Tennessee: Year 3

Yep, it's that time again.  Time for the annual report from a California transplant living in Tennessee.

 

As usual, there is a large contingent of people who still have no clue how to drive on a freeway.   The silver lining of this is that I do.  I have almost 30 years experience driving on San Francisco Bay Area freeways, and two of those were spent commuting from one side of the Bay Bridge to the other.  I may not be the best driver in the world, but compared to a large majority of folks out here I'm a bloody expert!!  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the real reason this lack of driving skill exists is that this is by no means a freeway culture out here.  I-40 runs the entire East-West length of the State and the majority of the time that people use it is if they are traveling from one side to the other.  Usually going East to attend a UT game but I digress.  I do have an easier time of getting to work now as my company has allowed us to work 4 10's.  Nice.....at least at 6:30 am there's enough room for me to do several lane changes and pass the slow pokes and the carpool lane isn't in effect yet.  

 

Still happily married to Cathy.  Can't see that changing ever.  The kids are all doing great.  My oldest just had another baby....see the blog entry entitled Haley Madison.  The Boy is in college and about to attend the Appalachian Center for Art....he wants to do decorative Ironwork so he's taking Blacksmithing and he will be taking welding.  He wants to get into sculpting with metal.  The youngest is 14 now and in High School and is very serious about doing well and getting a scholarship so she can got to UT and get in the Veterinarian School there.  Hopefully she will score a lottery scholarship and get a full ride.  In advance I'd like to thank my fellow Tennesseans for playing the lottery and sending my child to college.  My Grandson is 5 now and a big ball of boy energy. 

 

Making headway on some of the outdoor projects we've been working on.  Bought an electric tiller, I love that thing!  We have these brick edgers around the outside of the house that hold in "flower beds"....although the previous owners planted nothing but ground cover and had two huge cypress bushes....the Perfect Line knows them well....he used to have a bunch outside of his house.  Out came the cypress bushes, and lo and behold it makes our house look bigger!!!  I've discovered, that having large, waist high shrubbery right up against your house makes it look smaller.  And yes, before you ask, the pond is still not done.  It is still a shallow depression in the ground. 

 

Still getting used to being surrounded by the "one issue" voters.  Actually I probably won't ever get used to it, so there you go.  I have co-workers that tell me that if we drill now we will be "self sufficient"....yeah right....sorry folks it won't happen and it won't lower the price of gas one iota.  I see a lot of clinging to guns and religion around me. 

 

Still have the same job, and it looks like the stupid that was strong with the finance and accounting department has vanished and been replaced with a more rational and realistic view of things.   They were trying to go to a new system where Project Managers would process their own invoices and we in Billing would basically be cut out of the loop.  Now anyone that works in an environment where they bill people's hours knows that Project Managers hate anything to do with financial paperwork, thus the reason billing departments exist.   One PM here basically told me, "If I wanted to be an accountant, I'd have gotten a different degree in college and then become a CPA and would be making a whole helluva lot more money than I am now."   What would have happened is the PM's would have ended up having the Admins do their invoices.....in other words they would have created another billing department.  So glad leveler heads prevailed. 

 

Cathy is still in Real Estate, but she has changed shops to Century 21.  She's a lot happier there, but the market still sucks.  Here's hoping President Obama makes things better.  Yeah, I went there.....

 

Haven't gone on any more vacations....who can?  I basically took a week off and stayed home and spent time with Cath.  It was nice, and no I won't use that stupid term "staycation"....like this is a new thing.   

 

That's the scoop for this year, not much to report.  Here's hoping next year brings you news of the POND!!! (Don't hold your breath....the problem with all these home improvement plans is they take money which is hard to keep around nowadays).

 

 

 

 

Haley Madison

Born this morning at 9:26 AM. My second Grandchild, little Haley Madison......she's adorable and Nanu plans to spoil the crap out of her in the years to come.

Wow you learn something every day!!

