Relief At Last

Less than 3% of the water on earth is fresh. I know that because that is what the underside of the cap from the Snapple that I just opened has told me.The top side says,"Made from the best stuff on earth", which I am in no position to argue about.I think its very laudable that even our soft drinks want to educate us in the United States.What I am even more proud of is that Election 2015 for Kentucky is over and written in the record books. What is most notable is how badly the pollsters missed the results. Survey USA and the TV stations predicted the Democrat Conway to win by five percentage points when in reality the Republican Bevin actually won by about 80,000 votes or by nearly ten percentage points. They were equally bad in last years Senatorial elections when McConnell smeared Alison Grimes. You'd think in our age of computerization and probability that professional pollsters wouldn't be so inept. Only two Democrats won and one of them was Andy "Obama" Brashear , the Governor's son who becomes Attorney General. He only won by around 2200 votes statewide over the Chubby Pedicure-loving Westerfield. In his victory speech Andy got carried away and gave the impression that he had a landslide victory, when in reality he had one half of a percentage margin over his opponent. I would have preferred neither of these buffoons had won, but such is the downside of Democracy. Bevin is addressing the forms for county clerks that are used in county clerk issued marriage applications. He is taking the clerks' names off the form whereby they apparently won't be giving their blessings for same sex marriage. He had promised before the election to release his tax returns like all other candidates, but told reporters he wasn't after he actually won. He seems quite comfortable in going back on his promise. We now have the Donald going on Saturday Night Live tonight with everyone he has criticized protesting his appearance. That is just about everyone in the USA at the moment. Ben Carson is in hotwater for his West Point not so appointment and Chris Christie is not going to be on the main podium at the next debate. Can we just hire someone as a manager for this country instead of having this bunch of ill mannered people insulting one another?Maybe we could have some of the Waltons from Arkansas to take charge. They have conducted warfare on small town business for the past 50 years and have virtually wiped out most main street business in the USA. They could probably wipe out China in the next fifty years if we would give them the power. I just know that we as a country are very tired of politicians and empty promises.Its the 7th of November and the past couple of weeks have been beautiful Indian Summer weather, nearly 80 degrees several days. I don't know if it's alright to use Indian in that context so I'll say Native American Summer to keep from offending anyone. We were in Charleston SC the first of October and on the way down we were watching Hurricane Joaquin headed from the Bahamas toward the mainland. We jokingly said that if Jim Cantore showed up we would be leaving the same day. We arose the next morning and Cantore was broadcasting live from the Battery. Without preamble we packed our belongings and headed back to Kentucky. Jim Cantore made the remark that he was praying for Charleston and Columbia. There was a lot of misery and flooding in all of the region , with over 20 inches of rain in that long weekend , most of which wasn't related to Joaquin. I hope things return to normal in South Carolina because it is a beautiful and historic region.Halloween and the elections are over and we are headed for Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks . The stores have already decorated for Christmas and I've heard Christmas songs. It is too early for that. I noticed they had put up the tree yesterday in Rockefeller Center. Maybe the Donald could be the Star atop the tree, shining in his radiance. There certainly won't be a manger scene, since that is outlawed .I don't know about Lamar's condition as they aren't talking about that anymore , but maybe Snapple could put news like that or about the elections under the bottle caps.At least we could have something to drink as we are informed. Snapple did tell us that twelve cows is a "Flink"

