I'm starting to get to the point where I'm tired of all the constant Obama bashing,

Then again, the left & the media never, ever, stopped bashing Bush. So, from that standpoint, screw Obama.

I am tired of the personal attacks on him and his family. I think that people that wish personal harm on him should stop and pull back a little. We can disagree on policy (which I do), but wishing that the boat that he & his family are on sinks? Please. Let's show a little more class than the left, ok?

By the way, can we get to November already and see what happens? Please? This is worse than waiting for Christmas. I know I'll be disappointed for Christmas so I've gotten used to it, but I've gotten my hopes up about November's elections and now I can't wait. Damn the inflexibility of the time! Where's Doc & the De Lauren when you need it!

Ok, so who's the tougher chic?

Sarah Connor or Alice from Resident Evil?

Personally, I think Linda Hamilton in T2 is about as tough as nails, gritty and fierce as you can get. Almost Jason Bourne, but with more despiration.

Alice, on the other hand, has been enhanced. So this might not be a fair comparison, but still, Alice is pretty frickin bad ass.

Your thoughts?

Grand Opening

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv3kYxEvbdw

Is this really a good idea?

Let’s say, for example, that you were in a long term relationship. For like, oh, I don’t know, about 8 years. But, as time when on, you started getting really tired of your partner’s shit. We all know how this goes, right?

So, you find yourself a new guy/girl/shemale/it (whatever) and initially, everything is groovy. But, as time marches on, cracks begin to show, and you start thinking that maybe it’s time a change. You start dropping hints to the new guy/girl/shemale/it (whatever) that their shit does stink now and unless they clean it up, you’re going to give them their walking papers.

Now, what do you think should be the approach of the new guy/girl/shemale/it (whatever) in this situation? Should they a) take responsibility for their actions and feed you a line of crap of they are going to listen to you and everything will get better, or; b) use this opportunity to blame your previous partner for all the issues in your relationship.

The Democrats, it appears, have chosen B as their campaign strategy for this fall.

Sounds like it’s time for Dr. Phil to do an intervention with the DNC.

Settled Science

If you talk with people who are “in the know”, they tell you that global warming is settled science. All set, all done,wrapped up in a pretty bow, thank you very much. Don’t ask any questions, because any one asking probing questions is obviously a “denier”, a modern day heretic that needs to be coddled, or beaten like a seal cub until bloody & dead.

Settled science?

So “they” (in this case some astronomers who didn't’t get the memo that they were supposed to know everything that is supposed to be known at this point), discovered a new, super massive star (R136a1) that is way, way, way ,bigger than they ever thought was possible. Oops. So much for that theory.

But, lucky for all of us, all the really smart dudes work in climate science and they’ve already figured out all that is to know. Maybe, if climate science is all plumbed out, these out of work climate scientists should go help those stupid astronomers who haven’t figured everything out yet.

Better yet, maybe they should go help all those dumb doctors who can’t seem to figure out cancer, Parkinson's, aging and all those other bothersome medical issues that we can’t seem to escape.

I mean, come on. If you can figure out something as complex as global climate and make really accurate long term forecasts that we’re all supposed to buy into, how hard can it be to cure cancer?

Settled science my ass.

Obama to GOP: Restore unemployment benefits now

President Obama has never seen anything that he wouldn't buy with other people's money. He's like that one housewife on the Real Housewives of NJ that ran up 11 million in debt as her husband's business disapeared. Out of touch with reality, reality TV.

Do you think

that secrectly Obama is thanking McChrystal for blabing his mouth off to Rolling Stone and for one news cycle getting his (Obama's) handling of the gulf crisis off the front page?

Thank God I lived long enough to see this day

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100617/people_nm/us_bluesbrothers

Vatican endorses "The Blues Brothers"

"On the 30th anniversary of the film's release, "L'Osservatore Romano," the Vatican's official newspaper, called the film a "Catholic classic" and said it should be recommended viewing for Catholics everywhere."

