He said sure!  We have a lot of fun getting on Skype and pretending to be big time RADIO personalities, so even if no one listens, we’re having fun.  We’ve even set up a website, http://TonyAndJosh.com/ We record the podcast on Thursdays at 10pm Central Time and since it’s just as easy to do that and broadcast on UStream at the same time, well we do that too!  So if you really don’t need to sleep before work on Friday why not join us at http://ustream.tv/channel/the-tony-and-josh-show/ at 10pm CT.  You can make comments in chat and we even take live calls.

So far we’ve done three episodes.  Each is about an hour long.  We’re on iTunes, Stitcher and soon Zune.

Check it out won’t you?

He really didn’t want to return to the appliance store, so he’s starting a podcast!  He made this decision not knowing with the out come will be.  He’s just going to try.  He speaks to the “signs” that helped him in making this decision.  It’s funny since a logical person has a tendency to blow off these “signs” but sometimes they are very powerful.  Perhaps the stress and worry makes us less logical and more emotional, and therefore susceptible to seeing these signs.  Of course the other explanation is that we simply see what we want to, in order to have hope.

I try not to go down that path, but it’s happened to me time and time again.  Hearing this man talk about his situation and the signs he saw, well I wasn’t listening to a podcast about being out of work, or faith, or religion.  Not even about the paranormal, crystals, or anything NEW AGE!   It was just out of the blue and really strange.

Certainly the economy is still bad so it isn’t that unheard of to hear people are struggling with income and finding a job, but still…

Also a couple of people were kind enough to respond to my prior post.  Not only does it help to write about what bothers you, it also helps to know that someone listens (reads) and care enough to respond.  I’d like to think of myself as being someone that can stand alone and do things on my own, but that is just how it is most of the time.

Normally I wouldn’t darken the Internet with my fears and concerns but I had a “sign” of my own the other day.

I enjoy science fiction.  Even thought I didn’t care completely for the sci-fi series “Firefly”  It did have some good points.  I did watch the movie “Serenity” which was better than the series.  When I saw a show called “Firefly: Browncoats Unite!”  I pressed the button to schedule it to record.  A few days later I noticed it had recorded, so I watched it.  I enjoy imdb (Internet Movie Database) so after watching the show I was looking up the various actors.  I was surprised to see that “Firefly” was only on for one season.  An amazing following for one season, and even more impressive they made a movie!

Most of the actors in the show I have never seen before but one, Gina Torres, I have.  I think I first saw her in an awful sci-fi show “Cleopatra 2525“.  Later I saw her in “The Matrix” I think it was the 2nd, and/or 3rd sequels.  So I dug around in IMDB to see what she’s been doing acting wise and then starting looking through some of the pictures.  Looking through the images I saw this picture…

Really?  Write.  What the hell is that?  Then I remembered something the therapist, I continued to go to after my now ex-wife stopped going (marriage counseling), had said.  She had asked me to write something, a letter to my Dad that had passed away a few years earlier, I believe.  I did and gave it to her, the therapist.  She read it and was surprised at how well written it was and she even suggested that I write more.  I was honored and had never considered such a thing.  My spelling is atrocious (I got lucky with that word and the spell checker was able to figure it out!) plus my vocabulary is maybe a hair above basic.  Unless it’s something technical I don’t read, well I’m on the Internet every day and I work with computers so I guess I do read constantly, but not novels and such.

How could I be a writer?  Back to the point, sort of.  Done with looking at the pictures I moved on to other things, but this pictures just stuck with me.  Did I see a sign?  Was something telling me to “Write.”  I mean there’s even a PERIOD on there.

So this is the reason I’m sharing this with you.  I don’t know what that picture means, perhaps nothing, but maybe there is something guiding and directing our lives.  I know my wife and I spoke at lengths at the amazing set of events that just put us in close enough proximity to one another where we could meet.   Both of us had horrible prior relationships and those tough times put us the path that led us to each other.

This past February 14th, was our 21st anniversary.  It’s gone by in a flash!  Our baby, Mandy, turned 18 on February 8th!  We’re so proud of both our girls and all in all it’s just been a wonderful life (yes I got the unintended pun reference to the Jimmy Stewart classic movie).  I’d say the majority of my anxiety is my need to provide for them.  Speaking to a friend she tells me this is how most men are.  Slaying the dragon and bringing home to the family, is how she put it.  Personally I wouldn’t think the family would be very happy with a dragon carcass, well maybe the first one they’d find interesting, but the second, and third… I’m sure my lovely wife would get as disgusted with the dragons as she does with the opened and randomly discarded Amazon boxes on the floor.

I’ve come to the conclusion that you never can know what life has in store for you.  If you knew it wouldn’t be an adventure.  It wouldn’t be as interesting as it is.  Sure my fear of not being able to provide for my family is real, and it may come true.  It has happened to other people in many different ways and forms.  All I can do is the best I can do and hope and pray.  If I could just stop worrying about it and go with the flow, well I guess I’m still chasing that level of maturity that I haven’t quite mastered yet.

I want to thank all of you for allowing me to indulge myself in a bit of this pity party.  Perhaps it will help you to know you’re not alone.  Not alone in your fears, or even your fear of insanity for believing in signs placed in front of you from… from… WHO?!?!?!  Deep breath, calm down, it’s just your overly emotional brain playing tricks on you.  But then again, maybe not, maybe it’s a living universe telling us, to hang in there, you’re important, and you may not see it but there is a plan for you.

On and off I have been contacted about other jobs.  They were always contract, and generally speaking that means NO HEALTH BENEFITS.  Recently something happened that I did not expect.  Around Thanksgiving actually.  The major corp. announced that all the contractor would be put on six week furlough!  Yes just in time for Christmas!  Also that six week furlough was open ended.  It may be six weeks it may be longer.

WOW!  That is a wake up call.  Even the company that I work directly for said “We understand if you cannot wait and need to find employment elsewhere…”  Doom and gloom!  Then the management team was able to get the okay to keep three of us on.  Luckily I was asked to stay.  Of course I started looking for another job.  It’s always possible that I could find another job and then six months later that company is sold and everyone is laid off, but it’s like being on a sinking life boat.  You can see the water rising so even though the life boat next to you seems to be floating just fine, it’s still in the same stormy seas of the one you are trying to leave.  If you are really lucky you’ll be able to hop from one life boat to the other and keep from getting soaked!

Well the six week furlough was the end of last month.  Yesterday we found out that the major corp. is bringing us back to full staffing levels, well nearly so.  There is still some concern, at least on my part that this can happen again, or everything won’t go as planned.  Understandable I think considering the extreme uncertainty that I’ve been going through since the end of 2012!

I had no idea this is what the Mayans were warning me about!

So I’m keeping my options open.  I have sent out resumes, and even had a technical interview.  You know the one they ask you technical questions to see if you are lying on your resume?  Actually it really is more to assess your abilities so they can judge your fit into the position.  I know I’ve been on the other side of those interviews many times before.  Boy I hope I set them a little at ease when during those times.

Here’s the rub.  I worked at that one job for sixteen years.  I didn’t hop around from I.T. job to I.T. job and then when I was forced to find another I.T. job I couldn’t.  It’s not that I couldn’t do the jobs that were available, I’m sure I could, but how was I going to convince someone to give me a chance and see just how wonderful I am?  To this very day I am still asking that question.

I thought perhaps my resume was just wrong.  Didn’t have the right information.  Recently when I’ve spoken to the head hunters on the phone I’ve just told them I’m having trouble and what is it about my resume that needs fixing?  I’ve applied for jobs that were near verbatim what was on my resume, and no I didn’t tailor it to fit the job description.  I didn’t hear from them or if I did something happened where it was one conversation then nothing.

I’ve never been charged with a felony, never had a drunk driving arrest.  Hell I don’t even drink!  I think I have great experience, shown that I will work for a company for many years, but here I sit wondering why I can’t find a company that needs a well seasoned I.T. professional with my many skills.  Now I did consider two things.  One I don’t have a four year degree.  I do have some college.  Several people I spoke to in the past, head hunters, said the degree was good to have but with my years of experience it shouldn’t be an issue.  So then I moved on to the next possibility.  I mean I was in my 20′s when I started working my 16 year job, maybe I was just looked at as being too old!

{Laughing} you know the feeling that when you get past the age 35 you think you’re old?  Well working here at this major corporation has taught me age isn’t a major concern, if any.  I’m back to square one.  Why is it so hard for me to find a job?

Maybe you have a suggestion.  Is there a service, a psychic, anything that I could consult to find out?  Do I need to hire someone to write my resume?  Am I the only one that has this much trouble?  I’ve heard that you should plan on being out of work from 1 to 3 months.  Well I’ve been looking for 2 months now and I’ve had one phone interview.  That job isn’t necessarily dead, I’ve learned that they are very slow in the hiring process.

If you’d like to help me, please send me a message and I’ll be happy to share my resume with you!

I started looking for ways to report the cheater.  Many people had the same problem as I.  I know what’s the big deal, but it was the principle!  Apparently FourSquare could care less about cheaters, so they don’t do anything about them.  I thought about it and then it dawned on me.  Fine!  I’ll just check in on weekends, holidays, etc…  Soon I was Mayor again.

If you are a kid of the 60′s you may get this reference.

Are you a Mayor more often but enjoying it less?

It was clear that with my many FourSquare friends (none of which were within 700 miles of me) that all I was doing was remembering to check into places.  I found NO benefit from using the service.  So about a week ago I deleted my account and deleted the app off my phone.

FourSquare had about as much interest for me as following professional sports.

What in the world does FourSquare have to do with GUN control?  Nothing, well nothing I can think of.

It is truly a sad situation with a crazy person takes a gun and attempts to or does kill people.  This is especially horrible when it is a child.  Every child should be able to grow and experience their lives.  Sadly this is often not true.  I believe it was in Darfur that 750,000 men women and children were slaughter.  Not with a gun but with a cheap, inexpensive, machete.   Okay, I’m sure they used more than one.  Evil exists in this world.  It takes on many forms.  The gun control nuts believe that removing the number of bullets one can carry in a clip is going to save lives.  They believe that removing guns from society will save lives.  This is illogical, it’s stupid, and it’s dangerous.

It is true that Jesus said to turn the other cheek.  So with that mind set if you were shot in one side of your face, you should turn and wait for the second shot.  Something very hard to do, I mean if you survive the first shot.  Perhaps I will come to fully understand the wisdom of what Jesus was trying to tell us when he said that someday.  Until that time I want to make sure that I protect myself but more importantly my family.

Removing the ability for me to do that doesn’t protect me and it sure doesn’t protect you.  I think we can all agree there are much better ways to kill a large number of people.  A rental truck, fertilizer, and fuel oil.  Or perhaps a large, aviation fuel laden airliner, oh and filled with a 100+ passengers.  There are many many ways to kill people.  I believe even the people that protect the president have said that there is no way to stop someone if they are willing to die to accomplish their goal.

There is nothing you can do to protect yourself completely from an attack.  The only thing you can do is stop being scared, vilifying a device, educate yourself.  Oh and teach yourself how to protect yourself.  It may not be with a gun, but the guy next to you, your neighbor, a complete stranger may just happen to save your life with their gun.

Guns are not bad, they have a use.  Machetes are not bad they have a use.  Hell fuel oil, fertilizer, etc… all have uses that are important, save lives, or make our lives easier.  Don’t believe the liberal propaganda that guns are bad.  There is a reason why violent crime is at a 39 year low.  Do we really want to go down this same gun control road again and watch gun violence increase?  Where are the highest gun related homicides?  In the places where guns are illegal.  I can’t believe how simple this is to understand yet I find myself actually having to explain it over and over again.

Maybe it’s time when changed the Second amendment.  “You have the right to carry a gun with you any place at any time!”

Does anyone else find it funny that we are attacked on U.S. soil by Muslims, and we elect a man with a Muslim name?  We are attacked on U.S. soil and instead of seeking ways to better protect ourselves in our daily lives, less gun control, there is a call for more.  Really?  How do you think 911 would have gone if passengers were able to legally carry guns on the plane?  Don’t even go down the explosive decompression road.  That’s a Hollywood thing.  The cabin would just depressurize and the plane would have to drop to an altitude around 10,000 feet.  Yeah someone would be in big trouble, but I bet there would be a few dead terrorists, oh and not the 100′s of people on the plane, the thousands of people in the buildings.

We need to start trusting that the majority of the adults in this country and smart enough and brave enough to do the right thing.

I credit my bizarre behavior in keeping me from smoking, anything.  Drinking alcohol, especially beer.  I’ve never tried drugs, and I doubt I would have done it even had I been a slave to peer pressure.   I learned early on that because of this lack of peer pressure concerned gene I’d never be very popular.  Being a relatively positive person I spun this to “well at least the popular people know my name”.

Over the last several years the social media explosion has occurred and I’ve been using it.  Facebook is fine, but it’s more of a people that you know, and family thing.  Not that there is a problem with that all those people are very nice to interact with.  What has been different for me is Twitter.  Twitter is used by many celebrities.  Living in Houston, and not traveling very much, or often, there is little likelihood that I would ever meet someone that I see on TV or movies.  It may seem silly but what I like best about interacting with celebrities is to let them know just how much it has meant to me for their entertainment.

Also as a joke I like saying “oh I know her/him” when one of these celebrities I’ve interacted with appear on the television screen.  As I interact with these celebrities, national or local, some old feelings have resurfaced.  The same feelings I had when I was in junior high and in high school.  What I am doing is having brief contact with the “popular” people.  As many many of my tweets go unanswered I have come full circle, “well at least they know my name”.

I’m not sure why I care about having my name known by people I’ll never meet.  Perhaps it is just the fun of all these years of watching people and never having the opportunity to just say hello, or have them look at me and shake my hand.  As I have found time and time again, what I think is unusual and strange about me it seems many people have the same issues.  I think we all want to be accepted, liked and even looked up to.  When I get to this point in my thought process I remember.  I am accepted, liked and even looked up to.  By my close friends and family!

Life is a balance, or should be.  I think it’s fine for me to have fun making funny comments to celebrities, and even being excited when they respond, however the real things in life are the people that you truly interact with.  The people that I not only look into their eyes, but they look into mine.  A hand shake, a hug and even a kiss.  These are the people that not only know my name but several of them share my last name.  They are the finest people I know.

I work at a company that has literally thousands of employes and that’s just at this location.  They are professionals and I see at least half of them paying with cash.  I haven’t carried cash in five years, or longer.  I just don’t see the need.  There are places I find from time to time that won’t accept a debit, or credit card.  When I find those places I just say thanks and leave never to return.  Usually it’s places that sell food.

