Kern County, Hiker's Tragedy, & Celeb Look alike

Kern County halts ALL marriages as CA Legalizes Same-Sex Unions
This just in: Kern County, CA royally sucks.

I’m willing to wager: The people of Kern County, CA are the type of people that voted in 2004 “with their morals,” believing that homos getting hitched was far worse than sending family, friends, & countrymen to die on foreign soil so that they would not really be any safer back at home.

Man saves, wife, friend in freak snowstorm
Now this story, as they gave it, is really sad.

Apparently, they were hiking in the Park when a freak snowstorm brought whiteout conditions. They dug a snow trench and huddled together to keep warm, the hubby on the bottom in the snow. He would not trade places with anyone, so he suffered the contact with the snow and eventually froze to death.

Man, I just hope that the other two aren’t getting together, you know?

Yes I know I know, I’m wrong for even thinking that. And hey, I’m not saying that they planned the “accident” or anything, not at all. Just saying that with the puzzle pieces they gave, there’s a dark way that thing could have gone together. Total Oxygen material right there.

Odd comment of the day award
Presented to the guy that delivers the stuff from our distribution center. As we finished unloading the truck, he asked me if anyone had ever told me that I look like Kenny Loggins.

Uh, no. Not ever. Not once. Not even close. Thanks for playing?

I felt like humming the tagline from Danger Zone or something when he said that. Not sure though if that would have helped my case or hurt it.

Peace.

Published works, Vacation Days, & Good-Riddance Morning TV

Finally!
Random bob’s photos get published. For commercial use, no less! But, uh, it’s only having some of my photos printed at work for a display, so maybe it’s not that cool. But hey, still – how many of YOU can say that your pictures have been published?

Oh really? That many of you? Huh. OK, I guess I’ll shut up now.



Vacation Day update
I spoke with my current store manager about the vacation days I had planned to see what I needed to do about those dates. Lucky me, she said she had conferred with my soon-to-be store manager, and they transferred over my vacation dates already.

Whew! Now I don’t have to try and reschedule a week and a half of doing nothing! Might have been a true bind right there, had I been required to attempt it.



Good Aggravation America
I am swearing off of the morning “news” stuff. I mean, I’ve never really been a big fan or anything mind you, but yeah I tune in occasionally so that I can catch the weather if nothing else, and keep up with current events. But I tire so easily of the small focus and over-dramatics; I just don’t think I can do it any longer and have hair, too.

Today’s stories were about some recent high-school grads SCUBA-diving in Cancun, when their boat – that was some 100 yards off shore – started to sink, and they had to swim for their lives! OK yeah it sucks, but let’s put this in perspective: You’re 100 yards from shore. In warm, blue waters. In Cancun. It’s not like you’re being thrown of Black Beard’s ship in the middle of the Atlantic, right? Sucky the small craft sunk, but get over it. But MAN! To hear these morning-whores tell it, it was a tragic accident waiting to happen that nearly took the lives of 5,000 civilians. And you know what else? All the people that were on the ship – on a SCUBA-diving trip – were there against there will, held by terrorists, and couldn’t swim. Most of them were paraplegics, half of them were bound & gagged, and it might have been an attempt to free Al Queda suspects in Guantanamo.

The other story was one of a Tornado ripping through the Boy Scout Camp in some Mid-Eastern State. 4 died. This is sad, but they spent some 30 minutes harping on it, as if there weren’t 30 other tornadoes that same day (there were), that killed more people in other places (they did). But oh MAN! BOY SCOUTS! IN TROUBLE! MUST COVER WITH SUPER-SAD FACE! Yeah it’s sad, but so is lots of other things that happened, too. Cover it and move on, you know?

But they can’t. They’re morning-whores, and they can only focus on simple issues with clearly-defined good guys and clearly-defined bad guys, and then repeat the issue verbatim over and over for at least 1-½ hours. In case we didn’t get how sad it was, and how obviously-caring they truly, truly are.

Yeah I’m through with that. I’ll stick with reading my news from actual news sources, thanks.

Peace.

Gutter Mags, & Work Transfer Issues

Why are Pop-Culture Mags important?

You know, Us Weekly and People Magazine. Those pitiful excuses for reading. I’m not asking a rhetorical question, I haven’t a clue. I stare at them on break @ work sometimes, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why the hell people are so concerned with the lives of others. Enough so to actually pay $5 a week to read about it. You know, as if they’re close family or something.