Now, if we can get a little dispensation from the Holy Father to add Caddy Shack & Animal House to the list, the celluloid holy trinity will be complete.

Today, our local paper had an opinion piece by Susan Estrich titled “Political experience can't be discounted”

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20100614/OPINION06/6110344/1039/OPINION02/Susan-Estrich--Political-experience-can-t-be-discounted

In the piece, Ms. Estrich references an earlier column by Willian Safire:

“Some years ago, the late New York Times and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist William Safire wrote a great column comparing politicians to plumbers. It was during one of those periods when (like now) experience had become a dirty word in politics and incumbency was a veritable curse.

There was nothing worse you could say about someone than to call him a "career politician" — just what California Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman called her rival for the office only yesterday.

Safire's point was a simple one: Would you hire a plumber who'd never done any plumbing to fix your pipes?

Why is politics different? If the plumber messes up, your toilet might flood or, worse, your pipes might burst. If the governor gets it wrong...”

Now, I’m no William Safire, but I may know a thing or two about the differences between plumbing and politics, and I’ve got a few bones to pick with this analogy and Ms. Estrich.

Ms. Estrich goes on develop her theme that politics and governing are hard and that we should let experienced individuals handle the job. She illustrates her position with a few gaffes that Nikki Haley, Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman have made during their campaigns this spring, saying that “unprecedented number of newbies … have never faced the sort of intense scrutiny that a general election campaign brings”.

Before we get back to our poor friends the plumbers (who, I think, maybe a little angry with us for comparing them to politicians), I’m would like to point out that Carly Fiorina & Meg Whitman have / had more real life executive experience than our current POTUS did before / while he was running for office. If she considers them to be under-experienced newbies, why didn’t she consider his lack of experience as sufficient to preclude him from the highest office in the land? If running a Fortune 500 company doesn’t adequately prepare you to be a governor or a senator, how does being a senator for one term qualify you to be the POTUS?

If we only allowed experienced individuals to apply for particular jobs (plumbing, politics, governing), then how would anyone gain any practical experience in those fields? I believe that there are a number of highly intelligent individuals with real world leadership and managerial experience that are more than capable of running state and federal governments. Look at Michael Bloomberg for example. Who would you rather having running NYC, Michael Bloomberg or President Obama?

Also, if verbal gaffes were an indication of an individual’s incompetence for higher office, just what exactly is Joe Biden doing as VP?

I respect commentators who’s internal logic is consistent throughout an article and can be applied easily to the world around us. If you’re going to write an opinion piece that cannot be held up to even the simplest analysis (by “gasp” us unqualified gen pop), then maybe you’re the one not qualified for what you’re doing.

I’m not a plumber, but I’ve been able to fix a number of plumbing related issues in our house. Sometimes, politics, like plumbing, really isn’t that hard.

So who did Bohemian Rhapsody better?

Wayne's world or Glee?

Sure, this doesn't rank up there with some of the weightier issues Jack raises, but hey, inquiring minds want to know.

FGC v Nipple piercings – Which is right and which is wrong?

On Friday, May 14th, Science Friday had the following as one of the topics:

Is it Right to Nick?

This month, the American Academy of Pediatrics proposed that consideration be given to allowing U.S. doctors to perform a 'ritual nick' on the genitals of female infants, in the hopes that allowing such a practice might dissuade parents from subjecting the girls to traditional genital cutting procedures. The proposal is extremely controversial, and the recommendation proposed by the group would be prohibited under current law.

"The American Academy of Pediatrics opposes all types of female genital cutting that pose risks of physical or psychological harm, counsels its members not to perform such procedures, recommends that its members actively seek to dissuade families from carrying out harmful forms of FGC, and urges its members to provide patients and their parents with compassionate education about the harms of FGC while remaining sensitive to the cultural and religious reasons that motivate parents to seek this procedure for their daughters," the group said in a statement. We'll talk about the proposal, and the challenges faced when medicine mix with morality

During the show, there as a caller that said (I’m paraphrasing) “All forms of FGC are wrong, including “nicking”, and should be banned, regardless of cultural or religious reasons”.

