This is a "free day" we get once every four years, so make the best of it! It ought to be a national holiday so we could sleep in, or get up early to go fishing or skiing, or wait for something magical to happen, like the one day every hundred years when the Scottish village of Brigadoon reappears.
But, no. It will be just another day at work for most of us, an imperfect way to make the calendar coincide with the time required for the Earth to encircle the Sun.
Consider this: We have presidential elections every Leap Year. We have the Summer Olympics every Leap Year. I was born in a Leap Year but, thankfully, not on Leap Day, or else I'd have had a lifetime of confusion and joking about when to celebrate my birthday (the correct answer should be: every Saturday night).
One quaint custom associated with Leap Day is that this is when a woman may propose marriage, and a variation is that she may do so on any day of a Leap Year. This reminds me of Sadie Hawkins Day, which became a feature of Al Capp's "Li'l Abner," and if you don't know who that was, just look up Sadie Hawkins in Wikipedia. In Tarpon Springs, FL, where we once lived, they celebrated Sadie Hawkins Day with a street dance downtown. For boys like me, Sadie Hawkins Day was a scary thought. Now that I'm older and somewhat wiser, I think it should be revived.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
federal tax refund blues
One of these days I'll be getting one of those federal tax refunds. According to Prez Bush, who has only 47 weeks left in office, we are supposed to give the national economy a big shot in the arm by. . . uh, rushing out to spend it. Yes, we can all go to Wal-Mart or one of the other big chain retailers and load up our shopping carts with more products made in China.
Yessiree, that will do the old economy a lot of good.
My first thought was to put it in the savings account, the one from which I withdrew money last year to pay my federal income tax bill. That will give my personal economy a small shot in the arm.
My second thought was to use it to pay my dentist, my dermatologist, and the plastic surgeon who removed a couple of "skin tags" from my face. (Never let a dermatologist get near you with a scalpel in hand.) I might have money left over to apply towards a new pair of contact lenses. None of those good doctors are Chinese. On the other hand, they might rush out and spend my money at Wal-Mart, or to repair their Mercedes or BMWs.
No, I am going to search diligently for American-made products sold by Americans. I almost had a heart attack a few months ago when I found an American-made pruning tool on sale at Sears. And, I just bought a new blazer, made in Chicago by Hart Schaeffner and Marx, the oldest American clothing maker. (Never mind those German-sounding names.)
You can see that I'm already well down the road to giving the American economy a shot in the arm.
What I cannot figure out is, how can we spend six gazillion dollars a month on an overseas war, send refund checks to taxpayers, and promise "no new taxes?" Oh, right. It's an election year, time for the politicians to perform sleight of hand behind blue smoke.
p.s. The national debt is now $9 trillion. That's $9,000,000,000. Enjoy that refund check.
Yessiree, that will do the old economy a lot of good.
My first thought was to put it in the savings account, the one from which I withdrew money last year to pay my federal income tax bill. That will give my personal economy a small shot in the arm.
My second thought was to use it to pay my dentist, my dermatologist, and the plastic surgeon who removed a couple of "skin tags" from my face. (Never let a dermatologist get near you with a scalpel in hand.) I might have money left over to apply towards a new pair of contact lenses. None of those good doctors are Chinese. On the other hand, they might rush out and spend my money at Wal-Mart, or to repair their Mercedes or BMWs.
No, I am going to search diligently for American-made products sold by Americans. I almost had a heart attack a few months ago when I found an American-made pruning tool on sale at Sears. And, I just bought a new blazer, made in Chicago by Hart Schaeffner and Marx, the oldest American clothing maker. (Never mind those German-sounding names.)
You can see that I'm already well down the road to giving the American economy a shot in the arm.
What I cannot figure out is, how can we spend six gazillion dollars a month on an overseas war, send refund checks to taxpayers, and promise "no new taxes?" Oh, right. It's an election year, time for the politicians to perform sleight of hand behind blue smoke.
p.s. The national debt is now $9 trillion. That's $9,000,000,000. Enjoy that refund check.
Friday, February 22, 2008
aaahh, the weekend
Let's hear it for weekends. Over the past few weeks I have labored over the defense of a code enforcement board decision, the defense of the denial of a high-rise hotel, and a response to a motion to dismiss our complaint against a cable company. I will spare you the details, but there was a point early in January when everything appeared to be due at the same time and I was feeling borderline panic. Then I saw that it was not that bad - one item was due two weeks ago and it got done on time. The others were due the end of this week but another lawyer did nearly all the work on one of them, leaving me time to work on the other. By noon today I was ready to put my feet on my desk and, if I was allowed to keep a bottle of Scotch in my office, pour myself one. Now I will look good, bad or indifferent depending upon the whim of a judge who may have come to work after a bad breakfast and a fight with his or her spouse.
I'm looking at a weekend that is unseasonably warm. To my children and relatives-in-law in Boston and Philadelphia, eat your hearts out. There are only two times a year when I feel motivated to do gardening work, and the Spring gardening bug has bit me . . . in February, when they are still digging bodies out of the snow in other parts of the country. Tomorrow I will get out and do a little gardening work, unless it rains. [Pause while praying for rain.]
We have a critter living in the walls of our house. It left calling cards in a bathroom closet, so we (that is, I) cleaned out the stuff that was stored on the floor of the closet and our exterminator put down two traps. We (that is, I) also put back in place the board that covers the opening where a plumber can access the bathtub fixtures. This morning, something was making a big racket inside the closet but it wasn't a critter stuck to the traps. The board was still in place. Whatever it was had to be bigger than your average mouse or rat to make so much noise trying to dislodge the board, like maybe a possum or a 'coon. I'm afraid I may have to get my father's old .380 automatic and shoot the beast. The last time he used it, he shot a pocket gopher that was tearing up his front yard. I'm not sure I want to use it inside the house, though. It will make a helluva mess. If I could rent an anaconda or a rat snake, I'd turn it loose inside the walls of the house but if I do that, I will be living alone.
Apparently it is part of a man's job description to deal with rodents, from trapping or poisoning them to removing their carcasses. Women don't do this. They may deliver babies but they don't exterminate rodents. That's an overgeneralization - old farm women may do it, and grizzled old Marine Corps sergeants of the female variety may do it, but not your average housewife.
Aaahh, Spring in Florida. Hurricane season is just around the corner. It doesn't get any better than this.
I'm looking at a weekend that is unseasonably warm. To my children and relatives-in-law in Boston and Philadelphia, eat your hearts out. There are only two times a year when I feel motivated to do gardening work, and the Spring gardening bug has bit me . . . in February, when they are still digging bodies out of the snow in other parts of the country. Tomorrow I will get out and do a little gardening work, unless it rains. [Pause while praying for rain.]
We have a critter living in the walls of our house. It left calling cards in a bathroom closet, so we (that is, I) cleaned out the stuff that was stored on the floor of the closet and our exterminator put down two traps. We (that is, I) also put back in place the board that covers the opening where a plumber can access the bathtub fixtures. This morning, something was making a big racket inside the closet but it wasn't a critter stuck to the traps. The board was still in place. Whatever it was had to be bigger than your average mouse or rat to make so much noise trying to dislodge the board, like maybe a possum or a 'coon. I'm afraid I may have to get my father's old .380 automatic and shoot the beast. The last time he used it, he shot a pocket gopher that was tearing up his front yard. I'm not sure I want to use it inside the house, though. It will make a helluva mess. If I could rent an anaconda or a rat snake, I'd turn it loose inside the walls of the house but if I do that, I will be living alone.
Apparently it is part of a man's job description to deal with rodents, from trapping or poisoning them to removing their carcasses. Women don't do this. They may deliver babies but they don't exterminate rodents. That's an overgeneralization - old farm women may do it, and grizzled old Marine Corps sergeants of the female variety may do it, but not your average housewife.
Aaahh, Spring in Florida. Hurricane season is just around the corner. It doesn't get any better than this.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Happy Chinese New Year!
Taken in San Francisco, not China, and taken in October, not this month - but happy new year anyway!
Monday, January 28, 2008
"TSA tester slips mock bomb past airport security"
Just when I thought it was safe to fly again. This happened at MY AIRPORT, the one my wife and I use, the one my children use whenever they come home for a visit:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/28/tsa.bombtest/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/28/tsa.bombtest/index.html
Sunday, January 27, 2008
In memory of Bobby Fischer
It's hard to remember nowadays how much attention the world paid to a chess tournament in 1972, when a kid from Brooklyn went up against the chess champion of the USSR and won. The cold war was still "hot" and the US was still in Viet Nam. Americans, who mostly don't play chess, got caught up in a 21-game tournament that ran for two months, with Fischer making demands for more money and the removal of a TV camera, and engaging in what Spassky complained was "psychological" warfare. That's Fischer on the right in this photo. Spassky, on the left, was the product of a Soviet system that groomed championship chess players and rewarded them well.
Sadly, Fischer went 'round the bend as he got older, dying of kidney failure on January 17. I'd rather not remember him as the anti-Semitic, anti-American recluse that he became. I'd rather remember him as the kid who took on the USSR and beat them at the chessboard.
Obama wins -- in South Carolina!
A new day is dawning in American politics.
You'll see that worn-out cliche more and more between now and November, but this is one cliche that happens to be true.
Barack Obama pulled in 55 percent of the vote, routing Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. This is big news, but not because he is from Illinois, and not because South Carolina people still tell stories about Sherman's infamous march to the sea as if it happened last year.
This is huge because he is the first black candidate for President to be taken seriously. Yes, we aren't supposed to vote for or against a candidate because of the candidate's race, or gender, or religion. But many voters do. You would have expected many South Carolinians to have voted for John Edwards because he is a photogenic white guy who was born in South Carolina . . . but Edwards placed a poor third with 18 percent, winning only his home county.
Obama inspires a lot of people but don't take my word for it. Believe Caroline Kennedy, who wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece: "I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them . . . But for the first time, I believe I have found a man who could be that president - and not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans."
