I’ll stick my carbon footprint up your ass

So there we are sitting on the porch sipping chavelas’ smoking reds in the middle of the ice age. When we look at each other and start to discuss the global warming occurring… you know climate change.

When we look up, and notice cars haven’t been invented yet, nor is there an a coal fired power plant yet to be designed for another 10 million years, we wonder what is causing the global warming?

So what is the real reason our planet undergoes climate change… and don’t tell me because I am not recycling my newspaper.

It has nothing to do with depletion of the ozone layer, carbon dioxide emissions or failure to recycle your supermarket bags. It has to do with the earth getting closer to the sun.

Like the butterfly effect, the planets move in a relative orbit, plus or minus  few 100,000 miles. The gravitational pull from all the other planets in our system has an effect on every lap we do of the sun. Did you know at one time Jupiter and Saturn swapped places? It was caused by the gravitational effects of the other planets to move them out of their original orbits. Shit, we don’t even acknowledge Pluto as a planet anymore. Some scientists decided a couple of years ago Pluto was too small and too far away to concern us.

Sooner or later we will go away from the sun and the earth will cool down 1 degree over the course of 100 years and there will be another problem to solve, the problem of “Global Cooling”. How are we going generate enough ozone to pump into the atmosphere fast enough to stop this alarming trend?

Believe me or not, I forgot to put my references down of where I acquired this knowledge. Well actually it was told to me by my alien abductors while on the examination table in their space craft.

Venus to Martian Dictionary Required

Way back in the fall, I was at a bar with a few people from work and met a girl there. I looked at her and thought she had the most amazing features of any women I had seen.

Background – There are 5 sisters where I work, 5 they all work in different departments, she is one of the 5.

I saw her a couple of weeks back in the cafeteria and we had an “hi”, I started thinking about her… I talked to one of my groupleaders and asked a little background. She encouraged me to ask her on a date… what could it hurt…

More background – The company I work for is completly inbread. Alot of people go by Jr. and Sr. because multiple generations work at the factory… I even know a mother who works for her son… against company policy, but non the less… anyhow the point of this blog is for a little translation…

I wasn’t about to ask a stranger out… non the less someone who works in the same building… I kinda swore that off after last time… so I went to a sister… worst case, I am sure it would come up at dinner or something, hey you know who asked about you?…

Me: “Is Denise Single?”

Her: “Yes, no, well no, kinda, but not for you and I am not at liberty to tell you why”

I wasn’t looking for that kinda answer… I was looking for yes or no… I wasn’t expecting a yes, could be, no not for you… I walked away a little confused…

I thought about it for days and weeks and I still don’t have an answer… The way she was so quick with a not me could mean a couple of things and because she wasn’t at liberty… at liberty? what kinda word is that? The definitive no, either meant they have already talked about me or something else is going on.

I think perhaps, she is involved with someone at work who the sister doesn’t approve of? Which is where the “Yes, no, well no, kinda” came from… and the “but not for you and I am not at liberty to tell you why” is because it’s someone I know / someone above me. Once of my bosses was actually married to one of the 5… scandalous if true… it would make her “off limits” and I am sure the girls wouldn’t approve of such a relationship.

The odd thing is, I have noticed she has been parking in one of the 4 parking spots surrounding my truck all week long. 3 days… coincidence? Well… that’s what got me thinking about her again and that’s the purpose of this blog.

So what does everyone think? What does “but not for you and I am not at liberty to tell you why” mean?

What is the first thought you have in the morning?

I have some pretty weird ones… As I wake my mind starts thinking. The theme might have been spawned by I dream I awoke from, or something that had happened recently.

This morning I woke up thinking about ship to shore radios and stealing calling card numbers.

I know where it came from. Last night, I was over a friends house for dinner. Our other friend came over also, he brought his girls with him, because is was custody weekend. The first one had bought a TV today, it was a decent sized LCD. Of course we needed to discuss this purchase and inquire when he won the lottery. But the discussion turned into a little known company that makes 75% of the LCD screens on the market. Most of what they make is re-branded… LG Electronics

One the girls mentioned that she used to have an LG phone.

So I woke up thinking, what kind of phone did I have when I was 15? None, there was no such things as cell phones. The closest thing to a cell phone was a ship to shore radio. When I was younger, my family always had a boat, I lived on long island sound. Late in the day when things got boring, I would turn on the ship to shore radio and listen to people’s conversations. It wasn’t like a cell phone, you couldn’t connect directly. You got on the radio, and listened… I think there was only a couple of channels dedicated to ship to shore. So you waited until the frequency was free, then called the operator.

