When I say hell, of course I mean Portland. It’s a shithole now. Oregon is beautiful, but for some reason all the shit not in California or Washington is in Portland. It’s the required trip to the family.
All I hear or read is about problems with Boeing jets, DEI in Air Traffic Control and parts falling off of jets because maintenance workers require diversity. I don’t want to get on a plane, but there is no way out. I figured the statistics are with me and if some shit does go down, my rare flights should exempt me.
When I get there, I’ll get to deal with a city rampaged by Antifa, BLM and many other miscreants. Other than SF, it is the homeless capital of the world, not to mention walking on the streets to the freak show and shit on the sidewalks.
I’ve scheduled some posts and meme’s to enjoy, including stories and observations of mine. It’s a look into my head when I put these out. I’ll cover introverts, the gym fashion show, sibling hell, lots of meme dumps and other stuff.
I may get a post in about my adventures while there, but no promises. Maybe I’ll keep some readers, like Ellie K, a new subscriber. With all the shit I post, I’m surprised she’s still there, but there you go.
The history of Boeing over the past thirty years is a story of a critical American institution that sold off its engineering culture and embraced an asset-light focus on margin instead of product vision, and then executed that strategy poorly. In 2024, Boeing is producing fewer planes than it did a decade ago and faces an onslaught of headlines about spectacular accidents, nagging regulators, and disappointing earnings.
A large part of the issues can be traced back to the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger in 1997. The deal seemed like a good idea at the time. By 1996, McDonnell Douglas commanded only 4% share in U.S. commercial aviation, and its production lines were languishing. Meanwhile, Boeing had a $100 billion backlog, and needed more assembly capacity to ramp deliveries and fulfill its orders. Yet in the event, the joke on Wall Street became that “McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing’s money.” McDonnell Douglas CEO Harry Stonecipher and John McDonnell, the chair of McDonnell Douglas’ board, became the largest shareholders of the combined entity after a stock swap worth $13 billion and they brought McDonnell Douglas’ bureaucratic defense contractor culture of margin-focused, risk-averse financial engineering with them.
But DEI is only part of the problem. Historically, Boeing has achieved great results by centralizing authority and control in the hands of the most exceptionally talented engineers. Today, the culture at Boeing is the opposite: listening sessions with the downtrodden, coddling the broken, and tiptoeing around the oppressed. Authority diffused throughout an entire organization’s hierarchy is no authority at all; accountability to technical results becomes challenging, if not impossible, when managers are serving two masters.
Meanwhile, management is rearranging deck chairs to make them more diverse. In 2022, Boeing tied managers’ incentive compensation to the ‘diversity’ of their interview slates, meaning that their bonuses depended on whether or not they considered women, racial minorities, and the disabled for positions they were hiring for. In Boeing’s Global Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (GEDI) 2023 Report, Sara Bowen, vice president of GEDI, Talent Intelligence, and Employee Listening, wrote: “We know diversity must be at the table for every important decision our company makes — every challenge we face, every innovation we design. Equity, diversity and inclusion are core values because they make Boeing — and each of us individually — better.”
The continuing and almost daily airline incidents in recent weeks, with planes repeatedly being forced to make emergency landings because of mechanical failures, has too often been blamed by the media on Boeing and the airplanes it builds, when almost all of these mechanical problems have had nothing to do with that airplane manufacturer. Once Boeing sells a plane to an airline, it becomes the airline’s responsibility to maintain it and keep it airworthy. Boeing itself might have serious management and quality control problems making its new planes suspect, but when older planes fail it is not Boeing’s fault. For example, all of the recent failures at United were clearly due to failures of United’s own maintenance staff, failures quite likely instigated by that company’s decision since 2020 to make race and gender the primary qualifications for hiring, not skill, talent, or knowledge.
We are now seeing the same phenomenon at American Airlines (AA), which since December has experienced its own string of flight emergencies:
December 6: 2023: An Airbus plane made an emergency landing at Phoenix when the flight crew reported one of the plane’s flaps had failed.
December 6, 2023: A different Airbus was forced to return to Phoenix because of low oil pressure in one engine.
December 23, 2023: An Airbus A319-100 was forced to make an emergency landing because of a brake issue detected during take-off.
January 8, 2024: A Boeing 787 made an emergency landing in Los Angeles due to an as yet unclarified “mechanical issue.”
February 29, 2024: An Airbus A321 was forced to make an emergency landing when one engine stalled in flight and could not be restarted by the crew.
