If you’re polite, you can get away with being incompetent

Sonofabitch! We’ve been Arkied again.

We initiated a refinance of our mortgage back in April with the bank that handled the initial mortgage in 2007.

I’ve checked with the bank a couple of times since then to find out if we have a closing date set and both times I was told they are really backed up because so many people are taking advantage of the lower interest rates, but that closing would probably be in a couple of weeks.

This being the second week of June and six weeks since we completed the necessary paperwork on our end of the deal, I’m growing increasingly impatient. I want to make travel plans for the next couple of months, but I’m being held hostage by the uncertainty of a closing date. I don’t want to be jerked back from some distant location for closing on the refi.

So I called the bank – which I will mercifully allow to remain unnamed - again this morning. The young woman who took my call pulled our file and told me they were still waiting for verification of Maria’s employment and copies of our driver’s licenses and Social Security cards. And since it has been so long since they got a copy of Maria’s paycheck stub, they need a more recent copy of that too.

WTF?

I distinctly remember the loan officer making copies of our licenses and SS cards.

I emailed this info to Maria and she called me a few minutes later to say she had just gotten off the phone with the woman at the bank after ascertaining that her employer never received the FAX requesting the verification of employment.

And, the 4.5% interest rate we locked in back in April is due to expire on Monday. Interest rates, of course, have risen significantly since then. She told Maria we can file for an extension of the 4.5% on Monday and probably keep it.

So, had we not inquired today, the car most certainly would have gone over the cliff and we would have lost our low interest rate because these people are so fucking stupid that they can’t pick up the phone and let us know they need more documentation. Some of it to replace items that we already provided and they lost.

The woman we spoke with said she just got back from maternity leave and nobody was doing her job in her absence. I learned a long time ago that there is no such thing as a good excuse and this is a classic example of that.

(

So now I have to run home and get Maria’s most recent  paycheck stub and take it and the other stuff to the bank and do my level best to restrain my rage over their incompetence and bungling.

And they, of course, will try to cover it all by being oh-so nice. That’s how it works around here. People screw up left and right, then use cheerfulness and politeness as a shield so you feel like a jerk if you unload on them.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lifelong friend Susan Kent Crumbo (she's second from right in the front row of my 6th grade birthday photo in the "Chick Magnet" blogpost earlier this month), writes:
As a mortgage lender, I can only laugh at your trials. What bullshit. A decent lender would have done a better job with her documents and you would have closed a long time ago. Dont let that rate go! Tell them that it is not your fault that they cant keep track of your docs and you are not going to pay to extend your lock. You want a free extension. Rates have gone up so dont let go of it.

Happy Birthday, Maria!

Today is my wife Maria's birthday. She continues to impress me every day with her wit, strength, and intelligence.

Lunch

Lunch today was at Lazzari's, an Italian restaurant that has a great all-you-can-eat bread, soup, and salad lunch special.

Why fewer people trust the news media

Phil Bronstein – hardly a right-winger – articulates what the rest of us responsible journalists have been thinking in this piece on sfgate.com:

When Barack Obama decided that questions from the German press about his trip agenda in that country were too pesky, he told the reporters, "So, stop it all of you!" He just wanted them to ask things he wanted to talk about. Well, what politico wouldn't want that?

OK, dad. We'll behave.

And according to a new Pew Research Center poll, we are behaving...like fans. On domestic press, it showed that "President Barack Obama has enjoyed substantially more positive media coverage than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush during their first months in the White House" with "roughly twice as much" Obama coverage about his "personal or leadership qualities" than was the case for either previous president.

Back in the US, NBC's Brian Williams' two-part "Living Large With the Top Dog" feature on Mr. Obama's life included a plug for Conan O'Brien's new show and mention of cable talkies where Mr. Obama only cited MSNBC personalities. Accident? I don't think so. There were a few probing moments in there, but they were overshadowed by the flash of hanging out in the back of the Auto One limo and having burgers. A little navel-gazing among journalism standards hall monitors about whether the thing had been too soft came and went.

Then, this Sunday in the NYTimes, there was full-on chick-flick swooning over Barack and Michelle Obama's heavily scented "date night" in NY City and its high bar standard effect on our relationship culture, with just a hint of controversy over the taxpayer costs to add some spice. I swear I've seen this movie, only Michael Douglas was the President. Or Harrison Ford. Or one of those cool and languid characters you'd want to like you. George Bush needed to be beer-bar likable to get elected. His successor has managed to get a lot of people to want to be liked by him.

And in Paris, Mr. Obama talked about how he'd love to take his wife for a romantic tour of the City of Lovers, but couldn't. Then he did. I'm guessing some regular-Joe freedom fries weren't on the menu.

This guy is good. Really good. And, frankly, so far, we're not.

You can't blame powerful people for wanting to play the press to peddle self-perpetuating mythology. But you can blame the press, already suffocating under a massive pile of blame, guilt, heavy debt and sinking fortunes, for being played. Some of the time, it seems we're even enthusiastically jumping into the pond without even being pushed. Is there an actual limit to the number of instances you can be the cover of Newsweek?

If I wanted to see highly manicured image management I'd just take some No-Doz and readGavin Newsom's tweets. But the Obama-press dance is a more consensual seduction where, in the old-fashioned sense, we're the girl. (In California, there's no other option.)

