A week ago Thursday I told you the story of an automobile accident. No one was seriously hurt, but as a result a car belonging to Jimbo’s girlfriend was destroyed. It was being driven by her son and he, like any of us who have been in an accident, was trying to rationalize how he could have avoided the wreck, when Jimbo and his girlfriend arrived on the scene. You know, if he would have left home earlier or later; if he would have taken a different route, or if he would have gone to work by hot-air balloon that day, he could have avoided the collision. That last one was an exaggeration, if you hadn’t guessed, but that is the way we all think when we have been involved in an automobile accident. The bottom line was he was driving down a street and someone in a pickup truck pulled out from a side street in front of him and the accident couldn’t have been avoided, at that point. Although he is a capable young adult, in this case he was as blameless as an innocent child. As I said in that earlier blog, the man in the pickup truck was as polite as you could ever imagine, apologized several times and was quick to admit he had made an error. There were no hard feelings on either side. Lord knows the man made a mistake any of us are capable of making. He had insurance coverage, as is required in our state, and he probably paid a pretty penny for it, if he is anything like the rest of us. So, aside for a momentary lapse of caution, he had done everything legally, morally and personally he should have done. I hate to repeat some of what I said in that earlier blog, but he was a good man, and probably a man any of us would like to call a friend.
So far, his insurance company has not been as much a pleasure to deal with as he was.
Granted the 1989 Toyota Celica was not the car most of us go to bed at night and dream about. It had some miles on it and it’s days of elegance had passed it by. Like an aging starlet, it no longer had the beauty to stir men’s passions, but it still had it’s charm. It was, however, a one-owner car whose history was all in the family and it was safe and reliable transportation with which one would send one’s only son out into the wilds of modern traffic with peace of mind. It was as one of the family. The insurance company made a settlement offer that didn’t come anywhere near allowing Jimbo’s girlfriend to put her son in equally reliable and equally safe transportation. She wrote them a letter detailing why the offer was insufficient and the insurance company, after an unresponsive six days, finally came back and said their offer was final.
My son and I watched South Park for a number of years and Eric Cartman was never one of my favorite characters, but a line he used frequently on the program seems apropos right now. His line was:
“That’s a bunch of crap.”
Now, in defense of the insurance company, they have probably heard the story before that the car they are going to have to replace was a much better car than it really was. I remember my father had an old Chevrolet that he used to complain about all the time. A couple of days after it was stolen, I remember his telling the insurance adjuster that it was a very good car. But that car was a piece of crap when he bought it and he lived with its problems until it was “ripped untimely from his” possession.
Jimbo’s girlfriend’s car was documented to be a one owner and its history was as well known to her as was the backside of her attractive hand, and, in truth, it is probably not even close to replaceable at the counter-offer amount for which Jimbo‘s girlfriend requested. As counsel, I suggested she ask for more than she did, but she wanted “to be fair.”
The truth is that when something is lost or taken away, the insurance rarely mitigates the entire loss, and Jimbo’s girlfriend approached this situation from the very beginning that, through no fault of her own, or her progeny, the loss of this car was going to cause inconvenience and some degree of a lifestyle change. She was aware that no matter what the insurance settlement was, it would require her taking on additional debt and living with inconvenience for a while. If life were fair, the insurance company would stand behind their name and do what was right, but in this case it appears that providing for the aggrieved is not as important as saving money.
We have reported this incident to the state insurance commissioner and initially they seem to be very cooperative. With any luck, perhaps they can help right the wrong. I’ll continue to keep you abreast of this continuing saga, and perhaps, if the insurance company fails to do what is right, I may give you their name so you can stay away from them.
Because in Jimbo’s world we want to insure your safety.
Monday, January 31, 2005
mr. and mrs. dell's
Today is my mom’s birthday. Happy birthday, mom.
Note to Brad: thanks for your comment. I’m confident you’re a guy whose going places.
I heard an advertisement on the radio the other day for a local grocery chain. Apparently, there is some football game next Sunday and the local supermarket is having a promotion for several food items in connection with that game. The one thing that struck me about the advertisement I heard was a special deal on Mr. Dell’s hash browns. This is a product I am somewhat familiar with, as I have been cooking them for breakfast occasionally for the last nine months. The first thing I thought, however, was that the uninitiated radio announcer had screwed up. I always refer to them as Mrs. Dell’s. I had a chuckle about it, until I went to the freezer and pulled out the bag of them we had and was taken aback to find they actually are Mr. Dell’s. Oops, my bad.
The Mr. Dell’s hash browns I use are subtitled “cubed potatoes,” and I usually prepare them as a side dish to Jimbo’s omelets. Mr. Dell’s makes and our grocery store sells both shredded hash browns and cubed ones. The cubes are approximately 3/8”- 1/2” on a side, and I prefer them to the shredded ones, although I’ve had the shredded ones and they are good, also. For what I do, the cubes work better. To best complete this recipe, you’ll probably want to take a trip back in time to a November blog, jimbo’s omelet: a bon vivant’s guide. It is located at the following address:
http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2004/11/jimbos-omelet-bon-vivants-guide.html
First, like always, I will give you the list of ingredients. The quantities are for reference only. I will explain in a moment. The quantities detailed in the assembly instructions will be based on feeding two people, so you can adjust your quantities accordingly.
3 tsp Vegetable oil
32 oz. Mr. Dell’s hash browns (cubed potatoes)
Mushrooms, onions and peppers left after making omelets
Usually, while I am making omelets, I will plug in the electric skillet and set it on 300 degrees. Rather than measure the vegetable oil, I pour in enough to provide a thin film covering the bottom of the pan and allow it to preheat. At this point, I already have cut and diced some mushrooms, onions, a green pepper and another of a different color and heated them in a pan to be used to fill the omelets. You’ll probably want to refer to the omelet recipe to get the details. When I begin to make the first omelet, I put a third of the package, exactly 10.6666 ounces of the Mr. Dell’s cubed potatoes in the skillet. I am careful to measure them out to four decimal places. No, I’m just messing with your mind. I pour out what appears to be a third of a package into the skillet. A few too many or a few too few won’t make any difference. Sometimes, I don’t stick to the precise quantities when I follow a recipe and maybe you should allow yourself some slack and don’t worry about being too exacting. Just make sure you are close enough not to do any damage. I take a large plastic spatula and make sure all the cubes are lying flat on the bottom of the skillet and that they aren’t piled on top on one another. I set my cooking timer for ten minutes and then go back about my business.
About ten minutes later, as I am making omelets, the timer goes off and I shut off the timer, because I can’t freaking stand that infernal buzzing. I then turn all the hash browns completely over to cook them on the other side. I set the timer for ten minutes again and I continue to make beautiful music, food-wise. About the time I am putting the mushroom/onion/pepper mixture as filling for my second and last omelet, the darned timer goes off again. I quickly shut off the noisy little bugger and I turn the heat on the electric skillet back to about 200 degrees and put the remaining mushrooms, onions and peppers in the skillet with the potatoes and kind of mix them all up.
At that time, I usually put silverware on the table, put a napkin in each place and pour a couple of glasses of orange juice (you can substitute other beverages if you wish) and set the glasses of orange juice on the table in an area to the upper right hand side of the place settings (that is, of course, if you are viewing the place setting as a flat, two-dimensional plane). My two omelets are on separate plates at this point and I again stir up the mixture of potatoes, onions, mushrooms and peppers, and I put a helping on each plate and turn the heat of the electric skillet back to “warm.” I then pepper the food to taste (you can salt them if you want to, but we don’t use any appreciable salt here at chez Jimbo’s girlfriend) and place the plates on the table, roughly in the center of the place settings, somewhere between the silverware. I then announce to Jimbo’s girlfriend that breakfast is ready. At that time we sit down to eat. Usually, Jimbo’s girlfriend says nice things as she eats and I think she really means it. I don’t think she is just trying to be polite, but if she is, it doesn’t make any difference, because she has me convinced. Perhaps, if you make these things for your girlfriend, she’ll let you watch that football game on Sunday the guy on the radio was talking about.
After we are done with eating, we clean up the kitchen. We rinse off the dishes and silverware and put them in the dishwasher. Jimbo’s girlfriend likes to wash the pots and pans by hand, so we will generally cleanse them manually. I’ll teach you how to wash dishes next week. I’m just messing with your mind, again. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt on knowing the dishwashing technique.
Anyway, the hash browns are a good side dish to go with about anything, but they are especially apropos for consumption with Jimbo’s omelet. Enjoy your meal and eat hearty.
In Jimbo’s world we appreciate good taste, especially in our food.
Note to Brad: thanks for your comment. I’m confident you’re a guy whose going places.
I heard an advertisement on the radio the other day for a local grocery chain. Apparently, there is some football game next Sunday and the local supermarket is having a promotion for several food items in connection with that game. The one thing that struck me about the advertisement I heard was a special deal on Mr. Dell’s hash browns. This is a product I am somewhat familiar with, as I have been cooking them for breakfast occasionally for the last nine months. The first thing I thought, however, was that the uninitiated radio announcer had screwed up. I always refer to them as Mrs. Dell’s. I had a chuckle about it, until I went to the freezer and pulled out the bag of them we had and was taken aback to find they actually are Mr. Dell’s. Oops, my bad.
The Mr. Dell’s hash browns I use are subtitled “cubed potatoes,” and I usually prepare them as a side dish to Jimbo’s omelets. Mr. Dell’s makes and our grocery store sells both shredded hash browns and cubed ones. The cubes are approximately 3/8”- 1/2” on a side, and I prefer them to the shredded ones, although I’ve had the shredded ones and they are good, also. For what I do, the cubes work better. To best complete this recipe, you’ll probably want to take a trip back in time to a November blog, jimbo’s omelet: a bon vivant’s guide. It is located at the following address:
http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2004/11/jimbos-omelet-bon-vivants-guide.html
First, like always, I will give you the list of ingredients. The quantities are for reference only. I will explain in a moment. The quantities detailed in the assembly instructions will be based on feeding two people, so you can adjust your quantities accordingly.
3 tsp Vegetable oil
32 oz. Mr. Dell’s hash browns (cubed potatoes)
Mushrooms, onions and peppers left after making omelets
Usually, while I am making omelets, I will plug in the electric skillet and set it on 300 degrees. Rather than measure the vegetable oil, I pour in enough to provide a thin film covering the bottom of the pan and allow it to preheat. At this point, I already have cut and diced some mushrooms, onions, a green pepper and another of a different color and heated them in a pan to be used to fill the omelets. You’ll probably want to refer to the omelet recipe to get the details. When I begin to make the first omelet, I put a third of the package, exactly 10.6666 ounces of the Mr. Dell’s cubed potatoes in the skillet. I am careful to measure them out to four decimal places. No, I’m just messing with your mind. I pour out what appears to be a third of a package into the skillet. A few too many or a few too few won’t make any difference. Sometimes, I don’t stick to the precise quantities when I follow a recipe and maybe you should allow yourself some slack and don’t worry about being too exacting. Just make sure you are close enough not to do any damage. I take a large plastic spatula and make sure all the cubes are lying flat on the bottom of the skillet and that they aren’t piled on top on one another. I set my cooking timer for ten minutes and then go back about my business.
About ten minutes later, as I am making omelets, the timer goes off and I shut off the timer, because I can’t freaking stand that infernal buzzing. I then turn all the hash browns completely over to cook them on the other side. I set the timer for ten minutes again and I continue to make beautiful music, food-wise. About the time I am putting the mushroom/onion/pepper mixture as filling for my second and last omelet, the darned timer goes off again. I quickly shut off the noisy little bugger and I turn the heat on the electric skillet back to about 200 degrees and put the remaining mushrooms, onions and peppers in the skillet with the potatoes and kind of mix them all up.
At that time, I usually put silverware on the table, put a napkin in each place and pour a couple of glasses of orange juice (you can substitute other beverages if you wish) and set the glasses of orange juice on the table in an area to the upper right hand side of the place settings (that is, of course, if you are viewing the place setting as a flat, two-dimensional plane). My two omelets are on separate plates at this point and I again stir up the mixture of potatoes, onions, mushrooms and peppers, and I put a helping on each plate and turn the heat of the electric skillet back to “warm.” I then pepper the food to taste (you can salt them if you want to, but we don’t use any appreciable salt here at chez Jimbo’s girlfriend) and place the plates on the table, roughly in the center of the place settings, somewhere between the silverware. I then announce to Jimbo’s girlfriend that breakfast is ready. At that time we sit down to eat. Usually, Jimbo’s girlfriend says nice things as she eats and I think she really means it. I don’t think she is just trying to be polite, but if she is, it doesn’t make any difference, because she has me convinced. Perhaps, if you make these things for your girlfriend, she’ll let you watch that football game on Sunday the guy on the radio was talking about.
After we are done with eating, we clean up the kitchen. We rinse off the dishes and silverware and put them in the dishwasher. Jimbo’s girlfriend likes to wash the pots and pans by hand, so we will generally cleanse them manually. I’ll teach you how to wash dishes next week. I’m just messing with your mind, again. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt on knowing the dishwashing technique.
Anyway, the hash browns are a good side dish to go with about anything, but they are especially apropos for consumption with Jimbo’s omelet. Enjoy your meal and eat hearty.
In Jimbo’s world we appreciate good taste, especially in our food.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
take this job and...
Note to Anonymous: Thank you. I will.
When I was in high school, I took a course in physics. I learned about measuring power and work. We learned the terms for measuring power, like horsepower and kilowatts. I was introduced to the terms for measuring work, such as erg, dyne, joule and newton. You rarely hear these terms in common usage, and almost never in office conversation, even around engineering companies, where I have spent much of my career. Sometimes you hear derivations of the words, like something is ergonomic or someone is a dynamo, but I’d wager that no one in your office has ever referred to anyone as being full of joules or newtons.
In physics class we also learned the phrase “moment of inertia,” which Webster defines as the measure of resistance of a body to angular acceleration. That means when something starts to move, the initiation of movement requires a surge of energy. That is why the amp draw of an electric motor increases dramatically when the motor starts to rotate. That’s why in a house with an old wiring system, sometimes the lights will dim when the central air kicks on. But, I guess you didn’t really want or need to know that, did you? I think of the moment of inertia as when you are sitting on the couch and you realize your bottle of beer is empty, it takes a burst of energy to get up off your ass to go get another one. And it is why, sometimes, instead of moving, you feel like saying:
“Honey, would you get me another beer?”
To which your significant other will respond, “Get it yourself, stupid.”