You'll see that worn-out cliche more and more between now and November, but this is one cliche that happens to be true.
Barack Obama pulled in 55 percent of the vote, routing Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. This is big news, but not because he is from Illinois, and not because South Carolina people still tell stories about Sherman's infamous march to the sea as if it happened last year.
This is huge because he is the first black candidate for President to be taken seriously. Yes, we aren't supposed to vote for or against a candidate because of the candidate's race, or gender, or religion. But many voters do. You would have expected many South Carolinians to have voted for John Edwards because he is a photogenic white guy who was born in South Carolina . . . but Edwards placed a poor third with 18 percent, winning only his home county.
Obama inspires a lot of people but don't take my word for it. Believe Caroline Kennedy, who wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece: "I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them . . . But for the first time, I believe I have found a man who could be that president - and not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans."
Thursday, January 24, 2008
farewell to the "A-Train"
Mike Alstott, a six-time Pro Bowl player and a big favorite with Bucs fans for eleven seasons, announced his retirement from the game this week. Those of us who thought he was underutilized by Jon Gruden even before his neck injury are sad to see him go.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
one year, and counting down, for George W. Bush
As of tonight, January 20, 2008, the term of George W. Bush as President of the United States has exactly one year remaining . . . that's 365 days, if my little count-down computer has factored Leap Day into the equation correctly.
That's 366 days too many. I want him out of office yesterday.
It isn't just Dubya who bothers me as much as his circle of cronies and friends - the "Neocons" - who have been the puppet masters since he was elected.
Americans and the world have had to tolerate the Bush Administration for seven long years. Having to tolerate another year with the Bushies in office makes me envy the UK's Parliamentary system, where they can vote the rascal out with a "vote of no confidence." Would that work here? It might, but it assumes a certain level of competence in Congress and a desire to do the right thing for the nation regardless of political party dogma, all of which has been conspicuously lacking.
One more year.
That's 366 days too many. I want him out of office yesterday.
It isn't just Dubya who bothers me as much as his circle of cronies and friends - the "Neocons" - who have been the puppet masters since he was elected.
Americans and the world have had to tolerate the Bush Administration for seven long years. Having to tolerate another year with the Bushies in office makes me envy the UK's Parliamentary system, where they can vote the rascal out with a "vote of no confidence." Would that work here? It might, but it assumes a certain level of competence in Congress and a desire to do the right thing for the nation regardless of political party dogma, all of which has been conspicuously lacking.
One more year.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
hey, let's go to a movie
Time was, movies were a great escape. Comedies, musicals, the cowboy who always got the girl at the end, car chases in which only the bad guys crashed and burned, or the occasional James Bond spy thriller were just what you needed to disappear for a few hours and re-emerge with a lighter step.
In the last two days we've seen "Atonement," which left me depressed after the surprise ending caught me totally off guard, and "Sweeney Todd," which left my skin crawling.
"Sweeney Todd" is a dark 19th-century edition of "Devil in the White City" meets "Soylent Green" in London, with the main character played by Jack the Ripper, and with all the brightness and cheer of "Phantom of the Opera."
There is no disputing that Johnny Depp is a fine actor, and he should win an award for this one. In his next movie he should portray Vlad the Impaler, or maybe the Vampire LeStat.
I can't believe they released "Sweeney Todd" four days before Christmas. It would have been a good Halloween movie, but I agree with Garrison Keillor's comment that it was a long two hours and you get tired of the color gray after awhile. For him, the high point was after the movie when a tall woman (he could tell, by the size of her feet) wearing a long black coat emerged from a stall in the men's room and walked purposefully out. His column became a plug for correcting the inequities in men's and women's public bathrooms (the latter always being too small) and a plea for architects to forget their love of symmetry, go back to the drawing boards, and do the right thing for women. Otherwise, he predicts, the line between men's and women's bathrooms will be erased and men will have lost the last male preserve. Speaking as a guy who has stood lookout while my favorite lady avoided the ridiculously long line to the women's bathroom, I agree wholeheartedly.
But, back to the movies. I need a good escape, something along the lines of "Run Silent, Run Deep," in which Clark Gable teaches the crew how to take out an enemy tanker, then take out the approaching destroyer with a bow shot followed by a rapid descent ("DIVE, DIVE"). Now, that's my idea of great escape. Literally.
In the last two days we've seen "Atonement," which left me depressed after the surprise ending caught me totally off guard, and "Sweeney Todd," which left my skin crawling.
"Sweeney Todd" is a dark 19th-century edition of "Devil in the White City" meets "Soylent Green" in London, with the main character played by Jack the Ripper, and with all the brightness and cheer of "Phantom of the Opera."
There is no disputing that Johnny Depp is a fine actor, and he should win an award for this one. In his next movie he should portray Vlad the Impaler, or maybe the Vampire LeStat.
I can't believe they released "Sweeney Todd" four days before Christmas. It would have been a good Halloween movie, but I agree with Garrison Keillor's comment that it was a long two hours and you get tired of the color gray after awhile. For him, the high point was after the movie when a tall woman (he could tell, by the size of her feet) wearing a long black coat emerged from a stall in the men's room and walked purposefully out. His column became a plug for correcting the inequities in men's and women's public bathrooms (the latter always being too small) and a plea for architects to forget their love of symmetry, go back to the drawing boards, and do the right thing for women. Otherwise, he predicts, the line between men's and women's bathrooms will be erased and men will have lost the last male preserve. Speaking as a guy who has stood lookout while my favorite lady avoided the ridiculously long line to the women's bathroom, I agree wholeheartedly.
But, back to the movies. I need a good escape, something along the lines of "Run Silent, Run Deep," in which Clark Gable teaches the crew how to take out an enemy tanker, then take out the approaching destroyer with a bow shot followed by a rapid descent ("DIVE, DIVE"). Now, that's my idea of great escape. Literally.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
music from the 80's
In collecting music for my iPod I've discovered, to my surprise, that the music I like best is not the music from the 60's but the music from the 80's. Don't ask me why. There's no accounting for personal taste, whim or caprice. "It has a good beat and you can dance to it."
Here's a great video compilation of snippets from the music videos of the 80's featuring the top hits for each year of that decade. Ten minutes for ten years and worth almost every second of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TddFnTB_7IM&feature=related
Here's a great video compilation of snippets from the music videos of the 80's featuring the top hits for each year of that decade. Ten minutes for ten years and worth almost every second of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TddFnTB_7IM&feature=related
Monday, December 31, 2007
a happy new year to all of us
We are having a "safe and sane" New Year's, which means we didn't truck down to St. Petersburg as we have in the past. Instead, we had Thai take-out after watching FSU look better than expected against Kentucky, and now the Auburn-Clemson game is on.
Kentucky? In a bowl game? Playing football? And winning against FSU? Football is usually what they play waiting for basketball season to start. I can't say they looked great, but they were good enough to fend off a last-minute surge by FSU to hold onto their lead. FSU looked good enough to keep the wolves away from Bobby Bowden's front door for another year.
This has been a good year for us. We are still employed, and enjoy the work. We've had some highlights during the year to look back on. We have some major tasks to deal with in the next 4 to 6 weeks that won't be fun -- but if it was easy they wouldn't need us.
In case you have lost count, there are 55 weeks left in George Bush's occupancy of the White House. This time next year we will know who the next White House tenant is and at this point I (almost) don't care who it will be.
I could go on, but it's time to get back to the ball game. May 2008 be a good year for you, and for all of us, all around this small world.
Kentucky? In a bowl game? Playing football? And winning against FSU? Football is usually what they play waiting for basketball season to start. I can't say they looked great, but they were good enough to fend off a last-minute surge by FSU to hold onto their lead. FSU looked good enough to keep the wolves away from Bobby Bowden's front door for another year.
This has been a good year for us. We are still employed, and enjoy the work. We've had some highlights during the year to look back on. We have some major tasks to deal with in the next 4 to 6 weeks that won't be fun -- but if it was easy they wouldn't need us.
In case you have lost count, there are 55 weeks left in George Bush's occupancy of the White House. This time next year we will know who the next White House tenant is and at this point I (almost) don't care who it will be.
I could go on, but it's time to get back to the ball game. May 2008 be a good year for you, and for all of us, all around this small world.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
I'm definitely ready for a Christmas break
I'm remembering the Christmas break in college, when you'd take your last final for the quarter, drive or get a ride home, and collapse until New Year's.
I'm at that point now. I'm writing this at 1:00 a.m. because I just finished a home plumbing repair job and want to sit in a quiet house for a few minutes, knowing the job is done. Never, ever, start a plumbing job in the evening, after shutting off the water supply to the house. Never on a Friday evening. Never on the last Friday before Christmas, when your average plumber would respond to a call for help by telling me to take two aspirin and call back on January 2.
December has been one of those "joys of home ownership" months. Everything in the house seemed to come unglued or the wheels fell off. In no particular order:
The gas grill leaked gas from the hose that connects the regulator to the burners. Solution: A new tank, because the valve on the old one was defective, plus a new hose and regulator.
The pool pump, which sounded like a bucket of bolts anyway, began emitting a high-pitched whine, undoubtedly irritating the neighbors. Solution: New pump motor, which I installed myself, and a $109 repair job for a guy to come out and fix an air infiltration problem (which isn't totally fixed yet).
The fridge seemed to have a mysterious, random leak leaving small puddles of water every few days. I pulled it out to look behind it, got out the vacuum sweeper to clean up the crud that was under it . . . and the vacuum sweeper motor burned up. Solution: New vacuum sweeper. (I shoved the fridge back in place and it hasn't puddled since.)
The bathroom shower had a small drip, which brings me down to tonight. I should have saved this for January and made it a New Year's Resolution but, no, we are leaving for Boston and I didn't want it dripping while we were gone. A handle was corroded and stuck to a valve stem and I broke the stem. Solution: Not merely new washers, but new valve stems, seats, and handles to boot.
