Random Thoughts
Archives: 2007, 2006, 2005

NOTE: The following discussions contain some strong opinions. If you don't want to read controversial, personal opinions, please do not read on. I do not like "knee-jerk" liberal or conservative philosophies. I try to be open-minded, but certainly have my own biases. I hate "political correctness" and tend to overreact against those who practice it. - Bill McArthur, aka Hungry Mother (hungrymother) and Computing Doc (computingdoc). I sure do enjoy these blogs. I appreciate these awards. To find our what I'm doing in real life, click here and choose "Current Activities" from the menu bar.

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12/31/08 comments

New Year's Eves

For a change, I have no plans for tonight as I'm on a vigil for a new grandson or granddaughter, due any day now. In the past, my plans have ranged from the sybaritic to the spartan and from the exotic to the mundane.

I have participated in my fair share of drunken parties where I have been one of the featured drunks. One year, I drank Scotch all night so I could remain fairly sober for driving home (I loath Scotch).

The midnight kiss with a loved one has been a highlight of many New Year's Eves. My wife has been that loved one for almost all of those occasions. On the few others, the kissee was only a passing fancy.

I spent New Year's Eve of 1962 in a jungle outpost in Thailand as a soldier. I've spent three New Year's Eves in Key West, where the conch drops at Sloppy Joe's. I spent a New Year's Eve in South Beach Miami, watching fireworks. One New Year's Eve, I ended up in L. L. Bean's in Freeport, Maine. I had a fantasy of this being a pilgrimage site for outdoorsmen from all over, but the only others in the store were disgruntled clerks. I bought a plastic duck call and went outside to make some noise.

When my kids were little, we used to light a fire and toast the New Year at home with the children. When the kids were older and had their own festivities, my wife and I would go to an evening movie and spend midnight driving home on a very empty I81 between Carlisle and Shippensburg, PA.

Lately, I've been in bed by 10:00 PM. What will tonight bring?

12/29/08 comments

Bowl Games

Here are my picks for the New Year's Day bowl games. I am not a betting man; you will see why.

Hall of Fame: Iowa 24 - South Carolina 21
Citrus: Georgia 39 - Michigan State 14
Gator: Clemson 28 - Nebraska 7
Rose: Penn State 49 - USC 35
Orange: Virginia Tech 21 - Cincinnati 18

12/26/08 comments

Love Actually

I had seen this chick flick before and would never have thought that I would suffer through is again, but my wife and daughter wanted to see it, so I sat with them and endured it again.

There are actually a couple of funny moments and a bit of titillation in this movie, but I could feel the little bit of testosterone left in my system draining out as the film droned on.

The plot consists of 10 love stories and an embedded look at Titanic, just to sweeten the pot. It is also very Christmassy and has Hugh Grant in it. Enough said?

12/18/08 comments

Landing in the Cold North

About that landing: my plane blew both nose gear tires when it touched down at Atlantic City International airport in a hard rain on Tuesday. We in the plane felt and heard the "flopitty flop" of blown tires right after landing, but didn't know what the problem was until our plane stopped smack in the middle of the intersection of the airport's two runways. This location for our plane shut the airport down. The Captain notified us of the problem and told us that we'd have to sit there until the plane could be towed down the runway a bit.

After a long wait, the plane was slowly towed out of the way of the intersecting runway and then we had to wait for debarkation stairs and vans to transport us to the terminal. It was 41 degrees outside and raining hard as we finally descended and loaded into the vans. We were on the plane for an extra hour and 20 minutes.

The next problem was that our car, that had been sitting for six weeks in a storage lot, got a dead battery after we ate a mid-afternoon snack at Starbucks. Thankfully, the AAA battery truck arrived quickly and gave us a jump.

We couldn't stay in our house because the water and heat were off for the winter, so we stayed in an ocean-front motel in Cape May, which had a great view of a dreary ocean.

We are shivering here in Doylestown, PA and facing six inches of snow tomorrow as well as temperatures in the teens with heavy wind around Christmas.

12/15/08 comments

It's Good to be Santa

I was talked into playing Santa Claus for Saturday night at the annual Christmas party at our ~~trailer park~~ RV resort. I wore my kayaking PFD (life jacket) underneath the Santa suit to provide the proper heft and feel.

I had decided to play Santa the way Alex Karras played Mongo in Blazing Saddles: "Mongo love sheriff Bart." For example, I always referred to myself in the third person: "Santa wants to hug pretty lady."

I was able to hug all of the women at the party and talked the only young, nubile female into sitting on Santa's lap. At that time, I looked over at a nearby table and said, "That's what Santa is talking about!"

Here is a panoramic view of the hall.

12/12/08 comments

Another History Lesson

I've always loved history and hated history courses in high school and college. My history has to be packaged properly for me to enjoy it. Here are some great ways to package history:

Civil War: you can learn that the Old South was good and the Yankees were bad in Gone With The Wind. As a bonus, you can enjoy Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.

A Night to Remember: you can learn that the ship hit an iceberg in Titanic. As a bonus, you can enjoy Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

Day That Will Live in Infamy: you can learn that the Japanese bombed our Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor. As a bonus, you can enjoy Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale.

Land Down Under: you can learn that that cattle were raised in the Northern Territories, the "white fellas" were nasty to mixed blood children, and the Japanese bombed Darwin in Australia. As a bonus, you can enjoy Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman.

Anybody know where I can sign up for a history course?

12/11/08 comments

Political Corruption

Why do we put up with it? The great state of NJ has the highest property taxes in the country, caused by corruption according to the book Soprano State. We all gripe about the property taxes, but when we hear about former Senator, now Governor, Corzine paying off his girlfriend, who happens to lead a union that NJ has to negotiate with, we just wryly laugh. Where's the outrage?

I think that we expect politicians to be corrupt. In any case, that seems to be what we get. My idea of an ideal politician is a leader who doesn't want the job and has to be brought kicking and screaming to the post. Such a leader will do the job and not devote any time or energy into re-election.

Current politicians, after collecting their bribes, spend the rest of their time and energy to ensure that they are re-elected.

What can we do? Always vote against the incumbent. Set term limits for all posts to one term for life.

12/08/08 comments

O.J.

I remember one fall afternoon in 1968 when I was a graduate student at Penn State. My wife and I and a couple of friends spent the afternoon in a bar watching USC play Oregon State, matching two great running backs, O.J. Simpson and Earthquake Enyart. It was a close game, but the "juice" ran for 238 yards and USC won. It was this game that convinced me that O.J. was the best college running back ever.

I remember another fall afternoon in 1973 when, on a snow-covered field, O.J. reached a record 2003 yards rushing during the Bills and Jets game.

In 1977, I enjoyed watching him run like the wind in "Roots." I also enjoyed his Detective Nordberg in the "Naked Gun" movies.

In 1991, O.J. was working the sideline during the Los Angeles and Cincinnati game when Bo Jackson was tackled hard at the sideline. O.J. said, right at that time, that it was a very bad injury. In fact, it ultimately ended Bo's career.

In 1994, O.J. destroyed his life.

So sad, so sad.

12/06/08 comments

The Wire

Thanks to Sadcox and Billymac, Blog-O-Sphere buddies, I was introduced to this HBO series on borrowed DVDs. Both of these gentlemen have similar tastes to my own with regard to movies and TV shows, but not music (unless they've been converted to Air Supply). Because of their enthusiasm for "The Wire", I knew that I would love the series, and I did.