As I’m waiting for the person in line in front of me, to remove their cash and get the change from the cashiere, I have time to think… what would I have to do to have cash with me?  Well I’d have to go to an ATM.  That would mean I’d have to stand in line (or wait in a line of cars).  Take my debit card out, place it in the machine. Enter in my pin, select how much cash I wanted the stuff the money and card back in the wallet.

I’d have to do this at least every couple of weeks.  I wouldn’t have any electronic record of purchases I made.   I’d have to plan out how much money I would need for that time period, or risk having to go back to the ATM for more cash.  I like the idea of direct deposit, and just using me debit card as I need to spend money.  I save myself time, money, fuel, and it’s even safer for me.  Furthermore that is less cash that a business has to carry to the bank at night to deposit.  This means it’s safer for the person making the deposit.

One downside is the evidence available to the government, your spouse on how and what the money was spent on.  I’m speaking of taxes and various bad things that spouses can do with their free time.  Of course it could always be money a spouse spends on a gift!   I’ve asked a few people why they carry cash.  At least one person said it allowed them to control their spending.  The would budget how much money they would spend on food each week and take that much cash out for that food.  Usually lunches, but sometimes it was about grocery shopping.

When they were out of money they knew they were done until the next payday.  Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s up to each of us to decide how we want to pay for goods and services.  It just surprises me that with the ease of a debit or credit card that people still take the time to stop and get cash.  I’m sure there are several professions where cash is what you get, tips for example, drug dealers, etc…   For those individuals cash purchases makes perfect sense.  I mean other wise you would have to go make a deposit then use your debit card.  So I do understand, take the path of least resistance.  Also it’s a plus not having anyone know exactly how much money you have.

So just curious.  Which one are you?  Cash or Debit, and why?

With the introduction and rapid adoption of wireless telephones there needed to be someway to describe wired, and wireless.  Actually there are still wires being used in the wireless phones just not the bit that connects to the wireless phone.   One of the really great things about the cellular version of the wireless phone was almost the complete absents of telemarketers and debt collections calls.  Well that was then and this is now.  With so many people “cutting the cord”, land line in this case, telemarketers and debt collectors are losing business.  Arbitron, the company that does the radio station ratings, saw this coming and developed another way to collect the very valuable information for their ratings reports.  It looks like a page that they PAY people to carry around with them!   There’s more information on that in a prior article.

Debt collectors are well, pretty much screwed, accept the federal regulators have given them a loophole.  They can call you on your cellular phone, but they have to dial the number manually.  Manual dialing in this case means your information comes up on the debt collectors screen and they have to hit the space bar, enter, etc… to initiate the call.  With telemarketers you can simply interrupt them and say “Put me on your do not call list.”  This won’t work with debt collectors.  They have a legal right to call you once every 7 days and talk to you about the debt you owe.

The best thing, of course, is to pay any debt you have, unless they are calling you about a debt you don’t owe, or you’re not even the person they are calling!  I’ve been in this boat before.  Apparently people lie to debt collectors, so when you tell them you are NOT the person they are call and STOP CALLING this number, they ask questions like “How do I contact this person?” and well you get an attitude like you are lying to them.  I don’t have time in my life to stop what I am doing and help them do their job.

Our land line is actually a pseudo land line in as much as it is VoIP, via AT&T UVerse.  It’s basically POTS, Plain Old Telephone Service, via the Internet.  One of the features that this voice line has is the ability to block calls.  Up to twenty different numbers.  Well the problem is that telemarketers and debt collectors have got wise to this and have purchased literally scores of numbers.  Some may even “spoof” the caller ID in the hope that your curiosity will cause you to answer.  The twenty number list quickly fills up.

Some companies have created hardware solutions that allow you to selectively block one hundred numbers.  Usually expensive and again a finite amount of telephone numbers you can block.  The solution that I have done for myself is free, just takes a little time to set up.

The great and powerful Google has a voice service.  http://voice.google.com/.  You can get a FREE phone number which has voice mail.  They have several features that can be quite useful.  One is the ability to do voice to text conversion of the voice mail and it can then be e-mailed, or text messaged to you.  One pretty neat feature is the ability to create groups.  You can create a group, named ummmm SPAM, for example.  You can then record a SPECIAL voice mail message and assign it to a specific group.  What I have done is based on that old answer machine high-jinx, the old “Hello?  Ummm speak up I can’t hear you! {beeeeeeep!}”  Hilarity ensues!  lol

The cleaver thing about this is if the company that is calling happens to be a debt collector the machine, or the person has to code the call as “speaking” to someone on that line.  That means they can’t call you back for seven days!  That means your phone rings much much less, because if they called and didn’t SPEAK to anyone they can call be, legally, the next day.  Perhaps sooner.  Occasionally you’ll get the machine, power dialer, that isn’t working quite correctly and you’ll get three, four, ten calls in a single day!

Now once the special voice mail is set up you simply go to your land line and change the voice mail number to be the Google voice number.  Now when the phone rings and you don’t recognize the number, just let it go to the voice mail.  Jump online, http://voice.google.com/ and copy the number that called.  Do a Google search on the number, and if it’s a business that calls lots of people, as in a debt collector, or telemarketer, you’ll find them pretty quick in your search.  Now you know they are PHONE spammers, and you can ADD the number in Google Voice to the SPAM group.  Yep that means the next time they call and they go to voice mail, they’ll hear your hilarious “Hello?  Can you hear me?” voice mail message, and not your standard greeting for the people you DO want to talk to.

The AT&T Uverse also gives me the ability to set up a “FIND ME” set of phone numbers.  This means when my land line rings my cell phone rings and displays the number.  I have also set my cell phone voice mail to my Google voice number.  Yep that means all calls go to one voice mail system!  That also means that not only do I have a mobile, portable caller ID with me, I also have the ability to quickly direct a call to voice mail, and if it’s SPAM they get to listen to my cheerful, and misleading greeting!

Google voice doesn’t have a limit on the number of phone numbers you can monitor.  There is no limit on the number of special voice mail greetings you can have.  In fact you can have one for each number you care to assign one to.  My wife really freaked out when I set up a special one for her!  You can imagine the fun you can have with this.  It’s also a great business tool, because you can set special greetings for customers and clients.

The only negative thing I can say about Google Voice is the quality of the audio sucks!  It’s not like you can’t understand what they are saying, so it’s just a minor annoyance, and certainly fine considering the price, free.

On my Android smart phone I have the ability to mark each number as going DIRECTLY to voice mail.  lol, yep, now I just need to wait and see if there is two rings on my cell phone before I bother to look and see if it is someone I want to speak to, all the spammers go directly to voice mail.

I’m sure one of the reasons I woke up on this particular evening/morning was due to this excitement in part, but apparently I had a habit of getting up after bedtime.  My Mother had told me on an earlier occasion, probably at 3am, “If you wake up in the middle of the night, don’t wake me up.  Just go back and get in bed.”  This night, when I woke up to a completely dark and silent house what my mom had told me was the furthest thing from my mind!

All I could think about was seeing that comet.  I don’t recall if it was that morning, or a morning to come that my mom and I were to wake up and drive down to the local elementary to see the comet.  We had lots of trees in our yard, so the elementary was the best most public place to go.  I walked carefully and quietly to the living room.  There was a large unoccupied lot next to our house and the living room windows facing South was where you could see any real amount of the night sky.

As I approached the window I was looking up towards the sky and then I saw the comet!  The comet wasn’t anything like what I expected! It was round and white, a very bright white.  I was disappointed that it wasn’t shooting across the sky nor did it have a tail.  Also I thought it was strange that it was on the road.  It was about 400 yards down the road, near the intersection of Mable and Center street.  Maybe about 100 feet North of that intersection.

I looked at it for a few seconds, and thought I should tell Mom about this, I mean I knew she wanted to see the comet too.  So I walked to my parents room.  My Mom slept on the side of the bed furthest from the bedroom door, so as I was walking I stopped to look out their window to see if I could see the comet.  I couldn’t, part of the living room stuck out past their bedroom, blocking the view to where the comet landed.

I walked to the edge of the bed, and I could clearly see my Mom’s face, she was sleeping.  Then I heard her voice in my head.  “If you ever wake up in the middle of the night, don’t wake me up.  Just go back and get in bed.”  That’s the last thing I remember.

The next morning I got up and quickly got dressed and jumped on my bike.  I rode down to where I had seen the comet on the road.  I knew that there must be some kind of marks left by it on the road.  I looked carefully, and I did see marks on the road, but nothing that I didn’t remember being there the day before.  Times were different back then, us kids were ALWAYS in the street playing, or riding our bicycles back and forth to various friends houses to play.

I don’t recall how long it was before I told my Mom about the comet landing on the road.  I think it was several days later.  She was REALLY upset that I didn’t wake her up as she would have liked to have seen this glowing sphere on our road.  It was then that she informed me what I was describing wasn’t a comet at all but a U.F.O.

The U.F.O. was about thirty feet in diameter and as I said, a sphere.  It was glowing a very bright white, perhaps even bluish light.  I don’t recall the light illuminating the street or things nearby.  This would have been in 1965/1966 and was either during the summer time, or on a Saturday because I didn’t have to go to school the next day, nor did I have to go to church.  My parents house is just outside of Baytown, Texas in a little community called Lynchburg.

I have always enjoyed paranormal shows, books, and websites, but I am very skeptical of so called evidence or leaps to conclusions that really just guesses, or worse wishful guesses.  I have never seen a ghost, or had any paranormal experiences, except one and I didn’t even know it was a paranormal event at the time.

I believe in U.F.O.s because I have seen one.

UPDATE:

I’m not prone to shock, or fear in general, I mean as long as it doesn’t involve manual labor or mowing the yard, but I had a very strange reaction to this when I saw it in the sink.

I stood and looked at this for a few seconds to try and understand why it bothered me to look at it.  I couldn’t think of any rational reason.  I’m thinking there was more to my “comet on the road” story that I remember.

New owner Jim Crane Monday announced a 5% rebate on full season-tickets and 27-game plans, along with a reduction of ticket prices for 5,000 seats in Minute Maid Park and even some beer prices.

So you can thank me, my friends for the drop in highly overpriced tickets, oh yeah and beer.   You guys know what the major ingredient in beer is don’t you?  Yes, water.

In these years of economic woes, it is time for each one of us to say NO MORE DOLLARS FOR SPORTS!  I’m not going to include beer in this because many of you would consider me insane and stop believing anything I said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YslkeYldkzo

Oh and share it with your friends!

Single Serving Bytes

My wife explains to me, each time I complain, that some, albeit most people DO think sports is news.  My retort is always,  there are so many ways for people to receive news and information these days, can’t they get their SPORTS information elsewhere?!?!  Then I remember ESPN.   A channel dedicated to sports!  With the advent of HD TV local stations now have additional channels.  Can’t one of those extra channels be used for sports?   She doesn’t follow sports either and is quite happy I don’t.  I think she just likes fighting with me, but I digress.

I did follow sports, years ago, before reaching adulthood.  Not so much football or basketball, but baseball.  I played baseball and loved the game.  I watched the Astro’s and year after year I was bitterly disappointed by their lack luster performance.  It wasn’t until I saw a Jerry Seinfeld comedy routine on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson (yes I’m that old) in which Mr. Seinfeld said something to the effect that you aren’t rooting for the players as much as you are rooting for the jerseys!  Players come and go, but the jerseys stay.  How silly to want a team of laundry to win over a competing team of shirts, pants and caps!

Perhaps I would have felt different if I was supporting a winning team, but I really think that over time I would have come to realize that following sports is nothing but a losing proposition.   I guess it depends on your definition of losing, and winning.  If you follow a team long enough they are bound to win.  Given the right set of circumstances they may even win the season.  Most of the time they lose.  They lose the game, they lose the series or they lose the season.  When you go to the sport arena that your tax dollars paid for (loss of tax dollars) you lose your money on over priced tickets to watch over priced players while eating an EXTREMELY over priced hot dogs and drinking an container of what should be fine wine or champagne!

As I see it there is no way to WIN following professional sports.  The very nature of sports says there are winners and losers.  What you may not have considered is just how much you have lost following professional sports.  Time, money, and perhaps, at times, your sanity.

In an effort to give full disclosure here, I do want to say I really don’t care if you follow sports.  We all have our things that make life interesting and exciting.  Some of the things I like I am sure you would find dull.  Where I can appreciate the effort and skill put forth in a winning catch, run, etc… I am just not willing to put forth the time and effort sitting through endless hours of sport “entertainment”.  I do not begrudge your vast knowledge of sports related information, nor your ability to spend hours and hours of discussions while swilling beer talking to your friends about what team is going to make it all the way this year.

I just wish I didn’t have to watch sports on the news.

“The Texans lost this weekend.  I was happy because now the news will shut the hell up about them for at least another nine months.”

You see it over and over again, THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!  We’ll unless the Sun does something totally unexpected and goes red giant 2 billion years sooner than it should, the Earth isn’t ending for a very very long time.  I believe when people claim the end of the world they really just mean the realm of human existence.  The Earth was cruising along quite nicely without us and will do just fine without us, thank you very much.  So really when we talk about these things we’re really just talking about ourselves, our lives.  Going green and saving the planet for example, nope just hoping to make the planet a little better for ourselves, and perhaps a few of the other species on the planet.

So if the Earth isn’t ending on December 21st, 2012 then what’s the big deal?  When you were four and broke your favorite toy that was the end of your world, well for a few moments.  You had to deal with this major change in your life.  As we grow up and mature life makes us adjust time and time again.  We learn and move forward.  Not always, some people take longer or simply refuse to accept the change.  Drug and alcohol abuse, hell even online game addiction for example.

Change is happening all the time.  Most of the time it’s for the better, even if in the short term it hurts.  Capitalism is a very good model for change.  Businesses grow, diminish, survive or fail.  Another business steps in and fills that niche.  Sometimes surviving far longer than their predecessor.  That change affects many people and perhaps even you.  Recently the last two U.S. administrations have seen fit to step in and stop this process from happening.  Giving trillion (trillions right?) of dollars to corporations so they wouldn’t go out of business.  Personally I think this is one reason for our super anemic economic recovery.  Certainly if you lost your job during this most recent low, you and your family could be facing your own end of the world.  It isn’t of course, but boy it sure feels like it.  How will you survive?  Somehow mankind, and you, will find a way.

Even the Mayan calendar doesn’t predict the end of the world, merely and end to how things are and a beginning of how things will be.  Sometimes the change is so devastating it seems impossible that anything good could come out of it.  For example.  When the dinosaurs were roaming the planet for hundreds of millions of years and a series of events, volcanic, oh and that big rock the size of a mountain that crashed into the planet just South of the United States, well that was a change for them.  A pretty bad change.  But scientists theorize that this mass extinction of the dinosaurs is what allowed mammals to gain a foot hold on the evolutionary path to where we are now.   So even the end of the world for the dinosaurs wasn’t the end for all life on Earth.