I’m thinking of work this morning, for a couple of reasons. I recently had a telephone conversation with a Human Resources person who had received a resume I sent to her in application for a job. It sounded like a high-profile, responsible position. The HR person told Jimbo he had a very good resume, but that their advertisement had not mentioned the position was entry level, and her implication was that Jimbo was probably way overqualified. Interesting, they ran the wrong advertisement. You’d have thought someone would have caught that. Anyway, she asked Jimbo what kind of money he’d need and I shot her a figure. She was extremely pleasant, but I know I won’t be hearing back. At least I have a very good resume. That’s something of a victory, I suppose.
The other reason I am thinking about work is that it was a year ago this month that I left the work force. I had told people close to me six months earlier that I would be resigning after the first of the year, but when it came time to give notice on January 2, I decided I would stay for a while longer. Within a week I knew I had made the wrong choice. I had a particularly bad day and I was properly primed and I went in, gave my letter of resignation and told my boss to take his job and re-staff it. Those weren’t my exact words, but he got the message.
My first day off was when I overcame my initial moment of inertia. I was up early, but went back to sleep. When I was working my schedule had been up at 2:30 in the morning, check the overseas markets; have breakfast and shower and be out the door by 4:15 and to work by 5:00 a.m. Sometimes I would leave earlier and be there between four and five. I would almost always work until 5:00 in the afternoon, sometimes staying as late as 8:00 or 9:00, but usually no later than seven. I would be home for supper and in bed by 11:00 at night. Then, it would be up at 2:30 a.m. and start over. On Saturdays I would usually only work from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., but sometimes I would stay until 1:00. You would not have wanted to be associated with Jimbo during that period of time.
As I said, that first morning I was off work, I woke up at 2:30 and went back to sleep until 4:00 or 5:00, at which time I overcame my moment of inertia and got out of bed. Within a week, I was sleeping six to eight hours a night, not addressing the moment of inertia until seven or eight in the morning.
The nature of work has changed dramatically over the past five years. In 2000, when I decided to make a career change, there were thirty jobs a day in my field listed on Yahoo! Jobs. I began my job search on May the first of that year and accepted a job offer on the Friday before Memorial day. I had fifteen job interviews that month, sometimes more than one per day. So far, I have not seen a single job in my field on Hot Jobs on Yahoo! since I started looking. Granted, after checking the site religiously for a month, I only check it sporadically, now, but it is empty every time I look. I am only looking in my local area-- a metropolis of about 2,000,000-- but my search in 2000 was also limited to the same area. Fortunately, Careerbuilder.com has been an excellent resource.
Granted, the economy in 2000 was a lot better. The man in the White House was more focused on the economy and the jobless rate was hovering at record lows. The federal reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, even gave a speech saying that, because of such low unemployment and such a solid economy, we were in danger of running out of workers. To cool off the economy, he began raising interest rates, with the intention of relieving the pressure on the economy from what was virtually full employment. Through his actions, and with the impending election debacle putting the current administration in power, somehow the economy and the job market went straight down the toilet.
If one looks honestly at the current economic numbers, it is difficult to deny the economy is on the mend and it continues to improve. Consumer confidence is up, but the people who actually call the shots in this economy don’t appear to be as certain as the average Joe. CEOs don’t seem to be as willing to hire and many are stockpiling cash rather than putting it back into their businesses. Money managers are hoarding cash-- keeping it on the sidelines rather than reinvesting it. No one seems to be willing to be fully invested like most of us were in the 1990s. Technology is making us more efficient in the workplace so fewer people can do more work. The reported rate of unemployment is historically low, but there is something wrong. There is a discrepancy between reality and the unemployment numbers that we see reported on television every month. The economy has lost jobs over the last four years and we have not created as many jobs to replace the ones that were lost, but still the unemployment rate is low. I think we are under-reporting the numbers of unemployed. The figures I always hear are based on the claims for unemployment insurance. There are probably many whose unemployment has run out and there are probably many, like Jimbo, who have never received any unemployment insurance, and are therefore not reported, and consequently not unemployed.
You are probably saying to yourself, “Well, Jimbo, you screwed up bad this time. You are always whining about not being able to find a job, and the whole time you could have been working at a high-paying, responsible position. You could have been bringing home the long green instead of bitching about being poor.”
You have a point. However, as much as I dislike disagreeing with you, leaving my job was the second best decision I have ever made, second only to deciding, along with his mother, to conceive my son.
Complaining is something many of us do. As Joe Walsh says in his song Life’s Been Good:
I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do...
I guess I can complain all I want, and some of you are good enough to listen to me do it. The truth is, my life has been better the last year than it was for years before. And, I still think that someday someone is going to offer me a job. I’m just too damned good at what I do.
Until then, I’ll just lean back in my chair and try to decide when and whether to overcome this moment of inertia. Because my chair is ergonomic and my life is dynamic and in Jimbo’s world those are the kinds of decisions that occupy our day.
When I was in high school, I took a course in physics. I learned about measuring power and work. We learned the terms for measuring power, like horsepower and kilowatts. I was introduced to the terms for measuring work, such as erg, dyne, joule and newton. You rarely hear these terms in common usage, and almost never in office conversation, even around engineering companies, where I have spent much of my career. Sometimes you hear derivations of the words, like something is ergonomic or someone is a dynamo, but I’d wager that no one in your office has ever referred to anyone as being full of joules or newtons.
In physics class we also learned the phrase “moment of inertia,” which Webster defines as the measure of resistance of a body to angular acceleration. That means when something starts to move, the initiation of movement requires a surge of energy. That is why the amp draw of an electric motor increases dramatically when the motor starts to rotate. That’s why in a house with an old wiring system, sometimes the lights will dim when the central air kicks on. But, I guess you didn’t really want or need to know that, did you? I think of the moment of inertia as when you are sitting on the couch and you realize your bottle of beer is empty, it takes a burst of energy to get up off your ass to go get another one. And it is why, sometimes, instead of moving, you feel like saying:
“Honey, would you get me another beer?”
To which your significant other will respond, “Get it yourself, stupid.”
I’m thinking of work this morning, for a couple of reasons. I recently had a telephone conversation with a Human Resources person who had received a resume I sent to her in application for a job. It sounded like a high-profile, responsible position. The HR person told Jimbo he had a very good resume, but that their advertisement had not mentioned the position was entry level, and her implication was that Jimbo was probably way overqualified. Interesting, they ran the wrong advertisement. You’d have thought someone would have caught that. Anyway, she asked Jimbo what kind of money he’d need and I shot her a figure. She was extremely pleasant, but I know I won’t be hearing back. At least I have a very good resume. That’s something of a victory, I suppose.
The other reason I am thinking about work is that it was a year ago this month that I left the work force. I had told people close to me six months earlier that I would be resigning after the first of the year, but when it came time to give notice on January 2, I decided I would stay for a while longer. Within a week I knew I had made the wrong choice. I had a particularly bad day and I was properly primed and I went in, gave my letter of resignation and told my boss to take his job and re-staff it. Those weren’t my exact words, but he got the message.
My first day off was when I overcame my initial moment of inertia. I was up early, but went back to sleep. When I was working my schedule had been up at 2:30 in the morning, check the overseas markets; have breakfast and shower and be out the door by 4:15 and to work by 5:00 a.m. Sometimes I would leave earlier and be there between four and five. I would almost always work until 5:00 in the afternoon, sometimes staying as late as 8:00 or 9:00, but usually no later than seven. I would be home for supper and in bed by 11:00 at night. Then, it would be up at 2:30 a.m. and start over. On Saturdays I would usually only work from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., but sometimes I would stay until 1:00. You would not have wanted to be associated with Jimbo during that period of time.
As I said, that first morning I was off work, I woke up at 2:30 and went back to sleep until 4:00 or 5:00, at which time I overcame my moment of inertia and got out of bed. Within a week, I was sleeping six to eight hours a night, not addressing the moment of inertia until seven or eight in the morning.
The nature of work has changed dramatically over the past five years. In 2000, when I decided to make a career change, there were thirty jobs a day in my field listed on Yahoo! Jobs. I began my job search on May the first of that year and accepted a job offer on the Friday before Memorial day. I had fifteen job interviews that month, sometimes more than one per day. So far, I have not seen a single job in my field on Hot Jobs on Yahoo! since I started looking. Granted, after checking the site religiously for a month, I only check it sporadically, now, but it is empty every time I look. I am only looking in my local area-- a metropolis of about 2,000,000-- but my search in 2000 was also limited to the same area. Fortunately, Careerbuilder.com has been an excellent resource.
Granted, the economy in 2000 was a lot better. The man in the White House was more focused on the economy and the jobless rate was hovering at record lows. The federal reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, even gave a speech saying that, because of such low unemployment and such a solid economy, we were in danger of running out of workers. To cool off the economy, he began raising interest rates, with the intention of relieving the pressure on the economy from what was virtually full employment. Through his actions, and with the impending election debacle putting the current administration in power, somehow the economy and the job market went straight down the toilet.
If one looks honestly at the current economic numbers, it is difficult to deny the economy is on the mend and it continues to improve. Consumer confidence is up, but the people who actually call the shots in this economy don’t appear to be as certain as the average Joe. CEOs don’t seem to be as willing to hire and many are stockpiling cash rather than putting it back into their businesses. Money managers are hoarding cash-- keeping it on the sidelines rather than reinvesting it. No one seems to be willing to be fully invested like most of us were in the 1990s. Technology is making us more efficient in the workplace so fewer people can do more work. The reported rate of unemployment is historically low, but there is something wrong. There is a discrepancy between reality and the unemployment numbers that we see reported on television every month. The economy has lost jobs over the last four years and we have not created as many jobs to replace the ones that were lost, but still the unemployment rate is low. I think we are under-reporting the numbers of unemployed. The figures I always hear are based on the claims for unemployment insurance. There are probably many whose unemployment has run out and there are probably many, like Jimbo, who have never received any unemployment insurance, and are therefore not reported, and consequently not unemployed.
You are probably saying to yourself, “Well, Jimbo, you screwed up bad this time. You are always whining about not being able to find a job, and the whole time you could have been working at a high-paying, responsible position. You could have been bringing home the long green instead of bitching about being poor.”
You have a point. However, as much as I dislike disagreeing with you, leaving my job was the second best decision I have ever made, second only to deciding, along with his mother, to conceive my son.
Complaining is something many of us do. As Joe Walsh says in his song Life’s Been Good:
I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do...
I guess I can complain all I want, and some of you are good enough to listen to me do it. The truth is, my life has been better the last year than it was for years before. And, I still think that someday someone is going to offer me a job. I’m just too damned good at what I do.
Until then, I’ll just lean back in my chair and try to decide when and whether to overcome this moment of inertia. Because my chair is ergonomic and my life is dynamic and in Jimbo’s world those are the kinds of decisions that occupy our day.
Friday, January 28, 2005
the summer song of pine cove
When I was a child, we didn’t go out to eat very often. We stayed around the house most of the time. I don’t remember ever traveling much until I was an adolescent. I didn’t fly until I was in my twenties and I think I was the first member of my immediate family who ever flew. I remember my father used to work for an airline and he had a bad experience being in an airplane, doing maintenance, when someone pressurized it. The day he took me to the airport for my first flight, he tried to talk me out of going.
When the winter is stretching on, as it is right now, with snow in the forecast, sometimes it makes me think of warmer, and better times. This afternoon, inexplicably, I am thinking of a vacation we took when I was just a boy. It was the first real vacation we ever took as a family, in that we left home and stayed and slept somewhere else for two days. My father had a friend who had a cabin on a lake, set back in a stream-fed cove called Pine Cove. It was only two or three rooms with a screened-in porch that overlooked the lake. There was a dock, floating on pontoons or 55 gallon drums and moored to the shore with braided steel cable. We dove off the dock into the water and swam. One of the neighbors to the cabin had a small boat and he had a granddaughter who rowed us around the cove in the boat. It was a summer recreational cabin and I don’t even remember if it had heat, but it didn’t matter because no one stayed there in the winter. The old neighbor, who had the granddaughter and the boat, however, lived on Pine Cove year round. He told us stories of how he would ice skate to the marina in the winter time to buy food and provisions. Somehow, it seemed to me that would be the idyllic life. I have often thought throughout my adult life that someday I would like to have a house on the lake to live in all year round. I like the idea of sitting in front of the fireplace on cold winter days and watching the snow fall and I like the idea of a slower pace of life.
Most of all, though, I think of the days of July and August and the cool breeze coming off the lake. I think about a ride in the boat and diving off the dock into the cool water and swimming around Pine Cove.
It’s funny, though. When I think back about that vacation-- really think-- I remember that there were rocks on the bottom of the cove and you had to wear tennis shoes to wade into the water, and when you went swimming you‘d stub your toe on the rocks. There was mud between the rocks and it would squish between your toes and felt really slimy, so you’d feel around on the bottom with your toes to find a rock so you could stand on it. I remember there were scorpions-- little ones, black and orange-- and you had to avoid stepping on them so they wouldn’t sting you. I remember I got sunburned so badly I had to wear a white t-shirt the second day so I wouldn’t burn any worse. I also remember the road into Pine Cove was steep and rocky and my father had trouble driving in and out to and from the cabin.
The two days we stayed at Pine Cove, my father was never able to relax, for some reason. It was as if he were away from home and wanted to get back and the second day we all began to get uncomfortable, as if we were someplace where we shouldn’t be. So we went home that next day.
When I was a teen-ager, my Father got a camper for his truck and he and mom spent a lot of time on the road. Dad finally felt comfortable traveling. We kids have flown frequently since reaching adulthood, and we are comfortable traveling. After dad died, mom started flying occasionally and up until a couple of years ago she would hop on a plane to Florida or Vegas at the drop of a hat. Our journeys all started that summer at Pine Cove. I sort of consider Pine Cove to be the beginning of a journey that is not over. I’d like to think I’m just in the middle of it. Pine Cove wasn’t a destination as much as the first step of a long journey.
But like I said, sometimes in the middle of winter, one needs something beside the dormant grass and leafless trees to think about. And, although the snow is pretty, it just reinforces the winter chill.
So, lets all think of a better place, a warmer place, and a time when things seemed simpler. I’m sure you have a summer memory or two, and a place when and where the days were warm and long and bright and the night breezes reminded you that you were alive. Close your eyes and think of your summer place. Think about it and a few more minutes of winter will be gone. As for me, Pine Cove is as good a place as any and I think I‘ll give it the next couple of minutes of my life.
Because in Jimbo’s world we like to savor each and every minute.
