My friend’s post:

Got this in a letter, today. You may have seen it.

You don’t have to be an engineer to appreciate this story but it helps !!!!
A toothpaste factory had a problem: they sometimes shipped empty boxes, without the tube inside. This was due to the way the production line was set up, and people with experience in designing production lines will tell you how difficult it is to have everything happen with timing so precise that every single unit coming out of it is perfect 100% of the time. Small variations in the environment (which can’t be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean you must have quality assurance checks smartly distributed across the line so that customers all the way down to the supermarket don’t get ticked-off and buy another product instead.

Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem, as their engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort.

The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution – on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box would weigh less than it should. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done to re-start the line.

A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. “That’s some money well spent!” – he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.

It turns out, the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should’ve been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren’t picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.

Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed.

A few feet before the scale, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin.

“Oh, that,” says one of the workers – “one of the guys put it there ’cause he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang”.

Darrel speaking here: This may or may not be true, but it is a perfect example of the management not making their wishes known and or appreciated by the very people who can do something about the problem. Lazy D has been there. Lazy D has done that. This struck a memory chord in Lazy D…

My response:

You know, I only get calls for my services when there is something wrong in a plant. I am always told to meet the General Manager or the Plant manager on a new call. I never do that. The first guy I look for is the maintenance man. I have done industrial shit for a long time and I know who knows what the deal is. The maintenance supervisor or just maintenance guy either knows what the problem is, or is the source of the problem.
By the time I meet mid- to upper level management, I know what the deal is.
Whoever wrote this may have made it up, but I can guarantee you I have seen this play out in much more dramatic fashion. The last guy they talk to is usually the first guy they ought to.

Lemme give you a perfect example of this. And it just so happens to be one I was a player in. Of course, it’s gonna be a long dissertation because I’m not known for my brevity, but here goes:

I got a job at a hospital once. Just so happens to be the hospital I was born in, but that’s a whole different story…

Anyway, they had just finished a major expansion on the facility that included a “Birth Place”, and Operating Room suite, and many of the business offices when I got hired.
As I came in, I heard some complaints about the hot water service in the “Addition” The OR doctors were complaining that they couldn’t get hot water to wash their hands with in the scrub sinks. Additionally, everyone on that wing complained there was no hot water coming out of the hot water side. The powers that be – from the CEO down to the maintenance supervisor were pouring over blueprints and berating the design engineers trying to figure out what was going on with that. As a new guy that didn’t have that much to do, I offered to look into it since it may involve some “above the ceiling” work and stuff. I was not only denied, but when I wrote up work orders as “Looking into the hot water problem in the OR suite” (because I didn’t have anything else to do), I was told to back off because the design engineers and the general contractor and subs were looking at totally re-plumbing the whole project because of a lawsuit brought by some doctor group. I didn’t know anything about that kinda stuff so I was all like, “What ev…”

I was out.

I worked the weekend shift. And one day I was on an elevator going to do my rounds and a doctor got on. He was livid. He asked me if I was maintenance and I said I was. He asked why the hell we hadn’t figured out how to get hot water to the scrub sinks “…AFTER NINE FUCKING MONTHS!!” and I said I had looked into it and was pulled off in deference to the engineers. He asked me if I thought I could really figure it out. I said, “I probably can, but I don’t know how long it will take me. The ‘Brains’ have been working on it for a while and they don’t have a clue. It can’t be too hard though, it all boils down to cold water mixing with the hot water. The hot water generator is set to 160 degrees. You oughta need a burn cream just washing your hands. Somewhere, cold water is getting in a taking over.”
He told me he wanted me to work on NOTHING but that until I figured it out. I told him that would be great but my boss told me what to work on and they had specifically told me to leave that alone. He asked my name and got off the elevator.
I went to the maintenance shop and a few minutes later the phone rang.
It was my boss’s boss. His name was Wayne Thompson. We called him Wayne Bastard (long story).
Rinng
Me: Maintenance.
Wayne Bastard: This is Wayne Thompson. Director of Facilities Management. Who’s this?
Me: Hey Wayne. This is Darrel.
WB: Darrel? You’re new, right?
Me: Yep, pretty much.
WB: Did you happen to talk to Doctor Bigdick today?
(Gotta tell you I don’t remember the docs name but he was apparently THE MAIN surgeon there. I’ll go with Dr. BD)
Me: Yessir. Ran into him in the elevator as I was coming off my ‘B’ rounds. Seemed to be a bit high strung. Why? Wassup?
WB: Dr. BD said you told him you could fix the hot water in the surgical suite. Is that true?
Me: In a way it is, Wayne. I told him it was a simple problem but everybody was looking for a complex solution. All it takes is a complete look at the system as it is, not as it’s drawn.
WB: you had no business telling him that.
Me: He asked me a question and I answered it. If you have a dialogue you want me to use when talking to doctors, give it to me. Otherwise, I’ll answer a question as honestly as I can.
WB: You don’t know the position this puts you, Dane (my immediate supervisor), and me in. This is what I want you to do: You spend the rest of the day looking like you are trying to solve the problem. I’ll have the engineers all over the building Monday. Sneak out if you have to, but just buy us time until we can figure this out. Got it?
Me: And If I figure it out, can I fix it?
WB: You won’t. It’s too complicated.
Me: (knowing good and damn well it wasn’t complicated) But if I do, can I fix it?
WB: Call me first.
Me: OK.

