Their grandfathers who died on the Eastern Front must be spinning in their graves

From The Times of London:

They have a beer ration of up to a liter a day, and wurst for dinner. Taliban or no Taliban, Germans take a little bit of home with them when they serve in trouble spots. Even their carefully sorted rubbish gets dumped in wheelie bins before being sent from Afghanistan to Germany for recycling.

Now Germany’s most senior officer has berated his troops for going soft. “We cannot guarantee soldiers that they w ill have an all-round feel-good experience,” said General Wolfgang Schneiderhan.

His outburst follows complaints made by German soldiers to the official ombudsman about their tours abroad. Some have grumbled about unsuitable sleeping bags for their Congo peace-keeping mission. “There is no reason why this issue should have come before Parliament,” said General Schneiderhan — while others moaned about the long hours, a lack of childcare for their families at home and poor medical care.

Army doctors say that they are on the brink of leaving because pay and conditions are so bad. So many have returned to civilian life that there is a shortage of medics in the field.

“Perhaps the problem is down to the general tendency in society to delegate responsibility to someone else, or perhaps it is the stress associated with change,” he told several hundred army officers and politicians at an official reception.

In 2007 German forces in Afghanistan consumed about 90,000 bottles of wine in addition to 1.7 million pints of beer; that figure has stayed constant. British and US bases by contrast have an alcohol ban.

Three months and I'm obsolete

The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 is no more. At least it's not being sold by Dell.

According to the Dell.com web site, the only minis are 10- and 12-inch models. And it was just three months ago that I bought my Mini 9.

No matter. I prefer a mini with an SSD (Solid State Drive) for the dust and vibration of motorcycle travel and the price ($250) was right.

Donderhund

It’s raining again, but the radar image suggests it won’t be nearly as heavy as the deluge we got last evening.

Pete the Aussie, as you may recall, is absolutely terrified of thunder and lightning and there was plenty of both yesterday.

He comes by it honestly. He was less than six months old when Morgan left him and Ruthie out on the back porch during a violent thunderstorm. Morgan was up in the attic, sorting through her stuff with the boombox blasting and was blissfully unaware of the storm.

It was no big deal for Ruthie, but Pete freaked out. People said they saw him streaking down the street, running blindly as the lightning flashed and the thunder crashed. He was gone for a couple of days. We finally caught up with him after a woman from the veterinarian’s office sighted him a couple of miles north of town.

A year later, he fled in terror when a neighbor’s bottle rocket exploded over his head on the eve of the Fourth of July holiday weekend. He was gone for three days that time.

Ever since then, he’s had an unnatural interest in the sky and spends a lot of his outdoors time gazing upward and barking at imagined threats. He senses approaching storms and hunkers down next to one of us when the thunder rumbles.

He attached himself to Austin last evening, lying at Austin’s feet in the kitchen as Austin emptied a clean dishwasher.

This is a portrait of a worried dog.

Mitch Daniels: The Anti-Obama?

My spirits are a bit lighter this morning because it appears my motorcycle riding friend Mitch Daniels is getting more and more recognition.

Here’s an editorial by Tracy Warner at the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette that appeared in today’s paper:

Gov. Mitch Daniels’ rising profile on the national political stage has caused Hoosiers to wonder whether he is positioning himself for a run for higher office, something the guv adamantly denies.

A clue to his real goal may have appeared in a Sunday New York Times commentary by political writer John Hardwood about whether the GOP should continue to hold up Ronald Reagan as the personification of its goals. In quoting Daniels, Harwood referred to him as “a Republican who lately has emerged as a potential national party leader.”

Daniels isn’t necessarily striving to be the chairman of the national GOP, and only the governor knows his true motivation.

But if Republicans have to choose Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh or Mitch Daniels as their national standard-bearer, Daniels can help the party most.

In Daniels, Republicans have a governor whose policies have placed an economically vulnerable Rust Belt state highly dependent on the auto industry in better fiscal position than almost every other state.

Much of his accomplishment comes from using tactics the party has long supported, namely privatization and diminishing the power of unions.

Indiana’s fiscal position gives Daniels credibility that so many other national Republicans lack, considering the party controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress while running up record debt.

At the same time he leads on fiscal conservatism, Daniels has avoided stepping into the rhetoric of social conservatism. He stayed in the background, for example, when Indiana lawmakers debated a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and a proposal to require doctors who perform abortions to have hospital privileges.

Daniels is an astute politician, and he realizes – just as Democrats like Evan Bayh and Bill Clinton understood – a strong message of fiscal restraint appeals to moderates from both parties, while strong positions on extremely divisive social issues turn off the political center. He also senses that the majority that elected President Obama is turned off by messages of hate and extremism – the messages Limbaugh and Gingrich preach daily.

With Obama spending enormous amounts of money on unprecedented bailouts of labor-intensive industries that may or may not work, fiscal conservatism is a  ripe issue for Republicans. Daniels has learned to appeal to both white-collar and blue-collar voters, and he can speak fiscal conservatism with authority and credibility.

Yes, he occasionally delivers red meat to the hard-right faithful, and yes, he occasionally has bursts of temper that belie that “aw, shucks” image he has worked so hard on. But having Daniels emerge as a leading national party authority would do much to improve the level of political discourse.

