I went back and counted the blog entries I’ve written since I started this gig. It’s 952 counting this one. I started this project for one reason and one reason only. For five years I’ve felt the American Dream was slipping away. At that time almost no one would listen. Today, I hear that comment once a week. I would say this to friends and family members and get the eye roll. It’s just Bill spouting politics.

Until I got this epiphany I was not a political person. Like most of my generation, I felt we hired politicians to do their work and they should do what we hired them to do. I spent 34 years in the energy business. I knew when it came to energy, they had no clue. They had chased the dream of a green energy world for 20 years and the end result was more and more dependency on foreign crude and billions wasted. I extrapolated that into the rest of their work and got the same result.

Incompetent politicians were taking on more and more of the responsibility of running our lives and future with the same result. All while we watched it happen. It seemed most people like me didn’t care. Then I began to care. As a concerned senior with kids and grand kids, I needed to care. I saw what the incompetents were doing to diminish the future opportunities for my kids and grand kids.

I knew nothing about blogging. I didn’t know what a blog was and had never read a blog, so I began to read some. I found a do-it-yourself service, Square Space, and put together a blog. Grandparents of America Awaken. As I continued to produce blogs, I sought some advice. Square Space was not user friendly. So, I switched to this service with the new title, No Smoke Blown. It was easier to work with and gave me the opportunity to produce a more professional product and seek a bigger audience.

Writing a daily blog forced me to read more and learn more about world we live in and the workings of our country. It made me think about things more. It pushed me into the world of political thinking. More importantly, it gave me a bully pulpit to try to convince more and more of my generation to do the same.

Since that first blog things in this country have gotten worse. Much worse, But, as the tea party movement shows, more and more of us are getting involved in trying to turn the country in a different direction before we bottom out. This change inspires me to keep blogging.

I’m thinking the 1,000 mark is becoming a target spot to end this. If the fall elections go as predicted, the need for this seems less urgent. We are beginning to re-take out country from the fools and scoundrels who have tried to destroy the outlook for future generations. That was always my goal and it seems to be within reach.

Hopefully, doing this has inspired some of you who have read this blog to realize the threat we face. It’s not about Democrats and Republicans, it is hard to pick a winner in either group. It’s about abuse of power and the election and re-election of incompetent candidates. It’s about a central government that wants to grow. It’s about out-of-control spending and bad choices. It’s about special interest groups that don’t have the best interests of this country in mind, but still call the shots. It’s about term limits and corruption. It’s about the loss of common sense in Washington, state governments, and local city halls. But, most importantly, it’s about my kids and grand kids.

My kids are too busy raising their kids to notice. My grand kids are too young to have a voice. So, it may fall on our shoulders, the grandparents to unretire and get active.

Writing checks doesn’t get it done. When the group that is supposed to represent us, our lobbyist, the AARP, supports Obamacare and this week said they would support major changes in social security, including reductions in payments to protect the future payments. We need a new lobbyist. The AARP, run by flaming left-wing liberals has gone native. If you still belong, you are being misled.

So, I slog and blog away. Hoping to do something to keep you informed about the misguided direction we are taking. If you do nothing, please think about what you can do to make a difference. You owe that much to your own kids and grand kids.