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.

Winter Storm Ion

So it is January 5 ,2014 and we are sitting tight in our pup tents awaiting the arrival of Winter Storm Ion . This bad boy has all the weather people breathing and gasping in our ears . Really? I think they should take a break and just let it happen like it used to. I started seeing the forecast 10 days ago and they want to remind us of this continually. I thought that I was tired of Bill Meck on Lex 18 until I switched over and saw this Bailey Clown on WKYT 27.Their silly antics got me to thinking if they had a real job, or do they just hang out all day at the stations watching the weather channel and rehearsing the bad news. They probably have some geek that loads up the graphics and shows them how to click the buttons so we can see what is happening in Dubai , or they will show us live scenes from atop Central Baptist, or maybe a shot of the mountains in Breathitt County. They then tease us about what's coming and promise to tell us in the next segment.Do you boys really have a true job, you know something that truly merits a pay check? I never see any of the local weather gurus out in the weather like Cantore or Bettis. They always send the newsgirls out in blizzards or tornados to report"Live". Maybe they should do like that Creepy Al Roker and Matt Whatshisname and get Prostate exams live on the 6 o'clock news. Now that would really give them something to look concerned about!  But back to Ian, we have nearly 60 degrees today and tomorrows high is scheduled to be 3 degrees. Schools are already cancelling classes across the state, and I have cancelled an installation for tomorrow and Tuesday. I guess that's the chance you take when you don't work inside a TV station. I was reading with interest the predictions of this guy on the computer home page concerning the 25 things that a baby born in 2014 would never experience . One thing was the US Postal Service and I think that is right. They are  raising postal stamps again to 49 cents and will still lose billions. Let it go and we will find a way to survive. The guy also predicted the end of bank tellers, book stores , dvd movies, fax machines, movie cameras,and phone booths. I haven't seen a working phone booth for twenty years. The biggest gripe that I have about disappearing customs is the rearrangement of seating in airport waiting areas. LaGuardia's Delta Terminals have replaced about 2/3s of conventional seating with bar height I-pad stations where you can while away hours on the internet or even order drinks, delivered to you at a premium.You can do everything from the I-pad stations but pee or get comfortable. The result is a lot of people having to lie or sit on the floor while waiting on their departure. You can also use electronic devices on board your flight other than talking on your cell phone, a right that most intelligent people hopes never is allowed. Flying has become a no frills ride that charges you for every little item. Want to check your bag?$25 or $50 please, depending on your Airlines.Reserve a special seat? More charges. Food during your flight? They take your credit card. Change a return flight? $200 please. Delta testified that it made something like$.14 per passenger, but charging extras allowed them to make less than $20 per passenger per flight. Really?? I don't think I believe that BS. I was driving toward Lexington this afternoon and noticed a large Red tailed hawk perched on a telephone line doing what hawks do. He was deciding what to have for dinner and being at the top of the food chain was in no hurry to pounce on what warm blooded rodent was going to provide protein. I was thinking that he had no concept of Winter Storm Ian fast approaching from the west and didn't have to worry about "Flash Freezing"(new weather phrase du jour), nor did he have to obtain clearance from Indianapolis Control tower about departure. A hawk's life is relatively simple, straight forward, and honest. Brutal at times but efficient. I think his life makes more sense than mine at times.

Christmas Eve

Well here we have the day before Christmas, 2013. Where has this year gone?Sandy and I just got back from New York City two days ago and man what a trip! On Sunday we were down in Central Park and then to Rockefeller Center. The sky was overcast, but by lunch the temperature had soared to the upper 60s, and people were wearing tank tops and shorts. It was hot. Early in the morning we left the hotel and it was sprinkling rain so since we were heading uptown to the Park we decided to get off the subway at 59th street and go into Bloomingdales for a cheap rain jacket. Wrong! The jacket that would have been suitable cost $450, but it was on sale for 40% off. This was for a jacket that costs $39 back home. But in all fairness back home doesn't have a subway stop in its basement either. Come to think of it back home doesn't have a basement at all. We didn't buy the jacket and the rain had stopped anyway. We usually buy our clothes, and pay money that goes straight to Arkansas instead of Bloomingdales. We then walked through the park watching runners and dog walkers, on our way up to 75th street to visit the Whitney Museum. We are big museum fans and had not taken advantage of the Whitney. It was generally a total waste of time and $40 admission charge for 2. The fifth floor was their permanent exhibition and I loved some Edward Hoppers and a couple Georgia O'Keefes. There were a couple of nice Calder mobiles in a stairway, and lower down was a whole floor dedicated to Robert Indiana , which was a lot of stenciled letters and numbers in black, white , yellow, and red. The remaining floors were dedicated to crude doodlings and arranged garbage. I think it was a case of the Emperor's Clothes. The day before we were eating lunch in Grand Central Station, and as usual there was a multitude of people, but it was the last weekend before Christmas. I had to go to the restroom and saw immediately that the line to the ladies room next door stretched out of sight, but that the mens' room was without a line. I went in and walked up to a vacant urinal and was doing what I came to do when I heard feminine voices very , very close to me! I looked over my shoulder and women were coming and going out of the mens' stalls, an arms length from those using the urinals. It was somewhat of a shock to be using restrooms with the girls but no one seemed to mind, so why should I? When you gotta go,you gotta go! As I was leaving the restroom I had to sidestep an attractive blond heading  in. I said,"Excuse Me" and she just nodded, on her way to relief. I shouldn't have been shocked as I have shared bathrooms for 40 years with a woman. The only difference is that I know this woman. We went to see "Beautiful", the musical about Carol King and it was fantastic with all her music and the songs she had written. I think the highlight for me was when actors portraying The Righteous Brothers sang "You've Lost That Loving Feeling". They were fantastic. Saturday evening we saw "Motown " and it was almost as good. The Marvin Gay actor was almost Marvin Gay. The Temptations sang "My Girl" and all was right with the world.

Downton What???