Boater: “this is (boat name) to the marine operator”
Marine Operator: “marine operator, how can I help you”
Boater: “I would like to place a call to 555-1212”
Marine Operator: “Calling card number, please”
Boater: “123-456-789”
Marine Operator: “One moment please…. Ring, ring, ring”

And the call was put through.

Being in my teens and never having a quarter to my name, I made a list of all the calling card numbers I heard over the air. They would come in handy when you came up to a pay phone.

This reminded me of a bicycle trip to Nantucket and The Vineyard, where I stayed in youth hostels. Somebody had a cassette tape recorder and the sounds on the tape were quarters going into a telephone. Remember back in the day when you put money in a pay phone you could hear a beep or click when you put your money in? Well by recording that sound and playing it back accomplished the same effect.

You cannot do that anymore because telephone companies use out of band signaling (non audible) but before they changed over, maybe about 10 years or so ago we made a modern day version of the cassette tape recorder. You know those greeting cards that have a sound chip in them, so you can record your voice in the card? Yes, so we tore apart a card for the sound chip and neatly packaged it into an empty cigarette pack. Of course it worked… but since then the system has changed and it doesn’t work like that anymore.

And that’s the kind of things I think of when I am waking up.

Puppies from Heaven

This week I adopted a new dog. I have been thinking about getting a companion for my dog for years. After consultation with my veterinarian, we decided it would be a good idea.

 

For years, I have had a “problem child”. He is a 7 year old chow husky mix. I was at the gym about 7 years ago, when a guy, we’ll call him Johnny Biceps asks me if I want a puppy… I knew his two dogs, one was a lovable chow, “Olivia” and the other was a rescue chow, “Bear”. Bear was pretty bad off, he wouldn’t allow anyone in his home besides Jonny Biceps and the family. This is a complete understatement, Bear would attack anyone in the yard. The UPS man used to leave packages at the end of the driveway and blow his horn… and they carry mace.  

 

Me: “Are you friggin kidding? I want nothing to do with anything related to bear.

JB: “No, it was the neighbors dog.

Me: “OK, but I don’t want another dog.

 

I came home from the gym, and said to my girlfriend, “Olivia had puppies, want to go see them this weekend, not that I want one, but they are puppies…”

 

We went to see them one winter Saturday… We went down to the basement and saw them, 6 little fluff balls… how could you not fall in love with them? There was one that wouldn’t leave us alone (in retrospect, maybe not a good trait to choose a dog by). YES WE WANT HIM!!!

 

He wasn’t ready to go home, they have to be 8 weeks old to leave their mother… the weeks dragged… The weekend we were to pick him up was about the worst week of my life. I lost my best friend to an oxycontin o.d. well… I don’t know what it was, and I never asked… does it really matter? While I was cleaning out his apartment, my girlfriend brought the puppy home.

 

We had another dog, a 11 year old Belgian  Sheppard, she took from under a trailer in Montana. When the boy would want to play with her, she would play a little then run to the basement for some piece and quiet.

 

The relationship eventually ended and she moved out, along with the Sheppard. I left for work in the normal way, threw his a couple of milkbones and headed out the door. I could never have been prepared for what I saw when I got home. The trim on the front door was gnawed through, the carpet in front of the door was torn up (3’X3’). He was terribly upset. He did about $1000 damage to the house that day, I wasn’t mad at him, I felt bad that he was that upset. I hugged him and apologized for hours to him.

 

This went on for a couple of days, while I was trying to figure out what to do. I called his puppy trainer and asked what to do… it was separation anxiety. I called my ex. She told me her dog hasn’t eaten in days. There was only one thing to do… get the dogs together. She would bring her dog over in the morning and leave her all day, then wait for me to come home from work and leave. This worked for a while, but our schedules didn’t work. Eventually it got to her taking both dogs with her during the week and I would get my boy on the weekends…. Does this sound like child custody yet?

 

She finally couldn’t handle two dogs in a New Hampshire winter and asked if I could take care of him during the week. We went back to she bringing her dog over during the day, since my house was between hers and her path to work. This lasted months it was probably about a year after we broke up and we were still doing this routine.