Now, I’m not defending FGC at all. But what I started to think about is all the pictures I see these days (care of Google Reader), where women have all manner of body parts pierced and tattooed.

Is it hypocritical for us as a society to say that the practice of FGC, where practiced (possibly) against the wishes of the woman (or girl), is wrong, but it’s perfectly acceptable if that same woman (or girl) wishes to pierce, tattoo or in some way modify, their genitalia, or their own accord? And if we tell those societies and cultures that FGC is wrong and should be stopped, do they have the same moral authority to say to us that we shouldn’t allow our women to tattoo and pierce their genitalia?

Let’s guess which story fits best with the template of what the media likes to report:

Which story is going to get the most headlines? Here’s a tip – it’s not necessarily the one where the most amount of people died:

a) Over 170 people killed in a tropical storm that strikes South America

b) Over 30 people killed in the slums of Jamaica when the police hunt down a drug kingpin

c) 9 people killed on ships trying to run an Israeli blockade

Hmmm, which story is going to generate more international outrage, cries for investigations and condemnation?

For fun, let’s follow up with an essay question. Here’s the situation. You’re on a ship that is “supposedly” carrying aid to the starving terrorists on the Gaza strip. You know that Israel has imposed this blockade and search every single ship before it allows it to dock at the Gaza strip. Now, for fun, the organizers decide to rebuff the Israeli requests to turn around and ignore their threats to board your ship. Now, It’s the middle of the night and all of a sudden, people dressed in black with guns rope down from helicopters.

In 500 words or less, please explain why it’s a good idea, in this situation, to attack the guys with the guns. And not expect them to fight back.

The 15 minute Blog

Things have just been busy. I’d like to write more, but I just don’t seem to find the time anymore (Damn you Google Reader!). So, in an effort to throw some sort of update on here, I’m giving myself 15 minutes to get down what I can, then it’s back to work.

We put our old dog down on Saturday. We all cried a lot and it was really sad. She was such a good dog, we had neighbors coming over to say good bye as well as our kids friends. The other dogs are having a tough go of it, without Sierra. Our youngest one, the Aussie, doesn’t want to come upstairs at night, as he always used to wait until Sierra did. There are other little things that he’s doing differently now, that he wasn’t just a few days ago. As I’m walking the dogs in the morning, I can’t help but to think of when I’d walk the same paths with Sierra not too long ago. It’s sad, but as always, we’ll move on.

My kids are trying to drive me nuts. Our oldest one, who’s matured greatly at school this year, can still piss the shit out of me when she wants to. Something came up where we wanted her to do something, and for all of her supposed maturity, she fell back into the same defensive posturing that she has always done. One thing at a time, I guess.

Our son, who’ll be going off to school next year, has taken over the role of most aggravating child, most recently held by our oldest one last year, at this same time. Every day it seems to be one more thing that we’ve got to battle about. And every day it seems he comes downstairs and says something along the line of “I’ve always wanted to do this and now since I’m 18, I was thinking of….”

We try to be really tolerant parents. I’ve never been one to take the stance of “While you’re living under my house…”. But, the other night, when he came down and said “I’ve always wanted to get a tattoo and now that I’m 18…” I came this close (hold your fingers about ¼ inch apart) from blowing a gasket. Fucking kids. It really is so much easier when you can just change their diapers and jam a bottle in their mouths to shut them up.

I’m sure, with the clarity of hindsight, that there was no way that I was this much of a pain in the ass the spring of my senior year of high school. Just no way. I was perfect and (so she says) was my wife at this time of our lives. Apparently, outside of the house, everyone thinks our kids are as well. Is it so much to ask that they try to share a little of that perfection inside our house? And, while they are at it, pick up their dirty dishes?