I thought that the Maxfield Parrish, heroic days of the Kennedy Administration PR, where the press and the president were pretty much all in on the same screenplay and the same jokes, couldn't happen in our modern era, what with paparazzi and tabloids and talk shows, citizen sound-bite scavengers and voracious 24/7 news cycles. But now that the stumbling Bushes and smirking Clintons are out of the White House, time has compressed back on itself like the machine in the Denzel Washington movie, "Deja Vu." It's the early 1960s and Camelot all over again:

Very attractive wife, cute, precocious kids and the hopes and dreams of at least 63 percent of the population sitting on the athletic shoulders of a young, charismatic, mold-breaking leader, Blah, blah. (Oh, and a Chicago Mayor Richard Daley helped make it possible. We can play the Lincoln-Kennedy parallels game here.) Only there's a puppy now instead of a pony and it seems like Barack Obama may be less socially, self-destructively libertine than Mr. Kennedy. In fact, he's downright conservative on things like same-sex marriage. (It's smart to have a wholesome life -- though very clearly, in the sinuous world of the Obamas, not to the point of abstinence -- when you're pushing programs that get labeled as socialist.)

So we're in love, lust, or just a whole lot of like. Clearly we get something in exchange, whether it's a little reflected exuberance, a sense of history or just some very minor role in a fun movie. If you want to appear in a movie with John Travolta, you go willingly with him to the LA Scientology Center and are happy about it. "I'm clear, man. Hand me the cans."

I'm not sure Mr. Obama is necessarily getting away with anything here. In Cairo, when he spoke of the "principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings," more than a few writers pointed out that this meant unless you're the Egyptian government or two gay people wanting to get married. What the President was saying overseas, to mostly purplish commentators' delight over the symbolic significance of the event, Dick Cheney was actually meaning in his own "freedom means freedom for everyone" speech about same-sex weddings.

The style-over-substance hit followed him from continent to continent. "While the president is popular among Europeans," the Wall Street Journal wrote, "he returned from his second trip to Europe with little more progress on key issues" than he got on his first visit. That's the Journal. But the Washington Post, where the John Kennedy myth was nurtured like a golden statue, managed a cautionary op-ed column from Robert Samuelson warning that "our political system works best when a president faces checks on his power." He meant checks from the press.

Samuelson was one of the few in the media to give some room to the Pew Research Center poll.

So far, this is all about image and character and press "opportunities." But with what CNN medical reporter Elizabeth Cohen called this morning "gazillions of dollars" of our money at stake and crazy people with nukes bristling from around the edges of the world, we can't afford not to keep a closer eye on the substance thing.

Posted By: Phil Bronstein (Email)

Spills?

Can anyone tell me what this means?

It's one of those odd, cryptic notices posted on the bulletin board at our small town post office.

I've spent the last couple of days trying to puzzle out a meaning from "We laydown spills." I'm stumped and may be forced to call Mary and ask her.

Today’s t-shirt

Today’s t-shirt celebrates Hammerhead Ale and came from the Barley Mill Pub in Portland, Ore.

The Barley Mill Pub at 1629 SE Hawthorne has a Grateful Dead decor and is the oldest of the McMinnaman’s chain of cool bars and pubs. The Hammerhead Ale is excellent. So is the Terminator Stout.

I love the hammerhead guy. Sorta reminiscent of the imagery in the  Pink Floyd “The Wall” movie.

I’m reasonably sure it’s the only shirt of its kind in Craighead County, Ark.

Don't let 'em steel your identity

Every day is a new adventure if you're paying attention.

Our small town post office has a bulletin board where anyone can post a for-sale notice or religious tract or event notice.

I noticed this semi-literate warning about trash collectors rooting through trash bags the other day.

Today was trash collection day in our neighborhood, so I was ready with my WWII German Army Leitz 15x60 binoculars. I watched the trash collector's every move as he dumped our trash container, then or neighbor's, into the hopper truck and pulled the compactor lever without giving the stuff a second glance. Either it's not a problem or these guys got the word.

Today's trip to the post office also yielded these gems: 

And just to make my post office trip complete, I stopped at the new convenience store/Subway for lunch.

The girl making my 6-inch roast beef was painfully slow, tried to put grilled chicken on my sandwich, struggled with the lid on the oregano container (they all do - I look forward to it now) and tried to charge me $9.41 for a 6-inch roast beef sandwich and a cup for water.

After I objected, a coworker helped her ring it up properly for $4.28. Her manager watched the whole thing over the girls' shoulders and said nothing. No apologies. Just the reflexive, "Have a noss day."

Noss.

I would have said "bullshit" instead of "baloney," but that's just me...

(alleyinsider.com) -- The Burger King in Tennessee that says "Global Warming Is Baloney" went on the record to defend itself with Leo Hickman of the Guardian. What followed was "one of the more memorable calls" Hickman's ever had as a journalist.

The franchise remains defiant, saying, "We're not sheeple around here, and while Barack Obama would like to have you believe that no one is entitled to have a view other than his, if someone wants to stand up and say "Global Warming is Baloney," then I'm all for it."

If you missed this story, here's a catch-up. Chris Davis, a reporter for the Memphis Flyer, spotted a Burger King blaring "Global Warming Is Baloney" on its sign early last week. When he called the franchise to ask about the sign, the franchise played dumb, saying "I don't see that sir." The reporter told them he had photos of the sign. The franchise didn't know what to say to that, and told him to call Burger King's corporate HQ. Here's the full transcript.

The story gained traction across the web, moving from the Memphis Flyer to the Guardian to HuffPo, eventually landing on Keith Olbermann's show, where Olbermann included the Burger King franchise, in his "Worst Person Ever" schtick.

Yet, the parent company of the local franchise, Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC), wasn't willing to talk with reporters until yesterday, when Leo Hickman of the Guardian got J.J. McNelis, MIC's marketing president, on the phone and asked about the sign.

GUARDIAN: Me: BK Corp issued a statement saying that 'global warming is baloney' wasn't their view and that they had asked you to take them down. Is that your understanding of it?

