A Lay-Back And Recharge Kind of Day...

The BBQ was very good, great food and great people.  It was so nice that the sun came out just as it began.  We went to Girsch Park afterward for the fireworks display.  It somehow always manages to outdo the previous year!

Had a bit of necessary shopping to do today, but otherwise cleaned up after the party and began reading "The Lost Symbol"  So far, so good.

Back to the grind in the morning...



Read a cute story about Upselling.

A wealthy man decided to go on a safari in Africa. He took his faithful pet dachshund along for company. One day, the dachshund starts chasing butterflies and before long the dachshund discovers that he is lost.
So, wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having him for lunch. The dachshund thinks, "OK, I'm in deep trouble now!" Then he noticed some bones on the ground close by, and immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the leopard is about to leap, the dachshund exclaims loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here." Hearing this, the leopard halts his attack in mid-stride, as a look of terror comes over him, and slinks away into the trees. "Whew," says the leopard. "That was close. That dachshund nearly had me." Meanwhile, a monkey, who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So, off he goes.
But the dachshund saw him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figured that something must be up.
The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, "Here monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine." Now the dachshund sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back, and thinks, "What am I going to do now?" But instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn't seen them yet ... and, just when they get close enough to hear, the dachshund says..................
"Where's that darn monkey? Sent him off half an hour ago to bring me another leopard."

Tipper Gore discovered that her husband's great great uncle, Gunther Gore, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Tennessee in 1889.
The only existing photograph shows him standing on the gallows. On the back of the picture is this inscription: "Gunther Gore; horse thief. Sent to Tennessee Prison 1883, escaped 1887. Robbed the Tennessee Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889."
After letting President Clinton's large staff of professional image consultants review this discovery, they took the following actions to assist Al's campaign to become our next president. They decided to crop Gunther's picture, scan it in as an enlarged image, and edited it with image processing software so that all that is seen in the final picture is a head shot. Along with this enhanced photo, the accompanying biographical sketch was sent to the Associated Press:
"Gunther Gore was a famous cattleman in early Tennessee history. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Tennessee railroad company. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to service at a government facility, finally taking leave to resume his business enterprise with the railroad. In 1887 he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889 Gunther regrettably died suddenly during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform on which he was standing collapsed."

Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6 a.m. While his coffee pot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG). He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA).
After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB. At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day, Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA), and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job in.....AMERICA.....

Have you ever had one of those customer service calls where you find yourself saying things you don't believe?
This is so priceless....and so easy to see happening, given the state of customer service these days....
My Aunt passed away this past January. Her bank billed her for February and March for their monthly service charge on her credit card, and then added late fees and interest on the monthly charge. The balance had been $0.00, but had now grown to somewhere around $60.00.
I placed the following phone call to the bank:
Me: "I am calling to tell you that she died in January."
Bank: "The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply."
Me: "Maybe, you should turn it over to collections..."
Bank: "Since it is two months past due, it already has been."
Me: "So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?"
Bank: "Either report her account to the frauds division, or report her to the credit bureau...maybe both!"
Me: "Do you think God will be mad at her?"
Bank:"Do I think God... excuse me, what did you say?"
Me: "Do you understand what I was telling you... specifically the part about her being... dead?"
Bank: "Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor!"
(Supervisor gets on the phone)
Me: "I'm calling to tell you, she deceased in January."
Bank: "The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply."
Me: "You mean you want to collect from her estate?"
Bank: ".....(stammer)" .... "Are you her lawyer?"
Me: "No, I'm her great nephew, but feel free to contact her lawyer at: XXX"
Bank: "Could you fax us a certificate of death?"
Me: "Sure."
( Later, After they have gotten the fax. )
Bank: "Our system just isn't setup to handle this..."
Me: "Oh..."
Bank: "I don't know what more I can do to help..."
Me: "Well... if you figure it out, great! If not, you could just keep billing her... I suppose...don't really think she will care...."
Bank: "Well...the late fees and charges do still apply."
Me: "Would you like her new billing address?"
Bank: "That might help."
Me: "Fredrickson Memorial Cemetery, Hwy 19 and plot number 233."
Bank: "Sir, that's a cemetery!"
Me: "Yes sir, that's what we do with our departed loved ones."

