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| October 31, 2008 |
| 10.31.08 (8:12 am) [edit] |
Good morning Boys and Girls.
A little addition...
It's 6:06 p.m. and SweetLady is about twenty-five miles from here. I'm about to put dinner in. Hope Halloween is as nice for the rest of you.
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| Definition of "Autumn" -the three days between summer and winter. |
| 10.28.08 (9:52 am) [edit] |
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Good morning Boys and Girls. As soon as I woke up a couple of hours ago, upon realizing the day of the week, I mildly panicked. I forgot to take the rubbish down to the street last night. Damn. The garbage folks come pretty early sometimes, and I realized I'd better get my butt in gear. I moved around the house quickly emptying the little receptacles in the kitchen, bathroom, my den and office. I hadn't looked outside yet, and when I opened the garage door to roll out the over-sized plastic trash bin the garbage hauler provides - which I rarely even half-fill - I was surprised to see the solid mass of glistening grass blades showing off the first hard frost of the year. The sun hadn't risen yet, but that special crystal-white of frost was easily visible. Beautiful. About the only "fancy" thing about this place is the driveway which, to me anyway, is really neat. It's over a tenth of a mile long and meanders down toward the road attractively. The old owners paved it a just year or two before I moved in, meaning the asphalt is still in good shape, though I suppose I ought to seal it next summer. I thought about this - again - as I walked the rolling container down, feeling a little guilty for not having done the weekend-long chore already. On my way back up, I couldn't help myself. I walked along the side of the driveway almost all the way up on the grass; the crunch of the frost underfoot - a singularly satisfying sound to me - keeping me company all the way up. I loved to do this as a kid on my way to school, and I sometimes wonder if it isn't one of the reasons I've always enjoyed playing golf so late into the autumn when I'm able, even though they don't usually allow you on the courses until the frost has at least burned off the greens. As that happens, if it's a sunny day, you can usually see bits of fog rise up all around the course, and just now I looked out to see if it's happening here, but it's still too early. Now, in fact, a few big snow flakes fall outside. This, I suppose, reinforces the sad notion that the season for seeing frost on the lawn is an especially short one around here. Sometime within the next month, it's likely the lawn will be covered in a thicker blanket of a less sparkling white and I probably won't see the grass again till spring. Oh well. So be it. Like so much in life, I'll enjoy it while I can. Be good to everyone. |
| Nine days... |
| 10.26.08 (10:58 am) [edit] |
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Good morning Boys and Girls. The election is just over a week away. Started this blog four years ago, the day after the 2004 election, out of frustration. What had really turned the tide four years ago - along with likely voter fraud and ads questioning John Kerry's patriotism for having taken the correct stand on the Vietnam war (after returning from fighting in it valiantly) thirty years earlier, was that, according to the polls - the religious right in this country had voted pretty much as a solid block for GWB. I have long maintained that people willing to believe that the world was literally created in seven days; that every species of animal that has ever existed was tossed down on the planet's surface at the same time in a single afternoon during that week; that Jesus was born of a virgin and rose up after being dead for three days to make some cameos in the lives of his followers for the next forty; and that it's predestined that the world will end sometime soon no matter what we do, do not have enough common sense to be trusted with the future of this country and the world. I maintain that, as a group, they are far too gullible and can be lead far too easily by their leaders - who continuously show they are just as flawed as anyone else. This week, a writer for James Dobson's Focus on the Family's FocusAction.com web site, who seems to feel the need to be anonymous, has a letter posted (it's in the upper right hand portion of the home page - a pdf link) that makes absurd assertions about what it will be like here in America in 2012 if Obama is elected. Damned spooky stuff. I'd suggest everyone reads this letter. If you believe it to be anywhere close to true, I'd suggest you vote for John McCain. Of course, if you believe it to be true, you've probably already decided to vote for McCain, cuz you already believe in the sort of fantasies Dobson and his ilk promote. Personally, I pray to God every day. I pray that people use the brains he/she gave us, that we learn to recognize scare tactics