Bad News

My Dad, who is 89, is in the hospital. He has been suffering from a urinary infection for the last few weeks, and that on top of his weak heart (although the medicos haven't been able to figure out exactly what is causing the periodic chest pains over the last couple of years) has worn him down. He's lost a lot of weight, is freezing cold all the time. Yesterday his blood pressure dropped dangerously low and he was listless and incoherent.

Luckily my brother lives with my parents and was able to deal with the problems till the EMT's arrived. My Mom is in her 80's also and semi-bedridden (due to breathing problems, that the doctors are also at a loss to explain).

At the ER they got him on IV's and got his BP back up to a safe level and he became coherent again.

Both my parents have live a long time and I know the human body cannot run forever and I haven't seen them since they moved up to Portland over 7 1/2 years ago.. Tomorrow I'm taking Amtrak up to see them, I checked on flights, but to book at the last minute is just prohibitively expensive, being I just blew my discretionary funds in Vegas a week ago. I talk to them weekly, but it always seems like there would be time to get up there.

Well, now time is way to short. Luckily I work with a great guy who will cover a couple of my work shifts plus I'm coming up on my long change (5 1/3 days off), so outside of the 30 hour train rides, I'll be able to spend a few days up there.

If I can get on my Dad,s computer, I will try to post in a couple days, but, there just may be a weeks gap if I can't make a connection.

Vegas-Why I Drive

Well here goes. I said I was going to post about my Las Vegas trip, and damn it, I’m gonna do it. Because I have a lot to expound on this, I’m going to break it into three installments: This one will deal with why I chose to drive to get there, then some observations on gambling and getting around town and finally a post on the drive itself.

I use to love to fly - but not now - not if the trip can be driven in 6 hours or less. I have two airports to choose from: Burbank and LAX. Burbank is very close, but it’s small and they put a surcharge on top of the normal airfare for the convenience. LAX is a bit of a drive, and requires either a heavy sedative or heavy drinking to deal with their setup.

Either airport I choose, I have to get there, which means either get an airport shuttle, or use long term parking – basically a push when time and money are factored. On top of the just getting there, they want you there 2 hours before your flight leaves. S0, with driving to and sitting there forever, you’ve already used up three hours and haven’t even left town.

Shall we mention “security”? You are not allowed to take half the stuff you need in your carry on, so now you are faced with the choice of going shopping when you first arrive at your destination and then chucking the stuff you just bought before going home, or checking your bag and waiting the year or so it takes for them to offload it and get it to the baggage carousel. Both are sucky options and more time, money and effort than it’s worth.

Flight time: one hour in the air – this does not include the planes taxi time.

If going to Vegas (275 miles), it’s taken one hour longer to fly than to drive without rushing. If I were going to Phoenix (380 miles)I’ve saved, maybe, an hour, but in both places I’m still at the airport, I still haven’t gotten to the hotel or house and once at those final destinations, I have no easy or inexpensive way to get around.

Now you may bring up the fact that Vegas just put in a monorail system. Yes, they did, but it doesn’t go to the airport and it cost $15 for a one day pass. Cheaper than taking taxis, but still way overpriced. Also, it goes nowhere close to The Palms our favorite casino, which is located on the other side of the freeway from The Strip

And of course there is no way to Boulder Station which is about 5 miles east of The Strip. Yeah, Boulder Station caters to older clientèle, but hey, we are old now, and this is a good place to go during the day. It has a good movie theater, thousands of machines, lots of TV screens for sports and a payoff rate that is fair enough that you can usually play for hours without losing a lot. This is also one of the few casinos that I have left with more money than I walked in with (once, and not much more).

Duke Rape Case

Watching the news this morning, I got to see Michael Nifong, the "illustrious" D.A. from Durham County, N.C. being hauled before the State Bar on a second charge to explain how withholding evidence from the defense and colluding with another party to keep the information suppressed is justified.

If anyone has ever kept track of the number of times a State Bar has bothered to even investigate a case of ethical behavior involving their members, let alone censor or disbar someone should realize that this is big news.

Even if nothing much comes of the hearings, at least we can be reasonably sure that Nifong's political career is over.

