I don't approve of the word Nigger, not because of the word its self but because so many people have a problem with it, including my sister in law storming out of my house once (She's white) and called me a "douchebag" (is that offensive?) over the use of it, and honestly, I think there's better things I can say.  BE THAT AS IT MAY.....if you're going to say it?  Just say it....have the balls to at least call it what it is......I'm waiting for Huckleberry Finn to come out redacted to say "n word Jim" in refrerence to Huck's friend.

Something bugged me today with a few out-of-towners at the gas-station here in Beaverton.   I thought I'd blog about it.  I think they were from New York.  They looked and sounded like they were from New York.  They were pushy.  Shovey.  Rushy.  Cut in front of cars at the gas station without checking to see who was in line first and then looked around with a stupid look on their face wondering why people were upset with them.  Not that I have anything against New York, except your politicians suck and your state is corrupt and you vote for idiot policies even stupider than we do here in Oregon, but whatev.

So, a few thoughts.  All you who move to Oregon (Ory-gun or Ory-gin) who aren't from here,  if you're not from here....you're not from here.  You can't be from somewhere you're not from.

But if you do come here - especially if you're from back east, or even south of here - few pointers on being here in Oregon.


1) We move slower here.  We don't drive 90mph on the interstates.  Its illegal.  Do that with an out-of-state plate, and Smokey's gonna wanna talk to you specifically.  Especially if you're in a crowd of other cars doing the same exact speed but you're from out of state.

2)  Riding people's ass in traffic?  Rude.  Not going fast enough, go around, or maybe you need to slow down a bit.  Use the time to relax a bit and enjoy the scenery.  And no need to go around someone  with the "attitude" with the hard swerve to show in 2-year-old-with-a-license-fashion just how upset you are.  Go around. And get a ticket.  10 over will get you pegged.  (I've seen that happen a few times when people from out of state got frustrated and go racing past me right into a speed trap and get pegged).

3) Let people in on the freeways.  Make room!  If you see the turn signal - you really are a jackass if you speed up to keep them out.  If they run down the side and cut in at the head of the line...its because they have somewhere to be and its very important to them - let them in so they can continue their day rather than putting them at the back to harass everyone - maybe it will help them relax.

4) If someone lets you in - wave thank you in your rear window.

5) Get off my ass in the checkout line.  Standing right on top of me and breathing down my shirt - sexy as I am and however tempting I am - to express your displeasure with the checkout line going slow - is just rude.

6) Wait till you have a reasonable space to put your groceries on the checkout line.  No need to hover while I write my check or enter my PIN.  Just like in grade-school, everyone has to wait their turn.

7) Say thank you.

Jones Soda - a Pacific Northwest Thing.....

8) We don't call it "The I 5" or "The 205" or "The anything."  Why?  Because that's not what they are.  No more than you would call it "The main street" or "The blue jay court" or "The Stoltz Road."  It's "I 5" and "Stoltz Road" and "Broadway Avenue" and "205."   No "The's" in there.You sound silly when you say it.

9) Clean up after yourself in the store.  If your rug-rats are making a mess in the store, clean it up. If your rugrats are stealing candy under the guise of sampling, teach them to stop.  Its dishonest. If you have to look at the bottom pair of Levi's on the entire stack and the stack falls over....put it back.  Don't be a pig.  This is Oregon - not Californication or some other third-world state where people expect others to clean up after them and aren't responsible adults and then whine about how their kids aren't being nannied into being responsible adults.  This goes for even if you're in Wal Mart as well.  Now, putting a spatula that you don't want onto a shelf in the pants aisle is perfectly acceptable as it can give store clerks something to do and make their day interesting.  Or leaving your lingerie you decided not to buy in the power - tools aisle or on top of a dog-food bag can be "artistic." But just making a mess is wrong.

10) Don't litter.  The outdoors isn't your personal garbage bag everyone else just has to cope with. 