McNelis: I can't speak for them. I would think they would run from any form of controversy kinda like cockroaches when the lights get turned on. I'm not aware of any direction that they gave the franchisee and I don't think they have the authority to do it. The franchisee can put on a sign whatever he wants.

Me: They're saying that within the terms of the franchisee contract it says something along the lines that signs outside a restaurant can't be used to express any political or religious views.

McNelis: Well, it maybe a religious belief for some folks, but it's certainly not for the franchisee here and I don't think that it's necessarily political either. But I have to tell you that I don't read the franchise agreement with regularity or else I would have a bad case of insomnia.

Me: There have been some comments made about how MIC-owned Burger Kings all have Fox News playing inside them on TV sets. Is that correct?

McNelis: I can't say that it's correct. I do know that there are TV sets in a lot of the restaurants. In fact, they very well maybe on Fox News but if you are asking me that's a mandate of some sort I would think that's not true.

Me: So your reaction to this whole story that's now gone around the world is bemusement and amusement?

McNelis: It certainly shows the power of Internet communications and the society we live in, that it would even get played over across the pond.

Me: Apparently, it even featured on MSNBC....

McNelis: I heard it even made that Keith Olbermann show which is, gosh, a real coup. A small franchisee over in Memphis, Tennessee, can be the "Worst Person in the World." If that's the case then we've got a pretty good damn thing going.

Me: Are you not a fan of the show?

McNelis: Well, the technology now allows that anyone with a microphone can make a complete idiot of themselves and I'm sure given the opportunity I might do it myself. No, we don't pay any attention to that. The corollary to the comment I've just made is that obviously this is today's news and tomorrow they'll be talking about something else whether it's what Barack Obama is apologizing for over in Cairo, or any other number of things, and we'll look at this in the rear-view mirror and be movin' on.

Me: So to clarify, it wasn't MIC policy to put up these signs? It was just down to individual managers in each restaurant?

McNelis: I don't know. Sometimes it's like a wild fire in the west – things spread around and all kinds of stuff goes on. But it certainly got some folks' attention.

Me: Some people have been telling Memphis papers that they've seen the signs at a dozen or so sites.

McNelis: Well, they're 40-odd restaurants in the franchise so that wouldn't surprise me at all.

Me: But that suggests that it might have come from some sort of central memo to put these signs up?

McNelis: It's kinda like the old movie the Wizard of Oz; there's somebody back there behind the curtain turning the dials or something. I haven't had a chance because I don't have a little dog pulling on it.

Me: So, there's wasn't a memo?

McNelis: I don't know that. I'm just not privy to that kind of discussion. I grew up in the Watergate era so there may have been some guys in the back room scheming and plotting but I don't think any one is trying to take over the world with this thing.

Me: BK Corp are saying that they've demanded that these signs get taken down and that they have now been taken down...

McNelis: Burger King can tell me to use my left hand when I scratch my nose instead of my right but that doesn't mean I'm going to use my right. They can say whatever they want. The management team can put the message up there if they want to. It is private property and over here in the US we do have some rights, not withstanding a franchise agreement that I could load a Brinks vehicle with I've got so many of them. By the time the BK lawyers work out how to make that stick we'd be in the year 2020. I don't think the franchisees are particularly concerned about that. BK can bluster all they want about what they can tell the franchisee to do but we have free speech rights in this country so I don't think there's any concerns. Don't come away from this conversation with the impression that the franchisee did anything because the BK Corporation told him he had to. They're only printed words on paper. The contract is only as strong as the ability to enforce it. Some things can be enforced, other things can't. I know BK would like to have you believe they have the authority and the willingness to make us do all kinds of different things, but that's not how the world works.

Me: Have you been using these road-side signs for years to display such messages?

McNelis: I think that just about any restaurant that gets opened that has the ability to have one of these signs has one as they are used for marketing messages and any number of different things – new promotions, say, or "Happy Birthday George Bush", or "Open Christmas Day".

Me: But "Global Warming is Baloney" is certainly a different sort of message, a more political viewpoint?

McNelis: I would agree that it's a viewpoint, but not necessarily a political one. But we're not sheeple around here, and while Barack Obama would like to have you believe that no one is entitled to have a view other than his, if someone wants to stand up and say "Global Warming is Baloney," then I'm all for it. It doesn't matter to me, whether I believe in it or not. They have first amendment rights to say whatever's on their mind. And nobody dictates otherwise.

Here are MIC's Burger King locations. If you agree with the message, back it up with a purchase:

Arkansas

• 2400 N. Washington St., Forrest City, Ark.
• 433 W. Broadway, West Memphis, Ark.
• 216 I-40 Service Rd., West Memphis, Ark.
• 1771 N. Fall Blvd., Wynne, Ark.

Tennessee

• 6700 Stage Rd., Bartlett, Tenn.
• 607 Market St., Bolivar, Tenn.
• 318 E. Main St., Brownsville, Tenn.
• 1250 Poplar Ave., Collierville, Tenn.
• 1765 Germantown Pkwy., Cordova, Tenn.
• 809 Highway 51 N., Covington, Tenn.
• 810 Hwy. 51 Bypass W., Dyersburg, Tenn.
• 2510 Central, Humboldt, Tenn.
• 854 University St., Martin, Tenn.
• 4663 Navy Rd., Millington, Tenn.
• 1985 Brooks Road, Memphis
• 3344 Austin Peay Hwy., Memphis
• 4810 Poplar Ave., Memphis
• 6869 Winchester Rd., Memphis
• 1027 Union Ave., Memphis
• 4628 Summer Ave., Memphis
• 2090 Union Ave., Memphis
• 3966 Park Ave., Memphis
• 3591 Hwy. 78, Memphis
• 2881 Covington Pike, Memphis
• 4711 Milbranch, Memphis
• 3795 E. Shelby Dr., Memphis
• 1330 Poplar Ave., Memphis
• 3951 New Covington Pike, Memphis
• 6428 E. Shelby Dr., Memphis
• 2912 Hickory Hill, Memphis
• 2641 N. Hollywood, Memphis
• 6646 Poplar Ave., Memphis
• 1360 Sycamore View, Memphis
• 1920 Whitten Rd., Memphis
• 8535 Hwy. 64, Memphis
• 1016 Mineral Wells Ave., Paris, Tenn.
• 1700 W. Reelfoot Ave., Union City, Tenn.