I just finished viewing the fifth and final season. There are several concurrent themes in the show, including the city of Baltimore, the war on drugs, racism, politics, education, law enforcement, news media, and the judicial system. Above all, I found the show to be a morality play.

The many characters are richly developed, and by the end we know each of them very well. There are good guys and bad guys and, realistically, most are somewhere in between. The show deeply explores the tragedy of being locked into a destructive lifestyle. For those characters with choices, questions about intentions versus outcomes are plentiful.

I tried to find some heroes and villains. Unequivocally, my candidates for villains are the Greeks who channel drugs into the city ("Re-supply") and mayor Carcetti who sacrificed everything for his personal glory. My candidates for heroes are Cedric Daniels, who remained true to his principles, and Roland 'Prez' Pryzbylewski, who decided to make a difference as a teacher.

More realistically, it's interesting to analyze each character and try to calculate whether there was more good or evil in that character. For example, I would reckon that Jim McNulty was more good than bad, and that Clay Davis was more bad than good.

The tragedies are the failed war on drugs and the hopelessness of those who are doomed to a life of poverty and crime.

12/03/08 comments

Four Christmases - One Lump of Coal

I don't pay much attention to movie reviews unless they're written by people with similar tastes to my own. So I didn't care that this holiday movie wasn't getting rave reviews. Normally, Vince Vaughn acts in movies that I like. Reese Witherspoon occasionally acts in a movie I like, but her presence in the cast doesn't bring me to a theater.

I think what happened in this film is that the producers spent too much money on the cast and had little left over for shooting or editing. So, what you get is a collection of hastily cobbled scenes, some of which are very funny.

I want more from a movie than an occasional laugh. I want a lot of laughs from a comedy and I want a coherent piece of work. The post-production work was the biggest joke of all. As an example of the lousy editing, as the couple drives along the Big Sur, they keep passing by the same scenery, over and over. The other gaffs are much more evident, such as when a family magically appears in a house from one moment to the next.

The best parts of the movie are shown in trailers, so don't waste your time, if you're a man. If you're a woman, you'll find some syrupy scenes to scintillate you, but spare your spouse, sil vous plait.

12/01/08 comments

Cyber Monday

I spent most of the morning today on paying our monthly bills online. Because we have traveled during the winter since 2003, we have arranged to pay, via the Internet, our credit cards, phone bills, electric bill, cable bill, and various non-recurring bills. We have a few bills that are "autopayed" via credit card, but most of them require me to take some action to pay.

I don't usually do online shopping on Cyber Monday because I do most of my online buying for Christmas during October and November. I also try to do some in-store shopping when it gets close to Christmas to take advantage of the last minute sales.

Updates from Key West:

We went on a fishing trip on Captain John's Greyhound V party boat. I caught a good number of fish while my wife sunbathed. We have been fishing on the Greyhound V since 1997.
I went to my first "drag queen" show. Randy Roberts, the performer, did a great job as Cher and then as a generic cabaret diva.
I ran my third Hog Trot 5K race and won a mug by finishing second in my age group (60-69).

11/27 comments

Happy Thankgiving from Key West

I'm spending my third Thanksgiving in Key West. Last night my wife and I enjoyed another fabulous dinner at Blue Heaven.

This morning, I did my usual "run to the sunrise", which gets me to Smathers Beach just in time to see the sun rise over the ocean. I am so thankful that I can still jog (slowly) at my age. It's a great day to be alive.

11/25 comments

Caveat Emptor - A Frustrating Online Shopping Experience

On Tuesday, 11/18, my digital camera died. I've wanted to to get a waterproof camera to take on kayak outings, so I did a bit of online research and decided to buy the Olympus Stylus 1030SW 10.1MP Digital Camera. I checked BestBuy.com and found that I could pick up a camera there to $314, but they only stocked the ugly green model. The best online price I found was on Amazon.com for $289 for the silver model that I wanted.

I've been doing online shopping for as long as it's existed and I've shopped on Amazon.com for as long as it's existed. I have had a very good comfort level with them and I always receive my goods earlier than their shipping estimates.

As the years have passed, Amazon has added more and more partner companies to their network so that they've become a comprehensive shopping source. Even when dealing with the partners, I've had good experiences. So, when I found that my camera purchase would be handled by Beach Camera, I still felt as though I was in good hands.

Since 1999 when I purchased my first digital camera, I've been in the habit of taking photos daily to chronicle my activities and surroundings. I felt very uneasy without my regular camera. I took a couple of photos with my Pocket PC, but I needed to get my new camera ASAP.

I'm always enticed by the free shipping option on Amazon, but I needed this camera soon. I almost selected the "next day" option which said that I'd have the camera on Wednesday, but the "expedited shipping" option looked good enough. It seemed to say that my camera would arrive on Thursday or Friday and I would have the new camera for the weekend. I ordered the camera.

Being anxious to get my new camera, I assiduously tracked the order. On Wednesday the 19th I saw that FedEx was estimating that the camera would arrive on Tuesday the 25th. I paid $22 for the expedited shipping and figured that free shipping would have been just as fast.

I emailed customer service at Beach Camera and got an auto-response indicating that they wouldn't be looking at my email for 24 hours. A few hours later I got the email message:

Please contact our customer service department at 1800-572-3224 ext 2,so that we can be able to further advise in regards to your enquiry.

Customer service was closed for the day, so I had to wait until morning to call. I called Beach Camera customer service around 1:00 PM after waiting all morning to see if the camera package would move from Memphis, TN toward us. I talked with Elie, a customer service representative. He said that he would cancel the current order and get it returned from FedEx. Then, he said, he would reorder the camera, send me an email with the new order information, and ship it overnight to arrive Friday before noon. He took my credit card information.

I never received an email message. However, I saw on the tracking report that the camera package had move to Fort Myers, forty miles to the north, at 1:26 PM. Wow, this guy Elie tweaked the shipping (I thought).

On Friday morning, I saw that the camera package had reached two Naples locations at around 7:30 AM and 8:30 AM. I kept checking the RV resort office all morning to see if the package had arrived. Finally, we went out during the afternoon and returned after 3 PM. I checked the office and found no package. I checked the tracking report. At 12:19 PM, my camera was shipped back from Naples to Beach Camera. I called Beach Camera customer service shortly before 4 PM and found them closed until Monday. I tried to find out about the new order on the Beach Camera website and they website knew nothing about me. I checked my credit card online: two charges of $311. And no camera! I fired off some emails to Beach Camera.

I dug out my very old digital camera from many years ago and got it ready to use for the weekend. I used that old camera on Saturday night and got some pretty lousy photos from it.

On Sunday, during late afternoon, I received an email from Beach Camera with the new order number. I checked the tracking and found that the second camera was due by late afternoon on Monday, 11/24.

On Monday afternoon, the camera arrived. Part of the package was supposed to be an adapter converting a micro-SD card (which I already have) to xD (which the camera uses). The adapter was missing from the package. Monday evening, I drove to Best Buy and purchased an xD card for $39 since they didn't have any of the adapters, even though they sell the camera.

What a lousy shopping experience!

11/21 comments

No Newts!

Previously, I'd thought that Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh were just kindred A-holes who vented their stream of stupidity in a fairly harmless manner, largely ignored like the boy who cried "Wolf." However, Newt has elevated himself to a Chief Muckety-Muck A-Hole with his recent pronouncement, as reported on Politics After 50:

GINGRICH: Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank -- for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they're the opposite, of what you're taught in Sunday school.