Problem saved for a New Year's Resolution: How to remove the old seats and put in the new ones. One of those tools you buy and then use once every eight or nine years is a seat removing tool. Mine didn't fit and neither did two versions bought from Lowe's, which will be returned to Lowe's tomorow.
I take a perverse pleasure in doing odd jobs around the house. What I do for a living can take months or years before anyone can see results and it doesn't get my hands dirty. When I see that a pool pump motor that I installed works and doesn't emit green sparks, or the shower doesn't drip after spending entirely too much time on it, I get Job Satisfaction. I love it.
I mowed the lawn this afternoon, too. December 21, and I'm out mowing the lawn. For Christmas, all I want is a bowl of egg nog to drink with my shoes off. I'm ready for a break.
I'm at that point now. I'm writing this at 1:00 a.m. because I just finished a home plumbing repair job and want to sit in a quiet house for a few minutes, knowing the job is done. Never, ever, start a plumbing job in the evening, after shutting off the water supply to the house. Never on a Friday evening. Never on the last Friday before Christmas, when your average plumber would respond to a call for help by telling me to take two aspirin and call back on January 2.
December has been one of those "joys of home ownership" months. Everything in the house seemed to come unglued or the wheels fell off. In no particular order:
The gas grill leaked gas from the hose that connects the regulator to the burners. Solution: A new tank, because the valve on the old one was defective, plus a new hose and regulator.
The pool pump, which sounded like a bucket of bolts anyway, began emitting a high-pitched whine, undoubtedly irritating the neighbors. Solution: New pump motor, which I installed myself, and a $109 repair job for a guy to come out and fix an air infiltration problem (which isn't totally fixed yet).
The fridge seemed to have a mysterious, random leak leaving small puddles of water every few days. I pulled it out to look behind it, got out the vacuum sweeper to clean up the crud that was under it . . . and the vacuum sweeper motor burned up. Solution: New vacuum sweeper. (I shoved the fridge back in place and it hasn't puddled since.)
The bathroom shower had a small drip, which brings me down to tonight. I should have saved this for January and made it a New Year's Resolution but, no, we are leaving for Boston and I didn't want it dripping while we were gone. A handle was corroded and stuck to a valve stem and I broke the stem. Solution: Not merely new washers, but new valve stems, seats, and handles to boot.
Problem saved for a New Year's Resolution: How to remove the old seats and put in the new ones. One of those tools you buy and then use once every eight or nine years is a seat removing tool. Mine didn't fit and neither did two versions bought from Lowe's, which will be returned to Lowe's tomorow.
I take a perverse pleasure in doing odd jobs around the house. What I do for a living can take months or years before anyone can see results and it doesn't get my hands dirty. When I see that a pool pump motor that I installed works and doesn't emit green sparks, or the shower doesn't drip after spending entirely too much time on it, I get Job Satisfaction. I love it.
I mowed the lawn this afternoon, too. December 21, and I'm out mowing the lawn. For Christmas, all I want is a bowl of egg nog to drink with my shoes off. I'm ready for a break.
Friday, December 21, 2007
happy anniversary, Mom and Dad
December 21 would have been their 66th wedding anniversary. I'm very grateful that they met and married. Otherwise, I'd have a hard time explaining myself.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
missing persons report
This is is among my parents' collection of old photos that I've been trying to decide what to do with. To make a long story short, I've found this family thanks to Google and the Internet, and I'm sending the original to the boy's cousin, who will give it to him. I'll not mention their names to protect their privacy but one huge clue was that I knew the city they came from. After the war they went back home and raised their family. I wouldn't have found them except that their synagogue's newsletter from several years ago is still on line to be found by snoops like me. Don't you love those smiles?
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
"Clearwater City" -- the worst place to retire?
The following is from America On-Line's "Finance" page, in which they list the 13 worst places to retire. The worst place? Read on:
Clearwater City, Fla.
Too Many Fellow Seniors
This Tampa Bay area hamlet has the highest percentage of seniors of any U.S. city. This 'graying' of Florida in general, has caused many retirees to change their mind and leave, fleeing the bland culture, extreme weather and high real estate and homeowner's insurance prices of Florida.
Hmmph. For openers, there is no hamlet named "Clearwater City," although there is a city named the City of Clearwater. We have a Dade City, a Panama City, even a Florida City, but not a Clearwater City by that name. When I see a blunder like that, I have to ask, do they have any clue what they are talking about?
Having lived in the City of Clearwater (off and on) since 1955, I have as much right to knock my home town as anybody, and I have done so, but let's be fair. Clearwater was a small town until the 1960's, a nice place on the Gulf to grow up and then raise a family. As it grew over the past 40 years it never pretended to be another Tampa or even another St. Petersburg, which used to have a reputation as the place to retire and listen to your arteries harden as you sat on their green benches.
Too many seniors? If your idea of retirement is to hole up in a condo populated by people of your generation who have nothing to do but sit around and bitch about everything, that's a problem. Personally, I've met a lot of people older than myself, mainly through our Methodist church, and I can tell you they are a lively bunch of positive-minded people who would make great neighbors.
If you want culture, meaning the performing arts or the fine arts, you can go to several venues in the Tampa Bay area including our own Ruth Eckerd Hall. If "bland culture" means bland architecture and plain-vanilla Midwestern social values, we plead guilty, but so does every other city and town on Florida's Gulf Coast.
Extreme weather? It gets hot in the summer, but we never see 100-degree days or even temps in the high 90's. It ain't the heat, it's the humidity, which is why God created air-conditioning on the Eighth Day. In the winter, we rarely see a "hard freeze," which is what the strawberry and citrus growers call it when it drops below 32º F. for more than a few hours.
High real estate and homeowner's insurance prices? This is the only part of the piece that has any validity but none of it is unique to Clearwater. The real estate market is in the tank and prices are high, but that's a national problem. The state legislature is too deep in the pockets of the industry to make any headway on homeowner's insurance, but these problems are common throughout Florida.
In short, I've lived here for 29 of the past 52 years and will probably retire here unless I hit the Florida Lottery, and even then I'm not sure I'd blow the money on an expensive home somewhere else.
Clearwater City, Fla.
Too Many Fellow Seniors
This Tampa Bay area hamlet has the highest percentage of seniors of any U.S. city. This 'graying' of Florida in general, has caused many retirees to change their mind and leave, fleeing the bland culture, extreme weather and high real estate and homeowner's insurance prices of Florida.
Hmmph. For openers, there is no hamlet named "Clearwater City," although there is a city named the City of Clearwater. We have a Dade City, a Panama City, even a Florida City, but not a Clearwater City by that name. When I see a blunder like that, I have to ask, do they have any clue what they are talking about?
Having lived in the City of Clearwater (off and on) since 1955, I have as much right to knock my home town as anybody, and I have done so, but let's be fair. Clearwater was a small town until the 1960's, a nice place on the Gulf to grow up and then raise a family. As it grew over the past 40 years it never pretended to be another Tampa or even another St. Petersburg, which used to have a reputation as the place to retire and listen to your arteries harden as you sat on their green benches.
Too many seniors? If your idea of retirement is to hole up in a condo populated by people of your generation who have nothing to do but sit around and bitch about everything, that's a problem. Personally, I've met a lot of people older than myself, mainly through our Methodist church, and I can tell you they are a lively bunch of positive-minded people who would make great neighbors.
If you want culture, meaning the performing arts or the fine arts, you can go to several venues in the Tampa Bay area including our own Ruth Eckerd Hall. If "bland culture" means bland architecture and plain-vanilla Midwestern social values, we plead guilty, but so does every other city and town on Florida's Gulf Coast.
Extreme weather? It gets hot in the summer, but we never see 100-degree days or even temps in the high 90's. It ain't the heat, it's the humidity, which is why God created air-conditioning on the Eighth Day. In the winter, we rarely see a "hard freeze," which is what the strawberry and citrus growers call it when it drops below 32º F. for more than a few hours.
High real estate and homeowner's insurance prices? This is the only part of the piece that has any validity but none of it is unique to Clearwater. The real estate market is in the tank and prices are high, but that's a national problem. The state legislature is too deep in the pockets of the industry to make any headway on homeowner's insurance, but these problems are common throughout Florida.
In short, I've lived here for 29 of the past 52 years and will probably retire here unless I hit the Florida Lottery, and even then I'm not sure I'd blow the money on an expensive home somewhere else.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Christmas, 1979
One thing Christmas does for you is bring back memories of childhood, hopefully happy memories. Here, our twins, who were four-and-a-half at the time.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
thanksgiving
We spent Thanksgiving with our son and daughter-in-law in Pennsylvania, where he's started dental school and she's holding down two jobs, one of which furthers her career as a chemist. The other is a fine place to raise some extra cash and take advantage of the employees' discount on some very nice stuff although most of it is "chick" stuff (Anthropologie). We were joined by a daughter who now lives in Boston. It was good to have half of our offspring and half of our two children-in-law (what a horrible-sounding term) with us.
They cooked a 20-pound turkey for the five of us, and about five side dishes and three pies. We had to buy a third seat on the airplane so the two of us could fit in on the flight home. Just kidding, but an empty third seat would have been nice. Fat chance, on a Thanksgiving weekend.
The weather was refreshingly cold, but damp, and the fall leaves hadn't all gone. We hiked a trail a short distance to a covered bridge and back, visited Amish country, saw the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, strolled through the Reading Terminal Market, and of course tried some Philly steak sandwiches (at Rick's - the "works"), and visited Valley Forge.
The last time I saw Valley Forge was during a Boy Scout National Jamboree, too many years ago to even think about it. That's where the American Revolution nearly died. 12,000 soldiers went in, 6,000 came out. 2,000 died, but they've found only one grave. The rest either deserted or their enlistments ran out and they went home. But, in the springtime, the ranks of the American army grew and they were turned into soldiers, not just a ragged band of "embattled farmers." The war slugged on for another three years and you know how the story turned out.
