April 30, 2011
April 28, 2011
The Old Shell Game
If you are currently doing business with Shell Oil of North America, you might want to find someone else. Yesterday I sent this letter to Shell Oil North America, most likely it will be filed in the round file at the corner of the desk.
What can I say … Another slow day at the Goat Farm and my prescription has just run out.
To Whom It May Concern:
I recently applied for and was granted a Shell Credit Card #003-118 —-, for this I thank you. This month I discovered that you have placed a $400 limit on the card which I find unrealistic.
I presently own three automobiles, of the three, the combined fuel capacity of these vech. are 14, 22, and 24 gallons for a total of 60 gallons. I also own a bus that has a capacity of 225 gallons. At today’s pricing, a $400 limit on the card is just not a good thing for me personally. Do the math, 285 gallons at $3.75 per gallon is over $1,000. Just filling one car per month and the coach, eats up $400 pretty quickly as I am sure you can readily see.
Also, this month, my fuel consumption was $376 on the card, and even though the $400 limit was not met, the card was declined for use at my local shell station, what is the deal on that? It was not only inconvenient but embarrassing for me personally, and I did not appreciate it.
It appears that even your $400 limit is no good either, it should have at least given me the $23 left on the card. After all, “a limit is a limit” and this one wasn’t even met at the time. I also feel you should have informed me of this action on your part at the beginning of our transaction (when I opened the account) and made it known then.
You need to increase the limits on these cards, or just do away with them altogether.
This is disappointing and frankly if this is the best you have to offer, perhaps I should take my business somewhere else? Review the above account and make some corrections or adjustments, this is not working.
Thanks,
D. Smith
Then I hit transmit (send) and guess what?
The Email address printed on the billing statement is NOT valid. (I guess when you have a good thing going for you, you just naturally don’t have to give a ____ one way or the other.)
OOO
April 27, 2011
It’s A Dogs Life
Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog’s owners, Ron, his wife, Lisa,and their little boy, Shane, were all very attached to Belker, and they were hoping for a miracle.
I examined Belker and found he was ill and dying. I told the family we couldn’t do anything for Belker, and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home.As we made arrangements, Ron and Lisa told me they thought it would be good for six-year-old Shane to observe the procedure.
They felt as though Shane might learn something from the experience. The next day,I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker’s family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on.
Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away. The little boy seemed to accept Belker’s transition without any difficulty or confusion. We sat together for a while after Belker’s death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives. Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped
up, “I know why.”
Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I’d never heard a more comforting explanation. He said, “People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life — like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?” The six-year-old continued, “Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don’t have to stay as long.”
Live simply.
Love generously.
Care deeply.
Speak kindly.
Remember, if a dog was the teacher you would learn things like: When loved ones come home, always run to greet them. Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
Take naps.
Stretch before rising.
Run, romp, and play daily.
Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.
On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
Be loyal.
Never pretend to be something you’re not.
If what you want what lies buried, dig until you find it.
When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
“Reputation is what people think you are, Character is what God knows you are!”
Spell the word “Dog” backwards and what do you get? *
000
A special thanks to my friend Art in Nevada for passing this on.
April 25, 2011
Old Frog
It just has to be Monday. Internet is acting up this morning, this may or may not get posted. I am a little bit irked, you see the county went and raised my taxes again, some 12% this time. Now here is the catch, “I didn’t get any kind of raise in MY income, have not had any kind of raise in a couple of years now.” Why is it that we are constantly feeding this monster, and at the same time, receiving nothing in return?
You can take a frog, dump him in a pan, turn on the heat, and he will stay right there and eventually fry in the scalding water and die. But you take the same frog, toss him in hot water, and he will hop right out. You see frog # 1 his environment changed a “little at time” and he didn’t notice the change until it killed him. Frog #2 noticing the immediate change, took evasive action at the very beginning.
Now I am just a little frog, swimming in a big pond, but I gotta tell you, I am starting to relate to croaker number one right now, the water is heating up in my pan and I am ready to get out.
