So the other day I was on my way out to the Home Depot and was just amazed at how big a damn hurry everyone seemed to be in. In one case, a person in a big green Ford Excursion cut across three lanes of traffic, almost ripping the front of my old jalopy off in the process, that vehicle is so big he may not have even noticed if he did. Who in the world still drives one of those gas guzzling road hogs anyway? That prompted me to observe for a day or two the behavior of my fellow drivers and I was shocked at what I found. I was reminded of the country singer Billy Currington as he croons on his latest hit – “God is Great, Beer is good and people are crazy”. People are crazy and drive like they’re crazy!
I got to thinking back about my friend in the Excursion, where could he have been going that would justify his asinine behavior, I thought I would ponder it a while in an attempt to give him the benefit of the doubt. Could it be that he was transporting his pregnant wife to the hospital, I don’t think so as he was headed in the opposite direction of any of the hospitals in town. Could it be that he was an undercover policeman on the way to the scene of the crime, I am not positive but with no flashing lights behind the grill it is highly unlikely. Could it be that he was hungry and just had to get over to Bono’s for some baby back ribs before he starved to death, that is a highly probable maybe. Could it be that he was dealing with an emergency at home that required a 1 pound box of 6d finish nails, galvanized for outdoor use, immediately or someone might actually die? That is the conclusion I came to when I got to home depot and saw the behemoth he was driving sitting in a freaking handicapped spot at the Home Depot. I still cannot figure out what the pound of nails would have been used for.
I have talked before about bad drivers and the lack of common decency on the road these days but I am presented with more material on a daily basis. So on my observation days I also noticed several other examples of sheer idiocy, mostly perpetrated against me. I drive an old jalopy so I never seem to be moving quite fast enough to make folks happy, keep in mind I am usually at least close to the speed limit but that really means little to most folks. I like to leave space in front of my car when I drive, I have 4 wheel drum brakes and for those who remember what that is like you know, stopping in a hurry is challenging and if it is raining give it up. I was tooling down Southside Blvd. and I had my space in front of me, enough space evidently for the kindly woman driving a Mazda 6. In what can only be described as a nearly impossible feat she darted in front of me, there could not have been more than a foot between her and me and maybe another foot to the car in front of her. She then proceeded to stamp on the brake pedal to make the right hand turn, I damn near crashed in my attempt to miss her, thank God there was no on in the left lane from where she just came moments early because that is where I ended up.
The very next day Bride and I are on our morning walk, thankful we were on the sidewalk, when I heard a big vehicle coming up behind us. Just as I realized how fast it was coming and turned to ensure we were not getting ready to be mowed down - VRROOOOM this freaking school bus blasts past us. After passing us, the bus then jams through an S turn in the street without ever even tapping the brakes causing the top of the bus to sway wildly. We were both amazed and thanked God we never had kids who would have to ride with that bus driver. The moment we thought it was over we are watching and the bus comes to a stop sign, I say stop sign because the bus did not stop, tapped the brakes to get the lights to come on but stop - NO. It went around that 90 degree corner so fast that the tires were squealing. I wished I would have had the forethought to get the bus number so I could have called it in to the bussing company. There were 2 other busses that went past at a normal speed so we did not to get the wrong person in trouble so we did not report it. Looking back, if I had to do it again I would call it in anyway.
Later that day I was on my way home and was passed by a cement truck, with the slowdown in construction I have not seen many of them lately so it stood out for me, that and the fact he was going around me, at a good clip. So as he speeds by I see that the front bumper is about as high as my head and stuck out from the front of the truck. I mostly got to see the undercarriage of this monstrous death machine, all the spinning parts and large pieces of steel. So as I am looking at the thing I notice that it is all of the sudden much closer, this guy is changing lanes. I was wondering, how could he be missing me riding along right here. The rear view mirror on the passenger side of the truck was missing, busted maybe from a similar tactic with a semi truck. I slowed, as he sped up and disaster was averted. The car behind the cement truck was a 68 Chevy Impala, the body appeared in great shape and it was painted in a gray primer. I love that year Impala and we nodded at each other, we had a moment really like most folks who drive old cars have when they see each other. There is a camaraderie between old jalopy drivers, it does not matter if the jalopy is beautifully restored or in progress or just an old piece of crap. For those who drive old vehicles, you know what I mean, for those who don’t the reason will probably never be clear to you. We had a couple of gestures about the cement truck, we both understood how dangerous that was, and while the 68 Impala came with drum brake,s this car enthusiast had changed over to a 4 wheel disk brake setup so he was obviously better equipped to handle the idiocy of everyday drivers.
I think I have figured out the reason people drive like that and I bet it is not the reason you are thinking. In the age of TV set baby sitters they picked it up watching Popeye. Do you remember the one where he and Bluto are both in little cartoon cars and are waiting at the cartoon red light and when the light turns green, BAM Bluto stomps the gas and his little carton car vrooms to the next light, which is also red. Meanwhile our spinach eating hero, Popeye, takes off slowly and reaches the same red light Bluto was already waiting at before that light turned green. There they sit, side by side and the only difference is that Bluto used much more gas and was wearing out his tires more quickly and wearing out all the other parts of the drive train at the same time. So this second light turns green and Vrooom – Bluto stomps the gas again and makes it to the next red light in the big hurry, and again Popeye slowly takes off the ends up pulling up to the same red light Bluto has been waiting for. Well this goes on for several lights, I do not remember the rest of the skit or where they were going but I remember the cartoon cars and Bluto Vrooming to the next light each time. Could it be that unbeknownst to us we have been taught and are continuing to teach poor driving skills subconsciously through Popeye cartoons?
I would like everyone to drive like your Granma or Grandpa might drive for one whole day.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday that the recession has ended, at least based on the numbers
He said "From a technical perspective, the recession is very likely over at this point." Bernanke added there is a risk that labor markets will remain weak through 2010 because growth will be too anemic to create jobs. He also acknowledged that economic forecasting "is not one of your most precise sciences" in the same breath and that "ongoing headwinds," will keep growth at a moderate rate due to the financial and credit problems. Bernanke also stated that "unemployment will be slow to come down," he said. "It will come down, but it may take some time." A former top Fed staffer, Vince Reinhart, who is now at the American Enterprise Institute, said the technical end of the recession is more about arithmetic than anything else. Well Vince it was nice to hear someone admit all this really means nothing for the folks who are struggling to pay their rent, mortgage or electric bills. It pisses me off when our government tells us things it knows to be blatantly BS. When our President enthusiastically declared in a recent national TV address that "the bleeding has stopped” it makes me wonder what the hell kind of Band Aids does he buy because Mr. Oatmeal’s household budget is still hemorrhaging and cash flow is problematic at best.
Our president is not the only one riding the economic stability hay wagon, the rosy claims are coming from many quarters. There are still some significant economic facts of life and numerous skeptics suggest such cheerful tidings should be taken with a grain of salt, do you feel the sunshine being blown up your butt yet? I know that President Obama is a big Abe Lincoln fan so I dug into that a bit looking for honest Abe quotes and found one I think fits the rosy rumors being spread. Tis better to be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." It is not just at the federal level the optimism seems to be trickling down from, hum where have I heard that term before? Sorry. Anyway, the folks I know are still struggling, maybe I do not know the right class of people. Some of the indicators would be the unemployment rate, still over 15 million Americans are out of work and that number is expected to continue to rise through the first half of 2010, or another year. The stories that the housing market has hit bottom are also suspect, my humble observations tell me that VERY FEW if any homes have sold in my neighborhood. They say there is an unsold inventory of about 4 million homes and that is expected by some to climb to at least 11 million, and even the optimistic projections show it continuing to climb. The Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, the former skipper of the World Bank and a professor at Columbia University recently reiterated his view that "we'll be lucky to get out of the recession by 2012." As the good professor sees it, you need GDP growth of 3% to create new jobs and that could be two to three years away.
I am a technical guy, used to assimilating and synthesizing large amounts of data from many points and after digestion developing action plans to put into motion the tactical effort required to meet strategic goals. The overly aggressive goals (pick any plan the government is working on) coupled with the size of what is going on it becomes clear, quickly, that the before the problem can be looked at we have to stop and realize that the methodology being used to move the plans forward is flawed. Without a sound methodology for repairing a problem, it is evident to most that the result may vary from the intended outcome. First, there are too many data points and secondly the decision makers are WAY TOO far away from those data points. What in the hell does that mean you are probably asking, well let me try to explain. When assessing a problem there are logical troubleshooting steps that follow a methodology, regardless of whether you are fixing a jalopy, a television or the national economy. It starts with data gathering, I will call them data points. Each data point is a piece of the puzzle, for example, is there gas in the jalopy, is the TV plugged in or is the unemployment rate over 10%. Now obviously on a project as big as 780 billion dollars there are millions, literally millions of data points that could be examined. Simple physics dictate that not all can be thoroughly examined, no big deal we can prioritize and gather as much data as we can about each. No issues yet with the methodology, is the gas gauge broken, are the remote batteries dead or are those last quarter’s housing start numbers.
In this plan, again pick one, we have ordinary folks gathering the raw data and they are reporting their conclusions to their boss. So one tier up, managers we will call them, are gathering the various data and synthesizing it into a report that will passed along to their boss. Their boss in turn is taking that analysis, along with analysis from many others and synthesizing for his boss. Keep in mind he is already htree times removed from the actual data, and God only knows how many steps in the chain there are on an issues like health care or pulling out of Iraq. I mean look at how complicated trying to shut down Guantanamo Bay Cuba was if you need a recent example. So that is how it should and most likely does work, the problems come from simple statistics. Say there are 10,000 people gathering data and say you have 100 managers performing the first iteration of synthesis and then another 25 performing the second iteration of synthesis and maybe another 3 for the third tier. Simple statistics tell me that of 10,128 people, some percentage of them are going to have an agenda. That is where things go horribly wrong. Back to my initial examples, maybe the Bride was has been driving my car and using the gas without my knowledge, maybe she took the batteries out of the remote because she wants to buy a new TV and maybe, just maybe our elected officials have a pharmaceutical plant in her district or a large military supplier in his district. You can quickly deduce that the game is rigged and there is no chance of a proper outcome. It is not the people, I am politically agnostic, it is the machine and methodology we are using in an attempt to solve our problems. The Republicans and Democrats are stuck in the same machine. The machine is so complex that many of them did not heed the little warning showing the little stick figure getting his arm stuck in the wood chipper and have been partially pulled in and are now doing ANYTHING to extricate themselves from the wood chipper.
I heard a story the other day that they have spent only 20% of the 780 billion, or about 156 billion has been spent to date. My biggest question is what are they going to do with the 600 some odd billion they have left? If they have only spent 20% and Ben Bernanke can say that the recession is over than put that make believe money (we are using the BIG credit card here folks) back into our collective wallets. Logic dictates that you cannot perform the same steps, only on a larger scale, and expect the results to be different. We Americans got into this financial crisis by spending money we did not have, we all are really to blame whether we want to admit it or not. Now to fix the problem we are going ahead and spend money we do not have. Now lots of people have said it but the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results. I am not sure I understand how the government going this far into hock is going to solve this or any other problem, I see it as crazy and self serving, self serving to someone other than me! We seem to be being bombarded by information from the sky is falling folks as well as the folks who somehow think this mess is over. I sometimes think I am a simpleton, I am made to feel like that by the “smart” folks up in Washington and that pisses me off, especially when some sanctimonious politician gets up and while smiling for the cameras tells us everything is OK. BULLSHIT I say to that as I try to figure out how to pay my bills and the new government taxes that are being levied against me.
DO NOT TAKE THIS AS AN ATTACK ON A POLITICAL PARTY _ I HATE THEM BOTH EQUALLY!
The bottom line: If you really believe the recession is over, put the crack pipe down and wake the hell up.
Our president is not the only one riding the economic stability hay wagon, the rosy claims are coming from many quarters. There are still some significant economic facts of life and numerous skeptics suggest such cheerful tidings should be taken with a grain of salt, do you feel the sunshine being blown up your butt yet? I know that President Obama is a big Abe Lincoln fan so I dug into that a bit looking for honest Abe quotes and found one I think fits the rosy rumors being spread. Tis better to be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." It is not just at the federal level the optimism seems to be trickling down from, hum where have I heard that term before? Sorry. Anyway, the folks I know are still struggling, maybe I do not know the right class of people. Some of the indicators would be the unemployment rate, still over 15 million Americans are out of work and that number is expected to continue to rise through the first half of 2010, or another year. The stories that the housing market has hit bottom are also suspect, my humble observations tell me that VERY FEW if any homes have sold in my neighborhood. They say there is an unsold inventory of about 4 million homes and that is expected by some to climb to at least 11 million, and even the optimistic projections show it continuing to climb. The Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, the former skipper of the World Bank and a professor at Columbia University recently reiterated his view that "we'll be lucky to get out of the recession by 2012." As the good professor sees it, you need GDP growth of 3% to create new jobs and that could be two to three years away.
I am a technical guy, used to assimilating and synthesizing large amounts of data from many points and after digestion developing action plans to put into motion the tactical effort required to meet strategic goals. The overly aggressive goals (pick any plan the government is working on) coupled with the size of what is going on it becomes clear, quickly, that the before the problem can be looked at we have to stop and realize that the methodology being used to move the plans forward is flawed. Without a sound methodology for repairing a problem, it is evident to most that the result may vary from the intended outcome. First, there are too many data points and secondly the decision makers are WAY TOO far away from those data points. What in the hell does that mean you are probably asking, well let me try to explain. When assessing a problem there are logical troubleshooting steps that follow a methodology, regardless of whether you are fixing a jalopy, a television or the national economy. It starts with data gathering, I will call them data points. Each data point is a piece of the puzzle, for example, is there gas in the jalopy, is the TV plugged in or is the unemployment rate over 10%. Now obviously on a project as big as 780 billion dollars there are millions, literally millions of data points that could be examined. Simple physics dictate that not all can be thoroughly examined, no big deal we can prioritize and gather as much data as we can about each. No issues yet with the methodology, is the gas gauge broken, are the remote batteries dead or are those last quarter’s housing start numbers.
In this plan, again pick one, we have ordinary folks gathering the raw data and they are reporting their conclusions to their boss. So one tier up, managers we will call them, are gathering the various data and synthesizing it into a report that will passed along to their boss. Their boss in turn is taking that analysis, along with analysis from many others and synthesizing for his boss. Keep in mind he is already htree times removed from the actual data, and God only knows how many steps in the chain there are on an issues like health care or pulling out of Iraq. I mean look at how complicated trying to shut down Guantanamo Bay Cuba was if you need a recent example. So that is how it should and most likely does work, the problems come from simple statistics. Say there are 10,000 people gathering data and say you have 100 managers performing the first iteration of synthesis and then another 25 performing the second iteration of synthesis and maybe another 3 for the third tier. Simple statistics tell me that of 10,128 people, some percentage of them are going to have an agenda. That is where things go horribly wrong. Back to my initial examples, maybe the Bride was has been driving my car and using the gas without my knowledge, maybe she took the batteries out of the remote because she wants to buy a new TV and maybe, just maybe our elected officials have a pharmaceutical plant in her district or a large military supplier in his district. You can quickly deduce that the game is rigged and there is no chance of a proper outcome. It is not the people, I am politically agnostic, it is the machine and methodology we are using in an attempt to solve our problems. The Republicans and Democrats are stuck in the same machine. The machine is so complex that many of them did not heed the little warning showing the little stick figure getting his arm stuck in the wood chipper and have been partially pulled in and are now doing ANYTHING to extricate themselves from the wood chipper.
