My lot(to) in life

     

     So yeah check my lotto ticket. One digit off,…really? Is this my lot(to),  in life is to always be one digit off from hitting the big one? I am starting to think so, lol; yes I am smiling at the absurdity of it.

To be honest it isn’t the really super big thing, worth many millions, it only paid $230,000 and yes there was one winner. To hit four, even though my fifth number was only one digit off is only $100. I usually think that the only reason intelligent people buy tickets is to dream a bit and talk about what you would do if you won, or maybe just think about it.

It is like the old joke of the nun who always prays to win the lotto and after years of doing this one day the Lord’s voice booms out “sister at least meet me HALFWAY and buy a ticket for God’s sake”!!

I do know a guy at work who knows someone quite closely who won $160 million dollars. He thought maybe they would give him one of those big cardboard Ed McMahon checks. He said “you know just a couple hundred thousand I could pay off my house and that would really help’, yes I know. He is still waiting for his check.

The door knocks?

I just had two Jehovah’s Witnesses at my door. I showed them my ticket and they couldn’t figure it out. Those poor sons-a-bitches don’t get to gamble. They go to church and invest a great deal of time and money on the weird, off chance that maybe, just maybe, there really is life after death, and they will skip down streets of gold and play badminton with baby Jesus. To me, that is more worser than the Lotto itself! Your big payoff comes after you’re dead! REALLY?? Com’on man!

Even the evil-blackhearted-God-forsaken lotto will give you a little sugar here and there before you actually die.

The cute young couple gave me a flyer to come to Passover at Echo Falls Golf Club. Maybe I should go just to expand my horizons. I am not sure if it would be really intense like a time share condo sale or not. I do find it funny/ironic that they are right, the Passover is the only holiday that the Bible specifically tells followers to observe. Most “Christians” don’t know this and I have to wonder about that. You claim to be good Christians but you don’t know what the bible says?

 I tell myself that a hunskey is better than a sharp stick in the face and move on.

Klahanie's 98% rich white people- scares me

Klahanie is a 900 acre ‘master planned community” that I went and experienced yesterday. http://www.klahanie.com/home.asp

This guy had a used pickup for sale and I went there and drove it, meeting him at the QFC.  I immediately thought of an ad I saw on Craigslist.org about a Vietnamese Restaurant for sale in Duvall. It said “Duvall, 98% rich white people, good for fancy restaurant”. I got a good laugh about this. Duvall is quite the mix of semi-employed Hispanic landscape workers, broken down loggers, farmers new and old style, Microsoft workers, retired people, with the usual smattering of retail people and whatnot. There are some people here with money, especially just out of town with the big houses and acreage, and there are many people also just barely making it.

Klahanie on the other hand did appear to be 98% rich white people. Driving around there and parking I distinctly felt that I had the oldest most beat up car there, my 96 Chevy Lumina with peeling paint.  My car is in excellent mechanical condition but it isn’t trendy or pretty and it isn’t new. I also seemed to not dress appropriately because people seemed to stare at me. Now I know what black people feel like when they walk down the street in Duvall!

You know how people always wax rhapsodic for the halcyon days of the 1950’s in the USA? Well that life still seems to exist in Klahanie. All the women of child bearing age of 25-45 seemed to be 25lbs. lighter and blonder, with more make-up and jewelry. Everyone seemed to be jogging. Everyone had expensive German cars, or if they had the terrible misfortune to drive and American car it had all the windows tinted and was brand new. Everything was green, the roads were nice and every street had sidewalks on both sides. The topper was the Chevron gas station had three service bays, all open, with FIVE master mechanics on duty!!  Jesus H!

SO apparently the only thing wrong with our modern life is we all need more money. Where the hell did our 1950’s money go?

This twitter WTF??

A friend of mine has been on twitter in the past and didn't use it much. Recently, he opened a new account and has been thinking of using it more and letting Face book cool on the back burner a bit---

So today he sends me this e-mail

"So today I open my Gmail and I have about 20 new people following me on twitter. I open one and its someone from Malaysia. All their posts are in Malaysian, or whatever they speak. So I click block. Then I go back to my email. ALL of the new followers are from other countries and none of their posts are in English. I blocked them all.  Just opened my email, there are MORE, followers from other countries. WTF"?

Here was my response: 

There is no need to "block" people, if someone wants to follow you, let them, it is like someone reading your blog, there is no urgency to reach less people, unless you are running a secret society. There are tons of people out there who will follow you with the only expectation that you will follow them back. They just want to be able to say "Hey look at me I got 25,000 followers in 3 months'! Uh ..whatever. The giveaway is somebody who say for instance  sells bridal gowns, and that is all they tweet about, suddenly out of the blue they are following you, The odds are they want you to follow them back. There are actually software programs that do this digital phishing. If after a week or so if you don't follow back they disappear. My own pet peeve is people who call themselves "social media experts". They want lots of followers to in fact prove that they are experts at what they claim. Invariably they have a blog and write about things like "Top ten ways to improve web traffic". These people LOVE the words TOP TEN!! I mostly don't follow these people because they seem to be all in a giant pit of silly sameness. Then many businesses will follow, (like restaurants), also wanting a follow back and they are looking for free advertising, and a cheap way to get their message out.

Either it is public or it isn't. There are things you can go on and "categorize" yourself. For instance you can put Aerospace, Photography and Cooking as your interests that you tweet about. Then people searching that might follow you. Also of course they search your Bio, if you have a blog put a link in the bio. There is an expectation if you have 10,000 followers you have more influence in the world than if you have  100. Of course if your 100 followers were heavyweights like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, etc those 100 might be mucho more important than the 10,000 but that is another discussion. There are sites you can go on to actually buy followers and I don't know how that works. Followers are generally considered good unless it is offensive like maybe porn or spam. Don't be stingy many people are out there slack-jawed and hungry for your wisdom. it is all about sharing right?

You have to decide of course why you are on there, on twitter, and what you want to get out of it.

I have a dude I follow in Singapore (never met, don't know well), and we have had discussions about a variety of things. I think it is pretty cool you have people following you from foreign countries. Don't assume because they mainly write in a foreign language they can't read or communicate in yours. My neighbor is on twitter and she mainly writes in Japanese!