This planet has been here for a very long time.  With all the turmoil in the solar system it’s not only amazing that our planet exists, it’s amazing we exist!  Change is inevitable.  It happens every day.  Some change affects us more some less.  On September 11, 2001 a change took place.  It affected the entire planet.  Well, people cared about it.  Some were happy some were sad, some like me, were pissed off.  But truth be told it didn’t affect most of us, not directly.  And even for those that lost loved ones in the initial strike of the twin towers in New York, friends, or acquaintances, it was just another change.  Life continued for the vast majority of the people on the planet.

So if December 21st, 2012 isn’t the end of the world, will there be change?  Absolutely!  People will die on that day.  Some will be married.  Some will go to jail, others will be involved in a automobile accident, and a four year old will drop and break a favorite toy.  But the world and mankind will continue.   Some of us will laugh and make fun of those people that took this date as some credible serious threat.  But down inside we’ll all breath a sigh of relief when the final time zone’s clock changes to December 22nd, 2012 12:00:01 AM.

Mike Schmidt Comedy

I recently started doing a podcast.  If you are not familiar with what a podcast is, well it’s basically a radio show that you record to a computer audio format then put on the Internet so people can download it to their iPod or any MP3 player.  Being a technical type person I have been aware of podcasts for years, but I never really was interested in going through the steps necessary to copy “shows” to my MP3 player.  It just seemed like too much work.  About a year ago I finally broke down and purchased a smart phone.  With my entry into the podcast creation market AND having a device that has Internet access I finally was in the position “lazy” to easily download and listen to podcasts.

Finding a good podcast isn’t as easy as it is to find a good TV show, book, radio, etc…  It requires a little more effort.  Recently I was listening to a Adam Carolla podcast and their guest was Mike Schmidt.  As it is all to common on Adam’s show during Mike’s interview Adam did 90% of the talking.  I really didn’t have a good feel for Mike Schmidt or his ability to tell an interesting story or even be funny, however since I was looking for something to listen to while I drive my hour to work or my hour home I figured for free I’ll give Mike’s podcast “The 40 Year Old Boy” a listen.  Which, by the way, that name used to drive me nuts because I would always think “The 40 Year Old Virgin”.

Mike talks fast and thinks faster.  Lilly, his show producer is a big fan.  How do I know, well not because she says so it’s through her near constant laughing.  These are heart felt, deep from the bowls of your soul laughter, and yes the occasional snort.  I love snorts!  At least when I hear them coming from someone other than myself.

I enjoy making people laugh and I always know I’m doing well when I hear laughter like what is coming from Lilly.  Lilly’s laughter is infectious and adds to the enjoyment of the show.  Mike relates stories from his life.  Some are sad, some are pathetic, but all are very funny.  Mike, like most comics I hear on podcasts these days uses a near constant stream of obscenities.  I’m no vulgarity virgin, however I do pride myself in skipping the “filler” words when I choose to communicate with people.  I only mention this not because I am personally insulted by the colorful expletives, but I have not been recommending the podcast to anyone because I was concerned that I would either have to use a disclaimer, and/or worry that my kids, or worse others children would be subjected to some very adult content.

I realize that my sensibilities may not be yours, and really it’s just wrong of me to keep this little know comedic treasure away from you.  Mike, the 40 year old boy, talks fast and for a very long time.  This is the perfect podcast for you if you enjoy laughing, enjoy listening to someone’s life that makes you feel better about yours.

The 40 Year Old Boy isn’t politically correct, polite and Mike is somewhat bipolar from the stand point of displaying classic low self esteem with a mix of megalomania.  In Mike’s most recent podcast he points out that Malaysians are out to get him, and apparently all around him.

Trust me just give it a listen and I think you’ll be as surprised as I was to find such a funny and talented story teller.  You can find out more information about The 40 Year Old Boy and Mike Schmidt by clicking on this link.  The 40 Year Old Boy is also available on iTunes!

I’m not above telling the kids I’m going to watch TV, so get off the xbox.   I’ll start scanning the 500 channels for something to watch, then always remember I should check the “recorded list”.  You know things that you have set the DVR to record for you.  Sometimes a show will be on that I am recording.  It seems I’m usually 5 to 15 minutes late for it, but no problem I can just go to the recording and start watching it before the show is over.  The plus side is I can SKIP the commercials!

I’ve learned that on those RARE shows that I make a point to be in front of the TV when it starts, to wait 15 minutes before watching the program, simply so I can skip all the commercials.  15 to 20 minutes is usually enough to fast forward through all the commercials in a one hour episode.

Recently a program update was downloaded to our DVR.  It seems the fast forward (one button push) is now going MUCH slower than it was before.  The commercials were taking what seemed to be twice as long to be over.   At 1/2 fast forward speed I was 1) Getting bored 2) Able to see what product was being pushed.   I cannot say for sure but I wondered if this was something that was forced on the content and PVR provider by the companies that are purchasing time for commercials on the various businesses that collectively provide the content.

Now I press the fast forward button twice!  Problem solved.  I thought, who in their right mind would be watching a television commercial.  Sure there are those that are funny, or have people in it that you like to see, but the majority of the commercials you either already know about the product, or you could give a rat’s ass about.  There are those that think that just seeing the product image for a fraction of a second may be enough to help you choose their product when you are at the store, etc…

All in all there is NO value to watching a television commercial.  It takes your attention away from the show that you are watching.  Hell sometimes I forget what I was watching until it comes back on.  And who in the hell thought it was okay to place a mini-infomercial in there?!?!?!!?  Don’t get me started.  So who is watching television commercials?  The poor!  The people least likely to buy a product are having it pushed in their faces.  The poor are the only people that wouldn’t have a DVR, or some means to skip the commercials.  Of course there is always a possibility that the poor have a VCR and can still find a VHS tape, and even they can skip commercials.

Software has been available for a number of years that will automatically detect and skip television commercials.  I have video card and associated software in my PC that make it a PVR.   With that video card and software I can schedule and record shows, and the commercials are automatically detected, time stamped and during playback they are skipped.  You’ll see the scene coming to an end, fading  and then WE’RE BACK!  When I first say this I would sit there and giggle like an idiot.  I was so impressed that I could watch a television show and not have to endure the commercials.

I guess it’s pretty plain to understand why the companies that provide the DVRs to it’s customers don’t include the software to automatically skip commercials.  I wonder if it’s ever been discussed in some high level meeting charging people to unlock the fast forward function in a DVR.

I’ve been listening to podcasting for the last several months, and prior to that I would watch a weekly ustream.tv broadcast.  They are all free.  They do have commercials, but they are done in the more 50′s style where the host tells you about the product.  Most don’t have commercials, just entertainment.

I believe that as bandwidth on the Internet increases to each household you will see more content provided by individuals, then by groups of individuals and eventually be production companies.  The 500 channels that you have available now will be infinitesimally small in comparison to the selection that you’ll have.

So television commercials are for poor people, as the rest of us (who are not currently poor) skip past or use technology to ignore them.

UPDATE!

I was flipping around on our AT&T UVerse DVR “live” feeds and I saw “Ferris Buller’s Day Off” playing on VH1, so I stopped to watch it.  After a little bit the commercials started.  This was a live feed so I wasn’t able to fast forward.  I was eating a late diner so I was paying more attention to my food than the commercials.  It seemed like a rather long time before the show came back on but, well who knows.  After eating I joined my wife in the living room (I was in the kitchen).  Another sliver of the show came and went then the commercial BLOCK.  She started counting commercials.  When the count hit TEN she announced it!  We kept counting, normally at this point I would just have found something else to watch.  Oh my God, 15 my wife announced, then 16, 17 and 18.  As the 18th commercial came to an end neither of us knew what to expect next.  Personally I was hoping for 20 because I already knew I was changing channels.  Nope 18, E-I-G-H-T-E-E-N commercials!

Since the show was back on we watched a bit more.  Then my wife said “Don’t we have this on DVD?”  She was right, I went to the shelf, put it in the DVD player and in less tine than you could watch 18 commercials I found the exact spot we had been watching.  We finished the move commercial free.

You people running these stations are idiots!  For $50 you can buy a DVD player and movie.  Who are you pushing these commercials to?  How are you able to convince companies to purchase commercial time?  Do you tell them you’ll be the 11th commercial in a block of 18?!?!?!

Download Podcast Here!

Download the podcast from here.

Download the podcast from here.

Download the podcast from here.

Men vs Women

I’m not sure if it is a generational thing, an age thing, a parent thing, or what but I am becoming increasingly aware and some what concerned about the free use of expletives, foul language, curse words, cussing openly, in public and also by women.  When I say women I’m not talking about alcoholic trailer “trash” woman, lady truckers, or Harley riding Mamas!  These are well educated non tattooed (as far as I can tell) intelligent and even otherwise well spoken women.

Now how many warning flags did I just raise with you?   No I do not care for tattoos.  It’s a sign to the world that you don’t play by the rules.  You may be a wonderful person and generous to a fault, however that tattoo tells me that I should be concerned who you are.  Bullsh*t you say?  Really?  How would you feel about a person that you didn’t know that had tattoos on their face?  If you tell me it wouldn’t bother you, you are either a liar, or you have a face tattoo.

How we present ourselves to the world is how people learn about who we are.  Whether is it a tattoo, style of dress, or what we say, or how we say it, we are all being judged.  We all want to be accepted so we change who we are over time to be accepted by the majority of the people.  At first our parent(s) and then later by our peers.  It’s normal, and no matter what we may think or say there is someone at some level that we want approval from.

From a relatively young age as a male I learned that men used the more colorful language when women were not around.  This told me that in an all male setting there were different rules.  As I entered junior high I learned that boys (mostly) were not as concerned about being caught, or getting in trouble, so the colorful male language was used, and heard more and more.  Sometimes you’d hear it from coach during gym class.

You never ever heard this kind of language from a girl.  Well I mean unless she was the trashy type.  Double standards?  Yes, of course.  The world is full of them and always will be.  So could it be that liberalism, and equality for women is the driving force behind the more liberal use of the normally for men only language?  Certainly what I have stated so far is that men have no issue, at least in the proper setting, saying what ever word, or word combination they want.  Shouldn’t woman have the same right?  Of course, but how is this going to play with their peers?

I think that this type of equalization between the sexes makes the differentiation between men and women all that more difficult.  I think some men, who may be initially interested in a girl that is more a peer later has second thoughts about a long term relationship.  I mean do you really want to take this girl home to your Mom, and Dad?  What about having children with her?  To me it would be like starting a family with “Pink” or “Madonna”.  Would a woman that cursed like a sailor, and was more an equal, that you could have sex, with be the person that you’d want to raise your child?

Of course interestingly as Madonna has gone from pop icon to parent she has changed her views on what children should be exposed to.  Apparently becoming older isn’t the same as become more mature.  It seems that personal values must be constantly assessed as your responsibilities change.  This is a normal progression of life, at least for most people.  I mean we learn and adjust.  It just makes it embarrassing for those public figures that have made their views on sex, appropriate language known thought their words and actions, then to do a 180 degree turn when it’s THEIR children.

Pink is currently pregnant so it will be interesting to see how having a child changes her public persona.  Personally I hope she becomes more “mature” in her words, actions and music.  For example her most recent musical offering “F**kin’ Perfect”.  Not only is this a song with the F-bomb, it a song with the F-bomb in the title.  Surely here is a woman that is an equal with men, right?  Now I’ll tell you I personally really enjoy Pink’s songs.  I don’t follow music closely, I just listen to the radio, and when I hear a song I like I may buy it for a dollar.  I’ll hear a song that I like, use the Internet to look it up and more often than not I’ll find out it’s a song by Pink.

Pink, even though young, has been around for awhile.  She’s very successful and can pretty much do and say what she wants to.  In a way she is trapped into being perceived a certain way so that she can continue to be followed and supported financially by her public.  As the rebellious teen gives way to a rebellious Mother, well something, hopefully will change otherwise the child will suffer.  I know who am I to judge Pink (P!nk)?  I’m nobody, right?  Yeah I’m just some guy with an opinion and one that isn’t very popular.  I don’t have a problem with that, and I’m perfectly happy with my opinion.  Feel free to write how wrong I am in the comments, or in your own blog. 

As recent as yesterday I was buying a Pink song, and I noticed a #1 song on the site I was on.  It is called, “Forget You” by Cee-Lo Green.  I found the video on youtube, and I was shocked to see that in my search that the real name of the song was “F*CK YOU”  Holy crap!  Here’s another example of a song that not only has the F-bomb it’s in the title.  I watched the video and boy that is a good song.  It’s a 50′s style song that is very catchy and very well sung.  It is also funny, however I was disturbed by seeing children in a music video that promotes the use of this language.  Am I really just so old and out of touch because I feel this way?  Should I just stop blogging here at the desk, get a laptop, move to the porch so I can start telling those pesky neighborhood kids to get out of my yard?!?!?

Isn’t the more socially acceptable way to say F**K YOU, FORGET YOU?  I think it s.  On a side note I was amused when I was listing to “Forget You” on the radio this morning and that version of the song removes the “Shhh” from the lyrics “Ain’t that some Shhhh?”  I mean they literally say “shhh” taming the song down further, but apparently not tame enough for the radio.

I believe the singer “M&M” (I’m not looking up the Ke$sha spelling) was asked in an interview if he allowed his children to listen to his expletive laced songs and he said no.  I mean NO!  Asked about the hypocrisy of this he said something to the effect that it is the parents responsibility to keep things from their children that they don’t want them to have.  WHAT THE “FORGET”?!?!!?  As a parent I’m supposed to control what my child is exposed to?  There’s a hit song on the public radio called “Forget You” another song called “F**kin’ Perfect”.  There prime time shows on network television with a masturbation theme.

So now educated funny intelligent women are using the f-bomb routinely in music videos.  In podcasts, Internet “radio” shows.  Should the FCC step in and sensor the Internet?  Why, hell no, they are not doing that job on non network television.  Have you tried enabling the “V” chip in your TV?  Are you able to find ANYTHING on your TV for your child to watch?!?!?  People, need to take responsibility for what they say and what they do.

We can do the interview live, or record it at a time that is convenient then played during the live show.  We are most interested in first hand accounts, but any story will be considered.  This is for entertainment, but of course we want true stories.

Proper Use of Chapstick

When I was a little kid, 3 or 4 years old, one of the favorite things my Dad said when he got upset was “That really chaps my ass!”  I heard that a lot.  One day I was digging around in my Mom’s purse, at church, and found a little cylinder with a cap and some type of greasy stuff that the cap was covering.  I asked my Mom what it was, she reminded me to whisper, then told me it was called “Chapstick”.