When the winter is stretching on, as it is right now, with snow in the forecast, sometimes it makes me think of warmer, and better times. This afternoon, inexplicably, I am thinking of a vacation we took when I was just a boy. It was the first real vacation we ever took as a family, in that we left home and stayed and slept somewhere else for two days. My father had a friend who had a cabin on a lake, set back in a stream-fed cove called Pine Cove. It was only two or three rooms with a screened-in porch that overlooked the lake. There was a dock, floating on pontoons or 55 gallon drums and moored to the shore with braided steel cable. We dove off the dock into the water and swam. One of the neighbors to the cabin had a small boat and he had a granddaughter who rowed us around the cove in the boat. It was a summer recreational cabin and I don’t even remember if it had heat, but it didn’t matter because no one stayed there in the winter. The old neighbor, who had the granddaughter and the boat, however, lived on Pine Cove year round. He told us stories of how he would ice skate to the marina in the winter time to buy food and provisions. Somehow, it seemed to me that would be the idyllic life. I have often thought throughout my adult life that someday I would like to have a house on the lake to live in all year round. I like the idea of sitting in front of the fireplace on cold winter days and watching the snow fall and I like the idea of a slower pace of life.
Most of all, though, I think of the days of July and August and the cool breeze coming off the lake. I think about a ride in the boat and diving off the dock into the cool water and swimming around Pine Cove.
It’s funny, though. When I think back about that vacation-- really think-- I remember that there were rocks on the bottom of the cove and you had to wear tennis shoes to wade into the water, and when you went swimming you‘d stub your toe on the rocks. There was mud between the rocks and it would squish between your toes and felt really slimy, so you’d feel around on the bottom with your toes to find a rock so you could stand on it. I remember there were scorpions-- little ones, black and orange-- and you had to avoid stepping on them so they wouldn’t sting you. I remember I got sunburned so badly I had to wear a white t-shirt the second day so I wouldn’t burn any worse. I also remember the road into Pine Cove was steep and rocky and my father had trouble driving in and out to and from the cabin.
The two days we stayed at Pine Cove, my father was never able to relax, for some reason. It was as if he were away from home and wanted to get back and the second day we all began to get uncomfortable, as if we were someplace where we shouldn’t be. So we went home that next day.
When I was a teen-ager, my Father got a camper for his truck and he and mom spent a lot of time on the road. Dad finally felt comfortable traveling. We kids have flown frequently since reaching adulthood, and we are comfortable traveling. After dad died, mom started flying occasionally and up until a couple of years ago she would hop on a plane to Florida or Vegas at the drop of a hat. Our journeys all started that summer at Pine Cove. I sort of consider Pine Cove to be the beginning of a journey that is not over. I’d like to think I’m just in the middle of it. Pine Cove wasn’t a destination as much as the first step of a long journey.
But like I said, sometimes in the middle of winter, one needs something beside the dormant grass and leafless trees to think about. And, although the snow is pretty, it just reinforces the winter chill.
So, lets all think of a better place, a warmer place, and a time when things seemed simpler. I’m sure you have a summer memory or two, and a place when and where the days were warm and long and bright and the night breezes reminded you that you were alive. Close your eyes and think of your summer place. Think about it and a few more minutes of winter will be gone. As for me, Pine Cove is as good a place as any and I think I‘ll give it the next couple of minutes of my life.
Because in Jimbo’s world we like to savor each and every minute.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
drowning in red ink
I heard on the local morning news on television this morning a story that some educators believe correcting students’ papers with red ink is bad for children. They believe that red ink has a stigma to it that will adversely affect young children’s psyches.
Boo, hoo.
Now, having seen the stock market fall so far this year and my portfolio recede with it, I am no fan of red ink, but I wouldn’t feel any better about it if my losses were expressed with blue or green ink. And, as for school children, if they make a mistake, the negative reinforcement of advising them of it is important to their ability eventually to get it right. So, no matter what color of ink is used to show errors, it will induce some sort bad feeling, but that is the point, isn’t it? If a child does something right it is important to give them positive reinforcement so they know they are on the right path. If they do something wrong they need to be advised so they can understand where they erred, so they can do it better next time.
And as for the stigma of red ink, maybe it is good if it gets the attention of children. That way it will be easier to identify problem areas. I’ll admit that I didn’t hear where the research came from about red ink, nor who was credited for the study that yielded these results, but I’m wondering how legitimate it is. I am not suggesting it was a hoax, however, I remember years ago, someone got bored and made up a story and put it on the wire services about how cattle belching were a major source of air pollution. I remember it created a stir at the time and got a lot of air play and print until some joker fessed up to making up the whole thing. However, once it was on paper, it became “true” and people cited this “research” for years in describing how the smoke rolling from the stacks of their factories and the acid rain it caused that was deforesting areas of the country paled in comparison to all those cattle and their infernal belching. People believe what they want to believe and if some nut gets something into the media that provides evidence for their beliefs, then suddenly their prejudice is proven to be correct.
Now, I have nothing against coddling children. As a matter of fact, I plead guilty to doing myself when my son was young. As he got older, however, I made sure he was exposed to the world so he knew what I had gotten him into. With care to put emphasis on the fact that life is worth living, that we should live life to the fullest and the alternative to life pales in comparison to life itself, a dose of reality is best administered early. After all, life is a competitive environment where everyone is not necessarily looking out for your best interests and where the stated goal of a worker is to become so efficient as to eliminate his own job. There will be managers above you who will try to eliminate your job for you and you’ll be exposed to maniacal bosses who will try to make your life hell. You’ll work for a CEO who doesn’t know who you are and will also be trying to eliminate your job. You’ll be protected by a government that will spend your money slaughtering innocent civilians in foreign countries, try to export your job to a foreign country and won’t know who you are, either.
So, a couple of red marks on the test you took yesterday, to indicate you were not correct, seem to be a good step on the path toward facing reality. If you don’t agree, take out your red pen and mark the areas with which you have a disagreement and send it back to me. Sometimes a couple of doses of reality are all you need to fix you up.
In Jimbo’s world we believe that if you take two of these you’ll be fine in the morning.
Boo, hoo.
Now, having seen the stock market fall so far this year and my portfolio recede with it, I am no fan of red ink, but I wouldn’t feel any better about it if my losses were expressed with blue or green ink. And, as for school children, if they make a mistake, the negative reinforcement of advising them of it is important to their ability eventually to get it right. So, no matter what color of ink is used to show errors, it will induce some sort bad feeling, but that is the point, isn’t it? If a child does something right it is important to give them positive reinforcement so they know they are on the right path. If they do something wrong they need to be advised so they can understand where they erred, so they can do it better next time.
And as for the stigma of red ink, maybe it is good if it gets the attention of children. That way it will be easier to identify problem areas. I’ll admit that I didn’t hear where the research came from about red ink, nor who was credited for the study that yielded these results, but I’m wondering how legitimate it is. I am not suggesting it was a hoax, however, I remember years ago, someone got bored and made up a story and put it on the wire services about how cattle belching were a major source of air pollution. I remember it created a stir at the time and got a lot of air play and print until some joker fessed up to making up the whole thing. However, once it was on paper, it became “true” and people cited this “research” for years in describing how the smoke rolling from the stacks of their factories and the acid rain it caused that was deforesting areas of the country paled in comparison to all those cattle and their infernal belching. People believe what they want to believe and if some nut gets something into the media that provides evidence for their beliefs, then suddenly their prejudice is proven to be correct.
Now, I have nothing against coddling children. As a matter of fact, I plead guilty to doing myself when my son was young. As he got older, however, I made sure he was exposed to the world so he knew what I had gotten him into. With care to put emphasis on the fact that life is worth living, that we should live life to the fullest and the alternative to life pales in comparison to life itself, a dose of reality is best administered early. After all, life is a competitive environment where everyone is not necessarily looking out for your best interests and where the stated goal of a worker is to become so efficient as to eliminate his own job. There will be managers above you who will try to eliminate your job for you and you’ll be exposed to maniacal bosses who will try to make your life hell. You’ll work for a CEO who doesn’t know who you are and will also be trying to eliminate your job. You’ll be protected by a government that will spend your money slaughtering innocent civilians in foreign countries, try to export your job to a foreign country and won’t know who you are, either.
So, a couple of red marks on the test you took yesterday, to indicate you were not correct, seem to be a good step on the path toward facing reality. If you don’t agree, take out your red pen and mark the areas with which you have a disagreement and send it back to me. Sometimes a couple of doses of reality are all you need to fix you up.
In Jimbo’s world we believe that if you take two of these you’ll be fine in the morning.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
jimbo's strawberry daiquiri: refreshing as a warm spring breeze
On a cold winter night, probably the last thing you think of is a cool drink, but I have one that will warm you inside and make you think of better days and warm tropical climes. It will make those dark, frigid winter evenings pass quickly as a warm breeze on a late May afternoon. Of course, I’m talking about Jimbo’s strawberry daiquiri. The concoction I am about to describe contains alcohol, so, if you have a problem with the stuff, you may want to stay away from this recipe. I’ll give you the warning in advance that I did last month about big daddy H when I did the blog about mainlining heroin to the brain. Don’t bother looking back. I’m just making a joke. I didn’t really write about shooting up heroin; I wrote about Jimbo’s chili, which is just about as addictive as heroin, but without the social stigma. Anyway, here is what you need to make a blender full of these things. If you don’t have a blender, stop right now, because this adventure will go nowhere without the proper equipment.
10 oz Bacardi strawberry daiquiri mix
16 oz Sliced frozen strawberries (sugar added)
1 oz Lime juice
A bunch of ice cubes
Bacardi Superior Puerto Rican Rum (Dry and smooth)
If the guy at the liquor store tries to sell you something labeled “inferior,” don’t buy it. Stick with Bacardi Superior. It will show you have class and good taste and you are a bon vivant. Plus that, you’ll respect yourself in the morning.
The Bacardi strawberry daiquiri mix has a recipe on the side of the can and I’m sure using it will result in a fine drink, but my recipe is modified from that one and I think it yields a better cocktail, plus it will give you more to drink.
First, you get out the daiquiri mix and strawberries and let them thaw for a while. Then, set up your blender and then open the Bacardi strawberry daiquiri mix and dump it into the blender. Then, do the same with the strawberries. After you do this, the daiquiri mix container and the strawberry container will have some residue in them. I put an ounce of lime juice in the daiquiri mix container and swish it around to pick up some of the residue. Then I pour it into the strawberry container and get some of that residue before dumping the lime juice into the blender. You know, good to the last drop. If your berries and daiquiri mix are frozen pretty solidly, put the lid on the blender and give the mixture a few seconds of grinding to smooth it out. Then I pour the rum into the daiquiri mix container until it is about a half full of rum (which will be about five ounces), swish it around a little to get the rest of the mix residue and then pour the rum into the strawberry container to get the rest of that residue mixed in with the rum. Then pour the rum into the blender. If you have a normal sized blender, it will be about a third full at this point. Add ice to the blender until it is about two-thirds full. Put the lid on the blender and put the pedal to the metal. When the mixture is uniform, turn off the blender, open the lid and pour yourself a stiff one. I find that it is always better to make daiquiris when there is someone else with whom to share them, so I have never made strawberry daiquiris unless Jimbo’s girlfriend can share them with me.
I find the imbibing of strawberry daiquiris to be an almost social ritual, and if you are drinking alone, and like George Thorogood, you prefer to be by yourself, then daiquiris are probably not the drink de jour. But if you want to party, and you are in good company, Jimbo’s strawberry daiquiri may just be the drink for you, and yours.
A brief aside. These things would probably taste the same if you drank from one of those plastic cups you get from your local convenience store, but to keep in the spirit of the occasion, I find that if you drink them from a clear, stemmed glass of some sort, it makes you look sophisticated. God knows, we all want to appear suave. Save the plastic cups for the George Thorogood moments, when you are drinking alone and having one bourbon, one scotch and one beer (or several).
So, my friends, raise your glass to your friend or lover, enjoy yourself and try to shake off the bite from the winter cold. And, as you drink, think about your buddy, Jimbo, and raise a glass to him, too.
Because in Jimbo’s world we believe it is important to drink to your good health as often as we can.
10 oz Bacardi strawberry daiquiri mix
16 oz Sliced frozen strawberries (sugar added)
1 oz Lime juice
A bunch of ice cubes
Bacardi Superior Puerto Rican Rum (Dry and smooth)
If the guy at the liquor store tries to sell you something labeled “inferior,” don’t buy it. Stick with Bacardi Superior. It will show you have class and good taste and you are a bon vivant. Plus that, you’ll respect yourself in the morning.
The Bacardi strawberry daiquiri mix has a recipe on the side of the can and I’m sure using it will result in a fine drink, but my recipe is modified from that one and I think it yields a better cocktail, plus it will give you more to drink.
First, you get out the daiquiri mix and strawberries and let them thaw for a while. Then, set up your blender and then open the Bacardi strawberry daiquiri mix and dump it into the blender. Then, do the same with the strawberries. After you do this, the daiquiri mix container and the strawberry container will have some residue in them. I put an ounce of lime juice in the daiquiri mix container and swish it around to pick up some of the residue. Then I pour it into the strawberry container and get some of that residue before dumping the lime juice into the blender. You know, good to the last drop. If your berries and daiquiri mix are frozen pretty solidly, put the lid on the blender and give the mixture a few seconds of grinding to smooth it out. Then I pour the rum into the daiquiri mix container until it is about a half full of rum (which will be about five ounces), swish it around a little to get the rest of the mix residue and then pour the rum into the strawberry container to get the rest of that residue mixed in with the rum. Then pour the rum into the blender. If you have a normal sized blender, it will be about a third full at this point. Add ice to the blender until it is about two-thirds full. Put the lid on the blender and put the pedal to the metal. When the mixture is uniform, turn off the blender, open the lid and pour yourself a stiff one. I find that it is always better to make daiquiris when there is someone else with whom to share them, so I have never made strawberry daiquiris unless Jimbo’s girlfriend can share them with me.
I find the imbibing of strawberry daiquiris to be an almost social ritual, and if you are drinking alone, and like George Thorogood, you prefer to be by yourself, then daiquiris are probably not the drink de jour. But if you want to party, and you are in good company, Jimbo’s strawberry daiquiri may just be the drink for you, and yours.
A brief aside. These things would probably taste the same if you drank from one of those plastic cups you get from your local convenience store, but to keep in the spirit of the occasion, I find that if you drink them from a clear, stemmed glass of some sort, it makes you look sophisticated. God knows, we all want to appear suave. Save the plastic cups for the George Thorogood moments, when you are drinking alone and having one bourbon, one scotch and one beer (or several).
