Meat Causes Global Warming....

I read this post on my dad's blog site and I couldn't even get through it. It's amazing to me the energy and effort that conspiracy theorists will put into a completely bogus and absurd concept.

I think what is scarier is that the average Joe-Public buys into it.

click here for the post

Please do Not Forget...

We said we would not, but I think a lot of us have. For a reminder, please click on this link:
http://gunstuff.com/america-attacked.html

Waiting Just a Bit Longer...

Well, my stay in Bozeman has now been officially extended until November 1. As someone said, they'll be toasting my 20th anniversary here even though I am going home at some point.

The only real bummer is that the ski season opens on Thanksgiving weekend. You mean I have to get teased into hanging out RIGHT before it opens and I'm going to miss it? That sucks.

Now I get to explain why I have a near useless $400 plane ticket back to TX on October 1. I guess I could use it and then setup a round-trip from TX to BZN, back to TX. That should make everything nice and confusing. Our accountants just love me.

Waxing Porky’s Pole

Don’t ask….just don’t ask. We were playing horseshoes the other night and somehow this phrase was thrown into the conversation. I don’t remember exactly how it got brought into the conversation. Only that it was and I thought “I have to use this somehow.”

It might be that we split three pitchers of beer while playing shoes between three of us. It might also be that Fuego (a.k.a. Porky) was an evil bastard and ordered us a round of Bookers on the rocks. If you haven’t had Bookers, you should try it. It’s a primo bourbon that clocks in somewhere in the 120+ proof range depending on what barrels were tapped to make it. Beyond that, I can’t remember the specifics of the conversation that brought up that particular tasty morsel of a phrase.

Angled Bar Stools

Ok, WTF is the deal with all the bars and restaurants up here angling the bar stools so that they are not perpendicular to the bar? It might be more aesthetically appeasing, but let’s face it, it is completely non-functional. Now when I go up to the bar I not only have to dick with the stool I want to sit on, I have to move two others out of the way. Is it just me or does anyone have a problem with this? And heaven forbid you get up and take a leak only to come back and all three stools are back where they were. What a major PITA. Are they doing it in TX? I hadn’t noticed, but I’ll be the first to petition against it. I think next time I’ll just move the other two bar stools out into the walkway. Maybe they’ll get the hint.

And speaking of coming back to TX…..it looks like the “tentative” on going home is quickly becoming a “we don’t know when the you can go back” type thing. At least I might be up here for Ski season. Too bad I already shipped my board home. Grrrrr……

Where do YOU Want to Squat?

I often get multiple emails from my company folks reinforcing how great it is to live in either MT or CA. Just recently Bozeman was ranked in the top 10 of "dream places to live." I do not know who or what ranked them.

So today I was flipping through Money Magazine and they had their own Top 90 places to live. Here are the results:

The scores were based on the following:

Populations exceeding 50,000 – probably wiped out most of the MT cities right there.
Screened out cities of more than 300,000 people.

Eliminated cities with low education scores, high crime rates, absurdly high housing costs, declines in employment, or income less than 90% of the state’s median.

Ranked remaining cities on economic opportunity (income, job growth and affordability), quality of life indicators, etc.

And the rankings are:
Ranking it at #1 was Fort Collins, CO with a population of 128,000 and a typical family home at $215k.

Montana had ZERO hits, but that is probably due to either the low population or housing costs (or both?).

CA had five hits.

And TX had NINE hits. A full 10% percent with 1 city being in the top 5.

Of cities over 300,000 in population TX grabbed one spot, and CA grabbed a spot.

TX isn't such a bad place to live after all. TX also happens to have the BEST income-to-cost-of-living ratio in the U.S. but they don't care about that. It was nice to be able to have some data to throw back in their face a bit.

Already a Change Of Plans?

So I sent an email to a lot of people letting them know my schedule as posted below. Here is the email that I sent:

All -

I've been coming up to Bozeman for almost three years, now. We've done a great job at getting the region off the ground, and for almost two years I have lived up here on a regular basis.