 

In the fall, she was laid off, when her business closed the local office. She moved back to Vermont. Before she moved I started dating another girl who was very suspicious of my ex coming and going from my house at will (well, it wasn’t at will, there was a schedule). I found a dog walker who would come during the day and break up his day and lessen the anxiety. In addition we went to dog training classes to build his self esteem, so he could manage a day without a companion.

 

My dog walker suggested I speak to my vet about his anxiety. We both went to the vet together, my vet prescribed valium. It worked for a couple of days, but he was taking 4 a day. We went back to the vet. She prescribed a medication that humans are prescribed for OCD, clomipramine.    MAGIC!!!!

 

He instantly became a mature, confident dog. The downside, since he doesn’t have health insurance, was his medication costs me $2.20 / day. It’s been a year now (do the math – $2.20 / day – medication $18 / day for dog walker) when I the root cause of his actions was being lonely. There are other dog psychology theories that would suggest he hasn’t accepted his role of beta dog to me alpha dog. Alpha dogs are allowed to leave the pack from time to time, because they have important pack business, hunting, etc. Beta dogs know this and stay back. He is a pack dog, he is a husky they travel in packs, they hunt in packs. Because he was alpha for so many years, he just will not give it up.

 

 

This year at his physical, we went over all I have done with him and my vet finally agreed that another dog might just do the trick. She wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to use another dog as a fix if it was me that was causing the problems and another dog would be another problem.

 

Now I watch Cesar Milan religiously, in case you haven’t seen the dog whisperer and you are a dog owner you owe it to yourself to watch his show. What you will figure out from the show is, when people humanize animals is when they have problems with the animals… and loads of dog psychology.

 

I left my vets office and went straight to petfinder.com to find my boy a companion. I knew my boy gets along better with females than males and I know they can’t be larger than him. I found a Rottweiler rescue organization nearby and they had a couple of sweethearts. One of them, through a recessive gene made her smaller, (55lbs.) I filled out the application online and waited. The process is harder to get a Rottie than it is to get a handgun in New Hampshire. They required 2 references, the name of my veterinarian, they asked to see the deed to my house, my insurance policy and a home visit. We started the process. A week later we (the boy and I) went to meet a prospective new housemate. We introduced the dogs correctly, making one sit, while the other one sniffed, then made the other sit while the first sniffed. With normal calm submissive dogs, they will do this on their own. With my boys history, we had to force them to do it correctly.

 

I took the dogs together for a walk in the parking lot. The intent was to form a pack, walking together is what a pack does. They walked perfectly together. Dogs are always happiest walking together. My mother’s boyfriend has a Labrador retriever that the boy has issues with. Regardless of the issues, put leashes on them and take them for a walk, and they are buddies… it is a primal thing for dogs, I cannot say it enough.  

 

Day 1

Her foster mother brought her over on Thursday morning at 8:00am. I took Thursday and Friday off to make sure they were ok together and to get to know her better.  The two had met a week earlier in a parking lot in Nashua and now they were meeting again in the driveway. We fought the black flies for about 5 minutes and took the dogs inside to the screened in porch. They wrestled a little, a little growling and a couple of spats. They were trying to figure out their roles… alpha – beta. In my house, they are both beta, I am the alpha, but they can figure out which level they fall into. At one time, they each were up on their hind legs with their fronts on each others shoulders, they looked each other in the eyes then dropped and turned away… that was the moment! I looked at the foster mother and she said the same thing.

 

The foster mother went out to the car to get the girls medical records. The little girl panicked a little, I kept a steady supply of hotdogs into her to keep her mind off having her foster mom leave her for a couple of minutes. We went through the paper work. It was time for her to leave. What would Cesar do? Take the pack for a walk! I put leashes on everyone. She said goodbye to the little girl and left. I gave her a couple of minute head start and we went out the door for a walk.

 

The little girl was pulling me for a couple of hundred feet, she was probably smelling her momma’s van. A couple of quick jerks on her lead got her walking normal, head up, brain moving forward. We got a mile down the road, when we had a surprise; a bobcat crossed the road 200 feet in front of us!  Neither of the dogs saw it, but I turned them around, because I didn’t want them to smell it. We walked a mile back home and sat on the porch and had water. It was now 10 am and the dogs had sorted out their hierarchy, formed a pack and were sleeping on the deck.

