Someone gunned-down George Tiller in cold blood in his church Sunday. That he happened to be an abortion clinic doctor is immaterial. Vigilante justice, retribution, and demagoguery are not roads we need go down in this country--it's been done before.
I enjoyed Memorial Day quite a bit. Our trip to Kings Island (formerly Paramount's Kings Island) was great. I would actually call it an achievement--we didn't overtire ourselves, and we never had a desire to strangle one another.
For the Combs clan, that's an achievement.
We got there at 6pm Friday, having checked-in to our excellent Courtyard Inn in Blue Ash and settled our stuff. A 20 minute wait for our Gold passes later, we were in the park and headed towards Nickelodeon, standing in awe of the new ride, Diamondback. As I've tweeted and Facebooked---WOW, what a ride. Beautiful, graceful curves--it's a transcendent beauty that's really themed the wrong way. The ride's not a snake at all, it's a tour de force of elegance and grace. A shark theme would have been better.
Anyway, so we settled into an alternating pattern--Joey would ride, then Maria would ride. Where we could, we rode all togeter. As the sun set, Whitney piped-up: "Harold hasn't gotten to ride any rides...let's let him pick one for himeself." What a woman! I picked Diamondback initially, but then I supposed the line for the Beast (a 3 minute walk away in Rivertown) would be non-existent. I was right. Beast was nearly a walk-on.
After my ride, I got a text that Maria had fallen out of the stroller and hit her head. I sprinted down the side of Kings Island (let's be honest--a Jog. I'm fat.). First Aid confirmed--no big deal, just a scrape on her head.
We stayed until the fireworks at 10, and settled in to our hotel room at 11:15.
Saturday was great, if a little flat because of the crushing # of people at KI. We were pooped by ~3:30, so we came home. Maria collapsed and began snoring even before I got the car seat buckled.
Sunday was...well...hard. Our family has a certain tolerance for one another. We love one another deeply, but we can't stand one another after a certain point. Sunday ~9am was that point.
I'll spare you the details, but we basically shipped the kids off to my Mom on Monday morning just so we could have some peace and adult time. We went to see the new Star Trek movie at Movie Tavern. Whitney seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.
Linky
Simply put, this regulation will be the end of the automobile industry (and possibly the automobile itself). They want 42mpg fleet AVERAGE? Given current regulations, the 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid gets 42mpg average. Nearly EVERY OTHER CAR on the road will underperform.
They want these regulations by 2016...understand, that's ONE GENERATION in automotive terms, given the 5-year product lifecycles the carmakers deal with. The 2011 and 2012 cars are already done and in the pipeline at this point.
Sheesh, not like the automakers had much choice. . .so they now have consumers who can't buy a car and a government that ties both hands behind their backs.
Americans won't buy cars that run on pixie farts, go 0-60 in a couple weeks, and hold 2 people. We're big people spread across a large continent who assume safe, comfortable transportation.
My prediction: The next shoe to drop is a $5/gallon tax on gasoline. That's the only way you're going to drive the meat of the bell curve to drive an imaginary-mobile like the ones this law will require. Failing that, cars produced now through 2016 will become VERY popular for a long time, much like cars made before 1973 were in the 1970's. Cars will be WORSE for a very long time, and certain market segments won't be available anymore. There'll be buyers, but no company willing to lower their CAFE to service those buyers.
Any way you slice it, it's an Extinction-Level Event for the automobile industry...
So, as anyone who's followed my blog for a year or more knows, I got motorcycle fever last spring and summer.
It all started innocently enough. I got a ride on my father in law's scooter (hey, I had the helmet already thanks to autocross, right?) It was something of a disaster--maneuvering the 600cc scooter at low speed wasn't *quite* as easy as I thought.
Long boring story later, I had full-blown fever. I took the MSF course and REALLY learned how to ride, FINE-C, the whole deal.
Then came the apodiction: "YOU WILL NOT BUY A MOTORCYCLE."
Fair enough.
Thought I had a loophole today--an ATV. Del, my carpool buddy, hatched a plan of engineering perfection. An ATV's offroad vehicle, far away from Semi's and other could-squash-you-like-a-bug stuff. Fits quite well, no?
No. They're deathtraps.
That's also a NO on Dirtbikes.
Jetski's show promise
So, Sunday, I decided to do something completely out of character--I took a nap.
My wife took one look at my cranky-pants self after church and said, "You need a Nap for Jesus."
Which is a polite way of saying, "Jesus, Harold...take a nap!"
Anyway, my bizarro dream went like this:
[Interior. Lab environment. Soft lighting, muted hum of machinery]
Serge: Hello, Harold. I'm Sergey Brin. This is Larry Page. You might know us...we founded Google.
Harold: Umm....Hi.
Serge: So, we've been studying this Twitter phenomenon for quite a few years now. What do you think of Twitter?
Harold: Oh, I like it.
Larry: Hmm...interesting.
[Harold notices he's reclined on a couch, his brain wired up to some sort of halo device]
Harold: Are you READING MY THOUGHTS?