Now, my time is coming to an end and I am returning to TX. Many of you are already aware of this and have been requesting my schedule. Until just a few minutes ago I didn't have it all locked in. Now I've got my tickets all booked and the dates locked in. As per-usual with Skyline even having a ticket doesn't mean that it's a sure thing. As one person used to say "I'll believe it when your plane leaves the ground and you are on it."

However, I'd say this is a fairly accurate schedule.

I have been trying to make some definitive plans with some of you (I hope you know who you are!) so I hope this helps.

September 1st - work late at a client's site
September 2nd - Fly to DFW and hang out for a week.
September 10th - Return to Bozeman
September 13th - Travel to Red Lodge, MT for a conference. Be back following day.
October 1st - Fly to DFW without a return flight.

Notice the part in BOLD. I make it back from lunch only to see that I am now being told that the Oct. 1 date is tentative. Not even one hour into booking my info and they are already thinking about changing it. :-)

Coming to and End

Well today I booked my last flights and tickets to go home. One is a return trip and one gets me home for good.....until I have to come back up here for work, of course. Many people have been asking what my schedule will be and I'm trying to accommodate everyone, so here 'tis:

September 1st - work late at a client's site
September 2nd - Fly to DFW and hang out for a week.
September 10th - Return to Bozeman
September 13th - Travel to Red Lodge, MT for a conference.
October 1st - Fly to DFW without a return flight.

Best Looking Guy In Bozeman

No, it is certainly not me.

Last night I am having dinner with my room mate, his g/f, and his brother. It was a fairly tasty dinner with venison steaks, baked potato, salad, and a venison hamburger. Yes, I was stuffed like a big tick.

During the conversation I ask where our other room mate is. His name is Walker....as in Walker Texas Ranger....but he looks nothing like Chuck Norris. He is currently out of town and then when he gets back he is doing a kayaking trip in Africa. Pretty cool stuff. Then someone said his photo shoot went well.

What photo shoot? Walker is a good looking guy, but he's not a model as far as I am aware. There seems to be some running joke about him being the "Best Looking Guy in Bozeman." Maybe it's not a joke after all. Maybe he really was voted this or something because Men's Journal (or Men's Magazine, or something like that) called him up and did a photo shoot of him.

I guess some guys just have all the luck. Fortunately, he's a nice guy. I do not know him well and have never known him to be conceited. He does tend to bring home a lot of chicks, though....

So if the magazine comes out I'll try to get a pic up. The ladies can drool....the men can be jealous.

Quality of Life?

What is quality of life? I guess it depends on who you are and what your values are. I think most of have at least a basic idea of a standard for quality of life. Being able to walk, feed and dress yourself, etc. Almost everyone I know indicates that if they were paralyzed they wouldn't want to live anymore. The same is almost true as we get older and lose our functionality.

But this isn't what I am referring to. That's a little too dramatic. A bit too extreme. Let's bring it down a notch or two and think about quality of life in reference to where and how you live. The largest argument I keep hearing from people to move to Bozeman is for the quality of life. I also understand that Bozeman is now in the top 10 dream places (#1?) to live. The question is why?

How about the fact that yesterday I played golf int he morning with a friend of mine and the temp was in the 70's. It had warmed to 82 by the time we were done and then I rode motorcycles and never saw the temp climb above 85. This is in August and it's over 100+ back home and has been for over 20 days.

You can walk out of your door and camp, hike, bike, kayak, do river floats, fish, base jump, climb, and that's just in the summer. In the winter you have tons of winter sports such as skiing, boarding, tubing, snowmobiling, etc. It is truly an outdoor person's paradise.

But nothing comes without consequences. It's VERY expensive to live here as I have indicated over and over again. So most of the arguments I hear are that you have to give up something to live here but it's worth it.

For me, I tend to disagree with that. Obviously as I am not moving here. For starters I am in a very comfortable spot financially right now. I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but working up here all the time has allowed me to save some money and get some things accomplished in my life. I am not rich, nor do I have an endless supply of money. But I don't have to worry about it right now (that can always quickly change). I can take Robert and his wife out for dinner as a way to say thanks for letting me borrow his bike and not worry if I can afford it.

This is because I don't have an obscene mortgage payment. It's also because the state is raking 11% off the top of my gross income.