So I get a clipboard, a pencil, some paper and I set out. The water heater (HWG – Hot water generator) is in the basement. Cold water comes in off the main (CWM) and goes through it and off to the hot water main (HWM). the CWM and the HWM run side by side though the basement “above ceiling” Overhead and branch off to the Birth Place and OR above. I look at the mains and the branches from the HWG to the end of the various branches downstairs. I note where they penetrate any wall, floor or ceiling and I trace them out downstairs. Nowhere do I see them tied together in any way.

I go upstairs and ‘dress out’ to go into the OR suite. I look at my map and check every pipe penetration there is. Nothing. One room I can’t get into is the Housekeeping Storage Room. There is a penetration in there. I call Wayne from the nurses station. Dr. BD is at my side wanting to know my progress…

Me: Wayne, I have checked all the pipes except for a couple I can’t get to. I need to get into Room O-XXX House Keeping Storage – OR. Can you get somebody to let me in. I don’t seem to have a key for it.
WB: There are chemicals in there. You don’t need to get there. Forget it. Look like you’re doing something and let the engineers and I handle it Monday.
ME: OK, Dr. BD is right here. I’ll tell him you have it handled Monday.
WB: Dammit! I’ll get the Housekeeping On-Call to meet you at that room. Don’t touch anything in there. You’ve put me in a bad position. I’m not happy.
Me: Dr. BD shares your concern, Wayne. I have told him we are on it like white on rice. So you say you’ll have someone here soon to let us in that room?
WB: Yeah <dial tone>

A harried housekeeping person comes from the Physical Therapy floor about 15 minutes later. She opens the door. All I see is a mop sink, a lot of chemicals on a rack next to the sink, and some random supplies.
Me (to the housekeeping chick – HKC): What are those chemicals?
HKC: Cleaners. Some are for floors. Some are for tables (patient contact), some are for everything else.
Me: What do you use the mop sink for? Why is there a valve manifold on it?
HKC: We have to use warm water. Not hot, not cold, That thing mixes the water and gives us warm water to mix the cleaners with.
Me: You always get warm water? Not cold?
HKC: Yeah. Why?
I look at the manifold. There is a hot water and cold water spigot. Someone has made a manifold that hooks to both and the correct water temperature is determined by the ratio of the “openess” of the hot and cold water supplies. But when the water is not being used in there, there is no check valve to stop the hot water from going to the cold water feed or vice versa .

Basically, The cold water comes in off the street at X pounds per square inch (PSI).
It runs through the water heater which drops the pressure on the hot water side. So if the hot and cold headers are somehow hooked together (as they were in that manifold), when you turn on the hot water anywhere in the building, the cold water runs through the cold water feed to the mop sink at X pressure and goes into the hot water header since it is open somewhere and at a lower pressure. You get cold water in your hot water feed. I turn off the hot water valve to the manifold and go back to the nurses station to where Dr.BD is and tell him to try to go wash his hands. He looks at me funny but does. He turns on the hot water and it is a bit cool. Looks at me,,, “give it a minute”, I say, and soon it is some seriously hot water. Really hot! 160 degrees, in fact.
Dr. BD tells me this is much better but we need to not scald the hands of the surgeons. He kinda grins. Says, “Can you handle that or should I make a call?” I tell him to go do his ‘meat carving and then make the call. That’ll give me time to go downstairs and turn the HWG down to a regular temp while allowing the CEO and WB to think they had some input. Meanwhile, I’ll tell WB I found a solution but he can bring his engineers in to check behind my country ass to make sure I didn’t screw up their billing cycle. <snerk!>

The take away: 15 engineers came out Monday and part of Tuesday. They measured everything but our bowel movements and pronounced there to be no anomalies outside design parameters. Billed us a couple grand and went home. I fixed up the OR manifold with a check valve and turned it back on. Everybody was happy except WB who KNEW there was no problem to begin with and the engineers confirmed it.
A year later, I got a 27 cent raise and told them to stick it in their ass and went to industrial maintenance – where the money is.
Good times!