One minute left. So, on Thursday, September 2nd, Rush is coming to the NY State fair. My wife laughed at me when I asked her if she wanted to go. She said “I’m sure you’ll find someone to go with you”. That being said, anyone interested?

Under the tree and dreaming, continued…

Let’s pick up this happy narrative where we left off, shall we?

So, after all the drama with Sierra, as a last ditch effort before putting her down, we gave her a course of antibiotic. And wouldn’t you know, two days later she was up and around, acting like nothing had ever been wrong. At the vets, she’d become known as the dog with 9 lives.

Fast forward 6 months.

Coming home one Saturday, we’re walking in the house when we hear a weird cry from upstairs. I race upstairs and Sierra is having trouble getting up. She starts limping around, almost as though her leg has fallen asleep. I don’t think much of it as I help her downstairs and out the door.

But, the soreness in the leg continues. And continues. And continues.

So, towards the end of March, we take her in for an exam. The Doc shoots an xray of her hip and brings it in to show us. She (the vet) can’t see anything, so she proscribes a course of pain pills and rimadyl, to help decrease any swelling that she may be experiencing in the hip.
Slowly, the dog made gradual improvements, to the point where last week I began to take her on short walks again.

Until this weekend.

At some point over the weekend, something happened and Sierra lost all use of the leg. She wouldn’t put any weight on it and started dragging the leg around. We were carrying her up and down the stairs and trying to make her as comfortable as possible.

We took her in for xrays yesterday and were completely unprepared for what they showed. Apparently, the top of Sierra’s femur was rotted away by cancer and at some point over the weekend, completely snapped off. The xray showed the ball of the femur still in the socket of the hip and a bunch of bone fragments between there and the rest of the femur.

The dog with 9 lives has run out of life.

We’re picking up our daughter from college on Friday, so she can come home and spend some time with Sierra. I’ll take her, (the dog) in Saturday morning and go through the bitter ritual one more time.

We just put down once of our cats (12 years old and wasting away from some mystery cancer) two weeks ago. April has turned into the worst month for our family. My mother in law passed away several years ago in April, as well as a nephew. We’ll have put down two cats and two dogs in April as well.

For a month that can be so beautiful, with blooming plants and spring in the air, it has turned into the bitter season for us.

That’s Rimadyl not Ritalin

I was calling the vet today to renew a prescription for one of our pets. As I was on the phone with the vet, she asked me which medication we wanted renewed. Being at work and trying to multitask, I said “We want to renew the Ritalin”

There was a pause on the other end.

I quickly said “The rimadyl. We want the rimadyl, not Ritalin. She pays attention fine in class so we can take her off the Ritalin now. It’s her arthritis that’s acting up now...”. The tech had a good laugh and we moved along.

Note to self. When getting the kids medications, please make sure to pay attention…

A funny thing happened on the way to the doppler imaging

Sooooooo

For the past month or so, I've been having this pain in my leg. I'll spare you the details. They're just not that exciting.

I went to my doctor, who thought it might be arthritis in my hip. After sending me down to get my knee and hip xrayed (where, btw, the receptionist was smoking hot, thank you very much), he looked at the xray and thought that it confirmed his initial diagnosis. But, being a good Doc and not having met his billing quota yet, he wanted me to have doppler imaging of my leg, to rule out any blood clots.

So I'm like, yea, I'm down with ruling out blood clots, since, you know, they can lead to death and shit like that.

His receptionist calls the Vascular doctor and they say "run right over, we'll see him now". I drive like a mad man to the office, three towns away, since, you know, they said "get here as soon as you can". I walk in and say to the receptionist "Hi. I'm me and I'm here". She looks at me and says "Wow, you got here fast. Did you run over here or something". Ah, yea, like you said to, idiot.

Anyway, moving on...

Now, before we proceed any further, let me just say, that like any good husband and father, I went to all my wife's sonogram appointments. So I'm kind of familiar with what a sonogram/doppler imaging is. I'm just not familiar with what they do when they do it to you leg, ok? But, you know, like, what's the big deal, right?