Thansgiving conjures up thoughts of family, food and friends, but I have to admit that this year I was thinking about those barefooted guys who were not summer soldiers or sunshine patriots, and feeling very thankful for their legacy.
If they hadn't succeeded, we'd all be speaking English.
They cooked a 20-pound turkey for the five of us, and about five side dishes and three pies. We had to buy a third seat on the airplane so the two of us could fit in on the flight home. Just kidding, but an empty third seat would have been nice. Fat chance, on a Thanksgiving weekend.
The weather was refreshingly cold, but damp, and the fall leaves hadn't all gone. We hiked a trail a short distance to a covered bridge and back, visited Amish country, saw the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, strolled through the Reading Terminal Market, and of course tried some Philly steak sandwiches (at Rick's - the "works"), and visited Valley Forge.
The last time I saw Valley Forge was during a Boy Scout National Jamboree, too many years ago to even think about it. That's where the American Revolution nearly died. 12,000 soldiers went in, 6,000 came out. 2,000 died, but they've found only one grave. The rest either deserted or their enlistments ran out and they went home. But, in the springtime, the ranks of the American army grew and they were turned into soldiers, not just a ragged band of "embattled farmers." The war slugged on for another three years and you know how the story turned out.
Thansgiving conjures up thoughts of family, food and friends, but I have to admit that this year I was thinking about those barefooted guys who were not summer soldiers or sunshine patriots, and feeling very thankful for their legacy.
If they hadn't succeeded, we'd all be speaking English.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
simplicity
"Simplicity is knowing when less is too little and more is too much. Simplicity = Sanity."
I found that statement in a YouTube movie, which you can see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGHgu0ZYYZc
I've become a teacher of legal writing, at least to the extent of presenting papers to local government lawyers on the topic of writing land development regulations. A primary objective of legal writers is to make what you write understandable. If something can be misunderstood, it will be, especially if it suits someone's purpose to appear confused. Write clearly. Brevity is the essence of clarity.
I don't know the source of the quotation, above, but I'd like to use it if I revise my paper on legal writing. Knowing when to stop writing and start chopping surplusage from your sentences is an important task for any writer.
For example, knowing when to stop writing this blog entry is important.
Like, right here would be a good time to stop . . . right after I go back and cut out a few unnecessary words . . . OK, I'm done now.
I found that statement in a YouTube movie, which you can see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGHgu0ZYYZc
I've become a teacher of legal writing, at least to the extent of presenting papers to local government lawyers on the topic of writing land development regulations. A primary objective of legal writers is to make what you write understandable. If something can be misunderstood, it will be, especially if it suits someone's purpose to appear confused. Write clearly. Brevity is the essence of clarity.
I don't know the source of the quotation, above, but I'd like to use it if I revise my paper on legal writing. Knowing when to stop writing and start chopping surplusage from your sentences is an important task for any writer.
For example, knowing when to stop writing this blog entry is important.
Like, right here would be a good time to stop . . . right after I go back and cut out a few unnecessary words . . . OK, I'm done now.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
the "dead cat bounce"
I heard an expression today that I've never heard before, not being an avid follower of the stock market until recently.
It seems that Wall Street made a dramatic jump by nearly 320 points today after four days of falling prices. The expression, "dead cat bounce," is being used as part of a question. The question is, was today only a temporary rise in what is otherwise a falling market? Was today an example of a "dead cat bounce?" ("Even a dead cat will bounce if dropped from high enough.")
Until recently I could not have cared less about such things. Some of us children of the 50's and 60's grew up thinking that retirement was going to be out of the question because we'd never live so long. Thanks to the Cold War, Khrushchev's threat to bury us, images of the mushroom cloud, the Berlin Wall, Viet Nam, and the prospect of gasoline selling for as much as a dollar a gallon (yes, chillun, it's true . . . I once bought gas for 13.9 cents a gallon in Perry, Florida, where they knew how to run a gas war), the future looked awfully bleak. Doing our duck-and-cover drills at Tarpon Springs Elementary School, we joked that if the Russians fired their ICBM's at MacDill Air Force Base, they'd miss and hit us instead. Har-de-har.
Then it dawned on many of us that we might actually live so long as to become a burden on our children, and we took new interest in 401 plans, defined-benefit plans versus defined-contribution plans, annuities, and the cost of health insurance -- all those old-folks worries. The question of whether today was just a "dead cat bounce" has real meaning . . . not as exciting as Huck Finn's cure for warts, but more meaningful.
It seems that Wall Street made a dramatic jump by nearly 320 points today after four days of falling prices. The expression, "dead cat bounce," is being used as part of a question. The question is, was today only a temporary rise in what is otherwise a falling market? Was today an example of a "dead cat bounce?" ("Even a dead cat will bounce if dropped from high enough.")
Until recently I could not have cared less about such things. Some of us children of the 50's and 60's grew up thinking that retirement was going to be out of the question because we'd never live so long. Thanks to the Cold War, Khrushchev's threat to bury us, images of the mushroom cloud, the Berlin Wall, Viet Nam, and the prospect of gasoline selling for as much as a dollar a gallon (yes, chillun, it's true . . . I once bought gas for 13.9 cents a gallon in Perry, Florida, where they knew how to run a gas war), the future looked awfully bleak. Doing our duck-and-cover drills at Tarpon Springs Elementary School, we joked that if the Russians fired their ICBM's at MacDill Air Force Base, they'd miss and hit us instead. Har-de-har.
Then it dawned on many of us that we might actually live so long as to become a burden on our children, and we took new interest in 401 plans, defined-benefit plans versus defined-contribution plans, annuities, and the cost of health insurance -- all those old-folks worries. The question of whether today was just a "dead cat bounce" has real meaning . . . not as exciting as Huck Finn's cure for warts, but more meaningful.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Kevin Coster, the musician - who woulda thunkit?
The other night I went to the park for the unveiling of the new look for the Tampa Bay Rays (see below).
One of the main features was a performance by Kevin Coster and his band.
Right, I thought. He'll play a few chords, sing along with a band in a monotone, and collect a huge fee for appearing.
Well, guess what? He and his band play a righteous, foot-stompin' brand of rock and roll. With the fancy high-tech stage setup and lighting, it wasn't always easy to figure out who was singing what and who was playing what, but the overall effect was . . . where can I buy one of their CDs? I couldn't find one of their tunes on iTunes. And, I see he is suing a promoter for failing to promote their albums, asking for millions in damages.
Note to my children: If you are looking for a Christmas idea, this is a tip. Here's another tip: I bought one of the good-quality "on-field" TB Rays baseball caps. Now I need a good quality Red Sox cap (hat size 7 5/8). As one of my observant daughters reminded me recently, I bought the cheap version in Boston some years ago, and I can't have my new TB cap looking better than a Red Sox cap.
One of the main features was a performance by Kevin Coster and his band.
Right, I thought. He'll play a few chords, sing along with a band in a monotone, and collect a huge fee for appearing.
Well, guess what? He and his band play a righteous, foot-stompin' brand of rock and roll. With the fancy high-tech stage setup and lighting, it wasn't always easy to figure out who was singing what and who was playing what, but the overall effect was . . . where can I buy one of their CDs? I couldn't find one of their tunes on iTunes. And, I see he is suing a promoter for failing to promote their albums, asking for millions in damages.
Note to my children: If you are looking for a Christmas idea, this is a tip. Here's another tip: I bought one of the good-quality "on-field" TB Rays baseball caps. Now I need a good quality Red Sox cap (hat size 7 5/8). As one of my observant daughters reminded me recently, I bought the cheap version in Boston some years ago, and I can't have my new TB cap looking better than a Red Sox cap.
The Official Site of the Tampa Bay Rays
The Rays (no longer the Devil Rays) have a new look. Check it out:
The Official Site of the Tampa Bay Rays: News
The Official Site of the Tampa Bay Rays: News
Thursday, November 08, 2007
just hobbling around
Last week I went to a conference in Nashville. One of the entertainment events was a softball game, so I signed up in advance and took my old glove.
How dangerous can slow-pitch softball be, played by a bunch of middle-aged lawyers?
Heh. It seems that these guys play softball frequently and seriously. One of them has played every week for 35 years with seven other members of his high school baseball team.
So I'm standing on first base, feeling good about hitting into short center field and driving in two runs. Short center is where the ball has always gone for me, man and boy, my whole life. I can't pull it into left field and I've never hit it over the fence but I can usually get a good single.
The batter after me was the once-a-week player I described above. He hit into deep right field . . . an inside the park homer except I'm in front of him. He's a faster runner but he was too smart to pass me. I thought he was going to carry me in. I felt like the road runner, wheels spinning, but no traction on the ground. As I'm approaching third base I felt the unmistakable twinge of a pulled hamstring, also known as a torn hamstring, and I hobbled home with the batter right behind me.
That was a week ago. I've been hobbling around with an Ace bandage from hip to knee and a fairly dramatic bruise on the back of my thigh.
I've been saying to myself all summer that I need to start walking/ jogging/ running but the weather was too danged hot. Now that the weather is cooling off, I definitely need to start walking/ jogging/ running but I'm going to have to wait another 5-6 weeks while my hamstring gets back to normal, and then it will be slow going.
Getting old isn't hell. Being soft and out of shape definitely is.
How dangerous can slow-pitch softball be, played by a bunch of middle-aged lawyers?
Heh. It seems that these guys play softball frequently and seriously. One of them has played every week for 35 years with seven other members of his high school baseball team.
So I'm standing on first base, feeling good about hitting into short center field and driving in two runs. Short center is where the ball has always gone for me, man and boy, my whole life. I can't pull it into left field and I've never hit it over the fence but I can usually get a good single.
