Saturday, February 13, 2010

I love you....now change.

The term that bothers me is the................- American. The United States is the only place on the face of the Earth where people are almost ashamed to be complete American unless your heritage is English. French-American, Afro-American German-American, Asian-American Jewish-American Islamic-American. When was the ...last time you heard someone called and English-American or Christian-American.

Strange with so many people craving to move here from somewhere else and yet they mentally bring their past with them. There is an old saying that once we achieve what we love, we try to change it to what we detest. When people come out west, they try to change their environment to what they left behind thusly you have lawns in Las Vegas and Phoenix. People actually move to Salt Lake City and then go to the Temple and protest the Mormon Church.

When a woman marries a drunken playboy she is only kidding herself if she thinks she can influence this fellow to settle down and become a good husband.

Over the years the progressives have been pushing their agenda on everyone else slowly sometimes barely perceptible. Before the advent of the Internet chat rooms and Cable news most of what happened in DC was almost invisible but now anyone who sneezes or does a dumb thing it is all over the news. We are a more open society and because of this we are more prone to feel depressed and out of the loop. Actually we are more in the loop today than ever before but being that we are able to see every little dirty secret out in the open we feel there is yet more to uncover.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Bashing Business

Why is the Obama at war with the nation's business on one hand and turns around and bails out certain business on the other hand?

The biggest obstacle to any recovery in the near future is two things two really simple things.

1. Have the Feds get out of the way and stop putting road blocks in the way of business creating things and in turn making money.

2. Follow through with what you promise you are going to do.

The Obama regime has become almost an icon of bad luck, failure and broken promises. How dare I say Mr Charisma could ever be a bad luck icon. The following is some of the things that go into this view.

1. He was nominated at the Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado at Mile High Stadium. The Denver Broncos who play their home games at Mile High Stadium did not make the playoffs.

2. All the promises he made of openness were for not.

3. What happened to Bi-partisan politics? Why were the Republicans left out of the Health Care Bill.

4. What about the Cash for clunkers program? Apparently who ever came up with that brainstorm failed to understand that people actually buy used cars and some people actually give old cars to charity. When the cars were turned in for this program the first thing that happened was for the car dealer to drain all the oil out of the engine and then run the engine until it was frozen. All the parts that were available on wrecked cars in junk yards were not available because the second thing that happened was that all these cars were simply crushed.



I was once complaining to a progressive friend once that what was needed in Washington was some advisers to the President that knew any thing about economics. He told me, "But Warren Buffet and Bill Gates advise the president." My response at the time was,"Please keep in mind that even Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung had economic advisers." what I should have said was that Warren Buffet is a fine economist but he is a supporter of the Keynesian type of economics that says, "To make an economy grow the federal government has to spend money, the more money the feds spend the faster the economy will grow." This line of thinking is sort of like someone saying, "I can spend my way out of debt".
The down side of Obama being a bad luck icon is that not unlike Sports Illustrated where all the teams picked for the cover of their magazine, loose the big game so goes Obama. Every time he shows up to promote a political candidate they will most assuredly loose so goes any sports team he endorses. New Orleans Saints thusly will loose to the Indianapolis Colts in the 2010 Super Bowl.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Cimbing Pikes Peak.

For 5 years straight every summer around 1980 I set out to climb Pikes Peak on Barr Trail, why? Maybe the following will answer that question.
Barr Trail starts at the Cog train depot in Manitou Springs, Colorado. It is 12.3 miles up from an elevation of 5,600 ft to over 14,000 feet. At mile marker 6 or 7 you pass a free tent camp ground and at timber line there is an A Frame shelter. There is a small creek running along the trail so water is never a problem. Timber line is around the 11,500 foot elevation and the trail gets kind of fuzzy. There are large rocks to climb over but the last mile is called something like 12 heavenly steps, this is total bull shit. Those are not steps when they are at least 3 feet high. Dehydration at altitude is the biggest problem and dehydration leads to pulled muscles. Stretching to raise your body over a 3 foot ledge over and over causes wondrous things to happen to your leg muscles. The really fascinating thing about the 12.3 mile climb up Barr Trail is just how many hundreds of people are doing the same thing you are doing and some of them are actually running up that trail. The record for the accent on the 12.3 is 2 hours 22 minutes and 32 seconds (http://www.pikespeakmarathon.org/ ) It took me 8 hours of walking up that trail those many years ago.
By the time you reach the top of Pikes Peak you are so dehydrated and cramped up, you fear the hike back down your car at the Cog Train terminal. Total strangers upon hearing your plight over the loudspeaker will take pity and give you a ride back down to your car. There is a Marathon up and down Barr Trail on the mountain in August each year. On New Years Eve each year, there is a group of crazy people called Add-A-Man Society who actually snow shoe up that trail and shoot off fire works from the top each New Years Eve at midnight and there is a waiting list of people to join these group of people. Sometimes I really wonder about people who live in Colorado with all these endurance races each year.
I do have a theory of why men over the age of 30 get involved in these diabolical endurance events and some call it a midlife crisis. Basically it is that we as the studly sex, tend to look in the mirror and still see ourselves as 20 somethings still full of piss and vinegar as the old timers used to say. We can not accept the fact we are getting older and each spring and summer we have to set out to prove we still got it.
So what is the event in your life that tested your man hood?