Maybe it was because we were at church but I didn’t ask anymore questions. Later at home I decided to use the Chap Stick so I went and found it, in my Mom’s purse, removed the cap and smeared it on.  It felt a little funny and even burned, but no big deal.  Frankly I didn’t see what the benefit of this stuff was.  Over the next week I tried it several times, and decided it was a waste of time.

About a week went by and my Mom came to my room, Chapstick in hand.  She has a puzzled look on her face.  The cap was off and she was sniffing it.  As she brought the Chapstick towards me and my nose I panicked and ran out of the room.  I hid in the built in clothes hamper.  It was easy for my parents to find me, but hard for them to get to me!

Finally she coaxed me out of the hamper but only after she promised not to make me smell the Chapstick.  Another five minutes passed before I was able to clearly explain why I was so concerned about having that Chapstick in my face and my overall misunderstanding of it’s appropriate use.

My Dad never did say “That really chaps my ass!” again.

Wow I hit a lot of the categories on this show.  We had LIVE calls, but no one called.  lol

Stay tuned for a static show time day and time schedule!

Follow me on Twitter or Facebook to get updates!

Download the podcast here!

iTunes link

Show name change.  I thought it would be funny to name my show “Another *@&#ing Podcast!”  I had one person who doesn’t care for explitives ask if there was any foul language in my podcast.  I responded quickly with a resounding NO!  I seldom use that language except in rare circumstances when my toe and a door jam have a minor collision!

It dawned on me that the name that I had so cleaverly selected for the show might actually mislead people into thinking that my commentary was blue, etc…  Personally I just thought it was funny because there are so many people doing podcasts out there and here was another person doing it.

So instead of being humorous I’m going to try and be a little more accurate, or at least continue a theme.  My tag line on the site is “My interpretation of the world around me.”  So the new show name will be “My Interpretation”.  I think that fits most of if not all of what I talk about.  I’ll be changing the graphics shortly.

Congress woman shot, people injured/killed including a nine year old girl.
Being ripped off by towing company.
The wife spins and damages the Mustang.

Download the podcast

Part 1

Part 2

UPDATE!

My very good friend Alison Rosen, she just doesn’t remember me, now has her own podcast on the ACE network!  You can check out Alison’s podcasts here, and also on iTunes.  According to Alison’s last podcast they are in the process of changing the show, including the name.  Her podcast has been featuring the same lovely and catchy tunes used in her UStream shows, written and performed by Tom Rapp (http://www.tomrappshow.com)  Tom is my very good friend also, but he remembers me.  Well he acts like he does, anyway I digress.

Alison on RedEye

Well when I say local I mean New York and now Orange County, but hey it’s the Internet so the world is local right?  I found out last night that one of my favorite celebrities was selected to work with Adam Carolla on “The Adam Carolla Show”.  It’s Alison Rosen.  As you may recall I have been watching Alison first as a reoccurring guest on FOX News “Red Eye”, and also on her own Internet TV show, “Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend”.

Alison as Adam's trusty sidekick - the news girl

Sadly Alison has a short term memory loss issue so she never remembers meeting you.  She is always very friendly to everyone, so naturally she’s always your new best friend.  You can do and say pretty much anything to her and she’ll never hold it against you.  Yes the perfect best friend!  Congratulations Alison Rosen!  And congratulations to all of us fans that now will be able to hear Alison daily (weekdays) on the Adam Carolla Show!

You can catch Alison Rosen on The Adam Carolla show weekdays, and on Sundays you can watch Alison on her show “Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend”

Space Car

Space travel is much easier and safer than plunging into the depths of our oceans.  In space all you need is air pressure of one atmosphere since space is a vacuum, a total lack of air, or any medium that would exert pressure on you, or your craft.  So with a $20 of plastic sheets, a caulking gun and caulking, you could space proof your car!  Ok fine, but how do you now get your SPACE CAR into space?  Well lets back up a bit.  Where is space?  Sixty-two miles straight up!  If you were to get into your car and drive to a place sixty two miles away how long would it take you to get there?  Yeah about an hour, probably less.

You are able to do this because the power supply in your car, the car’s engine, is able to produce enough energy to move your vehicle at a constant speed for hours at a time.  It does this by the use of spinning wheels wrapped in a rubbery compound that comes into contact with a fixed surface.  Also called a road, highway, sidewalk…  The engine produces this power by combining gasoline and air, compressing the two and igniting the mixture.  This causes the engine to spin which causes the wheels to spin, ultimately.  So if we were able to replace the engine with a power source that didn’t need to ingest air, and had enough energy to lift say 3,000 pounds at even twenty miles per hour we could drive our cars to space.

You may be wondering if you can simply go to space at twenty miles per hour why have we been doing it at 17,000 mph for so long.  Simple.  Our power supply sucks!  Chemical rockets can provide a huge about of power over a very short period of time.  A few minutes.  So you need to get your payload in space and hold it there.  How do you do that?  You put it into orbit.  Orbit just means you are falling at the same rate that the curvature of the Earth is changing.  In other words you keep falling and because the Earth is round, you keep missing the ground.  With a good power supply you don’t have to go into orbit.  You could just “drive” off the surface and go into space.  Eventually the gravitational attraction of the Earth would dissipate to almost nothing.

So the two accidents with the space shuttle were a direct effect of going fast in space.  If they had a good power supply they could have gone much slower and safety would be near the issue it is now in space travel.  My astute readers may have already guessed that we DO have a wonderful power supply that gives lots of power for many many days, years even.  Nuclear.  A nuclear power supply is heavy because of the weight of the shielding necessary, but there’s enough power to even lift the shielding!  In fact there was a project back in the 1950′s to develop a nuclear engine.  They were very successful and if a ship had been constructed using this technology we could have placed TWO International space stations in orbit in a SINGLE launch!  We could have had a five year mission to the planets of our solar system, with a crew of some seventy people.  But people fear nuclear power, and these dreams never moved forward.

Space Travel

We need a better power supply.  With the level of technology that we have we could easily be in space.  Navigation, propulsion, communication, it’s all there we just need a decent power source.  It’s now 2011 and we still don’t have the magical power source (supply) that I thought we would have on January 1st, 2001!  It’s the “Mister Fusion” from “Back to the Future”.  It is the zero point energy module from “Stargate SG1″.  It’s something and we need it!

So going to space is easy, all we need is a good power supply.  A wise man once said…. “How to become a millionaire.  First get a million dollars…” – Steve Martin  That is what we are facing here, we need that million dollars and then everything changes.  Everything becomes that twenty-first century we all dreamed of as kids.

You’ll be able to watch live, watch the recorded show, or listen to the audio only version on this site, or via feedburner. I have recently started doing a weekly show and podcast for my Jeep website (I think I’m repeating myself) and even though I really enjoy my Jeep information I’d like to be able to discuss a wider range of subjects. I think that you non-Jeepers out there might find it more interesting as well. dah!

So I hope to see you on the live show (in the chat room) and more so than that I hope that I can put something on that will entertain, educate, or both.

Stay tuned!

By the way you can subscribe and listen to my podcasts on your smart phone! Just subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TonyMuckleroy

Yeah I know there’s already a post about “Christmas Cheer” but I was listening to it today, and then later I was humming it to myself so I put it in this podcast.  You can never have too much Christmas Cheer!

So two podcasts in one day?  Yes!   The equipment is new and it’s fun to play with.

Want to have your comments played on the podcast?  Call my voicemail.  Just give your name (first name is fine) and where you are located, then your comment or question…

530-675-4102  Available 24×7, drunk calls welcome! {insert Arnold’s voice here} “JUST DO IT!”

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCDBqyjd_F0

This past weekend I went with a friend of mine to an off road part near Huntsville Texas. We went in his Jeep and after riding the trails for a few hours we stopped back by the entrance to see if the ATV mud races were going on. They were about to start so we hung around. A film crew was there with two cameras an audio guy, and I guess a producer.

It is interesting watching how the “behind the scenes” works. There was a good sized crowd, however I suspect the film crew would have liked it to be bigger. At one point, apparently, the film crew needed a big cheer from the crowd. For what ever reason the crowd really wasn’t fired up enough. I suspect it was largely due to the film crew slowing the proceedings down and the “crowd” getting bored.

A man was handed a bull horn to address the crowd by the producer of the film crew. He asked for everyone to yell loudly as the film crew needed it for their shot. The crowd tried (no they didn’t) to muster up a roaring cheer, but that fell short. So then the same man called for a woman, or women to come show their, well I’ll clean it up a bit and say chests, to help excite the crowd. Shortly there after two volunteers showed up, both female, and displayed those things that a gentleman name “Tat” seems to always be getting.

I guess this was either enough grease for the crowd’s cheers, or they just didn’t have the cash to throw at the people because the event moved along. Looking around the crowd I did find one obvious non adult.  A young man perched on top of a ATV with a roof. I estimate he was in the 10 to 12 year old range. It was obvious from the size of his smile that the bare chested ladies made his Christmas come a week early.

There were a lot of manly men there many smoking, drinking and cursing. We call it cussing here in Texas. What really shocked me, primarily due to the requested display earlier the film crew was concerned that too much foul language was being used in the crowd.   You know, during the event, the part the film crew was shooting and sound guy was recording?  Someone, again with the bull horn, reminded the crowd that the video they were shooting was to be shown on NATIONAL TV and if “we” could please stop using the offensive language.

So obviously the problem with the offensive material wasn’t that it was offensive it was what was and wasn’t easy to edit out.  Leaving the cameras off and not recording the bare chested ladies was an easy edit. Removing “F**K YEAH!” screamed by the redneck on the left wasn’t.

We all enjoy good shows and the media tries to deliver what we like. It just bother’s me seeing how it’s made. I suspect I might lose my appetite for steak (briefly) if I saw how my steak was prepared from moo to sizzle.  In the end we are consumers and we make it our business to look away or not think about what people must do to give us that polished product.

I for one will continue to watch and enjoy my shows but seeing this first hand has removed some of the childhood like innocence from my viewing pleasure.

Enjoy this great song, and have a very merry Christmas!

Tony Talk Radio?

Many years ago, I think I was 11 or 12 years old, my Mom told me she would give me five dollars for every home run I hit while playing in Little League.  The season didn’t start off very well but towards the end I hit 7 home runs and one was a grand slam.  Unfortunately there were no bonuses for RBIs!  I made a total of $35, technically I guess I was a professional baseball player!  With that $35 I bought a Panasonic tape recorder.  I don’t recall why, I just thought being able to record things and play them back was really cool.  Music, my friends, etc…

I’m not sure how the creative juices got flowing but I’m sure I was sitting in my room messing with the tape recorder talking into the mic and then playing it back that I thought how neat it would be to put on a radio show.  I could use the recorder to record the show and then play it back.  I busted out my trusty Radio Shack catalog and starting thinking of what I must need to connect other audio equipment to my tape recorder.

I remember I built a make shift mixer, a boom mic (using a speaker in a tin can) and a long piece of 1″ square wood.  I set up several microphones around the room and connected them all to my mixer.  The mixer consisted of 12 volt switches that were either on “SNAP!” or off, but if I switched them slowly you didn’t her the loud snap on the recording.

I hooked up my AM/FM radio as another audio source.  I would use the local station’s broadcast of music as a feed into my broadcast (to tape of course).  I would just turn up the volume of the radio and about 90% of the time music was playing.  If the DJ was on I would just stop the tape, rewind and start over.  Then I would fade the music out (radio volume down) and start my DJ act.  It was a lot of fun.  Eventually I had two friends over.  The three of us put on a show.  I was the DJ, Danny was news, and Jason was sports.  I would play the music then introduce Danny or Jason and hit the switch to turn on their microphone and feed it’s audio to the tape recorder.

It was great fun, and yes, I was quite weird!   But it was a cool weird. (at least in my mind…)

So here I am many years later.  As part of my personal entertainment I watch, or listen to a couple of Internet only shows.  Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend, a ustream.tv show and audio only show put on by Olivia Wilder via blogtalkradio.com.  Both are very fun, and besides the obvious talent of these two ladies being able to interact with them in their respective chat rooms the entertainment experience just that much more amazing.

I have a successful website, xjTalk (xj is the two letter designator assigned to the Cherokee model by Jeep) and thinking about all the fun I have having being an interactive viewer/listener of these shows I thought that my Jeep friends (and xjTalk website members) might enjoy a talk show about Jeeps.  About 6 months ago I started looking into the various pieces of software and audio equipment I would need.  I recently purchased a very inexpensive mixer, microphone, stand and connected it all to my computer’s audio interface.

I have found that with a minimal investment I am able to record “shows” and create a podcast for either streaming or download, plus I am able to broadcast live on ustream.tv.  I have done two one hours “test” shows, and my first real show is tomorrow night.  Playing around with technology that is light years ahead of what I was using when I was 12 to 14 is just amazing.  As a tech guy I understand it and know how we got to this point in the level of technology, however as the kid in me looks at it I am awe struck.

So I have come full circle, from a child with a sound recorder to a computer with the ability to act as a sound recorder, however now instead of being able to broadcast my “show” to an audience of my Mom, Dad, or visiting friend I have the ability to broadcast to a world wide audience, and all for the cost of a computer, a hand full of audio equipment, and a moderate amount of scratch for the Internet access.  Now if I was just one of a very few that had the ability to do this, my station would be worth millions and shows heard by as many.  However with the price so low and technology so prevalent I’m just one of thousands and my show may be heard by hundreds if I am lucky.

That’s okay, because compared to the tape recorder that is a major jump in my audience!

I am considering doing a podcast for this site, which would be a general rant about crap, much like my posts are.  I don’t know maybe I just like hearing myself talk a little too much.

You can follow, or friend Alison Rosen or Olivia Wilder to get show updates, dates and times via Twitter and/or Facebook.

Alison on Facebook and on Twitter
Olivia on Facebook and on Twitter

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I really thought the point to smoking was to get that crap into your lungs, yet ever pretty day when I roll the windows down on my Jeep I first SMELL then SEE some loser with their cigarette hanging out of a window.  I guess the lady that I saw today was cold, because she had the driver’s side window up with only about four inch gap and her hand AND CIGARETTE hanging out of the car.  What is it with you people?  Do you really think it is socially acceptable to do something that other people find disgusting?  Where are the “politically correct” police?  Everyone makes fun of construction workers, plumbers especially, with their butt crack exposed to the world!  Where is the out cry against smokers stinking up the place?   I’ve seen several smokers, on TV trying to stand up for smokers rights.  I laugh at this, of course.  They are pissed off because society is making it more and more difficult on them to do their thing where ever they want to.  I guess it really isn’t fair, depending on when you started smoking of course.