So, my friends, raise your glass to your friend or lover, enjoy yourself and try to shake off the bite from the winter cold. And, as you drink, think about your buddy, Jimbo, and raise a glass to him, too.
Because in Jimbo’s world we believe it is important to drink to your good health as often as we can.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
those funny fockers
Jimbo’s and his girlfriend like to go to the movies on Saturday, as I have mentioned in the past, and there have been a number of movies we have seen lately, because there have been quite a few we wanted to see. It has, therefore, taken us some time to getting around to seeing “Meet the Fockers.” We saw it yesterday and I highly recommend it.
I was not as impressed with the original movie, “Meet the Parents,” so I came to the theater hoping this movie was not going to be a rehash of the same old stuff, as sequels frequently are. The addition of Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand, in conjunction with bringing back Robert Di Niro and Ben Stiller helped to make this movie superior to the first one. You may recall that my criticism of the recent Adam Sandler movie “Spanglish” was that it failed to deliver the laughs I was expecting. This one delivers, over and over. It is the funniest movie I have seen in quite a while.
The conflict in the movie involves Ben Stiller and his concern that his family, the Fockers and their liberal, laid back lifestyle will not be accepted by his future in-laws, the conservative Byrnes, especially the ex-CIA agent father, Jack, played by Di Niro. Stiller tries to keep his parents from being themselves and, of course, his efforts are in vain. The comedy that emerges from the interaction of the families makes this movie extremely entertaining. If you haven’t seen it, yet, I recommend that you do, soon.
And what is the deal with Randy Newman? It seems the only time you hear him singing is in the movies. If you are a fan of his, as I am, you miss hearing him on the radio, but it seems that every third or fourth movie I see has him singing in the soundtrack. In this movie he performs a song in the opening and again in the closing of the movie.
In Jimbo’s world we can’t get too many laughs, but this movie definitely gives us our share.
I was not as impressed with the original movie, “Meet the Parents,” so I came to the theater hoping this movie was not going to be a rehash of the same old stuff, as sequels frequently are. The addition of Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand, in conjunction with bringing back Robert Di Niro and Ben Stiller helped to make this movie superior to the first one. You may recall that my criticism of the recent Adam Sandler movie “Spanglish” was that it failed to deliver the laughs I was expecting. This one delivers, over and over. It is the funniest movie I have seen in quite a while.
The conflict in the movie involves Ben Stiller and his concern that his family, the Fockers and their liberal, laid back lifestyle will not be accepted by his future in-laws, the conservative Byrnes, especially the ex-CIA agent father, Jack, played by Di Niro. Stiller tries to keep his parents from being themselves and, of course, his efforts are in vain. The comedy that emerges from the interaction of the families makes this movie extremely entertaining. If you haven’t seen it, yet, I recommend that you do, soon.
And what is the deal with Randy Newman? It seems the only time you hear him singing is in the movies. If you are a fan of his, as I am, you miss hearing him on the radio, but it seems that every third or fourth movie I see has him singing in the soundtrack. In this movie he performs a song in the opening and again in the closing of the movie.
In Jimbo’s world we can’t get too many laughs, but this movie definitely gives us our share.
foci and matrices
Because of Jimbo’s girlfriend’s son’s recent auto accident, the opportunity to do some shopping for cars has presented itself to us. As a master negotiator one would think that would fall right into Jimbo’s sweet spot, and that it would be something in which his intellectual capital could best be invested. It could be argued that dickering for an automobile would be in the very heart of his core competencies. The truth be known, however, I haven’t negotiated for a car in twenty-five years. My brother-in-law has an automobile dealership and when I want a new car, I go visit him and he gives me the family discount. The most negotiating I have done with him is once, I asked if he could give me a little more for my trade-in, which he did, but I would have made the deal even if he hadn’t.
Friday night, on a foggy, freezing automobile lot, along with her son, my girlfriend and I looked at a wide variety of used cars and this sunny, but below freezing Saturday morning with a wind-chill factor that would have frightened an Eskimo, we walked around my brother-in-law’s lot and priced some new cars, and saw more than one Toyota Matrix. In the dark Friday night, Jimbo’s girlfriend’s son told her that she probably could only afford a Ford Focus and we looked at several of them that were on the lot. She was less than impressed; I was confused why Ford would give their car a Latin name. I had a similar thought Saturday morning as to why Toyota would do the same thing. We have, in the English language, imported a number of words from other tongues, including a large number of Latin words. In general, in English, when there is more than one of something we put an “s” on the end of the word to make it plural. However, when using a word imported from Latin, we pluralize it the same way the Romans did. Having taken three years of Latin in High School, I know there are numerous rules to pluralizing Latin words and I think all of you would probably appreciate it if I didn’t go into them at this time. Just suffice it to say they didn’t, as a rule, just add an “s.”
Jimbo’s son’s girlfriend bought a Matrix from my brother-in-law and as far as I’m concerned it is a really superior car, but a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. I’m certain a lot of thought went into naming the car, as well as the Ford Focus, but the people that named these cars didn’t seem to take into account that someday, there would be more than one of them in a particular location or in a conversation. Whenever there would be two of the Fords, they would be Foci. Whenever two of the Toyotas met, they would be Matrices.
Now, I know you are thinking, “Jimbo, you are definitely off your rocker this time.”
If you don’t believe me, look up the words in your dictionary. For those who don’t use the dictionary as much as I do, the plural of the word appears right after the pronunciation.
The reason I am so cognizant of this is that in college I had a professor who was a major influence upon me. His name was John B. Bremner and the good professor had the pleasure of knowing me in my youth, when I was somewhat feisty-- more of a young firebrand that I am now. He and I would duke it out verbally and usually he was right, but that didn’t stop me from taking him on occasionally, because he would occasionally say something that was not true, just to test us and evoke a challenge. He was a large man with a booming voice, gray hair and beard, and in a small class (I believe there were only fifteen students in the class) he would give everyone very personal attention. He would be in your face whenever you made the grievous mistake of making a grammatical error. His pet peeve was using the plural of Latin words as if they were singular. The ones that got under his skin the most were data (more than one datum) or media (the plural of medium). Despite the fact the dictionary gives the option of using datums and mediums, the professor didn’t believe them to be proper usage in the Queen’s English, and especially in his English.
When any student started a sentence with “the data shows” or “the media is,” the kindly old professor became less kindly and he boomed out “data are” or ‘media are.” Professor Bremner used to correct sentences by articulating the punctuation. He might, for example, say this:
He might, comma, for example, comma, say this, period.
I read in the magazine I receive quarterly from the school a few years ago that the professor had passed away. The story about his passing mentioned a phrase with which he used to end class frequently. The phrase was, “and meanwhile, comma, peace, period.”
Jimbo is in the process of moving and he has a large number of books. We have set up several of my large bookcases in the living room of chez Jimbo’s girlfriend, the house into which Jimbo is moving. Last week I was boxing up some of my books to bring over to put in the bookcases and I came across a number of my old textbooks which I sat aside, not sure whether to bring them with me. One of the textbooks was written by Professor Bremner and I remember packing it and bringing it over. It now rests in the bookcase in the living room. I doubt that I would ever throw it away. It’s like a souvenir-- an artifact that helps to connect to something in the past that needs to be remembered.
A day in ones life is like a matrix of the hours, minutes and seconds, and the focus is on the current moment. Life is a series of matrices and foci, and it is good to think back on the good times and bad-- whom one was with at a certain period and the time spent with them.
In Jimbo’s world we like to think back, sometimes, and think ahead frequently. In the Professor’s absence, we’d say, “and meanwhile, peace.”
Friday night, on a foggy, freezing automobile lot, along with her son, my girlfriend and I looked at a wide variety of used cars and this sunny, but below freezing Saturday morning with a wind-chill factor that would have frightened an Eskimo, we walked around my brother-in-law’s lot and priced some new cars, and saw more than one Toyota Matrix. In the dark Friday night, Jimbo’s girlfriend’s son told her that she probably could only afford a Ford Focus and we looked at several of them that were on the lot. She was less than impressed; I was confused why Ford would give their car a Latin name. I had a similar thought Saturday morning as to why Toyota would do the same thing. We have, in the English language, imported a number of words from other tongues, including a large number of Latin words. In general, in English, when there is more than one of something we put an “s” on the end of the word to make it plural. However, when using a word imported from Latin, we pluralize it the same way the Romans did. Having taken three years of Latin in High School, I know there are numerous rules to pluralizing Latin words and I think all of you would probably appreciate it if I didn’t go into them at this time. Just suffice it to say they didn’t, as a rule, just add an “s.”
Jimbo’s son’s girlfriend bought a Matrix from my brother-in-law and as far as I’m concerned it is a really superior car, but a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. I’m certain a lot of thought went into naming the car, as well as the Ford Focus, but the people that named these cars didn’t seem to take into account that someday, there would be more than one of them in a particular location or in a conversation. Whenever there would be two of the Fords, they would be Foci. Whenever two of the Toyotas met, they would be Matrices.
Now, I know you are thinking, “Jimbo, you are definitely off your rocker this time.”
If you don’t believe me, look up the words in your dictionary. For those who don’t use the dictionary as much as I do, the plural of the word appears right after the pronunciation.
The reason I am so cognizant of this is that in college I had a professor who was a major influence upon me. His name was John B. Bremner and the good professor had the pleasure of knowing me in my youth, when I was somewhat feisty-- more of a young firebrand that I am now. He and I would duke it out verbally and usually he was right, but that didn’t stop me from taking him on occasionally, because he would occasionally say something that was not true, just to test us and evoke a challenge. He was a large man with a booming voice, gray hair and beard, and in a small class (I believe there were only fifteen students in the class) he would give everyone very personal attention. He would be in your face whenever you made the grievous mistake of making a grammatical error. His pet peeve was using the plural of Latin words as if they were singular. The ones that got under his skin the most were data (more than one datum) or media (the plural of medium). Despite the fact the dictionary gives the option of using datums and mediums, the professor didn’t believe them to be proper usage in the Queen’s English, and especially in his English.
When any student started a sentence with “the data shows” or “the media is,” the kindly old professor became less kindly and he boomed out “data are” or ‘media are.” Professor Bremner used to correct sentences by articulating the punctuation. He might, for example, say this:
He might, comma, for example, comma, say this, period.
I read in the magazine I receive quarterly from the school a few years ago that the professor had passed away. The story about his passing mentioned a phrase with which he used to end class frequently. The phrase was, “and meanwhile, comma, peace, period.”
Jimbo is in the process of moving and he has a large number of books. We have set up several of my large bookcases in the living room of chez Jimbo’s girlfriend, the house into which Jimbo is moving. Last week I was boxing up some of my books to bring over to put in the bookcases and I came across a number of my old textbooks which I sat aside, not sure whether to bring them with me. One of the textbooks was written by Professor Bremner and I remember packing it and bringing it over. It now rests in the bookcase in the living room. I doubt that I would ever throw it away. It’s like a souvenir-- an artifact that helps to connect to something in the past that needs to be remembered.
A day in ones life is like a matrix of the hours, minutes and seconds, and the focus is on the current moment. Life is a series of matrices and foci, and it is good to think back on the good times and bad-- whom one was with at a certain period and the time spent with them.
In Jimbo’s world we like to think back, sometimes, and think ahead frequently. In the Professor’s absence, we’d say, “and meanwhile, peace.”
Saturday, January 22, 2005
with a little help from our friends
Sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the evening, about the time I go to bed and right before I get up, I tell my girlfriend, thanks for being there for me.
Thursday at lunch, Jimbo’s girlfriend told him thanks for being there for her. It’s good the feeling is mutual.
We had a high-stress morning on Thursday and by noon things had calmed down considerably. Jimbo’s girlfriend’s son was in an automobile accident. No one was seriously hurt, but the car he was driving was totaled, in Jimbo‘s uneducated opinion. He was driving down a busy street when a gentleman in a large pickup truck pulled out in front of him and he was not able to avoid running into the pickup truck. He called his mother and she and I drove to the crash site. It was during rush hour, so it took us a while to get there. When we got there a tow truck was collecting the two vehicles. The truck didn’t have much obvious damage, but on closer inspection the front wheels were both turned inward, so it sustained some serious damage, also. The gentleman driving the truck was as nice as one could imagine and realized his mistake and was apologetic, which made the whole thing more palatable. I’ve seen accidents where both parties blamed the other, and fortunately there was none of that going on that morning. The young man’s father (Jimbo’s girlfriend’s ex-husband) called that afternoon and told Jimbo thanks for being there to help that morning. Although I admit I really didn’t do much, it is always good to have someone in times of crisis who can observe the situation from a third-person perspective. Sometimes, no matter how independent you are, it helps to have a little help from your family, friends and even strangers.
In retrospect, everyone was civil, responsible and took care of things in an orderly fashion. Now, it is in the hands of the insurance companies, and I hope things continue to proceed in a civil fashion. The insurance companies have been cordial, so far, but there has been a hassle dealing with them. Perhaps I am just assuming the worst, but I am not a big fan of insurance companies. On Friday, there were eight or ten telephone calls back and forth. The insurance company said the car needed to be moved from the tow lot where it was, then they called back and said not to move it, then called back again and said move it. Any time something like this happens there is always too much paperwork and phone calls back and forth. Having been a middle manager for a number of years, I understand the value and necessity of insurance. I also understand that businesses have a moral responsibility to their shareholders, officers and employees to make a profit, and that includes insurance companies, but everyone has a story about how an insurance company treated them wrong. I appreciate that insurance companies can’t just pay money to any claimant that comes along and they have fiduciary responsibilities to check out all the details. I have had a number of good experiences with insurance companies where something was damaged and I received a fair settlement, but I feel I have been ripped off a few times, too.
Over the last year, I have been trying to find bargains in health insurance and I have found that dealing with health insurance companies is no picnic. I think, perhaps because of my personal bias, that the health insurance system in this country is third world.
For those fans of history, or those old enough to remember, Harry Truman in the late forties worked to get a universal health care insurance system for our country. He failed (obviously, otherwise we’d have one), but despite the obvious economies of scale that would be realized by a universal system, the program was not championed again until the Clinton administration. I liken health insurance to cell phones. Years ago they were a luxury for those who could expend hundreds of dollars a month, but now that everyone has one, they are dirt cheap. The price goes down as more people have them. That is what I mean by economy of scale. I remember in the early nineties people wailed and moaned about the cost of health care, which was borne primarily by businesses who paid most of the cost of health insurance. The Human Resources Manager of the company for which I worked at the time (he was also on the board of directors) told me it would just be a matter of time until the government took the burden off of private industry and there would be universal health care within a few years.
