Whitney

Did you know that Whitney Houston's debut album, simply called Whitney Houston had four number one singles on it? It's hard to choose a favorite among so many great tracks, but "The Greatest Love of All" is one of the best, most powerful songs ever written about self-preservation, and dignity. Its universal message crosses all boundaries and instills one with the hope that it's not too late to better ourselves. Since it's virtually impossible in this world we live in today to empathize with others, we can always empathize with ourselves. It's an important message, crucial really. And it's beautifully stated on the album.

Brother-in-law

This is sort of a follow up post to – Just the Good Old Boys, which you may want to read first.

As I continue my run of jobs, passing from company to company, I am finding more and more that the nepotism factor cannot be ignored. In fact, it is to be embraced. It seems to me that one should not work on his particular job skills in this town as much as they should work on their networking skills. Of course I am talking about people networking, not computer networking. Too bad for me, since I excel in the latter.

Once again I find myself in the presence of individuals who have risen to the top of the corporate ladder, although they possess no indication of higher intelligence. I can only surmise that their contact list must be as large as their open mouthed grin, hence the reasoning behind the advancement.

I am strongly thinking about developing a training program that I could conduct for profit, teaching the new generation how to follow the ways of these type people to move up in the world. Here are a few of my top strategies that I plan to implement.

First, always grin. No matter what, greet everyone with a huge smile, preferably with your mouth open. The wider you can open it, the more power you will harness. Practice this in front of a mirror at home, and when you resemble a mildly retarded person, you have mastered it.

Second, increase the volume of your voice, and take on a “country” type accent. The louder you can get, the better. Try phrases such as, “how you doin?” and the saying of your name in this fashion. Also, keep in mind that you will not actually be doing anything of real substance in your job. Therefore phrases such as “it’s gon take about 2 weeks”, “I’ll get back to you on that”, and “we gon see what we can do” are going to be absolutely key to your success. Also, you will likely encounter many individuals who will be far more intelligent than yourself, so practice repeating “all’ight” over and over and over again. This is your response to anything anyone says that you cannot answer with the aforementioned phrases.

Third, if you have an office, which I am sure you will at some point in this process, fill it with stuff. Anything LSU will be great. Even if you have no interest in LSU or sports at all for that matter, acquire anything and everything you can find with LSU on it. This is vital to your ability to connect with others, since your intelligence will never come close to doing the job. (Side note here – as part of the “advanced office pack” that I would be selling the people taking this course, you would get an LSU poster or football or something that I would autograph as an LSU coach or player. Fake of course, but plenty good enough for this purpose).

One potential death trap that you might encounter is the computer. This terrifying device will intimidate you ferociously, but do not worry. Your office will be staffed with people who are paid to answer every stupid question you have. In fact, when you first get the computer, just call them and say “I need this damn thing setup”. They will then at least get it in such a state that it appears that you use it for something. Just spend a little time each day looking at the screen and the pretty colors and eventually you will comprehend basic email. You can then waste several hours per day looking at stupid jokes that others of your kind will send you on a constant basis. Soon you will be able to use an offensive email joke sent to you along with the verbal skills you have learned to create a connection with others like you can’t imagine. Before you know it, you will earn promotion after promotion.

Keep in mind at all times that you don’t have to know anything. This is so important that you should say that aloud right now – I don’t have to know anything. There are people in the office that handle every aspect of what you do, so asking questions will be your specialty. For example, when presented with a form from your HR folks, you may panic at the complexity of it. Simply walk back over to HR and say “what yall want me to do with this”. Someone there will instantly recognize your level of intelligence and ask you the simple questions needed as they do the work for you, and fill it out.

Another situation you may encounter are people’s problems. This will become much more likely to happen as you move up the ladder of success. People will come to you with problems and look to you to solve them. Don’t worry. You don’t have to do anything. Long ago, someone created meetings to do this for you. Simply say this phrase when anyone comes to you with problems ‘ “we need to sit down and talk about this, let’s have a meeting”. You may think that you are setting yourself up for failure here, but as long as you bring as many people as you can to this meeting, you will not have to do or say anything. Simply show up, sit down with a notepad, and smile. Remember what we covered earlier on the smiling. For the more advanced user, you can scribble something down on your notepad every few minutes. Not too much though, just a little. You don’t want anyone assuming you are actually taking notes and get called out on it.

During the meeting you may be asked a question or called out on something. REMEMBER THE PHRASES. They will get you through most situations. If someone says to you – “well what do you think about this” during the meeting, use one this phrase, “well we gotta do something here”, or simply deflect the question to someone else. Just name someone else at the table at random, and say “what’s your thoughts _____”?

Obviously I could go on for quite some time here, but I think you get the idea. I’m sure you know and/or have personally interacted with one of these people at some point. I would say that I myself would try these things, however I am burdened by my intelligence and thus not able to do so. As a result of this, I will likely always be a lower level worker who sits in the shadows and gets things done, as the folks like this rake in all the money.

Dinner?

I need some feedback here. This weekend I will be going out to dinner with my lovely wife to recognize (notice I didn't say celebrate) my official entrance into middle age, my 35th birthday. I'm looking for a nice restaurant to go to, and would like some opinions. Something in between Chick-Fil-A and The French Laundry (google that if aren't familiar). So, please, give me your thoughts, I would greatly appreciate it.

