Couldn't Resist a Letterman Joke Post

From Wednesday night 2/14

Michael Jackson has introduced his own line of Valentine’s candy. It’s tremendous. It’s white chocolate with a nut inside.

If The Previous Post Didn't Get You Thinking....

....then this one certainly should. That would be after you read it, of course. The column is A Skeptic's Take on Global Warming by Bill Steigerwald over at HumanEvents.com.

I need to add that the flurry of recent posting is mainly for my own edification. I had noticed that my tally of posts for 2007 was in the single digit range. I did not want to be summarily humiliated by Joe for my lack of posting. I do need to point out that Joe posts individual pictures as a single posting. Rather than post several pictures with descriptions on a single posting, Joe has felt the need to artificially inflate his numbers. I, however, find this to be a distasteful practice and frown upon those who use this system to manipulate their standing in the blogosphere hierarchy.

Hopefully Joe will actually read this post and I will get a reaction out of him. I think he has read one or two other postings of mine. He is a very busy man so I don't expect him to pay much attention to the amoeba's of the blogosphere like myself. I would like to take a moment to point out a grammatical error on his latest post. The title of his post is "A RV Blog". The abbreviation in the title is of the words "recreational vehicle". Truncating those words to a supposed acronym of "RV", creates a grammatical error. "A Recreational Vehicle Blog" is perfectly acceptable grammar. If we read the page "How To Use Articles", we can determine that Joe has incorrectly used the article "a" instead of the article "an" in his title.

The resource noted above should answer any questions in regards to the proper use of articles in titles, or anywhere else for that matter. The letter "r", when pronounced, uses a variation of an "a" sound. Therefore it must be preceeded by the article "an". The correct title for his post should be "An RV Blog".

This post makes me sound a bit like a Joe stalker of sorts. I'll get over it....


***looking forward to be flamed, Joseph!

We Need More Global Warming...and SOON!

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. (founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator) has a really good article on the need for global warming. Ask most sane people in the mid-west and east coast their thoughts on the global warming fairy tale after the last week or so.

Doesn't anyone remember the predictions back in the late 1970's that we were going to be doomed to an ice? If we can't predict the weather with any certainty for next week, how can anyone assume that we can predict the weather 100 or 1000 years from now? Stop falling for the hype and hysteria!!

Hilarious Ann Coulter Column, "Johnathan Livingston Obama"

As usual, really funny, acidic humor from Ann Coulter - Read it here!
Find other great column's at Townhall.com.

My favorite line is in reference to Obama's speech topics as compared to Harold Ford, a "...former representative from Tennessee is also black, a Democrat, about the same age as Obama, and is every bit as attractive. The difference is, when he talks, you don't fantasize about plunging knitting needles into your ears to stop the gusher of meaningless platitudes."

Gotta love her!

Thanks Joe!

Hat tip to Joe for the freebie advert! I appreciate the glowing remarks on my "skills" around the house. I must say that it's been 20 years since I have been actively doing any sort of construction/remodel work and the details definitely seem to fade with time.

On the sleep thing....I had mentioned a bit of insomnia the other day. Well, last night I woke up 45 minutes into my shift! I had been to a doctor appointment and had put my phone on vibrate. I do that because a certain fellow employee/friend tends to call, it seems, at the most in-opportune times. I never changed the ringer after the doctor and at two o'clock this morning I had that adrenaline rush wake-up. I looked at the clock and......@!%$?*&. I'm not sure exactly why I woke up from a sound sleep without an alarm clock. I popped awake like I had been startled by something and it was not the phone.

A couple of the guys had left a few voicemail messages for me on my cell. I called an asked if I had been replaced (secretly hoping I had been!) and was told "no". Begrudgingly I made my way in to work. Fortunately Wednesday is a small day paper-wise. There were only two sections to distribute so they were not short handed. There were still three guys distributing even without me being there.

Enough chatter, I've got another job to go to...yee haa!!

Old Age...

Grief from a fellow blogger. The worst kind of harassment. My sparse posting has his panties in a bunch. I guess it would be because I got him into this whole shabang. So, to appease my nagging compatriot, I will post. No guarantees of anything substantive.

It must be old age (insert age here). I got home from work today and was completely exhausted. It was my second day back after a ten day vacation. I think one's body becomes accustomed to waking up when the sun is up and going to bed when it's not. Unfortunately in the newspaper business, that is the opposite of what needs to occur in order for the job to get done. I decided at 2pm that I was just going to go to sleep until I had to get up and go to work around midnight. I was apologetic to my wife but she understood. I had only spent about an hour with her before retreating to the bedroom. I was sleeping great until about 6:15 when the call of nature got me out of bed. I think I was out of the bed for no more than 2 minutes when all was said and done. I crawled back under the covers and was wide awake. I laid there for about 20 minutes until I was completely frustrated. I normally can fall asleep in under 5 minutes. At that point I gave up and went out to the living room to a surprised look from my wife. I explained what happened and we talked for a bit in hopes of returning to sleepville. Nothing....

