afrodziak

I actually have the same gripe. Though my sons mothers are not any sort of deadbeat moochers either. Only the one went on public assistance and then only because she was halfway through school and couldnt (due to time and $) finish school and work full time with an infant child. Of course, she did get off public assistance as soon as she got finished with school which was about 18 months, if i recall correctly. It is my understanding that this is the type (at least one of them) of situation that the public aid system was designed for - people to be able to use it, better themselves and move on. Anyway, for those who seem to have a problem with me having 2 sons and not being married to either of their moms, thats fine if that is how you think - but i would argue that it CERTAINLY is not in any way an example of the problems of our society today. I can see if i had 6 kids by 4 mothers and never paid a dime for their support and we were all on welfare and eating govt cheese and so on. LOL Basically what i am saying is having kids and not being married is not breaking down society at all if a person is responsible and taking care of their own IMHO. Also for those who think i was being irresponsible with my johnson just because i happened to choose the pill as a birth control method - lets be real. how many of you are in relationships and use condoms ALL THE TIME...especially if your girl is on the pill? My guess is it is a small percentage.

LOL Yeah, aint it the truth. Of course at the time neither of them were RN's, they were both in school when we were dating. In answer to another person's post. YES, the system followed it's rules and YES i do have a problem with it - you must be one of those people who think that just because someone creates a rule it must be good? LOL there are a lot of rules in place that suck!

I dont mind the criticism, i dont think it is justified but everyone has their own opinion. I have learned a lot about the corruption of this system since those days (this began 10 years ago) and i have found that one of the reason so many states are so gung ho in chasing down and in some cases even tearing down people's lives is the subsidies they get for every dollar collected from the federal government. In my case - to answer a couple of questions NO, i am not one who blames folks regularly for my problems NO, neither of my sons were planned and yes i am unfortunate enough to have had two girlfriends who were on the pill get pregnant. NO, i do not currently live with either of my sons or their mothers. I am married now for almost three years to my wife, who is not the mother of my children. I live in another state, but am very much involved in both my sons lives, they spend summers and holidays with me - i come home to Buffalo very often for their birthdays and all christmas festivities and more - usually about ever 6 weeks or so. In fact when they get to high school age they will move in with me and visit their mothers in the summer. They are very close to one another and their mothers get along so it isnt one of those things where they are not well taken care of or treated badly - none of us have any problems with one another in this big ol crazy family. Some of you evidently misunderstood my post. I did not ever have a problem taking care of either of my sons, in fact before i got married and moved away 3 years ago, they would stay with me 3 to 4 nights per week and not just weekends either. We were and are still VERY close. I only had a problem with the way the system seemed designed to ruin people. Treat everyone like deadbeats. I was a young person trying to make it in life and they are threatening my credit for no reason other than their own ineptitude. I can say not ONE cent of my children was paid by society at large (i know it was long but if you read the whole post you would see that i paid all my bills relating to my son's birthing and all my other child support obligations) my only issue was i couldnt understand why they didnt hold both myself and my ex responsible for the Dr. bill and why they couldnt e simply sign me up and not set me up with these UNECESSARY past due fees and threaten my credit - thereby possibly preventing me from getting better jobs, making more money and being able to take proper care of myself and my family. They were not successful in doing much more than being a major annoyance as both of my sons mothers are RN's, i am a Director of Technology for a software company and both my sons are honor students in Buffalo. I just think the system is VERY corrupt and actually was curious if anyone else has had dealings with them and feel the same way or feel differently...

