Well folks, Hurricane Rita is a memory.
The City of Houston dodged yet another bullet and it wasn't racist.
Feel any better?
Sorry, but I have to remind you that Hurricane season is not yet over.
My family's (least) favorite storm, Hurricane Opal, made landfall on October 5th, 1995 as a category three storm and crossed our farm in south Alabama with 110 MPH winds.
The weather in the southeastern US is still very warm, and the waters of the Gulf of Mexico are exceptionally hot.
Then there is still the puffs of weather coming off of Africa...
Anybody want to meet Stan, Tammy, Vince, and Wilma?
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Southern Stupidity
I was born in the south and have lived in the south all of my life. Unfortunately, there is a national perception that southerners aren’t the brightest bulbs on the national Christmas tree.
I beg to differ.
As my fellow Georgia Tech alumnus comedian Jeff Foxworthy likes to say: “its not that we’re ALL dumb, we just can’t keep the idiots among us off of the TV…”
This evening I present for your entertainment Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue. I voted for the man in the last election, but since that time I’ve wondered what mental malady has attacked his brain when I hear about some of the stupid things he’s done since he took office.
Late today Governor Sonny decided at the last minute to close the public schools for two days next week.
Why?
Hurricane Rita
Why?
To SAVE fuel.
This is about as stupid an exercise of government as I’ve heard in a while.
(Atlanta, Georgia-AP) Sept. 23, 2005 - Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue Friday asked the state's schools to take two "early snow days" and cancel classes Monday and Tuesday to help conserve gasoline as Hurricane Rita threatens the nation's fuel supply line.
If all of Georgia's schools close, the governor estimated about 250,000 gallons of diesel fuel would be saved each day by keeping buses off the road.
Perdue also said an undetermined amount of regular gasoline also would be saved by allowing teachers, other school staff and some parents to stay home. He says electricity also would be conserved by keeping the schools closed.
I’m sorry, but this is typical, total, useless government crap at its finest. A half million gallons of diesel is a flyspeck in the bucket of daily US fuel consumption. And imagine how many parents will be scrambling around looking for daycare for their little darlin’s so they can go to work on Monday and Tuesday?
The thing is, Sonny didn’t have this brainstorm on Friday morning, he waited until late Friday afternoon to hold a conference call with school superintendents and some of the schools had already sent the kids home for the day.
Hey Sonny, look at the map…the hurricane is in Texas and Louisiana. We’re in Georgia. Buy a map…
I beg to differ.
As my fellow Georgia Tech alumnus comedian Jeff Foxworthy likes to say: “its not that we’re ALL dumb, we just can’t keep the idiots among us off of the TV…”
This evening I present for your entertainment Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue. I voted for the man in the last election, but since that time I’ve wondered what mental malady has attacked his brain when I hear about some of the stupid things he’s done since he took office.
Late today Governor Sonny decided at the last minute to close the public schools for two days next week.
Why?
Hurricane Rita
Why?
To SAVE fuel.
This is about as stupid an exercise of government as I’ve heard in a while.
(Atlanta, Georgia-AP) Sept. 23, 2005 - Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue Friday asked the state's schools to take two "early snow days" and cancel classes Monday and Tuesday to help conserve gasoline as Hurricane Rita threatens the nation's fuel supply line.
If all of Georgia's schools close, the governor estimated about 250,000 gallons of diesel fuel would be saved each day by keeping buses off the road.
Perdue also said an undetermined amount of regular gasoline also would be saved by allowing teachers, other school staff and some parents to stay home. He says electricity also would be conserved by keeping the schools closed.
I’m sorry, but this is typical, total, useless government crap at its finest. A half million gallons of diesel is a flyspeck in the bucket of daily US fuel consumption. And imagine how many parents will be scrambling around looking for daycare for their little darlin’s so they can go to work on Monday and Tuesday?
The thing is, Sonny didn’t have this brainstorm on Friday morning, he waited until late Friday afternoon to hold a conference call with school superintendents and some of the schools had already sent the kids home for the day.
Hey Sonny, look at the map…the hurricane is in Texas and Louisiana. We’re in Georgia. Buy a map…
Rita Comes Ashore
Rita surprised everybody and did a jog to the north at the last minute this evening, resulting in her making landfall a little east and a little earlier than predicted.
Here is the GOES East infared satellite photo showing her sliding toward the Texas/Louisiana border.
I'm sitting here watching the FOX News and Weather Channel reporters flying around in the wind trying to deliver news reports.
I'd like to get paid just once to ride a storm out on TV, but I'd want some scuba gear to ensure that I could breath and an old Sherman tank to seek shelter in.
Here is the GOES East infared satellite photo showing her sliding toward the Texas/Louisiana border.
I'm sitting here watching the FOX News and Weather Channel reporters flying around in the wind trying to deliver news reports.
I'd like to get paid just once to ride a storm out on TV, but I'd want some scuba gear to ensure that I could breath and an old Sherman tank to seek shelter in.
Friday, September 23, 2005
One Man’s Coastal Love Story
It’s better enjoyed from a distance...
Just in case you haven’t heard, I LOVE the beach.
Anybody that knows me knows this. If you doubt this assertion, ask my mother.
When my parents took me to the beach as a baby, I cried when it was time to go home. As a young child I always looked like a non-Caucasian adoptee child compared to my sister and parents because I was literally dark brown with my suntan.
I'm proud to report that there's no skin cancer so far…
My family bought a motor home in 1972 and we spent one week each summer and multiple long weekends every year in the 1970’s on the formerly deserted beaches of Gulf Shores, Alabama and Destin, Florida. At first we tried the ocean front campsites where the high tide often came up under the picnic table at night, but later we learned to enjoy the beach from a distance in one of the cheaper campsites situated in the shade of the small live oak trees in the sand dunes. The location was much more practical and the shade was welcome in the heat of the day.
Although Gulf Shores and Destin have been overrun with development through the years, I will always cherish the memories of wandering through acres and acres of 30’ high, sugar white sand dunes virtually alone in April and October.
It has always been my overriding lifetime goal to live at the beach, and I had the pleasure of seeing that dream come true the day after the 9/11 tragedy when I moved into a rental house on Mexico Beach, Florida. At that same time I purchased a building lot 2000 feet away from the Gulf of Mexico. I had three sets of "dune lines"' between me and the water and I couldn't quite see the ocean from my lot, but you could smell it and I knew that it was there. My intent was to design and construct a new home—thee ultimate monument to myself and my success.
I got as far as finishing the design on my computer while I enjoyed daily walks on the beach and became involved socially and politically in the community, but reality set in when I tied to get a Bay County building permit.
What a pain in the rear.
The City of Mexico Beach gladly took my cash and approved my drawings, but the Bay County officials were paralyzed with indecision because the State of Florida, in their infinite wisdom, was in the process of producing a new building code and the bad news was…
THEY WERE LATE.
You had to submit FIVE complete copies of your drawings (I had twenty sheets of drawings) and give them something like $125 (certified check, no cash), then go home, shut up, and WAIT until the wheels of government got through whirling, clanging, and banging.
To make a long story short, they lost my drawings and application so I had to resubmit a few weeks later, then they finally turned me down because I wanted to build an all-concrete house. Inside walls, outside walls, the only thing that wouldn’t be concrete was the steel roof trusses and aluminum panel roof.
But Noooooo, they (the building officials) were afraid because I wasn’t a registered structural engineer. I’m a mechanical engineer and in their estimation I can build commercial refrigeration equipment or zillion pound steam boiler plants (which I have built), but “I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout pouring no cement, massa…”
Did I mention that the process was a pain in the ass? Oh yes, I guess that I did.
I’d probably still be awaiting that permit today if I had pursued it. The stupid thing was that I could BUY a pre-designed set of plans for $350 showing a piece-of-shit wood framed ranch house and the county would have happily taken my money and given me my permit, thereby setting me up for disaster when the first decent tropical storm came along. They just weren't used to someone wanting to build a well designed house constructed to actually survive the conditions they were saying existed on the coast. What idiots.
By the way, Florida finally got their new building standard with its 150 mph wind code approved in mid 2002, almost NINE MONTHS late.
I’ve since sold my building lot for a tidy profit and relocated to St. Simons Island on the Georgia coast. The beach isn’t nearly as pretty and nice to walk on, but Georgia’s coastal areas have a unique geographic orientation that greatly limits yearly assaults by tropical weather. I don’t mean to say that we’re immune to hurricanes, but we haven’t had a big storm since the 1960’s and it was the late 1800’s since one struck before that. We actually have a big section of salt marsh and Sea Island (a separate island) between our condo and the beach, but we can smell the ocean from here and its a half hour bike ride or a ten minute car drive to the beach if you feel the urge.