I have actually met up with people IRL that I have only known through twitter, which is weird but good. It is literally a digital community of your own building, it is a digital garden and it grows with the TLC you put into it and the way you tend it. You can be stoic and machine like on twitter or very friendly, open, and gregarious. Of course you know me, I am an opinionated, fairly fearless, wide-open warrior of the good argument, the good discourse, and I am not hiding from anyone. People in America talk about the disenfranchised 99%, well maybe they should make themselves heard a little more. I also like to bring interesting stuff to the table, interesting links, and stuff I do myself like this writing or maybe photos which I take. I have been interested in photography since I was a little kid so it leaks through the fabric of what is me. The more I use twitter the more I see the value in it.

So for me I use twitter more now to find out what is going on in the world, like right damn now, what's happening?? I use it like I used to use DIGG and Reddit.It is better though because it is more focused to followers because I pick and choose,  I fine tune my stream regularly-

 I use it for news about specific categories of things like Aerospace= @flightblogger and @runwaygirl get on the planefolk list

I use it for comedy so that= @robdelaney and @uncledynamite for instance get on the funny list

 I use it for local community so I have local #duvall people and #98019 people because the Snoqualmie Valley is it's own bizarre little ecosphere

You can make lists and put all the people and accounts on that list you want. So you can search for 'woodworking" or :"bloodwood" and then check those people out. You can follow them and add them to the list "woodworking wonks". If later on they get flaky you can delete  them to "deleted island". If however someone is truly priceless you might look at the people THEY follow, there might well be some gems in there. You can set up lists that are quite different then just pull up that specific list to see what is happening. You might want a list of "Granite Falls Residents", those people often discuss things you won't read about in the Seattle Times. Use the Find People search window on twitter. Put in Granite Falls just to see how many of your neighbors are on twitter and who they are, and what they are into- I bet it surprises you.

By the by, I think you have an excellent question and I am going to post this response as a blog post. Some people got the original notion that with twitter they were supposed to simply tell people where they were eating lunch, I delete those people. If they do the foursquare thing much and tell me they are "mayor of Woodinville Starbucks", I delete them. Another thing is you can have boring people on a list like "Granite Falls Folks" without Following them and vice-versa, does that help at all??

My number one rule is; don't bore people, their tiny fragile lives are short, and don't tolerate people who bore you either-- tweet on brother!

Happy birthday Ego!?

It is my birthday and I haven't blogged in a while. A school friend Mike K said that he had a blog and stopped because he thought it was just an ego jerk sort of thing, I have been considering this take on blogging. Sadly, I think he also deleted/threw away everything he wrote. Yes, I would be interested in reading his thoughts.

I often ask people what were the best five years of their lives and they invariably say high school or the five years after graduation. I wonder if this is why so many people only listen to the music that was popular when they were in high school?

So witness the picture above, found at my mother's, while discussing my current birthday. this is possibly the only known photo of myself and my two brothers where we all look somewhat normal, and somewhat happy as psuedo-adults. During this period of life I worked at Lockheed and had a secret security clearance, worked out and played basketball, I was on a very good softball team, even started wearing a diamond earring. In short I thought i was damn cool. I found the various women of Southern California to be surprisingly aggressive. I thought this period of my life I was maybe at "my peak". in fact if you would have asked me if I could turn the clock back to any point of my life I would have most likely picked this moment pictured,... HA!

Now looking at this picture, I think I look skinny and need a haircut. I realize my recollection of the past is circumspect. How odd to not even remember your own life with clarity. it seems maybe my life right now is the best I can be. Possibly wisdom does come with age. We can be forgetful as we get older but we have many, many more important things to remember as time goes on and we experience more of life. It seems clearly priorities now are much different than they were back then. Realizing this might be my best birthday present. The best might be living fully in the present.

Twitter= Sustainable value? YES!

Of what value is twitter to me?

Me; this 21st century Renaissance man, IMM (in my mind), with a multitude of interests and being very busy of course (don't we all say we are very busy?), what does twitter do for me? Is twitter unique, or just another social media fad that will soon be but a cool shadow in the alleyway of the unused, unwanted and unloved?
I use twitter as a search engine for what is happening in the world and it works very well indeed. With the "lists" feature I can list people, writers, who have their tight little grips on a certain niche of information.

An example would be the "aviation" field, I can follow @flightblogger, @runwaygirl and @Heather_Poole among maybe 25 accounts in all. this gives me a tightly focused news feed from people/sources that I have winnowed out to be valuable to possibly just me.
I ultimately do this myself every day. I hardly ever buy an actual newspaper anymore, I go online, from computer or phone, and scan several news sources for the bits that seem most tasty and useful. If I can locate others that seem of a like mind and they list/mention what they are finding of interest on twitter, it really saves me time, all the while giving me a different, broader perspective, and takes me to places I wouldn't locate on my own. Obviously, searching other people's list of those they follow on twitter gives me leads to the talking heads and info-generators that are tangential to my own life.

I don't see this same ability on; Facebook, Plaxo, Linkin or many of the other social media sites and see them as more of a white pages of who they are. Rated at the top of "social media" are also Reddit and Digg, and they are great but that news is unfiltered as to a particular group of people, and "Youtube" serves a different purpose as well. These sites are often what people put links to on twitter, I don't see them as supplanting twitter. Twitter's use, as far as tweets generated, is over a billion tweets a month http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/10/twitter-now-more-than-1-billion-tweets-per-month/ . Twitter continues to grow in importance regardless of what you may have heard. In the same way that snow in D.C. does not supplant the impact of global warming/climate change, so too does the fact that the "dude in the cubicle three over" tweeted for six months and stopped, does not change the fact of twitter's grip on modern news dissemination.

People have said many times that twitter is rubbish, and several embraced the Pear Analytics study that "40% of twitter is pointless babble" last summer, http://www.pearanalytics.com/blog/2009/twitter-study-reveals-interesting-results-40-percent-pointless-babble/ . Well this is quite true, however about 90% of the Seattle Times is; pointless babble, crap I have no interest or use for, ADVERTISING, and poorly written drivel. It is that 10% of shiny nuggets I look for and value.
If we discuss TV, then this figure of "pointless babble" goes to 99%, most especially if we are discussing a Television news broadcast. To calculate FOX News, a cursory understanding of the principles of Six Sigma would be of help.

So if your twitter is dull it is your own lazy fault my friend. Using many services such as Tweetdeck a inquisitive industrious person can have several columns of spicy, meaty topics, divided according to the users own desires and needs.
From the Iranian Revolution to the recent resignation of the CEO of Sun Microsystems, in this day and age twitter is usually the first source, the most varied and unbiased, and the one that can be tailored to tastes you find the most palatable.

So if you most post 'pointles babble" it's OK, I can live with it,go!