It is hard to say how much more the American Consumer can take as a whole.I t seems to me that the new catch phrase in this country seems to be “passed onto the consumer” and personally, I am getting awfully tired of it. I really do not have a clue as to what can be done about it other than lament the fact, but I am so tired of taking it in the shorts on just about everything, it is far beyond funny anymore. It is beginning to become tragic.
I Pledge Allegiance has been changed to … Bend over and take some more.
Gasoline comes first, no rhyme or reason to it, but it continues, unabated. While I am at it, “I am tired of this rant over and over, on the environmentalists, and the tree huggers being the problem. ”Drilling in Anwar, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, isn’t going to meet one year of our petroleum needs.
IT IS NOT THE TREE HUGGERS.
Why doesn’t someone ask them why there are no new refineries, why the refiners are only running at a small percentage of what they are capable of? Why we have an “artificial shortage” of motor fuel in this country. The numbers are in, people are driving less, consumption is down, so why isn’t the price going down. No, it increases. It defies logic.OkieCity is a virtual Ghost Town any night of the week after eight o’clock. We are shut down.
So if we are using less, much less, why are we still paying more?Bad math. Even I can see that, and I wasn’t always the sharpest knife in the drawer, when it came to math.
Stop blaming the tree huggers … Last year during hurricane season, this stuff was increasing on a daily basis on the “speculation of a storm in the Gulf of Mexico” that never really materialized. But in America, what goes up ….. stays up … it doesn’t always go back down.
No profit in that.
Cops in Atlanta this week started adding a $12 fuel surcharge for speeding tickets, airlines are weighing customers, where does it end.B ig change in breakfast items. Grain cereals have jumped on the bandwagon and are now giving us less in the box for more money. Weights are down, check it out the next time you are in the store, and you will see what I am talking about. They are selling us less product for more money. With the high price of diesel (which is a waste product of petroleum by the way) farmers are going to have to have more to cut even a marginal profit this year.
Beer is being served in smaller glasses, ice tea and other refreshments have gone to smaller sized glass. I note that the plates in one place we usually frequent, over night, shrank in size. Not necessarily a bad thing for the American Consumer who is face it, a bit on the tubby side. We used to go to this place, and we would split an order of Fajita’s the wife and I, now I find out that they are charging me $2 for the second plate, which of course, “used to be free.”
They can now call me the hacked off Old Gringo and say Adios, I will go somewhere else.
Electric service is up, why not, everyone else is doing it.But there has to be a point at which this will cease to be realistic. We cannot keep absorbing all of these price increases, over and over, there comes a time, when the glass is full. We are quickly reaching our point on the scale, it has come to where push meets shove around here and sadly it has reared its ugly head a lot sooner than I thought it would.
Today I read but one more credit card article, this couple in hock up to their ears. $16,000 on one credit card, owed $106,000.00, on a house that had an appraised value of only $63,000.00. I still see the big screen televisions going out the door at China Mart and the new paper tags on the cars (new cars) all over town, and frankly, I wonder how it is that they can still do this?
It is a lot different at our house … The wolf is baying at the backdoor and we have nothing to toss out to satisfy him. Old frog number one is really getting tired of this —- .
How about you?
OOO
April 22, 2011
Lost And Adrift
The other day I was looking at some of the links to my webpage others have put up, and one of them said, “Creative Endeavors, Life Observations, Humor.” I had never considered this a commentary on life, but it appears to have been labeled so by a few.
That is kind of nice.
Often in the morning, I sit here and try my best to come up with something new and refreshing for the day. Every now and then I hit one over the fence, most of the time, I have to admit, I just try to get on base with a hit. This morning, being no exception to the rule, I find myself sitting in front of an empty screen and wondering what it is that we will talk about?
This week I read an interesting book by Donovan Hohn, which was the true tale of 7,200 shipwrecked rubber ducks that rolled of the deck of a container ship in the stormy North Pacific about 15 years ago. The ducks are not the story, only part of it. It is about a quest in life, a passion that had to be fulfilled. The author was so obsessed with finding out what happened to all these ducks that he quit his job as a English school teacher and set out to discover everything that he could possibly find out about these small lost rubber ducks.