The bad news is: statistically we’re due for a storm.
As a result, I’ve decided that RENTING rather than OWNING, NEAR the beach, not ON the beach, is the safest way to go.
As I said in my opening, the Ocean is something best enjoyed from a distance. You can visit the beach on vacation like I did for years and dream of walking out your back door into the surf each morning, but believe me, it isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Living on the ocean front is hard work and expensive, and it’s going to get even more expensive in the future.
Things can’t keep going like they are.
I believe that if you can’t afford to pay CASH for your house, and pay CASH to rebuild it when it gets blown down or washed away, you shouldn’t have a house on the beach in the first place. The Federal Flood insurance program and the coercion of state mandated provision of wind/hail insurance from the insurance companies is simply amounts to welfare for rich people.
I say that ocean-front property values are artificially inflated by this process. If you KNEW that YOU were going to have to PAY to rebuild your water front palace or bungalow, most people would still be living in Topeka or Nashville and limit their beach adventures to two weeks a year.
Thus the disaster and suffering like that we saw with Hurricane Katrina and are about to see with Rita could be somewhat limited. I believe that the coastal population explosions we have witnessed over the past thirty years would have been cut in half if the owners of the property had not been seduced by a false sense of security caused by the downturn in the hurricane cycle and ready availability of construction financing and insurance.
Oh well, that's all just water over the levee...
With the onslaught of Rita, at least the media has something to freak out about for the next thirty days and everyone has topics to discuss over coffee or around the water cooler at work.
I guess that I’ll go take a peek at FOX News now and catch up on the latest level of hysteria.
Just in case you haven’t heard, I LOVE the beach.
Anybody that knows me knows this. If you doubt this assertion, ask my mother.
When my parents took me to the beach as a baby, I cried when it was time to go home. As a young child I always looked like a non-Caucasian adoptee child compared to my sister and parents because I was literally dark brown with my suntan.
I'm proud to report that there's no skin cancer so far…
My family bought a motor home in 1972 and we spent one week each summer and multiple long weekends every year in the 1970’s on the formerly deserted beaches of Gulf Shores, Alabama and Destin, Florida. At first we tried the ocean front campsites where the high tide often came up under the picnic table at night, but later we learned to enjoy the beach from a distance in one of the cheaper campsites situated in the shade of the small live oak trees in the sand dunes. The location was much more practical and the shade was welcome in the heat of the day.
Although Gulf Shores and Destin have been overrun with development through the years, I will always cherish the memories of wandering through acres and acres of 30’ high, sugar white sand dunes virtually alone in April and October.
It has always been my overriding lifetime goal to live at the beach, and I had the pleasure of seeing that dream come true the day after the 9/11 tragedy when I moved into a rental house on Mexico Beach, Florida. At that same time I purchased a building lot 2000 feet away from the Gulf of Mexico. I had three sets of "dune lines"' between me and the water and I couldn't quite see the ocean from my lot, but you could smell it and I knew that it was there. My intent was to design and construct a new home—thee ultimate monument to myself and my success.
I got as far as finishing the design on my computer while I enjoyed daily walks on the beach and became involved socially and politically in the community, but reality set in when I tied to get a Bay County building permit.
What a pain in the rear.
The City of Mexico Beach gladly took my cash and approved my drawings, but the Bay County officials were paralyzed with indecision because the State of Florida, in their infinite wisdom, was in the process of producing a new building code and the bad news was…
THEY WERE LATE.
You had to submit FIVE complete copies of your drawings (I had twenty sheets of drawings) and give them something like $125 (certified check, no cash), then go home, shut up, and WAIT until the wheels of government got through whirling, clanging, and banging.
To make a long story short, they lost my drawings and application so I had to resubmit a few weeks later, then they finally turned me down because I wanted to build an all-concrete house. Inside walls, outside walls, the only thing that wouldn’t be concrete was the steel roof trusses and aluminum panel roof.
But Noooooo, they (the building officials) were afraid because I wasn’t a registered structural engineer. I’m a mechanical engineer and in their estimation I can build commercial refrigeration equipment or zillion pound steam boiler plants (which I have built), but “I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout pouring no cement, massa…”
Did I mention that the process was a pain in the ass? Oh yes, I guess that I did.
I’d probably still be awaiting that permit today if I had pursued it. The stupid thing was that I could BUY a pre-designed set of plans for $350 showing a piece-of-shit wood framed ranch house and the county would have happily taken my money and given me my permit, thereby setting me up for disaster when the first decent tropical storm came along. They just weren't used to someone wanting to build a well designed house constructed to actually survive the conditions they were saying existed on the coast. What idiots.
By the way, Florida finally got their new building standard with its 150 mph wind code approved in mid 2002, almost NINE MONTHS late.
I’ve since sold my building lot for a tidy profit and relocated to St. Simons Island on the Georgia coast. The beach isn’t nearly as pretty and nice to walk on, but Georgia’s coastal areas have a unique geographic orientation that greatly limits yearly assaults by tropical weather. I don’t mean to say that we’re immune to hurricanes, but we haven’t had a big storm since the 1960’s and it was the late 1800’s since one struck before that. We actually have a big section of salt marsh and Sea Island (a separate island) between our condo and the beach, but we can smell the ocean from here and its a half hour bike ride or a ten minute car drive to the beach if you feel the urge.
The bad news is: statistically we’re due for a storm.
As a result, I’ve decided that RENTING rather than OWNING, NEAR the beach, not ON the beach, is the safest way to go.
As I said in my opening, the Ocean is something best enjoyed from a distance. You can visit the beach on vacation like I did for years and dream of walking out your back door into the surf each morning, but believe me, it isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Living on the ocean front is hard work and expensive, and it’s going to get even more expensive in the future.
Things can’t keep going like they are.
I believe that if you can’t afford to pay CASH for your house, and pay CASH to rebuild it when it gets blown down or washed away, you shouldn’t have a house on the beach in the first place. The Federal Flood insurance program and the coercion of state mandated provision of wind/hail insurance from the insurance companies is simply amounts to welfare for rich people.
I say that ocean-front property values are artificially inflated by this process. If you KNEW that YOU were going to have to PAY to rebuild your water front palace or bungalow, most people would still be living in Topeka or Nashville and limit their beach adventures to two weeks a year.
Thus the disaster and suffering like that we saw with Hurricane Katrina and are about to see with Rita could be somewhat limited. I believe that the coastal population explosions we have witnessed over the past thirty years would have been cut in half if the owners of the property had not been seduced by a false sense of security caused by the downturn in the hurricane cycle and ready availability of construction financing and insurance.
Oh well, that's all just water over the levee...
With the onslaught of Rita, at least the media has something to freak out about for the next thirty days and everyone has topics to discuss over coffee or around the water cooler at work.
I guess that I’ll go take a peek at FOX News now and catch up on the latest level of hysteria.
We're All Gonna Drown
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
That about covers things, I think...
That about covers things, I think...
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Telling It Like It Is
“Don’t get stuck on stupid…”
The guys over at Radioblogger do the very best job on the entire Internet of staying on top of broadcast media transcripts—radio and television.
One of my fellow bloggers just pointed out one hell of an exchange that took place on Tuesday between Lt. General Russel Horone and a reporter pool that had got out of hand during a press conference with the New Orleans Mayor Nagin.
Here is a piece of the transcript (emphasis added by yours truely):
Honore: And Mr. Mayor, let's go back, because I can see right now, we're setting this up as he said, he said, we said. All right? We are not going to go, by order of the mayor and the governor, and open the convention center for people to come in. There are buses there. Is that clear to you? Buses parked. There are 4,000 troops there. People come, they get on a bus, they get on a truck, they move on. Is that clear? Is that clear to the public?
Female reporter: Where do they move on...
Honore: That's not your business.
Male reporter: But General, that didn't work the first time...
Honore: Wait a minute. It didn't work the first time. This ain't the first time. Okay? If...we don't control Rita, you understand? So there are a lot of pieces of it that's going to be worked out. You got good public servants working through it. Let's get a little trust here, because you're starting to act like this is your problem. You are carrying the message, okay? What we're going to do is have the buses staged. The initial place is at the convention center. We're not going to announce other places at this time, until we get a plan set, and we'll let people know where those locations are, through the government, and through public announcements. Right now, to handle the number of people that want to leave, we've got the capacity. You will come to the convention center. There are soldiers there from the 82nd Airborne, and from the Louisiana National Guard. People will be told to get on the bus, and we will take care of them. And where they go will be dependent on the capacity in this state. We've got our communications up. And we'll tell them where to go. And when they get there, they'll be able to get a chance, an opportunity to get registered, and so they can let their families know where they are. But don't start panic here. Okay? We've got a location. It is in the front of the convention center, and that's where we will use to migrate people from it, into the system.