Friday, January 8, 2010

Tis that time of year

I was in a Tarjay or Target last night and right on cue the exercise stuff was on display where last month the Christmas junk was being sold. There was rubber bands that you were supposed to hook up someway so that when you walk you swing your arms, a weight belt you wear around your waist while walking and ankle weights. One thing that perplexed me, a DVD on how to walk.....Don't we already know how to walk?
Amazing to me how much junk is out there for sale to the culpable and those over the age of 30 who look in the mirror and no longer see the person they were a mere 10 years ago. Folks you are getting older and you ain't seen nothing yet.
Here I am 63, do not smoke or drink booze very much and still able to pick up an 80 pound bag of dry concrete and carry it 100 feet. I can still lift large 100 pound slabs of flagstone and place them into a flagstone patio.
Once upon a time ago I was one of those denizens of the indoor prairie dog towns they call cubical offices. Cubical sweet cubical as they say. Sitting on your butt stairing at a computer screen for 8 to 10 hours a day can do terrible things to one's back, knees, stomach and wrists, not to mention your mental attitude.
We did have a weight room attached to the office I worked in and most mornings I would spend a half hour on the tread mill, lifting free weights, running up imaginary flights of stairs on the stair lifts and even did a stint with an arrobics instructor. She was an Amazon, much worse than some of the Marine Drill Instructors I had in boot camp. I thought that working out 30 minutes aday should have been enough but was it.
Physical fitness is a multi billion dollar a year industry that seems to florish in January of each year as the people who have shunned mowing their own lawn or walking up flight of stairs at work, get religion. Physical fitness is like dieting in that we will do it gang busters for a short time and then very slowly other obligations come up or we pull a muscle. Usually about a month after we start some form of personal enhancement program we have other obligations that take the place of what once was our most important focus in life.
I was once told by someone as to why they did not want to do weight lifting, because after you quit your muscles turn to fat and you get all soft. I have news for you all who think this way, muscle and fat tissues are seperate units in the human body. Just as you can not turn muscle into fat you can not turn fat cells into rippling muscles.
There are several weight loss commercials on television now as they have always been showing the before and after photos of people. Ever notice that the before picture shows a beer belly and the after photo shows a six pack abs? No matter how much weight you loose you will not gain rippling killer six pack abs. The only way you can gain a rippling mid section is by exercise.
Running is a great way to loose weight but in my case I would start with the 5 minute run and add 5 minutes to my weekly run each week on my way to running a marathon after 12 months. The problem is that if you try to push yourself too much you will pull muscles and when you do that you end up having to sit on the side lines as they say. The best running program is one where you start slow and add to your weekly runs slightly but each week add just a little extra time. Funny thing about running is that as you improve your endurance your speed creeps up as well and you find after awhile you are able to run forever. After 4 weeks instead of running 15 minutes for the week you should be up to 1/2 hour and you should be running 1/2 to 1 mile further. The problem at this point is that it seems like you are progressing too slowly and when you come to your scheduled end of your training you tell yourself I can go a little further what harm can it do. Shin splints, tendenitis, pulled muscles and burn out comes in at this point.
If a person wants to get into a training program for some form of physical activity talk to an expert first or read a book on the subject. If you are over 40 years old and have not worked out or done anything more strenuous than channel surfing for the past 20 years, keep in mind you can not start where you left off 20 years ago.
Amazing to me how much more work out clothing there is for women then there is for men. But then again retailers sell more women's clothes than men's duds.
Back in the days when I was running in 5K, 10K and half Marithans I would wear a pair of cotton shorts, a cotton T-shirt and a pair of $50.00 running shoes to the races and of course there was always those who showed up wearing the $500.00 pair of shoes, $100.00 professional running shorts that looked like the Colorado State flag and the $200.00 racing shirts. No matter what activity one gets involved in it seems there are some people who will go all out and buy only the best stuff.
I never placed in the top ten percent of the racers but it was fun and I was able to tell myself I can still do it. I still have a coffee cup from the Governors Cup 10K race in Denver from Sept 25, 1994 but the T-Shirt is long gone. Some of my favorite races were the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Colorado half Marathan, the 4 mile run up Lookout Mountain near Golden Colorado and the numerous races in City Park Denver. Then there was the 12.5 mile climb up Pikes Peak and the run back down the mountain sometime around 1980 but that is another story.
I once worked with a little guy named Stephen (not Steve) who trained and ran the Leadville 100 mile Ultra trail run. Imagine if you will running along mountain dirt trails of southern Colorado at altitudes reaching 15,000 feet. They weigh you along the way and if you have lost too much weight in this run you are disqualified. He finished his race in around 12 hours and lost 10 pounds in the process. When I was in high school President Kennedy started a 50 mile race craze when he said that all Marines should be able to hike 50 miles in one day. I was 16 at the time and my track couch thought it would be fun to have the entire track team do a 50 mile race from Boonville California to Fort Bragg California. We started with 100 high school boys and 6 of us finished the 50 miler that night. They drove us down to Boonville and said, "See ya up in Fort Bragg". We had no water no food and no support along the way. I think if any high school track coach were to try this today he would be arrested for trying to kill off his track team. But I did it in a pair of broken down old US Keds and getting water from gas stations along the way. Many evel thoughts went through my head that day but now that I look back at it that day was probably one of the most challenging and interesting days of my life.
Today my wife Ruth who is 55 works out at Curves. Personally I think Curves is okay if a person pushes themselves but by and large people do not push themselves when it comes to working out at least I never would for very long. Exercising is 99% mental and if you take an almost Zen like attitude towards the pain that comes along with exercising you will not do any good.
In Marine Boot Camp there is a saying, " Pain is weakness leaving the body".
If and when you plan to get into a physical fitness program there are a few things to remember.
1. You do not need any machine to make you strong
2. The cost of your clothes will not make you stronger.
3. Do not do this program for anyone else but your self.
4. If you stick with your program your program will make you strong.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Medical Mary Jay.

