necessary at this point!

I’m receiving several e-mails from back in Ohio, friends and family worried about me. I’m okay so far, just breathing bad air and have a lot of cleaning to do! Orange County isn’t being threatened at this point. There was a small fire that broke out earlier this week in San Clemente, but they put it out real fast! We just have all the smoke and ash hanging around in the air.

I better get to the store, I need to buy food for deva’s big Halloween party. I just love Halloween, its so much fun dressing up. It will be spooky for sure with the air like this!

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Okay, the 50,000 hits were only on the RevaReneeRenzforGovernor.org website. I have no idea how many hits devasbar.com received, but it has to be way more! Wow!

These fires are relentless! Several of my patrons and friends own homes up in the mountains that are currently a blaze. One customer lost his house on Saturday. He went to work and they called to tell him his house was gone. He had to go shopping the next day to buy clothes so he could go to work. A good friend is currently waiting to see if his house is still standing. He spent $7,000 just ten days ago to have 14 dead trees removed from around his home. He brought me down some firewood that burned quickly in my fire pit out back. I can see why entire mountains of these dead trees burn so fast. There are 10 fires going right now, and over 1100 homes burned so far. What a disaster! A lot of people are going to need so much help. I’m 40 miles away and my eyes are burning, my house has ash all over, and I can smell the smoke. The people close to the fire must be miserable!

Sunday, October 26, 2003

The wedding was nice, not too ashy! First time I had Philippine food, the bride is from the Philippines. The sunset was amazing; the sun was bright neon red. These fires are so bad! I just heard that over 600 homes are burned. Gray Davis was on the news earlier declaring a disaster area. The guy is actually forming a bit of a personality now, it’s like he’s happy he got recalled. My eyes are burning, I can’t breath well, and I can’t imagine what the people closer to the fires are going through. My pool is now unusable; it’s black with ash. The Santa Ana winds are kicking up and it’s making it worse. This is so devastating, these poor people losing everything. About a dozen people have died as a result of this disaster. I have to clean the filters on my air cleaners every day now, they get dirty so fast.

I received an e-mail today from a person I went to high school with; actually he was a year ahead of me. Dan e-mailed me a few weeks back really upset about what was going on in Ohio with the sales tax being raised without a vote. He was so upset and felt he could not do anything about it. Dan asked for my advice and said how he was proud of me for running for Governor. He sounded so helpless. I wrote back and encouraged him to do get off his butt and do something about it, anything, or quit complaining. I told him that you don’t have to be a career politician to get involved, just look at us here in California! Anyway, a few days went by and Dan e-mailed me to let me know he started circulating a petition t repeal the sales tax increase of 1%. He sounds so excited now, and I think he’s getting somewhere! Here is the e-mail I received today:


Good things are happening here finally.........

I brought a petition for repealing the 1% state tax to a fish fry last weekend at Bruce Zitkovic's house and wow were people jumping to sign.

They were asking when I am going to run for mayor or a council seat. { MY GOD }
I reply that I have a good 7-12 years at ------- yet before I can get a decent pension but tell them I'm thinking about it.
The wildest thing is when I tell them I am a registered Dem. and I am in favor of conservative issues. They just crap themselves.

I had over 40 signatures by nights end and everyone was talking about getting something done to help out.
Stunned by all the excitement I e-mailed radio stations in the area and in Toledo sending this letter below to the courier last Thursday morning.

It must be a hotter topic than I thought because the courier printed it the very next day in the letters to the editor section Friday Oct. 24.

I'm having fun and feeling good about myself for a change. You are right it is like an awakening and people are listening to me like I am some important voice.

Are most people really this damn dumb?? Can't they see what the government is doing to us all???
I am truly amazed. I will do my best to keep people on their toes here. I just have to be a little careful on the job of what and how I mention these topics

I'll keep you up if anything wild happens.
Take care,
Dan

-
---- Original Message -----
From: Dan Helfer
To: letterstotheeditor@thecourier.com
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 6:37 AM
Subject: repealthetax.com

repealthetax.com


Registered voters who are ready to make the state of Ohio accountable for the over spending and fantasy politics that we are engaged in can make a difference today by signing on to the petition for the 1% tax repeal.

We are and have been on a course of uncontrolled spending up 70% in the last ten years. That is more that any state around here.
Our manufacturing jobs are leaving as well with over 118 thousand gone last year alone.

What is happening? We have a chance to repeal this state imposed 1% tax that has been applied to us Ohioans with out us first having a chance to vote on the issue.

Luckily for everyone a difference can be made by getting the word out about this petition and making sure our leaders in all areas act responsibly in the future with our hard earned tax dollars.

Please take the few minutes to review the information and petition at www.repealthetax.com and do what you can as a responsible voter to give our over spending people in the state house a message of reform.

A petition can be down loaded from this web site for use by any registered voter who has the resolve to make a stand. I myself have engaged in this effort and have had great response by all who have signed asking me to please keep it moving and fight for what is right.

Respectfully,
Dan Helfer
Findlay OH


Good for Dan! It’s great to hear that people are getting involved! Never thought I could influence politics in Ohio! I just hope this catches on all over the country!

I also received an e-mail today from Mike, the friend who helps me with my website. It looks like devasbar.com received close to 50,000 hits over the last couple of months! The report even lists all the different countries of visitors on this site; there were 55 different countries! Can you believe it? The UK and Canada were at the top of the list after the USA. Amazing!