February 29, 2024: A Boeing 777-200 on its way to Madrid had to turn back to Boston due to a cracked windshield
March 11, 2024: An Airbus A321 had to turn back to Raleigh-Durham airport because a sensor told the crew a cargo door was still open.
March 13, 2024: A Boeing 777 made an emergency landing in Los Angeles when the crew detected low pressure in one of the landing gears.
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A United Airlines flight that departed from San Francisco International Airport Friday morning lost a panel, which was discovered after landing in Oregon, the Rogue Valley International Medford Airport confirmed to KRON4.
Flight 433 landed safely at Medford Airport around 11:30 a.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The missing panel has not been found. At this time, it is unknown how the panel fell off the plane. No damage to the plane was reported, and normal airport operations resumed, Medford airport officials said.
United did not declare an emergency landing as there was no indication of damage to the aircraft during the flight. According to the airline, there were 139 passengers and six crew members on board. The plane involved was a Boeing 737-800.
This afternoon, United flight 433 landed safely at its scheduled destination at Rogue Valley International/Medford Airport. After the aircraft was parked at the gate, it was discovered to be missing an external panel. We’ll conduct a thorough examination of the plane and perform all the needed repairs before it returns to service. We’ll also conduct an investigation to better understand how this damage occurred.United Airlines Spokesperson
I can tell Boeing how it happened. It’s just like the others that just happened. When you hire based on diversity, you get crappy quality. Hire on meritocracy and the planes won’t fall apart in mid air. Don’t let it be lost that it was United, who leads the industry in this farce
Buried below are the words that the DHS allows illegals to fly without ID’s. That tells you a lot. They controlled groups of people in Germany during the 1940’s by putting them on trains and taking them to camps. This is the digital train ride.
According to the MSN, the CAT-2 scanners incorporate facial recognition technology by capturing real-time pictures of travelers and comparing them against their photo IDs. They will be expanded to every federal airport.
These units have been deployed at nearly 30 airports nationwide and are expected to expand to 430 federal airports in the coming years.
For now, it’s optional for passengers. How long will that be the case?
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Office of Field Operations, officers take biometric photos of passengers prior to boarding a flight at Houston International Airport on February 12, 2018. ..Photographer: Donna Burton
A bill, The Traveler Privacy Protection Act, has been introduced with bipartisan support. It calls for the government to end the invasive policy and stop expansion without congressional approval.
After the bill was announced, that’s about the time that DHS decided to move ahead.
Storage of the Biometric Data
According to MSN, “The TSA emphasizes that photos are not stored after a positive ID match, except during limited testing for evaluating technology effectiveness. This testing involves two to four weeks at specific locations, with data collected and submitted to the DHS Science and Technology Directorate for independent analysis.”
Allegedly, TSA won’t keep the data, but how long will Homeland Security and other entities keep it, and who can control what they do with it?
This is the DHS that lets illegal aliens fly without IDs. They aren’t trustworthy and don’t care about the safety of the people. So, why are they doing it?
It’s no secret that the US airline industry is currently plagued with scandal, fear, and a lot of turbulence. Much of the turmoil is linked to their obsessive focus on the left’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) agenda. DEI prioritizes factors like skin color, gender identity, and sexual orientation over actual skills and talent in their hiring process. Let’s look at four recent examples of failed DEI hires.
This is one of the craziest things I’ve ever read.
First, the FAA gave secret code words to students in the Black Caucus of Federal Aviation Employees to put in their resume that would skip them to the front of the line.
In another instance of the signals to go to the front of the line was to say the high school class you received your lowest grades in was “Science.”
Yes, they literally shot you to the front of the line if you said your worst grades were in Science.
I don’t even want to get on an airplane right now. Between DEI in the Air Traffic Control and woke pilots, not to mention sudden deaths from the Covid Jab the pilots were forced to take, it’s a gamble now to fly.
A new report from AAR Corp., a company that provides aviation services to commercial and government operators, MROs, and OEMs, warns that the aircraft mechanic shortage has reached a critical point.
The company’s 2023 Mid Skills Gap report urges employers to “break down silos” and collaborate with high schools, colleges, non-profit organzations, and elected officials to expand early access to aviation maintenance curriculum and training.
“Mid skills” describes careers that require industry certifications but not a college degree, including aviation mechanics, according to officials with AAR, which has been putting together the report since 2011.
The 2023 report includes several suggestions to increase the number of aviation mechanics, including:
Work with lawmakers and state agencies, nonprofits and educators to launch a national campaign to raise awareness of aviation careers.
Encourage training programs to teach people with industry experience how to instruct others to build the faculty population.
