Sometimes I like them and just can’t stand to be around them. It’s the way it is. I know no one who I’m no longer talking much with isn’t thinking about it, but here is the answer in case you stumble on this post.
No one is exempt, past friends, relatives, schools, you name it. If we were friends, we would be and you’d know it. I won’t say anything or be mean, I just won’t spend time pretending on social banter because you are supposed to.
I don’t think they will go broke really, but the stock value is down 33% after incorrectly interpreting a Florida bill and picking sides against the family. They have branded themselves the enemy of good, and what 98% of families are made up of, the 2 genders that they were born as.
Half the Disney people will love them for doing this because that is how the country is. They are losing the good people though.
Walt would turn in his grave with how his company is being run.
My Mom said that life is about overcoming obstacles, climbing mountains and clearing hurdles. You are either in a crisis, just finished with one or about to start another.
That’s why I’ve learned that when too many things are going good, then this:
I used to live in bliss and then get blindsided as to how things can go wrong. When I was dating, there were times that I had a different girl for every day of the week and said no to others. Not long after that, it seems that even the professionals wouldn’t take my money.
I’d have 3 job offers waiting for me while I loved the job I was at, or I hated my job and no one would even give me an interview.
Now, when I’m feeling on top of the world, I start to prepare for what might be around the corner.
It sounds pessimistic, but I’ve realized that my Mom was right. Just wait long enough and you’ll have a challenge to overcome.
I loved all the Bugs Bunny cartoons. Marvin the Martian was his foil in a couple. That was when we didn’t have a cancel culture and weren’t afraid of making fun of things without being castrated on Social Media.
I saw every one of them as a kid. I saw every one of them as an adult and appreciated them even more. My kids know every time I reference an episode. It’s even better when they reference one to me.
Here is the illudiam Q-36 explosive space modulator, to blow up the Earth.
And some funny memes
But, I’m retired so everyday is Saturday for me. I don’t have deadlines or conference calls or personnel issues today. Man I don’t miss work.
I don’t miss Facebook that went down yesterday. I didn’t even know it until I read about it. I’m glad to have that ball and chain out of my life also.
I have a brother-in-Law who is retired not by choice, but defined his life by his job. He doesn’t know what to do. I feel sorry for him. Life is much greater than your job.
For now, I’ll pet my dog and enjoy what comes next.
This is Jo Siffert at Daytona in 1970 in a Gulf Porsche 917. Out of all of the versions of this dominating car, this was both my favorite and my first encounter with it. He was my favorite driver and died too young.
It was the first time I’d seen a car go over 200 MPH in person. I was young, so it was impressive.
I was already a Porschefile by this point, but that day cemented it home.
I’ve seen them race many times, but I was with my Dad that day and it still is memorable for me.
Later, the car was the star of the movie Le Mans. Steve McQueen was in the movie, the king of cool, but the car outshone him.
Some call it the greatest sports car ever, and for those of us who have seen it race, we understand why.
After all…..this is the greatest line ever in a car movie.
I love my dog and put my hand on the ground to see if it is too hot. If so, we go to the backyard until it cools off.
They love you with everything they have. Do this for them
No funny meme’s because Fathers are important (well, maybe later if it is really a good one). Their presence in raising a family is needed as he brings to the table what other’s can’t. Those smarter than me say that Fathers are crucial to the self-esteem of daughters for example.
A good Father is who she starts with to pick her life mate. (I’m hoping that they pick against some of my bad habits). We try, but are fallible like anyone else, but seem to have rougher consequences in today’s environment.
I lost my father 16 years ago, but I remember our times together vividly. I remember times from when I was single digits old. I learned lessons on what to do and what not to do. We won a golf tournament together for his company. He was proud for a long time as our names, which are the same (I’m a legacy) remain together on that trophy.
The real trophy was that I got to spend time with my Dad and my kids.
I’ve been a Father now for many, many years to all 3 types; boys, girls and dogs. They have different needs and figuring out what that is sometimes the hardest part.
What is the most interesting thing for me is that I see a lot of my Dad in my Son. Some traits skip a generation. He’s a lot more like my Dad than I am. I see patterns and anyone can see how much this one is true.
