The AMIGO Course

Lempio means “Clean”


I spent the early morning hours doing some design sketches for the next theater set I’m working on and watching FOX news with one eyeball.

A commercial for something called the “Amigo Course” just came on and I'm forced to ask…

"Why the heck should I buy some language class named “Amigo Course” that purports to teach me, a native American and English speaker for a little over 45 years, to speak Spanish by reading words that have been re-spelled so that they read in English like they are pronounced in Spanish?"

Am I missing something here or WHAT?

If this method of language instruction is truly effective, and IF anyone needs to learn anything regarding linguistic skills in this country, THEN I want to come out with my own language class called the “Friend Course” that would teach all of the wet backs illegal immigrants guest workers to speak the King’s English.

After all, it is still the United States of America, not Mexico North right now, isn’t it?

Well...I'm waiting for you to answer...

If I developed such a course, here’s an example of some of the curriculum:

Deodorant = Deodorant

Clean = Clean

Sanitary = Sanitary

Fresh Towels = Fresh Towels

Extra Soap = Extra Soap

No Room Service Needed = No Room Service Needed

Mop = Mop

Broom = Broom

Lawn Mower = Lawn Mower

Go back home = Go back home

Get out = Get the #@&%* out

Stay Out = Stay the %$&*#@ Out

I don't know for sure, but it seems to me that we're all being forced to bend over backwards (or sometimes forwards, grabbing the ankles) for the accommodation and benefit of the masses of our south of the border friends when in reality it should be the invaders that are doing the learning.

For me personally, it makes my head explode when I have to search the box or the instructions contained therein to find the English language description of what I am buying or trying to put together after I get home.

I've got to go now and do some more drawings, thinking about this makes my head hurt...

Strap Me In Mommy

I’m Going Home To Jesus…


Take a look at this AP news article talking about most infant car seats miserably failing a recent Consumer Report’s crash test:

YONKERS, N.Y. - Most of the infant car seats tested by Consumer Reports "failed disastrously" in crashes at speeds as low as 35 mph, the magazine reported Thursday.

The seats came off their bases or twisted in place, the report said. In one case, a test dummy was hurled 30 feet.

Of the 12 car seats tested, Consumer Reports said it could recommend only two, and it urged a federal recall of the poorest performing seat, the Evenflo Discovery.

Evenflo issued a statement disputing the tests' validity, saying, "The magazine's test conditions and protocols appear to conflict with the collective experience of car seat manufacturers, NHTSA (the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) and the scientific community."

To be sold in the United States, an infant seat must perform adequately in a 30 mph frontal crash, and Consumer Reports found that all but the Discovery did so. But it noted that NHTSA crash tests most cars at higher speeds — 35 mph for frontal crashes and 38 mph for side crashes — so the magazine tested the seats at those speeds.

Is anyone else but me not surprised at this revalation?

Leave it to the government to demand that cars pass tests at 35 MPH, while seats designed to hold the next generation of citizens are tested at only 30 MPH--and even the passing results of those tests are now suspect.

Heck, I grew up traveling to California and Utah on extended summer vacations LAYING ON A BLANKET IN THE BACK OF A 1968 CHEVY NOMAD STATION WAGON (with all of the luggage lieing unrestrained in a carefully constructed pile behind me.)

In the event of a head on collision, I would have been crushed between the luggage and the rear passenger seats. I didn't worry, because I call that kind of travel a real adventure. Who needed DVD's and video games back then any way?

I honestly believe that the key to my longevity was the fact that my test pilot father didn’t drive like a maniac. No fancy air bags and car booster seats could have defended me from the other idiots on the road that my dad couldn't avoid. In fact, my dad never had an accident in his entire driving career (if you don’t count the time the Brahma Bull ran into the side of that same Nomad station wagon--don’t ask…)

Remember a few years back when everyone was apparently strapping their little bundles of joy into an infant car seat in the front passenger position and having the airbag snap their limber little necks?