The value of Time

What is the value of time?

People say time is money but that is not true. You can in fact make more money, you can magnify how much money you make in a variety of ways; legal, illegal, risky or safe, but you can never make more time for yourself.

To make matters worse no one knows how much time they will have on this earth. Those old fucks who live to be 97 screw someone else over to make the average in the US around 74 or so, someone has to die quite young to make those averages work out don't they?

It is like musical chairs but you don't win a pie, you just win the right to keep getting up in the morning and going to work, putting the pants on one leg at a time, pet the dog, kiss the wife, call mom once in a while and see what's on TV tonight.
Where I work there are actuarial tables which show if "retire" and move on at 45 your life expectancy is 85, however if you work till 65 your life expectancy is 66.5! Yet people stay on because of medical insurance and "not having quite enough money to get the Lexus paid off first". Of course getting the Lexus paid off is a metaphor because the Lexus of life will never be paid off will it? Just as Sisyphus' boulder will never be up at the top of the hill and set to rest, the Lexus will never be paid off.

I tell the young bucks at work to think about their last day on earth and laying on their deathbed tallying up their lives. Will the new car, the jetski or the 56" TV matter then? Not a whip.

Recently a guy at work, an athlete actually, died at the age of 52, he was a bicycler. At first people said he was 48 and I was comforted just a bit when I saw he was born April of 57. He was always first in his races and first up the hills and now he is first toward the bright light I suppose. The last time I saw him his eyes were red and he was obviously stressed out and irritable, he said he "just didn't have the time for this project" he was supposed to be part of and walked out. Now it would seem he has plenty of time to slow down, be last in races and enjoy things.

So I try and take things one-day-at-a-time and really spend all those minutes in the day as wisely as I can. I think about when I was a child and went to the penny candy store called "Harry Heads" (his actual name), I would look at my small fist "monies" and really calculate how much I would get, how much candy bang for the penny I could figure out. My pennies were precious, and time not so much, time seemed forever and I longed to grow up and have the power to make my own decisions in life and do whatever I wanted.

Now I realize what I really want is to make more time, but more time is not to be made.

http://www.shurupov.ru/time/

Thoughts on Car Pool Lanes:

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, while heading home from work, I noticed a gigantic, jacked up full sized pickup truck bouncing down the I-405 south car pool lane, trying to herd it between the lines. I was thinking why should a mess like that be in the car pool lanes, then it hit me, the solution.

I don't know how it works where you live, but the carpool lanes here in the greater Seattle area are an absolute disaster.

The traffic here is horrible and the car pool lanes are not helping a whit. Indeed many times trying to drive south near Renton traffic is bumper to bumper stopped and the car pool lane is virtually empty. The car pool lanes here actually make driving considerably more dangerous.

I am assuming the main intent is to convince people during rush hour traffic to carpool so that there are less cars on the road. So now un-employed house wives use the carpool lanes to go shopping during rush hour in their monstrous SUV's, and take a three year-old child with them to be legal. This does not get cars off the road. Also many carpool lanes here were literally 24 hours a day, the lions' share of the time they sat empty while working folk commuted to work at 5:30 am, what a screaming waste!
It is so bad here that Tim Eyman recently had a referendum on the ballot to entirely dispose of them!
Here is the solution I am confidant you will agree it is elegant.
Change the car pool lanes to ECO-LANES!
They will only be used by vehicles that get 30 miles to the gallon or more. A sticker would be purchased to affix somewhere that is clearly visible. I have noticed that virtually all the huge SUV's cruising the carpool lanes have heavily tinted windows, who knows how many people or legal drivers might actually be in there? The police would have to pull them over just to check!
Of course this solution would not only help with traffic, it would help to minimize buying foreign oil, it would help in the department of global warming as well! The more I think about it, the better the solution works.

Current situation: Car pool lanes are being used by people carrying individuals who are not legal drivers, who are not commuting to work, the intention it being abused. Cars used in the car pool lane are often three time the size and weight, and burn three times the gas of a commuter car.

Proposed Solution: Make the Eco Lanes about real improvement of; traffic, fuel use, carbon emission, pollution, safety, and wasting the very limited resources we have!

How can Twitter turn a buck?

Image via Wikipedia

How can Twitter turn a buck?

We keep hearing stories about maybe Twitter will be sold, and nothing happens. We hear about revenue models but nothing happens. The idea that keeps getting kicked around is advertising ala Google, and yet there doesn't seem to be any concrete idea how to make it work and nothing happens. To me this is a failure.

I feel just treading water in the rapid breakneck social media world is the very definition of failure. How big a failure? Big. Jolie O'Dell says it is one of the "Top ten failures of 2009" http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_failures_of_2009.php I agree. The promise was so great and the growth so fast to not make a major move of some kind really saps the momentum. Can you feel the slowing of the Twitter momentum? Yeah I can too.

We can talk about MySpace and how it went from 60% to some 30% of the market in one year and now will lose some hundreds of millions of dollars. In my opinion something like a social media service once tainted as being undesirable and un-cool is almost un-repairable. I don't think we will be able to re-cool MySpace. We can talk about all the little Twitter copycats too.
http://www.wired.com/software/webservices/news/2007/05/twitter_clones

So what to do?
I find the downtime and lack of service or "Fail Whale" the most disturbing aspect of Twitter. It was funny at first, now I wonder if there is any plan at all to move on this and get the infrastructure fixed. I know this costs money.

How to make money? I would look at the users and grade them. We have all seen the studies that a fairly small percentage of people do 90% of the tweeting I would charge these people. A formula should be utilized which considers the amount of tweets, the number of followers, and the value therein. Personally I would pay a small fee, say $10 a year for better service. I would rather deal with this than cheesy advertising. Whatever you decide Twitter hurry up! You are running out of time.

What the Hell does that Woman want for Christmas?

What the hell does that woman want for Christmas?

Are men and woman different in what they like to get for Christmas, or presents in general? Sure they are, and you know they are, but sometimes slip up in the thinking anyway. Have you ever heard a woman say this, "I don't want anything that plugs in"? Think about that while I make an all encompassing statement;" If you buy her something to wear, that she really wants, you will rarely go wrong".

Think about this in the most round terms. Women wear perfume and virtually all woman want a exotic scent they think as their own. Woman like jewelry. If you have the means, every woman should have diamond earrings and a pearl necklace as classic pieces of jewelry, these can vary in price wildly of course. Women like clothes and if you can latch onto a jacket, dress or shoes she really likes, she will be most happy and also appreciate the effort you have taken to notice what she likes and admires in dressing style. This includes purses of course and if she is a business woman that travels, a nice briefcase or laptop case is part of the package. Cell phones are considered a necessity by most women and a nice I-phone or blackberry could be very handy and help her stay organized and save time.