F*ck that. Read my blog, people. Much more entertaining, and hey – I might be a celebrity. Someday.



Other developments on the soon-to-be store transfer
I had put in for vacation in late July. Now what? Man, I hope they don’t revoke my dates or something. Because I have absolutely nothing planned for those dates and I’d hate to have to reschedule all of that. Dammit.

But seriously, though. I want my days off. I put in for them like two months ago. I am really looking forward to working out, sleeping, and hiking, and sleeping some more, and that’s about it. No work, no shaving, no bathing… OK bathing occasionally, but we’re talking every-other-day at the most here, alright? Seriously. I smell like roses naturally anyhow.



Other-other developments on the soon-to-be-store transfer
I just might be able to justify a motorcycle again! How cool would that be? Oh…. My. You have no idea the trouble I’d get into on a sportbike (is there any other kind of motorcycle to have, really?) on the 101. Oh… my… god. This could be awesome.

So long as I could find one for like $1,000. More than that and the gas savings don’t justify the purchase price over the next 6 months. And once I move back to an in-town store again, with the minimal driving I do to get to work anyhow it would take probably 6 years to make the purchase price worth it.

Don’t tell The Girl this, however. Thoughs she thought it was hot when she met me, she’d rather I didn’t now. Go Figure. Anyway. Me + sportbike = AWESOME. Trust me, I know; been there, done that. I’ve crashed more GSX-R 1000’s than you’ve ever ridden more than likely. Trust me, I know; been there, done that.

Peace.

Gas Woes, Apple News, & a Funny

Gas prices mean more suddenly

A few days ago I mentioned that I was going to be changing my driving habits a little bit. Well today @ work, I learned that I will get to feel the full effect of this come July 8th. You see, currently I live a whopping 1-½ miles from work. Come July 8th – when I transfer stores – I will be about 17 miles from door-to-door. Yikes. Let’s put that in perspective:

Say I average 10 mi/gal right now. Let’s round up and say the trip is currently 2 miles (I like easy math!). OK, so that’s 5 trips on a gallon. So if gas is $4/gal, that means that every 5 days back & forth to work, it costs me $8 in gas. Not bad!

OK so I get better gas mileage going the 17 miles down the freeway. Now let’s say that driving the new route, I’ll average 17mi/gal. WOW. OK so now we’re looking at $8 a day for gas. Holy f*ck, that’s a 500% increase in gas expenses, people. Now these numbers aren’t quite exact. For instance, I’ll probably average between 20-25 miles a gallon in reality, but up here, whereas the rest of the US is averaging $4/gallon, I haven’t seen it less than $4.60/gallon. Yes, it’s that much more than what you’re paying (unless of course you’re reading this from Europe, in which case… I feel your pain).

This is going to put a dent in my pocketbook for the next 6 months or so before I rotate back to town. Sh!t I’d say we should move if it weren’t for the fact that in 6 months I’ll probably be right back in here… it’s hard as hell finding a place for the pups too, so since we have a place, we’ll probably keep that place, you know? It’s secure at least. What if we move and the landlords there suck? What if in 6 months we can’t find another place in town? Yeah, I think we’ll have to stick it out. Especially since if we move, that just means The Girl would be driving back into town for work the same distance.



Apple WWDC 2008 Notes of Interest
Apple today did a few interesting things: One, they introduced the next-generation iPhone, which will have massive price cuts associated with it (at&t is subsidizing apparently). Sorta makes the iPod Touch look… well, overpriced. I hope they drop that a few pennies. Maybe I’d get one if they did. I’m in the market for a new iPod anyway, sh!t. C’mon, Apple!

They also announced that they will be distributing a new version of Leopard next year, dubbed “Snow Leopard.” The similarities in name are signal that there are no major feature changes between the two. No, Snow Leopard is supposed to be a stability release more than anything, and all signs point to them dropping support for PPC chips with this release as well.

I’m looking forward to it. We could use a stability release. I’m cool with that.



Funny moment of the day
It was beautiful day when I left for work this morning, and indeed stayed that way pretty much all day, until about an hour before I got off of work. I got outside, and it was misting a bit, and really it was kind of a cool atmosphere outside; the mist was coming in sideways and it almost looked like a heavy fog but you could see far. It looked like the ground was steaming, and though it was coming off sideways, there wasn’t really a breeze that I could feel. I can’t really explain it.

Anyway, when I got home, I opened the back gate and saw a bucket and sponge. Which means… The Girl washed her truck today.

That is… just too damn funny. HA HA!

