The No-Fly Streak is About Over

May 10, 2008 – 2:25 pm

I’m proud that, for 3 years or more, I’ve been able to avoid the cluster-eff that air travel in America has become. I don’t fear crashing planes, terrorists on planes, or anything remotely similar. I don’t fear, but resent with every fiber in my body, the feeble ministrations of the TSA and the entire Department of Homeland Security, in their “mission” to Keep us Safe.

I shake my head in bafflement at people who put up with the TSA idiocy, and then shed their shoes, belts, and all but disrobe to get on an overcrowded plane staffed by surly airline personnel, and then say “It’s inconvenient, but if it makes it safer, it’s worth it.” Right on the inconvenience, wrong on the making us safer part. The TSA screening points are staffed in the main by poorly managed, ill-trained people who are on the government teat, and serve only to provide some uniform-clad illusion of safety.

The DHS in general has turned into nothing less than yet another domestic spy agency, gathering, mining, and storing data on innocent American citizens, all in the name of “security”.

Guess what, you nitwits? I’m not afraid; I was not afraid on 9/11, I’m not afraid now, and all your meaningless color-coded horseshit advisories are just that: futile gestures by an inept bureaucracy struggling to justify its existence. You serve only to instill and reinforce fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the populace, egged on by cowardly legislators and the nationwide network of the lapdog press. In so doing, you are pissing away untold tax dollars for zero returns. You care not about anything, save next year’s appropriation, which do-nothing legislators are all too willing, due to their cowardice and sound-bite cravings, to provide. Appropriate, rinse, repeat. That’s the drill. And Beltway Bandit contractors gather greedily around the trough, all too willing to buy, sell and trade whatever ineffable swill is in vogue on any given day.

In spite of that, we want to see our grandchildren. So, in 10 days or so, we fly. Not willingly, but we fly. The drive is just too long for the time we have for this trip.

It would be much better, if we lived closer. We’d drive then. We’re working on it.

-k-

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Punchlines #23

May 10, 2008 – 1:22 pm

From Kathy Slusher-Stephens, in a mail-o-gram to my little bride, this jewel:

“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WOMAN, DON’T YOU EVER STOP?!”

Tis’ to laugh.

-k-

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Some Days, it just Doesn’t Pay to get up

May 10, 2008 – 1:14 pm

Driver gets in wreck, sees his home catch fire, gets ticket

I’ve had some miserable days in my life. I hereby declare this sad sack the winner, and retire the bad day trophy. Anytime I think my day couldn’t have been any worse, and that’s every day ending in “y”, I’ll try to remember the name Justin Hill.

-k-

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Earthquake!

May 9, 2008 – 10:42 pm

1.8 magnitude earthquake rattles D.C. area

I was in my shabby cubicle when it happened; I thought it was a sonic boom. According to the article:

Earthquakes with a magnitude of about 2.0 or less are usually called microearthquakes, and about 1,000 occur around the world each day, says Bruce Presgrave, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.

1000? That’s a lot. It’s also small potatoes compared to the unfolding human tragedy in Myanmar. I think it’s time to throw a few bucks to the charity of your choice, and try to get these folks some help. We plan to do just that, this weekend.

-k-

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Hillary, Go Home

May 9, 2008 – 10:28 pm


Apparently Hillary Clinton is mathematically challenged, and stubbornly refuses to admit that she’s lost the Democratic nomination. There is simply no way that even given 100% of the remaining delegates, she could pull out the victory.

That’s assuming one plays by the rules. But this is the self-aggrandizing junior senator from New York, whose ego knows no bounds. I’m expecting the dirty tricks to escalate, for there to be Clintonisms about the definition of majority and pleas for the bending of the rules like we’ve never seen.

The Democrats, the self-proclaimed party of the downtrodden, where every vote counts, and the majority rules, are denying their own party members the same things they promise to the nation at large. All of which making it more and more likely that in January 2009, we’ll be hearing the words

I, John Sidney McCain, do solemnly swear …

So, Hillary, just get out. I think the transportation pictured at the right should carry you where you need to go.

-k-

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Happy Birthday, Sweet 16

May 9, 2008 – 10:11 pm

Our oldest granddaughter, Ericka, turned 16 last February 29. The big celebration was held mid last-month, with a paintball party. Her mother has shown some new media savvy by posting an iMovie of the event on YouTube. For your viewing pleasure, here it is:

I must admit to being generationally challenged by the event and the background music in the video. But this is no time for me to write anything containing the phrase back in my day.

My only regret about the video is it doesn’t show what a pretty young lady Ericka is. She’s the one in white, with long hair that just couldn’t be confined under the helmet.

-k-

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Derby Day

May 3, 2008 – 11:32 am

As we prepare for this year’s Run for the Roses, my little bride and I are getting together the fixin’s for an appropriate beverage. That would be a mint julep. When I was in college, my roommate always said we should have juleps on Derby Day; we never got around to that.

I’ve told my wife on every Derby Day since that “Next year, we’ll make us some mint juleps.” And this is the year to do it. I stopped at the Harris Teeter last night and bought some fresh mint leaves1. We have the sugar and bourbon, and we managed to scrounge up some small silver cups that we’d had forever2.

There is no shortage of julep recipes available on the internet. The traditional one just calls for muddling the mint leaves and a little sugar in the bottom of your cup, then adding crushed ice and bourbon. Others recommend making a simple syrup, which gets added to the glass, along with the rest of the ingredients. I’m a traditionalist, so I recommended method one. My little bride said she’d get together a little syrup, so we could try both variations. She then followed that offer with the comment “I don’t want to get shit faced before supper.” Nor do I. It’s pork chop night.

-k-

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1 I also brought home a supply of Shiners, which is an appropriate beverage in any venue.

2 Thereby saving $200 per cup on the purchase of silver julep cups, which we wouldn’t have done anyhow. Old fashioned glasses would have had to do.

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Punchlines #22

May 1, 2008 – 11:00 pm

First unadorned punchline of ‘08, from my Brown City MI connection:

I get all the thanks I need every time I see your mother kiss you on the cheek.

The whole story is pretty cute, too. The punchline isn’t from a story of the repeat-the-same-thing thrice variety. But it’s good enough to stand on its own anyhow.

-k-

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Resumin’ Resumin’

April 27, 2008 – 6:17 pm

A new tab now adorns the top of the tbbs-land website: Resume. In this day and age, one must be perpetually for hire.

So it’s fitting to post one’s own resume on one’s own blog.

I’m one decent and eager geek. If you know/are someone looking for a good hand, I’m ready to talk. After the talking, if we’re simpatico, I’m ready to deliver.

-k-

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Tweeted my Last

April 25, 2008 – 10:16 pm

Just when the Twitter/blog balance was beginning to, well, balance, the Twitter looks to be morphing into a spam-filled cesspit. I’ll miss the handful of cool folks I follow, and who follow me back.

However, when you get followed by folk who follow 50,000 others, and who themselves have but 6 followers, something smells.

I’m going to fall on the Twitter hari kari knife for the last time, as soon as I hit “publish” on this post. To all the good folk with whom I shared a 140 character or less tip of the hat, a fond adieu.

To the rest of the lame ass spammers, *plonk*.

-k-

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