for what they are. I pray that people finally begin to recognize that a God powerful enough to create this universe - however it was done - wouldn't try to explain himself in a book, but instead would let his creations themselves be the clues to how he/she works and what is expected from us. I pray that Jesus was as special as I've always thought he was; special because he told us to take care of one another, to love God, our friends and families - as well as our enemies. I pray that we learn to prioritize the way he suggested we ought. Interestingly, if Jesus would approve of the way Dobson and his followers view the world, I'd lose all respect for him. Remember, Jesus never said "I'm am the way to the Father." He said "Mine is the way to the Father." His way was love, not fear. Be good to everyone. |
| Maybe we just need the very smartest people working to figure out the economy... |
| 10.24.08 (9:53 am) [edit] |
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Good morning Boys and Girls. Well, I see that Steven Hawking is retiring at the end of the next academic year. Cambridge is losing it's most renowned instructor, and, finally, I'll be able to stop feeling so damn stupid for not understanding his "populist" book from 1988, "A Brief History of Time." I say 'good riddance' sir. I was very comfortable with the knowledge that black holes were so dense that nothing could escape them; not light, not mass, not sound. Nothing. My understanding of that simple fact was comforting to me. Then you, what with your cute little electronic vocal simulator and in your wheelchair from Star Trek, had to confound the rest of us with your assertion that, in fact, tiny bits of radiation leak continuously from black holes. Great. Thanks a lot. Now, let me ask you this, Mr. Fancy-pants genius, how am I supposed to sleep at night now that you've gone and changed the way we imagine black holes; almost entirely unimaginable things in the first place; that I'd spent the first twenty-five years of my own life trying to wrap my head around? I say, retire. FINE with me. So what of you've accomplished more in any single day of your life - trapped, as you've been, in a body that makes some of us wonder if God, after all, has one doozy of a sick sense of humor - than I have in in my entire fifty-one years. So what if even your follow-up book, "A Briefer History of Time" from 2005, (meant to be more approachable to us, the dummies of the world) is still so far beyond my comfort level with regard to what I'm able to easily comprehend, that I wanted to stick a fork in my own voice box before I finished reading the first chapter. I've got an idea for you Mr. Hawking. Why not retire now. Do it this very instant. Then spend ten or fifteen minutes thinking about the world financial crisis and give us a ready-made formula to get us out of this mess. No "theories" either. We want a solution, Hawking style. I'm thinking it would be a no-brainer for you, oh, and could you provide it in the "Briefer" style? There's a lot of us dummies. Be good to everyone. |
| Nut-jobs everywhere. |
| 10.15.08 (8:34 am) [edit] |
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Good morning Boys and Girls. Yesterday I didn't accomplish as much as I'd hoped. Every time I'd start feeling like I was about to be productive, the phone would ring and I'd have to move on to another place to do one little job. No biggie. It happens every now and again. Plus, I'm leaving for Des Moines for ten days or so tomorrow and there are a couple of places that hadn't called, but where I nevertheless felt I should stop before I leave. So it was I found myself at one of my favorite client's places of business around 2:00 yesterday afternoon. When I'd arrived, I'd noticed the owner out on the lot talking to an old guy I'd seen around town at other places, but had never met. Three of us were talking in the office when the owner and this other fella walked in. I'll change some names here. The owner said "Hey you guys, did you hear about Don Redmond?" None of us had heard whatever the news was, but we all know Don. "He had a massive heart attack yesterday. They don't think he's going to make it." We all expressed our dismay and this other guy started talking about Don. "I'm going to stop by the house and see if Helen (Don's wife) needs anything. He's one of my favorite people." It was obvious the guy was broken up over the news. "I've known him for forty years - a straight arrow, ya know? -Tells it like it is. You can trust his word. No bullshit. He calls a nigger a nigger." I just sat there. It was surreal. I wanted to object a tad strongly, but it was so strange to hear this, as though... Well, it was as though this was a laudable quality in this poor, possibly dying man, important enough that it was worthy of inclusion in this goofball's premature eulogy. I made eye contact with the owner, with whom I've had a couple of brief discussions about the upcoming election. He rolled his eyes just a little, communicating with me perfectly. He was saying, silently, "Shut up. This guy's crazy." I felt a little better. Be good to everyone. |