Tracy Warner, editorial page editor, has worked at The Journal Gazette since 1981. He can be reached at 461-8113 or by e-mail, twarner@jg.net.

Eyesore no more

When I was a kid growing up in Delphi, Ind., in the 1950s, the abandoned segment of the old Wabash & Erie Canal was a nasty, algae-covered eyesore out on North Washington Street.

Knowing little of its history, I supposed the people of the town would eventually get sick of it, drain it and fill it with dirt.

Instead, a group of citizens have transformed it into a tourist destination, complete with a

park, interpretive center and conference center.

Classmate Tina Tyner emailed me the news of the most recent development over the weekend - the launching of a replica canal boat.

Here are the announcement and the photos:

THE ORIGINAL "CANAL DREAM" BECOMES A REALITY

Finally the long awaited arrival of the replica canal boat has come.  Wednesday, June 3 saw the unloading (in the rain) and floating of the 54-foot-long, 10-foot-wide colorful boat and can carry 42 passengers and crew.  It was the dream of the early canal directors in the 1980s.

Inauguration of "the DELPHI" is Saturday, June 20 at 10 a.m. Free boat rides Saturday are in conjunction with Heritage Transportation Festival activities. The Wheelmen with their high wheel bikes and “bicycle built for two” next to the ice cream and nearby food vendors outside the historic 1844 Case House. 

Other events are found downtown where the Opera House and new art gallery will be open on Saturday. Then on Sunday (Father's Day) the festival moves to the Delphi Airport beginning with a "fly-in" breakfast.

Spring has been an especially busy time for the Canal volunteers.  Weather has caused delays in completing work on the canal banks and the construction of the Guard Lock. Now we are caught up with spring work and ready to celebrate -- HIP-HIP-HOORAY !!

Making sure they get it right

Rather than let it go with a phone call, Maria and I went to the bank this morning for face-to-face assurance that our locked-in in April refi interest rate will be extended when it lapses today.

We were pleasant but firm and established that we will not be charged for the paperwork associated with the extension since, of course, it’s not our fault that they let this business drag on for six weeks because a key person was out on maternity leave.

This is, after all, a business deal – not a transaction contingent upon some woman’s personal life.

I did make it clear that we were concerned and alarmed at the idea that the car would have gone off the cliff if I hadn’t checked in last Friday and alerted them to the impending doom of our refinance application.

I have to wonder how many other applicants lost their locked-in lower interest rates because of this alarmingly casual attitude about refinance applications.

We reckon this unnecessary delay cost us about $300 because we had to pay the old mortgage for an additional month.

Exploring the Ridge

We took Austin and the dogs for a ride this afternoon up Crowley's Ridge Parkway to Lake Frierson and Crowley's Ridge state parks.

Ruthie, who is a natural born water dog, really, really wanted to dive into the lake, so we let her get her feet wet.

It's pushing 90 degrees up here in our office and I'm starting to worry about the cumulative effects of daily heat exposure on our desktop computers.

Apparently the folks who built our house never envisioned human habitation up here in what they call a "bonus room" above the garage. The first owners never finished the space out and used it exclusively for storage.

However, we threw a fair amount of money at it during our first few months here in terms of woodwork, paint, ceiling treatment, a ceiling fan and, of course, our protracted efforts to get a good carpet installation from Lowe's.

The problem is that there is insufficient insulation in the roof above the room, which makes it chilly in the winter and impossibly hot in the warmest days of summer.

This, then, will be the summer when we get an insulation contractor up here to tell us if we can get any relief, short of sticking an unsightly window air conditioner in the rooms only window.

Iranian “election” protests

Is it too early to start talking about “Iranian Freedom Fighters?”

I hope not. Those kids want their freedom and their rock and roll and they may sense they have the power to make it happen. After all, half the population of Iran is under 30 and they don’t have much use for a bullshit theocracy.

Vandalism? Looks like an improvement to me.

Joseph Carnevale, 21, Raleigh, N.C. was arrested this week after Raleigh Police determined he was responsible for creating this piece of public artwork on May 31 on a road next to the North Carolina State University campus. He was charged with misdemeanor larceny for allegedly building his orange creature from construction zone barrels.

The charging information alleges he damaged contractor Hamlett Associates’s property to the tune of $360. He goes to court July 12.

I think they ought to pay him for making it impossible for drivers to ignore a construction zone and thus creating safer conditions for road workers and motorists.

Maggie’s farm

This is Maggie, a pit bull-mix pup who was relaxing under the Whitton Farms van at the farmers’ market this morning.

We’re out running errands and hanging out today. Maria is browsing quilting magazines and I’m drinking coffee and blogging at Books-A-Million before she goes next door to Kroger.

Free Stuff Friday

Today is Free Stuff Friday, an innovative promotion by The Jonesboro Sun and participating advertisers.

The paper was full of coupons and freebies and the paper partnered with First Security Bank to serve free hot dogs, chips and drinks at the bank’s Southwest Drive branch from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Maria helped serve the dogs – they handed out about 700 of them.

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.