Nanny Zombie State

More than anything people resent being told how to live by those in power. Well I don't know about most people but the instant contrarian in me really starts to get riled up.

New York City has placed a ban on large sugary drinks such as Big Gulps and Slurpees. Mayor Michael Bloomberg the once Democrat, turned Republican, turned Independent so he could grab and hold power has decreed that drinks larger than sixteen ounces are now banned.

The sheeple in NYC have voted this power hungry politician into office and now like a tick he has burrowed himself in deeper and imposed draconian living laws on salt, sugary drinks, and other such things that deny personal responsibility to those living under those laws.

Well if anything were to be justice for a Nanny State politician it would be that one of the fauxzombies that have been popping up lately such as the man in Miami that was eating the face of another man after he got high on bath salts it would be that they find all of the nanny state politicians and devour them as they have devoured our freedoms to live as we see fit.

While yeah the evidence is factually the same as the leading edge of a zombie apocalypse the actual fact of the matter is that it would have spread far faster than it has and the victim would have turned by now and have to have been put down. So don't get excited yet dear readers, I'm not pulling the alarm bell yet. Stay vigilant my friends, you'll be the first to know it when it happens as I always monitor these events closely so you don't have to!

Half Way

We are at the half way point of the week. The PC is acting up this morning, I'll do some maintenance on it tonight and get it running again. It's been abnormally slow the past couple of days so it might be time to clean it all up and get rid of some unused programs.

We'll see what it takes to get it back in tip top shape again.

Back To Work

Here we go! One busy week ahead!
Thank the Good Lord My Honey is feeling much better! Her back has loosened up and she can walk and drive now. That was one tough week.

Last night we went for ice cream and let Thing 2 drive. She did pretty good, she's doing well with driving. I'm proud of her! Today she starts drama camp at the Theatre. She's one of the helpers for the next six weeks, more or less a kid wrangler. That'll keep her busy though and she's been getting bored at home.

Same job for me! Negotiations will be the talk of the work day for the next couple of weeks. I can tell you straight up, we won't strike again, too many people will vote not to. I'm probably one of them, I don't want to go through that again and put my family through that again. It sucked.

I believe we vote on the new contract June 9th. It expires on the 10th.

Remember

Today is Memorial Day. It's to remember those who wore the uniform and gave everything to protect our freedom and our way of life. It's changed from Decoration Day gradually over the years to Memorial Day and for the uninformed in our society it's the unofficial start of the summer season.

For those of us who are informed as to the history of this solemn day it's a time to reflect upon what those in uniform died to protect. What we enjoy today and take for granted was paid for by those few who have answered their country's call again, and again, and again.

Remember those that gave all today, to fight for oppressed people around the world. Remember those still in combat today and their families that miss them. Remember those families that have lost their loved ones to duty.

Thunder Up!

Watching the Thunder take on the Spurs in game one of the conference finals! Lots of friends hanging out and having a good time!

If OKC can steal this one at San Antonio then they've got a great shot at winning the whole thing! The eastern conference just isn't as strong as the western conference. OKC would really go ape over a major championship!

Ahhhh

Feels darn good to not have anything on the schedule!
Real good!

So the weekend marches on!

Three Days

Yesterday My Love got in to see the doctor. She's got a new set of meds to take and she's actually moving around better than all week long! She still hurts quite a bit and locks up but when I say moving around better its in the relative term.

I think we'll start to see daily improvements now! I think the worst is over with! Thank goodness, I know she's going stir crazy having to sit there and just heal but if she doesn't she'll just extend the time it takes to get better.

The pills make her drowsy and loopy as can be, it's kind of funny! However if she doesn't take them she starts to be in pain like early in the week and can't move.

Today will be an easy day at work, the past two days have been super busy. Everyone wants their stuff done before the weekend. Yesterday afternoon it started to slack off some but I still did a last minute rack of wheels! Today everyone will be in weekend mode!

Slightly Better

My Honey could move around some yesterday, not a lot and she got to hurting fast but she could move. That's improvement! She has a doctor's appointment this morning so we'll be able to at least get an idea of what is going on and if she needs treatment. At the bare minimum she'll be able to get her prescription filled up if recovery is going to be longer.

I really think she's feeling a bit better though! I'm encouraged by yesterday!