Mississippi

• 101 Lakewood Dr., Batesville, Miss.
• 7485 Goodman Rd., Olive Branch, Miss.
• 1804 W. Jackson, Oxford, Miss.
• 1741 University Ave. E., Oxford, Miss.
• 5101 Highway 51, Senatobia, Miss.
• 150 Goodman Rd., Southaven, Miss.
• 313 Stateline Road W., Southaven, Miss.

Good news for me

Rostock, Germany, June 2: An interesting study by German experts revealed that men who marry younger women enhance their chances of longevity, and those who tie the knot with older women meet a premature death.

The analysis was carried by the leading study group Max Planck Institute that looked at the deaths of the entire population of Denmark between 1990 and 2005.

According to the research, if a man marries a woman 15 and 17 years his junior, his chances of dying early are cut by one fifth. Also, it suggests that men cut the risk of premature death by 11 percent if their wives are seven to nine years younger.

Another aspect highlighted by the study was that men who opted for older wives have an 11 percent higher chance of dying earlier.

The researchers reckon that a plausible explanation for the link between younger brides and longevity for older men could be natural selection. It is possible that younger women are attracted to healthier, stronger and more successful older men, who are naturally predisposed to longevity, as their marriage partners.

For us, it's an 18-year-difference. Heh, heh.

What they really meant to say

People just get uglier and I have no sense of time

The guys at Gateway Tire told Austin they'd jump right on his car service if he brought it in early today.

Maria and I were sitting on the back porch - she enjoying a late breakfast and me surfing the Internet - when he made his first appearance of the day about 11:15 a.m.

So I drove down to Gateway Tire to give him a ride home while the worked on his car and found myself sitting in front of the place at noon, waiting for him to make the necessary arrangements.

Naturally, several jobs had jumped in front of his and he will probably not get his car back until tomorrow.

Wandering the Americas with Rick Nelson

My Indianapolis BMW Club friend Rick Nelson left home on Jan. 31 on his Wandering the Americas Tour.

So far, he's posted entries from Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, various points in Mexico, Belize, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Iowa, and most recently Minnesota.

Rick is an excellent writer and he posts great photos to illustrate his travel blog. If you like travel, especially motorcycle travel, and particularly BMW motorcycle touring, check it out here.

I also added a link over there on the right side of the page.

Rally season is upon us

This is the first BMW rally t-shirt I’ve ever owned that I bought before the event. More than two months before the event, in this case.

The event is the 2009 BMW Bash, a July 3-4 rally at the Hub Motorcycle Motel and Campground in Marble Falls, Ark. It’s sponsored by these 10 BMW dealers:

• Grass Roots BMW – Cape Girardeau, Mo.
• Engle Motors – Kansas City, Mo.
• BMW Triumph Vespa of Little Rock, Ark.
• Gateway BMW Motorcycles – St. Louis, Mo.
• Gina’s BMW Motorcycles – Iowa City, Ia.
• BMW Motorcycles of Omaha, Neb.
• BMW Motorcycles of Oklahoma –Oklahoma City, Ok.
• Roadhouse Motorsports – Tulsa, Ok.
• Shreveport Motor Sports – Shreveport, La.
• Bentonville BMW – Bentonville, Ark.

All 10 dealers began selling the t-shirts well in advance, declaring the $20 price is a donation to charity. I got mine at the Little Rock dealership on April 24 when I went for a day ride to Hot Springs.

The official web site describes the rally thus:

Come and ride with us July 4th weekend in northwest Arkansas. All brands are welcome to ride in and join the good time at The Hub Motorcycle Motel and Campground located in beautiful Marble Falls, Arkansas. Experience some of the finest motorcycle roads in the USA.

Saturday night barbecue while it lasts, self guided tours. This is a no frills event, nightly campfire, on site restaurant, Saturday night band. Over 500 motel rooms available in the area.

Google Maps says Marble Falls is 195 miles from here – 4 hours 18 minutes on Arkansas’s dubious highway system. Weather and other circumstances permitting, I think I’ll go.

Attempted dog grooming

It’s been more than a year since Ruthie the Wonder Dog has been to the groomer and she was getting as woolly as a sheep.

So I got out the Wahl trimmer today and, with Austin’s help, did some dog shearing on the back porch.

I spent several minutes working somewhat fruitlessly with a quarter-inch blade guard. The I decided to dispense with blade guards and attack her with the naked clippers. It has a couple of depth settings, so I set it for maximum clearance and gingerly started doing some serious cutting.

Ruthie was a remarkably good sport about it, but our technique leaves much to be desired and she has a definite patchy appearance that needs some touching up in a day or two.

Here’s how she looks with a professional trim done last spring at Petco.

Courthouse connections

I've seen a lot of courthouses in my life - not nearly as many as BMW rider Bob Higdon who last year completed a five-year quest to photograph all 3,069 courthouses in the continental U.S. - but enough to know that the Carroll County Courthouse in Delphi, Ind. is one of my favorites.