This is long but I just finished another round of dealings with these idiots and I thought I would share my tale(s) of dealing with the incredibly stubborn, uncaring, unfair and unproductive (for the citizens it is supposed to be serving) entity that is the Erie County Child Support Collection Unit. My tale begins with the birth of my second son. When my girlfriend got pregnant and had our son she was working and in school to become a nurse. After our son was born she was unable to work and go to school and care for him so she stopped working to finish school. We both understood that this meant she had to go on public assistance and therefore I had to pay child support (which I had no problems paying – though I preferred to pay directly for our son’s needs rather than to the ECSCU) as I didn’t make enough money to support both our households at the time and we had no plans to begin living together. First they called us in to advise us that I would have to pay and for me to sign paternity papers (even though I was on the birth certificate already and had never denied my fatherhood status). I came in and expected to do all the paperwork and be done. The first step evidently was just the paternity step, they set up another date for me to come and determine the amount of my payments – about a month later! If I recall correctly they had to reschedule this meeting for some reason (not my doing, I showed up every time I was told to and did not miss any appointments whatsoever). At any rate, to shorten the story they took 2 months or more to finally get me back and square things away, then they wouldn’t take into account the fact that I had another son who I had to support – saying unless he was in their system he basically didn’t exist as far as they were concerned. They assigned me payments which I thought were somewhat high for my salary, but I had already resigned myself to paying whatever it was they said I had to pay (looking back, I would have gotten a lawyer for this, but at the time I was only 24 and felt the lawyer fees would not be worth it – what a BIG DUMMY) The real problem with all this was that they also said I owed them 2 or 3 months of back pay which amounted to roughly (as best I can recall, within $100 or so) $1200.00! I couldn’t understand how I owed them back pay when the only reason it hadn’t been paid was their delays in scheduling! Not only that, but they also informed me that if I didn’t pay the arrears within like 30 days, they would report it to the credit agencies! THE SECOND OF THREE issues happened when my ex girlfriend finished school and got a job in her field and got off public assistance. We both went down to remove the order of support. They talked her into removing just the enforcement of it, but leaving the order intact so that if for some reason I stopped paying she could just go down and have them ‘flip a switch’ or whatever to restore the order. That was fine with me as I have always paid my fair share for my sons. So they removed the order and all was good. About a month or two later I get a letter in the mail saying I needed to come down to court because they determined that she had been on Medicaire when she gave birth (wonder how could it have been that they hadn’t figured that out for the 2 years I had been paying and only as soon as the spigot turned off did they magically decide I should pay for this now?) and so I (not WE) owed the state approximately $2000 for the Dr. bill. I asked them to explain why this bill was not something that we shared and they basically just told me that is the way it is. I was livid. The only good part about this is that when I went down (again sans attorney) and saw the DA and he saw that I had paid all my arrears and wasn’t missing any payments for the previous years (he asked how I paid it and I explained that I had to take out a loan and he was just pleased as pie that I was willing to go into further debt to remove a debt that I shouldn’t have even had in the first place if the state’s henchmen would’ve had their crap in order!) he mentioned it to the judge who agreed to only assign me 5.00/week payments for this 2000 debt. WHICH BRINGS US TO THE THIRD time these bastards crossed me I eventually got a better job and of course, forgot to tell my new employer to make the 5.00 payment (if they hadn’t insisted on garnishing my wages for the 5 bucks, I would not have so easily forgotten to do this, but after a couple of years I had basically forgotten all about it). So I wound up getting a few weeks behind – I think I owed them like 25.00. I got no letters, no phone calls despite living in the same place and having the same number. All I got was a checking account that was frozen! It included my most recent paycheck which was auto deposited and it took like 2 days for me to get the account freed up and caused several bounced checks and fees – my bank even charged me a fee for freezing the account! All for a 25.00 arrears that could have been resolved by a simple phone call! "Suppose you were an idiot ... And suppose you were a member of (ECSCU)... But I repeat myself." --Mark Twain

...since when is a 4.41 40 time too slow?? Not fast enough for WHAT, i guess is a better question here...

So what should we expect at #86? a mobile QB..

...do you suppose TD and the boys are just going off the ESPN list? LOL I know you werent suggesting that but it is a funny thought. maybe they were too busy living it up this year to do their research and just decided to go with whatever Mel Kiper had to say!

I guess it is a long draft and many say the 3rd and 4th round will hold a lot of value in comparison to recent years. Could be that the big guys TD likes are likely to be around at 110 and beyond...

He cant play outside in the NFL, would never get off the line i dont think. They cant really jam you in the slot...besides, there is no way he takes Moulds or Evans spot in this offense even if he COULD get off the line.

Wow, didnt see that coming at all. When was the last time we picked a defender first? We got a QB, 2 WR's and a RB lately. Cant imagine that was a need pick and i would think there were some big men around that could help the team with that pick.... Could be BYE BYE Josh time if this kid can take the slot position next year...

I would have to say that Hawthorne is the man at this point...weed and all...

The funniest thing in the world to me is if you go to the Falcons website and try to order a #7 Jersey with the name Mexico, Ron Mexico or even R Mexico, it wont let you and says it doesnt accept profane or other names. LOL

call your friends and tell them Usher came out of the closet today and admitted he is bi-sexual. It's already going around, so his website is swamped, which makes it look kind of real...

Those commercials crack me up.

I just wish Pittsburgh would capitalize when they get in the red zone so i can stop worrying. It's drivin me nuts! At least the Jags are looking lame without Fred T. Hopefully Houston will not blow it in the second half. I think a 21 or 24 point lead is good enough to put my butterflies to rest for that game...