I have a 2000 sq. foot custom built home, a motorcycle, a truck and a boat. If I were to move to MT I would have to scale down to a townhouse or a trailer home to keep my liquid cash flow about the same. I might not be able to afford the upkeep on all the toys.

Then there are the trips that I take. This year I went to both Europe and Jamaica. I also had purchased a season lift ticket and snowboarded almost every weekend. I can take off at a moments notice and fly just about anywhere to do whatever I want. That would all go away if I moved to MT. The trip I have planned to Rome and Greece would have to go on the back burner.

I guess what I am getting at is that while it may be great to walk out your door and do all these wonderful things, you CAN'T do them if you are living in a crackerbox eating Ramen noodles because your mortgaged to the hilt and your income has been dramatically reduced.

So that's my quality of life rub. Have all these things available to do here in Mt, but give up space, toys, trips, seeing my family, and general financial stability. I don't see that as much of a choice. My quality of life has a lot more to do with what I am able to do, not what I could do if I had the money.

And as far as leaving all this behind? There is always vacation.....Because I can afford it.

FINALLY Got To Ride!

Yesterday I finally got to ride some of the roads in MT that I have been driving for over two years. It's interesting because a guy that I only sort-of-know let me borrow is Aprilia Mile and ride with him and his wife. I was surprised and taken by the offer. See, I am paranoid and rarely let anyone ride my bike. Especially if I have never seen them ride, etc. So I can't believe he offered it up.....but I was so stoked!!! So Robert, if you are reading this, a big thank you!! I had a great time.

We took the bikes up 191 and then up the mountain to Big Sky. Then had a coke and a smile, and turned around to come back. It wasn't a long ride, but it was very refreshing. I don't think the temps climbed above 85 and that was just about perfect to be riding. We straffed through the canyon and up the mountain. I didn't push the bike too much since it was a borrowed bike and I wasn't 100% familiar with it. The Mile' is very similar to my bike back home. Consider it the next model up. That made me fairly comfy, but I still didn't want to risk trashing his bike.

While we posted fairly illegal speeds, there were no accidents or tickets. Afterwards we went out to dinner and had a few beers. Let's say the conversation was "interesting." Not a bad way to wrap up the weekend!

Thanks again, Robert!

Jamaica!!! Yeah, mohn!

Well, first off let me apologize for not blogging much lately. I got in from Jamaica at about 11:00pm on Monday the 7th. Since then I have worked on site at one client or another every day with an average work day of 10+ hours. As an example, I have 78 hours of billable time in over the last possible 8 days I could have billed. The other 2 days were spent traveling and I've had to work on the weekends to catch up. That doesn't leave much time for the blog.

I spent most of my time on the beach checking out the scenery and generally not doing a whole lot of anything. After my Europe trip and grueling work schedule I just wanted to chill and not do a whole lot. We stayed at a Beaches resort. It was an all-inclusive resort, which is the way to go as far as I am concerned. All meals, all beverages, etc. That might explain the picture above!!

My friends got married and while we had a killer downpour right before the wedding, it was quite nice by the time the ceremony kicked off. Here I am giving some last minute "advice" to Bling before he ties the knot. I wonder how the honeymoon night was?

Everything was very nicely done and simple without being too extravagant. Maybe some people like that, but I am not personally into it. They did the whole shoeless wedding and I think it came out very well.

Here is one last shot of the whole wedding party. If you want to see all the pics - go here:
http://s61.photobucket.com/albums/h78/fullstate/Jamaica%202006/

I haven't figured this out exactly. I like the Yahoo photo album because I can put descriptions in the names, but I like this site because the links are stable and they work great for the blog. I guess I'll have to have pictures in two locations.

An Atrocity and a Travesty

One of my neighbors here in TX has a son that is a Marine. This guy has already completed two tours of duty in Iraq and is planning on going back for a third. He even fought in the battle of Felujiah and lost most of his unit and some good friends. Why? Because he has been there and is proud of what we are trying to do. Contrary to what the press would have you believe there are a lot of people over there that appreciate what we are trying to do.