Ask lawmakers to pass common sense immigration policies that allow aviation companies to recruit talent from abroad to meet demand and keep airplanes flying safely.
Make it easier for veterans to quickly transition their skills to appropriate industry jobs.
Push to eliminate restrictions on AMTs taking the FAA general exam as pilots can do with their written exams. Getting these exams completed early will lead to increased certifications for the industry, officials noted.
Increase training capacity by creating programs to make experienced retirees instructors in education programs.
So far, no airliner passengers have died from air traffic control DIE. But The New York Times has been running a long series of hair-rising articles about recent near misses due to bad air traffic control, such as:
How a Series of Air Traffic Control Lapses Nearly Killed 131 People
Two planes were moments from colliding in Texas, a harrowing example of the country’s fraying air safety system, a New York Times investigation found.
Why? There’s a shortage of air traffic controllers who make it through training, so the ones who do are overworked. The Timesreports:
Yet training is difficult; many aspiring controllers fail…. From 2011 to 2022, the number of fully certified controllers declined more than 9 percent, even though traffic increased. Based on targets set by the F.A.A. and the union representing controllers, 99 percent of the nation’s air traffic control sites are understaffed.
A lot of industries were getting by before Covid by keeping competent baby boomers employed into their dotage. But air traffic controllers have a mandatory retirement age of 56, so the oldest controllers are now Gen-Xers born in 1967. The coming Competence Crisis is on track to hit air traffic control earlier than many other professions.
But of course there’s no mention in the Times of how the Obama administration sabotaged the old test for selecting the most promising candidates for training in order to hire more blacks. That’s just too off-narrative for Times subscribers. They don’t pay good money to have their worldview about who are the Good Guys and who are the Bad Guys in any and all situations undermined.
Many naive people assume, after all these generations, that affirmative action doesn’t mean lowering standards, it just means what it was originally sold as in the mid-’60s: expanding recruitment to find nontraditional diamonds in the rough.
The CEO of Alaska Airlines said new, in-house inspections of the carrier’s Boeing 737 Max 9 planes in the wake of a near-disaster earlier this month revealed that “many” of the aircraft were found to have loose bolts.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News senior correspondent Tom Costello, Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci discussed the findings of his company’s inspections so far since the Jan. 5 incident, in which a panel on one of its Max 9 jets blew out midair on a flight carrying 177 people.
“I’m more than frustrated and disappointed,” he said. “I am angry. This happened to Alaska Airlines. It happened to our guests and happened to our people. And — my demand on Boeing is what are they going to do to improve their quality programs in-house.”
So, as I predicted in 2008, after a moderate first term helped Barack Obama get reelected in 2012, in 2013 Obama let loose his people to pursue their agenda of Diversity-Inclusion-Equity (DIE).
White House officials decided in 2013 to purge the hiring list of over 1,000 graduates of the air traffic control course at colleges like Arizona State who had also passed the cognitive exam for hiring. Instead, it made air traffic control job-seekers start over with a new “biographical” test to “add diversity to the workforce.”
This was in response to complaints from the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees that only 9.47 percent of FAA workers were black compared with 17.6 percent in the federal civilian workforce. “Thus, the FAA would be required to increase their complement of African American workers by 8.13 percent to reach parody [sic] with the Federal Civilian Workforce.”
This is not a parody.
The Obama administration’s new biographical test was blatantly rigged to boost blacks and hurt whites by leaning in to anti-black stereotypes. From the lawsuit against the FAA filed by the Mountain States Legal Foundation:
…a candidate could be awarded 15 points, the highest possible for any question, if they indicated that their lowest grades in high school were in science…. In contrast, an applicant was awarded only 2 points if they had a pilot’s certificate and no points were awarded for having a Control Tower Operator rating or having Instrument Flight Rules experience…. In addition, one question on the Biographical Questionnaire awarded an applicant 10 points, the most available for that question, if the applicant answered s/he had not been employed in the prior three years. Another question awarded 4 or 8 points if the applicant had been unemployed five or more months in the prior three years. Statistics from the Department of Labor indicate that African Americans had the highest unemployment rate in 2010–2014.
Even the federal organization that made up this absurd biographical test reported to the FAA that it hadn’t been validated.
I’ve never wanted to get on a plane less than I do right now. They have crazy people in Air Traffic Control with mental issues and DEI ruining aircraft maintenance. A pilot who couldn’t qualify other than through diversity almost crashed his plane because he shouldn’t have been flying to begin with.
Diversity and woke ruins everything it touches, but in this case a plane is coming down soon because some assholes think that equality and diversity is more important than skill and training.
