Viva independance

Sometimes you have to be responsible and do the right thing. Such was the case when I grounded myself from driving. The legs had gotten too screwed with this progressive crap of mine aand I was becoming unsafe. While others go forward and damn the consequences, I'm big on self responsibility.

Today we installed a set of hand controls someone on the Net tossed my way. It's good to have Bikers helping bikers in the world. My buddy John spent the last four hours on his knees leaning into the car and the end result is a high quality (albet old and with peeling chrome) set of hand controls installed in my car. After three trips around te block, all I can say is YEE HAAAAA. This set is built like a tank so any small amount of dirt and peeling chrome is minor spuds indeed.

Time for some 409 and a rag, and I'll be like down town.

Bonus Video... I must be in a mood

Raise your rock fist in the air for the god of vocal Ronnie James Dio. Here he performs "Neon Knights" With Heaven and Hell (aka Sabbath). Let there be Rock!

Friday Night's Lost Video

Not so much a video as a posted song. The Replacements are a band that never got their full due, but deserve it. Plug your ear buds into your monitor, turn up the sound up and just listen........ Within Your Reach by The Replacements.

Not sure if you should call them “Amazing” or “Horrifying” pictures.

Pictures of the Twin Towers and surrounding area.

“September 11, 2001"

For those who like space shuttle pictures

A slide show should run for you.

“Space Shuttle Pictures”">

Porno Holocaust Music Video

Aren't you glad it's Friday?

Spineless Yellow Dog Cowards

Rep. Corey Mason posted a blog regarding Hillary's "momentous" declaration declaring Obama the nominee. When I attempted to post a comment, a message appeared stating that "Comment moderation has been turned on. Your comment will not appear until approved".

Approved??? Approved by whom??? Rep. Mason or some lackey at RJT?

http://my.journaltimes.com/post/RepCoryMason/blog/hillary_puts_obama_over_the_top_secures_her_legacy.html?nc=8/28/2008%205:09:39%20PM

In case my comment does not meet approval here it is:

I've stated it before and I'll state it again: Clinton's support of Obama is lukewarm at best. They want him to lose, period. Hillary is not going to wait another 8 years for a chance at the nomination. She has her eyes firmly set on 2012. The only way to ensure that is a McCain victory.

Pray for Rain and God WIll Answer...But It Might Not Rain Where You Want It To!

From the Really Ironic News Department: Focus on the family posted a video on its website (now removed but posted on Youtube) asking people to pray for "rain of bibilical proportions" at Obama's acceptance speech tonight. Well, careful what you ask God for...a malfunctioning sprinkler system at the Pepsi Center went off in a skybox being used by Fox News causing a flood (no word on whether it was of "biblical proportions").

Forecast for Denver today: Sunny and clear. High 81, low 54.

Ripon College gives freshmen free bikes for no-car pledges

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=788470

I like this idea. They're using money they would've spent on a new parking lot to fund the program, so that may be short-sighted (a parking lot lasts for years, but there's an incoming class annually), but I like the notion of instilling good habits in young people.

I believe that we absolutely must end our dependence upon others for our energy needs. Our addiction to foreign oil is crippling. It drives our economy, it drives our foreign policy, it drives our national policy, it drives everything. We are NOT a free nation if we have to schlep to the dealer (foreign countries) to score our daily fix. No junkie is free.

In the past, Americans have risen to challenges. Good ol' Yankee ingenuity and all that stuff. It appears to me that there are all sorts of opportunities here for people to get filthy rich with alternative technologies. Can we do it? Will we? Or should we just give in now, sell our soul to the oil man, and blissfully nod off into a petroleum-induced stupor . . . until we wake up tomorrow, screaming in need, and crawl back to the dealer for another angry hit?

Thursday's Funnies Blog

We all need a good laugh, and I just got this in, ENJOY!!!

"I LOVE MY JOB!"

If you don`t laugh out loud after you read this you are
in a coma! This is even funnier when you realize it`s real!


Next time you have a bad day at work think of this guy.

Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers
in Louisiana . He performs underwater repairs on offshore
drilling rigs.

Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent
it to radio station 103.2 on FM dial in
Ft. Wayne , Indiana , who was sponsoring a worst job
experience contest. Needless to say, she won.