Well, we all remember how the health care industry mounted a campaign against the program and turned public opinion against universal health care. They did more economic damage to this country that one hundred Osama Bin Ladins could have done on the most destructive days of their lives. You may recall that once universal health care was tabled, the cost of health care insurance has soared and the availability of health care insurance has become a luxury for the privileged. The current administration talks about making improvements in health care coverage as if they have no clue what the problem is.
There are too many people without health care coverage because they don’t have jobs; too many people with minimum wage jobs that provide no health care coverage and too few people in the Bush administration who have a clue.
In Jimbo’s world we like to have a little help from our friends. We just wish that the Bush administration liked to help, too.
Thursday at lunch, Jimbo’s girlfriend told him thanks for being there for her. It’s good the feeling is mutual.
We had a high-stress morning on Thursday and by noon things had calmed down considerably. Jimbo’s girlfriend’s son was in an automobile accident. No one was seriously hurt, but the car he was driving was totaled, in Jimbo‘s uneducated opinion. He was driving down a busy street when a gentleman in a large pickup truck pulled out in front of him and he was not able to avoid running into the pickup truck. He called his mother and she and I drove to the crash site. It was during rush hour, so it took us a while to get there. When we got there a tow truck was collecting the two vehicles. The truck didn’t have much obvious damage, but on closer inspection the front wheels were both turned inward, so it sustained some serious damage, also. The gentleman driving the truck was as nice as one could imagine and realized his mistake and was apologetic, which made the whole thing more palatable. I’ve seen accidents where both parties blamed the other, and fortunately there was none of that going on that morning. The young man’s father (Jimbo’s girlfriend’s ex-husband) called that afternoon and told Jimbo thanks for being there to help that morning. Although I admit I really didn’t do much, it is always good to have someone in times of crisis who can observe the situation from a third-person perspective. Sometimes, no matter how independent you are, it helps to have a little help from your family, friends and even strangers.
In retrospect, everyone was civil, responsible and took care of things in an orderly fashion. Now, it is in the hands of the insurance companies, and I hope things continue to proceed in a civil fashion. The insurance companies have been cordial, so far, but there has been a hassle dealing with them. Perhaps I am just assuming the worst, but I am not a big fan of insurance companies. On Friday, there were eight or ten telephone calls back and forth. The insurance company said the car needed to be moved from the tow lot where it was, then they called back and said not to move it, then called back again and said move it. Any time something like this happens there is always too much paperwork and phone calls back and forth. Having been a middle manager for a number of years, I understand the value and necessity of insurance. I also understand that businesses have a moral responsibility to their shareholders, officers and employees to make a profit, and that includes insurance companies, but everyone has a story about how an insurance company treated them wrong. I appreciate that insurance companies can’t just pay money to any claimant that comes along and they have fiduciary responsibilities to check out all the details. I have had a number of good experiences with insurance companies where something was damaged and I received a fair settlement, but I feel I have been ripped off a few times, too.
Over the last year, I have been trying to find bargains in health insurance and I have found that dealing with health insurance companies is no picnic. I think, perhaps because of my personal bias, that the health insurance system in this country is third world.
For those fans of history, or those old enough to remember, Harry Truman in the late forties worked to get a universal health care insurance system for our country. He failed (obviously, otherwise we’d have one), but despite the obvious economies of scale that would be realized by a universal system, the program was not championed again until the Clinton administration. I liken health insurance to cell phones. Years ago they were a luxury for those who could expend hundreds of dollars a month, but now that everyone has one, they are dirt cheap. The price goes down as more people have them. That is what I mean by economy of scale. I remember in the early nineties people wailed and moaned about the cost of health care, which was borne primarily by businesses who paid most of the cost of health insurance. The Human Resources Manager of the company for which I worked at the time (he was also on the board of directors) told me it would just be a matter of time until the government took the burden off of private industry and there would be universal health care within a few years.
Well, we all remember how the health care industry mounted a campaign against the program and turned public opinion against universal health care. They did more economic damage to this country that one hundred Osama Bin Ladins could have done on the most destructive days of their lives. You may recall that once universal health care was tabled, the cost of health care insurance has soared and the availability of health care insurance has become a luxury for the privileged. The current administration talks about making improvements in health care coverage as if they have no clue what the problem is.
There are too many people without health care coverage because they don’t have jobs; too many people with minimum wage jobs that provide no health care coverage and too few people in the Bush administration who have a clue.
In Jimbo’s world we like to have a little help from our friends. We just wish that the Bush administration liked to help, too.
Friday, January 21, 2005
the chairman and the king
I read today that Michael Powell has resigned as Chairman of the FCC. I don’t have a particular problem with Chairman Powell, personally. He is an advocate of deregulation. He once called TiVo, “God’s machine.” For those who use, know and love TiVo, it is hard to disagree with the Chairman. For those of you who know and love Howard Stern, you probably an axe to grind with the Chairman and if I were to voice a criticism of Chairman Powell, it would be that he seems to have an axe to grind with Mr. Stern.
When Jimbo is playing basketball on Sunday afternoon with his cronies and a fight breaks out, Jimbo is usually the first to step into the middle of the fray and try to separate the combatants, so I guess it wouldn’t be out of character for him to step into the middle of this one. If you are a regular viewer of Howard Stern on E! or if you listen to his program on the radio, you know that “The King of All Media” can push the envelope of decency and the FCC (and by default Chairman Powell) is quick to level a fine when he does. Then the King goes on television and bad mouths the Chairman and the Bush administration. Lord knows, if criticizing the Bush administration were a sin, Jimbo would himself face eternal damnation, so we can‘t criticize the King too much for that.
If one checks the facts, the truth is that the Chairman was appointed to the FCC by President Clinton, however Bush appointed him Chairman of the FCC, and since that time it seems there has been a shift in the FCC that would align it more closely with the morality of Dubya, himself. Like most working people, the Chairman is only doing what his boss wants him to do, but like those brown-nosers around the office that everyone resents, he may be taking it too far.
The lesson history teaches us that morality and decency are best regulated by the free market. If something is indecent, it is our right to avoid it and not support it with our dollars. If no one watched Howard Stern, he would go away, leaving Jimbo to place his less-than-attractive tush on the throne and achieve his rightful place as King (of all media). Instead, by fining the King to try to dissuade him from his “evil” ways, all the Chairman (and therefore the omniscient Dubya) has accomplished is to divert the King into the new and unregulated frontier of satellite radio-- where no expletives are deleted and any amount of bad taste is tolerated.
The reason I have even brought up the fact that the Chairman is resigning is that at first blush it may seem like a good thing that an adversarial Chairman is going away and I’m sure that the King will be happy to see him go. But how many times have you been in this situation? You had a boss that no one could get along with and one Monday morning he’s not in his office and the rumor mill quickly confirms he’s been canned. The next day his replacement shows up and has a meeting with all the staff and he lets you know in no uncertain terms that he’s badder and more demanding than the guy before him and if all of you don’t start working longer and harder you’ll be gone just like his predecessor was. You quickly ascertain that you’ve gone from bad to worse.
My concern is that Dubya will find someone else a little less compassionate and a little more conservative and we’ll look back at the Chairman and think he wasn’t all that bad.
Because in Jimbo’s world we know that no matter how bad it gets, it can always get worse.
When Jimbo is playing basketball on Sunday afternoon with his cronies and a fight breaks out, Jimbo is usually the first to step into the middle of the fray and try to separate the combatants, so I guess it wouldn’t be out of character for him to step into the middle of this one. If you are a regular viewer of Howard Stern on E! or if you listen to his program on the radio, you know that “The King of All Media” can push the envelope of decency and the FCC (and by default Chairman Powell) is quick to level a fine when he does. Then the King goes on television and bad mouths the Chairman and the Bush administration. Lord knows, if criticizing the Bush administration were a sin, Jimbo would himself face eternal damnation, so we can‘t criticize the King too much for that.
If one checks the facts, the truth is that the Chairman was appointed to the FCC by President Clinton, however Bush appointed him Chairman of the FCC, and since that time it seems there has been a shift in the FCC that would align it more closely with the morality of Dubya, himself. Like most working people, the Chairman is only doing what his boss wants him to do, but like those brown-nosers around the office that everyone resents, he may be taking it too far.
The lesson history teaches us that morality and decency are best regulated by the free market. If something is indecent, it is our right to avoid it and not support it with our dollars. If no one watched Howard Stern, he would go away, leaving Jimbo to place his less-than-attractive tush on the throne and achieve his rightful place as King (of all media). Instead, by fining the King to try to dissuade him from his “evil” ways, all the Chairman (and therefore the omniscient Dubya) has accomplished is to divert the King into the new and unregulated frontier of satellite radio-- where no expletives are deleted and any amount of bad taste is tolerated.
The reason I have even brought up the fact that the Chairman is resigning is that at first blush it may seem like a good thing that an adversarial Chairman is going away and I’m sure that the King will be happy to see him go. But how many times have you been in this situation? You had a boss that no one could get along with and one Monday morning he’s not in his office and the rumor mill quickly confirms he’s been canned. The next day his replacement shows up and has a meeting with all the staff and he lets you know in no uncertain terms that he’s badder and more demanding than the guy before him and if all of you don’t start working longer and harder you’ll be gone just like his predecessor was. You quickly ascertain that you’ve gone from bad to worse.
My concern is that Dubya will find someone else a little less compassionate and a little more conservative and we’ll look back at the Chairman and think he wasn’t all that bad.
Because in Jimbo’s world we know that no matter how bad it gets, it can always get worse.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
security blanket
I usually have something on my mind, but right now the thing that is foremost in my thoughts is my irregularity. And I’m certain that is causing most of you to say, “Sure, Jimbo, we’re interested in what you have to say, otherwise we wouldn’t be here reading it, but we would prefer you kept your toilet habits to yourself.“
My response to that would be, no, I’m not talking about my bodily functions. I have had a lot going on the last few weeks and so I have been pretty erratic in making entries into my weblog. I apologize for that. I know that it can be frustrating when you come to my blogsite expecting to see some new, different and exciting commentary from the deep recesses of my sick mind only to find the same old stuff that was there yesterday and the day before.
Thank you for bearing with me. I will try to do a better job of staying with this thing, like I was before Christmas.
Damn. I just solved one of our biggest problems in a blog I was typing in my Word program, and as I paused to think about what I was going to say next, I received an error message and the blog was lost. It was a good one, too. It wasn’t funny but it was a great idea. Fortunately, I remember what it was, so here it goes again, but I won’t be able to remember it word for word, so I just hope it is as good. I’ll save more frequently. Here goes...
Another thing on my mind this morning is homeland security. I read that Mayors of major cities are getting their security information the same way Jimbo does. At the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the Mayor of Salt Lake City said that Mayors get their information about changes in the security code “through watching CNN.”
Now, I will grant you, some good information is available on CNN and television in general. One of my personal heroes, Homer Simpson, once made a poignant comment about television. In an early episode, one where all the Simpsons have that gnarly look about them, Homer is drinking at Moe’s Bar, lamenting that his family is dysfunctional, when he sees an advertisement on television for Dr. Marvin Monroe, who says he can solve family problems. Homer says that the answer to the problems of life is not at the bottom of a bottle, “it’s on TV.”
As good as television is, however, I don’t think it should be the primary way of transmitting homeland security warnings to our metropolitan areas. I think there should be a better way, and here is what I propose.
One important point in the story I read today was that the Mayors feel homeland security is under funded and that not enough money is getting to the local level to do the proper job. As you know, Jimbo is not an advocate of rampant government spending, but there are some things for which government has a responsibility to finance. I would suggest that things like Tsunami relief, homeland security and armor and protection for our soldiers overseas would take precedent over the pork that congress has distributed to their home districts over the past four years. My proposal will obviously cost some money, but it would be money well invested. My idea is this: the department of Homeland Security should establish an intranet to disseminate information to states and municipalities. It should be secure and password protected to allow in governors, mayors and law enforcement officials and to keep out the dopes-- that is the dopes that weren’t elected or authorized to be there. Homeland security officials could push a button and notify everyone who should know when there is something notable and they could send out daily briefings.
Now, I’ll grant you, Jimbo has never established an intranet, so he is somewhere outside his core competencies and area of expertise, here. But I’m sure that every state and any municipality of consequence has access to a computer and the ability to connect. The cost of something like this could be horrific, but I’m willing to bet that it could be done economically and it might even help the stretched homeland security budget go farther.
Now, if someone in the Homeland Security department just reads this…
Well, maybe the guy in the CIA who monitors this blogsite could pass the idea along to his supervisor, or perhaps the guy in the white house.
In the meantime, the market opens in fifteen minutes and Jimbo has a lot to do this morning, including some pork chops to cook this afternoon. As my hero Homer Simpson would say, “Umm, pork chops.”
In Jimbo’s world we’re always on a tight schedule, even though we don’t do anything.
My response to that would be, no, I’m not talking about my bodily functions. I have had a lot going on the last few weeks and so I have been pretty erratic in making entries into my weblog. I apologize for that. I know that it can be frustrating when you come to my blogsite expecting to see some new, different and exciting commentary from the deep recesses of my sick mind only to find the same old stuff that was there yesterday and the day before.
Thank you for bearing with me. I will try to do a better job of staying with this thing, like I was before Christmas.
Damn. I just solved one of our biggest problems in a blog I was typing in my Word program, and as I paused to think about what I was going to say next, I received an error message and the blog was lost. It was a good one, too. It wasn’t funny but it was a great idea. Fortunately, I remember what it was, so here it goes again, but I won’t be able to remember it word for word, so I just hope it is as good. I’ll save more frequently. Here goes...
Another thing on my mind this morning is homeland security. I read that Mayors of major cities are getting their security information the same way Jimbo does. At the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the Mayor of Salt Lake City said that Mayors get their information about changes in the security code “through watching CNN.”
Now, I will grant you, some good information is available on CNN and television in general. One of my personal heroes, Homer Simpson, once made a poignant comment about television. In an early episode, one where all the Simpsons have that gnarly look about them, Homer is drinking at Moe’s Bar, lamenting that his family is dysfunctional, when he sees an advertisement on television for Dr. Marvin Monroe, who says he can solve family problems. Homer says that the answer to the problems of life is not at the bottom of a bottle, “it’s on TV.”
