Twilight

If you really like a good Vampire movie do NOT rent this one. This has got to be one of the suckiest vampire movies of all time – even beating out Plan 9 From Outer Space. Why does this movie suck so bad?

Well, it got rave reviews and people said it was great. That was the first problem. I remember the first Batman movie remake by Tim Burton. Everyone said it was awesome. It was sold out for weeks on end. People I knew had seen it five and 10 times already. I was expecting a great film and went I went to see it I was highly disappointed (though Nicholson was incredible in it).

Twilight didn’t get quite as much hype, but it wasn’t too far behind either. Little did I know that the people that must have been reviewing the film were all 12-year old girls that didn’t know anything about vampires. Cuz vampires are real, right?

Ann Rice has probably developed the vampire as a character species more than any other author. Other authors have also had their twists on the classic vampire. As a general rule of thumb we accept a few basic facts: strong, fast, drinks blood, and above all CANNOT BE IN THE FUCKING SUNLIGHT.

Why is this so important? Because it means everything happens at night. When the time magic is high and things that are evil are the most powerful. Daylight is reserved for the good and nighttime is the antithesis of things that are good. This is part of the vampire persona.

But Twilight totally twists this around and makes the vampires completely immune to daylight. In Twilight the vampires try to avoid direct sunlight, not because they’ll die but because their skin gets all sparkly – like the stupid makeup crap that only strippers and 12 year old girls wear. Can you say gay?

The rest of the film is equally as poor in that it attempts to develop a relationship with a young high-school chick and vampire that has repeated high-school about a billion times because he is eternally 17. And the film is great at portraying all the high-school drama and crap that only 12-year old girls care about to you, the audience, who is glad to be fucking out of high-school because they couldn’t stand that crap to begin with.

And the guy vampire that is supposed to be hot and good looking? He’s gay. He’s weird looking, not good looking. He acts like he’s about to come out of the closet at any moment. You think that might be the big turning point in the film, when he comes out and tells the chick he’s really a gay vampire, because the film sure as hell isn’t really going anywhere else.

These vampires are “vegetarian” vampires – meaning they don’t eat humans – and so there is very little violence or action in the film.

Mostly the closet vampire lies in the grass and stares deeply into to the eyes of the high school chick that is his co-star. No wonder the chicks loved it. I wanted to puke. He doesn’t even kiss her but one time in the whole film.

Vampires are supposed to be erotic, attractive creatures. They use their charisma, charm, and strength to overcome the will of people. They are not sissies that lie in the grass and make no effort to bone a hot high-school chick – Except in twilight they apparently are.

And should I spoil the climax and ending for you? Why not. The climax was not the guy announcing that he was gay. Instead, the g/f gets attacked by another vampire, a real vampire (except for the sunlight crap) – one that sucks human blood and is malevolent. Rather than kill her immediately he bites her, which infects her, and toys with her giving the sissy vampires a chance to save her. And then, while she is lying their dying the gay vampire guy has to save her by sucking out the venom, but not draining her blood to the point he kills her.

She wakes up in the hospital and he tells her he must leave an go away at which point she breaks into the worst acting of the entire film and tells him that he can’t, that she needs him, etc. Classic-fucking-boo-hoo crap.

They go to the high-school prom and she tells him he wants her to bite her and make her a vampire too. Of course he declines and asks “isn’t it enough to be with me for one lifetime?” ACK!! Where is my barf-bag because I am going to get sick from all the cheese I am being fed.

And why doesn’t he turn her so she can be with him forever? Because at least he is smart enough to know that if you live for a thousand years, that 80 years really isn’t that long and he can get out there and go bone some cute guy as soon as she’s gone.

He should have killed her about two hours ago and they should have been hunting his ass down AT NIGHT like a proper vampire film instead of wasting my time by watching this atrocious film.

Nuclear Dreams

I had a really bad dream the other morning. Note that I said morning and not night. Because I don’t sleep really well at night my best time to sleep is in the morning. I don’t dream often, and I usually don’t remember them but this one was a little different.

It started off fairly benignly. My and a friend were hanging out and were supposed to catch a flight to some place in the Caribbean. As dreams go, we missed the flight and ended up in some hotel. No real significance there. While in the hotel I was looking out the window and I could see the landscape – somewhere near a beach. I could make out the landscape, buildings, trees and water way off in the distance. Suddenly, there was an impact of some type, a bright flash, and then a big cloud. I thought we might be far enough to make it.

In my dream a sea of fire rushed across the landscape after the shock wave. I then knew I’d survived the shock wave, but didn’t know if we could escape the advancing fire. Again, it’s a dream so it doesn’t have to be based in much realism. Fortunately, we were in some funky concrete building and just on the edge of the advancing fire. But then I saw another impact, and flash of light.

Now I was trying to figure out why we were being attacked and again I was afraid we wouldn’t survive this one. I felt the shock wave, but the building stood. Things are getting worse. And as I stare off I see the next bomb coming in….watched it arc across the sky, and then I see it explode and the light is so blinding that I can’t see any more and am submerged into darkness. Now I know I am going to die and I have mere milliseconds to live. My mind is racing and I begin to feel the building shudder, then….
Nothing. Except I still have consciousness. Am I alive? Is this what it’s like to be dead? I can’t hear or see anything.

Slowly I begin to realize I am awake. But I didn’t jump up out of this dream like you usually do when you have a bad dream and wake up right before you die. I think that’s what was so freaky about it. Because I was apparently ½-awake already I really thought I was going to die, which is just slightly different from dreaming it outright. It’s very hard to explain but in this instance the lines between dreamland and reality were really blurred. Ever had a dream in which you incorporated real-world sounds and stimulus into your dream? If you can imagine that, and then try to picture how I dreamed that it would be close.

PhotoBucket Bullshit

I use photobucket for my blog pictures. I basically upload them into photobucket and then you see them in-line when the blog presents.

Sometimes, I really don't understand how they pick and chose what to remove from their site or what violates terms of use. Here are a few examples and the original blog posts that they were supposed to be attached to:

http://invioletlight.blogspot.com/2009/05/price-of-cheap-sex.html

No nudity, but it's awfully suggestive. The best part? It's not a real person.....

http://invioletlight.blogspot.com/2009/04/no-trespassing.html

I never did figure out why they pulled this one.....

http://invioletlight.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-was-censored-man-i-really-hate-that.html

and this one I almost understand about as much as the Real Doll chick. Again, though, there is no nudity in the picture..... I wouldn't post stuff like that!

Destroying Paper One Small Hole at a Time

My friend and I had some time yesterday so we went to the gun range to sight in my M4. It was a darned near perfect day. Mid-70’s, sunny, very mild breeze. Beautiful. So we grabbed the gun, a few hundred rounds of ammo, and a spotting scope.

Not many people were at the range, and those of us who were there were not in a particular hurry to do anything. We took our time setting up and waited until we could go down-range to put up a target.

It took us a while to get the gun sighted in. I had sighted it at about 75 feet, but due to the way a bullet rises and falls it was significantly off by the time we started shooting at 100 yards.

We finally got it, though, and ended up putting about 300 rounds through it before the day was up. Surprisingly enough, I am a tad sore in the shoulder today even though a .223 doesn’t have any kick. I guess it’s like a lot of things. Shoot it a few times and you don’t notice it. Shoot it a couple-hundred times and it’s noticeable.

Oh, and if you ever go to sight a gun in take a spotting scope. Not a pair of binoculars, but a scope. I had both and it made a huge difference when were trying to find out the gross impact area (binoculars) and the specific impact (scope).

When we got done, I was surprisingly relaxed and at peace. Hard to believe that firing a gun over and over again could do that. I think, though, that it wasn't the fact we were firing a gun so much as the repetition of the exercise. You have to be focused both mentally and physically to hit a target with a gun. You must be relaxed so that your body movement allows you to stabilize the gun to hit your target. You must breathe properly and you have to allow your mind to become clear and focused on the one thing you are trying to do – hit the target. Do that a few hundred times and it becomes a very peaceful experience.

BTW – if anyone is curious, or a gun nut, we were sighting in A2 style iron sights at 100 yards with groups at about 5” I don’t know if that is good or not, but my vision is not such that I can group much better than that.

A Word on Environmentalist

Here is a link to a speech given by Michael Crichton in San Francisco back in 2003. Crichton was one of my favorite authors, but fell out of favoritism with many people due to his unapologetically viewpoints and stance against fear mongering with regards to environmentalist and politically motivated zealots.

http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html

Crichton, as an author, is able to verbalize his opinions in ways that I am not. I simply do not have that particular talent in a way that he does. He may not be able to mow the yard as eloquently as I can, either.

I’ve often felt that politics and religion are very similar and for the same primary reason that Crichton states – that facts become irrelevant and people believe what they want to believe. If you don’t believe me, find someone with opposing political views and try to convince them that your views are the correct ones. Make sure you back it up with facts, nto beliefs. It wont’ make a difference.

