DOWNTOWN XLVI

Thank you Indiana for welcoming me back from sunny Fort Myers with some pretty decent weather for Jan/Feb.
I wanted to check out the Super Bowl festivities and had Monday off anyway and Rita being the lady of leisure she is came with.

We got there about 12:30 PM, most events don't begin or open till 3:00PM. That really didn't make much difference because the zip line, was sold out, the stadium tours were sold out until NEXT Monday and the NFL Experience was most likely sold out as well.

No matter, we just wanted to go take some pics and see the outside stuff anyway. I'm glad to see the events are doing well and the weather has been cooperating nicely.

I hope the game lives up to the hype, but it is a bitter pill to swallow that we don't have two Manning's in the Super Bowl.
A Brady win here will not sit well with most of us. The one negative that I will call ahead of time, is the half time show. You will have to go a long way to top how bad last years half time show was. If anybody could be worse it would be Madonna. Never been a big fan, never will.

All in all, I'm very proud of my city. I flew over downtown on the way home from Fort Myers Sunday, as good as the Indy skyline looks in the daylight from the air; it is a beautiful sight at night from above. With the Super Bowl accoutrements added it will be a crown jewel.

There was an issue with parking, not with finding a space, finding Rita's car when we were leaving.
I took it upon myself to remember the spot, 2Q.
I followed Rita as we headed through Circle Center Mall to the parking garage. We got to 2Q and there was no car, you know your in trouble when the person you are following to the car starts turkey neckin around like they are lost.
Here is a pic of what that looks like.

After searching 2 floors of the garage for 30 minutes we began to explore 2 possibilities.

1. The car had been stolen.

2. We are wearing out the concrete in the wrong garage.

Yeah you guessed it, wrong garage.

Oh well, I needed the exercise.

So kickoff at Rita's house. BYOB !!!!!!!!

MY FAVORITE SHIRT

"I like your shirt"
"Thanks, I like your hat even better", I said to the old man.

I remember the exact day I realized my taste in shirts had changed. It was probably about 7 or 8 years ago. I can remember watching "Cops" and they were arresting some older guy and he was wearing a billboard tee shirt. It had large graphics on front and back and I thought, that guy is too old to wear that shirt.
My next thought was, I'm about as old as that guy and most of my shirts were like the DUI's shirt that was being cuffed and stuffed on my TV.
Nowadays I like shirts with a small graphic in front and I need a pocket. My favorite type is a button up Hawaiian style shirt with a pocket, that's what I got married in when Jojo and me had our wedding on the beach going on 7years ago.

All the shirts I packed for Florida this latest this trip were in line with my golden years style of shirts, except one.
It was a tee shirt that had a large graphic in front and no pocket.
It was the one I wore Thursday evening when Bob and me were going to our favorite steakhouse in Fort Myers.
It was that shirt that caught the eye of the old man sitting at an outside table finishing his drink at McGregor's Grill.
The hat the old man was wearing that had caught my eye said
"WW II VET" and had various campaign ribbons on it denoting battles he had fought in and survived.
After I told him how much I liked his hat I shook hands with him and humbly offered my gratitude for what he did for our nation some 65 years ago. Then I pointed to Bob and said "this guys a combat vet too, he was in Vietnam". "Oh they shot at you too!", he said as he shook Bob's hand.
We talked for a few minutes and walked inside and sat at the bar to wait for a table. As we sat there, the bartender told us the old man was a regular who had recently lost his wife. He was all alone now.
The more I learned about the old man, the more I started thinking about all the people that made incalculable sacrifices in all the wars since the founding of our nation.
I thought about how the sacrifices were made in the quest for freedom, an idea that was paid for in blood. Now we are governed by those who want to let that most valuable commodity be pilfered away in the name of some failed brand of Marxism.
I started to feel really bad for the old man and we watched him through the window as he got up to leave.
A couple of minutes went by and Bob said, "Mark you need to go check on him". He seemed to be having trouble getting into his car. When I got to him he had just finished putting his walker in the back seat. I asked him if he needed help.  "No" he said, "I just dropped my food". We talked again for a few minutes and he told me he was 88 years old. I said "I'd like to buy you a drink sometime" and he said, "I would like to buy you a drink too". I got down on my hands and knees and groveled while I cleaned up the old mans spilled dinner and told him not to worry about the mess, "I'll throw it away for you". I wanted to buy him that drink and another meal but he had to get home. He left me with another warm handshake with his weathered skin and bandaged arms. As I walked back to the restaurant I could feel my eyes welling up. "Don't do it you old softie, get it together", my pep talk to myself didn't help a damned bit.
I felt terrible that I didn't get there in time to help him carry his meal.
By the time I got back to the bar I had tears running down my face. Bob asked me what happened and I started to tell him about the old man dropping his food, but all that came out was a lot of blubbering. Bob looked away and said, "that's why I didn't want to go back out there, I knew I couldn't take it".