Hi Sue,

Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother.

Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you`ve been
feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma
with you to make you realize it`s not so bad after all. Before I
can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you
with a few technicalities of my job.

As you know, my office lies
at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It`s a
wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we
do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial
water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out
of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then
pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped
to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I`ve used it
several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the
bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the
back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water.
It`s like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt
started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only
made things worse. Within a few seconds my butt started to burn.

I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done.
In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine
had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now,
since I don`t have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn`t
stick to it, however, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate.
When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually
grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my butt.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the
communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact
that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing
hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was
instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression
stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the
surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at
the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet.

As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of
laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream
and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the
chamber.

The cream put the fire out, but I couldn`t poop for two
days because my butt was swollen shut.

So, next time you`re having a bad day at work, think about
how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up
your butt.


Now repeat to yourself, "I love my job, I love my job,
I love my job."

Whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, is this a
jellyfish bad day?

May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day!!!!!

Where Do You Have To Go To Get Away From Computer Viruses?

Well, the answer is farther than the International Space Station! It turns out that a worm designed to steal gamer passwords has popped up on some laptop computers on the International SpaceStation. The good news is that none of the infected computers control things like, oh, life support or guidance systems.

So keep you Windows computers up to date and run your virus protection software...especially before you email someone on the ISS!

In Memory of Stevie Ray Vaughan

Eighteen years ago today, Stevie Ray Vaughan played his last concert ever at Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy,WI. He shared the bill with Eric Clapton,Robert Cray,and his brother Jimmy Vaughan. After the show he decided to visit his girlfriend in Chicago. His helicopter crashed in the ski hill and was killed instantly. Ironicly, his last song he played was"Sweet Home Chicago"



Stevie Ray was born in Dallas,Texas October 3,1954. Learned how to play guitar at the age of seven. His music career started in Austin ,Texas. He was discovered by David Bowie,who offered him to play on his "Let's Dance" album. Jackson Browne offered him free studio time so he could record and album. The result was "Texas Flood" released in 1983.



Stevie Ray suffered from drugs and alcohol addiction midway though his career. He entered rehab and got cleaned. After rehab, he released critically aclaimed "In Step" in 1989. That was his last studio album.



Please, listen to this guy. His guitarwork is the BEST I've ever heard. Here is his cover of Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Chile(Slight Return)

Illegal Immigrant Raid in Mississippi

I was really annoyed reading this AP article. Oh, boo hoo, the poor "immigrants". Wake up AP, they're not "immigrants", they're "ILLEGAL immigrants", and, yes Mr. Foxworth, they are also criminals and should be treated as such.

I found it interesting that other people in the plant were applauding as they were being removed.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,411462,00.html

HEY hALE BOPP! Moon landing hoax

News has it the myth Busters are going after the moon hoax wednesday. If we landed on the day side, and we have such powerful telescopes, why aren't we able to see the lander from afar? Wouldn't this settle all arguments once and for all? Where are the pictures we have certainly(?) been able to take for decades? I've always thought it'd be cool to have a telescope generated picture of the lander base.

Luke Warm Endorsement

Just watched Hillary's speech. At best, I thought it was a luke warm endorsement of Obama. I thought of it this way: How would I feel if someone was asked: What is AA's best quality? And they answered: He's always punctual.

GLAST...Oops, Fermi Releases First Light Image

NASA today officially renamed the Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope after Enrico Fermi (kind of surprising to me since Fermilab was already named after him). Fermi, as the name implies, looks at the universe in gamma rays rather than visible light. Gamma rays are the high energy photons that come from supernova remnants, pulsars, and matter falling into black holes, all that exotic, fun stuff.

The satellite was launched June 11th and has been undergoing it checkout since then. Today, they released the first light image.
This image shows the gamma ray intensity all over the sky. You can clearly see the plane of our galaxy and the center of our galaxy. Several well known strong sources are marked. You can also see a very dim (blue) diffuse background everywhere. One of the goals of the mission is to try and discover the source of this diffuse gamma ray background.

Another main goal is to find out what all the gamma ray sources are. NASA produced a neat poster a few years ago showing all the gamma ray sources and many of them were listed as "Unknown". Fermi has much better sensitivity and resolution so we can start figuring out what these things are.

