Tattoo

Basically a way to turn your body into a permanent bumper sticker collection. Keep It Classy, Yo.

Here’s how I see it

First we overlook evil

Then we permit evil

Then we legalize evil

Then we promote evil

Then we celebrate evil

Then we persecute those who still call it evil.

Getting hung up

I'm getting hung up on tattoos, piercings and colored hair. I don't get how all this has become so popular. People are mutilating their bodies. In the name of self expression? I think it is the work of demons. Like these people live their lives with no confinement or boundary. Anything goes. Wherever the wind (popular culture) takes them. It started with tramp stamps. Pro athletes and rappers started getting inked up and now it is more rare to see people without tattoo than people with tattoo.

What's with all the facial tacklebox jewelry with piercings everywhere? Noses, lips, eye brows…. Like facial fishing lures.

I think it's ugly. It bothers me. I'm being judgemental. I'm showing conscious bias. That's not allowed. Accept everyone. Accept their authentic self.

It's like I'm living with a bunch of spoiled kids who never experienced the word no. Ever. In their entire lives. Why does society insist on indulging this behavior?

Where I come from you were expected to fit in. Now the expectation is to stand out. How did that happen?

Let me paint my hair green. Cut it in a Mohawk. Tattoo a bunch of graffiti on my face and put a bull ring in my nose. Call me Fernando. Accept me for being showing the world I am a freak.

Times have changed. I haven't.

Braunschweiger

My dad actually liked that stuff. I think it's disgusting. After reading what it's made of, I know it's disgusting.  I’d rather eat

Hotdogs made out of pig hooves and anuses. 

It’s interesting

It's interesting that used gas car prices are going up while used electric car prices are going down. Maybe that's because electric cars don't make good used cars because battery capacity diminishes over time and no one wants to put a new battery in them. Essentially making them junk cars.

How hard is it to make an electric car?  A motor, a battery and a rheostat. If the manufacturers started with basic car functions instead of adding all this self driving technology they would be cheaper. And more people would have bought them instead

Of the virtue signaling egg head early adopters.  

One data point everyone leaves out of the electric used car market is how many of those were replaced by gas cars or another electric one?  There’s probably an obvious answer to that question. 

Bidenomics

I hate living in Joe Biden's America.

Why?
Illegal immigration
A two tiered justice system
Student loan forgiveness
EV mandates and incentives
His DEI hires are incompetent
His vice president specializes in word salad
His foreign policy decisions
He's old
He's a liar
His son isn't held to account
His hostility towards tradition forms of energy
His advocacy for a green economy
High inflation his policies have created
The fact that he's too stupid to see the connection between his policies and inflation
The media shields him
He's an incompetent gaffe prone moron
He panders for votes

WNBA

Caitlyn Clark is billed as the savior for women's basketball. She's tall. She has privilege because she's white. She was the number one draft pick. All the femmenazis were angry because her first round draft pick salary is exponentially less than her male counter parts. Never mind the fact that the audience for women's basketball is exponentially less than that of men's basketball.

It seems the news is quick to point out the fever loses games despite having a star player. First off, one player doesn't make a winning team. And highlighting her teams loss isn't going to draw spectators or interest into the game or league.

If I were running the league, I'd rig the competition and have the Fever win as many games as possible and pay the other team to lose. There would be a mix of close wins, a few blowouts and maybe one or two close losses for the season.

Why?

People want to see a winner. Winning teams and close matches develop the sport. Next year gradually start easing up on rigging the competitive landscape. Then start having real competition. People need hero's and they coalesce around winners. At least get fans interested in the sport. Then as then audience grows, eyeballs watching grows. As eyeballs watching grows, sponsorships and advertisers grow. As sponsorship and advertisers increase, salaries increase. Then they can stop feeling slighted compared to men's basketball.

A car dealer told the truth

When I bought my Lexus the dealer told me an 80 year old woman who lived on founders circle drive in Sarasota traded it in on a new genesis. Sure. Ok.