I couldn't relate to what the old man had been through and Bob could relate too much. We didn't talk about the old man the next morning and I was glad we didn't. I knew I wanted to write about it, but I also knew I would need to be alone when I did.
Bob had to run some errands so I rode the bike to Lakes Park.
It's a beautiful park and a good place to be alone in case you had to wipe your eyes from time to time, so I figured this would be a good place to write.

I hung the shirt in the closet.
The one shirt that has all the features that I avoid nowadays when I am looking for a shirt.
It's a tee shirt with no pocket and a large graphic in front.
It's the only shirt I packed for my trip that was like that.

It's a shirt that sparked a conversation between a vet from a forgotten war who came home to vocal disrespectful minority.

A vet from a brutal but romanticized war that had saved the world.

And a man who served in a peacetime Army National Guard engineering unit who felt completely inept to comprehend their sacrifice.
It's this shirt.
My favorite shirt.

THE BOB SEA TWINS

My last full day here at Fort Myers and we are heading to the beach. Yesterday was the first non-perfect day here so we went to the Muscle Car Museum instead. 
It definitely was worth the drive to see that amazing collection.  
It was an all GM collection and I'm a big MOPAR guy, but I love all the old muscle cars. 
It was another beautiful day today so what better way to spend my last full day here than straining our necks looking at all the great uhhhh scenery at the beach. 
Half way to the beach I looked at Bob and realized we were wearing the exact same shirt. 
I laughed and told Bob he looked a little gay wearing that shirt. 
It had a small Seagrams emblem on the back and on the front it said "JOIN THE TEA PARTAY".
It was a promotional shirt for a Seagrams Long Island drink. We were down here about 4 or 5 years ago and got them for free when we went to the liquor store. 

I like the shirt because it has small graphics and I like the reference link to the Tea Party. 
Of course it has nothing to do with the Tea Party, but nobody else knows that. We got these shirts before the Propagander-In-Chief got the White House and started using the Constitution for his toilet paper. 
I had no idea Bob had packed his Tea Partay shirt, or if he even still had it. 
Now we were heading to the beach looking like special friends, not that there's anything wrong with it!

I figured when we were on the beach I would have my shirt off anyway, but we were gonna have breakfast at a beachside restaurant first. 
When we finished breakfast, I figured I would go look for a gift for my grandson and my little buddy Gavin and I wouldn't have to walk with Bob who sure looked funny wearing that shirt. When

I was walking back to the beach I started to realize how paranoid I had been acting. I mean for Pete's sake, why can't two guys hang out together wearing the same thing and not have to worry about what other people are thinking?

That's when I spotted two women walking together wearing the same exact tee shirts and I  thought "ahhhh, a lesbian sighting !"

REVENGE IS LIKE SERVING COLD-CUTS

Said Tony Soprano. 
Of course he was referring to the old saying, "revenge is a dish best served cold". It's a philosophy I just happen to agree with. Not that I am one who lives for revenge, but sometimes in life you cross paths with some asshole who commits acts so egregious that some sort of payback is warranted. 
That's why I am returning to court next month for what I hope is the final preceding dealing with former renters who stole thousands of dollars from us. These lying thieves have been doing this to their last several landlords and creditors. They deserve and need a healthy dose of payback.
But the object of my "payback is a bitch" today however is a friggin seagull. If you read yesterday's post you will recall the attack of the seagulls on my lunch meat samich. 
Well when I got on the beach this morning there was one of those little sombitches enjoying an apple core at the edge of the water. I assumed it was the same bird who chomped my lunchmeat samich yesterday so I kept harassing his little ass until he gave up and flew away. 
I grinned and thought to myself, maybe Tony had it right. 
Revenge IS like serving cold-cuts !

