Quote of the Week

"One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils."
- Woodrow Wilson



Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Shots Fired! ....never mind

Well this just falls under the category of "I didn't think this all the way through." Tonight I received a couple of emails from the area technical school I am taking some classes from. The first one comes through with the subject line: News: Shots Fired.
Screen shot of my gmail inbox

Yeah. That got my interest. The email was about a training video the school is working on for what to do if there is an armed intruder. This was followed a few minute by another with the same body, but the new and improved  subject line of New: Video Coming Next Week.

I just shook my head and said to myself  don't people think that "News Shots Fired" would not be an idea subject line for a email coming from a school? I mean I am far from the sharpest tool in the shed and I know better than that.

About five minutes after the second email, a third arrived with the all caps FALSE ALARM! as the subject. My guess is somebody just might have got a phone call regarding the original email.

The email sent form the school tonight.
It really saddens me that there are even training videos like this and active shooter drills taking place in schools these days. When I was in High School, it was pretty common to see a shotgun in a student vehicle during the fall. I remember going directly from football practice to a quick evening duck hunt and my Remington 1100 would be in my car all school day.

But times have changed.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Forced to Escalate This Beyond Conventional Weapons

Living in the woods has many advantages. One of the biggest for me is pretty much living with the wildlife. Deer, turkeys, bear, coyotes, and other critters of the forest often roam through my yard. It is always fun to watch them from my living room window.

Living in the wood has many disadvantages too. One of the biggest for me is pretty much living with the wildlife. Deer & bears destroy my birdfeeders. Bears, coyotes and other critters get into the garbage. And of course the mice.

Turns out mice find living in my little house more comfortable than living under a log. And that is a problem for me. A problem that starts a small war every fall when the mice decide to migrate from the logs to my house. Even though my house is pretty well sealed up to prevent a rodent invasion, a few always find a way in when the temperature drops in the fall.

I don't like this annual war on rodents too much. Even though I have no problems hunting game animals for food, I'm not into killing animals for just killing. But I am not into letting rodents chew my drywall and crap on my kitchen counter either. So, like voting, I pick the option I dislike less.

My preferred method in defending the sanitary conditions of my kitchen surfaces is the tried & true mouse trap. A little peanut butter on the pan for bait, and the little buggers it a last snack before the wack of a quick death. Little fuss, little muss.

The annual war's fighting pretty much ended a few months ago. But at least one remains or a final wave came in from the winter's chill. And this one is crafty. Either a mouse ninja or Rodent Army Special Operations Specialist.

For the last few days, the trap pans have been cleaned of peanut butter and this morning, a horrific discovery. Droppings in my silverware tray. That's it, gloves are off. With that, I am forced to escalate this beyond conventional weapons. Time to drop the chemical weapon option. That's right, the rat poison is out.

I don't care to use poison. The mice die a slower death that with the trap. Plus with the trap, you can recover and dispose of the fresh kill. Using poison sometimes results in discovering your foe's casualties by the smell. No, I don't care to use poison. But finding mouse turds on my butter knives call for action.


I found this funny, so I guess it makes me a racist



With the latest Justin Bieber being a complete douchebag incident, there has been a bunch of memes floating around the interwebs. The one shown here I found funny enough to share. 

I have to admit I'm not 100% sure on the joke. I'm assuming "as long as you love me" is one of his songs. They don't play much Bieber on the classic rock, hard rock and country stations I typically listen to while driving in my truck.

Any rate, I shared it in Facebook. Many of my friends thought it was funny, one sent me a PM calling me a racist. I was taken back a bit by that statement. Granted this meme is crude at best with a reference to prison rape. But racist? 

Now even though I have no children as Facebook friends, I still keep my Facebook page PG rated. The meme is not the type of thing I post, but I thought it was pretty funny and I couldn't resist. 

I asked my friend to explain why I am racist for sharing the meme. My friend told me it was racist because the guy in the other mugshot was black and it was racist to imply a big meaning looking black guy would rape a little white guy. It should have been a picture of a big mean looking white guy instead.

