My Sister’s daughter is moving to Florida to start her life in a few weeks at the tender young age of 22. Since she was 12 years old and visited us, she has wanted to move here and stay with Bride and I. I can hardly blame her, I did not like Ohio and having to deal with the winters there sucks, for those who are there ya know – whether you admit it or not winters sucks. I left an agonizingly small town in Ohio (Millerstown) in 1983 and using the US Navy I traveled to just about every corner of the world, I have seen everything from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and his marble masterpiece David. I have stood in the valley of the Kings and marveled at the pyramids, traveled the Suez and Panama Canals. I have stood in the coliseum of Rome and toured the Blue Mosque in Istanbul Turkey, I also know that Istanbul was previously Constantinople and before that it was a started as a Greek outpost called Byzantium, which was later the head of the Byzantine empire. I have toured London, Paris, Berlin, Switzerland and spent a week in Rio de Janeiro and wound up with my first tattoo after touring to the top of Corcovado Mountain to see the massive Christ the Redeemer statue looking down on me. I have seen things that I would have never had the opportunity to see had I stayed in Ohio. The one thing I had was the military, when I left I knew I would have someone looking after me, I was not really striking out on my own.
I cannot imagine the apprehension and fear I would have felt if I were just moving to Florida when I graduated high school. It would be starting from scratch and I know a lot of people do that all the time but when I was younger I did not have the confidence in myself that I now have. It would have been very difficult for me, and then if I were to stick around and wait a couple of years it would have been impossible for me to leave at the age of 22. My Niece seems not the least bit worried, maybe because she will be staying with us for a while, until she gets settled and can get her own place, that probably revolves around her being able to sell her condo in Ohio. She is very excited, we talk about once a week and email a couple of times a week and see each other’s lives scrolling by daily on Face book. I do have to mention, I did not say anything about texting, one of my life goals is to never text to anyone, not because I do not know how or can’t it is because I chose not to know how, the gadgets are NOT going to take over my life. Originally she was planning on coming around August, but I found that once it sank in that she was actually doing it she wanted to come sooner. Lots of plans – I asked lots of questions, how much stuff ya got, ever driven a U-haul, I found it a lot of fun remembering my youthful exploits all over the world.
The original plan had me flying up to help her pack and drive the U-haul truck back with her car in tow. I am not sure how but those plans shifted and somehow (luckily for me) those duties fell to my brother in law. Not that I would have minded at all but, the thought of driving a U-haul pulling a car from Ohio to Florida is not something I would do just for fun. Right now the plans are again a bit hazy and I found out late last week that a friend of hers lost her mother so there will be a quick trip to California before the trip to Florida. She tells me that she recently dyed her hair purple, her favorite color, although when I asked for photographic evidence none was forth coming so I am not sure she actually did it. I did however think it was cool because our guest bedroom is painted purple, with some faux work created with sponges, wads of tin foil and newspaper. For us, like many I suppose, our guest room is for overnight guests, which we just do not have that often. So aside from a bed, nightstands, lamps and a dresser there is a file cabinet and the closet is more of a storage room than an actual usable closet. Long ago the shelf and the hanging bar were removed and in their places, more shelves to hold all our junk. Some of the boxes I found in there when clearing it out have not been touched since we moved into this house, almost 10 years ago. I am not sure whether to open them or throw them directly in the trash – if I have not needed it for 10 years how important can this stuff be right?
So to find new area’s to store this stuff coming out of that room it has forced me to deep clean and purge some other area’s of our home. Our office for example, it is not big, 12x14 but it is densely packed, shelves down one wall, desk in there, other ancillary stuff, old stereo equipment, a couple of still working televisions and a few computers. It is pretty full but now I have to find some additional room in there to store stuff coming from the other closet. I was also looking through the garage for some space to place her or our items. It has actually been very good, we like to purge every now and again and my niece coming has forced us to purge once again. I am sometimes amazed how much crap we have accumulated over the last 20+ years that we have been hanging out, Bride and me that is. Not long ago we also had our skylight in the guest bathroom start leaking, once that was removed and I had patched the ceiling we decided to upgrade that room a bit. We had not done anything to it since we moved in. So off came the popcorn ceiling and all the old moldings and the door and in came new swirl textured ceiling along with new 6 inch base board and with the addition of crown molding and a paint job that room was ready, we were doing that before I even knew she was coming but the timing seemed fated.
After dealing with all the details that will accommodate her staying with us, I am finding myself getting very excited to see her. Between Bride and me, we have a great number of nieces and nephews, close to 20 but since we chose to live about 1000 miles from Ohio and about 1000 miles from Texas I have never had the opportunity to get to really know any of them. Don’t get me wrong, I know them all the best I can from 1000 miles away and only seeing them once or twice a year and sometimes longer. We do not have kids so we do not know many 22 year olds and I am looking forward to getting to know my niece on a whole new level. I have a lot of nieces and nephews who have their ducks in a row but this niece seems unique to me, ducks in a row and still rebellious – purple hair and “Pink Floyd” tattooed inside of her lip. How cool is that! I remember when she got it my sister called and was ranting – pissed off I would say, and I think she was looking for me to join her in her righteous indignation about her daughters getting a tattoo but being a tattooed one myself I really thought it was cool. I myself am a huge Pink Floyd fan as well. Bride and I both are looking forward to her getting here, we have been talking about the impact on us as well, when two people have lived together for over 20 years without anyone else there is a certain amount of apprehension about what habits you will have to change. No more skinny dipping after dark, no more drinking OJ from the jug and having to close our bedroom door when we go to bed, what will the dog and the cat do? Who knows, there will be adjustments for both of us I am sure but if we are never forced to change our habits we can get stuck in a rut so I think it is all good.
We can’t wait until she arrives!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Why is it that talking about politics is almost always so polarizing and usually divisive?
After my last post I received some feedback from someone whose ethical and moral grounding is, for me, beyond reproach, but we seem to disagree on some points about politics and Politian’s. I was going to let it go, but as you know I don’t seem to able to that, for whatever reason, I could probably blame that on something from my childhood if I needed to. My friend and I have known each other most all of our lives and I respect her on so many levels it makes this somewhat difficult to write about. She has been in the political arena for over 25 years and will be running for elected office herself next year and there is ZERO doubt in my mind that she will excel at it and bring respect to the office. I wish her all the luck in the world and know she will do well, someone so grounded can do nothing but succeed.
One of the points she made was “I feel you can be part of the problem (complacency and ignorance) or part of the solution and that she tries to be part of the solution”. I know she does and has been part of the solution, as have I in my adult life. I have been an engaged voter, studying issues and learning about the people I cast my vote for, whether for local Sherriff to our Governor to the President of the United States. I was too afraid to ask if she considered me to be part of the problem because I ranted on about Politian’s. I well understand that a good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers or following polls. Words like complacency and ignorance are very strong words that leave little room for even the possibility that some other opinion might be viable, let alone thoughts on how things could be done differently. I feel when a judgment is made like that by the politico’s about the voting public – especially when we as Americans have the right to be both complacent and ignorant, is a BIG part of the problem. Basically at its heart complacency is a lax state of mind that exists only in retrospective, for it to be truly understood its grip on us has to be shattered, it is one of the hardest things in the world to recognize complacency in one’s self. I am no longer talking about the voters here but the votee, there is the possibility that a bit of complacency has crept in on the part of the people we are voting in to do the countries business that has yet to recognized. Sometimes they may need reminded, a fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool, I believe there might just be a lesson there somewhere, whaddyathink?
Another comment that stuck me odd was “The government is a result of decades of voters not being involved”. I know that turnout is poor for most elections but that is an unbelievable arrogance, the Politian’s, who are actually running things, blaming the small percent of the actual voting public for the problems! It is like burying ones head in the sand, one might even say they hold a blind faith in the system and the governmental processes, in this case I would define faith as - not wanting to know what is true. As one who has been involved in the political process, not nearly as much as my dear friend, I understand that nothing strengthens authority as much as silence, from us the people of the country. I have no sympathy for those who do not vote, I will not listen to them complain, if you do not vote you really have no right to complain. They do though, have every right not to vote and in some way I understand why they don’t, look what we have created. A system based on the false morality, based on relative emotional values, to me it is a thoroughly vulgar concept which has nothing do with what this country was built on. There is blame to spread around for that on both sides, voter and votee alike but I assure you it is not a one sided thing – NO WAY! We need to remember that there are very few constants, or universal truths in this life, so for the most part everything we hear is someone’s opinion, not a fact. It also makes everything we see a perspective, not the truth – don’t believe everything ya see on TV! Most of our elected officials should realize that the creation of, and resolution to the problems are shared and that they need to own a bit of the problem themselves before we can make actual headway, I think anyway. Anybody who fixes things knows the first part of problem resolution is problem recognition and then it is nothing more than collaboration between folks dedicated to working it out, we could be talking about the busted washer, broken car, busted tax collection system to busted economy, the principle to fixing it remain the same.
There does seem to be an apathy hanging over our country when it comes to the government. I am not smart enough to know what the answers are but I can tell you, as stupid as I am, that more of the same old attitudes and more of all the other stupid bullshit that goes on, voter and votee alike, is NOT the answer. We all need to take breath and aim above morality, we need to try to be more than simply good, we need to be good for something. Another thing that truly stunned me coming from my friend was the comment “There is a saying in the political world, never underestimate the stupidity of the voters. Sad - but statistically true.” I am not sure where that self-important statement got started, I have heard it before, but it makes me wonder - what does that really say, we stupid voters put them in office so what does that actually mean, stupid voters pick stupid votee’s? I do however think that holier than thou sentiment right there is a BIG damn part of the problem. Maybe, just maybe we are not so stupid as the Politian’s, on their high, mighty and obviously unbending perch, might think we are. We do not have ANY meaningful dialog at all, let alone good and meaningful dialog about the issues that plague, and I do mean PLAGUE our country and that sentiment is but one of the myriad reasons. When looking at things from that perspective one has eliminated even the possibility that any other opinion, other than the one they hold, is wrong and when one conducts an argument by appealing to authority (office holder) they are not using intelligence they are just using their prepared talking points from memory. I think we will probably agree that faith in the government is being tested, as Friedrich Nietzsche said, “A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything” and that may hold truer than we care to admit. I am sure that for every example of stupid voters my friend can point to I can name an example of a stupid Politian. That is another part of the problem, finger pointing at each other, us and our elected officials. We are so busy blaming each other that we are getting bogged down in the blame game. I find it counterproductive, boring and disgusting because it does not solve anything, too much effort is being exerted trying to explain why we think we are right and not nearly enough time is spent on trying to solve the actual problems we face.