In commemoration of this kind of idiocy, I designed a T-shirt which I will have made and will wear proudly.

11/18 comments

Ten Cent Tipsy Arrives in Naples

Although I like Air Supply, occasionally cross-dress for Halloween, and think that anyone who says "I'm not gay" is probably gay, I'm not gay.

Nevertheless, somehow I found myself visiting a blog written by a toy bear and taking part in a contest, which I won, to name a different toy bear. I won the contest with the name "Ten Cent Tipsy", based on the bear's biography which indicated that he was the mate on the ship "Marches of Dime", had trouble keeping his balance on board, was a bad tipper and sometimes drank too much. I learned from another blog that TenCee was heading my way to Florida.

He arrived today and, at the same time, my camera got fatally ill and could only take pictures that had bad colors, were grainy, or both. I put TenCee to work helping me to order a new camera online, after he had read my latest blog posting.

I'm not gay, even though I have a feminine Blog-O-Sphere handle, and my wife has to check my browser history to check the genre of the porn sites I ~~use~~ visit.

11/17 comments

Waiting for the Cable Guy

I hate being help captive. I'm talking about waiting in doctor's offices, sitting in traffic jams, and waiting for the cable guy.

On Friday, the cable guy was supposed to come between 1 PM and 5 PM to bring us a cable modem and a HD DVR box with HBO. We had ordered the Internet service on Wednesday and then added the rest on Thursday when we remembered that we wanted to have the same kind of RV Theater system in Naples as we did with our home theater system back in NJ. The cable guy finally arrived at 8:30 PM, after holding us captive all afternoon. He claimed that he had the wrong phone number. Also, he only had the cable modem. He called the office and found out about the rest of the order and left us with a digital cable box. He said that Comcast would call on Saturday morning.

At noon on Saturday, I called Comcast and apprised them of the situation. They put me in for a Sunday morning installation between 7 AM and noon. At 12:15 PM, after being a captive all morning, I called Comcast. They said that the cable guy had called me, but since I had basically been holding the phone in my hand all morning, I knew better. Meanwhile I assembled the other components of the RV Theater: our receiver and DVD player from home. The other component was our new 26" HDTV which I had dropped around 5 feet onto the floor, but that's another story*. The cable guy called at 3:30 PM with not much of an idea about how to find our campsite. I told him that I'd walk to the road to meet him, and I did. I rode with him back to the rig and he and I installed the HD DVR box into the system. We finally had our RV Theater.

The only thing I don't like about the system is that the Comcast software (guides, menus, and tuner switching) is far superior in our NJ version than is that which we've found in DE, GA, and here in FL. It's pretty good though.

*We had set up the TV in our loft and hooked it up to the basic cable that the campground provides, when we discovered that the side-to-side level of the RV was too far slanted due to a hole under the left rear wheels. I saw that I could simply put some of my leveling boards behind the wheels and back up a couple of feet to solve the problem. Even though we were connected to electricity, sewer, and cable at that point, I saw that I could move a couple of feet with no problem to the connections. Our new TV replaced a smaller TV that was attached to the RV wall and the new TV sits on a small base on the somewhat soft surface of the loft. Without thinking, I just backed up a couple of feet and hit the brake. I heard a loud crash behind me as the TV tumbled off of the loft and crashed to the floor. It destroyed its power cord and yanked the cable connector out of its back as it fell. It also put a small hole in our screen door and a dent on the inside of our door. After rediscovering that Best Buy won't help with broken TVs that it has sold, we turned it in to a TV repair guy in Naples. He called on Thursday to tell us that the tuner was broken into small pieces, but the TV worked on other than coax input. The solution, he said, was to get a cable box. We picked up the TV and called Comcast to add the box to our order.

11/14 comments

Beach Day

The high temperature for today in Naples (Florida) is forecast to be 88 degrees, so I went on a thong hunt. My wife, who is very good at scoping the babes for me (see this shot from Spain in 2003 to see how good she is), was there with me for a 5 mile beach walk.

We didn't spot any thongs or topless fashions, but we did see this, this, and this. It can only get better.

11//08 comments

An Unexpected Surprise

There I was, dining out with a couple of grandkids at a very nice Italian restaurant in the Atlanta area, when I looked at the wall just down from our table and saw this.

I flashed back to 1957, when I was in my prime, as a strapping 17 year old. I remember how I loved Sophia Loren from afar and how her dripping wet scene in Boy on a Dolphin made such an impression on me.

I was snapped back to reality when my 3 year old granddaughter said, "Granddad, why are you staring and drooling?" Why indeed?

11/08/08 comments

New Web Host

I inherited a dedicated server when a large ecommerce project my company was working on folded. This was several years ago when having a Linux server on the Internet was a good deal for $99 per month. I know just enough Linux to administer a server, if things don't get too gnarly.

Over time, I migrated 8 of my personal websites to the dedicated server and enjoyed the freedom and flexibility of having complete control over the entire computer. As time went on, I knew that there were cheaper alternatives, but I stuck with the server because it was the easiest course of action (no action). A couple of days ago, my server vendor notified me that I had a month to change the IP of the machine, and by the way, the server is obsolete anyway, or upgrade to a new server and transfer the websites, domain names, and databases to the new server.

I challenged technical support about the amount of work it would cost me, thinking that they would volunteer to mirror my old server on the new one. They simply agreed with me that I was in for some work. I decided that, if I have to migrate to a new environment, I might as well find a cheaper one.

I did some research and found a web host that would support my websites, domain names, email addresses, and databases for under $15 per month. Although I don't have a dedicated server, I have similar flexibility. This blog and my other websites are now running on the new host. I spent about 12 hours on the project and will save a lot of money.

11/05/08 comments

After Thoughts

1. Congrats to the best run campaign I've ever seen. It will be studied for a long time.

2. McCain didn't know what he could've done differently:

a. You should have just pretended to be on the dark side, instead of selling your soul to get the republican nomination.

b. You should've said that you were a master of Economics.

c. You should've said that the Iraq War was a mistake from the beginning and you would move to end it ASAP.

d. You should've picked a moderate woman from the East Coast for your VP.

e. You should've campaigned positively in the center.

f. You should've been the old John McCain.

3. Even if McCain had done all of #2, I'm so mad at the republicans for f-ing up our country, I wouldn't have voted for him anyway - but he would have won.

4. Who will the democrats blame for their failures this time?

11/03/08 comments

A Bit of Culture

To distract myself from the tension of Election Day Eve, I decided to indulge in some cultural activities:

1. I went to see Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I knew I would like the confluence of the work of Kevin and Seth Rogan and I was not at all disappointed. I can't wait for the DVD to come out to check out the special features, especially the commentaries. The movie is filled with the smart wit of Kevin Smith, carried out by a great cast. No spoilers here, except for the "Dutch Rudder." Go see it.

2. I read the book, The Alphabet of Manliness. I understand myself much better now.

3. I completed the USA Today crossword puzzle.

What do you mean, dumbing down?

10/31/08 comments

Halloween

One of the perks of Grandparenthood is being able to attend the grandkids Halloween parties at their daycares. This year, we were in position to enjoy that perk in the Atlanta suburbs with a couple of our grandkids.

We started the morning by dropping the kids at daycare. Then we went to the nearby Starbucks and drank expensive espresso drinks and read a couple of newspapers. It's great not to have a job, so the whole day is free! Then, we went back to daycare to watch the kids' parades (pic1, video1, pic2, video2) and the beginnings of their parties before we sneaked away to spend the rest of the day in indolence.

