Creative Endeavors, The Home of BoxcarOkie.com

February 4, 2013

Munday-Munday

Filed under: Blogging,Uncategorized — ldsrr91 @ 8:55 AM
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Its only weird if it doesn’t work.  Like most of America, I watched the Super Bowl yesterday.  It seemed strange for a number of reasons, one being it was the fiftieth Super Bowl, and that somehow just does not seem possible?  As I have been around for quite a few of them personally, and the numbers, well, they just sort of always add up not necessarily in my favor these days.

Another thing that was different is this.  I hard drived the game (DVR’ed it) and did not actually watch the game as it unfolded and the drama increased, we watched the last three minutes of the contest and that was it.  As I am not a great football fan anymore, I taped it in order to see the commercials, which I now consider to be the best part of all of it.

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Funny how habits sort of get ingrained into a person.  I am so used to “skipping the commercials” and watching the main body of the program.  Now for this event, I had to reverse the procedure, and it took some getting used to.  I finally managed to master it, but it was tough, that and seeing the Niner’s lose, I wasn’t all that keen on that either.

This is a pretty good video, it wasn’t on the Super Bowl, but you will find it amusing.

Shopping at the Costco Fish Market.

The Great American Free lunch:  The Senate Budget Committee reports that in fiscal year 2011, between food stamps, housing support, child care, Medicaid, and other benefits, the average US household below the poverty line received $168 (my note, 7 days a week) in government support.  What’s the problem with that much support?  

Last time I even bothered to check, the median household income in America was just over $50,000 per year, which averages out to $137.13 per day.  To put it another way, being on welfare now pays the equivalent of about $30 an hour for a 40-hour week, while the average job pays $25 an hour.  And then there is the person who works who has to pay taxes, which drops the pay to $21 an hour.  

It is no wonder that welfare is now the biggest part of the budget, more than Social Security or defense.  And why would anyone want to get off welfare when working pays $9 an hour less.

Another great thing about welfare versus working … No drug screening for anyone, just sign up and wait on the money to come rolling in.  For more of the report you can find it here.

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Crayon’s before bullets:  While I am up here on my soapbox.  One of our American Hero’s was taken out this weekend by a gun, and there is more negative news about firearms in the media.  It all seems so far fetched out of of sync for me.  Our so-called cures for societal problems are directed at the symptoms rather than the causes. We can’t keep throwing money at a broken education system, or its victims. We can’t guarantee raising well-behaved, normal children in broken, drug-dependent or parentless families.

Taking guns from law-abiding citizens will only deepen the lawlessness of criminals. Taking God out of our schools and society, and legitimizing every type of deviant moral, physical and psychological behavior, dooms American society to a continued descent into more violence, self-centered behavior and immorality. Society won’t improve until America returns to her roots.

If we truly want to solve most of American society’s problems, return America to its founding principles. Otherwise, we commit societal suicide.

Munday-Munday:  I got those wake up its early, wash behind your ears they’re dirty, eat your eggs and oatmeal, rush to work blues.  I just do not do Monday’s all that well anymore … Most folks believe heart attacks occur on Monday, but the majority of them knock you down on Wednesday, not the first of the week as erroneously presumed.  And they hit at 10 A.M. (or thereabouts) quick check your watch.

That is one of those mysteries of life, you know things that do not add up.  

Why is it that every black guy in prison in the movies is named “Red?”  That would be one.  How come some guy born in Kansas City that happens to be black is now called an African American?  He aint African anything.  Why does the late Patrick Swayze look both ways before crossing the street in the movie Ghost?  I mean hell, he is a ghost, an errant cab or a delivery truck cannot hurt him.  Strange doin’s on a Monday.

 One more and I am outta here … If evolution is true as they say, then why do Mother’s only have one set of hands?

Think about it ….

OOO

August 22, 2012

Do Over

Filed under: Blogging,Bus Life,Life,Oklahoma,Recent — ldsrr91 @ 6:21 AM
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Let’s pretend for a second here, that we could be something, anything, we want to be.  That we could radically change our present circumstance to anything we want it to be, to be able to change our present status in life to something totally new and different.

To be the NEW you that YOU want to be.

If given the chance, a vast majority of us, would do it in a heartbeat.  This might be why a large segment of the population in this country relate so well to Hollywood and movie personalities.  It gives us a little chance to live vicariously thru other people (actors and characters) for a short while and escape the rigors that modern day life has to offer.

Let’s face it, most of us live lives of quiet desperation.

We all secretly wish to be someone else, to be something else, we are as the younger generation puts it a bunch of  …. “Posers.”  We make a mental note each day of things we want to improve, things that we want to change, and yes, people we admire and want to be.  We are so bad at this, that an entire industry was formed around the very idea of the quick note.