The last comment my friend made that I want to comment on was that “I find it shocking really that politicians are considered scum by most - yet the politicians are the ones running our country.” I can hardly believe that ANYONE in the country, other than a Politian, could find it shocking that they are considered scum. When you hear some new story every day that this guy was busted with 90 grand in his fridge or that guy was busted cheating on his wife or that guy used favors from contractors to build a house how could we not feel that way. In fact Political corruption is so rampant that I wonder why they don’t even try to hide it anymore, do they think because we stupid voters keep sending them back that that makes it OK? And we do, keep sending them back for some reason. Has it become expected, the corruption has been allowed to be so normal in politics that most people don’t and won’t care or do anything about it. Socrates once said “I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.” Could it be that they knew in 425 BC that politics could ruin good men? I purposely did not say men and women, no women in politics back then. I, on this one occasion, agree with Henry Ford when he said “Don't find fault, find a remedy” because in all honesty that attitude is what will finally get us out of the mess we are in today.
As Mark Twain said “A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation” and if you listen to most of the current crop of national officials they seem to hold themselves to be just a little higher than us common folk. I was told once that “If you ignore the process, you allow an opening for dirt bags to become candidates and then elected officials, I do not agree and here’s why. I believe that all Politian’s start out like my friend, good hearted, ethical and well intentioned but once sucked into the system it is too easy to get lost. I believe our founding fathers knew this all too well, serving in government used to be a thing you went and did and then came back home. It was NOT something you did for a living. If the terms were shorter, folks would not be able to become entrenched and to use the recent addition to the vernacular - become too big to fail. I mean how effective do you think someone is who was born in 1917 and has been in office since 1959 actually is? DAMNED effective I say, damned effective at how to manipulate the system in ways it were never intentioned and for other than pure and honest pursuits. The biggest pisser is I do not think there is any chance in hell to change it, the ones making the rules are running the place. Folks may run and get elected with the intention of cleaning it up, you hear it all the time during campaign seasons but I am convinced, once they actually get on the gravy train and realize how great it is they stay, for 50 years in one case. To get them to change things like term limits or even stop voting themselves raises will NEVER happen, it is a gravy train with too big of a lure, big enough to corrupt people who were once probably held in very high regard and beyond reproach. They appear to quickly learn how to use that gravy train to enrich their personal lives in unimaginable ways for most of us normal folk to understand. I can imagine that that kind of power has to be more additive than crystal meth, absolute power corrupts, absolutely.
Like I said, I do not know what the answers are but more of the same from voter or votee is NOT it.
Like I said I do not like talking politics or religion so I promise I will refrain as long as possible.
One of the points she made was “I feel you can be part of the problem (complacency and ignorance) or part of the solution and that she tries to be part of the solution”. I know she does and has been part of the solution, as have I in my adult life. I have been an engaged voter, studying issues and learning about the people I cast my vote for, whether for local Sherriff to our Governor to the President of the United States. I was too afraid to ask if she considered me to be part of the problem because I ranted on about Politian’s. I well understand that a good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers or following polls. Words like complacency and ignorance are very strong words that leave little room for even the possibility that some other opinion might be viable, let alone thoughts on how things could be done differently. I feel when a judgment is made like that by the politico’s about the voting public – especially when we as Americans have the right to be both complacent and ignorant, is a BIG part of the problem. Basically at its heart complacency is a lax state of mind that exists only in retrospective, for it to be truly understood its grip on us has to be shattered, it is one of the hardest things in the world to recognize complacency in one’s self. I am no longer talking about the voters here but the votee, there is the possibility that a bit of complacency has crept in on the part of the people we are voting in to do the countries business that has yet to recognized. Sometimes they may need reminded, a fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool, I believe there might just be a lesson there somewhere, whaddyathink?
Another comment that stuck me odd was “The government is a result of decades of voters not being involved”. I know that turnout is poor for most elections but that is an unbelievable arrogance, the Politian’s, who are actually running things, blaming the small percent of the actual voting public for the problems! It is like burying ones head in the sand, one might even say they hold a blind faith in the system and the governmental processes, in this case I would define faith as - not wanting to know what is true. As one who has been involved in the political process, not nearly as much as my dear friend, I understand that nothing strengthens authority as much as silence, from us the people of the country. I have no sympathy for those who do not vote, I will not listen to them complain, if you do not vote you really have no right to complain. They do though, have every right not to vote and in some way I understand why they don’t, look what we have created. A system based on the false morality, based on relative emotional values, to me it is a thoroughly vulgar concept which has nothing do with what this country was built on. There is blame to spread around for that on both sides, voter and votee alike but I assure you it is not a one sided thing – NO WAY! We need to remember that there are very few constants, or universal truths in this life, so for the most part everything we hear is someone’s opinion, not a fact. It also makes everything we see a perspective, not the truth – don’t believe everything ya see on TV! Most of our elected officials should realize that the creation of, and resolution to the problems are shared and that they need to own a bit of the problem themselves before we can make actual headway, I think anyway. Anybody who fixes things knows the first part of problem resolution is problem recognition and then it is nothing more than collaboration between folks dedicated to working it out, we could be talking about the busted washer, broken car, busted tax collection system to busted economy, the principle to fixing it remain the same.
There does seem to be an apathy hanging over our country when it comes to the government. I am not smart enough to know what the answers are but I can tell you, as stupid as I am, that more of the same old attitudes and more of all the other stupid bullshit that goes on, voter and votee alike, is NOT the answer. We all need to take breath and aim above morality, we need to try to be more than simply good, we need to be good for something. Another thing that truly stunned me coming from my friend was the comment “There is a saying in the political world, never underestimate the stupidity of the voters. Sad - but statistically true.” I am not sure where that self-important statement got started, I have heard it before, but it makes me wonder - what does that really say, we stupid voters put them in office so what does that actually mean, stupid voters pick stupid votee’s? I do however think that holier than thou sentiment right there is a BIG damn part of the problem. Maybe, just maybe we are not so stupid as the Politian’s, on their high, mighty and obviously unbending perch, might think we are. We do not have ANY meaningful dialog at all, let alone good and meaningful dialog about the issues that plague, and I do mean PLAGUE our country and that sentiment is but one of the myriad reasons. When looking at things from that perspective one has eliminated even the possibility that any other opinion, other than the one they hold, is wrong and when one conducts an argument by appealing to authority (office holder) they are not using intelligence they are just using their prepared talking points from memory. I think we will probably agree that faith in the government is being tested, as Friedrich Nietzsche said, “A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything” and that may hold truer than we care to admit. I am sure that for every example of stupid voters my friend can point to I can name an example of a stupid Politian. That is another part of the problem, finger pointing at each other, us and our elected officials. We are so busy blaming each other that we are getting bogged down in the blame game. I find it counterproductive, boring and disgusting because it does not solve anything, too much effort is being exerted trying to explain why we think we are right and not nearly enough time is spent on trying to solve the actual problems we face.
The last comment my friend made that I want to comment on was that “I find it shocking really that politicians are considered scum by most - yet the politicians are the ones running our country.” I can hardly believe that ANYONE in the country, other than a Politian, could find it shocking that they are considered scum. When you hear some new story every day that this guy was busted with 90 grand in his fridge or that guy was busted cheating on his wife or that guy used favors from contractors to build a house how could we not feel that way. In fact Political corruption is so rampant that I wonder why they don’t even try to hide it anymore, do they think because we stupid voters keep sending them back that that makes it OK? And we do, keep sending them back for some reason. Has it become expected, the corruption has been allowed to be so normal in politics that most people don’t and won’t care or do anything about it. Socrates once said “I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.” Could it be that they knew in 425 BC that politics could ruin good men? I purposely did not say men and women, no women in politics back then. I, on this one occasion, agree with Henry Ford when he said “Don't find fault, find a remedy” because in all honesty that attitude is what will finally get us out of the mess we are in today.
As Mark Twain said “A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation” and if you listen to most of the current crop of national officials they seem to hold themselves to be just a little higher than us common folk. I was told once that “If you ignore the process, you allow an opening for dirt bags to become candidates and then elected officials, I do not agree and here’s why. I believe that all Politian’s start out like my friend, good hearted, ethical and well intentioned but once sucked into the system it is too easy to get lost. I believe our founding fathers knew this all too well, serving in government used to be a thing you went and did and then came back home. It was NOT something you did for a living. If the terms were shorter, folks would not be able to become entrenched and to use the recent addition to the vernacular - become too big to fail. I mean how effective do you think someone is who was born in 1917 and has been in office since 1959 actually is? DAMNED effective I say, damned effective at how to manipulate the system in ways it were never intentioned and for other than pure and honest pursuits. The biggest pisser is I do not think there is any chance in hell to change it, the ones making the rules are running the place. Folks may run and get elected with the intention of cleaning it up, you hear it all the time during campaign seasons but I am convinced, once they actually get on the gravy train and realize how great it is they stay, for 50 years in one case. To get them to change things like term limits or even stop voting themselves raises will NEVER happen, it is a gravy train with too big of a lure, big enough to corrupt people who were once probably held in very high regard and beyond reproach. They appear to quickly learn how to use that gravy train to enrich their personal lives in unimaginable ways for most of us normal folk to understand. I can imagine that that kind of power has to be more additive than crystal meth, absolute power corrupts, absolutely.
Like I said, I do not know what the answers are but more of the same from voter or votee is NOT it.
Like I said I do not like talking politics or religion so I promise I will refrain as long as possible.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
I knew it was too much - way too fast - and way too complicated for our Politian’s
Here is a link to that first one http://mroatmealsoratories.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-i-saw-in-my-bowl-of-oatmeal-this.html
Now, according to an Associated Press story, a glitch in the plan cuts many off from food stamps.
The best intentions of the plan huh? The way our society works is WAY too complicated to get your head around hundreds of billions in funding. What was initially a seemingly good thing - increasing unemployment benefits as part of the economic stimulus turned to crap in a hurry, at least for those who are unfortunate enough to be the farthest down the socioeconomic ladder. With the broad stroke of the pen we unknowingly made some Americans ineligible for hundreds of dollars a month in food stamps. I use the term broad stroke because it does not take a rocket scientist to know that there are WAY too many details when you are talking about how best to distribute damn near a trillion dollars. It is not all on the new President, the last one was doing the same thing before we voted him out. When you are talking about that much money and the speed at which the package was rammed down our throats the numbers do not lie – the sheer odds of unforeseen consequences are staggering.
Under the economic recovery plan, laid-off workers received a $25 weekly bump in their unemployment checks as part of a broad expansion of benefits for the poor. The unintended consequence created by the hastily put together law is that it did not raise the income cap for food stamp eligibility, so the extra money has pushed some people over the limit. Folks who are already hurting, bad because they have been laid-off are working with state officials unraveling this crazy assed glitch in the $787 billion, 400-page bill that made it through Congress and into law in just three weeks, hell it takes that body longer than three weeks to determine which lobbyist they want to take them to lunch. It is CRAZY folks, we got the “lovin” but did not get kissed first. So the package to help folks who are hurting is actually having the opposite effect on some. The Georgia Department of Human Resources sent Mark Milota, 47, of Marietta, Ga., who was laid off in November from his job at a medical billing company, a letter last month that, because of the stimulus, he was ineligible for food stamps. He now makes $1,538 a month - $21 too much for a family of two to qualify. Talk about the perverbial shitty end of the stick, that is a damn shame and we need to hold our elected officials accountable for their piss poor approach to using the big check book like a drunken sailor might.