In broader terms when a woman gets in her car she wears it, I am not suggesting you buy her a new car for Christmas, but it follows with this whole "wearing" concept. In the same way a day at a spa for pampering is something she is seen in, it is something she puts on, a facial etc. A new kitchen, or just new paint, is part of her ensemble. Men rarely care all that much the color of the kitchen wall. You metro-sexual, Architectural Digest magazine readers, I am not speaking to you.
Contrast this with most standard issue, heterosexual men, they want toys.

Things that plug in are fine. If you give a man who woodworks a nice table saw he doesn't think of it as a tool to work with, he sees it as a toy to play with. If you buy him a nice pistol, he doesn't think "oh now I can protect my family", he thinks "ah this is going to make noise, make the other boys jealous, feel nice in my hands, and be fun to play with". A car can be seen as a status symbol by both men and women but guys oftentimes will want to "thrash" a 4x4, dirt bike, maybe even a pontoon boat through rapids, and make no mistake they are playing with their big toys out in the world's sandbox. If you are looking cheap, many men like a video game that caters to their interests, if they like racing maybe a racing game, if they like sitting around and drinking beer, maybe a Wii so they will move occasionally, their skin won't graft with the recliner vinyl.

Men rarely want clothes for gifts, clothes are something required by law to wear in public, you cannot play with clothes.

If you give someone money it says "I don't know you that well, and I don't want to work very hard at this whole gift thingy". If you give them a gym membership it says "god I wish you would clean up your fat-ass act'! If you give them a vacuum cleaner it says "yes the house is dirty and this kills two birds with one stone..right"? If you get them a book or CD it says " here this was cheap, easy to buy, easy to wrap and it technically fulfills the minimum gift requirement". if you buy someone booze it means "hey this is the minimum gift and also I can share it, and I need a shot right now". If you get someone some type of subscription it means "I want to piss you off for the next YEAR"! If you send them a fruit cake or one of those boxes full of sausage, cheese and crackers it means "secretly I hate you and want to poison you". If you give a nephew or grandchild a drum set or puppy it means "HA! you thought my revenge would never arrive and now here it is"!
Homemade gifts? Ahh..it depends of course but the hook is the gift receiver feels obligated to keep it. A book or ugly sweater (unless you knitted it),they can ditch and say they lost it. If you paint them a picture that is 20"x30" and they really hate it but know you put a lot of work into it? Ahh...tough, a Jerry Seinfeld episode of a mess.

Christmas is basically for kids IMHO, but I told my wife today she was" the equivalent of a hard-headed five year old girl". She said "and you are like a 13 year old boy". I said "so I am older than you", she said "yes but boys are more immature so divide by two and there you are". There we are indeed.

Thoughts on our Holidays

Today my wife went into the post office and it was closed being November 11, she asked an older man there “this must be a holiday”? He said snottily “yes young lady,… this is VETERAN”S DAY”!

Anyway it got me thinking about holidays and what we celebrate and how, the meaning and importance of our holidays and how things are changing.

January 1- The New Year of course at least in most of the western world. I like it from the standpoint it is non-political and basic, it is not someone’s birthday and it is non-religious. It marks the change of seasons and the passage of time and we can all agree these things are in fact important in the larger swirling cosmos of things.

January 18- MLK Day Not so much for me. I think Martin Luther King was a good man and I think he worked hard for changes for the betterment of civil rights in America, which is cool. But his agenda was limited, he wasn’t for equal rights for all, for instance gays, he was about black equal rights when you get right down to it. I feel he was second or third tier when compared to Abe for instance. I also think if he lived, instead of dying a martyr, his reputation would have been dramatically different, just look at the changed opinion of Ralph Nader as an example. MLK’s reputation has grown so outsized to what he really was that it is the only holiday of the year the Seattle Times takes a full page ad to promote every year-preposterous!

February 2- Ground Hog Day A simple holiday without much importance it has become a cultural thing since the movie “Ground Hog Day”. When asked how they doing people now sometimes say “its ground hog day” to indicate the day is the same as yesterday or “same shit different day”. Just about everybody can relate to this, but it isn’t worth a day off. (see Black Friday).

February 7- Super Bowl Sunday One of the very few activities left almost all Americans participate in. Those that don’t like the games like the TV commercials, there are parties everywhere, and it is the biggest gambling day in the world! It is a time to reflect on the Holidays maybe not with your family but your friends. More people are loaded that Sunday afternoon than maybe even New Year’s Eve. Simply put, Super Bowl Sunday is a monster whether you like it or not. People from other areas that can’t even speak English, strangely, can relate to this blood bath of schlock.

Feb 10?- Chinese New Year I don’t know about you and where you live but Chinese New Year gets bigger and bigger every year around the greater Seattle area. We do live in a diverse culture here, and this holiday is celebrated by many Asian communities and also by people connected to them. This holiday seems to vary year to year according to date because it is tied to the lunar calendar. In addition there seems to be separate New Year’s celebrations by some of the SE Asian groups, on different days and some of these will glom onto the Chinese dates, others will stubbornly stay separate. Even on close interrogation- er..questioning it is hard to really tie down the exact dates here. Also it seems the main group-of-people feels this is a three day holiday but some will celebrate for two weeks. Asian’s in general do not have holidays throughout the year as Americans or Europeans do (the more the better IMHO), so this is a big deal; a combination of Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years and everything else all wrapped up in a huge bash!

My prediction is this: CNY will continue to grow and get bigger and more visible as we blindly Wall Mart ourselves into oblivion.
February 14- Valentine’s Day is a big thing whether you want to admit it or not guys. Yeah it is just a Hallmark Holiday kind of deal to screw you out of time and money but it will cost you if you don’t pay attention. Women view this as a romance thing, if you don’t get involved somehow it is like you are saying you don’t feel the need to woo your woman anymore, you take her for granted.
If you are in one of those “gee whiz I think I should break up with them deals” do it before Thanksgiving for crying out loud. The holidays are a time when many people have parties and mixers, hence this is a good time to be a free agent, yes it can be lonely but a melancholy holiday with the wrong person is worser I thinks.

