Found a good piece today. Pictures again are poor. You will only have to suffer 2 more weeks of this before I return to minneapolis wherein I'll have no agates to hunt, no mountains to climb and will resort to writing about the dire economic state of this country once again.
I have decided (and when I decide things, they have a tendency to become economically true, not by the fact I've "decreed" them, but that I've already realized the economic reality of the situation and merely point it out) that children are now officially priced out of the market. Much like labor unions priced US cars out of existence (only to be bailed out), laws, government and just sociological factors have made it too risky a proposition to have children.
1. Financial costs. Sorry, $250,000 on the low end of estimates is just too much money. 2. Legal risks. I have a kid, I now I have a liability in a litigious society. Doesn't matter if the kid is good or not, if he bumps into somebody's car, hits a cat, or just decides to claim his father "emotionally abused him," forget it. I'm not going to jail or forking out the money. 3. Emotional. Guarantee you'll love that little varmint when you have him/her. It will hurt only that much more when there's a 50% chance s/he will be taken away in a divorce initiated by your spouse who said something or other about "till death do us part" a couple years ago. Ergo, they aren't just a legal and financial liability, they're an emotional liability. 4. Ease of life. The people next to my hotel room have 4 kids. Good lord am I thankful I just have an X-Box as my sole dependent. 5. Government interference makes it impossible to bring up a child effectively, namely by making traditional fatherly means of punishment (spanking and a good Bill Cosby beating) illegal. This guarantees the child will never grow up to be an adult and will have problems well past the teen years.
The Captain had Cindi visit him (which if you schmoes would look to your right in the side bar is Cindi advertising his book AHEM AHEM, COUGH COUGH COUGH!) and he took her to Sturgis.
Cindi is a public school teacher and her and I have our expected "disagreements" about whether the little kiddies are best served by the teachers union (despite, may I point out the irony, that I'm actually going to bat for the little runts and she is more or less occasionally regurgitating the same spew the NEA tells her to spew).
Regardless, Cindi is a VERY pretty lady and all you schmoes of the male affiliation should go and buy my book because she endorsing it, otherwise she might get a complex about herself.
But on a serious note, no, Cindi is really going to bat for us and she actually genuinely cares about her students and does her damndest to make sure those little varmints learn the three R's.
I just wish I had a 5th grade teacher like here when I was in the 5th grade.
On a side note, the Captain got his first tatoo. It's Kowalski. The penguin from the Penguins of Madagascar. I think it won't be a permanent tattoo on account I got it at the local Little Ceasar's gumball machine.
This is me drunk in Sturgis....because...well...is there any other way to be?
Getting back to my point that parents forget what it's like to be a kid and therefore forget what is "real fun," what can be funner than after a day of shooting AR 15's, smoking cigars and agate hunting in the middle of nowhere South Dakota than getting caught in the middle of the grasslands with NO COVER and racing back to the car only to decide at the last moment to go tornado chasing...because...well, one decides to form immediately off to your left.
I do believe after revisiting the physical site my tornado struck earlier this afternoon it was a "gustnado" and not a tornado I saw, but it was a text book example of a tornadic storm. HEre's the weather report.
Regardless, the larger point is that kids should be allowed to have this kind of fun. Oh sure, "parents" would raise some concerns about "safety" and blah blah blah, but it's these kind of things that one remembers later on in life and in the words of John Candy from "Planes, Trains and Automobiles"
"As much fun as I've had on this little journey, I'm sure one day I'll look back on it and laugh."
I want to ask all the touchy, feely, lefties that no doubt frequent this shop;
Did you get a look at his tax returns or schedule C?
Because if you didn't (or in the more likely case you're asking yourself "What's a schedule C?"), you're looking at a company that won't be around come 2-3 years from now.
Remember in 2001-2002 how the media just BLASTED Bush every chance they could because the recovery was NOT FAST ENOUGH? The hypocrisy of the main stream propogandia is just unreal.
I had a reader send me this and while this young lady and myself would probably loathe one another on most other political issues, in intellectual honesty, I do have to side with her on account that after interning myself THREE TIMES during college, none of them were anything but data entry and filing.
Additionally, since I have a readership that is compiled of younger readers and occasionally I am asked about education, college, "what major to major in," etc., permit me to save you youth some time regarding internships.
