BIG j's

Random Thoughts By Justin

2012-02-06T19:08:00.000-06:00

National Primary

It is time for a national primary for President of the United States. It is crazy that a few States will decide who will be our next President. Few years do we get into March in the whole nomination process. And the party conventions are just big parties now, instead of important in the nomination process.

Third Party

Along with a national primary, it is time for a solid third party. Time for the US Congress and/or Supreme Court to set the rules for who can appear on the ballot for President of the United States, not the individual states. Right now with each state deciding on what a person has to do to appear on the ballot, they are keeping third parties irrelevant. Heck, even in the primaries, they are keeping important candidates off the ballot: see Virginia.

Super Bowl

Boring game overall. Yes, the ending was great. And that is what people will remember, that last 5 minutes. I will say I thought the Giants had lost the game when they went into halftime down 10-9, and then let the Patriots score on the first drive of the second half. My hatred for the Patriots and Tom Brady runs deep. To see them lose the Super Bowl again, made me feel great. Too bad Brady didn't retire.

Basketball

Watched the most NBA action during the regular season this past weekend. Heck, it could have been the most NBA I've watched ever. I hate the 24 second clock. Make it 30 seconds. Give teams the chance to run a true offense.

I know coaches will say a few bad calls shouldn't decide a game and that as a team, "we should have finished the game", but KU got screwed at Missouri Saturday night. Up by 5 points, Thomas Robison drives and hits a bucket, and looked to be fouled. But no, the refs called offensive charging. Take a possible 3 point play off the score board. Mizzou goes down, hits a 3 and never look back. That one call changed the whole game.

My Car

Still waiting on Shelter Insurance to give me my money for my lost possessions. We lost our car on December 31, 2011. It is now February 6, 2012. That is 38 days. Still no check. Big Fail Shelter Insurance.

Car You Look So Nice

2012-01-28T15:40:00.000-06:00

Just another installment in our whole car fiasco. We received our car back this week from the repair shop.

This is an unpaid endorsement: We have always taken our cars to Cook & Sons in Augusta. Always have done great work.

Pretty much our car is brand new. Either has been re-painted on the outside or buffed to repair all scratches. The inside we have a new headliner and new carpet. Total bill was $7,553.17. Now is a just a small list of the parts replaced and the cost:

New Seatbelt: $225.63
New Headliner: $1,229.45
New Side Mirror: $198.67
New Glass in liftgate: $513.85
2 New Tires: $515.92
2 New Wheels: $586.30
Labor: $1,810.07

Now onto our claim on the items in our car when it was stolen. We pay extra on our homeowners insurance to have our items replaced at the cost to replace them. Not at the current market value or depreciation value of the items. So if our house was ran over by an out of control tank and it took out our TV, insurance would replace the TV at full cost, not the depreciation value of that 30 year old TV. Sounds good and easy right? WRONG. Shelter Insurance can not make this easy. They make it hard. We had to fill out a form listing every item we could remember that was in our car. Have you looked at what you have in your car? It adds up pretty darn quick. Our list hit over $2,500 of stuff. Car seats, GPS, iPod, DVD players, purses and other misc items. So since I pay a premium on my insurance, I should receive a check for the items minus my deduction. WRONG again. Shelter now sends this list to a third party to price what each item was worth at the time of loss. What? Why? I pay extra to avoid this right? WRONG. This third party tells Shelter that my items are only worth $1,000 at the time of loss (example because we are 28 days into this crap and they still haven't told us when we will get our money). Minus our deduction, we will receive a check of $500 for $2,500 worth of loss. Now I have to replace the lost items out of my own pocket, submit a receipt to Shelter Insurance, and then they will reimburse us the difference. So we lost two cars seats. They tell us they were only worth $100 each at the time of loss. But we had to pay $200 each to replace them. They will send us a check, once we submit our receipt, for $200. Crazy if you ask me.

So I pay extra for this coverage, yet I still get treated like a customer who pays for the cheaper coverage. Plus I have to come up the money out of my own pocket to replace my items. I understand why this is done. It saves them money. They know most people will not replace every item lost, so they don't pay out that full $2,500 to us. Now this is just want was in my car. What if my house burnt down? And I had $50,000 worth of stuff lost. How the fuck am I suppose to replace my things? Even if market value was $25,000, I don't have another $25,000 to replace my items. Something is just wrong with this if you ask me. So my advice to you is to ask your insurance agent what their policy is when you make a claim for lost items through your homeowners or renters insurance. You might be paying for that extra coverage, but still might have to come up the money to replace your items you thought were covered.

Side note: Yes, I know I can use the money they give us up front and replace each item one at a time; submit a receipt and then use that next check to replace another item. But that does not make what they are doing right. This process should be easy on their clients.

We Found Your Car

2012-01-07T22:28:00.000-06:00

Those are words I didn't want to hear. But that's what the officer said in his voice mail. He had found it on West Thurman St. He didn't want to impound the car, as that would cost us $300, so if I could give him a call in the next 10 minutes, that would be great. Ummm, you called from a blocked number and didn't leave a call back number. Crap again. So I looked up different Wichita Police numbers and ended up calling 911 by accident. I called the "outside Sedgwick County" number for 911. But lucky for me the 911 dispatcher was able to help me. She got ahold of the officer and gave me the address. My wife and I headed that way, not knowing what to expect.