I BLEW OUT MY FLIP FLOP

I was in no danger of stepping on a pop top however so I soldiered on to the beach with Bob and all our beach equipment. 
Then I hobbled to the nearest beach store to look for a replacement pair. I had brought my most comfortable pair from home and I knew I wouldn't be able to find some that I liked as much as these. 
After looking at several fifty dollar flip flops I gave up and went to the 7-11 and got some Krazy Glue. Problem solved. 

Friday when I got to the condo I put my tennis shoes in the garage and vowed they would not touch my feet until I was getting ready to head back home. 

We spend most of yesterday on the fishing boat, we caught our share and the weather was beautiful. 
So back on the beach today me and Bob are once again on thong patrol. We haven't spotted any female offenders yet but we have seen a lot of guys wearing bikini bottoms. That just doesn't do it for me. There are a lot of foreign vacationers here and all the dudes from those other countries wear those speedos. Not a good look. 
I decided to eat my lunch so I took out my samich. She was a beauty, ham, salami, pepper loaf, pepper jack cheese and mayo. 
Now for the finishing touch, open up the samich and insert a bunch of tater chips. 
As I began munching, I started to attract a crowd, Seagulls. First one then the word got out and it looked like a Hitchcock movie, they were all around me and hovering over my head. Seem Seagulls likes chips in their samich too. I hadn't gotten half of it eaten yet when one of them distracted me and his buddy swooped in over my right shoulder and took a big chomp of my samich. I threw my best shot at the offending bird. A straight right hand that missed wildly. It was time for the second half of my combination, an uppercut swear word " you sombitch!" that hit him cleanly. 
I looked down at my bird chomped samich wondering where that nasty beak had been before it had touched my inch thick of cold cuts, cheeze n chips and I put it back in the bag and threw it in the cooler cursing the rest of the clan gathered around me I got up and began kicking at them. I had always had a deal with these damn birds, I would walk around them and try not to disturb them when they were sitting on the beach and they would let me eat in peace.
 The deals off !      Sumbitches !

HAVING YOUR ASS HANDED TO YOU ON A SILVER PLATTER

John King is looking for a good surgeon to have his ass reattached. It was completely severed in last weeks Republican debate. Newt Gingrich was the one who wielded the ass axe. From the look on Kings face during the ass removal procedure it was apparent that was where John King was storing his brain. 
That look was priceless, then King tried to recover with the "it wasn't our network it was ABC". That's when Newt picked up Johns freshly decapitated ass, placed it on a silver platter and handed it back to him. There you go John, you just got served!  Newt said what is known to us all but rarely said out loud. 
I'm not sure who I will vote for, it will be between Newt and Santorum. I may have to hold my nose and vote for Romney, but I hope it doesn't come to that. Newt has had more than his share of personal issues. I have led a pure life so therefore I can sit in judgment of the past of all others. I also have some ocean-front property in Arizona. 
The things that bother me about Newt is not so much his past. It's his present, his views on illegals and his partaking of the global warming Koolaid really bothers me. His attacks on Romney's ability to make a lot of money doesn't sit well either. 
But can you just see Obama trying to compete with Newt in a debate. 
Even armed with his TelePrompTer, The look on Obama's face would make John King's face look like the Cheshire Cat. 