Today, I found a drivers license under the seat. It belonged to an 80 year old woman who lived on founders circle drive in Sarasota.

I guess that explains the cars condition.

Tattoos

I find tattoos to be offensive on most people. I am also critical of people with tattoos. They obviously have poor judgement to multilate their bodies with ink injected under their skin. I think people who decide to participate in tattoo are stupid. I don't understand how this became mainstream. In my youth, people with tattoo were considered dirty and bad. Now it's socially acceptable and perhaps encouraged to get a tattoo. Why?

The road to hell

Is paved with the best intentions. My sister's husband has been in and out of hospitals, rehab facilities, intensive care units and in and out of home like a yoyo.

My sister told me they have well over a million dollars in medical bills that have come their way. They've renovated their house and had a go fund me account set up to help their situation.

The driver that caused the accident had no insurance and no assets to sue for. My sister and her family are left with the bill.

One thing they need to do is work with an attorney to protect their assets and get her husband on Medicaid and disability.

I prescreened an attorney and found someone that could help their situation. She had an initial call and was given some work to do to get the ball rolling. My sister dragged her feet on making an appointment. She got an appointment for last Tuesday and cancelled it. Rescheduled her t for tomorrow. She hadn't done any of the work tasks.

I don't know what my sister has been doing. I know she's having a hard time. From the outside looking in she isn't making the best use of time she has available and spends a lot of time with her husband as he's going in and out of various facilities and doctors etc. being admitted into the hospital for the umteenth time.

She's not taking care of these legal proceedings to get relief or to protect her assets from bill collectors and unlock funds/.benefits available to those who are disabled and unable to care for themselves. She can't provide the care he needs and she hasn't been working since the accident in September 2023.

My fear is she's going to get pulled under financially and won't be able to recover and will be ruined. My dad shares the same fear. Friends who know about these situations share the same concern.

The situation boiled over today when she said she hasn't got the paperwork completed and won't be able to do it because her husband is being admitted to the hospital again with low blood pressure and slurred speech.

My dad sent her a message that was pretty rough. An OMG message like I can't believe he said what he said. My sister sent a message that she completed the work and her friend will be on the call with the attorney.

I sent her a message asking how she was doing. She called me and told me to go fuck myself and hung up the phone.

They say everyone makes the best decisions they can with the best information they have at the time a decision is made. And it's not my place or my dad's place to tell her how to live her life. It's a bad situation and I don't know how she's getting through the days. They're long and painful. At the same time do we know have a responsibility as family to help her through this situation so she can get any assistance she's eligible for as soon as possible? Do we standby and watch her situation go from bad to worse while she's not taking legal action to get help for her husband, herself and her daughter?

I've been through to immediate family members on their death bed. My wife when she got pneumonia that turned into a staff infection and she was in a medically induced coma for two weeks. My Dad when he was dehydrated and malnourished while being burned out on Parkinson's medication that was finally being administered as prescribed after being taken Willy Nillie as he felt like it.

I didn't stay by their bedsides while they were in the hospital. I would make it a point to meet with the dr or talk to them when needed. I didn't stay for medical procedures. I wasn't there as they were moved around. I went home and loved my kids and took care of their needs with help from my in laws. I visited every day and talked to my wife. I went back to work when she was out of the coma.

I wasn't in the hospital while my dad as basically unconscious being hydrated artificially and fed through a tube. I was figuring out what to do with their house and how to find a place to take care of my dad before he died and figuring out what to do with my mom if my dad died. I was meeting with social workers and assisted care facility administrators.

I trusted the medical teams to take care of my wife and my dad. I had to take care of the rest of our lives.

I wonder if my sister is taking care of her and her daughter's lives or she is she all in taking care of her husband and neglecting everything else?

Should I care? Is it my problem? Should I let her make her own decisions and let the cards fall wherever the fall and let her deal with figuring it out?