I recently learned that he is currently in CA awaiting re-deployment. He has eight other guys that are under him and were still over in Iraq. Apparently, and what the press will not tell you, is that our soldiers are no longer allowed to engage the enemy at will if they are being fired upon. That's right, now the Muslim's can fire upon us and we have been ordered to NOT fire back without permission. Then, it apparently comes down to the weapons being used. If the enemy is using a pistol, our Marines are not allowed to utilize their M1 Abrams, 50-cal, or M4's to fire back. They also have to use a pistol or similar type weapon. WTF IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE? A bullet is a bullet. They ALL are capable of killing.

Now it gets worse. His unit was under fire from a sniper and had taken cover. They radioed in and requested permission to fire back and were given authorization from the command unit. They took out the sniper (I do not know how they took him out). They are now in the U.S. in a military jail awaiting a courtmarshal trial with a possible sentence of life in prison or death for taking out the sniper. They also had to pay for their flight back to the U.S. out of their own pocket and apparently are not being provided an attorney by the JAG unit.

How could we do this to our own people? We send them over there to fight for us and our country and then tell them they can't fight back. Then when they fight back we hang them out in the wind on their own with no support from their own country? I am appalled and outraged that this is taking place.

My opinion is that this is due to the political machine of the liberal democratic party that hates America and wants to destroy it. Our soldiers who are in Iraq fighting for what us and their own lives deserve better than this.

I am going to try to find out more information, such as the unit number, date and members involved. Once I have those details, I will re-post the information. I strongly urge you to take this information and write your governors, senators, and president. I would also urge you to let others know what is going on because we are not going to see it on the news or read about it in the paper with our liberal America-hating press.

FLY NAKED!!!

More terrorists will attempt to blow something up and we will respond by further reducing what you can carry onto an airplane. I figure with all the restrictions it won't be too long before we are reduced to this. At least this company will have a "leg-up" when choosing your preferred travel arrangements. Now when you have to sit next to the smelly, fat-bastard on the airplane it's going to be a whole new ballgame.

I hope they clean the seats really well.....

Eat, Drink and Re-Marry

That's Bling....one of my very good friends. He is getting married in a few days so we took him out for a bachelor party. I am not sure if it's because it is his second wedding, or because we are all older (please don't remind any of us) but we had a fairly good time without going overboard. We didn't fly to Vegas, rent a private suite, get some hookers, rent some farm animals, and ingest enough chemicals to make a supermodel party look tame by comparison.

Bling and one of his friends spent the day at a "man salon." That's one of the ones where they apparently get large breasted women to cut your hair, give you a shave, manicure, pedicure, etc. while they have sports on flat-screen plasma TV's along with your favorite cocktail and pool tables. I didn't do this as I had partied all night the previous evening with Grashopper and Ron (that is another story in and of itself).

After that me and some other friends met them at a fairly nice bar where we had some beverages and some food. Then we trekked across town to Pops Safari Cigar Bar. It's a really cool place that is kind of hidden away in the cultural district of Fort Worth. We had some nice port, and most of the group had a good cigar (I didn't) while we told war stories of wives, g/f's, etc. Bling and his friend spent a good while discussing the entire pedicure procedure and the paraffin wax treatment.

Finally, we had to do the obligatory strip bar. Again, it was fairly tame. We had a lot of girls come by and offer table dances. I turned them all down and told them I was taking care of "my boy, here." So we hooked him up a few times and then bought a dance for one of his friends that was shy and soft-spoken. He looked like a scared little puppy in that place. It was highly amusing watching him get a table dance.

I had multiple dancers ask me if I "approved" of the marriage. So I told them that I did. They then proceeded to tell me that a lot of guys ask the dancers to talk their friend out of getting married. I was a little surprised by this. Then I thought of the actual situation. In most cases, guys will try to talk guys out of getting married. Especially if they are younger. I do see a lot of young guys getting married to women that I just don't think are right for them. I think that has a lot to do with a lack of experience and / or immaturity. In Bling's case, he has been married before and he knows what to expect. I don't see this as a problem for him.

So it was a good night. Nobody danced on stage. Nobody stripped off all their clothes and declared it "national nudist night" And nobody puked or got arrested. And absolutely nobody called me in the morning to see if I had returned the goat. All in all, not a bad evening.