The batter after me was the once-a-week player I described above. He hit into deep right field . . . an inside the park homer except I'm in front of him. He's a faster runner but he was too smart to pass me. I thought he was going to carry me in. I felt like the road runner, wheels spinning, but no traction on the ground. As I'm approaching third base I felt the unmistakable twinge of a pulled hamstring, also known as a torn hamstring, and I hobbled home with the batter right behind me.
That was a week ago. I've been hobbling around with an Ace bandage from hip to knee and a fairly dramatic bruise on the back of my thigh.
I've been saying to myself all summer that I need to start walking/ jogging/ running but the weather was too danged hot. Now that the weather is cooling off, I definitely need to start walking/ jogging/ running but I'm going to have to wait another 5-6 weeks while my hamstring gets back to normal, and then it will be slow going.
Getting old isn't hell. Being soft and out of shape definitely is.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
post-election blues, city style
My fair city (the one I work for) had an election yesterday. At stake were four of the eight city councilmember seats.
We've had this grumbling of the citizens, a taxpayer revolt, building up for months now. With half of the city council seats at stake, you'd think we would have had a high voter turn-out.
Not so. Would you believe only 9 percent of the 156,146 registered voters . . . a record low . . . bothered to take the few minutes required to go vote? The margin of victory was only 257 votes in one race and 611 votes in another race. The final outcome in one of the races hung in the balance until nearly midnight.
As it turned out, two "outsiders" who are critical of the mayor's fiscal policies got elected. That may be good news to disgruntled voters but the 91 percent who stayed away from the polls can claim no credit for the results. If any of them are not happy with the results they can share the blame.
One solution to the problems of our government at all levels - federal, state, and local - is to vote the rascals out. We don't do that. (In our case, the two "outsiders" who got elected were not running against incumbents.) Maybe we deserve what we get.
Ridiculous.
We've had this grumbling of the citizens, a taxpayer revolt, building up for months now. With half of the city council seats at stake, you'd think we would have had a high voter turn-out.
Not so. Would you believe only 9 percent of the 156,146 registered voters . . . a record low . . . bothered to take the few minutes required to go vote? The margin of victory was only 257 votes in one race and 611 votes in another race. The final outcome in one of the races hung in the balance until nearly midnight.
As it turned out, two "outsiders" who are critical of the mayor's fiscal policies got elected. That may be good news to disgruntled voters but the 91 percent who stayed away from the polls can claim no credit for the results. If any of them are not happy with the results they can share the blame.
One solution to the problems of our government at all levels - federal, state, and local - is to vote the rascals out. We don't do that. (In our case, the two "outsiders" who got elected were not running against incumbents.) Maybe we deserve what we get.
Ridiculous.
Monday, November 05, 2007
63 weeks
If you are reading this on Monday, November 5, count ahead 441 days. That will bring you to January 20, 2009, which will be George W. Bush's last day in office.
441 days = 63 weeks.
That sounds like a long time, and it is. You can't hold your breath that long, and 63 more weeks with Dubya in office is 63 weeks too long. But time flies whether you are having fun or not. Sixty-three weeks will glide slowly by like clockwork, or in this case maybe like a plateful of stuffed jalapenas passing through every inch of your digestive system, but both the time and the jalapenas will pass. Dubya will enjoy two more Christmases in the White House but only one more Halloween. For the rest of us, that may seem like 441 more Halloweens until he packs up and moves to Texas or wherever, but the time will come.
441 days = 63 weeks.
That sounds like a long time, and it is. You can't hold your breath that long, and 63 more weeks with Dubya in office is 63 weeks too long. But time flies whether you are having fun or not. Sixty-three weeks will glide slowly by like clockwork, or in this case maybe like a plateful of stuffed jalapenas passing through every inch of your digestive system, but both the time and the jalapenas will pass. Dubya will enjoy two more Christmases in the White House but only one more Halloween. For the rest of us, that may seem like 441 more Halloweens until he packs up and moves to Texas or wherever, but the time will come.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Happy Halloween!
This is the first time in maybe 30 years I haven't carved a pumpkin for Halloween, the consequence of being out of town until late today. I'm happy the ghosts and goblins didn't soap the windows or tip the outhouse over, or do they do that anymore? Here, a relic of an earlier year:
Thursday, October 25, 2007
writing in Bob Graham for President
For weeks now, I've been fuming about the Democratic National Committee's threat not to seat the delegates from Florida because Florida will have the effrontery, the unmitigated gall, to hold a primary in January. The Democratic candidates took a pledge not to campaign in Florida (thereby sparing us from many hours of inane commercials, thank you) but that hasn't stopped them from coming here to collect big bucks from people fool enough to contribute to their campaigns.
I've threatened to become a Republican, but I fear my parents would come back to haunt me.
I've threatened to become an Independent, but it would be easier just to stay home on primary election day. . .same effect.
Instead, I am going to write in Bob Graham's name for President and I encourage all Florida Democrats to do the same. Bob is undoubtedly among the most intelligent and most ethical of all elected officials in the past 40 years, and he's had experience as an executive, serving as Governor of Florida before being elected to the Senate.
A big write-in for Bob Graham would send several messages to the DNC and to all the Democratic candidates who consider Florida as little more than a cash cow to be milked. The least articulate message would be, you stink. A better message would be that the people of Florida, surveying the field of candidates, find them all lacking but we know Bob Graham, who set the standard, and we would be glad to send him to the White House. Yet another message would be that we find Bob Graham a better choice than Al Gore although Gore seems to be a media darling nowadays.
Writing in Bob Graham will also be better than pretending I'm a Republican or staying away from the polls on primary election day.
Some decisons make you feel better just for having made them, and this is one of them.
I've threatened to become a Republican, but I fear my parents would come back to haunt me.
I've threatened to become an Independent, but it would be easier just to stay home on primary election day. . .same effect.
Instead, I am going to write in Bob Graham's name for President and I encourage all Florida Democrats to do the same. Bob is undoubtedly among the most intelligent and most ethical of all elected officials in the past 40 years, and he's had experience as an executive, serving as Governor of Florida before being elected to the Senate.
A big write-in for Bob Graham would send several messages to the DNC and to all the Democratic candidates who consider Florida as little more than a cash cow to be milked. The least articulate message would be, you stink. A better message would be that the people of Florida, surveying the field of candidates, find them all lacking but we know Bob Graham, who set the standard, and we would be glad to send him to the White House. Yet another message would be that we find Bob Graham a better choice than Al Gore although Gore seems to be a media darling nowadays.
Writing in Bob Graham will also be better than pretending I'm a Republican or staying away from the polls on primary election day.
Some decisons make you feel better just for having made them, and this is one of them.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
look, Ma, I'm a published author!
I've become a big fan of CNN's Jack Cafferty. Among other things, he poses questions about national affairs and invites viewers to email answers, and he reads a select few at the end of the program.
Tonight the question was, "Why do Americans trust the government less today than during the Watergate era?"
If you were paying close attention you heard him read a reply from Al, from Florida, who said, "Except for times when greatness was demanded as a matter of survival (the Civil War, World War II), the federal government has always been venal, corrupt and untrustworthy. The difference now is that the news media have developed the roasting of politicians into an art form. They aren't worse, merely over-exposed. Keep up the good work."
I think I could have said over-cooked instead of over-exposed, but it was good enough to get selected. I'm sure that the "keep up the good work" line was the part that grabbed their attention and made it a winner.
Tonight the question was, "Why do Americans trust the government less today than during the Watergate era?"
If you were paying close attention you heard him read a reply from Al, from Florida, who said, "Except for times when greatness was demanded as a matter of survival (the Civil War, World War II), the federal government has always been venal, corrupt and untrustworthy. The difference now is that the news media have developed the roasting of politicians into an art form. They aren't worse, merely over-exposed. Keep up the good work."
I think I could have said over-cooked instead of over-exposed, but it was good enough to get selected. I'm sure that the "keep up the good work" line was the part that grabbed their attention and made it a winner.
Monday, September 17, 2007
the countdown continues
490 days. Or, think of it as only 70 weeks. Nice round numbers, both of them, and getting smaller with every sunrise.
That's how much longer until the last day of George W. Bush's term in office.
Tonight I had dinner with three fellow "book club exiles." One is an old-time Boston Democrat and two describe themselves as "PORs," or "pissed-off Republicans." They've been in that frame of mind since Bush's election to the White House. His first election, that is.
I still don't know which primary election I'm going to vote in. That is to say, I don't know if the Democratic National Committee will make good on its threat not to seat the Florida delegates. If they do, I'm jumping ship to the Republican Party. That's a secret between you and me. I'll make a terrible Republican but at least they'll count my vote.
That's how much longer until the last day of George W. Bush's term in office.
Tonight I had dinner with three fellow "book club exiles." One is an old-time Boston Democrat and two describe themselves as "PORs," or "pissed-off Republicans." They've been in that frame of mind since Bush's election to the White House. His first election, that is.
I still don't know which primary election I'm going to vote in. That is to say, I don't know if the Democratic National Committee will make good on its threat not to seat the Florida delegates. If they do, I'm jumping ship to the Republican Party. That's a secret between you and me. I'll make a terrible Republican but at least they'll count my vote.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
election capers
Yesterday I got to view our elections superviser's office from behind the scenes as they process the ballots in our city's primary election.
I don't think the voters in "Flori-duh" are stupider than a general cross-section of the nation but some of them demonstrated yesterday that if there is a way to spoil their ballot, a sophisticated $14 million voting system will not stand in their way.
Some voters went to the trouble of getting absentee ballots, then paid 94 cents each to mail them in. Despite numerous warnings to sign the exterior envelope, several did not do so and their ballots won't even be opened.
Several ballots were disqualified because they undervoted (didn't vote for anybody) or overvoted (voted for more than one candidate). You need to know that there was only one race in each of two city council districts, and each race had either three or four candidates, so the voter's job was to vote for one, just one, only one, no more than one candidate.
One wise guy, apparently offended that he had only one race to vote in, wrote "what a waster of taxpayer's money" on the ballot. We saw that message only because the machine kicked his ballot out as an "undervote." Yep, he didn't even vote in the one race he could vote in.
