- My day started off with a discussion of tax policy with a 16 year old girl. I think the best thing I said was “Don’t take my word for it.”
- The correct answer when someone asks “Why should I care about this?” is “You know, it might better if you didn’t even think about it.”
- Thought for the day – “Not my circus, not my monkeys”.
- Two fully grown adult men in my cube farm were singing songs from children’s movies today. One was singing “Let it Go” and the other was singing that #!#$!@ “Awesome” song from the Lego movie. I just sat there considering career options that included no co-workers.
- Someday I will not learn to tempt the weather gods by planning on doing something outside after work. Today was not that day.
- There appears to be a tropical storm working its way up the East Coast. While I hope everyone comes through it all right, I’m not looking forward to the news stories about how global warming ruined NYC’s Independence Day.
- I tried something called a “Mayan Mocha” recently. It sounded good at first, since I like spicy chocolate, but the addition of cayenne pepper from a tin can to a mocha just wasn’t very good. I’ll have to try making one at home with fresh chili puree once the peppers come in.
- No matter how much you polish a turd, it’s still a turd. It amazes me how few people learn that as their life goes on.
Musings
Posted by daddybear71 on July 1, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/07/01/musings-59/
Movie Quotes – Day 182
The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.— Lawrence of Arabia
When you want something, you have to be willing to do what it takes to get it, even lose something else. Right now, Boo requires a school that’s uniquely suited to his needs. It’s not a permanent thing, but it’s necessary now. In order to give that to him, Irish Woman, the other children, and I have given up a lot of the luxuries that we would normally enjoy. I’ve never heard anyone complain about it. His mother and I would gladly do anything for him, and the other kids recognize that a lot of people have done without for them, and they do it now for Boo.
I guess my point is that when something is worth the sacrifice, be it of money, or time, or sleep, then you don’t notice the cost as much.
Posted by daddybear71 on July 1, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/07/01/movie-quotes-day-182/
Movie Quotes – Day 181
Time’s up. Had your chance. Muffed it. Good morning. — Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
When something important needs doing, do it. Hemming, hawing, and toeing patterns in the dirt only wastes time, and the opportunity may never come again. Don’t rush, but don’t dawdle either.
Posted by daddybear71 on June 30, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/06/30/movie-quotes-day-181/
News Roundup
- From the “Time and Place” Department – Somebody brought a 105 to the machine gun shoot, and that probably wasn’t the smartest thing they could have done. You definitely need a pretty significant set of aiming sticks and one heck of a backstop to make something like that work. If you’re going to fool around with the God of War, then maybe you ought to make sure of your target and what’s beyond it. There are places where it’s perfectly safe to shoot real artillery, and there are places where you probably shouldn’t, no matter what precautions you take.
- From the “Balanced Diet” Department – Scientists have announced the discovery of rather conclusive evidence that our Neanderthal cousins had a nice salad with their mastodon filets. Analysis of fossilized feces shows that ancient man, while eating a lot of meat, also had his share of vegetables. Makes sense to me. If you’re living close to the edge of starvation even in the best of times, and your teeth and gut can do it, adding calories and nutrients from the things you don’t have to chase would be a good idea. And I can now say I learned something today: Apparently human feces will glow under certain wavelengths of light due to their phosphate content. Who said surfing the Internet wasn’t good for your mind?
- From the “Pet or Pest?” Department – Columbia has an issue with hippos, yet another fact that I never would have found without goofing off during my lunch hour. Apparently Pablo Escobar, the late drug baron and collector of animals not from Columbia, had several hippo’s in his menagerie, and after his death they have flourished in their food-rich, predator-free environment. Since hippo’s go from cute to murderous pretty easily, something needs to be done. Columbia doesn’t want the expected bad publicity that they would get from declaring open season, because there was a hue and cry from the subset of humanity that prefers their meat grown in a vat and deposited on foam trays when they had to destroy a few problem hippopotami a few years ago. Failing putting a bounty on every right front hippo foot brought into the ranger station, all I can see is either birth control or learning to live with the new neighbors. I’ll leave out importing crocodiles as a solution, because I don’t want to play “She swallowed the spider to catch the fly” with my South American neighbors.
- From the “Mad Shatter” Department – An EPA office in Colorado recently had to put out a memo asking employees to not defecate in the hallways. Apparently someone has been clogging up the toilets and leaving deposits in the corridors. Maybe it’s a protest against the use of property-rights laws and honest environmental studies as toilet paper. This might be where you could use one of those blue lights they mentioned in the above BBC article.