The main thing about the original "Rape Case" that has bothered me most is the fact that nobody seems to remember how many peoples lives were screwed up. You always hear about the 3 guys that were charged, but what dropped off the radar was that 1) the Lacrosse coach lost his job, 2) the entire 46 man nationally ranked team was disbanded , 3) the players were threatened, assaulted and condemned for "covering up" the rape (that did not occur).

Back when this started, I opined that the case would fade away after the election. I was terribly wrong. I didn't know exactly how low Nifong would stoop to keep his phoney-baloney job, but I should have realized you couldn't get anything much lower than a cross between a lawyer and politician.

I won't say the Lacrosse players were upstanding examples of morality, they are what that they are, college age boys. Back when I was their age I think I may have been to a couple of parties where strippers were present. Where it seems silly now to pay to have a lady come take off her clothes and dance for a group of drunks, I can't condemn them going through this "rite of passage" that I would hazard to guess that 90% of guys have gone through at least once.

I'm Think I'm Getting Better

I was going to try to post more regularly this year, but things happen. The getting better part is that I feel I've let myself down by missing a whole week.

When I got back from Vegas, I hand wrote a long diatribe on the gambling and driving in that city and the drive home. However, when I got home, my wife had a huge head cold, which due to the hours I keep in Vegas (about 6 hours sleep over 4 days), I was not in shape to fight off. I spent the last two days of my vacation with mountains of kleenex piling up next to me in bed, then back to work for 6 days on day shift.

My project for this week was to stay out of the way while Schlumberger played with explosives and blew some new perforations in one of our injector wells. The other was to give our yard a high pressure enema to clean out some drains that had plugged up over the summer. If you've worked on oil wells, you know that great smell associated with brine and the wonderful feeling of the crap blowing back on you along with the sludge that builds up in field drains while it's 50 degrees down in the cellar. Cold, wet, stinky...that's how I like to spend my weekends.

If I can make it through my shift tomorrow, I will try to get my musings on the trip posted. I got over the cold last Friday, so I'm almost back to feeling normal.

Home Agian

Wonderful time, and came home under budget.

Snowed, froze,laughed (a lot) and caught up with my friends.

Around six hours sleep over three days has left me a little tired, so I'll try to post more tomorrow.
I've still got 3 days vacation to recuperate.

Getting Ready For Fun, Maybe

I'm getting things together for my trip to Vegas. Picked out some DVD's to watch while we're out there, got some CD's together to stay awake on the drive back and forth and found my "Preferred Sucker" cards for the different casinos.

The first problem I've had with the trip, is that I save up aluminum cans between trips to help defray the cost. Upon loading my truck with all the cans I could carry and driving down to Glendale to cash them in, I find that they've moved the Recycling Center that I've gone to for the last 6 or 7 years....No sign of where they've gone, nothing. I'm now at home have found the new location, but will now have to delay my departure time to deal with this tomorrow morning.
In one way this is good. After thinking about leaving early (5:00 am) to beat the traffic, I realized I'm driving NE most of the way and would be driving into the rising sun most of the trip, so leaving around 10- 11, after morning rush, isn't so bad.

My new jacket hasn't arrived at my door yet, but the UPS tracking says it's on a truck for delivery. It better get here, as the projected high for Saturday is 38 degrees, and this SoCal boy doesn't do well when temps get below 60.

I'm going to keep a positive attitude and figure these little annoyances will just help me appreciate the time away more.

Christmas--Vacation

Christmas is arriving a little late this year. Due to budget constraints at the North Pole, Santa had to defer the delivery of one of my presents till the new year.

I just got word today (placed my order) that this beautiful (I mean that in a manly sense) jacket will be arriving at my house no later than Wednesday, January 10th. Just in time for my trip to Lost Wages, Nevada to blow a lot of cash, but also get to spend time with friends from my wasted days at ASU back in '79-80. These Frat brothers (ΘΔΧ) are still my closest friends, even after all these years.

