...I certainly didn't mean to open that can of worms.
Look, I don't often address the comments on my blog, but here's the thing. You missed my point. It wasn't about the clothes. It was about the "attack dog" of the Republican party whining about how painful it was to be criticized for something when all of the facts weren't being reported.
And yet, just about everything the McCain campaign has come up with over the past month, and the one biggie the Internet is gushing about now have been flat out wrong, and at the very least, misleading.
Hence the title of the post - the pot calling the kettle black.
I'm not going to get into who is right or wrong in this whole process. Both candidates misrepresent the other's words, but I have grown wary of the Republican tactics of name calling, and trying to tear down the character of the other guy, instead of telling me what they'll do about fixing this country.
And that's all I'm going to say about politics. I voted the other day, my ballot has been cast, and we'll see on Wednesday what the final outcome is.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
I heart early voting
I picked up Peanut early today and went to do my civic duty.
Peanut got into the stickers...
Peanut got into the stickers...
Monday, October 27, 2008
Funniest. Song. Ever.
The video is probably not safe for work, but just what I needed on a Monday.
By the way, I totally just stumbled across this while looking for something else. What was that something else, you ask?
Do you sense a theme here today?
By the way, I totally just stumbled across this while looking for something else. What was that something else, you ask?
Do you sense a theme here today?
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Pot, kettle
Interesting
"It's kind of painful to be criticized for something when all the facts are not out there and are not reported," said Palin, saying the clothes are not worth $150,000 and were bought for the Republican National Convention.
Wow...doesn't feel so good when it happens to you, now does it?
"It's kind of painful to be criticized for something when all the facts are not out there and are not reported," said Palin, saying the clothes are not worth $150,000 and were bought for the Republican National Convention.
Wow...doesn't feel so good when it happens to you, now does it?
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Ouch!
Do you know what happens when an unsuspecting size 14 meets up with one of these in a dark room?
Fractured pinkie toe, that's what.
That's an old style glass insulator, by the way. My grandmother used them as doorstops in her house, and when we went up for her funeral, it was one of the few things I knew for sure that I wanted from her house. The one I tripped across last night is similar, but that's not the actual culprit.
I've stubbed my toes many a times over my 36 years, but never like this. I heard the crack as soon as I hit it.
Now, I don't have an x-ray that tells me it's fractured, and I'll spare you looking at my nasty toes, but just know that my pinkie toe on my left foot is swollen and black and blue. I can still move it, but it hurts like hell.
And here's the thing about broken pinkie toes. They're just like broken pinkies. There's not a whole lot you can do about it but take some advil and gut it out.
I fractured my left pinkie when I was in college playing basketball, and was told to tape it up and try not to move it for three weeks. Since I'm not that big on going to hospitals and waiting for hours with the plague bearers in the ER waiting room, I'm going to take that advice I got some 18 years ago and apply it today.
Thirty six years. Two broken bones. Not a bad record. I'm glad my mother made my drink my milk.
Fractured pinkie toe, that's what.
That's an old style glass insulator, by the way. My grandmother used them as doorstops in her house, and when we went up for her funeral, it was one of the few things I knew for sure that I wanted from her house. The one I tripped across last night is similar, but that's not the actual culprit.
I've stubbed my toes many a times over my 36 years, but never like this. I heard the crack as soon as I hit it.
Now, I don't have an x-ray that tells me it's fractured, and I'll spare you looking at my nasty toes, but just know that my pinkie toe on my left foot is swollen and black and blue. I can still move it, but it hurts like hell.
And here's the thing about broken pinkie toes. They're just like broken pinkies. There's not a whole lot you can do about it but take some advil and gut it out.
I fractured my left pinkie when I was in college playing basketball, and was told to tape it up and try not to move it for three weeks. Since I'm not that big on going to hospitals and waiting for hours with the plague bearers in the ER waiting room, I'm going to take that advice I got some 18 years ago and apply it today.
Thirty six years. Two broken bones. Not a bad record. I'm glad my mother made my drink my milk.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
She gets it from her mother
I think I've already mentioned Peanut's temper and how it resembles her mother when she gets mad. She will not do anything you request of her, not even apologize, until she is damn well good and ready to do it on her own. I'm trying to break her of this habit early on, or at least show her that it's not going to get her what she wants, because I don't need two of those in my house.
This morning, I went to wake up Peanut about 10 minutes before we had to leave. I asked her if she needed to go potty, and she said yes, so we went into the bathroom, she did her thing, and I said, "OK, let's go get dressed so we can go to Miss J's house."