Male reporter: General Honore, we were told that Berman Stadium on the west bank would be another staging area...
Honore: Not to my knowledge. Again, the current place, I just told you one time, is the convention center. Once we complete the plan with the mayor, and is approved by the governor, then we'll start that in the next 12-24 hours. And we understand that there's a problem in getting communications out. That's where we need your help. But let's not confuse the questions with the answers. Buses at the convention center will move our citizens, for whom we have sworn that we will support and defend...and we'll move them on. Let's not get stuck on the last storm. You're asking last storm questions for people who are concerned about the future storm. Don't get stuck on stupid, reporters. We are moving forward. And don't confuse the people please. You are part of the public message. So help us get the message straight. And if you don't understand, maybe you'll confuse it to the people. That's why we like follow-up questions. But right now, it's the convention center, and move on.
Male reporter: General, a little bit more about why that's happening this time, though, and did not have that last time...
Honore: You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question. We are going to deal with Rita. This is public information that people are depending on the government to put out. This is the way we've got to do it. So please. I apologize to you, but let's talk about the future. Rita is happening. And right now, we need to get good, clean information out to the people that they can use. And we can have a conversation on the side about the past, in a couple of months.
I wish every politician had a set of brass balls like Lt. General Honore and had the confidence to put these idiots posing as professional journalists in their place when they ASK STUPID QUESTIONS, often more than one time in a given interview or press conference.
I just love it…
The guys over at Radioblogger do the very best job on the entire Internet of staying on top of broadcast media transcripts—radio and television.
One of my fellow bloggers just pointed out one hell of an exchange that took place on Tuesday between Lt. General Russel Horone and a reporter pool that had got out of hand during a press conference with the New Orleans Mayor Nagin.
Here is a piece of the transcript (emphasis added by yours truely):
Honore: And Mr. Mayor, let's go back, because I can see right now, we're setting this up as he said, he said, we said. All right? We are not going to go, by order of the mayor and the governor, and open the convention center for people to come in. There are buses there. Is that clear to you? Buses parked. There are 4,000 troops there. People come, they get on a bus, they get on a truck, they move on. Is that clear? Is that clear to the public?
Female reporter: Where do they move on...
Honore: That's not your business.
Male reporter: But General, that didn't work the first time...
Honore: Wait a minute. It didn't work the first time. This ain't the first time. Okay? If...we don't control Rita, you understand? So there are a lot of pieces of it that's going to be worked out. You got good public servants working through it. Let's get a little trust here, because you're starting to act like this is your problem. You are carrying the message, okay? What we're going to do is have the buses staged. The initial place is at the convention center. We're not going to announce other places at this time, until we get a plan set, and we'll let people know where those locations are, through the government, and through public announcements. Right now, to handle the number of people that want to leave, we've got the capacity. You will come to the convention center. There are soldiers there from the 82nd Airborne, and from the Louisiana National Guard. People will be told to get on the bus, and we will take care of them. And where they go will be dependent on the capacity in this state. We've got our communications up. And we'll tell them where to go. And when they get there, they'll be able to get a chance, an opportunity to get registered, and so they can let their families know where they are. But don't start panic here. Okay? We've got a location. It is in the front of the convention center, and that's where we will use to migrate people from it, into the system.
Male reporter: General Honore, we were told that Berman Stadium on the west bank would be another staging area...
Honore: Not to my knowledge. Again, the current place, I just told you one time, is the convention center. Once we complete the plan with the mayor, and is approved by the governor, then we'll start that in the next 12-24 hours. And we understand that there's a problem in getting communications out. That's where we need your help. But let's not confuse the questions with the answers. Buses at the convention center will move our citizens, for whom we have sworn that we will support and defend...and we'll move them on. Let's not get stuck on the last storm. You're asking last storm questions for people who are concerned about the future storm. Don't get stuck on stupid, reporters. We are moving forward. And don't confuse the people please. You are part of the public message. So help us get the message straight. And if you don't understand, maybe you'll confuse it to the people. That's why we like follow-up questions. But right now, it's the convention center, and move on.
Male reporter: General, a little bit more about why that's happening this time, though, and did not have that last time...
Honore: You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question. We are going to deal with Rita. This is public information that people are depending on the government to put out. This is the way we've got to do it. So please. I apologize to you, but let's talk about the future. Rita is happening. And right now, we need to get good, clean information out to the people that they can use. And we can have a conversation on the side about the past, in a couple of months.
I wish every politician had a set of brass balls like Lt. General Honore and had the confidence to put these idiots posing as professional journalists in their place when they ASK STUPID QUESTIONS, often more than one time in a given interview or press conference.
I just love it…
It's Not Too Late...
to top off the old gas tank(s)...
Have you bought gas this week? No? Well, you'd better.
I bought nearly $50 worth yesterday over across the causeway at $2.59 a gallon. Both my Suburban and Pat's Mustang are now full. The price had already risen five or six cents from Tuesday, and we saw it at Wal-Mart on Saturday for $2.48.
Why are you waiting? You know the same thing that happened with Katrina is going to happen with Rita--only worse. Essentially the entire gulf coast oil and gas production system will come to a halt, and most of the petrolium refining capacity will be out of comission for at least a week.
I predict gas locally, that peaked at $3.04 a gallon after Katrina, will easily cross $4.00, and the politicians will be screaming "price gouging" and other forms of "bloody murder" as the British and the Dutch laugh at our indignation.
I'll be buying gas again in mid-October when the price settles back down. I hope you plan ahead too.
(did you go get gas yet?)
Have you bought gas this week? No? Well, you'd better.
I bought nearly $50 worth yesterday over across the causeway at $2.59 a gallon. Both my Suburban and Pat's Mustang are now full. The price had already risen five or six cents from Tuesday, and we saw it at Wal-Mart on Saturday for $2.48.
Why are you waiting? You know the same thing that happened with Katrina is going to happen with Rita--only worse. Essentially the entire gulf coast oil and gas production system will come to a halt, and most of the petrolium refining capacity will be out of comission for at least a week.
I predict gas locally, that peaked at $3.04 a gallon after Katrina, will easily cross $4.00, and the politicians will be screaming "price gouging" and other forms of "bloody murder" as the British and the Dutch laugh at our indignation.
I'll be buying gas again in mid-October when the price settles back down. I hope you plan ahead too.
(did you go get gas yet?)
Arts...Smarts
I tried to ignore this too…
I’ve never made a dime worth mentioning as an artist.
Oh yeah, I’ve earned all the beer and whiskey I can drink in a night by singing and playing the harmonica in a little bar every Sunday night in Mexico Beach, Florida for a while.
I even made tips equaling thirty or forty dollars a night for six months playing harmonica and doing backup vocals with “The Garage Band” in Atlanta in 1999-2000. Of course my bar tab easily equaled my earnings for the night in those days, so I broke even at best on that endeavor. Some people might have paid me more to stay home.
Today I write my blogs with no compensation, and my watercolor paintings and drawings have yet to cause a sensation at the local galleries so the term “starving artist” would be a self serving exaggeration--a gross overstatement at this point.
There are three local theater companies here in the Golden Isles, but I picked the most pompous, egotistical group of ingrates to spend a year of my life volunteering with—working for free behind the scenes and, as a result, my efforts were for naught.
Most of these idiots won’t even speak to me since I told everybody that was anybody to kiss my ass when I quit last March. Actually, I only told four really (self)IMPORTANT people to kiss my ass, but they told everybody else and as a group they've decided that I'm persona non grata.
Having said all of that, I still get crazy when I see and hear people talking about the importance of using government to steal money from its taxpayers to provide “funding for the ARTS.”
In the words of Charles Dickens…Bah Humbug.
This morning I was looking at The Office of the Governor’s Georgia Council for the Art Web Site and noticed something amazing.
In their fancy smancy intro page they present their “Seven compelling reasons to build support for the arts in Georgia”
Here they are:
1. The arts make money for Georgia.
2. The arts give students an edge in school.
3. The arts attract tourists.
4. The arts bring communities together.
5. Georgia celebrates its culture through the arts.
6. Industry wants the arts
7. The arts provide a return on public investment
What total crappola—who writes this stuff? If they only have one or two GOOD reasons, why not just come out and say so?