During my career on the railroad we had a select group of people that followed us everywhere we went.  They were armed with cameras and radio scanners, they knew just about every aspect of our working lives.  They didn’t do it, they just thought they knew everything about it, they for lack of a better word, studied every aspect of our daily duties, our career.

They were also quick to tell you that they were “rail buffs.”  We on the other hand, called them “Foamers,” because each time they saw a train, they kind of went all glassy eyed and freaked out.  The sight of GP35 or a SD40 took them over like a rabid dog, thus, the term “Foamers.”


Rail Buff At Work

This is just one example of a poser … someone trying to be something else, a person living thru you.

In the bus community (people who own and restore old buses) have a term for it, those folks who dream of owning a bus, who want a bus, they are called “wanna-be’s” and those folks new to the lifestyle are called “newbies.”  They even have folks residing with them that do not own a bus, but still consider themselves bus people, fact is, I don’t know what to call someone like that.  Hopeless Dreamer comes readily to mind.

One very popular show on television is Extreme Home Makeover.  A very popular television series featuring a new abode, with brand new stuff, and of course, higher taxes. Who amongst us hasn’t secretly pined for a shot at that.  Those of us who sit around during the slow part of the day and dream of castles in the sky, a new place to hang our hat. (Hey what the ____ it beats working right?)

Then there is the movie thing that we seem to be obsessed with.

A movie that quickly comes to mind is Somewhere In Time.  The ability to go back in time, to a much happier period, perhaps one less stressful, where you do not have to dress for success.  That special niche in time where you do not have to kiss a part of the boss, the part he sits on most of the day, in order to get by.

Face it, most of us don’t need any of this. We don’t really need another chance to be something that we are not, because that would waste the unique individuals that most of already are.   What we need is a do over.  Perhaps one more shot at the now dead American Dream.

Having ample time to stop and consider my present station in life, I have come to one solid conclusion about all this.  I don’t favor Robert Redford, another Dustin Hoffman I am not, there is only so much room for industrial hero’s like Donald Trump, Warren Buffet  (the ultimate train buff) or Lee Iaccoca.  In other words … Don’t waste a makeover on me, that is a total waste of time, I am what I am, pretty much locked into that.

No need for a Make Over here … What I really need is … A Do-Over … one more swing at all this, and I promise Lord, this time I won’t screw it up.

OOO

June 29, 2012

Thou Shall Not Steal II

Filed under: Blogging,Life,Oklahoma,Recent,Uncategorized — ldsrr91 @ 3:56 AM
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“I like music, it soothes the savage beast in me, it allows me to escape the horrible things that life often has in store, and I would miss it if it were to disappear. “

Yesterday’s post turned out to be rather popular, so here is part II … All the movies have a sequel, so we will do it too.  I have a friend who is constantly stealing music, he says it is not stealing, he refers to it as bootlegging.  Which we all know, is a cop out, it is stealing, plain and simple.  Musicians make their living by their music, if they cannot make a profit or carve out a niche with their work, they will stop making CD’s.

Same thing with photographers, who also depend on a payday now and then for the sum total of their work.  In my own personal opinion, a world devoid of music and vivid pictures, is just another cesspool I will have to wade my way thru.

Not a pleasant prospect by any definition.

Personally, I like music, it soothes the savage beast in me, it allows me to escape the horrible things that life often has in store, and I would miss it if it were to disappear.  The pictures provide me with an escape, if only momentarily, to another place and time, and relieve me of the pressure of everyday life.

In the past I have actually lost friends and/or acquaintances simply because I would not copy software for them and told them to do as I did … trot on down to Staples or Office Depot and BUY a copy of it.  (My own kid to this day still holds it against me because I would not GIVE HIM a working copy of Windows 98-something or rather, which by the way, cost me $125.)

Last year I had some DUI lawyers in Austin, Texas, who were regularly visiting my site, doing a copy & cut, then pasting it on another site of their making.  Not only was this not a nice thing to do, they were also adding to the material, their own personal thoughts and observations and changing the material or morphing it into something it surely was not.

After several emails and threats to sue the ____ out of them, the site abruptly disappeared and the problem went away.

Maybe it is me, perhaps because of age, I am just cranky.  But I am sick of people disregarding the rights of others, simply to appear as if they are talented, when in fact, they are not.  Using copyrighted material and/or stealing it for use on your webpage.  At the very bottom of the baseline scale, is kind of dishonest and certainly beneath what most would consider dignified behavior.  If you are posting and not giving credit, then you need to clean up your act.