The same thing is true of environmentalist fear mongering and global warming. I’ve written about this before, but Crichton is far more compelling and articulate than I am.

Grade the Government

Here is a nifty link that my friend sent to me…..
http://gradegov.com

Annoying Sales Chick

Last week, I went to Dicks Sporting Goods and picked up a couple of collapsible camping chairs. They had the super cheapies on sale for about $6.00, but I tried them out and they were uncomfortable and pretty flimsy.

I ended up getting the fat-bastard camp chairs because they were comfy, roomy, and most importantly had a mesh area on both the back and bottom of the chair. Turns out they would hold up to 350lbs, and since they were roomy (i.e. big) that is why I call them the fat-bastard camp chairs.

In any case, I take them to the counter to checkout. The girl asks me if I have a reward card. “No” I tell her. I probably do, but I don’t carry those things around with me or on key chains like everyone else. I hate these things.

So she grabs a rewards card stack and says how she can just sign me up and shows me the cards. “Fine.” I tell her. She then grabs the forum to fill out and says she’ll just need my information. “Umm…that’s why I don’t want one of those. I don’t want to fill one of those out.”

“Oh…well it’s not a problem, if you’ll just show me your ID I’ll fill it out for you.”

So I flash my ID, but I clearly did not intend to take it out and give it to her. “I can get it off your credit card……”

“No, you can’t. That’s illegal.” SURPRISE!

“What?”

“yeah, that’s illegal. You can’t copy my personal information off the credit card onto any forms or pieces of paper.”

“oh. Well they just want to send you fliers and other coupons and information.”

“exactly. That’s why I don’t want to sign up for all that.” I get enough junk mail, don't you?

She finally gave up, but I have to hand it to her. She was very persistent!!! Her manger should give her a cookie for her effort.

The Price of Cheap Sex

Somehow, we were sitting around having one of our usual ADJECTIVE conversations and we started talking about the Real Doll. Now, if you have never seen or heard of a Real Doll, you should go check out the web site, but I’ve provided a couple of pics here just for your amusement.



The concept behind the Real Doll was to provide something more than just a blow-up doll. As you can tell from the pics they are pretty realistic looking. And I loved some of the marketing points. Here are three of my favorites:

Convenient – always ready and available
Relaxing and Comforting – provides stress-free companionship
Affordable – Cheaper than most alternatives

Convenient? Yeah, it’s a freaking doll. Of course it’s always ready and available. But I’m not sure it’s 100% convenient. These are life-sized dolls after all and weigh in at about 70 ~ 80 lbs. So, where you stash this when you aren’t getting your groove on could be problematic. Of course, you could keep it in the car and hit the toll roads without too much difficulty. Feeling spry? Pull over into a rest stop.

If you leave it lying around on the couch / bed, just be prepared to get a lot of strange responses and the occasional buddy that just couldn’t help himself and had to try it out. Umm…ewww.

Stress-free companionship? Yeah, I suppose if you are the type of person that never wants to have a conversation or interact with someone that has an opinion then it is certainly stress free. No more having to appease the other person. No more emotional breakdowns, whether they be freak-out tirades or all-night cry-a-thons. And no more happy moments other than your own sadistic perverted desires being fulfilled. That should go over just fine and you can become even more anti-social and withdrawn from society in your mom’s basement.

Affordable? These things run about $7,000. That’s fairly expensive, but far more affordable than a wedding, or expensive divorce. You also wouldn’t have to pay for movies, dinners, or any other fun things that real people do. So yeah, you might get off cheaper in the long run. Somewhere there is an ROI in here…..

But being the sick, twisted, heathens that we are we wanted to see if they could make a midget Asian for us. The shortest doll they had is 4’10, and while that just fits the Little People of America’s definition for a midget, it’s not short enough. So I sent them an inquiry….

Question:
I took a look around your web site and it certainly seems that you have a highly customizable product. However, I was interested in putting together a doll that had a definitive Asian face as well as a shorter body type.

It looks like the shortest body type you make is 4’10” and I’m really interested in a midget – something shorter than 4’6”. It also didn’t appear as if you have distinctly asian faces such as Vietnamese, Chinese, or Japanese. Can you put together a custom face?

Since these are custom modifications, can I get a rough idea of the budget I should put together for such a doll?

-- END OF SUBMISSION --


And their response:

Hello Calvin,

If you want a custom doll not based on any of our existing faces and bodies you're looking at a minimum of $50,000. Such a project would take at least eight months to complete, but probably longer. However, we have two distinctly Asian faces; number 9 (Mai) and number 13 (Kaori). I know Kaori is meant to be Japanese, and I believe Mai is Chinese.

Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Amanda
Abyss Creations LLC


Dood…. $50 grand?? Are you kidding me? I don’t know about you, but if you are really that hard up you could have a lot of sex for $50k. Heck, for $50k I can buy an Asian midget I don’t mean for the night, either. I mean permanently.

My Dreams

I don’t sleep very well. I never have. I’m not sure what type of sleep disorder I deal with, but I seem to have had it all my life. There is something called the circadian rhythm, which is the cycle an organism goes through in any given 24-hour period. It regulates when you are active and when you want to sleep.

In my case, if I were left to my own devices I’d stay up until about 2:00 or 3:00am every night and then get up around 10:00am in the morning. Only because of work do I alter this and force my body to do something it doesn’t want to do.

I don’t know if it’s because I interrupt my natural rhythm or because of something else but I have never been able to sleep very well. Because of that, I don’t dream very often or at least don’t dream to the extent at which I remember them.

But I do have some common re-occurring themes in my dreams:

Theme 1 – I can’t hurt people. No matter what the situation is I can’t hurt someone. Let’s say I am dreaming that I am fighting with someone. In that case I can hit them or pull their hair or whatever all I want and it doesn’t affect them. If I have a gun, the gun fails to fire correctly (as in the bullet barely travels out of the gun) or just magically doesn’t inflict any real damage to the person if it manages to fire.

Theme 2 – Ever seen those long overpasses used to interconnect highways? Well, in my dreams there is often one that goes from one highway to another and I have to traverse it in my vehicle (the actual vehicle is irrelevant). As you go up and onto the ramp and it starts to curve in the new direction of travel it also twists so that the asphalt surface becomes perpendicular to the ground as opposed to parallel to it. If you were to travel fast enough, you could stick to the surface and go around the ramp. This reminds me of playing with little cars and stuff as a kid. You’d build these things where the cars stick to the surface from the g-force. But in my dreams you can’t go fast enough and the whole car slides off the ramp and falls into space.

I never land, nor do I wake up in some kind of terror sweat. The dream just ends. It’s interesting that the girl I date has the same type of dream so I wonder if this is a common dream? Note that I am not afraid of these ramps in real life for any reason, including their height.

Not Posting Much Lately

I haven’t been writing much lately. Oh…I’ve been here. I’ve had time. I just haven’t been motivated. I think the reason I haven’t been motivated is because I really don’t want to make this a political blog but with all of the crap the Obama administration is pulling it’s hard not to write about it all the time. I just don’t want to do it. I get sick of it. For example, did you know Obama tried to sneak a bill in that would force business owners that have more than three employees to unionize? How crazy is that?

But I got out and rode a bit this weekend. Last weekend the weather report called for rain and it never rained. I never rode because it was supposed to rain. This weekend it called for rain in the evening, but not during the day. I double-checked the radar and there was nothing on it and the reports were still calling for evening storms.

We took off and got out a good ways and got caught in the storms. So much for the weather report. I had my mesh jacket on and that doesn’t do anything to keep water off of you so I was soaked pretty much instantaneously. It was also cold. Great. And then it really started to come down and it got a little sketchy on the road. We had to slow way down and take it easy. About ½-way back, I was so soaked that the water finally trickled down into my jeans and I could feel my balls getting wet. Now I had wet balls. Ick. Nothing is worse than cold, wet balls while riding a bike.

But we made it back without any incidents and it’s a good thing we did because we were right ahead of the big storm cells. When they hit it got back. Heavy rain, hail, pretty much everything except a tornado, and there may have been one of those.

We sat out in the storms and had a bug boil that evening. Fortunately, my friend had large covered patios so nobody got too soaked....

Right to Carry

Yesterday I was at the gun show. Right now you can’t find the Bersa .380 Concealed Carry model. Nobody has ‘em because they can’t keep them in stock. Because of that I ended up picking up a new Kimber Ultra CDP II .45 for carry. Yes, I know…big gun, but it comes in a small package and compared to something like a .380 double-stack it is actually a little smaller and weighs about the same.

I got a pretty good deal because Bling! had the same gun and was looking to step up to the same model gun, but with a larger (5”) barrel. Because I was looking at buying the exact same one I ended up buying his off him for a couple hundred less than it was going for at the show. That also gave him enough cash to pick up the one he wanted. We both ended up happy, and since Bling! takes immaculate care of his guns I didn’t have any problems buying a used one off of him.