With our Politian’s speaking in double talk mumbo jumbo bullshit I am freakin amazed that any damn thing gets done. They are all more concerned with getting reelected than doing the peoples work. All of them are so polished and have mastered the skill of spewing forth the scent of roses in their words, all the while they are hiding a bunch of stinky shit under their tongue. I heard a story the other day that most elected officials spend up to one third of their time raising money, which they are not allowed to do in their congressional offices. So what does that mean, they are playing hooky for a third of the time they are supposed to be working out the details of the bills so when the laws are enacted we do not end with situations that leave Mark Minota not only feeling but actually being screwed blued and tattooed. Food stamps, back in the day, were once handed out as paper vouchers, not any more in the new plastic world the benefits are now delivered to people near the poverty level through debit cards that they can use to buy food, there is a record 32.5 million people participate in the program. Once the government determines someone is eligible, officials use a formula to calculate the monthly benefit, which ranges from $16 to $588. The average is about $111.
According to Stacy Dean, the Lawmakers crafting the stimulus knew this would become a problem, he is the Director of the liberal think tank Food Assistance Policy at Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. They knew, of course they knew, a lot of actually smart people were working theirs asses off to try to find all the “unintended consequences” before our representatives passed it into law. He indicated that this problem could have been headed off by raising the income tax or simply declaring that the $25 stimulus checks would not affect food stamp eligibility. Both were expensive options that could have forced states to reprogram their computer systems. WTFO, because we did not want to hire some nerds to peck on some keyboards we, on purpose screwed these folks! I understand that it would have taken time to hash out the details and I think that is what they could not afford, time for the American people to realize that this plan was CRAZY before it was signed into law. There was just not a lot of policy discussion on this at all, a nearly 1 trillion dollar package and we did not have time – what bullshit.
I for one continue to be disgusted by our Politian’s, every damn one of them, and yes I know I should not group them all together because there are a lot of good ones as well. I was a life-long, actively engage, financial supporter of the Republican party and then they abandoned me. For my fellow Republicans you know what I am talking about, they abandoned me, when the absolute best they could come up with John McCain and Sarah Palin, come on seriously that was the best we could do. They forced me out and I chose to vote for President Obama - as the lesser of two evils and that pissed me off. But when you think about it, who in their right mind would want that job, it sucks and the bureaucracy is so large and so entrenched no one is going to change the system, and who pays for that – family’s like Mark Minota’s and you know what, that pisses me off too! Not because some are red and some are blue but because most are dumbasses caught in a system that will not allow them to do anything about it. For those who follow my oratories you know I usually don’t get into political issues or current events but this really makes me mad!!! Sorry and I will get back to the more light hearted stuff on the next one
Now, according to an Associated Press story, a glitch in the plan cuts many off from food stamps.
The best intentions of the plan huh? The way our society works is WAY too complicated to get your head around hundreds of billions in funding. What was initially a seemingly good thing - increasing unemployment benefits as part of the economic stimulus turned to crap in a hurry, at least for those who are unfortunate enough to be the farthest down the socioeconomic ladder. With the broad stroke of the pen we unknowingly made some Americans ineligible for hundreds of dollars a month in food stamps. I use the term broad stroke because it does not take a rocket scientist to know that there are WAY too many details when you are talking about how best to distribute damn near a trillion dollars. It is not all on the new President, the last one was doing the same thing before we voted him out. When you are talking about that much money and the speed at which the package was rammed down our throats the numbers do not lie – the sheer odds of unforeseen consequences are staggering.
Under the economic recovery plan, laid-off workers received a $25 weekly bump in their unemployment checks as part of a broad expansion of benefits for the poor. The unintended consequence created by the hastily put together law is that it did not raise the income cap for food stamp eligibility, so the extra money has pushed some people over the limit. Folks who are already hurting, bad because they have been laid-off are working with state officials unraveling this crazy assed glitch in the $787 billion, 400-page bill that made it through Congress and into law in just three weeks, hell it takes that body longer than three weeks to determine which lobbyist they want to take them to lunch. It is CRAZY folks, we got the “lovin” but did not get kissed first. So the package to help folks who are hurting is actually having the opposite effect on some. The Georgia Department of Human Resources sent Mark Milota, 47, of Marietta, Ga., who was laid off in November from his job at a medical billing company, a letter last month that, because of the stimulus, he was ineligible for food stamps. He now makes $1,538 a month - $21 too much for a family of two to qualify. Talk about the perverbial shitty end of the stick, that is a damn shame and we need to hold our elected officials accountable for their piss poor approach to using the big check book like a drunken sailor might.
With our Politian’s speaking in double talk mumbo jumbo bullshit I am freakin amazed that any damn thing gets done. They are all more concerned with getting reelected than doing the peoples work. All of them are so polished and have mastered the skill of spewing forth the scent of roses in their words, all the while they are hiding a bunch of stinky shit under their tongue. I heard a story the other day that most elected officials spend up to one third of their time raising money, which they are not allowed to do in their congressional offices. So what does that mean, they are playing hooky for a third of the time they are supposed to be working out the details of the bills so when the laws are enacted we do not end with situations that leave Mark Minota not only feeling but actually being screwed blued and tattooed. Food stamps, back in the day, were once handed out as paper vouchers, not any more in the new plastic world the benefits are now delivered to people near the poverty level through debit cards that they can use to buy food, there is a record 32.5 million people participate in the program. Once the government determines someone is eligible, officials use a formula to calculate the monthly benefit, which ranges from $16 to $588. The average is about $111.
According to Stacy Dean, the Lawmakers crafting the stimulus knew this would become a problem, he is the Director of the liberal think tank Food Assistance Policy at Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. They knew, of course they knew, a lot of actually smart people were working theirs asses off to try to find all the “unintended consequences” before our representatives passed it into law. He indicated that this problem could have been headed off by raising the income tax or simply declaring that the $25 stimulus checks would not affect food stamp eligibility. Both were expensive options that could have forced states to reprogram their computer systems. WTFO, because we did not want to hire some nerds to peck on some keyboards we, on purpose screwed these folks! I understand that it would have taken time to hash out the details and I think that is what they could not afford, time for the American people to realize that this plan was CRAZY before it was signed into law. There was just not a lot of policy discussion on this at all, a nearly 1 trillion dollar package and we did not have time – what bullshit.
I for one continue to be disgusted by our Politian’s, every damn one of them, and yes I know I should not group them all together because there are a lot of good ones as well. I was a life-long, actively engage, financial supporter of the Republican party and then they abandoned me. For my fellow Republicans you know what I am talking about, they abandoned me, when the absolute best they could come up with John McCain and Sarah Palin, come on seriously that was the best we could do. They forced me out and I chose to vote for President Obama - as the lesser of two evils and that pissed me off. But when you think about it, who in their right mind would want that job, it sucks and the bureaucracy is so large and so entrenched no one is going to change the system, and who pays for that – family’s like Mark Minota’s and you know what, that pisses me off too! Not because some are red and some are blue but because most are dumbasses caught in a system that will not allow them to do anything about it. For those who follow my oratories you know I usually don’t get into political issues or current events but this really makes me mad!!! Sorry and I will get back to the more light hearted stuff on the next one
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Super size it - what in the heck is going on with GINORMOUS serving sizes
So before you say that is not a word, “GINORMOUS” has won a legitimate place in the 2007 copyright update of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.
The other day Bride and I were out and about and on the way home she asked about stopping at the a drive through. I pulled into the drive through by our house and she ordered a breakfast burrito combo. The voice on the other end of the speaker asked if we would like to upsize the Sprite Zero for free, I asked “why not” to which she relied “I can’t think of any reason not to” which I thought was a pretty witty comeback. So we get up to the window and there she stands with the drink, it was huge. So for no additional cost I was able to upsize to the 44 ounce drink, a cold drink that is damn near a quart and half. I take the cup and just start laughing, I ask her if she sees how crazy this 44oz cup actually is. She laughs and we have a moment, I can tell she understands exactly what I meant. It was funny. What has happened that we can even buy a 44-ounce drink that is not in a bottle and designed to be shared with others? One of the things that crossed my mind was, I wonder if I know anyone who could drink 44 ounces of anything, let alone a soda, in one setting. Bride was unable to drink it all and she worked on it most of the day.
That got me to pondering, and clarity was coming to me, I was beginning to understand why the CDC was reporting (using 2003-2004 data) that 34% of Americans are overweight and 32% of all Americans are obese. So 66% of us stuff to much food in our faces and enjoy 44 ounce drinks. Those are staggering numbers when you think about it, 66% of us are just fatties. I guess that Australians are a lot like Americans because the numbers there is 62%, 62% of the entire population of Australia is overweight or obese. After not much research it was revealed to me that only 24% of the folks in Japan fall into that same category. It was not a surprise to find that Ethiopia has the lowest percentage of overweight folks and in fact, over 44% of children there are underweight. If we examine this problem from the evolutionary perspective we realize that we humans did not evolve as sedentary mammals, it was not until we reached the top of the food chain that we were no longer running for our very lives. After we became the dominant mammals we still worked our butts off, plowing the field, hunting for food, building our homes and so on. It was not really until the beginning of the industrial revolution that things started to slow down. Now that we are firmly entrenched in the automobile-centric world we do not even have to get out of our cars to get the 44 ounce drink, we travel around in air conditioned comfort from our air conditioned home to the air conditioned office where we sit at the desks and perform work that requires little or no exertion. I found a stat that said men average 81 minutes behind the wheel of an automobile, and women average 64 minutes a day, I still suspect that data was flawed or biased and therefore I question the statistic.
When we couple our choice to continue our evolutionary sedentariness with the availability and our affinity for certain tastes we can begin to understand why we are all getting so fat. We like sweet things, to our prehistoric ancestors sweet meant fruits and nutritious and nonpoisonous foods, not Twinkies, not giant candy bars and not 44 ounce drinks. Throughout human history, our desires for sweets and fats are not terribly different from today, there are a few differences though. We ate non processed foods and sweets were natural and fats were used for energy. As little as a century ago we were more active people, we exercised all the time, often it was not called exercise it was called daily life and it was by necessity, no need for a gym membership. Town and urban centers were designed and built for foot travel, we lived in smaller groups and our longer travel was by actual horsepower. Children would walk to school, not uphill both ways in the snow like us though. They also played outdoors until darkness fell, no street lights in those days. In fact in 1900, most Americans lived in rural communities and worked at hard labor in fields such as agriculture or mining.
