People You Meet In Bars

While in Portland my brother and I visited the bar in the hotel where we were staying to have a beer before our family dinner.

We engaged in our normal anti Fox news conversation while a man (I'll call him Abe) & woman (I'll call her Marie) to our left were involved in a video conference on his Mac. As their conversation went on it became more profane with Marie telling the guy on the other end that he was fu#*ing full of s*it and did not know anything.

While we tried to carry on our own conversation it became more and more difficult to ignore Abe and Marie as the conversation became louder and more heated. The subject was "Chemtrails", those vapor trails that appear in the wake of military aircraft.

Marie is convinced that there is probable forensic evidence that the government is spraying us with chemical or biological agents, the guy on the other end was debunking her theory and Abe kept poking the stick and stiring the pot.

As we were about to finish our beer, I told my brother that I was amazed that he had not become involved in the conversation since he is one that always likes to stir the shit pot. He just kind of shrugged but when we got up to leave he walked over and told the two that he was from Santa Cruz and they knew all about Chemtrails there.

This excited Marie to the point that she put her arms around my brother and started rubbing her tits against his arm. This prompted Abe to mention that my brother was now getting a boob rub from a 16K boob job while Marie just kept asking my brother if she was right about chemtrails while Abe was kicking him in the leg trying to get him to say yes while the bartender and I were trying to control our laughter while the guy on the other end of the conversation kept insisting that anyone getting a boob rub like that would agree with anything.

Needless to say the entire family enjoyed the story during dinner.

Pinto Syndrome

Born On the 4th Of July

On May 27th, Cpl. Jacob Leicht, USMC became the 1000th American to die in Afghanistan since the conflict began in October 2001. He was just a little over 1 month away from his 25th birthday, July 4, 2010, This was his 2nd tour in Afghanistan, his first tour lasting only a few weeks when the Humvee he was in hit an explosive device and spent 2 years recovering. This time, one month into his 2nd tour he stepped on a land mine that ended his life.

As we celebrate Memorial Day on Monday we are poised to remember Jacob and those who made the ultimate sacrifice, as well as those that have survived wars past. We will also reach a milestone on June 7th as we move into the 104th month of the Afghan war, surpassing Vietnam and the lengthiest war in United States History.

As a Marine Corps Veteran of the Vietnam conflict, I would be remiss if I did not comment on this milestone. To say that there are mixed opinions on the progression of this effort is an understatement, emotions run high on both sides; end it now or press on and eliminate the "terrorist" threat to our country, much like we attempted to "win" and eliminate the communist threat in Vietnam.

What we need to remember when we consider whether or not we should attempt to attain "victory" is that we have not won a conflict or whatever you want to call it since World War Two (unless you count Ronald Regan's little invasion of Grenada in 1983).

We did not "win" anything in George Herbert Walker Bush's war in 1991, we did not win the second Bush war (ongoing) even though he declared "Mission Accomplished" and we will not "win" a war in Afghanistan.

Some argue that our sons and daughters will have died in vain if we end this conflict without "winning". To me this only means that they are willing to sacrifice other sons and daughters until the futility of the conflict is finally recognized.

As we celebrate the life and death of those that have served this country on Monday, let us consider the lives that can be saved by removing all of our brave men and women from harms way before they become just another tick on the wall of some future memorial.

Thank you Jacob, for your service and your sacrifice, your efforts were not in vain, only the prosecution of another war that cannot be "won" will end in vain.

Stop the Leak

Freaky Friday

Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday Toonlet

To My Youngest

Happy birthday little girl, here is a picture from your birth year.

Saturday Thoughts

Wordless Wednesday

Found - A long lost friend

I have been searching for years without any luck. I tried to find him when I visited Washington D.C. and I have searched and searched the internet. My real problem was I that I did not know his hometown only that he was from the Seattle area and really only knew him as Mac.