Where they had been, where they are now, what was their final destiny after being shipwrecked. That is passion my friends. When was the last time you were curious, I mean “Really Curious” about something. In my case, it has been awhile, I have to admit.
Following these ducks took him to the Northwest passage, Alaska, China and many places in between. Who would have ever stopped to consider that chasing a flock of lost rubber ducks around the world, would lead to such a thought provoking work? If you desire more information on this book, “Moby-Duck, The True Story of 28,000 bath toys lost at sea, you can find it at Viking for about $28.”
At 63 years of age, most of my passion in life, sad to say, has been used up. I find that my get up and go, has gone and went, and my curiosity for the most part has peaked. I am no longer thinking of moonwalking with Einstein, have lost the art of trying to remember everything that there is to remember in life, and lately, I have developed a little hitch in my giddy-up that tends to make me seek out the Aspirin bottle in the late afternoons.
Life … What happens when you are not paying attention.
When is the last time you stepped out of the box? Ventured into something totally new and off the wall. When was the last time you got truly excited about something that you were never excited about before. If you are like me, it has been some time, an ocean of time.
I read where others struggle with this too. Fun? Passion? Nope-nada. Spending a little time on the net you can find other writers struggling with it too. Are You Having Fun Yet? No excitement in their lives, nothing left to shoot for, like my old man used to say, “I have done it all.” I suppose that is the way of life sometimes, you cannot have your cake and eat it too, but a lot of us, would like it that way.
What is it about life that drains our passion, to the point, that we no longer even feel it remotely in our life. What is it about life, that we no longer wish to drink at the fountain of it, but rather just gargle. Why is it that with age, we lose the drive the incentive to seek out new adventures, just sit back and do our best to be “just comfortable.”
I don’t know, I certainly do not have all the answers, most of the time, I have to admit, I don’t even remember the questions.
Perhaps I need to drive up into someone’s yard, get out of the car, grab one of their plastic lawn ornaments (Flamingo’s or such items) and take it on a trip around the world. Photograph them in all these exotic locations (The Pyramids, Great Wall of China, Eiffel Tower) and make a scrapbook of it and return it (and the book) to its rightful owners a year later. It is a neat idea, certainly nothing original it has been done before, just not by me.
What is it that I need? What is it in my life, this inescapable “bucket list item” I have forgotten? Do I need to find a seemingly impossible rocky crag and scale it … Locate one un-dammed river in this country and run it … Simply because they are there. Perhaps it is time to make a road trip and burn some expensive fossil fuels. Take my grand-kids on a trip and one more time, try and explain to them why history and why geographic monuments erected by the hands of man are important in this day and age.
Why Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Tweets, Facebook and MTV are not.
Might be time to devote some serious time to study my root problem and find a solution. Lay back in my hammock and take a well-deserved nap and consider something of an adventurous nature to do in the sunshine years of my life. Which right now, seems to me, an impossible goal.
One constant in all this, and that is the weekend.
If it did not exist before now, I would have to invent it, because it is something that we all need. A time to recharge, to readjust our priorities in life, or just “get away from it all” for a brief respite from what life has to offer.
Please enjoy yours, I am going to do my best to do the same on my end.
OOO
April 20, 2011
Big Sky
13 on the floor! The other one out the door … Hammer down, Hammer down!
This time of the year is terribly hard on a guy, especially a guy who has the wanderlust gene like myself. I want to get out and roam, although I know that this is no longer a reality, it is not possible in this day and age. So I fritter the days away sitting on the porch and I find other ways to amuse myself, like wondering, “What is the longest English word you can type with only the left hand?”
(Stewardesses)
Important issues like that.
Spring time. Back in the day I would find myself lying on a blanket with some sweet thing and we would be whispering into each other ears, sonnets and secret phrases, but alas, they are gone too. Now I wonder if the old air conditioner will make it thru another season? How much water I am going to have to put on the lawn this year, to green it up and keep it that way. Why women find it impossible to sleep in a bed that has a fan blowing across it.