Of course, I can’t find bulk .45 target rounds because everybody is out. So while I was able to load it with some nice hydro shock ammo, it may be a while before I can get to the range and finish breaking the gun in and get used to it. I’ve shot the gun before, and it kicks quite a bit (due to its small size and being a .45).

But why carry at all?

About a year or so ago I decided to get my CHL (concealed handgun license). I had a few reasons for this, but there were three prevailing reasons:

1 – the writing was on the wall. The republicans couldn’t possibly hold any control over the white house in the upcoming election. It was likely that the house, senate, white house, and Supreme Court would soon be under democratic control and those democrats in powerful positions favor gun control. Better to get it while I could, before a law gets passed that makes it impossible to get one.

2 – While I didn’t carry my other guns too often I did take them in my truck from time to time if I was traveling. Though some of the laws had changed in Texas regarding this, I figured it would be a lot less hassle if I was legal to carry at all times rather than deal with esoteric loopholes and allowances in the law. This way, there was no question that I was legal to have it on me.

3 – it affords me an opportunity to protect myself, my family, and my friends at just about any and all times. Don’t get me wrong, that is a huge responsibility and one that should not be taken lightly.

But despite getting my CHL I wasn’t packing heat. This really wasn’t an issue but I had been thinking about it more and more. The more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me that I wasn’t exercising my rights appropriately. My g/f says that most people scream and bitch about their rights yet rarely exercise them responsibly. While I wouldn’t say that I was being irresponsible, I would say that I wasn’t exercising them.

Statistically speaking CHL owners that have a chance to draw their guns usually survive the encounter / situation. Perps are not so lucky. Those CHL owners that never drew, or were unable to draw, don’t always end up so lucky. Let’s face it, the truth of the matter is that in some situations someone will walk up to another person and shoot them point-blank without provocation. In those situations you don’t have a chance and it doesn’t matter if you are packing or not.
So my thought process was that here I am with the right to carry, the right to defend myself or others, the responsibility that goes with it and I wasn’t carrying. If I got into a bad situation and got shot or allowed someone else to get shot and I didn’t have my gun on me what does that say? You wouldn’t buy a refrigerator, car, or some other item and not use it would you?

Because of that I decided to start carrying on a more regular basis. I’m still figuring out exactly how I want to carry, where to carry, etc. But it’s a start. It’s a great responsibility and I hope and pray I never have to use it. However, if that situation arises I also hope that I’ll be able to make the right decision when the time comes.

Gun Toting Wuss

Lately I’ve been carrying around a Kimber Ultra CDP II to see if I like the feel of it. It’s actually on loan to me from a friend….well, technically I bought it for $1 just in case something happened. Maybe I should sell it back for market value?

In any event, it’s a nice gun but I just can’t quite get used to having it in the small of my back when I am driving. It seems to really bother me when I am seated in a vehicle and forces me to have to twist my spine / hips out of alignment.

Unfortunately, the Bersa .380 pistols are not much smaller. So I may be in a situation that forces me to take it out / off when I ride in the truck. Not sure how that will work with other people’s vehicles.

I guess I am just a wuss, but I don’t see how everyone else drives around with one in the small of their back and that it doesn’t bother them.

It's not a Pink Elephant

but maybe the two martini lunch is getting to you a bit....

Tea Bagging

No, it’s not what you are thinking. Last week, on Tax Day thousands of people gathered across the country to hold a tea party. This tea party was symbolic of the first Boston Tea Party, but it wasn’t just about taxes.

You might not know that if you watched the news. The press coverage was astoundingly horrible. Liberal bias skewed the entire coverage and what little bit of a story there was. If you watched the news you might be inclined to believe it was a bunch of radical right-wing groups protesting income taxes.

The truth of the matter is that it was people from both sides of the fence – republicans and democrats. And the protest was not specifically about taxes, but the oppression and expansion of the federal government in just about every aspect of our lives. People that want to get back to a government by the people, for the people, that adheres to a unified standard. You know, there is this thing called the Constitution of the United States? Our government seems to have lost sight of this.

And the humorous headline on this post? That actually comes from CNN where they referred to the tea parties as “tea bagging” and the people as “tea baggers.” Of course they couldn’t say it with a straight face because they knew what they were saying. Disgusting.

Happy Tax Day!!!

According to a book I just finished reading the first taxes were levied and recorded in human history. It does not indicate who thought this brilliant scheme up, but let me take this opportunity to call him or her a bastard.

Hope you got yours done....

No Trespassing!

Well....photobucket apparently removed my image for use violation. I'm not sure how a picture of a sign in a field, with no harsh language, no nudity, etc., violated their usage but let me describe the sign...

It was a picture of a sign, posted to a fence post in some random field with haystacks behind it. The sign read "If you can read this you're in range."


I liked this sign. I felt it was pretty straightforward and to the point. After my nieces baptism we were eating lunch over at my sisters. Somehow the conversation turned towards medical shows and stuff of that nature. My father pointed out that statistically speaking people are more likely to survive a gunshot wound than a stabbing if they make it to the hospital. I pointed out that people obviously aren’t using the right caliber.

Happy Easter!!

I went to church today. Not because it was Easter. Not because I felt compelled to attend church for spiritual reasons. No, I went because my niece got Baptized. I was afraid that I would be struck down by lightning upon entering the church, but I survived that without too much difficulty.

The church was huge. Apparently there are over 25,000 members of the church!! They have a bus schedule to get you to remote parking lots. And it certainly wasn’t like when I attended church. The seating was stadium style with section numbers and everything. How do you get the good seats? I guess you “pay” more for your ticket.

This was one of those churches where they have full bands, a video production, stage show with props, the whole nine-yards. It was odd to me that we couldn’t watch my niece get baptized directly. They wanted us in the theater so they could stick it up on the big screen and show us a pre-recorded testimonial before she got dunked. The dunking was live, but everything else was recorded.

Before the baptism they had a song, then a quick prayer. The baptism took all of about 10 minutes for several people to get baptized. Then they broke into song….and then another song…and people were holding their hands up to feel the power of Jesus and the collection plates were passing and I said “fuck this, I’m out.” I bailed. Then I realized that even in the atrium they had speakers and the show on the monitors. Then the guy starts preaching and even in the atrium I couldn’t take it. So I went and stood outside in the rain to get away. Some of the people that stayed told me that it got even more theatrical as it went on. Apparently, they had green berets guarding Jesus’ tomb and that was proof that he rose from the dead. I had never heard of this, but…umm…OK. Whatever it takes.

Now I love my niece and I am glad that I got to see her get baptized because it was very important to her. However, I didn’t really appreciate feeling like I was supposed to sit there for a 2 hour preaching session about how I needed to be saved. And my niece got a “do-over.” Apparently when they baptized her they screwed up the order and so our photographer wasn’t ready. They had to do it again after the preaching to get the good photos. I’ve never seen anyone have a mulligan on a baptism, but I don’t exactly attend a lot of baptisms.

Off The West Coast of Africa

I have no idea why I am there....

it certainly doesn't feel like I am there.

Harley Davidson Seeking Bailout Cash

Harley Davidson, like most companies, is perusing bailout money. Yes, The Motor Company, has apparently fallen from grace with the financial gods.

For years now, I've thought HD made a significantly inferior product to the Japanese alternatives. In the last few years HD has made significant improvements in their technology and quality control. They had to. They were rapidly losing market share to superior motorcycles that cost less money. No doubt this had some impact on their current situation.
But what really gets me is that they pretty much did the same thing banks did. That is, target individuals with subprime loans on their grossly expensive motorcycles. HD reportedly had 30% of their loan portfolio in subprime loans. More than 5% of their loans were delinquent 30 days or more at the end of 2008. I have a friend that fell into this category.

This pisses me off. Once again we have a company that engages in poor business practices and now we may bail them out as well. Why do we keep doing this?

Recently, a friend of mine sent me an editorial comment based upon the latest round of trillion-dollar expenditures from the Obama administration. My response to him was as follows:

You know, [my friend]....I can't even keep up with all the spending and bail-outs anymore. I wasn't a huge McCain supporter, but I recall him saying that he would start cutting programs and that Obama would spend, spend, spend. Of course, McCain was pretty far off target because he only estimated a $1 Trillion dollar budget that Obama had in mind. We have already surpassed that and are heading for more.

It's interesting that people really liked to rail on Bush about the deficit and his spending. Did you know that when Bush left office the 2009 budget had a deficit of "only" $500 Billion? Even with the war in Iraq and the first bail-out and all that it was that low. So they railed on him at how much he spent. The big one was "Bush doubled the deficit in his eight years in office." Great. Obama tripled it in his first quarter.

