February, 2003
|
February, 2003
|
|
Saturday February 1 , 2003 Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance. Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902)
I was reading my e-mail this morning
when Scott Simon interrupted his morning show to say that there was trouble on
the Shuttle I turned on the TV and watched it disintegrate over Texas... it took
almost no time at all to hear people on CNN talking about terrorists... NPR put
on a fella from NASA who said there are no weapons capable of shooting down a
shuttle moving at MACH 18 40 miles in the stratosphere... so irresponsible and
predictable... NASA is doing some incredibly dangerous stuff, sending the
Shuttle up and brining it back down is absolutely one of the most dangerous and
complicated things anyone has ever done... it was being tracked by the most
sophisticated detection systems in the world... One of the Astronauts being
interviewed was asked what is the most dangerous part of a space flight. He said
it's the part just before lift off till the part just after landing. An old guy pulled into the 76 Station riding a bike as old as he is, a 1947 Harley Davidson. He said it took him 3 years to put back together, it was just a box of parts when he got it... I wish I had a 'before' picture too. He did a very good job. I got another one of those "America, love it or leave it diatribes" about foreigners today from a friend, I have seen it several times, it's an oldie but a nasty. I don't want to jeopardize our friendship by responding with my honest reaction, I probably could because he's a pretty good guy and I am sure he didn't read it with the same perspective I have. I posted what I would have sent as a reply if I didn't care about the relationship... I guess I am just not willing to have another "I'm right your wrong end of discussion."... it really takes too much out of me... PHC Had a Jug Band on the show called "Outdoor John and the Sears Catalogue" they were darn good, washboards, spoons, jugs (of course) a fiddle and a guitar... the whole hokey enchilada... I worked on my taxes yesterday after I got my package from Smith Barney, Christy's 1099 came in too, I need a statement from one more place and I can send it in... with any luck I can trade in my bike on a better one... I hope so. Sunday February 2 , 2003 No Hoax's today (yet). (I don't count SPAM) actually there are several things about the "God, aint Liberals awful, pass it on" and "I'm a Super Patriot and if you pass this lie on you will be one too" and the "What the world really needs is more religious fundamentalists, pass it on" emails I don't understand. I am not sure what it is about those things that compel me to debunk them. I don't know why folks are so desperate to believe them. I don't understand why folks pass them on. I have theories though. I think people pass them on because they support their prejudices, I think they don't check them out because folks are generally trusting and believe what they read, compounded by the probability that the emails support their bias's. I think I have to debunk them because I need to support my prejudices and preconceptions too. I am not thrilled by some of Hillary Clinton's ultra liberal passions but when I see an e-mail that contends that she has done something so stupid and insensitive she makes Ozzie Osborne look like Disraeli I have to say wait a minute... she may be a lot of things bit she isn't stupid, so I check it out. I have missed a few but not many. I took the Kids out for donuts and then to the park, they had a good time... except "B"... he was a grump... not sure why Watched the Pro Bowl... not a very good game, pretty one-sided... 45 - 20... but it wasn't that close. Monday February 3 , 2003 Mike stayed the night at Mark's again. I took him his medicine this morning, he was being a jerk, goofy, he and Mark together are Tweedle-dumb and Tweedle dumber. Teenaged boys, when they are alone and well supervised, can behave in a remarkably mature manner, Teenaged boys in pairs seem to have their intelligence diminished by half. Each successive boy added to the mix reduces the intelligence of the group by half, a sufficient number of boys will eventually reduce the intelligence of the group to that of a mildly retarded cockroach, the normal cockroach being superior in that it retains an instinct for self preservation far exceeding that of a group of boys. Christy is attending an IEP for the son of one of the ladies she has taught. Tuesday February 4 , 2003 Mike came home at 15:35, the phone was ringing, Christy looked at the Caller ID and said "Mike, it's for you". Mike said, Where's the walk-around-phone. Christy said "I don't know." So Mike took the call at her desk, I listened to him talk to Donny. and say; "I'll call you back." He took the walk-around-phone and went to his room. About the time he got to his room I heard Christy say; "Mike! I want my money back!" it was 15:42. Mike took $17 out of her purse in the seven minutes from when the bus dropped him off... he denied it... but he was the only one near her purse so she persisted then he relented and gave it back... He said it's the only way he can get money, not true. We can't give him more than about $5 at a time because he'll spend it on drugs or cigarettes. He is a problem. How do you protect your self from a chronic thief and liar when they live in your house? This is an interesting site:
Seems to me the loony-toon militia groups worried about black helicopters and The New World Order better start looking a little closer to home. Check out their Statement of Principals and look at the founding members, it's a Who's Who of Conservative Republican America. I don't want these power mad war mongers running the world... the concept of a New Republican World Order scares the b'jesus out of me.. Autumn apparently had a seizure at school .. no one saw it, it could have happened very fast and been very subtle, her seizures have been varying in intensity and location... this one apparently affected the left side of her body and causes some stiffness instead of weakness... Christy took her to the ER at A V Hospital, they gave her an MRI and an IV to get some fluids in her... Wednesday February 5 , 2003