So apparently every single drop of gas that is sold in the US comes from refineries in Houston Texas.....did you realize that? I mean it must right? Every single station save a handful around middle Tennessee has no gas! So apparently all those other refineries in the other States just make rainbows and Unicorn Farts. Can you freaking believe this crap? Seriously, we need to find another way to power our damn vehicles now. I would truly love some other industry to come up with another fuel source so we can watch the Ivory Towers of Oil crumble to the ground. It is pretty messed up of us isn't it? The technology of our cars has grown in leaps and bounds since Henry Ford first pulled the lever on his first factory. I mean we don't have to change points and distributors and rotors when we do a tune up anymore (remember that???). Heck we don't even have to change the plugs in our cars until 120,000 miles now! Yet the only thing that hasn't changed about the engine; they still run on internal combustion. They still need gasoline to power the generation of torque, etc. STILL!!! After 1,000 years....c'mon! It's 2008 for Christsake!! Weren't we supposed to have flying cars by now???

The Undecided Voter

I made a special badge for the Undecided Voter. The Undecided Voter is that guy in line ahead of you at McD's looking at all his choices conviently packaged into numbered combos or an entire .99 cent value menu but still hems and haws and just can't make up his freaking mind! Meanwhile behind him are about 5,000 people who already knew what they wanted coming in (for Christsake it's McDonalds...they serve Hamburgers, Fish Fillet sandwiches and Chicken items plus fries, drinks, salads and other sides...oh and dessert. Not really hard to figure out what you want. Beef, Chicken or Fish, something to drink and a side or dessert if you feel like it.) or figured it out within 5 minutes of standing in line. The Undecided Voter is the lady at the grocery store who has a debit card, but insists on still writing a check!!! And of course she waits until the guy/gal is done ringing her up to fish for her check book in her purse, fish around again for a pen, slowly opens the book, starts to write check, asks for the total about a dozen times (even though it's right there on the cashier's screen....) then fumbles through her purse again to find her wallet so she can show her ID. Then takes approximately 12 years or so to pack everything back in the purse and slowly walks towards her cart and takes her crap out to her car. Meanwhile the line behind her is to the frozen food aisle near the back of the store!!! Or the guy/gal that when you are out to dinner and has looked at the menu about 50 times but still can't make a bloody decision!!! This clown asks "what are you having?" to each of his/her dining companions. For folks like that I always want to respond "I'm having a hard time keeping myself from taking this butter knife and jamming it in your eyeball is what I'm having...".

This is the Undecided Voter. So to the Attention Whore Undecided Voter I say this: November is 2 months away!! You will be called upon on November 4th (or somewhere around there) to make a decision that affects you and your fellow Americans. Heck, early voting is going to start in a week or so around here. Here's your choices, and they are really easy.

A man who's only claim to experience is that he was a Prisoner of War for 5 years in Nam. This same man has lots of experience in the Senate and at one time was a Centrist but in the past 8 years has sided with the bad decision making process of his Party's main stooge 95% of the time. A man who's answer to our ongoing fuel shortfall is to "drill baby drill!" and to take tax revenue away from each State to give you that "tax holiday" during the summer on your gas....which if you really thought about it would really screw up our State's big time. Folks forget that the money from fuel taxes goes to maintaining roads, salt trucks to de-ice said roads in the wintertime (what do you think the City/County/State just magically waves it's wand and poof there are salt trucks that mystically appear as if out of nowhere????) but hey it will lower gas prices right??? Don't bet on it. It will just put that much more profit into the pockets of the oil companies. (side note here: The Republican Party used to be strong on defense and all about smaller Government and very Pro Corporation. Now it seems like it's become the Jesus Party and the take away every Civil Liberty our Citizens have because we need to be safe from the Islamic Facists.) A man who wants to basically continue the failed policies of the last 8 years and drive our economy further into the ground and a man who's running mate talks about women breaking the glass ceiling but wants to deny a woman her choice of what to do with her body and wants to stop scientific advancement. A running mate who thinks that Global Industrialization has nothing to do with the Planet's Climate changing.