I'm a pretty firm believer in capitalism and keeping the government out of the private enterprise. I do not believe that we should be bailing all these companies out. I really don't believe that we should be bailing them out and trying to take control over them and that's what part of all these stimulus bills are doing. I don't believe that we should be earmarking all this pork and continuing to run up the deficit that our grandkid’s grandkids will have to pay for. If anything, history showed us that if the government stayed out of it that we returned to prosperity in a short amount of time. The first great depression lingered because Truman got the government involved. The previous depressions recovered fairly quickly because the government didn't' get involved.

Even the individual states are filing cease-and-desist orders against the federal government to keep them out of states business. That's why so many states are turning down the money. They don't want the strings attached to it. The private companies and banks are doing the same thing. But the government is forcing it down their throats. Why? So they can have control of them. Our constitution was explicitly written to prevent this type of behavior and yet it's happening.

For a long time, people miss-used the term "fascist." The true definition of fascism is a government controlled private entity. I think that it’s what the Obama administration is trying to do. I think that the Democrats finally see their window of opportunity to turn us into a socialist state. I wouldn't go so far as to say communist, yet. But socialism is usually the first step to communism. Destroy the economy and make the people reliant on the government and you have an easy avenue for socialism. It's already happening. The government is in the process of federalizing banks, and private enterprise (fascism) and pushing more socialist programs through all this spending.

I also think that this spending is a slush fund for the DNC to continue to steamroll their war on republicans and capitalism. And further, it's quite obvious that at least some of this pork and the ludicrous things they are doing are to pay off Obama's buddies that helped get him into office. Just look at the presidential order to waive contract negotiations and mandate that all road construction go to unionized companies.

I'm not saying that I have the right answer. I'm not sure what that is, but I certainly believe that we should be treading lightly and not pushing these bills through. [my g/f] once said that if someone tells you they have the definitive, de-facto answer, that they probably are wrong and haven't examined the issue well enough. I tend to agree with that, but even she can't see that is exactly what the DNC and Obama have said, which makes me wonder.....

No Food in the House

Bling! came over the other day with Jake. Budda was fighting the wind outside and trying to cook on the pit. I invited Bling! to a beverage. He accepted and then commented how I didn't have any food in the house. Hey man, I had been gone for about a month straight, what did you expect?

But even without having food in the house I made enough dinner for three people and we still had a few leftovers. I made three tasty steaks with sides of green beans and Mac 'n Cheese, and a bottle of wine. Not a bad stay at home meal without "any food" to go around.

Some People Do Care

It’s good to know that some people do read the blog from time to time. I recently got this in my personal email:

Hey you fuckin' SLACKER !

I suppose you are going to use that 'lame' excuse that you are traveling, and can't update your blog. Whats happening to you ???

Umm…yeah… This last month has been a bit hectic and somewhat of a blur. I was working on a project for the power plant I had mentioned earlier. More to the point, I was working on a project for multiple power plants. We had a brutal and aggressive schedule of covering all of these plants in three weeks, then writing the report.

I had to leave town to do it, of course. My average day over the last month was to get up between 5:00am and 5:15am. No big deal to you morning people, but I am not one of them. Never have been, never will be. And no, I will not “get used to it if you just keep getting up early.” It pisses me off and makes me miserable. If you can get used to being pissed off and miserable, then I suppose you can get to it. No wonder so many of you are grumpy until you get your coffee. Try waking up a little bit later. I remember one morning we left to go get some breakfast and when we arrived they weren’t open yet. My friend and co-worker turned to the other guy and said “See? Even the breakfast people aren’t up, yet.”

Once we got to the plants it was generally a rough day of cerebral as well as physical activity (hey! It can take a while to make your way through a power plant). Sometimes we’d work through lunch, sometimes we got a break. Our afternoons generally ended somewhere around 4:00. Then it was off to the hotel to catch up on emails and other responsibilities until it was time for dinner. We’d all meet back up and go over the day as well as the over-all project. By the time I’d make it back to the hotel room and get settled down it would be between eight and nine o’clock. Time to finish up a few….more emails….before….the FUCKING ALARM IS GOING OFF AGAIN!

Three weeks of that, with about 2 whole days off before I made it home. I missed my mom’s birthday, Bling’s birthday, and my own birthday (a few others are in there somewhere for good measure). I worked the weekend I got home and then my other friend and co-worker flew in to help write the report. Now it was time to compile all that information into a report. That report also had to include a strategy, design, and summary that the plants could utilize. I know far more about power plants than I ever wanted to.

We rented out a crappy little conference room at a hotel for $200.00 and held up in there for a week pulling more 10+ hour days to get the thing written. That weekend? Worked right through it, again. Then I flew off to Portland and spent a few days there before I got back home. Worked all day last Friday and finally took the weekend off. Oh, sure, I could have worked, but I really needed a break.
Somewhere in between I found time to get my bills paid, start on my income taxes, got some yard work done, worked on my website (we are almost in beta!), and almost get caught up on expenses.

For the most part, I simply have been too busy or too sick of the computer and writing stuff to work on the blog. I have to drag myself to my desk to get anything done right now. I’m completely burned out. But here it is. Here is something to read. Hope you enjoy it, you slave-driving bastards!

PS – Your Cats are in the Freezer

The week before last I took off on vacation and headed up to Bozeman, MT to see some friends and get some runs in with my g/f. We both worked like dogs the week before going up there…all the way until the last minute and then we caught our flight and took off.

It was a bit late, local time and really late “our time” by the time we got there. We stayed at my friend and co-workers house. He and his wife had left to go to Cancun, so we had the place while they were gone. All we had to do was take care of their cats, Cisco and Sadie. Little did I know Saidie was short for “Sadistic.”

I had a surprise of chocolate and champagne waiting for us when we got there since it was Valentine’s day so we stayed up late drinking champagne and nibbling on chocolate. I’d say it was about 2:30am according to my body, even though it was only 1:30am local time. We finally crashed out and then at about 3:58am I woke up by hearing a faint, but distinctive chrip!. WTF? I start to drift back off and, chirp! there it is again! One eye open, mind barely functioning…Chirp! OK, now I am awake but not quite thinking straight and again....chirp! ARRGGHH!! It's a freaking smoke detector! You know when the batteries die they emit a chirp about every minute to let you know the battery is dead. Why does this always happen at night??

So, here I am in a strange house searching for batteries at 4:00am. No luck, and I was about to go to the store but then I realized the one that was chirping was the one over the staircase, about 2 stories up, which I couldn't easily get to anyway. I used a pillow to cover my ears and got some rest, but not much. The next day we got a battery the next day and I fixed that bastard!!

But little did I know I was still not to enjoy a good nights sleep. Sadie is a fat little furball of a cat. She must weigh a zillion pounds and while she isn’t very agile and can’t move very fast she knows exactly where her cat treats are. My friend warned us ahead of time that Sadie would wake us up if there wasn’t plenty of food and water so I made sure she and Cisco had plenty of both before crashing out.

As it turns out Sadie will wake you up....even if there is plenty of food. At about 4:00am she started batting on the door. I got up to see what was going on and she looked at me and then ran off for a cat treat!! I double-checked their food and water, yup....plenty there. So she wanted a cat treat, but I didn’t' give her one as I didn't want to reinforce negative behavior. She did this about two or three more times during the morning.

She also woke me up the next morning doing the same thing at about the same time. This time, though, I opened the door and told her to knock it off and when she ran for a cat treat I didn't follow her out. The following day she waited until about 5:00am but did the same thing. My g/f and I took turns opening the door and screaming at the cat, but not giving her any cat treats. By the time we left she stopped batting on the door, or if she did do it she wouldn't be there when we opened the door. She was learning.

Cisco, the other cat was pretty cautious. We didn’t even see him for about three days and then he finally would come about ½ way down the stairs and watch us. By the next night he finally came up to us and once he realized we’d pet and scratch him it was game over. He wouldn’t leave us alone after that.

We wanted to do something nice for my friends since they let us have their house and we put a little care package together with some wine, cigars, flowers, etc. We also did all the laundry and cleaned up so that they could come home to a clean house and not have to deal with anything. Because Sadie was driving us crazy, we had this thought of signing the card and adding:

" PS, your cats are in the freezer. "

I Need Four Jobs

And so do you to cover the spread.

Pelosi recently was quoted as saying "every month that we do not have an economic recovery package 500 million Americans lose their jobs." But it isn’t the first time she said it! She also said it during a Jan. 18th interview on Fox News Sunday. She was corrected then, but obviously didn’t figure it out.

Of course the press didn’t rake her over the coals or point out how stupid she is. They'd better do something quick! At this rate, my grandchildren will be unemployed 10 years before they're born!

And this no doubt takes into consideration job loss in all 57 states.

The “Stimulus” Passed

You know, when I started writing in here I really didn’t want this to be a political blog in particular. Lately, though, I am so disappointed in our government that I find myself writing more and more topics about politics.