10/28/08 comments

~~Toys~~ Tools for the Road

I just finished up two days of high speed driving from NJ to the Atlanta, GA greater redneck area. I not only keep up with traffic in my 24 foot class C RV, but I generally lead the pack down the road. My wife, the putative navigator does a lot of napping and occasionally wakes up and, rubbing her eyes, says, "What state are we in?"

To help me with my navigation, I'm now using my third generation of vehicle GPS, a Garmin Nuvi 760. I have my Pocket PC on a little Bluetooth network with the GPS for hands-free phoning. As an unexpected bonus, the GPS uploaded my whole phonebook, so the GPS can essentially be the phone. I also subscribed for a year of MSN Direct so that I can make use of its services, such as gas prices of nearby stations.

I have three other Garmin GPS, an eTrex Vista and two GPS watches. The whole family is compatible with my MapSource Mapping CDs and software which allows for easy development of waypoints and routes. For this trip, I wanted to go the easiest way for driving an RV instead of the shortest way. For example, an RV cannot go through any of the Baltimore tunnels and must go over the Key Bridge. I went that way last spring and wasn't happy with my blood pressure around Baltimore and Washington D.C.

My chosen route is to go over the Delaware River on the Commodore Barry Bridge, up I95 a bit to the "Blue Route" I476 to the Schuykill Expressway I76 to the PA Turnpike to Carlisle, over US 11 for a mile and then south on I81 to I77S to I85S, then off on US 129 through Gainsville, GA, and then to our destination. So, why do I need a GPS? To tell me where the entrances and exits are and whether they're on the left or right.

I used my mapping software on my laptop to set waypoints that ensured that my route would be followed, and then downloaded the waypoints to the GPS. I could have set up the waypoints directly on the GPS, but the PC interface is much more convenient and faster. On the GPS, I grouped the waypoints into a route. Then, all I had to do was to tell the GPS to follow that route.

The voice that came with my GPS sounded like Hillary in a bad mood, and I don't take directions from a male voice, so I downloaded an Aussie female voice. That Sheila made me feel like I was back in a watering hole down under. I imagined her looking like Daisy Duke. Yee-Haw!

10/25/08 comments

Early Picks for 2012

I'm getting bored with the 2008 Presidential election and I've already voted, so my mind has wandered to the 2012 race. Here are my early picks and odds for 2012. Call your bookie today.

Far Right Religious Nut Wing of the Republican Party: Palin/Huckleberry (1:3)

Analysis: Mitt made a strong reach for the furthest right nuttiest speech at the 2008 Republican Convention, but enough of the party remember that he was the socialist governor of Massachusetts. Campaign manager: Karl Rove.

Far Left Communist Wing of the Democratic Party: Obama/Clinton (1:2)

Analysis: Joe Biden has already said that Hillary is a better choice for VP, so this one is a natural. Campaign Manager: Dennis Kucinich.

Centrist Wing of the Bicoastal Party: Bloomberg/Schwarzenegger (1:1)

Analysis: Bloomberg figured out how to finagle a third term as the country's mayor, so it should be easy for Ahnold to get around his Constitutional bar on running for VP. Campaign Manager: Christie Whitman.

Chaotic Wing of the Matter-Antimatter Party: Pelosi/Limbaugh (0:0)

Analysis: This interesting combination of highly polarizing opposites is the brainchild of the Co-Campaign Managers: James Carville and Mary Matalin.

10/23/08 comments

Heading South

My wife and I are heading down into Red State territory for the winter. We leave on Monday and will head the RV toward our winter headquarters in Naples, FL. We have a "That One 08" sticker on the back window which might draw some comments, but hopefully no stones. We will be stopping over in the Atlanta area for a few days on the way to Florida, so we'll be able to get the vibes from the local crackers down there.

It will be interesting to find out how the market crash has affected the retirees down at our RV Resort. The housing situation was bleak in Naples when we were there the past two winters and can only be worse now.

My one regret about leaving at this time of year is that the Striped Bass season is just getting underway. Oh well, there are fish to catch in Florida, too.

10/20/08 comments

Socialized Medicine

I grew up in a family dominated by a very Republican father. He graduated from Penn State as an electrical engineer in 1929 and couldn't get a job in his field. So he moved from his home in Altoona, PA and headed for the Big Apple. He set up an oil recycling business under the Brooklyn Bridge and weathered the depression. I remember him speaking with disdain about FDR and his socialist ways.

I always thought that socialized medicine was a very un-American idea. I had very good medical insurance from my college teaching job and, after 27 years, I was able to retire with a robust Blue Shield policy that has done well for my wife and I since I retired in 1996.

Although I've been happy with my health insurance, I've become increasingly unhappy with the state of medical care in this country. Since I have good insurance, doctors are very happy to perform in-office procedures and any kind of testing: x-rays, MRIs, blood work, and ultrasound scans. However, most meetings with doctors are very brief encounters with someone too busy to really know anything about me. It seems like the main focus of energy has to do with patient billing.

In the last year or so, I've become increasingly aware of the plight of many of my friends. One couple who live nearby have lousy insurance and therefore don't get the tests that they need to diagnose some severe medical conditions that they have. One friend who's a chef only gets 10% of his medical insurance paid by his employer and just had a monthly increase from $400 to $500 on his premium. An artist friend who owns a small gallery cannot afford insurance and therefore has neglected his teeth for years. His wife has struggled with cancer for the past year and she has had to go on charity for her treatment. Meanwhile, that couple will become homeless next week and he can't afford to pay the rent for his gallery. Another friend is locked into a bad job situation because he can't afford to give up his medical benefits.

The other day, we got a bill from a lab for a recent blood test for my wife. Normally, we don't see these bills because our insurance just picks them up, but do to a SNAFU, we saw this one: $670 for a few blood tests. How could someone without insurance afford this kind of charge?

Well, anyway, the U.S. has great medical service, don't we? According to this study by the World Health Organization, the U.S. ranks 37th in the world for the quality of its health system, just below Costa Rico and just above Slovenia.

Is it any wonder that a market-driven health system will find billing to be the most important element in health care? A year ago I helped a neighbor to try to fathom all of the options of Medicare part D prescription drug coverage. When I was finished with my research I was convinced that the main idea of the program is to make some companies rich by obfuscating their coverage rules.

I've concluded that socialized medicine in America would be a big step toward improvement of our health care. Does that make me a dirty communist bastard or just a person finally coming to his senses?

10/17/08 comments

Negative Attack Ads

Sadcox came up with a brilliant idea in a recent posting: put together an attack ad on yourself based on your past blog postings. So I'm going to imagine that I'm in a debate with Sarah Palin where she's making negative attacks on me, citing some of my blog posts, and I'm going to try to defend myself.

Sarah: Hungry Mother, you're a godless sort. You're anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, anti-Buddhist, and anti-Mormon. You said that here on August 15, 2005.

Me: You've got it wrong, honey. I railed against organized religion, not religion.

Sarah: Whatever. You're obviously against home and family with your approval of gay sex in your movie review here on January 23, 2006 and gay marriage here on June, 6, 2006. You even admitted that you are gay here on April 1st of this year.

Me: I have a number of gay friends and acquaintances, whose intellects and political beliefs are far superior to yours. I think that sexual orientation is biological and cannot be viewed morally. As far as home and family values, look to yourself first before casting a stone in my general direction.