OR:

A man who has only had two terms as a Senator but before that was a Lawyer and a State Senator. A man who could have worked at some big Law Firm getting crooks and murderers off but instead worked at a smaller Firm. A man who is a Community Organizer, essentially a person who gives of themselves to help take back a Community from the degradation and corruption that have ruined it. (Word of note for Sarah Palin: Jesus Christ was a Community Organizer and Pontius Pilate was a Governor......just wondering, why does she hate Jesus?) A man who made the South Side of Chicago a better place to live and stopped it from becomming Detroit!! A man who's only mantra is Change we can believe in and Hope (you know the last thing in Pandora's Box that helped make all the evil's contained therein palatable). A man who has written down what he wants to do across Party lines to help this Country pull it's collective head out of it's collective ass. It may be a painful process folks, but isn't birth/metamorphosis always a bit painful. Ben Franklin said "No gain without pain" (yes Ben said it first...). There may be an increase in taxes, but how the Hell do you people think crap gets done? With Rainbows and Unicorn Farts?????? The once almighty dollar still talks, although it's a bit short of breath right now. Everyone bitches about "those damn Chinese taking over" but yet still shop at WalMart. I hear these same people say "why don't we make stuff here anymore?" Because the present Administration and the one before it, yes Bubba I'm looking at you and your dumbass NAFTA, made it so attractive to the Corps to manufacture everything cheaply that they didn't stop to think of the impact on the Economy of the Country their consumers live in. You can stop bitching and do something about it. Barack wants to give tax breaks to Corporations that stop outsourcing manufacturing jobs and start re-opening factories here in the US. Make it more attractive to the Corps to give the Middle Class jobs back. Look let's face it, some people's skill set and education level only allows them to work certain kinds of jobs. There's nothing wrong with that, the world needs ditchdiggers you know. What's wrong is those folks don't have a place to work anymore because a bunch of Chinese folks are doing their jobs in Beijing or Shanghai for 25 cents an hour. The way to change that will be to vote for Obama, not McCain. McCain will continue to encourage the Corps to do business as usual. Obama may not be able to do everything he wants to do, but dammit he at least wants to try. Honestly folks, how much worse can he make it? I do know that if the present trend continues our Country may not bounce back. Nothing we do is going to make gas prices come down. Not happening. The only thing we can do is continue to research, and I mean non-oil companies doing the research, alternate ways to get us from point A to Point B. Seriously people think about it. We get our television via Sattelites now. Civilians have freaking sattelite dishes on their houses!!! Land line phones have gone the way of the DoDo now. You can use cable lines to speak to each other now. Hell we have cellular technology. Portable/Mobile phones have gone from a large box in your car with external attennae to something the size of a pack of smokes to something that fits in the palm of your hand!!!! We have cars that used kinetic energy from braking to store power in a battery and that stop using gasoline when the engine is running under 40 mph!!!! We've had all these advances, except in the crap that makes your car go. In all this time we haven't found another method of internal combustion????? We've got freaking mechanical arms that do heart surgery now but we still use gas to make a car go. We've improved engine technology for cars but it's still the basic internal combustion engine. Something's seriously wrong with us if we can give that up.

So Undecided Voter again, in simple terms, here's your choice:

Business as usual (in the words of Dr. Phil, how's that working out for ya?)

or

An attempt to begin to fix the problem.

It's really not that hard.

Barack Obama 101

First let me correct a statement I made yesterday about Gov. Palin being a member of the organization that wants Alaska to suceed from the Union. She was briefly (probably thought it a bid idea considering she was probably running for Gov at the time) but isn't anymore. Her husband is though and she talks at their functions. Here's a link to a true false article about her....the truths are scary.. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/03/MN0012MQNM.DTL&hw=true+false+about+Palin&sn=001&sc=1000

Now for Gov. Palin and all the hard headed Repubs out there who still say "what is Barack Obama going to do...he hasn't said anything...". Well to use a Palin quote from last night, after he "Holds back the waters and heals the world" (you know it's funny, she said that last like it was a bad thing......not a real good sentiment from the Governor of Alaska....) he will do what he has laid out in this http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf . Now I know some of you Repubs (apparently Gov. Palin is one of these) are just figuring out how to navigate these here newfangled Interweb things, but if you click on the link and READ...oh that's right, it's not a book by Bill O'Reily or Man Coulter so I guess you won't bother....you will see, detailed, what the Senator wants to do for our Country as President. I love how some delegate told the news after Palin's speech last night "Biden better be scared...". Yeah right. Sorry Dude, but Biden has 35 years experience and will destroy the Pitbull with lipstick (well Palin did say the difference between a Hocky Mom and a Pitbull is the lipstick....) when it comes to foreign policy and life outside of the frozen tundra of Alaska. I can't wait for these debates.