I secretly pine for Montana, it is never far away in my thoughts, often just around the corner. The pale blue sky opening up over Bozeman seems to stretch forever. The air is fresh and clean at the top of Bear Tooth Pass outside Red Lodge and the roads empty before, now most likely are bare altogether. A long BNSF freight racing across the land at breakneck speed to Chicago, clear water streams and long hot summer days.
In the summer, you can drive across southern Montana and the haystack dotted farmland seems to roll on and on forever. You drive by the small outfits, and they haul out to the front fence, what they have to sell. Worn out, beaten up pickups, a combine here and there, well used tractor an old motorhome, whatever.
I have driven on two lanes so striking, so majestic and mesmerizing, hauntingly familiar, that you swore they were objects of art. Rolling green sea’s of prairie grass, visions of Native Americans, stampeding horses, bison and of course, cowboys taming an unruly bronco fill my mind.
You would not expect anything less of someone who’s favorite western is “Dancin’ With Wolves.”
Eye candy for the soul is how I always seem to refer to it. A place in time, that lingers in your mind and often helps you thru your day. Distant roads are calling me. Through scenery so spectacular that much like a fine oil or a colorful print hanging on the wall it takes your breath away. The mood and the feel of the land permeate your soul in big sky country, the home of Louis and Clark, the chisled Grizzly.
I yearn to roam.
The old time towns and the architecture mixed with the new style trendy restaurants and galleries of the new west. Pickup’s with gun racks, Small detailed dream catchers hanging from the rear-view mirror, a blue healer dog in the back, one stop light at the end of the block.
And always, a canvas of baby blue (sky) right above you.
Man, I hate living in the city.
000
CHROME Catch you on the flip-flop
April 18, 2011
Hit Me Again
Mama is not happy, she cannot access the food channel and she cannot download her treasured recipes.
And we all know the drill …. If mama aint happy … then no one is happy. Me? I want her happy, happy wife, happy life! I want to be a happy, happy man when I die.
The problem (or this one) is the internet router got spiked over the weekend and it is now toast and will not allow her to go to her beloved haunt for her fix. It of course is now “MY PROBLEM” and I have been delegated to fix it.
The monkey never learns, you see the monkey, he loves brown rice. And the monkey knows that if he sticks his hand in the tray to retrieve the brown rice, he is going to get shocked by electricity. But still, he sticks his hand in and he gets shocked, because you see, “he loves the rice” and unfortunately for the little furry critter, “he never learns.”
And of course …. “The monkey is always surprised when this happens to him, over and over again.”
Said all that, to say this …. I did it again.
Have a calendar on the wall, a date minder book thing, even a tear off on the desk, but no, I have to click on my computer calendar, it is right there, a mouse click away. I need a date, and a day, instead of getting up off my porky butt, and walking over to the wall, lifting up the page of the calendar and looking for the date, I click on my internal computer calendar.
I mean … gee whiz, this is supposed to be the “information age” right?
But the monkey, he never, ever, learns. I go for the obvious easy solution, not the practical one. I don’t use the any of the items available to me on the desk ….. Noooooooooooooooooooooooo .. I click on the one in the computer!
So here I sit, locked down on June 2nd, 2011 and everything is just peachy, and then the power spikes and everything goes down! Pow! It all goes south, oh yeah, I forgot. I was sitting here making a note for June 2nd, 2011 when the power went down, ka-Pow!
Unfortunately I discover to my chagrin, when the computer went down it also remembered the new day and date, and locked me into June instead of April.
So now my virus checker doesn’t work, and it will not re-set.
Why? Mr. Computer says that “Someone has tried to manipulate my clock/date setting” and therefore I have to contact support. Now that is a hoot. I contact support and they say, user name, password, I check my list. I type it in. They say no such user name, password in the known free world or the central part of the United States.
I re-type it, type it, type it … And you know the rest of it dont’cha? Support my ……..
Well, time to move on. I am getting cranky again.
Yeah I know, how can anyone be this stupid you are asking yourself. Well, it is rather easy to tell you the truth, regrettably it happens to me all the time. I am descended from a long line of men with opposing thumbs who were prone to do something stupid from time to time, like the time my grandfather told me about getting his tongue stuck in the roller of a typewriter.