Sarah: That was a pretty gay response. You are certainly a lousy predictor of sports results as shown by your basketball picks here on March 31, 2006. As a hockey mom and wife of a snow machine champ, I have no respect for someone with no sense of sports.

Me: You have me there, babe. I am terrible at picking sports results. In a football pool, I usually get under 50% right and could do better flipping a coin.

Sarah: You betcha I got ya. Do you realize that you didn't even accomplish one of your goals for 2008 that you set here on October 17, 2007? How could anyone take any of your recommendations seriously when you can't accomplish goals?

Me: You got me again, cutie, but I remember something about the reach exceeding the grasp as being worthwhile.

Sarah: I guess it's OK for a poetry reading elitist like you, Hungry, but for Joe Six-Packs, walkin the walk is the important thing. Another example of your elitism is your putting down those of us common folk that can't do higher math that some of you intellectuals waste your time on. You talked about that here on November 4, 2007 and here on November 16, 2007.

Me: Sometimes, foxy, I think that some kinds of ignorance should be a crime.

Sarah: Well, you'll never be in charge. I'm thinking about banning from my state that nasty porno film by your favorite director Kevin Smith. You talked about that dirty director here on December 12, 2007.

Me: I love the Kevin, cupcake. Ask the First Dude if he knows your friend Jenna Jameson, and then Google her name, if you know what that means.

Sarah: I know what "her name" means, Mother! Finally, you show gender bias in your discussion of movies that us women love, like when you talked about "Mama Mia" here on October 5th and "Atonement" here on January 17th.

Me: Nolo contendere, sweetheart, if you know what I mean.

Sarah: I don't, and I'm proud of it.

Well, I think I lost the debate, but I'm not sorry for any of my cited postings. I'm not sure that Sadcox's good idea is a meme, but you might enjoy trying it yourself.

10/14/08 comments

Great Weekend

Warm sunny days were the rule over the past weekend. I spent a lot of time barefoot on the beach. We had a nice visit with three of our grandkids and their parents. It's so much fun watching them grow and go home. I saw an awesome moonset this morning.

I really enjoyed Penn State's victory and Notre Dame's loss on Saturday. ("My favorite teams are Penn State and whoever is playing Notre Dame" works well here.) Why do I like Penn State? My father graduated from there in 1929. My older brother graduated from there in 1959. My younger brother and sister both attended there in the 60s. I received a Ph.D. from there in 1969. My son drank beer there for two terms in 1989. Why do I hate Notre Dame? Two reasons: Ara Parsegian, their coach, going for the tie against Michigan State in 1966; and, the special status that they have, and haven't earned, in the BCS.

But the highlight of the weekend was the virginal and telepathic Sookie finally showing the goods in HBO's "True Blood." We've seen the character's brother Jason's bare butt more times than I need (zero, by the way), but Sunday night was a first baring for Sookie. I don't know if sex with a vampire erases virginity, but Sookie's virginal status might have changed.

10/10/08 comments

Hate Speech

Our local weekly newspaper, Cape May County Herald, has a large section called "Spout Off", which allows people to publish anonymous comments. There are a number of these "spouts" that consist of the following:

Barack Hussein Obama. 'Nuff said.

It really pisses me off that the paper will print that garbage. I wrote a post in a very prestigious blog concerning the situation, but I felt that more action was necessary. Since I don't know who the anonymous spouters are, I can't give them the beatdowns they deserve, so I wrote the following letter to the editor of the paper:

Editor: I am very disappointed to see you publishing hate spouts from some very ignorant people. It is no crime to be ignorant, or even stupid, but hate speech is actually a crime in many countries (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech). Although I agree with those who feel that our First Amendment supersedes any criminality for hate speech, I think that a newspaper can set some rules for appropriate behavior of those who write anything that will appear in that journal. I find the Herald to be a very useful weekly newspaper for Cape May County and hope that it will hold a higher standard for its contents.

I know that this will have no effect, but I really do feel better. Next time I go in Wal-Mart, I will fart in their general direction (movie reference).

10/08/08 comments

The Horror of the Dark Side

The words I remember best from one of my favorite movies, Apocalypse Now, is the bloated Marlon Brando, as Kurtz, saying, "The horror. The horror." This was the tormented cry of someone who had lost his soul by crossing to the dark side. I have also enjoyed reading the book, Heart of Darkness, which was the thematic inspiration for the movie.

Last night, I watched the documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side, which I had DVRed earlier. My wife spent the whole viewing time yelling at the TV, while I just lay on the couch dumbstruck. I had known bits and pieces of the whole story, but it finally all came together in a mosaic of evil. I remembered back to 1961 when in Army basic training I learned the Code of Conduct and about the Geneva Convention. I assumed that we would treat POWs in the same manner as we expected to be treated. I was and am sick at heart knowing what we are doing and have done with our prisoners. No wonder I have been ashamed to be known as an American when I visit another country. I have felt this way since 2003.

A while ago, I formulated my definitions of Republicans and Democrats. I have revised my definitions:

Democrat (rich): someone who wants to give away someone else's money
Democrat (poor): someone who wants to take someone else's money
Republican: someone who wants to keep their money and will cross to the dark side to do it

In Taxi to the Dark Side, John McCain looked pretty good when he fought the administration on the torture issue, but when he decided to run for President, he crossed to the dark side and voted for the Military Commission Act of 2006.

I finally understand the Star Wars saga. The current members of the Sith are Cheney and Bush (who is the Darth Vader character). John McCain is the wannabe Sith member waiting in the wings. The Jedi Knights are we, the American voters. I am ready to wield the force as soon as my absentee ballot arrives in the mail.

I might lose a little money, but I'll keep my soul.

10/07/08 comments

Objectivity

Is there anyone in the U.S. that can look at things without filtering them through political filters? Diogenes spent his life searching for an honest man; I'm searching for an objective person.

I've been listening to people talk about Obama and his connection with William Ayers. The first thing I wanted was some objective information about Ayers and then some objective information about Obama's connection with the man.

From what I've gathered, Bill Ayers was a member of the Weatherman organization, later called the Weather Underground. He wrote a memoir called Fugitive Days, describing his early life and time in hiding. A documentary film was produced in 2003, which purports to be objective about the Weather Underground. I remember those radical days very well. I had served in the Army from 1961 to 1964, spending a year in Thailand while 20,000 American "advisors" were in Vietnam. I knew that the U.S. was engaged in Southeast Asia because of the Domino Theory, espoused by John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's Secretary of State. The U.S. and Thailand were in an alliance known as SEATO, an asian counterpart to the european NATO. My Army unit of construction engineers built a road, ammo dump, and a storage depot for tanks and other military vehicles. The strategy was that, if enemy troops swarmed into Thailand from Laos, SEATO troops would be flown in and equipped from the depot to defend the country. Bill Ayers had a very different view of the world. Objectively, he went to war against the U.S. A Time magazine article states:

On March 6, 1970, several Weatherman gathered in the basement of four-story Greenwich Village townhouse, preparing for an upcoming dynamite attack on an officer's dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Due to an improperly attached wire, the townhouse exploded. Three Weathermen were killed, including Ayers' then-girlfriend Diana Oughton. Over the next few months the rest of the organization went into hiding.

It's a little hard for me to be objective about blowing up things at Fort Dix since I was stationed there in an MP battalion from January to September of 1964. But objectively speaking, Bill Ayers was a terrorist.