I use an electric charcoal starter. Some folks like the “tower” method whereby you put some newspapers in what looks kinda like a flour sifter with holes all in the sides of the bottom and pile charcoal on top of that. Once the whole mess gets hot enough, you lift the sifter-looking can up and pile charcoal on what is burning. This is better than using lighter fluid but leaves some flaky ash from the paper that can get on your food. It is also not as convenient as the electric starter.

The electric starter is basically a 120 volt tubular heating element formed into an open elongated oval with a handle on one end. It has a piece of stainless sheet metal where the handle and element meet to act as a stand-off so that when you set the unit on a flat surface, the element doesn’t touch the surface but hovers above it a couple inches.

You put the starter on the fire grill, and pour charcoal on it. The stand-off will allow some of the charcoal to get under the element, some will be inside the oval, and most will be over it. You plug in the starter and let it do its thing for six to eight minutes. At the end of that time, you lift the starter out of the pile and stack the charcoal over the hot spot. It won’t look like you’ve got much going on there as only a few pieces will be hot. But trust the charcoal; you have introduced enough heat to push it past the “break-over” point. Those few hot coals will have the rest of the pile going in about 10 to 15 minutes – depending how you stack your charcoal. Meanwhile, lots of tasty smoke will issue forth like white wispy columns of God’s love. Now is the time to show your meat some of that love.

Put it on there! While the rest of the pile is getting good and hot, there is good clean smoke coming from it and it will cold smoke your meat for you. Remember, though – you are going for smoke at this point – not heat. So put the meat away from the charcoal and close the grill. Putting the meat over the charcoal right now is a mistake. There will be one little hot spot surrounded by a big cold spot. Some of your meat will start cooking, but not even one whole piece. This sux on many different levels. Grilling should be about even cooking. And one hot spot is NOT even cooking.

After the center of the pile is going good, then you can spread your charcoal out to how you want it. And by “how you want it”, I mean ”how it needs to be for what you’re cooking”.

There are four legitimate heat forms for grilling:
1) Direct heat
2) Muted direct heat
3) Indirect heat
4) Cold smoke
We’ll get into what all that means later but the two main types in a regular grill are direct and indirect.

Direct is for fast grilling. This means you want all your meat right over the heat and don’t really care how long the heat lasts since it’ll be longer than it takes to cook anything you can throw on the grill anyway. This is how most people grill and it works for hamburgers, hotdogs, brats, steaks, and most veggies and thin cut meats. For this type of operation, you want to spread the charcoal out to the area your meat will take up on the food grill. It’ll be hot and burn out relatively quickly but not before you have a chance to burn the hell outta everything there if you don’t pay attention and do stoopid stuff. DON’T DO STOOPID STUFF!

Indirect heat is for hot smoking and slow cooking. It is for parts of the animal that you can say, “Hey, I think that came from about here!” while pointing to inaccessible parts of your own body…or someone else’s  – that’s your business, leave me out of it. It’s also for things that take smoke better than sear. It is my preferred method of grilling.
For this, you can leave the charcoal piled up on one end of the grill while the meat is on the other end. In a kettle type grill, you have a choice as to spreading the charcoal around the edges and putting the meat in the middle, or keeping the charcoal in the middle and spreading the meat around the edges. Either way, the heat and the meat should not meet.
Ha! Did you see what I did there with the rhyme and alliteration?!? That, folks, is why I’m an unpaid professional and also why YOU should not try this at home.

Next time, we’ll talk about grills and smokers and junk.

Enough about me, let’s talk about charcoal…

You take some wood and heat it up a LOT and what happens? It burns. The word “burns” implies oxidation. That means some stuff in it is combining with oxygen and giving off more heat than it is getting. So after you light it, it will supply enough heat to oxidize itself and continue “burning”. This is what we call a “fire”. So, what if we could heat up this wood without it oxidizing? This would prevent it from “burning” and allow it to cook out the stuff that would cause it to go into the cycle where it gives off a lot of heat really fast so that it can further burn and give off even more heat really fast. We can do this. We call it “Making charcoal”.