February 15- President’s Day is one reason for writing this, what a twisted-corpse of a holiday this is! We used to celebrate Washington’s and Lincoln’s actual birthdays on the 12th and the 22nd respectively. Now we glom all presidents together! WHAT! The name of George W. Bush shouldn’t even be in the same paragraph as that of truly great men. Now this holiday is worse than meaningless, it is insulting to those we should actually honor. In times gone past all kinds of stores would give out free cherry pies on George’s B-day. We need to get rid of-or change this horrible idea gone grotesquely wrong.

March 17- St Patrick’s Day If you feel the need to play the Irish card or you are at that stage of alcoholism where you need an excuse to drink excessively. Green beer-Nyquil what’s the difference?

April 2- Good Friday Uhh…what?

April 4- Easter Sunday Well there is Easter Candy, although the candy isn’t as good a deal as Halloween’s. This is now mainly just a Christian Holiday based on when Christ supposedly arose from the grave. Actually it was the spring equinox festival the Christians were trying to supplant. This holiday, more even than Christmas (Saturnalia), really has become the most successful “taking over” of a secular holiday by the church. Interestingly, I have discovered the whole thought about the dead’s spirit rising three days the body’s death is a very universal idea and is common amongst Asian cultures.

April 15- Tax Day similar to Valentine’s Day actually, in that if you forget it, you will pay stiff penalties. If you forget Valentine’s Day maybe no-get-laid, if you forget Tax day maybe get laid by Uncle Sam against your will and big whisker burn on your back!!

April 22- Earth Day something for grade-schoolers to draw pictures about. You will have to pry my carbon footprint off my cold dead foot.
May 1- May Day Originally a pagan religious holiday it was often celebrated with a may pole by Germanic Paganism. A central pole had ribbons emanating from the top which people would hold and circle, symbolizing the seasons and the circle of life. This holiday is also the traditional day to celebrate many workers rights, Labor Day and International Workers Rights day. Interestingly May Day is also the international distress call which supposedly means in French “you come help me”, HA!

May 5- Cinco de Mayo This was the day of a big turning point battle in Mexico, it is not the Mexican Independence Day, although many think it should be. Many also think it should be an American holiday and as the Hispanic population continues to grow and is now by far the largest subset in America, who knows? It is the Mexican equivalent of St Patrick’s Day and involves mucho partying. It also seems to be a good time to party as it is the kick off of good hot weather eh?

May 9- Mother’s Day Ah the chance to go out and stand in line for a truly mediocre meal! She gave birth to you for crying out loud, do SOMETHING for her! Anna Jarvis who instituted this holiday in Grafton, West Virginia was so put off by the Hallmark commercialism of it she opposed it at the end of her life.

May 15- Armed Forces Day ah no.

May 30- Memorial Day it has become the three day holiday to go camping and fishing and basically it kicks off summer doesn’t it? Well that is cool but almost no-one actually goes out and lays flowers and wreaths on the dead anymore. But here is the deal schlemiel—Memorial Day used to be known as “Decoration Day” it was commemorated to honor UNION veterans of the civil war and is celebrated at the time of the re-unification of the United States. Hey that’s great! But why do we also need a Veteran’s Day, an Armed Services Day and a Flag Day on top of this day, and the Fourth of July? Patriotism has gone way the hell overboard to the point where we honor soldiers for “protecting our freedom” when all they did was take over a small helpless country thousands of miles away that never attacked us (Iraq), and never posed any threat whatsoever, and we all know that don’t we? If you pretended you didn’t understand that before it is time to let it go flag-waver and fess up.

June 14- Flag Day Ah no.

June- 20 Father’s Day Well here is another day to show appreciation for dear old dad and all he has done for you, even if it is just the bare minimum required by law.

July 4- Independence Day Well, no one calls it Independence Day and maybe that is part of the problem it is another three dayer between Memorial Day and Labor Day for fishing trips. It seems every year there are fewer and fewer shows put on. There is a lot of noise in the neighborhood and people go buy tranquilizers for their dogs.

July 25- Parent’s Day No.

September 6- Labor Day- The end of summer for the kids and the last big car trip across the mountains or whatever it is you do. The holiday has no actual meaning other than a day off and the time of year is good to break things up. So I propose we ditch/change the import. We can still have the day just not take it off work; of course it will fade away because of that but no big loss.

September 11- 9-11 (Patriot Day), I think this should be the new holiday to replace Labor Day. http://425traveler.blogspot.com/2009/09/celebrate-9-11.html The name Patriot Day I don’t like because the word Patriot has been stolen, abused and raped by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Teabaggers and the Glenn Beck no nothings, it no longer has any real meaning. I would call it something like “Live Brave and be Free Day”. I don’t think the day should be about mourning the loss of a few people, and I don’t think it should be about remembering tragedy for a revenge type feeling like Pearl Harbor Day. I think it should signify that no terrorist act will ever make us afraid enough for us to abandon our way of life and cower in fear. The Patriot Act is just that; a crazy overreaction due to piss-pants fear. Do you see how the word Patriot has been stolen?

9-11 should be about doing the things we have put off due to fear; it should be about laughing in the face of fear. The “No Fear” bumper stickers could have meaning for the masses. Dr Phil and Oprah could have shows about rejecting fear and moving forward in our lives in a positive way. Instead of passively honoring someone else who did something long ago how about a holiday to encourage people to do something positive NOW…..

September 16- Stepfamily Day yur kiddin’ right?

September 17- Citizenship Day I was going to say we could check on our neighbor’s legal citizenship on this day but the Patriots and the Cinco de Mayo people would not see the humor.

October 11- Columbus Day Apparently the US Post Office is the only US institution to still honor this day. Chris Columbus is riding the reverse trajectory of MLK.

October 31- Halloween Hey how about Halloween huh? A truly pagan, secular holiday still survives even after years and years of the Christian Church trying it’s damndest to kill it. The costumes and parties are great although the door-to-door candy thing has been all but wiped out by the fear mongers. The pumpkin mottoes and the time of year make this the beginning of the dark season.
The funniest story I ever heard in regards to Halloween was from a very small Laotian Hill tribe man who was complaining to me about how many holidays we have in America. He said it was right after he got to the states, late at night and dark, there was a knock at the door; he opened the door and……people with masks screamed at him, he fell to the floor in fright, almost having a heart attack. He couldn’t figure out for the life of him what he had done wrong? Who was out to get him? He tried to compose himself and just when he had calmed down…another knock at the door!

November 2- Election Day They had kept running this levy (every six months) to raise taxes to build a 3 million dollar high school football field. The one time I forgot to vote it passed by six votes, enough said.