As good as television is, however, I don’t think it should be the primary way of transmitting homeland security warnings to our metropolitan areas. I think there should be a better way, and here is what I propose.
One important point in the story I read today was that the Mayors feel homeland security is under funded and that not enough money is getting to the local level to do the proper job. As you know, Jimbo is not an advocate of rampant government spending, but there are some things for which government has a responsibility to finance. I would suggest that things like Tsunami relief, homeland security and armor and protection for our soldiers overseas would take precedent over the pork that congress has distributed to their home districts over the past four years. My proposal will obviously cost some money, but it would be money well invested. My idea is this: the department of Homeland Security should establish an intranet to disseminate information to states and municipalities. It should be secure and password protected to allow in governors, mayors and law enforcement officials and to keep out the dopes-- that is the dopes that weren’t elected or authorized to be there. Homeland security officials could push a button and notify everyone who should know when there is something notable and they could send out daily briefings.
Now, I’ll grant you, Jimbo has never established an intranet, so he is somewhere outside his core competencies and area of expertise, here. But I’m sure that every state and any municipality of consequence has access to a computer and the ability to connect. The cost of something like this could be horrific, but I’m willing to bet that it could be done economically and it might even help the stretched homeland security budget go farther.
Now, if someone in the Homeland Security department just reads this…
Well, maybe the guy in the CIA who monitors this blogsite could pass the idea along to his supervisor, or perhaps the guy in the white house.
In the meantime, the market opens in fifteen minutes and Jimbo has a lot to do this morning, including some pork chops to cook this afternoon. As my hero Homer Simpson would say, “Umm, pork chops.”
In Jimbo’s world we’re always on a tight schedule, even though we don’t do anything.
Monday, January 17, 2005
reflections of a reddish eye
Today Jimbo woke up with a really bloodshot eye. That first look into the mirror this morning was somewhat of a shock. It wasn’t pretty. As I have said before, Jimbo is somewhat of a less-than-handsome man, anyway, and his reflection in the mirror required one to look deep for inner beauty. Jimbo made an appointment with the eye doctor who told him everything was all right, that he just had some kind of a hemorrhage that would clear up in a while. Waking up with your eye all red makes one think about his mortality, but I stopped worrying about it after seeing the doctor. Thanks, doc. Also, thanks mom for referring me to him and especially thanks to my sister, a nurse, who helped assure me on the phone this morning that what little life I had in me was not quickly ebbing away.
On the way back from the eye doctor, I drove past a building that houses a company for which I used to work. There were no cars in the parking lot and I remembered when I used to work there the union guys out in the shop voted to take the Martin Luther King holiday instead of President’s Day. That was the last place I worked where we got the King holiday off. I remember at the time there was some odd resentment about taking the day off. One of the ladies I worked with said she would rather come to work than have a holiday in honor of Mr. King. Back then, believe it or not, I was kind of the office Joker, always trying to get a laugh (not serious and contemplative as I am today), and my response was that I would be happy to take a holiday, even if it were in honor of Attila the Hun.
I don’t think you would run across many people today who would express the same opinion of my former co-worker and many would say my response lacked a proper amount of political correctness, but I still feel that a day off work is a good thing, even if one doesn’t spend the day off honoring the person for whom the holiday is based. I think the symbolism of the King holiday makes it as legitimate as any other one, despite the fact that many people don’t get off work for it, and many that do probably don’t spend the day thinking about their black heritage. I would even venture that most of the people who are off school and work today are a little light on black heritage. If you think about most of our holidays, people probably only give a little thought to what the holiday is all about, if even that. I had to look up information about Memorial Day on the web to confirm what it actually honors, and it is not the Indianapolis 500.
Of the major holidays, two are in honor of Jesus (Christmas and Easter) and I would venture a guess that even non-Christians take the day off work and celebrate. Four honor America and its traditions. President’s Day honors our two most famous leaders, while Memorial Day honors those who died in war. Independence Day celebrates the declaration from Great Britain; Thanksgiving honors the pilgrims and the day after Thanksgiving honors commercialism and conspicuous consumption. Labor Day honors workers and the labor movement, but how many of us belong to unions these days and who thinks much about laborers at all the barbeques? New Year’s honors a random day of the year when we can start over with a clean slate.
Then, of course, we have the minor holidays for which most of us don’t get off work, unless we take a vacation day. Columbus day honors a lost mariner named Cristobal Colon who had a masterful view of the big picture and of the world being a globe, but he was not detail oriented and bumped into America while thinking he was in the East Indies. April Fool’s Day honors idiocy and gullibility. Halloween honors witchcraft and Satanism. St. Patrick’s Day honors the Irish and the incorrect stereotype that all the Irish are drunkards. However, for one day out of the year we are all Irish, and we drink to excess.
Perhaps someday, the Martin Luther King holiday will be a day when we are all black and we all embellish some incorrect racial stereotype. Until that time, however, I say we should celebrate the day, remember the man and enjoy the day off, if you have it.
Because in Jimbo’s world we can always use a day off.
On the way back from the eye doctor, I drove past a building that houses a company for which I used to work. There were no cars in the parking lot and I remembered when I used to work there the union guys out in the shop voted to take the Martin Luther King holiday instead of President’s Day. That was the last place I worked where we got the King holiday off. I remember at the time there was some odd resentment about taking the day off. One of the ladies I worked with said she would rather come to work than have a holiday in honor of Mr. King. Back then, believe it or not, I was kind of the office Joker, always trying to get a laugh (not serious and contemplative as I am today), and my response was that I would be happy to take a holiday, even if it were in honor of Attila the Hun.
I don’t think you would run across many people today who would express the same opinion of my former co-worker and many would say my response lacked a proper amount of political correctness, but I still feel that a day off work is a good thing, even if one doesn’t spend the day off honoring the person for whom the holiday is based. I think the symbolism of the King holiday makes it as legitimate as any other one, despite the fact that many people don’t get off work for it, and many that do probably don’t spend the day thinking about their black heritage. I would even venture that most of the people who are off school and work today are a little light on black heritage. If you think about most of our holidays, people probably only give a little thought to what the holiday is all about, if even that. I had to look up information about Memorial Day on the web to confirm what it actually honors, and it is not the Indianapolis 500.
Of the major holidays, two are in honor of Jesus (Christmas and Easter) and I would venture a guess that even non-Christians take the day off work and celebrate. Four honor America and its traditions. President’s Day honors our two most famous leaders, while Memorial Day honors those who died in war. Independence Day celebrates the declaration from Great Britain; Thanksgiving honors the pilgrims and the day after Thanksgiving honors commercialism and conspicuous consumption. Labor Day honors workers and the labor movement, but how many of us belong to unions these days and who thinks much about laborers at all the barbeques? New Year’s honors a random day of the year when we can start over with a clean slate.
Then, of course, we have the minor holidays for which most of us don’t get off work, unless we take a vacation day. Columbus day honors a lost mariner named Cristobal Colon who had a masterful view of the big picture and of the world being a globe, but he was not detail oriented and bumped into America while thinking he was in the East Indies. April Fool’s Day honors idiocy and gullibility. Halloween honors witchcraft and Satanism. St. Patrick’s Day honors the Irish and the incorrect stereotype that all the Irish are drunkards. However, for one day out of the year we are all Irish, and we drink to excess.
Perhaps someday, the Martin Luther King holiday will be a day when we are all black and we all embellish some incorrect racial stereotype. Until that time, however, I say we should celebrate the day, remember the man and enjoy the day off, if you have it.
Because in Jimbo’s world we can always use a day off.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
bourgeois blues in a proletarian america
It’s getting close to dinnertime at chez Jimbo’s girlfriend. I will be getting dinner ready here in a few minutes. Actually, I am just heating up some oven-baked chicken and some mashed potatoes that I made a couple of nights ago and I’ll be adding green beans to complete the culinary masterpiece. Jimbo is getting to be quite the cook, and the homemaker. Jimbo would also “put out” if it were expected. I may have some more recipes to add to your repertoire soon. But before Jimbo prepares this bounty for himself and his girlfriend, he has a little to get off his mind.
First of all: an apology. When I commented on Mickey Rooney’s rear end the other day, I used a number of different synonyms for Mickey’s buttocks, because there are so many different words to describe the human gluteus maximus (excluding foreign expressions like this one in Latin). I left out dozens of expressions, intentionally, but one I left out by mistake was tush or tushy. Pardon my omission. I should not have done a weblog about the bottom without including one of those expressions. I’ll do better next time.
The thing that caught my eye today in the news is that a member of the FCC has asked for a probe into a conservative columnist, saying the columnist failed to disclose $240,000 paid to him by the Bush administration to publicize its education policies. A little investigation into the story reveals that the columnist was given the money as compensation for running radio and television ads to promote the No Child Left Behind Act. The columnist says he accepted the money for advertisements and that he did nothing wrong. He apologized, however, saying it was a conflict of interests.
The thing that upsets me most about this is that the tax-and-spend Bush administration is so free with our money. And to top it off, they gave it to a commentator who generally supported their views. The commentator is probably making enough money that he is doing all right, whereas there are some of us who could really use the money.
I’m sure this columnist knows his way around Washington, DC. He is probably not as familiar with Huddie William Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, as Jimbo is and this columnist probably doesn’t pull out his six-string and sing Lead Belly’s song The Bourgeois Blues, as Jimbo used to do in his younger days. If he did, he would find apropos the following lines from the song.
“…don’t try to find no home in Washington, DC
‘cause it’s a bourgeois town…”
If Jimbo were allowed to paraphrase Lead Belly, he would say that Washington is a bourgeois town populated by bourgeois folks, and some in particular hang out down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It sounds as if some of these bourgeois folks are spending a quarter of a mil of our money for advertising to push their programs. Now, I have nothing against advertising. It’s been proven that one can disseminate important information that way. I’m wondering, however, if the Bush administration should be channeling their advertising budget through the people that support them, and I wonder if this is the proper way to get their message across. Hell, if the Bush administration is so keen on throwing their money away, why don’t they send some of it Jimbo’s way? My proletarian wallet could use some of their bourgeois bucks. There will be no conflict of interests, there. I’ll still keep giving them a hard time. I’ll just do it while snacking on the name brands instead of the discount store brands.
I think that hell will freeze over first, before I’ll see any money from the Bush administration, or even hear a kind word from them, or any of us will. Any of us, that is, except the people to whom they are giving our money. All the while, I’ll remember what Lead Belly said and I’ll take his advice. And, I’ll quote him again.
“I’ve got the bourgeois blues
Spread the news all around.”
Because some days in Jimbo’s world all one can do is make dinner for the little woman and keep spreading the news all around.
First of all: an apology. When I commented on Mickey Rooney’s rear end the other day, I used a number of different synonyms for Mickey’s buttocks, because there are so many different words to describe the human gluteus maximus (excluding foreign expressions like this one in Latin). I left out dozens of expressions, intentionally, but one I left out by mistake was tush or tushy. Pardon my omission. I should not have done a weblog about the bottom without including one of those expressions. I’ll do better next time.
The thing that caught my eye today in the news is that a member of the FCC has asked for a probe into a conservative columnist, saying the columnist failed to disclose $240,000 paid to him by the Bush administration to publicize its education policies. A little investigation into the story reveals that the columnist was given the money as compensation for running radio and television ads to promote the No Child Left Behind Act. The columnist says he accepted the money for advertisements and that he did nothing wrong. He apologized, however, saying it was a conflict of interests.
The thing that upsets me most about this is that the tax-and-spend Bush administration is so free with our money. And to top it off, they gave it to a commentator who generally supported their views. The commentator is probably making enough money that he is doing all right, whereas there are some of us who could really use the money.
I’m sure this columnist knows his way around Washington, DC. He is probably not as familiar with Huddie William Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, as Jimbo is and this columnist probably doesn’t pull out his six-string and sing Lead Belly’s song The Bourgeois Blues, as Jimbo used to do in his younger days. If he did, he would find apropos the following lines from the song.
“…don’t try to find no home in Washington, DC
‘cause it’s a bourgeois town…”
If Jimbo were allowed to paraphrase Lead Belly, he would say that Washington is a bourgeois town populated by bourgeois folks, and some in particular hang out down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It sounds as if some of these bourgeois folks are spending a quarter of a mil of our money for advertising to push their programs. Now, I have nothing against advertising. It’s been proven that one can disseminate important information that way. I’m wondering, however, if the Bush administration should be channeling their advertising budget through the people that support them, and I wonder if this is the proper way to get their message across. Hell, if the Bush administration is so keen on throwing their money away, why don’t they send some of it Jimbo’s way? My proletarian wallet could use some of their bourgeois bucks. There will be no conflict of interests, there. I’ll still keep giving them a hard time. I’ll just do it while snacking on the name brands instead of the discount store brands.
I think that hell will freeze over first, before I’ll see any money from the Bush administration, or even hear a kind word from them, or any of us will. Any of us, that is, except the people to whom they are giving our money. All the while, I’ll remember what Lead Belly said and I’ll take his advice. And, I’ll quote him again.
“I’ve got the bourgeois blues
Spread the news all around.”
Because some days in Jimbo’s world all one can do is make dinner for the little woman and keep spreading the news all around.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
mickey's rump, texas pests exposed
Some things in the news this week have caught my eye. First of all, the firestorm over Mickey Rooney’s bare buttocks comes to mind. Okay, I guess it is just a tempest in a teapot. I think I can safely say that if we were to see Mickey’s buck-naked ass on Super Bowl Sunday, life would still go on and society, as well as democracy, would survive.
Many of you are asking, “Tempest in a teapot? Has that bromide been used by anyone since the nineteenth century?” Others are saying, “Jimbo, you certainly have an unnatural interest in Mickey Rooney’s pale rear end.” The majority of you, however, are probably just asking, “What’s the big deal?”
And, I fall on the side of the latter on this issue. I think the only thing that hyping Mickey’s posterior and the fact that Fox has pulled the commercial from their Super Bowl broadcast is that it has given some free publicity to Airborne, the outfit for whom Mickey did the advertisement. You could also say it gave the networks one more opportunity to show us the video with Janet Jackson’s right breast not being visible and the video of Nicollette Sheridan trying to take Terrell Owens’ eye off the ball. And, all the while, they lament how awful these episodes were as they show them over and over and over.