Trillium Lake - Oregon

11) Don't go camping to "get away from it all" just so you can pack your stereo into the woods and blast everyone out and make everyone else in the outdoors feel like they are living in an obnoxious apartment complex. 

 12) You can blare your car stereo and go *thump thump* to show off you're compensating for something you don't have, and people do do it, but it's generally considered rude, AND, it makes you very easy for the police to find or harass with the noise ordinances in the various cities. And they will and do.



13)  You don't get to pump your own gas here.  The gas station attendants haven't figured out that if they let you pump your gas they make more for doing less work.  But - if the attendants are slow, just LOOK like you're going to pump your gas and they will come right over to pump it for you because....it's illegal.  But don't actually pump it. 

13) Lastly....be honest.  I've heard from people back east that stuff is so open here and the way our shops and stores are set up - it wouldn't last 10 minutes back east - and that it just makes you want to be honest because everything's so open here.

Just a thought from today. 

Apparently, in New York City, sit-down and dine-in isn't fast enough for some diners who want a time limit imposed  on diners who are too slow eating....so THEY can sit down.  How rude of the other diners who got there earlier to only think of themselves in their selfish dining!


http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/08/24/is-it-time-for-dining-time-limit-in-nyc-restaurants/

I guess this means restaurants like The Four Seasons where dinner can be over $500 and last nearly 3 hours need to become more like McDonalds. Start serving Fast Bass and Quick Quiche and a Speedy Steak rather than a dining experience that lasts.  Of course if I lived in NYC I might want to be someplace nice for a few hours as well....

When I was a waiter in Japan (Back in MYYY dayyyyy) the Japanese would often take 2 - 3 hours for dinner.   That entire time didn't require a water-refill either.  

FASTER DAMMIT SO IIIII CAN EAT!  Better not friggin choke so I have to waste time doing CPR either! MOVE! STUFF IT!

My recommendation? How about people who are upset that the OTHER people are taking too long - make a reservation?   Learn to spend time with their family and cook at home?  Go someplace else?  Eat faster themselves and be an appropriate example?  Set a chess timer on their own table?  MAKE A RESERVATION?  Think of someone besides themselves?  MAKE A RESERVATION?  Just a thought.  Lots of ways this can be solved..... (Brought to you by Carl's Junior).

We know that because of advances in technology, our schools are moving away from teaching cursive and handwriting all together.

Big mistake.  BIG mistake.

Let me tell you why.

Our founding documents for our country and much of the first two centuries of our country's legal and historical paperwork was hand-written and very often in cursive.

Historical studies show that civilizations which are unable to access, read or even have records of their foundings ultimately perish.   Losing sight of where they've been, why they came to be, where they were headed - they lose sight of even where they are and ultimately become unable to determine their destiny as a nation and a people.   Ultimately - civilizations like this collapse and have collapsed so many times. 

What about transcribing everything though so nobody has to read it in cursive? 

Too much like the dark ages when only clergy and royalty could read and thereby ideas were suppressed and the transferrence of knowledge was severely limited impacting a society for an entire millenia!

On a practical note, I do genealogical work and one of the things I do here and there is read old documents that have been scanned and transcribe them into computer databases so they can be searched by others.  Other times, I search through others' transcriptions until I can find the original documents and verify their contents.  I am looking at things like land grants, wills, property records, marriages, legal rulings, ship passenger manifests, passports, draft notices, draft cards, medical records, ship freight manifests, warrants, court records and letters - none of which I could do if I didn't know how to read and write cursive.  Some of those records are important to me personally as some of them hold rights to me personally today to land and property and even scholarships and grants for my schooling through various historical societies.

Everyone needs free access to our past, our writings and documents.  The best way to make this possible is to not have to rely on the integrity of others to do it for us, but to be able to do it ourselves - and our children be able to do it for themselves.   I wouldn't rely on Obama or Supreme Court Justice Kagan or Attorney General Eric holder to tell my kids what they say or even what they mean.

Cursive isn't about just writing - it's about reading - its about our freedom being understood and preserved!