November 11- Veteran’s Day Like I said how many military holidays do we need? And how many times was America’s freedom really, actually at stake? How many of these wars weren’t just for corporate profits?

November 26- Thanksgiving What many people think of as the true start to the holiday season, what is not to like about thanksgiving? If it involves good food, getting family and friends together, I am for it. Thanksgiving is rarely about spending a lot of money and is not known for hellacious drinking compared to other events. It really places an emphasis more than any other holiday for the whole family to sit down together at one table and be thankful. Good show I say.

November 27- Black Friday A truly funny, although very apropos, name for a madhouse crush of consumerist carnage. People actually camp out at mid-night, to save a few bucks, on the latest plastic-electronic-made-in-china junk they think their kids cannot live without. It really demonstrates everything wrong with America, our values and the empty values of consumerism, all in one bleak terrible day. People have literally been trampled to death in Wall Mart on Black Friday---The Horror! Of dying in a Wall Mart I mean….. http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/28/2008-11-28_worker_dies_at_long_island_walmart_after.html

December 7- Pearl Harbor Day Like I said how many military holidays do we need for crying out loud? It makes you think we are just a military-industrial complex run machine.

December 12-19 Chanukah/Hanukkah I know in some places this holiday resonates but it seems to me as a whole Hispanic and Asian holidays are blowing this out of the water, for people not directly involved in this religious rite that is.

December 25 Christmas Everyone likes presents don’t they? And drinking and eating to excess and a day off? The kids like lights and putting up the tree and well.. Christmas is really for kids anyway I think, for the big people it is a lot of work and money out. This was of course a popular pagan holiday and it was in fact SO popular the church could not stomp it out and extinguish the JOY people felt. so one day SHABAM! They decide in a great coincidence BABY JESUS just happened to be born then!
The fact that Baby Jesus just happened to be born on a very old and very popular pagan holiday makes everyone happy really, the kids YEAH! The retailers YEAH! The born agains YEAH, and of course regular working folk like you and me …yahweh…I mean yeah!

By the way, I have determined through a very close sampling of data that the fancy Christmas Eve is now the most dangerous day of the year to be out driving. Amateur drunks are out in great number, the weather is bad, roads are clogged with people who are PISSED TO THE BREAKING POINT (these people are going to have a perfect Christmas if it kills them), and they are drunk and have to drive to the hated..INSERT here: mother-in-law, X-wife’s house, other hated relative, brother who always did better in school etc…so watch out if you are forced to drive somewhere on this day.

December 31- New Year’s Eve Regular New Year’s Eve is a sad thing really in comparison to the Chinese New Year extravaganza. Many people used to stay up till mid-night and get falling down drunk but the whole DUI thing is paramount now. It is a time when people reflect about the past year and try and make resolutions for the New Year in ways in which they want to better their lives.

So in celebrating the holidays remember:
1. Your “family” can be anyone you choose to be your family.
2. Money and working overtime won’t count for shit while lying on your death bed.
3. People and relationships are all that matter in the end.

Boeing (787) was Always Leaving....

This was posted in the Seattle PI by an unregistered user> I thought it was excellent in a turn-the-tables sort of way so I wanted to save it for others to read:

Posted by unregistered user at 10/29/09 6:08 p.m.

Boeing was always leaving. There was nothing that could be done by anyone other than Boeing to affect this decision and this is just the start. In less than twenty years, when the "legacy" aircraft are no longer being manufactured in favor of newer fuel efficient versions, Boeing will be completely gone from this area. Boeing is a "modern" corporation that has no loyalty other than to shareholders. Period.

So, the question is, what does the Puget Sound region do? Is an aerospace manufacturing industry something we want in this area? If so, then there should be immediate steps taken for the future of the people in the area:

1) Immediately drop all Boeing tax breaks in the state of Washington. Use the surplus funds this generates exclusively for education at all levels. An educated workforce is essential to the future and especially in aerospace jobs. Boeing is not living up to their agreement to build the 787 in Washington so they can pay us what every other business in the state has to pay.

2) Starting now, the leaders of this state should be talking with anyone in aerospace - and that means everyone. The region has lots to offer. For Europeans, our union "troubles" are nothing. The IAM is minor league compared with the their unions. We can offer an educated work force (if suggestion #1 is implemented), facilities capable of manufacturing and assembling large items, and a whole support infrastructure.

3) As Boeing closes plants, exercise eminent domain and seize them for fair cost as pieces of vital infrastructure. Pay them what the buildings are worth. Boeing will try to sell the property and tear down the buildings having agreements in place to do this years before it actually happens. Once those buildings are gone, so is the aerospace industry in this area because there just isn't affordable land available to build new ones close to the population centers.

The people of this state can not be afraid to play hardball with Boeing. If the USD is still weak at that time, I wonder if Airbus would be interested in acquiring existing facilities in an area with a trained aerospace work force? There would probably be others from Canada, Brazil, etc. that would be interested, as well, especially if someone is trying to break into the market for large
So much to do in so little time. The only thing that is certain is that Boeing is gone. The ball is in our court.


http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/archives/183633.asp

“Boeing to workers: “Talks were in good faith; union’s offer fell short”.

Guns, Guns and more Guns, and the NRA of course...

The gun-kook NRA folks really crack me up. They are so far out in la-la land about the reality of keeping and owning guns and the crime rate, and the need to own guns they make me laugh. They always talk about overthrowing the government. I have started asking them that if the police showed up on their doorstep un-announced and demanded all the guns in the house, with the caveat that if any non-registered guns were found upon later search, they would immediately go to prison would they still hold out? Of course not.

Obama is the best thing to happen to the NRA and Glenn Beck. The gun kooks are stockpiling guns and ammo at such record rates for the upcoming “war” they want so badly, the ammo makers can’t keep up with demand. The truth is that if you own guns your chances of being involved in gun violence go way up. The next truth is that people who move away from the big city because of crime have a much bigger chance being killed or maimed in a car wreck than being a crime statistic in the big bad city.

The gun kooks always talk with glowing eyes about getting up in the middle of the night and “shooting a burglar” as if that is a secret wish, a fantasy to fulfill. I wonder if they had a 16 year old neighbor on their living room carpet bleeding to death if they would really feel all that triumphant? This is what really happens:

A kid at work gets shot IN THE SHOWER by his girlfriend. He had thought he heard a burglar the night before and got up and loaded a gun to check it out. He had left it on the nightstand and now his girlfriend was trying to un-load it the next night. She pulled the slide back and BANG~ the bullet took off the end of her finger, went through a wall, and hit him in the arm breaking his arm. It could just have easily killed him, as it was he missed a month of work and she is still in trouble with the cops.