We pull up, wondering were our car was. We see the officer, but not our car. It wasn't until we got out of our rental car that we noticed our car parked in a "parking lot" of a 4-plex complex. To say our car was fucked up is being nice really. The back window is damaged from where they removed our KU sticker all so nicely. They even tried to remove the Conklin Cars sticker. The whole right side is scratched up from the front bumper to the rear bumper. There is damage to the side mirror and to the wheels. When I was driving home, I had to turn the steering wheel about 20 degrees to the left to just go straight. The left side has scratches as well. We open the doors and were hit by the stench of booze and smoke. It was like the after-hours of a bad bar inside my car. There was trash everywhere. I believe these thugs keep McDonalds in business. The dome light is almost broken free from the roof of the inside of the car. None of the other lights inside the car work, as we had to use flashlights to see anything. There is fabric torn under the drivers seat. The internal compass of the car does not work anymore and gives me an error when I start the car. The sunroof makes a grinding sound when it try's to open or close. Did I mention it smells like booze and smoke??? I'm guessing the sunlight I will notice more issues with the car. I am just not sure this is enough total the car. Maybe they won't be able to get the smell out of the car, who knows.

Some items found in our car that was not ours: DVD players, mass amount of rap CD's, about 500 McDonalds bags, clipboard, multiple business cards for the US Army, GPS unit, a crappy Coach purse, some other person checkbook, a bag of some sort, a crappy Yankees hat, Marlboro boxes, syringes and drugs. Yup drugs. We were going through the trunk area and inside one of our daughters diapers was a black camera case. Inside that case were the syringes and drugs. So when I told the insurance adjuster that I didn't want my car found because how did I know that they didn't' cook meth in it, I wasn't too far off.

Driving home in the car was rough due to the smell of the car. I didn't have a tag. As my tag was taken off and replaced with a stolen tag from another car. So the police had to take the stolen tag off the car. That would have made for an interesting traffic stop. No tag and the car reeks of booze and smoke. Not sure if I would have gotten out of that one.

So Monday starts a whole new battle. To fight to get my car either fixed better than it was before last Saturday or to get it totaled out. I hope they total it.

Now I am not going to state the race of these people who stole my car because I can not be certain, but the drivers seat was laying almost all the way down and there were Bone's, Thug's and Harmony CD's in the car. I'll let you make that guess.

Dude, Where's My Car

2012-01-04T22:53:00.000-06:00

So we are now 4 days into our car being stolen. Quick update on the process.

Shelter Insurance adjuster for the car part has been a pain in the ass. He hadn't called me by 9am on Tuesday, so I called him. He seems stunned I had his number. Used some excuse that their computer were down and he would call me back in 30 minutes. 2 hours later I received a call. Recorded statement and a few questions. I asked how long before we consider the car gone, and was informed 10 days. Not too bad. But the adjuster wanted to start the 10 days from Tuesday, since that's the day we first talked. To say this pissed me off is being nice. I let him know that the 10 days would start from the day I called to make the claim, which was Saturday. Not my problem they do not feel the need to have adjusters working on the weekend. It took some great sarcasm on my part, but he came around to my way of thinking. Also was informed once they make us a settlement amount, we would only have our rental car for another 24-48 hours. So I can't buy a car right now, as my car could be found. But if my car is not found, I have only 48 hours to find and buy a car. Or the rental car starts to come out of our pocket. Even though they couldn't get me a rental car for 3 days since they didn't have adjusters working over the weekend. I guess I come from the workforce that always has someone working or on-call, even on weekends and holidays. And the last time I checked, crime, disasters and Mother Nature do not take off on holidays. It took over 4 hours and another phone call from our agent to the adjuster to get us a rental car that day. Not a helpful guy at all.

We got our money back from our bank, except for $50. Looks like the first $50 in loss is our responsibility. That's fine, I'll file it with my homeowners insurance. A bunch of paperwork, but they were easy to work with. Small banks are that way. I'm scared that if we were with Bank of America, it could be weeks to get our money back. We had our money back that day. Can't beat that.

Our homeowners adjuster is nice. I don't like how Shelter handles the replacement of my loss items. I submit a list. They then send that list to a 3rd party company to find the current market value of my items. I then get a check for the used market value of my items. I then buy the replacement item and submit a receipt to the adjuster and she will then send me a check for the difference. So for our car seats for our kids. If the used market value is $50 per seat, I will receive $100. Then the price I pay at a the store is $100 for each seat for a total of $200. I submit receipt and receive a check for $100. So I am fully reimbursed. Wish they would just give me the full amount up front, but guess this keep me from claiming a 1956 Gibson Gold Top Les Paul that was in my trunk. They are also paying for the fees to get a new drivers licenses for the wife and for all new locks for the house. Time frame for repayment is unknown, forgot to ask.

Pretty sure they wrote checks on our account. They cashed a check the wife had in her purse. How? I don't know. Why would Dillon's or a bank cash a check that wasn't written to the person cashing the check? I know they had my wife's ID, but doubt the person looked like my wife. Unless they changed the picture on the ID.

We test drove a Chevrolet Equinox tonight. Nice car. Since we don't have a trade-in, not sure how much to talk down the price of the car. Hope to get it below our limit.

Will keep blogging until everything is over. Who knows when that will be.

Here is a lil story

2012-01-02T20:38:00.001-06:00

So the Indianapolis Colts fired Bill Polian today. I got the following story from a good source.

Ralph Wilson: Ethel, get Bill Polian on the phone for me.

Ethel: Huh? Who? What?

Mr. Wilson: Bill!!! Polian!!!!

Ethel: Oh, ok.......ok, he's on line 2 Mr. Wilson.

Mr. Wilson: Bill, sorry to hear that you have joined the Obama economy today. It's tough out there.

Mr. Polian: It's all that damn Manning kids fault. What a pussy. Wouldn't play with a broken neck. Damn, Jim Kelly would have played even if he was a quadriplegic and still throw for 3 TD's in a game.

Mr. Wilson: Ya, Kelly is one tough son of a bitch. Well Bill, how about this partner. You come back to Buffalo and lets finish what we started in the 90's. Let's win a Super Bowl.

Mr. Polian: But Ralphie you ran me off. You fired me.