Stuff like that.
Here is one more and then I am outta here. Don’t under any circumstances; squeeze a lemon for your Ice Tea when you have a cut on your finger, handy-dandy internet tip of the day. I found out this weekend that this can be extremely uncomfortable.
Gonna be an interesting week, I can just feel it in my bones. Just imagine what it is gonna look like when the smoke finally clears and you see your barn burned completely to the ground! Which is not all that bad a thing, at least tonight you will be able to see the moon more clearly, there is always a rainbow.
OOO
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April 15, 2011
Room To Breathe
Last summer, just outside the Grand Canyon, at a campground replete with swimming pool and swing sets I came across a non-bus person. I was cleaning the windshield of my coach and this guy walks up, number three washtub cup of coffee in hand, and states matter of factually, “Old Trailways huh?” and I reply, “No sir. This not an old Trailways.”
He then says, “Well sonny, you are wrong and I will tell you why.” I think to myself I can never line up three numbers on the lottery, but I am lucky enough to run into guys like this? So I once again reply, “Sure, why don’t you amuse me a little this morning.”
He then points at the Gold Eagle on the front of the coach and says, “It’s a Trailways, all them Trailways had an Eagle on the front of ‘em.” So as politely as I could, knowing full well, that good public relations in the bus community is one of our primary goals. Slowly and methodically, taking my time, I explained to this brown loafer with black socks tourist the entire history of my coach. Which of course, did not amount to a hill of beans, because “it has an Eagle on the front of it.”
Patiently I tried to explain to him how it was manufactured in 1983, in Brownsville, Texas and I found myself speaking “slower and slower” so he would be able to take it in. But it was to no avail, this guy, the kind of guy who never had his science project in school turned in on time, was not buying into any of it.
“Nah, you got it wrong,” you see, “it has an Eagle on the front of it, all them there Trailways, had an Eagle on ‘em.” I tried to tell him it came out of California, that at one time it lived in Arizona and I bought it off a guy outside of Orlando, Florida. But it simply did not soak in. I am thinking to myself … “If you had bought an old Buffalo this conversation would NOT be happening.”
After what I consider a reasonable amount of logical and concise explanation, not to mention time, I just hung it up. Looking him straight in the eye, I said, “Excuse me partner, I have to finish what I started here.” and went back to cleaning my windshields. Which in all honesty is about the only thing I had planned for that morning anyway.
It might be noted here that I found myself holding no malice for this guy, non-bus people are supposed to NOT know about buses, I just let it go.
It would be nice to have a warning from time to time when non-bus people are in the area. At the turn of the century, miner’s in the coal mines of Appalachia, Virginia-West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky, would carry into the mine a canary in a cage. The purpose or reason for this was the canary was their “air quality” control for the miners. If the air were to suddenly turn bad, the canary would die, and the miners were made aware of the danger. Today of course, electronic metering devices (air sniffers) have replaced the canary.
The first time I came in contact with bus people, incidentally who are supposed to know about buses, I had no canary.
Being new to this lifestyle and a novice, I just blindly followed along, picking up a nugget of truth here and there, and more or less, weeding my way thru the bus community. A true beginner. My first precursor to something being amiss was when someone on a bus site (to be un-named at this time), inquired as to what the history of my bus might be? I of course, did not know, so it was suggested that I provide a serial number and the data would be provided to me.
Grabbing a flashlight I went out into the shop, located the serial number, noted the information and then posted it on the net. This serial number or VIN, isn’t as easily found as suggested by the bus nut who needed it, but after a short period of time, I found it. Hastily welded to the frame in the engine compartment, really unprofessional looking, and somewhat tacky. There in all its splendid glory was the Vin Number of my coach, splotched welds and all. Hastily welded to my frame by some hung-over I will do it on Monday type in Brownsville, Texas many years ago.
Somewhat smug and feeling circumspect for even locating the plate, I headed into the house to post it. Not long after that, I got a reply from the bus nut historian, the “entire history” of my bus, where it was born, where it worked, where it served the public, when it left service, the entire nine yards. I found out that my particular people carrier ran up and down the San Joaquin Valley out of Sacramento, California. The majority of its working life was in The Golden State. It ran for an outfit named the Amador Coach Lines, from the valley to San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area, with an occasional side trip over Donner Pass to Reno, Nevada, with a load of fun seekers I suppose.