Still Hurting

My Love is still down in the back. I'm getting her fed and getting her the pain pills. She's got her coffee and she's starting to wake up:)

She's still in a lot of pain though. The doctor at the hospital said it'd start to loosen up by today or tomorrow and if it doesn't to follow up with another doctor and get a MRI scheduled soon. Thing 2 will probably be home soon and take care of her while I'm at work. She spent the night with some of her friends to start summer off.

Pain

My Love is laid up in bed. Her back is giving her fits to say the least. They didn't find any damage with the bones so that's good! She's on bed rest and medication. She'll have Thing 1 helping her this morning and Thing 2 after school.

Today is the last day of school too! Which is kind of sad, Thing 2 and I have been driving to school every morning. We stop at a quick shop and get morning coffee and a paper then head to drop her off. It's been a real bonding experience, something simple like that. An easy routine in the mornings.

After today My Honey will have plenty of help to help her around should she need to move. This coming weekend is a three day weekend. Negotiations will be starting late next week and I believe we vote on June ninth. Hopefully it'll be a long term contract and it'll be much like we already have.

Not asking for much at all, mainly security right now. I know that's hard to come by in the Obama Age with this kind of unemployment. That's what I'm shooting for though and I hope it goes as smoothly as it possibly can.

Hurt

The Date is injured. Her back is very hurt and we spent yesterday pampering her and helping her walk from place to place but mainly getting her situated in one place and trying to keep her there for an extended amount of time. That's harder than you think, she's a mover, a go getter!

By evening time her back had loosened up enough to walk around herself and with less pain but that was a small gain as the pain was still pretty intense. She's a real trooper though! Nothing was going to slow her down so she took a cello lesson from Thing 2 and a beginner's cello book I got for My Love:) We kept her in good spirits and made it though the day:)

I made supper last night (Thing 2 cleaned and made a new place for a garden in the back yard) and watched The Spirit of St. Louis with Jimmy Stewart. It's been years since I'd seen it, I want to say I was in my early teens but it's a good movie! That was a huge feat in nothing more than a flying gas tank. Today long distance flights or even indefinite flights are easily possible with the help of midair refueling. Possible? They are common place.

Flying nonstop across the Atlantic for the first time, that was a different story and took aviation from county fairs and put it into the mainstream. Serious people paid attention after that and eventually we went to the Moon.

Dead

The subject of my boycott of scotch has died. The convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi is no longer among the living. That's a good thing. He'll be doing time now in hell after blowing up a Pan-Am flight that killed two hundred and seventy people.

He was released by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, which prompted worldwide scorn. He arrived back to a hero's welcome in Libya to live out his days there while the people he killed remained dead and the families still missed their loved ones.

Yeah well, down the hatch.

Work Day At The Theatre

Thing 2 and I will be headed down to the Theatre at nine this morning to help clean out the prop room. Lots of furniture needs to go, it's broken, or will never be used again.

My honey will be representing in the Walk for a Cure this morning with her team from work! After that she'll join us for some clean up time. I know it'll go faster if we get more people but a lot of people are busy this morning and this weekend.

Regardless I'll be there, I know Tech Guy will be there and Thing 2 and My Baby will be there:) We can do big jobs!

Obama Notes

Last night was Third Thursday, today is payday, tomorrow the weekend starts! It's a busy time! Next week school lets out though and summer starts for the Things.

Work continues for us adults though.

In political news, in 1991, long before any of the "birthers" knew there was such a person as Barack Obama, his literary agent had Barack Obama listed as "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii."

This was on the website until 2007 when Senator Obama decided to make his run for the White House. Then they changed it. So there are two possibilities here:
1. Obama lied to sell books and make himself more of an international man then before he had designs on the White House.
2. Obama lied now about his place of origin to run for the White House and launched the greatest case of fraud on the country and American people of all time.

It's one of the two. I'd love to see the media actually pursue this as they did everything that even hinted at a scandal with President Bush but they won't. It's probably already being swept under the rug now as I type this.

However politically speaking Romney should stay away from this issue, he's leading in the polls now and after the debates he'll gain ground when he makes Obama defend his record. Obama has been in office for three and a half years, his first and only term is nearly finished. There's been a TON of smoke around this issue, perhaps there might be a spark of truth after all. 

Tech Refresher And Training

Last night our soon to be moving Tech Guy gave us a refrehser course on the technical aspects of the Theatre. He and his family will be moving away to Houston to pursue new opportunities, we wish them the very best! He has done a ton for the Theatre and can't be replaced, it's that simple. He's one of a kind for sure!

