I am a man of simple tastes. I enjoy a wide variety of food, but sometimes it's the fairly simple things that hit the spot. Today, I decided to fire up the propane grill and heat up a couple of hot link sausages. I steamed some whole wheat buns for them, made some onion dip for my potato chips, added a bunch of grapes and a Coca-Cola and enjoyed a delicious lunch.
I remember when I was a boy, my dad telling me that my eyes had gotten bigger than my stomach, when I took more food than I could eat. That was the case today, as I just couldn't finish off the second sausage. It was good all the same.
A store keeper in Shirley, New York showed extreme compassion for the man who tried to rob him. The robber came in wielding a baseball bat, but when Mohammad Sohail pulled out a gun, the man began to cry and plead for mercy. He told Sohail that he had no money and was just trying to feed his family. Sohail gave the man $40 and a loaf of bread with the condition that he never rob again. He also doesn't plan to press charges if police find the robber.
While the robbery was wrong, this is just another tale of hardship from the economic disaster we are dealing with. For the full story, CLICK HERE.
Remember all the wailing and crying from the GOP about giving President Bush's judicial nominees "an up or down vote"? Well, wouldn't you know it. A group of conservative luminaries are asking the Republican Senators to filibuster President Obama's nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. What a bunch of hypocrites! The shoe is on the other foot now, and it doesn't feel so good to them!
Freeway Jim, mentioned in my last post, also has a great video of driving through a few of the terrific stack interchanges in Houston (another of my favorite places). Below is his video, again courtesy of YouTube:
And below is Jim's downtown Houston freeway tour. The building to the left of the freeway at 2:20 into the video is where I worked at Houston Traffic Central, a radio traffic reporting service that provided reports to most of the radio stations in town back in the late 1970s. The shorter building just to the left of it was where I worked at KULF, AM 790. The radio station was in the penthouse suite. This particular section of road is I-45, and is locally known as the Pierce Elevated, since it runs above and beside Pierce Street.
It has been a little while since I have been able to post anything the least bit roadgeeky. Today while noodling around on the web, I came across a YouTube road geek who calls himself Freeway Jim. One of his videos is a trip westbound on Interstate 68 from its eastern terminus at I-70 in Hancock, Maryland; through to Cumberland. I have photos I took along this stretch of road last year posted here. However, Jim's sped up video gives you an idea of what it is like to travel through the beautiful scenery along this stretch of highway in rural western Maryland.
When I lived in Cumberland, I didn't have much in the way of money or possessions, but it was some of the best years of my life. This part of the country will always be a special place for me.
Below is Jim's video courtesy of YouTube:
Yet another YouTube citizen has a nice, real time video of I-68 Eastbound from about the point where Jim's video ends. It starts in the western part of LaVale and goes through the city of Cumberland. I have included it below. Items of note:
As the video begins, you are eastbound on I-68 on the side of a mountain. Just off screen to the left, on top of the mountain, is Sacred Heart Hospital. That is where my oldest son was born back in 1975.
At 0:17 on the video, the Exit 42 ramp is a long and very steep one that trucks should not take. You cannot really get a sense of how steep it is from the video. This is the exit to US 220. If you turn left at the bottom of the ramp, you are routed onto Greene Street into the city of Cumberland. If you turn right, it is McMullen Highway (both are US 220) and head southwest through Potomac Park, Bowling Green, Cresaptown, and on to Keyser, West Virginia.
At 1:46, the camera pans to the right across the Potomac River. Those houses are in Ridgeley, West Virginia.
At 1:35, you can see the road sign warning about the sharp turn at Moose Curve, which is visible in the distance. It is so named because of the Moose Lodge that was at the side of the road there.
At 1:55 TO 2:04, you are actually in Moose Curve. The old Moose Lodge is the red brick building right in front of the camera.
The radio station playing on the car radio is WKGO (GO 106). That was the first commercial station I ever was on the air at. It is the FM affiliate of WTBO (AM). My first job in radio was to be a DJ at WTBO, and I had to come in early to do local breaks on a college basketball game that was on WKGO.