Architects have called it one of the most beautiful small courthouses in Indiana. I love its simple elegance, its rotunda and stained glass skylight.

My personal connection, besides whatever records bear my name in the clerk's office or recorder's office, is the fact that my father participated in the cornerstone-laying ceremonies back in 1916.

My grandfather, Irvin Flora, was the Democrat Township Trustee and was invited to march in the parade leading up to the cornerstone laying. My dad was 6 at the time and refused to leave grandpa's side. So when it came time to toss the Democrat Township history into the cornerstone time capsule, grandpa handed it to dad and my father did the honors. That's the cornerstone I'm standing next to in the top photo.

Here are some more views of my favorite courthouse:

More memory for the Mini 9

The 8 GB capacity of the SSD (Solid State Drive) is the Achilles heel of my Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook.

There are bigger SSDs out there, but they're not cheap. The easier fix is to add a flash drive or two. I've been using an 8 GB SanDisk flash drive to hold all of the photos I shoot on the road, as well as anything else I download with the Mini 9, so that nothing but essential programs gets onto the internal SSD.

An Office Depot sale flyer caught my attention this week, advertising a too-tempting deal on the SanDisk Ultra Backup 16 GB flash drive which, when paired with my 8 GB flash drive, should give me plenty of storage for photos from the road. It has the added feature of providing password protected encryption of the stored files.

This should do quite nicely until 32 GB flash drives drop into this price range in 12-18 months.

Shopping at Mr. T’s

We made a run across the Missouri line last night to stock up on cheap wine at Mr. T’s.

From time to time, they discount $10-25 bottles of wine and sell them for $5. We brought home 10 bottles of New Zealand, Australia and California.

And Austin used his Indiana unemployment debit card to buy a six-pack of Sam Adams Pale Ale.

Chick magnet

It’s July 14, 1951 and it’s my sixth birthday party. This was shot in our back yard at 609 E. Franklin St., Delphi, Ind.

Even then, I knew where to be.

The kids are Jack Klepinge, Bill and Jim Wasson, Walter Popejoy, Bill Blythe and Bill (now Will) Sieber, Nancy Jackson, Sally Kent, me, Susan Kent, and Jeannie Taylor.

We lived in that house until the sprint of my third grade year when we moved to 917 E. Columbia.

Snike!

Knowing my aversion to snakes, my son Steve rattled my cage this morning with this photo of granddaughter Lisa and a constrictor of some type that is big enough to have her for lunch.

“Just for you, Dad ;-),” was the message.

Maria’s comment was, “She's so darned cute. And braver than you too.”

Right on both counts. Her dad was crazy berserker brave when he was a kid. He scared the shit out of his mother and me many times, including when he climbed to the top of a 60-foot-high pine tree in the back yard.

It’s easy to see where she gets it.

Woo-freaking-hoo!

At long last, Austin’s unemployment account debit card showed up in our post office box this morning.

Minutes after I returned home and handed it to him, he was off with a to-do list that included:

• Shifting the balance from the debit card account to his local checking account.
• Buying a fish tank water filter for his pet turtle.
• Registering and plating his car.
• Getting an oil change and new points, plugs and spark plug wires.

I’m sure he wants his own life back as much as we want ours and this gives him the freedom to get out of the house and do stuff.

I guess one good thing about being invested in other people’s problems is being able to feel elation and relief when things finally come right.

By the Time I Get to Flagstaff

The 10,000-plus songs on my iPod include Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.”

It came up in the shuffle rotation a few minutes ago and I found myself questioning the route.

Assuming Glen is dumping his girlfriend in Los Angeles and the reference to Oklahoma is the farthest point east mentioned in the song, Phoenix is kinda out of the way.

Google Maps puts the driving distance from L.A. to Oklahoma City at 1,386 miles or 19 hours and 44 minutes via I-10 to Phoenix, then up I-17 to Flagstaff, and then on to the referenced Albuquerque waypoint where you take I-40 the rest of the way to OKC.

But the more logical route – 1,332 miles and about an hour shorter – is I-15 up to I-40 at Barstow and then blaze east to OKC.

So if songwriter Jimmy Webb had Google Maps or GPS back in 1965, he might have written “By the Time I Get to Flagstaff.”

(That, of course, assumes all of the above mentioned Interstate highways existed in 1965. Not sure about that. I know that I-70 from Indianapolis to Terre Haute, Ind., didn’t open until the late 1960s.)

Meanwhile, back at Books-A-Million

The Honda service guys weren’t able to fix the overheating problem, as I expected, because they couldn’t make it happen on such a cool morning. Their advice: bring the car in while the overheating is happening. Ok. I will.

And after weeks of thrashing around and innumerable phone calls, Austin finally sorted out what’s happening with his unemployment insurance payments. He still doesn’t have any money in hand, but he knows what the deal is. We think.

Turns out that the money goes into an account that he can access with a debit card. There is no check. Just a debit card. Which we have yet to see.

But he was told it could take 7-10 days from the time the money is released. It was released a week ago today, so the post office box vigil will continue.

The good news is that three payments have been put into the account, totaling about $670.

And, he got called in for a job interview at a construction company this morning. That’s the first encouraging event on the job search front and we remain guardedly optimistic.

At the Honda dealership

I’m in the Honda of Jonesboro waiting room, having turned my ‘94 del Sol over to the service department for an oil change and lube job and to diagnose and fix the overheating problem.

Naturally, it’s a cool and rainy morning so it will be impossible to replicate the overheating that only happens when the temperature is over 90 degrees. And my car was built before they started putting diagnostic computer ports into cars as standard equipment.

There are no convenient power outlets or Wifi here, so I’m on battery and the Sprint broadband connection.