Help From All Sides

It seems that we as productive members of society are constantly being inundated by offers of help from all corners and from very unlikely sources. First of all we are suffering in Kentucky with the most boring and tiring group of candidates running for office on November third. The governor's race has Jack Conway running against Matt Bevin. Conway is a young Democrat who is currently our Attorney General. He is saddled with Obama against his will, which is definitely a bad thing since Obama is about as popular in Kentucky as is Coach K and the Duke blue devils. Conway's opponent is a Louisville business man who states something today and  denies it tomorrow. There is an independent running against them who is much the brighter and has better ideas but has only around 7% of the voters according to the latest poll. The independent was only allowed to be in one debate since he doesn't have 10% of the vote. Either way Kentucky loses when  one of these clowns win. The Attorney Generals position is up for grabs with the present Governor's son, Andy "Obama" running against a Republican legislator , Westerfield who is chubby and was reprimanded for missing a court appearance as prosecutor for getting a pedicure. Again we would be better off if we could just pay an outsider to be Attorney General for four years. On the national level we hav a plenthora of candidates on both sides. They all want to help us by leading the country.From the look of the potential Presidential candidates I must say that Democracy has failed. I can't see a person that I am comfortable with leading our country. Maybe if Lamar Odom recovers from his four day vacation in Nevada he can file for President. Please let someone wake me up and tell me I've been sleeping for 20 years like Rip Van Winkle, and have been having nightmares about how someone spends $75000 on prostitutes and drugs and has been updated as to his condition every night since then on the prime evening news. All in a swirl with the Kardashians pleading for privacy in the moments of recovery. HUH ?? The Kardashians wanting privacy? And then the reporters are asking Caitlin Jenner about his/her feelings toward the situation with Lamar and he wouldn't answer. Or is it she wouldn't answer. Hell I dont know what it is. If I decided to be a duck and started quacking it wouldn't necessarily mean I was a duck. Sorry Caitlin that's the way I feel. Our own county clerk from Morehead was placed in jail for not blessing the marriages of gay couples which the US Supreme Court said she must. She refused and a Federal Judge, Mr. Bunning declared her in contempt and sent her to jail for 5 days. Now the Religious hate group from Kansas are picketing Mrs. Kim Davis' office ,not for gay causes , which they hate incidentally, but because she has been married for four times and she is an adultress in their enlightened and blessed eyes. The haters are the West Boro Baptist Church. They actually hate everything ,and have to have a vile mission of protest everyday to feel warm with vile rhetoric and sociopathic intent. Why can't they go after Justin Bieber or Kanye West or Bill Cosby? Speaking of Bill, He isn't looking so Mr. Huxtable at the moment is he? If the allegations of that many women are even close to being true then he is about as hypocritical as anyone in recent memory. His honorary doctorates are falling like autumn leaves after a heavy frost.There has to be a lot of nice ,kind people out there in America that wake up in the morning with good feelings toward mankind and go out and make meaningful contributions toward our great society and country. They plod along everyday and raise good families , pay their taxes, and work in productive jobs. They seldom get praised and are embarrassed if they get compliments. They are what made this country the great place it is when you travel across it from east to west.Most are tolerant of others and don't have $75000 to spend on drugs and prostitutes.You will find them at places of legitimate worship on Saturdays and Sundays and at school meetings and soccer games for their children. Some own guns but wouldn't think about mass murder. They are us. We are not politicians and celebrity trash or West Boro Haters. Maybe we will all wake up and find the last twenty years have been a crazy sleep over. But then again I don't think even a drug induced nightmare could drag up these crazy assed politicians and public figures.

Cheating

It seems appropriate on Super Bowl 49 night to discuss cheating.The past two weeks have had nothing but discussions about the deflated football used by the Patriots against the Colts. Nevermind that even the Colts felt that nothing made a difference to the outcome of that game. Supposedly the Patriots had someone in a ninety second time span to deflate 11 gameballs by one and one- half pounds. The theory is that it enabeled Brady to throw the balls better and receivers to hold on to catches. This doesn't seem to be rocket science, and it seems somewhat ludicrous that the deflated balls have a lot more momentum in a pro football year than wife beatings and child abuse by the players. Even serious newscasters have taken up the story on the deflated footballs. Every sport seems to have cheating and accusations of cheating. Pete Rose is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame because he betted on games. Lance Armstrong went from America's Golden Boy to a drug laced cheater. Penn State didn't cheat but had Jerry Sandusky which caused them to be stripped of titles and pride. Like Saddam Hussein, Joe Paterno had his statue taken down.I never see middle aged men wearing their LIVE STRONG bracelets anymore. Tonya Harding had Nancy Kerrigan 's knees beaten and went on to a career of talk shows and bad girl appearances. Bruce Jenner went from Olympic Star to the Kardashians, and now there is talk that he's becoming a woman. There has to be something in California's water. On second thought there wouldn't be much sleazy news in our country if it wasn't for California. Nascar has cheating in all forms and fashions. It seems to be ok to drive another car in the wall at 200mph but to wreck yourself deliberately is a no no. Just ask Clint Bowyer and Michael Waldrip.What is sometimes judged to be cheating in sports is just good strategy in business.I wish there were performance enhancing drugs that would allow me to sell and design more products, and then to allow my boys to fabricate them. I would be a new customer at that clinic. Nascar is allowed to deflate and inflate their tires to enhance track stability, so what's the deal with the footballs? Maybe they should use an inert gas like nitrogen that won't shrink like air.  Belichick was fined for videotaping opposing teams signals in 2007. The football league fined him $500k , the maximum amount, while slapping players' hands for child and spousal abuse. It appears consequences are greater in money than anything else.I also read the commercials cost $4.5  million for 30 seconds this year. I decided not to advertise at the last minute. I believe that one viewing of a Super Bowl explains the negative feelings the rest of the world has about the USA.So tonight we are supposed to have a trace of snow.  A couple of weeks ago we were promised the same and Lexington had 5 inches.there is no telling what the weather will be tomorrow. This winter storm is Lucis or something. Hopefully it stays north of the Ohio.Winter Storm Kari was to dump snow of Historical proportions on New York City last week. The city got 6 inches.Boston wasn't so lucky. Maybe the weather fear mongers should figure out a way to cheat so their predictions are more accurate. I really don't care who wins Super Bowl XLIX , but I will be glad so we can have sometrhing else to talk about. Romney is out of the race, at least for now but we have a huge gathering waiting to spend millions  for election. We have 2 years to listen to this BS. As far as cheating there is nothing more devious and cheating than our politicians. Cheating is a way of life to office holders.Ask the past governor of Virginia, or the past governor of South Carolina and his trips to Argentina. Or ask a past  Governor of Kentucky who cried on TV and said he had sinned. I guess no one is perfect and I guess everyone has cheated. Just don't lie about it!

