Reflections

When I was young I wanted nothing more than to be famous. Now I could think of nothing that would be worse. If I analyze it a little deeper, what I want is what most of us desire — immortality. We are all going to die, no one gets out alive, but maybe we can exit and not be forgotten.

I once thought I would write a book. Even if one dusty copy survived in the stacks of a lone library, I would live forever. The only problem is I have neither the talent nor the imagination to make it happen.

I will live on through my kids. What kind of memory will I leave? I have tried to be a good father. Too bad my children grew up during some bad times financially. They spent their youth with the old man on the road travelling the world in an effort to make a living. I missed a few concerts and games, but not many. At the time I am sure they did not care. Short tempers, whispered arguments about money and hard times I hope we hid from their collective memories are all I can hope for now.

I find myself these days in a weird place. For the first time in my life I feel lost and alone. The wife takes me for granted and the kids are indifferent, they have their own lives to lead. I have not been much of a son or brother. I am tired of being angry over real and imagined slights. I am tired of being mad at my work, at politics, at the world. Some days I feel like I have not laughed in weeks.

I should consider myself lucky. I have known a couple of good dogs. I have owned a cat or two. I have a few very good friends, and a wife who I really believe loves me. I have my three kids. And there is this little bit of shit and wit.

Here I am an average guy living an average life and bored to pieces. It is a sad comment on one’s life when you step back and realize if I disappeared tomorrow I would leave a mighty tiny ripple in the lake of life. Beyond my family, few would care. I bet thirty people would attend my wake. That is sad, not for me, but that I have done so little to make an impression on my community and the world at large.

Fear not you faithful readers, there is nothing wrong, I am alive and kicking. You will read my opinions, my bad jokes, my rantings and the mundane aspects of pathetic life for a time to come. Sometimes one has to take stock of his life, and I am afraid my positive tallies are pretty small. I blame no one but myself.

I bet I am not alone. Millions of us toil away each day in anonymity, hoping to raise our children in the best way possible. We love our country, our God, our spouse, our kids. We worry about bills, about the noise in the car, the cough in the next room. We worry about work and fret over tonight’s dinner.

We watch TV and root for our favorite team and just live life the best we can. We are not talented. We are not famous. We are lost souls trying to make our way in the world without an instruction manual.

We grow old an die. We are mourned by a few and forgotten by most.

I used to have this quotation stuck on my bulletin board:

<strong>The fly sat on the chariot wheel and said look what a dust I raise</strong>

We are alive today, and that has to be enough.

The Autobiography of a Hoosier Boy

Freddie made a comment the other day that struck home with me.  She said

I figure you must like to argue HB. I’m way too hotheaded for that.

Not you, though. I think you DO make some headway sometimes. But it seems like a LOT of work, for almost no reward.

It does seem that way. I started my other blog in March of 2005. It seems like forever in the past. At the time I was working in a remote office, alone. I worked for a very small Italian company as their sole representative in the US. All I did was sales. Customer service, quality, engineering, invoicing were all handled elsewhere. I had little to no contact with people outside of my customers. Business was good, but new sales were nearly impossible to gain, as our company had a very limited product offering, and a person can only spend so many hours a day prospecting. Over months and years the list of possible customers shrinks.

I had worked alone for a number of years. In those cases order entry and customer service as well as engineering etc. were on shore. There was no 6 hour time difference. I talked to people in the company every couple of days. Sometimes we had long conversations. I often traveled with marketing and product managers. In other words, there was a lively give and take. With the Italians, there was little to no contact.

I guess you could say I was bored. I would go days or even a week speaking to nary a soul during the day. The wife would head for work and the kids to school. I drove to my office and spent the next eight hours with no human contact. I needed a release, someone to tell my jokes, rant my politics. The wife had heard my bad puns for far too long and she had no interest in politics, so it was time to spew my many thoughts to someone, even it was an audience of zero on the interwebz.

It took a long time for anyone to notice. Like many of you, The Acidman sent me a nice email with sound advice. He told me to find my own voice, a task I have yet to master. Maybe I can reach that goal here. In any case the other place has built a small but loyal following of 60 to 100 hits a day. I am happy with that. It is the outlet I need to ssdiscuss politics, tell jokes, rant about sports.

I know some readers do not like me to spend so much time on politics. I do like to argue, and since I am trying to be honest here on this site, I really do like to be right. It is a character flaw I have worked on, but sometimes I can not help myself. I am not the bulldog I once was, but often I cannot let idiots have their say without pointing out they are idiots. With the exception of “that one site”, I rarely offer arguments on other people’s blogs. In fact I rarely comment. I think I have little to add to the conversation, or it has already been said or I post my thoughts at my own site. I love comments, but spare others my brain dribbles.

Anyway, yes it is a lot of work for little reward. But I love every minute of it. I post away almost every day, having the conversations I do not have at home or work. With the exception of my brother and one or two bloggers I have met, I am an anonymous shouter in the windy ethernet. I plug away in the confines of my home office, my famlly oblivious to my weird hobby. I like it that way.

