And ain't it grand....just another year....

Ok....every year getting through the Holidays seems to get harder and harder.  Course, if there wasn't so much ice I wouldn't fall so much, and as they say, the older you are they harder you fall.  Ouchers and stuff.  Well, see, the Friday before Christmas we got a huge type blizzard.....ended up with about a foot and a half of snow.  Pretty darn windy, too, but it wasn't too bad if the Ex wasn't talking.....then the wind was moderate.   Then, the friday past we got another seven inches of snow.  This winter is overdosing on Viagra iffen you ask me.  We didn't get this much snow all of last winter and we still have three months left to go.  But we are a hardy breed in the Great White North and  most are optimmistic....but I guess that depends on whether you are one of those that thinks of your driveway being half full or half empty.  I love the irony of going out in the cold and snow, busting my hump shoveling this crap.... and then having to come inside and ice up my back.  But winter is here to stay...even the most hardy of folk have finally put away their BBQ grills and patio furniture.  Course.... now that we have all this snow...they are saying the temps are gonna fall below zero.  I'm gonna fall under a extra blanket....iffen I doan fall and kill myself on the ice, is what, see!

Boy Wonder made it back from LA before the weather turned nasty.  After a cursory amount of time with his parental units....(most time being spent at Peabody's seeing who else made it home) he packed up his snow shoes and heading to the Lower Eastern part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.....which is only slightly less boring than the Upper Western Part of the Upper Peninsula only causee it takes less time to get there, see.
So I guess I have it correct...Max, Mark, Chris, Matt, Jess,Jim and a half barrel of beer, snowshoes, lentil soup, chili, beer cheese soup.  Ah, the young and there liquids!  I am sure Jim remembered the tequila as he is always been very concerned with having a balanced diet.  Maybe thirty years back I ould have been interested in that kind of trip....in fact I guess I did do a couple of trips like that, but now....if I can't use my bicycle...forget about it.

 The Princess screwed up her car.  The transmission.  Could be a gonna.  The only saving grace is that it is a vintage Volvo...we got almost five years out of it with the two kids and the parts dealer will give almost as much as we have paid in repairs over the ownership....so it's not so bad.  She is acting like there is no other car in the World, though, and has not been happy.  I am less than happy....I will be crawling up under that sucker in a few days and seeing if it is just the linkage.  Lucky me.  But I am blessed in having a daughter that thinks a good time does not entail a trip to the UP to get drunk with her friends.  They plan on doing that in the comfort of her apartment for a New Years celebration.

Ah, yes, New Years.  Whoopee.  I like to clebrate in a sensible way.  Gonna met Baseball Ed for a couple of beers.  Found him some old Detective Magazines from the 1960's.  Didn't pay much and it will keep him out of trouble for hours.  Billa Lang may stop by.  He spent four days with his girlfriend up in the UP skiing(ya, like what's up with theat UP shit anyways....and frankly. a man his age should take up something more sensible, like knitting or crochet, or Dominoes. Billa suffers from arrested develpment...but he can never remember what age he was arrested at, though I think it was once in '74 and maybe another time......who knows.  I cannot make that shit up, really.  I am not sure who else will show up on New Years early afternoon....Joe Cool has to work, Nick was there for the Packer game yesterday and probably will not show.  Maybe some other folks....but me...There is a pork roast in the crock post, some aged Brick Cheese....and I have some DVD's to watch...gonna do a Jack Benny Retrospective.  I always liked Jack.  A man that stops aging at 39 is a smart man.

oh well.....hope everyone had a good Christmas......and to all A Bloggy New Year.

Dear little kids.......

I am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorryI am so sorry

So.... a couple of Holiday Yolks

Three men died on Christmas Eve and were met by Saint Peter at the pearly
gates. 'In honor of this holy season' Saint Peter said, 'You must each
possess something that symbolizes Christmas to get into heaven.'

The man from England fumbled through his pockets and pulled out a lighter.
He flicked it on. 'It represents a candle', he said.