A local man shoots himself in the foot. http://www.mynorthwest.com/?sid=223212&nid=11 This happened “accidentally” while he was unloading the gun. He might be charged with reckless endangerment because the bullet went into the apartment below in the bedroom. People in the comments section have stated he was stupid to be pointing his gun down, but where should he point it? As we see in the story above bullets go through walls fairly easily. There might exist in a crowded apartment people above him, below him and on all sides.

Here is a case where a man hears a noise at night when he is in bed and immediately he gets a gun, and shoots his fiancée who got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. He saw a figure standing in the hallway, so before determining the identity of the figure he shot first. Who knows he may have been drunk, that is not illegal is it? http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/12/national/main5378015.shtml

But what if there is a actual burglar and he is in fact stealing some small thing covered by homeowners insurance and you do in fact stop him, by shooting him? http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=217024&page=1 Here is a typical example of what happens, two people’s lives are ruined to “protect” a car stereo! Smart thinkin’ fer sure.

Sunshine Cleaning: The real story

Image via Wikipedia

Have you seen that movie “Sunshine Cleaning”? It is pretty good. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0862846/

You know what else? It is a real story. A woman I work with Stacy Haney and her friend Theresa Borst are the real women who started Bioclean in the greater Seattle-Everett area.
Stacy had told me the story when I asked her what she had done while she was laid off and how she got into working in Haz Mat at our current employment. She explained that she found out that when there is a murder, or a dead body is found it is usually up to the family to clean up the mess. She and her friend felt like this was being victimized twice, first the loss of a loved one and then have to clean up a real nasty mess. They were out of work so started this business. Yes she had all kinds of horror stories that would give anybody the willies!

Today, on seeing the video Sunshine Cleaning on Sunday I mentioned it to her and she said “yes that movie is about me”. I said “no way”, she said “way”. I got the impression she might be a tad miffed about the whole deal too. Here she does an interview for NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1123029

Then someone else hears it and gets a revelation, they write of a screenplay and BOOM, they make money off of YOUR life story. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101794925&ps=rs
It seems weird from the standpoint that maybe she thought she was doing something a little unusual but not enough to make a Hollywood movie out of (yes of course it was embellished). It got me thinking about everyday lives and writing about them.
I asked Stacy to remind me today why she closed it down and went back to work for someone else. She said it was too much, the hours were terrible and it was either the job or her family. Good choice Stacy.

Celebrate 9-11

I propose 9-11 should be “National Travel Day” and as Americans who refuse to be afraid of the big bad wolf, we travel, go out to eat and spend money lavishly and in hedonistic ways.
I remember 9-11 well, the burning towers etc, I was working nights and woke up to my morning coffee and the internet news I couldn’t quite believe. Yes for several minutes I thought it was a hoax of some kind.As time went on over the next several weeks it actually got worse as people literally stopped living their lives, and adjusted everything to cowering in fear that some ridiculous imagined threat might materialize. A man I worked with who always talked about his church, cancelled his trip to Hawaii, he was afraid. He was in poor health and about 66 years old, apparently his savior was not powerful enough. People actually called the police if local kids played in the woods and wore camo clothing; they thought “terrorists had targeted their important neighborhood for implosion. People turned in neighbors who took photos outside it was completely nuts.
Things of course have cooled off some but we are nowhere near back to normal are we?
One of the moments I have been proudest of my mother is one week after 9-11 she had plane tickets to Montana. I asked if she was still going and she said of course, she was more worried about airlines cutting down on maintenance (very real), and drunken pilots than terrorists. Her reasoning was; why would the terrorists bother with a little old lady like her. Well, right on.
The terrorists attacked the World Trade Towers as a symbol, a symbol of American might, but also American values, freedom, morality, and happiness. They killed some people sure… but the total effect was a 1000 times worse because they did cause terror, and panic, they did change American life for the worse. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams because we rolled over, pissed our pants and let them.
So in all seriousness I think 9-11 should be made a holiday and it should be based on travel, and partying, and going out and not being afraid. People should go skydiving or take that hot air balloon trip, or do something new. It should be about breaking out of ruts, mental, physical and spiritual. Don’t tell me about your wonderful life-after-death god and show me your fish bumper sticker, show me your powerful faith by living a fearless, powerful life.

I know we have a lot of holidays but we have tweaked them haven’t we?

We used to celebrate Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthday and now we have the watered down “President’s Day” which means nothing. Columbus Day went the way of political correctness to a dried up death. MLK day is actually the only day the Seattle Times takes out a full page in the paper to remind us, hard to believe, good thing he is not still alive to disappoint us with being human. As near as I can tell Easter has waned and most stores are open now. Memorial Day and Labor Day are just days off from work. Fourth of July is only fireworks day. Thanksgiving and Christmas still retain pop because the weather is bad and hey we still do the family over for dinner right? Halloween is too scary because we can’t trust strangers any more, we are too afraid.
So why not ditch Labor Day and have a real holiday? We could call it American Values Day or something. I honestly think if we had a big holiday spectacular every year it would make Bin Laden’s butt burn. Instead of singing about the “home of the brave” why don’t we go out and live our lives like we always have and be brave or at least not afraid of living our lives like Americans used to live their lives.
Personally I think it would be like a Pearl Harbor Day that we really celebrate, it should be a three day national holiday and can replace Labor Day which has no meaning anymore. People should have resolutions to do something they want to do but have put off due to fear. Ask out that special person on a date you have been afraid to ask. Try out that risky blog idea. Go down to downtown Seattle and take some photo night shots you have been meaning to do, but inexplicably haven’t. Try something new like a play, or new ethnic restaurant you have never tried. If at all possible travel somewhere for no reason at all, other than you are happy to be alive and living in America on September 11, 2009!

So, join me in celebrating 9-11, Amercia is alive and kicking Day.