To make charcoal, you subject wood to heat that would otherwise cause it to burn in the presence of oxygen, but you don’t let any oxygen get to it. It then changes, chemically, to a state that is equivalent to a piece of wood that THINKS it has already burned, but still has a lotta goodies to oxidize – just not enough to go into an uncontrolled cycle of burning and making more burning. You have charcoal.

Charcoal is available in a couple of forms – briquettes and hunk. The briquettes are available plain and “Easy Start”.  “Easy Start” means it is already soaked in some nasty tasting lighter fluid – and by “nasty tasting lighter fluid”,  I mean “lighter fluid. It is ALL nasty.

“Hunk” or “Chunk” charcoal is a rawer form of charcoal that is made of hunks of wood subjected to the process to make charcoal without being changed in any dimensional way. I don’t think they make an “Easy Start” version of it, but if they do, it’s useless as tits on a boarhog so who cares.

Briquettes  are made by grinding up wood, “charcoaling” it and pressing it into little ‘pillows’ of even dimension, density, and composition.

I have friends who are gonna hate on me for this but I’m a man who lives in his own world and this is who I am –I like plain briquettes.

I tried hunk stuff and found it was not as predictable or consistent with the heat. Also, when clearing my fire grill, I run across a lot of “rocks”.  A big bag of hunk costs as much as a same size bag of bricks, but is lighter. Also, whatever in the hell those “rocks” are, they ain’t cooking my stuff so why da hellim I buying them?!?

People have always used charcoal to cook with because it releases the heat slower and lasts longer. It is more consistent. But you have to get it hot enough to start it’s slow cycle of “burning without burning” first. So folks usually douse it in some flammable liquid to get it going. Then they have to wait for the liquid to burn off because it tastes like ass if you cook over it. And all the while the liquid is burning off, the charcoal is giving off  tens of cubic feet of tasty smoke mixed with ass-tasting lighter fluid vapors. What a waste!

The Lazy D griller sees no point in wasting all this good, sweet smoke. It has been my experience that charcoal just getting hot gives off WAY more smoke than some that has all the lighter fluid burned off. Also, meat seems to ‘take’ smoke better raw. So if you get your raw meat on the grill as the charcoal is giving off maximum smoke, you are getting the best off both worlds.

Next, we’ll look at how to start the charcoal and how it should be placed for different types of cooking.

Modern day liberals claim to want people to have equal opportunities as everyone else, but typically they want to use the power of government to make this come about. Government by it’s nature is force. Why do you need to use force to give everyone opportunity?

One reason is because one person (Person A) is in a position to deny another person (Person B) to take advantage of opportunity. That is all well and good, but unless A actually denies B his liberty, then A has done nothing wrong. To bring sanction against A preemptively is an over-reach of force (government). If A actively denies B of his liberties, then A should be stopped and punitively damaged so as to set precedent to discourage similar future acts by A and anyone else who decides that what A did was a good idea. Otherwise, let people have freedom of association and deal with each other on the merits of their own situation. Punish the bad guys who do bad things, but leave the good guys alone. Also, assume everybody is a good guy until they prove themselves otherwise. Innocent until proven guilty, and all, ya know.
The modern day liberal is against this idea. The modern day liberal wants to convict you because of where you ARE, ignoring what you did to get there. Because of what you HAVE, ignoring how you got it. Because of what you take, ignoring what you give.

If you have more than they think you should have, they want to use force to take it and transfer it to those who have less. Forget all the physical or mental work you did to get it, there are people out there who need it and you have more than what they determine you need. Bring in the guys with the guns.

If you have plenty, should you, by some moral compass, decide you should give to those who don’t? Sure, but YOU are the one who knows what you need and what you want to give and who you want to give it to. The modern liberal doesn’t trust YOU to do with what you have earned what they want you to do with it. They only trust the people who can lie well enough to the requisite number of people in order to get the sanction of the populace to use force to hopefully do what they want. See, a modern liberal DEPENDS on forcing others to do what they want done. They’ll condemn you for not “giving to the less-fortunate” then take your money so you can’t. They depend on force; not freedom, not choice not compassion. They want you to do what THEY want, not what you or somebody else wants. So they co-opt the only legal use of force available – government.