I Want It All.....And I Want It Now

I have recently come to a startling revelation. I’m sitting in a class to learn how to better manage my finances and I see this comparison showing the difference financially between buying a car and financing it for 5 years, and saving money for 5 years then getting the car. It’s a fairly significant difference, but the very thought of it seems completely alien to me.

I started to think, “Who would actually do that, save money for 5 years to get a car??” We can’t wait that long and I think I know why. The world we live in today moves faster than ever before. Every technological marvel of the last 50 years has centered on making things more efficient. You don’t have to wait to get home to call someone, you have a cell phone. You don’t have to spend hours cooking on the stove, there’s the microwave. You don’t have to drive to the library and spend time looking for information, there’s the internet. You don’t have to go into a store, interact with a clerk, and exchange money, there’s pay at the pump and self-checkout. You don’t have to wait all week to see your favorite TV show, there’s the DVR, digital cable with 200 channels and streaming video online. Technology has brought us to a world where we have to have it when we want it, and we have to have it all simultaneously.

Now, let me clarify that I love technology. I am a tech junkie and my spare room at home looks like a Radio Shack exploded in it, but there is a cost. The revelation I came to is that patience is the casualty of technology. In the same way that we don’t have to wait for things or put out much effort to get them, we don’t want to do the things that take patience. I think this is why people (myself included) have the debt that they have. It’s also why so many people today (again, myself included) are overweight and can’t seem to shake it. Things like saving money to pay for what you want and losing weight take time and patience. You can’t just swipe a card, punch a button, or click a mouse and accomplish those things. Ironically, those people who are successful at convincing you that you can are making tons of money (mostly charged on credit cards, no doubt).

Back in the old days, I think it would have been easier to do the things that take patience since everything that was done required it. I figure if I had to spend two hours milking a cow to have a glass of milk then I could probably find the patience to save a few dollars. In fact, I see a huge marketing opportunity here. As this problem increases in volume, I think we are going to start seeing places pop up for treatment of “technology addiction”. Probably a ranch out in Wyoming somewhere that doesn’t even have electricity. You sit out there for some period of time and get reintroduced to the simple life. Not a bad idea actually. Maybe I should start one up. Of course, I would have to save the money to buy one, and then take the time to go out and get it setup. Forget it. Maybe I can setup an online ranch where you can relax in a virtual environment free from the modern woes and worries of the real world. I’ll work on that.

Ain’t no business like show business

As I explained in my previous entry, I spent the day yesterday (Sunday) trying my first attempt at ‘acting’. Personally, I think that’s a stretch, but I would never have said that out loud yesterday, it could have been quite dangerous.

I will start with a recap of my last entry, explaining what this is all about. I was an extra on the set of “I Love You Phillip Morris”, a movie set in a Texas prison about a man who while incarcerated there falls in love with his cellmate, who later gets released back into society. The half of the couple who stayed behind then proceeds to escape from 4 different jails in order to be with his gay lover. The movie is considered sort of a dark comedy and stars Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor. I was one of about 100 guys cast as extras playing prisoners.

I got a call Saturday evening telling me that my call time ‘the time you are supposed to show up there’ was 6:15AM. I was able to figure out what call time meant, but this should have served as a warning that there would be lots more stupid industry lingo flying around the next day. I got there at the prison at 6AM sharp. I knew I was in the right place because there were already a line of guys waiting just outside the main gate wearing white T-shirts and black shoes, just as we were told to wear to the set.

As more and more guys begin to arrive, we are loaded into vans and taken to a small building around the corner. There we check in with a lady behind a desk and have a seat. The room quickly begins to fill up as more and more guys arrive, many of which look VERY much like real prisoners. I start to converse with a few of the guys, and most of them are very familiar with this type of work and do it very regularly.

Then, SHE arrives; this nasty, bulbous mass of flesh and angst known as Gretchen. Over the next several hours she will become the bane of my very existence. The very sound of her voice, even just in my mind causes me to convulse involuntarily and my stomach to turn. She introduces herself to our group and immediately makes it very clear that she is unhappy with the fact that she will be supervising our group. She starts to bark out orders and go through a list of things you can and cannot do. This is done in the manner that a teacher would speak to a group of 2 year olds. Someone asks about the breakfast that we were promised, and she replies with a “You will eat when I tell you that you will eat.”

After she is done with her preliminary round of berating us, we are sent over to the room next to us for wardrobe. A few guys get yellow prison garb, while the majority of us get white. White pants and a white, short sleeved button down shirt with an inmate number over the pocket.

We are then moved out to the actual prison area, behind the walls and barbed wire. We are warned of a couple of key things at this point. First, apparently the real prisoners at this prison wear white, just as most of us are wearing. The only way that prison officials know that you are not actually a real prisoner is that you are wearing a badge. If you don’t wear the badge then you might be mistaken for a real prisoner and you wouldn’t want that. Second, around the perimeter of the secured area are towers. We are warned that running through the grounds would not be advised, since from atop the tower you cannot be distinguished from a real prisoner and no one wants to be shot. Nice.

The area that we are working in is an outdoor walkway that consists of a metal roof about 10 feet high, with ten foot high fencing on each side of it, making it completely secured. This walkway is between two buildings that house prisoners. At one end of this walkway is a fenced in yard area with a gate leading into it. Just before the gate is another walkway that allows you to walk between the two buildings, and intersects the main walkway, making the whole area look like a T. We are told to just spread out naturally throughout the main walkway along the fences on each side. While I am standing there talking to another guy, I am approached by a guy with a headset and told to come with him.