As 2013 rapidly winds down I am once again reminded of the fundamental differences between men and women. I fully understand that after 40 years of marriage to the same woman that I should be acclimated to the eccentric ways that both sexes exhibit , especially as they grow older. Now Sandy has become more and more sophisticated in her likes and dislikes while I seem to have gravitated to the baser and lower forms of interests. Her fashion tastes mirror simpler and classy clothing, whereas I find jeans and a long sleeved sweater suit me well. Her colors are always matching and she chooses under lighted conditions, often selecting her attire the night before work. I, on the other hands grope in my meager unlit closet for pants and some shirt 10 minutes before leaving for work. Sandy has a keen eye for differentiating between navy blue and black, even with socks, which I think is a no foul offense. One day I was out on a job and noticed that I had two totally unmatched brown loafers on .At least they were on the right feet. The irony of the shoe faux pas was nobody noticed or cared but me. Sandy would opine that no one noticed because they both were so scuffed and unpolished , but that is an entirely different argument. I guess my rationale is that no one notices what older men wear or look like. It is somewhat refreshing that you get a fashion pass , especially when you are your own boss. Women , on the other hand, take this fashion and looks issue dead seriously . Manicures and nail polish ranks up there with national security. Women miss nothing when it comes to attire on themselves and anyone else within eyesight. I have always said that women dress for other women and strive to keep trim figures for other women. The reason is dangerously simple because a group of girls on a night out will slice and dice the looks of any female they happen to lay eyes upon . They miss nothing. If women were as tuned in to oil and water levels in their cars as they are to fashion half the mechanics in the country would be unemployed. I used to buy clothes for Sandy but now I am old enough to see how naïve that habit was. I mix navy and black socks, so how could I even think of fashion? Guys just don't have a clue. In an earlier life about 30 years ago my boss and I were in Louisville and he decided to buy his wife a dress since he reasoned this could bring about a night of foreplay and fulfillment. He chose a dress that was more suitable for a 1970s stripper to start with on the stage. It had a zipper from top to bottom and was of clingy gold material. The sales girl asked him what size she wore and he drug out his thick old billfold and produced a decrepit card that had sizes on it. He then proudly proclaimed that she wore a size 36 dress! The sales girl evidentally had seen this situation before and asked him if his wife was similar in size to her, and after scrutinizing her from all angles he proclaimed his wife was a little bigger in the chest. It went smoothly from there and he overpaid for a stripper dress for his wife, the devout organ player at the Methodist Church. He then stopped at a music store and bought "The Pina Colada" vinyl album, along with Rum and Pina Colada Mix at the next liquor store. All to no avail. Even the best laid plans can go awry. I have often wondered what became of that zipper dress. It would have opened eyes with the right personality wearing it. Sandy has become fond, like many others of watching weird tv series like this Downton Abbey. It seems to be a high class British story about royalty and servants , something I know nothing about. She and her friends discuss episodes and are eagerly awaiting the start of the new season.  I myself once started a brawl in Café Johnny Canoes restaurant in Nassau over one length hair, something I thought I knew about, but obviously didn't.I'm trying to get Sandy to try black nail polish, but with limited results so far.I need to change my attitude and clothing style. When I look in the mirror each morning Nick Nolte's mugshot is staring back at me.It even scares me sometime. Maybe I need to pay some consultant to give me some fashion pointers. Maybe I should start Tivoing Dr. Phil instead of Springer. Maybe I should buy some cologne, but I spray myself every time I walk through the Macy's Cosmetic area. That damn stuff is expensive. I liked the smell of Mont Blanc but that fofo was $79 a bottle. That is a total fillup of gasoline in the Yukon.Smelling good doesn't go with mismatched, scuffed shoes anyway.I prefer slathering on hemp coconut butter lotion from WalMart. Reminds me of college girls 45 years ago. I just know there are significant differences between Sandy and I regarding tastes and attitudes.Maybe I had better place an ad for  consultants. At this stage what have I got to lose?

Whats the Name of The Winter Storm?

Today is Monday December 9th ,2013and on the tail end of Winter Storm Dion. Who decided that we have to name winter storms? The geniuses at The Weather Channel obviously have spare time on their hands since the record number of bad hurricanes never appeared this fall. The gloom and doom meteorologists said last spring that weather patterns indicated a rough season for the Eastern United States coast. Guess what? We had one little hurricane that did little more than create rainfall. So my theory is that they jumped into the winter storms. So far we have had record cold in Kentucky the past two months and it isn't even winter yet. So much again for global warming.The University of Kentucky Football Wildcats have also lived up to last year's standards by ending the season 2-10. Bobby Petrino, the resident Western Kentucky thug had his way with the boys in Blue and the Louisville Cardinals rolled over them. I guess the Air Attack needs a little work. They(Mitch Barnhart) are going to spend over $100 million to downsize Commonwealth Stadium from 68000 to 61000 , but are adding luxury skyboxes. Now I know little about managing college athletics, but this plan certainly goes along with the past handling of football at UK. They are also going to redo ticket allocation for football fans. I don't think I would do that Mitch. Joker seems to be doing well at Florida and Florida State seems to have survived without Stoops. I believe John Clay could have done as well as Stoops, at least John Clay seems to think he could. Speaking of The Lexington Leader it's weird that the political cartoonist Joel Pett is the voice of that creepy little pig on the insurance commercial, you know the one that rides the cute blonde around on the waverunner. That is some seriously sick advertising. What are they saying? Does the cute blond have the hots for a little pig? And isn't everyone about sick of Flo and her insurance? It was cute at the start, but enough is enough. The lowest of the low in commercials to me has to be those two sleazy nerds in the Sonic Commercials. What is it with these two guys? They have to be the single most cause for irritable bowel syndrome in the country. Everyone knows guys like them from high school. Their big exception is that they became famous in their irritable quotient. Similar nerds like them go on to coach football.I'm going to NYC in a couple of weeks but will miss Santa Con by one week, which is a shame but I'll get over it. We're trying to figure which play to see but haven't arrived at a definite pick. It seems Kinky Boots with Cindy Lauper has our most attention. The best play this season was The Million Dollar Quartet. The worst play was Flash Dance with Memphis coming in second. I guess while I'm on the subject of quality plays ,Cats has to be the low point of any theatrical event I have paid to see. That is two hours of my life I will never recover.Cats rates up there with the Great Ice Storm of 2009. We were in Charleston this fall and have discovered a good restaurant down by the waterfront called the Fleet Landing.It is located adjacent to the pier where the huge cruise ships dock.Like most other restaurants in Charleston it's really great dining with a million dollar view. The other trip in October was to Siesta Key in Florida where we had some great seafood. A less than memorable lunch was at a Cuban restaurant near Long Boat Key. White table cloths , over-priced cuisine and a room full of octogenarians. What a recipe for disaster. Reminded me of Cats. Too soon we boarded the packed Allegiant jet for a two hour flight back to Lexington and Obama Care news. Seriously does anyone in this country besides the Sonic Nerds really care about this idiotic pack of golddiggers we have that is guiding our country? They virtually shut our country down. This Tea Party is the worse concept they have come up with lately. Congress is at an all time low in ratings,as is the President. The NSA is spying on everyone and the IRS is auditing select groups, and everyone thinks lying is alright.The Democratic candidate against McConnell is being wined and dined and financed by Hollywood actors and tycoons in the entertainment industry. I won't vote for her, but McConnell is eaten up with special interests as well.What a Choice! So far the Shawnees have left Ft. Logan alone but the fort fans are going to spend another quarter mill putting up more rotting logs. Some things never change.

