Good morning Boys and Girls.

So, nice little scare this week here at tBlog, huh?

Don't think there's anything to worry about. Heck, this was nothing compared to some of outages we used to go through a few years ago on a fairly regular basis. (Reminds me of the Burt Lancaster line from the movie "Atlantic City", as he tries to impress a youngster as they walk along the boardwalk together. "You should have see the Atlantic Ocean in my day...")

So, Last night I watched a couple of hours of coverage from some of these "TEA Parties" held around the country yesterday; this after hearing about how great the one here in Grand Rapids was going to be first thing yesterday morning from one of the guys I do a little work for. He's a guy who fancies himself a "real" American, unlike, for instance - according to him - that Kenyan Muslim Socialist, President Obama. He assured me he was taking his kids and grandkids so they could be a part of history, and encouraged me to come too. (This is the start of the second American Revolution, says he.)

Whenever this guy goes into one of his predictable rants, I just smile and nod, try to keep my mouth shut and then get myself out of his office as soon as I can.

I noticed the videos from all the "TEA party" protests I saw yesterday showed that the people involved were almost all of middle aged white people, along with the kids they dragged with them, and a few teenagers who seemed entirely clueless. Over the course of the evening's coverage, I read at least a hundred protest signs - probably far more - not one of which made any sense to me. There were the expected variations on "America is a Christian country" signs - which, apart from being non-sequitors, considering the supposed purpose of these protests, were, in every case, held by people with honest-to-God bitter hateful looks on their faces. Then there were dozens of variations on the "America is becoming a Socialist country." Whatever, I thought. It's so far from true it's laughable, but the subtleties would be lost on these simpletons anyway... Oy. But, the ones that really got me were the signs comparing Obama to Hitler, of which I saw at least a dozen. My brow furrowed and I tried to stretch my mind around this particular claim, and I looked at a cardboard cutout atop a wooden pole of Adolph Hitler's body with Barrack Obama's face glued over Adolph's face, and with the trademark Hitler mustache drawn in over President Obama's upper lip. I can't remember the caption - it was too absurd to bother trying to make sense of anyway, and there were lots of variations on that theme too - (ya know, sometimes these clever people portrayed Obama as Osama bin Laden instead of Hitler.)

So, let's see. The Boston Tea party was a protest against a foreign government imposing taxes on us. We had no say. Seems reasonable. This protest was about the fact that our Government, which we elect, is supposedly not responding to our frustration with the fact we pay taxes to... us. Except, of course, these people think that THEY'RE the only "real" Americans.

Oh. Now I get it.


Be good to everyone.

Good morning Boys and Girls.

A wild weekend of Wii bowling and nada accomplished; except, of course, talking on the phone with SweetLady and enjoying AC's company; eating good meals and birdwatching here at Wildlife Ridge.

SweetLady wrote about the massacre in New York a day or so ago, and I've watched quite a few news stories on it, all centering on the "why". We are becoming numb to these shootings, it seems. That was talked about a bit earlier on the CBS Sunday morning show.

To me, it's a no-brainer. People get pissed. People get sick in the head. People that seemed "just fine" a few days ago - "He was such a quiet guy..." - can wake up tomorrow and decide that, not only is life not worth living but, that, on the way out, maybe taking out as many people as possible might be a perfectly acceptable thing.

Of course, I have no objection to "idea" of people owning guns, it's just that, for instance, had this asshole been carrying a big ol' machete instead of a bang-bang, there's just no way 13 people would be dead. Maybe a couple? Sure. But, face it, a simple office chair, or a stool, or even a decently hurled stapler can be a good defense against a guy with a blade. They're not much against a properly motivated crazy person with a gun though.

I know, I know, what if everyone in there had been armed? Then wouldn't one or more of them taken him out the minute he started unloading on all those people trying to learn the language? Maybe. In theory, perhaps. But, unless they weren't surprised by the intrusion and already had their guns out, safeties off, he'd have just picked them off as they reached for their own weapons.

No. The problem isn't, no matter what the pro-gun folks would have you believe, too FEW guns. It that there are WAY too many, that almost all of them are far too easily accessed by anyone who wants one.

Yeah, yeah. I know, (hear the whining voice) "The second amendment says..."

Well, let me tell you this. I don't fear the government (and their black helicopters) as much as I fear thousands of idiots with chips on their shoulders who've already decided their own lives aren't worth doodly-squat, AND that no one else's is either.

It's not the guns that especially scare me, it's the people who are so crazy blocking logic from their lives, that they actually believe we're a safer society with anyone who wants to be armed being allowed to be so. I'm deathly scared of people who can believe such clap-trap - and I resent being forced to live in a society where they hold sway.