He takes me over to the gate area and tells me to stand with this other guy and wait there. He then explains that I will be in this scene, and I am to walk across the walkway to the opposite door, then turn around and walk back down the main walkway once Ewan runs past me. For the first time in this process I am kinda excited. The guy I am walking with begins to talk to me, and he turns out to be one of these guys who at the simple prompt of a hello feels free to begin telling you his entire life story. I finally break his spell and look away from him as he starts to go into his wife’s uterine problems to see Ewan McGregor standing about five feet away talking to the headset guy.

So, we do this scene about five times with some random guy running down the hallway until they like what they see, then do it six more times with Ewan McGregor doing it for real. It’s pretty cool, and as he does it, I understand how it fits into the movie. He runs into the gate and starts shaking it, screaming that he wants to go into the yard, because his lover is in the yard area.
After this is done, we are moved to outside of the hallway, into the sun to wait. Apparently waiting is a huge part of doing this kinda thing. Waiting and sweating. We are finally provided with water and some snacks. Another equally venomous female is now in charge of us, and is almost as nasty as the first one. She continues to bark out orders and tell you where to sit and not sit, and when it is okay for you to breathe. After waiting for another scene to wrap up, we are taken back to the holding area.

The bulbous mass returns and lectures the group for what seems like an eternity about not doing a bunch of things. Apparently she got word that someone did something extremely horrible as in, ate a grain of food from a table that was not for us lowlifes to approach. As she rambles on and on, I get very close to walking out. VERY close. But, just as I am about to make a move, she announces that she is taking us to lunch, so I relax. Of course we are thoroughly warned that we get only what has been set aside for us, and that the main lunch area is off limits. We are not to eat with the crew, interact with the crew, look at the crew, breathe the same air as the crew, or even think about the crew being next to us. Maybe the idea was to make us really feel like we are inmates, but I didn’t like it.

After lunch, we are taken back to the room, and she actually becomes a bit more tolerable. I find out later that this is due to one guy who had announced that he was leaving, and was convinced to stay because he was given a larger role in the upcoming scene. This guy lucked out, due to having a bald head and lots of tattoos. He got grouped with the others like him as part of the “Aryan brotherhood guys”.

We are then taken out to the main yard. This is the actual area where inmates are brought outside for a short time each day and allowed to play basketball, lift weights, etc. They select 10 guys to play basketball, and several other larger guys to lift weights. I hang out with some guys throwing around a football. At this point in the day (about 2PM), it is very hot, sun beating down, and we are sweating profusely. Occasionally, we are brought trays of lukewarm water. We stay out here for about 2 ½ hours as the scene is rehearsed and re-rehearsed. It consists of Ewan McGregor running through the yard to get to the fence near the main gate, in order to yell goodbye to his lover, Jim Carrey as he is led, shackled into a prison bus and driven off.

Despite the heat, I was fine out there, talking to some guys and tossing the football. After about 5 takes, the scene was done and they started shooting the next scene which is a close-up of Ewan talking to Jim as the bus is leaving. Several of us are standing nearby behind the fence watching, when the blob hobbles over and begins screaming again. Apparently looking in the direction of the scene is distracting, and we cannot do that. I just kinda stood there, partially ignoring her, and partially in disbelief that she was actually serious about this.

As I slowly begin to move away from the fence, she comes over to me and says “Don’t look over there.” I told her, “This is ridiculous; I can’t even look in that direction?” She explains that this is in the eye line of the actors and it is distracting. Whatever, I say, and she tells me to just not look over there and stand against the wall. So I said, “How do I get out of here?” She appeared quite shocked and confused. “I’m leaving”, I told her. She couldn’t believe that I wanted to leave now. She says, “You want to leave………now……you know you won’t get paid.” Hmmm. Lose out on $79. Or keep the $79, but actually become a real inmate here because I beat you to death right here in front of all these people.

No, I’m leaving I told her. I explained to her that unlike the other guys here, I wasn’t doing this because I dream of being an actor. Nor am I doing it for the money, I have a good job, and make enough money there. I am doing this because I thought it would be fun, and a cool thing to do. But, I told her, “If I knew that I would have to spend the day around a person like YOU, then I wouldn’t have done it.”

She walked away and got someone else to come and talk to me. This person was much nicer and much more professional, and tried to reason with me. I didn’t really care at this point what she had to say. I had made the decision and that was it. So, I was taken back to holding, got out of the uniform, and signed the voucher, and was taken out of the gate to my car. Looks to me like I will actually get paid something, but I don’t care either way.

I concluded from this that people aren’t kidding when they say that it is really hard to get into show business. These guys either needed that $79 bad enough, or long to be a big star so much that they will do whatever it takes. Not me. This was enough to convince me that I have better things to do with a Sunday than sweat buckets and get bitched at just for the microscopic chance that the left side of my face MIGHT get seen for a split second in a movie.

Prison Sex

Wow, there’s a title that gets your attention! In keeping with my theme of selecting song titles for blog titles, this was the most fitting for this entry. Sorry if anyone was mentally disturbed by it.

It started with me doing what I seem to do best (or most often lately), looking for jobs. Once again I seem to have found a way to end up in a mess. My current job has many negative aspects to it, as do most jobs, but those aren’t even important when you look at my biggest problem. With the cost of gas at $4 a gallon, driving to and from downtown New Orleans every day for work is not cost effective. I was getting reimbursed for my mileage until about a month or so ago, when my management put a stop to it. I guess the $1200 expense report for the previous 2 week period must have been a showstopper.

