10 Things That Are More Important Than The Election

For months now -- actually years -- we've been hearing from all of the partisan Kool-Aid drinkers that the election in a couple of weeks is the most important thing EVAR in the HISTORY of the UNIVERSE!!!!!

And despite my repeated attempt to get through to the blinder wearers, it still seems like way too many people are deluding themselves into thinking that things will suddenly change when a new president is sworn in next year.

But, giving you the benefit of the doubt, I thought that maybe you just think this election is the most important thing in your life because you can't think of any other important things in your life. (No not you. I know you're smart enough to get it. I'm talking the other people).

So here's a list of 10 things (in no particular order) that are more important that who gets elected president of the United Sheep of America.

• Boycotting shoe stores
• Donating time and money to worthy causes like breast cancer research
• Dining at your favorite exploding steakhouse
• Avoiding the QuikTrip Ham and Cheddar on Pretzel Bread at all costs
• Becoming a better Booty Juggler
• Clearing out your DVR play list (SRSLY, you've had shows on that thing for weeks now that you haven't watched).
• Clearing out your gutters (really, you should catch up on all the home maintenance you've been putting off).
• Cleaning and lubricating your firearms in preparation for National Looting Day.
• Hiring washed-up quarterbacks for a never-was football team
• Pickling you peppers.
  

tagged: election, peppers, vote, change, gutters

Friday Blogthing: artful dodger

This quiz that I ganked from this guy made me think of my favorite quote about art: "I don't know art, but I know what I hate. And I don't hate this."

Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test...

Balanced, Secure, and Realistic.

7 Impressionist, -4 Islamic, -4 Ukiyo-e, -2 Cubist, -10 Abstract and -11 Renaissance!

Impressionism is a movement in French painting, sometimes called optical realism because of its almost scientific interest in the actual visual experience and effect of light and movement on appearance of objects. Impressionist paintings are balanced, use colored shadows, use pure color, broken brushstrokes, thick paint, and scenes from everyday life or nature.

People that like Impressionist paintings may not always be what is deemed socially acceptable. They tend to move on their own path without always worrying that it may be offensive to others.

They value friendships but because they also value honesty tend to have a few really good friends. They do not, however, like people that are rude and do not appreciate the ideas of others. They are secure enough in themselves that they can listen to the ideas of other people without it affecting their own final decisions.

The world for them is not black and white but more in shades of gray and muted colors. They like things to be aesthetically pleasing, not stark and sharp. There are many ways to view things, and the impressionist personality views the world from many different aspects.

They enjoy life and try to keep a realistic viewpoint of things, but are not very open to new experiences. If they are content in their live they will be more than likely pleased to keep things just the way they are.

Take What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test at HelloQuizzy

tagged: Friday, blogthing, art, impressionism, painting, quiz, blog, meme

Journey man

Against my better judgment, I watched the KMBC so-called local so-called news tonight. It's just been so long since I've had a good dose of homeless pet coverage, and I wanted to subject myself to the sickening stream of political ads.

I'm crazy like that.

So any way, anchorgeezer Larry Moore led off the news with the story of Keith Slater, the 22 year-old KC resident who found a racial slur printed on his receipt after returning a pair of shoes at the Journeys store in Overland Park's Oak Park Mall.

This isn't going to be a commentary on KMBC's coverage, although you can bet your Kenneth Cole's that since the story went national they'll be blanketing their coverage with senseless follow-up stories for the rest of the week.

Rather I just wanted to ask, nay implore, Slater's parents to take a higher road on this issue. Sure, they have every right to be pissed off. Who doesn't get angry when called a name -- even more so for a racially charged one.

But KMBC aired footage of a room full of local media hacks invited into Slater's home where his father threw out not-so-veiled threats of a lawsuit against a store that was clearly screwed by an employee (an employee who has been summarily and rightfully fired).

This goes dangerously close to perpetuating a stereotype.

So please, Slater family, don't play the role of the victim on this. Please don't wax melodramatic about your pain and suffering and the pain and suffering of your children.

Instead, be magnanimous and accept the store's apology. Lament the fact that this kind of thing can still happen in our day and age and try to make something positive out of it.

Teach your son that there are assholes in the world, but he doesn't have to be one. Teach him that he isn't defined by someone's ignorant opinion of him, but rather by the way he treats others.

Teach him, when being hated, not to give way to hating. Teach him to battle a stereotype by showing that the stereotype isn't true.