Mr. Wilson: I was stupid. You can fire and hire who you want. Trade, cut, sign and draft who you want. Let's win that...that....that...what's it called.....

Mr. Polian: Super Bowl

Mr. Wilson: yea, that.......

A Bills fan can wish right.

Car Stolen

2012-01-01T20:22:00.002-06:00

So the wife and I thought we would be great parents yesterday and take our kids to the Sedgwick County Zoo (If you never been to this zoo, go to it. One of the best in the Nation).

We get to the zoo around 1:30PM. I decided to pass on the open stall near the entrance and park in the middle with a few open stalls next to us, so the kids don't hit the other cars with the doors of our car. Plus the extra walking is good for us right?

We are walking around the zoo when my wife gets a call from a strange number and ignores it. They leave a voicemail. It's our bank. We think it is about the letter I received in the mail saying my debit card had been compromised and would getting a new one in 7 days. We think nothing about it and continue walking around and enjoying the zoo. I even have to explain to my son why there is a picture of two Tigers having sex in the Tiger exhibit. I tell them they are playing and just hugging each other.

We leave the zoo around 3:30PM and walk out to our car. Or where our car should have been. We hit the panic button on the remote trying find our car. Ok, I know we've all have "lost" our car in big parking lots before. We waive down a Sedgwick County Sheriffs officer who happen to be driving up and down the parking lot. I tell him that I have lost our car and pretty sure it's gone. He looks at me like I am crazy. So I tell him what type of car we own and he tells me he will drive around to look for it. I keep walking around the last two rows of the parking lot, knowing my car is gone.

My wife had walked back to the entrance of the zoo, so I go get her and tell her to call 911 so we could get the sheriff officer to come back and file the report. I also call our bank to cancel our cards since my wife had left her purse in the car. They couldn't tell me if they had been used. So I used my Apple iPhone 4s (see that great sponsored message!) to log into my checking account to only to my account balance at -$53.00. Shit, they had cleaned out our checking account in under two hours. They had shopped at Dillons, Gordman's, Dicks Sporting Goods and Radio Shack. My heart sunk. I can't believe this is happening. One thing to use my credit cards, but to use my debit card and spend my hard earned money is just wrong.

I tell the officer the amounts and the stores they were used. I then continue making phone calls to my other credit cards and the insurance company. The credit card companies couldn't understand that our car had been stolen. Since they don't employee American's, there was a language barrier. Ya, those Discover Card commercials are not too far off. I thought I was talking to Peggy.

I am on the phone, my wife is on the phone, I have a sheriff officer talking to me and zoo employees talking to me too. Oh, I also had my two kids to keep entertained too. The insurance company couldn't tell me anything. That I had rental coverage, but they wouldn't pay for a rental car until an adjuster had contacted me and that the soonest that would happen would be on Tuesday. Really? Tuesday? I was going to have to pay for a rental car out of my own pocket, yet all my money had been stolen? Nice Shelter Insurance. I know it's a holiday weekend, but I would think you would have one or two adjusters on call for situations like this. I hope the rest of the process with them goes smoother.

I get my cards blocked. I finish writing our statement for the sheriff office. I ask him the success rate on finding our car. He tells us that that they usually either dump the car in a parking lot or side street when they are done stealing our money. Or they take it out the country and torch it to hide the evidence. Also had to give a statement to the zoo security. My in-laws drive from Augusta to pick us up. Lucky for us they are letting us use their car until Shelter Insurance decided to call us and set us up with a rental car.

The wife and I head out for the night. As we get to the Anchor our bank calls us again. More charges. I wonder how they could make charges if we blocked the cards. They had hit a few ATM's and a gas station. We wondered why they would try ATM's, as how would they know the pin number to my wife's card. Then she realized they she had just got her replacement card a few weeks ago and still had the new pin number in her purse as she had not re-set the pin. That's how we roll, try to make it easy on the criminals.

One thing I found interesting was the Sedgwick County Zoo has had a problem with smash and grabs in their parking lot. I guess that is why the sheriff officer was driving the parking lot. A few of the zoo security personal informed us that the zoo director refuses to install security cameras in the parking lot. Says it would cost too much money. To put this is perspective, it cost us $33 to enter the zoo for me, my wife and two kids. Yet they won't put in security cameras in the parking lot? And they know they have a crime problem in their parking lot.

So we now get ready to deal with the bank and the insurance company. We expect we will have to wait at least 30 days before the insurance company will pay out on our car. We truly hope they don't find our car. We don't want it back, not since some dirty criminal has driven it around for who know how long. Or what they have done in the car.

I do believe we are lucky with our bank, as it is a smaller bank and many of the big bank employees have known my wife's family for over 20 years. The insurance company? Not sure about that one. I hope Shelter Insurance makes this easy on us.

I plan on keeping this updated throughout the process of solving this matter.

Why Apple???

2011-12-23T22:48:00.000-06:00

I have been a customer of Apple Inc. since 2004. I had just started at Cox Communications and saved my sales commission to buy my first iPod. I was in love. Enjoyed having my whole music collection with me. When ever I had a problem, I could call Apple and they would always help me out. Even when I would have problems with customers Mac's, I could call them and get great customer service.

Since 2004, I have bought the following Apple products, 3 iPods, a MacBook, a MacBook Air, 4 iPads, every iPhone released (6 total), an AppleTV and a Time Capsule. As you can see, I have paid for a few of Steve Jobs' black mock turtleneck's.

I had been happy with all the customer service I have ever received from Apple. From camping out for an iPhone 4 and receiving free water and donuts while waiting, to them replacing our latest iPad for free after our kids dropped it and cracked the screen. But this great customer service has seem to end this week.

It was been known that since the release of the iPhone 4S that if you didn't buy AppleCare for your phone, they wouldn't help you if you broke your screen, unlike before. Understandable to a point. Maybe their Apple employees were handing out too many replacement iPhones. Who knows. But I had always had great service, so I wasn't too worried.