"Nooooo! I go back to sleep in mine bed!"
"No baby, it's time to go."
"NO! I still tired. I go sleep in mine bed."
So we turned on the light. She was insistent. She got back into bed and lay there for about 5 minutes with her mother trying to coax her out.
I finally came back and asked, "Would you like some chocolate chip muffin?"
Her face lit up like she'd won the lottery.
"YES! I get up now!"
This morning, I went to wake up Peanut about 10 minutes before we had to leave. I asked her if she needed to go potty, and she said yes, so we went into the bathroom, she did her thing, and I said, "OK, let's go get dressed so we can go to Miss J's house."
"Nooooo! I go back to sleep in mine bed!"
"No baby, it's time to go."
"NO! I still tired. I go sleep in mine bed."
So we turned on the light. She was insistent. She got back into bed and lay there for about 5 minutes with her mother trying to coax her out.
I finally came back and asked, "Would you like some chocolate chip muffin?"
Her face lit up like she'd won the lottery.
"YES! I get up now!"
Sunday, October 12, 2008
I'm calling bullshit
I've been thinking a lot about politics lately, thanks to some of the podcasts I listen to (This American Life, NPR's story of the day, Real Time with Bill Mahr, and Etown), and thinking about who I think will be best equipped to turn this country around so that my daughter has a wonderful place to live when she grows up. I'm sure it's the same thing my parents were thinking in the early 70s when Vietnam was winding down, Nixon was in the White House, Watergate was going on, and the world looked like it might fall apart.
In fact, this time in our history is eerily similar to the early 70's and I wonder how much of that is because our current leaders chose not to learn from history.
I'm still a bag of very mixed feelings about the economic bailout. OK, no I'm not. I'm pissed off about it. I'm really fucking pissed off and I'm calling bullshit.
It seems to me that there is plenty of blame to go around for why things are the way they are, but I'm wondering why we're giving money to anyone who made a bad decision, whether it's a bank for giving a bad mortgage, or an individual for accepting it. Here's the main problem I have: the banks should have known better, and so should the people taking out the loans.
Everyone is making it seem like everyone who has a bad mortgage was preyed upon by predatory lenders. Yet, I know people who took out those ARMs because they thought they were going to turn a quick buck on the house they bought. I DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR THOSE PEOPLE. I busted my ass to be able to buy my first house. When we sold it, we benefited from the market and probably got more for it than we should have, but it allowed us to buy our second home. However, we knew that ARMs were risky and even though I was told that we could look at one, I insisted on a 30 year fixed. I didn't want to look at anything else because I'm not a gambling man.
Look, unless you're in the military, buying a home should be something that you do long term. It should be somewhere that you plan on living for years, making it your own, and it should break your heart when you sell it.
It pisses me off that people and corporations in this country try to make a quick buck by gaming the system, then cry and bitch and moan and expect a handout when their gamble doesn't pay off.
Ford and GM ought to be allowed to fold. The thing that sucks is that all of those people who worked their asses off for years aren't going to have anything left if they do. Those are the people who should be getting a bailout. Fuck the auto makers. They were too stupid to see that the times, they were a-changin' and stuck with their truck and SUV lineup. How many times have the "big three" been bailed out over the past 30 years. Why is it so damn important to keep Detroit in business? Let them fail. Let Honda and Toyota come in a take over their plants and make cars that people will actually buy without sticking their hands in the taxpayer's pockets.
Which brings me back to who will make our country a better place for my daughter. I was a very strong supporter of Obama in the beginning, but since he voted for the bailout and has gone around the country taking banks to task rather than laying the blame out evenly, I don't know that I can agree with him on this. Not that McCain is doing any better. It just pains me to see Obama going from someone who said what he though to saying what he thinks will get him elected. I hope that if/when he does get elected, the first thing he does is starts talking about the American people taking some responsibility for their actions as well.
And at this point, McCain has lost all respect from me. If he had chosen a running mate instead of a beauty queen, I might have actually been swung his direction. His speech at the convention was powerful, and I think he's been coerced into a lot of the decisions he's made about his campaign. But his choice of running mates and attacking his opponent rather than talking about how he's going to help have made me see him as nothing more than another sleazy politician.
I hope that I can tell my daughter years from now that I voted for the guy who put America back on track.
In fact, this time in our history is eerily similar to the early 70's and I wonder how much of that is because our current leaders chose not to learn from history.