I guess I never thought about it that way. I just saw it as a big mean looking guy. I would found it funny that the big mean looking guy was black. I would have found it just as funny if the big mean looking guy was white, or hispanic, or native American, or asian, or any other ethnic group you can think off.   

But according to my friend, that would be racist. I guess to prevent myself from being racist, I need to make sure anything I share on Facebook is segregated by race. Sorry, but I really don't think I was the one who is being racist in the discussion I had with my friend.


Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Brace Yourselves, the Winter Olympics Are Coming

Kyodo News, AP Sarah Hendrickson of the United States soars in the air during the second event at the women's World Cup ski jumping on Saturday in Zao, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan.

Brace yourselves, the Winter Olympics are coming, and I can't wait. I absolutely love the Winter Olympics and I will watch all the events I can. Which is kind of odd since I can't sit through five minutes of the Summer Olympics. Maybe because I grew up in Northern Wisconsin playing hockey, or it's my Norwegian heritage. Most likely it's because I just hate running. At any rate, the Winter Games is where it's at for me.

While watching the NFL playoff games last week, they ran a commercial promoting how this year Women's Ski Jumping will make it's debut as an Olympic Event. That announcement shocked me. Not because I think women can't handle the sport of ski jumping. I just assumed it always was an Olympic Event.

Old picture from the web
There have (as long as I can remember) Women's divisions for Downhill, Super G, Bobsled, Luge and all the other death defying events that I think have their origins to a drunken dare between two Scandinavians. 

Especially Skeleton. There is no way that sport started off sober! You know there was a few Swedes and Norwegians at the ice track bragging how fast they were, then some Finnlander went down head first to prove a point.  


Monday, January 20, 2014

Looks Like I Missed Something

While I watched both of the NFL playoff games yesterday, I didn't watch the post game interviews. It looks like I missed something. From the memes making the rounds on Facebook, I don't think I'll put any effort into getting caught up on what I missed. The expression on the side line reporter's face in these two memes says enough for me.



Saturday, January 18, 2014

The value of NFL players, CEOs, and fast food workers



I'm a huge fan of Dave Ramsey. Reading his books, listing to his podcast, and more importantly, following his advice has greatly improved my finical situation and has improved me professionally as well. In the above video shares my views on how people are paid far better than I can.

In this day of "everybody wins and gets a trophy" attitude, more people need to listen to this wisdom. Instead of demanding to get paid more, we need to find ways to bring more pay in. We should never settle for good enough, but always strive for better. The best way to do that is to focus on what you have control to improve. Yourself.

 Here are links to Amazon for two of Dave Ramsey's books that I have read and re-read many times. Both have helped me out immensely.

The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness is a must read for anyone who wants to get their finances under control. It is surprisingly easy to live debt free once you see how easy it is to live without the trappings we've accepted as normal.

EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches is a must read for any professional or entrepreneur. Whether you run your own business, want to start your own business or succeed farther in your profession.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Very Interesting But Also Stupid



I spend some time on an online forum with a bunch of quirky people like me. One of the things many of us do is reply to other's comments with funny short YouTube videos or GIFs.

Tonight on a post, that had a ton of humor running through the comments, a friend commented with "Very interesting.........." Well I saw enough Laugh In re-runs on Nick At Nite to know what to search for on YouTube as my response.

I must say I was pleasantly surprised to find this little gem. Not only is it of Arte Johnson doing his trademark bit on the 60's show, but he his joined by Peter Sellers! I don't believe I ever saw this before tonight and it really made me laugh. Especially the part where Art Johnson say "nonetheless" and almost lost it.

I think I find comedians like these from a generation or two ago far, far better than the majority of comedians today. They could do simple bits like this and be very funny without any swearing or over the top sexual references.

Ironically today even with today's acceptance of foul language and crude humor, a bit like this one couldn't be done on prime time TV today. Too many people would be offended by the German World War II era uniforms.