I heard a story the other day that they have spent only 20% of the 780 billion, or about 156 billion has been spent to date. My biggest question is what are they going to do with the 600 some odd billion they have left? If they have only spent 20% and Ben Bernanke can say that the recession is over than put that make believe money (we are using the BIG credit card here folks) back into our collective wallets. Logic dictates that you cannot perform the same steps, only on a larger scale, and expect the results to be different. We Americans got into this financial crisis by spending money we did not have, we all are really to blame whether we want to admit it or not. Now to fix the problem we are going ahead and spend money we do not have. Now lots of people have said it but the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results. I am not sure I understand how the government going this far into hock is going to solve this or any other problem, I see it as crazy and self serving, self serving to someone other than me! We seem to be being bombarded by information from the sky is falling folks as well as the folks who somehow think this mess is over. I sometimes think I am a simpleton, I am made to feel like that by the “smart” folks up in Washington and that pisses me off, especially when some sanctimonious politician gets up and while smiling for the cameras tells us everything is OK. BULLSHIT I say to that as I try to figure out how to pay my bills and the new government taxes that are being levied against me.
DO NOT TAKE THIS AS AN ATTACK ON A POLITICAL PARTY _ I HATE THEM BOTH EQUALLY!
The bottom line: If you really believe the recession is over, put the crack pipe down and wake the hell up.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Mr. Oatmeal doing movie reviews on the radio - evidently NOT???
I seem to be unable to make it through and I do not know or understand why – Sorry Melissa.
About a month ago the place I work launched a new daily call in talk radio show called First Coast Connect. It is a great show and the host, Melissa Ross is a FANTASTIC on air personality and a great person as well. I give you that background so I you can understand the rest of the oratory. A couple of weeks ago I was asked if I would be interested in doing movie reviews for the show. I was intrigued, now I found my voice with the blog I thought it might be a natural extension of that. So I would be playing a character and she told me a story about a guy who did movie reviews while playing a character called “Normal Guy” on the radio in Chicago. Normal Guy was from the south side of Chicago and played it up pretty good, the stereo typical south side of Chicago blue collar worker who just went and watched the movies and then reviewed them on the radio. Simple enough I remember thinking. After that initial conversation I thought about what this character might be like, he was to have been born, raised and living on the west side of Jacksonville and I was not and do not. What might this guy’s name be, it had to be something that immediately and unmistakably screamed I AM FROM THE WEST SIDE OF JACKSONVILLE! What might the ranking scale be, not stars of course – maybe it could be Giorgi’s pork sandwiches, maybe moon pies, I was unsure.
So I agreed to do it, I had no idea what I was in for and I still cannot figure out what happened to me. We had several more conversations about the character and worked on picking a name. We decided that we would pick a street name and associate a name with it, for example – Lane Ave Louie or Mike McDuff or Wesconnett Willy. We never did nail a name down but we had eliminated several. I remember Melissa wanted the first movie I reviewed to be a chick flick, some tough west side dude reviewing a chick flick – I thought that was great and that we could make it funny. After a week or so there were no chick flicks that were newly released. At this point I was thinking I could just bull shit my way through a movie review, just like I do here in my oratories. I learned later that this is EASY compared to sitting in front of a microphone and reading your work. I know I call this an oratory and that is not without reason, simply a funny inside joke. I was to learn that actually being an orator is A LOT harder than I thought and much harder to BS your way through. So anyway we decided that “The Informant” would be the first movie I would review. I was planning on watching it over the weekend with Bride but the jalopy was calling for some attention and I was unable to carve out the time.
Monday I went to see Melissa to tell her I did not see the movie and she told me she had not seen it yet either, I was somewhat relieved. I was talking the day off on Tuesday to spend the day with my Bride on our 19th anniversary so we decided that matinee and then lunch would be a perfect date. That was a great day to by the way, we were up at 5am and off to the beach with coffees and we watched the sunrise. About 8am we came home and went for our morning walk, we are up to about 2.5 miles and go 6 days a week. After a swim and showers we were off to the 11:05 matinee showing of The Informant at the Regency 24 theaters. After the movie we stopped by Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch, my niece works there and when I asked for the check I was told the manager comp’d our lunch and wished us a happy anniversary. For those who know me you know how excited I get about a free lunch. After that it was home for another swim and a nap. Dinner and another movie, on demand this time, and it was a perfect day. Anyway, sorry I got sidetracked thinking about bride. So that evening I sat down and wrote a little something down about the movie. I just let it flow like I do here and thought it was pretty good. The next morning I tweaked it a bit more and sent it on to Melissa to see what she thought. She may have been humoring me but she said she liked it. After I read it again I started to wonder though.
So that is when I realized I had, like usual, no idea what I was doing. I rarely let that stop me but this was something else all together, it was Melissa’s show, it was on radio, it was all of the sudden scary. I started researching how to be a reviewer, my review did not follow any of the advice I found on how to review a movie. Now I was thinking, wow what am I doing here? I went back over my script again and while I thought it was good I was not so sure anymore. This is when things started feeling odd for me, anxious I guess. Now for those who know me know that I do not get anxious or excited about things. My life philosophy is to remain calm and balanced in all situations so I could not understand what was bothering me. Not wanting to throw in the towel right away I thought about it, a lot, trying to determine why I was feeling this way. I even pondered it for a while, some people call that meditation but to me it is ponderin (no g). I went through thoughts like, what if this character get popular and what would that mean to me? Would I be asked to do pledge shows, we are an NPR station? Would I have to make appearances, where I do not know? Was I afraid of it succeeding? Was I afraid of it failing? I have tried and failed at any number of things and have learned that to grow we must fail so I did not think it was that.
I could not find anything that seemed to touch this new nerve. I spent quite a bit of time going through the scenarios and nothing stood out as the reason for my nervousness. I decided that I would keep forging forward to see if something presented itself. We met to record the review I had written, and was approved by her boss. That is when my anxiety shot up even more, it was a very weird feeling for me. It has been YEARS since I had any anxiety, I was still in the military. We attempted to record and I was having all kinds of problems, so bad I started to break out in a sweat while we were trying. After several attempts with little progress and not wanting to waste anymore of Melissa’s time, I thought I would record it by myself, I knew how to operate the board and the digital recorder and I told her I would continue trying. It was not much better by myself, I went and got a drink of water and stepped outside for a couple of minutes. After several more attempts to read what turned out to be about a 3 minute piece I got one close and after a bit of editing I came up with the spot. I was not happy with it but was relieved it was over.
I let her know I was done and finished up some other work and headed home for the evening. On the way home I started pondering the “why was this happening” topic again and still could come up with nothing. I got home and went for a swim, noodle dangling actually, and decided that if doing these movie reviews was going to cause me this much stress that it might not be worth doing. I thought maybe this was just the nervousness that comes with trying new things, after some time on that I realized that I know what that feels like and this was not the same. After 44 years of roaming about the world I have learned to trust my gut feelings and this thing was screaming at me for some reason. After some more pondering and talking about it with Bride I decided I was going to let Melissa know that I was not going to be able to do them. It was weird, the moment I decided I felt completely different – the anxiety was GONE. I knew right away that I made the right decision, I sent an email explaining the way I was feeling and apologizing for backing out. Even a couple of days later I am still not sure what the deal was or what it was, specifically, that was causing my problems – Who knows. I am going to start a blog doing movie reviews, The Informant will be my first one but I will stick to my Mr. Oatmeal world, that is a place I am comfortable doing and saying whatever I want.
I have always had a great deal of respect for the on air talent folks but man I am here to tell ya, I have a whole new respect for them, especially the ones doing it "live." I want to apologize to Melissa, one more time. I am so sorry that I screwed up your idea for a west-sider movie reviewer and hope that you can forgive me as well as find someone that can make it work for ya.
About a month ago the place I work launched a new daily call in talk radio show called First Coast Connect. It is a great show and the host, Melissa Ross is a FANTASTIC on air personality and a great person as well. I give you that background so I you can understand the rest of the oratory. A couple of weeks ago I was asked if I would be interested in doing movie reviews for the show. I was intrigued, now I found my voice with the blog I thought it might be a natural extension of that. So I would be playing a character and she told me a story about a guy who did movie reviews while playing a character called “Normal Guy” on the radio in Chicago. Normal Guy was from the south side of Chicago and played it up pretty good, the stereo typical south side of Chicago blue collar worker who just went and watched the movies and then reviewed them on the radio. Simple enough I remember thinking. After that initial conversation I thought about what this character might be like, he was to have been born, raised and living on the west side of Jacksonville and I was not and do not. What might this guy’s name be, it had to be something that immediately and unmistakably screamed I AM FROM THE WEST SIDE OF JACKSONVILLE! What might the ranking scale be, not stars of course – maybe it could be Giorgi’s pork sandwiches, maybe moon pies, I was unsure.
So I agreed to do it, I had no idea what I was in for and I still cannot figure out what happened to me. We had several more conversations about the character and worked on picking a name. We decided that we would pick a street name and associate a name with it, for example – Lane Ave Louie or Mike McDuff or Wesconnett Willy. We never did nail a name down but we had eliminated several. I remember Melissa wanted the first movie I reviewed to be a chick flick, some tough west side dude reviewing a chick flick – I thought that was great and that we could make it funny. After a week or so there were no chick flicks that were newly released. At this point I was thinking I could just bull shit my way through a movie review, just like I do here in my oratories. I learned later that this is EASY compared to sitting in front of a microphone and reading your work. I know I call this an oratory and that is not without reason, simply a funny inside joke. I was to learn that actually being an orator is A LOT harder than I thought and much harder to BS your way through. So anyway we decided that “The Informant” would be the first movie I would review. I was planning on watching it over the weekend with Bride but the jalopy was calling for some attention and I was unable to carve out the time.
Monday I went to see Melissa to tell her I did not see the movie and she told me she had not seen it yet either, I was somewhat relieved. I was talking the day off on Tuesday to spend the day with my Bride on our 19th anniversary so we decided that matinee and then lunch would be a perfect date. That was a great day to by the way, we were up at 5am and off to the beach with coffees and we watched the sunrise. About 8am we came home and went for our morning walk, we are up to about 2.5 miles and go 6 days a week. After a swim and showers we were off to the 11:05 matinee showing of The Informant at the Regency 24 theaters. After the movie we stopped by Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch, my niece works there and when I asked for the check I was told the manager comp’d our lunch and wished us a happy anniversary. For those who know me you know how excited I get about a free lunch. After that it was home for another swim and a nap. Dinner and another movie, on demand this time, and it was a perfect day. Anyway, sorry I got sidetracked thinking about bride. So that evening I sat down and wrote a little something down about the movie. I just let it flow like I do here and thought it was pretty good. The next morning I tweaked it a bit more and sent it on to Melissa to see what she thought. She may have been humoring me but she said she liked it. After I read it again I started to wonder though.
So that is when I realized I had, like usual, no idea what I was doing. I rarely let that stop me but this was something else all together, it was Melissa’s show, it was on radio, it was all of the sudden scary. I started researching how to be a reviewer, my review did not follow any of the advice I found on how to review a movie. Now I was thinking, wow what am I doing here? I went back over my script again and while I thought it was good I was not so sure anymore. This is when things started feeling odd for me, anxious I guess. Now for those who know me know that I do not get anxious or excited about things. My life philosophy is to remain calm and balanced in all situations so I could not understand what was bothering me. Not wanting to throw in the towel right away I thought about it, a lot, trying to determine why I was feeling this way. I even pondered it for a while, some people call that meditation but to me it is ponderin (no g). I went through thoughts like, what if this character get popular and what would that mean to me? Would I be asked to do pledge shows, we are an NPR station? Would I have to make appearances, where I do not know? Was I afraid of it succeeding? Was I afraid of it failing? I have tried and failed at any number of things and have learned that to grow we must fail so I did not think it was that.
I could not find anything that seemed to touch this new nerve. I spent quite a bit of time going through the scenarios and nothing stood out as the reason for my nervousness. I decided that I would keep forging forward to see if something presented itself. We met to record the review I had written, and was approved by her boss. That is when my anxiety shot up even more, it was a very weird feeling for me. It has been YEARS since I had any anxiety, I was still in the military. We attempted to record and I was having all kinds of problems, so bad I started to break out in a sweat while we were trying. After several attempts with little progress and not wanting to waste anymore of Melissa’s time, I thought I would record it by myself, I knew how to operate the board and the digital recorder and I told her I would continue trying. It was not much better by myself, I went and got a drink of water and stepped outside for a couple of minutes. After several more attempts to read what turned out to be about a 3 minute piece I got one close and after a bit of editing I came up with the spot. I was not happy with it but was relieved it was over.
I let her know I was done and finished up some other work and headed home for the evening. On the way home I started pondering the “why was this happening” topic again and still could come up with nothing. I got home and went for a swim, noodle dangling actually, and decided that if doing these movie reviews was going to cause me this much stress that it might not be worth doing. I thought maybe this was just the nervousness that comes with trying new things, after some time on that I realized that I know what that feels like and this was not the same. After 44 years of roaming about the world I have learned to trust my gut feelings and this thing was screaming at me for some reason. After some more pondering and talking about it with Bride I decided I was going to let Melissa know that I was not going to be able to do them. It was weird, the moment I decided I felt completely different – the anxiety was GONE. I knew right away that I made the right decision, I sent an email explaining the way I was feeling and apologizing for backing out. Even a couple of days later I am still not sure what the deal was or what it was, specifically, that was causing my problems – Who knows. I am going to start a blog doing movie reviews, The Informant will be my first one but I will stick to my Mr. Oatmeal world, that is a place I am comfortable doing and saying whatever I want.
I have always had a great deal of respect for the on air talent folks but man I am here to tell ya, I have a whole new respect for them, especially the ones doing it "live." I want to apologize to Melissa, one more time. I am so sorry that I screwed up your idea for a west-sider movie reviewer and hope that you can forgive me as well as find someone that can make it work for ya.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
DAMN, the Jacksonville Jaguars suck AGAIN this year!
I love NFL football and am disappointed that I enjoy watching the Steelers and Atlanta play more than my home team. Why is that you might be asking, well our team has been mediocre for so long that 17,000 season ticket holders gave up their tickets this year, that’s right seventeen thousand season ticket holders did not renew. WOW, that number pretty much says it all! We really suck and with Jack Del Rio running the rudder, we are obviously in for another terrible season. I am somewhat stunned that the team owner, Wayne Weaver, has allowed this substandard performance to go on so long. Jack has been here since the 2003 season and in that time our record has been 50 – 46, barely 50% of our games. Moreover, Bill Prescott (Jaguars CFO) can blame the 17k folks for leaving on the economy and the unemployment all he wants but that is Bull, plain and simple. If we use Charlotte as an analog, we can prove out that he is full of it. In Charlotte, the unemployment rate is 12.4% while ours is 10.5% and somehow their tickets are sold out this year, not just season tickets but ALL tickets. Their record is not greatly different from ours over the same period at 56-40 but they made it to the playoffs last year. That alone is proof enough to me but when you consider that their stadium is even bigger than ours is it pretty much slams the exclamation point on that stupid claim.
I do not even need to wonder about this one, Wayne Weaver did not create successful companies like Shoe Carnival and Nine West by hiring and retaining top management that could only perform at anywhere close to a 50% of potential – NO WAY. So why does he keep him on? Are there pictures of Wayne in heels, is there some other little known factoid that is being used as leverage so Jack can keep his job? Wayne is not a stupid man, he negotiated (what was then) the most lucrative deal with a host city amongst NFL franchises, including rights to virtually all parking and concession sales in the city-owned and operated stadium. That is not the sign of someone who doesn’t get it. So there has to be something, there just has to be. I was so pissed off last week when I watched the Colts game, Tivo’d by the way because they are to agonizing to watch live, Jack is all smiles and laughing with the boys on the sideline. He was not appearing to take it as personally or as seriously as he needs to, Jacksonville loves football and has little tolerance for a loser, which the Jags and he are right. When I hear statements like “it's another rebuilding year” I know deep down that is "Jacktalk" for we are going to suck again this year and you fans should expect another losing damn season.