I'm still a bag of very mixed feelings about the economic bailout. OK, no I'm not. I'm pissed off about it. I'm really fucking pissed off and I'm calling bullshit.
It seems to me that there is plenty of blame to go around for why things are the way they are, but I'm wondering why we're giving money to anyone who made a bad decision, whether it's a bank for giving a bad mortgage, or an individual for accepting it. Here's the main problem I have: the banks should have known better, and so should the people taking out the loans.
Everyone is making it seem like everyone who has a bad mortgage was preyed upon by predatory lenders. Yet, I know people who took out those ARMs because they thought they were going to turn a quick buck on the house they bought. I DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR THOSE PEOPLE. I busted my ass to be able to buy my first house. When we sold it, we benefited from the market and probably got more for it than we should have, but it allowed us to buy our second home. However, we knew that ARMs were risky and even though I was told that we could look at one, I insisted on a 30 year fixed. I didn't want to look at anything else because I'm not a gambling man.
Look, unless you're in the military, buying a home should be something that you do long term. It should be somewhere that you plan on living for years, making it your own, and it should break your heart when you sell it.
It pisses me off that people and corporations in this country try to make a quick buck by gaming the system, then cry and bitch and moan and expect a handout when their gamble doesn't pay off.
Ford and GM ought to be allowed to fold. The thing that sucks is that all of those people who worked their asses off for years aren't going to have anything left if they do. Those are the people who should be getting a bailout. Fuck the auto makers. They were too stupid to see that the times, they were a-changin' and stuck with their truck and SUV lineup. How many times have the "big three" been bailed out over the past 30 years. Why is it so damn important to keep Detroit in business? Let them fail. Let Honda and Toyota come in a take over their plants and make cars that people will actually buy without sticking their hands in the taxpayer's pockets.
Which brings me back to who will make our country a better place for my daughter. I was a very strong supporter of Obama in the beginning, but since he voted for the bailout and has gone around the country taking banks to task rather than laying the blame out evenly, I don't know that I can agree with him on this. Not that McCain is doing any better. It just pains me to see Obama going from someone who said what he though to saying what he thinks will get him elected. I hope that if/when he does get elected, the first thing he does is starts talking about the American people taking some responsibility for their actions as well.
And at this point, McCain has lost all respect from me. If he had chosen a running mate instead of a beauty queen, I might have actually been swung his direction. His speech at the convention was powerful, and I think he's been coerced into a lot of the decisions he's made about his campaign. But his choice of running mates and attacking his opponent rather than talking about how he's going to help have made me see him as nothing more than another sleazy politician.
I hope that I can tell my daughter years from now that I voted for the guy who put America back on track.
Friday, October 10, 2008
This might be a long one...
It's been an interesting couple of weeks. I've been very busy at work, but it seems like I've also had a lot of time to reflect lately. I guess it's because for at least two days out of the past week, I've been driving from campus to campus, installing the same software over and over and over again. After a while, it gets to be a mindless task, and the mind starts to wander.
I've had the opportunity over the past month or so to reconnect with a lot of old friends. It's funny how something like facebook is just something you do for a while, and then it explodes. I've been on facebook for the better part of four years, but just recently have found a bunch of old friends, who evidently have just found facebook themselves. Here's how old school I am: I joined when you still had to have a university email address to sign up. Several months ago, I started connecting with cousins and distant relatives in the "old country," but it seems like it's just grown exponentially over the past month. I'm closing in on 100 friends, which I never really thought I had, but evidently I do.
I told you all of that to tell you this; it's amazing to me that a group of people who basically grew up with the same background and the same education can come out so differently.
Of my main group of friends from high school, which at times numbered near twenty, but had a core of about 8 or 9, I've kept in touch with three over the years. The Captain, who remains my best friend, I speak to at least every couple of days. Perry Mason, the lawyer, I haven't kept as much in touch with lately, but we email about once a month, and The Scientist, who I've known since fourth grade, I talk to about once a month.
The thing about those people is that we all sort of have something in common. We moved on. We left our little town, went to college, got advanced degrees (except for the Captain, but becoming an airline pilot requires way more studying and testing than I've ever done to earn my two degrees) and generally experienced the world.