Butt Crack

It wasn’t too long ago when smoking was common in the work place, I mean at your desk!  I’ve never smoked, directly, but boy I sure did when people lit up in cube-ville, indirectly!  I’ve always hated the smell of cigarette smoke.  The smell got into my hair or my clothes.  As a life long non-smoker I can smell the stink on people that smoke, or people that have been around smokers.  Wait a minute!  Maybe that’s the reason these smokers hang their smelly butts out of the car windows.  They don’t want to stink!  That must be it!  Yes, I am a genius!  So instead of not smoking, or smoking with the windows rolled up they try to get that nasty smelling smoke out of their car so they won’t smell bad.  Maybe it’s because they don’t want it to burn their eyes.  I really don’t know.  If you are a smoker tell me please.

I keep thinking about this and I just need to do it.  I think it would be pretty simple to rig up a reservoir under the hood of my Jeep.  Fill it with Butyric acid, the chemical that smells like rancid butter, Parmesan cheese, vomit, and body odor.  Connect a windshield wiper pump to the reservoir and then route the tube out the side of the vehicle.  I’d need to come up with a nozzle that would atomize the chemical so it would be a fine mist.  Wire all this up to a switch inside my vehicle and the next time I run across some insensitive ass that things stinking up my environment should be socially acceptable, I’ll just roll up my windows and start hitting the VOMIT button!

Now you may think that I’m not very politically correct, or socially acceptable myself.  Of course I’m not socially acceptable, or politically correct!  I’m a man that is a Texan!  Actually I’m quite proud that I’m not socially acceptable or very politically correct.  Politically correct is just another way of saying LIAR in my mind.  Of course I do have that pin shaped head!   So if you are a smoker enjoy that smoke, really I mean it.  I like my greasy hamburger and oh my God I love bacon.  I don’t want the government telling me I can’t enjoy those things.  But do me a favor, think about what you are doing and that people around you may be too nice, or timid to tell you that you stink and they would like you to stop.  If you are around me very long I will say something to you.  Smoking in public isn’t socially acceptable.  If you ask people “do you mind if I smoke” most people will say “NO” but who in their right mind would want to smell that stuff.  A great philosopher once said about people saying “Do you mind if I smoke?” “No do you mind if I fart?!?!?!”  -Steve Martin.   If you must smoke in the privacy of your house or car, then I say go for it.  But keep the windows closed.

butthead

Oh and if you live in an apartment, really don’t smoke in it.  That used to really piss me off, smelling that stink in my apartment.  Yes that was with the windows up and A/C on.  “No fair!”, you say?  “That’s my private residence and my right to enjoy myself!”  “Not so!”, I say.  Think back to my example of  spraying the chemical that smells like vomit.  So, pardon the pun, suck it up and do what you know you need to do anyway.  Stop smoking in public.  If you must, sad addict that you are, roll up your windows and keep the smell with you.  Next time a smoker offends you with his/her smelly butt.  Yell at them and say “Hey BUTTHEAD roll up your window!”

Hey while I’m on the rant.  You people stop blocking the aisle with your basket.  When you are going to make a turn in the median treat it like you would a road and get on the RIGHT hand side of the median, not LEFT, not MIDDLE.  Oh and everyone is just as important and in a hurry as you are Mr./Mrs. BWM owner.  Get in line and wait like everyone else.  If you MUST talk on your cell phone in traffic GET OUT OF THE FAST LANE YOU IDIOT!

There, I feel better.

If you pay a cable TV, telephone, or cell phone bill you may have thought “Why do I have to buy two things that do the same thing?”  Prior to the Internet the only way to broadcast a message out to the public you had to do it on radio or TV.  Vast sums of money were required depending on the market share the radio or TV station had.  Usually based on ratings by a company that I used to work for, Arbitron.  More on Arbitron later.

You could get a Amateur radio license and broadcast to people all over the world, but the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) made it very clear that you could not BROADCAST (two way conversations only) and you could not ADVERTISE a product or service.  This was very nice for radio and TV wasn’t it?  Also your audience was probably limited to 10 people world wide at the most!  So not real threat to radio and TV.

In 1995 when I, and the company I was working for CSC Credit Services, got ON the Internet, I was shocked at just how easy and cheaply it was for us to do so.  I was the guy that did it for the company, so I had to learn about getting the ISP services (a single ISDN channel back then!).  Registering a domain.  Setting up DNS servers, and a web service so people could get to our site!  I remember thinking that it was incredible that in a very short time and for $200 a month we, as a company, had access to a world wide audience.  This is something you couldn’t do on radio or TV, even the television networks were just national.

The Internet rapidly evolved into a huge communications tool.  Instant messaging, music, e-mail, then video.  Voice over IP (VoIP) mimicked our telephone service, but on a world scale.  Long distance was going to be hard to charge vast sums of money for now!  The biggest stumbling block was speed.  Not so much from a technical stand point, but who had it.  I recently upgraded my Internet service to 18Mb down 1.5Mb up.  10Mb was what we first had in our data center.  That was the network speed between our servers!  Now my home Internet access is 8Mb faster!

AT&T Uverse is making use of the new technologies that allow high speed Internet to it’s customers.  They use about 24Mb of Internet bandwidth to stream audio and video to a box that in turn connects to your TV.  This is HD 1080i video with Dolby sound!  It’s not just one stream, it’s four streams!  The rest of the Internet bandwidth is available to me in the form of general Internet access.

If you’ve watched Youtube videos, or watched a show from Hulu, or even your favorite show from one of the traditional network stations you may have thought, “Why am I paying for cable/satellite service?”  Well as more and more people have high speed Internet service this question is going to be asked more and more.

AT&T has done something quite clever as they have gone Internet for their service, but made it look like cable or satellite.  Their telephone service is VoIP again Internet based.  So the sell a bundle with voice, Internet and television which is REALLY all the same thing!  As more and more companies emerge on the Internet with their content available on demand there will be fewer and fewer reasons to have any service other than Internet.

To a lessor degree the Internet will effect cellular phone service.  As Internet bandwidth increases there will be little need for traditional phone service.  Many of you probably hardly ever use the “telephone” portion of your smart phone now.  So the $40 you spend a month and the 500+ minutes for voice, well cell phone company, keep your voice service, keep your minutes and just give me the Internet for $30 a month.  I’ll handle my own voice communications, thank you very much!  Chances are good it will be better quality than the digitized low bandwidth crap they give us anyway!

As promised, Arbiton.  Wonderful company to work for, but their business model is based on the old technology.  I’m sure they have great minds working on ideas so they can continue to take a sizable portion of a radio stations budget for their services.  Currently they call people on the phone and try to convince them that they should fill out a booklet of what radio stations they listen to.  So basically they have to get someone to answer a phone from a 1-800 number, stay on the phone long enough to get them to buy into doing something “for free” (ok maybe $1 to $5 enough for a cup of coffee OR a donut. Not AND, OMG NEVER AND!!!!)   As of about two years ago Arbitron was rolling out their salvation to the dwindling numbers of people willing to fill out the booklets by paying people to wear a pager.

You remember pagers right?  If not just watch the 1980′s movie “Caddy Shack” and watch for Doctor Beeper, yeah that was the characters name.  Beepers were the big thing prior to cell phones.  What the Arbitron beeper does is keep track of what you’re watching on TV, or hearing on the radio and even advertisements in the stores you visit.  If you saw the movie “Minority Report” you may recall the problem Tom Cruise had with his eyes.  When people walked into a store your eyes were scanned so targeted advertisement could be played for you.  Well Arbitron’s beeper listens to what is being played over the public address system in the store.

So Arbitron as seen the writing on the wall (virtual wall in this case) and is trying to change their business model that doesn’t put as large an emphasis on traditional media, radio and television (they were really just radio anyway), and moving to a model that can make use of audio on any media.  Personally I felt that the pager idea was a bad one and they should have gone with cell phone manufacturers.  Have the technology embedded into the cell phone and if a customer agreed to the service a portion of their cell phone bill was picked up by Arbitron.  Now with smart phones an app for iPhone or Android would be a no brainer.  I believe the argument to these ideas are how “random” the sampling would be.  Very important in the collection and dissemination of statistical information.  One thing that bothered me about the wearing of a “pager” idea was the coolness (or the lack of cool) factor.

If you look around you’ll see the shirt sleeves question and answer.  That was my question.

Who is Zadi?  She is Zadi Diaz…

Award-winning web show producer, director and Internet personality, documenting our digital lives through photos and videos. Best known as the host of geek & web culture show, Epic Fu (but that’s just her cover).

You can find out more here!  http://about.me/zadi

I’m not a television commercial fan.  They keep me from watching what I want to watch, specifically the show I tuned in for.  On occasion a commercial comes across that I watch, and look forward to seeing again.  This is one of them.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEdk49rG-xs&feature=related

The young lady in the commercial is a little quirky and has an understated humor that I find quite funny.  As far as I can remember I’ve never seen her in anything before.  Once I have my internal facial recognizing software running, I am sure to spot that person time and time again though.  So when this next commercial came out I recognized this young lady from her prior commercial.  She does look a little different though.  Makes me wonder just how many years has gone by between these two commercials.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJf8Qrw-_Ng

(In reference to the commercial above) I don’t care how manly you are, no man likes to be handed something with a flirty gaze and tone with words of  “good things come in small packages”.

I get the sense that the lady in the commercials is a comedian, but I can’t be sure.  I wish there was an IMDB for commercials, like there is for movies and TV.

Have you laughed today?  If not watch for this girl in the “Babybel” commercials.

UPDATE: Well thanks to the Internet I may have found out who this young lady is.  I noticed that in one of the youtube posts under the commercial I was watching, it said “here is a commercial i did for the lovely folks at mini babybel”.  Could it be this simple?  Thankfully from years of honing my Internet searching skills I was able to find out the name of this up and coming star!  Yeah basically I clicked the name of the person that made the comment.

sbellelauren‘s Channel and the name associated with this account is Lauren Ashley Bishop, comedian.  See I knew it.  She made me laugh.  My Mom was right, I am smart!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNwP3qjBSQY

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgKqmsFKUm0

This is great.  I started what I thought would be a short article, and in the process of doing it I found out this ladies name, Lauren Bishop, youtube site, twitter account and website!

And here is Ms. Bishop on IMDB!  God, I love the Internet.  Oh sorry my bad!  Al Gore, I love the Internet!

After publishing this article, I Twitter “followed” Ms. Bishop, and sent her a tweet.  Within a few minutes I got my own personalized comedy “Tweet” routine.  Much like how Steven King doesn’t sign autographs he just writes everyone their own mini-novel! {stolen joke}.

Manouschka Guerrier

Perhaps I am slow to this realization party but I am surprised how the Internet is being used to start careers.  It made sense to me how it could be used to promote careers in the media.  I remember back in 1995 when I was setting up Internet access, e-mail, website, etc… for the company that I worked.  I was dumbfounded that for so little money our company had access to a world wide audience.

Radio stations had to invest thousands of dollars in equipment, tower(s), antennas, FCC licenses and RF interaction impact studies.  It was a great and expensive effort.  Television stations even more so.  Video really requires much more radio frequency (RF) energy to provide a clear signal on the maximum number of televisions.  For that massive investment they were only able to reach a small portion of the population.  Networks were able to reach a much larger number of people but they had to share this with the local stations.  Not so with the Internet!  For $20 a month and a $300 computer you can promote yourself world wide!

As we move further and further down this Internet trail the distinction between huge expensive multi-million dollar radio and TV stations is being blurred by talented individuals with access to high quality low cost electronics, and extremely fast Internet connections.  (The U.S. Internet connection speeds still pale by Japan’s standards).

Now as we all know people and companies can be successful even if they don’t have talent or a decent product.  They just have to promote, promote, promote!  American 0nline comes to mind.  All those commercials, and all those free CD’s!  If you put a person with talent and the will to succeed melded with the Internet you really have something!

Case and point Manouschka Guerrier.  I ran across Ms. Guerrier through another Internet sensation Olivia Wilder, on the Olivia Wilder’s show.  Olivia has a talk show on blogtalk radio.  The best way to find out about Olivia’s shows is to “LIKE” her fan page on Facebook.  Just click this link!  Manouschka was on Olivia Wilder’s show promoting her website Single Serving and her Food Network TV show “Private Chefs Of Beverly Hills“.  Manouschka is one of six chefs on the show.

They are hired by high society types to prepare swanky meals.  I was able to catch the last show of the first season.  It was very good, and I’m a guy that enjoys things blowing up!  (No chemical explosions in the show!)  About the only thing that blew up was Manouschka when the client decided to change the menu on her the other chef an hour before the food was to be served!  There were three segments, each with two chefs.  I enjoyed each of the segments, but of course I had a special interest in the segment that Manouschka was in due to my recent interaction with her on Olivia Wilder’s show.  I was very disappointed to find out that was the last show of the first season.  Since that time our digital video recorder has been patiently waiting for the next season of “Private Chefs of Beverly Hills” to begin.  Which it will begin, FINALLY!, this coming Tuesday, October 12th, on the Food Network Channel.  9 PM Central Time.

Yesterday Manouschka posted a link on her Facebook page of a recent interview she did.  You can read it here. I was very surprised to learn that she is not a classically trained chef.  She managed to land a part in this series because of her Internet blog (weblog) and of course her personality and talent.  If you’ve been watching television for the last few years, you’ll know that there are a lot of people that have talent, they just need the right exposure, Kelly Clarkson from “American Idol” for example.  Kelly made it into show business the more traditional way, she did it with talent and the old media, television.  Manouschka started out as a model, actress, and then did what she really enjoyed, cooking.  Using the power of the Internet Manouschka (and a few of her friends -  Michael Kallio, Shannon Pope) made a video to promote her and her cooking ability.  Here is the video from her youtube site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnNIOaFPR5c

I saw this video for the first time last night.  It is easy for me to see her star quality from this video.  I recommend visiting her youtube site and watching the other videos that she has posted.  Take a moment to subscribe to her channel as well!  One of the things that has impressed me the most about Manouschka is how down to Earth, and willing to say what is on her mind.  Wait let me back up and be honest here.  The MOST important thing that impressed me was her sense of humor.  She thought I was hilarious with my comments in Olivia Wilder’s show “chat room”.  So obviously that means she has a good sense of humor!   As I got to know more and more about her I was impressed for less superficial reasons.  Her love of family, home, and her Haitian culture.

She never fails to respond to my silly comments on her Facebook page, and is happy to share information about her life and upcoming appearances.  It is truly special feeling to have the opportunity to get to know someone that you  can also watch on TV.  It’s like having a friend succeed and being able to share their happiness and success.  Not only can you enjoy the person for their showmanship, but because you have a little background information (or a lot)  they become a real person that you are watching.  Subtle looks, or comments that might elude a deeper meaning now take on more significance.