But don't be swayed by a pack of slimy lawyers trying to cash in on an insulting incident. Doing so may give you an extra 15 minutes of fame. But is that really what you want to be famous for?

tagged: race, Slater, Journeys, Kansas City, Overland Park, Oak Park Mall

YouTube Tuesday: The Great Pumpkinhead

Self deception is one thing, but self deception by way of pumpkin is a whole new level of stoopid.



tagged: pumpkin, carving, movie, video, YouTube, pop culture, Obama, politics, election

As seen in Kansas: The answer, my friend...

It was an impressive site, even from 10 miles away.

The crystal clear sky and the straight and horizontal nature of I-70 west of Salina made the turbines of the Smokey Hills Wind Project visible long before we were actually along side it.

I'd been hearing about the wind farm project for months, and we had been as far west a Salina a couple of times but never drove the extra 20 miles to see it for ourselves.

So we took advantage of some free time while visiting the in-laws this past weekend to do just that.

The approach to the giant, electricity producing windmills is impressive. Whizzing past at 75 miles per hour on I-70, it's impossible for the first-time spectator not to be impressed. The turbines are truly on a monumental scale.

It's difficult to appreciate the size of these wind turbines.
For a sense of scale, note the conventional Kansas windmill
next to the trees in the foreground.

The farm, developed by TradeWind Energy of Lenexa, began producing 100.8 megawatts of electricity early this year when construction on the 56 turbines in Phase 1 was completed.

By the end of 2008, project planners say Phase II will be online, bringing the total to 155 wind turbines generating 250 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power a city of 45,000.

According to TradeWind Energy, the project will offset 450,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

One of the most dramatic (of many) views of the turbines was as we were traveling back east toward Salina. To get an idea of the monumental size of these power producers, the turbines above are about a mile north of the highway (and the SUV pictured in the lower left).

It's good to see Kansas playing in the home-grown energy game, beyond creating coal-fired nuclear power plants.

As a life-long Kansas, I can attest to the constant availability of wind power. Harnessing it seems like a no-brainer. It seems clear that wind power should be a part of the domestic energy mix that the US desperately needs to develop.



tagged: Kansas, Salina, energy, science, wind, Smokey Hills, environmentalist

Woe, dispair and agony on me

Kansas City's Best Blogger Meesha V. has challenged readers to a Hardship-Off at his blog.

I was in the process of responding, letting everyone know how difficult it was to be me growing up, when my comment just became too long. So I decided to post it here for the sake of not uglifying his comments section too much.

Read it if you want, but be warned. It's a sad, sad story and those with fragile mental states should probably steer clear.

But if you do proceed, you should know that Meesha and his commenters were lamenting the primitive plumbing they had do deal with growing up.

Well, that's nothing. When I was growing up I had to share the top floor of our house with my brother. HE got the bigger room, and we had to share the bathroom. Get this, the bathroom didn't even have a bathtub. Just a shower. And the shower didn't even have a variable massage shower head.

And, I didn't even have a TV in my bedroom. We all had to share the 40-inch television in the family room in the west wing of our house. I remember one summer the remote control broke and my dad didn't want to buy a new one, so whenever we wanted to watch a different program, we had to get up and WALK to the TV to change the channel.

I know. But it gets worse. When I was in junior high our Olympic-size heated swimming pool developed a crack and half of the water drained out. It was a mess, and we ended up having to drain the whole thing to have it patched. We essentially lost the use of the pool for half the summer. The horror.

Then there was the time when I was in high school and I had to drive a hand-me-down two-year-old BMW while all my friends were driving Lexuses and Mercedeses. I was humiliated every time I parked in the covered parking garage at my high school.

Well, there's more, but I can sense how depressed you are all getting. I doubt any of you can come up with sadder stories, but if you dare, leave it in the comments at Meesha's place.

tagged: hardship, humor, Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, swimming pool

Buy you a drink?

If you ask me, there's not much better than knocking off work early on a sunny, fall Friday afternoon and tossing back a drink or two with Jack and Larry down at the Regal Beagle.

One of the things that could be better than that, is if the drink or two (or four) is free premium Scotch whisky.

I got the tip from my local wine and spirits store that their sister location is having a free Scotch tasting from 4 to 7 p.m. this Friday (Oct. 17).

The tasting is at The Beer Cave Wine and Spirits. It's at about 87th and Farley in Overland Park, near the Johnson County Library.

From what I heard the other day, Scotches on the tasting table will include Dewar's White Label, Dewar's 12, Jim Beam, Glenmorangie and more.

And, as if free samples aren't good enough, the bottles featured in the tasting will be available at a 10% discount.