At 6:55 I took a Melatonin and went back to bed at 7:30 with hopes of falling right to sleep. At 8:45pm I got up and decided I was up for the day (my day, normal peoples night). Unfortunately it's a two job day today So when I get home around 6:00pm tonight I will have been up for 24 hours. That's always healthy!

Anyhoo... I thought I would post a couple pics of the ongoing kitchen remodel. The project started out as a dishwasher replacement. However, at each step in the process there were damage or other things discovered that necessitated a replacement of this or that. Now that I will have an entirely new kitchen, I might as well enjoy the work I've put into it. That work has mostly occurred during vacations (which are not intended for work apparently).

This shot is of the end of the cabinet in the kitchen (right) and the small cabinet by the pantry in the dining room (left). The backsplash and corner aren't finished in this pic.

This is a shot of the front view of the small cabinet next to the pantry that was shown on the left in the last picture.

These are the "mural" tiles that will be on the backsplash of the cabinet pictured above.

I will be insanely happy when this project is finished. Back when I worked for a general contractor, this was the type of stuff that we did all the time. That was nearly 20 years ago and your skills and knowledge of the little details necessary to do an excellent job fade over time. I am unfortunately a stickler for doing things right. That can work against you at times. There have been some projects that never got completed because I knew I couldn't do the job "perfectly". Talk about a self-defeating problem!

I like the easier projects where you just break things. For example when I tore down my patio cover....

Vacation, and not a moment too soon!

After I punch out this morning I have 10 glorious days off! Well, I guess I can't really categorize them as glorious since I will be doing things like re-tiling and grouting my kitchen counter tops, painting and possibly even re-doing the floor in one of my bathrooms. Maybe I should just stay at work and not take the vacation?

I might get to a few more postings on vacation than I do in a regular work week (or month). Joe would probably say that any post is more than I do now. If I could only achieve one tenth of the posts that Joe does, I would be a better man for it.

Just a quick link as I get out of here. Oliver North has a great piece on the politicians who just don't care about the outcome in Iraq.

Jumping on the eMusic Bandwagon

I received a free 30 day trial for eMusic.com a few months back. It included 40 downloads. I was a bit skeptical at first. I couldn't find many bands that had recognizable names. Most were Indie artists. I wondered what good this would do me if I had never heard of any of these bands before.

It did me a lot of good.

I have always enjoyed listening to "new" music. New to me as well as new to all. I literally stumbled across many new artists that I had never heard of and now can't get enough of. Here's just a few that have been on the "A" list in my CD player for quite some time now.

Aaron Sprinkle - Moontraveler - rock, alternative

Bitstream Dream - Spiralglide - electronic, breaks, chill

Cheer Up Charlie - rock

Deadmau5 (pronounced dead mouse?) - electronic, techno

Hyper Static Union - Lifegiver : rock

Subway - Empty Head : electronic

Tracing Days - Control : rock

These are just a few of them. The interface is set up so that there are links to artists of similar styles on each artists page. It's almost an endless click list. Try it you'll like it!

I just thought I would post this early '80's pic of my wife's "Grandpa B" and me. The post had no particular motivating factor. I think the fascination stems just from looking at it and saying to myself..."what was I thinking?"

The hair, the flannel, the 80's.....it's all pretty surreal.

Grandpa B isn't with us any more and neither is that mane I had (thankfully). It is, however, a moment in time to remember. Grandpa B always had a grin on his face and a good laugh just behind. He drove a cement truck for many years. He owned his own home. Seasonal work like his had to be hard. I don't believe he ever really learned to read or write. He knew enough to get by. Enough to sign his name on a check to pay the bills. He always had the oil in his car changed every 3,000 miles or less, just like clockwork. Tires rotated on time. His cars were kept immaculate. You could swear they were just driven off the dealer showroom floor. He might have put 2,000 or 3,000 miles a year on them! He would be the kind of seller you would dream of buying a used car from. He had WWII stories from his time in the Army in Italy. He was truly a Grandpa to remember.

I Need a New Job.....

....because this one's gonna kill me. Between the back pain, tendonitis, crazy hours and lack of sleep, I'm going to be pushing up daisies long before my time. Anyone have a sweet, low impact, non aerobic, cranial type position they need filled?

I was off for a couple of months on an injury. During that period of time I was able to see how real folks lived. Get up after the sun comes up, go to bed after it goes down. Those are a couple of the basic necessities of life that I don't get to do very often. Because of the type of job I have, it requires that I start work just after 1:00 am every day. These hours are not condusive to reasonable human activity. I've done this work just shy of two decades and it just doesn't get easier. While I'm griping, I might as well complain about the lack of any type of social life. Since my alarm goes off around midnight, those casual evening get togethers with friends and family are either cut short or skipped all-together. I'm generally going to bed before the pre-teens in the neighborhood and leaving for work while the unemployed neighbors are still partying on the porch.

I think that's probably enough complaining for one post. I should be grateful that I have a job. I could be like my unemployed neighbors, partying all night!