Also there was this …. “By the way, it is not a 8V92T it is a 6V92 or something to that effect.”This was my first chirp out of the canary.
So I said, “No, it is an 8V92T Detroit.” Again, “No you are wrong, the serial number indicates …. blah, blah, yadda-yadda.” Suddenly I find myself, sitting alone in my spacious media room, in my comfortable Easy Boy recliner, sipping on a bottle of Snapple and wondering “if this guy, this internet bus historian, is he wearing brown loafers and black socks?” Reading on, I note there is even more. It seems that in the bus community, “there is always more” no shortage of that.
At this juncture in time, on my bus related journey of awareness, I was clued in again. I was at that time, even given specific instructions on how to look at an exhaust manifold, and ascertain the number of cylinders on my engine (you need to count the exhaust ports on the headers).
Which I thought was at best … Kinda strange.
It never occurred to this person that bus engines, transmissions, and other bus nomenclature are routinely removed and swapped out in this day and age all over America? A request is made for me to photo document and authenticate the number of cylinders on my Detroit prime mover. This somewhat unorthodox request was promptly filed in the circular retainer next to my chair for further use (trashed). By the way … just for the record … It is a 8V92T. I have the shop receipts and canceled checks to prove it. If need be, I can also provide the telephone number of “the old two-stroke dude” in Joplin, Missouri that removed the previous engine and installed the new rebuilt one.
Bus clubs and the internet are supposed to be a variable storehouse of information. But sadly, it is often not true. It has also been suggested to me by someone who hangs in the bus community (who I understand doesn’t even own a bus) that I do not know the difference between a hub cap and a wheel. Which is ridiculous, a hubcap is lighter than a wheel, we all know that. And a wheel, as I understand it, is much, much bigger.
Our second encounter comes in the form of bus club membership. We are told of this wonderful bunch of people, who share a common interest (Eagle Buses) and that we should join up. This is usually in the form of an invite or as a used car salesman would put it … The Come On.
Usually it is something much like: “First things first, you now need to join our group at: (location of group here) and hopefully consider joining the chapter. There is a ton of Eagle specific information on the site and some pretty knowledgeable folks that have a lot of expertise and experience that are always willing to help. Next, would you mind telling us who you bought the bus from? Also, if we know the bus, we might be able to help you with background information. BTW, for the rest of you that own SOBs, you are welcome to drop into the goings on over there” and then goes on to invite and greet.
At this point, I had to email someone and get a definition of SOB, turns out it meant Some Other Brand … Who would’ve ever thunk thet?
Not much on social networking and knowing full well from past experiences that these things never seem to pan out, we joined. At this point, I note that our canary is no longer singing, and it is not as active in the cage as before.
We press on, deep into the bus community.
Soon I discover, that opinionated people are not always welcomed with open arms in the bus community, it is best to keep your mouth shut. We attend our very first bus rally, which in itself is a real eye opener. 20 plus coaches of different make and color adorn the shores of a small lake in Kansas.
There I discover that I have the wrong transmission, and of course, “it is NOT the transmission that I say it is.” We also discover much to our disappointment we are running the wrong kind of oil and that our motive power, our fuel gulping two-lane pusher, the 8V92T, is surely without a doubt, the worst oil leaking, underpowered engine on the American market today. It is also reputed to smoke worse than the Marlboro cowboy and is currently illegal in the entire State of “Kalifornia and three counties outside of Ypsilanti, Michigan.”
Our marker lights are installed backwards, our caps are wrong and tires clearly not of the prescribed norm for highway travel in this land stretching from sea to shining sea. I am thankful for my prescription of Halcyon and the understanding of my bride, who often see’s me through trying times in life.
Against my better judgment I buy two commemorative two T-shirts knowing full well that I will most likely never will wear them in public. A medium size for the little lady, and an XLFB (Extra Large with a Full Belly) for me.