Peace.

V for Vendetta

After our trip to the river yesterday, we had an easy dinner of pasta and then sat down to enjoy a movie for the night.

You May recall that we had issues with V for Vendetta playing the other night. Well those problems were solved yesterday! I had contacted Sony and they sent out a disc to us with the necessary firmware update, which went smoothly enough.

Anyway, the movie. Have you seen it? I like it a lot. Enough that I think it might soon enough become on of those films that’s a member of my coveted inner-library. It’s really good. It’s got some action to it, but that’s not the whole of the film. In that sense, it’s kinda like the matrix: it deals with a topic that’s serious, but it adds some action-flick stuff in to keep everyone enticed.

The Matrix was a philosophical debate, whereas “V” was a political one. Still though, same concept.

I could see people who were right-wingers not liking the movie too much. There’s definitely some (make that A LOT) shadowing of American policy and the whole of the movie centers around what happens when a society trusts its corrupt government too much. It’s set in Britain, but in reality it’s about America circa now and the last 8 years. Trust me, you can’t miss it, it’s not that subtle. It’s a critique on America and what we’ve allowed, and the movie is sort of a foretelling of our fate if the paths of the “righteous” are corrupt are carried through.

Still though the message rings clear: it’s really easy for the populace to be scared into submission. And once the Government has total control, who’s to question when they wrong you? You have no recourse?

I would say I agree with V’s political ideology: A people should not fear their government; the government should fear its people. We should have the power. It’s supposed to be “by” the people,” and it really should stay that way.

A good movie. I give it a B+ with no shame.

The only downside is that it made Queen Amidala look like a little boy. Note to Natalie Portman: No more roles where they shave your head. OK? Trust me on this.

Peace.

A Beautiful Day @ the River

As I had mentioned in yesterday’s blog that no one read, we both had today off, and decided well in advance that it would be a great day to take the dogs out somewhere fun for the all of us. In the middle of last week we had ventured out to Blue Lake under the instructions of some friends of hers to hang out at the river. Well we didn’t quite know what to expect and thus didn’t have the right equipment for the journey (not to mention getting lost because their directions SUCKED), and we didn’t spend all that much time there. It was nice once we found the place, but we were in flip-flops expecting easy access, and we should really have had shoes and been ready to cross the river a few times.

Well anyway, this time we knew what we were in for, and packed accordingly. Brought my trail running shoes which are great because they drain fast so I don’t mind wading across the river in them, and we brought enough snacks & towels and bears oh my! To be fully prepared for a good portion of the day to be spent out there.

It was a great day. It was beautiful, it really was. The sun was out, there was the slightest cool breeze, the water was a nice temperature, and we had some good sunscreen (to good, it turned out). We hiked along the river for a while, making a few crossings here and there as the dogs frolicked in the water and along the riverside.

Once we found where we wanted to camp out, we got ready, got lathered up in sunscreen, and proceeded to alternate between falling asleep and playing with the dogs. I’d have slept more, but the dogs were very in to being entertained, and at times annoyed the hell out of us by whining for attention. Geez, we’re at a river alone, go and entertain yourselves, alright?

They did get the hint eventually, and we just sat around and occasionally got to watch some canoeurs go by, and threw sticks & rocks for the dogs. Heh, get this: at one point, Miles was so bored that he decided to chew on a rock. I am not kidding. Thought I’d share that odd doggy gem. Now, moving on...

The only downsides to the day were that a) it ended too soon, and b) that sunscreen was too damn good and even though we laid out for some 4 hours, we didn’t get any color. Bummer. By the way, if you need good sun protection, I highly recommend Hawaiian Tropic! Apparently it’s got ninja sunblocking powers or some sh!t. Who knew? Not I.

Anyway, I got some great pictures of the puppies & The Girl, so if you’d like to, you can mosey over to the Photos Page and check them out (along with all my other galleries). Or if you’re that lazy that you can’t go back to the top of the screen, here’s a link for you. And in case you want to stop by, I also added some of these images and others to My Favorites Album and The Family Album, too.

Peace.

Smelly Dog, & Skirt Adventures

Zoey: The Smelly One

This is in addition to “The Stupid One” moniker, not a replacement. Hell, The Smelly One stems from the behavior dictated by The Stupid One, so it’s more like a sub-moniker, if there is such a thing. Can you stand the tale?