Fermi also carries a Gamma Ray Burst Monitor. Gamma ray bursts are these really powerful explosions from the far reaches of the universe thar are caused by massive supernovas, black hole mergers, and cool stuff like that. It has been seeing about one a day so far. The increase in detection rate will help study these weird events as well.

I have worked on the Education program for GLAST since 2002 and had an invite to the launch (and couldn't make it due to another meeting). I did get to tour Spectrum Astro up in Phoenix in 2007 when they were building Fermi...got to don the whole bunny suit and go in the cleanroom (since they do DOD work, cameras were streng verboten so I have no pictures of that).

I am sure I will have an occasional blog on Fermi as time goes on and it releases major discoveries. I am just glad to see it up and working after being a small part of the team for the last six years!

Next Get-Together - yes, FOOD - of course!!

OK, the planning has commenced .
I have 20 people on my email list
for get-together info.
Please check your bulk and deleted files,
I send "BCC" and some servers think it's spam.

If for some reason you haven't gotten an info email
from me, PLEASE let me know. I had one the 1st time not go thru.

OUR DATE - Sept. 20th
Time - contact me
Place - not far - contact me

As always privacy and security
are highly guarded for everybody :)

Who's with us??

I'm a Delinquent

When us bloggers met the Mayor a few weeks ago, I tongue in cheek mentioned the parking ticket I received.

I pay it promptly. I wrote out a check, put it and the citation in the envelope and dropped it into the box at the cop shop, 730 Center Street.

Now, I know I paid it, my bank confirms it was cashed before it was due, so WHY DID I JUST RECEIVE A DELINQUENT NOTICE?

So, now I will have to waste more of my time and resources, printing out a copy of the cancelled check, going down to the police station, using up City resources, only to have them tell me something like "Oh, don't worry about it, it happens all the time".

How much is it costing us to print and mail out bogus delinquent notices? It makes me wonder what other administrative nightmares are taking place and how much they are costing us.

The JT bans Irregular bloggers but.....

They allow Latin Kings to post:

LK RACINE August 26, 2008 12:19AM CST
I hope you win homez, what if this was a white bar they would say anybiody could shoot somebody and just because this happen by this fine est. white owned bar doesnt mean this bar caused this person to kill someone, thats what they would say

LK RACINE August 26, 2008 1:17AM CST
concernedinracine LK means LATIN KINGS IN RACINE LIKE MY HOMEBOY "MORECRIME"

If I was the GD I would be asking for equal time.

The Softer Side of Michael Phelps

This is what the "liberal media" didn't want you to see!

If You Can't Take the Heat, Stay Away from the Nukes

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-partisan group, wanted to bring attention to the threat of nuclear weapons. They bought an ad at the Minneapolis airport and put up a nice little poster shown at the right. (sorry for the low res...best I have found).

Well, someone complained and it has been removed for being anti-McCain and "too scary". NEWS FLASH: NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE SCARY! Of course, it also states the Northwest Airlines (official airline of the Republican convention) has the right to reject ads in its concourse! Yep, corporate censorship at its best.

Now I know there are those out there thinking the UCS is taking a cheap shot at McCain...except the SAME AD is up in the Denver airport addressed to Obama...oh, and it has stayed up.

Now the really strange thing is that the UCS pretty much likes McCain's stance on nuclear weapons. From the story: "Negin (spokesman for UCS) disputed that the ad is anti-McCain, noting that the Denver version names Obama. He also said both candidates largely agree with the group's position."

So in this wacky world, we have an ad that AGREES with McCain's position being censored for being anti-McCain? WTF?

The one consolation I take is that the UCS is plastering the ad all over town so hopefully, Northwest's corporate censorship will prove impotent and ineffectual.

ChatBox

This is what I see.

Wow, another Monday!!

Ok, Here's a wide open blog.

Did you survive the weekend?

What are you up to this week??

I'm happy to say that book 1 of 4 is finished in my daunting recipe task, pretty cool
Maybe thing will settle down now that school has started, we'll see.

Happy Monday guys!!

Lets play "Guess Who Said This...."

Try and guess who said the following remarks:

"you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent."