| Ya' just can't know what tomorrow has in store for us... |
| 10.13.08 (8:53 am) [edit] |
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Good morning Boys and Girls. I wonder what this week will bring. Couldn't help thinking of my ex-mother-in-law this past week. Now this is a woman with whom I never got along well, but she was, for better or worse, in my life for the better part of three decades. Her own father purchased G.M. stock, little by little, throughout his entire career starting just a couple of years after the corporation was founded. By the time my ex-father-in-law died some ten years ago, after working for G.M. his whole career as well, it looked to me as though she'd be set for life. Now, in her mid-eighties, I hope she dumped her stock early enough. This, in turn, reminded me of the story of my friend Mr. Simpson who lived with my son and me during the last year and a half of his life till he died at the ripe old age of ninety-three back in January of 2003. For forty years he worked as a pipe-fitter - though that title doesn't adequately describe his job. He designed and fabricated enormous piping systems for any number of purposes, (he had some really cool pictures of him and his crew standing inside some of the pipes they made, looking small and insignificant within the forty foot diameter pipes). He retired in 1972. For the last twenty-five years of his working life, he worked for an outfit, if I remember correctly, called R.H. Mahone, Inc. He built up a really nice pension account while working there and when he retired, for two years he and his wife truly enjoyed themselves, taking three cross-country trips encompassing visiting all the contiguous forty-eight states plus Alaska, and they flew to Hawaii for two weeks. He used to talk about how glad he was that they'd taken those trips so soon after he retired. And it certainly was a good thing, because in year three of Mr. Simpson's retirement, the company was sold to a crooked investment firm. Within the next six months, these people raided the pension account of every dollar and then broke up the company, selling off all the equipment piece by piece and padlocking the doors just seven months after acquiring the outfit, leaving dozens of contracts unfulfilled, two hundred guys out of work and sticking the folks who'd already retired with empty pension accounts. For the next twenty-nine years, he lived off his social security checks, which, even when he died, had climbed to only eleven hundred dollars a month. Still, he saved money every month, lived below his means, and had long before let go of any resentment over his situation. He did, however, have very strong feelings about ensuring that the government - finally - step in to protect peoples' pensions. Go figure. Be good to everyone. |
| It's all so funny... Why am I crying? |
| 10.10.08 (9:19 am) [edit] |
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Good morning Boys and Girls. I'm sure glad I have my 401K entirely invested in bathroom tissue. I figure things'll have to get pretty bad before folks stop buying it, and if it does go down the toilet, well, the irony won't be lost on me. Plus, I have an option on five thousand bushels of extra large poplar leaves as a stop-gap. So, one of the things I'm wondering about McCain's new plan to buy up mortgages folks are having trouble paying, revaluing the properties and then rewriting new mortgages at the newly figured lower prices (with a better interest rate) is this: over the last six months as business has slowed, I've killed myself making sure my mortgage payment is made on time and in full. Have I blown it? Will I end up owning a house that has decreased in value - just like everyone else - but that I still own at the price I bought it for, meaning that when and if I sell it, I'll be competing against people who were smart enough to have their homes revalued? Will his plan allow those of us who haven't missed any payments to renegotiate our mortgages as well so we don't suffer either? Look, I'm sort of kidding. I'm no economist, but this plan is absurd. It's just as absurd as blaming the people stuck with sub-prime loans for the problems we're having. We can get all high and mighty and blame the fact we wanted people to own homes who may not have been able to without such programs, but remember these two facts: on paper, these loans were the most profitable segment of the mortgage business - the same way that, for the credit card industry, it's the high risk individuals who run up balances and pay the highest interest rates that are, by FAR, the most profitable segment of the market for them. These ARE the folks who make the credit card companies their money. (I remember my father actually having a credit card he'd had for over twenty years canceled on him because he'd always paid it off at the end of every