Sedatives for the Elderly

Today is July 25th 2013and life drifts along. What has happened since my last set of ravings?Well for one thing the rich and famous can't seem to keep their lives between the white lines. Paula Deen has done a marvelous job of self destruction.The "N" word from several years back has really blown her ship out of the water. And Anthony Weiner? Running for New York Mayor? Amid new revelations that he is still sending pictures of his favorite part to women by phone. Somebody needs to take his phone away or trim on his parts like Lorena Bobbitt. Remember her? I guarantee Mr. John Bobbitt does. And Geraldo? What in the hell is wrong with you ? Self photos of yourself unclothed given to the media.Geraldo says" The new seventy is the old fifty."Wrong again. Have you forgotten Al Capone's vault?You have made a living of being  a buffoon. The IRS has been in the movie production business for the past few years and spent at least $60 million dollars of our money training and entertaining themselves.Our National Security Services is listening to our phone calls, reading our Emails and generally eavesdropping on the world.National security is very important to our country but somewhere someone or groups have crossed lines that are violations of our constitution. All of this and our FBI ignore Russian warnings about the Boston Bombers. The Secret Service were cavorting with prostitutes and didn't want to pay.I haven't heard from Mr. Snowden in the news. I guess he's still hiding in Moscow's airport.I can't decide whether we need to imprison him or elect him to Congress. Our leadership in Washington is at an all time low approval rating and Detroit is declaring bankruptcy. On a positive note Kentucky sent Joker packing with several million in contract buyouts. Only in America can people make millions being failures.Little Ricky Pitino won the big dance and his one time dining partner is serving time . What a contrast!The big blue nation goes to bed dreaming of winning a football game and Western Ky University has hired Bobby Petrino. Now won't that be fun to watch?!Western's application must not have sections about lying and extramarital affairs. But then again neither does the application for running for NYC mayor. Just ask Carlos Danger. That little weasel needs his wife to whip his ugly little ass.My niece was in recently and made the comment that she didn't like beer,  and this sent me back over 40 years and I remembered the great social value of beer. I told her that beer was the great equalizer in that after two or three beers even the plain girls started looking good. I myself became much more handsome the more Bud Lights that I purchased for the Sorority Girls.The more beer we drank the better we liked each other! I believe beer and alcohol made more people appear attractive than any makeup ever purchased. I think Macys should set up a bar instead of that expensive make up area and people will look a lot more attractive to each other. I guarantee they will have a lot more fun.But then again some people drink so much that they probably don't know what their husband or wife really looks like. That does have some positive attributes. And it does explain some of my friends staying married.

Miss Santas

Last weekend we went to NYC for anniversary celebrations and early Christmas. For the last few years we have been fortunate to have our trip coincide with Santa Con or Santa Convention. The premise is that young professionals take a Saturday before Christmas and celebrate . Somehow this has become a national celebration coordinated in most major cities of the US. NYC seems to have the best because of the ease of mass transportation. This year seemed to be the largest that we have viewed as all areas of Midtown was filled with hundreds of young men and women dressed for Christmas. The event in NYC was threatened to be cancelled this year because of such bad behavior last year, but the story goes that the participants raised $14,000 in 2011 for charity. I don't know how they raised money but it had to do with patronizing the bars. It seems that Santa Con is a massive pub crawl for young professionals, both men and women. Grand Central Station was awash with every variety of Christmas attire as the young celebrants converged by subway. There were Santas, elves, Miss Santas , and even GingerBread cookies. The most common element was that all were enjoying themselves,  mostly aided by containers of alcohol. As the day progressed they got happier and louder. We saw hundreds in Times Square cavorting to Christmas music. One comely lady was wearing a hat made of a fringed lampshade. There was a new "Naked Cowboy" who was about a foot shorter than the real , original Naked Cowboy. This one was a Latin man accompanied by a Naked Cowgirl.An original idea we hadn't seen in Kentucky were Salvation Army Bell ringers dancing to Motown music as they rang their bells. Only in the Big Apple. One drunken Santa stepped aside for Sandy and I as we exited the subway turnstile. I said,"Thanks Santa" and he said "you Know it".One group of young men came staggering down the sidewalk on 44th street as we were waiting in line for "Rock of Ages". They were wearing plaid pajamas and dirty Santa Caps. Obviously three sheets in the wind , you could smell the alcohol half a block away. Loud and boisterous as they were, they didn't create a disturbance. All in all it was a very interesting way to spend a Saturday in Manhattan. I had seen pub crawls on St. Patricks Day on Folly Beach, but even drunken girls in bikinis couldn't compete with Santa Con. The weather was extraordinarily warm and the food at the New York Luncheonette was as good as always. The hotel staff was not a disappointment as they were as aloof and haughty as always. What do you expect for $400 a night?? The cab rides were as terrifying as we have come to expect, and Central Park was full of people sightseeing or skating at Wolman Rink, Trump's name on everything. It was in fact the New York we go to see. The huge tree in Rockefeller Center was the prettiest I've seen in years and crowds were as huge as ever. It seems the recession doesn't affect Manhattan. Leave Lexington on a little jet and touch down at LaGuardia in one hour and twenty minutes. From race horse farms to drunken pretty Santa Maids in 80 minutes. What a Life!Viva NYC.