So, I now spend at least $150 per week on gas alone. That equates to $600 per month, or $7200 per year. I could basically take a job closer to home and make $5-6K less per year, and come out equal. There is another option, the LASwift bus, that brings commuters from BR to NO every day for only $10 round trip, but my first attempt at using it was not a good experience.

Moving on, the aforementioned job situation has me scouring the internet for new job opportunities. I saw something on a website that mentioned Craigslist, so I thought I would check the site for postings. While there, I couldn’t help but click on various job categories that are not within my scope of experience, just because I wanted to see what was there. Under tv/film/video I spotted a listing looking for extras to be in a movie filming at a couple of prisons here in this area.

I thought, hey, I look kinda like a prisoner. Shaved head, large build, goatee, permanent scowl, what else could make me better for this?? Maybe a tattoo, I concluded. Anyway, I followed the instructions and emailed of the required information and photo. It lingered in the back of my mind for the next couple of days, but I didn’t fully expect anything to really come of it. Then I got a phone call from the casting agency asking me if I was still interested. Sure, I said. So, I was told to wear a white T-shirt and black shoes and wait for a call Saturday evening giving me a time to show up on Sunday morning at Hunt Correctional Institute in St. Gabriel.

I did some research to find out more about the movie that is being filmed there. To this point, I had only known the title and the starring actors. I called my wife to tell her about it, and she also began to search for information online. She called back and between hysterical giggling managed to tell me that I was going to be part of a quote, “gay, prison love movie”.

Not exactly what I would classify this movie as, but what do I know? The name of it is “I Love You Phillip Morris”, and it starts Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor. Here is the official plot synopsis from IMDB – “The movie is a true story of Steven Russell (Carrey), a married father whose exploits landed him in the Texas criminal justice system. He fell madly in love with his cellmate (Ewan McGregor), who eventually was set free, which led Russell to escape from Texas prisons four times.”

So, we will see what happens. I could personally care less what the movie is about. I just think it will be a cool thing to do, and I get to make a little side money, which would come in real handy right about now.

Eat, DRINK, and Be Merry…..

I spent this past weekend at the annual Fiesta, down in St. Bernard.  To briefly explain, this Fiesta is put on every year by the Canary Islanders heritage group down there, and since I am the current President of the same type of group in Baton Rouge, it makes sense that I would be there.

The biggest highlight of this event is the entertainment.  Each year, the organizers of the Fiesta bring in a group of traditional musicians from the islands to perform.  This year, the group consisted of 12 men, of varying ages who sang and played string instruments.

Despite my lack of Spanish, I was able to meet these guys and spend some time with them over the two days of the Fiesta.  If there is one thing that I have learned about these people, it is that they know how to drink.

On Saturday, I arrived at about 11AM and met the group.  They were all sitting around a white folding table littered with cans of Coke, a nearly empty bottle of dark rum in the center.  I took a closer look at the bottle to see the label, and discovered that it was honey rum made in the Canary Islands that these guys had brought with them.

After they were done with their performance for the day, I saw one of the guys walking back toward the table with a large cardboard box.  Turns out they brought a case of 12 bottles of various rums with them from home.  I didn’t really get a close look at it, but it appeared to be mostly filled with unopened bottles.

Sunday, the guys weren’t performing until later in the afternoon, so they did not show up on site until about 1:30PM.  As they were settling down at the table, I noticed one of them had a large bottle of Bacardi Select rum.  I asked my Spanish friend Sergio, “Why do they have that? I thought they had brought a case of rum with them from home?”  That is all gone, he said.  Apparently by this point, it had all been consumed.  Needless to say, I was shocked by this level of consumption.  I had to ask Sergio again.  “It’s only twelve guys, right?  They drank all that rum?”

No, he said, only ten of the twelve drink.  Whoa.  Sergio didn’t seem to be too amazed by this achievement.  Since he is a native of the same island as the group, I suppose he is used to this level of consumption.

When 3PM came around, and it was time for these guys to perform, they were feeling NO pain.  Sergio went up on the stage to serve as a translator explaining what the lyrics to the various songs meant, since the majority of the crowd were not fluent in Spanish.  After one of the songs, Sergio seemed nervous as he explained that the group was changing some of the lyrics to the songs, but he would do his best to keep up with the translations.

After they left the stage, Sergio appeared as if he had just been through a tornado.  He shook his head in defeat as he approached me.  “They were changing the lyrics, and they said some things that were very suggestive”, he told me.  One lady from Bolivia who was standing next to me was asked by an old man what one of the songs was about and all she could do was mumble, “It is very dirty.”

It took a couple of hours and several shots of the aforementioned Bacardi Select before I could convince Sergio to tell me what they were saying during their performance.  Apparently one of the guys sang something about ‘sticking his branch in the fuzzy bush.”

Anyway, by 4:30PM, that gallon of Bacardi Select was dry, and someone had been dispatched to retrieve more.  At 6PM, just as I was leaving, 4 more bottles of Bacardi Gold had magically appeared.  So, I can only imagine how the rest of the night went.

 

Love in an elevator

I work in the tallest building in the state of Louisiana.  Located in downtown New Orleans, it stands 51 stories tall, ironically starting from a height that is below sea level.  It wasn’t until I had been working there for a few weeks that I realized just how much engineering and thought needs to be put into the simple task of just moving people around in a building of this size.