Long ago, the Greek Philosophers said that “there were no new ideas.”  And to a certain extent, that remains true to this day.  If you are borrowing to entice or impress and you are not giving credit where credit is due, you are a thief.  The very least you can do is to add some kind of “credit” somewhere in the piece to allow others to know where the material originated or came from.

Now I often walk a fine line and try my level-best to not to do this, but I am not perfect, far from it.  I do however strive to make it a daily practice to intentionally not use other peoples stuff.  I try hard to keep it original and most of the time …. Mine.  Like my latest effort I am working on now, “Sensitivity Awareness and Love Making For White Boys” which should out some time this fall, look for it.  (I will of course, have a “little borrowed stuff from Playboy” but that should be okay.  No one is really paying attention these days anyway)

Have a great weekend.

OOO

Top posts and what folks have been reading on Creative Endeavors this week.

Home page / Archives
Bikinis (The reason men are pigs)
Thou Shall Not Steal
Wood Ice Chest
Really Ungood Man
The Worry Tree
Clear Blue Sky
We Are Giving You Ten Million Dollars
A Moment In Time
Mr. Gorsky

May 27, 2011

Live Free Or Die Hard

Filed under: Life,Oklahoma — ldsrr91 @ 5:22 AM
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Not much on television, so I am watching “Die Hard” with Bruce Willis, an old stand-by on a somewhat hum-drum Oklahoma Day and there is the scene where the cop is purchasing all of these Twinkies for “his pregnant wife” and he walks outside and stares up at the NakaTomiBuilding.

The sign on the immediate right reads, “Unleaded Regular 74.9 per gallon” ah, the good old days, eh?

Die Hard is a good movie, but I liked the one after that, “Return of the Titans” or something like that.  Denzel Washington, a man’s movie, football, the sixties.  Bag of Cheeto;s, diet soda, I am legally dead for the next two and one-half hours .. hire out an undocumented worker to take out the trash and leave me alone.

Boom Shaka-laka, Boom Shaka-laka, we are the Titans!  The mighty, mighty Titans!

A good movie.  Winners.  Upbeat stuff.  Most of us have never experienced the feeling of being on a “winning team” in life.  For the most parts, that is a special time only reserved for a select few.  I had a taste of it when I was in Boot Camp, I was in the First Color Company of the year, and we were good.  No, we were “better than good” we were “the” best.  Being on a winning team is truly a special feeling, it is a wonderful sensation, almost indescribable to a point, kind of like flying to Paris for breakfast on a LearJet, that would be close to it.

As I said … We were top drawer.  We were for the most parts the best.  We were unbeatable.

No one could hold a candle to us, we had every flag you could possibly have … And we had TWO OF THEM EACH.  We were the Super Bowl of companies in 1965.  That is possibly my only claim to fame.  So I know what it feels like to be a winner, I have been there, done that, got the T-shirt.  I can truthfully say … It sure feels good to be a winner.

Taking all this one step further, this possibly could be the reason I have a problem with all this Global Warming and Energy non-sense going around.  All this whining about our economy and how things are not getting better.  This idea of it not being real or the fact that we are somewhat powerless to do anything about it.

Most any person would quickly agree, that is not a winner’s attitude.

Why is it we cannot deliver a bottle of water to some poor soul standing on the roof of his flooded house in time of emergency or rebuild a city that was knocked down to its proverbial knees by an act of nature.  When did we seemingly overnight become a nation of whiners and complainers, incapable of solving even the simplest of problems for our country and our citizens?

Not long ago I watched in awe as the Japanese people lined up for the basic necessities in life, politely, quietly, with composure and respect.  We could learn a lot from the Japanese people about courtesy, patience and dignity.

When did we become this “I cannot do it state” or this “can’t do society?”

There was a time in this country, that we could face any challenge put before us with strength, national resolve, and we would rise to any challenge presented to us.  When you look back, we have solved some pretty hefty problems domestically; we have taken more than one tyrant to task, and kicked some tail.  We put men on the moon, we have sent instruments of exploration into deep space, we have overcome great diversity in racism and civil rights violations.

There is only one thing permanent in America any more and that is change.

We had best change and do it soon, or it is the final chapter in our history.  You want to put up a wind turbine in my backyard?  If that is what it takes, then I am onboard.  Same with refineries or solar collecting grids, screw the view, I want to be cool when it is hot outside, if that is what it takes, bring it on.

Boom Shaka-laka,Boom Shaka-laka, we are the Titans!  The mighty, mighty Titans!