This trip to Vegas is the first vacation I've had since '05. Due to all the crap that's been going on at work, even though I've put in for vacation time, it kept getting put off "cause we're going to start up next week, and we need you there". We never started up and the company finally had the opportunity of 1) I take all my vacation right now and I'll see you in a month, 2) Pay me now for the vacation time I wasn't allowed to take or 3) Carry it over (not company policy) and I get to use it in '07. I know the company is short of cash, so I accepted the carry over, now I've got 6 weeks vacation to use up--minus the 7 days I'm using now.

Typically, now that I get to take vacation, my wife can't get the time off. Just before the end of the year, the guy that knew all the secrets to get the jobs done at her company left. Now they "can't spare anyone until they get things under control again".

We'll still get to spend time together, as I won't leave town until Thursday, but she still has work. This is still an improvement over our normal schedule as I'll be home and awake while she's home. Being on a rotating shift schedule can take a big toll on together time. I don't think she knows how much I appreciate her tolerance of things not getting done around the house when I'm on graveyard and the day or so period when I try to force my body back onto a daylight schedule.

My major project over the next week is to cash in all the aluminum cans I have been saving for my Vegas trip over the last year and a half. This should be fun, as we tend to drink a hell of a lot of coke (and another thing thing that comes in cans), so I probably should be able to gamble with little or no drain on our banked money. I actually have $100 left from my last gambling trip stashed, so that will make my spree that much cheaper (Ha-rationalization at it's best).

All I can say is those Video Poker machines had better watch out, they won't know what hit them with all the money I going to pull out of them. Hoped the cashier has stocked the vault.

RFC-Don't Go Here

While at work last night (between rounds), I decided to see if I could find out what ever happened to a Classic Rock internet radio station I really liked. One week it was there, and the next gone... without a word. Originally I just figured the guy got tired and gave it up.

I ran some searches and got all kinds of speculation on why it went off line without any notice. To me, the guy that ran it, Gary Burke, seemed to just get closer to the edge of nuts, whether due to the pressure of running a 24 hour station solo, or some other reason.

Once after he had upgraded to a new server and the feed keep getting dropped, I wrote an E-mail just to tell him that I loved the station, but they were having major problems and they might want to get it what they were paying for, I got a replay back that was insulting and downright mean.

Well, Radio Free Colorado is back online. I was able to sneak in (the server always seems to be full) and if you want Classic Rock, no advertisements or talk, this is the best. Now if the formats the same as before, Gary may get on once a day and express his opinions for about 20 minutes, and he is a real left winger, but it's his station and I can wait for the next song.

I'll warn you right now, getting on during normal hours is next to impossible and if you get on, make damn sure you're done, cause it will be a battle to get a slot in the limited space he has.

Last night I turn off the TV at work for the first time in ages. I don't really watch anything until TVLand shows Gunsmoke at 3am, followed by Bonanza (love those show I grew up with), and just listened to a good mix of music that I grew up with.

The reason I say don't go there, is because I would prefer that there were a slot open for me when I want to listen.

It's 2007, Happy New Year

I've had another exciting New Years Eve, sitting in the office at work for the fourth straight year. At least I haven't heard any bullets bouncing off the roof this time around.

Not that it really matters. The years prior to my getting stuck on graveyard shift, I was to the point of going to bed before 11:00. I like the idea of a new beginning, but I like to sleep also, and drinking heavily and staying up till midnight got old. I prefer getting up in sunlight to greet the new year, kinda like a sunrise service.

To any and all that pass by here, I wish a a sincere, heart felt wish for a great year coming up for you and those you love.

I got my New Years present about 1:00 PM (PST) when my Raiders lost their last game and the Detroit Lions won theirs, clinching our bid for the first round pick in the next draft. Now it's just waiting to see how bad Al Davis can screw this up. He'll probably go for another quarterback using the idea of "with no offensive line, we need to be deeper".

Right now I'm sitting and waiting to see how long the company I work for can continue to make (or not make) decisions that achieve nothing, nor produce anything resembling income, not to mention profit. We get instructions to run equipment that just costs us money to have it going, delay repairs on equipment that doesn't work correctly and jump from a project that is half finished to another project that we stopped working on (half finished) two months ago, and for some reason we pull off that before it's finished and go to something else.

I've got a couple irons in the fire, but I know this place could make money again and I like the job, when thing are going right. I must say though, that after 9 months of no income, my outlook isn't positive.