Why do we ignore the risks of being overweight or obese? There is a truckload of medical evidence that being overweight or obese substantially raises a person’s risk of developing diseases and illnesses. Bad things like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Type II diabetes, heart disease and stroke, gallbladder disease, arthritis, sleep disturbances and breathing problems, as well as endometrial, breast, prostate and colon cancers. The numbers are staggering, men with a body mass index of at least 40 have 18 times the prevalence of Type II diabetes and 21 times the prevalence of gallbladder disease as do normal-weight men. Women with BMIs of at least 40 have 13 times the prevalence of Type II diabetes and five times the prevalence of gall-bladder disease as do normal-weight women. More than 75 percent of hypertension cases can be directly attributable to excess weight. Among patients with obstructive sleep apnea, up to 70 percent are obese. Socially, overweight and obese people also can suffer from stigmatization, discrimination and low self-esteem as well.
We are not living in the time of Peter Paul Ruben, he was the 17th century painter who coined the term, “Rubenesque,” while painting full-figured women. I for one reached fat boy status some time ago, I only realized it myself 26 weeks ago when I decided I was going to have to do something about it. There we no more 44 ounce anything’s in my life anymore except the 48 ounce bag of carrots I nibbled on for an entire week. I am over ½ way to my goal of 63 pounds, no fancy pill or program for me – I just place less stuff into my mouth and ya know what, I am averaging about 1.5 pounds a week. Anyway the next time you are faced with a 44 ounce drink, a super sized fries a one pound candy bar or any of the other guttenous goodies that are everywhere remember, it is not the jeans that make your butt look big, it is your big butt that makes your butt not only look but be big.
The other day Bride and I were out and about and on the way home she asked about stopping at the a drive through. I pulled into the drive through by our house and she ordered a breakfast burrito combo. The voice on the other end of the speaker asked if we would like to upsize the Sprite Zero for free, I asked “why not” to which she relied “I can’t think of any reason not to” which I thought was a pretty witty comeback. So we get up to the window and there she stands with the drink, it was huge. So for no additional cost I was able to upsize to the 44 ounce drink, a cold drink that is damn near a quart and half. I take the cup and just start laughing, I ask her if she sees how crazy this 44oz cup actually is. She laughs and we have a moment, I can tell she understands exactly what I meant. It was funny. What has happened that we can even buy a 44-ounce drink that is not in a bottle and designed to be shared with others? One of the things that crossed my mind was, I wonder if I know anyone who could drink 44 ounces of anything, let alone a soda, in one setting. Bride was unable to drink it all and she worked on it most of the day.
That got me to pondering, and clarity was coming to me, I was beginning to understand why the CDC was reporting (using 2003-2004 data) that 34% of Americans are overweight and 32% of all Americans are obese. So 66% of us stuff to much food in our faces and enjoy 44 ounce drinks. Those are staggering numbers when you think about it, 66% of us are just fatties. I guess that Australians are a lot like Americans because the numbers there is 62%, 62% of the entire population of Australia is overweight or obese. After not much research it was revealed to me that only 24% of the folks in Japan fall into that same category. It was not a surprise to find that Ethiopia has the lowest percentage of overweight folks and in fact, over 44% of children there are underweight. If we examine this problem from the evolutionary perspective we realize that we humans did not evolve as sedentary mammals, it was not until we reached the top of the food chain that we were no longer running for our very lives. After we became the dominant mammals we still worked our butts off, plowing the field, hunting for food, building our homes and so on. It was not really until the beginning of the industrial revolution that things started to slow down. Now that we are firmly entrenched in the automobile-centric world we do not even have to get out of our cars to get the 44 ounce drink, we travel around in air conditioned comfort from our air conditioned home to the air conditioned office where we sit at the desks and perform work that requires little or no exertion. I found a stat that said men average 81 minutes behind the wheel of an automobile, and women average 64 minutes a day, I still suspect that data was flawed or biased and therefore I question the statistic.
When we couple our choice to continue our evolutionary sedentariness with the availability and our affinity for certain tastes we can begin to understand why we are all getting so fat. We like sweet things, to our prehistoric ancestors sweet meant fruits and nutritious and nonpoisonous foods, not Twinkies, not giant candy bars and not 44 ounce drinks. Throughout human history, our desires for sweets and fats are not terribly different from today, there are a few differences though. We ate non processed foods and sweets were natural and fats were used for energy. As little as a century ago we were more active people, we exercised all the time, often it was not called exercise it was called daily life and it was by necessity, no need for a gym membership. Town and urban centers were designed and built for foot travel, we lived in smaller groups and our longer travel was by actual horsepower. Children would walk to school, not uphill both ways in the snow like us though. They also played outdoors until darkness fell, no street lights in those days. In fact in 1900, most Americans lived in rural communities and worked at hard labor in fields such as agriculture or mining.
Why do we ignore the risks of being overweight or obese? There is a truckload of medical evidence that being overweight or obese substantially raises a person’s risk of developing diseases and illnesses. Bad things like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Type II diabetes, heart disease and stroke, gallbladder disease, arthritis, sleep disturbances and breathing problems, as well as endometrial, breast, prostate and colon cancers. The numbers are staggering, men with a body mass index of at least 40 have 18 times the prevalence of Type II diabetes and 21 times the prevalence of gallbladder disease as do normal-weight men. Women with BMIs of at least 40 have 13 times the prevalence of Type II diabetes and five times the prevalence of gall-bladder disease as do normal-weight women. More than 75 percent of hypertension cases can be directly attributable to excess weight. Among patients with obstructive sleep apnea, up to 70 percent are obese. Socially, overweight and obese people also can suffer from stigmatization, discrimination and low self-esteem as well.
We are not living in the time of Peter Paul Ruben, he was the 17th century painter who coined the term, “Rubenesque,” while painting full-figured women. I for one reached fat boy status some time ago, I only realized it myself 26 weeks ago when I decided I was going to have to do something about it. There we no more 44 ounce anything’s in my life anymore except the 48 ounce bag of carrots I nibbled on for an entire week. I am over ½ way to my goal of 63 pounds, no fancy pill or program for me – I just place less stuff into my mouth and ya know what, I am averaging about 1.5 pounds a week. Anyway the next time you are faced with a 44 ounce drink, a super sized fries a one pound candy bar or any of the other guttenous goodies that are everywhere remember, it is not the jeans that make your butt look big, it is your big butt that makes your butt not only look but be big.
Friday, June 12, 2009
What is with us that we think the rules do not apply to us?
So there I was at the doctor’s office with my Bride waiting to get blood drawn and I look out the front door and see this. 
That got me to wondering, what is wrong with this guy that he could not walk the extra 7.2 steps from a parking spot and instead felt he needed to block the access to a Doctor’s office. I was not sure how long it had been sitting there or even why it may be sitting there, so close to signage indicating NO PARKING ANY TIME, it is in all caps on the sign. Maybe he did not see it or the other 6 of them lined up there, there was another one similarly close to the back of the truck. Even with the camera that is in my cell phone this sign was readable from the front door, how could this guy miss the warnings? I started thinking, maybe he is handicapped and needed to park that close, after a closer look I saw no handicap placard hanging from the rear view mirror. I also noticed that the spots designated for the handicapped were even closer than the spot where this guy chose to park. I thought as I was leaving I would just walk over to the truck, counting the steps and then count the steps to where my car was parked, since I had the rock star parking spot (the closest legal spot to the door) and that is how I came up with the 7.2 step difference.
I feel that Zippy parking like this is a classic example of what is wrong with us Americans, lazy with a feeling of entitlement. Now I am not going to stereo type every American into that category but I think by and large and to varying degrees that statement hold true. Obviously the rules did not apply guy, or gal because at this point I do not know who the driver is. This is just one example, we have all seen folks park in the handicap spot without even the placard let alone an actual handicap that would hinder them from parking too far away from the door. I have never had a problem reminding them that they forgot to display the placard, as mandated by the law. I have often wondered why that when people are in their car or even using their car it seems that there is some feeling of exemption or entitlement. We are rude when we drive, again not everyone but to make my point I say it that way. Think about it, we cut people off, we won’t let them cut in while in traffic, we flip people off, we throw things at other cars. When you really think about it in most situations those people are good folks and would never in a million years do that or act like that in ANY other situation.
Why then are we so quick to show our asses when behind the wheel? Why are folks so self centered and uncaring of other people’s feelings, do we have a special set of rights that allow us to behave like this towards others? Why is it that we allow such insignificant things in life to make us so angry that we do not bother to think of the other person’s feelings? Today anger and just plain meanness seem to have permeated every aspect of our lives. Maybe it was bound to happen, in this fast-paced world we live in everyone is just in too big a hurry to care about the simplest things. I am not sure why folks find it easier to be the rude, cynical, and yes, disrespectful than to be kind, compassionate and understanding. One of my favorite books is by Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, I think it should required reading for everyone in our country at least one a year. He has a lot of good books that just explain a very common sense approach to things, if you get the chance check them out.
It is a complicated thing to get your head around, this discourtiness, it makes my head hurt just to think about it. I almost believe it could be tied to the decline of the nuclear family, maybe the weight on the backs of the middle (more and more we are lower class) class has finally reached the breaking point. Are we not teaching the youth manners, are we not teaching them proper social behavior, are we not teaching them civic responsibility, are we relying on our public school system to perform the parenting tasks? Maybe it is that we have been striving for more and more stuff for way to long, Baby Boomers, the Me Generation, the Yuppies, Gen X’ers, all of us have lived our lives in a selfish struggle for more stuff. I sometimes wonder if our own arrogance has brought us to this place. Could it be that we don’t even notice that we are bombarded with examples of rude and cynical people that are represented as cool and hip on TV and in film. It is such a wave of negativity that we can no longer even take, or have, the time to actually think about consequences of that bombardment. Are we blindly mimicking our stars? Do we think we are cool because we show our asses, just like the knuckleheads on our favorite reality shows. Maybe the problem is like many others we face, just too complicated to our feeble minds to dissect and understand.
I for one know I am doing my part, I try very hard to give the benefit of the doubt and not get worked up over stupid things, if no one died and it aint on fire than it is just not that bad, no matter what it is. Smile and show some love folks – and if you don’t already do it, park your car in a designated spot you lazy ass.
That got me to wondering, what is wrong with this guy that he could not walk the extra 7.2 steps from a parking spot and instead felt he needed to block the access to a Doctor’s office. I was not sure how long it had been sitting there or even why it may be sitting there, so close to signage indicating NO PARKING ANY TIME, it is in all caps on the sign. Maybe he did not see it or the other 6 of them lined up there, there was another one similarly close to the back of the truck. Even with the camera that is in my cell phone this sign was readable from the front door, how could this guy miss the warnings? I started thinking, maybe he is handicapped and needed to park that close, after a closer look I saw no handicap placard hanging from the rear view mirror. I also noticed that the spots designated for the handicapped were even closer than the spot where this guy chose to park. I thought as I was leaving I would just walk over to the truck, counting the steps and then count the steps to where my car was parked, since I had the rock star parking spot (the closest legal spot to the door) and that is how I came up with the 7.2 step difference.