Been there … Done that … Got the T-Shirts! As George Dubya would say … Mission Accomplished!
Firing up the old hoopie, she smokes a little and I wait on the air buzzer to quit. Time to head south, another bus rally is on our horizon, and of course, we are going to try to find a little clean air. The canary coughs a couple of coughs, then heads over on the perch to lean up against the bars of the cage.
See you in the fast lane … Watch those right-handers.
Have a great weekend.
BCO
April 13, 2011
Had To Happen
Bought my fuel yesterday and it came to $79.02 which of course “shocked me somewhat.” I have to admit, I was not ready for that, later on during the trip to town I amused myself by imagining that “I am only steps away from a one-hundred dollar tankful.” Who in their wildest dreams would have ever imagined such a thing. Certainly … not me.
Some things and I suppose, people, age well. Some things I suppose, like people, just get old. Get cantankerous, out of sorts, and hard to deal with. I often fall into that second category. I didn’t fare all that well last week in the smile department, but this week, I am going to do better. I am going to make a “concentrated effort to smile more, amuse myself, cheer up even if it kills me.”
This past week I have been suffering thru irritable male syndrome. My testosterone levels have been lower than a New Orleans levy at flood stage and my brain, the part of my brain that is in charge of basic’s such as functioning, emotions, behavior, have been strangely out to lunch for most of the week.
The mere thought of me smiling about anything here lately, is as foreign to me as Obama speaking in Farsi when he begs for more oil. I desperately want to smile, just isn’t all that much of a humorous nature here lately. But I am gonna do better.
I have made up my mind that I AM GOING TO GO FOR IT!
Perhaps I need to get more sleep, that might be the problem. I am finding out as I age, I need at least 8 hours of sleep a day, and 10 hours at night. Sleep is the best thing, and the cheapest thing available to me these days. I love to sleep, the best of two worlds, you get to be alive and unconscious at the same time. And on some days, you can actually work in a nap.
That makes me smile.
It is not easy to say exactly what makes one box of odds and ends a valuable antique, and what makes another box a piece of junk. But the thought of tossing one (out of our garage, which is full of the trash of man) into a dumpster …. That makes me smile. It might be that throwing stuff away that is cluttering up your home is a cathartic experience that just feels good. That too, makes me smile.
The mere thought of it upsetting the little woman’s applecart, that is just an added bonus … Hey, we are on a roll.
Not being able to yell out “Oh boy!” in Jonesboro, Georgia, or finding out that unrestrained giggling on the street is illegal in Helena, Montana; those insane laws make me smile. It is illegal in the state of Oklahoma to tie your ass up within 50 ft of a courthouse, ass meaning donkey. Which would be appropriate term for anyone drafting such legislation or allowing it to remain on the books. Purchasing a new car for thousands of dollars in order to save hundreds on gas … that makes me smile.
When they announce on the news that they have busted some hooker and she has a black book that is full of politicians names …… that makes me smile.
Reading in the paper that the longest earthworm ever found in the world measured 22 ft. from head to toe, that makes me smile, I mean, where would one ever use stupid useless information like that? Did you know that the word Mascara, a cosmetic applied to darken eyelashes comes from the Spanish word ma’scara, which in terms come from the Italian maschera, both of which mean, appropriately, “mask.” The root of the words however come for Arabic maskharah, which means buffoon or clown.
Which is what I would be if I lived in San Francisco and used the stuff, that makes me smile.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have all the answers, and ninety percent of the time, I completely forget the questions. My family physician told me that I have something he called Attention Deficit Disorder. He said, “A.D.D. is a complex disorder, blah, blah, blah.” I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of it.
This friend of mine, who happens to be from California, is back here to visit with the family. We went out to eat yesterday and he said during lunch, “If you were to go camping out in the woods, and someone, late at night, snuck into your tent and molested you would you tell anyone about it?” And I thought about it a minute, and replied, “No way. I don’t want no one to know something that terrible happened to me!” He smiled and then said ……… “You wanna go fishin’ this weekend?” ….
That … Makes me smile.