Reality shows are all the rage, which I refuse to watch.  However, I have stumbled into a much better reality show.  A real person on the Internet that just happens to be on a TV show.  Yes a reality show.   With interesting characters, like Manouschka, I am better able to understand the public’s interest in reality shows.  Being able to know more about the people you are watching really is a new dimension in entertainment which I firmly believe will become richer and deeper as time goes on.  I can’t help but wonder at what cost to the person(s) that we are watching though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYtiu70GD-Y

Manouschka read my article and had some very nice very public things to say about it!

Manouschka's FB Comments

Here is another very informative interview about Manouschka Guerrier “7 Questions w/Beverly Hills Chef Manouschka Guerrier”

Manouschka has a new video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMnRPlSnpX4

I’ve learned, sadly, that most of what you see from individuals on the Internet is fake.  It may be true that someone was killed, but the reasons why may have been modified to provide a shock, or to fit an agenda.  I’m usually the “spoil sport” in reminding people that the information they have may be inaccurate or just an out right lie.  Unfortunately years of being taught that what you read in print (“Enquirer, Globe, etc… excluded) or see on TV is 100% true and accurate!  The Internet has no such lofty goals as to report information correctly.  It is fun to fool people!  The problem is when people believe it and pass it on as truth.

I mean if your Mom forwarded a message about not flashing your lights at someone with high beams on because you might be killed as part of a gang initiation, you’d trust her!  This is what I’m talking about.  People you trust tell you something you listen, right?  Well most of us do, I tend to question everything.  Drives my wife nuts!

Now if you can believe this, this is what really happened to this girl…

Only a fool would assume women don’t play a role in the splintering tensions of Mexico’s cartel woes but this year’s proving to be a particularly nasty one for femicide in northern Mexico. They’ve been strangled, dissolved in acid, one was thrown in front of a train, others, like this unidentified woman, were shot in the head, their bodies laid out on the street. A message to somebody, no different than the fate of their male counterparts.

In Chihuahua, a state whose largest city, Juárez, has become almost synonymous with femicide, 31 women have been murdered this year; or about a woman a week. The dead include Tanya Lozoya, a 15-year-old from the U.S., killed at a party with two men, and Alicia Enriquez, a woman who was shot several times in the head. Last year, 89 women; the year prior, 25.

You can read the full story here… http://borderreporter.com/2009/05/femicide/

So this very young girl, was out with her drug selling boyfriend and was executed.  Was Facebook involved?  Not what we read here.  It is always possible that the girl met up with this thug via Facebook, but I believe the larger issue here is the parent(s) that allowed this 15 year old girl to go to a party.  Also what the parent(s) taught the girl in how to make decisions.  I’m not trying to beat up on the parent(s) what I am trying to do is point out the incredible responsibility parents have.  Part of that responsibility is the not have a “KNEE JERK” reaction to everything you are told, or read  on the Internet.  Caring and concerned parents may start a discussion tonight with their kids saying “YOU’RE OFF FACEBOOK!”  Fear and action without thought can have the opposite results to what you were trying to accomplish.  Your child may decide to rebel because of your perceived un-fairness and act out.

This type of misinformation has been happening forever.  It happens in mainstream media!  Politicians are elected, or defeated because of it.  Companies can make billions, or lose billions because of it.  Don’t blindly believe what you are told.  Ask questions, and don’t accept the first answer!

Back in the late 70′s and early 80′s I was interested in having my very own personal computer.  There were two REAL choices.  Apple and Radio Shack.  Ultimately I went with the Radio Shack TRS-80 Mod 1.  I spoke to a friend that was heavy into electronics and asked why he had bought an Apple.  He was told by Radio Shack that if he tried attaching anything “homemade” to his TRS-80 it would void the warrante.  When he asked Apple they were all for it.  That was the mindset of Apple back in the days that they were new.

In my opinion that mindset has long gone by the way side.  No company can stay in business if it doesn’t make money.  I understand why they would want to make money, but having a product MAC OS that would work perfectly fine on PC hardware Apple has a fit and the mere idea that their software can’t be tied to their hardware that is why, twice the price of a PC?

I get tickled that on almost EVERY movie I see a laptop in, it’s a MAC.  You see that big Apple logo, lit from behind.  I get tickled, because that doesn’t reflect reality.  Yeah I know, it’s a movie, but it’s product placement that is intended to make you think to yourself.  “Hey J-Lo has an Apple, so should I!”  Why on God’s green Earth would I want to spend two times more money for a computer that is less that 10% of the market?  I mean if all you are going to do is browse the Internet, send/receive e-mail, facebook and twitter, then get a $300 ATOM based PC from Wal-Mart!

If it makes you feel better stick an Apple logo on the back.  I bet you could get a nice bright white LED for $2 and light it from the back!  Now send me 1/2 of the $1,500 I just saved you!

Yes my house is a Apple free zone, and it will remain that way.  When people tell me they are getting, or got an iPhone I ask them why.  I tell them I don’t buy Apple products because that only encourages them.  My Motorola Android.  I can swap out the battery.  The extra battery cost me $10.  I can put a 32 GB micro SD memory card in it.  iPhone?  yeah you can’t do that.  One of my buddies tells me with an iPhone you are always looking for a place to plug it in so you can keep the internal, non-removable, battery charged!

lol, no, not me.

So what are your thoughts?  Where am I going wrong here?  I do like learning new things, so please tell me what you think.

UPDATE: My iphone friends have switched or have said they are switching to Android phones.

Wheels, tires, traction bars then a 327 small block.  I just didn’t have the money back then to do all the things that would have made it a truly amazing vehicle.  What I had was fun though.  I don’t recall any issue that I had with that car that I couldn’t solve.  Fast forward several years, and vehicles, and I’m modifying our Jeep Cherokee.

I’ve had a 4×4 truck before, and after a lift, much larger tires and wheels, my modifications were pretty much complete.  I had no idea there was so much more that could be done.  Primarily because that was in the days before the Internet and information wasn’t nearly as easy to obtain.  I started with the Jeep like I did the truck.  A lift and larger wheels and tires.  Shortly after doing that I found that I had a problem, well first a little history on this problem.

My wife and I decided on and purchased a 1998 Jeep Cherokee from a local dealer in 1998.  About 2 years later I was driving home from work and to my surprise I noticed the temp gauge showed a over heat situation.  I was on I-10 and I’m sure I was doing 80 mph or so.  I got off the freeway and parked letting it cool down.  After 1 maybe 2 more stops I made it home.

I took the Jeep to a local shop to have the problem diagnosed.  It was a bad water pump.  The plastic fins on the factory water pump were all gone!  Kind of hard for the pump to move water through the system.  The shop claimed that the head had warped due to the over heat.  So the head was removed and sent off to be milled.  Head replaced, water pump and she was back in running shape.

About 3 months after this major problem the radiator started to leak.  I took the Jeep to a local radiator shop and they told me since the radiator was a mix of metal and plastic it could not be repaired and should be replaced.  I was shocked to find out that anyone in their right mind would put plastic on a radiator!  They had a replacement all metal radiator which they quickly installed, $225 later I was on my way.

Soon I started to see a pattern.  After a few months of running at 210 degrees the coolant temp would rise.  I would check the coolant level, find it was low and add coolant.  Apparently I had a small leak somewhere but it wasn’t apparent.  Oh it seemed that anywhere from a year to two years I would have to replace the water pump.  That really sucked!

Hurricane Rita threatened us and I decided to lift and build up the Jeep so we would be able to evacuate.  It quickly became a hobby.  After lifting and putting the larger tires on the Jeep I noticed that I had added a new problem, but perhaps one that had been there all along.  My cooling system would start getting hotter on the highway, but perform fine on the slower surface streets.  Based on my past experience I knew that a radiator with an additional row would make a huge difference.  I purchased and installed a 3 core all metal radiator.  I took the 2 core to a radiator shop and had it checked and repaired for a backup.  Sure enough there was a small leak.

To my shock the 3 core radiator did NOT solve the running hot issue.  I may not have worried about this problem but after driving on the highway I could literally SMELL the hot from the engine.  This isn’t good for the engine, or the transmission.  I needed to resolve this issue.  Researching the problem on the Internet I found that the Jeep Cherokee’s all had a cooling system issue, it was a problem with the design.  The radiator is long and narrow.  This makes it difficult to place a large fan that moves a lot of air through the radiator and cools the engine coolant.

Jeep’s solution was to place a mechanical fan and an electric fan.  The electric fan would only come on when the coolant temp reached 220 degrees (approx.) or when the A/C was on.  There is a A/C condenser, which looks much like a radiator, then the radiator.  So when the A/C is on vast amounts of heat are pushed to the condenser, cooled by the passing air.  Some of this heat gets transferred to the radiator.  Also the radiator is used to regulate the temp of the transmission fluid.  It heats the transmission fluid when it is cold out, and cools it when it is hot.  One theory for the coolant running hot was with the larger tires the transmission was having to do more work, so the addition of a transmission cooler may help.

I added a 13,000 BTU transmission cooler, no change.

I added a HD fan clutch, high flow thermostat, high flow thermostat housing.  A high flow water pump.  All new hoses.  The coolant was a beautiful green, 50/50 mix.  Still runs hot on the highway.  I had been told repeatedly that at highway speeds your fans are not needed.  Well since I have hooked up a electric fan bypass I was able to turn off my A/C and leave the electric fan running.  During a highway speeds test the coolant temp returned to near normal, and even in the afternoon when the Summer heating was at its worse the cooling system was running much cooler.

So the fan does make a difference at highway speeds!  With this new knowledge I found and ordered a 12″ fan for $89 shipped.  This 12″ electric fan will replace the factory efan at 530 CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) and the replacement I ordered is a 1050 CFM.  So that is nearly double the air flow for the driver’s side of the Jeep.  I also ordered from eBay a Ford Taurus dual speed fan.  4500/2500 CFM.  2950 CFM is recommended for towing and long steep inclines.

So once you get started modifying things you may wind up with somewhat of a money sucking black hole!  One of the truly amazing things about the Internet is to help the next guy with the same problem go directly to the problem’s solution.  Sad thing is I was considering replacement fan way back and the beginning of this problem.

Drug Testing

“If I need to take a drug test to get a job, then you need a drug test to get welfare!”

A little while back, perhaps a year or longer, there was a discussion about requiring people on welfare to take drug tests.  On the face of it this sounds like better than a good idea, it sounds like a GREAT idea.

The discussion has reemerged recently due to a “fan” site on Facebook actually called “If I need to take a drug test to get a job, then you need a drug test to get welfare!”  I thought it might be worth revisiting a point or two I made in the last “original” discussion.

Now there is no way as a tax payer I want to fund someone drug, drinking, or any criminal lifestyle.  So requiring drug tests for welfare seems like a great idea.  Then I thought about it.  What would the person do that had a drug habit and didn’t work, obviously because they couldn’t or didn’t want to?  Simple they would just stop taking drugs, get up, get out, and go get that job at McDonalds and start paying their share of taxes, buying stuff and stimulating the economy!  NOT!

If that was going to happen they would have already done it.  I don’t think anyone really wants to be hooked on drugs, unless they just don’t want to live, or just don’t care.  So that last part is the critical bit.  Don’t want to live, or just don’t care.  So if the government won’t give you money get it from somewhere else.  Steal it.  You can take it directly from people, or break into their house, their car, etc…  Now you are still paying a tax but instead of going through the system, you are paying it directly to the criminal.

Well they may, and do get caught!  Ok that sucks because the drugs aren’t as easy to get in prison, but hey free room, meals, and an exercise gym!  It’s really simple people.  What would you do if you were hungry.  You couldn’t get a job, you had no money.  Your only option was to steal and eat.  Eventually you’d steal and fill your belly.  This is what drug addicts on welfare will do.

You want to get people off of drugs?  Fix it so the drugs can’t get across our borders!  How?  Put the military on the borders, seal it!

Pretty soon drugs will get so expensive no matter how much they steal they won’t be able to afford it.  Many people will start making the drugs inside our borders, and they will be found and put in jail.  It’s a multi-year plan but at least it would get better.  Crime would go down, more people working, more tax revenue and less people on drugs.

42

To further complicate the question, besides being unknown, is what is death?  What does it mean to be dead?  We can’t ask a dead person, well actually I guess we can.  Thanks largely to medical science we now have the ability to bring people back from literal death, with in limits of course.  Many many people have died, either through accident, or design then brought back.  Can you actually experience death and come back?  Hard to say, perhaps not, and perhaps this is the reason for some of the fantastical after life reports.  People that have died and come back do report things that seemingly they have no way of knowing.  Reports of floating near the ceiling looking down on themselves.  Seeing loved one, experiencing love like they’ve never known.  Talking with God!  In some of these conversations choices are given.  Stay or go back.  Sometimes they are just flatly told that it isn’t time and they must go back.

I remember one report of a lady that said the place she went to was just like here, except much more vivid.  The colors were brighter and deeper, it was beautiful.  The more we understand about this place we live, the universe, the smaller and smaller we become.  We began from a flat expanse of land that was circled by the sun to a round planet (amongst several) that moved around the Sun.  Then we found out that we were in a galaxy, not in the center, no where near the center.  Fairly recently we have discovered other planets orbiting other stars.  As stars go, our Sun is a minor star of with there are billions in our galaxy.  Then we find out there is millions, or billions, of galaxys each with several billion stars, and based on solar system dynamics they to must have planets orbiting many of those stars.

The galaxy is incomprehensibly large.  The universe even more so.  My God, what is the point of all this?  What IS the meaning of life?

Quite simply it’s a video game.  A simulation.  The Matrix, if you will?  Why would anyone build such a thing?  Well entertainment, the ultimate reality show.  Education!  What a wonderful teaching machine.  We see this with our own computer simulations.  Scientists collecting information then putting that detailed information into a simulation allow anyone to fly to the rings of Saturn.  To go where they/we are unable to go and experience.

Now there is a lot of discussing of multiple universes, actually an infinite number of universes.  The stuff that makes us, and everything around us, up seems to pop in and pop out of existence.  Traveling to the parallel universes.  So what infinite universe do we exist in?  All of them!  I like to think of other universes being back up copies.  This ensures the simulation will not crash.  Some of you may wonder if we are in a simulation where is the lag? (lag = pauses or delays due to too much data having to be processes at the moment, or delay due to network transmission of data to and from the client)  You experience “lag” in a computer simulation because the time stream in the simulation doesn’t match the time stream in your reality, life.  If you were actually in the simulation your time stream would match the simulations, and as things slowed down or stopped so would your perception.  You would not be aware of any lag.  Multiple universes may also be a way to quickly switch from one decision tree branch to another in the simulation.  Predictive outcome so that when we make a decision we leap to that reality of our decision.