If I had the opportunity, here is what my response would be to these seven points:
1. IF “The arts make money for Georgia,” why am I paying for the arts?
2. I’ll agree that “The arts give (some) students an edge in school,” but making the grade of A+ in band class or drama class or in pottery still doesn’t elevate you above spending the next ten years asking “you want fries with that.”
3. IF “The arts attract tourists,” let the tourists buy some ART and pay for the arts themselves.
4. I agree that “The arts bring communities together.” So does a serial rapist and a direct strike by a hurricane, but I want nothing to do with either event.
5. IF “Georgia (wants to)celebrate its culture through the arts," let the Georgia participants and patrons pay fair market value for the arts.
6. IF “Industry wants the arts,” let industry pay for the arts.
7. IF “The arts provide a return on public investment” (i.e. spending money confiscated from taxpayers,) why not stop spending the tax money and start spending the profits. Isn’t profit what you get when you get a “return” on your investment?
Can you believe that anyone actually thinks like this and has the audacity to write it down?
I think that govenment "Arts" programs are responsible for most if not all of the hideous sculptures and ugly paintings that we find mounted on the walls of government buildings.
Body part or dog turd?
I would wager that most of the crap produced with the funding provided by the Georgia Council for the Arts is commercially unmarketable and, if it were not for the public payola, the so called artist(s) would be forced to start writing a blog or go back to work at the library racking books in order to afford food and gasoline.
I guess that I'm just a mean old bastard, aren't I?
I’ve never made a dime worth mentioning as an artist.
Oh yeah, I’ve earned all the beer and whiskey I can drink in a night by singing and playing the harmonica in a little bar every Sunday night in Mexico Beach, Florida for a while.
I even made tips equaling thirty or forty dollars a night for six months playing harmonica and doing backup vocals with “The Garage Band” in Atlanta in 1999-2000. Of course my bar tab easily equaled my earnings for the night in those days, so I broke even at best on that endeavor. Some people might have paid me more to stay home.
Today I write my blogs with no compensation, and my watercolor paintings and drawings have yet to cause a sensation at the local galleries so the term “starving artist” would be a self serving exaggeration--a gross overstatement at this point.
There are three local theater companies here in the Golden Isles, but I picked the most pompous, egotistical group of ingrates to spend a year of my life volunteering with—working for free behind the scenes and, as a result, my efforts were for naught.
Most of these idiots won’t even speak to me since I told everybody that was anybody to kiss my ass when I quit last March. Actually, I only told four really (self)IMPORTANT people to kiss my ass, but they told everybody else and as a group they've decided that I'm persona non grata.
Having said all of that, I still get crazy when I see and hear people talking about the importance of using government to steal money from its taxpayers to provide “funding for the ARTS.”
In the words of Charles Dickens…Bah Humbug.
This morning I was looking at The Office of the Governor’s Georgia Council for the Art Web Site and noticed something amazing.
In their fancy smancy intro page they present their “Seven compelling reasons to build support for the arts in Georgia”
Here they are:
1. The arts make money for Georgia.
2. The arts give students an edge in school.
3. The arts attract tourists.
4. The arts bring communities together.
5. Georgia celebrates its culture through the arts.
6. Industry wants the arts
7. The arts provide a return on public investment
What total crappola—who writes this stuff? If they only have one or two GOOD reasons, why not just come out and say so?
If I had the opportunity, here is what my response would be to these seven points:
1. IF “The arts make money for Georgia,” why am I paying for the arts?
2. I’ll agree that “The arts give (some) students an edge in school,” but making the grade of A+ in band class or drama class or in pottery still doesn’t elevate you above spending the next ten years asking “you want fries with that.”
3. IF “The arts attract tourists,” let the tourists buy some ART and pay for the arts themselves.
4. I agree that “The arts bring communities together.” So does a serial rapist and a direct strike by a hurricane, but I want nothing to do with either event.
5. IF “Georgia (wants to)celebrate its culture through the arts," let the Georgia participants and patrons pay fair market value for the arts.
6. IF “Industry wants the arts,” let industry pay for the arts.
7. IF “The arts provide a return on public investment” (i.e. spending money confiscated from taxpayers,) why not stop spending the tax money and start spending the profits. Isn’t profit what you get when you get a “return” on your investment?
Can you believe that anyone actually thinks like this and has the audacity to write it down?
I think that govenment "Arts" programs are responsible for most if not all of the hideous sculptures and ugly paintings that we find mounted on the walls of government buildings.
Body part or dog turd?
I would wager that most of the crap produced with the funding provided by the Georgia Council for the Arts is commercially unmarketable and, if it were not for the public payola, the so called artist(s) would be forced to start writing a blog or go back to work at the library racking books in order to afford food and gasoline.
I guess that I'm just a mean old bastard, aren't I?
Live By The Sword…Die By The Sword
(But...never, ever, sleep with the slut)
I usually avoid even LISTENING to the details of these stories, but this one is short and the parties are so deserving of maximum public ridicule that I feel like passing it on for your enjoyment:
Fresno, CA: A DNA test shows that the wrong man has been paying child support to Amber Frey.
An attorney said Fresno hairstylist Anthony Flores has been paying Frey $175 a month for nearly four years for Frey's young daughter.
But he said the tests now show the little girl's father is actually Christopher Funch, the owner of Porky's Rib House in Fresno.
Flores was preparing to file a court motion seeking visitation rights, which he has been denied, when the man received word last week that he was not the child's father.
Frey's attorney, Gloria Allred, said Wednesday that her client never intended to deceive Flores.
"Amber, in good faith, always believed that Mr. Flores was her child's father," Allred said.
Frey was thrown into the national spotlight after it was learned that she was the mistress of now convicted murderer Scott Peterson during the time he killed his wife Laci in December of 2003.
The attorney said Flores' reputation has been ruined. He added that he "can't go anywhere without people pointing at him."
Flores said simply, "I want an apology."
I’d ordinarily say that Mr. Flores should be able to go to court and get his $175 back over the next four years, but in this case I think that he's already got what was coming to him.
Actually, he got off light, and if he had any self respect he'd have shut up and cut his losses rather than throwing his name around in the news.
Some people...
I usually avoid even LISTENING to the details of these stories, but this one is short and the parties are so deserving of maximum public ridicule that I feel like passing it on for your enjoyment:
Fresno, CA: A DNA test shows that the wrong man has been paying child support to Amber Frey.
An attorney said Fresno hairstylist Anthony Flores has been paying Frey $175 a month for nearly four years for Frey's young daughter.
But he said the tests now show the little girl's father is actually Christopher Funch, the owner of Porky's Rib House in Fresno.
Flores was preparing to file a court motion seeking visitation rights, which he has been denied, when the man received word last week that he was not the child's father.
Frey's attorney, Gloria Allred, said Wednesday that her client never intended to deceive Flores.
"Amber, in good faith, always believed that Mr. Flores was her child's father," Allred said.
Frey was thrown into the national spotlight after it was learned that she was the mistress of now convicted murderer Scott Peterson during the time he killed his wife Laci in December of 2003.
The attorney said Flores' reputation has been ruined. He added that he "can't go anywhere without people pointing at him."
Flores said simply, "I want an apology."
I’d ordinarily say that Mr. Flores should be able to go to court and get his $175 back over the next four years, but in this case I think that he's already got what was coming to him.
Actually, he got off light, and if he had any self respect he'd have shut up and cut his losses rather than throwing his name around in the news.
Some people...
I Don’t Understand
Ok, I do, but I don’t like it
I really hate the media spotlight that has descended on the south, particularly the gulf coastal region, this hurricane season. For those of us that were born here and have lived here most of the past half century, looking at the sky to the south and wondering what kind of storm will blow in each August and September is just as normal as watching the leaves fall off the trees every October and November.
To hear the media tell it, none of us ignorant Rednecks have any idea what to expect and most portrayed on TV are caught standing around wide eyed wondering which way and where to run.
I beg to differ.
My mother’s brothers moved to Ft. Walton, Florida (not Ft. Walton Beach) in the early 1950’s to take employment as aircraft mechanics at Egland Air Force Base. Even without the resources provided by The Weather Channel and NOAA weather satellites, they knew from marine reports to pack up the kids and dogs and run back home to South Alabama before everything got wet or blown away.