Like some of my other stories, there is sex, cougars and booze in case you don’t want to read about it.
About the middle of my career, I worked for a disk drive reseller, CORE International. The owner claimed they were a manufacturer, but Control Data made the drives. He lied a lot. See the artificial reef and the Time Tunnel to find out more about CORE.
We went to all of the trade shows, and in the 80’s, Comdex (Computer Dealer Expo) was king. It was in Atlanta and Vegas, but for me it was time for me to escape South Florida and explore the industry. Since I was in charge of the marketing department, it included the trade shows for CORE.
I went prior to the show and set up the booth for a week of displaying our wares to the public, going to the parties and putting up with the wieners and asswipes I worked with.
I always arrived first to set up the booth, then brought out someone from engineering or tech support to set up all the computers. There were a lot of things that have to come together before the show starts.
When I say weenies, most of the engineers couldn’t get a date if it was paid for. For this Vegas trip though, Bob the tech was married to his high school sweetheart. He was well settled down in life while I was still chasing ass. He was a good mid west salt of the earth guy, pretty much the opposite of me when it came to the opposite sex.
It was a time of life that I was at the top of my dating game. Because it was still my party days, decisions on my moral choices were more relaxed than now.
BOOTH SET UP, BRIBERY AND THE MAFIA
During set up, you had to work with the show contractors who supplied mechanical, electrical and moving your booth in and out. If you know the history of Las Vegas, it was built and probably still is run by the mafia. That means you didn’t do anything without them or they would fuck up your booth at night to teach you a lesson. I’ve seen them drive a fork lift right through a crate that held a vendor’s booth worth thousands, destroying it “by accident”. This was after a vendor yelled at them for not getting their booth delivered on time.
You could always get better service with a little green under the table. You would say you were from the Franklin company ($100 bill exchanged hands) and got in line ahead of others when I needed service. Everything ran through the mafia though and that is how it got done.
Sometimes, you had to wait your turn for service. Big companies paid bigger bribes and my company was small potatoes. The CORE owner was cheap. That meant going through their hoops to order what they had left in stock, then waiting for the supplies and manpower to get your job done. It cost me days sometimes in set up time. If he’d had let me play by the mob’s rules, I could have saved thousands on travel, hotel and food, but that’s another story.
I got accused of leaving earlier each time by one of the software engineers who my art director nicknamed needle dick. Since he was a nerd, I didn’t respect much of what he said so I went when it was right. Needle dick couldn’t scare up any gash if his life depended on it. He got adopted by a cougar at work 20 years his senior (and she had lost what little SMV she had – look that up). She got nicknamed Canyon Cooter. This difference in age was compounded by him being smart, close to the autism scale and she was one of the dumbest females I’d ever met. It made for one the biggest mismatches you’d ever see. More about them later, but suffice it to say she was going to teach him how to get a date because in his late 20’s he couldn’t get one, but wound jumping his bones.
YOU BITCH
Back to the story. I was setting up with Bob and needed some extra electrical at the booth. I didn’t have money left to bribe them so I was about 5 deep waiting in line. I watched the forms administrator girl at the desk give everyone an attitude. They knew everyone had to go through them and sort of lorded it over the exhibitors as they were the only game in town. Plus, I’m sure they could have sent Guido or Carlo to fuck up our booth if we didn’t play nice. So, I waited in line.
I looked at her name badge and it said Mary. She was the one at the counter giving the guy in front of me a really hard time. At one point, he looked back at me it was so bad that I held my hands up and shrugged. I sort of thought it might be her time of the month, or she didn’t sleep well or hated her job. It pissed me off and I felt bad for the guy taking such a beating. He was a beta male who didn’t do anything as Mary snapped at him while I watched.
I was tired from days of set up by then and knew I was going to have to deal with another time delay and an attitude when I walked up for my turn to order. Age wise, I’m well practiced at the art of pick up and had an Alpha male game going when talking to girls. I’d learned to dish it out with the best of them.
For this reason, I decided I wasn’t going to take the shit she gave the guy before me. I walked up and my opening line to Mary was, “Are you this big of a bitch to everyone?” Needless to say, it caught her off guard. She changed her attitude and minded her manners. We chatted and I caught a sly smile from her as I went back to my booth. I brushed it off and thought little of it.
I tried to explain this alpha male/female transaction to one of my in-laws, who I’ve nicknamed flounder. He reminds me of Kent Dorfman from Animal House, fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son.
Sometimes, girls like the man who takes control and put them in their place. Flounder never understood as he only had one girlfriend in life. Mary got it though.