Future music from the past

I sold this CD on Amazon.com today for $12 and change. I bought the original vinyl album back in 1961 when I was in high school. Our concert band was struggling with Pentagon (Track 9) and I was keen to hear how it was supposed to sound. Pentagon, as the name suggests, is in 5/4 time and it was our first and only adventure into that oddball time signature.
I still have the vinyl LP and I bought the CD when I discovered it a few years ago.
It's part of the RCA "Stereo Action" series where instruments float from left to right and back again, just to make sure you notice it's not in mono.
Band leader Bernie Green conceived of the compositions as a vision of what popular music would sound like in the far-off future year of 1970.
Seen in that light, the music is laughable. But laughing is fun and some of the music is very catchy in an Esquivel-like way.
Bernie obviously didn't anticipate disco and the other musical trends of the '70s. He didn't even come close.
But that's beside the point. This CD is a valuable addition to any serious audiophile's library.

Gas pains

I got home about 2:45 p.m. and noticed Austin's car was gone.

I supposed he was out beating the bushes for a job.

About 3 p.m., he called to say he was down at the newspaper office where he had hitchhiked after his car died on U.S. 49. About a mile past a gas station where he could have taken on fuel.

And he was out of gas.

"With every other car I've had, you still had some gas left after the needle got to the empty mark. You were only out of gas when it actually got to the E."

Uh-huh.

So I grabbed a 5 gallon gas can, filled it en route, picked him up at the newspaper office and drove back to where his car had died, just south of the Brookland stoplight.

He dumped the gas into the tank, fired up the engine and was on his way.

Change of venue

I’m hanging with this bunch of juvenile delinquents at Books-A-Million, running on battery power, but using real Wifi.

Austin has been laid off more than four weeks. He filed for unemployment assistance immediately and, as of this morning’s mail, he has yet to receive his first check. He had a telephone conversation with the Indiana Workforce people last Thursday and was assured that his check would be mailed immediately.

He’s in his fifth week under our roof. (The original plan was to get him a job and an apartment inside of two weeks.) He’s got some prospects, but no offers yet and obviously he can’t rent an apartment until he has a job or some reliable form of income.

It’s a damned good thing he had us to turn to, because he’d be starving and homeless if he waited on the unemployment payments to kick in.

I’m glad we’re able to help him. He’s cheerful and helpful to a fault,  but I’m also ready to return to Empty Nest Status.

I’ll be blogging from Honda of Jonesboro tomorrow morning while I wait for the service department to do an oil and lube job and track down the overheating problem.

The earliest my eye doc can see me is June 22.

I’d like to take a bike trip in the next couple of weeks, but I’m being held hostage by the mortgage refinancing process that we set in motion six weeks ago today. The banker told us it would be “a couple of weeks” until closing. On April 29.

So I feel like I’m watching another riding season slip away. I don’t like the feeling.

The Wifi Chronicles (continued)

Somebody has a problem – it’s either Hastings or me.

I’ve tried repeatedly to log into their free Wifi and keep getting an error message, something about an invalid certificate.

I got it with Chrome and Internet Explorer and also with IE logged onto my Mini 9 as Maria.

So I whipped out my Sprint cell phone and hooked up via the Sprint Broadband system.

I haven’t asked any of the employees about it because I’m not in the mood today for blank stares.

Considering that there is no one else in her with a laptop, it may be reasonable to suppose the Wifi is on the fritz again.

So I guess I’ll go somewhere else.

Working on it

I'm trying to think of something remotely interesting (to me) to blog today.

Don't worry, I'll think of something.

Check back later.

Reflections

It’s 89 degrees with a heat index of 91 here in our corner of the Mid-South. It got up toward the mid-90s yesterday.

It got insanely hot here last summer and will turn hellishly hot here in another month or so.

We soldiered through it last summer, but now that I’m hauling a laptop/netbook computer with me most of the time when I go into town, I figured it was finally time to invest in a windshield reflector and turn down the oven that my black del Sol becomes in the summer sun.

So I went to Advance Auto Parts after lunch and picked up a couple of reflectors – one for the del Sol and one for the Subaru. I deployed one in the del Sol a few minutes ago before I came in to Hastings to catch up on my coffee and Internet surfing. I’ll be interested to see how much cooler it keeps the car.

And, yes, the car is in desperate need of repainting. The ravages of 15 years of sun, snow, road salt and other insults are showing. My once-beautiful del Sol has taken on the appearance of a beater, complete with blasted-out paint, bubbling window tint film, and numerous parking lot door dings. But with more than 210,000 mile on the odometer, it runs pretty much as well as it did when new. My biggest mechanical complaint is that the temperature gauge soars into the scary-hot range on days when the mercury is above 90. It needs some time in the Honda service department and may be a radiator flush.

Going postal

In line at the post office.

Seems like a good idea

Could be time to load the bike and get out of town.

Seemed like a good idea...

They were blowing out pool noodles at Kroger today, so we bought one as a dog toy. Pete sniffed it and Ruthie completely ignored it.

How does your state rank?

Despite my experience over the past 19 months, Arkansas drivers apparently aren’t all that bad. In fact, one recent study ranks them ahead of Indiana.

GMAC Insurance has released the results of its National Drivers Test for 2009. The test, which measures basic knowledge of driving laws, was given to more than 5,000 drivers from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Idaho and Wisconsin drivers ranked first and New Yorkers finished last.

Idaho and Wisconsin drivers tied for the highest average score, with an 80.6.

The point of the test is to measure how much we know about safe driving. And the news isn't good.