So as you can see, I am just about clueless. Happy and stupid this morning, pour me another cup of that coffee and don’t worry about my road rage, I will take care of it. I don’t have any idea what makes some people smile and others to frown. I don’t know why some people consistently have a “nice day” and others never seem to see it materialize.
This morning, at this very moment, I am smiling a great deal, because the computers’ ISP is down, the stoooopid computer doesn’t know this, and it keeps trying to update me, download me, and is getting frustrated as all get-out (Okie Expression) because it is not being allowed to function in a rational manner. It has sent me numerous dialogue boxes and/or messages asking that I re-establish the link.
Mid week, I get this letter from my “friendly State Farm Agent” and it says, rather tersely, “our records indicate that your present telephone number is no longer 405- **** and that number is no longer your number. Please inform us of your new number immediately and any other cell phone numbers that you have.”
Yeah right, I don’t “immediately” do anything for anyone, yet alone a stinking insurance company. Tossing that into the trash bin … that makes me smile.
And last but not least. I think about all of my Amigo’s from down south. The mere thought of knowing I have all these wonderful people coming to this country each and everyday and they are depending on me …. Now that … Believe it or not … That makes me smile!
OOO
April 8, 2011
Hot Iron
Ah spring in Oklahoma, the Walmart tree bags are in full bloom, the fence rows are full of plastic and there is a pronounced crispness in every breath I take.
New life abounds everywhere I look and love is in the air.
Just this week I got a desperate plea from a Nigerian woman who tells me that she has me in her every thought, and that she is related to the Royal Nigerian Family who desperately need me to finance her trip to the United States. It is so nice to be needed. Don’t you think it is nice to have a dream?
Everyone has a dream. A tomorrow. A someday.
So in order to promote these principles lucky for us, we have media experts who create for us our world, they are the Dream Catchers of our society. They outline for us in vivid detail, organize our dreams, prioritize our needs and help us to make plans. They, for lack of a better descriptive, color our world to speak
And unfortunately, every now and then, they go outside the lines, and they screw up.
If you want to work with Chrysler, don’t bad-mouth its hometown of Detroit. Chrysler’s social-media agency, New Media Strategies, learned the lesson the hard way after a employee used Chrysler’s Twitter feed, apparently by mistake, to express the thought that it was “ironic that Detroit is known as the Motor city, yet no one here knows how to f—ing drive.”
The employee was summarily fired and Chrysler promptly announced that it wouldn’t renew with New Media Strategies saying that the tweet wrongly disparaged “Detroit and its hardworking people.’ The misstep was particularly unwelcome since Chrysler has been hailing the success of a new advertising tagline it introduced in a Super Bowl ad in February “Imported from Detroit.”
Things in general, are not all that great in Detroit. Detroit recently has experienced a population plunge. Detroit’s population shrank by 25% in the past ten years to its lowest level in a century, as growing numbers of blacks joined their white brothers in fleeing the troubled city.
The U.S. Census Bureau fixed the city’s population at 713,777, making it smaller than Indianapolis. The last time Detroit’s population was so low as in 1910, when the city’s mainstay automotive industry was just setting up shop. Detroit has the highest percentage of Muslim’s (and illegal Mexicans) in the country now, most of its infrastructure is crumbling, business has left and is in advanced stages of general decay. Another great city of the American culture slowly sinks into the horizon and out of sight.
Most had figured the population would be closer to 800,000 and the mayor has asked the Census Bureau to recheck its head count. Of course, if he could just find another 40,000 willing souls to agree that they live in this hole, that would qualify his city for increased state and federal aid.
Which they apparently need desperately now.
All this new Hot Iron imported out of Detroit, buckin and snortin’, high-horse macho machines, ready to hit the highway. Texas I understand has just raised its speed limits to 85 miles miles per hour in some sections of their state … all of it there for the taking … Just takes a $4 gallon of gasoline to make it all happen …. Here I sit, in my ten year old hoopie, stuck on the on ramp.
Oh well, it could be worse, I could be for instance, find myself being called to prayer seven times a day and standing on the sidewalk in Detroit.
Have a great weekend, if that is still possible?
OOO
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