I saw last night that the stimulus bill passed. We all knew it would. The democrats are determined to turn us into a socialist country and I think we are seeing the tip of the iceberg. Let’s face it, they didn’t need any Republican votes for it to pass. When you have a single party controlling the house, senate and presidents office you can pretty much do what you want.

The one thing I question is how constitutional this is….nobody seems to mind. I’ve only heard a few other people argue that perhaps we shouldn’t be doing this at all. That’s kind of the way I feel about it.

Now we have to deal with….and so do our great-great-great grandkids.

Finally On Vacation!

Last week was rough. I probably had a 90-hour work week in and the most stressful start to a vacation that I can remember in a long, long time. I was wrapping up some reports and designs for a new project that we are trying to land. It’s one of these multi-million dollar projects that will have me on the road and tied up for a good three to six months. I hope we get it, though.

But now I am in Bozeman….back to the land of ice and snow. It’s 29 here, and actually feels like winter as opposed to back home where my azaleas are blooming because it’s been so warm. They are obviously confused as to what season it is.

I plan on getting some snowboarding in as well as spending time with my homies and having some beverages.

Bodily Fluid Spill Kit

I saw one of these while in PA. No kidding.

Um…ewwww?

And Even More Holes at the 2nd Amendment….

Here is one from my dad’s blog. Another anti-gun movement bill that they are probably going to pass.

Shooting More Holes at the 2nd Amendment

It's starting..... or continuing, however you want to say it. BTW, this bill is retroactive. So, as opposed to having to register all new firearms, you must register ALL of your firearms (even antiques, etc.) within two years after this bill goes active, should it pass.

Why do we care? Because the govt. has NO RIGHT to know what I own or don't own in the privacy of my home and it's a small step in banning firearms. They can't take them away from you if they don't know where they are.


H.R.45 Title: To provide for the implementation of a system of licensing for purchasers of certain firearms and for a record of sale system for those firearms, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Rush, Bobby L. [IL-1] (introduced 1/6/2009) Cosponsors (None) Latest Major Action: 1/6/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

SUMMARY AS OF: 1/6/2009--Introduced.

Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009 - Amends the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act to prohibit a person from possessing a firearm unless that person has been issued a firearm license under this Act or a state system certified under this Act and such license has not been invalidated or revoked. Prescribes license application, issuance, and renewal requirements.

Prohibits transferring or receiving a qualifying firearm unless the recipient presents a valid firearms license, the license is verified, and the dealer records a tracking authorization number. Prescribes firearms transfer reporting and record keeping requirements. Directs the Attorney General to establish and maintain a federal record of sale system.

Prohibits: (1) transferring a firearm to any person other than a licensee, unless the transfer is processed through a licensed dealer in accordance with national instant criminal background check system requirements, with exceptions; (2) a licensed manufacturer or dealer from failing to comply with reporting and record keeping requirements of this Act; (3) failing to report the loss or theft of the firearm to the Attorney General within 72 hours; (4) failing to report to the Attorney General an address change within 60 days; or (5) keeping a loaded firearm, or an unloaded firearm and ammunition for the firearm, knowingly or recklessly disregarding the risk that a child is capable of gaining access, if a child uses the firearm and causes death or serious bodily injury.

Prescribes criminal penalties for violations of firearms provisions covered by this Act.
Directs the Attorney General to: (1) establish and maintain a firearm injury information clearinghouse; (2) conduct continuing studies and investigations of firearm-related deaths and injuries; and (3) collect and maintain current production and sales figures of each licensed manufacturer.

Authorizes the Attorney General to certify state firearm licensing or record of sale systems.

Credit Card Crunch!

I have a Citi Aadvantage card that I use for business. I only put my business purchases on it. I like it because I get the miles / points for using the card. Recently, I was going over my statement and noticed a little flier that came with my statement. Even though I have been using this card for seven years and have never missed a payment my rate was suddenly going to be changed to prime-rate plus 10.99% - roughly 19.99% as of today.

WTF? Are you kidding me? Apparently they are doing this to everyone. So I called them. I was calm and courteous, and they dropped my rate all the way down to 10%, which is even lower than my existing rate.

I’ve heard a lot of credit cards are doing this, so you might want to check your statements and all the extra junk they put in your statement. Give ‘em a ring, be nice and see what happens!

Obama’s Empty Promises

Or maybe not promises. Maybe it’s just the usual shuck and jive from a politician. There has been a lot of talk about the proposed stimulus package. You may or may not be aware that in the House of Representatives the Republicans voted unanimously against it. Didn’t matter too much because the Democrats passed it anyway. In case you haven’t been keeping up, they control both the house and the senate and can do just about whatever they want. It will, however, be harder for them to pass it in the senate.

Republicans are generally against the package because it gives a lot of money to private enterprises and the tax cuts primarily benefit the poor – pretty much the people that don’t pay any taxes anyway. Here is Obama “spreading it around” for you. This is your money being taken away and given to the poor.

I’m not surprised at what is proposed in the package. The DNC has had a long history of supporting proposals and spending for socialist programs. These aren’t always a bad thing. The Republicans have a long history of voting against this type of thing. So what is the rub?

The rub is this – Obama promised to bring people together. He promised to work for bipartisanship. But he’s not really trying. Why do I say that? Because this bill isn’t even close to something Republicans would be willing to vote for. Did that matter? No. The DNC pushed it through the house, and they will try to do the same thing in the senate. Obama is well aware of this, yet he proposed no changes to the plan that might appease the Republican party.

Yesterday while at the gym there were several DNC politicians that accused primary party leaders of abusing their power and influence. These folks chose to remain anonymous (I don’t blame them) but basically said “…the house leader and other democratic party leaders told us to not read it and just vote for it.”

This bill is about as partisan as it gets. And I don’t see Obama doing squat to change it.

I also noticed that Obama is looking to pass the bill that would basically provide federally funded insurance to all children. This is an interesting bill. There are numerous reasons to pass it and there are numerous reasons to not pass it.

Part of the stimulus package is to provide insurance to people that are out of work. He claims its so that people who lost their jobs can still have insurance.

Both plans are great ideas in theory but they both give me pause for different reasons. How long does the insurance last? And, did the people have to have a job in the first place? Can someone not have had a job and still get the insurance?

Socialized plans to take care of people that fall through the cracks is not a bad idea. Plans to take care of children because their parents haven’t provided for them, or unable to provide for them, is not a bad idea. But unilaterally providing health insurance to anyone who chooses not to work is bullshit.

Obama said something to the effect that we are not a nation that leaves its people behind. That’s a good thought, but we aren’t the same country we were even just 30 years ago, much less 100 or 200 years ago. We aren’t the same country where people work hard to better themselves, and through that process better our country. We are now a country that expects to be taken care of, a country that wants what is coming to them because they are owed something, and a country that has a vast majority of people that simply to not want to work to better themselves or their country. Those are old ideals. They exist, but it’s blatantly obvious to anyone that these ideals are not shared amongst the majority of the population. And for those people, the ones that do not share these ideals, I don’t have empathy for them if they get left behind.

Folks – we must be careful here. Obama is ramming nationalized health-care down our throat. The DNC is taking “baby” steps to move us closer to socialism. And while it sounds like a grandiose plan….it…does….NOT…work.

More on Bonuses and Executives

I think I’ve posted several articles on this, but you keep hearing about it over and over again. The American public is enraged that executives on Wall Street are still getting bonuses. My initial reaction is to be upset, too. But I also put it in some perspective. We have to keep in mind that some of theses people only get a bonus. No bonus = no pay. You certainly can’t expect someone to work for free and that is no different than any other industry.

But, before you get mad that I am defending *them* please keep in mind that I said it’s all about perspective. The average Wall Street executive still pulls a 6 or 7 figure salary. While it may cost more to live in NYC, it doesn’t cost that much more. So while I don’t think it’s right to say “no bonuses” I do think it’s right to cut them back and bring these people down to earth some.

Where I really get bent is the executives that make millions of dollars while driving the companies into the ground. I absolutely reject the argument that big companies need to keep paying them big salaries to retain the talent. Bullshit. Scrap the million dollar bonuses and let them walk if they don’t like it. Where are they going to go? Nobody is hiring and nobody is hiring you if you come from a company that you ran into the ground. What do they think? Someone is going to look at their resume and compare them to another failed executive that ruined a company, but not by as much? Is that how it’s supposed to work? Fuck them. Let them walk. Let them go work at some shit-hole job for minimum wage. They can sell their porches and leave their Manhattan apartments. Hello? Welcome to earth.

And something that really pisses me off? While all of these layoffs are going on. While millions of Americans are losing their jobs because the banks won’t continue to extend lines of credit? The same morons that got us into this mess, the executives, have kept their jobs. That’s right. 90% of the executives at the top banks and businesses getting bailed out have kept their jobs while laying off their employees. What the hell is wrong with us?