So here we are. This site is nearly year old and I rarely post to it. I think I will use it to place my more personal stuff, like this post. Stuff I do not care to share with the multitudes. Over time, the need for approbation and acceptance will lead me to post links and try for the hits that make blogging worthwhile. I have no illusions. Typing one-sided conversations to the internet is no different than talking to yourself in a second stroy office.

It is weird, you want people to show up, but when they do it spoils the whole thing. Some of you bloggers will understand.

If you accidently showed up here, you are welcome. If you came on purpose, Thank you.

I will end quoting the most worthwhile thing ever written by Kurt Vonnegut:

“and so it goes…”

He lives

I am still alive. Posting at the main site.  The Chronicles is here as an escape hatch.

Patience Donkey…

Big Bob Sanders

Are we yet to the point where Bob Sander’s constant injuries override his accomplishemnts?  How long can the Colts pay so much for a guy who plays less than half the time?

Colts redux

The Horeseshoes pulled out a nice victory over the Steelers yesterday. How much longer until Dungy admits Rhoades is the guy who should be getting the rock?  I am glad for it, but WTF was Pittsburgh doing throwing down the middle at the end of each half with a lead? The interception at the end of the first half changed the game. They should have run three times and punted down field. Wow.

Colts Recap

The Colts now find themselves at 1-2, and they are damned lucky not to be 0-3. We went to some friend’s house to watch the game yesterday. Early in the first half I asked my friend if the the Bears were just really up for the Colts or if the Colts are really just not very good? I think the Colts are in for a rough year. Yes there is a little more elbow room on the old bandwagon lately.

The Bears chocked again losing in OT.

I think we are seeing more parity than ever in the NFL, with some of the better teams, we thought, losing or being pushed to the limit. Have we finally seen the NFC gain supremacy?

Back to the Colts, the first interception was clear pass interference, but the second one was on Manning. The offense still played good enough to win. The defense looks like a bad version of the 2006 team, and that is saying something. Dungy better get the ship righted, or the playoffs might just be a dream tis year.

Playoffs…?

Voter Education for Liberals

GuyK has been trying to make this point for a long time. He knows the truth because he used to be a business owner. I am going to give it a try and I hope I can convince at least one of you that taxing businesses is a socialist and idiotic plan. Businesses do not pay taxes.

The role of a business is NOT to provide jobs. That is a fundamental understanding you must possess. Let me repeat that. The role of business is NOT to create jobs. The role of a business is to make money. A business that does not make money for its owners will not be in business long. You should look with a sceptical eye when a Presidential candidate says he is going to create jobs. If the business that employs those workers cannot make money, there will be no jobs.

The Government, and I mean the Local, the State, and Federal Governments, only provide jobs and pay public workers by taking money from all workers and redistributing it. The Government does not make a product, sell a product or generate profit. It gets its money through taxes. It takes our money. Patriotism has nothing to do with it. If you are one of those people who thinks your new local park, road, Government Building was free because the Federal Government paid for it, you are an idiot. You paid for it, I paid for it, people in Arkansas and Indiana and Ohio paid for it. All of those roads, buildings and bridges in West Virginia — Robert Byrd did not provide them. Your money — taken from the wages due you — paid for them.

The Obama says he is going to cut your taxes. Good, at least he understands reduced taxes is a good thing. Too bad he is going to make up the difference by taxing businesses. Get ready to pay more for everything you buy. get ready to see more businesses and manufacturing plants move to Mexico and China and Indonesia and Vietnam. What? How is this possible? Well those of us who are not smelly hippies understand cause and effect, but what the heck I will try to explain it in simple terms.

Let us say you own a business. If it makes you more comfortable it can be a commune or a small company that makes environmentally-friendly organic tiny little vases that allows you to keep fresh flowers in your hair when you visit San Francisco. You decide that it costs you a certain amount to buy the raw materials. It costs you to hire workers. You need to pay for office and manufacturing space. You need to pay for advertising and marketing. Even ‘green’ packaging has a cost. Electricity and solar panels and wind power have to be purchased and maintained. . If you take all of the items I outlined and add them together you have COST. Hopefully you sell your little hippy vases for more than cost. You might want to actually make a little money yourself. This is called profit. It is not evil. The difference between selling price and cost is profit. The percentage of cost compared to selling price is called profit margin.

If it costs you ninety cents to make the vases and you sell it for $1.00 you have a ten percent profit margin. If it costs $0.93 to make the vases and you sell them for $1.00 you will have a 7% profit margin. If you sell 1,000 vases you will make $70. If you make $700,000 you will have sold 10,000,000 little hippy flower vases. Your profit margin is still 7%. Your profits increased 999,900%. Your margin remained the same. Did you gouge anyone? Did you have windfall profits? Should we now consider you evil Big Vase? I have probably lost you hippy liberal types here. Look up the profit margin of evil Big Oil after you are done here.

