May Day

Or as I refer to it "National Socialism Day".

I just got a phone call from work a few hours ago to tell me I needed to come in early (Yeah OT) so I can can drive to the edge of the world to take a drug test. In itself no biggy, if they can't get readings from over 15 years ago, I'm OK, but shortly after I got off the phone with my Foreman, I caught the news and they were talking about the illegal immigrant protest for tomorrow in downtown L.A.

For the last two weeks there has been one of those fold-up road barricades sitting in the center divider of the street I work on warning about the street being closed. I was going to work at night and couldn't read all of it until a few days ago when there was nobody behind me and I could go slow and point my headlights at it. Yep, they were closing the street so the illegals could take a day off of work and protest that they had jobs.

Now, with this drug test, I would get the pleasure of driving through this crap, not once, but twice. I immediately called work to get directions and said I'd just go straight from home...nope gotta pick up the form signed by the Foreman.

We finally worked it out that I can pick up the form at our other site which is hopefully far enough away to be out of the clutter zone.

A couple of months ago there was a mini illegal rally and I watched a guy across the street selling American flags right and left and I'll admit, except for one asshole driving up and down the street in his '64 Cheby lowrider laying on his horn (obnoxious bastard) and waving a Mexi flag, I didn't see many, but that one was small and planned at the last minute. I'm waiting to see what tomorrow's looks like.

My hopes aren't high. Between the flashes of red realizing my commute was going to be a real bitch, some jerk off activist was explaining that the reason all these people were here was due to a conspiracy between "Big Corporations" the U.S., and the gov'ts of their home countries. The answer to this was for the U.S. gov't (not their home gov't) to create more jobs so the "Big Corporations" couldn't exploit the people.

May Day from Wikipedia:

The date consequently became established as an anarchist and socialist holiday during the 20th century, and in these circles it is often known as International Workers' Day or Labour Day. In this form, May Day has become an international celebration of the social and economic achievements of the working class and labor movement. [emp. - mine]

Building Trust

I was just listening to "Geraldo At Large" on Fox where they were discussing "sniching". The message was that the cops have to do more to create trust with the community, but how are the cops going to do anything when the people they need to talk to about a crime are just going to lie to them, or not give any pertinent information.

If you want the gangbangers out of your neighborhood, you have to tell the cops who the bad guys are.

This is just like having Iraq in our backyard. Somebody has to stand up and point at the guy that is dragging the rest of the area down, and someone has to stand up behind them and on and on.

The police want to do their job, but if they don't trust the info fed to them or they think you're lying to protect your cousin, nothing gets done.

Stand up and make your kids life better than yours.

If It Wasn't So Sad....

A couple of days ago the Emperor posted a bit "Burqa, Burqa Cucumber Jihad" from an article on Al-Queda's in Iraq's take on islamic law.

...al-Qaida has warned street vendors not to place tomatoes beside cucumbers because the vegetables are different genders, Col. David Sutherland said.

We had a good chuckle over the idiocy of this, and rightly so. These bozos seem to fear anything that could have a sexual connotation that I think it can be classified as psychotic. Then last night I ran into this news out of Iran:
Anger at Iran dress restrictions
By Frances Harrison
BBC News, Tehran

....Police say they stopped more than 1,300 women for dressing immodestly on the first day of the campaign in Tehran.

More than 100 women were arrested on Saturday; half of them had to sign statements promising to improve their clothing, the other half are being referred to court.

That really isn't unusual, for these goat molesters, they do this every year when it starts to get warm out. The part that points out the derangement involved with this whole thing was:

One foreign journalist was stopped and the police complained the photograph in her press card was indecent, even though it was taken by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance.

I'm just waiting for sharia law to go into effect in Fwance, Britain, Canada or Minnesota, whichever comes first, to watch the reactions of the women when they start having to run the gauntlets of morals police swinging at them with canes and writing tickets because their overcoat is to tight and you can kind of see where their waist might be.

Here you go ladies, the new spring fashion.

What's Right With Country

Country Music isn't my favorite, but there are quit a few songs that I enjoy. While I was cruising around last night, I came across this little speech that Jeff Foxworthy gave at the opening of the County Music Awards. It's a good summation of what I do like about the music. You'll have to go to Hot Air to see the video.



His speech reminded me of song I hadn't listened to in a while, so I headed over to YouTube and found it. It still brings tears to my eyes when I hear it.

Another Long Hiatus

Damn life just seems to keep getting in the way of important things like posting what's happening in my extremely exciting life and pontificating on the events in the world.

Work's been very busy and the projection of running the site at something close to it's capacity is a reality. However, it has required a bit of work to get the final pieces set up and we've been operating with minimum crew -1. One of my co-workers had the gall to fall and break his ankle, so we've had to work a lot of 12 hour days to cover his shift.

I had today off and go on graveyard shift tomorrow, so things should slow down and let me catch my breath. Check back and we'll see.

And thanks to those that wrote your condolences for my Dad. My brother wrote me a letter on his feelings, and if I get his permission, I will post it.

Dad

I've known it was going to happen sooner rather than later, but I still haven't been able to take in the news yet.

Just before 8:00 AM this morning my Father passed on. He was 89 years old. Two days ago he had a massive heart attack that put him back in the hospital, so I knew it was likely his time was real short. He had had like 5 minor attacks over the last few years, but they were so mild that they were only diagnosed through treating some other problem.

Dad's parents came over from England just before the turn of the century (1900) and settled in Northern California. His Dad was a carpenter who built a large part of the town of Fortuna California and had the misfortune to step on a nail and get tetanus when my Dad was five. The vaccine was newly discovered, but had to be brought up from San Francisco and it just took to long.

He grew up as the baby of the family through the Depression with a single mother, two brothers and three sisters.

He and one of his brothers ran a radio repair shop for a while, then he went to college. He never finished due to WWII, enlisting in the Army Air Corp as a radioman and served in the Pacific.

After the war, he sent to work in the aero-space industry, working for McDonnell Douglas, JPL, Space General/Aerojet General, and Hughes. His work was always "classified", so I never knew what he specifically did. I knew he had worked on a early seeker torpedo, so I just assumed he was involved with radar and guidance.

Every year he would "disappear" for two weeks to do testing up at Vandenburg. We didn't "know" he where he was and had to call his office to leave a message to have him call us back if we needed him. Course when he brought back pictures of the fields of wild flowers blooming we could guess where he a gone.

My Dad's finger prints are on the moon. Some component that went into the lander was worked on by his team, and just before it absolutely had to be shipped they found out something hadn't been plugged in properly, so they told him to go into the clean room and open it up and re-hook it, no gloves, no bunny suit, just get it done. I guess it worked OK.

He was always there for us, providing what we needed, and giving us more than we probably deserved. The only time you couldn't find him was Sundays. My Mom, brother and I are night people and never got up before 10-11 AM, Dad was long gone. He would take MY dog, Tori, get in his '59 VW bug and hit the road. It was just his time for himself.

I'll miss him so much. I just thank God I was able to see him two months ago and tell him I loved him.