Ultimately it's not my problem. It's her problem. I want to see her come through this situation without going bankrupt. I want to make sure she has a job to earn money to provide for her and her daughter's future. The daughter is going to college next fall. Who's gonna pay for that? It's tremendously costly - especially when they go to school hours away from home. Her husband is never going to get better and he won't be able to work. He resigned from his job. He's now been diagnosed with vascular dementia on top of all his other problems. Will he be able to live at home? Will my sister be able to take care of him? Will they be able to pay someone to help? Will Medicaid or the government supplement?

I don't know how I would spend my life in a similiar situation. I don't know what it's like to have your special persons life ruined by someone else which also ruined her life. Maybe caring for him is her life's calling. Who's gonna take care of her? What happens when he dies? Are they going to keep bringing him back and kicking the tin can down the road with little consideration as to the quality of life? Just preserving life? At all costs?

After tonight's exchange over the phone I don't know what to do. She's furious. I get that. Maybe it was never my place to support her or help her in a way I know how. Maybe my dad crossed the line.

All I know is they keep asking for prayers. And from my perspective they aren't working and the situation is getting worse instead of better.

I decided to go to the band concert playing music I loved in a church. The facility was too small for the ensemble. The concert was loud. The upper woodwinds were overpowered by the rest of the ensemble. The music was a stretch for the ensemble and some parts were rough. Others were great. The concert features lord of the rings by johan demeij. The soprano sax player was fantastic. But band was too big for the venue.

They're playing the same concert tomorrow at the local university's recital hall. It will send better it a properly sized hall. I can't attend tomorrow due to prior commitment so I squeezed this concert into my schedule.

Decisions

Today is a day of first world problems. Go see a band I love perform a bunch of Sousa music I'm familiar with plus three other ensembles in a magnificent venue…. Or go see a band I'm familiar with play music I love in a church.

This was absolutely offensive

I still can't believe we put up with these shenanigans. Freedom robbersz. 

I just read Covid cases are increasing in 12 states. Let’s shut this bitch down again for the election. They tell me to get another shot or wear a mask - I will not

Comply this time. 

Presidential Debates

Joe and Donald agreed to debate in June. I wonder why Joe seems so confident to poke the bear with taunting Donald to debate him. I smell a rat.

If you've watched Joe speak off the cuff, he's a train wreck. He blames his speech impediment. That's just an excuse. Every time the press has an opportunity to ask him a question that's not scripted his staff abruptly ends the presser and whisks him away or shoos out the press. Nowadays they don't even let him walk unescorted between the White House and marine 1. He's surrounded by staffers so his decrepit gait isn't on display.

If Joe's staff is pointing to his state of the union address as reason to be confident, he read a speech of a teleprompter. And his odd outbursts didn't demonstrate command of situation. I perceived him as dementia ridden with weird and uncontrollable outbursts. When he clinched fists he looked like a pathetic old man having a tantrum. Sure you can amp him up on adderall or some other stimulant to get him barely to the finish line by midnight or else he'll turn into a pumpkin.

They changed his entry and exit door for air force one to the short door. Is that the same as the short bus?

I really think Donald is being baited into a trap. It would surprise me if they upheld the gag order and arrested him at the debate in front of a national audience. I hope they're prepared for civil unrest.

Just say no

Family

Is having kids without being married the same as starting a family? Is it an accident? Or something else?

Lithium

It's a metal and a salt. It's used in all sorts of products. Batteries, medications, lubricants and whatever else. I take a small amount of lithium. When at the dr she asked how often do i take it. A few times a week. Why? I use it when I start getting amped up, irritable, intolerant or when my wife notices a subtle sharpness in my vocal cadence.

I told my doctor I don't want to take it anymore. Why not? All the crazy people used to take it and because of that it has a stigma attached to it. She goes on to tell me it is an essential medication and no other drug in the world can do what it does. It's extremely effective and you're taking a significantly small dose compared to how it was being administered in the 60s-80s.

Ok then. I guess I'll continue taking it. Grrrr.

She then went on to tell me about a company in mineral wells Texas that bottles their water and sells it under the label of 'Crazy Water' because they have a high concentration of lithium in their water supply. Thanks for sharing that, it makes me feel better, said no one ever. I was like seriously? I'm complaining about the stigma attached to lithium and you share an anecdote about crazy water?!?!? What the hell?