By the way, if one is not sure of the spelling of Nicollette Sheridan’s first name and one puts it into Yahoo! as Nicole Sheridan, one is in for a surprise, as Nicole is a porn star and I guess you can see Nicole do her stuff if you click on the sites (which, of course, Jimbo didn’t). However from what Jimbo read on the Yahoo! search page, Nicole is a tall, leggy, gregarious blonde with a well-inflated front end who gives… well, never mind.
The bottom line is that any time spent worrying about the decline of civilization that would follow if we were to see Mickey’s naked buns would be better spent worrying about something else, like whether Nicole Sheridan is dressed warmly enough.
If one is inclined toward worry, however, here is something one can worry about.
It appears that the state of Texas is experiencing a problem with pests.
“Oh, Jimbo,” you are probably saying, “Can’t you get off the President’s back? He’s doing the best job he can do. It’s hard work and he needs to get away from Washington once in a while and get back to his ranch in Texas. And you are making it sound like he is a pest in his own home state.”
Au contraire, mon frere.
I can understand you may feel I’m sometimes critical of the current administration, but this time I am talking of other pests. It seems there is an infestation of Asian lady bugs in Texas and the infestation is causing a problem for the residents of the state. From the research I have done I have learned that the Asian lady bugs were introduced into the United States to prey upon other insects that were damaging plants and trees. In their native Asia, the lady bugs hibernate in large groups on cliff faces during the winter. Because there aren’t many cliffs in Texas the beetles are joining Texas families inside their homes during the winter and causing quite a stink. I use the word “stink” for a reason and the reason I use it is that the little boogers have an odor to them. Yes, the little stinkers come in from the cold, uninvited, and smell up the place.
The story that brought this problem to my attention says the bugs leave bloodstains around the house (they are carnivores, after all, meaning they eat living things). They also shed their skins and defecate inside the house. The story quotes a Texas Extension Agent who says it is better not to spray them with insecticide as they will just get inside the walls of your house, die and smell. Because the bugs overwinter in groups in their native Asia, they spend the winters in Texas swarming, so it is not just lone bugs that are bugging people, but bunches of them.
The bugs also seem to be attracted to golf courses and they alight on the golfers. Now, Jimbo is not a golfer, but he did golf for a year or two in his youth. Golf is a very difficult game and requires concentration. I would imagine it would mess up a game and add strokes to your score if you had bugs landing on you while you were trying to negotiate a shot-- especially smelly bugs.
Right now you are probably thinking that it is time for Jimbo to offer a solution to the problem rather than just listening to him lament that the situation has occurred. I guess that you deserve a solution and here it is. We need to send someone back into time to stop the people who imported the lady bugs from Asia in the first place. Of course, if we did that, then the aphids that were killing plants and trees that caused someone to have the bright idea to bring in the lady bugs might have become more of a problem than the lady bugs are and there might not be any trees or plants left. Or, instead of bringing in the lady bugs, they could have used DDT to eliminate the aphids and that could have caused an environmental nightmare. As Roseanne Roseanna-Dana (played by Gilda Radner on Saturday Night Live) used to say, “It’s always something.”
The bottom line is (if you don’t mind me using the phrase in a context where buttocks are not involved) that every action has a reaction and we always have to think before we do things and be prepared to live with the consequences. And remember, Texas gave us George Bush, so maybe they deserve to suffer down there like the rest of the nation has. Anyway, all this thinking has made me tired. Lets all give our brains a rest and lets think about Mickey’s ass, or Nicole’s and wonder how we got from their asses to here.
Sometimes there are a lot of detours in a trip through Jimbo’s world.
Many of you are asking, “Tempest in a teapot? Has that bromide been used by anyone since the nineteenth century?” Others are saying, “Jimbo, you certainly have an unnatural interest in Mickey Rooney’s pale rear end.” The majority of you, however, are probably just asking, “What’s the big deal?”
And, I fall on the side of the latter on this issue. I think the only thing that hyping Mickey’s posterior and the fact that Fox has pulled the commercial from their Super Bowl broadcast is that it has given some free publicity to Airborne, the outfit for whom Mickey did the advertisement. You could also say it gave the networks one more opportunity to show us the video with Janet Jackson’s right breast not being visible and the video of Nicollette Sheridan trying to take Terrell Owens’ eye off the ball. And, all the while, they lament how awful these episodes were as they show them over and over and over.
By the way, if one is not sure of the spelling of Nicollette Sheridan’s first name and one puts it into Yahoo! as Nicole Sheridan, one is in for a surprise, as Nicole is a porn star and I guess you can see Nicole do her stuff if you click on the sites (which, of course, Jimbo didn’t). However from what Jimbo read on the Yahoo! search page, Nicole is a tall, leggy, gregarious blonde with a well-inflated front end who gives… well, never mind.
The bottom line is that any time spent worrying about the decline of civilization that would follow if we were to see Mickey’s naked buns would be better spent worrying about something else, like whether Nicole Sheridan is dressed warmly enough.
If one is inclined toward worry, however, here is something one can worry about.
It appears that the state of Texas is experiencing a problem with pests.
“Oh, Jimbo,” you are probably saying, “Can’t you get off the President’s back? He’s doing the best job he can do. It’s hard work and he needs to get away from Washington once in a while and get back to his ranch in Texas. And you are making it sound like he is a pest in his own home state.”
Au contraire, mon frere.
I can understand you may feel I’m sometimes critical of the current administration, but this time I am talking of other pests. It seems there is an infestation of Asian lady bugs in Texas and the infestation is causing a problem for the residents of the state. From the research I have done I have learned that the Asian lady bugs were introduced into the United States to prey upon other insects that were damaging plants and trees. In their native Asia, the lady bugs hibernate in large groups on cliff faces during the winter. Because there aren’t many cliffs in Texas the beetles are joining Texas families inside their homes during the winter and causing quite a stink. I use the word “stink” for a reason and the reason I use it is that the little boogers have an odor to them. Yes, the little stinkers come in from the cold, uninvited, and smell up the place.
The story that brought this problem to my attention says the bugs leave bloodstains around the house (they are carnivores, after all, meaning they eat living things). They also shed their skins and defecate inside the house. The story quotes a Texas Extension Agent who says it is better not to spray them with insecticide as they will just get inside the walls of your house, die and smell. Because the bugs overwinter in groups in their native Asia, they spend the winters in Texas swarming, so it is not just lone bugs that are bugging people, but bunches of them.
The bugs also seem to be attracted to golf courses and they alight on the golfers. Now, Jimbo is not a golfer, but he did golf for a year or two in his youth. Golf is a very difficult game and requires concentration. I would imagine it would mess up a game and add strokes to your score if you had bugs landing on you while you were trying to negotiate a shot-- especially smelly bugs.
Right now you are probably thinking that it is time for Jimbo to offer a solution to the problem rather than just listening to him lament that the situation has occurred. I guess that you deserve a solution and here it is. We need to send someone back into time to stop the people who imported the lady bugs from Asia in the first place. Of course, if we did that, then the aphids that were killing plants and trees that caused someone to have the bright idea to bring in the lady bugs might have become more of a problem than the lady bugs are and there might not be any trees or plants left. Or, instead of bringing in the lady bugs, they could have used DDT to eliminate the aphids and that could have caused an environmental nightmare. As Roseanne Roseanna-Dana (played by Gilda Radner on Saturday Night Live) used to say, “It’s always something.”
The bottom line is (if you don’t mind me using the phrase in a context where buttocks are not involved) that every action has a reaction and we always have to think before we do things and be prepared to live with the consequences. And remember, Texas gave us George Bush, so maybe they deserve to suffer down there like the rest of the nation has. Anyway, all this thinking has made me tired. Lets all give our brains a rest and lets think about Mickey’s ass, or Nicole’s and wonder how we got from their asses to here.
Sometimes there are a lot of detours in a trip through Jimbo’s world.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
not just another flyboy movie
Yesterday, Jimbo and his girlfriend saw the movie The Aviator. We received some discount movie passes from my son and his girlfriend for Christmas, so the price was very comfortable. Thanks, again, guys for the gift.
My overall opinion of the movie was favorable and I would recommend it. The movie is about the early years of Howard Hughes and gives us an explanation why he had a phobia of germs and therefore, for those of us familiar with Hughes’ later years, it helps to explain why he lived out his life as a virtual hermit and in isolation. The later part of his life was not shown in the movie. Maybe they will do a sequel sometime to show the rest, although it would not be necessary.
The movie depicts Hughes as a child and there was an epidemic and his mother put an effort into washing him and keeping him clean from the disease, something that foreshadowed the rest of his life. Many in his community were in quarantine. For those who have seen the movie that is Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-I-N-E, as his mother spells out for him as a child and he spells out for himself in moments of psychotic paranoia in his adult life. Throughout the movie Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) has a phobia of coming into contact with men or having them touch his food, although he seems to have no problem about contact with women, with whom he seems to be in frequent close contact throughout the movie. Perhaps this is because his mother kept him clean and sterile in his youth. This is just speculation, of course. Do I look like a psychiatrist? When you look in you dictionary under psychiatrist, you’ll not find a line drawing of my less-than-handsome countenance.
I thought DiCaprio’s performance was extremely good. I would imagine it would be a challenge to go from pretty boy to psycho at the drop of a hat. I was pretty impressed.
Hughes is depicted throughout the movie as an eccentric who leverages his family’s tool business to finance his career as a movie-maker and an aircraft pioneer and he puts his fortune on the line numerous times and teeters on the edge of solvency in order to advance his projects like film making, aircraft manufacture and running an airline. During the entire movie he drifts into and out of periods of psychosis, each time leaving the viewer to wonder whether he will remain that way, helpless, forever. Each time he manages to regain his sanity temporarily and accomplish some other remarkable feat.
I particularly liked the early part of the movie, during which Hughes was making the movie Hell’s Angels, and the amount of time and money it took to bring the movie to the screen. I also thought it was a very realistic depiction of the nightlife in the twenties and thirties, with the entertainers rolling their eyes and acting goofy as hell. From what I have read of those times, the entertainers were about as sedate as rockers of the seventies. Of course, I don’t know for a fact. I wasn’t there. I’m old, but not that old.
The Aviator is a bit of a long movie—about two-and one-half hours—so make sure you go to the restroom before you go into the theatre, but if you are interested in being entertained, I would highly recommend this film.
Here in Jimbo’s world we know a nut case when we see one, even if we can’t explain it in the proper psychological jargon, and we also know a good movie when we see it.
My overall opinion of the movie was favorable and I would recommend it. The movie is about the early years of Howard Hughes and gives us an explanation why he had a phobia of germs and therefore, for those of us familiar with Hughes’ later years, it helps to explain why he lived out his life as a virtual hermit and in isolation. The later part of his life was not shown in the movie. Maybe they will do a sequel sometime to show the rest, although it would not be necessary.
The movie depicts Hughes as a child and there was an epidemic and his mother put an effort into washing him and keeping him clean from the disease, something that foreshadowed the rest of his life. Many in his community were in quarantine. For those who have seen the movie that is Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-I-N-E, as his mother spells out for him as a child and he spells out for himself in moments of psychotic paranoia in his adult life. Throughout the movie Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) has a phobia of coming into contact with men or having them touch his food, although he seems to have no problem about contact with women, with whom he seems to be in frequent close contact throughout the movie. Perhaps this is because his mother kept him clean and sterile in his youth. This is just speculation, of course. Do I look like a psychiatrist? When you look in you dictionary under psychiatrist, you’ll not find a line drawing of my less-than-handsome countenance.
I thought DiCaprio’s performance was extremely good. I would imagine it would be a challenge to go from pretty boy to psycho at the drop of a hat. I was pretty impressed.
Hughes is depicted throughout the movie as an eccentric who leverages his family’s tool business to finance his career as a movie-maker and an aircraft pioneer and he puts his fortune on the line numerous times and teeters on the edge of solvency in order to advance his projects like film making, aircraft manufacture and running an airline. During the entire movie he drifts into and out of periods of psychosis, each time leaving the viewer to wonder whether he will remain that way, helpless, forever. Each time he manages to regain his sanity temporarily and accomplish some other remarkable feat.
I particularly liked the early part of the movie, during which Hughes was making the movie Hell’s Angels, and the amount of time and money it took to bring the movie to the screen. I also thought it was a very realistic depiction of the nightlife in the twenties and thirties, with the entertainers rolling their eyes and acting goofy as hell. From what I have read of those times, the entertainers were about as sedate as rockers of the seventies. Of course, I don’t know for a fact. I wasn’t there. I’m old, but not that old.
The Aviator is a bit of a long movie—about two-and one-half hours—so make sure you go to the restroom before you go into the theatre, but if you are interested in being entertained, I would highly recommend this film.
Here in Jimbo’s world we know a nut case when we see one, even if we can’t explain it in the proper psychological jargon, and we also know a good movie when we see it.
Friday, January 07, 2005
jimbo's chili: like a coat from the cold
You may recall that a number of weeks ago—I believe it was around Thanksgiving—I gave you a recipe for omelets you could use to impress your girlfriends. I want to take this opportunity to increase your culinary boundaries, but, before I do, perhaps I should probably expand my own horizons. A re-reading of the omelet weblog would make one think that all of Jimbo’s readers are adolescent males of little sophistication, whereas I am convinced that I failed, at that time, to grasp the scope of geniality and worldliness of my readership. I apologize for this social faux pas and I will make sure it does not happen again. I am now totally convinced that I am writing to one of the most educated and socially astute audiences out there on the World Wide Web.
The delightful dish I will set before you today is my world-famous chili con carne. To those of you who are not fluent in Espanol, that means chili, with meat. Here is what you need to make it. I assume that Williams seasonings are available throughout the country and world. Their headquarters is in Jimbo’s neighborhood, so if their seasoning is not available you can substitute what you can get, but Williams will be far superior.
2 lbs. of ground beef (I prefer ground chuck or ground round)
1 small slice of onion (Jimbo uses small yellow ones)
1 oz. package of Williams Original Chili Seasoning
10 oz. can of diced tomatoes and green chilies
16 oz. can of chili beans
1 bag of shredded cheddar cheese
Put the ground beef in a large pan or Dutch oven with about two cups of water and cook until brown on medium heat. Stir frequently to make sure the meat is crumbled uniformly and thoroughly cooked. When the meat is cooked, drain off the water. Jimbo’s girlfriend has a Dutch oven with a lid with small holes on one side to drain pasta. This works very well for draining the water off the meat. While the meat is cooking, take an onion and peel that brownish crap off the outside and slice a quarter-inch thick section from the middle of the onion and put the rest of the onion in a baggie for the next time you make omelets. Lay your quarter-inch thick disk of onion on a cutting board and slice it into 1/8” thick strips; then rotate it 90 degrees and cut the strips into 1/8” pieces and then put the onion into the meat after the water is drained off. Cook at medium heat for five minutes, stirring frequently, to mix the onions into the meat.
