Wednesday, July 19, 2006

More ramblings

OK, here are a few random thoughts from assorted places.

Been seeing the news about Israel/Lebannon. For some reason the US news has been more interested in president W vetoing a bill to permit stem cell research. Almost no news at all about Iraq. Seems to me that we have slipped our moral cog a little in what we consider important. It might more rightly reflect our ability to become involved and do something than our interest. I see very little that I can do to affect our troops in Iraq, or to aid in bringing peace to the middle east, or even what I could do about using cells to fight disease.

Udge provided links to some good articles, one that seemed most interesting to me was by Tom Engelhardt on our involvement. The main thrust of the article is that the US now feels it is the biggest, best, baddest country on earth and everybody should listen to us and do what we say. Unfortunately our leadership has taken that position inside the country as well, feeling that they know best and the general population and congress and the constitution and our laws be damned, they will do what they know is right. I’m sure I can get into a lot of trouble for putting down what I would like to do in response, but simply said I sure can’t wait for the next elections. Throw all the bums out.

It all makes me feel so powerless, which I guess I am. I am unable to affect any of these things, and just don’t know what to do. I have written letters to my representatives, but they don’t even bother to acknowledge receipt. That’s probably what most people feel, which is why the general public is ignoring most of what is going on. Frustration.

For my little world, I’m ready for a career change. Unfortunately, I’ve been doing computers for so long that I now get a relatively good paycheck, and my expenses have gotten used to the deposits into my bank account. So I just play games on my off hours, and try to get by at work doing a good job and trying to be ignored. I used to like being out front, the leader, but now I’m happy to just sit at my machine and write my code and make it through another week.

On the drive front, the big parking garage construction that I’ve been driving past is almost over.

The garage was opened Monday, with lots of balloons and greeters. Unfortunately we had some big thunderstorms Monday night, and it seems all the balloons were blown away, so by the time I got back with camera it just looked like dull concrete. But without those construction fences around it, and Bellagio employees driving in. I am always impressed with the speed of construction on casino jobs. For some reason it seems that if you are willing to pay for good, fast work then you will get it. Unfortunately, our government projects are not run like that, and highway and public buildings take forever to be constructed. This is a 9,000 car multi story parking garage, done in just a few months. I can't wait to see what the other $7,000,000,000 (yes, seven BILLION dollars) in construction costs will bring to this city center project

In my own back yard we are enjoying the warm weather and the pool. We were gone last weekend to Fresno, so did not open the pool cover for a week. Came back to find that the water temperature was 102f. A little hot for my taste. The cover is now open, and I put the little fountain in to encourage evaporation. Temp should be back down to our favorite 92f by tomorrow. This is what the little cabana by the pool looks like.


Not as fancy as the big casinos, but we like it. B kept seeing curtains defining outdoor rooms in the home decorating magazines and on TV, so she thought she would try it here.

POP in Sweden posted the results of his taking an English test. He didn’t seem too satisfied. It seems that I can’t do much better.








Your English Skills:



Grammar: 80%

Punctuation: 80%

Vocabulary: 60%

Spelling: 40%




I’m just glad that I write these posts in Word before copying them to blogger. At least the red underlines help my spelling, as long as I don’t change things on the fly.

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