Not Much Time Left

December 21st. That's the last day folks . According to all of cable tv and the Doomsday Preppers our meat gets cooked in just eleven short days. I haven't heard exactly how this is to come about but the National Geographic Channel has to be right. As I have previously written this has come about because Mayan scholars have discovered a 3000 year old stone calendar that just stops. No one has factored in that the Mayans were stone age people that sacrificed each other to appease their gods. I think personally that the Mayan calendar carver just got tired and quit!Maybe  his Mayan wife told him she was leaving him if he didn't get a better job, and guess what ?The calendar ended and three thousand years later we are all quaking in our Guccis.Why modern day America is so ready for a catastrophic end is beyond my comprehension. For centuries humanity has feared or welcomed the end.Was it just last year that the old minister in California called the end for October?When it didn't happen he said he had "miscalculated".We are all fascinated with UFOs, Big Foot , Ancient Aliens, and Ghost hunters. Look at the History Channel, A and E, and National Geographic.All used to have credibility, yet now they cater to the crack pots of society.And Turtle Man?? Aren't we as Kentuckians proud of the image he gives us?My friend from Vashon Island ,Washington was in last October and was deeply concerned about the upcoming Presidential election. He is an investment banker so its pretty obvious who he was going to vote for, but he seems to have been the only person to vote that way on the entire West Coast. Not only did he lose his vote for President, but he also let Washington State vote heavily for same sex marriage as well as allowing the recreational use of marijuana. Needless to say my conservative friend is not a happy man.I don't know who the Turtle Man and Neal voted for , and I don't want to know. I think Kentucky decriminalized Marijuana years ago. Maybe that's why we have had Big Foot Sightings in our own state. The whole point of this rambling is that I think there is not much recognizable of The United States Of America that was the leader of the world. The Fiscal Cliff?? I would trust that there could be a meeting of minds that could compromise and get our country back on track.The political parties are too busy pointing fingers to realize that the problems need to be addressed. Back to important matters at hand I am trying to decide what will be the appropriate thing to be doing on the 21st , the last day for all. Last year Sandy went to a wedding when the old guy said the vend was coming. I didn't go to the wedding because I didn't want that to be my final act, so I stayed home and watched TV . I'm taking this threat seriously this year and have not decided my final actions. I know what I'm not going to be doing:I'm not going to be at Sam's Club buying Prilosec and I'm not going to be at some Christmas Party chatting with a bunch of Drunk yuppies that I don't like. It brings to mind when archaeologists excavated the ancient ruins of Pompeii after the volcanic eruption killed the entire city. The people and their homes were preserved under layers of dust . The bodies had deteriorated yet left impressions like a mold that the archaeologists poured concrete in to recreate their final actions and body positions, even down to facial expressions. I wonder what future archaeologists will find our final actions of the 21st?Dave told me that anyone in a plane wouldn't be destroyed when the end came. What?? He said it would just be the earth. I'm glad he is leading our county government. He should be in Washington helping our leaders. They all seem to share thought processes. So this Friday we're going to NYC for Christmas and Santa Con.We're going to see "Rock of Ages" again and Sandy wants to see "The Book of Mormon". I thought we had just had a year of that with Mitt. I hope the play is better than Mitt. What can a play about Mormons be about?? Polygamy???Seagulls eating grasshoppers??They had mentioned that Tim and his posse were going to see the Radio City Christmas Program at 9am on Sunday morning. I hope we don't go because I don't think I will be able to sleep through it that early in the morning.I have slept through that show at least 2 times and The Phantom as well but that was during the regular night shows.Last year I slept through Harry Connick's play. It didn't do much for me. I'm still thinking what I want to be doing at the end, and one possibility would be going to Orange Leaf Yogurt for orange yogurt.Another distinct location would be the Half Price Bookstore in Hamburg. You could find my remains in the sale rack of cds.I could also be consulting with a colleague who recently won a position on the Stanford City Council. I was out of the office one day but he came to visit, and left me a message that he wanted to talk to me about how to be an effective ass hole on the council.Boy my legacy lived past my tenure as a politician!My worries may be without merit however , as my friend Bob the Banker gave me his word that the end is not coming on the 21st. He personally guaranteed it!There are still some loose ends to consider .Dave didn't tell me how the plane would land if the world was destroyed, and what is cable tv going to air if it doesn't happen?As far as the search for Big Foot, In think that Rene chick biologist on the show is actually half big foot herself, the love child of the Skunk ape and Janet Reno. That is only a theory at this stage that could be tested by DNA samples if we survive.OK my choice for locations for future archaeologists to find my remains is Rita's Cafe on Folly Beach South Carolina or Hymans in downtown Charleston.When the concrete hardens they will see a smile on my face as I was devouring flounder .NYC on Friday,New York Luncheonette in Midtown Friday night for our 39th Anniversary. Could this be true?? Sandy is a true martyr.

Dog Days

Well this certainly is starting off well as I have used one finger to type nearly an hour of incoherent thoughts, only to hit some some damn obscure key and lose it all!! Somewhere in cyberspace is a worthless attempt of a 63 year old man to cry out in frustration at the shortcomings of the world I live in in July of 2012. A mindless act of murder has ended 12 innocent lives and changed forever the lives of thousands of people that didn't deserve such an atrocity. This maniac will cost society millions of dollars to arrive at an obvious conclusion. The orange- haired son of a bitch is insane.Now what? News people said Colorado might seek the death penalty. He will spend the rest of his life in maximum security on our dollar.And Batman? How many times are we going to do the Super Heroes? I know about box office draws, but is this what creativity has been reduced to? What ever happened to Hollywood ? The Graduate? The Sting? Butch Cassidy and Sundance? Steve McQueen or Humphrey Bogart? I saw Dark Shadows , thinking it would be entertaining. Wrong. Johnny Depp seemed to be torn between being asleep or being bored. And what is this Vampire shit?? Snow White ? There seems to be a shortage of talented actors and actresses. All the actors seem to be a bunch of skinny assed little men in tight suits waiting to come out of the closet. Anderson Cooper what are you thinking? Kardashians you all make me long for Brittney and Paris. I read Kim bought Kayne a new Lamborghini. I'm ashamed I wrote that or even knew that. I own no music by Kanye West or the Dixie Chicks, so I guess that shows where I am at this stage in life. So now little Tom Cruse and the Scientologists are on full damage control. Matt how can you be so glib? Oprah is interviewing people again, but who cares. Some woman has written a book about sado masochism and has sold billions of copies to chicks . I think Sandy has a copy on the Kindle. Damn that could be scary.Our local high school has been placed under the direction of the state department of education. It seems the local leadership and educators have not the foggiest idea of how to climb out of the depths of incompetence. I saw one middle course offering was teaching texting on smart phones. Now come on, you're joking , right? They also are doing away with teaching writing. Who makes these decisions?? Our leaders . It's called the dumbing of America.I think they should make a movie about Chicken Little And The Falling Sky. Kayne West could be the chicken. About now I'm wondering who is Romney's Veep Choice will be. That's going to be interesting. They're already planning a Veep debate at Centre College and Romney doesn't have a running mate yet. Here we are the last of July.That only leaves three months. I suggest he choose Turtle Man. He can't be any
dumber than Joe Biden, and at least they could use him to keep critters out of the White House. Come to think of it that would a full time job. Kentucky has risen in the esteem of the world with Turtle Man and Neal. Haven't we? But you know they really are more entertaining than some of our other entertainers. Speaking of which we will soon be entertained by the debut of the University of Kentucky Football season. Think of it as a climate of contrasts. On the one hand we have Coach Cal and the Big Blue Nation. Then we have Joker and Unwinnables. Ticket sales are down for football in anticipation of yet another losing season. Maybe they should allow Kentucky to use a round ball for football. I don't think it would hurt , but that's only a suggestion. Or maybe the state department of education could take over the football team like they did our high school.It can't hurt. A final suggestion would be for Joker to help Neal and Turtleman on Animal Planet.No Bowls in sight.