This time of life found me dating a girlfriend back home so I wasn’t looking for ass, but Mary was hot-ish in her own way. I kind of liked that she was feisty unlike my girlfriend who was a milk toast and was a nag right before this trip. In my head, I’d kind of broken up with her and did shortly thereafter. That’s another story
We went back to working on set up and I told Bob I’d called her a bitch. It meant that it could be a while before we got any service, so we did what we could until the help arrived. The electricians came way early so we were both surprised. (Electricians meaning they got paid $100 an hour to bring you extension cords, lay them out and plug them in, a total racket but…Mafia). Mary bumped me to the top of the list for calling her a bitch.
The day rolled on, so we finished work and were ready to call it by going to dinner and crashing at the hotel. I wasn’t a big gambler and knew we had a lot to do tomorrow so we headed out past the contractor tables kind of thinking about tomorrow.
Because the owner of the company was the biggest tightwad I’d ever met in a millionaire, I had to share a hotel room with Bob. I’d get my own room only if there was an odd count of people and I’d take the single because I was trade show manager. I also didn’t want to share a room with any of the tech wieners ever.
As we passed by, Mary was still sitting there and I wasn’t looking my best. I’d been sweating while busting ass all day in jeans and a T-shirt. They had the doors to the convention hall open as they hauled in equipment all day long. It’s hot in Vegas so I was scruffy looking in the Han Solo sort of way. Mary on the other hand had to dress appropriately as that was her job, attitude and all.
While walking by, I threw out a trial balloon to attitudy-Judy and said, Bob and I are going to dinner, I’ll buy you one if you want to come. I guessed that I’d get a laugh and figured she heard it at every show she worked. So I was preparing for the brush off when she said why not……game on.
I was finally making it in life and could afford better clothes, so I cleaned up and put on my Don Johnson Miami Vice outfit (t-shirt and white jacket with nice slacks and loafers, just like on TV). Bob was in his causal married look and wasn’t sure what to expect now that I’d invited a stray to dinner. He also knew we were sharing a room and any copulation calisthenics would have been awkward.
THE TRANSFORMATION
When I called her a bitch, I was speaking to a hair up in the bun, glasses wearing school marm girl. I could tell though that she had a tight body and had potential. Needless to say, Mary had gone home and dolled up into a strapless dress that complimented her good looks. The dark hair came down and the glasses were gone and she went from librarian to a keeper. Even Bob was shocked at the transformation. She was both hot and hopefully hot to trot.
It’s hard to believe knowing the person that I am now was able to be that entertaining then, but I chatted her up over cocktails and a bottle of wine. Bob is enjoying an upgraded dinner and we both thought that would be it. It turned out that Mary was a very smart girl. We had an intellectually stimulating conversation both ways. I learned a lot about the machinations of how things got done as well as life in Vegas. She had a brain to go with the rest of the package. Maybe that is why she gave others a hard time.
I was the only one at CORE authorized to people out to dinner above the expense rate other than the el cheapo boss, but only if I was taking out important people or reporters. Bob didn’t say anything because he got a way more than the expense approved dinner, and I invited what was now a hottie to dinner. I’m sure I filed that expense report to the head accountant Tony (sounds Mafia also) that might have not been exactly accurate.
At the end of dinner, Bob excused himself to go to the bathroom before leaving and I figured what the hell. The odds were against anything else really happening between Mary and I, and I really didn’t care. We were on our way to being drunk and I’ll never see her again, plus I have to deal with sharing a room with Bob. I made the first base move anyway. The next thing I knew, Bob came out of the bathroom to see Mary and me tongue deep in the middle of the restaurant.
I now have the dilemma of the where to go logistics. I’m sure Bob’s wife didn’t want to hear about Mary and me slobbering on each other all night long and I’ve got the stingy accountants hanging over my head about spending money for extra rooms in Vegas.
I knew that once everyone came into town in a couple of days, that I’d be moving into the single room. I’d pre-arraigned to have the prerequisite odd count of people enabling me to have the single, but expense policies required us to save the penny pinching company owner money prior to that.
My judgement is now sufficiently impaired by alcohol and my hormones were raging by, so I said fuck it. Next thing I knew, I had Mary in tow and stood in line at the hotel lobby and charged a single room to the company credit card. President Hal and VP Robert A were going to shit when they saw my expense report already as I’m down a dinner way over the per diem by 3 or 4 times. I now add a room that I wasn’t supposed to be charged for 2 more days. Those two dicked around the employees so I wasn’t motivated to help them in any way. I was thinking with the little head by then, so the night progressed and we said goodbye to Bob.