With that said the Theatre will need to recruit new tech people for the upcoming seasons. A handful of people now run the shows and that will wear us all very thin soon. We need new blood to come in and learn the ropes of putting on a show tech wise. That will lighten the load off of everyone.

It's an important job and often overlooked by our Theatre friends, well until they need someone or two people up in the booth and can't find anyone. So I'd encourage all of the directors in our Theatre, all of the regular actors in our Theatre, and anyone that might be interested to contact the Theatre and get a bit of training on how to set up the lights and sound and run them during for a show. Otherwise that stage might be blacked out at the worst moment when you can't find anyone and don't know how to run it yourself.

Back To Normal

My incredibly talented daughter has won the part of The Fiddler in the summer musical! I'm a proud daddy! I know my love is also very proud of her! She texted me the cast list while I was snoozing away and I thrilled for her!

After yesterday's diversion into a long awaited game, today will be returning to it's normally scheduled life. Nothing fancy, I'll be picking up the work in the shop where I left off Monday as I'm sure I know exactly what is there to do now. I also figure I know no one worked the parts I was working on.

We don't have enough people. The new guy has to have surgery now, tomorrow I think. He muscle was torn from the elbow and he'll be out for weeks if not months.

I don't believe the contract will yield anymore people either, we'll just be where we are until they figure out we are understaffed and it bites them at the wrong time and in front of the wrong people. I also believe that the contract will be quickly settled, I don't expect anything resembling a raise for the next three years. The country is broke, we've been spent into a black hole and we probably won't be able to get our way back out of it unless reasonable politicians agree on true spending cuts and that's not likely to happen!

Negotiations should go very smoothly this time, no one wants a repeat of the last contract. No one. The heads involved in the last round for the company have been fired and replaced. Soon they will swap proposals and we'll see how far apart both sides are to start. I don't think it'll be far at all. I'd vote for a contract extension right now if they extended our current contract we have. I'm thrilled with it! It's stable and fair. I don't see that happening though.

Diablo Day

The original plan was to start playing Diablo at midnight last night at launch. However launch turn out being at two a.m. our time. So plan B was quickly implemented. Go to bed early and get up early and start the quests!

Abostang agreed and thus I headed off to bed to get up at four in the morning to experience the long awaited Diablo 3! We were able to get in twenty levels before the Blizzard servers were taken down for emergency maintenance.

Thus ended my questing day. Abostanf is probably still playing away!

It's a well polished game, practically idiot proof in fact. It would be cool to have a bit more of a learning curve to it but playability and accessibility have always been the cornerstones of the Diablo series. It's simplicity and it's just fun!

I enjoyed it quite a bit and I'm looking forward to leveling up and taking out evil once again!

Diablo 3 Launches Tonight

At ten o'clock our time D3, a game that's been in development for many, many years finally gets its launch date. Abostang and I will be there at the launch online and start our quest to defeat evil. I'm off work tomorrow but I also have quite a few errands to run during the day. After that I'll get a few hours in before returning to work Wednesday and resume our normal working schedule.

Diablo was one of the very first online games you could enjoy on the free service Battlenet. It was designed to match people up with other people and adventure together, a real breakthrough at the time when most people had a 33.6 modem or less. The 56K was on the horizon but costly when you could find it locally.

Anything faster was a dream.

It was a true milestone in the history of gaming and lots of companies took notice as people started to populate the randomly generated dungeons. Diablo was unique and now D3 has made sales history by being the most pre-ordered game of all time.

In the world of the gamer this is big and I'm starting it tonight!

Nice Day

The Things and I took my mom out for an early mothers day lunch. After that it's been fairly quiet and slow.

Thing 2 is house managing the show tonight and I'm going to watch game seven of the Nuggets and Lakers to see who the Thunder will face Monday night. I've got some laundry going and not much else.

I miss my honey.

Fail Wars: Viking Shores, Provoked

So the fail warriors have decided to invade the Faroe Islands on their most popular holiday, St. Olaf's Day. They intentionally drove a mini van with graphic images on it of the last grind or whale kill on it's side. They played whale and dolphin sounds to try and drown out the festivities but that was quickly shut down.

They were intentionally provoking the peaceful people who were trying to enjoy their holiday and had tried to be civil with the Sea Sheterrorists. The festival goers were nonplussed and engaged with the terrorists until the police shut down the area and kindly asked them to move out of the area.