LOL....I love the "graph" info at the bottom.....HAW!

He is the Banana to my split. ~Victoria Ericka

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.

Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly. ~P. J. O’Rourke

I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty. ~Imelda Marcos

I was sleeping the other night, alone, thanks to the exterminator. ~Emo Philips

You know the speed of light, so what's the speed of dark?


If it weren't for baseball, many kids wouldn't know what a millionaire looked like. ~Phyllis Diller

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

If you cannot answer a man's argument, all it not lost; you can still call him vile names. ~Elbert Hubbard


A wise saying is something you keep picking up off the floor in front of your fridge. ~Robert Brault,

Without geography, you're nowhere.

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

You know my motto: Forgive and uh... the other thing.

To err is human, but it feels divine. ~Mae West.

The Attorney for the Defense will quit referring to the Prosecutor as "Demon Spawn from Hell".

I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that! ~Tom Lehrer

Be wary of strong spirits. It can make you shoot at tax collectors ... and miss. ~Robert A. Heinlein

Saving is the best thing. Especially when your parents have done it for you.

TV is chewing gum for the eyes. ~Frank Lloyd Wright

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die. ~Mel Brooks

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet. ~Saint Augustine

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man. ~H. L. Mencken

I distrust camels, and anyone else who can go a week without a drink. ~Joe E. Lewis

I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was locking the front door. I said, "Hey, the sign says you're open 24 hours." He said, "Yes, but not in a row." ~Steven Wright

You ever look up the word dictionary in a dictionary? A little hand comes out and smacks you one.

Speak softly but drive a Sherman tank.

Men wanted for dangerous expedition: low wages for long hours of arduous labour under brutal conditions; months of continual darkness and extreme cold; great risk to life and limb from disease, accidents and other hazards; small chance of fame in case of success. ~Sir Ernest Shackleton, explorer

Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..."

I'm as thirsty as a baby boy in a topless bar.

Without television I would probably be an incredibly literate scholar of 17th century mathematics who is a hit at social gatherings. ~Richard Keller

Reality is for people who can't handle science fiction.

Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.

More fun than a barrel of monkeys." Has anyone ever stopped to think how cranky, if not downright vicious, a barrelful of monkeys would be, especially once released from the barrel? ~Tom Shales

If I ever get rich, I hope I'm not real mean to poor people, like I am now. ~Jack Handey

If we could just get everyone to close their eyes and visualize world peace for an hour, imagine how serene and quiet it would be until the looting started. 


Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf. ~Lewis Mumford

To err is human, to forgive divine. Neither of which is the policy of the US Marine Corps.

May you come to the attention of the authorities. ~Ancient Chinese curse

To cure sore eyes, kiss a red-head.

Wanted: 30 Chinamen and a zeppelin for elaborate joke. Can you help?

We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me. ~Jack Handey

Eloquence : The ability to describe Kim Basinger without using one's hands. ~Michael Harkness

I failed to make the chess team because of my height. `Woody Allen

New Yorkers Celebrating the Repeal

New York bravely Legalizes the ignorance of the laws of gravity!   Thousands of Gravity-Denying New Yorkers in celebration jumped off the Empire State Building to celebrate the repeal and....well....the rest is history.

Okay, actually they legalized gay marriage.  It is now "The Same" and "equal" to "heterosexual marriage" - or is it just...."marriage"?

I wish I had something wittier to say, but the short of it is, it's not equal.

I'm wondering in our constitutional sense, where gay-marriage,

forms a more perfect union
establishes justice
ensures domestic tranquility
provides for the common defense
promote the general welfare
and secures the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

Yes, everything's the same....nothing's different....yet its all diverse as well....diversely the same....

I bought a Poppy today from a VFW vet from Viet Nam today. 

I gave it to one of my staff who's son is in Afghanistan and I told her the story of the poppies and what they represent.

For Memorial Day, here is In Flanders Fields.