I’m told that your father is one of the first steps in a relationship with God. It’s like having another father who stays with you. I hope people can just think about that rather than argue. Form your opinion as you may.
Have a happy Father’s Day. Look for a reason to celebrate an important person in your life, maybe it is you.
Think about what your Father did, even if it was just to bring you into this world,
It is the celebration of the birth of our nation. People died for our freedom to start a new country that would arguably become the greatest ever.
My mom was born on the 4th of July. Captain America, the comic book hero fittingly was also born on the 4th, in 1918.
Nothing is more patriotic to me than the Star Spangled Banner and the Stars and Stripe forever, so here they are.
God bless the USA
This is a story about my young son trying to catch the biggest fish in the pond.
Fathers do things for their children. They take them places and (try to) teach them things.
I like to fish and wanted my son to also like it so we could fish together. I made sure that we went catching instead of fishing. For those who have gone a entire day fishing without catching anything, you know what I mean.
I took him to the fishing show one year to show him around. It is a place where they sell things mostly to catch fishermen’s wallets.
We started the show by dropping quarters into a large fish tank. If the quarter glided through the water and into the shot glass at the bottom, you were a winner with the prize being your choice of worms. He won on the first try and was very excited about it.
I knew his attention span was limited so we went to the trout pond to fish. When I say pond, I mean a temporary pool filled with fish. They were mostly small trout with maybe 3 big boys in the pond (actually the big ones are female). It came complete with plastic palm trees in the middle for décor. You paid your $2 and could keep anything you caught in 5 minutes. The poles were a 4-foot stick with a short line and small hook baited with a mostly inedible piece of plastic half the size of a fingernail.
The odds are with the fish on this one. Especially when they have seen the same bait for 3 days and got fed every night.
My goal was for him to catch anything while I wanted to get enough of the small guys for dinner. I told him that any fish was a good fish.
HUNTING MOBY DICK
Never the small dreamer, he spotted the biggest fish in the pool and said he was going after it. I feared he would be disappointed as everyone threw a line at it, but I knew I could just take him through the line again and tell him to go for something catchable.
I had landed about 3 of the small fish and was well on the way to having dinner by half the time allotted. He kept trying for the big fish (nicknamed Moby Dick).
As time was counting down and I had caught enough for dinner, I heard a huge splash beside me. I looked over and sure enough, my son had hooked Moby.
My new fear was that he would be crushed if the fish spit the hook. The hooks they provided were tiny and easy for the fish get off the line. I saw it happen to every kid before us. If you didn’t get one to the side in less than 15 seconds, it was pretty much over.
This fish was almost too strong for the small stick and line we were given. Over a minute into the fight, it was still on and I knew the odds were against us.
THE FIRST CHANCE TO LOSE THE FISH
Things took a turn for the worse as his fish got wrapped around one of the plastic palm trees. In my mind, I was already preparing to console him for his loss.
I knew I had to try something. After all, I was his Dad so I reached into the tank and grabbed the palm tree. The pond monitors weren’t happy with me but it was my son.
Anyone who ever had a fish on knows that if you get slack in the line, the fish is as good as gone once the line goes taut and the sudden tension pulls the hook out of the fish’s mouth.
To my surprise, Moby stayed on despite the tree incident and he was well past 2 minutes into the fight. Time was now over for that fishing session, but since he had one on we were allowed to finish. We had an audience as everyone waiting to fish and those who just finished could see that he had a good one on.
I decided that if by chance I could get my hands on this fish that I was willing to do anything to get it for my son. I didn’t want him to be disappointed after overcoming virtually everything that could go wrong, just to lose it at the last second. This wasn’t going to be easy, as anyone who has handled a trout knows they have a coating of slime. They are as slippery as greased ice. Landing them is usually done with a net, which we weren’t allowed to use.
PANIC AT THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
I thought nothing more could go wrong, but to my horror I could see that it was foul hooked (hooked on the body rather than the mouth). My sense of the odds of landing Moby were next to nothing now.
After what seemed like a million circles in the pond, Moby came within my reach and I stuck my hand under the fish and threw it out of the pond in one swoop.
On that day, he had landed the biggest fish in the pond, a Dad was proud and a small boy became a fisherman.