One of the funnier clips was of a patron peeing on the minivan. Then we go to the home shots of the festival where the citizens open up their homes to each other and serve food. They play instruments and sing for each other and it goes well into the night. Everyone seems to really enjoy each other and it's a very fun and peaceful celebration until the Bridgette Bardot docks in the harbor to stir things up.

Again they use the tactic of provoking these friendly people by putting themselves in the middle of things. By docking at the harbor that is the home of this massive celebration they ask for trouble. By having the camera crews with them they are hoping for an incident. A small group of cars assembled on the dock to shout at the terrorists. That's about as far as it went until a man boarded the vessel, the idiot that said he didn't want to engage was about two thirds the size of the man who boarded the ship. He laughably said it was hard to restrain himself from physical confrontation.

He would get curb stomped if he engaged this viking descendent in fisticuffs. All in all a lot of noise and little action. The fail warriors continue next week with the finale. They will try to stop a ancient tradition of people who feed themselves from the hunt and harvest. Then no doubt they'll go back to their ships and smoke a bale of pot while slapping each other on the back on being intolerant of other cultures.

And The Weekend

Will be here after today's work is done! All in all it was a busy week and then a slow week, today will again be fairly slow. That's the way of our cycle at work, too busy to keep up and then it just stops until the next wave of inspections start and they start to tear down more jets. Then we can't keep up.

Not sure what the weekend will bring but I'm sure we'll get through it and carry on into the next week:) This is what is called the daily grind.

We got Thing 1 fixed up with a car. My brother sold us his Saturn Ion for well under book value. The bank had the papers ready to sign before I arrived to sign them! That's how fast it went! Very smoothly! I like that!

The Box

The supervisor that started the boxes that have hurt our night shifter and will likely hurt many other people is named Joe. Joe isn't the most popular guy where I work, he's not the brightest guy either. He's pretty stubborn actually.

He bugs all of the mechanics about things that really don't matter much. That irritates them a lot. We've bugged him about these boxes and how heavy and dangerous they are but he won't change his mind. So now that one has actually injured a man we (well I, with the help of a few other guys and one manager) decided to fix the first box with a decal.

Joe's Box of Death with a thumbs up beside it.

He'll freak out. He'll be pretty upset and the first thing he'll want done is have a letter of reprimand written on your humble writer. This has been countered by the manager that loves the box decal, told him that they were dangerous, and said he'd handle that if it should be attempted.

Today should be interesting!

Man Down

Well we broke the new guy the other night. Yep, he didn't ask for assistance when lifting a huge steel box and tore the muscles away from his elbow in his arm. He will likely be out now for a long time, he goes in for a MRI Friday and after that they will probably schedule surgery unless they try rehab. I doubt rehab would work but what do I know? I only would have asked the guy in the office for help lifting a hundred pound steel box that's four feet long and two feet high!

Sheesh, now we are down another man and they won't replace him. One had several surgeries including a liver transplant, another just had his second shoulder surgery after the first surgery failed, and now the new guy is down. That leaves us with six people with one of those on nights. Five on days and one on nights to keep up with ten docks of aircraft, ground power, flight line, and base shops.

Sigh...we keep busy and I'd rather be down men than be out on the street looking for work. It's all about perspective.

Busy

Talk about a busy day! I was swamped yesterday at work, all day. Parts piled up while I worked priority stuff and that literally took me the whole shift.

Today will be similar, I already know what's there and I can guess what has been done and what hasn't.

Contract negotiations open up the last week of this month. Our contract expires on June first, doesn't seem like three years since the worst two weeks of my life but it has been. Everyone at work still remembers how much striking sucked and I doubt they will vote that way again. I know I won't unless it's a must have to situation like cutting my pay in half and even then I am not sure I'd vote that way.

Neither side wants that to happen again and both will do their best to insure it doesn't happen. I'll go on the record right now and say if they renewed our current contract I'd vote for it as fast as I could check the box.

And Away We Go

I'm not sure what our schedule is this week but it went from day to day last week! Thing 2 had to write out her schedule for us. This week I just don't know right now. I think most of the events are over with right now for the year.

I don't think anyone has a show to do but I do think Thing 2 is going to audition for Fiddler on the Roof this week as the fiddler. The Date has a busy week at work, I don't even know her schedule but I know how busy she's been and this week will be no different!

I know what I have at work this week and it will be moderately busy. Did lots of yard work and work on the pool yesterday. I'm pretty sore actually. We might actually have a pool going this hot summer!

Busy Day

Cleaned the garage with my honey and Thing 2. We went a long way to getting the pool cleaned up too.