 

My ex was waiting for the phone call on when to come over to meet the girl. She has since left the job she moved to VT for and is back in New Hampshire. Her Sheppard had passed away almost 2 years ago and she has another dog, Lilly. Lilly and the boy have weekly play dates. So if there was another dog in the mix, we needed to know what would happen. So they came over about 1:00 and the dogs played all afternoon.

 

It was now time for dinner. The foster mother told me to feed her in her kennel, because she is food possessive. What she didn’t tell me was that she was possessive of other dogs food, not just hers. She scarfed her dinner, then went for the boys. I blocked her, but she became very aggressive. She practically went into a feeding frenzy. I felt bad and put her back in her kennel with some more food. She just wouldn’t stop eating, so I left her in her kennel to settle down while the boy finished his supper.

 

After dinner we went for a walk, we went a little early because 1) I was shot 2) I wanted to walk them both while it was still light out. We went to the boy’s favorite spot up the road, while he was 20 feet off the road doing circles, looking for the perfect spot… she just pooped on the side of the road, then peed right on top of it. I was relieved, she hadn’t gone all day, but I was almost knocked out, this was the worst smelling dog shit I had ever smelled.

 

Come bedtime, I told her it was bedtime and brought her over to her kennel, she walked right in and laid down, I closed the door and the boy and I went upstairs to bed, that was too easy.

 

Day 2

The coffee maker started at 4:45 like always, but there was no way I was getting out of bed. I fell back asleep and got up around 7:00. We went downstairs, put a leash on the kids and went for our morning walk. She dropped to a squat right in the driveway for her pee, the boy ran off a couple of feet from the driveway for #1 and #2. Geeze, I never even had to hit the easy button!

 

We came back to the house and had our coffee on the back porch. This was the first time the girl walked up to me sitting and put her big drewly face on my lap. Life was good, I am on my deck overlooking the mountains, drinking coffee and the dogs have done their business. Once again everything is too good… I am bored… I took two days off from work to break up dog fights that aren’t happening.

 

I got a txt from my ex asking if I was up for another play date for the kids, of course… they came over in about ½ hour later. Lilly was happy to see the boy and girl, so happy she peed right there on the floor. We were out on the deck, so it didn’t really matter, a paper towel fixes all. The three dogs played for a while, then I noticed the girl was pacing, like she was looking for something. I didn’t know what she was looking for, but I saw the signs… then without more warning, she put out the biggest stinkiest pile of poop.

 

 

Day 3

Saturday I had to leave the house. It had been two days. I headed to Home Depot to buy materials to build a fence for the kids. I had them out on cables, which is good for one dog, but when you add a second you get knots and quickly. I walked down to the backyard and scoped out the spot. I figured 25’ X 25’ would be  a decent size for the two of them to frolic. Originally I thought of having it go up to the back door, but that would require making a tunnel out to area. I figured since they would have to be supervised in the pen anyhow, I could walk them out to it.

 

When I came home, the boy met me at the door, instead of his usual wound up self, he approached the door with an air of “oh, it’s you… “ Holy shit!!!! The new girl worked!!! He was completely fine with me being out of the house. And her… I had to wake her because she was sleeping when I walked up to her kennel.

 

Day 4

I thought it would be a good idea for my dog walker to meet the little girl before she came to take them out. Her and he husband came over, they waited on the front deck waiting for us to come out. She was very suspicious of them… Within a few minutes she had explored them and thought they were ok. We walked down into the yard to survey the next fenced in area for the dogs and decided I could make it a little bigger (25’X50’). I handed her the leash to see if the girl would freak… she didn’t.

 

They were about to leave when the husband said “Hey, why don’t you put the leash on her… “ good thing he did. The girl would not have it. Hum… what would Cesar do? Leash = good, food = good… I got a couple of milkbones, handed them to her, she gave the girl milkbones while hooking up the leash… worked like a charm.

 

Day 6

She has gotten into a routine and so have we. She waits in the morning for me to have coffee and a shower before coming out of her kennel. The three of us go for a walk in the morning, she does her stuff. We come home have a little playtime and I leave for work. When I come home, she is happy to see me and we go for another walk.

 

Dinner time is still a little crazy, she snapped at the boy because I had a bowl of food with me, when bringing him inside to eat. I corrected her and fed him first. Hopefully she will associate being bad with eating last.

