I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow to check out my hearing.  I have a hearing test before I meet with the doctor.  He is an ear, nose and throat specialists that deals specifically with nerve damage. 

I have noticed something since I regained part of my hearing.  I have gained confidence.  When I initially lost my hearing, I felt like it didn’t really impact me that much.  I could do all the things I always did.  I just struggled in public places when there was a bunch of noise.

But right when I regained just a small fraction of my hearing, I felt a huge boost of confidence.  I automatically went back in the mode of feeling like I could achieve all my dreams in life.  It is sort of a subtle thing that happened to me over the last 3 and a half years. 

I put a great deal of my biggest dreams aside.  It wasn’t automatic but I stopped believing the sky was the limit.  I felt like I was a victim to circumstances.  I stopped going after my dreams and started to settle in life.  But all of a sudden just part of my hearing came back and I started to believe that the impossible in life would happen.

I never pictured myself as a person that would have been discouraged so easily.  The thing that bothered me is my attitude had changed toward limited thinking so easily.  Then I realized that I started to dream again.  What bothers me is that all it took was the loss of hearing in one ear to make me stop believing my dreams were possible. 

This is Eric Davis II.

He is a 4-year-old from Houston who was sent home from school because his haircut was considered distracting.  It is labeled a mohawk but is just a shade longer than his hair on the side.  Here is the link:  Link 

Do you think Eric’s hair is distracting?

When I tagged everyone the other day, I was surprised how many people didn’t know how to use the tag feature.  So I will explain.  First you hit “New Weblog Entry” just like when you are about to update. 

Then after you write your post, you look below the weblog box and see the section marked “User Tags.”  You hit the link next to “User Tags” marked “Add.”  At that point, a box jumps up.  The box will list everyone on your “Friend List.”  You then check everyone you want to tag.  After you get done checking everyone, you hit “Add User Tags.”  It will add your friends to the post.  Then just submit your post.

An email will go out to your friend plus your tag will show up in their subscription box as “Tags.”  The idea is to tag people when you have posted a post of interest to them.  People also tag their friends when they have mentioned them in a post.  You can also tag your friends when you have posted a photo of them.  You can tag people from the photoblog if you want.

Make sure you don’t break the number one rule of the tag.  The number one rule is to avoid tagging your friends with every post just to get them to stop by.  It will annoy everyone and cause people to drop you as a friend.

Here we go:

A Swedish court ruled that parents are allowed to smack their children “as long at they do not hit them too hard.”  Here is the link:  Link

If you go to the link, you will see that the father spanked the child on the bottom and the mother was accused of smacking her on the head.

I heard one time that you should only smack a child on the bottom.

Do you think that the butt is the only appropriate place to smack a child?

I posted a photo of Beyonce with the topic of wondering why this photo was the most emailed photo of the day on yahoo:

Here is a few other photos of her on yahoo most viewed and emailed:

The comment that I got in my photoblog that stood out to me was this:

“She is pretty, but she should invest in a personal trainer to help her tone up! Those legs, as well as some other parts, are pretty flabby!!!”

Is Beyonce flabby?                

This morning I posted about paternity tests and I posted a photo of a man who had his daughter’s name tattooed on his chest.

He went on to find out that he was not the biological father of the girl.  Here is the link:  Link

Is it weird for a dad to have his child’s name tattooed on his chest?

We will change the last post around a bit.  How about we have a guy this time?  He has an engagement ring.  He breaks up with the woman and she gives back the ring.

Can the guy give the engagement ring to the next girl he wants to marry?

I know of a woman who was engaged to be married.  She had her wedding dress picked out.  The engagement was called off.  Now she is engaged to be married again.  She is going to wear the same wedding dress that she had picked out for the other wedding.

Do you think it is appropriate to wear the wedding dress you had picked out for a wedding with someone else?

As I mentioned in my photoblog, Australian men’s groups are wanting mandatory paternity test on all newborns.

They have a more men that are finding out they are not the fathers of the children they thought were theirs.  In fact, almost 25% of men getting a paternity tests are not the father.  Ten years ago, the ratio was one in ten.  Here is the link:  Link

Do you think all newborns should be given paternity tests?      

I was reading an article I found on trunthepaige’s site about capital punishment.

Economists performed a few studies that indicated that capital punishment saves lives.  They took a look at 3,054 counties over two decades.  They found that for every inmate put to death, 3 to 18 murders were prevented.  In other words, capital punishment caused less murders.  Capital punishment saved lives. 

Here is the link:  Link  I posted about this same study before but I want to ask a slightly different question this time.

If you were convinced that capital punishment saved lives, would you be in favor of capital punishment?

Angelina Jolie is naked in her new movie Beowulf.  It is said to be animated but apparently she was even surprised at how real it looked.  Here is the link:  Link

Her movies always do better when she appears nude in them.  That got me thinking.

What actor or actress would you most want to see nude in a movie?