I thought there was a lot of Star Bucks in Denver, now we find there are 390 Medical Mary Jay outlets in the city. Guess this puts a new slant on the the song Rocky Mountain High. Does anyone think this will make Denver a bigger tourist destination? Does this mean the state is going to to start growing the weed and where can I get my own prescription?

In Aspen they have made a small amount of weed legal and up in Boulder I doubt anyone takes a second glance at any one smoking a tote.

Funny how what I was doing illegally in Pueblo back in 1976 was punishable by a life sentence and now it is legal. Back then I had about 20 plants growing in my back bed room mostly because I thought it was a really nice looking plant.

The way you start a Marijuana plant is quite simple:
1. Lay the seed between a moist paper towel and keep the paper towel damp.
2. After about a month the roots will appear and you can gently place the seedling into a dixy cup full of potting soil.
3. Once the seedling starts growing for about another month trans plant the plant into a slightly larger plant and put a grow light on the plant.
4. Water once a week or when needed and the plant will continue growing
5. In the spring you can transfer it to an outdoor spot probably should be concealed from neighbors eyes as they would probably come in the middle other night and steal your plant.
6. You can remove the leaves from the plant after a few months and dry the leaves in your oven on low.
I never got around to the last part as I was just growing the plants because I like the vegetation....honest.
In 1979 we moved back to Aurora and someone had actually planted a Marijuana plant in our front yard without our knowledge. My wife's brother Dave came to visit us when he was in college and he apparently liked the plant so much he dug it up and took it back to Greeley to supposedly transplant it in his rock garden. Thanks a bunch Dave old buddy.
These days I have mixed feeling about the drug, plant or whatever you want to call it. On one side if we were allowed by law to grow it, we could get high pretty cheaply. It does not cause Cancer or any other decease and if you smoke what you grow your self there is no crimes against anyone. On the other hand the bad side affects is the criminal element, minors could get high causing a drag on school performance and sexual promiscuity (apparently beer does not have this affect).
Anyway apparently the Denver City Council is going to try to regulate the advertising and distribution. Too bad they do not realize the amount of money that could be made from taxing the substance. January 16, 1919 the 18Th Amendment to the Constitution made booze illegal. But in 1933 this boondoggle was appealed by the 21st Amendment to the Constitution. Believe it or not there is no constitutional Amendment making Marijuana illegal. The only reason it is not legal locally is because the Feds would with hold federal funds to states that made it legal.
Now my question is where can I get some of those seeds?