Government intervention ensued and the media crapped their pants and had written conniption fits about the hazards of technology, but in the end I think that only a few dozen kids and short adults were killed by the “mutant homicidal airbag phenomena.”

I find it incredibly stupid that you and I can get a ticket for driving around without wearing our seatbelt/shoulder harness, yet every single school day in America almost 100 percent of the school aged kids that ride public school busses sit on metal framed seats in a giant metal box which hurtles down the road at 55 MPH, only occasionally stopping for RR crossings and liquor stores...without seatbelts?

And another thing...

What about all of the families traveling on commercial airliners?

How many times have you had to sit a seat or row or two from somebody’s sweet little drooling darlin’, with the parent choosing to SAVE MONEY BY HOLDING THE LITTLE TURD FACTORY IN THEIR LAP RATHER THAN SPRINGING FOR THE COST OF AN EXTRA SEAT in which they can strap the little bugger down in?

Let’s see, 30 MPH in a car is illegal unless you use an approved device, but 500 MPH at 30,000 feet is just fine with the public, the media, and the government because, like school busses, it’s an expedient solution that the Volvo- driving, tree-hugging , kum-ba-yah singing crowd can deal with.

I personally, have my own unique solution to the problem, and you can acquire the materials to build your own version of my “child restraint system” at your local UPS store or U-haul dealer.

The good news is that it works on planes, trains, and automobiles, and it’s cheep!

Ready?

Duct tape and bubble wrap…three layers of each. Just cut a hole near face level for a straw or sippie cup, and then hose the whole thing out when you get to your destination…no diaper changes in route.

I know, I know, I know...It's so simple, the government would never approve it.

(Dang I’m insensitive, aren’t I?)

I'm Tired

Roof Clean...Surprise Birthday A Success...


OK folks, let's take a look at my New Year's holiday scorecard to date.

One clean roof and set of rain gutters.
One new floodlight timer on out buildings.
One new security timer in main house.
Two new sections of wooden board fence repaired after removal of fallen pine trees (I got to use the chain saw.)

And finally...

One extremely surprised Mother (mine) who at 6 PM this evening walked into a room of 24 close friends and relatives, not having a clue as to our intentions.

She was almost speachless, but not quite. Two hours later everything was loaded into our car and everyone sped off into the evening.

Tomorrow we head back to St. Simons. It's a good thing, because I'M TIRED.

(Photo's to follow)

New Year

Same Old Football Team...


Well, Georgia Tech managed to do it once again...take an 9 & 2 win loss record and turn it into 9 and 5.

Their latest effort involved sqandering an 18 point lead--TWICE--to lose 38-35 to a sluggish West Virginia team at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville.

I was tempted to delay my trip to Alabama to stop by the stadium to attend this afternoon's fiasco, but then my better judgment took over and I decided to not waste my time and money and just watch the game on TV.

I trust that everyone's New Year's celebrations were as quiet and satisfying as ours spent at a friend's home throwing darts and talking until about 2 in the morning.

A couple of more days are to be spent down here in lower Alabama, then it's back to our little island to try to figure out what to do with the rest of 2007.

Regards Y'all...

Reflections On The Old Year

Hopes For The New One


Well, here we all are--posed at the end of the old year, looking at the beginning of 2007.

If you’re like me, you’re sitting there scratching your rear end head and wondering where most of 2006 went. I guess that the old adage really is true that the older you get, the faster time seems to fly.

Doing a quick calculation, I just figured out that I have thus far lived 17,274 days, so surviving another 365 sunrises and sunsets keeps getting incrementally smaller and smaller in the overall total of things.

For me, the year 2006 saw some fairly substantial changes in the planet in general and in my life personally--many good, and some bad.

The lowest point came in April when my Father’s Mother, my beloved 93 year old Grandmother Bessy, passed away after a short illness. In one day, with the passing of the woman who was married to the man I am named for, my immediate family went from four generations to three.