As far a resolutions, I believe they're crap, but I'll make one anyway. "I RESOLVE TO POST ON A MORE REGULAR BASIS SO THAT THE WORLD CAN BENEFIT FROM MY BALANCED AND LEARNED OPINIONS." Let's see how long that sticks.

Remember Today

We were basically at peace. We didn't really want to get involved with the problems of all those people half a world away from us. On this day we were forced to take a position. The number of dead wasn't important. The ships lost, the airplanes, the point that woke us up and showed us that there was an enemy out there and they wanted to destroy our way of life was that they attacked America herself.

Bless those. like my Dad, who at a time where we easily could have given up with our fleet destroyed, could have just given up, but instead signed up to defend the principles of our country.

The sacrifices were incredible, to our unreal beliefs of how a war can be fought today (our soldiers don't get shot and there are not civilians caught in the fights). Thousands dying in one day, but no backing down on the home front. They knew evil when they saw it and were willing to stand up and face it.

My undying gratitude and God bless you all who fought or those who worked to support this cause.

Saving My Past

Between my wife and I, we must have over 300 vinyl records, LP's. We haven't had a decent turntable to play them on in about 10 years. I have now undertaken the task of trying to digitalize our musical past.

One of the major decisions I have to make on every recording, is do I keep those clicks and pops that were a feature of this medium. To me that was how I remember listening to these songs. Without that little pop at that certain point, sometimes it just doesn't seem the same.

The crystal clear sound of the CD makes sure that you always get the same sound every time you hear it, but after a needle has drug through the grooves of a LP a few hundred times, that particular album becomes part of your personal history and all it's little flaws actually become endearing.

Just Stupid

I'm still catching up from my being away, but this is amazing. Go watch and come back, I'll wait. From Hot Air.

The idea of stereotyping another ethic group, even if you are supporting them, while making fun of another guy for stereotyping an ethic group, even if he was trying to make a point (badly) about supporting them is just stupid. I wouldn't expect anything less from the likes of O'Donnell (I don't think that's an Italian surname) who, according to librul laws, may have the right to bring up "Potato Eaters" but not "macaca", except for that corollary of librul's cannot be held to the same rules as everyone else.

Minimum Wage...Again

I heard on the news the other day that 2% of the work force make minimum wage. A majority of these people making minimum wage were either students or retired people looking to supplement their income.

Every company that has a work force in the U.S. pays more that the Federally mandated rate, even above the California state mandated rate.

For many years now, I have thought that this was just a ploy by the Unions to drive up the wages of their members, but being Union employees make much, much, much more that this wage there had to be something else.

TAXES

In the society where all people are entitled to the same level of prosperity as everyone else, regardless of your contribution, you have to have a base line to delineate what is excessive. This is the level of income that can be taxed at an exorbitant rate (think 75%) because you don't deserve to earn that much more than your fellow man, you should be required to help the less fortunate, regardless of whether they are an addict or have had 5+ children without getting their HS diploma or bothering to marry one of the men who got them pregnant.

I am amazed, that in the United States, that the government would have the balls to tell me that I have worked to much and that that I don't deserve credit for the hours and commitment that I have put in to make my life better than the ones who just show up for their job and don't bother to take the responsibilities to advance in their job.

One thing that has always stuck with me was that one of the biggest spokespersons of my generation, for equal opportunity and reward for all people was John Lennon. Where did he decided to live? In the United States. Why? I wasn't that he loved the U.S. more than his home country, as he bitched constantly that we never did enough for the poor, but in that period Britain's tax rate was around 75%, and this hero of the common people didn't want the government to take his money. Basically he was doing what the leftards accuse big corporations of doing and putting his earnings into off-shore accounts to protect them from excessive taxation.

This taxation level will not be enacted in the next 2 years. It can't be done without controlling the President's office and having a larger majority in both houses, but enacting this feel good proposal is just the groundwork for the next step.

Time Flying By

I can't believe the amount of time since my last post. Life just got kinda busy and flew by.