14-0!!!!! They better hunker down here on defense though...Jags already at mid field!!

I'll b there and I'll b on time!

Wasnt funny at all to me. Of course maybe if i had ever heard of that band before and didnt think it was just some skit they pulled out of their butt it would have been better

So many people are just totally ignorant on this board - or at least act like they are... *side note....EVERYONE knows Hockey is not a sport!

...actually I am rooting for it to stay gone. Hell, if they get rid of Baseball too i won't cry. I can get by on Football, Boxing, Tennis and a little Basketball for my sporting needs just nicely.

FYI i am a native of Buffalo NY, 34 years old who grew up on HIp Hop/Rap. I am also a 'retired' 15 year Disk Jockey of predominantly Rap and R&B music through the 80's & 90's. With that said i found it interesting that people were posting about hating rap on the Bills board so i thought i would give it a read - mainly expecting to not agree with much of what people were saying...but secure in the knowledge that rap is and has been for some years now the most popular form of music in the US and abroad - so how many people can REALLY hate it, proportionately speaking? Anyway, i was surprised to find that what Nick in England said was largely true to my way of thinking as it pertains to Gangsta rap. I do like a couple of the artists that would go under that label (50 Cent, Snoop Dogg & Eminem leap to mind, im sure there are one or two others) but i much prefer a lot of the other artists, some who have actually got things to say and others who are just fun to listen to, have nice beats, distinct flows or just witty enough to catch my attention with their rhyme style... (NAS, Jay Z, Common, Mos Def, Fabolous, Kanye West come to mind from the 'new school'). My point (one of them) is that these days rap music is so pervasive (i never really knew when the distinction between rap and hip hop became rap=gangsta hip hop=everything else, but to my way of thinking the two terms are basically interchangeable) these days and there is so much cross over between the genres, particularly with rap and other genres, that it is harder and harder to even tell where the lines are between rap/r&b/jazz/blues/even some country lately...i think that is a big part of what has helped rap music to become so popular and have such great longevity so far.

True Willis is awesome with his stiff arm, but i will say i think Travis' was a little better. It could be because i have seen more runs from TH and therefore more 'pancake' stiff arms than what Willis has done so far... Actually to me they are similar runners, if different sized. Both are tough to bring down and make good YAC. Seems that though Willis is sometimes hesitant behind the line to pick and hit a hole, he does better with making something out of nothing than TH did, at least this year....

Actually we beat 3 teams with winning records (Jets, Rams Seattle) because the Rams and Seattle both had winning records when we played them. If you want to consider it the way you are looking at it, then New England has only gone 3-1 against teams that currently have a winning record this year (Bal, Jets & Indy) - what's the point? Does that make their 11-1 record any different? NO

OK, there are 2 assumptions we are going to have to start with to look at possibilities for the remainder of the season: 1. Bills win out to finish the season on a 7-0 run with a 10-6 final record after starting 0-4 2. San Diego, Indy, New England and Pittsburgh win their divisions (basically for our concerns, I'm saying that San Diego and Indy don't finish 10-6, which could change all kinds of things) So here is the wild card race in a nutshell as it stands today, with current record, recent streak, remaining schedule and what each team must do for Buffalo to pass them if they run the table (only top 2 of these 5 teams will make the playoffs as wild cards): 9-3 Jets (Won 3) - @Pittsburgh; Seattle; New England; @Rams *must lose 3 games (and one of those has to be against New England) 7-5 Ravens (Lost 2) - NY Giants; @Indy; @Pittsburgh; Miami *must lose 2 games 7-5 Broncos (Lost 2) - Miami; @Kansas City; @Tennessee; Indy *must lose 1 (I believe I read somewhere that we'd have a tie breaker against them if we both finished 10-6 - someone correct me if i am wrong here) 6-6 Jaguars (Lost 3) - Chicago; @Green Bay; Houston; @Oakland *must lose 1 6-6 Buffalo (Won 3) - Cleveland; @Cinci; @San Fran; Pittsburgh *must win all 4 Cinci and Pittsburgh obviously will be the tests for us. I am more worried about the Bengals because if we play Pittsburgh at home on a 6 game winning streak with the playoffs at stake and blow it, it just wasnt meant to be! I didnt include the Bengals in the list above because we are assuming that Buffalo wins all 4, meaning the Bengals can't pass us. In summary you can see that all the teams ahead of us are on current losing streaks and have pretty difficult teams coming up. The Jets are the only ones not on a losing streak, but they probably have the most difficult schedule of them all down the stretch!

That Houston game wont be a cakewalk either, despite their record...