Here is a picture later in life of fishing together. He learned well
This is an abstract of a piece that being the son of an air conditioning pioneer in Florida, I can relate to. Before you skip to the link, notice his comments as he contributed a great deal of the original building code for Florida in an area when this technology first was implemented.
ABSTRACT This paper explores whether the spread of air conditioning in the United States from 1960 to 1990 affected quality of life in warmer areas enough to influence decisions about where to live, or to change North-South wage and rent differentials. Using measures designed to identify climates in which air conditioning would have made the biggest difference, I found little evidence that the flow of elderly migrants to MSAs with such climates increased over the period. Following Roback (1982), I analyzed data on MSA wages, rents, and climates from 1960 to 1990, and find that the implicit price of these hot summer climates did not change significantly from 1960 to 1980, then became significantly negative in 1990. This contrary to what one would expect if air conditioning made hot summers more bearable. I presented evidence that hot summers are an inferior good, which would explain part of the negative movement in the implicit price of a hot summer, and evidence consistent with the hypothesis that the marginal person migrating from colder to hotter MSAs dislikes summer heat more than does the average resident of a hot MSA, which would also exert downward pressure on the implicit price of a hot summer.
The link is here, his comments begin now.
He told me that he felt responsible, if not guilty that the d–m yankee’s relocated to the south, especially Florida. This is particularly ironic as his parents migrated from Boston in the 1920’s, but this was decades before air conditioning. That meant he spent his childhood growing up in an unairconditioned house in central Florida, a virtual hot house and the location of near 100% humidity. As a side note, I spent a part of my childhood in an unairconditioned house also, but kids don’t care about what they don’t know. We played outside in those days.
As he was a part of the team that designed the Epcot HVAC also, tourism wouldn’t have invaded and transformed the south either. It’s too bad they didn’t figure out AC for the outdoors given the sweltering heat waiting in long lines at tourist attractions.
One can track the swelling of population to the south, particularly Florida to the invention of AC. One side of the state tends to favor the mid-west (the more polite side) and the east southeast portion is now almost a southern borough of New York City.
He reckoned that what was once a polite southern state had become a haven for the same people that gave the USA a bad name abroad for their brash manners and self centered nature. He also observed the voting dynamics being changed by the northeastern influence.
Conversely, the south would not have grown near as quickly business and tourism wise had it not been for this technological improvement. I did enjoy one of the first air conditioned houses, but the heat combined with the imported people caused me to ultimately leave as the city I departed from (in south Florida) earned it’s reputation as the rudest city in the US the year before I left.
Additionally, it did raise wages in the south, although not enough for the liking of those who moved there. It also turned sleepy little towns into booming tourist traps creating numerous jobs.
Worst of all he said was the level of complaining. While the snowbirds moved there to get out of the cold, they then complained how everything was much better from (name the state or city) and how it was so hot outside. Not the most political fellow, he invited them to move back occasionally.
One final difference was that in the south, people let you in when there is traffic. Up north it is a sport to cut someone off.
I’ve decided to that hurrying through life just doesn’t have the payback it seems. The hustle and bustle of busy work, conference calls, email and social media keep some in a coffee enhanced mode glued to their screen and missing out on life just isn’t worth it. I got to thinking about this and decided to take some stress off of things and so whenever possible, I now work on my schedule. I’ll get around to what is needed to do, but I’m not going to let it keep me up at night. I’m not as worried that my comments on social media or political diatribes that upset me really don’t matter all that much. Once you get used to this, those pesky deadlines that are mostly self inflicted become less important. After all, most of the above described issues are nuisances at best.
WHERE DO WE GET THIS CULTURE?
For many, they just can’t wait to grow up fast (not me). Then can’t wait to get promoted (partly me), can’t wait for kids to grow (not me) and finally can’t wait to retire (me even thought I’m working again, but for myself). Work seems to exacerbate it the most with demands endless meetings (Meeting = a cul-de-sac where ideas get strangled and go to die), phone calls, emails, instant messages, texts and incessant demands from bosses (the less competent usually are the worst like 3 of my last 4 before I retired, on my terms).
My last couple of Boss’s in this picture
It turns out that this extra stress can lead to brain damage.
