Archive for October, 2004
October 28th, 2004 -- Posted in Personal |
Well I finally took care of something I usually hate and put off until the last minute. I had to renew my drivers license today, since it expires on Sunday.
I hate waiting in line so I usually put it off until the last possible moment. Since we were still getting a lot of rain I waited until it was raining really hard and went then. There was still a long line, but not as long as usual, and I managed to get everything taken care of in about an hour, so I guess it wasn’t too bad.
They have really streamlined the process, and I was quite surprized how fast everything went once I hit that first counter. I have been able to renew by mail for about the last 12 years as I haven’t had a ticket or accident since 1989. That was until this year when I got a speeding ticket. Because of that I had to renew at the DMV so it is my own fault.
Anyway, I am street legal and unlike the several rocket scientists I saw fail the written test (how can anyone do that?) it was a boring but fast process.
October 27th, 2004 -- Posted in Sports |
Well there is only one thing to blog about tonight. Since 1918 the Boston Red Sox have been the chokers of the American League. They have finally broken the curse of the Bambino and are now World Champions.
Congratulations to the team and all the fans of the Red Sox. I just hope after all the celebrating the town will still be there.
October 25th, 2004 -- Posted in Technology, Work |
Tonight, I had an interesting chat in one of my classes. It was how technological advances eliminate jobs. While this is indeed true and the US is going more towards a service type jobs, the smart people will try and get a job related to the technology advances.
When I see folks go to community college I usually ask them what they are trying for. Most are trying for an industry that is not going to be available when they finally finish their educational plan. I usually try and convince them to pick something more realistic.
Everyone wants to get into computers but it is already a full industry. We are losing skilled labor such as construction and electricity as no one seems to want to do hard work. No longer is auto mechanics taught in high school. Who is landing these jobs? Right now unless I can speak Spanish, I don’t know what is being done to my car. At least I feel comfortable since my car was built in Mexico.
When I first joined the Navy and became an Electronic Technician all I ever heard was how much wealth I would gain when I got out of the Navy. I was going to get out at my ten year point, but found that the promising jobs didn’t exist. It was better for both me and my family to continue the Navy career and go officer, which I did.
The only way to make money in electronics, is to know someone in one of the big companies like Hewlett Packard or Techtronics to name a couple. You have to have that foot in the door. Yeah, there are a lot of companies like Ratheon, SAIC, and Tracor, which are contract jobs. Once the contract is over, so is your job.
Make sure you plan for the future, with a job that will last for years. I have that benefit as I can teach and have experience and a degree. Just coming out of school with no hands on won’t compare with someone who has no degree but has been working in the field as companies want results.
Just food for thought.
October 22nd, 2004 -- Posted in 2004 US Election |
I wish this darned election would hurry up and be over. Everytime I turn on my radio and TV all I hear is politics. I think everyone has made up thier mind by now so lets just go ahead and get it over so I don’t have to hear the same thing every day.
And this goes for both parties. I am sick of it. It’s all going to wind up in the courts again anyway as both parties have hired lawyers to take the results to court. If that happens we can write off ever having elections again as we will no longer be a democracy, everything will be settled in court by who can buy the better lawyers.
When I hear talk like this I get truly frightened as this will effectively take my right to vote away. Talk about being disenfanchised, if this election goes to the courts everyone will be disenfranchised. I can think of nothing more damaging to this country. It is time to clean up the entire law profession.
People talk of growing medical costs. This is due to malpractice suits. Prices on cars and large purchases keep going up. This is because of huge settlements awarded in traffic accident cases.
Here small businesses are going out of business due to threatened lawsuits. They can’t afford to fight it so they settle out of court and then go out of business.
Then you look at some of the stuff that happens in some of these big trials they show on the national news and that also makes you wonder. I can’t beleive some of the stuff I hear about the Peterson Case. Seems they will throw anything against the wall to see if it will stick.
Just a couple of years ago in the Westerfield case, he and his lawyers were on thier way to make a plea deal when the body was found. Still they through all of that BS about bugs and he couldn’t have done it out there, and what was worse, was that the public was paying for his lawyers.
Why is OJ out searching the golf courses while Martha Stewart is in jail. I find this unbelievable. Our justice system needs to be corrected as it is currently a joke.
Anyway I have managed to get off topic. I guess it’s hard to keep my mind on one thought as I had several papers to finish up and turn it for school, so my creativity lamp is running a little low right now.
Anyhow, let’s hope they can tone down the attacks, and get this election over. And let’s make sure it isn’t decided by the courts, as that would put an end to our ability to select our leaders.
October 20th, 2004 -- Posted in BlogShares, Environment and Nature |
Well 182 days without rain and now we have got several inches over the past couple of days and are on a pace to set a new record for rainfall in the month of October. Maybe we’ll set a record for car accidents too!
