Just a quick post here. I have been off work since Thursday and it seems like it is not long enough. Part of it is because we were unable to get out of town for the long weekend, and this would have been the perfect weekend to do so, because it is so hot. But I did get Kas’s WII all set up for the wireless and then downloaded The Legend of Zelda (the original) and Kid Icarus. Maybe I should have done that on Thursday, would have given me a little something more to do.

Anyway, I am almost done with my class and halfway thru the Masters program I am in right now. Come May, I will have a Masters degree. Not sure what I am going to do with it. Maybe nothing, maybe something. Not sure. Maybe I will see if I can find a class to teach at the community college or something.

If you have the chance, an album I would recommend is Pet Shop Boys “Fundamental”. A great album to listen to often.

So I took a little extra time to write a post, and had the weekend which was full of stuff and such. I can not really tell you how much I am wanting the summer to end. To be in the 90s would be so nice. And that is really hot still, but I really want summer to be over. I am almost halfway done with my Masters program. To be done with school will be a good thing. I am thinking about applying at CGCC if I stay here to maybe be an adjunct faculty to teach some good classes in programming and other things. Maybe not. Maybe I will apply to teach the liberal arts, and have the class look at three paintings from history and try to find the hidden chalice in each. If they find it they get an A if they do not, then they fail. I would not be a hard teacher, I would only ask for a 20 page paper every week of class, with at least 20 sources, and then I would require 3 exams per week. That should be an easier course.

Then there is this coming week. I get Thursday and Friday off. We are not going anywhere, I am just going to be able to do other things with my wife during the day. Maybe go see a movie with her, maybe go to lunch, make her mow the lawn and paint the house while I sit inside and watch my stories and eat my bon-bons. Marc would get that one, his birthday was last week, and he had a birthday dinner at his cousins fry bread restaurant. It was good, and was fun.

So anyhoo, I think that is it for me. I may not post the next week, as I will be on a semi stay home vacation type thing.

So it is now Saturday once again. And it is already August. What the heck happened to July?

Anyway, I am starting to become more and more upset about the political state of things in this country. I have figured I am going to start a new site/blog/e-zine to review the current state of all political claims. Anyone is welcome to help and contribute to the site. I really want this to be along the lines of Constitutional discussions and why it is important for States rights and less government intrusion into our daily lives. What I do need is to get a good URL name for this site. Something like DaffyDuckPoliticsIsTakingOverTheEntireCountryAndItIsContinuingForeverAndEverWithoutAnyHopeOfItGoingAway.org, but I am sure that is too long for someone to remember the name, so I think I need a better URL name. So if you know of a few good names, please let me know. And if you want to help contribute stories or stuff to the site, please let me know.

So now they want to go swimming, and I may go with them, not sure though. But I should get off if I am going to be going with them.

OK, it has been a couple weeks since I have posted. I have been real busy with work and then with the end of my class, the final project, yadda yadda yadda. But now I am back and will start posting once again weekly.

I am sure everyone is thrilled about this.

Some thoughts I have had the past week. One, it is hot. It is too hot for me anymore here. Maybe it is because I now have too much insulation on my body so any heat is saved inside of me. Kind of like my own little “Stephen-Warming” problem that Al Gore seems to be ignoring. I blame Little Debbie. She makes all these wonderful treats that are so good and when you eat one, you can not stop at that, and need to keep eating more and more.

Two, I really feel bad I was unable to take my family on vacation this year. They got to go to Page to visit Emily, but we were going to Portland and I was unable to take them due to changing plans at work. I really like Portland, and I was even going to look at rental homes while we were there. I was very serious about moving there permanently. But I was unable to go. Maybe a little later we can do it.

Three, I am tired of school. Just tired of it. I know I said that once I got my Bachelor’s Degree, I was done. But I was talked into taking a Master program, and got in, so I took it. Thankfully, I will be done by May, but that still seems so far away. Maybe I can teach a few classes after I graduate, but maybe not. I do not know. I am not sure what I will do after this. But it has to count for something, right?

Fourth, I am either a very popular guy on the web, or I am getting a ton of spam. And I think it has to be the latter, as all the “Greeting Cards” I get and “offers” seem to always come from me. I am just so thoughtful of myself, to send myself e-cards and acai offers all the time. I really think that when I get these, I ought to open every link they send. Or what I should do, is see if I can’t write a program thgat does a route trace on the email path, and then send a shutdown command to the sending server. I am sure I would get into plenty of trouble for that, but dang it all, I do not need 300 emails a day telling me that a greeting card exists for me, or that “account” I have with some bank I have never banked with needs my info again.