While there are ample numbers of elevators for the general public (24 split into 3 groups of floors), the freight elevators are a much different story.  There are only two of them and in a building with tons of deliveries and construction ongoing on several different floors it fails to be adequate.  Then of course, to make things worse, the building ‘people’ decide that one of the two freight elevators should be taken out of service.  The one freight elevator that is running is very old, and very scary.  It is a metal box that when inside, has nothing but sheet metal on all six sides.  It’s like being inside an oven.

All construction and delivery personnel have already been quarantined and warned repeatedly that they are not to use the passenger elevators.  It’s the freight or the stairs, and most people don’t choose to walk up or down 30+ flights of stairs.

So, I today I was burdened with the task of having to take 6 boxes down to the loading dock on the ground floor.  Three of the boxes were on the 21^st floor, and the other three on the 32^nd floor.  These boxes are only about a foot wide and a foot deep, but are 10 feet long, and weigh about 90 lbs. each.  To make things more challenging, they do not fit in the elevators whilst on the cart, and must be taken off, one at a time and stood upright.

I get my cart from the 21^st floor and proceed to attempt to get up to the 32^nd floor to get the first three boxes.  I wait for 10 minutes for the freight elevator to finally stop for me, and when the door slides open, I literally see about 60 Mexicans, all dressed in white (they are painters) crammed in the elevator like sardines.  It was like a scene from a Kubrick movie or something.

Obviously, I just shake my head and watch the door close, and begin the waiting process all over again.  Five more minutes pass, and once again the door slides open to reveal six guys strategically wedged between carts filled with doors, plywood, and sheet rock.  I let out several expletives and wait some more.

On a bit of a side note, there is something to do to help pass the time while waiting.  Apparently due to the boredom caused by the long delays, several enterprising individuals have decided to write things on the wooden closet doors that are opposite the main freight elevator.  I will give you some direct quotes from the doors now.  “Wayne Newton is God”, “Bilbo Baggins was here”, “Can I nut in your ear?”, “There is a prophet among us”, “Michael Jackson not guilty” (the not has been scratched through).  Also, it seems that at some point in the past there was a contest among the authors to list the crappiest musicians/bands that ever existed.  “Englebert Humperdink”, “Pilot”, “King Crimson”, and “Bay City Rollers” are only a few inked up there.

Eventually, I got my boxes where they needed to be.  I will post up some pics of these doors, so you can see the magic for yourselves.

Would?

Wow, it is long overdue that I post something here. In keeping with the overall theme of this blog, I am going to ramble a bit about politics here in LA. This Paul Sawyer guy running for Congress has really got me fired up.

For those unaware, this guy’s entire political agenda is to attack Woody Jenkins. I’m not a Woody Jenkins fan, or a fan of any of these people for that matter. The reason that Paul Sawyer irritates me is because he insults my intelligence. Actually, either he is assuming that I am very stupid, or he himself is actually extremely stupid.

What does it say about a candidate whose only message is to tell you why you should not vote for his opponent? This guy has spent all his time and money advertising on TV and radio, and plastering his website with “Why you shouldn’t vote for my opponent”. Not one word of why anyone SHOULD vote for him. Well, maybe there are some materials on his website that talk about his qualifications, but he has spent his entire advertising budget on this strategy.

I would think (and probably anyone else with common sense) that if you spent all your time telling me why not to vote for the opponent rather that why to vote for you, that it must be because you don’t really have any good reasons to vote for you. Furthermore, even if you do have good reasons, you have turned me off to listening to them, due to your whining, childish approach to the process.

Maybe the very fact that this seems so common sense to me is indicative of why I would never make a good politician. I don’t (and wouldn’t) “play the game” as it is necessary to do in this realm, especially in this state. On that note, allow me to rant a bit about the ethics reforms that were just passed.

First, who can’t eat for $50 per meal? Last time I checked, even at the Legislative Café (aka Ruth’s Chris), fifty bucks will get you a decent steak and side. Of course, Ruth’s will do whatever it takes to accommodate their favorite clients. The $50 legislative special is probably already on the menu, just for such an occasion. In Florida, they passed legislation that is referred to as the ‘coffee cup law’. It states that a lobbyist cannot buy a legislator anything. Not even a cup of coffee.

Some moron from our own legislature was quoted saying that, “I have friends in the Florida legislature, and they have missed out on hearing and learning about important issues from lobbyists thanks to this law.” Wow. You are telling me (and everyone else) that your ears and brain do not function in the presence of a lobbyist unless the magical elixir of alcohol and red meat are being consumed? Why don’t you also tell me that unless you are lying in a bed made entirely of thousand dollar bills that you can’t sleep at night?

Why were these ethics reforms so hard to get passed?? Easy. The entire reason that ninety percent of the legislature show up is because of the ethically reprehensible things that they get to do. They see it as a benefit to being elected. Passing ethics reform to them is like taking away you and I’s health insurance benefit at our jobs. And how about the bill proposed that said that if you are ever convicted of anything and go to jail then you would lose your benefits? This idea went over like a turd in a punchbowl. What does that tell you?

I can imagine what the discussion was like around this one. “Well damn Jim, I got so many skeletons in my closet that it looks like I dug up Auschwitz. It’s only a matter of time before I get busted on something, and after that settles down, I damn sure don’t wanna have to work for a living.”

Then again, maybe in some strange, twisted way, this does show that they have a moral conscience. After all, the most prominent person that this would affect would be our own ‘Legend of Political Bastardness’ – Edwin W. Edwards. And since a good portion of the legislature today probably owe their very political existence to him in some way, shape or form; you can see why they would oppose this. “Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family.”

