These People Can’t Be Serious September 30, 2008
Posted by mike in government, rants.29 comments
Can they?
Yeah, I guess they probably are.
Watching that truly painful and alarmingly inept woman being interviewed by Katie Couric reminded me of last year’s You Tube hit.
Remember this?
Stupid republicans might as well elect Miss Teen South Carolina Vice President.
In other news, am I the only one that feels that George Bush should be brought to trial for crimes against the state? Or maybe crimes against humanity?
I know, I know, it’s just a fantasy, but I would just love to see him being hauled away in chains screaming and crying for his daddy to save him just before he was put in front of the firing squad. If anyone deserves it, he does.
Arrogant Little Prick
I can’t decide if the current economic crisis is really an economic crisis or if it is more of a crisis in leadership. I wonder if the bail out would have been proposed by anyone other than the The Little Idiot, if it would be in place by now. Personally I would have voted for the original 3 page bail out plan, but then again, I was dumb enough to believe that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Warning: Gratuitous Hot-Chick Photo Ahead:
Whoa, what the fuck was that and how did that happen??? For the love of God, please nail my eyes shut so I never have to gaze upon such evil again!!!!!!
There, that’s a little better.
Did You Ever Wonder…. September 29, 2008
Posted by mike in Uncategorized.34 comments
what your kids do in their spare time?
God knows I sure did. My son, the “good one” apparently starred in a couple of You Tube videos.
Check out this one (my son plays the dead kid).
Sometimes I think I might have been better off not knowing what he was doing.
——————————
Okay, so here I am a little over 5 months after my surgery. What that means is that it has been a little over 5 months since I have smoked which is all well and good, but a minor problem has developed. See, when I went in the hospital, I weighed about 165 pounds. That was maybe 5 pounds or so lighter than my normal weight of 170. A week or so after my surgery, I weighed 154 pounds. There’s nothing like 5 days in the hospital and major surgery to get you to lose weight. The truth is, I really liked weighing 154 pounds although everyone I knew kept fussing over me because I had lost too much weight. Believe it or not, I could actually see my penis when I was taking a shower and that was a good feeling.
That was probably too much information, huh?
I had planned to exercise regularly this summer to keep the weight down and all was going well until I discovered two things. Because of those two things, I am now pushing 190. This is the second heaviest I have ever been in my life. Holy crap. It was always easier for me to lose weight than it was for me to gain weight, so this is a first for me. Seems like I am expanding at a phenomenal weight with no end in sight.
No matter what though, I am not going to start smoking again.
——————————
Seems like I have been obsessed with the past recently. At first I thought that maybe this was some sort of sign from the heavens above that I am not going to be around much longer and then I realized that there is no such thing as signs from above so I began to search a little deeper for an answer. It finally dawned on me that when one gets a life threatening disease, even one that has been cut away, one’s “future” immediately becomes questionable. In other words, maybe deep down inside I was thinking that I wasn’t going to spend a shit load of time planning for a future that might not happen. That would be kind of embarrassing and a huge waste of time.
While wallowing in the past, I did find out a few things. For instance, remember this post from back in August of 2007? Briefly, it was about a teacher that I had back in Junior High that I tormented beyond belief. I always felt a little bad about it, and wanted to apologize to her. Well, through one of those reunion sites and a couple of message boards, I was able to make contact with a couple of classmates. Surprisingly enough, a few kids remembered me after 40 years and I was able to find out who that teacher was. Her name, oddly enough, was Ms. Cope.
As I was talking to one of my classmates, a lovely young lady who turned out to be an even lovlier grown up woman named Diana, about Ms. Cope, I was reminded that it was mostly me and a few other kids that were “rather mean” to poor Ms. Cope. While I will have to say that the lovely Diana did not really do much except laugh at the horrible things we did to Ms. Cope (wonder if her first name was Couldn’t), she didn’t really jump up and tell us to stop either. Another classmate who is a year older than me (seriously, is that even possible?) didn’t have Ms. Cope as a teacher, but he did remember that someone had thrown a jock strap at her and it hit her right in the face. No wonder she quit.