Some ballots were mutiliated. They were printed on long sheets of paper, which in a normal election would be filled up with several lists of candidates and ballot questions. Some people cut off the bottom two thirds and mailed in the top third. This was a problem because the computer needed to "see" some codes at the bottom of the sheet. To make the ballots machine readable, elections officials duplicated them on full-sized sheets and ran the full-sized sheets through the machine.
To vote, you had to fill in the space between two short bars, connecting them to form a long bar next to your candidate of choice. This was too confusing for some people. Somebody drew an arrow next to his or her candidate. Another made one of the short bars even darker. The canvassing board gave them credit for their efforts and their votes were counted but the ballots had to be duplicated to be machine readable.
I mentioned that the voting system cost $14 million. We've used the system for less than two years. Somebody convinced somebody in Tallahassee that the system could be fooled, so the system will be discarded in favor of another multi-million-dollar system. The system now being used cannot even be sold for scrap. The counties are picking up half the cost of the new system even though the state forced the change on them. The new system will, trust me, be fooled by some fool.
Flori-duh, indeed.
I don't think the voters in "Flori-duh" are stupider than a general cross-section of the nation but some of them demonstrated yesterday that if there is a way to spoil their ballot, a sophisticated $14 million voting system will not stand in their way.
Some voters went to the trouble of getting absentee ballots, then paid 94 cents each to mail them in. Despite numerous warnings to sign the exterior envelope, several did not do so and their ballots won't even be opened.
Several ballots were disqualified because they undervoted (didn't vote for anybody) or overvoted (voted for more than one candidate). You need to know that there was only one race in each of two city council districts, and each race had either three or four candidates, so the voter's job was to vote for one, just one, only one, no more than one candidate.
One wise guy, apparently offended that he had only one race to vote in, wrote "what a waster of taxpayer's money" on the ballot. We saw that message only because the machine kicked his ballot out as an "undervote." Yep, he didn't even vote in the one race he could vote in.
Some ballots were mutiliated. They were printed on long sheets of paper, which in a normal election would be filled up with several lists of candidates and ballot questions. Some people cut off the bottom two thirds and mailed in the top third. This was a problem because the computer needed to "see" some codes at the bottom of the sheet. To make the ballots machine readable, elections officials duplicated them on full-sized sheets and ran the full-sized sheets through the machine.
To vote, you had to fill in the space between two short bars, connecting them to form a long bar next to your candidate of choice. This was too confusing for some people. Somebody drew an arrow next to his or her candidate. Another made one of the short bars even darker. The canvassing board gave them credit for their efforts and their votes were counted but the ballots had to be duplicated to be machine readable.
I mentioned that the voting system cost $14 million. We've used the system for less than two years. Somebody convinced somebody in Tallahassee that the system could be fooled, so the system will be discarded in favor of another multi-million-dollar system. The system now being used cannot even be sold for scrap. The counties are picking up half the cost of the new system even though the state forced the change on them. The new system will, trust me, be fooled by some fool.
Flori-duh, indeed.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
celebrating September 11
My city (that is, the one I work for) is having an election today, with two seats on the city council up for grabs. We will have a new councilmember in at least one of those seats. The incumbent has a pretty fair chance of getting re-elected to the other one.
I think this is a wonderful thing to do on September 11.
Our voters don't go home with purple ink on their thumbs but they don't worry about being shot or bombed on their way to the polling places, either.
There are millions of people on this Earth who have no idea what an open democratic election is.
I have a few stories I'll share later about the stupidity of a few of the voters. In our society, even stupid people get to vote. Stupid people need representation too, which explains why we sometimes get so many stupid Congressmen. But, don't get me started.
I think this is a wonderful thing to do on September 11.
Our voters don't go home with purple ink on their thumbs but they don't worry about being shot or bombed on their way to the polling places, either.
There are millions of people on this Earth who have no idea what an open democratic election is.
I have a few stories I'll share later about the stupidity of a few of the voters. In our society, even stupid people get to vote. Stupid people need representation too, which explains why we sometimes get so many stupid Congressmen. But, don't get me started.
Monday, September 10, 2007
bad news comes in threes
Last week I posted a couple of notes about acquaintances of mine chucking their lives and their fortunes down the toilet due to greed. The week ended on the same miserable note when an elected official in my city, a man with an excellent reputation among those who saw only his public persona, was revealed to have a dark side. How dark? We are talking about allegations of child molestation against his own adopted children. We are talking about court orders to stay away from the children. We are talking about divorce.
He resigned from office, then went home and committed suicide.
There are times when a word like "shock" is inadequate. The man should be remembered for the good that he did as a city councilman and in other public capacities. I've worked with a great many elected officials and I'd rank him up there with the best. The sad reality was captured by Shakespeare about 400 years ago: The evil men do lives after them but the good is oft interred with their bones.
He resigned from office, then went home and committed suicide.
There are times when a word like "shock" is inadequate. The man should be remembered for the good that he did as a city councilman and in other public capacities. I've worked with a great many elected officials and I'd rank him up there with the best. The sad reality was captured by Shakespeare about 400 years ago: The evil men do lives after them but the good is oft interred with their bones.
Friday, September 07, 2007
500 days
As of today, there are 500 days left until the end of George W. Bush's presidency.
That's 71 weeks and two days plus what's left of today.
That's 71 weeks and two days plus what's left of today.
I'm tempted to say that the last couple of days won't count, but Bill Clinton made a lot of money selling pardons before leaving office. On his last day, he issued 141 pardons and 36 commutations, thereby undoing (in my humble opinion) whatever claim to greatness he might otherwise be able to make.
I only wish that Dubya had a claim to greatness . . . any claim, any sort of claim at all. He does not.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
another one bites the dust
Lately the newspapers are full of stories about lawyers and politicians being taken away to jail, not to mention movie "stars" and other folks who ought to know better. After posting my note earlier this week about a lawyer I know who is going to jail, I learned of another one, this one a guy I knew as a fellow student in law school.
He was the quiet type in law school. Like me, he didn't raise his hand much and didn't seem particularly outspoken about anything. After law school, he surprised me and I suspect a lot of our classmates by his success, first as a lawyer in private practice and then as a state senator, a county commissioner, a state prosecutor, and finally as Sheriff of Broward County.
This week he resigned and then entered a guilty plea in federal court to charges arising from some petty transactions involving a land developer. Failure to report, failure to pay taxes . . . you've seen this story before. His story reminds me of the old "joke" about stealing money. If you are going to steal, don't steal the petty cash fund. Steal a huge amount and then flee to a country that won't allow your extradition back to the U.S.
In his case, as in so many others, I just don't get it. He had no doubt where his next meal or the next payment on his Mercedes was coming from. Now he is at risk of losing a state pension worth more per year than what I'm getting paid and I'm still working for a living. He is also en route to federal prison.
Working for a living. That pretty much sums it up. Some of us do, and some of us are looking for the easy way out.
He was the quiet type in law school. Like me, he didn't raise his hand much and didn't seem particularly outspoken about anything. After law school, he surprised me and I suspect a lot of our classmates by his success, first as a lawyer in private practice and then as a state senator, a county commissioner, a state prosecutor, and finally as Sheriff of Broward County.
This week he resigned and then entered a guilty plea in federal court to charges arising from some petty transactions involving a land developer. Failure to report, failure to pay taxes . . . you've seen this story before. His story reminds me of the old "joke" about stealing money. If you are going to steal, don't steal the petty cash fund. Steal a huge amount and then flee to a country that won't allow your extradition back to the U.S.
In his case, as in so many others, I just don't get it. He had no doubt where his next meal or the next payment on his Mercedes was coming from. Now he is at risk of losing a state pension worth more per year than what I'm getting paid and I'm still working for a living. He is also en route to federal prison.
Working for a living. That pretty much sums it up. Some of us do, and some of us are looking for the easy way out.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
be it ever so humble. . .
A man's home is his castle (and his lady's, if he is so lucky), no matter how rude it may be.
My home is nothing to brag about. The roof doesn't leak, although it's been replaced since I bought it and then a huge oak tree tried to cave it in. The windows keep the rain out and the air conditioner works. New landscaping makes the front of the house look better and the new citrus trees in the back yard should bear fruit in a year or two. Life could be worse, although we are overdue to gut the kitchen and bathrooms and replace them from the floor tiles up.
These thoughts occurred to me today when I picked up the latest copy of the Florida Bar News and read, to my amazement, that a well-known and wealthy lawyer in Palm Beach County has been suspended from practice. He has pleaded guilty to a federal felony, agreed to cough up $400,000 to the Internal Revenue Service, and agreed to cooperate with the IRS in determining and paying any tax liabilities, penalties and interest. The story does not say what became of his home. I've never seen his home but, trust me, it does (or did?) not look like mine.
He was an assistant county attorney early in his career. He helped rewrite the county's land use regulations, then jumped ship and made a ton of money representing developers in a county where there's never really been a recession. For years, he's been one of the people I thought I should have emulated. I could have done that, I thought. I thought of him in June, when I was in Palm Beach County for a scuba diving trip and saw his name on the back of a serious bicycler's racing jersey. Not just his name, but "B__ B___'s Racing Team." For a moment I tried to visualize a similar jersey with my name on the back, but it didn't come into focus. Now it sounds like the good life as he knew it is over.
When I go home tonight I will look around my hovel and think, at least it's all mine. I earned what it took to be in it the old-fashioned way, and I will not have the IRS or federal prosecutors breathing down my neck.
My home is nothing to brag about. The roof doesn't leak, although it's been replaced since I bought it and then a huge oak tree tried to cave it in. The windows keep the rain out and the air conditioner works. New landscaping makes the front of the house look better and the new citrus trees in the back yard should bear fruit in a year or two. Life could be worse, although we are overdue to gut the kitchen and bathrooms and replace them from the floor tiles up.