I wonder what Mary was thinking. Her day started with a boring job of grilling show people about filling out the forms for electricity. She’s now out to dinner with a charming stranger and about to go back to a hotel room with someone she’s known for a couple of hours who called her a bitch.
In my head, I’m playing We’ve Got Tonight By Bob Seger. It was the part that goes:
I know it’s late I know you’re weary I know your plans don’t include me Still here we are Both of us lonely Longing for shelter from all that we see Why should we worry? No one will care girl Look at the stars so far away We’ve got tonight Who needs tomorrow? We’ve got tonight babe Why don’t you stay?
As I mentioned, I’d been around the dating block by now and knew how to game girls. I’d been pulling ass for a long time and it wasn’t like I was trying to lose my virginity. We checked into the hotel and had another heavy make out session when Mary excused herself to go to the bathroom.
The night is ticking away, I’m drunk and realize I have another long day tomorrow. I knew Mary had to show up at the contractors desk early. I decided right then that I wasn’t going to try hard because if was going to happen, fine…if not, also fine.
While she’s in the bathroom, I’m thinking of how I’m going to say goodbye and I had a nice time after getting told no, then catching some shut eye. I’d had about as much fun as I figured I was going to have and didn’t have a lot of patience to wait all night for nothing. I’d done enough of that growing up and rejection was going to be as good as success. The outcomes were equal to me.
Just about that time, Mary comes out of the bathroom wearing only a towel. As I started back to kissing her, it fell down and she said, we’ve got to get you out of these clothes.
One thing led to another and we did what grownups do in the prime of your life, for a long time, all over the hotel room. She enjoyed it immensely, which I found out later. I did my best John Holmes impression to make it worth her while. She said she visited the big O hall of fame multiple times. It was our first night so we hadn’t been together long enough for her to lie about it yet. I had put so much effort into it that night to make her happy that I’d passed out and she went home.
When I woke up the next morning, on the mirror I found a post it note to call for round 2 as she wanted more. Comdex hadn’t even started and my trip has already been eventful.
I glided by the contractor table the next morning and the attitude was much nicer. It turns out that all she needed was a good time and to get laid. It was on for us now.
I didn’t say anything to Bob. He’d seen me sucking face and I didn’t come home last night.
I enjoyed the week with Mary. She didn’t have to work during the show, unlike the 12 hour days on my feet. She was a good sport about showing up to see me at the end of the day. It was nice to share time together and got me the hell away from the CORE douchebags. One of the days when I was coming back from the show, I met her in the lobby and we immediately dumped the rest and headed up to my room. I’d walked back to the hotel with Bill Quinn, a serious stiff who knew I was his only key to after show entertainment. He was lost without me getting him or the others into the show parties. He kept asking what happened as he saw me meet and leave with a girl in the elevator. He wouldn’t see me again until the next morning. He told me he wanted details, but I gave up nothing.
TECH WEENIES TRYING TO ACT HIP
I refused to hang with most of the CORE people I had to work with as they were too lame to be around. Case in point, one of the nights there, I had to invite them to a computer magazine party, because the owner Hal was there. I picked the one that was the shortest to end my pain with them. I was going to the real party after that. I must have had that night off from Mary. Duty calls.
The DJ played the song Shout (Otis Day and The Nights for Animal House Fans). These losers called it the CORE song and went to the dance floor to look like fools. This included needle dick, canyon cooter and Sondra Arken (who got nicknamed Barkin as she was an ugly feminist with an ugly attitude who refused to shave her legs and pits). Also acting the fool were some people I’d come over to CORE with when General Micro Computer went chapter 11 like Trish Brainard, Holly H., Susan (Suzy Q, the JAP with the huge ta ta’s). They were such idiots that everyone from GMC except me got fired shortly after this for being incompetent. I pretended to go up with them as we left for the dance floor, but diverted to the men’s room to hide as I refused to be seen with them. I don’t think it was lost on them.
Here’s the deal. I was the president of my fraternity when Animal House came out. We’d already done everything in the movie other than kill a horse. We’d had a real toga party when listening to Shout. The CORE pussies were nursing a light beer. When I was in college, we were drinking grain alcohol punch dressed in sheets. There is a difference. They were embarrassing as they were trying to act hip, but at best pulled off a broken hip. There were a lot of losers in the computer industry and some of them worked with me.
I dumped them after that and went either to see Mary or to the real after party. They never knew.
THE GEEKS LOSE THEIR VIRGINITY
So I’m being very discrete about my encounter with Mary. Even when seen, no one knew what I was really doing. Bob the tech didn’t tell everyone there about the night prior to the show…….As opposed to this next part.