month. Why? -he wasn't a profitable customer for them. This practice is no longer legal, from what I understand.) Now had the housing market not tanked, even these sub-prime loans - as awful as they are - would still be just fine. The default rate wasn't a problem unless and until the leverage rate was raised from the traditional ten-to-one to forty-to-one and the mortgages were bundled as securities, chopped up, discounted and sold abroad like any other commodity, AND the paper profit began disappearing into the big boys' pockets. Add this to the slowing economy, the waste of 700 billion in Iraq, and a disappearance of our own confidence in the way Washington is handling the problem and you end up with exactly what we're seeing. One more point. Remember early in the campaign when the Republicans were claiming that Obama had been planning to run for the Presidency ever since he was a kid? I'm pretty sure if that were so, he have been a lot more careful about making sure he never spent more than one Sunday listening to Reverend Wright, or sitting on boards (along with Republicans, remember) with William Ayers. Instead, he took people as he found them, and did what he could to advance his chosen projects. When I was a kid, my Grandafther's cottage in Northern Michigan was next to one owned by another minister. I grew up thinking a lot of that other minister's oldest daughter. She was about ten years older than me and smart as anything. -Went to the University of Michigan and then to Berkley for her Masters. She too got involved with the Weather Underground for a few years. Last time I saw her, she was already a retired teacher and a grandmother. Does this mean that if Sarah Palin gets wind of it, I can never run for office without being attacked as dangerous? Didn't you just love that Ms. Palin preempted the investigator's report and cleared herself in the "Troopergate" investigation? Amazing. Be good to everyone. |
| Swoosh.... |
| 10.05.08 (10:48 am) [edit] |
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Good morning Boys and Girls. Can't deal with the swiftness of the passing days. It all happens far too quickly. I keep track of my posts by titling them with the initials "JR" and then the date I write them; today's is simply "10-5-08". I just now typed the date, looked at it and wanted to go back to bed. It can't be October 2008. It just can't be. My life is flying by. If my life span is determined at all by looking at how long the males just above me in my family line lived, I have about thirteen years left walking around this planet. That's fine, but I don't want it to go quickly. I want to enjoy the years I have left. I'll never retire; I know that much. For one thing, I'll never be in a position to afford it financially, but even if I could, I don't think it's in me. Maybe I'll slow down a little more - I've already scaled back some over the last few years - but I enjoy getting out in the world and visiting people, and my work provides that opportunity every day. I enjoy making new acquaintances and friends, and sometimes becoming privy to what makes folks tick. This past week is Des Moines, one of the guys I deal with when I'm over there came up limping badly. I asked him what he'd done. He'd taken a bad spill riding his motor-cross bike in a race last Sunday. The story was that he'd lead the heat until the very last turn in the very last lap. He said he looked back and saw that he was a good fifty yards in front of his closest pursuer. So, instead of just finishing up and taking the checkered flag, he said he revved the motor in order to take the last jump with as much "air" as he could muster the bike into providing - just kind of mildly showing off, he said. Unfortunately, he missed the landing and ended up crashing less than fifty feet from the finish line, lost the race and now sports twenty stitches and the limp. The funny thing to me was that he said he felt incredibly stupid about his antics; that he knew better and had scolded his nephew about the same sort of showing off when leading a race just the week before. See, the guy I'm talking about is as old as I am. THAT'S what made me chuckle. There are some things we males just never learn. As a self employed guy raising a family, I long ago gave up downhill skiing out of fear of breaking a leg or otherwise injuring myself in a manner that might have caused me to be out of work for some protracted period. But now? My kids are grown and self-sufficient. I'm thinking I deserve to ski again. If I get hurt, at least it will be while doing something that always made me feel very much alive back when I did it frequently. I loved it. After all, I want to feel as alive as possible for as long as I am. That makes sense, doesn't it? Either that, or I want the earth to slow down its rotation a little. Be good to everyone. |
Cost of the War in Iraq
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American Deaths in Iraq:
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