- From the “44 Ounces of Freedom” Department – A federal judge has thrown out a New York City ordnance that limits the size of sugary drinks that can be served in restaurants. It appears that even in New York, you still have the right to eat what pleases you, no matter how bad for you it is. In solidarity with my New York brethren, this weekend I am going to open-carry a handgun that holds more than seven bullets, while drinking a bucket of soda and thinking bad thoughts about Big Brother.
- From the “Long Legs of the Law” Department – The Russian Interior Ministry has published a directive that the dress code for police personnel has to be enforced, including men not cutting off the arms of their shirts, no mixing of civilian and uniform apparel, and female officers not wearing short skirts and high heels in uniform. In an indicator of the attitude of the union leadership in Russia, one senior member is quoted as saying that the ladies might be dressing this way so that they can catch a husband. Things sure have changed in Russia. The few females in the government that I dealt with in the 1990’s dressed like something out of a 1932 Komsomol poster and were known to chew up and spit out any young lady who didn’t show up to work looking like they were ready to start building tractors.
- From the “Big Damn Heroes” Department – A police officer in Beirut is being hailed as a hero after he died stopping a car bomber on a busy street. Just how much guts does it take to be the one who says behind to make sure the suspected bomber doesn’t drive away while your buddy goes to get help?
- From the “Politics” Department – Former President Clinton, speaking from his throne of nubile dark-haired young women, has proclaimed that his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is not out of touch with the poor people of the nation. Drawing from his goblet of refreshing liquor, made from recycled Rolls Royce engines, he expounded on how hard it was to actually have a mortgage and have to work hard to get ahead in a career of living off of a government pension and being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to crack jokes and blame the worlds problems on those who work for a living. The interview was cut short because Mr. Clinton was late for his afternoon fluff and buff, followed by a quick trip back to the Caribbean, where he could show his folksy roots by taking a walk on a private beach.
- From the “Dumbass” Department – A ‘graffiti artist’ in California caused me to stand up and slowly clap with tears in my eyes after he was arrested for defacing the courthouse in which he was being seen over 60 other counts of, you guessed it, graffiti-related offenses. You know, it’s not often that we see stupidity crafted with such care and attention to detail. This ranks with the DUI suspects who show up to court drunk, or the dead beat dads who show up to court wearing Armani and gold chains. This young man is now the front-runner in the 5th Annual DaddyBear’s Den Dumbass of the Year Award.
- From the “Good Deed for the Day” Department – A group of Boy Scouts in Utah recently aided first responders by lifting an SUV off of a woman so that she could be rescued. I have the utmost respect for these young men and their leadership. I can honestly say that I cannot see me and my friends in Troop 425 doing something like this. For us, scouting was an excuse to run around in the dark, set things on fire, and tie unsuspecting Scouts to trees and leave them in the wilds of northern Minnesota.
- From the “Good Start” Department – The Supreme Court ruled today that a public sector union cannot compel the payment of union dues from certain government employees who do not wish to be part of their club. From the hue and cry I’m seeing over this, apparently we can expect to see government workers chained to their desks, dressed in rags, and fed only gruel made out of the leftovers from Las Vegas buffets. How horrible it must be to be told that in order to get people to give you money for your services, you must convince them that those services are necessary and attractive.
Posted by daddybear71 on June 30, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/06/30/news-roundup-220/
Thoughts on the Day
- I swear, someday I will sleep in past 6:30. I mean it.
- I really didn’t want to go to the water park today, but seeing Irish Woman come out of one of the loop-the-loop water pipe slides was worth it.
- I’ve never seen anyone try to do the splits as part of their dismount before. It was amazing.
- Apparently I’m building a play house for Boo this week. For those counting at home, I have made my first of many trips to the hardware store / lumber yard for this project. My best estimate will be 5 total trips.
- Requirements seem to be that it be elevated, attached to the maple tree in some way, and that it be large enough that Boo and Moonshine can sleep in it at night.
- Gave blood, bathed the cats.
Posted by daddybear71 on June 29, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/06/29/thoughts-on-the-day-242/
Movie Quotes – Day 180
Well, it’s a matter of life after death. Now that he’s dead, I have a life. — Clue
It is absolutely amazing how free I feel when some people become a former part of my life. Sometimes it’s being able to enjoy small things without harassment. Sometimes it’s being able to breathe deep and feel free. Either way, I’m always amazed at how long it took me to get rid of them.