She's really is a fantastic doctor and would never consider seeing someone else. I've been seeing her for 16 or 17 years. She saved my life when I was at the lowest point in my life. She sure missed the mark on the lithium thing. 🤦‍♂️

Perhaps

Perhaps it's getting hot because we're cutting down all the trees and building concrete jungles.

Masculinity is being snuffed out

I took my dad to the Apple Store because his iPad got damaged from a drop. Wanted to see what the options were for repair (there aren't any), replacement or upgrade.

Here's what I noticed. The employees in the store were either gender neutral androgynous or queer. The Genius Bar representative was a woman working towards becoming a man. Her sleeves were all inked up with tattoos. She had a piercing in her nose and a buzz cut. Why? There was a male employee acting gender neutral leaning feminine with tattoos. The person who helped with the purchase as another lesbian looking woman with tattoos all over her arms, a buzz cut and green glasses frames. Most of the employees were wearing skinny hipster white pants instead of normal pants.

There was a group of 3 men trying to buy a phone. All of them wearing trendy clothes with prominate designer logos splashed on their shirts and backs of their leather jackets. Why are they wearing leather jackets when it's 85 degrees outside? Only one of them spoke English. They paid with cash. Probably drug money. I'm a being judgemental and exhibiting bias.  Deal with it. 

Other customers were seen with their trendy sun glasses and clothing in drab solid colors with modern tailoring. One lady seemed so put off with the buying experience when interacting with the employee. Just buy your stupid phone and get on with your life. Why does this need to be a melodramatic dramatic interaction?

The world needs masculinity. The world needs real people. We don't need all these eggheads acting like they're better than everyone else or that they are somehow special and need to be catered to and or celebrated.

I'm reminded of the ordinary scene from American beauty. All the people at the Apple Store aren't special, authentic or enlightened. They're ordinary and it's exhausting.

Somewhere along the line

Right around my generation, skilled trades became a frowned upon path in and after high school. It was expected one go to college and earn a degree to get a real job. For whatever reason making and fixing things became frowned upon.

I think I would have been happier throughout my life having been a mechanic or technician of some sort. I very much enjoy understanding how things work, being able to diagnose problems and change parts out.

I used to work on my own car. I remember I had a Honda prelude and the ball joints were shot. I took the entire front suspension apart in my driveway, took the control arms to a mechanic to have the ball joins pressed out and in and brought everything back home and couldn't figure out how to put the car back together. I put all the parts in the trunk and was prepared to have the car towed to the shop the next day to have a professional complete the job.

The next day, I woke up and went out to the driveway, opened the trunk and put the entire car back together and everything worked fine. It was the strangest thing. Like my brain was working while I was asleep and bam. It all came together - literally and figuratively.

I've changed valve covers, brakes, radiators, water pumps, rotors, bearings, etc. I enjoy reading the service manuals, using tools, and getting something to work that was once broken.

I wrote about repair the lock to our front door and how much I enjoyed that exercise.

When I was a frontline supervisor I would help the line maintenance mechanics when we were dealing with a
Maintenance issue.

The point is, not everyone is destined for university. And going into skilled trades has been frowned upon for at least 40 years. Unfortunate.

Nowadays one can make a lot of money welding, being an automatic, a plumber, welder or carpenter. Yet, the trades are still held in low regard as a post high school career path.

Mike Rowe and John Ratzenberger are advocates for skilled trades. Mike Rowe because you can make a good living. John Ratzenberger because he thinks people don't know how to think and we are losing a necessary component of society by not understanding how things work and how to use tools.

It's obvious people are stupid when it comes to how things work. Evidence is presented in the number of people that think an electric car has minimal environmental impact. The reason they think that is because the EV advocates are too stupid to know how electricity is produced. It's not all wind and solar. It's the burning of fossil fuels and coal. All the electric car does is take the environmental impact from the car and moves it up line to the power plant. Electricity doesn't just come out of a wall or a charging station. Dummies.