Oh, and I’m sorry – but President Obama jumping on his high horse at this point is ridiculous and hypocritical. First off, he is part of the reason we are in this mess. Before becoming President he and his buddies were part of the Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac bust. Secondly, the government missed its opportunity to enforce any type of control of how the money was spent when they gave it over to these guys without any provisions. Sorry Barack, but it’s too late, now. You can’t just step in and tell them how to run their companies.

Too Smart?

I met up with my good friend Stan and his wife Karla for drinks. We were all sitting around talking and Stan told me that he had asked his son(s) if they wanted to come along. They were on the fence about it until Stan said I would be there. Apparently they didn’t want to come, then.

That kind of bothered me so I asked why. Apparently, their youngest son (who is about 22) said that I was too smart. I guess it bothered him. As much as that is a compliment it bothered me that he didn’t want to be around me. I have never though that I make an effort to intimidate people in this fashion – at least not consciously.

I Should Be a Breeder

I was out to dinner with Youngblood and his g/f Jess. We were trying to have a nice dinner but there was a family of breeders with a screaming kid. I get really irritated at that. I understand that kids aren’t always going to behave perfectly and there are legitimate reasons as to why they act they way they do. I’m much more appreciative if the parent makes an effort to quiet the kid down. But by either ignoring the kid or failing in being able to quiet them down you need to understand that you are ruining MY dinner….along with everyone else’s. Nobody wants to hear that shit.

I was commenting to YB (Young Blood) and Jess that I don’t appreciate that. It’s one of the reasons I don’t have kids. I can go out to eat when I want for a quiet meal because I don’t have a rug rat running around. YB made some comment and Jess said …”but he should breed. He’s got good genes.” I think that me having good genes is debatable, but I appreciated the comment.

Shoping on Superbowl Sunday

Last night was Superbowl XLIII. Until yesterday morning I didn’t even know who was playing for sure. I knew the Steelers were going to play since my brother-in-law is a huge Steelers fan. As it turns out, they won so I am sure he is happy today!

I took the opportunity to go out to dinner with a few friends and then hit the grocery store. Good timing. I think I saw about six people total in the entire store (not counting the staff). I used to shop at about 2:00am after band practice and it was the same way. It’s nice when you don’t have to dodge people and put up with screaming kids or long lines.

I may have to make this a regular event. There was only one problem – the chips and beer isles were destroyed. Imagine that.

Why We Hate You Bastards

“you” being a CEO or other ridiculously over-paid figure head in any company that participated in the financial frenzy and subsequent meltdown of the financial market. A recent report has been leaked that former Merill Lynch CEO John Thain was cutting budgets, laying people off, and dumping business, back in 2008. At the same time, he spent a whopping $1.2 million on renovating his office.
Yes. Not his house. Not his ranch. His office. Sorry, you’re fired….but before you leave, can you tell me what you think of my $87,000 rug?

No, I am not kidding. Check this list out:
$2,700 for six wall sconces.

$5,000 for a mirror in his private dining room.

$11,000 for fabric for a "Roman Shade.”

$13,000 for a chandelier in the private dining room.

$15,000 for a sofa.

$16,000 for a "custom coffee table.”

$18,000 for a “George IV Desk.”

$25,000 for a "mahogany pedestal table.”

$28,000 for four pairs of curtains.

$35,000 for something called a "commode on legs.”

$37,000 for six chairs in his private dining room.

$68,000 for a "19th Century Credenza" in his office.

$87,000 for a pair of guest chairs.

$87,000 for an area rug in Thain's conference room

and another area rug for $44,000.

$230,000 to his driver for one year’s work.

$800,000 to hire celebrity designer Michael Smith, who is currently redesigning the White House for the Obama family for just $100,000.

That’s unbelievable. I guess when you pay yourself a few ten or twenty million a year, what’s 1% of that to remodel your office?

A guy I know is a client of mine at a company. He is the only guy working his particular department and is on call 24 x 7. They laid off the other guy to cut back on expenses. They also need to spend a little money on some network upgrades, but don’t have the budget. He asked for a raise and was denied. No money.

Yet, they manage to pay three consults $30,000 each, every month to do project management. That’s $90,000 a month in consulting….but there isn’t any money for the raise.

Then you look at companies like AiG and others and it just makes you sick. My favorite part? We bailed ‘em out. After all the bullshit and all the frivolous spending and the horrible management decisions we, the taxpayers, bailed ‘em out. The companies we bailed out are still squandering millions of dollars.

And speaking of the bailout….nice to see the banks extending credit lines so people and businesses can continue to do business. Oh? What’s that? They aren’t doing that? They are spending the money on investments and other business ventures? Gee…too bad we gave it to ‘em on silver platter without any provisions on how to spend it.

That’s why we hate you. We work hard for our money. We go to work every day and grind it out to have a nice living and an xbox-360. You spend it with disregard and respect for your fellow man and then the government hands it right back.

Death Socks

Everyone should have a pair….



And why do I have a pair? I wear them when I ride my mountain bike. They go particularly well with my bike shoes…. Yes, more specialty items. The right socks, with the right shoes, which are just for biking. My g/f says that I have a special tool for everything. Trust me, there are a lot of things that I don’t have.

I’m riding a lot because I am getting ready to go snowboarding and I want my legs to be in shape. I remember the first time I ever went skiing (I didn’t snowboard then). I was trying to figure out my budget so I asked my friend how many days we thought we’d ski. He said maybe two or three days. We were going to be there just over a week. What?? Why only two or three days? He said it was because I’d be too sore to ski more than that.

Fuck that. I was much younger and already in better shape, but I started rollerblading and working out every single day. Sometimes I’d rollerblade over 10 miles a day at least three days a week. It paid off. I went skiing and was up on the mountain all but one day. I wasn’t sore or particularly tired after a good day on the slopes. Of course, I didn’t ski very well either as I was learning. But I did a black run before my first week was up. The other folks were too sore to ski so they did other things.

I plan to board about four days out of the week that I’ll be on vacation. I have to get my legs in shape therefore I am back to blading and biking. And if I am going to bike, I need the right socks….

Obama’s Inauguration

I wanted to watch the inauguration. Whether you like it or not, it’s a fairly historic moment for us as a country. It’s the first time someone other than a white, Anglo Saxon male took the oath and office of the President of the United States of America. Black people in particular should be proud. We’ve come a long way from when we treated black people as property and sub-human. Not that we don’t have a long way to go, but it’s a step in the right direction.

I had told several people the day before that I wanted to watch the inauguration. For some odd reason people kept trying to schedule stuff for me to do during the inauguration. I was getting upset and started telling them “no.”

Schools apparently were having a big problem with it. Why it couldn’t be considered a great opportunity to experience history and be utilized as a learning experience is beyond me. I don’t know why schools had such a problem with it. If I had a kid, they would have stayed home that day.

But I did have to work and unlike a lot of people I only have one TV and it’s not in my office. So I took a little time off to go watch it. I only got to see part of it. From about the time that Bush and Obama left the limos at the Capitol Building until just after Obama’s speech is what I saw.

It looked like it was pretty chilly and the reporters said it was 27f. Nice. I was entirely surprised at the number of people that turned out, but it was still a little shocking to see. I don’t know what the final counts were but the people were packed in like sardines for about a mile back. Who the hell could see anything from that far back? I guess that the point was that they were there. Umm….OK, I had a much nicer view on my big screen and I wasn’t freezing my balls off or unable to get to a beverage or the bathroom for two hours.

I was surprised so many important figureheads and members of the government were all in one place. Yes, it was historic but one good bomb and it would have wiped out a huge chunk of our government leaders in one fell swoop. Aside from the obvious human tragedy maybe this would have been a good thing? Everyone keeps talking about change and hope, that certainly would have been a lot of change and you’d be hoping that someone figures out what to do.

In any event it was nicely coordinated and everyone seemed to be very civil to one another. I thought Aretha Franklin was a nice touch even though she completely butchered My Country Tis of Thee. Why do really incredible vocalists feel the need to over dramatize everything?

I also thought the first priest / preacher was extremely dramatic. I think he practiced his deliverance while watching William Shatner.

Obama and the Justice fudged the oath a tad. I would have been nervous, too. Not an easy thing to make history and bear the responsibility.

And then Obama gave his speech. I’ve only seen him speak a few times and one of those was a non-political speech. He is a very eloquent and articulate speaker. He gives great speeches. But his speech bothered me. It bothered me because in his speech he reinforced several beliefs and doctrines that he is going to embrace that I feel are wrong.

I’m not convinced. I don’t believe he is “The One.” It certainly seems that the attitude of some peoples are that he is going to fly in and save the country and hand them whatever they need on a silver platter. I have hope, but my hope is that he simply does a good job and doesn’t undermine some of the basic and founding principles that our country was founded on. That he isn’t a chicken shit and will fight our enemies. That his plan to spend a trillion dollars works far better than I think it will. That he will figure out that crippling people with high gas and energy costs is not the way to solve our growing need for energy.

