Philosophomoronism

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March 8th, 2008 Baj

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McCain Is Starting To Scare Me…

February 10th, 2008 Baj

It appears John McCain could be worse than Dubya when it comes to having well-founded positions on issues. At least Dubya says something about God telling him how to think, but read what McCain says when asked about having a position on contraception, “…would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.” This is while riding with journalists on the “Straight Talk Express,” his campaign bus.

I also thought the young person’s answer about why young people are so interested in the 2008 election was insightful: “100 years in Iraq = DRAFT.” After all, McCain has said he’d be okay with the USA staying in Iraq for 100 years since we’ve been in Korea and Japan for so long… Would YOU vote for that? The Cafferty article indicates that young people have grown up under either a Clinton or a Bush, and it appears many of them want an alternative to continuing with another Clinton, or with a man who will simply continue the President’s policies without question.

I’m not very young any more, but I agree with the young people. I say, “down with family dynasties in the White House.” Bring back the George Washington mentality of “I’ve served my stint, let someone else have the job for a while. I don’t want to be a king…” Jeez, bring back the days of our founding fathers. Even if you disagreed with them, there wasn’t big money from deep corporate pockets influencing everything they did and said…

UPDATE: I wanted to make it clear that I believe the “surge” was bullshit. I believed at the start of this thing and I believe NOW that if we wanted to win this war quick and sweet we should have sent 500,000 troops into Iraq at the very beginning. You can read in numerous historical articles where Bush and his cabinet felt quite the opposite… If you want generals to win a war for you, let them tell you what they need to do it, and then stand back and let them do it… Do NOT interfere because war is ugly as hell…

Posted in Elections, Politricks, War In Iraq, War On Terror | No Comments »

Dubya Said…

January 13th, 2008 Baj

“Let me remind you what the NIE actually said,” Bush stold reporters. “It said that as far as the intelligence community could tell, at one time the Iranians had a military — covert military program that was suspended in 2003 because of international pressure. My attitude is that a non-transparent country, a country which has yet to disclose what it was up to, can easily restart a program.”

Bush said this about the national intelligence report he was given about Iran recently while on his Mid-East trip. What I find to be hilarious and scary at the same time is that he’s talking about Iran not being “transparent” in its relationships with the rest of the world. Perhaps they are hiding something. I don’t know. What I do know is that Bush has created a very very non-transparent America in his time in office. Secret prisons around the world, extraordinary rendition, listening to the phone calls of Americans without permission - just to name a few things he’s done that are waaaaay outside policies of the past.

So I don’t tend to take him very seriously at all any more - except when he’s talking abut nuking another country. I firmly believe he’s capable and willing to do it without asking for permission from Congress or American citizens… As far as a non-transparent country restarting a secret program, he should know how to do it…

Here’s another link that’s a bit worrisome where our leader is concerned…

And another…

Posted in Politricks, War On Terror | No Comments »

15 Years Later…

December 29th, 2007 Baj

I got married to Vivian almost 15 years ago, and somehow I got convinced that we should keep the top of our wedding cake. I was told it was some sort of “tradition” or something and I fell for it. Well, I didn’t ask enough questions at first… Crap, I guess I didn’t ask ANY questions about this tradition because we’ve had the cake top in our freezer for almost 15 years. We’ve been planning to blow it up for several years, but we never got around to it…

So when the power went out a couple of weeks ago for 9 days the cake top was an unexpected casualty. I put it in a cooler on the back porch and it froze again at night and thawed during the days we were without power. We decided we couldn’t afford to wait for our 15th anniversary in April to blow it up at this point. So on Christmas eve there was a representative group from our wedding over for brunch and we took the opportunity to destroy it while there were witnesses.

Here are some pics of our asploding cake that my mom took! I wanted to do the 21 gun salute with the 500 mg rocket pack on the thing but Vivian wanted to save that monster for her birthday, so we just used 3 strings of black cats. It only blew the icing off the cake and did little real damage, but everyone rejoiced! Woo HOOOO!!! Even the people in the truck that stopped up the street looked on and I can only guess at this fact, but I think they rejoiced with us!

Posted in General | No Comments »

A Poem About Power

December 20th, 2007 Baj

I was driving through my neighborhood on Tuesday evening and this poem came to mind. I was very frustrated with the fact it was taking so long for the power to be restored in MY neighborhood in mid-town…

I can feel the heat from the bulb
I can smell the filament burning
But it’s not my light

I can see it from my window
It’s only 3 houses away
But it’s not my light

It’s the 9th day without power
It’s been so long, but it’s almost over
But I still have no lights

We are in the lucky 24,000 still without power
Happy Birthday to me, and Merry Christmas!

My birthday was on Monday, the 10th, and it was the first full day of what I’m calling Hell Week 2007. I hope that’s not too depressing to anyone, but I cannot describe very well the frustration and exhaustion I felt as this “natural disaster” progressed through the week. I’ve never been through anything quite like it before, and I hope I never go through it again.