Today was a pretty good day as I had fun at work and managed to get a few tests knocked out for school. I missed a couple of questions but I am still in the “A” category for the class so that’s not bad.
I have been playing around with Blog Explosion. It is a great way to get your blog recognized and you earn visits to your site by visiting other sites. It’s a really good deal and I have found some interesting blogs through this service. I have linked to a few.
Of course there are some really strange ones out there too! I have picked up quite a few new readers through this service. It’s free so why not signup and get a little extra traffic to your site.
Other than that I have been making money playing blogshares and trying to keep up with daily entries in my blog. I am about to go over 28 Trillion in blogshares. Well, you all have a great humpday.
October 19th, 2004 -- Posted in Environment and Nature |
Well Saturday we set a record for lack of rainfall and Sunday it started raining, and it is still raining. Now we have flooding everywhere and driving the good old San Diego freeways is like driving in a demolition derby. Good thing I can get to work without having to take the freeways. I can get to work faster taking the back roads, through National City.
I don’t understand why people think they can drive as fast as they normally do when it rains here. We had 180 days of oil building up on the roads here and the rain made it worse than driving on ice. The news and all radio talk shows make it a point to warn folks about the conditions and to be careful, but folks don’t seem to listen.
We had a guy wind up in a drainage ditch just down the freeway from the house yesterday. It made the news, as it looked really bad but the guy walked away from it. I guess he’ll really appreciate his new insurance rates here in the next couple of months.
Also we have flooding in some of the low lying areas, I am safe I live at the top of a hill, but the areas that had the fires last year are really having problems with mud slides and flooding.
I guess it is supposed to keep raining through Thursday, so we are making up for the drought in a one week time frame.
On other notes, I feel great that I took the weekend off for some rest, but now I am trying to keep up with the schoolwork again. That and I just found out I missed a few assignments in one of my classes. I was wondering why I wasn’t getting any written assignments in his class, and when I checked the grades, there weren’t any grades posted, so I figured he was running the class on the discussion board. Now I will have to e-mail the teacher and tell him what a moron I am. Hopefully he will have a sense of humor and allow me to catch up. I can still get an “A” as the assignments aren’t worth that much.
Well that is what has been happening here. You all have a great week.
October 18th, 2004 -- Posted in Health Issues |
Well, I’m back.
The wife and I got out of town for a couple of days to quietly recover from our food poisoning. Better to just get away from the dogs and the kids for a couple of days and just sleep, so thats what we did.
For all you folks that left nice comments, thanks, I feel much better now. So we’ll be seeing you all around blogshares again once I finish my online class tonight.
October 14th, 2004 -- Posted in Health Issues |
Last night Mrs. RWO decided to treat me to a baked chicken dinner that she managed to buy at Costco on her way home from work. We usually don’t buy the supermarket dinners but last week I bought baked chicken at Ralph’s and it was fantastic.
Well from the moment I started eating it I told her is didn’t seem to be cooked all the way. She told me that it was done and that it was just very moist and spicy.
Well this morning and throughout the day I have been spending a lot of time in the head getting rid of this chicken dinner and anything else I eat. I even had to take time off work for a sick day which is something that I never do.
If this turns out to be food poisoning again, as I have had that several times from some of the little am and pa Mexican restaurants in the area, I am going to swear off food unless I make it myself.
Well off to bed, hopefully I’ll feel better in the morning.
October 12th, 2004 -- Posted in Holidays |
Well today is Columbus Day. First Happy Birthday Big Sis. Second, hard to believe that 512 years ago in 1492 Christopher Columbus landed in the the New World. Though he probably came in third discovering the New World, Indians first, Vikings Second, he was the first to get it into the mainstream news of their day.
Right now several of the politically correct generation trying to rewrite our history and heritage would like to see Columbus Day go away. Why, you may say? Well because Columbus discovered the America’s he must be responsible for all of the Spanish conquests that followed.
Well, that makes no sense at all to me and to see folks try and revise the history of Columbus’s discovery as well as the history’s of other famous folks makes me ill. He politically correct folks, leave my history alone.
In the meantime Happy Columbus Day everyone.
October 11th, 2004 -- Posted in 2004 US Election, Views and Opinions |
Well let’s see here. You are John Kerry. You and your wife make 6.8 Million dollars for the year and you pay a little over $750,000 in taxes, which works out to roughly 12.5 percent. Even the lower middle class pays more than that.
When I heard that I kind of went ballistic, as I pay a little over 20 percent on my family income. Isn’t it time to get these rich folks that don’t pay thier fair share to cough it up, rather than talk about eliminating the tax cuts the President approved for the folks that pay thier fair share.
I have seen this blogged about and written all over the place so I am not going to link to any articles. I just find it funny that this man thinks he can run for President of the United States, while he and his wife avoid paying their fair share. I want to see this in some Bush campaign ads, as this to me just shows another reason to make sure this guy doesn’t get elected to office.
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