 

Time to go for our nightly walk

When I kissed my boss…

It started along time ago…

 

I started a new job in a bustling “internet” driven company. I don’t remember when I first noticed her, but  it was one of those times that you are walking and just start tripping… I don’t mean like acid, I mean like literally trip because you cannot see this person and function at the same time.

 

There were 3000 people working at my company at the time, you couldn’t just ask somebody… “Hey, who is the blonde girl upstairs?” I didn’t know who she was, but I would always freak out when I saw her usually just trip over my two feet. She started using the plotter behind my desk for some reason. I would hear the plotter start up, jump up, take a look at the drawing, if it looked like something that could be hers, I would jam it up… that way when she came to get the print out, she would find it’s messed up and have to come back.

 

The company in a heat of growth split up and downsized simultaneously, we moved production into a building down the street. At the same time, we outsourced a couple of the groups, she was in one of them, but got moved to another position in the other building. When I figured out where she went, I was slightly relieved; it was embarrassing tripping every time I saw her in the hallway. 

 

A year or so, after the internet bubble burst the two building were condensed, she moved back to my building. This is when we had our first “conversation”…

 

I was in the cafeteria getting lunch, it was a philly cheese steak, walking to the register, I hear somebody, “Looks good” IT’S HER! Oh my god, I am going to trip and drop my lunch!! I replied with “Ya” can you fucking believe it? I am so worried about falling down, that’s all I can say.

 

My group had moved upstairs and was a fraction of what we used to be… when I was hired the group was about 35 engineers, we were down to about 8. We were now doing little machines and sustaining what we had already built.  I sat next to mechanical engineer who started doing project for the product engineers… specifically her. She would come over and explain what she needed done, usually design up a fixture or something… he would do it for her.

 

He and I would of course talk all the time… “Hey did you see Sienfeld last night?” remember the one in which he was complaining about when people sneeze and you say “God bless you. Why don’t you pay them a compliment, like, Your so good looking…” well, we talked about that episode one day, later she came over for a design review and of course sometime during the meeting she sneezed… George and I looked at each other… and there was silence, we were both thinking the same thing… “Your so good looking…”

 

Time went by, I got to the point where I could actually say hi to her in the hallway without falling down. At the time the company was re-organizing, again… I was doing some manufacturing engineering, rather than machine development. My first project was to solve the companies biggest problem. We started a team, and you guessed it… she was on it! One way to keep me from missing meetings.

 

These probably went on maybe six months, it was getting towards winter… one Friday afternoon, we were sitting next to each other and turned towards each other… knees touch, neither of us moved just pretended like it wasn’t happening. That night was the Christmas party…. I hadn’t planned on going, but at that moment, I hatched a plan… go for a couple of hours after work, see if she stops by and go from there…. I was living with a girlfriend of 3 years and I swore I would kiss this girl if given the chance. I did go to the party after work. She didn’t go till way later.

 

Winter went by… spring… a group of us started going for motorcycle rides every now and then… yes, she rode a motorcycle also. Our last outing of the year was through VT… up to Bromley / Stratton / Okemo and home… one big loop. So, I guess this is good right? Going from tripping every time I see this girl to going on motorcycle rides.

 

In august I became single… Christmas came around and so did the party. Being that I lived so far from work, I could never really do Christmas parties or any parties for that matter… a bunch of the guys from work all decided we would get hotel rooms and party like it was 1999.  After work, we had dinner and loaded the hotel rooms with beer and started in before the party.

 

We took a cab to the party, so we wouldn’t have cars there and wouldn’t be tempted to drive home. We arrived… drinks, drinks, more drinks… Somehow her and I were talking at a table…  we got up to get more drinks… my confidant is at the bar, the girl and her hug and say merry Christmas! My confidant is a girl I worked with who knew my whole crush on this girl. She walks away and I say to her… wish I got  a hug and kiss from her…

 

Time went by and her and were standing by the bar… she said to me “are you single?” I said, yes, I just got out of a long term relationship, she replied that she had just also. She then said “I am kinda interested in you…” I started shaking…

 

We talked for hours that night, then the group went to another party and we all crammed into a taxi. We went to the bar ordered a round of beers, I passed them out to the group. I then blacked out. When I came to, I was making out with her, the lights were on, the band and everyone in the hotel had left.

 

She told me another co-worker was staying at her house, so I couldn’t come over and she couldn’t let him stay at her house alone, so she couldn’t come with me… I didn’t remember where that came from, it just came out of her mouth… I went to the bathroom, she went to the bathroom, I got disorientated found my friends and left.  She went to Denny’s with another group and passed out on the table.