It would not be hard to exceed my expectations for the team, they are so low right now that almost ANYTHING would be more than I expected. The thing that really makes me mad is the fact that if we do not get rid of this guy, and soon, Wayne may be forced to sell the team or move it someplace else. With stats like 17K people not renewing their season tickets the writing is on the wall, maybe I need to get some red spray paint and go outline that so they can see it. No business can sustain that kind of loss in the revenue stream, or fans. Since Wayne has such a great deal he is actually losing money on the parking, or lack of parking. He is losing money on concessions, or lack of concessions and god knows where else he is hemorrhaging money. We, the citizens of Jacksonville, the Fans, have paid the price as well, the stadium underwent a 121 million dollar renovation when we got the team and we are paying for the lucrative deal Wayne Weaver was able to negotiate. We used to have a sponsor for the stadium they left as well. Alltel signed a 6.2 million dollar 10 year naming deal that expired in 2005, and I assume that since our team was a loser they no longer wanted to be affiliated with us so they did not renew the deal. Since then our stadium is called Jacksonville Municipal stadium, an embarrassment if you ask me.
When our stadium was built it was big, 76877 seats, but before the start of the 2005 season team officials installed a series of tarps covering some 9713 seats. This was to reduce the seating capacity so the games would stop being blacked out, so we have documentable proof that this losing streak has been going on long before the recent economic turmoil. With seven sections completed eliminated we still can not seem to fill the rest. Of course, we can’t fill them, no one wants to come watch a losing team embarrass themselves? We are now anticipating that ALL the local games this season will be blacked out, a damn shame, a damn shame since in September of 2007 an attendance record was set in this stadium at 85,412 – yes they had to build additional bleachers for a college football game between Florida state and Alabama. That is proof positive that we will come out to watch good games, we don’t even have to win all of them but at least have a good showing. The local paper and sports announcers are becoming more vocal about our collective disappointment in the head coach. With no confidence in the coach and with the high level of turnaround in the assistant coaching staff’s it is going to become increasingly difficult to field a good team. We also have had a HUGE turn over in players with nearly half of them being new to the team this year. Now the key word there is team and while you can force together a group of individually talented folks that does not a team make, leadership does and repetitive practice together as a team. With the turnover being so high we are never making the team thing. As any manager knows, without continuity of staff if is almost impossible to produce, whether it be widgets or a winning team.
I am even more scared for next year, the downward spiral is in full swing and I am not sure how long the Weaver’s can sustain a loser. Our inability to even win games let alone make it to the playoffs will cause even more defections from the ranks of season ticket holders. The one good thing right now is that there are a lot of good coaches out there, the bad news is that if we wait too long our stigma as a loser will be so great none of the good ones will want to come here. Wouldn’t it be great to get Tony Dungee back in Florida – that thought almost brings a tear to my eye. I do not think that the Gator hero in Tim Tebow is the answer to our problems either. Even if he was able to transition quickly into the pro’s and even if we wanted to bench our 60 million dollar quarterback that solution would only be a band aid on a still festering wound, Without proper coaching no player is good enough to carry a pro team, that is just a fact…….. DAMNIT I want the Jags to be a good team and I do not want to enjoy watching other teams as much as I do!
I do not even need to wonder about this one, Wayne Weaver did not create successful companies like Shoe Carnival and Nine West by hiring and retaining top management that could only perform at anywhere close to a 50% of potential – NO WAY. So why does he keep him on? Are there pictures of Wayne in heels, is there some other little known factoid that is being used as leverage so Jack can keep his job? Wayne is not a stupid man, he negotiated (what was then) the most lucrative deal with a host city amongst NFL franchises, including rights to virtually all parking and concession sales in the city-owned and operated stadium. That is not the sign of someone who doesn’t get it. So there has to be something, there just has to be. I was so pissed off last week when I watched the Colts game, Tivo’d by the way because they are to agonizing to watch live, Jack is all smiles and laughing with the boys on the sideline. He was not appearing to take it as personally or as seriously as he needs to, Jacksonville loves football and has little tolerance for a loser, which the Jags and he are right. When I hear statements like “it's another rebuilding year” I know deep down that is "Jacktalk" for we are going to suck again this year and you fans should expect another losing damn season.
It would not be hard to exceed my expectations for the team, they are so low right now that almost ANYTHING would be more than I expected. The thing that really makes me mad is the fact that if we do not get rid of this guy, and soon, Wayne may be forced to sell the team or move it someplace else. With stats like 17K people not renewing their season tickets the writing is on the wall, maybe I need to get some red spray paint and go outline that so they can see it. No business can sustain that kind of loss in the revenue stream, or fans. Since Wayne has such a great deal he is actually losing money on the parking, or lack of parking. He is losing money on concessions, or lack of concessions and god knows where else he is hemorrhaging money. We, the citizens of Jacksonville, the Fans, have paid the price as well, the stadium underwent a 121 million dollar renovation when we got the team and we are paying for the lucrative deal Wayne Weaver was able to negotiate. We used to have a sponsor for the stadium they left as well. Alltel signed a 6.2 million dollar 10 year naming deal that expired in 2005, and I assume that since our team was a loser they no longer wanted to be affiliated with us so they did not renew the deal. Since then our stadium is called Jacksonville Municipal stadium, an embarrassment if you ask me.
When our stadium was built it was big, 76877 seats, but before the start of the 2005 season team officials installed a series of tarps covering some 9713 seats. This was to reduce the seating capacity so the games would stop being blacked out, so we have documentable proof that this losing streak has been going on long before the recent economic turmoil. With seven sections completed eliminated we still can not seem to fill the rest. Of course, we can’t fill them, no one wants to come watch a losing team embarrass themselves? We are now anticipating that ALL the local games this season will be blacked out, a damn shame, a damn shame since in September of 2007 an attendance record was set in this stadium at 85,412 – yes they had to build additional bleachers for a college football game between Florida state and Alabama. That is proof positive that we will come out to watch good games, we don’t even have to win all of them but at least have a good showing. The local paper and sports announcers are becoming more vocal about our collective disappointment in the head coach. With no confidence in the coach and with the high level of turnaround in the assistant coaching staff’s it is going to become increasingly difficult to field a good team. We also have had a HUGE turn over in players with nearly half of them being new to the team this year. Now the key word there is team and while you can force together a group of individually talented folks that does not a team make, leadership does and repetitive practice together as a team. With the turnover being so high we are never making the team thing. As any manager knows, without continuity of staff if is almost impossible to produce, whether it be widgets or a winning team.
I am even more scared for next year, the downward spiral is in full swing and I am not sure how long the Weaver’s can sustain a loser. Our inability to even win games let alone make it to the playoffs will cause even more defections from the ranks of season ticket holders. The one good thing right now is that there are a lot of good coaches out there, the bad news is that if we wait too long our stigma as a loser will be so great none of the good ones will want to come here. Wouldn’t it be great to get Tony Dungee back in Florida – that thought almost brings a tear to my eye. I do not think that the Gator hero in Tim Tebow is the answer to our problems either. Even if he was able to transition quickly into the pro’s and even if we wanted to bench our 60 million dollar quarterback that solution would only be a band aid on a still festering wound, Without proper coaching no player is good enough to carry a pro team, that is just a fact…….. DAMNIT I want the Jags to be a good team and I do not want to enjoy watching other teams as much as I do!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Well I have hit 100 postings on my blog, to some that may seem inconsequential but to me it is HUGE!
I do not remember exactly when I got on Facebook. I was on My Space first but never did anything with it, seemed too hard. Once on Facebook for a little while, I started hooking up with old friends, new friends, and even people I did not know and I thought how cool is this medium? It was not long before one day I was looking in my bowl of oatmeal and realized I had something to say. I posted my first oratory on Facebook as a note and received such a huge amount of feedback I decided one day to start a dedicated blog to act as my soapbox. Because that first one was about all the people involved with me getting my oatmeal and the complexity of the situation revolving around the 780 billion dollar stimulus, I decided to call my blog Mr. Oatmeal’s Oratories. When I first started I had no real plan, I thought it might be a political site, maybe a current events site or maybe a follow up to other more biased sites. Well finally I decided, after reading many blogs, that I wanted my blog to be something else altogether. I wanted something that was not divisive, non-political and fun to read, not really something that support could be gathered for.
Once I decided what my site was going to be called and what I was going to talk about, I decided something else that folks have derided me for; not to put a counter and not track at all the people who come and visit. My site was going to be my sometimes daily and sometimes weekly catharsis. A way to deal with my issues or comments on something I found funny, absurd or just stupid. Well that initial thought seems to have proven out just as I had planned. I have blogged about everything from oatmeal to bus stops to sunrises, to my Mom’s death to the ridiculousness of a 5-dollar foot long. I have had supportive comments left on blogs and have seen mean hate filled bile as well. I guess it is true that you can’t please everyone all the time. That never bothered me because they were not for them, they were for me and they always will be for me. I am glad people follow, I am glad people enjoy and I am also glad there are people who hate it, I want to cover all my bases right. I have a few in there that are political, but only when the topic is raised to a level that it concerns me enough to write about. Since I consider myself politically agnostic, I think they are all dumbasses (except my Sister) so as such I find that those types of blogs are the easiest targets. Everything we hear is someone’s opinion and everything we see, a perspective, not an absolute truth – which there is no such thing, by the way.
So what will #100 be about? It is going to be dedicated to my BEAUTIFUL Bride, who has helped me proof them all by listening to me read them. That is no small task for I have such a monotone voice and an awful habit of writing run on sentences. She has endured my anal retentiveness, pig headedness, dumbassedness, and all the other issues that I have for a long time. Today, September 22nd, is 19 years married but we tried each other out for a couple of years before that, seems to have worked out better for me, she was a great catch for me. We have been through all types of adventures, some good, some bad and some I can’t and won’t even tell ya about. She has been my best friend through all of it and I love her so much that it is making me cry thinking about her right now. I remember falling in love with her, slowly over time because of the bizarre nature of the early stages of our relationship. Neither of us would use the “L” word. We had actually lived together for nearly two years before we said the word “Love” in relationship to each other. Funny, looking back, but the anti-relationship (as we called it) removed the pressure of a real relationship and allowed our love to blossom unfettered by artificial bonds of a normal couple.
We got to know each other in a profound way, no pressure and able to openly discuss ANYTHING from leaving the lid off the toothpaste to not performing the maintenance on the vehicles. I would not trade what we have for anything in the world and believe whole-heartedly that the anti-relationship is the way to get started. With all the pressure of a relationship removed, it allowed the flowers of our love to bloom like we soaked the seeds in Miracle Grow. Over the years we have endured good times, hardships and great times and ya know what, through it all, our love has never faltered, not once and I can brag that we have never fought with each other or even yelled at each other in 22 years of hanging out together. She is still my BEST friend and I value her opinions above anyone else. She continues to be the GREAT woman behind the mediocre man. We often joke about how lucky we were to find each other as no one else would have either one of us. I know I am still getting the better end of the deal – she could most assuredly have done better than me.
She worries lately that she is not contributing like she used to. She is not able to work since she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. That has to be one of the cruelest diseases. Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels. It also presents challenges to the basic ability to carry out the simplest of day-to-day tasks. Her symptoms have at times been severe and debilitating. They are so much different from the normal ups and downs that everyone goes through in their life and throughout their normal days. Luckily, bipolar disorder can be treated and we finally have found a great doctor who has helped us a lot. There are still the challenges of medication changes, for those who take Psychotropic medications you know. Her symptoms were not easy to spot, they seemed like a wide variety of separate issues. It took a number of years and an even larger number of doctors to recognize that all the symptoms were part of a larger problem. Bipolar disorder is a long-term illness and we will have to carefully manage it for the rest of our lives. Some days I wish I could take the symptoms away, suffering through bouts of mania at the same time you are dealing with real depression is a living hell of the worse kind and it rips my heart out to see her suffer as she sometimes does.
She sometimes questions why I am still here with her, she is goober – she is my best friend, my confidante, my lover and I can’t imagine abandoning my friend when she needs me the most just because she was afflicted with a horrible disorder. That does not change the fact she is my best friend and wife and we work through issues together as a team. Some research shows that of the 17,000,000 people officially diagnosed with Bipolar disorder more than half will end a relationship with their significant others – staggering when you think about it. Why aren’t the numbers the same for cancer patients, I honestly believe it is because of the wide spread ignorance of psychotropic disorders and our inability to talk openly and honestly about it.
I am the luckiest man alive and I LOVE MY BRIDE!!
Once I decided what my site was going to be called and what I was going to talk about, I decided something else that folks have derided me for; not to put a counter and not track at all the people who come and visit. My site was going to be my sometimes daily and sometimes weekly catharsis. A way to deal with my issues or comments on something I found funny, absurd or just stupid. Well that initial thought seems to have proven out just as I had planned. I have blogged about everything from oatmeal to bus stops to sunrises, to my Mom’s death to the ridiculousness of a 5-dollar foot long. I have had supportive comments left on blogs and have seen mean hate filled bile as well. I guess it is true that you can’t please everyone all the time. That never bothered me because they were not for them, they were for me and they always will be for me. I am glad people follow, I am glad people enjoy and I am also glad there are people who hate it, I want to cover all my bases right. I have a few in there that are political, but only when the topic is raised to a level that it concerns me enough to write about. Since I consider myself politically agnostic, I think they are all dumbasses (except my Sister) so as such I find that those types of blogs are the easiest targets. Everything we hear is someone’s opinion and everything we see, a perspective, not an absolute truth – which there is no such thing, by the way.
So what will #100 be about? It is going to be dedicated to my BEAUTIFUL Bride, who has helped me proof them all by listening to me read them. That is no small task for I have such a monotone voice and an awful habit of writing run on sentences. She has endured my anal retentiveness, pig headedness, dumbassedness, and all the other issues that I have for a long time. Today, September 22nd, is 19 years married but we tried each other out for a couple of years before that, seems to have worked out better for me, she was a great catch for me. We have been through all types of adventures, some good, some bad and some I can’t and won’t even tell ya about. She has been my best friend through all of it and I love her so much that it is making me cry thinking about her right now. I remember falling in love with her, slowly over time because of the bizarre nature of the early stages of our relationship. Neither of us would use the “L” word. We had actually lived together for nearly two years before we said the word “Love” in relationship to each other. Funny, looking back, but the anti-relationship (as we called it) removed the pressure of a real relationship and allowed our love to blossom unfettered by artificial bonds of a normal couple.
We got to know each other in a profound way, no pressure and able to openly discuss ANYTHING from leaving the lid off the toothpaste to not performing the maintenance on the vehicles. I would not trade what we have for anything in the world and believe whole-heartedly that the anti-relationship is the way to get started. With all the pressure of a relationship removed, it allowed the flowers of our love to bloom like we soaked the seeds in Miracle Grow. Over the years we have endured good times, hardships and great times and ya know what, through it all, our love has never faltered, not once and I can brag that we have never fought with each other or even yelled at each other in 22 years of hanging out together. She is still my BEST friend and I value her opinions above anyone else. She continues to be the GREAT woman behind the mediocre man. We often joke about how lucky we were to find each other as no one else would have either one of us. I know I am still getting the better end of the deal – she could most assuredly have done better than me.