So this cute, gum chewing tech leads me back to the exam room and says "lose the pants, hop up on the table and cover yourself from the waist dow with the sheet". So far, so good.

I'm sitting there, looking at the old ceiling tile, when she walks back in and gets to work. The first thing she does is pull the sheet off the leg to be examined and with her purple gloved hands, curls the sheet up into my boxers. So now my leg is exposed all the way from my groin to my toes. Ok, I can work with this, right? I'm a mature dude, no reason to get excited, right?

That was, until she squirted the goo all up and down my leg and started rubbing the doppler probe all over the place. And I mean ALL over the place.

Ah, hello? A little warning would have been nice. I had to immediately launch into a mental review of recent accounting policies and regulations, cataloging my sock drawer and anything else to keep my mind off the rubbing and probing going on all over my leg. I wanted to say to the tech "the last time I got rubbed like that, there was a happy ending included", but, fortunately, I refrained. I was able to make it through the exam without showing the tech my probe, which, I thought, was no small achievement.

So that was my excitement at the doctor's office last week. Et tu?

My Post Secret

“My son’s high school hockey team has made it to the State’s semi-finals. My son’s coach doesn’t like him, so he never plays him. I hope they lose.”

There is one more week of this strange, confusing and frustrating season left. On one hand, we’re all excited that the team has made it to the semi-finals, the “Frozen Four” as it is. On the other hand, our son is hardly playing and we’d just like this special kind of torture to come to an end.

On Saturday, the team was playing down in Newburg NY in a Regional play-off game. We got out early on the other team and by the end of the 2nd period, we were up 5 – 0. Our son had played 1 or 2 shifts in the first period, had four shots on goal, didn’t make any mistakes, and hadn’t seen the ice since then.

After a really long delay between the 2nd & 3rd periods, the other team came out like gang busters. They scored a couple of power play goals, we responded with a goal, so now it’s 6-2 with about 8 minutes left. The realization that there is no way to win is settling in with the other team, so they are starting to head hunt and have knocked two of our key defensive players out.

Now, as the defensive coach, who’s apparently coached for something like 30 years, wouldn’t you start to think about the fact that you’ve got another game next week? Maybe now would be a good time to rest your starters, put out the big guys (our son’s 6’ 4”, and another boy is 6’ 2”, both of whom he never plays) and just try to get to the end of the game without anybody else getting hurt?

Especially when the head coach has specifically come down to the end of the bench and told you to do this?

Oh no. Not Mr. I-used-to-coach-Cornell’s-club-team-and-nobody-can-tell-me-what-to-do defensive coach. Not only does he not send the cannon fodder players out to spell his “star” players, he shortens the bench and only sends out his top remaining four players.
Genius. I drove 5 hours to see this?

It got to the point where one of the offensive coaches came down, grabbed my son and dragged him to the other end of the bench, told him not to get any penalties and sent him out on the next shift change. So, for the last 3 minutes of the game, the biggest, strongest, defensive player we had, played offense, banged people around, kept the puck out of our zone, and the other team never got a shot on goal during the last three minutes.

We’re walking out and people are congratulating us on how well our son played. If everyone else can see it, why can’t this coach?

And now I’m at this point where I’m completely conflicted. Where I can’t be that excited about the team making it this far, because of the utter bullshit that my kid has had to go through, and continues to go through, because of this idiot of a coach.

One more week.

The eye of Sauron sees you from space

And it knows what you did last night.

You cheeky devil.

Smells I don't appreciate in my office

One of the the girls in our office just came into my office, with her mid-morning repast. She's snacking on smoked trout and cucumber. Normally, if taken separately, I might enjoy these food items. But, at 10:30 in the morning, these two smells commingling in my office is making my stomach do flips, and not very enjoyable flips.

Ugh. Why couldn't she have had something like oatmeal or chips or tacos for brunch? Now I have to go out and wander around our office, while my room fumigates, and subject myself to the gen pop.