'You may pass through the pearly gates' Saint Peter said.

The man from Scotland reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys.
He shook them and said, 'They're bells.'

Saint Peter said 'You may pass through the pearly gates'.

The Irish man started searching desperately through his pockets and finally
pulled out a pair of women's panties.

St. Peter looked at the man with a raised eyebrow and asked, 'And just what
do those symbolize?'

The Irishman replied, 'These are Carols.'

 ~~~~~~~~

Ole and Lena were sitting down to their usual cup of morning coffee listening to the weather report over the radio.   "There will be 3 to 5 inches of snow today and a snow emergency has been declared.  You must park your cars on the odd numbered side of the streets."

Ole said, "Jeez, okay, best move da car" and got up.

Two days later, they were sipping their coffee when the weather man came on again. "There will be 4 to 7 inches of snow today and a snow emergency has been declared.  You must park your cars on the even numbered side of the streets."

Ole said, "Jeez, okay, I'll go move da car" and got up.

Three days later, Ole and Lena were again drinking coffee when the weather man said, "There will be 10 to 13 inches of snow today and a snow emergency has been declared.  You must park your cars on the..."

The power went off.

Ole looked baffled. "Vat am I gonna to do now, Lena? Where do I park da car?" he asked.

"Aw Ole, yust leave de car in de garage," she said.

Let's remember the Job Creators.....

Well, the first snowfall happened yesterday.  Not enough to inconvenience anyone much, but an amount significant to let you know that Winter is here...and it will not go away for a few months so you best get used to it, find something to do, put the bike away, find the gloves and shovel.  Time to clean up stacks of stuff that has accumulated. And that is how I found her again.

 It was last fall that the magazine exchange thing happened.  Joe had a bunch of old Playboy magazines from the late 80's and early 90's, brand new, still in their plastic mailing bags.  Someone had given him a subscription and he never read them.  Gave them to me.  Kind of interesting....the movies they panned that turned into big hits, the Sports predictions that they got right, the ones that were wrong.  Electronic gadgets that were going to set the World ON FIRE....stuff like that.  I passed them on to Dave...and in return he gave me a bunch of old National Geogrphics from the late 70;s and mid 80's.  Those were very interesting.  I gave some to the Ex and she gave me a bunch of old gardening magazines that I gave to Brian....that he ended up taking to an old folks home....it was fun, it a low key way....everything was old enough to be just slightly quaint.

There was one of the National Geo's that got to me.  A 1985 cover that had, like the Stones said, 'The Girl With The Far Away Eyes' on it.  She seemed beautiful to me.  They eyes grabbed you, though, in a way that was sad and sang back centuries.  I reread the article, laboriously, the eyes continue to fade, but it was a real kick in the Gut to read it.

Do the History yourself.  It would not help anyone for me to do it.  It was 1985 when the article was written.  It talks of how the Soviets arrived; at that time they had already been fighting Afghan tribes, political factions, guerrillas from Pakistan.  It tells of refugees living away from their homeland areas.  It talks of how America had, at that time, already channeled over $325mm in weapons to groups fighting the Russians.

....and now some of those same weapons are used to kill Americans.

....but we still do not GET IT....there is no winning in Afghanistan.  Politicians and Pundits will tell you it is now America's longest WAR.....but the poeple their, just like the Vietnamese, have been fighting for Centuries.  The British failed there in the mid-Nineteenth Century...they could not succeed.  Alexander the Great could not conquer them in 325 BC....and no invaders in between could.   It is easy for the press to call those fighting American forces, "Insurgents", which takes away who they really are...Pushtans,Tajiks, Badakshis,Nuristanis,Uzbeks, Hazara, Turkomens, Baluch....and it is there land.  I do not understand insurgent.  It is a made up word.  Refugee is not.  Many of the native people of Afghanistan now live in Pakistan.  Refugees.

Obama has set a timetable to Withdraw from Afghanistan.  2014.  Millions yet to spend.  Some Republicans are against a timetable.  Said it will let the 'other' side prepare.  For what... I am not sure. Maybe to build homes and plant crops.  To have lives. To have families.  We did not win.  We never could have won.

But we could have educated our children without calling our teachers 'Greedy' for asking for decent wages.