Did you also notice that during the entire RNC, so far anyway, not a single speech has been about what the Repubs intend to do to help our economy, etc. Not a thing. All I've heard is "blah blah 9/11...blah blah blah defend our country blah blah Barack is EVIL blah blah blah stop the terrorists blah blah 9/11". Seriously! Giulianni was on his usual "Mayor of New York blah blah 9/11 blah blah" kick which was the reason he didn't get the nomination. And of course true to what Barak Obama said, I saw lot's of White Folks in the convention audience clinging to their guns and religion. See he was right after all.

I will try and contain myself.

I will let Ha Ha Guy make my snarky remark for me.....

Yes, you can all figure out what this is going to be about.....or can you? I know you are saying "go ahead Mr. Ranter, let's hear all about what a loser Bristol Palin is because she's 17 and preggers...."

Nay nay good readers, you do me a disservice. Bristol Palin is not running for office, and yes I believe that you are fair game but only when you are a certain age. Bristol is only 17 and she's not campaigning for Mom whereas Chelsea Clinton is in her 30's and was center stage stumping for Mom. Chelsea=fair game Bristol=leave the kid alone she has enough crap to deal with....especially because she is being forced to marry Levi her "f**in Redneck" boyfriend who "doesn't want kids". Too late Levi. So no, I'm not going to slam a teenager ill equiped to make an intelligent decision regarding birth control. Especially a teenager who was told to "just don't do it because it's a SIN!!!!!". Yeah, like that's going to stop raging hormones....... No dear reader, this is going to be about her Mom, Sarah Palin and the Ha Ha Guy is because of the hypocrisy of the Republican Party.

According to the Repubs, Obaman doesn't have the experience to lead. John McCain does because he flew a plane in the Navy in Nam and he got shot down and was a POW. Thanks for the Service John, but that doesn't make you leader caliber. Obama has been a Senator for 2 terms, McCain for a lot of years. Now we have Palin who Fred (dum dum....sorry had to throw the Law and Order thing in there.....) Thompson says "is qualified to lead this Country should she have to." Really? She was the Mayor of Podunk Alaska before becomming Governor and only serving.....a year!!!! Governor of a huge State with not a lot of population, also head of an organization who's goal was to have Alaska succeed from the Union! But you know McCain says "Country First".....I guess he forgot to as Sarah if she was for Country First or Alaska First.....it sounds to me like it's Alaska first. Yep folks, in her first interview after being picked as McCain's running mate she basically sad "I'm so happy with the things I can do for Alaska and Alaskans...." Ummmm I thought the President and Vice-President were supposed to be concerned with all 50 States and not just one? Sounds like she's still looking for that chance of succession.

I pause for one comment about the Bristol situation.....two things about her pregnancy that glaringly point out Mom's hypocrisy:

1. Just goes to show that "abstinence Only" education in schools is full of loads of Fail.

2. Proves that our Sex Offender laws can be way too strict. Levi is 18, Bristol is 17, according to the law he should be arrested and at least have to register as a sex offender for having sex with an underage girl. I think that 17 is one of those border line ages that should be viewed as if it was a crime by the age difference between the two parties involved. A 20 year old and a 17 year old...yeah he's a big perv. 18 year old and a 17 year old......pretty consenual if you ask me.

I also would like to point out that if Bristol was Obama's 17 year old daughter, the GOP wouldn't pull any punches and slam the crap out of the kid and it wouldn't be "a private matter".

Palin also was instrumental in getting funds for building a bridge to some island in Alaska that wasn't necessary to build a bridge to because no one went there. When the press got ahold of the truth and it was being called "The Bridge to NoWhere" she changed her mind and said she wasn't for it and it was a dumb idea. Did she give back the tax money? Hell no!!! This is a woman who like most Republicans think that the Government should be not so involved in our lives; unless you want to have an abortion or you want to take your Wife off of a life support system because it was her last wishes......then they can get up in your business. Or if they want to pull the 80 year old Granny out of line at the Airport because she could be a terrorist or listen in to your phone calls because it's their right because they are looking for terrorists. Yeah it's okay then. Apparently she is so Pro-Life that she thinks any form of birth control is abortion. Wow!!! Tell that to all those little 13 year old boys going through puberty. I guess all that choking of the chicken is abortion too.

Bbbb...but Obama has no experience and POW...9/11.....

Yeah right.....Ha Ha indeed.