At my worst moments I thought about the Katrina victims and wondered what my worst moments would be like if they lasted for a year or two… My worst moments, as bad as they were, paled in comparison to what the people of New Orleans went through for sure - what they are still going through…

On Monday I wasn’t aware of the scale of the problem, so I drove around looking for something to eat for breakfast and I stopped at Academy Sports and bought myself a birthday present, a new set of darts! I also drove around taking pictures of the destruction. Little by little the scope of destruction sunk in. By afternoon denial turned into shock and I realized this was far worse than I had at first thought. My mother-in-law stayed at my son’s apartment in Broken Arrow on Monday night since he hadn’t lost power.

(more later)

Posted in General, Philosophomoronism | No Comments »

Raining Ice In Tulsa

December 11th, 2007 Baj

So I’ve been without power for a full 48 hours now. The storm started on Sunday night and the power went out around 9pm. I’m at Arnie’s bar right now having a few beers with friends. It’s one of the few places that has power, beer and wifi all at the same time. Here’s a couple of pics…

This is my best friend’s dad in his back yard. I went by to check in on him. He’s got a fireplace and a gas stove so he’s doing better than some, but he only has a few days worth of firewood…

This is a tree across from my mom’s house. I’ll post more pics from all over Tulsa later when I have more time, but this is a start. There are currently 225,000 people without power in the Tulsa metropolitan area, which has perhaps 500,000 total combining all of the smallest communities in the area.

It’s amazing to drive all over town and see this. It’s not in pockets. It’s all over. I would bet that 95-99% of all trees in Tulsa have suffered some damage because of this storm. It’s hovering around freezing so the roads are still warm enough to not freeze, but everything above ground is frozen solid - trees and wires… The ice settles and adds so much weight on the branches the trees just can’t hold up the weight any more… Save the trees.

Posted in General | No Comments »

Route 66 Darts Tournament, Miami, Oklahoma

October 28th, 2007 Baj

My friend Stanley and I went on a day-long road trip to Miami, OK yesterday to check out the Route 66 darts tournament held at Shooters Bar. We had a pretty good time. I played in the Men’s, Singles, Cricket competition (my first tournament ever), and though I didn’t even win my first games I played pretty well. I got knocked out in round 1 so we came home. My problem wasn’t so much accuracy - I was hitting what I was throwing at pretty well, but the strategy of scoring points is a bit foreign to me. We don’t usually play to score points in our Tuesday night matches, so I wasn’t sure how to approach the situation when I got behind. Still I had a great time.

The tall guy below is supposedly ranked in the top 5 in the country, or so I was told. I didn’t have to play him… The big guy next to him is ranked in the top 10 or maybe top 20 in the country too. I didn’t play him either… The other guy they are both talking to was from Wichita. There was a big group from Wichita called the Dart Frogs…

A shot of the long room upstairs at Shooters. 11 boards lined one wall…

The organizer’s area where they kept track of things. Obviously the board behind their display was NOT used in the tournament. If you notice in this pic there’s a #19 above the scoreboard to the left of the dart board. Each was numbered, and the organizer’s would call out who was playing on each board.

9 boards lined the other wall. The organizer’s area is at the far right of the pic below.

I’m going to practice and get ready for the next tournament in April, 2008. They do it twice a year, and I guess since I won $12 I could say I’ve gone “pro!”

I won the money in a “shootout” style competition. If you pay $1 you could throw 3 darts and try to “go out” on a number between 2 and 170 with the last throw being a double. For example if I drew the number 170 I’d have to hit a Triple 20 with my first dart (60), another Triple 20 with my second (another 60), then a Double Bull’s Eye (50) for a total of 170. They started with $20 in the pot. If you won you got half the pot. I was the first shooter and I pulled a 103 out of the bag of numbers and missed it… Then I drew something like 117 and missed it. Then someone else threw and missed. Then I drew a 4 (FOUR!!!) out of the bag. I hit the double 2 and won $12. Woo HOOO!

Posted in Beer, Darts, General, Sport | No Comments »

Trash Men In A Good Mood

October 26th, 2007 Baj

It was funny enough that I had to stop and take a picture. It made my whole morning.

Posted in General | No Comments »

Crystal Reports Error

October 5th, 2007 Baj

Error!

No more fun??? Dang…

Posted in Tech/Net | No Comments »

Tulsa Aquarium

September 23rd, 2007 Baj

I’ve wanted to go to the Tulsa Aquarium since it opened, but I hadn’t made the effort until this weekend. I took my mom today and we had a great time. I wouldn’t rank the Aquarium anywhere near the best ones out there (the New England Aquarium is the best I’ve ever seen), but it was a fun trip. It was a bit pricey too, but I’m probably not going to go back for a while so they gotta make money however they can to keep it up to a good standard.

The only real strike I’d put against the Aquarium is the lack of backdrops in many of the tanks. The designers went to great lengths to create good environments for the fishies, but many of the tanks simply had gray or blue backgrounds. If I were a fish stuck in a tank I’d want a painting of the ocean - or where ever I came from - on the back walls to remind me of home! It just wasn’t there. Still, I had a great time, and I think my mom did too. When we first went in we heard a little boy yelling, “LOOK MOMMY! IT’S NEMO!!!!” It cracked me up. I love Nemo.

Here are some pics! Click a pic to see a larger version, and use the browser’s “Back” button to return to this page.