 

The next morning I drove home and collected my dog from my ex who was watching him over night. I was sick, probably alcohol poisoning.

 

I wondered what was going on… should I call her? The next day she text’d me on the two way pagers we all had… “Sorry about that, I don’t want anything weird at work”.  So after all the obsessing over this girl, I finally get a chance to kiss her and I don’t remember a damn thing! It just isn’t fair.

 

When I got to work the next week, I asked people about the party… seems a lot of people blacked out that night. I began to suspect we were all drugged… I started treating her a lot more professionally at work, limiting our conversations to work only. The real Christmas shutdown came, as she was leaving the building, she stopped by my desk gave me a plate of cookies and said merry Christmas.  I didn’t know what to make of it… I didn’t know where this was going, but I knew she ran marathons,  I quit smoking that day.

 

The more I tried to distance ourselves, the more we seemed to be working together. I thought, that if she thought, “hey, we hardly see each other at work…” things would be different…. We seemed to be working together more and more… until the day, she became my boss.

 

More maybe…

 

 

I am attracted to alcoholics and lesbians

I was over my freinds house tonight, the one who’s wife fixed me up with the wino…

Well, she has joined AA and stopped drinking. The other news is she has the hots for her “partner” or what ever you call you buddy… I don’t think you are supposed to do that… but good for her.

She is the second person I have been involved with who got into the program. The first was probably 10 years ago, under similar circumstances… well not really. I met her through a friend, but she lived 30 miles away… geeze come to think about it, we had the first date at the same place… different oweners, but same building. I drove all the way to pick her up and remained sober all night long, so I could drive her home. Bla, bla one thing led to another and she slept on the couch that night. I litterally fought her for the last beer in my fridge. The next day I brought her home.

I don’t know what went wrong with her, alright I did… I couldn’t take a drunk. We remained in contact and she cleaned up… funny thing is, somehow she moved to my town… she used to live across the street from my buddy and his wife that fixed me up with the new wino.

So, that’s two alcoholics… now about the lesbians…

It’s not what your thinking, “Lebians are Hot!”

It’s more than my fair share of girlfriends have started batting for the other team. Well, at least not since college… what’s that called Luggy? Lesbian until graduation?…

Story closed….

Might have dodged a bullet…

So today, my flirtatious group leader threw a nutty… She has had enough of the stress of working 7 days a week for the last 6 months. She had a close call with her mother last week and today she lost it. Everyone was a target, myself included.

The maintenance guy working over head was in her way, so she couldn’t work. The group leader on 3rd shift always leaves her a mess. I keep asking her to do special inspections of defective products. She hates her supervisor, bla bla bla… on and on…

What got me was a joke we have… we have a number of levels of product; International for demanding Japanese customers, OEM for domestic, not so demanding customers and Aftermarket for well… you people who buy in blister packs…

So, I started calling one girl “Aftermarket”, functionally ok but might be a cosmetic off… the other girl said I called her Aftermarket and she took it pretty bad… (low self esteem?) Well, in her rant today with management, she told them how it bothered her that I called her that…

I refreshed their memory about the “Aftermarket” sticker someone, probably her placed on my back earlier this week…

The bullet was her innuendos that I never respond to. I guarantee she would have had some ammunition to fire at me with… I think it was yesterday we were walking by some plumbing on the floor and she said “do you need your pipes cleaned?” I am sure if I responded to that, I would have heard my words back to me in front of management tonight…

When are we going to get it?

In horrific late breaking news, Radio Free Asia is now reporting that up to 80 or more Tibetans have been killed in today’s violent clashes with Chinese military. Chinese authorities responded with brute force today to ongoing protests in Lhasa and across Tibet. Supported by tanks, thousands of armed troops have sealed off the three major monasteries where nonviolent protests were initiated on Monday. Chinese police have fired live ammunition into crowds of unarmed Tibetans and unconfirmed reports from eye-witnesses in Lhasa say that 26 Tibetans were gunned down outside Drapchi prison. While the international public and media have been appropriately horrified by China’s clampdown, the U.S. has made only very weak statements. White House Spokesman Tony Fratto said, “We believe Beijing needs to respect Tibetan culture. They need to respect multi-ethnicity in their society. We regret the tensions between ethnic groups and Beijing.”