We could have created a decent economic structure for our country that did not rely on building weapons, rockets and missiles.
We could have fed our poor, healed our sick, housed our homeless.
 But those are just weasely, greedy takers that have no place in American plans.
We still have insurgents to kill.  Perhaps we need more American Insurgents.

There is more saber rattling amongst the smug and rich.....send guns and bullets to Syria, Egypt, Libya.  Made me think of an old song.....from a different war....one that cost a lot.

 

Yupperz..... the times they aren't changing.   I do not want to see another girl with far away eyes.

the dog ate my blog post....

or at least it sounds good.  and it's not like I haven't been writing...but beats me where it went.

See, I had this dream...and it was really really strange and it woke me up in the middle of the night...and I sat down, well, I did take a leak first, see, but then I wrote it all down and it was in my back pocket, well most of it, cause I only wrote down as much as I could remember and I figured that once I reread what I had written the rest would come back to  me, but that didn't happen mostly because I had said I would watch the ex's dog when she went down to the Capital for some sinister, clandestine, socialistic, Commie Teacher's Union meeting thing and gosh I just turned my back on that little bugger for maybe two minutes, three tops, I swear it wasn't much more than that....but golly see all AI was doing was getting a glass of lemonade outa her refrigerator and when I looked back well, his mouth was full of all those yellow tablet pages and he sas chewing and chewing and boy&Howdy I was about to get real pissed at him when he just kinda looked at me, smaked his lips......and said," not bad.  pour me a glass , willya?"

Thanksgiving.... and men of a certain age

I guess I could blame Dimly....but that would be pointless.  He has been a good friend for almost the last 40 years and I can honestly say, with good pride and pleasure, that I have never been mad at him a day since we met.  Course, the same cannot be said of his twin brother, Dumly...and he is dear to me as well...but him and I are another story altogether and it ain't no deal now and if I do not write this immediately I am sure to be distracted, distraction being a hobby I do well.  So...this is what happened and I will not edit this crap or it will just sit there unwritten and unread.
Now....see, it is a beautiful day.  Sunny, clean.fresh and the Holiday tomorrow should show temperatures up close to the sixties.  Maybe it is Indian Summer, though I am more inclined to call it Polack Spring as in when most of the white men around here totally forget what season it is and put there shorts back on.  They say you can fool anyone once, but sure as I still like a good beer, the weather in Wisconsin can fool you ALL the time. But that is no never mind,see, and has only a passing role in what happened. Not so much that ANYTHING happened...it was just an email,see, but it offers a quality to my feelings and those are precious if you want them to be and I sure enough do.
So, as is my habit of morings, I check the email on my phone, I do it on the phone cause not only is it handier, but I do not have an internet connection at home.  Now, I need to do this becasue, gosh, I may have won the Nigerian Lottery or something, but, as per usual I didn't and there was no notice that the rainbow got stuck outside my back door and all I have to do is go out and get that pot-o-gold.  Nope, nonesuch.  What he had sent was a chain email of sorts...forwarded from someone else...the gist of it was that on such and such time we should all raise a glass in memory of LT.  If you want to participate send your phone number back and it will be blind CC'd to the others on the list and you can make a phone call or two or so and share LT stories, of which there are many, most intricate and ludicrous.  Now, that did not strike me as such a bad idea.  LT has been dead just a few years and it would be good to hear from some of those guys.....it was a strange collective of strange guys, the mid-70's being what they were and all and I think I am in on this.

But it got me in a mood.  I just found out that Burkie died a few days back.  I missed the news and the funeral and wake. Now, he was not a close friend, but I had hoisted a few with him over the years and shared some laughs.   Sharing a laugh with Burkie was like sharing a ride in an old beat up car running down a gravel road on the way to a beer party.  You never knew what was going to come out of his mouth....but it always seemed to make you grin with him.