Finally, I like listening to music. It is so calming at times, and I listen to it while I do my work, so it helps me to keep focused and helps my thought process. I am sure that it also affects my volume when I speak, or when I am thinking out loud, but since school starts on Monday for my kids, I will be all alone during the day once again.

Today is the 4th of July. A day we celebrate the founding of our country. I think back to the funny Simpsons line where Homer goes into a Kwik-E-Mart and asks to buy some illegal fireworks. After the back and forth, he is finally led into the back room where he purchases this awesome firework, and the Apu-like clerk exclaims
“Celebrate the birth of your country by blowing up a little piece of it”.

How true is that today. This is not going to be one of those rants or “try to be funny tongue in cheek that ends up being more of a foot in mouth”. This is going to be about something that this country, especially its leaders seems to have lost: Common Sense. That is right. It is going to be about Common Sense. One of the things that I think ought to be required reading every year in school from 8th grade thru a Senior in High School is Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Everyone should read this every year. It is not long, and it is not hard. Paine provides some really good ideas, ones that basically led to the rest of the colonies realizing that they needed to break free from the Crown. And now we are in a very, eerily similar situation. We are not going against the Crown this time, we are going against the elite. We do not need violence, because the Founders gave us a more powerful tool than any weapon, this Republic.

Read the rest of this entry »

OK, since I am so busy right now, and have very little time, it looks like I will be posting on a Saturday instead of a Friday.

Anywhoo, I could get all serious about the monstrosity that is in the nations capital now. The idiots in DC who claim they represent us have ignored the people completely and voted for the Cap and Trade bill, so we can start kissing goodbye to our jobs since most companies will move overseas now. Or I could get all serious about the problems we have with the government and how they are trying to change our great Republic into a Monarchy/Dictatorship. But those just are not for right now, that is for next week.

This week is a sad week for me. Right now, I should be traveling to Portland with my family. We were going to leave yesterday (Friday) and get there sometime today. However, there were other circumstances that prevented us from going, and not all of it is about money, more with deadlines and work. Which is good, because that means I still have a job right now, but I just miss out on a vacation. At least the kids got to go to Page, AZ this year.

But I really wanted to go this week. Especially since at the time I am writing this, 7:33 am, the temperature outside is (according to weather.com) 92 degrees. Yikes! 7:30 in the morning and we are closing in to 100 already. High is supposed to be 108. Maybe the AZ government can pass a bill to create a C Montgomery Burns Sun Blocker machine for the Phoenix Valley and block all this sun, maybe cool us down a little to like 104 degrees. I digress. Portland was so beautiful when we went there. I love the rain. I love the green that is all over there. I love that the ocean is so close. One of the best places I have been is Depot Bay. That was such a great place. So relaxing and so calming. I think I could stay there for weeks upon end and never leave. Just sitting by the ocean, watching the wales, and listening to waves. I loved it there. I would love to go back there soon.

You know, thinking about this, I think what I really need is a city that has a river running through it. I loved London and it had the Thames. I loved Portland and it had (IIRC) the Willamette. And before anyone mentions the Salt River and Phoenix, let me just clarify that the rivers I like are the ones that actually have water flowing. I do not know what it is, maybe it is something.

OK, so I am a day late in making this post. Yeah I know. I have been stressed this past week. I am actually surprised I did not have a heart attack or spontaneous combustion happen. But yesterday was my daughter’s birthday and we all celebrated and had fun. Well, let me rephrase that, everyone but me celebrated and had fun. No I was not a grinch, I was working and doing school work. I took a few minutes out to go say high and give her a hug. But next year I will be done with school and hopefully have a little more time when her birthday comes around.

But then there is the summer in Arizona. Ah, good old hell on earth. No I am kidding, I hate it. I was really looking forward to going to Portland later this month, but that will have to be postponed/canceled because there are other things that will need me to be here to finish projects and what not. So I am a little bummed at that, but such is life.

I sometimes think what it would be like to retire now. Sure I am a little young to retire, but if I retire now I would have an income of $0 per year. That may actually qualify me for a new government car, loan, and house, all that I would not have to pay back because I make $0 per year. No I am not getting too political in this post. I save my outrage with government stuff to discuss with Elise’s family and they usually run the other direction when they see me coming. But, they did do that even before I started to watch Glenn Beck, so it may just be that I smell.