Nice thought, but in today’s society, not very realistic.  It is time to suit up for another game America … To get back on the winning side of life.  THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:  “No one has ever gotten laid by wearing pins on their lapel with funny sayings.  No one ever got very far following a parked car Mr. Obama.”  Some of us are getting tired of taking it in the shorts, week after week, where is the change that was promised.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, take time to remember all the brave men who died so that you might enjoy the freedoms that you have today.

OOO

March 14, 2011

New Arrival

Filed under: Life,Oklahoma,Recent — ldsrr91 @ 3:48 AM
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Johnny, our youngest kid, just turned 40, time sure has a way of sneaking up on you.  First thing you know, it has as the bible says, “like a thief in the night” robbed you of what you hold so dear.  Time.  This morning I am thinking about the youngster, not the man, not the father or the devoted husband.  We received an email this week that announced to us the arrival, or rather impending arrival, of another grand baby.  This makes #4 for Johnny and his wife Lily.  He always told us when he was younger he wanted to “have at least eight children” and it appears that he is now half-way there.  So today’s post is not about Johnny the father, but rather,  Johnny the kid.

Back in the day, when Johnny was a young lad, I used to work for the worst boss in the world, well he might not have been “the” worst boss in the world, but he was definitely in the top five.  He used to adjust my attitude on a daily basis, and I have to admit, it worked.  I would not only adopt the attitude, but I would bring it home with me.  It often didn’t take a whole lot to have me chasin’ my own tail by four o’clock in the afternoon.

Working for this moron was not the high point of my day, too many days that I care to remember.

One particular day, I came home with a bad case of attitude and really found myself not to be good company to a man or a dog.  Johnny who was just being a kid, doing what kid’s do, irritated the fizz out of me and I unloaded on the boy.  I made it unmistakably clear that I wasn’t having any of it and he was not helping matters much by contributing to my discomfort with life in general.

In other words, I mounted the kid pretty bad.

The next day at work, I got to thinking about what it is that I did, what it is that I said, why it was, that I found myself so hopelessly wrong.  So when I got home, I asked the boy, “You wanna go see a movie?” and he eyed me rather suspiciously and said, “What kind of movie?” and I said, “Uh I dunno, I am sure I can find something.”

We then loaded up and headed out to the theater to see a flick, leaving Mom at home.  Just the two of us.

Unfortunately, the childrens fare was not all that good that particular day as I remember it, and we had to settle for something a little bit more mature and adult in nature.  Afterwords, we went to the local Ice Cream eatery and we chowed down on a Banana Split with extra cherries, extra nuts, we basically shared “the works” the boy and I.

And we talked, I mean really talked.

We sat there in the booth and we laughed and in one of those rare moments, we shared a little of each other.  I apologized to the boy and told him about life, how you had to contend with certain people in order to make a living and told him that what happened the day before was not his fault.

In detail, taking pains to make sure he knew what had transpired, I explained that it was MY fault, not his, that I was just having a rotten day and that he was just being a kid.

The boy in his gracious nature said, “Aw, don’t worry about it Dad, it is okay.”

On the way home, sitting next to me in the car, he looked up and he said, “Hey Dad?” and I said, “Yeah, what John?” He said, “I really liked that movie Dad, but it would have been a lot better if it didn’t have all that dumb sex in it, huh?”

Every now and then … You can learn a lot from a nine year old.

Start the week off on the right foot, when you come home today from the nine to five that has a tendency to “eat your lunch.”   Stop, reach down and grab your kid, give ‘em a big hug and tell them you love them.

Kids need that in their lives … and you do too.

OOO

March 1, 2011

Bus Stuff: Go Ahead Make My Day

Filed under: Bus Life,humor,Life,Oklahoma — ldsrr91 @ 11:50 AM
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Father time and my vices seem to have caught up with me.  In other words, “I used to eat like a horse, and now I sort of resemble one.”  Push came to shove, so I have been making some radical changes in my lifestyle.

Out of curiosity I checked my BMI (Body Mass Index) as I have been trying desperately trying to lose some weight.  One of the apparent drawbacks to aging is you become metabolically challenged.  Surprisingly, as you grow older, you and your fat, well you get close, you become friends.

Anyway, I am checking on my BMI and it appears that I am somewhere close to my perfect weight if I were seven feet tall or say, a medium sized pickup truck.  On the advice of my doctor, I started walking two miles per day to lose the excess weight.  He called Friday and inquired as to how I was doing?  I just said, “Well, not all that great, I have shed three pounds, but I am fifteen miles outside of Amarillo.”

As you can see, I don’t worry a whole lot.