DON'T EAT THE BROWN SNOW

I have a thing for airports and aviation in general. IND, Indianapolis International Airport is a beauty.
In about 2 weeks this place will be packed with lucky Superbowl attendees.  Jojo dropped me off before 6:00 AM for my 7:30 flight, I'm sure she was thrilled about getting up at 5 instead of her usual 8ish. 
I'm on a 737 sitting on the leading edge of the wing right next to a beast of an engine. The sound of the compressors spooling up always gives me a rush. I'm sitting by a window on the right side of the plane by design, although I will miss seeing the sun rise, I will also miss the sun shinning on me the entire flight to FT Myers. There will be plenty of time for the sun once I reach Florida. The flight is booked solid so me and my 56 year old bladder will be stuck against the window for the next 2 + hours. That should be no problem, I'm really proud of my bladder this morning. It's doing a fine job today, it's a credit to the organ family. 
The colon on the other hand has been causing a ruckus the
past few days. Jojo was kind enough to share her stomach flu with me this week. I missed work Wed and Thur.  
I know you have all had this ailment before so I shall spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say that during this episode the colon is an attention seeking asshole. Although this is the 24 hour variety I'm still experiencing remnants of this bug. I guess the colon wants me to know it's still in charge. 
This malady at this airport reminds me of a similar event that happened here a few years ago only that time I was arriving at IND, not departing. 
(Que the flashback montage)
Me and bro-in-law Bobby were poolside one morning at their
FT Myers condo. I was relaxing in the hot tub and that queazy feeling hit me, I hoped in vain that it would pass.  What passed was everything but the queasiness. For the next day and a half it was like Linda Blair at one end and an Obama speech coming  out the other, mostly at the same time. 
Towards the final stages of this holy war on my digestive tract, I was hoping Doctor Kevorkian would do a drop in. 

Towards the end of the trip I was able to keep a little food down and more importantly my beverage of choice, Crown n Coke. The colon however was still having its way with me. 
Bob and me had the same flight home but drove separately. We were parked just a few feet apart and we were so pleased to find our cars covered with 7 inches of snow. We cursed our winter wonderland and began the task of scraping the snow off in the dark of night. Now even though my colon and I were still not on speaking terms, we had worked out a sort of armistice. 
The colon had agreed to evacuate at regular intervals every 3 hours. I had agreed that I would not flachuate unless I was hovering over an appropriate  receptacle. . 

This meant I could perform the necessary function at the FT Myers airport and make it all the way to IND with my non-stop colon. 
When we landed at IND I felt the pressure but time was on my side so I passed up the airport restrooms in favor of the home-field advantage. 
When me and Bob got to our cars I started mine up and began the task of removing the snow. I had left my Jimmy at home for Jojo to use and I had her son's old Pontiac. 
I started the car and cleared off the front half of the car and went to open the door. That's when I found out that there was a GM engineer in Detroit that had a death wish. It seems this jackass thought it wold be funny to make a car that could play a practical joke. This hilarious son of a bitch would let you start the engine then when you get out to remove snow while your colon is about to go critical mass, it would automatically lock you out. 
Houston we have a problem. 

At least Bob was still there so he drove me to an emergency phone in the lot and I was told they had no service to open my door but connected me with a nearby locksmith. He was 40 bucks and 20 to 40 minutes away. The rumble in my lower torso alerted me to the truce I had made with would soon be null and void, voided the key word here. 
My decision to bypass the restroom at the Indy airport had been a clear violation of our peace accord. Bob drive me back around to my nicely warmed and locked car to wait on the locksmith. The pain and psi from my nether region was growing worse, so to distract myself from the impending doom I decided to brush off the back of my car. 
I cleaned off most of the rear when Bob sheepishly said, Hey man, why you cleaning off that guys car?
Yeah the distraction I was under had me cleaning off the snow on a car it the other row, I did a nice job though. 
Now the colon had my full and undivided attention. Driving back to the terminal was not an option. I was afraid the locksmith would come and go. So I waited..... And waited, negotiations with the colon had broken down completely at this point. Jimmy Carter and his Middle East Summit had a better chance then the peace talk I was having with my terroristic colon at this point. 
Now I have to look for options. I ran through several senerios, none of them good. It had been about 20 minutes since my call to the locksmith and he was nowhere in sight. 
Times being what they were I had to act fast. 
The only viable option I could come up with was jump behind a snow pile, which were plentiful and let the colon have its way. Cleanup would consist of using snowballs. Using snowballs as TP had never been tested in the real world to my knowledge, but I 
was in uncharted waters. 