I feel that Zippy parking like this is a classic example of what is wrong with us Americans, lazy with a feeling of entitlement. Now I am not going to stereo type every American into that category but I think by and large and to varying degrees that statement hold true. Obviously the rules did not apply guy, or gal because at this point I do not know who the driver is. This is just one example, we have all seen folks park in the handicap spot without even the placard let alone an actual handicap that would hinder them from parking too far away from the door. I have never had a problem reminding them that they forgot to display the placard, as mandated by the law. I have often wondered why that when people are in their car or even using their car it seems that there is some feeling of exemption or entitlement. We are rude when we drive, again not everyone but to make my point I say it that way. Think about it, we cut people off, we won’t let them cut in while in traffic, we flip people off, we throw things at other cars. When you really think about it in most situations those people are good folks and would never in a million years do that or act like that in ANY other situation.
Why then are we so quick to show our asses when behind the wheel? Why are folks so self centered and uncaring of other people’s feelings, do we have a special set of rights that allow us to behave like this towards others? Why is it that we allow such insignificant things in life to make us so angry that we do not bother to think of the other person’s feelings? Today anger and just plain meanness seem to have permeated every aspect of our lives. Maybe it was bound to happen, in this fast-paced world we live in everyone is just in too big a hurry to care about the simplest things. I am not sure why folks find it easier to be the rude, cynical, and yes, disrespectful than to be kind, compassionate and understanding. One of my favorite books is by Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, I think it should required reading for everyone in our country at least one a year. He has a lot of good books that just explain a very common sense approach to things, if you get the chance check them out.
It is a complicated thing to get your head around, this discourtiness, it makes my head hurt just to think about it. I almost believe it could be tied to the decline of the nuclear family, maybe the weight on the backs of the middle (more and more we are lower class) class has finally reached the breaking point. Are we not teaching the youth manners, are we not teaching them proper social behavior, are we not teaching them civic responsibility, are we relying on our public school system to perform the parenting tasks? Maybe it is that we have been striving for more and more stuff for way to long, Baby Boomers, the Me Generation, the Yuppies, Gen X’ers, all of us have lived our lives in a selfish struggle for more stuff. I sometimes wonder if our own arrogance has brought us to this place. Could it be that we don’t even notice that we are bombarded with examples of rude and cynical people that are represented as cool and hip on TV and in film. It is such a wave of negativity that we can no longer even take, or have, the time to actually think about consequences of that bombardment. Are we blindly mimicking our stars? Do we think we are cool because we show our asses, just like the knuckleheads on our favorite reality shows. Maybe the problem is like many others we face, just too complicated to our feeble minds to dissect and understand.
I for one know I am doing my part, I try very hard to give the benefit of the doubt and not get worked up over stupid things, if no one died and it aint on fire than it is just not that bad, no matter what it is. Smile and show some love folks – and if you don’t already do it, park your car in a designated spot you lazy ass.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Well evidently, there is a rebuttal witness to question my recollections of my first Family picnic.
The rebuttal witness is my overly verbose brother in-law. I also received some information from a my Niece, she did not know where the Nancy award originated, she was but a child of 9 years old when it was created. While looking at the big picture, brothers story and mine are similar but poor brother was obviously overheated at some point and I will point to the recent studies that indicate the Texas heat has produced a wide variety of odd symptoms. I almost did not post this, I think it is actually funnier than my recollections but in fairness here it is.
There was some truth to what you have written. We do have a family picnic and you are a Nancy. However, that is where the similarities end. I remember the picnic you write of a little different…………….. hmmmmm………. let me see……………. I remember it like it was yesterday…………………………….I awoke like I always do. The alarm in my stomach and bowels tell me it is 5:45 AM, and I should have been assuming the position in the bathroom a good 2 minutes ago to be safe. And…………wait a minute, that WAS yesterday.
I remember my sister telling me she is bringing a gentleman caller to the family picnic. This particular gentleman caller she was married to. Some yankee. I had my reservations, but I’m sure as a family we were going to give him the benefit of doubt. Now, my father was somewhat of a smart ass. My mother was a sly smart ass. They conceived 8 smart asses together. I’m sure if you asked a stupid question, between the 8 and their children (your nieces and nephews, who have a smart ass streak running so deep in their veins there is no room for regular blood) you may receive no less than 20 stupid, equally smart assed answers. I would at least like to give you my account of what REALLY happened (to the best of my memory, but this did happen back in the drinking days!).
I remember when my sister brought this, this “man” to camp the first day, I had just finished doing 100 one armed push ups with all the kids sitting on my back. I was preparing for a twenty mile hike before breakfast and was going to help some of the others with various merit badges. I had heard there was going to be a yankee in camp, but I couldn’t have been prepared for this. My sister walks up with the whitest person I have ever seen. Obviously he had stayed inside his whole life with the blinds drawn. If the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man and the Michelin Tire Man had offspring, this was it. Elmer’s Glue would actually say, “man this guy is WHITE!” This guy is so white….(HOW WHITE IS HE?)………….he glows. Anyway……….my pigment challenged new friend is complaining of the mild summer we were having that year. I gave him a cup of coffee that was brewing on a rock next to my tent. Told him I agreed that it was nice. Hopefully, it will stay below boiling point this day. This “man” had a good breakfast with us. Breakfast tacos. This is something you get in THE GREAT STATE. He wanted to eat his with ketchup (some call this catsup, actually its called picante sauce) the best of course is homemade with a lot of jalapenos. This made him sweat profusely. He drank lots of water and when that didn’t help ran east of the boat ramp and eventually back to the west and jumped into the lake. He swam for a minute and guessed cramped up and started to sink. I got him, brought him back up to camp and performed lifesaving techniques to revive him. It was awkward, but after he apologized for his abnormally large tongue, we found out this wasn’t cramping from the heat or massive amounts of water, but these cramps were from his occasional irregularity and bloating from his normal menstrual cycle. I should have guessed.
Soon after, they left camp and went to some posh resort. Upon returning, he wanted to show off a new multi-purpose tool. Folks, when you buy these things you should really have to take some kind of test. Anyway……….as he pulled it out, he broke a nail and cried. I don’t really think he bled; he was just that red all over from the sunburn. Anyway, he was bleeding anyway because of the aforementioned “monthly friend.”
The Nancy Award was born this day. Never has a grown “man” cried so much over so little for so long.
In closing I would like to offer this…………..Smitty should keep his car parked in the garage, drive only to his office where he parks in a garage and go directly into buildings. This “man” should not ever be let outside. Go ahead and de-claw him, he’s an indoor cat.
There was some truth to what you have written. We do have a family picnic and you are a Nancy. However, that is where the similarities end. I remember the picnic you write of a little different…………….. hmmmmm………. let me see……………. I remember it like it was yesterday…………………………….I awoke like I always do. The alarm in my stomach and bowels tell me it is 5:45 AM, and I should have been assuming the position in the bathroom a good 2 minutes ago to be safe. And…………wait a minute, that WAS yesterday.
I remember my sister telling me she is bringing a gentleman caller to the family picnic. This particular gentleman caller she was married to. Some yankee. I had my reservations, but I’m sure as a family we were going to give him the benefit of doubt. Now, my father was somewhat of a smart ass. My mother was a sly smart ass. They conceived 8 smart asses together. I’m sure if you asked a stupid question, between the 8 and their children (your nieces and nephews, who have a smart ass streak running so deep in their veins there is no room for regular blood) you may receive no less than 20 stupid, equally smart assed answers. I would at least like to give you my account of what REALLY happened (to the best of my memory, but this did happen back in the drinking days!).
I remember when my sister brought this, this “man” to camp the first day, I had just finished doing 100 one armed push ups with all the kids sitting on my back. I was preparing for a twenty mile hike before breakfast and was going to help some of the others with various merit badges. I had heard there was going to be a yankee in camp, but I couldn’t have been prepared for this. My sister walks up with the whitest person I have ever seen. Obviously he had stayed inside his whole life with the blinds drawn. If the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man and the Michelin Tire Man had offspring, this was it. Elmer’s Glue would actually say, “man this guy is WHITE!” This guy is so white….(HOW WHITE IS HE?)………….he glows. Anyway……….my pigment challenged new friend is complaining of the mild summer we were having that year. I gave him a cup of coffee that was brewing on a rock next to my tent. Told him I agreed that it was nice. Hopefully, it will stay below boiling point this day. This “man” had a good breakfast with us. Breakfast tacos. This is something you get in THE GREAT STATE. He wanted to eat his with ketchup (some call this catsup, actually its called picante sauce) the best of course is homemade with a lot of jalapenos. This made him sweat profusely. He drank lots of water and when that didn’t help ran east of the boat ramp and eventually back to the west and jumped into the lake. He swam for a minute and guessed cramped up and started to sink. I got him, brought him back up to camp and performed lifesaving techniques to revive him. It was awkward, but after he apologized for his abnormally large tongue, we found out this wasn’t cramping from the heat or massive amounts of water, but these cramps were from his occasional irregularity and bloating from his normal menstrual cycle. I should have guessed.
Soon after, they left camp and went to some posh resort. Upon returning, he wanted to show off a new multi-purpose tool. Folks, when you buy these things you should really have to take some kind of test. Anyway……….as he pulled it out, he broke a nail and cried. I don’t really think he bled; he was just that red all over from the sunburn. Anyway, he was bleeding anyway because of the aforementioned “monthly friend.”
The Nancy Award was born this day. Never has a grown “man” cried so much over so little for so long.
In closing I would like to offer this…………..Smitty should keep his car parked in the garage, drive only to his office where he parks in a garage and go directly into buildings. This “man” should not ever be let outside. Go ahead and de-claw him, he’s an indoor cat.
Monday, June 8, 2009
My Brides annual family reunion, opppps the family picnic as it is known, is a most amazing thing for one who married into the family
The origins of the Family Picnic date back to the late 60’s early 70’s when the family patriarch took his wife and 8, yes that is an eight, children camping, fishing, boating and water skiing among other outdoor activities. I was not around for the early years but by ALL accounts the kids and parents alike enjoyed the family picnics. There are a few lakes around Austin Texas and the family picnic takes place at one of them each year. We were not able to attend the first couple of years we were married but to me the event sounded like a fantastic thing, family getting together, singing around the camp fire, games for the kids, adult party favors for those who were old enough, or smart enough to steal them from the adults. We never had anything like this in my family, we went to Kiser Lake but this sounded to me almost Beaver Cleaverish. I officially joined the family in 1990 and it was a couple of years before my first family picnic, this party was by invitation only mind you. I did not put much thought into that fact that a picnic in July, in Texas might just be hot, that fact would make itself apparent soon enough.