Up and until now, the only thing that concerned me or really bothered me was a leaking silicone hose that was dropping copious amounts of anti-freeze on the cardboard cutouts under the rear of my bus.  I suspect a faulty or loose hose clamp, but I am not all that sure, because it hasn’t bothered me enough to actually fix it.

If it were leaking diesel, I would be on it in a heartbeat, but as it is anti-freeze, well, y’know the rest, dontcha?

Voted the Sixties as the best era to be alive this week on an internet poll.  Which would really confuse people in Dallas, they think an era is waiting on the light, so you can turn left (Don’t send me any letters).

Here is a suggestion for an internet poll.  How about the perfect job, what do you think the perfect job would be?  I vote for the lady who cashes in the winning lottery ticket, that would have to be the best job ever.  Each and every soul that you meet … would be elated … Happy and in a great mood.  Not like the guy working in the back of the truck-stop changing out old tires.

Here is a little slice of life for you.

If you are currently being ignored by one person on the net, then you are relatively okay and should not be concerned.  If the number increases to say three or four, then you have attained the social status of a fly at a picnic and should make immediate corrections to edit your profile.

Read of a bus meet in St. George, Utah, which appears to be interesting and the locale is great (Zion, means Heaven, did you know that?) but I now understand that it is not a “sanctioned Eagle event” which I suppose means … You have to bring your own donuts? Sure wish I could attend that, but it isn’t likely.

Been an interesting week, just when I thought I had seen it all and heard it all, something else pops up on the horizon. I am reading the net and there is a comment and the guy is saying, “Dirty Harry said this” …..  and I am thinking … “he KNOWS that Dirty Harry is not a real person, doesn’t he?”

And another is commenting, “Well I have to go with Elvis on this one, as if the man was still with us, alive and breathing.”  I mean let’s face it people, this one guy is not real and the other is dead.

If he (Elvis) were alive, I don’t believe you would find him living (or even traveling) in a rebuilt old bus for cryin’ out loud.  If you Google Elvis impersonators you get over 136,000 hits in 21 seconds and according to Sixty Minutes, over 84,000 Americans are making a living doing just that … Impersonating Elvis Presley.

The rest of ‘em (Americans) are currently on unemployment compensation which according to the latest numbers, finds that most of them are not doing all that well.  I wonder if the “Naked Cowboy” is still hawking his wares on the streets of New York?

From a personal standpoint, I don’t want to be a Dirty Harry or at best a somewhat tubby, balding, short Elvis …  That would waste the ME that I already AM … I don’t want to be anyone else, and I don’t want to quote anyone else, I want to be the me that I already seem to be.


There are more important issues facing us today, such as “Who is the Super-Secret Internet Bully and why is it even important in this day and age to identify him.” or  “Where do you locate a T-Shirt that reads, I cannot take it anymore.”

This brings me to a conclusion, there is nothing else to be said.  I am done, I am spent, I have absolutely nothing more.

Perhaps it is time for me to take a seven year hiatus from all of my cyber wanderings, travel the backroads of this great country at random and find out who it is that I truly might be?  Y’know, get out of my head and into the world, which is another funny expression, that you just read on the net.

I’ll let you know …..

Don Smith
aka: BCO

December 30, 2010

Rounding Out The Last Of It

Filed under: Life,Oklahoma — ldsrr91 @ 7:19 AM
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time

Found myself sitting around most of this day watching Beach Video’s on cable.  I like the “eye candy” and there is the added “suspense factor” that they interject into the segments.  Will Bobby be found by his mother before 28 minutes after the hour, when the commercials are scheduled to run. By the way, “they always find the missing tyke and he/she is reunited with his/her mother.”

Most of the time it is a lost little boy and I don’t know why it is that way but it is.

End of the year wrapping up here in the Heart Land, time to start considering what it is that we are going to try and do different in this New Year. Which country we will invade in the name of Democracy, where we will park the new aircraft carrier named after the president when it comes out of the shipyard.  My old Carrier is slated to be sunk and made into an artificial reef somewhere off the east coast.  I wonder in the New Year … Whether or not Bed, Bath & Beyond will have a sale in January or even still be in business by say … July?

Mostly I wonder if I will ever shell out $8.50 a pop to see another Adam Sandler movie, which is highly doubtful.  Not big on resolutions, but here is one that I could make and keep, without any problems whatsoever.  I could make an honest effort at being a much milder, congenial person ….. Naw, screw that, why would I want to tear down this wonderful reputation that I have spent years building in one day?

One thing I have settled in on for sure, is managing my email account a lot better than I did this past year, it has been for lack of a better word rather pathetic.  A chaotic mess of this and that, I hope in the New Year to organize it better and stay on top of it.   So there are a few things I wish to change, and most likely will.  I suppose we all have a little bit of the “hopeless dreamer” in us all, and we swear up and down, we will fix things.