Your soul, the thing that makes you, YOU, isn’t here, it’s attached to this reality.  Your memory has been removed, or suppressed so you will not be aware that you are in a simulation.  Otherwise you wouldn’t buy into all this.  You wouldn’t fear death, you wouldn’t care about people’s feelings, you wouldn’t be very much fun to  play with.  Why is there SO much to the universe?  Believability.  The boundaries of the game has to be so huge that there is little chance of you figuring out that you are in a simulation.  Ghosts, sprits, etc.. are problems with the interface between us and the simulation.  We “perceive” other dimensions even though we are not supposed to.  Perhaps as parts of the matter that makes us up pops in and out of other universes, we “see” things, feel things, perceive things that are, but are not there.

Religion is our attempt to explain all of this, and perhaps it was even something that we were told before the start of the simulation.  Or it may be the game/simulation rules but given to us in a way that won’t  let on that this  is a game.  Angles, or messengers, may be similar to those pop up boxes you get in Windows.  I think you will find truth in what ever religion you believe,.  The story gets changed and modified as time and retelling occurs so has our understanding.  For example Apocalypse.  The END of the World!  Apocalypse actually means “lifting of veil”.  Could this be lifting the veil that this is a simulation?  Certainly that could easily mean the end of the world, because the simulation would be ending or over.  Much like when you end a game on your computer.  Are you terrified that the game is over?  Probably not, although you may be disappointed because it was so much fun.  Usually you share your feelings about the game with friends, or online through reviews.  Wait, maybe that’s another misunderstanding we have.  Perhaps after the APOCALYPSE there comes a JUDGMENT DAY.  Judgment day could be two fold.  It may be you get to see your SCORE, you know,  how well you did in the simulation.   It may be your review of the game/simulation.  Wouldn’t that be funny if the feared judgment day wasn’t about you at all?

Here’s something that is even more radical.  If you are in a simulation, and you experience the time stream inside the simulation, then you could actually be every life form in the universe, in each parallel universe.  Your life may be billions and billions of lives.  It would be like playing chess with yourself, but you wouldn’t know that was you!  With an infinite number of universes, your life span would be infinite.  Ever lasting life!  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Why?  Because IT IS YOU!  You treat someone wrong, and you will experience it later.  You are the black man, black woman, illegal alien, asshole that just cut you off, your Mother, your Dad, the president.  Yes even the one’s you despised.  You are the killer that raped and murdered that girl, then sat in prison for 17 years and put to death.  Yes you are the girl that you raped and murdered.  Rich, poor, mentally challenged, genius, average.  Talented, loved, hated.  Smoker, non-smoker.  Take a moment and really think about it.  It makes multiple personality “Sibel” (Sally Fields) look like an single celled organism by comparison!

You are omnipresent, all knowing, all seeing!

So as the end of the game nears, apocalypse, and all is unveiled to us.  How will you rate your (judgment day) performance, experience in this game?  I think it’s an amazing game, but I’m damned curious to find out what outside looks like, you know in the REAL outside?

There is a saying that says something to the effect that “We are the universe trying to figure itself out, and when we do the universe resets and starts over.”

{waiting….} {waiting….} {waiting….}

Hmmm well if that statement is correct, then my theories must be wrong, no reset…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5nqpYe_zBA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ44FpfbcsY

Outta the way!

Yes more drive time bitching!

I remember in years past when you were behind someone that was driving slow in the fast lane they were either drunk, stoned, or just in their own little world.  Well I suppose there is one other possibility.  They just thought you kids are driving too fast and dagnabit!  they are just going to slow you down to the speed limit!

No it’s true.  I had a conversation with an otherwise very kind and caring older man about this subject.  I told him about the people driving the speed limit (a.k.a. SLOW!) in the fast lane and his position was one of he didn’t like people driving over the speed limit.  So there are those type of people out there and you might not even suspect them!  But I digress!

Each and every time I get behind some slow driver in the fast lane they are on A CELL PHONE!  Oh my God people!  We know it’s an important call and all, and I don’t fault you for driving and talking, but can’t you do it in the inside lane?  This is just one more reason I have to get that 130 db air horn for my Jeep.  Wait I smell some funny videos coming.

Remember it is your responsibility to get out of the way of traffic if you are in the fast lane.  You don’t believe me?  Ask a police/deputy sheriff.  Also remember it isn’t your responsibility to slow those young hoodlums down, that’s the polices job.  Besides you don’t really know what’s going on on with that speeding driver do you?  It’s always possible they are rushing to the hospital because of an ill loved one.  Of course they could just be in a hurry so they don’t miss kick off!

Everyone knows, or should, their limitations.  If you can’t drive and talk on the cell phone at the same time, DON’T.

Come to think of it where did all those drunks, and stoned drivers go?  Hmmmm must be due to the crack down of “don’t drink and drive”!  Maybe there should be a fast lane cell talker campaign.

Friends?

Do you have friends?  Many of you would recoil in puzzlement and concern then ,reply “Of course I do!”  Some of you may think about the question and respond with something more esoterica like “Do any of us really have friends?”  I say we do have friends.  We make friends all the time.  They may be transient friends, that last only long enough to have a brief conversation about the weather then you hand money to them, and they say “Thank you come again.”

They could be co-workers, service providers, your child’s teacher.  What I am puzzled about are long time friends.  You know the one’s you had when you were a kid, or young adult.  Of course you may be a kid, or young adult so this may be news to you.  I guess a couple of years ago now I joined Facebook.  One of the things I thought was so neat about it was the ability to reconnect with people that you used to know, friends if you will.

Since Facebook was originally geared to schools finding past high school and college friends was easy.  I went about finding and befriending several of my class mates from Deer Park High School (Deer Park, Texas).  I knew that while I was in high school I wouldn’t say I was close friends with anyone.  There were a couple of reasons for this.  I lived in a small community called Lynchburg.  Lynchburg was bordered by Highlands (Texas), and Baytown.  Lynchburg has a ferry that has been in operation for many many years.  The ferry will take you to Deer Park.  For some strange reason Lynchburg children are in the Deer Park Independent school district some ten miles away (and that is if you go across the ferry!)  Baytown (measuring distance to it’s Western most boundry) is about 50 feet from Lynchburg.  I think the closest Baytown school was about ten miles away.

There were nine people in my elementry class, as Lynchburg did have an elementry, but for junior high and high school, we were bussed to Deer Park.  I mentioned the distance if you went across the ferry, well the bus weren’t allowed, by the district, to cross via ferry.  We had a forty-five minute trek, each way, through the Baytown La Porte tunnel.  That’s forty-five minutes one way.  I went from one teacher a day to six (plus) and from nine students in a class to thirty-two!  Virtually any friends I had were lost in the mix of classes and sea of students.

So reason number one, shock!  There was just so much that had changed in my social environment.  Instead of freaking out in a stressful situation I have a tendency to withdraw and stay calm.  Work through the problem, or ignore it.  Part of my problem with social situations was  I am an only child Plus to older parents (that weren’t very social themselves).   I just didn’t have the social skill set to succeed in this new environment.  Which I guess blends me into the second reason I didn’t make many friends in high school.

I was never nervous about speaking to people.  I don’t fear conflict, of course back then I did from the stand point of being beat on by the older boys.  Nothing I have been concerned about since I have grown into a man though.  So I thought that due to my social successes in the work place, and maturity of not only myself, but the people I went to high school with it would be a nice level playing field and it might even be fun to better know many of the people that I at least observed in school.

Several of the past high school Facebook friends were very nice.  They invited me to several get togethers, all of which were fifty miles (one way) from the city I moved to from Baytown.  So I declined the invitations, but tried to indicate that I was grateful for the invitation.  As most of you know you HAVE to bite the bullet eventually and go to something irregardless of how logical it is that you shouldn’t attend.  People will just stop asking, and be offended.

After several months of just being myself in my comments and posts, it dawned on me.  These people aren’t my friends.  I never spoke with them “much” when I was in high school, in person, so why am I virtual friends with them now?  I “unfriended” all but a very few of my past high school aquatints.  Later I removed the rest of them.  During the process I decided that my two, who I would consider my best “young adult time frame” friends, just weren’t interested in me or my life.  I had made several attempts to rekindle the friendship one even involved me driving to the workplace of my past friend to look him in the eye and say hello.  That was over a year ago, and there has been little or no contact.  So I unfriended them as well.

I look back over my life and I think about the people that made a difference to me.  I wonder what they are doing now and how their lives have turned out.  It would seem that isn’t true of me.  In other words no one looks over their life and says “Hey I wonder what Tony is doing these days?”  If they do it hasn’t been important enough for them to find out.

I don’t blame anyone for this, with the possible exception of myself.  I never took the time to invest myself into someone else’s life so why would I expect to be someone of memory?  Don’t misunderstand.  I’m not depressed about this.  I’m just thinking that it is strange how different my life (at least appears to me) is different that so many other “normal” people.

I’m not alone, nor am I lonely.  I have several friends, and my best friend is my wife of eighteen years.   I really enjoy my children and I consider them my friends.  Even at work I mostly keep to myself, but I try to make time to listen to people and interact with them.  I enjoy it and I guess they do as well because they continue interacting with me.  Well I guess they find me more interesting than doing their job. ;o)  Actually I know I can be very interesting although some of the subjects I choose to talk about may make people’s eye’s glaze over.  I try to be observant of this so I know when to stop the discussion, or change subjects.

So all in all when I get to my final days on this Earth I believe I’ll look back and see that I had friends (outside of my family) that enjoyed my friendship,  albeit briefly, but it is highly doubtful I’ll get a call, text, or e-mail saying “Hey how have you been?  Whacha up to old friend?”  I guess that will be okay.  I guess it will have to be.  ;o)

Update!

Since the writing of this post I’ve actually been contacted by people I was once friends with.  I’m fairly certain that it didn’t have anything to do with this post.  What I have found is I’m not a good friend!  I don’t think I’ve changed much over the years.  I enjoy some people but for the most part I get bored with a person quickly and go back to my normal life.  There are a very few people that I really enjoy talking to.  Generally, and not surprisingly, these are people that I have things in common with.   I may not like the way I am from time to time.  I get a little depressed because I don’t have people looking me up because of fond past memories, but truth be told it is just simply because of who I am.  Who I choose to be.  So if you get depressed about not having many friends, you can change that if you want to.  Personally I’d rather have a few quality friends than have to compromise who I am.  Actually that is really it in a nutshell.  I don’t like trying to please a lot of people.

No Smoking?

While at work I stepped on to the elevator.  I have ridden it many times.  I’m usually alone on the elevator, so I have a few seconds of uninterrupted thought.  Time to look around and notice things.  Something I noticed was different than it had been in years past, was the no smoking sign.  This was your standard international symbol for no smoking, but what I noticed was it was actually stamped into the metal of elevator panel.  It wasn’t something placed as an after thought, it was designed into the construction of the elevator.  So the manufacture of the elevator parts were so certain that no smoking in the elevator was going to be widely accepted it was a permanent part of the construction process.   

This on the face of it makes sense, I mean where these days is it legal, or unacceptable for people to smoke on an elevator.  Then I considered other things that have changed as rules and socially accepted behaviors have changed.  If you watch a movie from the 1940′s everyone is smoking, I mean everyone!  Many of the men are wearing hats, although I don’t think that is a link with the smoking.  All the woman are wearing dresses, and even some of them have hats.  I notice the cars, and trucks of the time period.  The technology, if you will.     

I then thought of how when watching old movies you see other technologies that just stand out in your mind as dumb, or at the very least you are grateful they have been replaced with something else.  LCD flat screen TVs and monitors have only been around for a few years, and even now movies that are less than 10 years old that show the old bulky CRT monitors stand out.  I then thought of that no smoking sign and how it was a permanent part of the elevator.  How long would it be before people would step onto an elevator, see the no smoking sign and think, “Wow people used to smoke in such great numbers, that they had to be reminded not to smoke on an elevator.”  It is now 2010 and even though I work in a technology leading company with engineers building the most cutting edge equipment, I still smell cigarette smoke when I am walking through the parking garage entering and leaving the building.  I still see cigarette butts on the ground. 

Now please don’t misunderstand.  I’m no great believer in Government control over our personal decisions.  If you want to smoke please feel free to do so.  I personally believe that for myself it would be incredibility stupid.  Certainly from a health stand point, but also from a financial stand point.  We are now in the 21st century.  The 1940′s were 70 years ago, and although many people that used to smoke do not (many of them are dead) I can’t go out in public without seeing someone smoke, or smelling the foul stench of either a lit cigarette, or the distasteful pungent odor of someone that has just had their hourly fix.    

Well my seven second ride in the elevator is over.  Time to get the coffee I came to the cafeteria to get.  Hmmm maybe I should take the stairs.

July

Welcome to July!  I have a whole month of exciting and informative articles lined up for this month!  Seriously?  You may ask.  No not seriously I answer.   You should know by now that this is a “knee-jerk” blog at best.

You may have read my article The Jeep – Hurricane Escape Vehicle! where I describe how I took the family grocery getter and turned it into a hurricane escape vehicle (the wife still hates I call it that – scares her).   Hmmm maybe I should do one of those things like “short = height challenged”  “housewife = domestic engineer”.   I’ll have to give that some thought.  (Hurricane escape vehicle = ????).

The first hurricane of the season has formed, entered the Gulf of Mexico and upon learning about my hurricane escape vehicle abruptly took a left turn away from it!  It just proves my point.  You don’t do something you should have.  If you do something you’ll never need to.  Oh well, the Jeep still looks cool.

The dieting industry is a multi-billion dollar industry.  You’ve heard this, you may have even spent a billion dollars trying to lose weight.   Past celebrities lose weight, petal a weight loss product and re-energize their careers!  Don’t get me wrong I’m happy to see these past celebrities.  Most of them are one’s I knew when I was a young adult and I’m happy to see them again.

There have been people out there from the beginning of time telling us what you REALLY have to do to lose weight.  Eat right, exercise etc…  BORING!  Many of you may have tried this and it just didn’t work for you or the weight came back.  You know like the movie sequel announcer says…. “Chucky’s back and he’s pissed!”  Your body likes fat.  It wants it!  It needs it!  Sometime it seems to gather it from thin air.