Today, because a friend sent me a link, I was able to find him. His name was Timothy James McMahon, born March 7, 1946, died September 18, 1966. He died because the human body is not built to withstand the intensity of a hand grenade exploding underneath it.

You see, Mac was a Navy Corpsman, his job was to save lives, patch a person up to give them a chance to make it to a hospital. This time he saved lives by giving his own.

It's been a long time my friend, I'm glad I finally found you.

Police Order - No Parking

As some of you already know, we live near a high school. Most of the time this is not a problem but because the school does not allow Freshman to park in the school parking lot, we sometimes have a problem with cars parked in our neighborhood, not to mention the trash they throw out on the street, especially when there is snow on the ground.


This past week, I called the school twice to complain about the parking situation. There is a police officer on duty at the school (it is his full time assignment, sad as it is). The first time I called he said he was aware of the problem and had already driven through the neighborhood....although nothing was done and it was just the same the next day. So, I waited a couple of days and after I saw the garbage truck (it was trash day) stop at the beginning of our street and then drive on I called again. All I got was "are they illegally parked"?

I asked the officer if it was legal to block a mailbox with a parked vehicle or if was legal to park in such a way that an emergency vehicle like a fire truck or ambulance could not get through....no response. He suggested I call the city to have them do a better job of cleaning up the snow and I hung up.


Yesterday, when NK when out to get the mail, she saw the sign, actually there were many signs,



up and down the street. No Parking signs.....on the opposite side of the street from our house.



Now I hope we won't see this anymore:

Avoiding Embarassment

In the late 60's and through the 70's there was a daytime game show called "The Newlywed Game". If you have never seen it, the show had couples that had been married a year or less on and asked them questions about their mate and /or their life together. These questions often provoked a funny, provocative response. Questions like where was the weirdest place you have ever gotten the urge to make whoopee? The response from one newlywed was: "in the ass". She was bleeped of course and her husbands response was "in the car", but none the less her embarrassment has been recorded for posterity:



via videosift.com


Somewhere between July 1979 and December 1970, my love and I decided that it would be fun to try out for the show so we sent in an application and received an invitation for a try out. They sent us the address in Hollywood, we lived in the L.A. area at the time, and the time for the interview, so off we went.

Now, my one true love has never been very good with a map, and being a guy, I never was real big on asking for directions so after driving around for some time, we never were able to find the place so we gave up and went home.

Today we both feel fortunate that we did not have a GPS unit then. If we had we might not be married today.

Defining a Decade

After contemplating my navel for the past few weeks I have decided that I needed to come up with a word to describe this decade. One word, a single utterance that defines the raison d'etre for those controlling our lives.

I know, it's early yet but I have really been formulating this opinion for some years. Current events have allowed me to finally propose that poliunicorps be added to our vocabulary. While it rolls off the tongue easily, it has a tendency to leave a bad taste in my mouth as it spills into the atmosphere.

Poliunicorps, a combination of three words that have fostered disrespect throughout their existence must now be merged to form one.

The first part, poli, comes from politician which is defined by dictionary.com as "a seeker or holder of public office, who is more concerned about winning favor or retaining power than about maintaining principles."

Next comes uni, from the word union. Like politician there are many ways to describe union but for my purpose it will simply be a group of individuals joined together for a common purpose.

Finally comes corps, from corporation. A corporation, again according to dictionary.com is an "organization enjoying legal personality for the purpose of carrying on certain activities.". Of course those "activities" are only for the good of the corporation.

There you have it, the make up of poliunicorps which I will now define as an entity that exists only to perpetuate itself with no regard for the well being of those outside of its body.

Wordless Wednesday

Why

We have listened
but we have not heard
We have looked
But we have not seen
For you have not said
What we must hear
And you have not done
What we need see

You may have listened
But you do not hear
The screams in the night
Or the anguish of those
That have lost

You say you have looked
But you cannot see
The emptiness in the hearts
Or the vacant stare
Of those that do not understand
Why death has visited their home

Wordless Wednesday