My family got caught flat footed, un-prepared in 1975 when Hurricane Eloise took a right hand turn overnight and made landfall at Panama City Beach rather than in Mobile. My dad was out of town on business and I as a 15 year old was the “official chain saw operator in chief..” Since I didn’t have to buy the insurance and pay the deductible, I guess that I have to admit that I thought the whole episode was sorta cool.
How many of you have stood in your front yard and looked at clear blue sky THROUGH THE EYE of a category 2 hurricane?
I have.
The thing is, Hurricanes go with the territory, just like earthquakes and brush fires go with Southern California and freezing ass cold weather goes with Moosejaw, Alaska. My personal preference is to die from drowning or being hit by flying debris rather than loosing my toes to frostbite.
I don’t need some idiot with a camera and a microphone to tell you about my plight, either.
I really hate the media spotlight that has descended on the south, particularly the gulf coastal region, this hurricane season. For those of us that were born here and have lived here most of the past half century, looking at the sky to the south and wondering what kind of storm will blow in each August and September is just as normal as watching the leaves fall off the trees every October and November.
To hear the media tell it, none of us ignorant Rednecks have any idea what to expect and most portrayed on TV are caught standing around wide eyed wondering which way and where to run.
I beg to differ.
My mother’s brothers moved to Ft. Walton, Florida (not Ft. Walton Beach) in the early 1950’s to take employment as aircraft mechanics at Egland Air Force Base. Even without the resources provided by The Weather Channel and NOAA weather satellites, they knew from marine reports to pack up the kids and dogs and run back home to South Alabama before everything got wet or blown away.
My family got caught flat footed, un-prepared in 1975 when Hurricane Eloise took a right hand turn overnight and made landfall at Panama City Beach rather than in Mobile. My dad was out of town on business and I as a 15 year old was the “official chain saw operator in chief..” Since I didn’t have to buy the insurance and pay the deductible, I guess that I have to admit that I thought the whole episode was sorta cool.
How many of you have stood in your front yard and looked at clear blue sky THROUGH THE EYE of a category 2 hurricane?
I have.
The thing is, Hurricanes go with the territory, just like earthquakes and brush fires go with Southern California and freezing ass cold weather goes with Moosejaw, Alaska. My personal preference is to die from drowning or being hit by flying debris rather than loosing my toes to frostbite.
I don’t need some idiot with a camera and a microphone to tell you about my plight, either.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
If I Lived In The Big Easy
Who needs a blog when you have a storefront to write on? Click on the pic and read the text...
My kind of guy...
Thanks again to the ever patient refugees at http://mgno.com/
My kind of guy...
Thanks again to the ever patient refugees at http://mgno.com/
Night for Day
I’ve got them backwards again. My days and nights, that is. I’m wide awake….
AAAAAHHHHHHhhhhhhaaaaaa
I was sitting here watching FOX News reruns of the evening’s media BS and it started raining like heck outside. It came as a surprise because the last time I checked the weather radar there was nothing north of Jacksonville. So much for turning your back on Mother Nature for a couple of hours.
A quick check of the National Weather Service Radar Site for SSI revealed a small outer feeder band from Hurricane Rita had drifted our way.
That's OK, we need the rain, just in small increments.
This latest storm is big, and is going to get much bigger before it strikes central or southern Texas.
Just sit back and watch the media feeding frenzy. All my friends and relatives here in the south are thinking to ourselves:
IDIOTS!
AAAAAHHHHHHhhhhhhaaaaaa
I was sitting here watching FOX News reruns of the evening’s media BS and it started raining like heck outside. It came as a surprise because the last time I checked the weather radar there was nothing north of Jacksonville. So much for turning your back on Mother Nature for a couple of hours.
A quick check of the National Weather Service Radar Site for SSI revealed a small outer feeder band from Hurricane Rita had drifted our way.
That's OK, we need the rain, just in small increments.
This latest storm is big, and is going to get much bigger before it strikes central or southern Texas.
Just sit back and watch the media feeding frenzy. All my friends and relatives here in the south are thinking to ourselves:
IDIOTS!
Boating--New Orleans Style
How this happened, I'll never understand...
Who needs a boat trailer?
Photo reprinted from http://mgno.com/
Who needs a boat trailer?
Photo reprinted from http://mgno.com/
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
A Sad Day For NASA
Deja vu all over again...
I’m a little too young to have watched or listened live to President Kennedy’s challenge that NASA “land a man on the moon before the end of the decade.” The result was the Mercury, Gemini, and finally six Apollo lunar landings beginning in July 1969 and ending in 1972.
Tom Hanks and every young boy (and many girls) including myself imagined growing up and following Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Virgil Grissom, Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and Michael Collins into orbit or onto the lunar surface. By the way, I wrote all of these names down from memory without doing a Google search, something few people under the age of thirty years can do today.
Yes, it has been that long ago…
Since that proud time NASA has had to absorb a variety of mission redefinitions resulting from public apathy and congressional budget cuts. As a result, with the aging shuttle fleet grounded, the USA can’t even launch a man into orbit let alone toss a couple of tons of humans and equipment all the way to the moon. We have invested billions in a so called “international” space station that we have to rely on the Russians to deliver people and supplies to.
It's truely a Sad Day For NASA, in my book.
Today NASA announced their plan to develop “Apollo on Steroids” with a goal of having humans back on the moon by the year 2018.
What I want to know is, what kind of pansy assed stuff has NASA been smoking to come up with this retarded brainfart?
In my estimation, I'd say it’s more like Apollo with hemorrhoids. Ouch!!
What the hell are they thinking?
After all the time and money we have spent on rockets and space travel since 1961, now they’re telling us that all NASA can muster in a thirteen year time frame is a rerun of an old Apollo type capsule riding on top of a bunch of surplus left over space shuttle engines and boosters?
OK, where are my big boots???
Where’s my calculator and note pad???
It looks like I’m going to have to come out of retirement. Any other good engineers with me on this?
I’m a little too young to have watched or listened live to President Kennedy’s challenge that NASA “land a man on the moon before the end of the decade.” The result was the Mercury, Gemini, and finally six Apollo lunar landings beginning in July 1969 and ending in 1972.
Tom Hanks and every young boy (and many girls) including myself imagined growing up and following Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Virgil Grissom, Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and Michael Collins into orbit or onto the lunar surface. By the way, I wrote all of these names down from memory without doing a Google search, something few people under the age of thirty years can do today.
Yes, it has been that long ago…
Since that proud time NASA has had to absorb a variety of mission redefinitions resulting from public apathy and congressional budget cuts. As a result, with the aging shuttle fleet grounded, the USA can’t even launch a man into orbit let alone toss a couple of tons of humans and equipment all the way to the moon. We have invested billions in a so called “international” space station that we have to rely on the Russians to deliver people and supplies to.
It's truely a Sad Day For NASA, in my book.
Today NASA announced their plan to develop “Apollo on Steroids” with a goal of having humans back on the moon by the year 2018.
What I want to know is, what kind of pansy assed stuff has NASA been smoking to come up with this retarded brainfart?
In my estimation, I'd say it’s more like Apollo with hemorrhoids. Ouch!!
What the hell are they thinking?
After all the time and money we have spent on rockets and space travel since 1961, now they’re telling us that all NASA can muster in a thirteen year time frame is a rerun of an old Apollo type capsule riding on top of a bunch of surplus left over space shuttle engines and boosters?
OK, where are my big boots???
Where’s my calculator and note pad???
It looks like I’m going to have to come out of retirement. Any other good engineers with me on this?
Out-Smarting Yourself
Better Phone Allstate...
Home improvement Guru Bob Vila will be talking this weekend about a new house just finished in Florida designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane.
I’m not impressed nor am I convinced of the validity of their design.
You see, in a prior life I was quite the guru myself in doing fancy footings designed to handle lots of weight and high wind loads. In fact, I helped design and build nearly four hundred structures in the ten to thirty story height range over my illustrious career, none of which ever fell down or blew over (as far as I know.)
I have industrial smokestacks standing near the outer banks of North Carolina, in the earthquake prone areas north of San Francisco, and a monster 250’ tall structure in Bogaloosa, Louisiana that made it through Katrina last month.
What amazes me is that people think that they can drive piles into sand and hold down a house facing the onslaught of 150 MPH winds, a 20’ storm surge, and 20’ monster waves.
No darned way, Jose.
The problem with using pilings in sand is that when the sand gets wet, it becomes something kids call MUD, and MUD is a terrible support for concrete and steel.
I wonder if Bob Vila and the Weather Channel's Jim Cantori will volunteer to ride this next one out in their new "wonder house?"
Home improvement Guru Bob Vila will be talking this weekend about a new house just finished in Florida designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane.