Little Lies

Everyone lies. I think it is in our deepest, innermost program to be deceptive. People have been lying to survive since perhaps the first two humans interacted. We learn to lie as children to avoid punishment , first from our parents and then from our teachers in school. Society seems to abhor lying on the one hand and to practice it on the other. Attorneys make a living with lies, and all too often criminals are released through the legal system by skilled lawyers that make lies believable to juries. O J Simpson ended up in prison, not for double murder ,but of threats in a Las Vegas Hotel.Johnny Cochran and his team tore Marcia Clark and the California legal system to ribbons. Judge Lance Ito coiuld only sit back and watch tax payers money go down the drain. The legal system and the jury said the prosecutors were lying and OJ was telling the truth. Even a first grade schoolteacher would have been more effective than the prosecutors in in exposing OJ. Then we have Mr. Bill Clinton. Who doesn't remember his indignant proclamation of "I did not have sex with that woman". Which woman ?Jennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, or Monica? I guess its in what is the definition of Sex. If they had known to ask about a cigar maybe he would have remembered. Later coming clean. Mr. Clinton could easily win re-election if hecould run again . At least half of our country would vote for him , lies and all. Politicians seem to get a free pass for lying. Entire campaigns are based upon lies. Our own Mitch McConnell and his opponent Allison Grimes were constantly being called on the carpet in their campaign for telling falsehoods , or maybe just stretching the truth a little. Our legal system is so tuned into lying that the Constitution gave us the 5th amendment to avoid having to tell the truth.Boy I wish I had had the 5th to use in grade and high school, or even now in my marriage. Unlike Justice, Sandy is not blind and she doesn't recognize the 5th. She also does not have to read me my Miranda Rights or have probable cause . I think she could resort to waterboarding if necessary. I don't know how Clinton gets a get out of jail card and I can't. In Africa The Bladerunner killed his girlfriend and came out with 5 years for Manslaughter 2. They say he'll be out in 10 months. Again we have lies coming out ahead of justice. As for Bill Cosby, there seems to be a lot of lying going on by someone . Is it the 25 women that say they were molested or is it Mr. Huxtable? Maybe time will tell. Sometimes a lie is necessary for the common good. What man has not been asked"Do these pants make me look too big?" And what man has not  lied and said"No you look great". I do know of a young colleague who told his wife she had to lay off the doughnuts because her ass was getting too big for her sweat pants. What a mental lapse! He will replay that remark for the rest of his marriage if I know anything about women.Then we have such a thing as "Kind Lies". whereby we tell partners and friends falsehoods for nice reasons, even love. Christine McVie sang "Tell me Lies, Sweet little Lies". I love for a woman to tell me sweet lies, always have and always will. I look like a street person on the 51st Street subway stop and Sandy tells me I look nice. I definitely see Nick Nolte's mugshot every morning as I glance in the mirror, and she tells me I look nice. Tell me lies, sweet little lies . I hope she does it for love, but I suspect she does it out of habit, and even worse, out of pity. I'm starting to get depressed as I think about this.Tomorrow night it is scheduled by the weathermen to drop to 0 degrees or lower here in Central Kentucky and I just dread the cold.I guess I will just have to take Nick's Mugshot and wash it up a little and head down South to Knoxville to a jobsite. Going 85 down I-75 does have somewhat of a potential risk to lie as we are all susceptible of running afoul of the traffic monitors and their radar. Like Slick Willy I have no reservations of evading the truth when he or she asks how fast I thought I was going. It seems contradictory to survival to admit to speeding to an officer of the law. Like Christine i'm going to tell that officer "Sweet Little Lies". Like Roger Daltrey said, "If its good enough for Pavarotti its good enogh for me!"