Wired to the Max

It has become apparent that Sandy Kay and I have had a role reversal in the use of technology. Now that she has become the CFO of our company with all the privileges that come with the position ,she has wired herself into the world of instant communication and knowledge. Now this is not entirely a surprise as she knows a lot about computers and their uses, but she has been slow to embrace the concepts on a daily practical level, that is until her entry into the Iphone world. Now she goes frequently onto Itunes and buys apps of all forms. I vividly remember driving to jobsites last year and hearing sounds coming from her phone like anguished souls from the pits of hell. What is that, Sandy? Angry Birds.Hell it sounded more like angry hogs rooting in the front of the car. Then there was the infamous weather app. She casually mentioned that she had downloaded a weather alert app. She didn't tell me that the thing would go off with a tremendous gong at three o'clock in the morning. The first time it was a heavy fog warning!At three in the morning. I was sitting up in the bed with a 38 special at high alert.For a fog warning no less. Now she has streaming and wifi in the house and watches movies in bed on her little phone. I wasted a lot of money on a 32 inch tv that she doesn't watch. We'll be on the road and I ask about the weather and she pulls up the radar and then tells me the forecast for the next week,for Daytona as well. I don't know why Daytona, but I don't know a lot of things. We are officially signed up to Icloud, but it took 12 hours to transfer my music to the cloud. Now Sandy has 24 hour access to Rod Stewart singing the classics from her own little Cloud. If she is not on the Iphone then she is reading her books via Kindle, and occasionally the old fashioned book. We have a promise from Amazon that her new Kindle Fire is shipping out the thirteenth of this month. We tried to buy one this week in several WalMarts, but they were all sold out. I promised her we would find one in the Corbin WalMart since people in Corbin can't or refuse to read, but even they were sold out. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of this latest addition to our stable of technology. You can download apps on it, and it is in color. She has been reading about this strange girl with a tattoo, and then she and the old girls went to see it at the movies. It actually sounded like a movie I would have liked with nudity and violence, but Clint Eastwood wasn't in it so I didn't go. Actually I wasn't invited. I think the only people going to the show are chicks and husbands trying to make up for really bad behavior.I'm listening to AC/DC at the moment very loudly, and I feel my hearing slipping away. We went out with a friend and his family the other night and I kept calling the 7 year old"Jake" ,and Sandy told me that his name is "Jace" after we all said goodbye. Jace and Jake are very close together in my aging ears. It could have been worse as I could have called him John or Jim. B counds like D, but Jimmy Page still screams like I remember. I think I will sneak Kashmir on Sandy's Iphone and tell her it's a new song by Rod Stewart, or maybe his cousin. Maybe not as I'm not exactly in her best graces at this moment, but there's always Fergie. Or Beyonce. Or Led Zeppelin. Can you believe that silly assed Kardashian bunch are still on tv??

Troy on 50th Street

Here it is the 2nd of January, 2012,and Mother Nature has finally decided for winter to appear. Tonight is supposed to have a low of 16 degrees and tomorrow a high of the low twenties.It is snowing outside for the first accumulation of the year. Today we were cruising down I-75 just outside of Mt. Vernon when all hell broke loose as a sudden snow squall had victimized the lanes, and people driving too fast got in a world of trouble very quickly. There were at least two wrecks in the south-bound lanes in less than a mile. Earlier today there was a thirty car pileup in Grant County that threatened to take seven hours to clean up. Either way I have a job in Wooten, Kentucky that I have to visit tomorrow. Wooton is on old US 80 toward Hazard , Kentucky.Take a right at Wooton and you're headed to Cutshin. The job has taken a lot of time but the results are certainly outstanding. Back in November we went to the Yum Center in Louisville to see Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. The concert was great, and the antics of the audience was even more entertaining. About ten minutes into the show some aging hippies lit up a huge joint down in front of us, prompting Sandy to ask what was burning and what was that smell? I'm guessing that they didn't smoke as much grass at Western Kentucky University as they did at Eastern Kentucky University. You never can tell about Sandy because she can always keep a poker face. It was apparent that the woman in front of us kept hitting that joint every time it came toward her. The thing had $20 worth of marijuana in it as it was as big as an old Prince Edward stogie. I had a contact high for half the show. There is nothing more demoralizing than watching post-50 year old women dancing to Bob Seeger, high on dope and $7 beer. I honestly had twinges of fear as the old blonde to my left would end her drug induced gyrations with violent kicks, something she was working on in zumba or karate. I don't know which, but the moves were not very pretty in the tight quarters of the Yum Center. Bob just kept on singing. In retrospect I thought about how conscious people are about germs nowadays , and how they are carrying industrial size bottles of sanitation lotions all over the country. Yet these otherwise normal people were sharing saliva from complete strangers as they shared illicit marijuana joints while enjoying Bob Seger's music. I wonder if they thought about this the next morning? On a recent trip to New York I realized that the most common smell throughout the weekend was the smell of this liquid hand sanitizer. It almost overpowers the normally rancid odor of the Subways. I think we are seriously overdoing the sanitizing thing. There seems to be a prevailing theory called "The Five Second Rule" that postulates the theory that if you drop something on a counter or floor that you pick up in less than 5 seconds that it is okay to eat. That has to be a man's rule because this generation of females are the most germ phobic people since Marie Curie. Hell, I'll eat a bologna sandwich left on a table for two days. These same germ conscious females will let a nasty cat or dog lick their faces but go into convulsions if someone sneezes within a city block.While in New york we saw "Rock of Ages" which is well worth the price of admission. About two rows behind us was Tom Ridge , the first Director of Homeland Security. Somehow I felt a little more secure that Tom was there. He certainly wouldn't be anywhere dangerous. The next afternoon we went to see Harry Connick Jr. in his play,"On a Clear Day You Can See Forever". It sucked but I really needed the rest after two days of walking. It was better than Excedran PM. We were readying ourselves for the trip to JFK on Sunday morning when we nearly ran into Troy Aikmann getting out of a black limo, probably getting ready for Sunday afternoon football. I don't think Troy recognized me.Soon we hailed a bright yellow taxi to the airport. Our Ukranian driver was eating what I thought was cereal and milk out of a bowl, but Sandy said it was something in vinegar.He lit that thing up and I'll have to say it was one of the most horrifying experiences in my life, maybe as bad as when I had to kiss Aunt Ruby as a little kid. I will also admit that I craved hand sanitizer as I propelled myself out of the cab. He proudly proclaimed that he had set a new record going from midtown to JFK. Seventeen Minutes!!No doubt. So here we are immersed in the first week of 2012, and our first snowfall. I'm trying to set up my ICloud account and somehow I just don't have the patience while I Tunes tries to scan my library. I just bought Amy Winehouse's album ,and I know I'm going to miss her. What a loss. I also downloaded Mayer Hawthorne's new album. If you like old Motown then this album does the trick.This 33 year old white kid does Detroit's Motown as good as anyone I know. "The Walk" is hard to beat.I am blessed with good prospects, and several jobs lined up for the new year.There are a lot of people I miss, and I still have some unsettled business back in 1970, but some things you can't get on Delta and fly to. I wish Troy had recognized us.