I find it hard to believe that Bill Ayers is a faculty member at the University of Illinois in Chicago. If I were a taxpayer in Illinois, I would be furious.

Next, what were Obama's links to Bill Ayers? Last night, Anderson Cooper talked about it on his CNN show. At least, Obama was connected more deeply to Bill Ayers than Obama has admitted. I think Obama and his campaign better have full disclosure on this issue before my absentee ballot arrives.

When I was discussing this stuff with my wife yesterday while we were walking, I posed this question:

Is it more evil to bomb an abortion clinic or a draft board office?

It seems as though it takes objectivity to answer that both acts are equally evil.

10/05/08 comments

Mama Mia

We went to a great wedding between a friend and the son of another friend on Saturday. The wedding was held in a famous old church in this area and was a mercifully short service. The day was perfectly gorgeous and made me want to be fishing instead of in church.

The reception was held in the Town Bank Fire Hall where I'm used to sitting in sweaty running togs after our annual Coombs/Douglass Memorial Bay Run. It was very different to be in the hall with its wedding decorations and people wearing more than tank tops and shorts.

The DJs were fabulous and had the best dancing mix that I've ever experienced at a wedding. My wife and I danced for most of the evening. At one point, late in the evening, our friend the bride was located in the middle of a circle of mostly women on the dance floor as "Dancing Queen" played. I found myself singing and dancing with the bride to this song that normally makes me a bit nauseous. Here is my brief review of the film from my online journal from the week of July 21, 2008:

After lunch, we went to Rio Grande to see the chick flick "Mama Mia", which proved that Pierce Brosnan can't sing. Bill endured the painful movie with his usual uncomplaining manner.

This morning, as I paddled my kayak in a choppy bay, I couldn't get "Dancing Queen" out of my head. Help! I still can't. Can you?

10/02/08 comments

Googling and Voting

Two more strange phenomena from the Google front:

a. If you Google "formal invitation" (without the quotes), you should get this page. If you click on the image of the invitation with the gold ribbon, you'll find it is a copy of the invitation that our kids used to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary.

b. This is very weird. If you Google "the hokie bird getting beat up funny picture" (without the quotes), you should get this page. Lots of weirdness to go around on this one. First, why would anyone use that particular search expression? Apparently, 8% of the people that arrive at CapeMayBeach.net by Google search do. Second, why would that expression, which I have never said or written pick out two photos from my web pages? I must have a lot of strange birds reading my pages (present company accepted [sic]).

My wife's absentee ballot arrived yesterday, but mine hasn't shown up yet. I wanted to wait until after the debate tonight to cast my vote for Obama anyway. I hope to be lounging on a Florida beach on election day.

09/30/08 comments

Bad Situation

Yesterday was a day of ignominy for me. The day started well enough with a fresh northwest breeze brought on by a weather front that passed through the past night. My wife and I took a bike ride to the Hawk Watch platform at Cape May Point to look at the hawks that were brought in by the northwest wind. We enjoyed sitting with the geekily dressed birders and looking at the many hawks in the vicinity.

When we got home during mid-afternoon, I got the bad news from my wife: "I picked up a DVD that you'll hate at ACME this morning." I recoiled as if I'd been slapped in the face or heard some devastating news about our financial future. I spent the rest of the afternoon dreading what was coming at dinner time.

As we sat down for dinner, I dutifully inserted the DVD in the player, since my wife doesn't know how to work it. I could have subverted the process by secretly ripping out some wires, but I was a chicken. Then, the horrid DVD came on: "Sex and the City."

I had successfully failed to watch any of the episodes of the show during its six year HBO run from 1998 to 2004, even though we subscribed to HBO during all of those years. I was proud of my record and bragged about it whenever I had the opportunity. "You don't let your wife watch Sex and the City, you bad man?", my wife's friends would say to me. "And I don't watch Katie Morgan while my wife is in the room either, just to make it fair", I would reply.

I measure how bad a movie is by the severity of the leg cramps that I suffer during its viewing. Last night I was in agony as I was virtually waterboarded by this very lousy movie. The only other emotion that I felt was sympathy for Mr. Big, who had to put up with SJP's chin wart as he kissed her. It was one of the worst nights of my life.

09/28/08 comments

Banned Books Week

The best way to fight book censorship is to read a banned book. Support your local library and librarians as they battle the forces of ignorance who are trying to limit your access to print and other media. Support your local school board as they fend off parents and preachers who are trying to determine which books can be taught in the classrooms of your communities.

My wife used to teach English in a rural high school in central Pennsylvania. One of the books that she regularly taught in her 10th grade section was A Separate Peace, by John Knowles. A student in one of her classes, who probably didn't want to take the trouble to read the book, complained to his mother about the realistic language used in some of the book's dialogues. The mother, abetted by her preacher, made a list of all of the objectionable words and petitioned the school board to ban the book and censure my wife. I liked the way the local paper, the Chambersburg Public Opinion, reported on the incident: on their front page, they listed all of the objectionable words. The censorship battle raged on for quite some time and caused my wife a lot of grief. She ultimately "won" the battle by being able to keep her job, but everyone lost because the school board wanted control over which books were taught in the entire curriculum.

At the time my wife was fighting her battle against ignorance, I was serving in my 10 year stint on the school board of a neighboring community. During my term, with two years as president of the board, we had parents and preachers that wanted to ban books from the schools' libraries. These attacks were all defeated. The biggest battle I had to fight was against a group that attacked the teacher of a health class for using explicit biological terms in the classroom and actually writing them on the blackboard. I presided over a school board meeting where hundreds of foaming fundamentalists called for blood in the case. My proudest moment was when I threatened to throw the whole bunch of them out of the meeting if they wouldn't follow the rules of order. We "won" the battle.

I write "won" to describe results of battling censorship because every battle erodes our liberties. The only way to truly win a censorship battle is to hang the rotting, gutted corpses of the would-be censors from the ramparts of our libraries and schools.

Mark Twain said many things best:

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."

Read a banned book today.

09/27/08 comments

The Answer

People occasionally ask me, so here's my answer. Any other questions?

09/26/08 comments

Rainy Day Bits

The unnamed tropical storm that hit the Carolinas has been dumping rain on us for a couple of days, so there's not much else to do but to stay on the computer and enjoy the photos and blogs.

1. Doesn't Barack Obama seem more of a polished statesman than the grouchy old guy? I just sent off my application for absentee ballot today. I'm excited about casting my vote.

2. My wife and I saw a great movie yesterday as we escaped from the rain and wind: Burn After Reading. I was crying from laughing during the whole movie. It has a brilliant cast and a wacky story line. Highly recommended.

3. I saw a great movie on HBO last night: Strange Days. Somehow I missed this one back in 1995 when it was released. The action is non-stop and the film has the feel of Blade Runner, one of my all time favorites.

4. Mika Brzezinski is eye candy with intelligence. She and Joe Scarborough and company are a lot of fun and informative on the Morning Joe show on MSNBC. When Katie left the Today show, I switched my morning viewing to MSNBC and CNN on my two tuners as I eat breakfast and zap commercials.

5. This time of year I wish I liked to watch baseball on TV.

6. Every time the sports pundits christen a team with any of the words, "dynasty", "unbeatable", or "team of the century", they lose a game that shouldn't have been close. USC Trojan's are the latest beneficiary of the curse.

I have too much time on my hands. I wish the rain and wind would stop.