Many modern day conservatives do the same thing. Where the liberal wants the state to enforce his fluid definition of right and wrong, the theological conservative thinks he has God on his side and wants the state to enforce his idea of what God says is right and wrong. Both sides have lost sight of the fact that it is not a legitimate function of government to determine morality. The only legitimate function of force is to prevent or punish illegitimate force. In other words, government is supposed to protect the citizens’ rights to life, liberty, and property.

Determining who a citizen freely gives property to is not a protection of liberties. Determining if one citizen owes another property by contract IS a protection of liberties. By the way, Property = Time, Labor, Money, Goods, and/or Services.

Determining what one citizen charges another for goods or services provided is not a protection of liberties. But making sure one person delivers what they promised for what they charged IS a protection of liberties.

Telling one citizen that he cannot freely choose who he associates with in commerce or trade is NOT a protection of the freedom of association. Making sure one or more people do not interfere with the ability of someone else to freely associate with whom they choose, IS a protection of the freedom of association.

Preventing a person from expressing religious beliefs or mandating that religious beliefs be expressed is not a protection of religious freedom. Preventing someone from mandating or suppressing the free expression of religious beliefs IS a protection of religious freedom.

Mandating who one person can or cannot marry just flies in the face of freedom on every level. I have no idea what the anti-gay marriage folks think they’re doing to further freedom by trying to prevent two people who want to get married from getting married. That being said, it shouldn’t matter to the government whether you are married or not. In a legitimate government, what business of theirs is it if you claim to be married or not?

Mandating what a person chooses to ingest, drink, smoke, or whatever is not a protection of freedom. Preventing an intoxicated person from presenting an unreasonable risk to others IS an protection of freedom.  Also, determining which days or times a person may purchase or indulge in those behaviors falls right in there with the rest of it.

It is natural to want to prevent people from doing what you think is wrong. But before you get on some bandwagon and start calling for a use of force against that person for their choices, ask yourself, “Does his choice present an unreasonable danger to the rights of anyone else? Is he engaging in a fraud that will cost someone else their time, labor, or property without some agreed upon recompense?” If the answer is “No”, then feel free to speak out against what that person is doing. Criticize him and ostracize him if you will, but don’t fall back on the use of force to stop him.

Because pretty soon, he and a bunch of like minded people could possibly gain political power and bring sanction against you for doing things you do that doesn’t hurt anyone but that they don’t like. And they will use the precedent YOU set against you.

I’ve been quiet for a good while but I think I’m at a place where I can start updating this little corner of the interwebs again on a somewhat regular basis, so let’s give this a shot…

I ran across a story on the web tonight that kinda hit a chord with me. Seems The Brilliant One is once again showing his lack of understanding of the free market. He basically told the automakers they had to double their CAFE standards by 2025 or, of course, they would run afoul of the laws set in this land of the free, home of the brave and junk.

Basically, the Obama Administration had already announced they wanted the Average MPG for vehicles to go from what they are today – 2011 (30.2 for cars and 24.1 for light trucks) to 39 MPG for cars and 30 MPG for trucks by 2016. Now they want 56.2 MPG in 2025. How that number is derived is a complicated mess of bureaucratic clusterfuckation.

He wants to pass down an edict that would not only determine what vehicles are MADE, but what vehicles us “free” citizens choose to buy. You see, when the All Powerful Protector Of Our Liberty says the average miles per gallon of vehicles sold in a year have to be “X”, it doesn’t matter what the great unwashed masses WANT to buy, it only matters what they DO buy. In theory, a car maker could offer 10 models that get 100 miles to the gallon and only one that gets 20 miles to the gallon, and if they sell 10 low mileage cars (@ 20 MPG), they would have to sell nine high mileage cars to make 56 MPG average. So, in essence, you would have to have half your market want a ridiculous little tin can, and the other half want a substantial vehicle.

I just had a kid turn 16. When we were looking for a vehicle for her, the main thing we were looking for was safety and efficiency. I don’t give a damn if she burns a lot of gas, I want her to live through an accident. We bought her a used midsize SUV that gets pretty good mileage but that has traction control and enough heft to get her through most accidents if the traction control isn’t enough. One thing we DIDN’T look at was the over all mileage the vehicle got. Of course, we didn’t put her in a Sherman tank, but we damn sure didn’t put her in a cute little rice-burner, either. I’m guessing her vehicle gets over 20 MPG but if it doesn’t, I really don’t care. Her safety and ability to move about is my primary concern – not the overall mileage of the vehicles sold by a particular car company in a particular year. See where this is going? The national government has put the incentive of the producer at odds with the incentive of the buyer. The buyer wants X, the producer wants HAS to supply Y. Damn what you want to buy, and damn what they want to sell. This is what the government wants to happen. In the land of the free, home of the brave.