Is This All The News You've Got??

Things keep happening at such a pace that I'm having a hard time just keeping up. Since last I wrote the Navy Seals have taken one nasty coward out of the picture. I cannot fathom how a man of his so-called wealth could live in such a primitive mess. Is that what our middle eastern neighbors call a mansion?? It looked more like a ghetto crack house to me. I wonder what he thought when he heard "Knock, Knock". I'll bet he thought it was camel delivered pizza. Well, he did get a nice boat ride for his troubles. Go Seals!In the mean time our boys and girls have been sitting behind their joy sticks and flying those drones right up the bad guys' asses. Next time you cowards go riding across the desert wastelands on your flea-bitten asses just remember that a smart nerd from Iowa may be guiding a missle up your robe covered ass!In the mean time we have had Tornados across the whole country, droughts in Texas, Irene all the way to Maine, and Earthquakes in Washington. I think Mother Nature is showing her displeasure with this clown show of politicians preparing to run for President. Is this the best a country of our size and intellect can muster?? It seems to me that all the whining losers that were in school 30-40 years ago have suddenly become motivated to lead our country. Michelle Bachmann makes Sarah Palin look like a Rhodes Scholar. Newt Gingrich?? Why is that fat-assed little man spending all that money at Tiffanys? Rand Paul. What frigging world did he fall from??The cat from Texas. He has a hunting ranch labelled N*****Head. Does he not know about the world wide web and nosy reporters?? I admit I'm a registered Republican, but this Tea Party crap bewilders and worries me. In good old Kentucky we have David Williams who is running for governor , and whose own wife says he is not likable. She is right. I think Nancy Pelosi is more likable that David Williams.On the other side , the incumbent, Democrat Steve Beshear doesn't have a clue on running the state. We are in a situation called "Between A Rock and A Hard Place".But there is always Gatewood. Then again if you listen to all the Gloom and Doomers we have only to survive until December 21, 2012, when the world is going to end according to an ancient Mayan Calendar. The old guy from California missed the day this spring when it was supposed to have ended. He said it was "Miscalculations".Miscalculations my ass. He recalculated and said it will be this October. They all missed a good chance when the bus sized satelite entered our atmosphere.Funny, NASA can't really tell us where the crap will fall. You'd think these guys were rocket scientists. But they are, aren't they? So everyone is predicting the Armegaddon for next year. Sandy and I were caught in Carmegeddon at the Kentucky Speedway for the Inaugural Big Race. We sat for hours on Highway 35 and finally realized it was in vain, turned around, and watched the boring Kyle Busch show from our own living room. We won't be back for that fiasco. Our Governator is giving millions of dollars of our tax money to make new entrances and exits so that arrogant owner SOB can make millions more dollars. We won't be back to Bristol or go to Charlotte which he also owns.I would almost rather go see Kentucky play football than go back to Kentucky Speedway. But I forgot, its about the same frustration, isn't it? Maybe we should consider changing conferences. How about going to Eastern or Western's conferences. Then everyone could pay the exorbitant prices for tickets and parking and know they're going to a "Bowl". We can be winners. There are some silver linings about having this coach and team. I'm betting there will be good and easy parking around the stadium the rest of the year.We had frost here in Stanford last night ,which seems early. It is only the 2nd of October. I'm sure some fatalist is calculating at this very moment of how this early frost is a key ingredient of next years' end of time and a sign of the future.It may just signify that UK is not going to a bowl this year. I don't know we'll just have to see how it plays out. In more pressing matters Fort Logan is still holding on against the Shawnees , but those damn redskins broke all the windows out of the Visitors Center. The Fort will be rotted by this time next year, but what do you expect for $200,000?

Is This The End Or What?

Well May 21, 2011 came and went without the much anticipated end of time as predicted by the old guy on the West Coast. He had taken out thousands of dollars of advertisements warning the world that the end was emminent, something I don't disagree with. Sandy and I had been invited to a wedding and I declined because this wasn't the last thing on earth that I wanted to participate in.Either she didn't think the world was ending, or maybe that was what she wanted to go out with. Either way Sandy went on to the wedding and I ate Lee's Famous Recipe carryout and watched Nascar's fiasco from Charlotte. It was almost like a condemned mans last meal . The appointed time came and went and we're still here this morning, at least I think I am.As I went to get the papers it struck me that the world has become so shallow and self absorbed that maybe the end of time has already come and maybe the world we know and live in is really what's left. I honestly can't think of many people worthy of moving on. I think maybe the Navy Seals would qualify for sending old Bin Laden where he belongs. I still am amazed at Bin's so called mansion in Pakistan. It looked like an abandoned crack house in Detroit. They said he had spent millions of dollars building that thing. I feel they should have had better housekeeping, and did you see that black and white tv he watched himself on? It's like you gave chimpanzees lots of money and turned them loose. The US rejoices in the departure of the worse human since Adolf Hitler. May they be roommates in Hell. We still have next years Mayan prediction of the end of time in December of 2012. Do we not have better problems than predicting our doom?How in the hell can these experts read these stone carvings and decide that since they show nothing after that day the end comes? Why do we believe this is the end? Maybe the stone carver just got fed up and took a better job. We've all done that. Maybe he was the last carver and they had no replacement. Thousands of years later we Twitter that the end is coming because a neolithic jungle dweller gets bored and quits. Joe Biden would probably sleep through the end of time. Speaking of sleeping ,we went to vote in the primary elections, and I nearly didn't vote for the first time since I was Eighteen. Is this the best the State of Kentucky has to offer?? And the national elections? Newt Gingrich?? Rand Paul?? Where's Ross Perot when we need him? Maybe the end of time looks better all the time. In hindsight I probably should have given more thought to my last acts on earth last night. I actually did call my family to tell them goodby, you know ,just in case. They were in Fayette Mall shopping, something they probably would have chosen as their last act anyway.Today is May 22,2011, and I for one am happy to still be here. It's warm and winter is finally over. Grass is pretty and green . Maybe a good last thing to be doing would be to be cutting grass listening to Fergie at ear melting volume. We need to straighten this mess out that we've created in the last few years. We owe that to the people who made this country the greatest in history, And we need to say that in English

Super Bowl?