Only time will tell. We’ll have to be patient and see what happens.

Observing the Economy

Has anyone else noticed that the price of goods is going up and not down? Has anyone else noticed that manufacturers of foods are giving you less and less while charging you more? Even the airlines are continuing to nickel-and-dime you to death while keeping the rates nice and high.

It’s interesting because you would think that somewhere along the line that commercial enteritis would figure out that people are spending less money, not more, and that by continuing to raise rates and offer less value for the money it isn’t going to net them more profit.

I wanted to take a ski trip and go snowboarding. I have my own board and gear, but I won’t be taking the board. Why? Because it will cost me an additional $300 to fly my board round-trip. This is not a fuel issue because my board and bag weighs far less than most people’s luggage. They are hitting surfers, golfers, skiers, boarders, etc. with this excessive handling fee. It has to be affecting people’s vacation travels.

I’ve been monitoring the pricing of a TV I’ve been looking at. It’s the
Panasonic TH-50PZ800U. None of the stores around here carry it so I’ll have to order it online. About the best price I ever saw on it was $1750 with free shipping. A few days ago the prices started to creep back up. Now I can’t find it for less than $2000 at the same places I could get it for the lower price. That could be a function of the retailers thinking that people will be buying more sets as the deadline for digital conversion looms. I wonder what will happen after the deadline?

More Peaceful Muslims

The UK is having a lot of problems with "radical" muslims protesting the Israeli confict with Palestine. They currently have a bill of over 1.5 million (US) in place to fund controlling the mobs.

Here is what happens when the police officers are not afforded the opportunity to cary any real anti-protest weapons.

Even More Craziness!

My friends and I often get into heated discussions (arguments?) about various things. Most of ‘em think I am completely nuts and overact to world events and government action. Too often I hear that what I am telling people is absurd, that it’s the slippery slope argument, and that it will of course never happen.

So here are a few things that have happened that I am sure most of you would be surprised at:

The UK levies a yearly tax to own and operate a TV. Yes, that is correct. You must have a license and update it yearly to actually own and watch TV. Of course that would never happen in the U.S. would it?

Also in the UK, the conservatives are about to propose a bill that would ban plasma televisions. I’m not sure exactly how they would enact the bill or if it would grandfather existing plasmas, but it’s being considered. Why? Because they consume too much energy for the greenies. LCD TV’s aren’t as good as plasmas, but who cares? There is also speculation that this will be used to leverage purchasing carbon credits.

And speaking of….it looks like the Obama machine is still working with the greenies to enact a carbon trading scheme. I think this is absurd and can’t believe we are even considering it.

Additionally, there is talk about Co2 being made illegal. Yes, that’s right…a natural gas that is necessary to sustain human life could be made illegal. Better get your respirators and lug your HEPA air scrubber with ya. Then again, I suppose you could just pay more money into the carbon credit trading scheme or something.

Also in England Tony Martin was convicted of first degree murder and illegal possession of a firearm. He is now serving a life sentence for defending his home from burglars that broke in and attacked him in the middle of the night. He was also sued by the “victims” families. Why? Because he owned a gun, which is a crime in England.

And just do a google search on the banning of motorcycles.

But I suppose this is all just more absurdities that will never happen….

Delay the HDTV Rollout?

The other morning I was having breakfast / lunch with my friend and she asked what I thought about Obama suggesting that we delay the switch to all-digital programming. I told her I didn’t know anything about it and so I’d have to think about it a bit.

My initial reaction is that we’ve delayed the switch for too long anyway. It was supposed to happen several years ago. I suppose I’m not real empathetic to people being reluctant to change since I work in an industry where the technology changes every three months. Change or become obsolete.

It’s also not like people haven’t been aware of this for almost ten years. True that it’s only been in the last two or three years that people really had to start thinking about it, but that was still two or three years ago. Haven’t you had enough time to plan?

And what about all those TVs out there that won’t work. My question is, what about all those TV’s out there? How many of them are already connected to sat. or cable systems and should keep on working just fine? I haven’t seen any research indicating how many people will truly be without a TV once the cut is made. There also had to be a fair percentage of HDTVs out there that are already ready to go.

And of course, the govt. had the coupons available to those people who want to continue to user their analog TVs for over-the-air programming without having to upgrade. The coupon allowed you to go and get a converter box that would allow you to receive the new programming. The coupon covered about 75% of the cost of the boxes. Now the government is running out of money and there aren’t many coupons (if any) left.

I don’t recall what the govt. allocated for the coupons but it had to be fairly substantial and cover a butt-ton of converter boxes. So that is even more TVs that we don’t have to worry about.

My friend thinks that perhaps Obama is right and that perhaps right now is not the right time to force people to deal with it and / or make them spend money. I’m not sure I completely agree with that because as I’ve already stated, people had YEARS to deal with it.

But I can’t say that I really care one way or the other. If we delay it, it doesn’t really bother me too much. My only real concern is what we are supposed to tell all the companies that invested billions of dollars to purchase the air-space and have already begun investing developing product for the frequencies they purchased. Somehow it doesn’t quite seem right to tell them “sorry.”

I was thinking that perhaps a good compromise would be to find a little more money out of the proposed 900+ Million that Obama wants to spend on other projects and re-allocate some of it back into coupons so that people could still get the little converter boxes. I mean, if he is really that concerned about the problem it certainly seems that there might be other solutions.

Busy as Usual!

2009 as started off with me being fairly busy with work, my side project, and personal stuff. I just haven’t felt a whole lot like writing lately. Often times, I think of stuff to write about but I’m already in bed or just too tired to write it all down.

One thing that I haven’t been doing enough of is riding my motorcycle. We are having odd temperature swings and every time it’s been a really nice day outside I’ve had too much stuff going on or too much to carry around to ride the bike. I gotta get more riding in!!

Welcome to 2009!

Belated Happy New Year to everyone. We had some unseasonably warm weather a day or so ago. It was in the 80’s. Here it is, the new year, January 3rd and we were having an 85 degree day.

In some ways, that was OK because it was my gf’s bDay and we went to the Dallas Arboretum. It was pretty packed since it was so nice out. Overnight it got down in the 40’s. I came home and my house was a cool 62 degrees!!! Apparently the heater had decided to stop working.

The induction motor’s pressure switch has failed so the unit won’t turn the gas on and blow any hot air. The weather has since gotten colder and is now hovering around 31 with freezing rain. Fortunately the switch is getting fixed today as it is a balmy 55 in my house this morning. I had to change my normal routine of drinking the juice of life (aka Dr. Pepper) to a cup of hot chocolate to try to warm up. My fingers are a tad cold, so it’s a bit hard to type at the moment.

It’s also my first day back at work. I have about a bazillion emails to go over. I think about a third of them are scheduling me for work so I’ll have to skim them carefully and start tweaking my calendar.

Oddly enough, my last week of vacation was almost all work. Not for the company, but for everyone else (including myself). I helped several friends and family members out over the last week with computer / network related problems.

And of course the big story right now is Israel. The one thing I am astonished by is that the little bit of press coverage I keep reading and hearing about continuously scolds Israel for attacking Hamas and lists all the civilian casualties. They talk about how Israel is not cooperating with the U.N. (which is a joke anyway). What is barely talked about is how the Hamas attacked Israel and continued to do so. They barely tell you that the Hamas are sending missiles into Israel randomly – that means they don’t care that they are attacking civilian targets. The Israelis are only trying to attack Hamas military, but those chicken shits are hiding amongst civilians.

Personally? I hope the Israelis wipe out the Hamas.

Big Texas Toy I-Wussed-Out-Run

This morning was the Big Texas Toy Run. It’s a motorcycle run that is held every year in N. Texas. Bikers show up in downtown Dallas, downtown FT. Worth and downtown Grapevine. Everyone who shows up must have a toy or donate $10.00. Then everyone leaves and parades to the Arlington Convention Center to donate their toys.

One year, there were approximately 50,000 bikers that participated and we raised about $750,000 in cash and toys for the kids. The turnout this year was expected to be about 70,000 bikes!!!!

Unfortunately, I was not one of them. I don’t always get to ride in the Toy Run because most of the time I am out of town. When that happens I usually buy a toy or give someone some cash that I know will be out there.

This year, though, I was home and ready to go. I had my toy, and got it all strapped to the back of the bike.

But a cold front moved in and dropped the temps. My friends were leaving out at 9:00am, which I thought was too freaking early considering how cold it was. I checked the temps and it was 22 degrees.

I put on some gear to try to stay warm – thermal undies, a wind-suit, sock, jacket liner, jacket, heavy gloves, etc. But it wasn’t enough.