These thoughts occurred to me today when I picked up the latest copy of the Florida Bar News and read, to my amazement, that a well-known and wealthy lawyer in Palm Beach County has been suspended from practice. He has pleaded guilty to a federal felony, agreed to cough up $400,000 to the Internal Revenue Service, and agreed to cooperate with the IRS in determining and paying any tax liabilities, penalties and interest. The story does not say what became of his home. I've never seen his home but, trust me, it does (or did?) not look like mine.
He was an assistant county attorney early in his career. He helped rewrite the county's land use regulations, then jumped ship and made a ton of money representing developers in a county where there's never really been a recession. For years, he's been one of the people I thought I should have emulated. I could have done that, I thought. I thought of him in June, when I was in Palm Beach County for a scuba diving trip and saw his name on the back of a serious bicycler's racing jersey. Not just his name, but "B__ B___'s Racing Team." For a moment I tried to visualize a similar jersey with my name on the back, but it didn't come into focus. Now it sounds like the good life as he knew it is over.
When I go home tonight I will look around my hovel and think, at least it's all mine. I earned what it took to be in it the old-fashioned way, and I will not have the IRS or federal prosecutors breathing down my neck.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Democrats: Hell-bent on self-destruction?
"I'm not a member of any organized polical party. I'm a Democrat." That's an old joke by Will Rogers.
He was right then, and he'd be right today.
The Democratic National Party has gone beyond disorganization. They lost their focus, and national and local elections, for too many years by pandering to every single-issue consistuency we have. Now, on the verge of winning the White House because the Republican Party is crumbling before our eyes, the DNC has threatened that Florida's delegates will not be seated at the national convention. Why? Because our Republican-controlled state legislature changed the schedule for all party primaries to January 29, and our early primary will upstage Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire.
I've been a registered Democrat all my life. At the time I registered, Leon County had no Republican Party to speak of and, if you registered Republican, you couldn't vote in a primary election. If my vote in the 2008 primary election doesn't count because the delegates from my state, the fourth-largest state, have been blocked from the party convention by the party itself, I will change my registration to Republican.
Will Rogers also said, "You have to be an optimist to be a Democrat, and a humorist to stay one." He was right about that, too. I'm an optimist, but I've lost my sense of humor somewhere along the way.
He was right then, and he'd be right today.
The Democratic National Party has gone beyond disorganization. They lost their focus, and national and local elections, for too many years by pandering to every single-issue consistuency we have. Now, on the verge of winning the White House because the Republican Party is crumbling before our eyes, the DNC has threatened that Florida's delegates will not be seated at the national convention. Why? Because our Republican-controlled state legislature changed the schedule for all party primaries to January 29, and our early primary will upstage Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire.
I've been a registered Democrat all my life. At the time I registered, Leon County had no Republican Party to speak of and, if you registered Republican, you couldn't vote in a primary election. If my vote in the 2008 primary election doesn't count because the delegates from my state, the fourth-largest state, have been blocked from the party convention by the party itself, I will change my registration to Republican.
Will Rogers also said, "You have to be an optimist to be a Democrat, and a humorist to stay one." He was right about that, too. I'm an optimist, but I've lost my sense of humor somewhere along the way.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Hurricane Katrina, two years later
The second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is now upon us, and everybody is celebrating the successful rebuilding of New Orleans and other cities and towns on the Gulf Coast.
We wish. The truth is that the devastating effects of Katrina are as visible today as they were two years ago. Former homes stand in ruins, there are no utility services, two hospitals remain closed, and the levies are being rebuilt and strengthened in phases, slowly. People who fled to other states have no more reason to move back now than they did then.
Meanwhile, the Bush Administration has dumped $30 BILLION down a rathole called "let's rebuild Iraq," and at least $8.8 BILLION has disappeared. Guns, land mines and rocket launchers have been sold on the black market for cash, no receipts required, in what one whistleblower described as a "Wal-Mart for guns" only illegal. For his trouble he spent 97 days in a military prison outside Baghdad, classified as a "security detainee."
Can you visualize $30 billion? If you can you visualize $1 million, multiply by ten. Multiply by ten again, and then again. Now multiply by 30. That kind of money could rebuild New Orleans with new homes elevated above the floodplain behind new levies.
The inertia regarding New Orleans is not the exclusive fault of the federal government, but the feds have the resources to get something moving and they have squandered them in Iraq. Trying to rebuild any part of the Middle East is like feeding an alligator. An alligator will never learn to love you.
We wish. The truth is that the devastating effects of Katrina are as visible today as they were two years ago. Former homes stand in ruins, there are no utility services, two hospitals remain closed, and the levies are being rebuilt and strengthened in phases, slowly. People who fled to other states have no more reason to move back now than they did then.
Meanwhile, the Bush Administration has dumped $30 BILLION down a rathole called "let's rebuild Iraq," and at least $8.8 BILLION has disappeared. Guns, land mines and rocket launchers have been sold on the black market for cash, no receipts required, in what one whistleblower described as a "Wal-Mart for guns" only illegal. For his trouble he spent 97 days in a military prison outside Baghdad, classified as a "security detainee."
Can you visualize $30 billion? If you can you visualize $1 million, multiply by ten. Multiply by ten again, and then again. Now multiply by 30. That kind of money could rebuild New Orleans with new homes elevated above the floodplain behind new levies.
The inertia regarding New Orleans is not the exclusive fault of the federal government, but the feds have the resources to get something moving and they have squandered them in Iraq. Trying to rebuild any part of the Middle East is like feeding an alligator. An alligator will never learn to love you.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
grab a root and growl
When you reach a certain age, you realize that your brain is cluttered with trivia. The trivia ranges from the rattly noises and old-car smells of the first car you owned to bad jokes you learned in sixth grade, to minor vulgarities in foreign languages that you otherwise know nothing about. Included in that trivia are corny sayings that you may have learned from your father or from small-town guys you knew in college or the army. I have this theory about Alzheimers's disease, which is that this useless stuff collects in the grey cells like barnacles until there is no room for new but useful trivia such as the names of people you 've met in the past week and you know you will see again.
At dinner time tonight, the expression "grab a root and growl" bubbled up in the back of my mind for no reason at all except that I was unloading a bag of take-out food to serve for dinner.
Grab a root? Growl? What in hell does that mean?
("What in hell" is another of those useless expressions. The meaning of "grab a root and growl" is not in Hades. Hotter than hell, colder than hell, slower than hell, faster than hell, smart as hell, dumber than hell. . .the list goes on forever, all the way to hell and all useless. But I digress.)
I consulted Google, the source of all that I know, and I found at least three possible sources for the expression. One is, "sit down and eat." Another comes from railroad workers and means, "grab hold and lift." The third means "hold on and fight," or a stubbornness associated with the Dust Bowl farmers of the 1930's who never left their farms but held on, waiting for rain.
"Sit down and eat" is the meaning I associate with the phrase. I think I learned it in a fraternity house dining room. Wherever it came from, I'd like to unload it and make room for some useful trivia such as the exact day in 2009 which will be Bush's last day in office, a mere 517 days from today if anyone's counting.
At dinner time tonight, the expression "grab a root and growl" bubbled up in the back of my mind for no reason at all except that I was unloading a bag of take-out food to serve for dinner.
Grab a root? Growl? What in hell does that mean?
("What in hell" is another of those useless expressions. The meaning of "grab a root and growl" is not in Hades. Hotter than hell, colder than hell, slower than hell, faster than hell, smart as hell, dumber than hell. . .the list goes on forever, all the way to hell and all useless. But I digress.)
I consulted Google, the source of all that I know, and I found at least three possible sources for the expression. One is, "sit down and eat." Another comes from railroad workers and means, "grab hold and lift." The third means "hold on and fight," or a stubbornness associated with the Dust Bowl farmers of the 1930's who never left their farms but held on, waiting for rain.
"Sit down and eat" is the meaning I associate with the phrase. I think I learned it in a fraternity house dining room. Wherever it came from, I'd like to unload it and make room for some useful trivia such as the exact day in 2009 which will be Bush's last day in office, a mere 517 days from today if anyone's counting.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Hurricane season is upon us
Hurricane season is knocking at the door, dang it:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/204525.shtml?5day#contents
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/204525.shtml?5day#contents
75 weeks to go
Yesterday, Karl Rove announced his retirement as of the end of August. Rove is credited with transforming Texas into Republican territory and with engineering George Dubya Bush's election in 2000, and his re-election in 2004. Do you remember the phrase, "compassionate conservative?" Rove is credited with that phrase. (Have you ever met a compassionate conservative?)
Upon Rove's announcement, Bush said, "I'll be on the road behind you in a bit."
Yesterday, we had 525 days left in the Bush regime. That's a mere 75 weeks before Bush hits the road.
Upon Rove's announcement, Bush said, "I'll be on the road behind you in a bit."
Yesterday, we had 525 days left in the Bush regime. That's a mere 75 weeks before Bush hits the road.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Grammar Rules, or How to Write Good
You've probably seen most of these, but not all in one place:
Grammar Rules for the Unenlightened; Or, How to Write Good
Don’t use a big word where a diminutive one will suffice.
Don’t use no double negatives. Don’t never use no triple negatives.
No sentence fragments.
Corollary: Complete sentences: important.
Stamp out and eliminate redundancy.
Avoid clichés like the plague.
All generalizations are bad.
Take care that your verb and subject is in agreement.
A preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with.
Avoid those run-on sentences that just go on, and on, they never stop, they just keep rambling, and you really wish the person would just shut up, but no, they just keep going, they’re worse than the Energizer Bunny, they babble incessantly, and these sentences, they just never stop, they go on forever …
You should never use the second person.
The passive voice should never be used.
Never go off on tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve at only one point and were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the 6th Century, an era dominated by the Goths, who lived in what we now know as Poland…
As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations.”
Excessive use of exclamation points can be disastrous!!!!!