She worries lately that she is not contributing like she used to. She is not able to work since she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. That has to be one of the cruelest diseases. Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels. It also presents challenges to the basic ability to carry out the simplest of day-to-day tasks. Her symptoms have at times been severe and debilitating. They are so much different from the normal ups and downs that everyone goes through in their life and throughout their normal days. Luckily, bipolar disorder can be treated and we finally have found a great doctor who has helped us a lot. There are still the challenges of medication changes, for those who take Psychotropic medications you know. Her symptoms were not easy to spot, they seemed like a wide variety of separate issues. It took a number of years and an even larger number of doctors to recognize that all the symptoms were part of a larger problem. Bipolar disorder is a long-term illness and we will have to carefully manage it for the rest of our lives. Some days I wish I could take the symptoms away, suffering through bouts of mania at the same time you are dealing with real depression is a living hell of the worse kind and it rips my heart out to see her suffer as she sometimes does.
She sometimes questions why I am still here with her, she is goober – she is my best friend, my confidante, my lover and I can’t imagine abandoning my friend when she needs me the most just because she was afflicted with a horrible disorder. That does not change the fact she is my best friend and wife and we work through issues together as a team. Some research shows that of the 17,000,000 people officially diagnosed with Bipolar disorder more than half will end a relationship with their significant others – staggering when you think about it. Why aren’t the numbers the same for cancer patients, I honestly believe it is because of the wide spread ignorance of psychotropic disorders and our inability to talk openly and honestly about it.
I am the luckiest man alive and I LOVE MY BRIDE!!
Sunday, September 20, 2009
My Beautiful Sunrise this morning involved crime scene tape and I was not happy!
So I got up this morning to go and watch the sunrise, by myself this morning. I stumble through the house getting ready, finding shorts, long sleeve T-shirt, shoes and camera – yes a long sleeve T-shirt it was cold this morning at a brisk 72 degrees with a breeze blowing in from the North East. After gathering my crap and getting it all in the Jalopy along with my plastic Adirondack style chair I made my way to the Gate station for my morning tribute to Juan Valdez and his coffee bean picking ass (donkey that is). So off to the beach, I hit the first red light and there is someone right on my bumper, keep in mind that it is not even 5:30am and it is a four lane road. I remember thinking what is wrong with this person, well about 15 femtoseconds after the light turned green this person starts with the horn. For those who do not know a femtosecond is it is one quadrillionth, or one billionth of one millionth of a second, he was on the horn pretty quickly is my point here. I do as I always do when someone beeps at me to hurry up at a light, kick it out of gear and throw my hands up in the air. I drive a 51 year old jalopy and it takes me no less than 489 femtoseconds to get the three on the tree from neutral to first gear, what was this dude thinking. Well after a few more toots of the horn and a passage of about 10 seconds he backs up a bit and goes around me. I was bummed that no one was around to witness this idiocy other than me, not a lot of folks tooling around at 5:30 Sunday mornings.
Anyway the rest of my trip to the beach was uneventful and I hit all but that one light green all the way to the beach, I thought my day has already started to improve. I pull in at the end of Atlantic Bvld and as soon as I get out of the car I hear someone arguing, loudly. I look around to see if I can spy with my little eye the dispute, no joy I could not see anyone but I could hear the string of profanities clearly and was impressed with combinations of words that were being using. Being a Sailor for ten years I do not blush and am not easily impressed with profanity or profanity strings but she was what I like to call a grand master in the art – and it is an art form. Now it is still dark at 5:30 and after getting my camera, coffee, chair and flashlight I start heading to the beach. Before I get to the sand I see the very pissed off woman I had been listening to since I shut the car off. She is a short Blond woman who is just screaming at a much taller dark haired woman. I am not sure what was going on but I was able to figure out that the taller one had made some bad decision that had negatively impacted the shorter woman in some way. They were in the middle of the walk way to the beach and while I normally walk right down the center I thought this morning I would take the sidewalk that is on the right, the furthest from where Thelma and Louise were at for fear that I may be somehow dragged into some bizarre plot. As I make my way closer they both see me and stop yelling, and are just kind of watching me, not good I remember thinking.
Just as I am almost past them the tall woman asks me, “would you like to beat up some guy for us”? I learned in my youth that taking the law into your own hands never works out well. There were no assailants present and they were apparently in no immediate danger, they were in a well lit area and I saw no bruises or bleeding. I replied “no, I have no interest in that” and did not stop walking. If someone were assailing them at that moment I would have obviously stepped in but those after the altercation skirmishes never end good. In fact, in my case the police used words like premeditated, retaliatory and revenge – never good words when speaking with the police. I picked up my pace and as I made my way onto the beach I glanced back and saw them continuing away from the beach to what looked like their car. Glad to have that altercation behind me I worked my way over to my spot and got settled in for the sunrise. After only a few minutes I saw Roy, I guy I know in a cursory way, make his way onto the beach and head north for his morning walk. A few minutes later an animal control truck made his way onto the beach, at 5:40 on a Sunday morning. I was amazed that they could find someone to work so early on the weekend but then I got to wondering, what was he looking for driving on the beach? Could it be a little crabs that scurry around in the sand? Could it be an errant jelly fish who somehow had gotten beached? What could it be? I wished when he hit me with the searchlight I would have flagged him and asked him what he was looking for and why was he here so early.
So after only about 30 minutes it was just starting to get light I look to the south and see another set of headlights on the beach. I quickly realize that this set is moving really fast, I wondered if I had stumbled into a beach race he was moving so fast. At that same moment a see a couple of people walking onto the beach rather quickly and started wondering what is going on here. Well it did not take long to realize they were cops, I remember thinking what is going on and immediately thought of the two women who I passed on the way in. They police immediately setup the police tape and cordoned off the area. There are like three cops there now and all are taking pictures of the area as well searching around looking for something. Before long the two women are on the beach and talking with the police, they were huddled taking statements for a good 45 minutes. Maybe I was paranoid but it seemed they were looking in my direction quite a bit. About this time Roy comes back and says good morning and asks what is going on over there, I reply with a sunrise like that it is indeed a good morning and I tell him I have no idea what is up over there.
After the area was combed for evidence, they had gathered four brown paper sacks worth of something and the women were gone I walked over and told them of the encounter I had with the two women when I arrived. The officer told me that is was a simple battery case and thanked me for the information and it was clear he was done talking to me as he turned and walked away. So back I went to my chair, I stopped to talk to Roy and he was concerned about the safety of the area and was glad it was not a murder investigation. The thought of that made me laugh but I guess stranger things have happened. When I was leaving I saw the two women making their way from the hotel to their car and I noticed they were tourists, from Nebraska no less. I felt bad for them because I realized this crime will never be solved and was probably the result of partying with the locals who knew they were not from around here. I have no basis for that assumption but that is what I thought. Overall I was able to enjoy the sunrise but my neck is a bit stiff from continually glancing to my right to see what was going on.
Anyway the rest of my trip to the beach was uneventful and I hit all but that one light green all the way to the beach, I thought my day has already started to improve. I pull in at the end of Atlantic Bvld and as soon as I get out of the car I hear someone arguing, loudly. I look around to see if I can spy with my little eye the dispute, no joy I could not see anyone but I could hear the string of profanities clearly and was impressed with combinations of words that were being using. Being a Sailor for ten years I do not blush and am not easily impressed with profanity or profanity strings but she was what I like to call a grand master in the art – and it is an art form. Now it is still dark at 5:30 and after getting my camera, coffee, chair and flashlight I start heading to the beach. Before I get to the sand I see the very pissed off woman I had been listening to since I shut the car off. She is a short Blond woman who is just screaming at a much taller dark haired woman. I am not sure what was going on but I was able to figure out that the taller one had made some bad decision that had negatively impacted the shorter woman in some way. They were in the middle of the walk way to the beach and while I normally walk right down the center I thought this morning I would take the sidewalk that is on the right, the furthest from where Thelma and Louise were at for fear that I may be somehow dragged into some bizarre plot. As I make my way closer they both see me and stop yelling, and are just kind of watching me, not good I remember thinking.
Just as I am almost past them the tall woman asks me, “would you like to beat up some guy for us”? I learned in my youth that taking the law into your own hands never works out well. There were no assailants present and they were apparently in no immediate danger, they were in a well lit area and I saw no bruises or bleeding. I replied “no, I have no interest in that” and did not stop walking. If someone were assailing them at that moment I would have obviously stepped in but those after the altercation skirmishes never end good. In fact, in my case the police used words like premeditated, retaliatory and revenge – never good words when speaking with the police. I picked up my pace and as I made my way onto the beach I glanced back and saw them continuing away from the beach to what looked like their car. Glad to have that altercation behind me I worked my way over to my spot and got settled in for the sunrise. After only a few minutes I saw Roy, I guy I know in a cursory way, make his way onto the beach and head north for his morning walk. A few minutes later an animal control truck made his way onto the beach, at 5:40 on a Sunday morning. I was amazed that they could find someone to work so early on the weekend but then I got to wondering, what was he looking for driving on the beach? Could it be a little crabs that scurry around in the sand? Could it be an errant jelly fish who somehow had gotten beached? What could it be? I wished when he hit me with the searchlight I would have flagged him and asked him what he was looking for and why was he here so early.
So after only about 30 minutes it was just starting to get light I look to the south and see another set of headlights on the beach. I quickly realize that this set is moving really fast, I wondered if I had stumbled into a beach race he was moving so fast. At that same moment a see a couple of people walking onto the beach rather quickly and started wondering what is going on here. Well it did not take long to realize they were cops, I remember thinking what is going on and immediately thought of the two women who I passed on the way in. They police immediately setup the police tape and cordoned off the area. There are like three cops there now and all are taking pictures of the area as well searching around looking for something. Before long the two women are on the beach and talking with the police, they were huddled taking statements for a good 45 minutes. Maybe I was paranoid but it seemed they were looking in my direction quite a bit. About this time Roy comes back and says good morning and asks what is going on over there, I reply with a sunrise like that it is indeed a good morning and I tell him I have no idea what is up over there.
After the area was combed for evidence, they had gathered four brown paper sacks worth of something and the women were gone I walked over and told them of the encounter I had with the two women when I arrived. The officer told me that is was a simple battery case and thanked me for the information and it was clear he was done talking to me as he turned and walked away. So back I went to my chair, I stopped to talk to Roy and he was concerned about the safety of the area and was glad it was not a murder investigation. The thought of that made me laugh but I guess stranger things have happened. When I was leaving I saw the two women making their way from the hotel to their car and I noticed they were tourists, from Nebraska no less. I felt bad for them because I realized this crime will never be solved and was probably the result of partying with the locals who knew they were not from around here. I have no basis for that assumption but that is what I thought. Overall I was able to enjoy the sunrise but my neck is a bit stiff from continually glancing to my right to see what was going on.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Adel Georgia SUCKS, and always will as far as I am concerned!
So last weekend my Niece and I made a trip to Athens Tennessee to meet her brother, my Nephew, to pick up her dog, Rogue. We picked a place that was half way and coincidently that was Athens, actually it was 510 miles for us and 504 miles for him. She has been staying with us for two months, she was boarding her puppy in Ohio and a few weeks prior, we made a deal about bringing her dog to Florida. Originally we said no, we have a dog and a cat so I did not want another dog, so she found a place to board her in Ohio. So, long story but we decided to try it out, to see if Newton and Rogue could get along. We discussed what was going to happen if the dogs could not get along, Rogue would have to be boarded here or make the trip back to Ohio to stay with the boarder there, who was giving her a hell of deal at 250 bucks a months. So after week one and only a few skirmishes I believe it will work out. It is as big an adjustment for Bride and me as it is for the dogs, Rogue is a big dog and we have a 40-pound dog and cats, small animals.
Anyway we were making the trip, we were to meet my Nephew on Sunday between noon and one oclock. We drove to Canton Ga. on Saturday and spent the evening with our good friends, thanks again guys. So even longer story the plans were modified EARLY Sunday morning and we ended up not meeting until 5pm, meaning the 8 hour trip back would put us in to Jacksonville between 1 and 2AM, way past my pillow drooling time. So we met at about 5pm and it was great to see my Nephew, it has been a long time since I had seen him last. We spent about 15 minutes at Tennessee exit 49 and then turned around and we were all on our way back to our points of origin. The trip for my Nephew was longer than it was for us, about 15 hours straight through, our trip was about 10, from Canton to Athens was about 2 and the trip back to Jacksonville was about 10.
So throughout the trip my Niece kept calling me an old man driver, even mentioning how slow I drive to my Nephew. I have not had a speeding ticket since 1984 so call me an old man driver all ya want is what I was thinking. So we are tooling down Interstate 75 south at 72 miles an hour, in the 70 mile an hour zone – I thought I was pushing the envelope here. That is the norm for me, a couple of miles over the posted speed limit and set the cruise and go, I am never in that big of a hurry. Well after an uneventful ride through Atlanta and for those who have been through there ya know that uneventful is good when there are 8 lanes of traffic, all haulin ass. We were cruising south of Macon and my Niece decided to doze off for a little bit. No worries I had a nap before 5pm and had a little shot of caffeine and Pink Floyd blaring from the stereo and all was right with the world. I am a HUGE Floyd fan, as is my Niece - she has Pink Floyd tattooed inside her lower lip if that is any indication for ya about her fan status of Pink Floyd. Her Ohio license plate is “PNKFLYD” so there can just be no mistaking what she feels about the band.
You will understand the importance of the Pink Floyd stuff here in a minute. So we are approaching Adel Georgia, a place that will, from this day forward and until I suck my last breath, be referred to by me as - Asshole Georgia. So the we are tooling along at 72 miles an hour and I am riding with 2 other cars and an SUV, a White Ford Mustang, a tan Toyota Camry and a blue Dodge Durango. I like to ride along with other cars when on the interstate, especially at night and I am not even sure exactly why but this situation qualified since it was 11:45pm. Well I passed a seventy mile an hour sign and within 100 yards there was a 50 mile an hour sign, no warnings of the reduced speed ahead or anything like that. There was something else sharing the night with us though, the 12 cop cars sitting right past the 50 mile an hour sign. BAM four of them peeled off the end of the line and one each pulled all four of us over. I remember being pissed, but have learned from experience and from watching Cops on TV that it is not wise to be a smart ass or show any righteous indignation towards the cops, they will pull you out and cuff ya while they search the car. So the cop comes up, I have the drivers side window open and all of the sudden he taps on the passenger window, since I was anticipating him coming to my window it scared me when he banged on the other window.
So he tells me the lead officer clocked me at 70 miles an hour in a 50 mile per hour zone and he needed to see my license, registration and proof of insurance. After giving him all the information, he heads back to his car, to look up any information on me and the car. He comes back with the ticket, explains that I can go to court in October or I could call the number on the back of the ticket and they will be able to tell me the cost. He also tells me that he is not going to write me up for speeding in the construction zone, I am a pretty mellow guy but I almost came unglued with that comment. This sanctimonious prick thought he was doing me a favor and thought I might be grateful for his kindness, fat chance! Again, with my tongue almost bitten through, I just sat in amazement but little did I know it was about to get worse. Come to find out this guy is also a Pink Floyd fan and wants to discuss the differences between the Pipers at the Gates of Dawn album and the Dark side of the Moon and what impact losing Syd Barrett may have had on that. Syd Barrett of course is the man who started the band in 1964 and Pipers was their first album. What nerve this guy had, I love to talk about Floyd but not to a man who just gave me what I would later find out is a $185.50 ticket. Well after taking my ticket and a good bye we started pulling away and we noticed that the guy in the Durango must not have watched the show Cops and must have said something stupid or was acting stupid because the cop that pulled him over had him behind the car and in cuffs. No idea what he did but I was glad it was not me.