All those pesky bothersome things that usually do not get fixed.

This is the time of the year when some of us naturally start thinking of last minute giving, beating the tax deadline of the 31st of the month and find something that can not only benefit us financially but also give you a jump on those pesky New Years Resolutions that the majority of us make, but never seem to keep.  Fortunately for Cup Cake and I, years ago we started out with virtually nothing, and somehow, we have managed to keep it all intact.  We won’t be giving anything more than we have already, we just don’t have it.

No big night out on the town either, we will stay inside our warm abode, close to each other, huddled in the dark listening to the gunshots in the neighborhood.  I remember one New Year in particular, we were in Las Vegas, and when the appointed time came, everyone was kissing everyone else, it was nice, and I have to admit, “kind of hot” until the wife looked at me and declared, “You kiss one more woman, and you will NOT be having a good year, you understand?”

In the movies, the hero always gets a last cigarette, a last request, just about anything that he requests, is granted.  Not here.  I get the final warning and not so much as a blindfold.  And of course …. “Before I kill you, there is ONE THING I want you to know.” So much for good times on Fremont Street and lip-locking with beautiful females of the opposite sex.

Ah, the once a year “I am gonna become a better person” syndrome (which in my case is HIGHLY doubtful) has arrived and it is time to re-arrange our lifestyles, our priorities and take charge of what is left of our lives. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone.

 

What Men Bake For The Holidays


Think I will go make some cookies, get my mind off of all this.

000

January 3, 2009

January Joiner

Filed under: humor,Oklahoma — ldsrr91 @ 1:13 AM
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Our Congressional "Leadership."

Our Congressional "Leadership."

Don’t you just love the new commercial where all the people are clicking their heels together and trying to do as Dorothy did, transport themselves somewhere else.  Cracks me up.  Here is another thing that cracks me up.  I am reading where the government program that you apply to for a “television converter” is now going to run out of money because it was not “funded right” and it could be that everyone is going to get a coupon instead of the converter.

What a deal!  An I.O.U. from the government instead of what you need.  Who would have ever thought our government would run out of money?  I have a novel idea, when April rolls around I will send you an “I.O.U.” on my tax burden, how’s that?

Happy New Year, no money and now it appears no television.  What a deal.  It truly appears that the inmates are running the asylum now boys & girls.

Here we go!  I have to type fast because Norton Anti-Virus is going to come on soon, and it will dog this sucker down so bad, I won’t be able to type.  I just hate it when that happens.  I set it up to do this in the “middle of the night” when I am asleep, oh well?  If this is the worse thing that happens to me this day, I will be all right, things often do not go my way.

Just like I hate it when I discover the dog swallowed my bus pass, I could not find my shoes under the bed, a buffalo escaped from the game reserve down the street, and kept charging me every time I tried to leave the house for a trip to StarBucks for a cup of $4 coffee!

Life is a real booger sometimes, isn’t it?

Well, here it is the 3rd of the month, only a few short weeks and the big party in the nation’s capitol.  I can hardly wait, no really, I can’t.  Another factitious celebration of goodwill hosted on the backs of all those wage earners who are fortunate to still have a job.

It seems in the 21st Century America now has a new mission, and that is the manufacturing of nothing but “debt” we no longer make anything in this country, and what we do sell, was made elsewhere.  But I don’t want to rightfully assume the position of “National Complainer” nor do I want to throw cold water on the big doing’s — so I will now be quiet.

We are still trying to hit one million visitors by March 12th, please spread our address around and give us a boost.

Some of the items on the agenda next week will be:  Oprah and Charice, a fascinating kid out of the Republic of the Philippines, my old truck, my trusty Pig Iron Pony out of Detroit threw a shoe, and I am dealing with the Chevy Dealer again, Dysfunctional Families in America, What you do on the Internet matters, TV Sex, why is it the woman is always on top?  Radio Girls first hand report from Mexico from the surf bar named “Senor Frogs.”  Important issues to be discussed and then there is always “the government” when it gets slow.

Don’t miss any of it.

(I am sure not gonna miss any of ‘em)

000

December 30, 2008

Mayberry’s Hero

Filed under: Oklahoma,Recent — ldsrr91 @ 5:58 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

opieWatched some captivating and interesting television last night (for a change).  It celebrated the history and the works of Ron Howard (Opie Taylor), all of his movies as a producer and director.

His efforts on the screen as a child actor and star.  I certainly was not aware of the copious volumes of his work, and it was interesting as all get out.