Don’t use question marks inappropriately?
Don’t obfuscate your theses with extraneous verbiage.
Never use that totally cool, radically groovy out-of-date slang.
Avoid tumbling off the cliff of triteness into the black abyss of overused metaphors.
Keep your ear to the grindstone, your nose to the ground, take the bull by the horns of dilemma, and stop mixing your metaphors.
Avoid those abysmally horrible, outrageously repellent exaggerations.
Grammar Rules for the Unenlightened; Or, How to Write Good
Don’t use a big word where a diminutive one will suffice.
Don’t use no double negatives. Don’t never use no triple negatives.
No sentence fragments.
Corollary: Complete sentences: important.
Stamp out and eliminate redundancy.
Avoid clichés like the plague.
All generalizations are bad.
Take care that your verb and subject is in agreement.
A preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with.
Avoid those run-on sentences that just go on, and on, they never stop, they just keep rambling, and you really wish the person would just shut up, but no, they just keep going, they’re worse than the Energizer Bunny, they babble incessantly, and these sentences, they just never stop, they go on forever …
You should never use the second person.
The passive voice should never be used.
Never go off on tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve at only one point and were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the 6th Century, an era dominated by the Goths, who lived in what we now know as Poland…
As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations.”
Excessive use of exclamation points can be disastrous!!!!!
Don’t use question marks inappropriately?
Don’t obfuscate your theses with extraneous verbiage.
Never use that totally cool, radically groovy out-of-date slang.
Avoid tumbling off the cliff of triteness into the black abyss of overused metaphors.
Keep your ear to the grindstone, your nose to the ground, take the bull by the horns of dilemma, and stop mixing your metaphors.
Avoid those abysmally horrible, outrageously repellent exaggerations.
I've told you 100,000 times not to exaggerate.
Avoid awful anachronistic aggravating antediluvian alliterations.
This sentence no verb.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Happy Fourth of July
It isn't a Fourth of July without fireworks. History note: The rockets' red glare and the bombs bursting in air over Fort McHenry didn't occur on the Fourth of July or during the American Revolutionary War, but in 1814. Fireworks on the Fourth date back to 1777 in Philadelphia, thirty-seven years before Francis Scott Key wrote what became the National Anthem to the tune of an old British drinking song.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Gay Pride, St. Petersburg, Florida
Whatever San Francisco can do, St. Petersburg can do. . . maybe not better, but enthusiastically.
I'm a confirmed hetero and as straight as can be, but we had to go check it out. What we found was a mellow crowd having fun on a hellishly hot day. A few protestors drove down from Georgia, if you can believe it, but we didn't see them.
I'm a confirmed hetero and as straight as can be, but we had to go check it out. What we found was a mellow crowd having fun on a hellishly hot day. A few protestors drove down from Georgia, if you can believe it, but we didn't see them.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
why people hate lawyers; old guys rule
Credit to the International Municipal Lawyers Association for these stories:
The $54 million (originally $64 million) pants suit has been ruled on by a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Roy Pearson, an administrative law judge [who represented himself - remind me to tell you about lawyers who represent themselves], sued the owners of his neighborhood dry-cleaners after they allegedly lost a pair of pants he had brought in for alterations, claiming they tried to pass off another pair of pants as his.
The defendants insisted that the pants they attempted to return to him, which he refused to accept, were the pants that he brought in to be altered. Among other things, the plaintiff argued that a "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign displayed in the dry-cleaners was an unconditional warranty that required the defendants to honor any claim by any customer, without limitation.
The court disagreed: "A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands or to accede to demands that the merchant has reasonable grounds to dispute." The court also ruled that the plaintiff had not proved that the pants the defendants attempted to return to him were not the pants he brought in for alterations. The plaintiff was entitled to nothing in the way of damages (one headline: "Loses Pants, Now Suit"). See it here: http://www.dccourts.gov/dccourts/superior/index.jsp
Meanwhile:
According to a recent news report, 65-year-old Bob Hayden, a former police chief, and a gray-haired retired US Marine Corps captain, age not specified, subdued a passenger on an aircraft after the passenger's behavior became alarming. The stewardess looked around for help but the young guys were averting their eyes. Mr. Hayden's wife of 42 years barely looked up from her book while the struggle occurred. "Bob's been shot at. He's been stabbed. He's taken knives away. He knows how to handle those situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck, and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I didn't know how the book would end." (Source: Boston Globe, June 5, 2007. See it here: http://tinyurl.com/2n8bqc).
The $54 million (originally $64 million) pants suit has been ruled on by a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Roy Pearson, an administrative law judge [who represented himself - remind me to tell you about lawyers who represent themselves], sued the owners of his neighborhood dry-cleaners after they allegedly lost a pair of pants he had brought in for alterations, claiming they tried to pass off another pair of pants as his.
The defendants insisted that the pants they attempted to return to him, which he refused to accept, were the pants that he brought in to be altered. Among other things, the plaintiff argued that a "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign displayed in the dry-cleaners was an unconditional warranty that required the defendants to honor any claim by any customer, without limitation.
The court disagreed: "A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands or to accede to demands that the merchant has reasonable grounds to dispute." The court also ruled that the plaintiff had not proved that the pants the defendants attempted to return to him were not the pants he brought in for alterations. The plaintiff was entitled to nothing in the way of damages (one headline: "Loses Pants, Now Suit"). See it here: http://www.dccourts.gov/dccourts/superior/index.jsp
Meanwhile:
According to a recent news report, 65-year-old Bob Hayden, a former police chief, and a gray-haired retired US Marine Corps captain, age not specified, subdued a passenger on an aircraft after the passenger's behavior became alarming. The stewardess looked around for help but the young guys were averting their eyes. Mr. Hayden's wife of 42 years barely looked up from her book while the struggle occurred. "Bob's been shot at. He's been stabbed. He's taken knives away. He knows how to handle those situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck, and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I didn't know how the book would end." (Source: Boston Globe, June 5, 2007. See it here: http://tinyurl.com/2n8bqc).
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
old baby photos
I like old baby photos. . .not photos of old babies, but old photos. This one I found on Flickr, and he had my last name although we might not have had a common ancestor since the last Ice Age. Cute kid, though.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
little pockets
I made an interesting observation this morning while waiting for the elevator, an event which consumes more of my time than it should each week.
When I was a boy we lived in Louisville and Dad worked for the Veterans Administration. He wore a suit and tie to work every day. This was in 1950, give or take a year, and you can visualize the suit. At the end of the day, we developed this little ritual to celebrate "Daddy's home!" He would pick up a gumball on the way home and drop it into the little pocket inside the bigger pocket on the side of his jacket. When he got home, I'd run up and check the little pocket to see what he had for me. It was always a gumball and I was always happy. (I was easily entertained at that age.)
When my kids came along I didn't pass that ritual on to them. We didn't have a gumball machine where I worked, I didn't always wear a suit every day, and not all of them had those little pockets. The only "Daddy's home" surprise I gave them was on a day when we had a new swimming pool, it was hotter than blue blazes outside, and I was wearing a wash-and-wear Palm Beach suit. I came in the front door and heard everybody in the pool, so I took off my shoes, emptied my pockets, took off my tie, and jumped in with them.
Back to this morning. I discovered that my suit pocket has one of those little pockets. I seldom poke my fingers in one of those little pockets without thinking of Dad's gumballs but today I discovered that the little pocket is the perfect size for my cell phone, and a perfectly secure place to put it. I'm not sure my father ever saw a cell phone in his life but I'm sure he'd be amazed.
When I was a boy we lived in Louisville and Dad worked for the Veterans Administration. He wore a suit and tie to work every day. This was in 1950, give or take a year, and you can visualize the suit. At the end of the day, we developed this little ritual to celebrate "Daddy's home!" He would pick up a gumball on the way home and drop it into the little pocket inside the bigger pocket on the side of his jacket. When he got home, I'd run up and check the little pocket to see what he had for me. It was always a gumball and I was always happy. (I was easily entertained at that age.)
When my kids came along I didn't pass that ritual on to them. We didn't have a gumball machine where I worked, I didn't always wear a suit every day, and not all of them had those little pockets. The only "Daddy's home" surprise I gave them was on a day when we had a new swimming pool, it was hotter than blue blazes outside, and I was wearing a wash-and-wear Palm Beach suit. I came in the front door and heard everybody in the pool, so I took off my shoes, emptied my pockets, took off my tie, and jumped in with them.
Back to this morning. I discovered that my suit pocket has one of those little pockets. I seldom poke my fingers in one of those little pockets without thinking of Dad's gumballs but today I discovered that the little pocket is the perfect size for my cell phone, and a perfectly secure place to put it. I'm not sure my father ever saw a cell phone in his life but I'm sure he'd be amazed.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
596 days
As I type this, there are 596 days and about 2 hours to go before the presidency of George W. Bush ends. And then, without a revolution, without bullets or blood in the streets, without the need for a military coup, the s.o.b. will pack up and go back to Texas.
596 more days. If you read this tomorrow it will be 595 days. That's not a day too early for me. I don't even have to decide who I will vote for when I say I cannot wait for the term of office of George W. Bush to end.
Thanks to my daughter, Laurel, for giving me a card with a computer chip that is counting down to January 20, 2009. My children know me well.
596 more days. If you read this tomorrow it will be 595 days. That's not a day too early for me. I don't even have to decide who I will vote for when I say I cannot wait for the term of office of George W. Bush to end.
Thanks to my daughter, Laurel, for giving me a card with a computer chip that is counting down to January 20, 2009. My children know me well.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
megan and conor
She: sippin' a margarita, watching him cook the day's catch
He: relaxed and cookin'
Catch of the day: "holy mackerel" (caught on a Sunday)
Catch of a lifetime: each other
He: relaxed and cookin'
Catch of the day: "holy mackerel" (caught on a Sunday)
Catch of a lifetime: each other
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