So I'll be there around 4:30 or 5, let me know if you want to meet me there. I'll buy the first round.

tagged: Scotch, whisky, Dewar's, Glenmorangie, Beer Cave, alcahol, spirits

Overheard in the OP

This morning I was reminded that when you hear only a portion of a conversation, the phrase "tire tubes" can sound comically similar to "tie her tubes" (no homophone).

tagged: language, homophone, Overland Park

Bug Out

It was a dirty, sweaty job, but it needed doing and the weather last Saturday was perfect for doing it.

Like many across the metro this year, three of the trees in my backyard have been afflicted with webworms.

In case you aren't familiar with these insidious little beasties, they build a webby nest in your tree and eat all the leaves. The more leaves they eat, the bigger the web gets. As the web gets bigger, it engulfs more leaves for the little bastards to eat.

It seriously uglifies your trees and can kill saplings. And the only way to really get the out of your tree is to amputate the infected limb and destroy it.

So anyway, I had already pruned the affected branches from two of the three infested trees.

The worms on the third tree were about 20 feet up. I put up a ladder and grabbed my telescoping loppers and climbed as high as I could through the lower branches.

By this point I was used to tree bark, leaves and sawdust falling off the trees onto my head and into my eyes and ears (eye protection is for the weak). So after I lopped of the offending branch near the trunk, I stepped down off the ladder and brushed myself off.

I could feel that a piece of leaf had fallen into my ear. I casually tried to brush it out with my pinkie finger as I picked up the recently severed branch to add it to the debris pile.

Except the leaf wouldn't come out of my ear. In fact, my brushing attempt seemed to have pushed it further into my ear.

It was at this point that I noticed dozens of tiny winged insect crawling all over my shirt. This was accompanied by the realization that there wasn't a leaf in my ear, it was a bug. And it was crawling deeper into my ear canal.

Cursing, I made my way inside, headed to our downstairs bathroom and grabbed the nearest cotton swab. I rubbed it around my ear until I was sure that no creepy crawlie could be left.

Feeling better (but still a little creeped out), I headed back to the backyard to finish my work. I'd just taken a step off the back patio when I felt the sickening tickling in my external auditory meatus - and no, that's not a good thing.

Panic set in as I raced up to our master bath. We have multiple mirrors that can be articulated to allow me to look into my ear.

It was clear that this nefarious creature was intent upon burrowing into my noggin and laying eggs in by brain. Believe me folks, I can not afford to lose any brain cells.

Visions of Chekov's madness in Wrath of Khan raced through my mind.

I aligned the mirrors to peer into my ear and there it was. Laughing maniacally at me and brandishing its pincher-like beak about to delve into my dome.

A few quick flicks of my finger and I had him out.

I made my way back outside, relieved to be rid of this certain terror. When I got into the sun, I peered at the horrible little invader for a moment or two before crushing him like the bug he was.

tagged: insect, webworm, bug, tree, ear, Wrath of Khan, Chekov

Most like an arch

It's no secret that in the United States today, roughly 98 percent of marriages end in divorce within five years. That's only one of the reasons I'm so lucky to be married to someone like my Supermodel Wife.

She has a great sense of humor and a lot of patience which, fortunately for me, has allowed her to put up with my shenanigans for thirteen years now.

I consider these past few years to be the best of my life so far. We've done amazing things together. We've seen priceless works of art, viewed the wonders of nature, visited ancient ruins, dipped our toes in four oceans... we've been in one of the tallest buildings in the world, and traveled deep underground. We've raised one of the smartest and most beautiful daughters in the history of smart, beautiful daughters.

We've had arguments, fights even. But I wouldn't trade even the worst day for all of the Brunello in Tuscany. I value our time together that much. We have built our life together through hard work, blood, sweat and tears, but more importantly love, devotion.

It hasn't always been easy, but it has always been worth it. And I can't wait to see what the future brings.

I saw this poem a few weeks ago, and I think it's particularly apropos. We are stronger together than we could be apart.

Most Like an Arch This Marriage
by John Ciardi

Most like an arch—an entrance which upholds
and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.
Mass made idea, and idea held in place.
A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds.

Most like an arch—two weaknesses that lean
into a strength. Two fallings become firm.
Two joined abeyances become a term
naming the fact that teaches fact to mean.

Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is,
what’s strong and separate falters. All I do
at piling stone on stone apart from you
is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss

I am no more than upright and unset.
It is by falling in and in we make
the all-bearing point, for one another’s sake,
in faultless failing, raised by our own weight.

tagged: marriage, anniversary, poem, arch, John Ciardi