Then this week one of my Apple products died. My Time Capsule (TC) (wireless router with built-in hard drive) stopped working. I had problems with this device about 6 months ago, but it was minor and more of an issue with another device. Tuesday night as I was on the internet, Safari started giving me the dreaded 404 error. I go look at my TC and noticed it was not powered on. I unplug it and plug it back in, but it's a no go. It was dead. Damn. $300 device and it only lasts 30 months. Now what?

I go online looking for a solution. In my search I find that this is a known problem with pre-2009 TC's, yet Apple isn't willing to admit an issue. In one forum posting on Apple Support there is 83 pages of people complaining of the same problem. Yet most happen around 18 to 20 months. I was lucky, mine lasted 10 months longer than normal. Also in these postings is the mention that Apple will not help their customers on this problem. Item is out of warranty by the death date, no AppleCare, you are shit out of luck. Buy another one.

There are no after market parts for the TC's. So no one can really fix the product for you. I was mad. But then I noticed that people posted if you had a MacBook still under warranty, that it would cover your TC also. So I called Apple and was told this was the case. YES! The CSR gives me the option to take it to an authorized Apple Dealer for repair. Says this is a better choice than sending it to Apple, as the dealer will be able to save my data for me. So I take my TC to the dealer and they tell me when dropping off that I'm covered by the MacBook warranty. Sounds good. Until I get a phone call an hour later. Technician with the dealer tells me I have misinformed and I am not covered since I do not have AppleCare for my MacBook, even though the said MacBook is under Apple's regular warranty. Ok, I'm mad, but not at the dealer, but at Apple.

I call Apple, explain the situation to multiple people. Spend over an hour on the phone with them, getting no where. Told I can either buy the $250 AppleCare for the MacBook and then they will replace the TC or I'm SOL. They don't care I have spend thousands with them over the past 7 years. Don't care I will probably never buy another Apple product in the future. They are not willing to take responsibility of their own employee lying to a customer to get them off the phone. I even called the executive customer service team, only to be told that they have lost the power to help customers out. That Apple now makes them get approval from a manager for any "exceptions" to keep a customer happy. That the policy just changed about 60 days ago. Plus this person tells me all managers had left for the day, except it was only 3PM on the West Coast. And that she would email me her contact information so I could contact her next week to fix the issue. I never received an email from this CSR. I was disappointed thinking I truly was SOL.

Then today I find out that if I have AppleCare on my AppleTV, that my TC would be covered. AppleCare for AppleTV only costs $29. I have found my solution. So I email the first person in customer relations I had talked with, letting him know how this situation could be resolved. And I waited for a reply or phone call. It takes him 4 hours to call me back. His response? Sorry, we can not do that for you since your TC is out of warranty. WHAT THE FUCK? You would do it yesterday if I spent $250, but not today because I found a way to do it for only $29? I was pissed. I actually had to give him the web address of Apple's own service page where it mentions my TC would be covered. It wasn't until he looked at the page and I had to explain to him multiple times that I fall under there rules and should be covered. He still wouldn't budge. Telling me he would have to go back to his manager again with the new information and see if she would let him honor Apples own printed rules. WTF again! So I find a cheaper way of what you offered me yesterday and now you won't honor it? Wow is all I could say.

So now I am awaiting a phone call tomorrow to see what they will do for me. I'm guessing they will back track on their offer since I have found a cheaper way to replace my TC that has a known problem that Apple will not admit.

Game 1 Review

2011-11-04T13:16:00.000-05:00

This is a post I made at Kansas.com about Hartman arena and the first Wichita Wings game in 10 years.

Overall, the place was good.

Parking was easy, if you can, avoid, I-135 and go down Broadway and enter the backside of the parking lot. Faster and easier.

Tickets was a mess. They had a bunch of people who ordered tickets in the past few days, so they had to pick them up at the Box Office. They also had many people walking up to buy tickets for the game. And then they had season ticket holders who hadn't picked up their tickets yet. All three of these groups were trying to enter the small area that is the box office. This caused confusion and chaos. They didn't have signs on the outside doors telling you what line to get into. They didn't have any employees outside directing people to the right line. So you had people get into one line, figure out they were in the wrong line, and then cut into the right line.. You can figure out how this made others in the line feel. So tensions were running high. No fights, but many people complaining loudly.

They need kid priced tickets. Sorry, the majority of your fans will be families with kids who play soccer. You must make it economical for families to come to your games. You do this by giving discounts on kids tickets.

Inside the arena, they didn't have anyone at the door handing out programs. They should of had the Wichita Wings Angles dance team at the door handing out programs. This was the first game, people want the program to take home. In fact we didn't even know they had programs, as they just had them at a kiosk on the side.

They didn't delay the start of the game. They should have since many people were stuck inline for tickets. So many people missed the introductions and kickoff. Not sure if that was MISL decision or Wink's.

They need someone in the crowd getting people into the game. Don Hall tried his best, and they tried with music during game play, but until the end, people didn't seem into the game. They need halftime entertainment. Wink needs to invest in a video board to show replays and better scoreboard. Come on Wink, spend some money. They need better entertainment during breaks for timeouts and in-between quarters. WINK YOU ARE FIGHTING FOR MY ENTERTAINMENT DOLLAR!!!! EARN IT!

They need a either more or better concession stands. The lines are long and slow. Maybe have a drink only line. So those who want pop and beer, don't have to stand behind the people ordering food that takes a long time to prepare.

Leaving the game was easy. Yes, just like the Kansas Coliseum, there was a traffic problems, but nothing too bad. I was able to exit to Broadway and then enter I-135 at 61st Street.

Overall, it was a good time. Sad they lost. A win would have went a long way to building a fan base. We all know Wichita only supports a winning team.