Does anyone remember the Tiananmen Square Massacre?

Counterfeiting of every product we send there for manufacture, is minor compared to the Chinese government killing their own people. What the fuck is wrong with that place? They killed our animals using a poison to trick the chemical testing of the dog food into thinking there was more protein than there actually was.   Poisoned  our children with lead paint on toys.    The list goes on and on… well, here’s the list. 

What needs to happen to for us to something about this? Are we all too happy to go to Wal-Mart and be able to buy our needs cheaper than we have ever have? My boss went to China earlier this year to look at potential suppliers. The lure of low cost production facilities is too enticing for corporate America. The photo’s he sent back are astonishing… The pollution is so bad there, they will be shutting down most of the energy plants for a month prior to the Olympic Games. BTW, anyone want to take a stab at the age of the children that will be producing the apparel for the Olympics

Strike 3

I don’t know if it was 3 strikes, but it was enough for me.

We made plans again for dinner last Sunday. Because of the distance, our dates have been sleep overs.  I offered up the guest room, but we were mature about it, if you get my drift.

After dinner, we had some wine and beer, then because I had to go to work in the morning, we went to bed. She kept getting up to go pee. It must have been 3 times before I fell asleep. I heard the door close again, I thought it was the bathroom door, it was the bedroom door… I then heard her downstairs, I look at the clock, it was 4:30 am. I rolled over, a few minutes later she came back upstairs…

“What were you doing?”

“I can’t sleep, I had too many energy drinks yestarday…”

“What?”

She settled down and got up again… WTF?

My alarm went off at 5:00am and I went downstairs to have my coffee. I noticed the bottle of wine from last night was now empty… oh for christ’s sake… she got up at 4:00 in the morning to polish off the rest of the wine? I should have seen the warning signs… the previous date when we were back at her place, she drank her wine and mine…

No more dates for her…

Date Night

Well, after a not so successful first date with my blind date, I called wifey’s husband to get his take on the evening. He said it wasn’t the cosmo’s that did her in, it was the two bottles of wine the girls had shared all afternoon. Then in the morning, while wifey was sleeping, he had to entertain her and found out, she really has a nice personality when the pomp and circumstance of date night was over.

I wanted to give us another chance before writing her off.. We had been playing phone tag all week and never really got to talk during the week. Saturday afternoon, I went to the store and planned my Sunday dinner. I usually make myself a real nice sunday supper, because of eating like shit during the week.

 I got home from the store and the machine was flashing with a new message. It was short.

“Hi, this is ___________ I think you should come over tonight, call me.”

I called her back, she had an appointment from 6 to 8, then would be ready for 9:00pm. I am thinking to myself… uhm… that’s my bedtime… ok, give me your address, I’ll pop it into my GPS, yup it found it, see you then. We went downtown manchvegas… she wanted to see about a martini bar she had heard about. We found it ok, but parking was another problem.. I found a parking garage… but I had my doubts, my truck would fit. (F-350) There was a little bar that hung from the roof that let you know if you touched it, you probably shouldn’t try to go in. I was under it by 3 inches. Everytime I went under a beam my antennas hit it. The girl was kind enough to reach out the window and hold the antennas from slapping.

We went to the martini bar for a drink and talk. We didn’t have martinis… she had a glass of wine and I had a budweiser. We decided it would be funner to play air hockey and pool, so we left for Jillians’. We went in, the bouncer asked for her ID and $5. She gave him her ID and said “see my sugar daddy for the money”. We got drinks and found the air hockey table. She spilled her rum and coke on the table and we needed to find a waitress to clean it up. I had been warned by her, that she is a proffessional air hockey player and would offer me some tips. I asked her if she was beating me too bad to lay off and give me a couple of points. I beat her 5 games to 1.

We closed the place and were thinking about what to do next, when she asked me to stay over. I didn’t know what to do, I have a dog at home, I have never left him overnight alone. At first I declined, then thought about it for 300 miliseconds and said “That would be great, what’s the worst that can happen to him?”

We got back to her place and talked for a while and hit the sack… (being good, it was a first date after all, well second I suppose). I woke in the morning and looked at the clock, it was 5:00, I woke her and told her I had to leave. I drove home, my boy was up and terribly excited to see me. We went for a little walk and went to sleep.

 She is coming over for dinner tonight. I have a lot of cleaning to do today…

I’ll keep my concerns to myself for the time being.