At a Milwaukee post
office, a woman complained to the clerk that a Pony Express rider could get a
letter from Milwaukee to St. Louis in two days, and now it takes three. "I'd
like to know why," she scoffed. Listened to one of the Conservative ranters on the radio today... saying that he thought the war was justified because the Iraqi's were blocking access to our oil... How do you interact with someone that thinks the whole damn Planet belongs to the United States if the United States wants it... damn. No wonder the world is afraid of us... I added to my Genealogy Page yesterday, I spent about 5 hours converting 18 pages of a pdf file (I hate pdf, can't do anything with them but look at them) nothing to editable text. Process is: Print out the pdf file Trim off everything but the text with a paper cutter Scan each page back into an OCR Program Format the pages to till they are readable Edit the text (hard part) It came out great, 18 pages fit into about 6. It is a document written in 1904 called "The Preble Massacre At The Kennebec". The Ebenezer Preble described was my 5th Great Grandfather and his son, the Captive, Ebenenzer was my 4th. I found it to be very interesting to read the passionate prose of the era. Demonizing if the Indians A a Biology professor at Texas Tech is being taken to court for Religious Discrimination. He says he will teach and grade anyone but he won't sign a 'personal letter of recommendation' to become a doctor to anyone who won't sign a form that affirms that he believes in the theory of Evolution. He says he can not, in good conscience, give a recommendation to someone who believes in the theory of Creation for proficiency in a science based on Evolution. I guess I won't comment on this other than I appreciate his integrity, I am not too thrilled about the prospect of encountering Doctors that put as much faith in Prayer and laying on of hands as they do in laboratory tests and medicine. Mike came home "sick"...no fever, Christian has the tell-tale raspberry tongue indicating Strep, Autumn has an appointment with Dr. Dillard, "B" is still pretty sick with whatever the hell he has... Strep hasn't been confirmed... My cup runneth over. Christy took Christian and Autumn to Kaiser and I stayed home with "B"... he's getting better. Still no real clue what happened to Autumn yesterday, Christian has Strep... officially..."B" is over it and will go to school tomorrow. Thursday February 6 , 2003 Calie came into our room last night a little before 2300, scared to death, she had had a dream apparently. Mokie woke up sick, Autumn followed Calie in so for one reason or another Christy and I were awakened once an hour all night long... More sickies today... Autumn, Monica, and Christian... Christian was already home with Strep. I took Autumn to school and Christy had a hunch and told me to have the nurse take her temperature and she had a slight fever so I took I just took her out of there. We went to the McDonalds at Wal-Mart and I bought a new thermometer. I left Wal-Mart and met Christy at High Desert Middle School for "B"'s IEP. When I got there Christy said that Monica had a fever and headache and needed to be picked up at Acton School. When I got home we tested out the new thermometer and found that Christian had a very high fever 104, Mokie was 102 and Autumn was 100... damn. We gave Christian his antibiotic and some Tylinol and his fever came down a bit. Christy took Mokie and Autumn to the Kaiser, they checked her out and gave her some Antibiotics for an infection... it's bedtime Mokie has a fever of 101, Autumn has a fever of 104, Christian is 103... damn. We will keep Autumn in bed with us again tonight. We had the IEP for "B" today. It was just a formality really, We all got together and confirmed that we all think that this is the best place for "B". I would guess that "B" will be going to Desert Pathways next week sometime. I got my second e-mail selling access to child porn sites... I stripped off the internet header and sent it to every Anti Porn site I could find: http://www.wsacp.org/reportsite.htm I don't like to think about the existence of Child Porn but it does exist, the sick creeps that seek it out are bad enough and need to be locked away for life, but the bastards who simply create it for profit are sub-human. I wish there was a way to hunt them down and feed them to the alligators & crocodiles at the zoo. Humanity has an awesome spectrum of people, from the saint to the sociopath. You never know where in that spectrum the person you are dealing with fits. It has always unnerved me to think that there may be another dimension to the guy standing in line with me at the bank. Every one likes to think they are a better judge of character then the rest of the world but no one is really any better at evaluating people than anyone else is. I am actually getting better at detecting phonies as I get older, I am still getting blindsided by people who had me fooled. My sister Sue says I am to judgmental, she really bristles at my "Rule of Three" but it has stood me in good stead for a long time... the rue of three says "Be wary of anyone presenting themselves to the world with more than three affectations" Tattoos are fine, piercing are fine, Chains are fine, goofy hairdos, always dress in one solid color, mustache, goatee, bulging pocket protector, visible armament, belt and suspenders at the same time, walking in cowboy boots