“If you look at the ‘56-by-2025’ standard, you can save about $6,000 per vehicle because of the dramatic reduction in the cost of fuel for that vehicle,” (Jack Gillis of the Consumer Federation of America) said. “If you force the market to implement certain technologies, they will figure out a way how to do it. And they’ll figure out a way how to do it efficiently and effectively.” (Emphasis mine)

Note the use of the word “force”. This is what government is – force. Note the words “choose”, “choice”, or anything else of the sort is not used. This is not free market stuff – this is centralized planning. A little bit, sure, but every little bit helps the centralized planners.

Also notice the faith in “…the market” to “…figure out a way to do it.” Oh! So the Market can figure out HOW to do something, as long as the All Powerful Elite tells it WHAT to figure out! What would we do without them?

So they FORCE us to do something and we FIGURE OUT how to do it. Kinda like you do with slaves – You give them some unreasonable demand and it is up to them to figure out how to fulfill it. If they can do it and survive, that’s good. You can just put more demands on them. If they can’t do it and die, Oh, well, maybe somebody else will come in and do what you want.

This, folks, is why I always put the word “federal” in quotation marks when talking about our present national government (look up the difference between “federal” and “national” if you need to) and I mock the phrase, as it’s used today, “The home of the free, land of the brave”. We are told what to do, when and how to do it, and if we don’t WANT to do it, they pass laws that tell us we HAVE to do it. But hey! If we don’t have the money to do what they want, they give it to us to do it with and point to that as proof that we want to do it.

Proof of what I say above? You want proof? OK, how about this?

• Healthcare – We’ll tell you what kind of “insurance” you have to buy. You’ll buy it or pay a fine (or tax, whatever we need to call it to get it through the courts). If you cannot afford that insurance, it will be provided for you (by your fellow taxpayer through force , if necessary). The “insurance” will cover what we determine you need, not what you determine you need. You are free to vote for WHO determines your needs, but have no say in WHAT determines your needs – leave that up to us; we’re the government and we know best.
• Cash For Clunkers – Even though you can’t afford a new car, we want you to buy one. We won’t force you to buy one but if you do, we will pay you up to $4500 dollars (taken from your fellow taxpayers with force, if necessary)to buy one off the list we think you should have. We require you give us your previous vehicle and we will destroy it and any value it once had. See, we are government – We don’t create wealth or value, we either transfer it or destroy it. No skin off our backs, it ain’t coming out of our pockets.
• Bank bailout (This was a Bush administration dealio, but still a big government liberal. Obama was ALL for it, BTW)- We told the banks to give you money whether you could pay it back or not. Told them we would come down hard on them if they didn’t but then we told them if they did, we’d take the risks off their hands through some NGO’s like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This started a market for sub-prime loans and some greedy bastards tried to cut in on our action. So our executives took 8 and 9 figure bonuses and then ran our NGO’s into the dirt. It’s OK, we’ll blame the greedy bastards that were making 4,5 and 6 figure deals. Meanwhile, we’ll let the big evil corporations get to the breaking point and then come in with your fellow taxpayers’ money (get it by force, if necessary – you know the drill) and decide which ones we like, and which ones we don’t.  We’ll save the guys we like with “loans” and let the others go away. (C ya, hate ta B ya!!) Then we’ll tell those we made the “loans” to when and how to pay the “loans” back. Of course, even after they give us the money we used (but didn’t earn) to prop up the ones most guilty of riding the government gravy train, we’ll still lambast them for NOT doing EXACTLY what they did to get themselves into this mess in the first place – make loans to people who can’t pay them back. But, the people will hate them for ‘taking” all the money we forced on them and not blame us so no biggie!

It goes on and on. They fund “studies” we can absolutely live without. Medicare fraud is rampant. Food stamp fraud is rampant. Yet they can’t find anywhere to cut entitlements of social programs. If you think they’re doing this to help you, you’re wrong. They’re doing it to exercise power over you. They are convinced they know best and you just need to do what they say and if it works out, whoopie. If not, they’ll always have someone else to blame it on.

Subject: Fibo. My mom.