Now, that's not to say that there aren't other people in our group that didn't do that, but those that did, when they moved on, they did so without staying in touch. What really gets me, though, is those friends of our who did nothing. The ones who stayed in town, maybe got married, maybe a couple of times, never went to school, are still working low paying jobs. That's not to say that they're not happy, or that they don't have a wonderful life. I don't know that. But I wonder how, among my friends who all did pretty well in high school, and grew up in pretty much the same way, how is it that we have a Ph. D., a lawyer, I have a Master's degree in education, an airline captain, a Microsoft engineer, and then someone who's working at Wal Mart and another working at a pizza joint in town.
How does that happen?
It scares me because it makes me think that no matter how well we raise Peanut, there's always going to be that possibility that she may choose the latter course in her life. It's a course I was on myself, but something inside of my motivated me to get up and make something of myself. I guess all we can do as parents is try to provide our kids with that internal motivation.
I've had the opportunity over the past month or so to reconnect with a lot of old friends. It's funny how something like facebook is just something you do for a while, and then it explodes. I've been on facebook for the better part of four years, but just recently have found a bunch of old friends, who evidently have just found facebook themselves. Here's how old school I am: I joined when you still had to have a university email address to sign up. Several months ago, I started connecting with cousins and distant relatives in the "old country," but it seems like it's just grown exponentially over the past month. I'm closing in on 100 friends, which I never really thought I had, but evidently I do.
I told you all of that to tell you this; it's amazing to me that a group of people who basically grew up with the same background and the same education can come out so differently.
Of my main group of friends from high school, which at times numbered near twenty, but had a core of about 8 or 9, I've kept in touch with three over the years. The Captain, who remains my best friend, I speak to at least every couple of days. Perry Mason, the lawyer, I haven't kept as much in touch with lately, but we email about once a month, and The Scientist, who I've known since fourth grade, I talk to about once a month.
The thing about those people is that we all sort of have something in common. We moved on. We left our little town, went to college, got advanced degrees (except for the Captain, but becoming an airline pilot requires way more studying and testing than I've ever done to earn my two degrees) and generally experienced the world.
Now, that's not to say that there aren't other people in our group that didn't do that, but those that did, when they moved on, they did so without staying in touch. What really gets me, though, is those friends of our who did nothing. The ones who stayed in town, maybe got married, maybe a couple of times, never went to school, are still working low paying jobs. That's not to say that they're not happy, or that they don't have a wonderful life. I don't know that. But I wonder how, among my friends who all did pretty well in high school, and grew up in pretty much the same way, how is it that we have a Ph. D., a lawyer, I have a Master's degree in education, an airline captain, a Microsoft engineer, and then someone who's working at Wal Mart and another working at a pizza joint in town.
How does that happen?
It scares me because it makes me think that no matter how well we raise Peanut, there's always going to be that possibility that she may choose the latter course in her life. It's a course I was on myself, but something inside of my motivated me to get up and make something of myself. I guess all we can do as parents is try to provide our kids with that internal motivation.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
National Night...
In.
If you didn't know, we here in Texas moved National Night Out to a cooler month, so that maybe more folks would actually participate. So tonight is National Night Out here in Texas, and as I sat in the driveway, playing guitar and kicking the soccer ball with Peanut, I looked around, and my neighborhood was eerily quite.
Usually there are at least kids playing or people taking walks, but tonight, it was like everyone decided to lock the doors and hole up inside. It was a bit depressing.
In other news...I'm getting really sick of hearing the same crap out of both candidates, and I'd really like to hear more about what they're going to do and less about who they know or knew or palled around with.
And has anyone else noticed that there hasn't been a SINGLE discussion about education in any of these debates? To me, that's really disturbing. Education is always a focus in presidential campaigns, and this year it has been summarily ignored. It's frightening to me because I would hate to think that either one of these candidates might continue the failed educational policies.
If you didn't know, we here in Texas moved National Night Out to a cooler month, so that maybe more folks would actually participate. So tonight is National Night Out here in Texas, and as I sat in the driveway, playing guitar and kicking the soccer ball with Peanut, I looked around, and my neighborhood was eerily quite.
Usually there are at least kids playing or people taking walks, but tonight, it was like everyone decided to lock the doors and hole up inside. It was a bit depressing.
In other news...I'm getting really sick of hearing the same crap out of both candidates, and I'd really like to hear more about what they're going to do and less about who they know or knew or palled around with.
And has anyone else noticed that there hasn't been a SINGLE discussion about education in any of these debates? To me, that's really disturbing. Education is always a focus in presidential campaigns, and this year it has been summarily ignored. It's frightening to me because I would hate to think that either one of these candidates might continue the failed educational policies.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