I still remain hopeful that Governor Jindal can make some changes, but he is a small Indian David facing a huge, bloated, filthy, conniving Goliath.

We Didn’t Start the Fire

So, I'm sitting in my living room tonight chilling with the family, watching some classic Good Times when I hear someone beating on my front door. Now, my front door is current out of service, but that's a whole separate story that I won't go into now. Anyway, I'm trying to get to the back door to run around to the front of my house, and this person beats even harder on my door. I'm thinking at this point, "where's the fire buddy?!?! Calm down, I'm coming.

Well, as I make my way outside, I see this guy running down my driveway saying something about a fire. "A fire, where?" I ask. He points in my general direction, and I turn around to see the back corner of my fence up in flames. "What the hell happened?" I asked, but got no response. I ran up to the middle area of my fence and climbed up, stuck my head over the top, and asked the people behind me, "what the hell happened?" "I don't know", is the response that I get from the guy. I ask again, and one of the teenage kids standing there with him says, "We just turned around and there was this fire." Sure buddy, the fire just magically appeared spontaneous combustion maybe.

At this point there is about a 6 foot section of my wood fence fully engulfed in flames. The pine trees that hang overhead are also catching fire, as is my grass approaching the back of my storage area. I get the hose and start doing my best interpretation of Backdraft. After a few minutes, I finally start to hear sirens in the far distance, and figure the fire department is not far away. At this point, the fire is starting to subside, but is still going. The same guy who was beating down my door reappears, once again yelling something about a gas tank. Apparently my next door neighbor stores her lawnmower gas in the same back corner of her yard that the fire is burning. So we back off a little, but I'm still watering down my fence from a distance.

By the time the fire department gets there, between my hose and the neighbor's hose, we have put the fire out. The firemen spray down the area thoroughly and also sprayed some kind of foam because the neighbor had some chlorine tablets for her pool that were in the fire area. I ask the guy who ran over to tell me about the fire if he knows how it might have started. "Sure" he says, "fireworks". I hadn't heard any fireworks, but he says he did, and he saw one of the bottle rockets land on his truck.

This really sent me into a fury. If you don't already know, you can get my opinion of fireworks in this previous blog entry – Fire, smoke she is a rising.

So now I'm on a mission to shut down fireworks in this area. It really is a shame because I like fireworks. The teenage kid in me likes things blowing up but unfortunately in today's world, there are far too many morons who have no regard for other people or their property to have them around.

Vacation……Had to Get Away

So, I make the statement that we should maybe get away and the next thing you know, all logic and reason is pushed aside and we are heading west into the sunset. Despite a lack of time to plan and money to spend, we go anyway. Our destination is San Antonio. I have never been there, and G has only been there once when she was a teenager on some church outing. Seems like a good place to go, there are things to do and see, and people I speak to who have been there give it rave reviews.

The first red flag that I should have noticed was the lack of available hotels. Either they were booked, or they were way too pricey. To get around this, we decide to stay just outside of San Antonio in the small German-like town of New Braunfels. I figure it's a quiet place this time of year, since the main attractions there involve water in some form. Lodging is booked and confirmed at the Holiday Inn, a "hotel" that I would normally be leery of, but after reading about it online, it seems to be the nicest place in this town. This unfortunately would prove to be very misleading.

Upon arrival, the first of many problems arises; we can't find the place. It has one of those addresses along the freeway on an access road, so you have to figure out what side of the freeway it is on, and then which way to go since it is a one-way in one direction on one side and a one-way in the opposite direction on the other side! So, after driving in a circle around the freeway exit like Clark Griswold, I finally find the damn place. I check in and we proceed to the room, which is on the front side of the hotel, facing the freeway. Not only is it facing the freeway, but from the sound coming in from behind the closed door, it seems to be ON the freeway. Since I'm a freak about noise when I'm trying to sleep, I return to the lobby to request another room. Room number two is a smoking room, but I have been assured by "Buffy" the young lady behind the counter that the carpets were recently changed and it should be fine.

The smoke smell isn't that bad, but the bed is about as comfortable as sleeping on a sack of marbles. The pillows are just barely larger than my head, and the sheets feel like they have been washed several million times, and resemble the texture of burlap. At this point you might be envisioning me as a hotel snob, someone who expects too much. Maybe, but I am on vacation, and damn it I want luxury!

The other problem with this place is not evident until the following morning when we venture down to San Antonio to visit the famous Riverwalk. Thanks to ancient, faulty electrical outlets that were probably installed by Edison himself, my camera battery has not charged, and I am now lugging around my digital camera for no reason. The rest of the day is pretty good though, nice scenery and cool things to see. One of the things that I see in very large quantities turns on the light bulb in my head and makes me realize why we couldn't find a decent hotel room. Everywhere you go you are inundated by that hideous shade of brownish orange worn by Texas A&M people. It's the Alamo Bowl today, and they are everywhere, along with the occasional sprinkling of Penn State folks.

Later in the day, we visit the Alamo. Not a very exciting place. Very historical, but not much to see. I think the only thing most people take away from visiting it is the 'scratching it off the list' of things to see in life. The second night at the Holiday Inn motel is heightened by the adventurous discovery of a large yellow stain on the bed comforter. Nice. I get a good idea, that since we are going to Austin the next day to visit someone, I could use my Hilton Honors points to get a nice room, regardless of the cost. Sure enough, we find an Embassy Suites that has a room available, and I cash in all my points for a one night stay. Finally we will be able to rest and relax in a nice suite that should be problem free and wonderful. Ha! It was not to be.