How about we adopt Chris Rocks Idea? Guns? Fine. Make 'em available to anyone and everyone. Bullets? $5000.00 each.

At least that way, says Chris, when some asshole wants to pop a cap in someone else's ass, they'll have to make sure they've thought about it, AND that they're shooting the right MOFO.

Or how about gun safes that read read your biorhythms? The little display next to the palm scanner reads, "I'm sorry sir. You're a little crazy today. The safe cannot open. Try again tomorrow."

Don't even get me started on this crazy notion that civilians need to be able to own and use automatic weapons. Un-f*cking believable.


Be good to everyone. -And please, if you really need to commit suicide, how about you do it BEFORE you leave the house, packing.

Good morning Boys and Girls.

During my days, while driving along from one place to the next,  I often spend time contemplating how our world would be if some particular event in history had not occurred. It's not an original concept, but it interests me for some reason; this cosmic game of "what if".

Over the years I've read more than a few books by authors who've explored this idea of alternate historic time lines. My favorite - even though I don't remember many of the specifics (time for a reread) - was called "Job: a Comedy of Justice", by Robert Heinlein, in which the protagonist is continually tossed from changed world to changed world. One world might be a place where airplane flight was never invented, and thus large blimps with logos from recognizable airlines still rule the skies. Another might be a world where telephones never came to be, meaning ATT is a blue-chip messenger service, or even worlds where one form or another of government was never conceived... that sort of thing.

For me, this sort of projection usually involves small things; usually far more personal events; though I do wonder from time to time what might have happened, if, for instance, the slave trade had never developed in the New World, or if no one had ever decided to turn Jesus into a commodity and his teachings into a magic bullet - if no one ever decided to make a bigger deal of his birth and death than the way he lived his life. But for the most part, for me, it's little missteps I've made along the way that have altered the way I see myself or others I've associated with during my life that give me this sort of pause.

One particular event from my life that's crossed through this strange mental lense recently as I drove back from Iowa, involved a situation where I'd felt pressured to help a friend move to Nashville, Tennessee where he was about to start seminary. We were both young married guys, and each of us had one child at the time. He'd asked me for the favor months ahead of time, and I'd agreed, though reluctantly. I didnt' really feel I was in a position to be gone from my business a solid week just then, but I'd said yes nevertheless.

My wife and I along with our son decided to make it a short vacation. We'd follow the moving van down, help him unload, and then spend a day or two exploring Nashville.

As the time drew closer to make the trip, a major change took place in my fledgling business. I'd just taken on a large account, one I'd been fighting to win for over a year. I had just one employee at the time, a talented fast learner who was the brother of one of my other good friends and who, unfortunately, was as undependable as he was talented. I debated for a month or more whether to beg off from making the trip and helping with the move, but I knew my friend would consider it a slap in the face and, after all, I had given my word.

During the week leading up to the trip, my employee seemed to listen carefully and wrote down all my instructions as to how I wanted him to spend his days while I was gone. I explained how I wanted him to prioritize any business that came in, trying to help him understand how to differenciate between what needed to be done immediately, and what could be pushed back a day or so if he got too busy to handle everything. We didn't have cell phones back then, but I'd impressed on him how important it was to stay in touch with the folks who depended on me - on us, I tried to get him to understand - and I remember giving him lots of change for pay phones, and the phone numbers of all our clients.

Well, to make a long story short, he just didn't handle it very well at all, and when a couple of clients complained to him about being extremely late, he over-reacted and became rude, even walking out without doing any work on the very first work-day I was gone. For my part, I didn't call any of my clients that week, having decided to trust my employee to handle things - a horrible mistake. I did talk to my employee a time or two during the week, and he told me things were going just fine. Hah.

Upon my return, I found I'd lost two large accounts, including the new one I'd worked so hard to gain and another I'd worked at for years, but that just had a major management change, and so the new poeple hadn't had much of a history in dealing with me. It was awful. My bitterness was palpable and I fired the kid almost immediately. It wasn't his fault. I should NOT have gone on that trip - but, as I said, I'd given my word...

Of course, in retrospect, I should have broken my word; something it took me many more years to understand. There ARE times when circumstances dictate that we SHOULD break promises, especially when not breaking them can let down so many other people.

In my alternate timeline involving this scenario, of course, I didn't have to deal with a tainted reputation for a couple of years, my income wasn't impacted severely and the kid I fired went on to be a great right-hand man for me for years to come.

Is doing this sort of thing silly? -Sure. Pointless? -Of course.

Inevitable?

Uh huh.


Be good to everyone.