At work we actually got the OK to start up the site this week, but because of a shortcut taken, wee had a big problem, so now we have a work-over rig back in the yard to fix what we wasn't checked for a week and a half ago.

My Raiders have reverted back to form and are again in the run to position themselves for next years draft. Walter was sacked 7 time in the first quarter, the Seattle defense were past the offensive line and in the backfield waiting for Walters to get there.

The GOP got it's butt kicked in the election, but in what could be considered a minor victory, the Dems that were elected ran mostly on a conservative platform, so now it's a wait and see if they really were advocating what they said, or where just lying till they got in office.

The worst part of the election is Pelosi becoming Chairman of the House. The word is that most Americans don't know who Pelosi is, man are they in for a shock. I live in California and have watched this woman's policies enacted around the San Francisco area and I don't believe her assertion of bi-partisanship. I remember when Bush put out his hand in bi-partisanship to Ted "the Swimmer" Kennedy on the "No Child Left Behind" program, and *hic* Kennedy *hic* had stabbed Bush in the back before he had made it to the corner liquor store for his daily restock.

Well, I got something down, now I have to work harder to get back in the habit of scribbling something more often.

On Their Way

Well, the Raiders ruined their perfect record and actually won a game. I'm cetain with the way my luck runs, that they are going to win just enough games that they'll screw up their position in the draft.

The Bears had a bye, so the games yesterday didn't mean to much, although the Giants-Cowboys game tonight should be fun with both teams at 3-2.

Silly

This is just silly, but it got me laughing...and don't think the German's (I believe this is German) don't have a sense of humor. This is a slow loader at the home site, so it may take a bit.

I Thought It Might Of Been Me

For most of the game last night, I was afraid that I was going to have the whole town of Chicago trying to hunt me down and kill me.

It almost seemed like I had brought a curse on the Bears by picking them as the team I will root for to bet the the Super Bowl. I know the Cardinals aren't as bad as their record, but I never would have dreamed that the game could have gone like it did. I was just about ready to shut the TV off and go to bed when the Bears had their rally.

Anyway, I feel safe for another two weeks, as Chicago has a bye next week, then have to play the 2-4 49ers at home.

Raiders Maintain Their Perfect Record

The only thing wrong is they've got the numbers on the wrong sides of the hyphen. 0-5. God, how things have changed in a few years. Ever since the playoff game against the Patriots in 2001. I felt then that that was going to be the last Super Bowl chance for a while for the Raiders, they were old and weren't likely to be able to hold it together for another year.

A rebuilding was due, but because of that loss, they tried to stick it out longer by bringing in more old players to fit into the system quckly. It didn't work and I'm paying for it now.

I'm resigned to one of those periods like the Packers went through from their glory days in the '60's till they aquired Farve and bult a team around him in the mid '90's.

Here's hoping I'm not going to be in my 80's when the Raiders field a winning team again.

Oh, and congrats to GuyK and his Bucs for winning one.

Military Capability

I've been hearing a lot over the weekend about the military capability of the United States. The consensus has been that we do not have enough to handle the problems that are facing us.

The fact that everyone overlooks is that we could handle all the problems, simultaneously, in any way we choose. We can pursue peace, or we could just make you not a problem.

The small detail that we could wipe out the entire planet and still have military capability left over seems to be dropped from the equation of what is going on.

If we really wanted Mid-east oil to fuel our military industrial complex and to keep the sheeple happy, we could take it today, and nobody could stop us.

However, the world would rather listen to the "dignitaries" from the NKPR or Iran about our country dreaming of an empire.

Our culture may be taking over the world, but that is a choice, but we have not added one square foot of territory to the United States by hook or crook, so you can just bite my ass about the "Imperilalistic American Agenda".

If I was you, I would pray we wanted your country, which we don't, cause, if we really did, you would be gone by now.

Floriduh!

I know, with where I live I shouldn't be besmirching other states...but, why does it seem that just about every nutso news story nowadays seem to be emanating from the Sunshine State? All the sensless murders, car chases and whatever has outpaced California and, if this keeps up, will make us look like a run of the mill state.

You know what, you guys are welcome to it. If we can just get rid of the 9th Curcuit (although that encompasses more than California), we could drop off the news altogether.