Is Osama Bin Laden Really Dead?

2011-10-20T18:09:00.002-05:00

So right after President Obama announced the killing of Osama Bin Laden, I made an open records request for all photos/videos taken the night of the raid and the day after of the burial at sea. Done only because the government wasn't willing to release the photos. Was he really dead? I don't care what the government says to the media, until you prove it with photos, you could be just making shit up. How do we know that Bin Laden didn't die years ago, and the government just figured this out and made it look like we raided his compound.

So the government is suppose to reply with all records requested in an Open Records Request within 20 days of said request. Within 15 days or so, I received an email stating that due to the complex issues and multiple agencies involved that it would be impossible to meet the time requirement. They said it could take 6 months to fill the request.

Time went by and I forgot about the request until I was archiving some email messages. This was in the middle of September 2011, so I sent the person who had emailed me the extension of time email, asking for an ETA on the request. I was told to expect something in October 2011.

I came home one day with a big envelope in my mailbox from the federal government. Wow, they really did send me the information I requested. I came inside my home, use a letter opener to open the envelope and proceeded to read a letter that stated the Department of Defense could not find any pictures or videos of the raid or the burial at sea. What? The Department of Defense has no record of this raid? The raid they were in charge of running? How could that be?

I was given the option to appeal this decision. I am not sure if I will appeal or not. I have come to the conclusion that the government has the photos/videos, but will claim another department was in charge of the operation and they would be the ones I should make the request for all files.

Here is a link to the letter I received: http://db.tt/q22dELjB

Dan Wheldon

2011-10-17T18:11:00.005-05:00

I am pissed. But there is no reason I should be. I not a huge Dan Wheldon fan. Heck, I don't think I watched more than 100 laps of Indy Car racing this year. I didn't get to see the Indy 500 due to work this year. But for some reason Wheldon's death hurts. I am a race fan in general. I use to be a huge NASCAR fan up to about 3 years ago. Reason for my disinterest could be covered in another blog post, but the main reason would be the death of Dale Earnhardt in 2001. I'll watch F1 racing if I catch it on TV, as most of the races are ran at 5AM Central Standard Time. I'll watch NHRA, Indy Car and any other racing if it's on and it catches my eye. Maybe all these are the reasons why Wheldon's death sucks.

Maybe it opens the wounds of Dale Earnhardt's death at the end of the Daytona 500 in 2001. I lost the one athlete that I cheered for every weekend. he was Superman, he wasn't suppose to die, yet he did. With Wheldon, it wasn't the first race of the season, it was the last race. He wasn't even suppose to be racing. If it wasn't for Indy Car's CEO Randy Bernard $5 Million challenge, Wheldon would have been home watching the race with his wife and two sons.

Maybe it was the miracle win at the Indy 500 this year. Wheldon gets a ride from a second rate team, wins the pole, but was on his way to his third straight second place finish when rookie JR Hilderbrand, who took Wheldon's ride at the beginning of the season, lost control of his car in the last turn and hit the wall, allowing Wheldon to win.

Maybe I am human and seeing a another die in a horrific crash brings back the reality of how dangerous racing can be. Maybe because he has two young kids, like myself. I don't know what it is, but it does hurt. It sucks. Another great racer gone too soon.

9/11

2011-09-11T22:34:00.000-05:00

I had the day off. I didn't work Tuesday's. The Wichita Greyhound track had always been closed on Tuesdays, but just recently began being open for betting on Tuesday's. Being 23, I stayed up late the night before, so when the alarm went off, I wasn't ready to wake-up. Our alarm was the radio, tuned to 101.3 KFDI. Instead of music it was Peter Jennings broadcasting. I thought nothing of it as I turned the alarm off and reset it for about 830AM so Jen could go to work. KFDI is a big radio news station, so I just thought they were doing a newscasts.

An hour or so passes by and as the alarm went off again, I was shocked to still hear Peter Jennings broadcasting. I knew then something was not right. I thought someone had died; someone like a former President or famous actor. I made Jen get me the remote for the TV. I rushed to turn it on, even as my eyes were still blurry from my sleep. What I saw, I couldn't understand. Pictures of fire and chaos. What has happened. Then live pictures. The buildings were missing. What the fuck has happened. Finally I put it all together; two planes have hit the World Trade Center and they have collapsed. How many people have died? Who has done this? Then the news of the Pentagon. Then the crash in Pennsylvania. It was too much.

Jen had to go to work. I stayed home, putting off all my plans. I'm glued to the TV. There wasn't a commercial break on any of the stations. I kept it on NBC. I called my Dad. I shouldn't have. He thought it wasn't a big deal. That only a few hundred people died. Does it matter if it's 1 or 3,000? I knew better, this was my generations Pearl Harbor. To this day, my Dad thinks the government blew the buildings up. Says flying planes into the buildings is too hard, that it had to be professional pilots.

I still remember MTV, Food Network and Nickelodeon going off air. NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox didn't show any commercials during the 48 some hours of straight news broadcasts. But they are all making up that lost money this year. They have made this a "Who can have the biggest 9/11 show" contest. We don't need a countdown on the screen. Don't need to have hours upon hours of programing. I feel so bad for the families who lost a family member or were injured in the attacks. They can't get away from the media hype of this day.

May we never forget.

Random Thoughts

2011-09-10T00:00:00.000-05:00

More random thoughts.....