Well Super Bowl has come and gone without much interest other than the usual fanfare about commercials.Green Bay playing the Steelers has about as much interest to me as Gonzaga playing Pepperdine , but I'm not much interested in pro football. The commercials reportedly cost $3 million for 30 seconds, which seems a little steep in this day of hardtimes and recessions. I watched some, and came out wondering what these idiots were thinking. What they're thinking is that America is totally a nation of dumbasses. Did somebody really pay a PR company to produce a 30 second spot of a guy getting kicked in the groin over and over again? Or who paid for the chip commercial showing a male sucking another male's finger that had been in a chip bag? What has this country become?? Joan River's head on a smoking young body?? Come on . And does anybody really know what in the hell Go Daddy.com really does? Besides tease you with Danica Patrick?? I did like the VW commercial with the black beetle racing around the other insects with a double white racing stripe. It was entertaining and funny. The half time show was ok since anything with Fergie is ok with me.At least there wasn't a wardrobe malfunction like Janet Jackson, but come to think of it a malfunction of anything of Fergies would have been worthy of replays.The National Anthem ?? Just leave out part of the song and add a thousand syllables to one syllable words. Great job Christina. Why didn't you just sing the song?? Remember Rosanne Barr and her crotch grabbing at the baseball game. There was also a nice flyover of 4 fighter planes over the closed stadium. Another great move. Maybe the four hundred ticket holders who lost their seats got to see the flyover outside as they watched the game on giant screen tvs. Is it any wonder the United States has lost prestige in the eyes of the world? The Egyptians are rioting to change their government and we're kicking young men in the balls in $3 million commercials. Now that Super Bowl is over we can get back to enjoying Winter Storm No. 8 that promises to impact 125 million Americans. We sold three more jobs last week and everything looks great for the upcoming year. The last two years we spent the month of February in Florida, but good sales prevented that this year. I never did find my mermaid anyway.I really miss the thought of all those old painted up Yankee women who blew angry horns at me every time I pulled on the highway. I wonder if they miss me? I honestly never found out what they were honking their big old Buick and Cadillac horns at.I guess they were just missing Detroit and Cleveland. People in Hazard and Harlan are never that impolite as they pass you on the highways.Kid Rock is going to be in concert this coming weekend in Louisville, and I seriously thought about buying tickets, but I felt I would be the oldest male there and I gave up on the idea. As a matter of fact those old bags in Florida should start liking me now because I'm almost as old as they are.I think those old blue haired grannies would really like to see a Kid Rock show.I really miss the Publix grocery stores about as much as anything in Florida, unless it would be the big busted mermaids at Weeki-Waki Springs. I've gotten into Retro rock and can't listen to much in the car with Sandy, as she likes Rod Stewart singing those old songs out of the fifties. Blue Oyster Cult doesn't spin her wheels. Of course retro isn't the appropriate description for the rock I'm currently misbehaving to. Speaking of misbehaving, we've got tickets to the Inaugural Sprint Cup Race at the Kentucky Speedway in July. The only misbehavior I have seen at a Nascar event has been at a fight between two old guys at the Kentucky Speedway. I really think they were from Ohio, but who would know?They were both angry drunks and deserved each others company in jail.That little old Junior Earnhardt had better start winning races this year because he's running out of excuses. There's a whole new crop of speed demons who want to win.I've learned to relike Blondie and the Atomic album. Rapture was way ahead of its time.I saw Bubba Clinton on tv the other night and he looked like hell. Those young trailer trash have gotten the best of him. If Clinton hadn't been President he would have been on the Springer show. Can you imagine Clinton's Baggage when he opened up his suitcase?Johnny Edwards would have been right beside him. Dave has over 2500 friends on Facebook and says he knows them all. Huh??I don't think he has any Amish friends but you never know. Go Dave.It's 11 degrees and headed down.Good Night and it's Hazard tomorrow.