So Burkie is now just like LT...dead and gone and here with us forever. And so is Bruiser and Spare Wheels, Kid Curry, Wolfgang, Red Fred, Mad Dog, Sweet Rohl, aw, shit..... it pains me.  And that ain't no never mind either, I guess.  The real deal is..... that you knew these men...and they were the fabricate of life that you wore, the wind that sailed around you and you always know that you were blessed to have know them.  I am thankful for that.  I guess that is what Thanksgiving is to me......just a goddam feeling in the bottom of my poscket that I can always reach into and grab and for that, I can never be broke.

So I went out today with a bit of a funk feeling.  Thanksgiving had always been one of my favorite days in the past; the groaining board of food my mother and grandmother would assemble...the Packer-Lion game on TV...sitting in the leaf pile with Nancy in the moonlight under the oak tree..the arrivals and departures of family and friends who had gathered together to share....it was   ....well it was and there ain't no mone to it than that.  Now...well, things are different.  Pretty much by choice I do not go anywhere.  I'll make myself a bit of supper and watch football.  The weather is expected to be good and perhaps I will fit in a bike ride or so.  It ain't no deal.  I talked with Billa Lang a day or so past...and the nub of that is, well...remember not what favors you have given to others, but all the good stuff that has been given, unasked for, to you.  Not a bad way to think of things.

The days go on and we get old.  There will be more family and friends that will pass away in the coming year....and I now resolve never to regret their passing as much as I will give thanks and joy for their 'forever presence. That would not be shabby.  I got to thinking of a song my old buddy Lightning Dot used to love....a song written as a condensation of the Rip van Winkel story.  Had not thought of it for years.  Still good.

 Ya'll be good...and remember phone calls from the heart, in the heart....are cheap and valuable.

You are what (& where) you eat...

So of late, or of lately, or maybe later than you think.... The owners of Papa John's Pizza and a large franchisee owner of some Denny's restaurants are blowing their nose all over the place saying, "oh, oh...Obamacare is gonna put me outa business!  I will have to lay off people!  I will have to cut wages!  Hours will be cut!"  Well, frankly...in the long distance past I will admit to having eaten at a Denny's and have had Papa John's Pizza.  And I now avoid both places....because...well... the food really really sucks.

But, I do like Pizza...and my section of beautiful downtown Wisconsin is blessed with a good half dozen 'non-franchise' places to get a good pie.  Ain't no deal, really...but it got me to thinking a bit of a Pizza place down in Madison, WI.....Ian's

They hit the news...NEWS almost two years ago...during protests at the State Capital when Scott Walker was doing his Draconian measures to destroy teachers unions.  It started when someone asked, at the end of the night, if there were any left=over pizzas they could take up to the capital to feed some of the folks doing an all night vigil/protest inside the capital building.  Ian's said, "sure". And then..... on twitter, FB, emails the word spread.  And phone orders started pouring in.. eventually folks from all 50 states and some 60 foreign countries using credit cards to donate pizzas to the protesters.  And... Ian's delivered.  Now...there are two Ian's pizzas in Madison, one in Milwaukee and one in Chicago.  The guy worked hard...had a business model he wanted to work with...and gosh...it paid off.  And this is not a 'usual pizza place...watch the clip.

and so it went.  Ian's worked around the clock.  Employees worked double shifts.  Their dough machine broke down.  At the time there were numerous stories on the net, Youtube, in the print media.

Anywayz..... So the CEO of Papa John's....The Dude from Denny's... they are gnashing their teeth and flapping their gums...because...oh oh oh...treating people like people is SO UNFAIR and gosh....would COST ME MONEY......

AND, the founder of Ian's sticks with what he wants to do... and writes his philsophy up in a little newslateer on there web page....check this out...

Letter from Ian

Dear You,
The ongoing political events here in Madison have been nothing short of historic for the people of Wisconsin and, on a much smaller scale, Ian’s Pizza. Starting on February 16th, Ian’s Pizza was entrusted with delivering pizzas to demonstrators on behalf of people from all 50 states, over 60 countries and Antarctica. Media coverage soon followed with articles mentioning us by name in newspapers all around the world. The following on Ian’s Pizza on State’s Facebook page alone grew from 3,900 to almost 15,000 fans in one week. Given all of the media scrutiny, not surprisingly, many people have asked what Ian’s Pizza stands for.