Then, pour the chili seasoning, the tomatoes and chilies and the beans into the pan with the meat and mix thoroughly. Cook at medium heat for about five to ten minutes and then reduce the heat to low and simmer for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then put the chili into bowls and top with the shredded cheese and serve with crackers of your choice. Jimbo’s girlfriend likes to drink milk with her chili, but it goes well with beer also.
Jimbo made this chili for his girlfriend tonight and she seemed to enjoy it. I think if you make it for your girlfriend, your boyfriend or your same-sex partner, it will go over well. We are going to have strawberry daiquiris later tonight. I’ll give you the recipe for them at a later time, if you will promise me you’ll make the chili before you start drinking and become a danger to your kitchen and the rest of the free world.
Remember, friends don’t let friends cook drunk. And in Jimbo’s world we never put heat to a pan unless we’re stone cold sober.
The delightful dish I will set before you today is my world-famous chili con carne. To those of you who are not fluent in Espanol, that means chili, with meat. Here is what you need to make it. I assume that Williams seasonings are available throughout the country and world. Their headquarters is in Jimbo’s neighborhood, so if their seasoning is not available you can substitute what you can get, but Williams will be far superior.
2 lbs. of ground beef (I prefer ground chuck or ground round)
1 small slice of onion (Jimbo uses small yellow ones)
1 oz. package of Williams Original Chili Seasoning
10 oz. can of diced tomatoes and green chilies
16 oz. can of chili beans
1 bag of shredded cheddar cheese
Put the ground beef in a large pan or Dutch oven with about two cups of water and cook until brown on medium heat. Stir frequently to make sure the meat is crumbled uniformly and thoroughly cooked. When the meat is cooked, drain off the water. Jimbo’s girlfriend has a Dutch oven with a lid with small holes on one side to drain pasta. This works very well for draining the water off the meat. While the meat is cooking, take an onion and peel that brownish crap off the outside and slice a quarter-inch thick section from the middle of the onion and put the rest of the onion in a baggie for the next time you make omelets. Lay your quarter-inch thick disk of onion on a cutting board and slice it into 1/8” thick strips; then rotate it 90 degrees and cut the strips into 1/8” pieces and then put the onion into the meat after the water is drained off. Cook at medium heat for five minutes, stirring frequently, to mix the onions into the meat.
Then, pour the chili seasoning, the tomatoes and chilies and the beans into the pan with the meat and mix thoroughly. Cook at medium heat for about five to ten minutes and then reduce the heat to low and simmer for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then put the chili into bowls and top with the shredded cheese and serve with crackers of your choice. Jimbo’s girlfriend likes to drink milk with her chili, but it goes well with beer also.
Jimbo made this chili for his girlfriend tonight and she seemed to enjoy it. I think if you make it for your girlfriend, your boyfriend or your same-sex partner, it will go over well. We are going to have strawberry daiquiris later tonight. I’ll give you the recipe for them at a later time, if you will promise me you’ll make the chili before you start drinking and become a danger to your kitchen and the rest of the free world.
Remember, friends don’t let friends cook drunk. And in Jimbo’s world we never put heat to a pan unless we’re stone cold sober.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
rats as big as raccoons
Just when you think everything is all right, then things go straight to hell in a hand basket.
I read this week about a non-native species of rat causing havoc in Florida. I know, you are probably thinking that I am going to say something negative about the governor of Florida, who is the President’s brother. No, it is not that at all. There is no guilt by association here in Jimbo’s world. I have no particular axe to grind against the man. The particular rat against which I will be preaching today is the Gambian pouch rat; a native of Africa that has been introduced somehow into the Florida Keys and whom conservations say is an environmental problem.
These rats grow to the size of raccoons and compete for the food of two other species of rat that are endangered species. The rats are omnivores, which means, like Jimbo, they will eat almost anything, including bird eggs. You may recall several weeks ago I sort of encouraged all of you to eat bird eggs when I gave you the recipe for Jimbo’s omelet. Of course, these rats are not the bon vivant that Jimbo (and probably you) are and they eat the crap that other rats eat, so they are a problem.
Now, it goes without saying that I am not a fan of rats and I hesitate to get really outraged at the possibility of a couple of species of rat being endangered, but if the alternative is these big rats from Africa who are so big they have no predators, then I guess I have to speak out.
The rats are only in the Florida keys right now and nobody is sure how they got there, but the concern is they will hitch a ride on a truck or do some other crazy stunt and get to the mainland and migrate to the everglades, where they will prosper and get out of control, like college students at spring break, and then there will be hell to pay. There won’t be any aesthetic value in the rats’ shenanigans as there is with the college students. No one will be videotaping the rats’ antics and advertising the “Rats gone wild” videos on Howard Stern’s show.
I also read a story about a kangaroo that got loose in Wisconsin and was captured by the local law enforcement people. I lived in Wisconsin for a while and I’ve been to Florida a few times and I think the climate of Florida is much preferred. I doubt whether the kangaroo would have thrived in Wisconsin like the rats do in Florida. I know I left Wisconsin with no regrets, but every time I went to Florida, I found myself reading the jobs ads in the local paper to see if I could find some way to stay there permanently. Florida is a more hospitable place, environmentally, and once the rats hit the mainland, it’s too late for all of us. Will the rats take over Walt Disney World and drive Mickey Mouse to extinction? Will one of the football teams down there take on the pouch rat as a mascot? Will a restaurant name a dish after the rats? Will Florida become the rat capitol of the world?
Dear God, perish the thought.
I’ve never been to the Keys, but they tell me it’s nice. Maybe the rats will choose to stay there rather than migrate to the mainland. But, even so, I don’t think we want them there, either. I guess our salvation depends on the government of Florida to deliver us from this evil.
Which takes me back to my original point. Just when you think things are all right, it goes to hell in a hand basket.
Because here in Jimbo’s world we know the choice between rats and certain government entities is pretty much a coin flip.
I read this week about a non-native species of rat causing havoc in Florida. I know, you are probably thinking that I am going to say something negative about the governor of Florida, who is the President’s brother. No, it is not that at all. There is no guilt by association here in Jimbo’s world. I have no particular axe to grind against the man. The particular rat against which I will be preaching today is the Gambian pouch rat; a native of Africa that has been introduced somehow into the Florida Keys and whom conservations say is an environmental problem.
These rats grow to the size of raccoons and compete for the food of two other species of rat that are endangered species. The rats are omnivores, which means, like Jimbo, they will eat almost anything, including bird eggs. You may recall several weeks ago I sort of encouraged all of you to eat bird eggs when I gave you the recipe for Jimbo’s omelet. Of course, these rats are not the bon vivant that Jimbo (and probably you) are and they eat the crap that other rats eat, so they are a problem.
Now, it goes without saying that I am not a fan of rats and I hesitate to get really outraged at the possibility of a couple of species of rat being endangered, but if the alternative is these big rats from Africa who are so big they have no predators, then I guess I have to speak out.
The rats are only in the Florida keys right now and nobody is sure how they got there, but the concern is they will hitch a ride on a truck or do some other crazy stunt and get to the mainland and migrate to the everglades, where they will prosper and get out of control, like college students at spring break, and then there will be hell to pay. There won’t be any aesthetic value in the rats’ shenanigans as there is with the college students. No one will be videotaping the rats’ antics and advertising the “Rats gone wild” videos on Howard Stern’s show.
I also read a story about a kangaroo that got loose in Wisconsin and was captured by the local law enforcement people. I lived in Wisconsin for a while and I’ve been to Florida a few times and I think the climate of Florida is much preferred. I doubt whether the kangaroo would have thrived in Wisconsin like the rats do in Florida. I know I left Wisconsin with no regrets, but every time I went to Florida, I found myself reading the jobs ads in the local paper to see if I could find some way to stay there permanently. Florida is a more hospitable place, environmentally, and once the rats hit the mainland, it’s too late for all of us. Will the rats take over Walt Disney World and drive Mickey Mouse to extinction? Will one of the football teams down there take on the pouch rat as a mascot? Will a restaurant name a dish after the rats? Will Florida become the rat capitol of the world?
Dear God, perish the thought.
I’ve never been to the Keys, but they tell me it’s nice. Maybe the rats will choose to stay there rather than migrate to the mainland. But, even so, I don’t think we want them there, either. I guess our salvation depends on the government of Florida to deliver us from this evil.
Which takes me back to my original point. Just when you think things are all right, it goes to hell in a hand basket.
Because here in Jimbo’s world we know the choice between rats and certain government entities is pretty much a coin flip.
Monday, January 03, 2005
no smart chicks, please
I saw a headline on Yahoo! this morning that read:
Snow Shuts Down Major California Highway
I thought immediately of the Treasury Secretary and was offended by his lack of compassion for his fellow man. People need to get places; they need to get back home after the holiday weekend. Shouldn't Secretary Snow be working to support the dollar instead of letting it slide against foreign currencies rather than creating mischief?
I had time to read the story, however, and I realized it was not some shenanigan of that mother of a Treasury Secretary, but rather one of mother nature. My bad. I was all set to light into him, verbally, but now I guess I’ll have to find something else to talk about.
Fortunately, something else caught my interest and so I can leave John Snow in peace-- for at least today, anyway. I read a story about a study in Great Britain that indicated that smart women were less likely to get married than smart men. Forty percent fewer women in the survey got married for each 16-point rise in IQ. The article quoted a writer who said that intelligent men preferred a less brainy partner. It went on to say that high IQ men tended toward demanding jobs and they tended to look for old fashioned women like their mothers, whom I infer by what I read must not be very intelligent.
As either Disraeli or Mark Twain said, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. Someone else said that the numbers don’t lie, but I am questioning the conclusions drawn by this article. My own mother, for example, while spurning the fields of brain surgery and rocket science, was primarily a home maker during my formative years, although she did work briefly in the electronics field when I was in college. She was fully capable of managing the household and solving the problems of her children, and despite the fact she married my father, she is an intelligent woman. Not that marrying my father was a bad choice in itself. I was meaning getting married, period. I’m sure some of you sniggered recently when I mentioned the problems she was having with her internet service provider. No matter how smart or dumb we are, we’ve all had those problems. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. All right, then. I didn’t think I would see any rocks flying.
As my second example, I would like to use Jimbo’s girlfriend. Many of you will be quick to point out that the survey numbers involved getting married and obviously she and Jimbo have not yet achieved that particular goal. Again, my girlfriend has not performed brain surgery lately nor launched any spaceships, but she has a responsible managerial position, and, in fact, has been married before. Her favorite television program is Sex and the City, and frequently I watch it with her. Now, if you’ve ever seen the show, it is about four single women in New York, all good looking, and any one of those babes could be married anytime they would want to, but they seem to be discriminating. It’s not like they hop in the sack with the first stranger that comes along. Okay, I guess some of them do, but the point I am trying to make is that the decision as to whom to marry rests at least fifty percent with women and I contend it is a much higher percentage than that. Sometimes we guys think we are calling the shots, when, in fact, we are not nearly as in charge as we think.
The interpretation of data can be subjective and sometimes even the smartest of us can make incorrect assumptions based on exactly the same information. I think the conclusion drawn from the data may be slightly skewed. My own interpretation, although it is also subject to the test of incorrect conclusions being drawn, is that smarter women may be more discriminating about whom they choose to marry. Perhaps if given a choice, smarter women my decide the alternative of being single is preferable.
Of course, being a man, I could be wrong.
In life, as in Jimbo’s world, there are always two or more ways to look at things.
Snow Shuts Down Major California Highway
I thought immediately of the Treasury Secretary and was offended by his lack of compassion for his fellow man. People need to get places; they need to get back home after the holiday weekend. Shouldn't Secretary Snow be working to support the dollar instead of letting it slide against foreign currencies rather than creating mischief?
I had time to read the story, however, and I realized it was not some shenanigan of that mother of a Treasury Secretary, but rather one of mother nature. My bad. I was all set to light into him, verbally, but now I guess I’ll have to find something else to talk about.
Fortunately, something else caught my interest and so I can leave John Snow in peace-- for at least today, anyway. I read a story about a study in Great Britain that indicated that smart women were less likely to get married than smart men. Forty percent fewer women in the survey got married for each 16-point rise in IQ. The article quoted a writer who said that intelligent men preferred a less brainy partner. It went on to say that high IQ men tended toward demanding jobs and they tended to look for old fashioned women like their mothers, whom I infer by what I read must not be very intelligent.
As either Disraeli or Mark Twain said, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. Someone else said that the numbers don’t lie, but I am questioning the conclusions drawn by this article. My own mother, for example, while spurning the fields of brain surgery and rocket science, was primarily a home maker during my formative years, although she did work briefly in the electronics field when I was in college. She was fully capable of managing the household and solving the problems of her children, and despite the fact she married my father, she is an intelligent woman. Not that marrying my father was a bad choice in itself. I was meaning getting married, period. I’m sure some of you sniggered recently when I mentioned the problems she was having with her internet service provider. No matter how smart or dumb we are, we’ve all had those problems. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. All right, then. I didn’t think I would see any rocks flying.
As my second example, I would like to use Jimbo’s girlfriend. Many of you will be quick to point out that the survey numbers involved getting married and obviously she and Jimbo have not yet achieved that particular goal. Again, my girlfriend has not performed brain surgery lately nor launched any spaceships, but she has a responsible managerial position, and, in fact, has been married before. Her favorite television program is Sex and the City, and frequently I watch it with her. Now, if you’ve ever seen the show, it is about four single women in New York, all good looking, and any one of those babes could be married anytime they would want to, but they seem to be discriminating. It’s not like they hop in the sack with the first stranger that comes along. Okay, I guess some of them do, but the point I am trying to make is that the decision as to whom to marry rests at least fifty percent with women and I contend it is a much higher percentage than that. Sometimes we guys think we are calling the shots, when, in fact, we are not nearly as in charge as we think.
The interpretation of data can be subjective and sometimes even the smartest of us can make incorrect assumptions based on exactly the same information. I think the conclusion drawn from the data may be slightly skewed. My own interpretation, although it is also subject to the test of incorrect conclusions being drawn, is that smarter women may be more discriminating about whom they choose to marry. Perhaps if given a choice, smarter women my decide the alternative of being single is preferable.
Of course, being a man, I could be wrong.
In life, as in Jimbo’s world, there are always two or more ways to look at things.
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