When I am sent to hell, I am sure it will be for the way I treated Ms. Cope.
I also found out that a lot of the kids I grew up with have died. Seems to be more than what should be normal, but I am not sure what the statistics are for dead people my age. I was also informed that the drinking water in the little town I grew up in has been “undrinkable” for almost 20 years now due to contamination from the coal mines and slurry impoundments. This probably means that the water was undrinkable even when I was living there in the 60’s. I wonder if the water supply had kidney cancer in it?
——————————
Has anyone seen my iPod?
Casual Observation September 25, 2008
Posted by mike in Uncategorized.26 comments
I can spend hours figuring out some kind of complicated carpentry-type issue using sophisticated computer graphics, charts, graphs, arrows, and streaming videos in high quality techni-color ¹, but the second that I nail that final board in place all of my mental short-comings become painfully obvious.
For the record and future reference, 50.5 inches does not equal (≠) 51.5 inches no matter how hard you try to stretch that board.
Carry on please.
¹Okay, that whole “streaming video in high quality techni-color” thing may actually be referring to my internet porn addiction, and not my carpentry planning, but you get my point.
Somebody Bail Me Out! September 24, 2008
Posted by mike in government, wtf.27 comments
First of all, why is it that every single God damn time I see George Bush, I think of Benito Mussolini?
Maybe it’s just wishful thinking.
Okay, now for the important stuff. See, here’s the thing. A few years back I made some bad real estate deals. Actually, I have never made a good real estate deal, so that is kind of like one of those “goes-without-saying” statements. So forget I said that okay? I just made what turns out to be a normal real estate deal for me.
Anyway, I bought this old house that wasn’t worth what I paid for it and then the price got all inflated on paper and I mortgaged that bitch of an old house to the freaking hilt and then the bottom fell out and now my house is worth nothing and I owe more on it than I can possibly pay so I am going to lose my ass.
Now, this is the where you come in.
I need you to give me 700 billion dollars. See, I wrote it out like that because I am not even sure how many zeros I need to add after the 700 to come up with 700 billion cause that is a lot of fucking money and a crap load of zeros too. Hell, that probably costs more than national health care would cost. Probably more than developing a new cleaner form of energy would cost. It’s just a shit load of money. They could probably cure cancer with that kind of money. Shit, with that kind of money they could probably buy George Fucking Bush a brain. (Yes, his middle name is actually Fucking–look it up on the internet if you don’t believe me).
Anyway, here’s the thing. I really need you to send me that money like soon. I don’t think there’s any need for us to worry about any kind of oversight or accountability or anything like that because hell, we’re all friends here, right? I mean you know for sure that you’ll get the money back some day, don’t you? Sure you do.
Oh, and hey, there might be some “administrative fees” that I might have to pay out to a few “good-old-boys” who been helping me out around here, but you don’t need to worry about stuff like that. All you need to do is worry about getting the money too me really fucking quick.
Anyway, just put that money in a plain brown wrapper and send it off to me. Soon. Real soon.
Oh, and you probably ought to send cash–just in case it, you know, gets hard to come by.
Thanks and thanks for bailing me out.
The Pleasures Of A Hard-Worn Life September 21, 2008
Posted by mike in serious shit, tribute.28 comments
In what may be one of life’s biggest oddities (to me), the majestic and almost foreboding looking Bitterroot mountains are named for Montana’s state flower the Bitterroot.
Could there be two more different images on the planet?
Long time readers of this blog have heard me mention author Jim Harrison before. I have been in a rut for over 30 years now when it comes to reading, largely because of Mr. Harrison’s talent. Not only is the man a fantastic story-teller, but when it comes to technical writing skills, the man is a true artist.