Now after grilling burgers we are chilling and getting the evening going!

Bought my first ticket to a show last night, we went to see Don't Drink the Water on stage at the Gaslight. Woody Allen written and well done by cast and crew! Lots of laughs!

Avengers And Thing 2

Yesterday Thing 2 had her violin solo. Beautiful was a understatement! I teared up fairly quickly as she began and some very beautiful noises came fr the antique instrument. The Date and my mom were speechless as Thing 2 began. The Date was understandably nervous but that quickly went away as the bow began to dance on the strings!

She received a superior rating! I'm a very proud daddy!

Last night I found myself all alone for the evening. The Date had gone to take care of her dad for the evening, Thing 1 was at work, and Thing 2 was spending the night with an orchestra friend.

So since the satellite receiver hadn't arrived yet I decided to call Abostang and take in a late movie! The Avengers fit the bill perfectly, late movie, in 3D, and a movie I'd been looking forward to.

It was good, maybe one of the best comic book movies. The standard heroes had to fight amongst each other before learning how to work together storyline was followed. The sequel should be better since all of that is out of the way now and the villain is Thanos. A very powerful character who fell in love with the mistress death. Nearly godlike in his powers, he should really give the Avengers a run for their money in a couple of years.

Was looking forward to the trailer for Dark Knight Rises but it wasn't to be.
I'm so-so on that movie, it could be better than the previews show. Time will tell.

Last Day!

Well of this week it's the last day, we still have a whole string of weeks to get through until, well whatever. So I guess there really isn't a last last day, just a last day of this week long cycle where we have to go to work before getting two days off.

Anyway, Thing 2 has her solo this morning with Weezy's mom as her accompaniment! She does so much for all of the kids, teens, and especially the theatre! She deserves a community award, she volunteers for so much and offers her time freely.

Slight chance of rain later on today. Go figure, it's Tristate. That's the way it happens!

Winding Down

Today will be pretty busy, yesterday was at work. Today will be the same. It happens when you're the only one in the shop.

Well a couple of days ago the satellite receiver went out, another one is being shipped to us so last night I pulled out a real gem of a movie. The Majestic, a little known movie that I'm positive I've blogged about before, years ago.

It's about a screenwriter in the communist witch era that has an accident and loses his memory. He winds up in a small town and is mistaken for one of their war heroes who disappeared in WWII. This is a movie about honor, patriotism, and friendly people in a small town. There isn't one bad frame in this movie which was directed by Frank Darabont of Shawshank Redemption and The Walking Dead fame.

It's not surprising that you've probably never heard of it but it's a special movie, if Frank Capra were alive today and making movies, he would have made this movie. If you can find it I'd strongly suggest you check it out, it's worth your time:)

All By Myself

That's the song that'll be ringing in my head today at work. The Lead has gone to a union sponsored conference in the city today and tomorrow. So I'll handle everything for two days. It's an unspoken law that the phone will ring three times more when one of us is in the shop by ourselves.

Not sure why it works like that but it does. I'm sure there is an inspector lurking in the wings waiting to pounce on me as well. We'll see, hopefully things will go smoothly but they rarely do when it's one person. The new guy has gone to nights. He asked how long he'd be there, I told him until he retires. The guy with eighteen years of seniority has been on nights for sixteen years and will be there until he retires. He said he won't might nights, yeah, until you work it for a while then you'll mind nights.

The Date has been feeling very under the weather, last night she had a pretty hot fever going on. Before I went to bed she was cooler as she had taken some ibuprofen and it was working. Hopefully she'll be better today:)

Thing 2 is practicing for the Tristate festival, she gave us a list last night of every place she has to be from Thursday and into the weekend. It's a lot! She'll do great though:) Love them all:)

Amazing

Towns north of us were grazed or hit by tornadoes last night while south of us got hammered by severe weather, us? Well we remained safe from the dangerous weather once again! Yes we get flooded from time to time but not badly, we get freezing weather and ice storms, but we are usually safe as can be from tornadoes.

Everyone who lives here feels the same way, we've all sat in front of the TV watching Gary England protect people from dangerous storms. We've all gone outside to watch the skies and see what's being talked about, I dare say that everyone in Oklahoma is at minimum an amateur meteorologist in some form or fashion.

Yes we are safe again but this year the storms keep rolling in, last year we were well on our way to a record drought and triple digit temperatures. This year the drought has ended and we're getting plenty of rain to keep things green and growing!