In a press release, GMAC explains, "Results from the 2009 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test released today found that 20.1 percent of licensed Americans - amounting to roughly 41 million drivers on the road - would not pass a written drivers test exam if taken today." Most of us have trouble, according to the results, with "questions about yellow lights and safe following distances."

The survey has been given for five years. The average score has fluctuated up and down during that time, but this year it is down - 76.6 percent versus last year's 78.1.

GMAC notes, "In general, geographical regions ranked similarly to previous years, with the lowest average test scores in the Northeast, while the states in the Midwest held the highest averages. When comparing genders, men are still more likely to pass the test than women, but the gap is considerably smaller in 2009 (81 percent of males versus 79 percent of females) than in 2008 (87 percent of males versus 80 percent of females)."

And, "The older the driver, the higher the test score." Drivers over 35 were more likely to pass than those under 35, while men over 45 posted the highest scores, and "the age group with the highest failure rates was young adults (18 to 24 years old)."

The study, of course, begs the question of how much correlation there is between driver knowledge and the level of actual skill and accident rates.

But based solely on the GMAC data, most of my motorcycle rides should be in a northwesterly direction. That’s fine with me. I like riding in the Pacific Northwest and the West. Kind of a bummer about California, though. I’ve been hankering for a visit to Big Sur this summer.

Here are the rankings:

1	Idaho
1	Wisconsin
3	Montana
4	Kansas
5	South Dakota
5	Nebraska
7	Utah
8	Wyoming
8	Iowa
8	Oregon
8	Minnesota
12	Alaska
12	North Dakota
14	Vermont
15	Colorado
15	Missouri
17	Oklahoma
17	Washington
19	New Mexico
20	North Carolina
21	Virginia
22	Indiana
22	Michigan
24	Arkansas
24	Texas
26	Alabama
26	Nevada
28	West Virginia
29	Illinois
30	Arizona
31	Maine
32	Delaware
33	New Hampshire
34	Ohio
35	Kentucky
36	Pennsylvania
37	Louisiana
38	Tennessee
38	Mississippi
40	South Carolina
40	Maryland
42	Connecticut
43	Florida
44	District of Columbia
45	Massachusetts
46	Rhode Island
47	Georgia
48	California
49	Hawaii
50	New Jersey
51	New York

Sunday morning nature study

  Ruthie woke us up this morning with incessant barking. Maria investigated and found Ruthie yammering at a three-toed box turtle (terrapene carolina triunguis) on the patio.

It was buttoned up tight in the face of her verbal assault.

We moved it to near the fire pit woodpile where Austin and I photographed it until it crawled off and pretended we couldn't see it in the dry leaves at the bottom of the woodpile.

He's be 118 years old today

Friend Lauri posted a photo of a life-size statue of Col. Harland Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame the other day.

Here's my response: a photo of the Colonel himself on the occasion of his 80th birthday, Sept. 9, 1970. I photographed him at the grand opening of a KFC restaurant on U.S. 31 in Greenwood, Ind.

Col. Sanders died Dec. 16, 1980.

Nice, but not THAT nice

This is the 2009 BMW K1300GT, the third-generation of the GT that started in 2003 with my K1200GT.

I sat on one just like this yesterday at BMW Motorcycles of Little Rock. It was fully loaded and the MSRP was $22,245. Add Arkansas's 6% sale tax and the price jumps to 23,579.70.

If I were going to buy a new bike, I'd probably deal with my old Thorntown, Ind. neighbor Larry Parker's son-in-law, who owns a couple of dealerships in Oregon. Oregon has no sales tax.

The young salesman was really keen to sell it to me, but there is no way in hell this bike is worth $23.5k to me. The stripped-down version is $18k, but I'm still not interested.

My '03 GT only has about 43,500 miles on the odometer and I'm really enjoying having it paid off. It was $19,000 and change and I bought it at a time when BMW was offering .9% financing, waiving the first three payments and postponing the first payment for another three months beyond that. That meant I took delivery in early March and my first payment was due in September.

BMW's best offer on the new GT is 2.9% financing for 36 months, ranging up to 4.9% for 60 months.

Nope. No sale and certainly no sale at any dealership in the Mid-South where sales taxes range from 4.225% to 7%.

That said, I'm leaving now to ride my old GT to the post office and maybe beyond.

Happy Birthday, Lisa!

My granddaughter Lisa is 5 today. She's 1,000 times smarter than a 5-year-old boy I saw the other day. Good DNA and excellent parenting.

Tourism

I’ve been a tourist in Little Rock today.

I went through the metal detector and plunked down my $5 admission fee for the Clinton Museum and strolled through the exhibits being reminded anew how singularly insignificant his presidency was.

Monica’s blue dress is conspicuously absent from the exhibits.

The centerpiece of the museum is probably the reproduction of the Oval Office, which I have to admit is pretty cool.

I also took the free shuttle down the street to the museum gift shop where I noticed a bunch of Obama stuff.

That’s ironic, considering how Obama has neutralized Hillary’s political potency by putting her into a limited cabinet role. As Dick Morris pointed out in a column today, George W. Bush called on Bill Clinton to help with high profile projects like relief for the Asian tsunami victims and the victims of Hurricane Katrina, while the best Obama can do for him to to send him to Haiti and cut off his income from foreign speaking gigs. Whatever.

I also checked out the Douglas MacArthur Museum in (what else?) MacArthur Park. The melting one in the song, of course, is in Los Angeles.

It’s full of MacArthur stuff, including Doug’s famous hat.

And now I’m tired of Little Rock, sitting at Starbuck’s again, and waiting for Maria to call to be picked up for the drive home.

Little Rocking

Greetings from Capitol City, as the rubes might say.

We’re in Little Rock today because Maria has a media day at the Arkansas Supreme Court and I’m killing eight hours.