A mother was walking with her four year old daughter one day when the daughter picked up something off the ground and started to put it into her mouth. The mother stopped her and said she shouldn't do that.
"Why," asked the little girl.
"Because it’s dirty. It's been on the ground. You don't know where it's been. It probably has germs."
The little girl looked up at her mom with admiration and asked, "How do you know so much?"
Thinking quickly, the mother said, "All moms know so much. We have to. It's on the Mommy Test. If you don't know it, you don't get to be a mommy."
The little girl pondered this for a few minutes, then her face brightened. "I get it!" she said. "If you don't pass the test, you get to be a daddy!"
"Yup," said the mom.

***** Happy 4th *****

It seems very anticlimactic for a holiday.  The skies are gray with a thick marine-layer of fog.  If it doesn't clear by tonight, the fireworks will appear as just pink fog.  Having a BBQ today and everyone will be sitting outside with their sweaters on. 

I still want to know what happens if BP declares bankruptcy.  I can't imagine them not doing so, and how will Obama's gubmint react ?

In the ultimate case of stolen identities, how many more spies are living quietly in the US with someone else's identity, perhaps a dead person ?  It would seem that a scan and correlation of records via computer would drum up some extra cases for evaluation....


Some thoughts on Independence Day by Ben Stein.

Everyone have a great day....

 

IF AIRLINES SOLD PAINT . . . Customer: Hi. How much is your paint?

Clerk: Well, sir, that all depends on quite a lot of things.

Customer: Can you give me a guess? Is there an average price?

Clerk: Our lowest price is $12 a gallon, and we have 60 different
prices up to $200 a gallon.

Customer: What's the difference in the paint?

Clerk: Oh, there isn't any difference; it's all the same paint.

Customer: Well, then I'd like some of that $12 paint.

Clerk: When do you intend to use the paint?

Customer: I want to paint tomorrow. It's my day off.

Clerk: Sir, the paint for tomorrow is the $200 paint.

Customer: When would I have to paint to get the $12 paint?

Clerk: You would have to start very late at night in about 3
weeks. But you will have to agree to start painting before Friday
of that week and continue painting until at least Sunday.

Customer: You've got to be *&%^#@* kidding!

Clerk: I'll check and see if we have any paint available.

Customer: You have shelves FULL of paint! I can see it!

Clerk: But it doesn't mean that we have paint available. We sell
only a certain number of gallons on any given weekend. Oh, and by
the way, the price per gallon just went to $16. We don't have any
more $12 paint.

Customer: The price went up as we were talking?

Clerk: Yes, sir. We change the prices and rules hundreds of times
a day, and since you haven't actually walked out of the store
with your paint yet, we just decided to change. I suggest you
purchase your paint as soon as possible. How many gallons do you
want?

Customer: Well, maybe five gallons. Make that six, so I'll have
enough.

Clerk: Oh no, sir, you can't do that. If you buy paint and don't
use it, there are penalties and possible confiscation of the
paint you already have.

Customer: WHAT?

Clerk: We can sell enough paint to do your kitchen, bathroom,
hall and north bedroom, but if you stop painting before you do
the bedroom, you will lose your remaining gallons of paint.

Customer: What does it matter whether I use all the paint? I
already paid you for it!

Clerk: We make plans based upon the idea that all our paint is
used, every drop. If you don't, it causes us all sorts of
problems.

Customer: This is crazy!! I suppose something terrible happens if
I don't keep painting until after Saturday night!

Clerk: Oh yes! Every gallon you bought automatically becomes the
$200 paint.