In the background, Canyon Cooter has made her move on needle dick who’s never seen a boob in his life, much less hold one. They now show up to the booth in matching outfits. She was getting divorced was old enough to be his mom. They dressed like sherbet Ice cream in their matching lime green and orange suits. When you fuck around at work, at least don’t advertise it by making a fool of yourselves. He never had a chance as she pretty much adopted him. They looked like a kid and his mom in a gag worthy moment. It was the only pussy he would ever had in life at and that statement is pretty sad. He wanted her to show him how to talk to a girl at work he couldn’t get a date with, and the next thing you know they are bumping uglies.
When you score your first touchdown, act like you’ve been there. He was a trained puppy on a leash from then on following her around. They were saying nothing was happening, but were so bad at hiding it we couldn’t avoid the obvious. It was as bad as having to hear about your parents having sex, freaking disgusting for all of us.
I on the other hand am having a grand time with a hot girl and giving her the ride of her life while telling no one. Here’s how I know. When I left Vegas after the show was over, she looked me up in Florida to try and find me for more (no internet back then so it was a big effort). It turns out that I am a namesake and she wound up calling my parents in another town, also in Florida. I thought it was a nice gesture and Mom had to know what was going on. She wasn’t born yesterday.
All good things come to an end and it was time to leave Vegas and go home. I have no need to go back to that town other than for computer shows so I knew it this was ever only going to be a week. I hate Vegas despite the time with Mary. I never promised anything to her other than when I was there. I never led her on. It was what it was. She had the next show rolling into town the following week (the Car Show). It just didn’t have a future written on it.
I recall our last moment together. She finished on top and I was staring at her right boob. I thought to myself, I need to remember this moment for when I was in a dry spell.
Life goes on. Needle dick wound up marrying canyon cooter. Ben Greene told us all that the bill would come due when she turned 80. He’s probably changing diapers now. I saw the disappointment on his father’s face at the wedding. He married his mother, a washed up flabby old lady. At least they didn’t reproduce. The world is better for it.
Bob left CORE and went to Novell, then the Networking leader. Hal sold the company to Sony after lying about the contract he had with IBM. Robert came out of the closet and was queer as a 3 dollar bill, but he was a prick to everyone anyway. I filed the expense report and I think I went over by so much that El Capo, Tony wouldn’t approve all of it. I made it all back on the next expense report. CORE went out of their way to screw over the employees. The per deim wasn’t enough for one meal, let alone 3 per day in Vegas. I never tried to come out ahead, but they wound up paying for everything on the next trip. We ended up even.
I still had to work with the other wieners who rarely got any girl action. Despite the stories that got told about my escapades, I would never admit it because I didn’t need to spike the ball. I never told them this story either, until now. Bob told them enough when we got back that I got the stink eye from the engineering and tech support departments. Most of them were still 0 for life in girls when I left.
Mary and I never spoke again. By the time I found out from Mom that she’d called, months had already passed. I hope she remembers it fondly. I guess I’m the one that got away. I would have picked her over my milk toast girlfriend. She was better in every way.
Life moved on, but times like this are burned into my memory bank. A version of this story would happen to me again at future computer shows, more than once and different countries.
I have fun memories of that week, it’s just that we lived on opposite sides of the country and what happened in Vegas like most times, stayed there.
I drove over the holidays to see some family. It was only 4 hours, but in the time, I passed a double digit number of cars abandoned on the highway with highway patrol stickers on them.
What did they have in common? They were all either pieces of shit or treated like shit. How these people even attempted to take a trip is beyond me.
I get if that what you have is all you can drive, but at least have the car checked before you leave. It costs way more to have it towed and to have your means of getting to work out of commission.
It’s cheaper and a hell of a lot less hassle to deal with to rent a car for a long trip if yours isn’t going to make it. Hell, Jiffy Lube will tell you if your POS needs something fixed when they try to up sell you from an oil change.
For the rest of us that made it, those cars broken down by the side of the road cause traffic to mess up or slow down unnecessarily.
Moral of the story, don’t ruin your trip, your next week(s) and our trip when it’s easier to take care of your vehicle properly.
I dated a flight attendant who survived the Dallas Crash where they discovered wind sheer. She made it when only about 30 of 300 survived. She was at the back of the plane. I read that you have a better chance of surviving statistically in the back of a crashing plane.
I’d just rather not crash.
I’m exercising my Covid excuse not to go somewhere right now by just not flying.