09/24/08 comments

My 15 Minutes of Fame

I was looking at my stats on Google and found that 55% of my query traffic to CapeMayBeach.net comes from the query "french beach". When I did that query, I found one of my photos at the top of the page. When I clicked the photo, I landed on this blog. Hurry up and try it, my fame clock is ticking.

09/23/08 comments

Solution for Wall Street

I've been working on a comprehensive solution to the fiscal crisis which rewards the innocent and punishes the guilty. I was in the final stages of my plan when a much more important issue crossed my desktop.

Evidently, there are photos of Jamie Lynn Spears breastfeeding. I did a ton of research on the Internet, but couldn't come up with any sneak peeks other than this one. Another disturbing aspect of the situation is that the photo department in Wal-Mart isn't as secure as I thought it was.

After a lot of hard work, at least I found a picture of a woman in the act of breastfeeding. With some imagination, we can see, in the mind's eye, what Jamie and Maddie would look like at chow time.

Unfortunately, I've completely forgotten my solution for the nation's finances.

09/19/08 comments

Real Estate

Freddy Mac's Nightmare on Wall Street has the nation's financial institutions wondering whether it was a good idea to sell a house with an inflated price with no down payment to a person who couldn't possibly pay the exorbitant mortgage with the hope that they would default and the price of the house would have increased in value. I think the answer might be NO.

Anybody left with money might wonder what to do with it. The Donald suggested on TV yesterday that T-bills or real estate were the only two good options. Since I'm trying to sell my house, this might be good news.

Does anybody know The Donald's email address? I'd like to tell him about my house.

09/17/08 comments

Weak Dollar

My wife and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary in Venice in August of 2001. Back then, one Euro was worth 88 cents. We still found Venice to be expensive. Today, one Euro is worth $1.41. We remember well our $200 dinner at the Gritti Palace. Today that dinner would cost $320.45. I'm glad we went to Venice when we did because we could never afford it now.

Why is the dollar so weak? I've read that a weak dollar is good for exporters of American goods. It certainly isn't good for American tourists abroad, but it is good for tourists in America from abroad.

The weak dollar is good for the French art galleries in New York. The weak dollar is good for those who invest in gold. The weak dollar is good for U.S. business. Any guesses as to who is running Washington D.C. these days?

09/15/08 comments

A is for Avarice, B is for Bailout

When I was raising kids, I tried to dissuade them from their natural tendency toward greed. My wife and I also attempted to show them by example and, since we were both teachers, we either were not greedy, or stupid, or both.

During my few avaricious moments in life, I remember the haze that greed put over my rational thinking. It's very similar to what happens to a man's mind when he has an erection.

My wife and I don't gamble for money and don't buy lottery tickets. We also don't own any stocks. We had one greedy foray into the world of IPOs a few years ago and lost a few thousand dollars. After that experience it has been easy to stay out of the stock market.

I know a couple of people in the world of investment banking and wondered what the difference was between them and the high rollers in the casinos of Vegas, Atlantic City, or Monte Carlo. I figured the only difference was where they report to work.

I have a very good friend that's a stock broker. I have another good friend who's a high stakes poker player. I only consider the first friend a gambler.

I feel bad about all of the people that have been hurt by the abundance of greed that resulted in the mortgage meltdown, but very few are innocent bystanders.

At least when a high roller has a bad night in the casino, he doesn't expect Uncle Sam to bail him out (Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac & Fanny Mae).

09/11/08 comments

Delaware Bay Crossing

Maybe put this in the category of more guts than brains.

09/10/08 comments

Lipstick on a Pig

It has become too hard to remain silent on the Idiocracy that is the Presidential campaign. Guess what is the title of the 2006 book by Torie Clarke, onetime Pentagon spokesperson and press secretary to John McCain? Drill baby, drill (on the word "book" above).

It's time for a change. Even though I have little in the way of experience in political matters, I can see that the pitbulls (even those with lipstick) are loose in both political kennels. My wife is threatening to go and live in another country (presumably with me). But I know that there is no country for old men, so I ask her, "Which country is better?" Unfortunately, every day brings more and more answers to that question.

Who's the rock star now? If you say Obama, I say you're out of date. I'm just about ready to buy a formerly governmental jet on eBay and head for the hills.

I have some advice:

1. To the Democrats: Do not say a word about Sarah Palin and boil your campaign down to two easy soundbites:

Republicans brought high gas prices
We can give you affordable health care

2. To the Republicans: keep McCain and Palin together on all campaign appearances and only let John introduce Sarah. Keep Sarah on track with her "Hockey Mom" speech.

3. To the media: shut the hell up.

08/06/08 comments

42nd Anniversary

At high noon on August 6, 1966~~, a day that will live in infamy~~, I waited in the sacristy of St. Katherine of Sienna Catholic Church in Wayne, PA for my soon to be bride and ~~monster~~ mother-in-law to show up. The night before, they were so late for the rehearsal that it and the dinner following were almost canceled. I listened to Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of the President, walk all the way up the aisle of the National Shrine in Washington before we could get started. I often describe my wedding as the worst day of my life, not because I've ever regretted it, but because I had no control over the proceedings. Here's what we looked like (my wife is the one smiling).

It's been a great ride so far. Right now, we're in the midst of a family reunion at the Shore with all 6 of our grandkids and their parents.

08/02/08 comments

Why I Love Drowsey

Pardon this interruption from my hiatus, but I want to help celebrate Drowsey Monkey's first anniversary in the blog-o-sphere. Drowsey, by means of her gentle Canadian chiding, caused me to start using paragraphs instead of just typing as did Jack Kerouac. The other major reason is that, no matter how useless a blog I post, Drowsey is always there with a kind and funny comment. I also love that little blonde doll, but that's another issue for another day. Congrats, Drowsey!

07/26/08 comments

Hiatus

It seems as though my August hiatus has already started. I'm much too busy doing nothing worthwhile for the rest of the summer. See you in September.

07/18/08 comments

Maybe Some Balance?

I like the New Yorker magazine. I grew up in California reading the cartoons of every issue. My mother, a native Brooklynite, had a subscription to maintain her roots. I usually buy an issue at an airport newsstand before a flight. My only problem with the controversial Obama cover is that it shows a lack of balance. There are at least two fantasies about Barack, not just one. Here is a cover design that I propose as a substitute.

07/09/08 comments

Cheney is Evil Incarnate

Dick Cheney's sins against humanity continue to be revealed. He will be reviled as the most evil Vice President ever. Impeach him now, before he bombs Iran.

07/07/08 comments

Mid-Summer Ramble

My wife and I had an interesting dialogue this morning while she was reading and commenting on the opinion section of the New York Times website, and I was surfing some movie websites about the movie, "Beautiful Girls", which we had watched last night. Some samples:

She: What is John McCain going to do about al Maliki's statement about time limits?

Me: Actually, Tim Hutton has been appearing in movies regularly, we just haven't noticed.

She: That Medicare bill should be looked at by everyone our age.

Me: Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem.

My birthday came and went during the July 4 extended holiday. We had various groups of company which took our concentration. Being 68 is about the same as being 67 was. I'm still a geezer.

I'm starting to do a crossword puzzle in the local newspaper in addition to the one I do online. The mornings have been so nice on the deck that the paper version makes good sense in the outdoors.

I've developed a bothersome condition that requires me to go back to my urologist before my October appointment for PSA monitoring. Regular visits to the urology office are part of growing older.