Monday, January 4, 2010

Time to hire some new employees.

As I see it our country leaders are sort of like an employee who goes on a spending spree as soon as they get their pay check and then after the money is all gone they realize they haven't paid the mortgage, the utility bill or bought any food for the coming month. After they realize they are broke they come to their ...boss and ask for a draw on next pay period. How long would you keep this employee around?

Friday, November 13, 2009

POLITICALLY CORRECT HISTORY

The following is from www.experiencefestival.com/

Political correctness - Examples of language modification
Political correctness - Gender-related
The term server is increasingly used for a person of either gender who waits tables.
Chairman was replaced by chair, chairperson (or president or some other term). (The term chair has its own history within academia.)
Fireman was replaced by fire fighter.
Congressman was replaced by member of congress. The former remains in use for male members of congress, however.
Policeman became policewoman when referring to females; then the term police officer was introduced for both genders.
Likewise, Army wife, Navy wife, etc., are now Army spouse, etc. (Occasionally male civilian spouses of military members will ironically refer to themselves as Navy wives, etc.)
"To boldly go where no man has gone before", from the introductory sequence of Star Trek: The Original Series, was changed to "To boldly go where no one has gone before" in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
"Man does not live by bread alone" became "People do not live on bread alone" in the 1996 NIV Inclusive Language Edition of the Bible, Matthew 4:4.
Airlines no longer use the term stewardess (nor steward for men), partly due to disparaging stereotypes and the condescending nickname stews. Thus they have replaced it with the gender-neutral term flight attendant. As is the case within
nursing, male members of the profession, who are the minority, are typically referred to by their gender (e.g. male flight attendant as opposed to flight attendant for females.)
The word sex has largely been replaced with the word gender, though gender classically did not mean male/female, but rather it referred to grammatical masculine/feminine constructs ("steward" vs. "stewardess", or "actor" vs. "actress", for example). The word sex seems to have become an impolite or emotion-charged term, at least in part because it is prevailing verbal shorthand for sexuality and sexual intercourse.
Lacking a gender-neutral alternative, many actresses now prefer the term "actor" when defining their profession, thus eventually likely rendering the term gender-neutral through common usage.
TIME Magazine's Man of the Year became Person of the Year regardless of which gender wins it (there had been "Women of the Year" in the past).
The phrase "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me", attributed to Jesus, is frequently changed to "Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me."
Miss and Mrs. have been supplemented by Ms., providing a word that does not indicate marital status. The term was ridiculed by many when it was first introduced in the 1970s, but over time it has become common usage.
The 1960s-1970s TV show The Dating Game needed terms for unmarried contestants; bachelor was obvious, but the feminine "equivalent" was the negatively-charged term "spinster", which was only more slightly polite than "old
maid"; so the show either coined or popularized the term bachelorette, which has since come into common usage.
The time-honored "I now pronounce you man and wife" at weddings has largely been replaced by "I now pronounce you husband and wife". Some etymologists find this amusing, as "wife" is Old English for "woman", while "husband" is Old English for "householder"; the original expression was meant to define a moment when both members of a couple officially and legally became equally committed to adulthood.
Generalized uses of man when referring to humanity (mankind) are frequently replaced by gender-neutral terms.

Political Correctness comes to America via a Marxist Organization: Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, which was founded in 1923 and came to be known as the "Frankfurt School." After the Nazis came to power they moved their operations to America and set up shop at Columbia University. Inspired by the brand new communist technique, Mao, in the 1930s, wrote an article on the "correct" handling of contradictions among the people. "Sensitive training" – sound familiar? – and speech codes were born. When a people become sensitive to the "needs" of others it makes it far easier to make people have a more socialistic political form of government.
I am still trying to rap my mind around the fact that President Obama feels it is more important for people to be required to have health insurance than a job or career.