Then this summer my childhood friend, former Air Force fighter pilot and American Airlines captain Mike Parker, died of Stomach Cancer. I traveled back to southern Alabama from the Georgia Coast to celebrate his life with my friend Mark with several dozen of my high school classmates in attendance at the graveside ceremony. I guess that it is true that “only the good die young.”

On the personal health front, I managed to avoid spending any time in the hospital this year, after nearly buying the farm in August of 2005. That’s most definitely a GOOD THING. This fall we purchased two new Electra Townie bicycles and, while Pat is several hundred miles ahead of me on the odometer, I think that as the weather improves and the days get longer we’ll both see the health benefits of riding on an almost daily basis.

I wish I could just turn off the TV and let the world take care of itself without commenting because I am so tired of yelling at the TV picture tube while I watch highly paid STUPID PEOPLE say STUPID things that at least 51% of the population takes at face value. For that reason, I’m quite happy to have never reproduced and be closer to 50 than I am to 25. I’m just gonna die some day within the next 30 or 40 years and let the rest of you worry about things from there on out.

It looks like that the year 2007 will see my reentry into the engineering consulting business in a substantial fashion, with design opportunities coming at me from all sides. I hate having to admit that I’m excited to go back to work at the expense of my beach bum lifestyle, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

Later this morning we’re heading over on I-10 to southern Alabama to celebrate the New Year with some old high school friends, then we’ll move on to the northwest to spend most of the week with my mother while I do a little work on our farm. The cool weather will hopefully allow me to crawl around in the attic to replace a fan that’s been dead for years and do some work on outbuildings without dieing of heat stroke.

I guess that it is appropriate that I begin the new year in the area of the planet where I began my life--I’m very comfortable there because everything and everyone is so familiar. Best of all, it’s generally a low stress environment, and that’s my number one priority these days…

Avoiding unnecessary stress.

Here’s hoping you can do the same in YOUR New Year.

.

That's Gonna Leave A Scar

More Photoshop Insensitivity...Saddam's new look:







I know, I know, I know...I'm so mean.

.

Public Service

Working Incognito...


On Wednesday night Pat and I helped our friends Bruce & Ski host a pre-nuptial party for the Daughter and soon to be Son Inlaw of some of Bruce's real estate clients.

Your's truely tossed on a tab collar formal shirt and a red bow tie and played the part of BARTENDER.

Here's some photos of the results of the evening:

First there is the snack table:

Here's Ski and Pat and another of our girlfriends...


Here's a staged photo of Ski and the bride's mother mis-behaving...

Bruce & Ski and the proud parents of the Bride yucking it up...

At the end of the evening, this strange guy showed up and scared off all the women...



(That isn't me, by the way)

In the end, a good time was had by all, and I successfully dispensed libations for over thirty people without anyone knowing that I had never done it before.

Hah...

Close Encounters Of The Leaf Blower Kind

The Torture Continues...


Well, we're only back in town for a little less than 48 hours and I've already been tempted to kill three more men wielding leaf blowers in one form or the other.

Within the first FIVE MINUTES of arriving home on Tuesday morning, the morons employed in our own yard crept over to our car while we were inside unloading our luggage and proceeded to blow all of the leaves and rainwater puddled beside the car onto the driver's door and hood.

When I walked back outside they tried to ignore me and act like they didn't know what they had done as they slithered out of sight. Seriously, we'd not been there for FIVE MINUTES, and they couldn't bother to wait so that I could move the car out of their way.

Then, on my way home from the Post Office this afternoon, this other idiot was doing the old "blow it out of my customer's yard into the road" maneuver, wherein the aforementioned rocket scientist lawn maintenance technician considers his task finished when all of the debris left over from his efforts are resting across the road or in someone else's yard.

When I was a kid, we did something called RAKE the leaves and grass clippings up into a pile, then we MOVED them by hand to somewhere else in the yard (like a compost pile) or loaded them into bags and hauled them away.

Not anymore...