Unlike all those others that have claimed to have the secret to weight loss before, well I really do!  Send me a billion dollars (a mere fraction as what is spent) and I’ll tell you!  Okay, I’ll tell you anyway, but first some teaser bits.  About two years ago I hit 305 pounds.  At six foot the good old insurance weight height chart said I should weight 185.  I didn’t feel good, and I needed to do something.  Every attempt to lose weight had failed, and the weight came back and added five pounds just to teach me a lesson.  Three years later I am down to 258 pounds with a goal of 225.  (Screw that height/weight chart!)

How I did it was simple.  I’ll give you the readers digest version, then the full detail.

STOP EATING SO MUCH YOU FAT BASTARD!

Still there?  I call it tough love.

Here is what I did in a nutshell (that just sounds painful and very restrictive).

Eat breakfast! (Don’t skimp have a good breakfast) – I was always nauseous in the morning, and certainly NOT hungry.  I really didn’t get hungry until about 10 AM.  I was nauseous because I ate too late at night and the food wasn’t being digested well as I slept.  Also Sumo wrestlers use the EAT and SLEEP strategy to GAIN weight!!!!   You may find eating breakfast hard to do at first but by day 3 or 4 of following all these steps, you’ll be looking forward to that first meal!!

Eat Lunch! (Have what you want – be full!)  Some people, myself included, try to eat a small lunch (following a NO breakfast).  This is silly since you are either moving around doing things, or sitting at your desk thinking all day.  Both of those activities need calories.  Remember your body is ALWAYS burning calories. Sleeping burns calories!  So eat a good lunch.  Yes you might get sleepy back and work, but power through it.  It will pay off in the end.

Eat a light dinner or skip it for rapid weight loss, and EAT BY 6 PM!!!! You get up, get ready, rush out of the house, deal with traffic, rush to the elevator/stairs, get to your office/cubicle rush rush rush.  Even just mental activity, frustration, anger etc… burn more calories, so just the act of getting to work, or dropping of f the kids, etc… your body needs calories to burn.  This is why you need to eat that breakfast.  You need those calories to continue after lunch.  Once you are home for the evening you are probably sitting still, watching TV, reading a book.  Low activity, and more restful.  Lower calories needed.  If you’ve been starving yourself all day this would be the perfect time for your body to mount a revolt and you find yourself unhinging your jaw, lifting the refrigerator and emptying the contents into your eagerly awaiting mouth then stomach!  This is how I came up with the term “I don’t like people to watch me feed!”

By 6 PM you don’t need as many calories, so don’t add a bunch to your body.  Eating by 6 PM allows your body several hours to digest the food and burn off the calories you have eaten during the day.  You are shooting for two digit hours between dinner and breakfast.  About 10 to 12 hours.  Like I said above, by day 3 or 4 you’ll be really looking forward to that breakfast meal.

Now of course I’m no doctor, I’m just a guy that has lost weight, and continuing to do so.  This may or may not work for you and I guess for some people it could even be dangerous.  So if you try this diet you need to know you are putting the full responsibility of your actions on YOUR SHOULDERS.  I know strange that anyone would consider what they do being their own responsibility these days.  See your doctor’s approval on all of this prior to doing it.

One trick I did was when I was trying to skip dinner would be to eat a cup of rice.  Rice is very filling and with butter and salt it is very good.  I have also found shelled peanuts to be a great source of hunger suppression.  They are high in protein and I can’t just pop them in my mouth.  I have to break open the shells, remove that nasty brown paper-thin crap, and then enjoy a small amount of food.  They are really good with tea, sitting in front of the TV.  There are problems with eating too much rice, or salty peanuts.

So that’s the trick, which isn’t really a trick.  It’s the same thing your Mother has been telling you for YEARS!  You just don’t like it and you want to find some other “special” pain free way of losing weight.  It doesn’t exist, and I suspect when it finally does (drugs) the side effects will be quite bad.  There isn’t a great deal of pain involved in this process.  The most you’ll have to get used to is the light or no dinner, and the lack of 10 PM to midnight snacks.

I have to admit that breakfast is probably the most difficult aspect of this diet.  Not eating it, but fixing it.  I like to sleep as late as possible to go to work.  This doesn’t leave a bunch of time to prepare breakfast, much less eat it.  For the last three years my lovely wife has been getting up when I do, fixing my breakfast and lunch.  Packing it and having it ready for me as I walk out the door!  It’s a lot of work, and since she’s a stay at home Mom she has no real reason to get up that early other than to fix my food.  It isn’t something I asked her to do, but she does it happily because she want’s me to lose the weight and be there will them for years and years.  I was very lucky to find such a wonderful, thoughtful, and beautiful woman that could stand my presents for longer than a few minutes.

If you try this diet, or have been doing it prior to this article, I would like to hear from you and what your results have been!

Oh and if you have a billion dollars I accept PayPal, in fact I’d probably own PayPal if you paid me.

Aggressive Woman

For some years now I have known that I am socially retarded.  Actually “retarded” may not be a fair word to use since people that are mentally challenged are not so by choice.  They are either challenged because of genetic, or physical trauma.  My social issue is by choice so I would be more a social conscientious objector!

If you are a man you know from experience that you either start a conversation with a sports reference, or a conversation is started with you from another male about sports.  I don’t follow sports.  I don’t watch sports.  I like sports.  I enjoyed playing sports.  Knowing how often men strike up conversations about sports, and being reasonably intelligent (thank God for spelling checkers so I can appear so) if I wanted to be more SOCIAL I would start following sports, reading about sports, and keeping up with the SOM (Sport Of the Moment).  But I don’t.  I can even see how this would help me in my career.  Everyone likes a person they have something in common with, right?  Well having something to talk about during all those boring hours at work would be a big plus to some I am sure.

Men, being pretty simple by design, sports is really the only thing I would have to learn.   Women on the other hand, if you’ve ever dated one or been married to one, are much more complex.  Even the most stubborn men are usually willing to learn a little bit about anything that makes it easier to have a conversation with a woman.  Something you lean pretty quickly is that knowing too much about one of the womanly subjects will quickly move you from potential boyfriend to friend, to GAY friend.  Not that’s there’s anything wrong with that {Seinfeld reference}.  For example.  Knowing a little about shoes, or even just saying what you think.  “Pretty!”, “Don’t they hurt?”, “Were they very expensive?”, are all reasonable things to say to a woman that will encourage her to tell you about every possible aspect of that shoe, and perhaps even a discussion about her feet, or her legs.

Knowing as much about the shoe will move you into the friend category.  Knowing more about the shoe, how it makes your feet and legs feel will move you into the dreaded third category mentioned above!  Now just because you are viewed as a friend, or a gay friend isn’t necessarily bad, but most guys are talking to the woman because they find her interesting/attractive as a potential date (sexual partner).  Most woman really enjoy their gay male friends!

I believe most people have welcomed the politically correct environment.  Men may think the same  as before, but at least now society has taught us to keep our mouths shut.  Sexual harassment for example is a very real threat to your continued employment.  One down side to sexual harassment is how confusing it can be, well at least for “less than sociable” man.  Remember sexual harassment is only harassment if the person you are doing it to doesn’t like it.  You know unwanted sexual advances, even Al Gore has learned about this.  I have heard that you shouldn’t even risk giving a woman at work a completely non-sexual compliment, like how nice her hair, outfit, shoes, etc… look.  Being happily married (or even if I wasn’t happy) you wouldn’t think this would be a big deal for me.  Well, and perhaps I’m just overly concerned about it, I don’t want any of my remarks to be misunderstood.  I don’t want to lose my job, or have any issues at my place of employment simply because I was so socially inexperienced!

I may be taking it a little to far.  For example on a couple of occasions woman have mentioned to me that my food looks good.  My first manly man reaction is to cover my food and growl at them, but my wife has broke me of that and taught me that people sometimes like to start up a conversation by talking about something they see you with, and it isn’t an attempt to steal your food.  So now I’m faced with a dilemma.  I react like my instincts tell me, grab food and run, or I can start up a lengthy conversation inadvertently say something that is misunderstood and wind up in a sexual harassment situation.  The other possible outcome is that I’ll do just fine and I’ll make a new friend.  Yeah I know what’s the odds of that happening?!?!?

So what I choose to do is try to achieve a balance between the growling/running and lengthy conversation.  Here’s how a  recent conversation went…  I was taking my lunch out of the microwave in the company break area.  Woman “That looks good!”  Awkward pause while I calmed myself from grabbing  my HOT food and running, remembering the coaching from my wife.  Me “Well it is certainly hot!”  “he he he” {horrible!}  Woman looking at food through the side of the clear container, “What is that?”  More comfortable now, fight/flight response squelched, I say “Chicken and green beans.”  Woman “Oh!  I thought it was asparagus.”  Long pause and she turned and walked away.  Oh my God how horrifying an experience!  I still get a little jumpy just remembering the incident!

Apparently I did just fine.  The lady from the above conversation no longer compliments me on my food and I haven’t been called down to human resources!  Personally I think woman enjoy the lack of sexual harassment as I am sure they are just as uncomfortable, or more so, as I was in the above mention conversation.  However I have noticed something happening over the last ten years.  Woman are getting more aggressive.  I first noticed this driving back and forth to work.  Even though it may appear from what I have written so far that I am far from aggressive, that really isn’t the case.  I am aggressive, perhaps overly so from time to time.  I just try to use my ability to think to keep me out of trouble.  This aggressiveness is perhaps more apparent in my driving.  My point is I know what aggression is.  On more than one occasion women have attempted to influence my driving on the road.  Like speed up, get out of my way, etc…  I was shocked to see that it was a woman doing the aggressive driving!

My theory is that because of the increasing politically correct environment woman feel that they are having to become more aggressive.  Shows like “Sex in the City” and the follow up movies, glorify the aggressive (often sexually aggressive) woman.  Okay I may be wrong about “Sex in the City” as I’ve only watched about fifteen minutes of a few episodes, and that would be total time watched, but to illustrate my point, lets pretend I am presenting the show correctly.  Woman no longer can sit back and let the man come up and make sexual advances.  The politically correct environment has taught the man to behave and that it is just too costly to flirt with any woman.  I think this same way of thinking spills over into the private realm as well.  I mean if you practice acting correctly in the work place your nature will be to do so in the public place.

Most woman know that a man will not cry sexual harassment.  For two reasons.  Men generally never considered a sexual advance unwanted, even if they know nothing will come of it.  Also if men find out they cried sexual harassment they will teased and generally shunned for being so wimpy!  So woman get a free pass.  This means that women are now in the driver’s seat, so to speak.   So they have two choices.  They can wait and wait and wait for a man to decide that it is worth the risk to have more than a general or professional conversation with them, or they can just step up to the plate and make the first contact!

You know this reminds me of science fiction stories I’ve seen/read where the female part of the civilization had the more Earthling traditional male role .  I don’t recall there being a story line where the male of the species was the aggressor and over time, through political change ,the women rose to that position, and the men decline to their new subservient role.  Interesting.

Basically if you are a man in the twenty first century you are screwed.  If you are aggressive you are considered to be socially repugnant.  If you are subservient you are considered to be to feminine.   If you have aggressive females trying to start up conversations with you the climate is just confusing and to dangerous for you to risk a misunderstanding, therefore the women have to be more aggressive.

As you can see even a married family man can have issues in this social world.  Socializing is full of dangers, and pitfalls.  No wonder we are embracing the online world, where we can be more anonymous and express ourselves with little fear of reprisals.   Well that sounds like a future blog post.

Something that really scares me, now that I think of it!  Aggressive woman learning about sports so they can strike up conversations with men!  The horror… the horror!

Gulf Oil Spill

First and foremost I want to be clear, this is my completely uneducated opinion on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  A horrific accident occurred, and lives were lost.  Because of this the oil rig that was destroyed severed the connection to the well, and oil began to flow from deep with in the Earth into the ocean.  Many people seem to be outraged at BP.  Many people can’t see past the end of their noses.  I have heard that the oil companys get the privilege of spending millions, or billions of their dollars to drill where the U.S. government allows them to drill.  It seems that the more expensive and dangerous drilling is in deep water.  I believe the federal government didn’t want companys drilling in shallow water because that was too close to the U.S. and an accident might cause crude oil to sully our shores.  Good thinking.

I keep seeing messages from people “Twitter mainly” about how upset they are about all this.  The poor animals.  If you are so concerned about the animals, the evil oil company, and the environment STOP DRIVING YOUR CAR!  Oh stop using anything made of plastic (although we may have non petroleum based plastics these days) !  No tires for your bicycle.  Oh and no fair taking that taxi!  If you want to complain, fine complain, but include yourself in the complaint.  Also include yourself because you didn’t let the federal government that you want company to drill for oil where it is the easiest less likely place to have an accident and an oil spill.

While you are at it how about the next time you have  an automobile accident the government puts pressure on you to agree to ALL the damages, including any doctor visits  and days off for work.  No need for you to be heard in court, just agree to it or else.  I am less likely to blame Obama for this, I mean what’s he going to do?  Get a sponge and get busy cleaning up the oil?  I blame the federal government for this mess.  I blame  the environmentalists.  I blame all of you that bitched and complained about nuclear power.

To add insult to injury the government (this time it IS Obama) says no more drilling for six months!   How many jobs is that?  20,000 jobs?  Does this  president know the economy is a pile of steaming crap right now?  Sure all this started under President Bush, but the recovery should have long ago started, and it hasn’t.  This latest knee-jerk reaction to a problem is poorly thought out.  How many oil wells are there in the Gulf of Mexico?  How many have there been?  How many major oil spills?  Please understand I’m not anti-Obama, I’m anti-democrat.  I don’t agree with their basic principles.  If dems feel guilty and want everyone to have their money fine, just don’t tax me and give it to them.  You donate your money and feel better about yourself.

Does BP have a responsibility for this oil spill?  Sure, I think they do.  Did they do something criminal?  Maybe, but that is up for the courts to decide.  Should our government EXTORT billions of dollars from them.  Hell NO!  Do you people really want corporations to leave the U.S.?  This is the basic flaw in the democrat’s logic.  Tax the people, tax the businesses.  Put laws in place to make it harder and harder for companys to make money, then filter that money to people that don’t or won’t work.  Increasing their voter base, and creating a population that is dependent on the federal government for everything they need.

I don’t like this oil spill.  I know that BP doesn’t like it.  What should be done?  Stop the leak!  The federal government should be asking BP “What can we do to help?!?!?!”  Fix the problem THEN investigate the cause of the accident.  Levy fines if necessary.

Oh one more thing.  We had a new space program to go to the Moon.  That’s been killed by the current president.  How many jobs is that?  Have you guys heard of Helium 3?  Well that’s the stuff that is in abundance on the Moon.  It seems that helium 3 can be used in fission to create a clean, radiation free, electricity created directly from the process.  So you nuclear power plant haters out there here is a fuel that would be an amazingly clean fuel source with in our technical capabilities and we just killed the Moon base project.