When I founded Ian’s Pizza 10 years ago, I wanted to create a business that could make a positive difference in the lives of our employees and customers. I wasn’t convinced I could change the world, but within the confines of the four orange walls in our original store I was confident Ian’s could be a force for good. Over the past decade Ian’s Pizza has grown to four stores, yet the values, which were so important to me in beginning, persist throughout our company today.
One of the greatest contributions we can make to our community is to be a good employer. We believe being a good employer means, above all, treating people with dignity. We don’t believe yelling is an effective means of communicating with each other. We cherish greeting our co-workers with a smile and sharing a beer after work. Disagreements are okay, demeaning comments are not.
We realize that you have many choices when you want to go out for pizza. While we work very hard to serve you the best pizza we know possible, what makes Ian’s Pizza unique and what truly is our greatest asset, is the people who work with us. Simply stated, our goal as a business is to continually humanize our work environment and personalize your customer experience.
In addition to treating our staff with dignity, our leaders are also expected to practice Servant Leadership. The practice of Servant Leadership, which was coined by Robert Greenleaf in a book of the same name, simply states that the job of the leader is to serve the organization and not the other way around. I understand Servant Leadership to mean that ultimately, as a leader at Ian’s, it’s my job to help our staff be successful in theirs.
The tangible employee benefits we believe in include the practice of paying good wages, providing generous vacation time (long-time employees receive one month paid vacation each year), and matching employee’s 401K contributions. We also offer 100% employer-paid health insurance to full-time employees. Health insurance is an issue which resonates very strongly with me. My dad was involved in various entrepreneurial activities while I was growing up and for most of my adolescence we only had catastrophic medical insurance. The lack of adequate health insurance was a concern my parents passed on to me. In April of 2002 we began offering 100% company paid health insurance for our staff and have done so ever since.
We are an open book management company. Staff are required to know and report on company financials during staff meetings. Bonuses, based on the company’s profitability, were first paid at our original store on a trimester basis in 2005. Our other stores have paid bonuses on an annual basis, when possible. Although many small businesses might be leery of disclosing their finances, we’ve found that operating in a system of total financial transparency results in better productivity and financial performance.
Lastly, we believe in providing a path to ownership for qualified staff. Initially, I was very cautious and even skeptical about growing the company beyond one store. Ultimately I reached the conclusion that expanding Ian’s would create opportunities for staff to remain working with us and still grow professionally. Today, our Chicago location is owned by a UW history major who worked with us through school, while our stores in Milwaukee and State St. are owned by several long-time employees.
For the sake of brevity I have not described our philosophies on food or customer service. (Please know that we have strong opinions on both subjects!) For now, let me conclude by stating what will come across as obvious to everyone, but during these heated times, might be forgotten by some: Ian’s Pizza is not a political party.
We stand in solidarity with anyone who shares our company’s values, but we don’t believe it’s our job to endorse a specific political entity. Despite the highly polarized political climate we live in, we feel food (especially pizza!) is something that brings us together regardless of political orientation. When you choose to order a pizza with us you are also supporting the practices I outline above.
This years marks our 10 year anniversary and I’d like to thank not only all of those who supported us these past several weeks but also over the past decade.
With love and appreciation,
Ian

ok....so Wisconsin is not just a Bat shit crazy Governor,,,,, a moron VP candidate.....and Madison is NOT a typical city.....a former Governor, A decent Republican, once described Madison as, "a few square miles of insanity surrounded by the rest of the State"  which is about right.

Anywayz...maybe the point is that life is just stuff.... but we still choose, whether you are a customer or an owner....what you put on your pizza