Harrison’s most recent novel, The English Major, is especially appealing to me since I have gone through life with that title. When I first started working in the somewhat technical field of high pressure high temperature manufacturing, that title, “The English Major” used to irk me to no end. Somewhere along the line though, I learned to like it. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to be an English major telling people with PhD’s in physics and chemistry what to do and how to do it.
The English Major is one of those “I don’t want to put down” novels that I am definitely going to read again and again and again. It’s a pretty simple story and the underlying themes are o very typical of Harrison’s work. A 60 year old man loses his beloved dog, house, wife and job and then sets out on a road-trip with a 43 year old sex-crazed former student of his. Despite the truly sad part about the main character losing his dog, the novel is funny and even uplifting from time time. For a man in the shadows of those foreboding “60’s” maybe there is hope that I will someday find that sex-crazed woman that is 17 years my junior.
Nah, probably not.
As always, I am struck as much by how Harrison writes as I am by what he writes. I think I read the following excerpt (used without permission I might add) about a dozen times. I guess if it were a bible passage, it would be the source of some sort of religious epiphany. But since these are just the words of a talented man, I guess it is jsut meant to be enjoyed somehow.
My sweat was coolish and I felt giddy lighting a cigarette, a habit I was able to quit when I was teaching. Back then the teachers who smoked went down to the furnace room for a few quick puffs between classes. Though some now consider smoking the equivalent of baby-raping it can be a contemplative activity. I was suddenly quite lonely for my workshop, a shed attached to the barn and calving shed. It was hard to leave my tools behind for the auction. O only saved my dad’s favorite hammer. So much of it was sentimental junk: half of a once favorite pliers, a broken fence stretcher, a nail puller, the head of an adze, a full can of paint with a label missing, a Mason jar of keys, used spark plugs in a wooden cheese box from Wisconsin that once held three year old cheddar, a tin can full of lantern wicks, a keg of bent nails I had mean to straighten and reuse. Once I had found a Prince Albert tobacco can full of dirty photos that Vivian’s father had hidden in the back of the drawer. Old fashioned erotic photos featuring real fleshy women in black stockings. I can’t say they were a jolt to my noodle.
I had upset the swallows, but now fifteen minutes later they decided I was harmless as they brought back bugs to regurgitate for their children. I had begun to wonder if age sixty was too late to change my life not that I had any choice. The other time of radical life change was when I quit teaching in my midthirties. I thought I was pretty resilient at the time but I wasn’t. I was only one of my generation of hippies and future yuppies who had a theory and acted it out. I was heartsick with with books and teaching and wanted to simply live the “natural” life of a farmer. I let my mind go dead. I was amused at th influx of city people in the seventies and eighties who didn’t realize that farming was as technical as electrical engineering. They listed to Neil Young whom I liked myself but then I knew how to farm. Last month I even threw away all but two of ten rather tattered pairs of bib overalls, and three pairs of lined Carhartt pants.
My cell phone buzzed unpleasantly and I stared at it a few moments as if I was holding a dog turd before I answered.
Naturally, the point of that entire excerpt is that my cell phone is, in fact, a an actual dog turd.
Of course I jest, my cell phone doesn’t work as well as a dog turd, which may explain why Cristina Applegate never calls me.
Home Repair Hallucinations September 18, 2008
Posted by mike in Live & Learn, home.32 comments
Just for your information, if you take two relatively old people suffering from empty nest syndrome and put then in a situation where they have way more time on their hands than either money or brains, they will likely get themselves in trouble.
Armed with that knowledge, please allow me to elaborate.
Back during the summer my wife and I did some major improvement to our garage. Basically we took it from being a tar-paper shack to a relatively nice looking free-standing building on our property. It took us a month and a half to do it, but we did it. Naturally we spent a few days sitting around congratulating ourselves on a job well done.
Wife: Boy, I can’t believe we finally fixed that garage.