Glued to the tube, I microwaved me some day old pizza and stayed up well past my appointed retirement time, to finish it all.  I seldom do that.  If you missed it, I am so sorry for you, it was memorable TV and you don’t find that much anymore.

So what else is going on, let’s get started.

Now they are saying that “recyclables” are taking it in the shorts, and the price of everything, plastic, newsprint, cardboard, alum.cans, copper all of it is tanking.

The city is now reporting that recycling outfits are reneging on contracts and not taking any more material, because there is simply “no money in it anymore.”  All recyclables are now again, headed for the dumps or county landfill.

Did you ever think you would live long enough to see a time in your life when garbage was worthless?  Well, that time has arrived.

When economies shut down, as they are doing worldwide, then the demand for raw materials declines, and that seems to be in play here.  China having shut down a lot of its industrial might, Japan no longer needing steel for cars it cannot sell here or abroad, no one is buying.  And the people that do have it (material) are holding onto it hoping for better prices down the line.

The Age of Scarcity is here.

Kind of makes you wonder, “if everything is not in demand, and if it is all being packaged smaller and smaller” then why are some companies posting massive profits.  Because they are giving you less and charging you more.

Take Kraft Foods for instance.  The company’s income soars to new heights, and the first thing Kraft does is put out a statement to defend the obscene profits.

The CEO of Kraft foods put out an erroneous statement that a high percentage of food stocks are being diverted for use in the production of fuel, estimates as high as 40%.  Along with other absurd statements such as “almost half of all grains, dairy, vegetables, meats and fruit in the world are being used to convert into fuel.”

Which is simply not true and in no way justifies the obscene profits that Kraft is making.  The United Nations reports that about 3.7 billion acres of land is used for farming and of that, less than 1% of that is used for the production of alternative fuels.

Food companies have blamed bio fuels all year long in order to justify high prices. Kraft posted $1.4 billion in earnings last quarter alone.

Adjusted for inflation, corn, and wheat have dropped by 50% since spring and soybean prices are lower than they have been since the great depression.  Isn’t it funny, when the price of a barrel of oil went down, so did the price of fuel.  But it evidently doesn’t work that way with the people who process food.

Anyone notice, or is it just me?  The count on the number of active rigs looking for new sources of oil nationwide has steadily declined in the past 4 to 6 weeks.  When the price of the product sinks, they stop looking, when someone stops buying their product, they don’t refine it, to drive up the price, and now according to the latest rig count, it appears that it is no longer profitable to drill for oil so they are shutting down all the rigs.

Surprisingly our dependence on foreign sources must have disappeared and there is no longer a viable reason to explore for more.  Who would’ve thought that?  I now understand in the U.K. they are trying to put “speed limiters” on automobiles (that would be an engine governor over here) in order to cut emissions and cut down on fuel use.

At least someone is still in the ballgame.

Here is today’s Rasberry Award to Redding California who should be moved to the top of the list (If you don’t know what list I am talking about, email me and I will gladly point it out to you) — Shasta County health officials are cracking down on an 86-year-old disabled World War II veteran who has been selling homemade fruitcakes for more than a decade.

An obscure law bans food businesses in private homes, the Department of Environmental Health said. Officials said Jack Melton must use a commercial bakery that has passed a health inspection. Melton said his sales helped supplement his Social Security benefits.

A scumbag banker can get away with murder, but we crank it down on an old Vet. that is so sad.

Providence Rhode Island residents are scooping up $20 dollar tickets in the hopes of hitting it big on a new $1 million state lottery. Only 120,000 tickets are being sold, with about 2,000 remaining. The winner will be chosen during a New Year’s Eve drawing. Besides the top prize, there are 10 drawings for $10,000, 100 chances to win $500 and 500 chances to win $100.

New War in the Middle East or another round of the same old one, I am not sure.  Day after day the Love Fest in Washington DC continues, everyone gearing up for the big party.  Out with the old and in with the new.

Some things in the New Year will stay the same, we have what are known as constants in our lives and here are a few for you:

  • Insect spray:  “Harmful to bee’s.”  Sadly, just about everything these days is harmful to bee’s, and they are in serious decline, not only in this country, but around the world.
  • Motorcycle mirror: “Objects in the mirror are behind you.”  Duh, you think so?
  • Bag of peanuts:  “This bag contains nuts.”
  • Mattress:  “Do not attempt to swallow.  Do not remove tag under penalty of law?” There are actually people who enforce these laws?
  • Remote control:  “Not dishwasher safe.”
  • Hair blower/dryer:  “Do not use in the shower.”
  • Iron:  “Never Iron clothes on body.”
  • Wristwatch: “This is not underwear, do not put in pants.”
  • Life saving device:  “This is NOT a life saving device.”
  • “I just love that rich, beefy, hearty flavor.” People really talk like this?
  • Why is it that every tour boat on any lake in America is always called “Lady Of The Lake?”