1) My way to improve the economy.
A. You must put more money in people's pocket so they spend it. So you say "tax cuts" stupid. Wrong. Time to subsidize the price of gas. Make it so gas never goes above $1.99/gal. Think how much more money you would have in your pocket. It would save me $23 each time gas up. So about an extra $160 per month.
B. Raise taxes on those who make $200k or more per year back to the pre-2001 Bush tax cuts. Sorry but trickle down economics DOES NOT WORK. It didn't work for Reagan and it hasn't worked now either.
C. Reduce our spending. How though? Go back to our pre-1918 policy of neutralism. Stop being the worlds big brother. Eliminate most of our overseas military bases. Reduce the size of our military. With our technology, we don't need a huge ground force anymore. Sell the Untied States Postal Service. There are other area's to cut, but I'm too tired to think of them.
D. Form a committee of the best business minds in America and tell them to come up with the Top 10 things they would like see done that would increase hiring. People like Mark Cuban and Warren Buffett.

2) It makes me sick how every TV station is doing some type of 9/11 special and making money off of the deaths of over 3,000 people. Some even have a countdown to 9/11. Really.

3) It's NFL Kickoff Weekend. The one weekend every fan of every team has hope for their team. Then the first game is played, and you go back to thinking "there is always next year."

4) In less than 72 hours I will be in Seattle.

5) Have you ever taken a job, started it and then realize you made a bad decision?

6) What is up with all these fucked up college uniforms? I really hope Nike does not screw up the NFL uniforms when they take over in 2012.

Instagram Photos

2011-09-08T21:20:00.001-05:00

Trying out the new Blogger iPhone app. Here are just photos.

Random Thoughts by

2011-09-01T01:18:00.001-05:00

1) There is no reason that a business should not have a mobile app for an iPhone or Android. Every airport for sure should have one so travelers can find food, shops and terminal gates.

2) I hate Summer. And this Summer has just proved why I hate summer so much. Give me Fall, Spring, and Winter anytime.

3) I believe the NCAA should pay some college athletes. Follow me on this: Football and basketball players would get paid. They would not receive scholarships anymore. They would still have to meet academic requirements. Then every athlete in the other scholarship sports would receive 100% scholarships. Right now, most non-revenue sports only hand out partial scholarships to each athlete. Better you are at your sport, the bigger your scholarship. The money is already there, just make it transparent and legal. And then reward the other athletes.

4) Home ownership is over rated.

5) Really contemplating putting in a well this next year. I feel it would pay for itself quickly. Also would provide for water incase of outages.

6) I'm done....

- Posted from my eyePhone

2011-08-31T01:08:00.000-05:00

I use to do NFL predictions when I was younger. Never was any good. But with the internet, there is more information and you are able to follow more teams closer now. So that means I will still suck at these predictions. A few notes: The NFC North is the hardest division. Easiest is NFC West. A few good teams could start slow: Indy and Pittsburgh come to mind. Here are the games Buffalo will win: Oakland, Cincinnati, Washington, JETS (home), Miami (road), Tennessee, Miami (home), & Denver. Close games against KC and home against New England will decide if they go 10-6 and playoff or 8-8.

So here you go:

AFC

EAST

New England 12-4 Y

New York 9-7

Buffalo 8-8

Miami 4-12

NORTH

Pittsburgh 13-3 Z

Baltimore 11-5 W

Cleveland 4-12

Cincinnati 1-15

SOUTH

Indianapolis 12-4 Y

Houston 10-6 W

Jacksonville 5-11

Tennessee 3-13

WEST

San Diego 12-4 Y

Kansas City 8-8

Denver 7-9

Oakland 5-11

Wild Card

New England OVER Houston

San Diego OVER Baltimore

Division

San Diego OVER Pittsburg

Indianapolis OVER New England

Championship

Indianapolis OVER San Diego

NFC

EAST

Philadelphia 12-4 Y

New York 10-6

Dallas 9-7

Washington 6-10

NORTH

Green Bay 13-3 Z

Detroit 8-8

Chicago 9-7

Minnesota 7-9

SOUTH

New Orleans 13-3 Y

Atlanta 11-5 W

Tampa Bay 10-6 W

Carolina 2-14

WEST

St. Louis 9-7 Y

Arizona 7-9

Seattle 6-10

San Francisco 4-12

Y= Div Winner, Z= Home Field, W= Wild Card

Wild Card

Atlanta OVER Arizona

Philadelphia OVER Tampa Bay

Division

New Orleans OVER Atlanta

Philadelphia OVER Green Bay

Championship

New Orleans OVER Philadelphia

SUPER BOWL

Indianapolis OVER New Orleans

2011-08-20T10:43:00.000-05:00

How the heck did you becomes a Bills fan?

Ya, that is a question I hear a bunch. Honestly it's a simple answer: I have always hated the Chiefs.

In the mid-1980s the Chiefs were bad bad bad. But they were always on TV. And there were the only NFL team whose souvenirs were sold in area stores. I couldn't stand it. My dad was a Raiders fan, so that didn't help much either. So around 1984-85, I pulled out the sports page in the Wichita Eagle & Beacon, and picked Buffalo as my team. Why? Because they were in last place with a wonderful record of 1-12 or something like that. Hardly did I know that they had already drafted future Hall of Famer Jim Kelly, and would go on to draft other Hall of Famers Bruce Smith and Thurman Thomas. The good times were just right around the corner, along with 4 straight Super Bowl loses, but we won't talk about that.

2011-08-13T22:10:00.000-05:00

Random thoughts:

Keep wondering why my son keeps getting a minor fever everyday. Worries me a bunch.

I have a new job, start in September, if all my drug, background and reference checks come back good. More on the job in my next blog post.

My Dad has a laptop now, and it is driving me crazy. Everyday is a phone call asking me something that has gone wrong. I will be buying Macs for Dummies soon for him.

If you have never seen Cary Conover's work, you are missing out. I just checked out his street photography from Wichita, and it blows me away. The stuff he sees and how he takes the picture, I just am in awe. If I could only be 1% as good as him, I'd be happy.

I don't understand people who trash Instagram. I feel it is a great way to post a photograph either from your phone or DSLR, and have it processed through their filters. I see it no different that what many people do with Photoshop, just a different program doing the editing.