Me: Yep.
Wife: Boy, I can’t believe we finally fixed that garage.
Me: Yep.
Wife: Boy, I can’t believe we finally fixed that garage.
Me: Yep.
Wife: Boy, I can’t believe we finally fixed that garage.
Me: Alright–we fixed the fucking garage. Stop talking about it.
You get the picture. We’re old. We don’t have much to talk about that hasn’t been talked about before, so we repeat ourselves a lot.
So in order to reduce the number of times a day that my wife says: “Boy, I can’t believe we finally fixed that garage,” I decided that we needed to remodel the second bathroom in our house. It took us about a day and half to “gut” the room. We stood around and scratched our heads for a day or so after the demolition work about how we would “arrange” the room because it is a relatively small room. The room is a little over 4 feet deep and a little over 7 feet wide. In that small space, the previous owners had somehow managed to cram a toilet, vanity/sink, and corner shower. Like everything else in this house, it was put together by a family of toothless hacks with a minimum number of tools and even less talent. Did I mention that my wife has always hated that corner shower even though it was and is the most practical solution?
Our plans are to put in a custom shower with tiled walls and a solid surface base, a new vanity/sink combination with some sort of modern looking, solid surface counter top, and the old toilet. That’s right, we are keeping the old toilet. See, here’s the thing. Michigan, in its infinite wisdom, has decreed that all toilets must be those crappy (haha) water-saving toilets. That means they use less water in the reservoir so you use less water with each flush, ensuring that you will have to flush the toilet 137 times to get it do its appointed job. Of course the toilet meets Michigan’s requirements of being “low-flow” even though it doesn’t work worth a fuck, and does in fact require exactly 137 times as much water because it doesn’t freaking work.
No amount of logic has worked on the state of Michigan. I could just drive to Canada and buy a real toilet, but I don’t speak “beaver” so no one in Canada would understand or be able to help me.
Me: Hi, I’d like to buy a toilet.
Canadian: Eh?
Me: A toilet. I’d like to buy a toilet.
Canadian: Eh?
Me: I want to buy a fucking toilet.
Canadian: Eh?
So anyway, here we are deep in the throes of remodeling the second bathroom. This means that I have had to move all of “my” stuff from the small bathroom to the main bathroom in the house. Okay, technically my wife moved it, but you know what I mean. I probably told her to move it or something.
This morning I was finally forced to take a shower in the other bathroom that I remodeled 5 years ago (the main bathroom and yes, it is “technically not finished), and I couldn’t find any of “my stuff.” As a result, I was forced to shave with my wife’s shaving cream and razor and aside from just feeling “prettier,” I honestly think I might be growing boobs. Who knew? I think kind of like it.
Of course this is not me in the photo above, but after using my wife’s shaving cream, I feel just this pretty.
Note to those of you who are dumb enough to try any home improvement projects on your own:
Please check with your local home improvement center for the availability of the items you may need. Otherwise you may find yourself fucked because you have to wait a month to get a custom-made shower pan.
On top of everything else, my wife has gone to Ohio (Did you hear that people, I said Ohio, Bwahahahahaha–fucking Ohio) for the weekend to hang out with my daughter Jackie. That means I am in the market for a new helper for the weekend and I am off to interview my first candidate in a few minutes:
I’m willing to bet the interview lasts about 15 seconds.
Okay, I am going to go take a nap work. You guys just carry on and let me know if anything important comes up.
Drill Drill Drill September 16, 2008
Posted by mike in rants.36 comments
Okay, I have to preface this post by saying that I do earn my living by designing products that are used for oil exploration (drilling). Naturally, I am just a teeny bit biased, but don’t let that have any influence on you whatsoever.
Sometime back in the dark ages known as the 70’s, there was a huge controversy over baby seals. Specifically, the controversy was over whacking baby seals in the head with a mallet and skinning them right then and there in front of their mothers, fathers, and everyone else. Apparently, baby seal fur was very much in demand back then.