I sometimes get frustrated with my kids because they aren't interested in learning how things work and how to take things apart and fix them. I've tried to show them and they couldn't care less.

Every once in a while my wife suggests I change careers. At 53 years of age, being a mechanic doesn't seem feasible. It's physically demanding. 30 years ago, sure. On the tail end of my working years, no. I'd still like to be a service writer someday. Not willing to take the financial hit at the point in my life to start over.

The skilled trades are a viable career path with immediate employment and rapid advancement where one can earn a very good living if they're proficient in their chosen field. Too bad society short changes the opportunities available to actual do work instead of white collar jobs. Obama and Clinton were misguided when they declared we are moving beyond the Industrial Revolution into the age of information. They were typical elites looking down on the people that make our world work.

Dallas Winds - Get your geek on, yo!

I'm listening to the Grainger CD Dallas Winds did with Jerry Junkin.  Robert Reynolds remarked they 'do not play a bland version of any of these pieces. They highlight the dramatic gestures and dramatic colors,: in short, doing "all those things you expect a professional group to do, in addition they play with the enthusiasm of amateurs, and Grainger would have loved that."  Some professional music ensembles play to perfection but their performances are terribly boring.  Perfection with out passion is an unfortunate tragedy. 

That's what I love about Dallas Winds - they play with passion and perfection.  I'll never forget the first concert I attended - it was amazing.  The intensity and energy they played with was radiant and sizzling.  It's as if you could see the smoke coming off their instruments at the conclusion of each piece.  They are a wind band treasure.  

I was thinking about the DWS John Williams concert I saw back in February.  It was spectacular.  One thing that struck me about the concert was the bass drum player.  She played with aplomb and played the instrument with more musicality and more expression than one thought possible for hitting a drum with a stick. It had the perfect hit, the perfect resonance when appropriate and the perfect depth fitting of the mood in the literature they were playing.  When there was a hit, you could feel and hear the hit or the boom and see her holding her bass drum stick/mallet in the air.  It was remarkable.  I could hear it and by the time my brain processed the sounds, she had the mallet held high in the air - like the way the Statue of Liberty holds her torch.  It was really a sight to see and hear.  BOOM and there the mallet was being held in the air for visual impact and cuing.  LOVED IT!!!!  

Not many people give much thought to the bass drum.  When it's played well, it's an amazingly versatile instrument that adds so much depth and impact to a performance.

My college band director was also particular about the bass drum and would often tell stories about Frederick Fennel's specificity when it came to the bass drum and how it should be struck/muffled/dampened, etc.  Such a simple instrument with so much depth and complexity to play well.  Bass drum virtuosity; it's a thing.

Don Williams, who often plays timpani on John Williams film score recordings has been quoted as saying John Williams is very par ! ticular with, in certain situations, how he wants the timpani to be played aggressively to "really hit the thing."  

Next time you listen to one of John Williams more aggressive film scores, pay attention to the timpani line.  It's usually quite entertaining when featured while the orchestra is also playing with fervor.

That's all for tonight.  Geek over and out

I don't even know where to begin

Society is unhinged.  I don't even know how to organize my thoughts on what's going on in the world anymore.  What I do think is there is way to much concentrated wealth and people using their wealth to affect global shifts in thinking.  Something isn't right.  Lots of things aren't right.  

Extremes are the rage.  There's no moderation.  There's no restraint.  I am reminded of a blog entry I wrote back in 2023...

I stand by what I wrote 100%

Deutsche Grammophon: 125 years Special Gala Concert (2023) - Soundtracks in Concert

A new recording is soon to be available. Reading the concert review below motivates me to add one more to the collection

https://soundtracks-in-concert.com/deutsche-grammophon-125-years-special-gala-concert/

The Phantom Menace - Episode 1, Star Wars

Since May 4 was Star Wars day I was listening to the scores from some of the Star Wars movies - episodes 1-9.  Phantom Menace very well be one of the best in the Saga.  Why?  It was the reboot of the franchise after a long hiatus.  The first on since Return of the Jedi.  