Customer: But what are all these, "Paint on sale from $10 a
liter" signs?

Clerk: Well that's for our budget paint. It only comes in half-
gallons. One $5 half-gallon will do half a room. The second half-
gallon to complete the room is $20. None of the cans have labels,
some are empty and there are no refunds, even on the empty cans.

Customer: To hell with this! I'll buy what I need somewhere else!

Clerk: I don't think so, sir. You may be able to buy paint for
your bathroom and bedrooms, and your kitchen and dining room from
someone else, but you won't be able to paint your connecting hall
and stairway from anyone but us. And I should point out, sir,
that if you paint in only one direction, it will be $300 a
gallon.

Customer: I thought your most expensive paint was $200!

Clerk: That's if you paint around the room to the point at which
you started. A hallway is different.

Customer: And if I buy $200 paint for the hall, but only paint in
one direction, you'll confiscate the remaining paint.

Clerk: No, we'll charge you an extra use fee plus the difference
on your next gallon of paint. But I believe you're getting it
now, sir.

Customer: You're insane!

Clerk: Thanks for painting with United.

Older Than Dirt Quiz: Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about! Ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (OLive-6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16 Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19 Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21 Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!

I might be older than dirt but those memories are the best part of my life. 

Almost There...

Way too much shopping today for tomorrow's bash.  I'm ready to lay back and put my feet up.



We get away with naming our baby just about anything we want (i.e. "Dweezil" or "LaShimba"), but in some countries the gubmint is telling you what you can and can't name your baby:  (see Baby Dumpling ).  It seems like a small freedom for new parents to make their baby PAY FOR THEIR WHOLE LIFE by giving them an unreasonable moniker.

We went to see "Knight and Day" tonight.  I would give it a B-.  Lots of action, but a few loose ends that make you wonder how they could leave that information out...

Stump and Mahtha

So it's time for the annual Skowhegan Fair again, and Stumpy and Martha are having their same old fight as they drive down from Bangor.

"Mahtha, we ain't gettin an younga', and by gawd I'm gonna ride that airplane ride this yeah." Says Stumpy.

Martha replies, "Stumpy, that airplane ride costs ten dollahs. And ten dollahs is ten dollahs."

Stumpy says "By gawd I don't care!"

"Ten dollahs is ten dollahs..."

Stumpy, undeterred, drives right down to the airfield, where the pilot hears their arguing, "TEN DOLLAHS IS TEN DOLLAHS!"

He walks over and says "Folks, I tell you what. I'll give you the ride for FREE; but no talking... NOT a SOUND!! It's yours for free."

Stumpy and Martha agree, strap in, and the pilot proceeds to loop-d-loop, bank turn, climb, and dive at full throttle.

As he comes in to land he looks at Stumpy in the rearview, "THAT was incredible, all that and not a word from either of you!"

Stumps unbuckling his seatbelt, says, "Well, I ahlmost said somethin' when Mahtha fell out, but ten dollahs is ten dollahs..." 

"In my lifetime, we've gone from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. We've gone from John F. Kennedy to Al Gore. If this is evolution, I believe that in 12 years, we'll be voting for plants."  - Lewis Black

"A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff." - George Carlin

You would be a redneck if:
You need one more hole punched in your card to get a freebie at the House of Tattoos.

You need an estimate from your barber before you get a haircut.

The biggest fashion risk you take is which plaid you'll wear to the 4-H Fair.

You have flowers planted in a bathroom appliance in your front yard.

Your wife weighs more then your refrigerator.

You move your refrigerator and the grass underneath it has turned yellow.

You mow your lawn and find a car.

You can spit without opening your mouth.

Going to the bathroom in the middle of the night involves putting on shoes and a jacket and grabbing a flashlight.

You go Christmas shopping for your mom, sister, and girlfriend, and you only need to buy one gift.

Taking a dip has nothing to do with water.

There are more than ten lawsuits currently pending against your dog.