Serge: Possibly. So, Harold, tell us how your mother laughs.
Harold: What? NO!
Serge: Nevermind...this one's uninteresting. Send him back to his bed.
[White light. Fade to black]
* * *
And, then I woke up. In my bed. :-)
Yeah, between too much House, and too much tech stuff...maybe I'm getting paranoid.
Still....FREAKY!
(Yes, I get the irony of writing this on blogger, an entity wholly controlled by Google)
I haven't blogged in forever...I guess it's just the omnipresence of Twitter and Facebook that have me being "unfaithful" to my blog.
Over the years, I've liked to record the way my day goes, just so I can look back and say, WHAT WAS I THINKING?!
A rundown of a typical day for me:
You know, growing-up I had three examples of "real life" to go by: My mom, my Dad, and my Aunt Norie. Each led vastly different lives: Mom was a schoolteacher; Dad was a travelling salesman; and Norie did payroll for the local office of the D.O.T.
Like most schoolteachers, Mom's life existed on two levels--the "regular" hours that looked so attractive, and the reality. On paper, it was a sweet enough deal: Work 7 to 2, 5 days a week, get Summer Vacation and lots of "snow days". Reality wasn't so rosy, with Mom doing lesson plans in her off time, grading papers 'til the wee hours of the morning, and running extra-curriculars all the time.
So yeah, I didn't want to be a teacher.
Dad's job wasn't just bad--it was an anathema. He was gone 10 to 14 hours every day selling groceries to every God-forsaken grocery store in Eastern Kentucky. He put 50,000 miles per year on his car, and only got off on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Actually, scratch that--he would work the following Saturday to make up for the time off. He never got a day off. He never made it to any of my important events.
Yeah, I didn't want that either.
So, Norie--office work in an air-conditioned building from 7:30 to 4:30 every day, with an hour's worth of lunch and never any work to take home. Pay wasn't that great, but it seemed like easy (if mundane) work. Granted, she existed oh the whim of her Benefactor, the all powerful S.F., who would later become the center of the infamous "Blackberry Jam" scandal that brought down the Fletcher administration. And, she was in a female-only profession surrounded by a bunch of catty wide-bottomed women.
Still, this office-work gig seemed to show promise.
The reality? Soul-sucking and ugly. As one Philosopher once opined to me:
This is crap, Harold. I write emails all day, write reports, write test plans. Who does it help? Shuffling paper isn't what life's about!! It's about helping people!
Linky
Oh, Jim Carrey, how far and hard you've fallen.
Last night, Whitney and I RedBox'd Yes Man, a movie completely devoid of plot. Plot: A progression of a story through introduction, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution (denoument).
Yeah, this story has none. It has a terrific *premise*, that of a man who is stuck in a rut until he magically transforms into a guy who can't lie and hilarity ensues (wait, that's that other movie by the same guy). No, this time, he's a guy who can't say 'Yes,' until he goes to a life-changing "Say Yes" seminar taught by General Zod.
After this, he experiences a Benny Hinn-style conversion, saying "yes" to everything. Compulsively.
And that's pretty much the movie. Back the truck up, there's no plot from that premise on in. Oh, there's lots of peripheral characters, vignettes, and sketches, but it's much closer to "Kentucky Fried Movie" than "Citizen Kane."
On the BRIGHT side, my gal Zooey is in it and SINGING!
Zooey reminds me very much of my beloved Bella--awesome eyes, great smile, mischief and fun just lurking below the surface. And I like hearing both of 'em sing.
Perhaps Cal's a bargain at that price.
However, when I look at the budget presentation here, I see a $2.2 Billion budget for the University of Kentucky (slide 5). Calipari's $4,375,000 per year is right at 0.2% of the total budget. A pittance? Again, perhaps.
However, when we flip over to slide 11, notice a budget slashed to meet declining revenue projections, with 188 positions eliminated.
It makes me sick to my stomach to read the last slide, Dr. Todd's valediction to those whose education become unaffordable, and those staff who lost their jobs:
The budget before you is far from perfect. There is pain here
that no one seeks and no one deserves. In it lies the sacrifice of
our students, who will pay more tuition. In it too lies the
sacrifice of our faculty and staff, who will not see their pay
increase.
Too long for a tweet, to short for proper blog. Here goes:
On Gillespie
Yes, you woke up the next day, and Billy Clyde Gillespie is really gone. He's trying to "win" the breakup, showing the world his smiling public face, but make no mistake--you hurt him. You took him right off the turnip truck, threw him in front of the most rabid fan base this side of Notre Dame football, and now he'll be laughing all the way to the bank as he deposits $6 million. I'm no lawyer, but I think that's what that "Memorandum of Understanding" implies.
I hate this state sometimes. We generate illiterate sheeple via our public education system, we're closing down higher education programs left and right, and we have to pay someone $6 million TO LEAVE. Brilliant!
* * *
On Corporate Jargon
My wife hates corporate jargon. And general wordiness. And fuzzy-logical things. I laid this gem on her last night:
Plans are useless, planning is essential -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