That first year Bride and I were excited to go, her even more than me and I could tell the family picnic held a lot of good memories for her. I am not sure why or how but I guess I missed the part that this was really camping out as a family, some had nice tents, others had pop up campers and still others had bad tents. Well I have never been much of a camper, I got kicked out of the scouting when I was in Webelos. I have never “pitched a tent” started a fire without matches or any of the other necessary skills needed to successfully live in the wild. In no time I realized I was ill suited for this picnic, which for me was quickly turning into an ordeal. I was somewhat intimidated by Bride’s four brothers, they all appeared to be so at ease with all the outdoorsman type equipment, I began to question if they were perhaps originally born in the wild. I was not sure about the oldest brother, the all called him the corporate camper as he would drive from Dallas to Austin and never loosen his tie. They all had complicated campsites, tents that looks like you would need an engineering degree to place and setup, gas powered lighting and cooking equipment that used white gas, whatever that was. The rest room was over that hill and down to the right and there were no showers there. The boat docks were through the woods over that other hill and our boats were tied up to the west of the ramp, to the west they said to me, like I had some internal compass or external compass that I would know how to use. Although I did appreciate the benefit of the doubt, they had no idea just how bad it really was for me, if they were messing with me, which is possible, it was not initially apparent to me.
And it was HOT, damn hot, I am talking about the kind of heat that would kill Tarzan, I mean Texas in July is HOT. I guess I am a pansy when it comes to that kind of inferno, at least that is what one of the brothers called me when I mentioned that the skin on the top of my head was starting to melt from the heat. By mid afternoon I was miserable, HOT, HOT, HOT and I was beginning to wonder if perhaps the heat had not caused some permanent damage to all members of this family that made them not even notice that the rocks laying around were actually glowing red. Did I mention how HOT it was there? I was sweating so bad and in turn drank so much water I was starting to cramp up. Those first few hours were a blur to me, I did not know if I was coming or going and then I started to wonder, my God where are we going to live for the few days we would be staying. I was trying my best not to cry but I started asking some of the brothers, my Bride had abandoned me, where we were going to be staying. You did not bring a tent one of them asked while performing some task with one of those multifunction tools I would later learn was called a Leatherman, more on that later. The level of sheer disdain that was heaped upon me after I explained that I had no idea about camping was pretty high, or so I thought. One of them handed me a pouch not much bigger than cardboard tube you might get a poster in and said I could use one of their backup tents. Backup tents I thought, not being aware of the details regarding a primary tent I thought OK. Looking around I saw big tents, ones that would house 5-8 people and you could stand up in them, I was amazed that something like that could be broken down to fit into such a small package.
Well finally I hook back up with my Bride and she looks hot to, could it be that being gone so long has lowered her tolerance of the heat, did I mention it was hot. I told her of our fortune, I had procured a tent, I had provided for my woman by arranging a safe place for us to sleep. After picking a spot, later it would be explained to me how bad a spot it was but I picked a spot and started pulling my tent out. It did not take long for me to realize that this tent was not much bigger, if any, than a lawn and leaf trash bag, how were we both going to sleep comfortably in here. I gazed up the hill to the other tents in all there zippered flap, mosquito proofed screened glory and thought – shit this is going to suck. After all the festivities of the evening we all made our way to our sleeping quarters, the air temp was still over 100 degrees and it was almost midnight. The ground temperature was closer to 387 degrees after being baked by the hot Texas sun all day. Of course we had not cots, no air filled mattresses, to tell you the truth I am still surprised the two of us fit in there in the first place. When reached the age of 18 I was never planning to sleep on the ground again, why do it? And yet here I was sleeping in a tent the size of a garbage bag, on the ground and in the heat, what had I married into is what my nightmares revolved around all night long.
In the morning someone had already lit a fire and started coffee y the time I was able to crawl out of the hellish nightmare I was living in. A fire I thought, are you kidding me? Anyway I was staggering around trying to get my back to loosen up a bit and I told bride I am going to go for a drive and cool off in the air conditioning of the car, she excitedly said I will come with ya. We pile into the car like a couple of people who had just crossed the entire Sahara desert and with the air on MAX we just took off in any direction that seemed would keep us in the car as long as possible. As we drove we talked about how great it was to see everyone, how big the nieces and nephews had become but we were not talking about the elephant that was obviously in the room. I do not remember what lake the picnic was at that year but we are driving along and up on the left, a brand new looking Howard Johnsons. It was funny, we both looked at each other and without even a word we whipped in and got a room. First things first we spent some time in the most wonderful pool in the world. That room could have cost 5,000 dollars a night and I would have paid. It was not 5k and I seem to remember that it was inexpensive. After swimming, showering, a nap in the room with the air going as cold as it would go and then a bite to eat. We were very refreshed, clean, rested and well fed and therefore very happy. Little did I realize that my next move was going to haunt me forever.
We knew it would be noticed that Smitty was clean and refreshed and in some bizarre attempt to compensate we rode into town and found the nearest sporting goods store. I run in and ask for the biggest Leatherman they have, I want one with everything in it. The guy behind the counter whips out this mac daddy unit and it was immediately apparent I would have the baddest Leatherman on the campgrounds. I would show the brothers I could fit I, little did I know my fate was sealed when I walked out of that sporting goods shop and started back to the campsite. So when we get back I clip this big ass 150 dollar multipurpose tool made for surviving in the wild to my belt and in we go. Well it did not take long for folks to catch a whiff of soap and shampoo and ask who had a shower. We had changed clothes, showered and been refreshed and for those who had not left the campsite we were obvious. We immediately started to receive a Texas sized ration of shit about not “camping out” and having to get a hotel room. This was from all corners, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, what was I to do to defend myself? Here is where the second mistake started and actually ended. I thought quick come up with something, it was about that time I was asked about the Leatherman I was wearing, hot diggity I thought, here is the tool that will allow me to pry my way back into their good graces – WRONG. So I whip this thing out and start showing off all the implements and explaining the purpose of each, I had read the booklet that came with it before in anticipation of any questions. Well it did not take more than about 7 seconds for me to handily chop the end of my finger off, no bone mind you, only skin but needless to say the purchase of the Leatherman DID NOT have the desired effect.
Once I was able to get the bleeding stopped, of course they all had first aid kits handy, I realized that I would never be able to live the hotel or the Leatherman incident down. What was I to do, I thought some animals when attacked just play dead, I could not even do that for Petes sake they had enough medical supplies to stock a freakin MASH unit. So I thought ya know what, I will just embrace my lack of respect and own the fact that I am a pansy and do not live outdoors. That has worked for me and they all know that about me now, so we have that. I believe that was the first year that they implemented a new award especially for me. The awards are my favorite part, who cooked the best brisket, who had the best campsite, who won playing horse shoes and lots of others, I felt immense satisfaction to have an award created in my honor. That was until I received it, it was the Nancy award, from the old cartoon character Nancy. I still have the framed award in my office, there were a couple of years I even won that award in absentia. I received a tee shirt with a picture of Nancy with a red circle and line, indicated no Nancy’s allowed. I love going to the picnics, we can’t get there as often as we would like but to this day I have not slept in another tent and they can give me all the crap they want – man invented air conditioning and hotels, who I am not to use them. This account is how I remember it, there may be some details I missed or did not get exactly right but this is the way I remember it. I will receive corrections I am sure from the family.
What is your famil reunion like?
That first year Bride and I were excited to go, her even more than me and I could tell the family picnic held a lot of good memories for her. I am not sure why or how but I guess I missed the part that this was really camping out as a family, some had nice tents, others had pop up campers and still others had bad tents. Well I have never been much of a camper, I got kicked out of the scouting when I was in Webelos. I have never “pitched a tent” started a fire without matches or any of the other necessary skills needed to successfully live in the wild. In no time I realized I was ill suited for this picnic, which for me was quickly turning into an ordeal. I was somewhat intimidated by Bride’s four brothers, they all appeared to be so at ease with all the outdoorsman type equipment, I began to question if they were perhaps originally born in the wild. I was not sure about the oldest brother, the all called him the corporate camper as he would drive from Dallas to Austin and never loosen his tie. They all had complicated campsites, tents that looks like you would need an engineering degree to place and setup, gas powered lighting and cooking equipment that used white gas, whatever that was. The rest room was over that hill and down to the right and there were no showers there. The boat docks were through the woods over that other hill and our boats were tied up to the west of the ramp, to the west they said to me, like I had some internal compass or external compass that I would know how to use. Although I did appreciate the benefit of the doubt, they had no idea just how bad it really was for me, if they were messing with me, which is possible, it was not initially apparent to me.
And it was HOT, damn hot, I am talking about the kind of heat that would kill Tarzan, I mean Texas in July is HOT. I guess I am a pansy when it comes to that kind of inferno, at least that is what one of the brothers called me when I mentioned that the skin on the top of my head was starting to melt from the heat. By mid afternoon I was miserable, HOT, HOT, HOT and I was beginning to wonder if perhaps the heat had not caused some permanent damage to all members of this family that made them not even notice that the rocks laying around were actually glowing red. Did I mention how HOT it was there? I was sweating so bad and in turn drank so much water I was starting to cramp up. Those first few hours were a blur to me, I did not know if I was coming or going and then I started to wonder, my God where are we going to live for the few days we would be staying. I was trying my best not to cry but I started asking some of the brothers, my Bride had abandoned me, where we were going to be staying. You did not bring a tent one of them asked while performing some task with one of those multifunction tools I would later learn was called a Leatherman, more on that later. The level of sheer disdain that was heaped upon me after I explained that I had no idea about camping was pretty high, or so I thought. One of them handed me a pouch not much bigger than cardboard tube you might get a poster in and said I could use one of their backup tents. Backup tents I thought, not being aware of the details regarding a primary tent I thought OK. Looking around I saw big tents, ones that would house 5-8 people and you could stand up in them, I was amazed that something like that could be broken down to fit into such a small package.
Well finally I hook back up with my Bride and she looks hot to, could it be that being gone so long has lowered her tolerance of the heat, did I mention it was hot. I told her of our fortune, I had procured a tent, I had provided for my woman by arranging a safe place for us to sleep. After picking a spot, later it would be explained to me how bad a spot it was but I picked a spot and started pulling my tent out. It did not take long for me to realize that this tent was not much bigger, if any, than a lawn and leaf trash bag, how were we both going to sleep comfortably in here. I gazed up the hill to the other tents in all there zippered flap, mosquito proofed screened glory and thought – shit this is going to suck. After all the festivities of the evening we all made our way to our sleeping quarters, the air temp was still over 100 degrees and it was almost midnight. The ground temperature was closer to 387 degrees after being baked by the hot Texas sun all day. Of course we had not cots, no air filled mattresses, to tell you the truth I am still surprised the two of us fit in there in the first place. When reached the age of 18 I was never planning to sleep on the ground again, why do it? And yet here I was sleeping in a tent the size of a garbage bag, on the ground and in the heat, what had I married into is what my nightmares revolved around all night long.