Thank you very much, crazy health food lady. Next time, please don't share.

Copiers, unlike husbands and boyfriends,

Generally don't work better the harder you hit them.

But, since you don't actually pay the lease payment on that $20,000 machine, go ahead and bang away at it, office troll.

My New Year’s resolutions

I’ve heard, that if you want to achieve your goals, it’s a good idea to write them down. So, under the guise of “new year’s resolutions”, here are my goals for twentyten. I will not be offended at all, if nobody reads this, as it’s really all about myself.

Goal, #1 - I want to get down to 240 lbs. (approximately).

• 
  I have lost about 7 lbs from last year at this time. Since, on average, the average American gains 2 lbs. a year, it’s almost like I’ve lost 9 lbs. In any event, I want to be down to 245 by June 1st, and 240 by November 1st, and maintain that through the end of the year. Slow and steady wins the race, I say, and I’m not going on some diet or other goofy crap that I’ll never be able to stay with. Also, when I say approximately, I know that my weight can swing around 3 – 4 lbs at any given time, so if I consistently hitting the numbers listed above by those dates, I’ll consider the goal achieved.
  

Goal #2 – Decrease fast food to once a week (breakfasts & lunch)

• 
  I love getting breakfast from Tim Hortens. BK’s wrapper things are a close 2nd, but Horten’s sausage & egg biscuit are to die for, at least for me. Generally, I’ve been getting these twice a week, so I want to cut that down to once a week.
  
• I used to get lunch out a couple of times a week, but I’ve managed to cut that down to once a week, generally. I’m going to try to eliminate those completely.
  
• I understand that there are going to be times where this is not going to happen, for whatever excuses I want to come up with. I’m giving myself the latitude to accept these as they come, and not kill myself over them, but to get back on track as soon as I can.
  

Goal #3 – Make my lunches the night before.

• 
  This will help support goal #2 (which in turns supports #1). Also, it will save time in the morning, help me get out the door faster, and hopefully lead to some better eating habits. Also, in conjunction with this, I’m going to try to plan to have smaller lunches, but have a mid morning snack & something ready for the drive home in the afternoons. This last part, the late afternoon healthy snack is important. Too often, I don’t have anything, so when I get home, I’m starving. I’ll start eating while we’re getting dinner ready, and it really compounds my caloric intake.
  

Goal #4 – Cut down sodas (or pop to some of you) to once a day.

• 
  I generally drink two diet cokes a day. I’ve seen mentioned in several places where the diet soda’s help pack on weight. I haven’t seen any research on this, so I don’t know how true it is.
  
• More importantly, in our area, diet coke is getting more and more expensive. It used to be we could get 4, 12 packs for $12, and now it’s up to 3, 12 packs for $13. Diet Pepsi, on the other hand, is still at the same old pricing level. So fuck those greedy corporate bastards at Coke. I’m cutting back and they are not getting as much of my money.
  

Goal #5 – Engage in more physical activity with my wife.

• Get your mind out of the gutter, I’m not talking about that.
  
• Our kids are getting older and certainly don’t require as much “hands on” time as when they were growing up. My wife and I are developing a habit of sitting on a couch all night, watching TV and surfing the net. Sure, we’re on the couch together, 3 to 4 nights a week, but we’re turning into vegetables.
  
• My goal, which I haven’t shared with her, is to do some sort of physical activity 3 days a week together, before vegetating out. Not necessarily long or intense, but anything is better than nothing. When the weather is better it could just be sitting outside together, walking the dogs, walking on any of the numerous walking paths near us, anything at all.
  
• In 5 years, our youngest will be a freshman in college and the other two will be out. I’ll be 51 and hopefully we’ll have 20 to 30 good years left. I think that it’s important, both physically and mentally, to be active and engaged with each other, and hopefully this goal will be one step along that path.

Five simple goals. None of them are that difficult to achieve on their own, nor life altering, but if I achieve them, I’ll alter my current and future life.