Most of all I am so glad that we have people like Ron Howard, who can make a great movies that I can go to and get away from it all for just a little while.  It gives you a brief respite where you can mull over in your mind that terrible feeling you got as the woman drove away in her car and yells to you “Hey, Thanks A Million” and you suddenly realize that the directions you gave her were dead wrong.

Stuff like that.

000

November 14, 2008

Moment of Truth

Filed under: Uncategorized — ldsrr91 @ 4:04 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

This morning I am reminded of that old movie with Robert Redford where he is “The Candidate” do you know of which movie I am referring to here?  It is all about his running for the office, the long hard arduous trip to the prize, an office in Washington DC … A senate seat.  I am thinking not so much about the body of the movie, but the last scene.  Where he is sitting in the hotel room, he has won, and he looks at his campaign director and he says to him …. “What now?”  And the campaign manager says, “Figure it out, you are the Senator.”

So I wonder …  What is Mr. Obama thinking about this morning?

Another great day in history has passed.  On election day history is always made.  1842 … Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd.  1869 … the First issue of Nature was published.  1922 …Archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the entrance to King Tut’s tomb in Egypt.  1924 … In Wyoming, Nellie Tayloe Ross was elected the first female governor in U.S. history.  1960 … Filming wraps up on The Misfits, the last movie for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe.  Fast forward to 2008 … Mr. Obama becomes the first Black Man to become President of the United States.

History is made on election day.

It is almost as if we have been embroiled in the greatest novel of time for the past twenty-two months.  A page of it at a time slowly revealed to us, albeit too slowly in my case.  And like the OJ Simpson scenario, Rodney King, Watergate, we were slowly sucked into it.  Opinion surveys, robo calls, voter registration totals, survey after survey.  We were drawn into it like a Moth to a lite bulb almost to the point of being outright consumed or obsessed with it.  Now we seem to be standing at that point in time, where the book isn’t quite finished, we are standing at the final chapter, the future, and we know not how the end will come about.

There I suppose lay the mystery.

Barak Obama has spent over $250 million on local, cable and network television convincing us that he is the man for the job, he is up for the task.  But we also know that politicians are the same all over, they promise to build us a bridge, when we can clearly see there is no river.  He has spent more on TV ad’s than such giant brands as Burger King, Apple and The Gap.  He is in the cat bird seat now, and that is fine, but the honeymoon only lasts for a short period, ask Sarah Palin.

He will soon discover that a lot of this garbage is locked rigidly in place and he has a full plate before him.  What he has to deal with is a massive mess left to him by the Bush Wrecking Crew and a very hostile and shaky world to deal with at the very same time.


No easy row to hoe.

Personally I am glad it is over, I am free of it, and now I can collect my thoughts, and get back to other things that are driving me nuts.  Like e-mail.  I am so sick of being a slave to my in-box, I have to really do something about that.  I made a folder the other day, I labeled it “Cartoons” so I could unclutter some of my clutter.  So like the fool I seem to be, I put ALL OF MY BOOTLEGGED CARTOONS the really good stuff in the folder to store for sometime in the future.  That is what a folder is for, isn’t that correct?

Today I go to use it, guess what?  Yeppers, the folder is gone and the cartoons too.

So for starters, I am going to step away from the e-mail box, I am going to get the first things first stuff out of the way, and then read all this “pass this on to every person you know in the entire world” emails.  I am going to give it time and not leap to answer everything that I find in there.

Having convinced myself that this is necessary to good mental health. Not thirty minutes ago I killed the alert feature and now I am not disturbed or distracted by this constant beep!  You have mail!  I can wait to respond, especially to those massive mass e-mails.

The best, the absolute all time winners on e-mail was one that arrived in the box earlier on in the year, during the spring.  Nothing much about it was special except the last line … At the conclusion of the informational missive was this profound statement:

“If you do not get this e-mail let me know.”


Recently I have even learned how to lie about my whereabouts.  Fortunately, e-mail systems allow you to “create an outgoing message that says you’re out of the office.”  Which is cool, you can use it to give yourself an e-mail break.

Like this for instance: I am not actually writing this, this is being written by Don’s refrigerator, Don is not here, he took a break to go to the drugstore for a refill on his Prozac and a new blood pressure monitor.

Hump Day for a five day a week wage slave In Oklahoma … Hang in there … You almost have it made.

000

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