Name me a person with no faults and, short of deities, I’ll call you a liar. So yeah she had’em. But the cool thing is, she never hid them. They were there – take’em or leave’em. No airs. You want airs? Call Holox.

What this strategy achieved was nothing short of brilliant. It let people know who she was and choose to accept or reject her. Now check this out: The people who decided to accept her, loved her. The others? I dunno. They went about their business and didn’t get in the way much. As far as I know, she never intentionally tried to make anyone dislike her. If they did, fine. If they didn’t, fine. If she had bad people in her life, they were temporary. The good people were permanent.

See? That’s the cool thing. You CAN choose the people in your life, if not but passively. Be who you are and the people who like that kinda thing will be there. The rest? Whogivesashit?

This I learned from her. This I cherish above all else.

My mother was never into music so she didn’t have a “theme song’ as far as I know. As her son, I will take it upon myself to pick one for her.

Note: This selection is in no way to be construed as being exclusive and is only offered as a representation of the writer and is not the view, opinion, or assertion of anyone else as far as the writer knows.

(Damn lawyers. Hey, Bill Shakesphere, when can we get started with YOUR plan for them?)

My pick would be this:

This I learned from her.

Her funeral was a real eye opener for me. I knew of a lot of people who just could not be there. I understood. I knew a lot of people that could have been there just didn’t because it was not really feasible with the things going on in their lives. I understood this, too and appreciate it because I am in the same boat a lot of times. It was a hot day and there were already gonna be a lot of people there and nobody would miss anybody that didn’t show up so why go through all that mess? Summer weekend. Vacations. Kids have plans with friends. Trips and projects planned long ago. All sorts of stuff to do the weekend before the 4th of July and all. We couldn’t blame anybody for not showing up.

But show up they did. In droves. People that I didn’t know. People who I barely remembered. People from far away who had every reason to not be there. They came. And they kept coming and the florists ran out of flowers and had stores from a good piece off help to fill the orders and just damn at the food!

I think I know my mom pretty good and I think I know what she thought her funeral would be like. She had no friggin’ idea. There were hundreds that came to the hospital to see her. There were way more that paid their respects afterward. I like to think I keep tabs on what’s going on around me and am rarely surprised by what people do. I was humbled beyond measure. Nobody I saw or heard from surprised me, but the sheer enormity of the outpouring for a woman who was born to dirt poor share-croppers and who never did anything that most consider “great” in her life flat out floored me. It gave me hope at the precise time that I thought I had lost the last bit of it.

Folks, let me make this point: She never made a splash in the news. She did what a middle class mom does to get by. She had her problems and suffered them gracefully. I, and my brothers, presented her no end to stress and pride. She coulda swung either way but she chose to persevere and make the best of life. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t think it was her time. We didn’t either. But she died anyway and in her death, she was as she had been in her life – unassuming and fighting the tide. It was as if I were destined to learn from her til after her dying day. And I did.

This I learned from her.

Now we have the Slaughter Solution. This is a procedure that is also know and “Deem and Pass”. In essence, it means that the House takes the Senate bill and does NOT vote on it but “deems” it to pass. Kinda like if a governor doesn’t sign or veto a bill for three days it becomes law anyway. So in for all intents and purposes, the House just “decides” this bill passes without the REPRESENTATIVES voting on it. And if this bill institutes taxation without the REPRESENTATIVES voting on it, somebody tell me how that upholds the concept of  “No taxation without representation” that WE FOUGHT A FRIGGIN’ WAR OVER!!!

Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe that something is a little fact like this shit will not stand up in court. But then again, I have this weird idea that the court is there to uphold the Constitution which, in Article 1, Section 7 says:

(I kinda added some emphasis to the part I think is a little bit important)

All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

So, am I missing something?

P.S. I don’t want to hear “Well the same thing happened under Booosh!” , “The Republicans did it, too!”. That is Soooo bullshit. They did. But it was used for stuff like extending the debt ceiling and Welfare Reform – not instituting new taxes. And I’m not supporting them even using it for that but Art.1 Sec. 7 is specifically referring to “All bills for raising Revenue…”. No getting around that.

Links for Pi Day:

http://www.piday.org/

http://www.freep.com/article/20100314/BLOG36/100314006/1004/news02/Today-is-Pi-Day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day

Now, let me make a couple of things clear. I understand the concept of some of this stuff. I even USE a variation of some of this stuff. For instance: In the problem 133/6, mentally, I thought, “6 will go into 120, 20 times. 13 left over. 6 will go into 13 2 times and have 1 left over. Answer: 22.1667.