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,"

You don't know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state is the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a northeast liberal state. A slave state that fought beside the North. That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way.

"The White House isn't a place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power... the economic future of the next generation,"

"The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training"

"I Don't Recall Hearing A Word From Barack About A Plan Or A Tactic."

"This is a guy who's used weapons of mass destruction. This is a guy who's destabilized the whole neighborhood. This is a guy who in a war with the Iranians, over 800,000 people on both sides were killed. This is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world. And this is a guy who is in every way possible seeking weapons of mass destruction. That case, in and of itself, ought to be sufficient."


'And so I've believed for a long time, a view shared by my Republican colleague John McCain and many others as well, that we need more force in Iraq. That's not a popular position to take. But we need more force now in order to have less force later. We need to gain control of security in Iraq."

"John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off with You know, John McCain.

Who said all these statements?

The Mars Email is Back: No, Mars Won't Be as Big as the Full Moon

Okay, the Mars is as big as the full Moon email is making its annual rounds as it probably will every August. I am modifying my blog entry from the JT site last year slightly (and it was my first blog entry on the old site).

Back in August of 2003, Mars had a relatively close approach to Earth of about 34 million miles. The media picked up on this and a silly email started going around stating that Mars would appear as 'big as the full Moon". Well, it wasn't true then and it isn't true now. This email seems to come around every August and proabably will every year from now until the end of the internet.

Mars NEVER appears as big as the full Moon. The confusion seems to have stemmed from an astronomer who said if you had a telescope with 75x magnification (fairly common for small amateur telescopes) Mars would appear as big as the full Moon. Then someone left off the 75x magnification part and the legend was born. Yes, Mars was nice and bright that year (I got my fair share of observing in) but to the naked eye, it was a bright, orange dot.

Mars had an opposition in December of 2007. However, due to the fact that the orbit of Mars is an ellipse, Mars will be much farther away, about 55 million miles this time. Mars's next opposition will be in January of 2010 and a distance of almost 100 million km (about 60 million miles).

Right now, Mars is not even visible as it is on the opposite side of the Sun and over 200 million miles from Earth!

Same post next year at the same time, I expect. Some things never die.

Rock Me, Sexy Jesus

Yep, I just got back from seeing Hamlet 2, a very funny, not so politically correct new movie. It's still in limited release and won't open nationwide until Friday.

It's kind of a cross between Clerks, Waiting for Guffman, and To Sir With Love. A high school drama teacher gets stuck with a lot of students who don't want to be there after other electives get cut and then finds out that drama is next on the chopping block. The solution? Inspire his students to mount a production to save the drama department: Hamlet 2, in which Hamlet travels back in time to save all those who died in the original with the help of Jesus and Einstein among others.

Elisabeth Shue plays a very funny version of herself and Amy Poehler leaves you wanting to see more of her loopy ACLU lawyer character.

So why am I so lucky to see it sooner than most? Well it is set in Tucson ("Where Dreams Go To Die") although it was filmed in Albuqureque (Tucsonons will notice that it looks very different...no saguaro cactus and the mountains are all wrong.)

And it turns out that the lead character is allegedly based on a Tucson teacher. And it happens to be a Tucson teacher I know! Kevin (the real teacher) is decisively more talented than the movie version (his theater company consistently does the best homegrown productions, although I can see some of his eccentricities come through in the movie).

So I leave you with the song, Rock Me Sexy Jesus from Hamlet 2.

Is a Politician's or Elected Official's Love Life Relevant ?

Of course, sleeping with the enemy is not kosher. If an elected official is carrying on with someone who represents a threat to our security, or if an obvious conflict of interest is involved, there is no doubt that public concern is justified. But what about the guy or gal who is having an affair outside of marriage, but which impacts their official position naught? Is it our business if someone we've elected (or are considering for election) is cheating on their spouse? What if they're not married, but engaged in "illicit" sexual behaviors, like homosexuality or prostitution, or just "sleeping around"?

Does the office matter? Is it maybe OK for a local politician to engage in certain behaviors that would not be acceptable on a national level? Or vice-versa?

For that matter, what about police and community leaders? Teachers? Preachers?

At what point do our personal peccadilloes become fodder for public consumption, and why?