That fool didn't even have enough sense to stop blowing everything across the street into the neighbor's yard and move out of the road as I approached.

He made me stop and watch his artistic efforts.

I somehow resisted the urge to hit the throttle and risk spending 20 to life in the Georgia big house for smashing him and his little gasoline powered noise maker flat.

Be advised that if I hit you once...

I'M BACKING UP AND HITTING YOU A SECOND TIME!!

You'll be dead so you can't sue me...

Just stop it...dammit...

And Then There Were Three

President Gerald Ford Dies...


I was sitting here this morning doing a little reading for a consulting project I'm working on when word came across the news sites that former President Ford has died.

He was 93.

Now we're down to three living former presidents--Carter,Bush 41, and Clinton.

Regardless of my political and personal differences with some of our former chief executives, I join the rest of the nation in mourning the loss of any of these men that carried the burdens of the world on their shoulders.

RIP President Ford:

I’m Back In The Saddle On The Sofa On The Keyboard Again

It Wasn’t An Easy Process


Can you guess where the worst weather in the country was about 2 PM yesterday?

Central Florida.

Can you guess where we were starting to drive from about 1:15 PM yesterday?

Central Florida.

Had it not been for Pat forgetting to pack some important personal items, resulting in us turning around to retrieve them from our host’s home, I would probably be sitting in a hospital or morgue right now because the weather was FIERCE for several hours during what would have been the first half of our four hour drive.

Instead, we caught the local TV news channel’s belated warnings of two tornadoes and a line of severe thunderstorms running up I-4 and I-95 and I made an executive decision to abort our mission and reschedule for a 4:30 AM departure this morning.

We arrived home at 8:30 and after a restful late morning nap and a little internet surfing, and here I am again for your loathing or enjoyment.

We’ve got a short week ahead, then it’s off again to Southern Alabama to visit Mom for a long New Years’ vacation. I’ve got a bunch of work to do on the farm if the weather holds out, but I’ll have to endure her slow dial-up internet service so I’m preparing myself mentally.

All and all a good holiday season thus far, and just like James Brown said it...

"I feel Good, na,na,na,na,na,na,naaa...Like I knew that I would..."




Ever wonder where Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson got their moves?

RIP Mr. Brown

.

I Think That I'm Going To Explode

God Save Me From The Food...


You should have seen all of the food we had laying around on the tables here this afternoon and evening.

First a small group of family and friends that were Pittsburgh Steeler fans gathered to watch the team's hopes for a wild card spot in the playoffs vanish with the loss to the Baltimore Ravens. By the time dinner was served I couldn't eat anything because I spent the earlier hours gazing on the colossal boiled shrimp and other smacks.

Now I have to sleep off my stupor and take my turn at the stove tomorrow morning doing cornbread stuffing to go with a 7 pound turkey breast and a small spiral sliced ham that we hauled to town with us on Friday.

I've already taken one nap, and I feel another three or four hours of sleep coming on shortly...and let me again be the first to wish everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Christmas Break

A Little Time Off


As you have probably noticed, I missed a couple of days writing this weekend.

The reasons are twofold. I'm staying in a house full of teenagers, and there is only one phone line and two phone jacks--one in the master bedroom and one in the kitchen.

Blogging from either place is practically impossible, and using the DSL from the kitchen with a cable running across the kitchen and dining room floor to the living room is a pain in the butt for the cooks, thus my delimma.

Any way, just in case I don't get back online until we return home Christmas evening, I hope that everyone has a Merry Christmas and is safe on the roads in their travels

Regards Y'all

Vacation Coming Up

Of Course It's Gonna Rain In Florida...


I'm afraid that my Blogging will once again be hit or miss starting on Friday while we drive back to the Orlando, Florida area for Christmas.

I've done a bunch of work on Pat's Mustang (20 MPG versus my Suburban's 9 MPH) and had the oil changed and tires rotated this week, and once I have a couple of coats of RainX on the windshield we should be good to go. If you've never tried RainX, go buy some right now before you head out to GrandMa's house or where ever you're spending your Christmas because the stuff is GREAT!