So I understand that city budgets are tight everywhere, we in Jacksonville just had the millage on our property taxes raised, not even sure I understand what millage is but I know it means more freaking money that I do not have. I am sure Asshole Georgia is the same way but to have the cops, or have the city sponsor and operate such an obvious speed trap in an attempt to feed the city coffers is Bull Shit in my humble opinion. Maybe like Jacksonville we need to cut some crap from the budget instead of continuing to raise revenue, by whatever means. In our household budget we have no method by which to screw someone else out of their money so we have to cut, sometimes we have cut things that we do not want to cut BUT we cut them all the same. I think it is time our governments, local and otherwise start making the HARD decisions and cut the damn budgets and stop heaping the shortfalls upon us poor tax payers because we just do not have the money anymore!
Anyway we were making the trip, we were to meet my Nephew on Sunday between noon and one oclock. We drove to Canton Ga. on Saturday and spent the evening with our good friends, thanks again guys. So even longer story the plans were modified EARLY Sunday morning and we ended up not meeting until 5pm, meaning the 8 hour trip back would put us in to Jacksonville between 1 and 2AM, way past my pillow drooling time. So we met at about 5pm and it was great to see my Nephew, it has been a long time since I had seen him last. We spent about 15 minutes at Tennessee exit 49 and then turned around and we were all on our way back to our points of origin. The trip for my Nephew was longer than it was for us, about 15 hours straight through, our trip was about 10, from Canton to Athens was about 2 and the trip back to Jacksonville was about 10.
So throughout the trip my Niece kept calling me an old man driver, even mentioning how slow I drive to my Nephew. I have not had a speeding ticket since 1984 so call me an old man driver all ya want is what I was thinking. So we are tooling down Interstate 75 south at 72 miles an hour, in the 70 mile an hour zone – I thought I was pushing the envelope here. That is the norm for me, a couple of miles over the posted speed limit and set the cruise and go, I am never in that big of a hurry. Well after an uneventful ride through Atlanta and for those who have been through there ya know that uneventful is good when there are 8 lanes of traffic, all haulin ass. We were cruising south of Macon and my Niece decided to doze off for a little bit. No worries I had a nap before 5pm and had a little shot of caffeine and Pink Floyd blaring from the stereo and all was right with the world. I am a HUGE Floyd fan, as is my Niece - she has Pink Floyd tattooed inside her lower lip if that is any indication for ya about her fan status of Pink Floyd. Her Ohio license plate is “PNKFLYD” so there can just be no mistaking what she feels about the band.
You will understand the importance of the Pink Floyd stuff here in a minute. So we are approaching Adel Georgia, a place that will, from this day forward and until I suck my last breath, be referred to by me as - Asshole Georgia. So the we are tooling along at 72 miles an hour and I am riding with 2 other cars and an SUV, a White Ford Mustang, a tan Toyota Camry and a blue Dodge Durango. I like to ride along with other cars when on the interstate, especially at night and I am not even sure exactly why but this situation qualified since it was 11:45pm. Well I passed a seventy mile an hour sign and within 100 yards there was a 50 mile an hour sign, no warnings of the reduced speed ahead or anything like that. There was something else sharing the night with us though, the 12 cop cars sitting right past the 50 mile an hour sign. BAM four of them peeled off the end of the line and one each pulled all four of us over. I remember being pissed, but have learned from experience and from watching Cops on TV that it is not wise to be a smart ass or show any righteous indignation towards the cops, they will pull you out and cuff ya while they search the car. So the cop comes up, I have the drivers side window open and all of the sudden he taps on the passenger window, since I was anticipating him coming to my window it scared me when he banged on the other window.
So he tells me the lead officer clocked me at 70 miles an hour in a 50 mile per hour zone and he needed to see my license, registration and proof of insurance. After giving him all the information, he heads back to his car, to look up any information on me and the car. He comes back with the ticket, explains that I can go to court in October or I could call the number on the back of the ticket and they will be able to tell me the cost. He also tells me that he is not going to write me up for speeding in the construction zone, I am a pretty mellow guy but I almost came unglued with that comment. This sanctimonious prick thought he was doing me a favor and thought I might be grateful for his kindness, fat chance! Again, with my tongue almost bitten through, I just sat in amazement but little did I know it was about to get worse. Come to find out this guy is also a Pink Floyd fan and wants to discuss the differences between the Pipers at the Gates of Dawn album and the Dark side of the Moon and what impact losing Syd Barrett may have had on that. Syd Barrett of course is the man who started the band in 1964 and Pipers was their first album. What nerve this guy had, I love to talk about Floyd but not to a man who just gave me what I would later find out is a $185.50 ticket. Well after taking my ticket and a good bye we started pulling away and we noticed that the guy in the Durango must not have watched the show Cops and must have said something stupid or was acting stupid because the cop that pulled him over had him behind the car and in cuffs. No idea what he did but I was glad it was not me.
So I understand that city budgets are tight everywhere, we in Jacksonville just had the millage on our property taxes raised, not even sure I understand what millage is but I know it means more freaking money that I do not have. I am sure Asshole Georgia is the same way but to have the cops, or have the city sponsor and operate such an obvious speed trap in an attempt to feed the city coffers is Bull Shit in my humble opinion. Maybe like Jacksonville we need to cut some crap from the budget instead of continuing to raise revenue, by whatever means. In our household budget we have no method by which to screw someone else out of their money so we have to cut, sometimes we have cut things that we do not want to cut BUT we cut them all the same. I think it is time our governments, local and otherwise start making the HARD decisions and cut the damn budgets and stop heaping the shortfalls upon us poor tax payers because we just do not have the money anymore!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Google Analytics – who knew about the detailed information about web sites this free web-based tool can provide you.
I started up my blog on February 21st of this year and when I did I must have setup Google Analytics at the same time. Since the place I have my blog is part of Google it must have prompted me to set it up as well. Maybe, I do not remember really but I remember thinking that I really did not want to know any stats on the blog, it was not for anyone else it was a catharsis thing for me. Well anyway as I approach my one hundredth blog I got curious so I went to set up the Analytics only to find out it was already setup and had been tracking my site since its inception. I have never used this application so it took me a while to understand the data that was being presented to me. I found it all very shocking really, first that there is a free application that does this amount of detailed analysis. I found out that 3 people came to my blog after they searched on Google for “Waffle House oatmeal” and since I come up #2 behind Waffle House’s web site on that Google search and they, for some reason, came to take a look for a few minutes. That blog was about how good Waffle house is after my trip to Ohio in mid July when my niece moved to Florida. I also wrote some blogs about living life using “as seen on television” products one of them was an anti snoring device called RipSnore. I do not know how many people searched the internet to see if the device actually worked but I found out that, surprisingly over 40 people came to my blog after that search, it shows up as the 8th return on Google and each visitor spent almost 3 minutes there. That cracks me up.
Some of the other information I was able to glean from the data was that my average visitor spends 3 minutes each trip, or about the time it takes to read an oratory. I also learned that 37.41% of my traffic comes directly to my site, typed in my URL or clicked a shortcut they created, 35.52% come from referring sites, mostly Facebook and the remaining 27.07% come from search engines, mostly Google. I also learned that people from 15 different countries have spent more than 3 minutes on my site, I still can’t get over that one – in the last month 3 people in Japan, 6 in Norway, 9 in South Africa and 12 from Brazil and another 12 from Australia just to mention a few. Another fact I am still trying to decide what it means is nearly 30% go more than one page deep but just as scary I think, is that fact that just over 40% only look at one page per visit. 77% of my visitors use Internet Explorer and one dude uses his Sony Playstation 3. 93.62% were using a Windows operating system, 3.79% were on a Mac and 1.69% were using an I-Phone. The highest volumes per blog were on the ones I wrote about my Mom when she passed away earlier this year. What in the world is going on and how are these people finding this blog? My blog can’t be classified as one particular subject, for those who follow you know, my topics are all over the place and basically amount to whatever I want to talk about and I have even written about topics that were suggested by the readership.
So what does that all mean to me you might ask – well I do not know. It is not going to change the willy-nilly approach I have to writing my blog. I am not a very good writer and I doubt knowing this information will help me become a better writer. I am not going to stop reading them to my Bride for a second opinion and to help me catch gross errors. I guess knowing this information does me no good really, the numbers are not high enough yet to really monetize it with ads, which Google also allows me to do with relative ease. I am somewhat scared now because I do know the numbers, I do not want my blog to be pressure on me to produce and grow it so it will make money, that is not why I started it. In some ways I wish I did not know the numbers because I do not know what to do with information. I find my blog very relaxing to write, I enjoy them so much I am always smiling and most times actually laughing out loud, yes laughing out loud not LOL. To me it was a lark, I had no idea where it would go and even if I would have enough material to make it a week or two but here I am almost 8 months later and still blabbing, about anything I want to by the way.
Some of the other information I was able to glean from the data was that my average visitor spends 3 minutes each trip, or about the time it takes to read an oratory. I also learned that 37.41% of my traffic comes directly to my site, typed in my URL or clicked a shortcut they created, 35.52% come from referring sites, mostly Facebook and the remaining 27.07% come from search engines, mostly Google. I also learned that people from 15 different countries have spent more than 3 minutes on my site, I still can’t get over that one – in the last month 3 people in Japan, 6 in Norway, 9 in South Africa and 12 from Brazil and another 12 from Australia just to mention a few. Another fact I am still trying to decide what it means is nearly 30% go more than one page deep but just as scary I think, is that fact that just over 40% only look at one page per visit. 77% of my visitors use Internet Explorer and one dude uses his Sony Playstation 3. 93.62% were using a Windows operating system, 3.79% were on a Mac and 1.69% were using an I-Phone. The highest volumes per blog were on the ones I wrote about my Mom when she passed away earlier this year. What in the world is going on and how are these people finding this blog? My blog can’t be classified as one particular subject, for those who follow you know, my topics are all over the place and basically amount to whatever I want to talk about and I have even written about topics that were suggested by the readership.
So what does that all mean to me you might ask – well I do not know. It is not going to change the willy-nilly approach I have to writing my blog. I am not a very good writer and I doubt knowing this information will help me become a better writer. I am not going to stop reading them to my Bride for a second opinion and to help me catch gross errors. I guess knowing this information does me no good really, the numbers are not high enough yet to really monetize it with ads, which Google also allows me to do with relative ease. I am somewhat scared now because I do know the numbers, I do not want my blog to be pressure on me to produce and grow it so it will make money, that is not why I started it. In some ways I wish I did not know the numbers because I do not know what to do with information. I find my blog very relaxing to write, I enjoy them so much I am always smiling and most times actually laughing out loud, yes laughing out loud not LOL. To me it was a lark, I had no idea where it would go and even if I would have enough material to make it a week or two but here I am almost 8 months later and still blabbing, about anything I want to by the way.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
What is the deal with a certificate of authenticity – it comes from the company hocking the goody so what does it really mean?
Have you ever noticed when a manufacturer wants to step up the credibility of an item they will offer a certificate of authenticity. I can get an official Gold Double Eagle Proof as a 10 Mil 24K Gold-clad Proof with Saint-Gaudens' magnificently engraved Miss Liberty on one side and the majestic American Eagle on the other. A great gift for collectors-each comes with it own Certificate of Authenticity. What, exactly is being certified? I can also get the President Obama special edition coin collection, I could be amongst the first to have the most sought after collection that celebrates the most significant, even in Presidential Elections, since the founding fathers created this great country. I mean this special coin collection represents the election of the first African American President of the United States. I will get brilliant and uncirculated coins that come with a numbered certificate of authenticity, certifying what – exactly? That the coin is uncirculated. That Barrack Obama is the first African American President? What exactly are they certifying. I could get a the porcelain baseball card collectable mug with Mickey Mantle's photograph on the front and his life time statistics on the back that was limited to 30 days of production, and yes believe it or not I get the certificate of authenticity. So are they certifying that is mug, are they certifying that it has Mickey Mantle’s photograph on it, are they certifying that it was only made for 30 days? What exactly is it all about?
My first experience of being sucked into believing the certificate actually meant something was with a purchase from the Franklin Mint. Way back in the day I ordered the one and only collectable I have ever purchased from the Franklin Mint. This set was “The World’s Great Performance Cars” sub named “miniatures collections” and it included 100 miniatures in 24 karat gold electroplated on solid sterling silver. The certificate of authenticity tells me that along with fact that the collection was limited to 25,000 sets. I got the pieces over time, I believe it was 2 or 4 per month and they were basically 10 bucks a piece. I am not sure what the collection is worth now a days but I pulled it out to look at for this oratory and that was the first time I have looked at them in over 10 years. Well I may have to put that thing on EBay and see if the addition of the certificate of authenticity actually brings me in more money or if it is just a worthless scrap of paper.
In the art world there seems to be tremendous abuse in the "certificate of authenticity" or COA business. This is even more prevalent when talking about online auctions. Unless a certificate of authenticity originates from and is signed by either the artist, the publisher of the art, a confirmed dealer or agent of the artist or an acknowledged expert on the artist, that certificate is pretty much meaningless. Pretty much meaningless! Hummmmm. While a legitimate COA must contain specific details about the art such as when and how it was produced, the names of people or companies involved in its production, the art's exact title, dimensions, and the names of reference books or similar resources that contain either specific or related information about either that work of art or the artist. Surprising enough a formal certificate of authenticity is not necessarily required to prove that a work of art is genuine, a valid receipt, bill of sale, or proof of purchase from either the artist herself or a confirmed and established dealer, publisher, or agent of the artist will do. So what does it really mean when it comes to art? I do not understand it well enough to state for sure but it seems like BS to me.
Now after a trip to certificateofauthenticity.com l learned that Certificate of Authenticity’s are absolutely invaluable, absolutely invaluable they tell me. I was intrigued so I read on to try to understand why. Certificates of authenticity sure sound like a good idea, right? After all, I am told, you have a piece of paper that says "This autograph or product is genuine!" they also tell me that the slip of paper gives me lots of peace of mind and that it will help me sleep well knowing that I have a genuine autograph or product. Well I am not an art dealer or purchaser of collectables so maybe I am way off base with my whole Certificate of Authenticity skepticism. With the Certificate of Authenticity templates which are accessed online from your computer (no software disk will be mailed to you), you can create a Certificate of Authenticity for any product or item you want to sell. By including a certificate of authenticity to the buyer of your product or item, you are stating that this item is authentic, which only the seller can verify. We only sell the COA templates, we do not verify that the product or item you are selling is authenticate. Now if we were to ask Microsoft about this they would tell us that they are among the many firms who ship a Certificate Of Authenticity with their software products, including Microsoft Windows® and other programs. They also have software that authenticates the Windows operating system loaded on your computer so to protect intellectual property I guess I can understand the need, or can I? I am not sure I need the actual Certificate Of Authenticity for the product, Microsoft has it written into the code to protect their property so the need for a physical certificate seems unnecessary to me.
In this day and age, and for any item you can purchase from a television or radio advertisement does not need a certificate of authenticity. There is absolutely no value in a certificate of authenticity on a hearing aid or some meaningless collectable or anything that cost 19.95. There is absolutely no value in a declaration of authenticity on herbs from an Herb and Spice company. Unless I am buying the original Mona Lisa created by old Leonardo daVinci himself I do not think I am going to need a certificate of authenticity for much of anything.
DO NOT let them suck you in and if you do please let me know because I offer a certificate of stupidity to go with your certificate of authenticity. For a small fee, I even offer a certificate of authenticity on the certificate of stupidity.