The Black Leather, Paunchy, Hordes: Being a Biker

I was just at the gas station trying to remember which side my gas cap was on when I noticed two lesbians on a Harley taking off. The front/driver/husband had on a wife beater t-shirt, huge arm tattoos on her huge arms, and a grim visage. They were both about 50 years old, 5’5” and 250 pounds. Although you would normally never say a full sized Harley is too small for two people, this one certainly appeared to be so. I hope they don’t encounter any sharp corners…good bye and good luck..ah..ladies!
I was considering how people who buy Harleys and bike around now feel the need to play “dress up” very similar to how the peddlers who I call the “neon hordes” feel the need to don a certain type of hideously bright, skin tight second skin costume to feel like they can pedal their bicycles leisurely down the middle of our local highways. http://425talker.blogspot.com/search?q=neon
I know at the turn of the century some women referred to the swim suits of the day as a “swimming costumes” maybe that is what is developing today. People seem to feel the need to identify with certain groups and assume that they must broadcast their allegiance so you will know for sure what-the-fuck they truly are. I suppose this is why evangelical Christians feel driven to wear logo shirts, get tattoos on their calves of Calvary, and having fish bumper stickers swimming sideways on their Volvos.
There is a man I know whose nickname is “little Mike” (or thereabouts) and he is quite diminutive. He does have a Harley though, and a full beard, long hair, (looks like Hagred in Harry Potter)long wallet hanging out the back attached with chain, black t-shirts that usually say something about Harleys, biking or drinking, and black boots of course. At times someone will say “Watch out for little Mike… he IS a biker you know”, laughingly.
If you own a Harley almost every article of clothing you wear needs to be black. One group of people I occasionally visit in the Fall City area all wear so much black that I stick out like a sore thumb with a red jacket and blue jeans. Also you really need to fight the helmet thing with all your might, ala Jack Nicholson in “Easy Rider” wearing the football helmet. A half helmet, Nazi style, or maybe even an old ass WW1 leather helmet, but whatever it is it has to be as non-protective and goofy as possible. It has been fun to watch a female friend accessorize herself, now that she dates a man that owns I believe, two Harleys. She has donned the doo-rag on her head and is trying bravely to appear as “bikeresque” as possible. One of the most bizarre examples is a man I met who had the back covering, spread winged Harley logo on his jacket, the same logo the same size on his vest and on his t-shirt. I remarked on this. He said “yeah that goes skin deep too, if you want me to take off my shirt”. I allowed I believed him, without the need to see more corporate logos.

Biker definition: Merriam-Webster says a biker is a “motorcyclist especially one who is a member of a organized club or group”
Biker definition: according to Me: (1)A biker is a person who rides their bike rain or shine, summer or winter to all activities they participate in, including work, school, dating and mom’s house. (2) Someone who is the member of a club or gang and they wear colors and have office titles like “Bandidios Sergeant at Arms”.

Unfortunately, Harleys are expensive and few dudes who are 20 and struggling with their first job can afford one. Most Harleys these days are ridden by fat, middle aged, Microsoft developers and they only come out on weekends, (in the summer when it is unseasonably nice), where they drive them down to the local tavern in someplace like Duvall, where they can stand outside in their leather chaps and leather vests and look at the latest chrome gew-gaw they paid someone else to install on their $27,000 dollar “bike”. This is fine and good I suppose, but owning a consumer good does not change your personality or make you tough, or much of anything really. You are just someone who gets to play dress up all summer instead of only on October 31st. Are these people bikers? Well…not to me.

Of course there are those two who play biker and have a Harley knockoff or worse yet a Goldwing. Finally there are the biker wannabes and they dress in Harley gear and don't have a bike at all...WTF?

I suppose I think more of a book written by Hunter S. Thompson titled: “Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs” as true bikers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=1648890

Why these baby-boomers are trying to pretend they are tough, tattooed Harley ridin’ bikers, I can only guess, midlife crisis? Thinking the purchase of an overly loud motorcycle will give them courage and freedom? I can’t say only watch and wonder. I suppose it is easy enough; you don’t have to exercise or get in shape, you don’t have to read or practice or learn anything, you just have to buy a dangerous toy and you have a whole new exciting life………. They try and cram lost cubicle years into a few crazy weekends, riding their expensive avatars over to Winthrop, dressed in the finest biker livery, Steppenwolf songs playing in their gray haired heads.

Your Dog Won't Laugh if it Sees You Naked

Do you know if your dog sees you naked it won’t burst out laughing? I know this because I have tested it. Dogs are pretty much man’s best friend I guess. If you quit feeding a cat it will go to the neighbor’s house for food or even go and kill something but a dog will just sit there and starve.
You have most likely also heard the saw about “the more I get to know people the more I like my dog”. Dogs are supposed to have true unconditional love. Anyway I find it odd people so often are more outraged by people’s treatment of animals than of other humans. For instance, there have been several police shootings here recently, one at an Everett Restaurant and one on the Woodinville Duvall road where people were killed. In both those cases eye witnesses said the police had no reason whatsoever to kill those two men. Neither was armed. There has been almost zero public outrage.
However, if a couple State Troopers beat a couple baby seagulls to death the public goes completely nuts! http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009510595_webseagulls20m.html (there is 107 comments). To the troopers credit they did say the seagulls were “being aggressive” and this is usually the same terminology they use when killing a person. They were “afraid” or the person was “walking toward them” even when unarmed, and instead of shooting them once in the leg they were compelled to shoot multiple times in the heart-lung area. I am sure these troopers felt real and unmitigated fear from those small birds.

Can you remember back to when the Marine threw the puppy off the cliff in Iraq and had a U-tube video posted of the event? http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080613/OPINION01/46575095 I would post a link but I am sure it is gone because it caused a FIRESTORM of controversy. The kid was local to the PNW, I think Monroe and even his family here was getting death threats. Jeez! But of course thousands of innocent women and children have died in Iraq and no one says much do they? Even the men fighting our troops are just trying to repel an invading force that really has no business being there. Wouldn’t you fight back if we had an occupying army in the US no matter how much you hated and despised our current administration? Of course you would, if you have any balls and you are a patriot. Now that the US army is not allowed in Baghdad without permission, the government has not asked for help or given permission one single time, the Iraqi people do not want us there at all under any circumstances, which of course is not only not surprising but makes perfect sense. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/iraq/2009400213_iraq30.html

Why did I write this? Was it the incredulity I felt as I read about the latest PETA stupidity about not throwing dead fish at the Pike Street Market? No. It was this article today about a poor woman who happened to leave her two dogs in the car and they died. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/iraq/2009400213_iraq30.html Reading the comments from the people, and their bitter stupid outrage, was jarring evento me, even though I am used to it, and a bit jaded. I am sure this woman loved her dogs very much and is horrified enough as it is. Leave it to the animal crazies though to kick someone when they are really down and to not really have much of a perspective about much of anything important

Yes I have a black lab Pinky(pictured), that I love very much. She made the King County “read to your dog” poster this month.