Back to your little, but growing hippy vase manufacturing company. You are cruising along making hot hippy chicks happy because they can put flowers in their hair when they go to San Francisco. Suddenly, you get a bill in the mail from the Government. You owe TAXES. These include payroll taxes, permit fees, waste fees, property taxes, warehouse taxes, income taxes, etc. etc. You divide the taxes you owe by the number of hippy vases you make and discover the taxes equal $0.10 for every vase you make. You are only making $0.07 per vase, so the extra ten cents means you will lose three cents for every hippy vase you sell after you pay the taxes. If you sell 10,000,000 vases you will lose $300,000! Your only recourse is to raise prices. To keep the same 7% profit you made last year (and you really wanted to make a little more to get that new hybrid car)your new price for hippy flower vases is now $1.07 each. Some hot hippy chicks are going to have to pay just a bit more to put fresh flowers in their hair when they go to San Francisco.

Are still with me here, my Liberal Friends? What happens if the Government raises taxes on your business again? That is right, you will have to raise your prices more (please tell me I do not have to go through the math again). Thus, raising taxes on businesses equals higher prices for the consumer — even hot hippy chicks who just want to put flowers in there hair if they go to San Francisco.

Hey guess what? The business did not really pay the taxes to the Government. The initial .010 per vase was rolled into the selling price and subsequent tax increases were too! Businesses really do not pay taxes.

Now, let us say the tax burden for your little hippy vases gets to a point where the vases cost more than hot hippy chicks are willing to pay to put fresh flowers in their hair if they go to San Francisco. You either go out of business, or find a way to make the vases cheaper. You try lower quality raw materials, you beat up your suppliers, but none of this works. Your costs (including the high taxes put on you by The Obama) are still too high to make a profit. You either close your business (disappointing hot hippy chicks who just want to put flowers in their hair if they go to San Francisco) or you decide to outsource the manufacturing to a place where labor and raw materials are cheaper. You are now one of those evil companies that shipped jobs out of the country — Mexico or China or Indonesia or Vietnam, for instance. Because of this, The Obama wants to make you pay even higher taxes. You saved the jobs of the accountants, customer service people, shipping and receiving and quality departments, but that does not count. You sent jobs overseas. The Obama says you should pay even higher taxes.

You now take the final step. You become a Conservative and vote accordingly.

Why go through all of that pain? The Obama’s plan is not good for the economy and will only result in higher prices and inflation for the same middle class people he wants to help. Thanks Obama.

update

I am noy sure when I will post here again.  This is my refuge, my place to come if the other site gets too hot.

Say hello Some time

Finally Over

The baseball team lost their elimination game yesterday morning.  It was a blowout 15-1 in five innings.  Of course the coach could not bring himself to play the reserves. The boy did not get to even bat during the Ohio Valley. He got one pinch run opportunity in the win on Friday Night.

It bears repeating it takes a small man to punish a kid when the coach dislikes the parents. During the game on Sunday, there were bunches of errors.  At one point the entire outfield was filled with kids that cannot catch (but are good hitters). Ball after ball was hit there. The team had given up.   I moved to a different part of the bleachers to talk quietly with another parent. Two of the boys that had made MANY errors had been moved to other positions and continued to make errors. The other parent noted that the kids were rewarded by bad play.  And he said that the boy had should never had been moved from center field.

The coach’s wife stood up and red faced looked at me and said “His arm is sore.” (her son had been just taken out from pitching.  I should add he has carried us through two tournaments and I have only been supportive and complimentary of him).

“What” I said.

“His arm is sore”

I finally figure out she thinks I am talking about her kid. “We weren’t even talking about that.” I smart back.

“Yeah, right”, she says. “Just like you didn’t come down here and tell everyone that Tony (her husband/the coach) asked you to come and scout for him.” I am sure I have a dumb look on my face now as I have no idea what she is talking about. I ask her what she is talking about. She says one of the local board members told her I said I had been asked to scout.  Now this coach does not like me, and has no respect for me at all, and I am the last person that Tony would ask to scout.  I say as much to her. She says “exactly”. I point out that I have spent exactly 3-1/2 innings watching other games all weekend so when was I supposed to have made this claim.  She refuses to look at me. Everyone in the stands is looking at her like she is nuts.

I look at the other parents I was talking with and say “You thought we were making it up that they have an unreasonable hate of us and our kid. ” He just shook his head.  Just then the director in question walked by, almost as if it were scripted. I ask him why he is telling untruths?  He sputters and hems and haws and finally said someoine else told him I said that and litterally runs away.  I tell his retreating back it is a damn lie.

I spent the balance of the day and night angry I had been forced into a public argument.  I am still not sure what I did to provoke the attack. It is just like last time, the whole affair that started the bad blood when I was quated as making statements I never made. I am so glad we are done with that organization, the coach everything.  I just pray this coach does not try to get involved on the high school level.

What the fuck is going on?

I am denied access to my own piece o crap blog. Many others are also unaccessable.

Rumor says it is an interference issue between Exploder and sitemeter.

Will things be fixed in a timely manner?

Will I have to move my archives over here and start over? I really wanted to keep the two blogs separate.

I  do not know how to get to my blog to make the sitemeter counter go away.