We need rain and a bunch of it. Not sure if I should spend the money this fall on redoing my lawn. It's dead.

I believe Google+ will join the list of other Google products that have died.

Looks like I'll be in KC on 9/11 for the Bills v Chiefs game. Then in Seattle on 9/12 for new job.

Hope to hit Dallas in November for the Bills v Cowgirls game.

I will never buy another Sharp Built home again.

I want to build a work bench in the next week or so. Also need to attach a NASCAR race used tire to my garage wall. Also need to drill holes into two metal street signs to hang in my garage.

My rule on street signs: If they are still on the pole standing up, they stay. If they are on the ground, just laying there, they are mine.

The Bills will either go 4-12 this year or 10-6. I see every game being close, so they could win a bunch or just lose by a few points in each.

Until next time.

2011-07-24T23:31:00.000-05:00

Our town is short on water. We have water restrictions in place to help us make it through high usage season. But it seems some people in our town believe these restrictions do not apply to them. We have citizens watering their yards on the wrong days, washing their cars in their driveway and allowing their kids play in the sprinklers/slip-n-slide.

Some might say it is their right to use the water they pay monthly for anyway they seem fit. But this isn't about your freedoms or your right to a green yard or a clean car. This is about having enough water to survive, to bathe, to just live our life normal.

We have people who live in rural Butler County who are on well water. Their wells have went dry. They are waterless. There is a family of 6 that have no water. It would cost them $4,000 to have Butler Rural Water hook them into the system. I'm not sure what they are doing for water. I am guessing they are living off of bottle water. How are they bathing? How are they flushing the toilet? This is what we are facing if our water usage doesn't improve soon and our lake drops another 5 feet. 5 feet people. That is not much. They say we have 5 weeks left at our pre-water restriction usage rate. Then what happens?

I will say this is an issue that our City took too long to respond with restrictions. We have not had significant rain since August 2010. Our Winter was dry. Some snow, but no rain like normal. Yet it took them until July 12th to implement watering restrictions. This is something that should have been done in late May, early June. Shame on our City for being slow to react.

Now let's hope this drought doesn't end like the Summer drought of 1998. Major flood on November 1st that destroyed about 50% of our town.

2011-06-13T23:50:00.000-05:00

I hate when I forget what I was going to blog about, but do enjoy when it hits me like a ton of feathers.

So I have given up on commercial radio. Right now when I am in the car this is what I listen to:

60% is NPR
38% is my iPod (mostly unknown bands that should be known)
2% is commercial radio

So why the change to NPR? I have always been a news junkie. When I was 10, I was a huge fan of Tom Brokaw. I always watched the local 5, 6 and 10PM newscasts along with NBC's 5:30 national news. Sidenote: I always thought news anchors could see me through the TV.

So NPR gives me my news without commercials. They spend more than the typical 90 seconds on a subject that network news gives you. They give you subjects that you would never hear on your localo or network news coverage. Tonight they had an interesting interview with director JJ Abrams.

If Wichita would get a true Alt Rock station or better yet, a Americana station, I would probably lower my time listening to NPR, but doubt I ever stop listening.

2011-06-12T13:34:00.002-05:00

Just a few pictures from our Las Vegas Trip (click on the pictures for full size).

2011-06-08T14:58:00.000-05:00

So Vegas was fun, but I am officially over Vegas. I've never been big on gambling. I rather take that $20 to whatever dollar amount I lose at the Casino and spend it on something tangible. Be it a new electronic toy, food or a movie. Something other than sitting in front of a slot machine trying to figure out how I won or didn't win on that last spin.

A few things:

Allegiant Air sucks. I will never fly them again. As they say, you get what you pay for and with Allegiant, you get nothing except bad customer service, over priced add-ons and delayed planes.
Harrah's is only good if you get a room in the remodeled Carnival Tower. And spend the extra $25 per night and get a mini-suite. It is worth the money.
Garth Brooks is still great after all these years. First Garth song I heard was "The Thunder Rolls" in 1992. I saw him for the first time in 1997 in Wichita. His Vegas show is a personal look at his life. Just him and his guitar. He mentions Oklahoma and his life in Stillwater and Willie's Saloon many times. He covers such artist as Simon & Garfunkel, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Bob Segar, George Strait and many others. If you want to see him sing his own stuff, you will be disappointed. Not sure how much voice correction is used during his live show, but he can sing like none of those on Country Radio right now. (And yes, I blame Garth for what we have on Country radio right now since he was the one who pushed Country Music to be more Pop.)
Beatles Love by Cirque du Soleil is great. From the music, to the acting, to dancing to the acrobatics, it is mind blowing. Well worth the money and something to see more than once, as there is so much going on that it is hard to take it all in at once.
Hoover Dam is great. Don't waste the money on the tour. Just pay to park and walk over the dam, take some dam pictures and then leave. Also park at the Memorial Bridge parking lot and walk to that bridge. Don't try to drive over that new bridge, as you won't see a darn thing.

Good trip. I am ready to see something else in the USA or the World. Really would like to spend a few days in Canada. Other places on my list are Seattle, San Francisco, NYC, D.C., Chicago and back to Yellowstone area. FYI: Pictures will be posted later.

2011-06-03T23:48:00.000-05:00

Off to Sin City, Las Vegas, Lady of Luck....whatever it's called. First real vacation since our Buffalo, NY trip in September 2009. You know, the one we took 5 days after I lost my job at Cox Communications.

This is will be my fifth time to Vegas, my wife's fourth time. Our first trip was 10 years ago for our honeymoon (Aug 5 through 10th) where we stayed at NYNY Casino. We/I have also stayed at Bally's, Excalibur and The Monte Carlo. This time we are staying at Harrah's, mostly because it is centrally located on The Strip.

