Topic Island

Post written by Rick & Tanya Doyle

The Things Children Make You Say as a Parent

I wouldn’t trade being a husband and a parent for my single life for all the money in the world.  However, as a parent and spouse I have found over the last 4 years that children make you say (funny) things that in hindsight you never in a million years thought you’d ever say.  We have 4 year old boy girl twins that are precocious, to say the least.  You hear things leave your mouth only to say to yourself, did I really just say out loud, “leave your brothers penis alone”?  Our son is going through this charming phase right now where he’s obsessed with his penis (who am I kidding, right?  This “phase” will never end).  If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it 100 times, “Son, please stop playing with your penis”.   I thought I would make a list of things my wife and I have said to our children that are funny, disgusting, shocking and just plain weird that have never entered my mind as something you would say to anyone let alone to your children.  So here goes: Read the rest of this entry »

Post written by Rick Doyle and Dave Coleman (See Relationships page for author information)

Relationship Addiction vs Love

Date Smart! Chapter 3.4

In theory, a person needs to balance at least six primary relationships (at any given time) to achieve a stable lifestyle. Combing this information with the information you have gained from the Date Smart exercises you’ve done so far throughout the book will also be a major step towards determining if your relationship(s) at their core are founded in love vs addiction. Read the rest of this entry »

Post written by Rick Doyle

For Co-Ops to Work It Takes Too Many Perfect Maybe’s

No matter whether you lean right or left think we can all agree that the Stimulus Plan was a bad idea.  The Cap and Trade a worse idea and to leave the H1N1 in the US unchecked teeters on the brink of lunacy.  Insurance reform using Co-Ops has to be the ultimate idiot move and blindside to Americans.  If you are not familiar with Co-Ops there is a good reason; they rarely, if ever, work because it takes the several precise mechanisms to make them a success.  There is an endless stream of maybe’s that have to happen to pull off a Co-Op that is fair and actually works. Read the rest of this entry »

Post written by Admin

When Companies like Sportsmans Guide, MidwayUSA Use Plan B

(This could have also been titled: MidwayUSA and Sportsman’s Guide to Out of Stock Items)

This is just my way of patting certain companies on the back and making sure I don’t recommend that you do business with them.  When companies start to drop ship everything from their supplier or they decide that it’s a good idea to advertise a product they don’t have and can’t seem to get customers start to talk about the exceptional service and level of dishonesty they’re getting.  This has been the case with my recent and past experiences with Sportsman’s Guide and MidwayUSA. They have opted to use Plan B. Read the rest of this entry »

Post written by Rick Doyle

Like God, Obama Does Not Apologize for Anything and is Never Wrong

When you are a self proclaimed omnipotent God, you simply can’t be wrong; ever.  Our leader has demonstrated that apologizing, admitting he F’d up or any hint of an admission that he didn’t get something right is so far below him, he doesn’t even realize that that is his Achilles heel.  I have posted lots of articles that clearly spell out one fiasco directed by our perfect God-like leader so rehashing the insanity of stupidity is pointless.  What I do want to point out are the behavior flaws and psychological composition of the Great Obama, Lord of all he controls to see if the rest of us are just so incredibly stupid that his intelligence is so far beyond our understanding that we can’t grasp the shrewdness of his strategy.  Or maybe he’s just wrong.  I would undoubtedly grant him the title as the slickest car salesman in the world but he already appointed a Czar for that.  He would have appointed himself the title of Greatest and Wisest Health and Economics Genius in history but He Czar’d that already too. Read the rest of this entry »

Post written by Rick Doyle

The Best Boyfriend Revenge is, Make Him an Ex

Dear Ask Rickhead:

My boyfriend and I of 2 years recently broke up or actually we are on a “break” because we are both going to college now and want to see what else is out there. Nothing was wrong in our relationship, we were perfectly in love with each other. We decided that it would be best to stay really close friends though college, and if things don’t work out with other people we’ll get back together. Unfortunately the whole friends thing never really worked because almost every time we hang out he can’t keep his hands off me, he’s even asked if we could be friends with benefits! We go to colleges very close to one another and he will call me and tell me how he’s doing and he’ll also talk about all the beautiful girls at his school and which ones he’s interested in. I try with all my might to show that it doesn’t bother me but of course, my voice gets a little dry and it’s obvious I’m annoyed. Read the rest of this entry »

Post Written By Rick Doyle

Generation X, Y and T Who We Are Raising

I will confess that the Generation X, Y and T definitions are according to my research nearly impossible to define by birth years. Who we are raising, our perceptions of what generation they belong to or in is defined by what articles and books you read.  Twenty different books will give you twenty different timelines and definitions of whom or what a generation X is versus a generation Y and a generation T.  For arguments sake let’s use the following as a guide that is more my accumulated opinion since I can’t seem to find a concrete majority agrees guide to use. Read the rest of this entry »

Post Written By Rick Doyle

Better Twelve Step Recovery Now

Ask Rickhead decided this week to address the question of “when is it going to get better in recovery”. This is like being high, wasted, drunk or compulsive for 20 years and after 4 months of twelve step recovery you can’t figure out why you are not running the country or at least making a well deserved 7 figure salary. Read on to find out how to make it better now or at least feel better fast.

I knew when I started to write this post, “Better Twelve Step Recovery Now”, that the key to get people to read it was the NOW part.  Three cheers for the folks out there who are looking for a little instant gratification!  Notice I didn’t use the word easy.  However I will provide tips to make it a little easier and faster which basically adds up to now.  As one who is a retired addiction therapist with 28 years of experience in recovery I hope to impart to those of you looking to either improve what you have or to get it where you haven’t gotten clean or sober yet a little better twelve step recovery than you have had to date. Read the rest of this entry »

Post Written By Rick Doyle

Land of the Free Because of the Brave

No matter who you are, no matter what you think, if you live in America, the land of the free, it is because of one thing only, and you owe everything you have to the brave. You can say any ridiculous thing you want and you can spew all the rhetoric from the left you want but at the end of the day it is the men and women who have served and continue to serve the United States of America through the military that insure your rights and have for the last 233 years.  If our great, great, great grandfathers had not fought for our freedom from British rule you would be speaking with an accent and it probably would have changed from English to German to Japanese to Russian and finally to Muslim.  The day you can get on your high horse and preach without sacrifice on your part is the day you better realize that your mouth is only running because someone else made the ultimate sacrifice for you. Read the rest of this entry »

Post Written By Rick Doyle

Teaching Parents a Lesson About Their Children and School

Parents, we at the PTA would like to welcome you to the 2009 education of your children and three ring circus also known as school.  We would like to share with you the lessons your children will learn and partake in this year at school and you can trust us when we say we are going to be teaching your children things that you as parents never got when you were in school.  We can almost guarantee you will be stunned with what your kids will be forced to learn whether you agree with it or not.  In fact since your property taxes and other dollars are at stake we are going to show you parents that the lessons we learned in the past are not being repeated today.  All decisions concerning your children are being exercised on your behalf without any consent, concern or consideration of what is important to you.  Read the rest of this entry »