Right about now you are probably asking yourself “where in the fuck is this retard going with this story?” Well, if you will sit still for a just a few minutes, I will tell you. Oh, and for those of you that come here for the hotties, here ya go!
Man, I’d whack that thing like a baby seal.
Okay, back to the baby seals. Or was that oil drilling? Maybe I was drilling for baby seals? Anyway, so America got all nutted up about whacking baby seals and demanded that those bad guys who were whacking the baby seals stop whacking the baby seals. (In case you are wondering, I really like saying “whacking baby seals”). See, those baby seals had to be whacked so that rich people could wear seal fur while they were disco dancing. Obviously the problem with seal fur is not the people wearing the fur, it is the guy out in the middle of some snow-bound hell trying to make a living by whacking baby seals and selling them to some guy for a couple of bucks, a case of beer, and some whale blubber.
Get it? Well, maybe you do, but if you are an American, I am willing to bet that you don’t get it. You may, in fact, be the same person that wants to ban guns every time some nut bag opens fire in a school yard as if guns themselves are the problem. Do you think guns are the problem? Take a look at this and tell me how you really feel:
Do you see a problem with this gun? Hell no, neither do I.
Okay, now where was I again. Oh yeah, oil drilling. People, drilling is not the problem. Consumption is. If you want to prevent more drilling, quit using the fucking oil. Quit using gas, heating oil, natural gas (an unfortunate by product of oil exploration (drilling), and any number of other products that are “petroleum based” (this is only a partial list of 6000 petroleum based products). Don’t drive your car, heat your house, wear pantyhose (yes Atlas, I am talking to you). don’t paint your house, play your guitar, wear your football helmet, use your telephone, use your sex toys (do you hear me C.Rag), or buy that new CD.
Are you willing to give all of that up, or would you rather just look for an alternative before you just stop the flow of oil? Speaking of oil:
I’d put a drill rig in my front yard if I could drill that.
So what’s the answer you ask? How the fuck do I know. I do know this much though; blaming drilling for our current problems is about as smart as blaming the poor dumb schmo’s who are out there whacking baby seals to earn a living. If we want to solve the problem, we need to go to the source, which I am sad to say, is you. You are the problem. You are not willing to change your life or make any sacrifices to cure the problem. You just want to ban drilling. Yep, that’ll solve the fucking problem. Sure it will. It’ll save the environment, cure our dependency on oil, save the baby seal, cure cancer, end world hunger, and bring back the age of dinosaurs romping in a field of clover.
God we are all about the rhetoric, aren’t we?
Seriously, stop drilling for oil?
Fail!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go whack a baby seal. Or something.
Although I Have Never Been To Paris….. September 14, 2008
Posted by mike in Uncategorized.23 comments
I have been unfettered and alive….
The other day while having lunch with my old boss, that song kept bouncing through my head.
Today I was at my local bar having my weekly allotment of beer and this song kept going through my head..
I can’t be certain, but I think I see a pattern here.
Interestingly enough, Jackson Browne wrote that song in the same year I graduated from college. Perhaps I should have taken it as an omen?
Oh, and for what it’s worth, the guy (Jackson Browne) looks exactly like my wife’s ex-husband. Fucking freaky.
Black, White, & Shades of Gray September 12, 2008
Posted by mike in serious shit.41 comments
I keep having this crazy recurring dream where I am standing in a room somewhere wearing bib overalls. The dream seems like it is happening sometime in the past but maybe it’s not. There’s a woodstove and the rafters in the ceiling are exposed and there is the sound of a ceiling fan and a radio. I’m just standing there beside the woodstove not really doing anything worth remembering.
There was a time in my life when I did wear bib overalls and in many ways it was the happiest time of my life. I had graduated from college with a totally worthless degree and took a “manual labor” job at a US Steel plant I had worked for as a summer employee during college. The only thing was, I really liked this “manual labor” and quickly worked my way up from a track laborer to an apprenticeship where I was learning how to fabricate steel. Specifically I was learning how to weld.