Defining Moments

There are times in our lives that somehow become embedded within our brains and stay in our thoughts as memories. These memories are either pleasant or they can be very negative in their content. They are often lying just beneath our thoughts in our subconscious , just waiting for a signal to emerge and remind us of a past experience. Sometimes these memories will emerge from events that happened years ago or they can be something that happened only days ago . If you're old enough you will readily remember what you were doing when JFK was assassinated. , or you can see in your mind what was going on when 911 occurred that morning. Sometimes even a smell will take you back to childhood as maybe the first day of school when you enter a classroom saturated with the whiffs of books and paper. Or a certain scent of perfume will take you a time of mini skirts and peace marches. The sound of soldiers marching still takes me back to ROTC and ugly baggy uniforms and even uglier, pie faced NCOs trying to get us to sign up for Advanced ROTC and become "Lifers". I can still smell locker rooms at gymnasiums as we dressed in shiny, short basketball uniforms, usually in advance of getting our country- boy asses humiliated all over the shiny hardwood floors. I can still feel the bruising punches in my skinny back as ugly, pimple faced forwards tried to intimidate me , hidden from the view of the referees as they tried to control the game. Just the sound of a bouncing ball brings back the smell of the old gymnasium with its balcony that was obscured from view by cigarette smoke and loud catcalls. The real games  were being played up there and out in the gravel parking lots. Back in those days 57 Bel Aires and Impalas weren't classics. They were means to get from point A to point B. You could smell 39 cents per gallon ethyl gasoline as they rocketed out of the parking lot on their way to the burger joints or some dirt road guaranteed for privacy. We were left on the hardwoods getting bruised and beaten. Sometimes we would go to the drive in if we had a ride or admission money. It didn't matter what was on because no one watched the show anyway. Again the show was really secondary as Social Rituals were taking place at the concession building. People met there to find romance, to fight, or to learn things, sometimes all at the same encounter. Many times the first taste of beer was found at the drive in. We didn't have drugs of any sort back then ,unless you counted Polio oral vaccine on a Sugar Cube. We did have talk of fallout shelters and local civil defense as we prepared for Nikita Khruschev and his Promise to bury us in Communism. The Cuban Missile Crises still comes to memory at odd times, and I still can see Lee Harvey Oswald shot in the stomach in black and white on our snowy old tv. We didn't know that down the road HDTV was lurking or that scratchy 45 rpms and 33s would be replaced with digital. A defining moment was installing an Arthur Fulmer 8 Track under my Gran Torinos dashboard and listening to Led Zeppelin . The Immigrant Song was perfect coming out of 4 speakers as a skinny brunette drank Boones Farm straight from the bottle. That smell of alcohol and strawberries seem to be positive in my memory.Then there was a Homecoming where my friend's date slowly ate her football mum corsage during the first half of a hazy football game. It was bright yellow with a large ribbon that was certainly a defining moment to me. She was chasing the flower petals with Bacardis Rum and left nothing but the bow and a green stem. I have wondered what happened to that girl from 1970. I imagine she went on to live a normal life and be a productive member of society, probably with children and grandchildren , who would be aghast at a picture of grandmother eating her corsage as a sexy young coed. Obviously this was a very defining moment as I have beaten it to death. Nevermind that my date and I were to be married after graduation, a pact that went different directions.Movies are an incredible source for memories both from the actors and the audience. Again the differences in male and female perception is nowhere more acutely displayed than in movie attendance. No chick flicks for me! No actor stands out more in male moments than Clint Eastwood. Dirty Harry is what we all want to grow up to be. "Do you feel lucky Punk?" or "Go ahead , Make My Day". What about "Beam Us Up Scotty"? Or how about Maverick and Goose? Especially when she lost that loving feeling, or when Maverick called the ball?How about Maverick requesting a fly by? Even when the pattern was closed?How about Doc Holiday Telling Ringo"I'm your Huckleberry"? Or how about Val Kilmer's portrayal of Doc?I think we all need writers to pen us scripts for daily conversations. That way we can all create defining moments for future generations. Sometimes I do get quoted ,but it is by Sandy's friends and generally of the negative type of defining moments.How about when Quigley shot that bucket from 10 miles away? Or when Quigley told a dying Alan Rickman,"I didn't say I didn't know how to use them. I said I didn't have any use for them". Almost Shakespearian. Another favorite Defining Moment is Lonesome Dove.Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall could have quit because everything else is commonplace after that.The soundtrack is perfection.The final two minutes of A River Runs Through It should be on everyones Desk Top.Norman MacClean said it all right then.I'm still trying to figure out whether I like "American Pie " or not.Most of the time I do ,But this driving my Chevy to a dry levy at times renminds me of that dirty, pimply faced SOB that punched me in the back nearly fifty years ago . That seems to have been a Freudian moment. Maybe I need some counseling. Take us out of here Mr. Sulu.