I took off to meet up with my friends and made it about ½-way there before I turned back around for reinforcements. At that point my body was OK even though I was still a tad cool. The problem was that my chin and neck were seriously hurting from little exposure they had to the cold and my finger tips were stinging from being too cold.

I got back to the house and checked out my snowboard gloves, but realized I wouldn’t be able to have control of the bike so that was out. I thought to myself….I can still make it if I just take care of my face.

I got out my balaclava that I wear when I am snowboarding and it’s brutally cold. I was able to get my helmet on, but just barely and I could feel my circulation getting cut off at my neck and face from it being too tight. That wasn’t going to work.

Then I looked for a “chin skirt” – a little piece of spandex that clips on under the helmet to keep the wind off you. I know I have one, but I couldn’t find it. I looked everywhere. I even found my helmet’s instruction manuals, warranty cards, etc. No chin-skirt.

Between my neck and fingers it just wasn’t conducive to me riding and either risking frost-bite, or risking not being in control of my bike because I was too distracted, too uncomfortable, or too bundled up – take your pick.

That really put me in a foul mood because I had it all done and ready, but I just didn’t feel safe riding like that. And of course, I was now sweating profusely from being in the house and being mad.

My friend was going out that way to meet up with some other friends. He was caging it so I asked him to take my toy.

I am not having a good Christmas experience.

Spreading the Christmas Cheer!

I'm on vacation from now until the end of the year. I don't have any major plans, but I may get busy. I am guessing that you will probably be busy, too...

So just in case we don't get to catch up between now and Christmas I thought I'd spread the Christmas cheer a bit with this tasty morsel.

Excess

Sometimes I just don’t get it.

Kind of like the Americanized Sushi thing. I like sushi and am fortunate enough to travel around a bit and find some good sushi places. But more and more, these formerly good sushi places have been turning into an exercise in them figuring out a creative way to serve you something fried with mayonnaise.

About a month ago Bling! and I went to a decent sushi place with his wife. I got frustrated looking over the menu because unless I went with sashimi (fish – no rice) or nagiri (fish over rice) there pretty much wasn’t anything on the menu that wasn’t fried, had mayonnaise on it…or both. Bling! asked what was wrong and I told him. I didn’t get much sympathy from him or Mrs. Bling!

I’ve never been to Japan….yet. But I am pretty sure that their sushi rolls aren’t all fried, contain avocado and have mayonnaise. Some traditional places in CA that I found hardly have any of those things and the sushi is fantastic. Why do we have to Americanize it?

Then, last night I went to go see Transporter 3. I wasn’t expecting a great flick, so I wasn’t too disappointed when it was a bit of a let down. It’s an action film like you would expect but movies are going so far over the top now that you have to really make an effort to suspend disbelief.

That wasn’t what got me, though. What got me was the excessive amount of bass throughout the entire film. I don’t know if this was from the mix of the movie, or because the theater had the bass cranked up. Either way, it was very annoying.

Don’t get me wrong….I love a good subwoofer and when something blows up I want to hear it and feel it as if my hair was about to be singed off. But people walking around or shutting a car door should not elicit concern that my testicles are going to be vibrated into a pulpy mess because the subs were turned up too loud.

I’ve noticed this same trend in radio broadcasting. Broadcaster are turning up the bass on everything. Commercials are the worst, but I’ve even noticed talk radio having some kind of funky low-end tone playing for an unknown reason. Even music that I am very familiar with suddenly has the bass cranked up if it’s coming off the radio.

I don’t get it.

The Auto Bailout

I think this is bullshit. I'm not going to pontificate on why I think it's bullshit but we need to stop bailing everyone out, suck it up and move on. Businesses need to get their shit together and stop relying on the taxpayers money to "save them."

Putting Acceleration in Perspective

My friend John sent me this and I thought it was pretty interesting:

One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic-inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.

Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 11.2 gallons of nitro methane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to merely drive the dragster's supercharger. With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle. At the stoichiometric 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitro methane the flame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F. Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.

Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder. As Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After 1/2 way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow.

If the spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.

Dragsters reach over 300 MPH before you have completed reading this sentence. In order to exceed 300 MPH in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate an average of over 4 G's. In order to reach 200 MPH well before half-track, the launch acceleration approaches 8 G's.

Top Fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light! Including the burnout, the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load. The redline is actually quite high at 9500 RPM.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, & for once, NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated $1,000 per second. The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for the quarter-mile (10/05/03, Tony Schumacher 3 times winner in the last four years). The top speed record is 333.00 MPH (533 km/h) as measured over the last 66' of the run (09/28/03, Doug Kalitta).

Putting this all into perspective: Here's the race.... You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter twin-turbo powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged & ready to launch down a quarter-mile strip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line & pass the dragster at an honest 200 MPH. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment. The dragster launches & starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums & within 3 seconds the dragster catches & passes you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter-mile away from where you just passed him.

Think about it - from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 MPH & not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race! That's acceleration! That's FAST!!

As a side-note:
Two new world speed records were set on motorcycles in 2008.

1 – the fastest bike in the world was a custom stream-lined motorcycle with 1200 horsepower and set a new record of 360.913mph.

2 – the quickest bike in the world was on the drag strip and set a new record of 250.97mph in the ¼-mile (5.95 seconds) with a 1400 horsepower engine!

Anyone got a Match?

One of the things I love about my job is going to new places, interfacing with new people, and getting to see things the average Joe probably never sees. Last week, my job took me to a power plant. Now, of course I can’t tell you which one but I can tell you that it is a coal fired power plant somewhere in the U.S.

Everyone was really nice and safety was of the utmost concern. As you can probably imagine the plant was very utilitarian in nature and there wasn’t a whole lot of frills and cushy offices to be found. That’s not to say it was a dirty mess, though. They were very good at keeping the plant clean at all times and I only noticed a little bit of coal dust in a few key areas.

One of the things we don’t think about is how big these plants are. I guess we always see them from the road at about a mile or so and we never get up close. One of the things I was impressed with was the sheer size of the facility. Many people had bicycles that the rode around the plant because the distances between key areas was pretty far.
The other thing we don’t think about is all of the logistics in keeping one of these places running. Let me give you some examples:

This particular power plant has four main areas that generate power. They are each identical in nature.

Each one houses numerous control and monitoring systems for all of the various functions of the plant. If any of these should become unreachable for a few seconds it is considered a failure. If a failure occurs they have to shut down production. For that unit, identify the failure, and fire (literally) things back up.

Powering the plant are these massive turbine generators. The turbines are driven by steam and in turn spin a generator. The turbine engines are approximately 900,000 horsepower (so much for the dragsters being impressive). The power generated by the entire plant is 500-megwatts.

The water used for the steam is piped in and ultra-purified. Think of the most bad-ass fish-tank filter and RO system you have ever seen in your life, and then make one that is even better. They even go to the extent of taking the extra oxygen molecules out of the water.

What is heating the water to make it steam? This is where it gets really interesting.

A unit will burn through 300 TONS of coal an hour. 24 hours a day, 7-days a week, 365-days a year. I wasn’t impressed with the fact they burn through that much as I was impressed with the fact that there is that much coal available for them to burn. This was only one plant and it consumes 1200 tons an hour.

But the absolute coolest thing is what burns the coal. I always had this vision of some furnace where a belt or something fed coal into the furnace and you’d have this nice bed of coals heating up the water to make the steam.

Well, let’s just say I was far off the mark. Try to imagine these coal hoppers that go up several stories and funnel coal into grinders. Think of a badass coffee grinder and just make it REALLY big. That’s step #1.

Then spin up some 5000-horsepower fans and use the fans to blow the ground up coal through ducts that are about 4 or five feet across. Where do the ducts go? To the furnace of course!! But the ducts are connected to the furnace at one-story intervals and at multiple vertices (angles) into the furnace.

What results has ruined camping for me for the rest of my life. Never again will I even attempt to make the largest campfire that I can. I will scoff at people who stack trees and make bonfires in their fields. The Texas A&M bonfire paled in comparison.

Imagine if you will; a giant ball of fire that is approximately four-stories high (and equally as wide). It’s spinning counter-clockwise and is suspended in the air by its own heat and by the air blowing the coal into it. We were allowed to view this fireball up-close and personal by opening a viewing portal that is about 6-inches across and wearing a welding hood to view the fire. You had to wear the hood because of the intense heat, brightness of the fireball, and the massive amount of ultra-violet light being generated. It would fry your eyes out. And, in the event that the 5000-horsepower fans lost power for a moment the fireball might blow-back through the viewing port.

It was entirely insane and surreal at the same time. Naturally being a fire-bug I wanted to throw something in and see how fast it was incinerated, but they quickly grabbed my right hand as I was trying to stuff my entire leather-bound executive notepad set through the view port. I’m not even sure I was aware I was doing it.

And that’s it. I saw the giant ball of fire and it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Next time I am taking marshmallows and a really long stick.