Snow

Okay, I'm getting tired of complaining about the weather. Today it quit snowing and the sun came out for the first time in what seems like months. The only problem is that the high temperature in Stanford/Fort Logan was 20 degrees! At 9 0'clock PM the temperature is hovering at 4 degrees. Funny, tonight's low is supposed to 10 degrees.We went to Versailles this morning and the roads were passable ,but still treacherous. The good news is we have only one more week of January, but the Nocasters are gleefully talking about "The Next Wave" coming from the west. They're thinking by Monday that the storm will hit Atlanta and the South again. Don't you just hate it when Al Gore and the global warming is right? I think that it was more comforting when the citizens of the country could only look outside and figure what the weather was going to be. Times like this makes me think of Aruba , which has Last Summer, This Summer, and Next summer for its seasons.Some people might get bored with continual low-eighty degree temperatures, but not me.There is no need of weather forecasters in Aruba, But come to think of it what good are they to us? Cold days are good for catching up on drawing and the paperwork necessary for the business, and I really enjoy the creative process involved in drafting. Drafting itself is just about a lost art because of CAD, which is computer assisted drawing. I'm a dinosaur because I'm too old to draw on a computer, and obviously I can't type. Therefore I draw. I guess I have drawn a line from here to the moon in the last 33 years, and have used my electric eraser to obliterate half enough to return to earth. There's something comforting about sitting at my drawing table and getting back to basics. Part of the problem at times is being on the cell phone for extended periods. A typical cell conversation will last an hour or more and this just zaps the creative process. The most bizarre effect of Autocad is that companies have nearly stopped selling drafting supplies, and even erasers for the electric erasers are becoming increasingly difficult to buy. Drawing used to be done with big push button lead pointers, and had large lead that was sharpened in a mechanical devices that created beautiful , fragile points. THey had to be sharpened about every 4 or 5 minutes, and had to be the right hardness or they would smear on your vellum(paper). Autocad takes all that out of the equation. A plan drawn by autocad has no personality and is boring. You have to figure out the scale to take anything off the thing, and most of the time the scales are wrong or mislabelled. Someone told me the Cad developers are trying to make changes to the Cad to make the final drawings look more like hand drawn. Why?? Cad drawings are pieces of crap, mostly created by nerds at the direction of lazy architects and designers. Lazy creators create inferior products and often repeat their sorry designs. Cad operators only have to push a few keys to alter one building to the next. Creativity in the design and architectural field is dead in the USA. You have to go to Spain or even Brazil to find truly impressive designs. In the last few years the Administrative Office of Courts for the State of Kentucky has gone on a suicidal task of building new courthouses all over Kentucky. Our leaders have built huge , unbecoming behemoths in nearly every county seat of Kentucky. What these nearesighted spenders didn't comprehend is that all of Kentucky's jails and prisons are falling apart and vastly overcrowded to the point that criminals are given early release , or no sentence at all. It makes sense to sentence the criminals in palaces ,but have no place to incarcerate them. The AOC has gone into old towns and torn down classic old buildings to replace them with monstrosities of poor taste. In Monticello ,Kentucky they built this paragon of ugliness that blends the Adams Family Victorian Mansion with The Jetsons. What a waste of money!In nearby Lancaster the nimrods have created a grand curving brick front with 3 story fluted columns. Never mind that Lancaster has no jail at all, and the rest of the whole town is rapidly falling to ground in rot. There is not even a jail or grocery store in all of Lancaster, and yet they built this multi-million dollar judicial center. It has to make sense to someone, and I would like to know who. Lancaster is scheduled to be completely bypassed in the next five years by the widening of Highway 27. I think that it would be prudent to make a rule that there would be no judicial centers built if there were no grocery stores, and especially if there were no jails.But that would make too much sense in governmental thinking. I read today that New York is testing or trying to see if States can legally go bankrupt to not have to pay the ponderous debt loads that they have accrued. Now doesn't that make you feel comfortable for future services?? I think neighbor Crab Orchard has played with the idea of bankrupcy, and I don't know where this stands, but one thing I do know is that Highway 150 has bypassed the town. RIP Crab Orchard. Now I don't even see your Cobra Gunship as I nonchalantly bypass the old downtown. Brodhead will be bypassed this summer. RIP Brodhead.Maybe I'll be more pleasant and optimistic when Global Warming finally arrives. Come on Al!!

2011 State of Union

I realized that once again time has passed and a new year has begun, which means that my 2011 State of My Union Rant is due.The biggest decision of the moment is what music to listen to as I ramble on into the land of poor grammar, no known idea of what conforms to a paragraph, and the idiotic ramblings of a malcontented, getting older every day, white man. Maybe Enlightment by Van Morrison would be appropriate. Having been to NYC in early December certainly helped 2010 end in a positive note, but then again I'm always happy being in the Big Apple during the Christmas Season. We were lucky enough to come the weekend of Santa Con and the drunken Santas and Mrs. Santas were all over midtown and on the subways. The temperature in New York that weekend approached 60 degrees which only made it worse as we flew west into O'Hare into single digets , and then on to Bluegrass Field into frigid temps and snow. New York has been warmer than Kentucky since December. WLEX Nocaster Bill Meck has been orgasmic over the cold temps. You can see his breathing quicken as he always misses the temperature by 10 degrees. T.G. Shucks over at WKYT is no better and that crackling pre-pubsence voice drives me nuts. At least WLEX has Kristen Pflum to make up for Meck's insane rattlings. I will say that if I was as inept and inaccurate in my business as these weather clowns then I would be broker than I am .I have also gotten smarter this year in the field of New Years Resolutions. Never a fan of resolutions, I always enjoyed watching friends and acquaintances make the silly things, only to back- slide and revert back to their sorry assed old ways by February. My new mantra is to make resolutions that you will enjoy and not break. To wit: my first resolution is to gain as much weight as large volumes of Coca Cola will allow.My second resolution is to leer and ogle at any female that I see fit, and possibly a few that I don't. Lust is not a bad thing. I will not give any advice this year as noone has ever followed it anyway. I will try to buy even more gasoline this year than last, and I will watch even less news this year than in 2010.News is depressing and serves no purpose in my life at the moment.Local government seems to function despite good old boys, and I promise to stay out of that fiasco .Are we still in a recession?? Are we still in Iraq?? Are we still in Afghanistan?? Are the Republicans and the Democrats still bickering? Do we owe $14 trillion dollars? If those answers are yes then this country is still in the same shape as 2010.Maybe someone else should be making decisions. I grow frustrated that we have no smarter people leading this country and helping us regain the prestige we once had. We have dumbed the country down. Speaking of decisions and resolutions, I think the Wildcat football powers should resolve to not schedule any SEC teams next year and only schedule teams like Akron or Austin Peay. That way we can go to endless bowls. Welcome to the Joker Era!!Kentucky plays football like Junior Earnhardt plays Nascar. Speaking of: WE,ve already got our tickets for Sprint Cup at the Kentucky Speedway on July 9.We're not going to Bristol this year ,and hopefully we can see some other tracks. I'd like to go to Sonoma and I think I can persuade my CFO Sandy to consider a Board Meeting in San Francisco about that time. That would be a good resolution.January is almost half over and I have the first three months of this year filled up with some real neat projects. It's a unique feeling to get out of bed and look forward to a day filled with projects that are destined to be outstanding and enjoyable. I came to the realization that I spend money on nothing but liquids. I only buy gasoline,diesel fuel , and soft drinks. My company is fueled on the three and would come to a complete halt if not for the complex interaction of the liquids.I guess the next biggest expense is the strain on my ears as I'm spending a goodly amount of time on the cell phone. I've worn out my Razor V3 and can't get another one. AT&T wants you to buy a cute I Phone and a $30 monthly fee for the internet.Sandy Kay the CFO has the I Phone and Angry Birds. I only want a simple phone.I also resolve to fill my I Pod up this year and I've only got 2600 songs so far. I need to load 8000 more songs in 11 months. I think its doable(is that a word??)We went down to Folly Beach over the week of Christmas and had some outstanding sea food. It was great until mother nature decided to snow . Snow in Charleston is unique , but entertaining. The only difficult time was two hours of glee between Asheville and the Tennessee Line on I-40, when a bunch of scardy cats crept over icy roads. So here we are back and energized in the Bluegrass state ready to cover Eastern Kentucky.I don't think my resolutions are going to be hard to keep, as a matter of fact I will achieve resolution success easier than Joker or Junior. I've already got Fergie and the Peas downloaded from I Tunes and The Beginning is ready for spring grass cutting. I think the Fort successfully withstood Shawnee attack over vthe winter, but Indians have traditionally gone on the war path in the spring. I'll keep you posted.