State Of Union 2015

Well 2014 has ended and we start into the unknown waters of 2015.For some bizarre reason November was an abnormally cold month and then December was a reasonably mild one. We were in NYC to celebrate our anniversary and it occurred during the weekend of Santa Con.There were some protests down by the Brooklyn Bridge and City Hall concerning Ferguson, but there's always some kind of protests in the Big Apple and it was barely noticed. We  went to see "Once" and it was ok , not great ,but ok. Then we went to see "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"and I rate it right up there with"Cats ", which means I would be more entertained with a fist fight on the subway. How entertaining can a transvestite rock singer with a heavy metal band be? The gay guy that used to be on Frazier had started the lead role but was in it only a month. The new lead role is played by a seemingly straight guy that was the lead character on Dexter, which I've never seen.The only thing worse than Hedwig was the pain in my knees from the cramped seats. I decided to get Sandy a mixed drink before the show so told the bartender I wanted a diet coke and Canadian Club. He asked single or double and I told him a single. He said $15  and I was glad I had asked for a single.We had wanted to see Beautiful again but the price for two tickets was in the range of $500 so we opted out of that rather quickly. The weather in NYC was really nice and we went down to the 9-11 memorial and looked at the finished World Trade Center.Earlier in November we had flown down to Homestead, Florida to see the final Nascar race of the season and Sandy had rented a house in Hollywood about 10 minutes from Fort Lauderdale Airport, where we had flown in . Hollywood has a wonderful historic downtown with some really good restaurants where we ate several nights. Our phones showed night temperatures in the teens back home and we were eating Italian food under the stars in Hollywood. We drove by Miami on our way to Key West on the Saturday before the race and that was probably the best part of the whole weekend. Temps in the low 80s as we went through Largo , Marathon, and over the Seven Mile Bridge. It always brings good memories to be back in the Keys. There's something about blue water meeting the blue sky that makes you want to pack up your possessions and head south, at least for January and February. That is not to be however, as we are committed to projects that are filling our schedules until at least the middle of April. One of our projects is atop a mountain in Eastern Kentucky that is gravity defying at times, especially if it is raining. Some of our best custom wood projects are taking shape in some of the most artistic homes being built.This all comes at a cost of being on I-75 at least three days a week going to Tennessee and Eastern Kentucky, which last year was going to Western Kentucky. The big difference is that it is costing us $35 less per fillup in a monster old suv that craves premium gasoline and gets 12 miles per gallon. So the first blessing of my State of the Union is $1.96 gasoline. I find it hard to feel sorry for the Big Oil Companies. They have been gouging us since 1974.Its funny that my suppliers that kept adding fuel surcharges on us have not talked about taking them off, something that we are going to start talking about in the coming months.I'm also starting to get hostile with Dish Network that keeps taking off programming and raising rates. When I complain they say that they are adding more shows. Thats BS! They keep adding shopping channels and crap that noone watches. The trend is everyone is streaming and going back to antennas and local programming. The history channel ,TLC, and animal planet ceased being educational and flooded the air with reality tv. I'm tired of watching moonshiners, Turtle Man , and Alien files. Are there no producers or writers left?Are there no subjects for movies other than XMen, Hobbits,and Vampires? And Frozen??? What can I say?Elsa and Anna have taken the place of Miley and Brittany.,I think the sales for Frozen is what got us out of the Depression/Recession. The other thing I am happiest and thankful for is that the nastiest political race between McConnell and Allison Grimes is over. Its a shame that the two mudslingers could not have both lost. Then next year we have the Governors race here in Kentucky. I noticed that Kentucky is the fifth worst run state in the Union. That will give the politicians plenty of goals to strive for. On a positive note if you want to leave Kentucky fast you can download an app and your boarding pass is now on your smart phone. The airlines are charging you $5 to print you a boarding pass, just one more reason to drive. The medical news is that we had about 2 weeks of media driven ebola panic and then it went away. People in Africa are still dying but the media shifted our attentions to elections and Ferguson.Now they say our flu shots are not going to be effective because they guessed the wrong flu strain or flu du jour.I read Charlie Ergan, the founder of Dish Network is worth $ 9 billion and is striving to give us the best value in TV programming. I'm betting that you won't miss me  when I unsubscribe Charlie.All in All my State of the Union is Ok. Its off to Eastern Kentucky tomorrow but with Blue Skies and blue water in my heart.