My first experience of being sucked into believing the certificate actually meant something was with a purchase from the Franklin Mint. Way back in the day I ordered the one and only collectable I have ever purchased from the Franklin Mint. This set was “The World’s Great Performance Cars” sub named “miniatures collections” and it included 100 miniatures in 24 karat gold electroplated on solid sterling silver. The certificate of authenticity tells me that along with fact that the collection was limited to 25,000 sets. I got the pieces over time, I believe it was 2 or 4 per month and they were basically 10 bucks a piece. I am not sure what the collection is worth now a days but I pulled it out to look at for this oratory and that was the first time I have looked at them in over 10 years. Well I may have to put that thing on EBay and see if the addition of the certificate of authenticity actually brings me in more money or if it is just a worthless scrap of paper.
In the art world there seems to be tremendous abuse in the "certificate of authenticity" or COA business. This is even more prevalent when talking about online auctions. Unless a certificate of authenticity originates from and is signed by either the artist, the publisher of the art, a confirmed dealer or agent of the artist or an acknowledged expert on the artist, that certificate is pretty much meaningless. Pretty much meaningless! Hummmmm. While a legitimate COA must contain specific details about the art such as when and how it was produced, the names of people or companies involved in its production, the art's exact title, dimensions, and the names of reference books or similar resources that contain either specific or related information about either that work of art or the artist. Surprising enough a formal certificate of authenticity is not necessarily required to prove that a work of art is genuine, a valid receipt, bill of sale, or proof of purchase from either the artist herself or a confirmed and established dealer, publisher, or agent of the artist will do. So what does it really mean when it comes to art? I do not understand it well enough to state for sure but it seems like BS to me.
Now after a trip to certificateofauthenticity.com l learned that Certificate of Authenticity’s are absolutely invaluable, absolutely invaluable they tell me. I was intrigued so I read on to try to understand why. Certificates of authenticity sure sound like a good idea, right? After all, I am told, you have a piece of paper that says "This autograph or product is genuine!" they also tell me that the slip of paper gives me lots of peace of mind and that it will help me sleep well knowing that I have a genuine autograph or product. Well I am not an art dealer or purchaser of collectables so maybe I am way off base with my whole Certificate of Authenticity skepticism. With the Certificate of Authenticity templates which are accessed online from your computer (no software disk will be mailed to you), you can create a Certificate of Authenticity for any product or item you want to sell. By including a certificate of authenticity to the buyer of your product or item, you are stating that this item is authentic, which only the seller can verify. We only sell the COA templates, we do not verify that the product or item you are selling is authenticate. Now if we were to ask Microsoft about this they would tell us that they are among the many firms who ship a Certificate Of Authenticity with their software products, including Microsoft Windows® and other programs. They also have software that authenticates the Windows operating system loaded on your computer so to protect intellectual property I guess I can understand the need, or can I? I am not sure I need the actual Certificate Of Authenticity for the product, Microsoft has it written into the code to protect their property so the need for a physical certificate seems unnecessary to me.
In this day and age, and for any item you can purchase from a television or radio advertisement does not need a certificate of authenticity. There is absolutely no value in a certificate of authenticity on a hearing aid or some meaningless collectable or anything that cost 19.95. There is absolutely no value in a declaration of authenticity on herbs from an Herb and Spice company. Unless I am buying the original Mona Lisa created by old Leonardo daVinci himself I do not think I am going to need a certificate of authenticity for much of anything.
DO NOT let them suck you in and if you do please let me know because I offer a certificate of stupidity to go with your certificate of authenticity. For a small fee, I even offer a certificate of authenticity on the certificate of stupidity.
Friday, September 11, 2009
9-11 a day that has been forged into our national psyche – what does it mean, 8 years later.
I remember someone at work saying a plane hit the World Trade Center North Tower and we turned on the TV. I remember thinking how in the hell could a pilot not see that tower. After seeing all the smoke I also started wondering just how big a plane it might have been. The initial reporting was vague, like always reporters talking about something they have zero information on and actually telling us that at the same time. The whole thing was surreal but I remember the 93 bombing of the north tower, the one ablaze right now, and the feeling then for me was sheer amazement. I was amazed that with that much of the foundation destroyed that the building did not fall or even really shutter. I remember thinking then that the design was truly incredible to be able to sustain such a blast. Minoru Yamasaki’s design was a new thing in the 1960’s and the tube frame structural design was heralded when tower 2 was completed in 1971.
I will take to my grave the memory of watching the second plane zoom in and crash, live and in real time into the south tower, I knew immediately that our country was under attack. I remember Bride calling me and we were both just freaking out. Then came word of the attack on the Pentagon and it was like, where is this going to end. It was a scary day and I remember thinking there are military bases here in Jacksonville and was concerned about our local community. Then came word of a plane going down in Pennsylvania and no one really knew what was going on there at the time. Then word came that all air traffic over the country was being grounded, that to me was the slamming the dot on the exclamation point of the attack. It was the most bizarre day of my life to date. When the first tower came down I could not believe it, I remember watching a show on Discovery about the construction of the building that was on after the 1993 bombing and not that I am an expert but it seemed like it would be OK. At that point we knew nothing of the planes fuel explosion blowing off the fire protection from the steel girders, we knew nothing of the now suspect connection of the floor spans to the outside walls.
I remember crying a lot that day, especially when they showed the Pentagon, I guess I will always have a soft spot for the Military men and women who protect this country – I was one for 10 years. I still am amazed that only 3017 people died that fateful day, that is a testament to the brave men and women who worked for the city of New York in various public safety departments along with those in Washington DC as well. 19 of those were the terrorists and most places you look separate them in the count, for me evil or not they were still human beings so I include them in the count. 285 of them were on the 4 planes and a very brave few on flight 93 grabbed their fate and took action to protect others, a harsh interpretation of the saying “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one” from the Star Trek movie. That sentiment actually originally appeared in the book of John chapter 11 verses 49-50. The most heart wrenching numbers were the 1,609 people who lost a spouse or partner and the more than 3,051 children who lost a parent. Those stats still make me cry, that devastation is unimaginable for me.
I hear that we American’s have persevered and proven to them they can’t stop our culture. I am not sure I believe that, in fact I think it is bullshit. We do not really care, we act as if we do but we really don’t and here is why I think that. I am, for some reason, still stunned that we have not been able to catch a 6’4’’ Arab man who needs regular dialysis. I think we should have stayed focused the terrorist who claimed the attack and not gotten bogged down in Iraq, Saddam was a devil we created and had under control. He had too big of a narcissistic personality to let any terrorists work inside Iraq, no one stole any glory from that madman. 8 years later, I think we as the American people have failed ourselves. Yeah I said it – we have failed to hold our elected officials responsible. NO WAY should we, the most powerful country on the planet, still be looking for some knuckle head that has to stick out like a sore thumb. NOPE we have martyred him and actually created an even bigger monster than we had when it was just him and a small group of rag tag followers. And we have not revolted and tarred and feathered our national elected officials for doing what to me amounts to symbolism over substance or nothing at all really. There is an apathy in this country, it is the only explanation I can come up with, we are more worried about our big screen TV’s and the cost of gasoline and if no one messes with those we don’t really care about the international stage. It almost makes me ashamed to live here. Our short-term memory problems continue to haunt us, we funded and supplied the Taliban (and they Osama’s group) when we did not like the Russians, we funded and supplied Saddam when we did not like the Iranians and just when these folks though we were there friends – here comes the blindside shot. I am in no way sympathetic to these folks cause, there is a special corner in hell for them but we need to have an open and bipartisan discussion about the reality of our own actions before we turn it over to the writers of history because by then it will too late.
I am also disappointed in the lackluster response of our government here at home, threat levels in a color code and taking my damn shoes off at the airport. Do you feel safer because those actions have been implemented, I do not. I am not sure any of the actions taken have helped make us safer, sure they will tell us it did because there has been no more attacks here. Could it be that the bad guys are not coming here again because they saw us in a systematic way dismantle their leadership and have learned their lesson? Could it be some other security measure we do not know about (and do not want to know about) that has stopped them from attacking again? Could it be they already have won because look at all the inconvenience we now have to endure in order to travel. No one will be able to tell you for sure, I liken it to insurance, with it you are covered, without it you may, may have problems. Who knows, I do not fly much but to me it must be safe, even though we can’t have fresh breath anymore because we can’t bring the little bottle of scope with us. It irritates me when I hear stories about the conspiracy theories, the government did it, they knew it was going to happen or caused it to happen. Bullshit I say, the government can’t even balance a budget, no way am I going to believe they could have pulled off something like this. Those conversations piss me off because it diverts energy from finding and catching the terrorists who did do it.
With this anniversary I feel, in a weird way, lost. Maybe it is a loss of faith in our government, maybe it has nothing to do with 9-11 and more to do with the economic situation we all find ourselves in. Maybe I am just mad that they, our government, is spreading billions around like a drunken sailor may blow his paycheck on booze and women (yes I have done that when I was a sailor) and we the people sit by and allow it with little to no dissent! I am politically agnostic and think they ALL, EVERY DAMN ONE OF THEM, from EVERY DAMN PARTY are no longer representing us at all but are furthering their own agenda. Anyway, I do not know but like every year I will pray for each person who was touched in some way by the horrendous tragedy that took so many lives. I will pray for all the men and women who serve in the Military who are paying the real cost of our countries ridiculous actions abroad. I will also pray for our leaders that they may have the courage to make sound and just decisions and not be swayed by opinion polls so they can catch the guy responsible for the unimaginable catastrophe that happened 8 years ago.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Have you ever bought anything on Craig’s list?
I made my first purchase using Craig’s list the other day, it was a clothes dryer. Bride and I have always been DINKS, dual income no kids, so typically when we needed a new appliance or anything else for that matter we went and bought it. Well that has changed! My Sister-in-law uses Craig’s list like a pot head uses a bong and is always raving about the deals she gets there. Some time ago our dryer started squeaking and I was able to, with a bit of graphite lubrication, ease the squeak. I am by no means an appliance repairperson but I will lay claims to several innovative appliance repairs. In one case, and yes I am bragging here, I was able to redesign the method by which the centrifugal clutch was mounted on the washing machine motor. That redesign coupled with a modification of the washer frame proved effective and I was able to get an additional 5 years of service from that bad boy, and I considered sending in a recommended change in the manufacturing process to GE. I have always been good at repairing my stuff, from lawn mowers to washers and dryers to irrigation systems and that has saved me countless thousands of dollars in repair costs over the years.
I am also what some (my Bride) might call a trash picker, I like to refer to myself as an enthusiastically passionate recycler. I remember one of the first instances of that after I was married was when we first moved to Jacksonville. Our apartment here, our 4th together, was the first one that had carpeting, wall to wall and 1700 square feet and the little Dirt Devil I had for my car was not going to be able to handle that. I was on my way back home, on like the second day here, and I saw a vacuum cleaner handle sticking out of the dumpster. I stopped the truck and grabbed the vacuum and tossed it in the back. Well after about a half hour of time cleaning the dirt that was packed in the head and replacing the belt the Hoover self propelled Cadillac vacuum cleaner served us well for the next 8 years without incident. For a scant 5 bucks for the belt I got a great vacuum cleaner, the only one I have ever seen that would self propel forward and backwards. Over the years I have plucked everything from garage door openers to radio’s to pool chairs to power tools from the trash. Most people just do not want to deal with something once it stops working, our materialistic society has taught us it is just easier to replace the items instead of fixing them.
I am always looking for deals at yard sale, flea markets and estate sales and am always amazed what people are getting rid of. I remember being amazed by EBay and have been buying stuff on there for years. I can’t remember what the first item was that I purchased there but the last was some Nag Champa incense. I am also looking at one of the training collars for my puppy right now, I pay close attention to where the item is though. More and more items are being sold out of China and while those items are usually cheaper than the exact item from a seller in the US I still will only buy American while on EBay. I am under the delusion that EBay will not wind up like Wal-Mart where most all the merchandise is made in China, stupid on my part to think that but I will still pay extra to a seller in the US, the global economy has not done a damn thing for me, so there!
In these economic times I have found myself searching for a deal more and more on items I would have never thought to look for deals on. It was more personal thing being an enthusiastically passionate recycler, it was the challenge of repairing something I had no idea how to fix and with nothing invested I had nothing to lose if it went badly. So we now get by on one income and have for about the last 19 months and I have to tell you, it is much different. I am praying that nothing breaks and if it does I pray I can fix it or find a hell of deal on something that works or will be easy to fix. So back to the dryer, our dryer had started squeaking and by the time I figured out what was squeaking it had already worn through the nylon bearing surfaces and had eroded the plastic front panel. Just a tip, if your dryer starts to squeak get it addressed right away or expect to pay a higher repair bill. Anyway I did not think the squeak was that bad so we left it alone, squeaky damn thing anyway. Well not much longer after that I found the thing had some other problem, after it shut off the heater element would stay on. I found this out about 3 hours after it stopped one day and the top was so hot it blistered my hand. Well the squeak I could live with, fire hazard not so much.
Not really wanting to spend the money on a new dryer I thought I would try Craig’s list. After a couple of weeks of looking I was stunned that I found one that was the exact model of the one I already had only it was a year newer. The add indicated the house was hit by lightening and while the washer was fried the dryer, according to the add, was fine and he would like 75 bucks for it. After an email or two for some pictures and to get phone numbers we were close to sealing the deal. Come to find out this particular dryer was located less than three blocks away from my house, I was cautiously optimistic about my first Craig’s list find. I stopped by on my way home and the dryer looked fine, the washer looked like it had been hit by lightening. There was no cord on the dryer so I could not test it to ensure it operated correctly. I was immediately nervous, a bait and switch kind of thing is what I was thinking. That suspicion was perpetuated by the fact the seller had no shirt on, especially since he knew I was coming I thought it odd. I guess that may be a Craig’s thing so I guess I have to keep that in mind and next sale or purchase I will take my shirt off as well. Well I knew the one part to fix my dryer cost more than 75 bucks so I thought worse case I at least got the part. Well I asked if he would take 60 and he said he would take 65 and we loaded it up into my jalopy. I got it home and took it completely apart to clean it inside and out, would not want other peoples cooties to touch my delicate unmentionables. After a thorough cleaning and inspection I got it plugged up and she worked like a champ. It looks identical to the one I took out and paid damn near $400 for a few years ago but this one did look a lot better because I knew I just paid 65 bucks for it.
I am pleased with my first Craig’s list purchase and will continue to look there first!
I am also what some (my Bride) might call a trash picker, I like to refer to myself as an enthusiastically passionate recycler. I remember one of the first instances of that after I was married was when we first moved to Jacksonville. Our apartment here, our 4th together, was the first one that had carpeting, wall to wall and 1700 square feet and the little Dirt Devil I had for my car was not going to be able to handle that. I was on my way back home, on like the second day here, and I saw a vacuum cleaner handle sticking out of the dumpster. I stopped the truck and grabbed the vacuum and tossed it in the back. Well after about a half hour of time cleaning the dirt that was packed in the head and replacing the belt the Hoover self propelled Cadillac vacuum cleaner served us well for the next 8 years without incident. For a scant 5 bucks for the belt I got a great vacuum cleaner, the only one I have ever seen that would self propel forward and backwards. Over the years I have plucked everything from garage door openers to radio’s to pool chairs to power tools from the trash. Most people just do not want to deal with something once it stops working, our materialistic society has taught us it is just easier to replace the items instead of fixing them.
I am always looking for deals at yard sale, flea markets and estate sales and am always amazed what people are getting rid of. I remember being amazed by EBay and have been buying stuff on there for years. I can’t remember what the first item was that I purchased there but the last was some Nag Champa incense. I am also looking at one of the training collars for my puppy right now, I pay close attention to where the item is though. More and more items are being sold out of China and while those items are usually cheaper than the exact item from a seller in the US I still will only buy American while on EBay. I am under the delusion that EBay will not wind up like Wal-Mart where most all the merchandise is made in China, stupid on my part to think that but I will still pay extra to a seller in the US, the global economy has not done a damn thing for me, so there!