Specifically, I’m at the Pike Place Starbucks near the University of Arkansas campus. I’ve got my 20 ounce cup of Gold Coast blend that it stunningly bitter,despite the addition of lots of half-and-half and sweetener. The table to my left is occupied by four Junior League-types who are apparently the planning committee for some charity ball. They look oh-so-sophisticated, but the effect is utterly destroyed by their hideous deep Arkansas accents.

Am I a linguistic snob? Well, probably. After nearly two years here, some people can still hurt my ears.

We rolled out of our driveway before sunrise at 5:40 a.m. The Garmin GPS projected an ETA of 8:20 at the Justice Building in Little Rock. I dropped Maria off at precisely 8:10 a.m., in plenty of time for the 8:30 a.m. start of the day’s activities.

Garmin showed me the way to this Starbucks and next will guide me to the BMW motorcycle dealer where I’ll inspect their t-shirt offerings and ogle bikes for awhile.

I’m using my Sprint mobile broadband cell phone link to access the Internet, rather than the AT&T Wifi at Starbucks.

Austin still doesn’t have a job, but he got word yesterday that the State of Indiana will pay him $240 a week in unemployment benefits, starting immediately. That’s very good news, because he’s been nearly penniless since he bought his car. I gave him $6 we owed him yesterday and he was out the door like a shot to put $6 worth of gas into his tank.

Hey, I’m a critic

I’m hanging out with a big coffee at Books-A-Million, having returned a rental DVD to Hastings.

I posted my first Amazon.com Vine Program review today – a brief treatise on a hibiscus-based drink called Ooba. I got my free 16 ounce bottle of the stuff in today’s mail, drank half of it at room temperature and the rest over ice and dashed off my impressions.

I also got a DVD copy of the movie LOOK, an innovative indie flick shot entirely on surveillance cameras. Austin and I watched it this afternoon and were impressed. I want to watch it a second time, with the director’s commentary playing, before I write my review.

I’m a little more than halfway through a Vine Program free book and I’ll probably finish it tomorrow.

Oh, great! Another snake story.

Maria passed this on to me this afternoon and it completely creeps me out.

It’s an email one of her reporters received from a friend:

I have been in and out of the driveway yesterday and today, busy as a bee. Just when you think nothing else can happen, here it comes.

I whizzed in at noon and saw a 5 ft. water moccasin snake by Alvis' garage door. After I entered on my side, I grabbed my camera and the big whisk broom and went out front. I took this photo and then began to whisk him toward the yard. He was not having any part of it. He hissed, struck at me and fought the broom hard. He was trying to wrap around the broom and finally I beat him off. He scurried into the garage and crawled up under my car. Egads, he disappeared.

Needless to say, I sure didn't want to get in the car, for fear he was inside somewhere. The horror of driving along on the highway and feel something wrap around my ankle struck fear in me for sure. I called Alvis at the Caraway for help. He came right home and popped the hood of the car--no snake. He looked under--no snake. He drove it down to Frank Smithee's garage and they put it up on the rack and got under it with flashlights. The snake was wrapped around the underneath portion near the right back wheel casing. The snake did not want to be bothered and fought them. They got hooks and it took the whole garage to unwrap him and pulled him out. Alvis said it was a big one and fat. Alvis said his hands were shaking when he got through.

My stepson Austin, who knows his snakes, says:

It was actually just a brown water snake, unless some one who knows snakes told her otherwise, I am sure that is what it is. Venomous snakes don't wrap and I did some snooping around online and compared pictures and i am sure that is what it is.

Riding the rails

Austin and I are sitting in the lower level of Union Pacific Railroad observation car, waiting to get underway a full hour after the announced departure time.
It's a free ride for the public, so I guess I can't complain.
The trip is meant to dramatize the problem of morons getting killed at railroad crossings.
Maria is here for the paper, so she's riding in the engine with her camera.

Later...

The trip was a short jaunt, just a few miles up the tracks to Brookland and back.
During the pause at Brookland, the organizers let those of us on the lower deck of the 1950s vintage observation car Columbine trade places with the folks who had stampeded ahead of us to the upper deck on the outward-bound trip.
There were about 150 of us aboard for the first trip of the day and an equal number of riders was waiting to ride by the time we got back to the station.

Chrysler dealer cuts driven by politics, not economics?

The Gateway Pundit says the Obama administration – not Chrysler – has decided which dealerships to chloroform and is targeting dealers who have a history of donating to Republicans. Dealers who have supported Democrats are staying in business, he says.

If this is true, it should become a scandal of enormous proportions.

Read all about it here.

My Man Mitch back on the national stage

WASHINGTON, D.C. - House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today announced Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R) will deliver the weekly Republican national address on Saturday, May 30.  Gov. Daniels' address will cap off a week-long nationwide energy reform tour spearheaded by Congressional Republicans, who are calling for comprehensive energy reform as an alternative to the new national "cap-and-trade" energy tax advocated by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other Washington Democrats.

"Governor Daniels has emerged as one of our nation's leading voices for reform and common sense in government.  I'm very pleased he'll be delivering the national GOP address as Congress prepares to vote on misguided legislation that imposes a new national tax on energy," Boehner said.  "The American people know there's a better way to get to clean, affordable energy, and in Congress and in state capitals across the nation, reformers like Governor Daniels are advocating these better solutions."

House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-IN) and members of the American Energy Solutions Group this week are conducting national energy summits in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and California.  The summits are being conducted to help the solutions group develop policy initiatives to lower energy prices for American families and small businesses, and create energy independence for the American people.  Witnesses are also discussing the implications of the proposed national energy tax for middle-class families and small businesses.