Just then my hero pulled into the lot, he unlocked my door and I threw him 40 big ones plus tip and hit the road. 
Suddenly the homefeild advantage seemed within reach again. 
Alas home was 3o minutes from away, Walmart was 20. 
Sorry Walmart. 
The moral to the story can  best be summed up by the Golden Rule my bladder has always preached to me. 
You never pass up an opportunity to go to the bathroom. 

TODAY'S FT MYERS FORECAST

No Cold temps, No sleet, no snow, no ice (except in my Crown n Coke) 

BOYS WEEK OUT

Leaving Friday morning for the annual trip to Ft Myers FL.
Looks like it will be an unsupervised trip this time, as the women folk will not be accompanying us down there this year. This means me and Bob will once again be left to our own devices. A few years ago we were down there without the bosses and there was a communication problem and our wives thought we were imbibing too many Crown n Cokes.
In order to avoid further misunderstandings we devised a system to monitor our own behavior.
It's called the I'll watch him and he will watch me and keep each other out of trouble. Gotta say, its worked pretty well so far.
So don't worry Rita and Jojo, we got this and Bob just remember, what happens in Florida stays in Florida.

HATE IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE, NO SHIT SHERLOCK

That bumper sticker I saw on some dork’s car years ago, (HATE IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE) on the surface seems like a logical thought.
But the message can best be deciphered by focusing on the word "hate".
Hate is a buzzword used by the left to describe anyone or any idea that does not conform to leftist bizarre worldview.
The "HATE IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE", moniker is a slam against anyone that stands for family values.

Groups like the Moral Majority and Focus On The Family and lately The Tea Party have been the victims of some of the most horrendous, disgusting attacks by the left for trying to hold on to the last vestiges of decency in our nation. The god of the left, Soul Alinsky taught them well. "Pick your target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Alinsky's "thirteenth rule" demonizing your opponent has been utilized by the left ad nauseum.
The reason they do it is because it works on a certain people who use emotion instead of logic as their source of reasoning. If you oppose gay marriage then you are guilty of hating gays. If you think abortion is wrong then you must hate women. If you think skin color should not be a determining factor in getting a job or getting into a college, then you must hate blacks. The list goes on and on. So far I haven't shed any new light on this subject and odds are I won't. I guess this is just one of those "rumbles from the vent", which is why I write this crap.

The reason this lump of lava convected its way to the opening of the vent is because of something I saw on Facebook. Someone linked to a story about a young Girl Scout. She was trying to organize an effort to stop a boy from joining the Girl Scouts. According to the 7-year-old boys mother "he has always felt like he was a girl". Yeah that's right, even the transgender's mother can't keep the kids gender straight. The kid is seven! How the hell would a 7 year old know if he should have a pee pee or a wee wee? I think maybe the mother has some issues and probably wanted a girl and got a boy instead.

What brought my attention to this deal was the person who linked to this on FB was calling the Girl Scout who was trying to stop this, a "bitch" or more precisely a "bitch in training".
No this person is not one of my friends, quite the opposite.
The person who posted those comments has some serious issues herself and is always trashing people who are trying to hold on to a token of morality.
This person has no qualms about "stealing money from lenders and landlords, lying her ass off, i.e. "I mailed the check", but she takes her version of the moral high ground on every deviant lifestyle there is.
Can't afford to pay the rent, but they can afford a new Harley and all the poser costumes that goes with it.

Now they live in a shit hole neighborhood surrounded by people on the sex offender registry. Wow, talk about priorities. I oppose gay marriage, I don't hate them, but that is how the left would label me; just like my support of the Tea Party gets me labeled a hateful racist. These Alinskyists have worn out the 13th rule, it's played out.

That's why this country is polluted with people like the women on FB who called a young Girl Scout a "bitch in training".

All I have to say about that woman is,
I guess some people don't need the training.

IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN

It's a reoccurring dream. I'm walking the halls of Center Grove High School. I'm young, but I know all the crap I know as an old guy. Trying to find my way around, trying to learn what I didn't care to learn then, trying to catch up.
I always wake up feeling a little disappointed in the choices I made back then.  I guess it's because I know how much I left undone there.
I could never get enthused about learning anything except how to score. Too bad they didn't hand out degree's for that.
The only thing I liked in school besides girls and partying, was reading. The two books that really peaked my interest was Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm.
Although I do regret not applying myself in school, the truth is, it probably wouldn't have made a lot of difference if I had. I just could concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. If it would have been invented then, they probably would have diagnosed me with A.D.D.
Luckily for me dad was a mechanic and he had me and my brother out in the garage all the time working on cars. That gave me the opportunity to work with my hands and learn the art of repair and enabled me to make a modest living.
Don't get me wrong, I like what I do, but there are times when
I, like the Scarecrow yearn to have a brain, a really big one!
There are so many other vocations that would have been more rewarding than fixing peoples broken shit.
I, like most kids dreamed of having my ass strapped to an Atlas V rocket and go from 1 G to 9 Gs to 0's Gs in a matter of minutes.
That would have meant I most likely would have been a pilot also. That too is high on my "what I wanna be when I grow up" list.
Astrophysics is another cool job. That would have probably would have required me to take more than general math in school and you have to work a lot of nights too.

A fiction writer, now those guys have got it made. You can do that anywhere, all you need is a notebook computer or just a smart phone. You could churn out a literary masterpiece while sitting on the toilet. I don't have the brain for fiction though and I would probably end up a miserable bitter old drunk and take a shotgun to my head like Hemingway.

Ehhhh I guess I ended doing what I was meant to do, I could still end up a miserable, bitter old drunk, but I will leave the shotgun to the head Hemingway routine to the frustrated writers.

I guess I shouldn't feel too bad about my lack of education. If you took 98% of all college professors, all the socialists and progressives, all the leftist politicians like Obama, Biden, Dodd, Frank, Reed, Pelosi and put them all together in one place. Then I walk in and suddenly I'm the smartest guy in the room.

TO CATCH A PRESIDENT

Good evening, tonight on Dateline NBC we continue with our To Catch A Predator series in Little Rock Arkansas. We had no shortage of potential predators there and a surprising well know politician.
Chris Hanson: Tonight we are in a decoy house in a suburb of Little Rock where our first predator has substantial roots in the community. Screen name "Wildbill-Hiscock 42" has been chatting online with a girl he believed to be 15 years old.
As he enters the door he is met by our decoy, an 18-year-old actress.
Decoy: Hi ! Come on in, I made you some sweet tea and some brownies.
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: hey baby, thanks I love sweet tea.
Decoy: have a seat, I'm just gonna change into my bathing suit so we can get in the hot tub. Did you bring the condoms and wine coolers?
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: I got the whole package sweetie pie, uncle Bill is gonna take good care of you.
Chris Hanson: I'll bet you are. Why don't you have a seat right over there. What's going on tonight?
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: uhh nothin much, just hanging out.
Chris Hanson: are you enjoying eating that brownie?
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: hey mister, I though she was old enough to be a Girl Scout! Oh, you mean this brownie, uh yeah it's great.
Chris: what are you doing here?
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: nothing she just wanted me to stop by for a few minutes, were just friends.
Chris: you never chatted online about having sex?
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: oh no no no, she just wanted some advice about getting elected class president.
Chris: you sure you didn't discuss coming here to get a bleep bleep?
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: I want you to listen to me, I'm bittin my lip, I got my fist clenched with my thumb pointed straight out, I did not have sex chat with that girl, not one time.
Chris: well the only problem with that is,

 I just happen to have a copy of your chat log, Wildbill-Hiscock 42, that is your screen name isn't it?
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: well that all depends on what your definition of IS is.
Chris: that doesn't make any sense.
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: exactly!
Chris: you say here in you in your chat, "can you wear a blue dress and let me blank all over it?"

Wildbill-Hiscock 42: who are you? Some member of the vast right-wing conspiracy?
Chris: we'll get to that in a minute.  "do you like cigars"
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: sure do, you got one?
Chris: no I'm reading from your chat log, you asked her that and then you asked her, if she knew what a humidor was.
Mister President, why would you ask a 15 year old something like that?
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: haha you said "wood".