On the social side, I have a relative with MOP (miss out phobia) who is afraid something is going to happen without her. Her sibling just doesn’t give a rats rump what others think and has far less pressure socially, but missed out on some things in life. Striking a balance is good.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article on when not to accept a promotion. There is a myriad of reasons given including family life, unrewarded extra burdens for the less than promised climb up the ladder. I personally turned down 2 promotions as they wanted me to move to New York where I would get a 30% higher cost of living, three times the responsibility that I wouldn’t be compensated for and a back stabbing culture of ladder climbers. My real reason for not doing it is that I didn’t want to raise a family there and wanted to bring them up in a better part of the country. After that, I was happy not to be there stressing out more. Since I’d already been on every rung of the ladder, the need to be at the top was less than taking care of my kids. I still managed to beat the system to be rewarded better than the curve and on my terms.
All of this adds up to the rat race. I’m not sure why I didn’t think about it before, but it’s a terrible way to go through life. Now that I think about it, I just knew that taking it easy and beating the system was the way to get ahead the right way, and not sell your soul in the process
MOUNTAIN TIME AND ISLAND TIME
Having spent time in both places, I noticed that the folks there just don’t seem to be in a rush. It truly is a New Yorker’s nightmare not to have someone jump when they say how high or to have to be busy in crisis mode over everything. Don’t get me wrong, I’m for punctuality, but these two groups set a different deadline (sometimes internally) and usually meet it. They don’t die early from stress usually.
I noticed it in the Caribbean islands first. They are not in a hurry for anything.
I then noticed it in the mountains that they get around to things..eventually. It was enough of a coincidence that I quickly connected the dots between the two.
I’M GETTING THINGS ACCOMPLISHED
To be fair, I’m busy and am accomplishing more under my own direction than when under the gun of a manager overlooking by shoulder. I’m the manager now. It’s just that I’m making the deadlines and am meeting all of them.
So I’m happier in life and wish that for others and hope that this 24/7/365 mentality doesn’t overtake your priorities. It’s corny, but true in this video below:
“Few things are more satisfying than seeing your own children have teenagers of their own.” – Doug Larson
It is now a year later and my dog is 12 today. The average lifespan of Boxer according to my vet is “around” 8-10 years, so I’m living on borrowed time.
I named her after the dog in Jonny Quest because she had a black face like the dog in the cartoon.
Since I’ve worked at home the whole time we’ve had her, she has been my day pal. Now that my son has gone off to college, she is definitely my dog and I’m very attached to her.
Recently, I watched Marley and Me and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. Fortunately, she is still full of energy and looks like she’ll be around for a while.
I’ve posted about her over 
the years, some of them being the most read entries I’ve written.
After the story of Shoep and John here is the link I am especially sensitive to her longevity and day to day life. She has had cancer surgery and still has the energy to love my family, although she is especially attached to me. It is mutual.
Here are some of the best of links:
This originally appeared 12/3/2007, but was lost during a transition to WordPress (fail there). I’m re-posting it as it was my son’s first deer. Since then he has harvested more food for us, and hat racks for the wall.
Here is the Post:
With all kudos to Brad Paisley, I took my son hunting… and here is his first deer, a nice 8 pointer. To you vegetarians, sorry, but I’m an outdoorsman and I believe in being able to take care of yourself which is growing and harvesting your food…..both meat and vegetables. After all, I love vegetarians….most of what I eat are vegetarians anyway.
It’s also because of hunting and fishing that I get to connect with my offspring. I see many parents fighting with their kids, but we’re getting to spend hours together away from the computer, video games and other distractions that are potentially harmful to teenagers. We put the deer stand together, painted it camo, grew the food plots and reaped the rewards.
We also fed a herd of 50+ animals and worked the land from scrub to ecologically very fruitful and crop producing.
As Brad says, “but what can I say at the end of the day, honey I’m still a guy” .
Most will celebrate the birth of our nation, as will I. Some are more proud of it than others, they usually are red stater’s.
For me, my Mom was born and died on July 4th, so it has a different meaning to me. Much of what I am, why I believe in God and many other things in my life are attributed to her.
She would have been 88 tomorrow, an age I may or may not see. What I do wish to see is her in my life still. For now, I’ll wait for the afterlife (read Revelation 21 on)..
Here is one of the last pictures I have of her. For now, I’ll just have to live with the day lily named after her.
Delusions of Adequacy 