I’m not impressed nor am I convinced of the validity of their design.
You see, in a prior life I was quite the guru myself in doing fancy footings designed to handle lots of weight and high wind loads. In fact, I helped design and build nearly four hundred structures in the ten to thirty story height range over my illustrious career, none of which ever fell down or blew over (as far as I know.)
I have industrial smokestacks standing near the outer banks of North Carolina, in the earthquake prone areas north of San Francisco, and a monster 250’ tall structure in Bogaloosa, Louisiana that made it through Katrina last month.
What amazes me is that people think that they can drive piles into sand and hold down a house facing the onslaught of 150 MPH winds, a 20’ storm surge, and 20’ monster waves.
No darned way, Jose.
The problem with using pilings in sand is that when the sand gets wet, it becomes something kids call MUD, and MUD is a terrible support for concrete and steel.
I wonder if Bob Vila and the Weather Channel's Jim Cantori will volunteer to ride this next one out in their new "wonder house?"
Monday, September 19, 2005
Cranky Observations
I’m crankier than usual today, and those that know me can appreciate this condition.
I forced myself to wash the months old crust of dirt and dust off of the old Chevy Suburban yesterday and I think that I over did it. That, and an extended shopping trip on Saturday to “Big Lots” and Wal Mart, and I feel like I worked digging ditches all weekend.
I’m such a wimp…I've realized that my medical recovery unfortunately has a long way to go.
I wandered over to the Harris Teeter this afternoon before going by the medical lab to get my new “regular” bi-weekly blood work and forgot my credit card, so I had to turn around and limp back home only to start the entire trip over twenty minutes later.
This was supposed to be a quick trip—no such luck.
Fortunately I somehow managed to get the same good “normal” parking space both times at Harris Teeter.
Imagine that? I get excited about the silliest things.
By “normal” parking space I mean the closest parking space that doesn’t have a blue handicapped marking or the “reserved for expectant mothers and the infirm” designation.
What the hell does that mean? Who (or whom) the heck gets to decide who (or whom) can be defined as being "infirm?"
What about some good parking spaces reserved for mean old cranky middle aged white guys?
I have this theory that if every single handicapped person in the entire world drove their cars (or vans or had their cars or vans driven for them) into the retail world at the same time, there is no way in heck that they could fill up all of the blue painted spaces there are out there.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want true handicapped people crawling across my car hood on their stomachs to get to the CVS pharmacy, but why does Home Depot have the first four spaces on EVERY SINGLE ROW of parking spaces painted blue?
Is it just me?
I guess that I could be presently categorized as “infirm,” and some of my college buddies might argue that I’ve been mentally infirm for quite some time, but I’ll be darned if I’ll park in one of those spaces and risk having someone say something to me because dozens of years of built up parking lot frustration would likely erupt from every pore in my body and someone would possibly get hurt.
Any way, I noticed that the nonsensical work of what I call the "shopping cart morons" was evident everywhere today.
You know what I mean by “shopping cart morons”, don’t you? You're not one, are you?
"Shopping cart morons" are people that are either too busy or too darned self important to be bothered with returning their shopping cart to the front of the store or to the racks conveniently located at intervals in the parking lot.
These people are the ones responsible for the carts you find residing in the middle of the parking space you want to park in or for the cart you find resting against the driver’s door or quarter panel of your car or truck when you return to the parking lot after concluding your shopping adventure.
I often have to restrain myself from wanting to holler obscenities at grandmothers and women herding multiple toddlers because of this behavior. What the heck can be so important that you can’t spend forty five or sixty seconds parking your shopping cart where it won’t cost me two thousand dollars worth of body work?
I came up with a high tech solution to this problem this afternoon…
SMART CARTS.
That’s right, Smart Carts—think Stephen King’s novel Christine about the car that came to life and was jealous.
Here’s how they (the Smart Cart) would work.
When you pick up a SMART CART inside the store you have to scan your customer affinity card (VIC, Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, etc.) or other ID. In addition to knowing where you live and that you buy eight liters of wine each week, the Smart Cart can assist you in other ways. It could remember your normal shopping list and it could show you a little digital map with things like where the stock boys put the Cheese Whiz and Ritz crackers when they rearranged the cookie isle last week. A truly invaluable service any day in my book.
But the fun really begins when a Smart Cart exits the building into the parking lot. You see, the Smart Cart KNOWS that it is outside and starts tracking its progress and proximity to all of its fellow Smart Carts, as well as the location of the cart racks and its home base in the store.
Once the shopper has concluded their enjoyable shopping experience, the Smart Cart, knowing that it is empty, awaits being returned to a rack or to the store.
Now here’s my favorite part.
When you park the Smart Cart where it belongs, no problem, but God have mercy on your mortal soul if you choose to leave your Smart Cart standing unattended in the parking lot.
Why, you might ask?
Ever seen a swarm of hornets or bees?
Yes sir-reeee, one of MY Smart Carts will accomplish its ultimate goal and pursue your ignorant, pompus, self-important ass, AND the car that you happen to be riding or driving in. Not only that, but the Smart Cart will call for assistance from the other Smart Carts in the parking lot.
Remember my swarm of bee’s analogy?
When my Smart Carts get through with you and your car, you will NEVER, EVER, EVER leave a shopping cart unattended or otherwise misbehave while shopping in a public place again.
Ever see the Alfred Hitchcock movie, "The Birds?"
Well, it seems like a good idea to me…
I forced myself to wash the months old crust of dirt and dust off of the old Chevy Suburban yesterday and I think that I over did it. That, and an extended shopping trip on Saturday to “Big Lots” and Wal Mart, and I feel like I worked digging ditches all weekend.
I’m such a wimp…I've realized that my medical recovery unfortunately has a long way to go.
I wandered over to the Harris Teeter this afternoon before going by the medical lab to get my new “regular” bi-weekly blood work and forgot my credit card, so I had to turn around and limp back home only to start the entire trip over twenty minutes later.
This was supposed to be a quick trip—no such luck.
Fortunately I somehow managed to get the same good “normal” parking space both times at Harris Teeter.
Imagine that? I get excited about the silliest things.
By “normal” parking space I mean the closest parking space that doesn’t have a blue handicapped marking or the “reserved for expectant mothers and the infirm” designation.
What the hell does that mean? Who (or whom) the heck gets to decide who (or whom) can be defined as being "infirm?"
What about some good parking spaces reserved for mean old cranky middle aged white guys?
I have this theory that if every single handicapped person in the entire world drove their cars (or vans or had their cars or vans driven for them) into the retail world at the same time, there is no way in heck that they could fill up all of the blue painted spaces there are out there.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want true handicapped people crawling across my car hood on their stomachs to get to the CVS pharmacy, but why does Home Depot have the first four spaces on EVERY SINGLE ROW of parking spaces painted blue?
Is it just me?
I guess that I could be presently categorized as “infirm,” and some of my college buddies might argue that I’ve been mentally infirm for quite some time, but I’ll be darned if I’ll park in one of those spaces and risk having someone say something to me because dozens of years of built up parking lot frustration would likely erupt from every pore in my body and someone would possibly get hurt.
Any way, I noticed that the nonsensical work of what I call the "shopping cart morons" was evident everywhere today.
You know what I mean by “shopping cart morons”, don’t you? You're not one, are you?
"Shopping cart morons" are people that are either too busy or too darned self important to be bothered with returning their shopping cart to the front of the store or to the racks conveniently located at intervals in the parking lot.
These people are the ones responsible for the carts you find residing in the middle of the parking space you want to park in or for the cart you find resting against the driver’s door or quarter panel of your car or truck when you return to the parking lot after concluding your shopping adventure.
I often have to restrain myself from wanting to holler obscenities at grandmothers and women herding multiple toddlers because of this behavior. What the heck can be so important that you can’t spend forty five or sixty seconds parking your shopping cart where it won’t cost me two thousand dollars worth of body work?
I came up with a high tech solution to this problem this afternoon…
SMART CARTS.
That’s right, Smart Carts—think Stephen King’s novel Christine about the car that came to life and was jealous.
Here’s how they (the Smart Cart) would work.
When you pick up a SMART CART inside the store you have to scan your customer affinity card (VIC, Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, etc.) or other ID. In addition to knowing where you live and that you buy eight liters of wine each week, the Smart Cart can assist you in other ways. It could remember your normal shopping list and it could show you a little digital map with things like where the stock boys put the Cheese Whiz and Ritz crackers when they rearranged the cookie isle last week. A truly invaluable service any day in my book.