06/28/08 comments

A Nice Little Adventure

This morning my paddling buddy Joe and I did one of my favorite kayak paddles around Cape Island. I have done this trip too many times to remember, but it's different every time. Today's trip had an exciting twist to it around the middle of the journey.

I brought 100 ounces of liquid with me, mostly Cytomax with one 20 ounce bottle of Gatorade G2 and one 16 ounce bottle of water. I carried a soft cooler with ice and a few of the bottles so that I could enjoy some icy cold drinking when we stopped for our break.

I packed a couple of power bars and put them with my pocket pc in my dry bag. I also had my marine radio in my PFD (life jacket). I had an extra paddle strapped on the back of my kayak and a couple of bottles of Cytomax in the cockpit with me.

I have equipped my main single kayak with a mount for a Garmin eTrex Vista GPS which can have local charts (marine maps) loaded onto it. In this fashion, I can see where I am on the chart as I paddle. I usually only bring my eTrex on open water crossings, so I didn't even consider bringing it along for this trip. What I did bring was my new Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS watch which my kids just gave me for my birthday coming up on July 1. This powerful tool (not a toy, ladies) allows for complete tracking of a workout.

I left from my beach at 6:39 AM and headed south to Joe's beach, a mile away. He joined me and we headed down the Bay, across the Cape May Canal and through the Concrete Ship. I was a little nervous about fog, but everything was clear as we paddled through the rips around Cape May Point. The ocean swells were pretty big and there were lots of standing waves in the rips, but we managed to avoid most of them by staying close to the jetties. We almost got involved in some life guard life boat races as we passed the Grant Street Beach, home of the Cape May Beach Patrol, but we saw the marker flags in time and swung further out into the ocean to avoid them. About that time we started to notice some fog settling in around the Cape May Inlet jetty. All of a sudden, we were in a white-out fog. We started to worry about getting killed by a speeding boat and Joe started blowing his whistle while I sounded the small airhorn that I carry. Also, we headed toward shore where we could hear the waves crashing on the beach. We used the sound of the breakers and the occasional glimpse of the shore to guide us to the jetty, where we turned right and followed it to the mouth of the inlet. As we turned in the inlet, The fog was gone and we had a relaxing paddle the rest of the way. I was back at my beach in 4 hours and 40 minutes.

My Forerunner 405 gave this set of statistics (which seems to indicate that we climbed a small hill, but actually, the wave swells on the ocean were pretty big and added up) for the trip and this map of the journey. I got back for lunch, which pleased my wife, and had a nice little adventure.

06/27/08 comments

Vista Sucks

I thought that the "MS" in MSNBC meant Microsoft. Joe Scarborough, on "Morning Joe" this morning, totally bashed Vista as an unworkable operation system. It'll be interesting to see the damage control roll out. BTW, Vista sucks.

06/25/08 comments

Too Much Play?

This time of year is the reason that we live at the Jersey Shore. I have so many ideas about outdoor activities that I can't begin to do all of them. I concentrate on kayaking, running, and walking during the summer months. I also work in step aerobics, cycling, and fishing as time permits.

I don't spend much time working at my computer business or home projects, but I have to do a little of each to satisfy my few clients and my slave-driving wife. (I discovered that my wife does not read this blog and hardly reads our photo journal.)

We entertain many guests during the season. We get to do some other activities with them: boardwalks, site-seeing boats, the (free!) Cape May County Zoo, and beach sitting.

06/19/08 comments

Innumeracy Redux

Yesterday, I read an article in the local paper, Atlantic City Press, about a property tax increase in our township in South Jersey. I was struck by the misleading way that the tax increase was presented, so I wrote a rant for the "spout off" section of another local paper:

The article in the Press (6/18/08) says that Lower Township raised the property tax rate by 2.4 cents. Wow! That'll be easy to pay, it's just pennies. This isn't the way to tell us poor taxpayers what's really happening. Here's a little grammar school arithmetic:

old rate: 32.4 cents
new rate: 34.8 cents
difference: 2.4 cents
% of change: 2.4/32.4 x 100 = 7.4 %

That's the number that should have been announced and reported. That's a 7.4% increase in property taxes, which are already high.

Here's another number that should be reported: our property taxes will DOUBLE in 9.7 years with this rate increase. Have I got your attention yet? Shame on the Lower Township government and shame on the Press for shoddy reporting.

Later in the day, I mentioned the 7.4% tax increase to another resident. He was flabbergasted. He thought he would just have to pay pennies more.

06/17/08 comments

Energy Plan

Back in the 70s, I happened upon a copy of the book "Limits to Growth" by the Club of Rome. The book was very controversial and stimulated a great deal of work in computer modeling. One of the implications discussed in the book was that the world would run out of oil at some point not in the distant future.

Now that we're paying over $4.00 a gallon for gas, more people are believers that we have an energy problem to solve. In the interest of preserving a decent way of life for my children and grandchildren, I've formulated the following plan:

1. Rather than seeking more ways to get oil, make a national decision to convert all possible machines to use electric power.

2. Ensure that all generating plants for electricity use clean, non-fossil fuel sources of power, including nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, and tides.

3. Utilize and enhance the current infrastructure of gas stations to swap out batteries as a new form of refueling. This will require a few standard types of batteries that can be quickly replaced and recharged by the stations.

I'm convinced that, if America mounts an Apollo-like program to accomplish this plan, it can be accomplished within a decade. Big Oil will balk and try to be a hindering force, but they can get in on the action in transforming the infrastructure and make their money.

Ships and trains can be powered by nuclear reactors, but I'm not sure what replacement power source would be appropriate for airplanes. I am sure that all issues can be solved if the national will is behind the effort and the resources are available.

We've been refusing to take on the energy problem, but the time is now, or never.

06/13/08 comments

Gear

Part of the fun of outdoor activities is the acquisition of gear appropriate to the task. While I was in Boulder, CO on my recent trip, I bought a couple of items. For the couple of hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park, I needed a new water bottle to hang by a carabiner for ready access. Just before the trip to Colorado, I had thrown out all of my water bottles because they contained dangerous chemicals, so I needed a replacement bottle. The one I found has a straw inside so that, by biting the foldable mouthpiece, I can sip without inverting the bottle. I've used the bottle on two long hikes and one short hike and two kayak paddles.

The second piece of gear subjected me to a lot of ridicule from my fellow travelers: a pair of Vibram Five Fingers. I intended to use them for times when I wanted to be barefoot, but needed a bit of protection on the bottoms of my feet. I've already used them for two kayak paddles and love them. I think that they might be chick magnets in addition.

06/10/08 comments

Killer Hike

My son-in-law Tom prides himself on pushing me to my limits whenever he gets the opportunity to do an outing involving just the two of us. On his wedding day, with my daughter, Tom introduced me to bike riding in Blacksburg, Virginia, where you start at your high point, descend into the valley and then bust butt to get back. Another time, in Georgia, he had me hiking up Springer Mountain from Amicalola Falls, a 17 mile round trip with lots of climbing. We had a third guy with us the day in Switzerland that we took a much, much longer hike than we needed or wanted. At dinner that night, we consumed $24 worth of mineral water (back when the exchange rate was good). When Tom suggested that the two of us hike up to Estes Cone on a cold and breezy day when the women didn't want to venture out, I should have been more wary.

A couple of hours later, I was huffing and puffing as we ascended a very steep trail to the 11,000 foot summit. I made it to the top and was rewarded with views as breathtaking as the hike. It was so windy and cold at the top that Tom and I ate our peanut butter sandwiches wearing gloves.