You take a fishing pole to Sea World.

The hood and one door are a different color from the rest of your car.

You've ever filled your deer tag on the golf course.

You've ever shot somebody over a mall parking space.

Santa Claus refuses to let your kids sit in his lap.

Your toilet paper has page numbers on it.

You think mud rasslin' should be an Olympic sport.

The receptionist checks the rat traps at your place of business.

More than one living relative is named after a Southern Civil War general.

You think the stock market has a fence around it.

You think the O.J. trial was the big Sunkist and Minutemaid taste test.

You've ever lost a loved one to kudzu.

Your boat has not left the driveway in 15 years.

Your front porch collapses and kills more than three dogs.

Your coffee table used to be a telephone cable spool.

You keep a can of Raid on the kitchen table.

You've ever used a toilet seat as a picture frame.

Your home has more miles on it than your car.
Your Christmas tree is still up in February.

You've ever been arrested for loitering.

You think that potted meat on a saltine is an hors d'ouvre.

There is a stuffed possum anywhere in your house.

You hammer bottle caps into the frame of your front door to make it look nice.

You've ever shot anyone for looking at you.

You own a homemade fur coat.

Your wife can climb a tree faster than your cat.

Your momma has "ammo" on her Christmas list.

You've totaled every car you've ever owned.

Finally...

A much better day today.  Friday's are like that, especially just before a three day weekend.  The week has been "much ado about nothing" and it wasn't until Friday afternoon that a clear path was revealed.


The weekend plans are coming together, with preparations tomorrow for a celebratory get together on Sunday followed by the fireworks at Girsch Park.  Monday shall be a day of rest and relaxation (fat chance).

Awarded Worst First Sentence of a Novel

The Bulwer-Lytton award is given annually for the worst first sentence of a novel. Contestants craft deliberately bad opening lines. Molly Ringle took the 2010 prize with this gem:


"For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity’s affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss — a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity’s mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world’s thirstiest gerbil."

POEM - Illegal Immigrants

 
I cross river,
 poor and broke,

Take bus,
 see employment folk.

Nice man
 treat me good in there,
 Say I need
 go see Welfare.

Welfare say,
 'You come no more,

We send cash
 right to your door.'

Welfare checks,
 they make you wealthy,

Medicaid
 it keep you healthy!

By and by,
 Got plenty money,

Thanks to you, TAXPAYER dummy.

Write to friends
 in motherland,

Tell them
 'come, fast as you can'

They come in buses
 and Ford trucks,

I buy big house
 with welfare bucks.

They come here,
 we live together,

More welfare checks,
 it gets better!

Fourteen families,
 they moving in,

But neighbor's patience
 wearing thin.

Finally, white guy
 moves away,
..
I buy his house,
 and then I say,

'Find more aliens
 for house to rent.'

In my yard
 I put a tent.

Send for family
 they just trash,
...
But they, too,
 draw welfare cash!

Everything is
 very good,
 Soon we own
 whole neighborhood.

We have hobby
 it called breeding,

Welfare pay
 for baby feeding.

Kids need dentist?
 Wife need pills?

We get free!
 We got no bills!

TAXPAYER crazy!
 He pay all year,
 To keep welfare
 running here.

We think America
darn good place!
 Too darn good
 for white man race.

 If they no like us,
 they can go,
 Got lots of room
 in Mexico. 

A husband and wife are on the 9th green when suddenly she collapses from a heart attack!
"Help me dear," she groans to her husband. The husband calls 911 on his cell phone,
talks for a few minutes,
picks up his putter and lines up his putt.

His wife raises her head off the green and stares at him.
"I'm dying here and you're putting?"

"Don't worry dear," says the husband calmly,
"they found a doctor on the second hole and
he's coming to help you.

"Well, how long will it take for him to get here?"
she asks feebly.

"No time at all," says her husband.
"Everybody's already agreed to let him play through."