But the fun really begins when a Smart Cart exits the building into the parking lot. You see, the Smart Cart KNOWS that it is outside and starts tracking its progress and proximity to all of its fellow Smart Carts, as well as the location of the cart racks and its home base in the store.
Once the shopper has concluded their enjoyable shopping experience, the Smart Cart, knowing that it is empty, awaits being returned to a rack or to the store.
Now here’s my favorite part.
When you park the Smart Cart where it belongs, no problem, but God have mercy on your mortal soul if you choose to leave your Smart Cart standing unattended in the parking lot.
Why, you might ask?
Ever seen a swarm of hornets or bees?
Yes sir-reeee, one of MY Smart Carts will accomplish its ultimate goal and pursue your ignorant, pompus, self-important ass, AND the car that you happen to be riding or driving in. Not only that, but the Smart Cart will call for assistance from the other Smart Carts in the parking lot.
Remember my swarm of bee’s analogy?
When my Smart Carts get through with you and your car, you will NEVER, EVER, EVER leave a shopping cart unattended or otherwise misbehave while shopping in a public place again.
Ever see the Alfred Hitchcock movie, "The Birds?"
Well, it seems like a good idea to me…
Hello, FEMA?
George Bush calling here...
I see where the loudmouthed New Orleans Mayor Nagin and the new FEMA director "Admiral Green Jeans" (I'm too lazy to Google his name) are having a bit of a spat over the Mayor's idea of bringing a couple hundred thousand "non-refugees" back into the city this week.
Imagine that?
I'm also looking at the predicted path of soon to be Hurricane Rita and asking myself if and when FEMA personnel should apply an entire roll of duct tape to the Mayor's head and mouth.
Just imagine if the good Mayor gets a big crowd to come back home in the next few days and this storm crosses the Florida Keys and decides to turn north so as to go rinse all of the mud that Katrina dumped in downtown New Orleans off the streets and into the storm sewers.
I think that President Bush should have all of the local officials bound and gagged, or arrested, then he should declare martial law along the ENTIRE Gulf coast of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas as soon as the storm is in the Gulf of Mexico. Two thousand miles of vacant hotels, tee-shirt shops, and water parks and restaurants should put a nice post Labor Day dent in a few more local economies--sorta spread the misery around.
Imagine the yelling, screaming, and general gnashing of teeth as the pundits, activitists, politicians, and most of all--the media--play the second guessing, arm chair quarterback game.
I say it'd serves them all right if he did.
I see where the loudmouthed New Orleans Mayor Nagin and the new FEMA director "Admiral Green Jeans" (I'm too lazy to Google his name) are having a bit of a spat over the Mayor's idea of bringing a couple hundred thousand "non-refugees" back into the city this week.
Imagine that?
I'm also looking at the predicted path of soon to be Hurricane Rita and asking myself if and when FEMA personnel should apply an entire roll of duct tape to the Mayor's head and mouth.
Just imagine if the good Mayor gets a big crowd to come back home in the next few days and this storm crosses the Florida Keys and decides to turn north so as to go rinse all of the mud that Katrina dumped in downtown New Orleans off the streets and into the storm sewers.
I think that President Bush should have all of the local officials bound and gagged, or arrested, then he should declare martial law along the ENTIRE Gulf coast of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas as soon as the storm is in the Gulf of Mexico. Two thousand miles of vacant hotels, tee-shirt shops, and water parks and restaurants should put a nice post Labor Day dent in a few more local economies--sorta spread the misery around.
Imagine the yelling, screaming, and general gnashing of teeth as the pundits, activitists, politicians, and most of all--the media--play the second guessing, arm chair quarterback game.
I say it'd serves them all right if he did.
It must be something in the water…
Or the air…
My own mortality has hit me squarely between the eyes recently. Nothing like a couple of weeks in the hospital to change your outlook on life—not to mention taking a couple of needed tons off the old body while you’re at it.
Don’t get me wrong when I say this—I’ve spent much of my life consciously or unconsciously challenging death and, were it not for a fine frog hair here or a quite undeserved piece of luck there, I admit that I should have been destined to taking the eternal dirt nap some thirty years ago.
I survived my crazy kamikaze driving days having a wreck every four to six months to become one of the safest drivers in Georgia, not having an accident in the past 20 years and not being involved in one that was my fault in 25 years.
I survived walking into a restaurant robbery in progress with three college friends in January 1979, had a 12 gauge shotgun pumped in my back and the barrel of a cheep revolver broken off the frame on the back of my hard head, and lived to recount the story. It (the story) has been worn quite thin through the years—thus the reason I never mentioned the event before here on the blog.
I’ve done a number of other things that would be considered impossible when our country was formed and things that have killed much greater men than I. Things like piloting a light airplane all by my lonesome, scuba diving with hundreds of sharks and to depths over 120 feet, and captaining a 23’ boat on all day trips out of sight of land in the Gulf of Mexico—only to return home to live another day.
I’ve also done the hardest things I think that a human being is ever asked to do—bury a parent. My father died on Cinco de Mayo in 1996, and I’ve never celebrated Cinco de Mayo again.
I also don’t spend much time writing about it, but check out this amazing posting over at my Cuban blog idol Val’s Babalu Blog.
Tell me that doesn’t grab you right here (pointing to my chest) …
My own mortality has hit me squarely between the eyes recently. Nothing like a couple of weeks in the hospital to change your outlook on life—not to mention taking a couple of needed tons off the old body while you’re at it.
Don’t get me wrong when I say this—I’ve spent much of my life consciously or unconsciously challenging death and, were it not for a fine frog hair here or a quite undeserved piece of luck there, I admit that I should have been destined to taking the eternal dirt nap some thirty years ago.
I survived my crazy kamikaze driving days having a wreck every four to six months to become one of the safest drivers in Georgia, not having an accident in the past 20 years and not being involved in one that was my fault in 25 years.
I survived walking into a restaurant robbery in progress with three college friends in January 1979, had a 12 gauge shotgun pumped in my back and the barrel of a cheep revolver broken off the frame on the back of my hard head, and lived to recount the story. It (the story) has been worn quite thin through the years—thus the reason I never mentioned the event before here on the blog.
I’ve done a number of other things that would be considered impossible when our country was formed and things that have killed much greater men than I. Things like piloting a light airplane all by my lonesome, scuba diving with hundreds of sharks and to depths over 120 feet, and captaining a 23’ boat on all day trips out of sight of land in the Gulf of Mexico—only to return home to live another day.
I’ve also done the hardest things I think that a human being is ever asked to do—bury a parent. My father died on Cinco de Mayo in 1996, and I’ve never celebrated Cinco de Mayo again.
I also don’t spend much time writing about it, but check out this amazing posting over at my Cuban blog idol Val’s Babalu Blog.
Tell me that doesn’t grab you right here (pointing to my chest) …
Sunday, September 18, 2005
If This Don't Piss You Off...
Nothing Will...
One of my blog idols over at The Agitator pointed out this story about doctors being turned away from providing services at ground zero in new Orleans:
In the midst of administering chest compressions to a dying woman several days after Hurricane Katrina struck, Dr. Mark N. Perlmutter was ordered to stop by a federal official because he wasn't registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"I begged him to let me continue," said Perlmutter, who left his home and practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Pennsylvania to come to Louisiana and volunteer to care for hurricane victims. "People were dying, and I was the only doctor on the tarmac (at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) where scores of nonresponsive patients lay on stretchers. Two patients died in front of me.
"I showed him (the U.S. Coast Guard official in charge) my medical credentials. I had tried to get through to FEMA for 12 hours the day before and finally gave up. I asked him to let me stay until I was replaced by another doctor, but he refused. He said he was afraid of being sued. I informed him about the Good Samaritan laws and asked him if he was willing to let people die so the government wouldn't be sued, but he would not back down. I had to leave."
See, I'm not always cheering Raah Raah Raah about the Republicans and the efforts of our Federal government, but it is OUR Federal Government...MY Federal Government--elected, bought, and paid for (voluntarily or not) and I have earned the right to provide honest criticism.
We could do a whole lot better job in an emergency of accepting offers for medical assistance.
Now, as to the foreign media, including most of the crap published by the BBC, they know where they can go... you know?
One of my blog idols over at The Agitator pointed out this story about doctors being turned away from providing services at ground zero in new Orleans:
In the midst of administering chest compressions to a dying woman several days after Hurricane Katrina struck, Dr. Mark N. Perlmutter was ordered to stop by a federal official because he wasn't registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"I begged him to let me continue," said Perlmutter, who left his home and practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Pennsylvania to come to Louisiana and volunteer to care for hurricane victims. "People were dying, and I was the only doctor on the tarmac (at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) where scores of nonresponsive patients lay on stretchers. Two patients died in front of me.