Posted by daddybear71 on June 29, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/06/29/movie-quotes-day-180/
Musings
- If you give me a procedure to do something, please be kind enough to include examples of what could go wrong and the proper way to deal with it.
- If I call you with a problem with your procedure, please do not seem confused as to what we are talking about.
- Irish Woman’s “summon rain” spell worked wonderfully this afternoon.
- Half an hour after she turned on the sprinkler to water the fruit trees, it started raining.
- I know it’s best to be fast and accurate, but I will always argue that it is better to be slow and accurate than to be fast and miss.
- This afternoon, I went from zero to dickhead in 3.6 seconds, a new record.
Posted by daddybear71 on June 28, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/06/28/musings-58/
Movie Quotes – Day 179
Mozart: Why must I submit samples of my work to some stupid committee just to teach a thirteen-year-old girl?
Count Von Strack: Because His Majesty wishes it.
Mozart: Is the emperor angry with me?
Count Von Strack: Quite the contrary.
Mozart: Then why doesn’t he simply appoint me to the post?
Count Von Strack: Mozart, you are not the *only* composer in Vienna.
Mozart: No. But I’m the best!— Amadeus
There are a lot of starving geniuses in the world. Talent alone isn’t going to put food in your belly and a roof over your children’s heads. Being the best at what you do isn’t enough. If you want to exchange your talent for the means to provide for you and yours, you have to sweeten the deal with hard work. I would rather hire a hard working person who is merely competent than a genius that doesn’t show up or deliver.
Posted by daddybear71 on June 28, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/06/28/movie-quotes-day-179/
100 Years On – Some Damned Foolish Thing in the Balkans
When Otto von Bismarck was asked what would start the next war in Europe, he replied “Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans”.
He was right.
The match that lit the fuse for the First World War was a little nebbish from Serbia named Gavrilo Princip. He was able to parlay a failed assassination attempt in the morning, along with a snack and a chauffeur who got lost, into a clear shot at Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. It wasn’t great princes, or conniving politicians that sent Europe into a maelstrom, it was a 19-year-old ‘revolutionary’ who was made into a lever of history by a chance of time and place.
Princip was a member of a Serb nationalist cell in what is would eventually become Yugoslavia. Somehow, (most indicators point to the Serbian intelligence services) they were tipped to the planned trip of the Archduke to Sarajevo and were able to get to the city with guns and explosives. Their first attempt, in which a bomb was thrown at the motorcade, failed, but did manage to wound several people. The group dispersed, and Princip apparently went into a shop to get something to eat.
In the meantime, the Archduke and his wife decided to visit the people who were hurt in the earlier attack, and had their chauffeur head to the hospital. Unfortunately for them and the rest of humanity, their driver took a wrong turn, and ended up trying to turn around right in front of Princip. The dastardly terrorist, or national hero, depending on who you are, whipped out his pistol and fired into the car, killing the Archduke and his wife.
Over the next few weeks, Austria-Hungary would declare war on Serbia, which would bring in the Russians. Germany would declare war on Russia, in accordance with its defense treaty with Austria-Hungary. A defense pact between the Russians and the French would expand the war to both sides of Germany’s borders. Eventually, almost all of Europe would be engulfed, along with battles on the oceans, in Africa, Asia, and the Mid-East.
If Princip hadn’t been successful, would a European war have happened? Probably, at some point, yes. Germany, France, Britain, and Russia had all spent decades upgrading and augmenting their armaments. They had locked themselves, with the sort-of exception of Great Britain, into an Edwardian version of Mutually Assured Destruction. One of them going to war with any of the others would bring all of the others in. I don’t really see a scenario where the great powers went to war in the first third of the 20th century without it ending up being very similar to what actually happened. Something would have caused a war, and it just happened that an idealistic teenager with political murder on his mind set it all in motion.
So, some damned foolish thing happened in the Balkans, and it set Europe aflame. In a way, Princip and his fellow conspirators were successful. The war ended with the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian empire into smaller, ethnic countries, but the cost was very dear.
Posted by daddybear71 on June 28, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/06/28/100-years-on-some-damned-foolish-thing-in-the-balkans/
Movie Quotes – Day 178
When was the last time you felt good about anything? — Saving Private Ryan
Listen to the voice that’s telling you that something’s wrong. Pay attention to the hair on the back of your neck going up. Control your flight or flight instinct, but don’t deny that it’s there. It should get you to pay attention to what’s going on, and it may keep you out of problems.
Posted by daddybear71 on June 27, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/06/27/movie-quotes-day-178/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 