France has passed a law banning the full face veil in France and fining women who wear it. 

http://af.reuters.com/article/moroccoNews/idAFLDE7390IX20110410?sp=true 

I don't like the idea of religious discrimination - but - East meets West is coming into full swing with a culture that doesn't and doesn't have the ability to  integrate into society - it holds its self away from everything - especially in a country that holds its culture and history above everything else - is going to have a problem.

So I guess in some ways we shouldn't be surprised - but - then you look at Islam - which considers its self the supreme religion and doesn't make any allowance for differences of opinion......should we be surprised to see this kind of a clash?

Sooooo....who's to blame - who's right - who's wrong?  Who has the right? 

I didn't listen to good advice when it was given to me freely - as a consequence I have a lot of experience.  This enables me to give advice to others who will then decide for themselves to go learn from their own experiences.

~My thoughts today during a parenting class in church. 

You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

Laugh at your problems, everybody else does.

I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

Depression is just anger without enthusiasm.


Be bold in what you stand for; and careful what you fall for.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. (Mark Twain)

The shinbone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room.

Before a man can stand he must learn to kneel. 

Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are who already possess it. (Francois de La Rochefoucauld)



Beautiful young people are acts of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.


Beauty is only skin deep...but ugly goes all the way to the bone!

We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.


BIRTHDAY BELIEF SYSTEMS
Idealism: Happy Birthday.
Capitalism: I shopped all day for your birthday.
Atheism: I can't believe it's your birthday.
Hinduism: Holy Cow! Is it your birthday?
Taoism: It's everybody's birthday.
Buddhism: If your birthday party was held in the forest and nobody came... would it make a sound?
Existentialism: Your birthday means nothing to me.
Sarcasm: You don't look half bad for someone twice your age.

Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, where the heck is the ceiling.

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Be good or be good at it!

Hooyah!

This is dedicated to Grandma Ladybug - who's got about as much patience as I do with certain shenanigans.

Toward the end of a Sunday service, the Minister asked, "How many of  you have forgiven your enemies?"

80% held up their hands.

The Minister then repeated his question. All responded this time, except one man, an avid golfer named Walter Barnes, who attended church only when the weather was bad.

 

"Mr. Barnes, it's obviously not a good morning for golf. It's good to see you here today. Are you not willing to forgive your enemies?"

"I don't have any," he replied gruffly.

"Mr. Barnes, that is very unusual.. How old are you?"

"Ninety-eight," he replied. The congregation stood up and clapped  their hands.

"Oh, Mr. Barnes, would you please come down in front and tell us all how a person can live ninety-eight years and not have an enemy in the  world?"

The old golfer tottered down the aisle, stopped in front of the pulpit, turned around, faced the  congregation, and said simply, "I outlived all the bastards!"

A king in Africa had a close friend he grew up with. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) and remarking, "This is good!" 

One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off. 

Examining the situation the friend remarked as usual, "This is good!" To which the king replied, "No, this is NOT good!" and had his friend sent to jail.

About a year later, the king was hunting in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took them to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake. As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. 

Being superstitious, they never ate anyone that was less than whole. So untying the king, they sent him on his way. As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. 

He went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend. 

"You were right" he said, "it was good that my thumb was blown off." And he proceeded to tell his friend all that had just happened. "And so I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this." 

"No," his friend replied, "this is good!" 

"What do you mean, 'This is good?!'" How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year." 

His friend replied, "If I had not been in jail, I would have been with you."

As I called to pay my student loans today, the phone was answered with the usual yadda yadda yip yap routine of "this call may be monitored or recorded for quality enhancement purposes" or something like that.

I've found when I tell people "I was going to tell you the same thing" I usually get better service over the phone.

However, today the girl at the loan place when I told her I was recording the call said "I don't give you permission to record this call."

I said "In the state of Oregon I do not need your permission to record this call, only one individual needs to give consent and be informed and in this case that's me, I was just giving you the courtesy of telling you you're being recorded."