"I showed him (the U.S. Coast Guard official in charge) my medical credentials. I had tried to get through to FEMA for 12 hours the day before and finally gave up. I asked him to let me stay until I was replaced by another doctor, but he refused. He said he was afraid of being sued. I informed him about the Good Samaritan laws and asked him if he was willing to let people die so the government wouldn't be sued, but he would not back down. I had to leave."
See, I'm not always cheering Raah Raah Raah about the Republicans and the efforts of our Federal government, but it is OUR Federal Government...MY Federal Government--elected, bought, and paid for (voluntarily or not) and I have earned the right to provide honest criticism.
We could do a whole lot better job in an emergency of accepting offers for medical assistance.
Now, as to the foreign media, including most of the crap published by the BBC, they know where they can go... you know?
The Nuclear Non-Option
They say it takes a couple of years to develop a LEGAL nuclear weapons capability using off the shelf components. Such would be the case if the US wanted to open a new weapons factory here domestically.
Working from scratch, it takes five to seven years to put together a weapons program, IF you can find technically competent people to put it together for you.
I find it insane that the vaulted UN and the EU can undertake talks with North Korea and Iran that have lasted for years and years and years when we know that they have a five or ten year HEAD START?
We're going to regret screwing around with these militant idiots, just watch.
You don't agree? So sanction me...ooohhhhh, I'm so scared...
Working from scratch, it takes five to seven years to put together a weapons program, IF you can find technically competent people to put it together for you.
I find it insane that the vaulted UN and the EU can undertake talks with North Korea and Iran that have lasted for years and years and years when we know that they have a five or ten year HEAD START?
We're going to regret screwing around with these militant idiots, just watch.
You don't agree? So sanction me...ooohhhhh, I'm so scared...
Trains, Planes, and Automobiles
Did I mention school buses?
Travel and Transportation safety are common topics on the old blog here. Let's just say the topic interests me, and the media does such a bad job covering the intricacies.
Much of the time I like to poke fun at news stories about various accidents and the hyperbola associated with a train or plane crash. As I always say, DRIVING to the airport is hundreds of times more dangerous that flying on a commercial airliner.
Our government, in their infinite wisdom, with the assistance of various and sundry “advocates,” loves to pass laws and spend our money under of guise of making our daily commuting less dangerous. Things like helmet laws and seat belt laws provide a warm fuzzy feeling for the politicians and “advocates” and a false sense of security for people that otherwise operate their vehicles like complete and total idiots. If you are wearing a helmet when you drive your scooter under a dump truck, they still probably can't put you back together good enough to stage an open casket funeral.
What is really stupid is that I can get a $50 ticket for not wearing my seat belt in my 6000 pound Chevy Surburban, but 35 ten year old kids can jump on a school bus with a driver full of wild turkey bourbon (who also happens to be safely buckled in his or her seat) and ride ten miles sliding from seat to seat without a seat belt or shoulder harness in sight.
What’s up with that?
That said, the Metra commuter train crash in Chicago hits a little close to home for Pat and I this morning. We are planning a trip next month to Elgin, Illinois relating to Pat’s business, including a Metra ride round trip into downtown Chicago for dinner and sight seeing.
Like most forms of public transportation, during peak times the double-decker Metra trains can be cattle cars full of commuters whiling away the time until they get to their destination.
Instead of turning the train around at the end of a run in each direction, most of the seats have reversible backs which the conductor simply “flips” to face forward as he walks through the cars collecting fares and selling tickets. You have a choice of facing forward, backwards, or sideways.
Today’s Metra crash killed two and injured 83, but it could have been much worse if the train had been packed with weekday rush hour commuters.
I think that the next time I ride a train into downtown Chicago, I’m going to leave my seat facing toward the rear.
It’s a lot safer in the event something unexpected happens.
And besides, facing to the rear--instead of seeing where you're going, you can see where you're coming from...
Travel and Transportation safety are common topics on the old blog here. Let's just say the topic interests me, and the media does such a bad job covering the intricacies.
Much of the time I like to poke fun at news stories about various accidents and the hyperbola associated with a train or plane crash. As I always say, DRIVING to the airport is hundreds of times more dangerous that flying on a commercial airliner.
Our government, in their infinite wisdom, with the assistance of various and sundry “advocates,” loves to pass laws and spend our money under of guise of making our daily commuting less dangerous. Things like helmet laws and seat belt laws provide a warm fuzzy feeling for the politicians and “advocates” and a false sense of security for people that otherwise operate their vehicles like complete and total idiots. If you are wearing a helmet when you drive your scooter under a dump truck, they still probably can't put you back together good enough to stage an open casket funeral.
What is really stupid is that I can get a $50 ticket for not wearing my seat belt in my 6000 pound Chevy Surburban, but 35 ten year old kids can jump on a school bus with a driver full of wild turkey bourbon (who also happens to be safely buckled in his or her seat) and ride ten miles sliding from seat to seat without a seat belt or shoulder harness in sight.
What’s up with that?
That said, the Metra commuter train crash in Chicago hits a little close to home for Pat and I this morning. We are planning a trip next month to Elgin, Illinois relating to Pat’s business, including a Metra ride round trip into downtown Chicago for dinner and sight seeing.
Like most forms of public transportation, during peak times the double-decker Metra trains can be cattle cars full of commuters whiling away the time until they get to their destination.
Instead of turning the train around at the end of a run in each direction, most of the seats have reversible backs which the conductor simply “flips” to face forward as he walks through the cars collecting fares and selling tickets. You have a choice of facing forward, backwards, or sideways.
Today’s Metra crash killed two and injured 83, but it could have been much worse if the train had been packed with weekday rush hour commuters.
I think that the next time I ride a train into downtown Chicago, I’m going to leave my seat facing toward the rear.
It’s a lot safer in the event something unexpected happens.
And besides, facing to the rear--instead of seeing where you're going, you can see where you're coming from...
Missiles? (Updated)
(Or Really Really Fast Birds...)
This hasn't made the mainstream media and may just be a rumor, but Little Green Footballs is carefully posting a rumor that someone fired a missle from the swamps of NJ at an America West flight out of JFK on Friday.
Michelle Malkin got ahold of the media relations guy from America West who confirmed that the FBI had interviewed the flight crew and passengers.
No word on if the "incident" was actually a missle or something else.
Watch TV and see how long this takes to hit the airwaves, truth or false alarm.
Do you trust your "lamestream" media now?
UPDATE: Ms Malkin is now quoting a source from the FAA as saying
The sighting was reported near Colt's Neck, NJ, which is a major route south out of NY. FAA set up a small temporary flight restriction around the area while checking radar files. Turned out to be nothing more than birds, and [a] big game of "telephone (tag)."
I don't feel better yet, do you?
This hasn't made the mainstream media and may just be a rumor, but Little Green Footballs is carefully posting a rumor that someone fired a missle from the swamps of NJ at an America West flight out of JFK on Friday.
Michelle Malkin got ahold of the media relations guy from America West who confirmed that the FBI had interviewed the flight crew and passengers.
No word on if the "incident" was actually a missle or something else.
Watch TV and see how long this takes to hit the airwaves, truth or false alarm.
Do you trust your "lamestream" media now?
UPDATE: Ms Malkin is now quoting a source from the FAA as saying
The sighting was reported near Colt's Neck, NJ, which is a major route south out of NY. FAA set up a small temporary flight restriction around the area while checking radar files. Turned out to be nothing more than birds, and [a] big game of "telephone (tag)."
I don't feel better yet, do you?
Blogging Dr. Goodheart
I always like to point out other good, relevant blogs when I find them.
Nothing like a non-professional journalist, sitting right in the middle of the affected area instead of living in the local Hilton hotel to give you the TRUE STORY about what is going on.
Stanley Tillinghast, M.D., a California Cardiologist, is blogging from the Hurricane recovery zone in Mississippi at his new blog Dr Goodheart.
Check out http://www.dr-goodheart.blogspot.com/ for the inside story.
Nothing like a non-professional journalist, sitting right in the middle of the affected area instead of living in the local Hilton hotel to give you the TRUE STORY about what is going on.
Stanley Tillinghast, M.D., a California Cardiologist, is blogging from the Hurricane recovery zone in Mississippi at his new blog Dr Goodheart.
Check out http://www.dr-goodheart.blogspot.com/ for the inside story.