On the professional front, I'm working on a new lighthouse for the Atlantic coast of Florida. Actually, it's an industrial chimney that's over 100' tall and will be designed to look like a lighthouse to the innocent bystander. We're just budgeting and bidding the project right now, but I really want to do this one because of where it is and who is buying it.

Hopefully Miss USA, Paris Hilton, and all of the Islamic terrorists will give us a break for a few days so we can visit with family and friends without FOX News and CNN interrupting the celebration, but you never know.

I'll be fairly close to the keyboard, and if something bad or stupid happens be assured that I'll be here to comment and explain things.

Leaf Blowers--Part II

Where Are My Ear Plugs?


I've had a significant revelation this week.

In the big picture of things, apparently I really don’t matter.

Neither does Pat.

You see, for the past almost three years that we’ve lived here in paradise, we’ve been assaulted almost daily with the sounds of …

get ready…

LAWN EQUIPMENT.

I swear, if one of our own people isn’t standing under my window with a hedge trimmer or lawn mower or weed eater or edger or leaf blower in his hand, then the condos on either side or the Mexicans working on the golf course that borders the other two sides of our property are clipping or trimming or pruning or chopping using something powered by a little screaming gasoline engine.

FIVE &%$#@* DAYS A WEEK.

Isn’t there something wrong with this picture?

After all, we’re part of a few dozen people that actually LIVE here in one of the 48 condo units 365 days a year (vacation days excluded.)

Instead of listening to the sounds of traffic on I-285 in Atlanta, now I’m condemned to attending a Homelight convention every daylight minute of every day of every year--rain or shine.

It has finally occurred to me that our Executive Board and property management company runs things based on the needs not of the full time residents, but rather it accommodates people that are either here on weekends and holidays else rent their property to TOTAL STRANGERS that drive into our parking lots to enjoy the landscaping and peace & quiet we rarely enjoy.

Of course most of the members of our Board are closer to age 100 than they are to age 50, so you could set off a two megaton nuclear blast on their back patio and all they would feel is the ground shake a little--they can't actually HEAR the goings-on on the property.

If I‘m not careful, I swear that I’m going to be convicted of murder by hedge clipper if I have to keep listening to the whine and smell of two cycle engines every waking minute.

Please, give it a rest already.

And regarding the leaf blower thing, why not take the time to tap on my door and give me the opportunity to move my car or truck before you create a dust storm over and around my freshly washed vehicle?

Right now my Suburban looks like it hasn’t been washed in three years because, in spite of resting comfortably in our covered carport, the idiot yard guys insist on assaulting it weekly with their leaf blowers. I haven’t driven it in the rain since I last washed it, but the sticky salt air down here grabs every bit of dust and attaches it to the paint finish, and it’s FILTHY as a result of our lawn maintenance efforts.

If they keep it up, I'm gonna steal their sparkplugs...

Baby Raccoon

Look Who Came To Visit


I found this little creature wandering around our yard by his/herself last evening:




The little raccoon was so busy eating that it let me walk up within a few feet of it several times. I just talked to it softly and moved slowly and it let me get several good photos like this one.

Our resident armadillo and opossum aren't quite as hospitable.

Leaf Blowers

Don't Make Me Have To Hurt You...


Be hereby advised that if you own and/or operate a leaf blower, and I find you in my yard before 8 AM or anywhere near my cars, I will pick up the nearest tree limb or piece of lawn furnature and beat you within inches of your life.

Thank you for your attention.

That will be all for now...

The NBA

Why Bother To Play?


I’ve only attended a couple of professional basketball games in my lifetime. If you gave me free tickets to the finals next year I wouldn’t go.

Even if you paid me.

I might even burn the tickets in a show of disinterest and disgust if they weren’t worth so much money.

I would probably end up selling them…to someone I either didn’t like or didn’t know.