with no actual horse in sight, weird clothing like capes and animal pelts...any of that is fine, but not more than three of them on the same person. A guy walked into a hamburger joint that she and I were at, he was overweight, had a green Mohawk, tattoos of naked girls on his arms and legs, and his face was pierced in several places... oh... and he was sagging his yellow with green stripes Bermuda shorts wearing tightie-whities... this guy was off the scale, he could have been the feature attraction at a carnival side show. My sister couldn't understand why I wrote the guy off without even knowing him. Boggles me how she has survived this long actually. I don't care if the creep is the reincarnation of Michelangelo he has too much baggage for me to deal with. I used to give folks like that the benefit of doubt but over the years I got tired of getting mired in their neurosis'. I have enough trouble dealing with the people I like without trying to find something likable about the people who creep me out. Don't get the wrong idea, Susan is amazing, she is a people person, she can sit down with Attila the Hun and in 5 minutes she will know the names of all his children, where he went to school and what he bought his wife for Christmas, and have him and the wife and family over for a barbeque on Saturday. (Sue, if you're reading this... give me some creative license on the description of the guy in the burger joint) G'night all... been a tiresome day... Friday February 7 , 2003 Interesting morning... can't talk about most of it but it ended up with me at Dr. D. 's office with "B"... I think everything will be ok... I just don't know how much more of this stupid crap I can take. Autumn had a wicked fever, we medicated her twice last night... she seems better tonight. Christian has been a little angel all day but he has had a high fever too, Monica was so sick I don't think she got out of bed all day, Only Mike Calie and Cindy went to school... I sure hope next week is better. Sister Sue had an overnight stay in the hospital following some surgery, I talked to her tonight and she is fine... a little tender and she will probably have to stay off her bicycle for a couple weeks. She will be heading g over to Hawaii pretty soon to help lay the groundwork for the impending nuptials... a tough job but somebody's got to do it. New Hoax: “Tort Reform- Why”. See ( http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/onlyinamerica.htm ) All 7 entries are jokes/Hoax’s. They are not true, the lead-in about Stella Liebeck is misleading as hell. She really got hurt and McDonalds was a real shit about it: http://www.stellaawards.com/stella.html they have also turned down the temp on their coffee machines too…
Saturday February 8 , 2003 "He lived his life to the end." Talk about a non-committal epitaph, I sure hope someone can find something more positive to say about me... I got this from a friend this morning, it's called Veterans for Common Sense, It probably won't change any minds. I suspect that at this point nobody is willing to listen to a point of view contrary to what they have already decided was right... I guess I have... I think war is stupid, especially when there is no immediate threat... even if all of what Colin Powell said was true, none of it constituted a threat to anyone. For me Colin Powell's presentation came off like desperate attempt to convince the choir that singing is a good thing... No proof, lots of accusations. If I were to accuse my neighbor of being a threat the burden of proof should be on my shoulders, what we are doing is demanding Saddam prove he is not a threat... that's impossible... no one could do that... he could prove he is a threat in a heartbeat but there is no way in hell that he can prove he isn't. Especially when there is a concerted effort and some unspecified vested interest in convincing us he is. It's the Valentine Show is on Prairie Home Companion tonight lots of poetry, some is hilarious... Kids are still sick, Calie is coming down with it now... she refused to stay home though and went to sing in Lancaster and went cheer leading at a basketball e for her school. The girls basketball team lost 47 to 3 and the boys won 29 to 28... Sunday February 9 , 2003 ...Calie has Strep for certain now... they are all coughing, sounds like a Tuberculosis Ward in my living room. Autie is still feverish, I thought she had shaken it off yesterday but she is still sick... "B", Christian, Calie Monica and Autumn are all sick... Mike is at Mark's Cindy had another conniption this morning she just moves into a different dimension and there is no way to communicate with her. It's exasperating in a scary sort of way. Mike scammed me again, he called me and asked if Mark could come over, I said; "No, we have 5 kids in various stages of Strep..." what I found out later is that Mike had already had Marks father drive them into Acton, he was down at Donny's. Christy picked them, up and took them back to Marks... I have no idea what they were up to... I am not sure I want to know. I started a chat with Meg (My niece, Margaret Bowman) today and was typing away for about 3 minutes and things started to get really surreal, something was terribly wrong... it wasn't Meg, it was my friend Margaret Biggler, poor Margaret was wondering what the hell I was talking about and I couldn't figure out what the hell "Meg" was doing talking about her Minister... felt like an idiot but it cracked me up too. Wrote a long rant/rebuttal... too chicken to send it back to the fella that sent it to me so I put it over on my rants page... well, not chicken so much as pragmatic... it is so easy to alienate people these days... so I don't. I just rant away, out here in the wilderness listening to the trees falling out in the woods... where no one can hear them but me.
|