We leave Wichita at 8PM CDT and arrive in Vegas at 8:30PM PDT. We will do our best OJ Simpson impersonation (running through the airport, not murdering people) to get to the Hertz counter and get our rental car.

Then we will race through the streets of Vegas to get to the Wynn Hotel to catch Garth Brooks for my fourth time. They say his show is a throw back to when he played in Stillwater at Willies Saloon, we shall see.

Sunday will bring a day of going to Hoover Dam to take the Dam Tour to take some Dam Pictures and ask some Dam Questions. It is crazy to think I have been to Vegas four times and never been to the Hoover Dam. I hope I am not disappointed

Sunday night we will hit the Mirage and see Beatles LOVE by Cirque du Soleil. I've been a huge Beatles fan my whole life thanks to my Dad. I can say I've seen Paul McCartney three times in concert, each one getting better. A side note: Wednesday is the 5 year anniversary of Beatles LOVE opening in Vegas. All living Beatles, plus the Widows of Lennon and George Harrison will be at the show. Then McCarney is doing a private show for Motorola this week in Vegas and then his big show at MGM Grand on Friday night It would be awesome to run into him while in Vegas. Doubt it happens, but a man can dream right?

We had planed on going to the Neon Museum on Monday but found out they are only open from Tuesday to Saturday. I tried to get in early Tuesday morning before our flight back, but they are sold out. I didn't check their site early enough to see you had to make reservations. Stupid me. I am usually pretty good at getting everything set-up weeks in advance. Looks like Monday will be a trip to Red Rock Canyon, hit Fremont Street to check out the dome of lights, the new zip line and the classic car show. Maybe talk the wife in to driving out to Death Valley to check that out maybe. Not sure.

Tuesday will be our day to shop before we leave town. I have to hit the Apple store to replace my iPhone. Home button has stopped working pretty much. It's a warranty repair, so no cost. The wife will hit the Coach Outlet Store. That will hurt. But by rushing her, maybe she can't spend too much.

Seems like we have so much planed, and not much time. Like most vacations this will go by too quick. Just noticed at this time tomorrow, I will listening to Garth Brooks tell stories of his life and sing a few songs. Good times.

2011-05-23T16:08:00.000-05:00

116 dead and rising in Joplin in 2011
39 dead in Tuscaloosa, over 200 dead in Alabama in 2011
10 in Greensburg in 2007
36 in OKC in 1999
17 in Andover 1991
87 in Udall in 1955

Why are more people dying today than in past years? You could say these tornados are hitting higher population areas and the deaths are due to that. But I say it due to two things: 1) TV Weatherman who overdo their storm coverage and 2) Storm chasers who have glorified seeing and taking pictures of tornados.

The first one, you have Dave Freeman, Jay Pratter and Merril Teller in Wichita who will break into any programing on TV when any storm threaten their coverage area. People get mad. Do they need to tell us that a storm has penny size hail, 50 MPH wind and lighting? This is Kansas, that's a typical Spring Storm. Yet they sell it as it's life threatening and we all should take to our basements. Then when a truly dangerous storm with a tornado heads our way, we hear the same thing, yet do nothing. The "radar tornados" have added to this "Cry Wolf' syndrome. We been told that the radar shows a tornado in the area and to run for our life. Only to find out there was nothing at all. We become passive. We become jaded. We become complacent. We die.

Storm chasers have glorified tornados and seeing them. So you have people who instead of seeking shelter, they head out trying to take videos and pictures of the storm. People get their 15 minutes of fame when they take the great video of the storm. People want to see it. They want to be famous. They are willing to risk the safety of their family, their kids to see the storm. http://bit.ly/lhVsOB

People had over 20 minutes warning in Joplin yesterday, yet over 116 people were killed. Why didn't people take cover? Who knows really.

2011-05-05T23:57:00.000-05:00

I am a liberal Democrat and am not afraid to say that. I believe people should be equally treated. You are gay? You want to be married? Be my guest. Have fun with that whole marriage thing, because we know that straight couples are enjoying that with great divorce rates.

I have watched, agreed with and enjoyed many of Michael Moore's Documovies (Documentary + Movie). But tonight he was just stupid on Piers Morgan (Video). Sorry, the USA didn't lose a damn thing with killing Osama Bin Laden. Do you think for one damn second he said before 9/11 "Am I going to lose part of my soul with this mass killings of over 3,000 Americans? Nope, down with America!" This guy killed hundreds of Americans in Africa. Killed many US Soldiers on the USS Cole. He killed over 3,000 on 9/11. He had/has plans to kill many more Americans. This guy didn't deserve a jury trial in NYC. This guy deserves to be dead. And I think the millions of Americans who celebrated either in front of the White House (Pic), at Ground Zero (Pic), on their college campus (Pic) or on their couch in their home agree, he should be dead.

2011-04-16T23:13:00.000-05:00

I have always had a list of cities I would like to move to someday. I must be part gypsy as I rather be on the move, instead of lockdown in one spot. My list has stayed constant for the past few years. The home of my beloved Bills, Buffalo, NY. A town in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle, WA, even though I have never been there before. The city by the bay, San Francisco, CA. And the Mile High city, Denver, CO.

One city that never was on that list was Kansas City, MO. In fact it was on my list of cities that I thought I would never live. I never liked KC. To me, it was Wichita, but just bigger. Nothing special. But over the past 5 years this has changed. In fact, I am surprised to say, it is now on my list of places I would love to move to one day. The change Downtown, from the Sprint Center to the Power & Light District has been the main reason for the change. Other reasons would be my growing love the Royals; growing interest in Sporting KC; And the closeness of Lawrence and KU campus for KU basketball.

Not sure if we ever will move. Just depends on the wife and her job. Hopefully she moves up and forces us to move to another city. Just wait and see I guess.