Chris: well there's something else you need to know, I'm Chris Hanson with Dateline NBC and we're doing a story about online predators trying to meet kids on line for sex. Now if there is anything else you want to say, we would love to hear it, if not you’re free to go.
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: am I going to be arrested?
Chris: that's not up to me.

Wildbill-Hiscock 42: I want to plead insanity.
Chris: plead insanity? For trying to have sex with a young girl?
Wildbill-Hiscock 42: yeah, I'm just crazy about that stuff Chris, bah ha ha ha ha ha!

OBSOLESCENCE

We have a garage full of once expensive Dell computers. Maybe 11 or 13, I dunno. I just know that I can hardly get the cars parked in there now. Another repercussion of my wife working from home. They are the remains of the clean-out of some work storage areas that her company wanted her to clear out.

They vary in age from maybe 5 to 7 years old. They work and they are worthless, victims of obsolescence.  There are some laptops in the mix also, I don't know what they paid for them, but I would guess there is well over 30 grand worth of junk out there. Well at one time worth over 30 grand, now it's a matter of clearing them off the inventory and hauling them to the recycler.

I bought my first computer from Radio Shack in the mid to late 70's, they were having a clearance sale on the TSR 80 with Level one Basic for 750 bucks. That's probably about 3 grand in today's money.

 It had about as much computing power as my wristwatch does today. It used a cassette player for storage and had a whopping 4 k of memory, but I was the first dumbass on the block that owned a computer.

 You couldn't do a lot with it, but it did teach me some Basic programming. As years went by I continued to pay about the same 750 bucks for better and better computers and inflation meant I was actually paying less and less. As I stood in the garage and tried to navigate around the silicon graveyard, I thought about that old Radio Shack TRS 80. How fascinated I was hooking it up and figuring out what I could do with it. That day, I couldn't imagine the computing power that would be stacked up on my garage floor heading for certain doom.

Electronic gadgets have become an incredible bargain over the last several decades. As a gadget becomes obsolete we replace it with faster and more powerful gadgets We are paying less and less in inflationary adjusted dollars and getting devices we could not even conceive of ten or twenty years ago, although I'm still waiting on my anti-gravity boots.

Other devices don't seem to have made the same cost to value leap though.
Appliances may look more advanced than their obsolete predecessors, but they lack the adjusted value and reliability of the outdated equipment they are replacing.
People think if they pay 2500 bucks for a refrigerator it will be the last one they will ever have to buy. Keep on thinking that way, I need the job security.
Sometimes it's better to stick with something that others consider obsolete.

Many of our nations so-called leaders believe the Constitution has become obsolete. "Dear Leader" in the Whitehouse has made that very clear in word and deed. His recent illegal carte blanche appointments to bogus power usurping agencies are glaring proof of his distain of our countries most sacred document.


The power to amend as needed was thoughtfully built into the Constitution by our Founding Fathers who had the foresight to know that we may need to tweak the constitution to deal with changes in the future. But the basic tenants such as the separation of powers were never meant to be displaced as they have been lately. Many government agencies such as the NLRB, EPA and newly created CFPB are being used by the left to sneak their socialist agenda in the back door.
Obama is stacking the NLRB with his union thugs to buy their votes again. Putting these goons in charge of the Labor Relations Board is like letting Hitler run the Jewish Defense League. Oh man, I just compared Obama's union goons to Adolph Hitler, I wonder if they will take my Monday Night Football opening song gig from me.

I hope we can regain our common sense by the next election.

If we don't get some adult supervision in the Whitehouse soon and I don't mean some wishy washy rhino republican, I mean a true conservative.
If we don't turn this thing around soon, we won't be walking through silicon graveyards full of obsolete computers.

We will need to walk though the graveyards of our fallen countrymen who gave their lives for the freedoms that all too many have taken for granted.

We will owe them all an apology and an explanation.
I’m just trying to figure out how we will explain to them that their sacrifice was for an idea that had become obsolete.



"Mr Franklin, what have you wrought?" A Republic madam, if you can keep it"