I have relatives in Denmark. In my last visit, I got a lesson about how the Nordics were better because of Jante’s Law.
Definition:
Jante’s Law describes a set of cultural norms common in Nordic countries emphasizing collective well-being and group accomplishments, and disapproval of touting individual victories.
The concept of the Law of Jante—Janteloven in Denmark, Jantelagen in Swedish, Jante laki in Finnish and Jantelögin in Icelandic—while it is simply a part of the cultural oxygen that everyone here breathes, was laid out in stark terms in a 1933 book called “A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks” written by Danish-Norwegian author Axel Sandemose.
In it, Sandemose satirically conjectures that Danes are so happy because their highest aspiration is to be average, and he mocks the fictionalized small town people from the village where he grew up.
People with low expectations always achieve them.
EUROPE’S FAVORITE SPORT
Of course we then got into the favorite sport of Europe. Some think it is Soccer/Football, but it really is America bashing. Wherever I go in Europe, that place is always better than in the USA, the food, the culture, the history or whatever. I get told this while they are wearing Levi’s, smoking Marlboro’s and drinking Coke. Because of Jante, life was better there.
When I’d had enough, I pointed out that there was this muslim problem in their country. They call them the new Danes. Those are the one’s not born there. They immigrated, but won’t assimilate, won’t speak the language (or if they do, not properly, the biggest sin to be discriminated against) and suck off the hind teat of social welfare. Since I pointed out the obvious, I got no push back.
PREDICTING THE BOW AND ARROW ATTACK
I got an earful about gun murders in the US and other problems we had. I was told how guns were outlawed in the Nordics so this wasn’t a problem in the hygge place.
I finally broke and said that human nature is not equal. Some are more naturally gifted intellectually, athletically and with more good or evil in their motivations.
My statement in 2016 was if you take away the guns, they’ll use a bow and arrow. If you take that away, they’ll use a knife. If you take that away, they’ll use a stick. People are not equal and that is behind America’s Exceptionalism. It’s also behind the hate of the attack yesterday.
I’ve never been popular with them, being the only real American they are related to. I decided to not make myself less popular, only because of respect for my wife and ended the conversation.
Within days, this happened in the UK, where guns are banned.
Human nature doesn’t change. Love and hate don’t change either.
OSLO—Several people were killed and others were injured by a man using a bow and arrows to carry out attacks in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg on Wednesday, local police said.
“The man has been apprehended … from the information we now have, this person carried out these actions alone,” police chief Oeyvind Aas told reporters.
“Several people have been injured and several are dead,” Aas said. He declined to comment on the number of casualties.
The attacker was a radicalized Dane who randomly shot at people. The reason will come out, but won’t be reported in the mainstream media (MSM).
I don’t think this guy was even a New Dane. The story says he was radicalized.
This morning, William Shatner will ride aboard Blue Origin at 90 years of age to be the oldest person ever in space. He missed being the first actor in space by a week as the Russians did that to shoot a movie.
Anyone who knows Star Trek fully gets that the red shirts are the ones who get it on away missions.
He isn’t the first Star Trek Alumni to go to space, just the first one that is alive. Some ashes of Scottie and Gene Roddenbery were sent up a few years back.
There is always the Who is the best Star Trek captain or best series. I am in the TOS camp. The rest use the TOS playbook, but with less daring, panache, creativeness and conquest. For Picard, Sisko, Janeway and Archer fans, they wouldn’t be Captains in the running if there wasn’t a Kirk, end of story.
Even in the movies, the best one is always the Wrath of Khan. It has the best villain, ironic ending and mano a mano story.
I have been a huge Trekkie all of my life. I was alive and watched it during it’s actual first run. When Chekov discovered the Botany Bay on Ceti-Alpha 5, I had goose bumps in the Theater.
The only thing that bothers me about this is that the Enterprise NCC-1701 was a cool ship. Blue Origin looks like a flying dick.
I get to make a long drive today. This is what it’s going to look like in feeling except I’m alone. I first thought that this guy was by himself, but I’ll pretend it’s his dog, who would probably be a helluva lot more quiet.
FWIW, I’m looking to get another truck after I’m through with my current car. I’ve enjoyed them every time I’ve owned one. You get to sit up high and see everything. You are also further away from others that way.
The partner next to me today will be no one. My company is an audible book. The title is Algorithm’s to live by, by Brian Christian. It is mind blowingly complex thinking, but really helps you in life and will turn your mind internally by a mile.
I do get to see the rest of my family and dog when I get there and look forward to it. I love them, but being alone lets me re-charge my social energy.
Delusions of Adequacy 