Her: "Well, sir, I have the right to terminate this call and I am doing that at this time."

Me: "Heeeheeeeeee! No way!"

Anyways - I called back and decided not to mess with the next lady, although it was in her notes that someone called about recording the call or something - I informed them I'm ex law enforcement yadda yadda and was just messing with her - what's good for the goose is good for the gander and all that jazz....I mean....how about the following which has floated around the internet for a while? 

100 Years Ago...

A lot of this is applicable to our grandparents, and even some of our parents.

It May Be Hard to Believe That A Little Over 100 Years Ago..(~1900)

• The average life expectancy in the United States was forty-seven.
• Only 14 percent of the homes in the United States had a bathtub.
• Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
• There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved roads.
• The maximum speed limit in most cities was ten mph.
• Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the twenty-first most populous state in the Union.
• The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
• The average wage in the U.S. was twenty-two cents an hour. The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
• A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2500 per year, a veterinarian between $1500 and $4000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5000 per year.
• More than 95 percent of all births in the United States took place at home.
• Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."
• Sugar cost four cents a pound.
• Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
• Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.
• Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
• Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason, either as travelers or immigrants.
• The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza 2. Tuberculosis 3. Diarrhea 4. Heart disease 5. Stroke
• The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
• Drive-by-shootings, in which teenage boys galloped down the street on horses and started randomly shooting at houses, carriages, or anything else that caught their fancy, were an ongoing problem in Denver and other cities in the West.
• The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was thirty. The remote desert community was inhabited by only a handful of ranchers and their families.
• Plutonium, insulin, and antibiotics hadn't been discovered yet. Scotch tape, crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.
• There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
• One in ten U.S. adults couldn't read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
• Some medical authorities warned that professional seamstresses were apt to become sexually aroused by the steady rhythm, hour after hour, of the sewing machine's foot pedals. They recommended slipping bromide, which was thought to diminish sexual desire,into the woman's drinking water.
• Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.
• Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine.
• Punch card data processing had recently been developed, and early predecessors of the modern computer were used for the first time by the government to help compile the 1900 census.
• Eighteen percent of households in the United States had at least one full-time servant or domestic.

This is old, but I thought I'd save it if anyone hasn't seen it.  I know on board ship the Signal Men would flash back and forth pretty quick....

In regards to the post from yesterday on when to rely on experts and when to trust our gut - I thought I'd comment on home-schooling this morning in regards to a thought I had while watching a family movie on TV that my daughter loves as I got ready for church. 

Our children are home-schooled by my wife.   I went to a public school.  My wife did half and half of public and home.  I think that rounds us out as a family in order to have a good discussion about it.

The number one concern people express to us is "what about socialization?" in terms of children being home schooled.

What about socialization?

I know I've commented on it before but I thought I'd ask....what socialization do we see in school that is so superior to children being raised in a healthy and loving family?

Where is it?

When I look at teens and children, where are the role models today?   Peers who look to media on sex and morals and who's parents aren't in their lives either?

What kind of a recipe for character development is that?

I drove by Tualatin High School yesterday - or the day before - scoping out the swimming pool for work activities.  I saw a sign hanging up in the main entrance above everything that said "EXCEED EXPECTATIONS!"

break room

I laughed.  Who takes those seriously?  Why should I? If I'm in school - why should I exceed someone else's expectations? Why?  How about "lower expectations" so it's easier to achieve them?

I just - I hate the slogans that are supposed to motivate you - but really just is a means to keep me from troubling someone else but really aren't about my life in any depth - the kind you see about teamwork in crappy breakrooms at crappy jobs everywhere.

At any rate, the family really is the best means of support - for contrast I've compared a break room with a family room in terms of support and wholesomeness - realizing that both of these are someone's idea of what we need for support and sustainence to help us become and do what we care capable of - I see the difference....and that's why I think home-schooling is better because the support and recognition are better.

family room

Thanks to my wife for pushing this with me and being able to show me this is better and she can do a better job!  Our kids deserve it.