I had today and also tomorrow off. I didn’t have a workout going today and The Girl is @ work, so I decided to take the dogs to the local Delta (as seen here). I should know better than to let Zoey out of my sight, but I was deep in frustrated thought and lost track of her as we were heading home. I call the dogs over to be toweled off, and Zoey reeks. I don’t mean she had a wet dog smell either, no typically that’s fine as I bring towels to dry them off anyway, but this was just terrible.

It smelled like she’d rolled in death. No, it smelled like a cow had eaten a giraffe. But it didn’t fully digest it, and then shat it all out, and turned around and threw up in its own half-digested giraffe dung. Then this dung sat and sweltered in high-heat, high-humidity conditions for about a week. And then, Zoey came upon it, and rolled in it so deeply that the whole of this putrid smell was bound to every fiber of her being.

Yeah that about describes the smell of it, I think.

Anyway, I had to bathe her. I didn’t want to and in fact was going to try and avoid it even after I got whiff of her. We both (me and The Girl) have tomorrow off together, so we’re planning a “take the dogs out somewhere fun for the all of us” sort of day, and this will probably involve water again in some fashion, be that river, beach, etc. So I didn’t want to waste my time bathing her just so she could get “wet dog-ified” tomorrow.

But when I got home from taking my baby her pants (explanation to follow), the whole room she was in stunk like she did, and I sure as hell did not want her infecting the room with this stench. So I caved and bathed.

And now I smell like wet dog.



The Girl is Wearing the Pants
So when I got home from the Delta with The Smart One and The Smelly One, I heard our answering machine beeping at me. I played it and there were two new messages. The first one was some lady telling me that she loved me, wondered where I was and said to call her back. I do not know who this was. And I don’t think The Girl would let me call back anyway.

The second message was a more familiar voice, telling me that her skirt she wore to work had ripped in the back, and if I could please bring her a pair of pants for the remainder of the night. I obliged. But not because I’m a nice guy.

I was hungry. I had anticipated boiling water when I got home to make some pasta. But seeing as how now I was going to be at a restaurant anyway… well I might as well get some free food, no? And so it was.

Now all that’s left for me tonight is to take a shower myself. Gotta get rid of this damn wet-dog smell. Yeck.

Peace.

Republican Bashing

I say it all the time; the reason the Republicans are so powerful is no accident. They tend to yell louder than the Democrats, and speak in such a way as to imply irrevocable fact when in actuality it’s not. They take advantage of the Democrat’s more submissive nature, willing to try to see the other side and the way they will end a debate with a polite “Well I disagree.”

Then there’s the way they have polarized words. “Liberal” is considered in most countries to be a good thing. “Progressive” is typically a connotation of forward-thinking people. But not here, not anymore. Couple this with the Republican’s smart move to essentially remove the old FCC mandate to require equal time for opposite viewpoints, and you have what we have now: a war on Democracy. And it’s not just political topics that these things flare out, oh no, it’s an everyday thing.

It’s the way of the Rush Limbaugh’s, and the Bill O’Reilly’s. I found this video posted over at owned. It’s kind of long, but man-oh-man is it a great example. Tear-down to follow video:

Did everyone catch that?

• Bill did not attend the event. Yet he was very factual about everything, as though he was there for a first-hand account.

• Bill took parts of the speaker’s comments and used them out of context to portray them as enemies of decency, despite the fact that their comments were merely construed in that way rather than being that way.

• When given an alternate view from someone that was there – to include accurate quotes – he just wipes them aside as though they’re less relevant because they weren’t yelled out from someone like him, from his viewpoint.

• When presented with a person who took his words from his own book that portray a similar sentiment, he lashed out as though this was some preposterous attempt to twist his words (perhaps it was even!)

• Regardless, despite the fact that he was upset with having been taken out of context, he did not bother to try and accept that perhaps he was indeed doing the same thing in this very segment.

• Though to everyone else that saw it it seemed as though he might have been put in his place, he went ahead and finished the piece as though he had “won” something and everyone that disagreed with him was not as intelligent and just plain wrong.

This is why the Dems Can’t win – it’s the reason the Indians lost this land – they’re fighting with knives and the Republicans are carrying guns. It’s just not a fair scene to be at.

Stop the Right-wingers. This is out of control; we don’t need drug addicts lambasting everyone else that’s a drug addict as though they’re beyond reproach whilst everyone else is going straight to hell. It’s f*cking enough already.

Peace.

West VA, CA Water Issues, & Clinton Conceding

West VA University President Resigns

Apparently he was under scrutiny for having awarded an MBA to a daughter of a big supporter of his. One who donates in sums of $20-million.