Ive said it before - When John Williams does a sequel, the music is often "plussed" compared to the prequel.  Much more developed, more elaborate.  Like John Williams rewards being signed on for the sequel.  I think it's true for everything except Home Alone.  Home Alone 1 was better than Home Alone 2 - at least in my opinion.

Back to Phantom Menace - Here is where John Williams integrated a choir into the saga and did a splendid job.  With Phantom Menace, he pulls from all the themes from Star Wars - Return of the Jedi and is able to use them in foreshadowing the happenings in the saga.  It is really done well.   It really is next level Star Wars scoring.

Reincarnation

The Washington post doesn’t exactly have journalist integrity but rather a propaganda machine.  They wrote an article about reincarnation. 

I wonder if there is such a thing or just children with extraordinary imaginations and an innate gift of being able to remember stories they conjure up. I wonder why they don’t try a polygraph machine. 

I shoulda been a mechanic

I often say I should have been a mechanic or a carpenter.  Probably mechanic.  Our front door lock mechanism has been acting up.  It has a typical entry from the front where you push down with your thumb to turn the cylinder to open the door.  The back of the door door knob fell off because it had gotten loose and stripped out the holes.  Turns it out it was much more than that - I had to figure out how to get the entire front pull door handle off to fix it because the latch mechanism fell apart.  I learned this after replacing the door knob and it was still not working properly.  I figured out how to get the pull door handle off and it hit the ground and fell apart into like a dozen different pieces.  I had never seen the mechanism together....  with some trial and error I figured out how it works and was able to time the mechanism and put it back together.  I rebuilt it!!  All the plates, gears, levers, pins, springs and gears.  I got it back together and still wasn't happy with the way it was operating.  I took it apart again and reversed a part in the mechanism and put it back together.  I still wasn't happy with it.  So, I took the entire thing apart again and changed the latch part that goes in the door that goes against the striker plate.  With the spring.... Put it back together and viola - I fixed it and it is now working as good as new.  It works as good as the day we bought the house.  I did the entire project for 22 dollars because I had to purchase a new door knob for the inside part that goes in the house.  I figure I saved myself about 300 bucks including labor doing the work myself.  It probably took 2 hours.

I get a huge amount of self fulfillment taking these little projects on.  I may not be smart in a lot of ways, but I am smart in some.  I am a machine.

May the Fourth Be With You!

Today is Star Wars appreciation day, which to me is really John Williams appreciation day. May the fourth be with you. Please celebrate responsibly.

John T. Williams

So here's an unusual album. John Williams as a performer. Not a composer. It's a two cd set. The first with the John T Williams Quartet and the second with the John Williams Septet as well as the John Williams orchestra. Listening to the first album you realize John Williams, like me, is from a different area. I also realize John Williams was a virtuoso performer with a magic touch on the piano. A real ensemble musicIan.

What's magical about this album? I get to know a different side of my favorite artist and it's just as wonderful as his contemporary orchestral work.

A real treat to experience and pleased to have this album as part of my collect. Absolutely wonderful.

How do they do it

I've been eating Raisin Bran for years. One thing that continually amazes me is the fact that the raisins don't settled to the bottom of the bag during shipping. They're always evenly mixed; making for a consistent bowl of cereal in the morning. I don't know how they do it? Could it be the size of the bran flakes or something? Pretty amazing if you ask me.

Every single thing

Every single thing that old fart does is infuriating. More college loan forgiveness. More regulations. I don't know how anyone in this country can think he is doing a good job. Unless you're an illegal alien, a pot smoker, someone carrying student loan debt, enviroterrorist or some "under represented" minority, my guess is you hate the man.

It is not the tax payers problem you got ripped off or your education didn't get you the job you wanted. It's not the tax payers job to feed, clothe or provide shelter for illegal aliens. The government shouldn't be regulating in home appliances, propulsion methods for cars or anything else.

This man's agenda is offensive.