You see, I have a several personal problems with the NBA--starting with the character of the players and their rap/hiphop culture. I also can’t stand most of their fans that attend the games.

Can you say “Punks”? Can you say “Idiots”? Can you say “Thugs”?

My real problem with the NBA is that they steal young players from college basketball programs like my beloved Georgia Tech after they’ve only played a year or two.

While pro football will only take a player after they have played out at least three years of their college scholarship commitment, the so called basketball pros will take a guy after he’s signed a four year scholarship commitment and only played one season on campus. Heck I bet they would take a guy after two games if he was good enough and wanted to leave.

The problem for the colleges is that they only have a limited number of scholarships, and the mix of players that they get is limited by and determined by who takes a scholarship to any given school.

Sometimes recruiting the very best player in a given position will cause other good players in that same position to look elsewhere for an opportunity. Georgia Tech’s program has been decimated a number of times over the past twenty years by guys like Kenny Anderson leaving after only one or two seasons when the team was on the verge of greatness.

I don’t understand how Coaches Smith at NC and Dukes’ Krzyzewski keep their players for four years, but Bobby Cremmins and now Paul Hewitt lose the good ones after only two or three years.

The other thing about the NBA that should bother everybody is the criminal background and behavior of an unfortunately large percentage of the player population. The fight this past weekend that has been widely reported and endlessly shown on TV is a good example. (I can’t remember the teams and I refuse to do a Google search to find them.)

If I acted like one of those players at work, I wouldn’t be fined…I’D BE FIRED.

But these spoiled, pampered assholes will just laugh it off, pay their fines out of their pocket change, sit on the bench for a few games, and then it’s back to the status quo.

What kind of message does that send to our kids, especially “minority” kids that are already growing up without fathers or otherwise quality supervision and often see the NBA and the NFL as the only avenue to success?

I think that if you throw a punch at a coach, fan, or other player you should be suspended for the rest of the season and forfeit all of your pay for the season.

If you do it again, you should be banded from further play.

But that’s just one man’s opinion, I guess…

Strike The Set

It's All Over...

I went back to the theater this afternoon to shoot a few more posed photos after the show, then reduce the set back down to the original sheets of foamboard and sticks of lumber.

It only took a little over an hour and a half, and by 6 PM the stage was clear and you'd never know I'd been there. Here's a couple more photos.





Next up is a giant staircase for the play "Little Foxes" in April.

Theatrical Misbehavior

Things Are Going Along Nicely


Pat & I attended the GIAHA's performance of "A Christmas Carol" tonight. They put on a darn good performance. We were also invited to attend the cast party afterward at my friend Mayor Thompson's house.

All and all a good evening, I think.

Here's a little peek at what we saw (click on each picture to enlarge):











I really like the looks of the final touch I put on the set last week, the sign there center stage that says "Scrooge & Marley".

What do you think?

Thing's I'd Liked To Have Had

Free Stuff...But No Where To Put It


I came home from my foggy photo shoot this morning with the trunk of Pat's Mustang full of chunks of wood. I just couldn't resist their beauty.

There's also a marvelous chunk of Eastern Cedar stump laying within two miles of our Condo that's headed for the wood chipper or woodpile unless I can find someone to help me pick it up and haul it to some as yet determined location for storage.

Sometimes I hate not owning a house these days because of times like this.

My big "K Street" tree was saved by the City of Brunswick and has been moved and stored at their expense.

Back in the late 1980's when they were clearing land to build the new Georgia Dome football stadium for the Atlanta Falcons a lumber company offered me a working boiler and working STEAM ENGINE that they had used to saw logs, for FREE, if I would come in, dismantle the equipment, and move it off site before they demolished their 100 year old buildings.

I begged and pleaded for help, but everyone just saw a bunch of stinky old iron and steel and I couldn't find a home for the wonderfull antiques.

My ex-wife wouldn't let me put it in my back yard, so I guess it went to the scrapyard.

I sure hope I can save this old stump.