In these economic times I have found myself searching for a deal more and more on items I would have never thought to look for deals on. It was more personal thing being an enthusiastically passionate recycler, it was the challenge of repairing something I had no idea how to fix and with nothing invested I had nothing to lose if it went badly. So we now get by on one income and have for about the last 19 months and I have to tell you, it is much different. I am praying that nothing breaks and if it does I pray I can fix it or find a hell of deal on something that works or will be easy to fix. So back to the dryer, our dryer had started squeaking and by the time I figured out what was squeaking it had already worn through the nylon bearing surfaces and had eroded the plastic front panel. Just a tip, if your dryer starts to squeak get it addressed right away or expect to pay a higher repair bill. Anyway I did not think the squeak was that bad so we left it alone, squeaky damn thing anyway. Well not much longer after that I found the thing had some other problem, after it shut off the heater element would stay on. I found this out about 3 hours after it stopped one day and the top was so hot it blistered my hand. Well the squeak I could live with, fire hazard not so much.
Not really wanting to spend the money on a new dryer I thought I would try Craig’s list. After a couple of weeks of looking I was stunned that I found one that was the exact model of the one I already had only it was a year newer. The add indicated the house was hit by lightening and while the washer was fried the dryer, according to the add, was fine and he would like 75 bucks for it. After an email or two for some pictures and to get phone numbers we were close to sealing the deal. Come to find out this particular dryer was located less than three blocks away from my house, I was cautiously optimistic about my first Craig’s list find. I stopped by on my way home and the dryer looked fine, the washer looked like it had been hit by lightening. There was no cord on the dryer so I could not test it to ensure it operated correctly. I was immediately nervous, a bait and switch kind of thing is what I was thinking. That suspicion was perpetuated by the fact the seller had no shirt on, especially since he knew I was coming I thought it odd. I guess that may be a Craig’s thing so I guess I have to keep that in mind and next sale or purchase I will take my shirt off as well. Well I knew the one part to fix my dryer cost more than 75 bucks so I thought worse case I at least got the part. Well I asked if he would take 60 and he said he would take 65 and we loaded it up into my jalopy. I got it home and took it completely apart to clean it inside and out, would not want other peoples cooties to touch my delicate unmentionables. After a thorough cleaning and inspection I got it plugged up and she worked like a champ. It looks identical to the one I took out and paid damn near $400 for a few years ago but this one did look a lot better because I knew I just paid 65 bucks for it.
I am pleased with my first Craig’s list purchase and will continue to look there first!
Monday, September 7, 2009
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September, this year that falls on September 7
What most folks don’t know, is that the holiday originated in Canada out of labor disputes, the Nine Hour Movement, in Hamilton, then in Toronto, Canada in the 1870s. This resulted in a Trade Union Act, which legalized and protected union activity in 1872 in Canada. The first parades held in support of the Nine-Hour Movement and the printers' strike led to an annual celebration in Canada. Just like us Americans to think all the great ideas are our own. Anyway it was not until 1882 that Peter McGuire witnessed one of these labor festivals in Toronto. Inspired from events in Toronto the American labor leader returned to New York and organized the first American "labor day" on September 5 of the same year. In 1894, following the aftermath where of a number of workers died at the hands of the US military and the US Marshals after the Pullman strike President Cleveland put reconciliation with Labor as one of his top political priorities. Politicians, fearing further conflict, worked quickly on legislation making Labor Day a national holiday, that legislation was signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike. Now with the law passed, to quell the strike, they had to quickly determine what form of celebration would there be for Labor Day. It was roughly defined in the first proposal, it was to have a street parade to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations," followed by a festival for the workers and their families. Something I did not know was that at the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday proceeding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement. I guess by the time I was born or learning about it the day meant something else altogether.
Labor Day is a national legal holiday that is over 100 years old. Over the years, it has evolved from a purely labor union celebration into a general "last fling of summer" and is mostly symbolic with regard to the end of summer. Labor day was a day that sucked when I was a kid, we hated the day, no more trips to Kiser lake, no more Middleton’s ice cream and school would be back in session soon – what could possibly be worse for a kid? Now as an adult, I consider it just another day off and we always cook out, it is a day of rest and watching parades. Funny thing though, the older I get the less interested in parades, live or on television, I have become and I am not sure what that says about me. Labor day is also when football officially starts as well, both college (first games the week prior to labor day) and professional teams (first game the Thursday after labor day). I am not much of a college fan, I like to watch our Jaguars play, even though they have sucked for a number of years, I am sure this will be the season they turn it around, we lots of new talent.
Today I went to the beach to watch the sunrise, I do not feel it is the last fling of summer, I live in Florida – what can I say it is always summer. I was shocked this morning though, it was cold and I felt that I almost needed something more than shorts and a tank top. Come to find out it was only 70 degrees – I know you tough people up north will call me a pansy and that is fine because soon you will be shoveling snow and I will not. It was overcast and the waves were whipping, I was surprised how many folks were out there so early today, even more than normal. I did get to see a couple of Bogo’s on the Blue Bell this morning, so that alone made up having the endure the frigid temperatures. One of them was a woman who for nearly 2 hours was at the waters edge running up and down with a flashlight, it was odd behavior that stood out from the rest of the folks on the beach. I am not sure what she was looking for but she was still looking for it when I left. The other was a couple that were still drinking beer, out of the bottles and they stumbled, literally, onto the beach at about 6:30 and after he fell down. She was unable to get him uprighted and quickly lost interest and decided to go swimming. He tried 7 times to get up in what appeared to be an attempt to join her in the water, he was unsuccessful on each attempt landing with a face plant into the sand on his last attempt.
Watching that reminded me of a time in the mid eighties when I found myself in a similar situation on a beach in Barbados. I remember starting the day out innocently enough with an early start but by 10am the little rum drinks were tasting mighty good. We rented these little Cushman cars to tool around in, the ones with nothing more than a lawn mower engine in them and it had to be comical to see 15-20 of these things in a pack running around the island. The last place I remember being was a beach bar at some hotel that was nicer than I could afford but the bar was cool – it was right out on the beach. I remember we spent most of the day, and most of the night close to that bar. I was running with a good friend of mine from Philly, Eddie Kelso and we were having a great time and learned that CockSpur Rum was VERY good and since it was made on the island it was VERY inexpensive. Anyway the next thing I remember was waking up face down on the beach with a mouth full of sand. I looked around for Eddie and he was nowhere to be found, I saw what I thought were his footprints and started to follow them up the beach. Up and down the beach I went thinking I was a man tracker following footprints in the sand – as much sense as it made at the time I realize now I was a drunken idiot for even trying. I enjoyed thinking about Eddie and the times we had together while watching my newest BOGO on the Blue Bell find and then I realized I was a Bogo at one time. I am still smiling thinking about it.
So on me Labor days originally meaning is lost, I can’t even comprehend the struggles of those who came before us, I live in a world they helped to create and if they had the chance to see the fruits of their labors now they would probably freak out. We have it pretty good in the United States when it comes to the amount of work we do. I know lately with the SUCKING economy and lack of any real stimulus to help me makes me feel like I need to organize. For what you might ask – some damn assistance with $400 dollar electric bill, I say if we all stop using electricity we will have them right where we want them and they will be forced to lower our utility bills – won’t they? Oh well those are issues that are bigger than my feeble brain can comprehend so I for one am just going to enjoy seeing friends and enjoy the steaks I will cook on the grill.
ENJOY the day my friends, whatever it might mean to you!
Labor Day is a national legal holiday that is over 100 years old. Over the years, it has evolved from a purely labor union celebration into a general "last fling of summer" and is mostly symbolic with regard to the end of summer. Labor day was a day that sucked when I was a kid, we hated the day, no more trips to Kiser lake, no more Middleton’s ice cream and school would be back in session soon – what could possibly be worse for a kid? Now as an adult, I consider it just another day off and we always cook out, it is a day of rest and watching parades. Funny thing though, the older I get the less interested in parades, live or on television, I have become and I am not sure what that says about me. Labor day is also when football officially starts as well, both college (first games the week prior to labor day) and professional teams (first game the Thursday after labor day). I am not much of a college fan, I like to watch our Jaguars play, even though they have sucked for a number of years, I am sure this will be the season they turn it around, we lots of new talent.
Today I went to the beach to watch the sunrise, I do not feel it is the last fling of summer, I live in Florida – what can I say it is always summer. I was shocked this morning though, it was cold and I felt that I almost needed something more than shorts and a tank top. Come to find out it was only 70 degrees – I know you tough people up north will call me a pansy and that is fine because soon you will be shoveling snow and I will not. It was overcast and the waves were whipping, I was surprised how many folks were out there so early today, even more than normal. I did get to see a couple of Bogo’s on the Blue Bell this morning, so that alone made up having the endure the frigid temperatures. One of them was a woman who for nearly 2 hours was at the waters edge running up and down with a flashlight, it was odd behavior that stood out from the rest of the folks on the beach. I am not sure what she was looking for but she was still looking for it when I left. The other was a couple that were still drinking beer, out of the bottles and they stumbled, literally, onto the beach at about 6:30 and after he fell down. She was unable to get him uprighted and quickly lost interest and decided to go swimming. He tried 7 times to get up in what appeared to be an attempt to join her in the water, he was unsuccessful on each attempt landing with a face plant into the sand on his last attempt.
Watching that reminded me of a time in the mid eighties when I found myself in a similar situation on a beach in Barbados. I remember starting the day out innocently enough with an early start but by 10am the little rum drinks were tasting mighty good. We rented these little Cushman cars to tool around in, the ones with nothing more than a lawn mower engine in them and it had to be comical to see 15-20 of these things in a pack running around the island. The last place I remember being was a beach bar at some hotel that was nicer than I could afford but the bar was cool – it was right out on the beach. I remember we spent most of the day, and most of the night close to that bar. I was running with a good friend of mine from Philly, Eddie Kelso and we were having a great time and learned that CockSpur Rum was VERY good and since it was made on the island it was VERY inexpensive. Anyway the next thing I remember was waking up face down on the beach with a mouth full of sand. I looked around for Eddie and he was nowhere to be found, I saw what I thought were his footprints and started to follow them up the beach. Up and down the beach I went thinking I was a man tracker following footprints in the sand – as much sense as it made at the time I realize now I was a drunken idiot for even trying. I enjoyed thinking about Eddie and the times we had together while watching my newest BOGO on the Blue Bell find and then I realized I was a Bogo at one time. I am still smiling thinking about it.
So on me Labor days originally meaning is lost, I can’t even comprehend the struggles of those who came before us, I live in a world they helped to create and if they had the chance to see the fruits of their labors now they would probably freak out. We have it pretty good in the United States when it comes to the amount of work we do. I know lately with the SUCKING economy and lack of any real stimulus to help me makes me feel like I need to organize. For what you might ask – some damn assistance with $400 dollar electric bill, I say if we all stop using electricity we will have them right where we want them and they will be forced to lower our utility bills – won’t they? Oh well those are issues that are bigger than my feeble brain can comprehend so I for one am just going to enjoy seeing friends and enjoy the steaks I will cook on the grill.
ENJOY the day my friends, whatever it might mean to you!
Friday, September 4, 2009
"Comparing the necessity of firing Porcelain to a high temp 1200+ degrees to make it durable and useful to the travails and suffering of humankind?"
I almost feel silly answering this one as the difference instantly appeared to me and should be obvious to even the most casual observer, I will of course do so anyway. I will first speak for a moment about porcelain as we will need to establish some basic facts in order for you to understand what metrics I used in my comparative analysis between it and the painful or laborious nature of human suffering. I feel I would be doing a disservice to my followers if we only used the 1200+ degree attribute of porcelain in this discussion so I will intersperse others as well throughout the dialog.
As you stated porcelain is fired to at least 1200c or 2350 degree Fahrenheit but that is not the only thing about porcelain that is unique. To truly be porcelain there is more than just a different firing method than normal ceramic and while the additional heat is needed to provide the same amount of vitrification, or glassiness it is, as I said, only one attribute. True porcelain also contains kaolin (sometimes called china clay), feldspar, silica and aluminum oxide. I bet you never thought your high school geology class would come in handy while reading this blog huh? This is unlike traditional ceramic which is most often ball clay, which contains free silica, quartz, alumina-silicates and other minerals that are beneficial to the final product along with a lot of organic materials. As you may guess, the color of the ball clay is red. Anyway I think I do need to mention that there are three main kinds of porcelain: (1) hard-paste porcelain, (2) soft-paste porcelain, and (3) bone china. Hard-paste porcelain, which is sometimes called true porcelain or natural porcelain, has always been the model and ideal of porcelain makers. Soft-paste porcelain, sometimes called artificial porcelain, was developed in Europe in an attempt to imitate Chinese hard-paste porcelain. Bone china is basically made by adding bone ash (burned animal bones) to kaolin and petuntse. English porcelain makers discovered this combination of ingredients about 1750, and England still produces nearly all the world's bone china. Though not as hard as true porcelain, bone china is more durable than soft-paste porcelain. The bone ash greatly increases the translucence of the porcelain.
It is the type of porcelain first developed by the Chinese that resists melting far better than other kinds of porcelain. For this reason, it can be fired at higher temperatures. These hot temperatures cause the body and the glaze to become one. When hard-paste porcelain is broken, it is impossible to distinguish the body from the glaze. This also makes for a very low absorption rate, less than .05% which is very low. Because it is the hardest ceramic product, porcelain is used for electrical insulators and laboratory equipment as well. I want to go back to the high temperatures for a second as well, porcelain is basically made from a mixture of two ingredients -- kaolin and petuntse. Kaolin is a pure white clay that forms when the mineral feldspar breaks down. Petuntse is a type of feldspar found only in China. It is ground to a fine powder and mixed with kaolin. This mixture is fired at extreme temperatures and causes the petuntse to vitrify, that means that it melts together and forms a nonporous, natural glass. The kaolin, which is highly resistant to heat, does not melt and therefore allows the item to hold its shape. The process is complete when the petuntse fuses itself to the kaolin. remains somewhat porous. Breaking a piece of soft-paste porcelain reveals a grainy body covered with a glassy layer of glaze.
So by now you are probably wondering - what are the analogs of that when compared to basic human suffering, well let me tell ya. I will start with the high temperature that porcelain has to be fired, one could, and I do, equate that to the white hot speed at which we live our lives. As I spoke about the other day I am concerned we have outpaced our evolutionary capabilities and we live our lives at a pace that will end up killing us. With the ever increasing speed of our lives and due to simple friction the temperature will continue to go up, if for example we were to say today we are being fired at 2350 degrees due to friction where do you think we will be, temperature wise, in 10 years – or 20? We will have reached a point in our evolutionary path that has us heating up to only slightly cooler than the surface of the sun. Well by now you might be thinking about how hectic life seems, even when compared to your own childhood and it should scare you. When imagining a simpler life we oft times long for the good old days, when things were easier, trouble and care free as well as less complicated. So has the progression of human kind being driven by technological advances or are we actually being tortured by them. So the extremely faced paced lives (that are full of anxiety, troubles and worries) we lead is the analogy to the extremely high temperature at which porcelain must be fired.