Internships depend on the field you're in. Accounting, engineering, sciences, STEM, vocational trades, etc., where even just a year or two of education can result in a skill or a trade that is valuable to an employer is worth it. You'll probably get paid AND (more importantly) get experience.
However, when it comes to the social sciences ESPECIALLY LAW AND "BUSINESS" prepare to just simply waste your time. You will do data entry, reconcile databases, and other stuff people don't care to do while euphemistically being called an "internship." Finance and investing in particular will just make you cold call, fax and be a glorified secretary.
This becomes a problem if (like when I was in college) you have to work for a living and pay for college, rent, living expenses yourself. You simply can't afford to intern if you lose the income at your day (or I guess, "night" job). Ergo, the Ole Captain's advice is this;
Intern only during summer and take on multiple interns. Treat them like dates. At the first sign of trouble ("Oh, there's been a change of plans. We're not ready to start your internship, can you scan in these files for us in the meantime?") you bail on the internship. You won't be learning anything you couldn't have done when you were in the 6th grade. Besides which you have other part time internships scheduled. As more and more internships turn out to be indentured servitude, just leave. Don't even give them a notice or finish the day. Leave.
Hopefully you will find an internship that DOES pay AND gives you experience. HOwever, keep in mind you still have to put food on the table and for the most part (no matter how unfair this is) in the real world employers abuse interns. You simply don't have to tolerate the abuse.
I own a car very similar to this one. I get about 16 MPG. I also strongly advise parking in "Reserved for Expecting Mothers" parking spots if you have a female in the car with you. Just claim she's pregnant. Natasha gets a kick out of it.
The Clear Act if you want to look at it, elicited this response from the American Petroleum Institute;
“The House bill passed today will kill jobs, threaten our fragile economic recovery and place our energy security at risk. This is an anti-jobs, anti-consumer and anti-energy bill. Instead of addressing the risks of offshore development by improving safety and establishing a robust system for covering the costs of possible future accidents, this bill effectively bans development and sends thousands of workers in offshore communities to the unemployment lines.
“The unlimited liability provisions will drive the vast majority of American companies out of U.S. waters because they will not be able to obtain insurance coverage. Those remaining will be subject to huge cost hikes, reducing energy production, economic growth, American jobs and government revenues.
“While the House recognized that the deepwater moratorium is a jobs killer, we need real action and call on the administration to lift the moratorium to allow our people to get back to work. The inability to develop in the deepwater of the Gulf of Mexico, whether through an explicit moratorium or through policies that create a de-facto moratorium, will cost more than 175,000 jobs a year, the majority of them in already hard-hit Gulf Coast communities.
“Americans want and deserve improvements in offshore safety and this can be accomplished without putting thousands of people out of work and increasing the nation’s reliance on foreign sources of energy.”
Since I'm on vacation, I will leave it to you guys to draw the conclusions on capital flight.
Natasha and I sat there patiently, suffering commercials and appeals to buy overpriced soda and popcorn for about 10 minutes.
THEN, 115PM arrives.
Where after Natasha and I suffered another 30 F@#*ING minutes watching MORE commercials, interspersed with previews.
The movie finally starts at 145PM.
Can somebody in the industry answer me this one simple question;
"Why in Spike Spiegel's name do they NOT show Bugs Bunny cartoons anymore before the movie?"
Does anybody in the cinema industry realize how much of a competitive advantage they would have over their peers if they'd just bleeping get rid of the advertisements and throw up some old school Bugs Bunny?
Oh, wait, that's right. I forget. I'm THINKING. Foolish me thinking of the customer first and somehow trying to improve a product.
And BTW, it was Carmike theaters I had to suffer this waste of time with. If you ever want to see a movie at a Carmike theater, just show up 30 minutes last and the movie should about be ready to start.
Today the motorcycle was grumpy and needed some tender loving care. Then after it was unresponsive I just beat it into submission and now we are on agreeable terms. After spending 3 hours on regreasing the rear axle and having a stern talking with the motorcycle, I ended up going out on an agate hunt with the lovely Natasha (who is the one taking the pictures so it's kind of hard to get pictures of her to satisfy all of you guys who want more pictures of her and less of me).
Regardless the hunt was successful as I inevitably found a fairburn agate!....of course it's puny...and of course it's worth about a whopping $15...and I think we spent that much in gas just to get to the agate bed...but I was victorious none the less!
Pay attention kids. Chicks dig men who can find Fairburn Agates!
You can barely see the fairburn pattern. But it's there!