The Embassy Suites in being remodeled. Our first room….that's right FIRST room is okay until I notice the sink has no faucets. I guess someone really wanted to upgrade their home sink. So, I go down to the desk and after some brief apologies, our second room is issued. This one seems okay also, until I notice the plastic bag covering the smoke detector. I guess I could have just removed it, but with my luck it would be broken and this would be the one night that the hotel would go up in flames. So, our THIRD room is issued, and because of my previous two room problems, I first look at the sink and smoke detector. The latter of which is missing. Only the housing and the wire connector hanging from the ceiling are present. At this point, we decide that the possibility of burning to death isn't that bad, and we just live with the situation as it is. If that were the only issue we would have been fine. But of course as you probably guessed, the fun does not end there.

I need air conditioning to sleep. It needs to be cool and comfortable in the room. At 3AM after not being able to sleep, I adjust the thermostat to 60 degrees and reach up to feel hot air blowing from the vent. I get up at 7 after about 2 hours of sleep and we head home, eager to put this adventure behind us.

I would like to say that the Holiday Inn people were pretty cool, and did refund my money for the stay, but it would have been nice to just get what I thought I paid for instead.

To Live and Fry in LA

Well, it’s that time of year again. Nothing invokes the spirit of the holiday season in me like the sound and smell of searing animal flesh as it is being submerged into boiling oil. Aside from the obvious food appeal that Thanksgiving holds for me, I do have a lot to be thankful for this year, both on a personal and general level.

I’m thankful that Bobby Jindal finally got elected as governor. Hopefully immediately after he is sworn in, he will start the cleaning process at the legislature. There are quite a number of turkeys there that should be pardoned by him and set free. I’m thankful that Kathleen Blanco is gone. I think she will now take a job with FEMA as the first ever female czar of confusion. I’m mostly thankful that the elections are finally over. The negative ads and mudslinging had gotten pretty ridiculous. They seem to get worse every year. I’m waiting for someone to finally just let loose and instead of making accusations, just come onto my television and say, “My opponent is a bastard, a lying piece of scum that walks the earth without a purpose, wreaking havoc in the lives of innocent people. He will burn down your house, pee on your plants and rape your pets, do not vote for him.”

I’m thankful that Les Miles knows how to coach football even though at times he appears to be channeling Kenny Rogers a bit too much. I’m thankful that LSU is the team that represents my part of the country, especially since my officially licensed Saints paper bag has started moving toward the front of my closet again. I’m thankful that the BCS computer up at NORAD is finally working, and that LSU is ranked where they should be. Let’s just hope that it doesn’t go crazy before the end of the season and try to play tic-tac-toe against itself. (Obscure movie reference there, sorry)

On a personal level, I am truly thankful for lots of things this year; my family, friends, and a job that finally seems to be normal. The only problem is that if my job is going well, and the state gets on the right track now, I won’t have anything to write about.

It’s All Good, From Diego to the Bay

Three weeks in sunny San Diego, and as you might imagine, there are a few tales to blog about. I could bore you all with tales of my ridiculous job, but I think we have already beaten that horse to death. I spent the little time that I wasn’t working frequenting one of America’s most elegant dining destinations; TGI Fridays.

Quite a mixture of interesting individuals here, showcasing the best of southern California. On one occasion, there was a guy at the bar talking to himself. He was wielding a remote control, and attempting to control the bar televisions, unsuccessfully, all the while making attempts to call over the bartenders, who were ignoring him.

He tried to startup a conversation with a guy sitting next to me, but was also ignored. Finally after about a half hour of this, he gets up and yells, “Nigger #1, Nigger #2, it’s a foot race!”, and walks out the door. Bartenders look around perplexed, then one of them says, “He didn’t pay his tab!” They follow him out to the parking lot, but he reaffirms his intent to drink-n-dash, and just walks away.

About an hour or so later, I’m talking to the guy sitting to the right of me, and his girlfriend who is next to him, when the guy to my left draws attention to himself. Apparently this guy to my left has either gone into some sort of catatonic state, or is trying to burn a hole through my head with his eyes, because he is staring intently in my direction. I soon realize though that he is actually looking through me and the guy next to me, at the guy’s girlfriend. As soon as my friend realizes that this guy is staring down his girlfriend, he starts to talk to the guy, telling him that he appreciates the compliment, but he should chill out. The guy ignores him, and walks up to her and starts talking to her. My friend gets up and kinda gets in the guy’s face telling him “that’s my girlfriend”, and finally after repeating himself several times, the guy gets a clue and goes back to sit down. Strange.

The strangest event though, was back at the job site. The building that we were working in was still under construction, so usage of the restroom facilities either required walking to another building and going through security, or visiting the magical port-a-crappers outside. This may offend some, but I refuse to go to a portable toilet. I just do. My reasons are several, and should be fairly obvious. Anyway, I decided to check out the restrooms one day in the building, just to see if they might be usable. Well, someone had already shared my thoughts, and had enterprisingly relocated a roll of paper to the new facility from the portable. So, I began using it.