By trade, I am an engineer. I do not have an engineering degree so I am not a degreed engineer but it is what I do for a living and have done for the better part of 25 years. I have taught myself everything above 11th grade math. I use calculators on a regular basis but I have found that knowing the multiplication tables to 20 and the squares of 1 – 20 have served me very well to do most math in my head. My standard precision on a problem is to the 1/1000 place. In my line of work, I think in 1/1000 – not fractions so I automatically convert fractions to 3 or 4 decimal places. I can take a tape measure and tell you what the force of a hydraulic or air cylinder is to a precision that is negated by the coefficient of friction of the material used in the seal on the piston. In my head. I ain’t braggin’ – I’m just sayin’: I know a thing or two about learning math. Some of what was in that video are tricks I taught myself after I learned the basics of mathematics. The important thing to consider here is that for a 20 or 30 or 40 year old guy to learn this stuff is one thing; but to try to get a 9 or 10 year old kid to learn the mental shortcuts BEFORE he even understands the basic concepts is bullshit on an unimaginable scale.

My problem with math education has always been that it starts out WAY too abstract. Word problems are made out to be some type of demon for kids. But in reality, all math starts out AS a word problem. I want to buy 2 6-packs of beer at $5.95 per pk. and I need to know if that is more than $11.75 per 12 pack. (I like good beer – don’t judge!) When I walk in a grocery store, nobody hands me a sheet of paper that asks if 2X5.95 is <, >, or = 11.75 – I gotta figure it out. Word problem. I could go into all sorts of a bitchfest over how calculus is taught but I won’t. Suffice it to say, from some of the text books I have bought on calculus, you could master the subject and still not have a friggin CLUE what to do with it or when to use it. My point is, the basic concepts of math are hard enough for a kid who is brought up in a world of fluid definitions. There is very little that is “right or wrong” for kids today. There is very little concept of “go, no go” for them. But math is a game of “go, no go” – either you are right or you are wrong. There are no degrees. To throw a kid into abstract conceptualization before he comprehends the basic parameters is stupid.

It seems some people are trying to turn math into a social issue – colored in individual perceptions and judgments, as opposed to a defined science. Those people just need to cut it the hell out!

There is no big climatic ending to the story except to say I got home in one piece. I learned a few things though:

1) There are some dumb asses out there. I was out there because I had to get home. I wasn’t just joyriding. I can give the benefit of the doubt that a lot of the others out there were not there for kicks but rather necessity. My main goal in life was to get home in one piece, though. Their’s seemed to be to see how fast they could go while hopefully keeping the car on the road. I had a guy pass me in a curve on solid ice just this side of Winder. I swore to myself that if I saw him down the road in the gulley, I would call 911 but I would not stop to help his stupid ass. Why risk my vehicle and my safety to help an irresponsible dumbass when I was doing everything I could to get home alive? Screw him. Hope he made it home OK but I hope he loses his nuts in a hot coffee incident before he procreates. That’s not just me talking – that’s Darwin.

2) Guard rails at really steep drop offs are woefully short of where they need to be. Man! A few creek bottoms I came up on were a tad on the scary side. Where you start sliding is BEFORE the guard rails, too. Coulda went right off behind them in a second flat. Just sayin’.

3) Thank God for the guys and chicks out there driving tow trucks, utility trucks, police, fire, ambulance, pizza delivery, snow plow, salt trucks, etc. And before you wonder why I included pizza delivery guys in there, think about it this way: Every pizza they delivered kept at least one car (probably with a few people in it) off the road. I hope those guys got tipped to the point of kicking back on a beach real soon.

If you find yourself out there sometime and get in a pickle of an ice incident, just use common sense and slow down. Don’t apply constant pressure to your brakes going down hill and don’t trust the anti-lock to figure it out for you – If you have to brake, just easily apply them for a second or so and let up. Keep doing this to reduce or limit your speed only as much as necessary. Otherwise, stay away from the brake. If you’re going slow enough while approaching a stop, you can just about coast to a stop. Don’t tailgate the car in front of you and by “tailgate”, I mean “occupy the same ZIP code as”. You really have to allow a lot of room between you and the guy ahead of you. Otherwise, just do what you have to to get home to your family. That cheesedick that passed me may think he impressed me by doing it and in a way he did – I’m impressed what a cheesedick he is. But I bet I impressed my wife and daughters a lot more by walking in the door in one piece.