But wait there is more, when we talk about porcelain we also to have to think about the ingredients themselves. Kaolin deposits occurred in the Late Cretaceous (about 100 million to 65 million years ago) to Early Paleogene (65 million to 45 million years ago) paleoanthropologically speaking we mammals had not even started our trek to top of the food chain when these sedimentary rocks were derived from weathered igneous and metamorphic rocks were transported by rivers to coastline deltas and to estuarine and back-barrier island locations. So like most things in our world the ingredients have been available since before we were around to combine them into a usable product. Basically that rolls around to our human condition in this way, we have had and always will have everything we need to succeed or run ourselves to extinction and that bond there is just now beginning to show itself to be a potentially more destructive force in nature. If we move onto the types of porcelain we quickly see that there is an easy comparison to us humans, hard, soft and bone. I know hard people and they, as a group, are just no fun for us to be around, suffering for all those around them and for them as well but they are to hard to admit that, I am sad for them for that attribute. The soft people group is another group that suffers, more than they make those around them suffer but I can empathize more with these folks for they are my kind. We only appear soft to hardened humans but we lead fulfilling lives and have learned to control our egos which alleviates some suffering for us. The bone is a magnitude of order more complicated to compare directly so I will not do it in the confines of this blog.
So we still have a few attributes to discuss the electrical insulator reference, the less than .05% moisture absorption and the inability to distinguish between the glaze and the porcelain. The electrical insulator can be equated to our ability to attempt to insulate ourselves from the rigors of our ever increasingly hectic lives. The suffering that could be eliminated by being able to insulate ourselves from this crazy ride we are on could be a save-all for human kind. The moisture absorption rate is a nice contrast to humans, who are made up almost entirely of moisture, I mean 61.8% is water alone so that juxtaposition seems a dichotomy that may not be able to be reconciled, at least by the likes of Mr. Oatmeal. As for the last one, I would like to see what your answer would be to that one – please tell me !
As you stated porcelain is fired to at least 1200c or 2350 degree Fahrenheit but that is not the only thing about porcelain that is unique. To truly be porcelain there is more than just a different firing method than normal ceramic and while the additional heat is needed to provide the same amount of vitrification, or glassiness it is, as I said, only one attribute. True porcelain also contains kaolin (sometimes called china clay), feldspar, silica and aluminum oxide. I bet you never thought your high school geology class would come in handy while reading this blog huh? This is unlike traditional ceramic which is most often ball clay, which contains free silica, quartz, alumina-silicates and other minerals that are beneficial to the final product along with a lot of organic materials. As you may guess, the color of the ball clay is red. Anyway I think I do need to mention that there are three main kinds of porcelain: (1) hard-paste porcelain, (2) soft-paste porcelain, and (3) bone china. Hard-paste porcelain, which is sometimes called true porcelain or natural porcelain, has always been the model and ideal of porcelain makers. Soft-paste porcelain, sometimes called artificial porcelain, was developed in Europe in an attempt to imitate Chinese hard-paste porcelain. Bone china is basically made by adding bone ash (burned animal bones) to kaolin and petuntse. English porcelain makers discovered this combination of ingredients about 1750, and England still produces nearly all the world's bone china. Though not as hard as true porcelain, bone china is more durable than soft-paste porcelain. The bone ash greatly increases the translucence of the porcelain.
It is the type of porcelain first developed by the Chinese that resists melting far better than other kinds of porcelain. For this reason, it can be fired at higher temperatures. These hot temperatures cause the body and the glaze to become one. When hard-paste porcelain is broken, it is impossible to distinguish the body from the glaze. This also makes for a very low absorption rate, less than .05% which is very low. Because it is the hardest ceramic product, porcelain is used for electrical insulators and laboratory equipment as well. I want to go back to the high temperatures for a second as well, porcelain is basically made from a mixture of two ingredients -- kaolin and petuntse. Kaolin is a pure white clay that forms when the mineral feldspar breaks down. Petuntse is a type of feldspar found only in China. It is ground to a fine powder and mixed with kaolin. This mixture is fired at extreme temperatures and causes the petuntse to vitrify, that means that it melts together and forms a nonporous, natural glass. The kaolin, which is highly resistant to heat, does not melt and therefore allows the item to hold its shape. The process is complete when the petuntse fuses itself to the kaolin. remains somewhat porous. Breaking a piece of soft-paste porcelain reveals a grainy body covered with a glassy layer of glaze.
So by now you are probably wondering - what are the analogs of that when compared to basic human suffering, well let me tell ya. I will start with the high temperature that porcelain has to be fired, one could, and I do, equate that to the white hot speed at which we live our lives. As I spoke about the other day I am concerned we have outpaced our evolutionary capabilities and we live our lives at a pace that will end up killing us. With the ever increasing speed of our lives and due to simple friction the temperature will continue to go up, if for example we were to say today we are being fired at 2350 degrees due to friction where do you think we will be, temperature wise, in 10 years – or 20? We will have reached a point in our evolutionary path that has us heating up to only slightly cooler than the surface of the sun. Well by now you might be thinking about how hectic life seems, even when compared to your own childhood and it should scare you. When imagining a simpler life we oft times long for the good old days, when things were easier, trouble and care free as well as less complicated. So has the progression of human kind being driven by technological advances or are we actually being tortured by them. So the extremely faced paced lives (that are full of anxiety, troubles and worries) we lead is the analogy to the extremely high temperature at which porcelain must be fired.
But wait there is more, when we talk about porcelain we also to have to think about the ingredients themselves. Kaolin deposits occurred in the Late Cretaceous (about 100 million to 65 million years ago) to Early Paleogene (65 million to 45 million years ago) paleoanthropologically speaking we mammals had not even started our trek to top of the food chain when these sedimentary rocks were derived from weathered igneous and metamorphic rocks were transported by rivers to coastline deltas and to estuarine and back-barrier island locations. So like most things in our world the ingredients have been available since before we were around to combine them into a usable product. Basically that rolls around to our human condition in this way, we have had and always will have everything we need to succeed or run ourselves to extinction and that bond there is just now beginning to show itself to be a potentially more destructive force in nature. If we move onto the types of porcelain we quickly see that there is an easy comparison to us humans, hard, soft and bone. I know hard people and they, as a group, are just no fun for us to be around, suffering for all those around them and for them as well but they are to hard to admit that, I am sad for them for that attribute. The soft people group is another group that suffers, more than they make those around them suffer but I can empathize more with these folks for they are my kind. We only appear soft to hardened humans but we lead fulfilling lives and have learned to control our egos which alleviates some suffering for us. The bone is a magnitude of order more complicated to compare directly so I will not do it in the confines of this blog.
So we still have a few attributes to discuss the electrical insulator reference, the less than .05% moisture absorption and the inability to distinguish between the glaze and the porcelain. The electrical insulator can be equated to our ability to attempt to insulate ourselves from the rigors of our ever increasingly hectic lives. The suffering that could be eliminated by being able to insulate ourselves from this crazy ride we are on could be a save-all for human kind. The moisture absorption rate is a nice contrast to humans, who are made up almost entirely of moisture, I mean 61.8% is water alone so that juxtaposition seems a dichotomy that may not be able to be reconciled, at least by the likes of Mr. Oatmeal. As for the last one, I would like to see what your answer would be to that one – please tell me !
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
What is it with driving in the rain!
I do not want to pigeon hole all drivers or offer a blanket stereotype but my experience indicates to me that a large percentage seem to be instant dumbasses and all we need to do is add water.
It has been too long for me to remember what it was like to live up north, driving in the snow but I bet it is similar to the way I feel sometimes here in Florida when it rains. It is as if all the rules of the road and the simplest of courtesies evaporate faster than the water from the roads when it does stop raining. I DO NOT GET IT!!! I realize that I am nothing more than a tourist here, to the natives, even though I have been here nearly 20 years but I still wonder what gives with driving in the rain. What happened to the commonly held belief that there is such a thing as southern hospitality, folks from the south are supposed to actually be laid back and easy going, right! I will tell you what happened to them, we added water! Being from the northern part of the country and having spent extended amounts of time way up in Maine I am used to inclement weather and the impact it has on our ability to drive safety. Maybe that is part of the problem, folks from the south have never had to drive in truly crappy weather, only the occasional rain shower, or worse case scenario a hurricane squall but it ain’t snow, it ain’t sleet and it damn sure is not freezing rain so get on with it already!
I was driving to the grocery store to get a couple of items and then on to Gate to get my coffee this morning and it was raining. After 20 years I am not sure why I continue to be amazed at how bad drivers become in the rain. The trip I was on was a short one, a few miles round trip and I saw two accidents and the highest posted speed limit on this trip was 40 miles an hour down Fort Caroline. Most times you can tell what happened as you rubber neck your way past, ones in the rain in Florida I have a hard time figuring out what happened. How could there be that much damage from a 40 mile an hour crash unless they were exceeding the speed limit. Exceeding the speed limit is bad on a bright sunny day but anyone who lives here should know that when it rains it is almost suicide to do it – but they don’t – they don’t know. On top of that, they forgot the old axiom, lights on for safety. For me I no longer get mad about the slowness of things when driving in the rain, I no longer get upset at people for doing stupid things in the rain. I actually proactively slow things down by purpose by going slower with my lights on and in some situations, I even put my hazard lights on, if I not able to travel within 15 miles of the speed limit.
So I had come out of the Publix with my items and I am walking to the car, no umbrella as that would hinder me from catching raindrops on my tongue, and some dudette zips past me looking for a spot that is close to the store. No big deal normally but on this day I happened to be traversing the perimeter of a rather large puddle of water and her speed, through the parking lot, was such that it created a wake that was probably 2 feet high. When that came at me in a tsunami like manner panic set in and I almost fell to avoid being caught in the vicious rip current that surely would have taken me, thrashing for my very life, into the storm drain and then god only knows where I would be now. It was not raining so hard that this woman could not see me there trudging around lake Publix and yet she chose to slog me anyway. One of the items I had picked up were some red delicious apples and I was so close to pulling one out and chunking it at her that it scared me. So after I watch her jump out of her big Lincoln Navigator (the bigger and more expensive the car the less water you have to add by the way) with her giant umbrella making her way to the store I just felt sorry for her. She was acting as if the rain were acid and would dissolve her very being from the earth, she was NOT made from sugar and spice and everything nice so she could not have been thinking that. Somebody help that poor woman was all I could think of because she was obviously missing what life is all about, to wrapped up in her own worry and problems.
So I made it to the car and placed my items in the back seat and gathered myself for the rest of the adventure home, through the Gate station to get my coffee – yes all this had happened and I had not even had my coffee and I think extra credit is due me. So after lights on for safety I am making my way across the street to gate and am waiting on the traffic in order to saftly make the right turn out of the parking lot when the guy behind me starts laying the sauce to his horn in an attempt to get me to move faster. Silly man, he OBVIOUOSLY does not know me because those who do know that is NOT the way to motivate me into action. So I placed my car into park and started tuning on the radio dial. If the frequency of the horn blasts were any indication his blood pressure was off the scales and I thought, I do not want on my shoulders the responsibility of this man having a stroke so I eased into traffic as safely as I could. He was behind me again when I was turning left across oncoming traffic and if his horn was any indicator he was nearing a disastrous demise by way of a stroke. What would make someone act like that, I can not imagine being so rude, even if I were on my way to the hospital with a pregnant wife. THANK GOD I do not have that worry. If his blood pressure would have been allowed to drop a point or two he may have realized that if he was not trying to breed my car with his that he could have easily moved around me but NO he felt the need to remain less than 4 inches off my back bumper through the entire ordeal.
Oh well, I guess some people just can not be bothered with other people not moving at their pace and when you add water it is like instant pudding, the seemingly innocuous ingredients magically transform into something completely different. Remember friends – lights on for safety.
It has been too long for me to remember what it was like to live up north, driving in the snow but I bet it is similar to the way I feel sometimes here in Florida when it rains. It is as if all the rules of the road and the simplest of courtesies evaporate faster than the water from the roads when it does stop raining. I DO NOT GET IT!!! I realize that I am nothing more than a tourist here, to the natives, even though I have been here nearly 20 years but I still wonder what gives with driving in the rain. What happened to the commonly held belief that there is such a thing as southern hospitality, folks from the south are supposed to actually be laid back and easy going, right! I will tell you what happened to them, we added water! Being from the northern part of the country and having spent extended amounts of time way up in Maine I am used to inclement weather and the impact it has on our ability to drive safety. Maybe that is part of the problem, folks from the south have never had to drive in truly crappy weather, only the occasional rain shower, or worse case scenario a hurricane squall but it ain’t snow, it ain’t sleet and it damn sure is not freezing rain so get on with it already!
I was driving to the grocery store to get a couple of items and then on to Gate to get my coffee this morning and it was raining. After 20 years I am not sure why I continue to be amazed at how bad drivers become in the rain. The trip I was on was a short one, a few miles round trip and I saw two accidents and the highest posted speed limit on this trip was 40 miles an hour down Fort Caroline. Most times you can tell what happened as you rubber neck your way past, ones in the rain in Florida I have a hard time figuring out what happened. How could there be that much damage from a 40 mile an hour crash unless they were exceeding the speed limit. Exceeding the speed limit is bad on a bright sunny day but anyone who lives here should know that when it rains it is almost suicide to do it – but they don’t – they don’t know. On top of that, they forgot the old axiom, lights on for safety. For me I no longer get mad about the slowness of things when driving in the rain, I no longer get upset at people for doing stupid things in the rain. I actually proactively slow things down by purpose by going slower with my lights on and in some situations, I even put my hazard lights on, if I not able to travel within 15 miles of the speed limit.
So I had come out of the Publix with my items and I am walking to the car, no umbrella as that would hinder me from catching raindrops on my tongue, and some dudette zips past me looking for a spot that is close to the store. No big deal normally but on this day I happened to be traversing the perimeter of a rather large puddle of water and her speed, through the parking lot, was such that it created a wake that was probably 2 feet high. When that came at me in a tsunami like manner panic set in and I almost fell to avoid being caught in the vicious rip current that surely would have taken me, thrashing for my very life, into the storm drain and then god only knows where I would be now. It was not raining so hard that this woman could not see me there trudging around lake Publix and yet she chose to slog me anyway. One of the items I had picked up were some red delicious apples and I was so close to pulling one out and chunking it at her that it scared me. So after I watch her jump out of her big Lincoln Navigator (the bigger and more expensive the car the less water you have to add by the way) with her giant umbrella making her way to the store I just felt sorry for her. She was acting as if the rain were acid and would dissolve her very being from the earth, she was NOT made from sugar and spice and everything nice so she could not have been thinking that. Somebody help that poor woman was all I could think of because she was obviously missing what life is all about, to wrapped up in her own worry and problems.
So I made it to the car and placed my items in the back seat and gathered myself for the rest of the adventure home, through the Gate station to get my coffee – yes all this had happened and I had not even had my coffee and I think extra credit is due me. So after lights on for safety I am making my way across the street to gate and am waiting on the traffic in order to saftly make the right turn out of the parking lot when the guy behind me starts laying the sauce to his horn in an attempt to get me to move faster. Silly man, he OBVIOUOSLY does not know me because those who do know that is NOT the way to motivate me into action. So I placed my car into park and started tuning on the radio dial. If the frequency of the horn blasts were any indication his blood pressure was off the scales and I thought, I do not want on my shoulders the responsibility of this man having a stroke so I eased into traffic as safely as I could. He was behind me again when I was turning left across oncoming traffic and if his horn was any indicator he was nearing a disastrous demise by way of a stroke. What would make someone act like that, I can not imagine being so rude, even if I were on my way to the hospital with a pregnant wife. THANK GOD I do not have that worry. If his blood pressure would have been allowed to drop a point or two he may have realized that if he was not trying to breed my car with his that he could have easily moved around me but NO he felt the need to remain less than 4 inches off my back bumper through the entire ordeal.
Oh well, I guess some people just can not be bothered with other people not moving at their pace and when you add water it is like instant pudding, the seemingly innocuous ingredients magically transform into something completely different. Remember friends – lights on for safety.
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