Anywho, getting back to my retirement plans, I would be able to do a whole bunch of stuff. Sure I would not be able to go on vacation, and I may never leave Shantytown ever again, but I look around now and think, I am already doing that. I never go on vacation, I am never leaving Shantytown and I am also missing my family, even though I work from home. So retirement may give me a better chance to slow down. But then again, I would probably grow bored and then have to do something, so I would be right where I am now.

But you know what I really would like. I would really like rain. Freaking Arizona teased us yesterday. Made it smell like rain, even sprinkled a little, cloudy almost all day, and nothing. Why would this happen? Why does Arizona always do this to us? I know why, it hates us. Thats right, Arizona hates people. The Arizona ecosystem is mad at all humans, and is going to kill all humans, just like Bender. Ok, maybe not.

Sheesh, I just re-read what I wrote. What a freakin idiot I am. It smells in my house for some reason.

OK, another Friday is upon us and I wanted to make a quick post to cover this.

This is always a great question when it comes time for the “What if” scenarios. With the economic crisis happening, and the crap in the political arena, and the whole mess we are now facing, it is great to play the what of game. So in honor of all dreamers everywhere who see everyone else plugging up the internet and said “me too”, here we go.

What would you do if you had enough money and did not have to work any longer?
I am not sure, I know I would want to do something though. Do nothing is terribly boring. TV is really crap anymore, so are movies, I would need to go do something else. I’d go to Portland for a little bit. I like that city. It was very nice, and very cloudy, and I love that. I would also go to England for a few months. We would have the best time too. However, after all of that is done, I would probably come back, train with the League of Shadows, then burn down their house, and come back to my house. Maybe build a cave, get a whole bunch of cool equipment and then create a costume in the shape of a bat. I would then go avenge my parent death at the hands of thugs while we went to the opera in Gotham.

What would you do if you could remake any movie, and which one would it be?
I would remake the movie “The Ten Commandments” and update it to modern times. I would give Moses a cool bouffant, a corvette and .45 to handle the Pharaoh. I would sneak in references to all kinds of governments and would even have the UN step in to try and mediate the conflict between Moses and Pharaoh. Of course, we could not leave North Korea out of this, they would have a small role. Instead of parting the Red Sea, he would gun down and “part” the Pharaoh soldiers as he led the people out of captivity in military trucks. I am also thinking Rambo would be a good addition to it, and Radioactive Man.

What would you do if you ran the country?
I would eradicate all TV stations and create a state run TV station that only showed Futurama, Simpsons, Office and Lie to Me. I would also make it a law that with every meal there had to be at least 3 servings of white chocolate chip cookies. I would also disband Congress, they seem to always fight anyway, so maybe by sending them to their rooms and out of our way we can actually get some work done. I would also create a new month for the year, I would call it Smarch. And everyone would have the second Tuesday of the week off.

What would you do if the internet was never created?
Wow, I do not know about that one. Maybe actually have a life. That is just too hard of a question. That is a doozy. I am not sure about this. This question is way too hard and the person who asked this ought to be fired.

What would you be doing had you not read this?

So I am trying to be a little more active on Facebook, and Twitter, but I find it all too horrible. But then I look at my blog and see that nothing has been posted since April, so this must also be a bane, as no one here posts anything. So I am going to post once a week, every Friday, just to see what happens. But I digress, let’s get to the real reason behind this post: Twitter, Facebook and Conan O’Brien.

First Facebook. I look at the feeds from everyone and think what a complete waste of time. Facebook really is a time thief. There are all of these cool little quizzes one can take and have all of the results displayed proudly. But let’s face it, these quizzes are a bunch of bunk. Sure they may be fun, but are we really to believe in 10 short questions a Facebook app can tell me “how stressed I am”?! I can tell you that right now without taking some damn quiz. I am stressed man, don’t add to it by giving me 10 questions that just raise my stress level to tell me I am already dead.

Or how about this one, “which secret society would I belong to”. Yes, because answering questions like “When it comes to God” and then lists several answers that make no sense, like “My father is God” will really help nail down which secret society I ought to join. I know these are all in good fun, but come on, let’s be real about this for one second. Do these quizzes do anything but waste time? But that is not the half of it, wait until you see the other quizzes they have for you . . .

Read the rest of this entry »