Convicted Watergate criminal G. Gordon Liddy, who somehow got himself a radio talk show, has clearly revealed his hatred and disdain for females. This piece of garbage made the following comment on his radio show in regards to President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Sotomayor:
"Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate," Liddy said. "That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then."
So women are not capable of rational decision making, according to this felon, all because of their natural cycles. What a misogynist!
This is just more of what I have written about before...the fact that there is nothing too bizarre and off-limits for the right in their pathetic attempts to regain power. If someone wishes to discuss the pros and cons of a nominee, they should do that by talking about substantive issues. But this is basically an attack on all women based on their gender, and should be repudiated by those in the GOP. So far, all I have heard is dead silence. Do we have to wonder what the uproar would have been if a Democrat had made this comment about Sarah Palin?
Thank goodness that dinosaurs like Liddy are a dying species. We can only hope for their eventual fall into extinction.
To read more and hear the excerpt from Liddy's radio show, CLICK HERE. Thanks to John Walkenbach's J-Walk Blog, where I first saw this story.
The FDA has informed General Mills that given its claims of the cholesterol reducing properties of Cheerios, the breakfast cereal must be classified as a drug. The claims about heart health are okay though, since soluble fiber from whole grain oats has already been approved by the FDA as a heart healthy food. But the cholesterol claims must be abandoned or the cereal will be regulated like a new drug.
What in the world would the Cheerios Kid and Cheerios Sue think of this?
I have been going through some more of my old tapes from the 1970s and 1980s, and found these newscasts. You can play these in the embedded media players below.
The first one is from AM 790, KULF, and adult-contemporary station at the time. It is now "The Sports Animal", KBME.
Before the outbreak of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), there was a appetite suppresant candy on the market to help folks lose weight. It carried the unfortunate brand, AYDS. This was pronounced exactly like the deadly disease. Needless to say, you don’t see AYDS for sale anymore.
While going through some of my old tapes of my radio days, I came across a radio commercial from the 1970s for this product. Imagine someone telling you to get a date with AYDS today! You may hear this recording in the embedded player below.
I was recording some cartoons for my 5-year-old grandson to watch when he comes over to visit with grandma and grandpa. Today I decided to grab some Huckleberry Hound and Pink Panther shows for him. One of the Pink Panther cartoons had our favorite pink feline working as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. He presented a menu to the patrons, and it was quite amusing. I am not sure if the word "bong" did not carry its current meaning (a water pipe used by people to smoke marijuana) back in the 1960s; or if the writers were oblivious; or perhaps it was their little inside joke. In any case, I got a laugh out of the menu item of "1-Giant Bong, Serves Four Persons" on the menu.
Time for yet another story from the front lines in the ridiculous world of business. This one is at the same company as the Stupid Corporate Tricks - #5, and involves the same two guys. Will had asked Doug about some research he had asked him to do a couple of months previous. Doug realized he had totally forgotten about the project, and had done absolutely nothing toward getting it done. So he says to Will, "Don't you remember, you sent me a memo telling me to forget about it?" Will looked puzzled and said, "No, I don't remember that." So Doug says he will try to find it.
He goes over to his desk and writes a memo to himself, ostensibly from Will, and backdates it by a few weeks. He was pretty good at forging signatures too, so he printed the memo and put a reasonable facsimile of Will's initials on it. He then wrinkles it up a little and stuffs it into his file drawer in a bunch of other papers.
The next time Will came walking by Doug's cubicle, Doug shouts out, "Oh Will, let me see if I have that memo you sent me." He opens his file drawer and shuffles through the papers and says, "Oh, here it is!" He hands it over to Will who says, "Hmmm....I guess I forgot about this. Okay then."
HOLY SHIT! It worked!! I could not believe it, and it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. I suppose Doug has had to update his repertoire of trickery now that email has largely supplanted printed memoranda.
I am a man of simple tastes. I enjoy a wide variety of food, but sometimes it's the fairly simple things that hit the spot. Today, I decided to fire up the propane grill and heat up a couple of hot link sausages. I steamed some whole wheat buns for them, made some onion dip for my potato chips, added a bunch of grapes and a Coca-Cola and enjoyed a delicious lunch.