In the morning someone had already lit a fire and started coffee y the time I was able to crawl out of the hellish nightmare I was living in. A fire I thought, are you kidding me? Anyway I was staggering around trying to get my back to loosen up a bit and I told bride I am going to go for a drive and cool off in the air conditioning of the car, she excitedly said I will come with ya. We pile into the car like a couple of people who had just crossed the entire Sahara desert and with the air on MAX we just took off in any direction that seemed would keep us in the car as long as possible. As we drove we talked about how great it was to see everyone, how big the nieces and nephews had become but we were not talking about the elephant that was obviously in the room. I do not remember what lake the picnic was at that year but we are driving along and up on the left, a brand new looking Howard Johnsons. It was funny, we both looked at each other and without even a word we whipped in and got a room. First things first we spent some time in the most wonderful pool in the world. That room could have cost 5,000 dollars a night and I would have paid. It was not 5k and I seem to remember that it was inexpensive. After swimming, showering, a nap in the room with the air going as cold as it would go and then a bite to eat. We were very refreshed, clean, rested and well fed and therefore very happy. Little did I realize that my next move was going to haunt me forever.
We knew it would be noticed that Smitty was clean and refreshed and in some bizarre attempt to compensate we rode into town and found the nearest sporting goods store. I run in and ask for the biggest Leatherman they have, I want one with everything in it. The guy behind the counter whips out this mac daddy unit and it was immediately apparent I would have the baddest Leatherman on the campgrounds. I would show the brothers I could fit I, little did I know my fate was sealed when I walked out of that sporting goods shop and started back to the campsite. So when we get back I clip this big ass 150 dollar multipurpose tool made for surviving in the wild to my belt and in we go. Well it did not take long for folks to catch a whiff of soap and shampoo and ask who had a shower. We had changed clothes, showered and been refreshed and for those who had not left the campsite we were obvious. We immediately started to receive a Texas sized ration of shit about not “camping out” and having to get a hotel room. This was from all corners, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, what was I to do to defend myself? Here is where the second mistake started and actually ended. I thought quick come up with something, it was about that time I was asked about the Leatherman I was wearing, hot diggity I thought, here is the tool that will allow me to pry my way back into their good graces – WRONG. So I whip this thing out and start showing off all the implements and explaining the purpose of each, I had read the booklet that came with it before in anticipation of any questions. Well it did not take more than about 7 seconds for me to handily chop the end of my finger off, no bone mind you, only skin but needless to say the purchase of the Leatherman DID NOT have the desired effect.
Once I was able to get the bleeding stopped, of course they all had first aid kits handy, I realized that I would never be able to live the hotel or the Leatherman incident down. What was I to do, I thought some animals when attacked just play dead, I could not even do that for Petes sake they had enough medical supplies to stock a freakin MASH unit. So I thought ya know what, I will just embrace my lack of respect and own the fact that I am a pansy and do not live outdoors. That has worked for me and they all know that about me now, so we have that. I believe that was the first year that they implemented a new award especially for me. The awards are my favorite part, who cooked the best brisket, who had the best campsite, who won playing horse shoes and lots of others, I felt immense satisfaction to have an award created in my honor. That was until I received it, it was the Nancy award, from the old cartoon character Nancy. I still have the framed award in my office, there were a couple of years I even won that award in absentia. I received a tee shirt with a picture of Nancy with a red circle and line, indicated no Nancy’s allowed. I love going to the picnics, we can’t get there as often as we would like but to this day I have not slept in another tent and they can give me all the crap they want – man invented air conditioning and hotels, who I am not to use them. This account is how I remember it, there may be some details I missed or did not get exactly right but this is the way I remember it. I will receive corrections I am sure from the family.
What is your famil reunion like?
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Facebook – what in the hell is going on there?
I am not even sure why but I signed up and joined the melee called Facebook a few months ago and have not stopped being intrigued ever since. I suppose I got on initially just to examine the phenomenon, to satisfy my profession curiosity, but then I got personally interested. In case you were wondering about my profession I work in television and radio and have the responsibility of making sure our technology strategy is continuously updated to include all the tactical efforts in infrastructure build out to provide the technical capacity that allows our producers to place their content, be it radio or television, or web in as many places as possible. Anyway back to the personally interested part. I was not signed up long at all, probably a day or two and already I was receiving friend requests. It has been interesting for me, people I had not seen or heard from in YEARS and in some cases A LOT OF YEARS were finding me. Then I started looking at them and their lists of friends and started finding even more people that I knew from some point in my life. Initially I was on a quest to get as many friends as I could, I think that is a common trend but I am not sure. I found my youngest brother and his wife, my middle brothers wife was there, my sister and two of her kids were there, people from my childhood, people from every place I served in the military and even more recent friends that I actually know and see now – they were all in here. I was friending away, later however, I would find that it was with reckless abandon.
In no time I was up over 150 friends and my feed was full of people’s lives as they scrolled by. I found myself taking friend requests from people I did not really like in real life and it did not take long for me to realize I still did not like them and their FB friendship was unnecessary and in one case offensive to me. One guy I served with in the Navy was a rabid hater, I remember he was a bigot, a racist and all around mean spirited guy when I knew him all those years ago. I did not hang out with him then and I realized I did not want to hang out with him now, BAM – he was dropped as a FB friend, it was that easy. I found that since I was checking in on FaceBook (FB from now on) only in the morning and evening that my feed would be so big I had to scroll back to look at older posts. It was either cut back on friends or start checking in more often, that was a dilemma. Having watched the behavior of my friends I could tell that this could easily become addictive and I did not need that! I was able to quit drinking, with direct guidance from military and quit smoking with my own will power I was not in need of any new addiction. Some of my friends were updating their status two or three times an hour, all day. Who has that kind of time and my life is relatively static anyway so I never thought I would change from twice a day. In no time at all I had pared my list of friends WAY down.
So after my friend list grew by leaps and bounds and then was unceremoniously pared back I was beginning to form some opinions about this social networking thing. It is not a new thing and has actually been built into our DNA from the start of time, whenever you believe that may be. A quick look through history will show ya, whether we humans were in the hunter – gatherer mode or acting like a settler we see groups of people banding together. In our early evolution we did it as a survival tactic and now that genetic tag is still working – we live socially. Just wanted ya to understand this social networking is not new, Homo Erectus got it all going for us on his trek to the top of the food chain. Several studies, such as Stanley Milgram’s “Small World Experiment have been conducted to empirically measure this social connectedness. While the exact number of links between people differs depending on the population measured and the types of links used, it is generally found to be relatively small. Hence, the phrase "six degrees of separation" is often used as a synonym for the idea of the "small world" phenomenon. Lots of studies have been done and are in progress even as we speak, the idea of an overall interconnectedness has been around long before Kevin Bacon made it a fun game. Buddhist’s have enjoyed a very detailed understanding of that interconnectedness for over two millennia and it seems everyone else is just playing catch up. Being an electronics wienie I pondered and compared this type of interconnectedness to the computer networks that are deployed today in many businesses and the interconnected nature of the internet. All things internet are loosely kind of based on a hardware and software version of the same principles. If you know how the internet works, behind the scenes you know what I mean. You might understand that interlocking networks of computer mediated lateral communication could diffuse single messages, or packets, to anywhere in the world and its path will loosely follow the 6 degrees of separation principle to exploit the lateral diffusion of data traffic – opps slipped into techie geek there for a moment, sorry.
Anyway, that is academic really in the context of this conversation about FB. I formed an opinion, with the help of my real life friend Circe, that this FaceBook feed was a passively selective way to have a relationship with a friend. At first I was not sure if I liked it, I felt almost like a peeping tom and I felt very voyeuristic as I watched in fascination other people’s lives scroll past on my feed. I then realized that I could not be a peeping tom, not for that anyway, and it was not a voyeuristic way to have a relationship with my FB friends. The only information I was getting was what my friends wanted me to see about their lives. I guess in some cases my FB friends were real life people from different parts of my life and I was learning things about them that were previously unknown to me, some very interesting some not so much but there it was scrolling past on my feed. I began to realize that I could let my friends know more about me then they knew already, or maybe even more than they wanted to know. That was hard at first for me to accept, why would anyone not want to know more about me I thought? I thought that I was an open book, and I am to some degree, as those who know me will tell you - I will tell you the truth and speak my mind no matter the subject but in this case I realized I could expand on that. For those FB friends who may not know me as well, such as coworkers and others, they would get an insight into who I am and that may better help to understand why I am the way I am, or just unceremoniously dump me as a FB friend as happened in one case – he was a putz anyway. As I say in my in my FB profile “I am about as flawed a person as you will ever meet, I am at peace with that so it does not bother me, or more importantly it does not bother my Bride either”. I found I really liked being on FB and the friendships I have started in some cases and restarted in others and in a few ended.
I have purposely not gotten involved in any of the extraneous applications and external gadgets. Things like Mafia Wars, which my poor friend Mark has been eaten up with the dumbass on, I even tried to hold an intervention in here with his other friends but we have lost him to the addiction. I am laughing Mark – he reads this blog. There are many others, a few of my friends are virtual farmers and that is OK but it is not for me, I spend enough time in front of computers at work and do not need any need virtual hobbies – I like the real tangible hobbies (that is for you Rob). I also have not gotten involved in the Hugging and pieces of flair, I do not want to know which Star wars character some demented software application thinks I am, I do not need an application to tell me where I should live, I do not want my life evaluation performed by a computer and I do not need some crazy persons software to diagnose my mental disorders. So I guess I am saying that if you have asked me to farm or wanted me to join your mafia family or any other of the other things I reject those requests, not because you are not my friend but because I have set limits to how much of my life will be invested into “playing” on the computer. I love ya mean it!!!
Facebook has allowed me to document little moments of time in my life for others to see, but more importantly it is for me. Some things in life are hard and being able to talk about those situations with my Bride has been the best thing in the world for me. Being able to write my thoughts down and have others read and comment, or ignore has helped me in other ways. I started my blog, Mr. Oatmeal’s Oratories, as kind of a platform for me to express whatever I was thinking about, some might say that in some Freudian way that I was trying to reconcile my Mom’s final battle with Althizemers – who knows and more importantly who cares, not me. I have shared my feelings about all sorts of topics from the stimulus plan to the death of my Mom to using as seen on television products. I have been asked how many people read my blog and ya know what, I did not put a counter on my site on purpose, I don’t really care I am not doing for anyone else, it is for me and if people read and enjoy – good, if not – that’s good too. I have decided I like Facebook and all it has allowed me to do and I like all the new friends I have started relationships with and the ones I restarted a relationship with and the real life friends that I have learned more about.
Face Book - whuddathunkit?
In no time I was up over 150 friends and my feed was full of people’s lives as they scrolled by. I found myself taking friend requests from people I did not really like in real life and it did not take long for me to realize I still did not like them and their FB friendship was unnecessary and in one case offensive to me. One guy I served with in the Navy was a rabid hater, I remember he was a bigot, a racist and all around mean spirited guy when I knew him all those years ago. I did not hang out with him then and I realized I did not want to hang out with him now, BAM – he was dropped as a FB friend, it was that easy. I found that since I was checking in on FaceBook (FB from now on) only in the morning and evening that my feed would be so big I had to scroll back to look at older posts. It was either cut back on friends or start checking in more often, that was a dilemma. Having watched the behavior of my friends I could tell that this could easily become addictive and I did not need that! I was able to quit drinking, with direct guidance from military and quit smoking with my own will power I was not in need of any new addiction. Some of my friends were updating their status two or three times an hour, all day. Who has that kind of time and my life is relatively static anyway so I never thought I would change from twice a day. In no time at all I had pared my list of friends WAY down.