For what it was worth, I loved welding. It required a certain amount of skill and intelligence and at the end of the day I could “see” the results of my work. So much of the “fun” work I have done in my life has been dismantled by certain predatory companies that buy what they don’t have the skill or intelligence to beat. Recently I have been entertaining thoughts of getting out of the oil exploration/drill bit/design/manufacture business that has been strapped to my back for almost 30 years now. I know I will never get paid the same, but dammit, life is just too short to keep chasing that dream.I’m never going to be rich anyway. Might as well live life on my terms.
Of course I say that and then I look at the freaking bills. Jesus. Did you know that having a cancerous kidney removed costs over a hundred grand, and new bills are coming in almost daily? Thank God for freaking insurance. I guess people without insurance just have to die.
Speaking of having a kidney taken out, 5 months ago today I went into the hospital for the initial part of the surgery. The part where they killed my kidney by disconnecting all of the veins and arteries from it two days before the surgery. That was a cool trick because they went through an artery in my groin to do that. I was awake during the whole process, but very drugged up. It was also the day that I quit smoking. I haven’t had one since. I will admit to having a beer or two recently but I will also have to admit that the whole drinking thing may have lost all of its appeal for me.
That’s not entirely true. I never really liked “drinking.” I liked getting drunk. So the whole idea of having a beer and being all social and shit is just not my cup of tea. The only good thing about having a beer or two is that I don’t feel like such a fucking leper when I am in the bar.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, not smoking. I still don’t miss it. I will admit that sometimes it seems like something is missing. Like when I am working on a project and I reach a natural break-point, I just automatically tap my pocket like I am looking for a cigarette. I suppose it’ll be a life-long former habit that I will have to contend with somehow. I do know this much though, I may be able to have a beer or two from time to time, but I will never be able to have “just one cigarette.” That’s the mistake I have always made in the past.
Tomorrow (the 12th) I have to go into the hospital to have another test. I guess that is also another thing I will have to contend with for the “rest of my life.” I have always hated doctors and the mere concept of having them poke around and tinker with my body would just send an involuntary shiver up my spine. Now I have to submit to all sorts of degrading intrusions in the name of my health and well-being.
I am suddenly reminded of a line from an old Rodney Dangerfield movie that went something like this:
for years i wouldn’t kiss my mother-in-law on the mouth. Now I have to kiss her ass every day.
So my massive garage re-siding/rebuilding project is almost finished. We are pretty much just working on some finishing touches with the paint and then we can call it quits. Once we finish the outside, I am going to finish up with some of the inside work by putting up some walls and replacing and or adding some new electrical work. Someone who has no concept of such things said in an email to me that it sure has taken us a long time to finish that project.
Well, fuck them. The fact is, for the most part, it was just my wife and myself working on it. We removed 2 windows and a couple of doors, framed in those old openings that we weren’t going to use again, rewired several sections, wrapped the whole garage in tar paper, put up 48–4X8 sheets of paneling, put up all new soffit and facia, added countless pieces of accent trim, and then painted all of the paneling and trim. So considering that it took two old people only a month and half to do it all, I think we did pretty damn good.
What I have really been trying to say throughout this whole post is that I am still not exactly sure what I am going to do about that Texas job offer. I have beat myself up pretty good looking for an answer because it is one of the hardest decisions I have ever tried to make.
I even looked up to the stars for an answer one night. That’s the second time this year I have felt compelled to do such a thing.
What I’d really like to do is install a woodstove out in my garage, buy myself a pair of bib overalls and sit out there in the dead of winter in one of those old lawn chairs and think about how life might have been in Texas had I taken the job. Maybe throw another log on the fire.
That’s how I’d like to leave things.
I only hope I can.