So… $20-million bought her an MBA? Sounds like the current state of business to me! I’d say she’s well on her way and May have actually inadvertently earned the degree.



California Denying Developments on Grounds of Lack of Water
WOW.

It’s a step. Now if we could just get everyone to admit and accept that the real problem, the root of all of it is, this an out-of-control growing population. Seriously, stop spitting out the babies, people; limited resources suck, especially when you’re far too numerous and sucking them dry.



Clinton Backing Obama Tomorrow
Clinton lays plans for Obama endorsement

Let me state this again: Was there really any other option? This is so gay; it’s all show and nothing really worth holding on to. Why are people concerned? Obama has the nomination regardless, and it’s not like if Clinton says “don’t vote for Obama vote for McCain” I am going to do that. What could any of this possibly net?

Clinton Lost. It shouldn’t take this long to say “You won, champ” and move on with life. Geez.



Being The oft-bored soul I am….
I spent the last few nights putting up more galleries online. Now that I have a better way to organize them I can afford the long list of entries into my gallery. I am not going to bother putting links here to each of the new ones; I’ll just link you to the home page and you can click and enjoy until you can’t click any more :-)

Random bob’s photos home page.

For your viewing pleasure.

Peace.

A Big Thanks, & Site News

My Thanks to Gary Byrd @ RapidWeaver Themes

I was trying to decide between two different site designs recently. I build & maintain my site with RapidWeaver (as you May recall from a post or two about it), which is theme-based to make my life easier.

Anyway, I was looking at some for-pay theme designs from RapidWeaver Themes and having trouble deciding between two close-calls. I emailed him and explained my indecision, and asked if he could give me some specific information on one of them so I could compare mo’ better, and be happy with my decision. His response was short and very much more than necessary; he sent me links to the themes for free so I could try them both out and decide!

I know places don’t stay in business by giving the store away, but I cannot stress enough how cool I think that was of him. I played with both, modding them to do about what I wanted out of them more-or-less, and really had trouble deciding, but eventually went with the theme you see on the site now. The other option was almost as good and almost the same, really, minus a few small touches.

It’s really nice and in fact I prefer some things about it still and find that visually I’m quite drawn to it. Who knows, maybe in the near future I’ll switch it over? I can’t tell the future! But hey I’m indecisive, so it’s a possibility, right?

In any regard, I just wanted to put an official “thank you” out in public for this guy. And also perhaps recommend him to you, if you’re in the market for a new site theme. Sweet.



My Thanks to Yourhead Software
I was also looking for a way to make navigating my photo galleries much smoother. I had been keeping the list small, mostly due to the fact that before theme it was hard to navigate the submenus to each of the galleries, and a long list becomes daunting.

Well the theme change helped, but I still wanted a unified “home” for the photo galleries that gave them thumbnails so you could easily see a sample pic, and put the navigation right in your face, without a huge, long, daunting (there’s that word again) list to try and scroll through.

Plus, you navigate pictures by looking at them, not them, right? So gallery thumbnails seemed like a good idea.

I stumbled across a plugin that seemed like a good start, but it wasn’t as automated as I had wanted, or so I thought. I emailed the makers – YourHead – to see if what I wanted could be done with their program, and they said rather plainly that no, it could not be done like I wanted, but that a free alternative existed that would do at least 90% of what I was after.

It turns out that I already had that free page plugin installed, as it was the same “rapidalbum” plugin that I had decided to use to make my slick new photo pages, as you May or May not recall.

So even though it meant that I would not be buying software from them, they went ahead and candidly told me that there was free software that I could get to do what I wanted. And while it did mean no sale now, I definitely remember them, and already have my eye on some of their other goodies that look interesting to me.



Lesson to be learnt?
Doing things like this wins you customers. Doing business like it’s a hold-up is not the way to endear friends, family, or strangers even. These guys (and maybe girls?) went out of their way to help me, and for that not only will they get my gratitude, but I am actively looking for ways to become their customers.



Except for RapidWeaver Themes
That one’s easy; I will be going back to pay for the theme I actually used later tonight.
:-)



So yeah, if you read to here…. THERE’S NEW PHOTOS UP!
Traipse on over to my new photo pages home, and see for yourself; now you can see thumbnails of the galleries, of which there are already more (thanks to slicker navigation), and the number will only grow, I hope. And thanks to Mr. Byrd over @ RWT, it’s all wrapped up inside a nice little theme.. :-)

Peace.