So after my friend list grew by leaps and bounds and then was unceremoniously pared back I was beginning to form some opinions about this social networking thing. It is not a new thing and has actually been built into our DNA from the start of time, whenever you believe that may be. A quick look through history will show ya, whether we humans were in the hunter – gatherer mode or acting like a settler we see groups of people banding together. In our early evolution we did it as a survival tactic and now that genetic tag is still working – we live socially. Just wanted ya to understand this social networking is not new, Homo Erectus got it all going for us on his trek to the top of the food chain. Several studies, such as Stanley Milgram’s “Small World Experiment have been conducted to empirically measure this social connectedness. While the exact number of links between people differs depending on the population measured and the types of links used, it is generally found to be relatively small. Hence, the phrase "six degrees of separation" is often used as a synonym for the idea of the "small world" phenomenon. Lots of studies have been done and are in progress even as we speak, the idea of an overall interconnectedness has been around long before Kevin Bacon made it a fun game. Buddhist’s have enjoyed a very detailed understanding of that interconnectedness for over two millennia and it seems everyone else is just playing catch up. Being an electronics wienie I pondered and compared this type of interconnectedness to the computer networks that are deployed today in many businesses and the interconnected nature of the internet. All things internet are loosely kind of based on a hardware and software version of the same principles. If you know how the internet works, behind the scenes you know what I mean. You might understand that interlocking networks of computer mediated lateral communication could diffuse single messages, or packets, to anywhere in the world and its path will loosely follow the 6 degrees of separation principle to exploit the lateral diffusion of data traffic – opps slipped into techie geek there for a moment, sorry.
Anyway, that is academic really in the context of this conversation about FB. I formed an opinion, with the help of my real life friend Circe, that this FaceBook feed was a passively selective way to have a relationship with a friend. At first I was not sure if I liked it, I felt almost like a peeping tom and I felt very voyeuristic as I watched in fascination other people’s lives scroll past on my feed. I then realized that I could not be a peeping tom, not for that anyway, and it was not a voyeuristic way to have a relationship with my FB friends. The only information I was getting was what my friends wanted me to see about their lives. I guess in some cases my FB friends were real life people from different parts of my life and I was learning things about them that were previously unknown to me, some very interesting some not so much but there it was scrolling past on my feed. I began to realize that I could let my friends know more about me then they knew already, or maybe even more than they wanted to know. That was hard at first for me to accept, why would anyone not want to know more about me I thought? I thought that I was an open book, and I am to some degree, as those who know me will tell you - I will tell you the truth and speak my mind no matter the subject but in this case I realized I could expand on that. For those FB friends who may not know me as well, such as coworkers and others, they would get an insight into who I am and that may better help to understand why I am the way I am, or just unceremoniously dump me as a FB friend as happened in one case – he was a putz anyway. As I say in my in my FB profile “I am about as flawed a person as you will ever meet, I am at peace with that so it does not bother me, or more importantly it does not bother my Bride either”. I found I really liked being on FB and the friendships I have started in some cases and restarted in others and in a few ended.
I have purposely not gotten involved in any of the extraneous applications and external gadgets. Things like Mafia Wars, which my poor friend Mark has been eaten up with the dumbass on, I even tried to hold an intervention in here with his other friends but we have lost him to the addiction. I am laughing Mark – he reads this blog. There are many others, a few of my friends are virtual farmers and that is OK but it is not for me, I spend enough time in front of computers at work and do not need any need virtual hobbies – I like the real tangible hobbies (that is for you Rob). I also have not gotten involved in the Hugging and pieces of flair, I do not want to know which Star wars character some demented software application thinks I am, I do not need an application to tell me where I should live, I do not want my life evaluation performed by a computer and I do not need some crazy persons software to diagnose my mental disorders. So I guess I am saying that if you have asked me to farm or wanted me to join your mafia family or any other of the other things I reject those requests, not because you are not my friend but because I have set limits to how much of my life will be invested into “playing” on the computer. I love ya mean it!!!
Facebook has allowed me to document little moments of time in my life for others to see, but more importantly it is for me. Some things in life are hard and being able to talk about those situations with my Bride has been the best thing in the world for me. Being able to write my thoughts down and have others read and comment, or ignore has helped me in other ways. I started my blog, Mr. Oatmeal’s Oratories, as kind of a platform for me to express whatever I was thinking about, some might say that in some Freudian way that I was trying to reconcile my Mom’s final battle with Althizemers – who knows and more importantly who cares, not me. I have shared my feelings about all sorts of topics from the stimulus plan to the death of my Mom to using as seen on television products. I have been asked how many people read my blog and ya know what, I did not put a counter on my site on purpose, I don’t really care I am not doing for anyone else, it is for me and if people read and enjoy – good, if not – that’s good too. I have decided I like Facebook and all it has allowed me to do and I like all the new friends I have started relationships with and the ones I restarted a relationship with and the real life friends that I have learned more about.
Face Book - whuddathunkit?
Monday, June 1, 2009
So there I was getting my coffee when, I spied with my little eye the something that was amazing, it turned out it was biggest idiot of the day
It is 6:47am, the day is a Saturday, the weather, overcast and the likelihood of rain is HIGH. I pull into Gate to get my coffee and notice a guy pumping gas into his big Mercedes, not something I normally notice mind ya. What drew my attention today was the fact that this guy was sucking on a Marlboro with the attention a 500 dollar whore might approach her work, so I have heard anyway. While pumping gas, this genius is burning a butt, I could not believe what I was seeing. In a day that the warnings pasted on gas pumps list not even talking on the cell phone for fear of creating a spark and possibly risking violent explosion. In a day and age when we are warned, if a fire does start, “not remove nozzle, and to back away immediately” what was this guy thinking. As I was getting my coffee inside all I could think about was the explosive imminence of the fireball that would be awaiting me when I returned to my jalopy. I keep glancing out at boy wonder while making my coffee, I comment on the guy and the fact he is smoking to the bleary eyed clerk who does not even muster a shoulder shrug. Oh well I thought, if he doesn’t care why should I right?
I am now making my way to my jalopy across the parking lot and just when I thought it could not get more ridiculous it did, unbelievable right? He tosses the butt on the ground and does not even bother to step on it to extinguish the thing. As the wind blows the butt, throwing sparks as it skitters across the parking lot I make an exaggerated movement and step it out, I give him a glance of righteous indignation but choose not to confront him, might spill my coffee. UNBELIEVABLE!! It does not end there though, sadly enough. He is looking right at me with the smuggest don’t you know who I am look and pulls out a fresh Marlboro and sparks it off with a Zippo. I was momentarily impressed with the fact he was using a Zippo, you just do not see folks using a Zippo anymore, I collect them and have a great number of them which is why I was impressed, just momentarily though. In a day when it is illegal and dangerous to dispense motor fuels into unapproved containers he is going to enjoy cancer stick at the same moment he is pumping gas into his car.
While there are laws governing smoking at the pump the difficulty of enforcing fire codes may be the reason some smokers continue to engage in dangerous behavior at gas pumps. Obviously, smoking while pumping gas is very dangerous, and it’s illegal, local gas station owners and managers still report it on a regular basis. Joyce Price, the manager of Hickory Point on Greenville Street, said she sees people smoking at her pumps a couple times a week. “If I see them I go out and tell them to stop,” Ms. Price said. “People are just ignorant” consumers do not realize if it explodes everyone, even the people inside the station are gone. Jack Abraham, Chief of the Anderson City Fire Department, said his department responds to between three and five gasoline related fires per year, and Anderson City only has a population of about 25000 people. The warning signs posted at the pump, as mandated by the International Fire Code Section 2205.6, don’t seem to have the intended effect either. Seems that for whatever reason people don’t pay attention to the warning, kinda like those pesky speed limit signs – ya know those are for other people not me right?
As I pulled out I wondered how many accidents are created by people smoking while at the gas pump, numbers are hard to come by and exact causes are even harder to determine. So I pondered it on my way to breakfast with my buddies and thought, if I see that again I am going to say something, that is a public threat and should not be excused, no matter the kind of car. An idiot is an idiot whether they are driving a Mercedes or an old Ford Pinto. You may have noticed a bit more disdain in my comments than normal for Mr. smoking at the pump boy, I quit smoking very close to 2 years ago so there is that.
DO NOT smoke at the pump friends, the life you take may might be mine, perish the thought!!!
I am now making my way to my jalopy across the parking lot and just when I thought it could not get more ridiculous it did, unbelievable right? He tosses the butt on the ground and does not even bother to step on it to extinguish the thing. As the wind blows the butt, throwing sparks as it skitters across the parking lot I make an exaggerated movement and step it out, I give him a glance of righteous indignation but choose not to confront him, might spill my coffee. UNBELIEVABLE!! It does not end there though, sadly enough. He is looking right at me with the smuggest don’t you know who I am look and pulls out a fresh Marlboro and sparks it off with a Zippo. I was momentarily impressed with the fact he was using a Zippo, you just do not see folks using a Zippo anymore, I collect them and have a great number of them which is why I was impressed, just momentarily though. In a day when it is illegal and dangerous to dispense motor fuels into unapproved containers he is going to enjoy cancer stick at the same moment he is pumping gas into his car.
While there are laws governing smoking at the pump the difficulty of enforcing fire codes may be the reason some smokers continue to engage in dangerous behavior at gas pumps. Obviously, smoking while pumping gas is very dangerous, and it’s illegal, local gas station owners and managers still report it on a regular basis. Joyce Price, the manager of Hickory Point on Greenville Street, said she sees people smoking at her pumps a couple times a week. “If I see them I go out and tell them to stop,” Ms. Price said. “People are just ignorant” consumers do not realize if it explodes everyone, even the people inside the station are gone. Jack Abraham, Chief of the Anderson City Fire Department, said his department responds to between three and five gasoline related fires per year, and Anderson City only has a population of about 25000 people. The warning signs posted at the pump, as mandated by the International Fire Code Section 2205.6, don’t seem to have the intended effect either. Seems that for whatever reason people don’t pay attention to the warning, kinda like those pesky speed limit signs – ya know those are for other people not me right?
As I pulled out I wondered how many accidents are created by people smoking while at the gas pump, numbers are hard to come by and exact causes are even harder to determine. So I pondered it on my way to breakfast with my buddies and thought, if I see that again I am going to say something, that is a public threat and should not be excused, no matter the kind of car. An idiot is an idiot whether they are driving a Mercedes or an old Ford Pinto. You may have noticed a bit more disdain in my comments than normal for Mr. smoking at the pump boy, I quit smoking very close to 2 years ago so there is that.
DO NOT smoke at the pump friends, the life you take may might be mine, perish the thought!!!
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