One afternoon, I am in there conducting some important company business, when someone else comes in. Knowing that I am in the only stall that has paper, I decide to clear my throat, to let this person know that said stall is occupied. I then hear, “No one is supposed to be using this yet!!”, “Ok,” I reply, then the guy shakes the door to the stall violently and says again, “You aren’t supposed to be using this restroom!” “I got it!” I angrily respond. The next thing I know, this asswipe goes into the stall next to me and leaps up onto the toilet, looks down at me, and utters a “goddamnit”. I just looked up at him in complete disbelief. If I were in a position to quickly rise up and deal with this guy, it would not have been pretty. I couldn’t find him after I left the area, likely because he disappeared when he realized that I wasn’t one of his illegal alien contract workers.

At least the weather is nice in San Diego, even if the people are crazy.

Eastbound and Down, Loaded Up and Truckin’

This job just gets more and more interesting each day. Ever since day one there have been a number of times that I had to stop and ask myself, “Are you sure you don’t just want to leave?” Of course, as nice as that sounds, it isn’t practical, given the monthly bills that come through my mailbox with fierce regularity. So, I have succumbed to the demands, time and time again. “Work over the weekend? Sure. Work 13 hours today? Sure. Drive to Atlanta to save the company some cash? Sure. Stay at the boss’s house instead of a hotel? Sure. “

But the latest just put all of these to shame, and shadowed them in the way the Grand Canyon compares to a pinhole. This time the call comes in as “We need you to pick up a rental truck, take the Baton Rouge office completely apart, load all the furniture and stuff onto the truck, drive it to Atlanta, stay here a few days to work (at the boss’s house not a hotel), then drive the truck back to Baton Rouge and return it.” What response can I give other than a monotone, semi-nauseated “Ah….okay.” At this point in the job, I have about as much enthusiasm for going to work as Paris Hilton would have to go shopping at a thrift store.

The ride to Atlanta in the truck was quite an adventure. It had no CD player, just a radio, so I had to MacGyver up my laptop so that I at least had something to listen to. I also bought a CB radio, not that I wanted to interact with the mind trust that is the CBing community, but to have something else to listen to. Of course, all I really heard was loud, indistinguishable sounds muffled in a thick redneck accent. Then there was the weather. It was pouring rain through most of the first half of the journey, and the truck was not sealed up too well, so rain started dripping down onto the back of my neck. Didn’t bother me too much, I figured this job is so crappy already, what’s a little Chinese water torture thrown in gonna harm??

But the fun doesn’t end there!! I get to now drive the truck back to Baton Rouge tomorrow. Wasting another 8 hours of my life on the highway. Getting paid of course, but I didn’t go to Diesel Driving Academy. I suppose in this case though, their motto is true….”When you can drive a truck, you gotta job my friend.” At least for now anyway, until something normal comes my way.

In Birmingham they love the governor…….

In Baton Rouge, we do not. At least I don’t. And, I am happy to say, she is not running for reelection. She had that phone call from ‘the man’ who told her that she would not be running again. Mr. Breaux was set to take her place, until someone found out that he couldn’t run here, because he no longer lives here. You would think that someone would have checked into this before he made his big announcement, to spare him looking like an ass, but then again, we are talking about politicians.

Then you have Walt Boasso, who realized that he had about as much chance of beating Bobby Jindal as a poor Hispanic would moving into Bocage. So, he changed parties. This man is the definition of hypocrite in my opinion. I loved his commercials where he talks about ‘those politicians in Baton Rouge’. Obviously referring to the Legislature, of which he is a current member. So, he was talking bad about his own group while simultaneously trying to separate himself from them. Genius!

It comes as no surprise that the gubernatorial election is already rife with controversy and stupidity. I’m sure it will only get more interesting as we go along. Some say Blanco may even reenter the race. I guess she will have to wait for another phone call to tell her what she should do. Maybe this time Ray Nagin will give her a call, and say, “I got reelected, brother Jefferson got reelected, you should give it a shot! I’ll come down to Baton Rouge and make a campaign speech for you.”

This time around I gotta think that Bobby Jindal will easily win. If not, I just might have to change my blog to TX or GA – not the good one, but that would make no sense. He is clearly the best candidate. The problem is the trailer park voters out there who look at him and say, “I ain’t voting fer no damn foreigner”. They would rather have a bloated, toupeed, greaseball, good ole boy politician raping them then elect someone who looks different than they do.

Of course, even if he does win the election, to really turn the state around, he would have to clean out the vast majority of the Legislature, who falls into the above mentioned group. Anyone who thinks that our tax dollars are wasted should go and spend a day watching the Legislature in action. You won’t think that anymore, you will KNOW it. Eighty year old men beached up at a desk, sporting a tie that ends somewhere around the nipples, and more chins than a Chinatown phone book. The only important and meaningful decision that they make in a given day is whether to order the filet or the ribeye from Ruth’s Chris.

They can’t even seem to figure out what every other state has, that cockfighting should be banned. I’m no animal loving PETA spokesperson, but besides the moral and ethical aspect of it, it just makes us look stupid. On the big chart of state information, it reads like a mathematical cross reference. Just look under the column that says unemployment, then the row that is educational status, and where they meet it says cockfighting legal. I mean, how advanced can a state be that doesn’t realize that there is no need to tie razor blades to chickens and watch them fight for money? I love what this one politician says, “We have to gradually phase out cockfighting as to give those involved with the industry time to get out of it.”

I’m sure these individuals are well educated, and have their assets diversified over a myriad of stocks and mutual funds so that leaving the industry won’t affect them that much. It’s not like these people have to restructure some corporation, just kill the chickens and fry them up. Then take your razor claw attachments and figure out how to affix them to a nutria or something. Problem solved.