Just Saying Hi

Just stopping in and saying hi.  I’ve been totally bombarded with work the last few days.  I have numbers flashing before my eyes…icks

Doesn’t help that we have had more power bumps in the last few days then we have ever had in Florida.  We keep losing our damn network and oh, have I mentioned today how much I hate comcast…..gggrrrrrr

It is currently thundering and lightening.  We haven’t been able to see Mt. Hood the last few days due to the smoke from the California fires.  It may be a good thing because it kept it cooler then they were predicting so I’m not bitching.  I can’t believe I’m saying this after this winter and spring, but we could use some rain.  Our lawn is getting more brown then it does in the winter….wierd.

Good news, that has totally rock, I’m able to fit into my sizxe 12 Lee jeans…..grin  I can’t sit down, but I can zip them up.  =)  My trainer is proud of me since I’m only client from my old trainer that is progressing.  I’m like, I’m paying for this, I don’t want to give my chocolate because of blood sugar and my family has a history of heart issues….I’m going to lose weight, I’ve done it before.  I just need help, it is harder as you get older.  So I’m pretty happy about that.

Well, I’m keeping this short because I need to defrag my laptop.  I don’t remember the last time I did.

2008 June Powell Butte 0253

How to spend $ Millions

 

Torn_Rose

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3469271

Ten essentials, just to get you started:

1) Screw up, deny it, then fight by using every lawyer and dime you have. Roger Clemens just sold his Bentley, reportedly to pay legal bills. Marion Jones lawyered herself broke before she finally copped and went to prison. Paging Mr. Bonds, Mr. Barry Bonds.

2) Buy a house the size of Delaware. Evander Holyfield was in danger of losing his 54,000-square-foot pad outside Atlanta, and it’s a shame. He had almost visited all 109 rooms! FROM $300M UP TO $27M DOWN? EASY.

3) Buy many, many cars. Baseball slugger Jack Clark had 18 cars and owed money on 17 when he went broke. And don’t get just boring Porsches and Mercedes. Go for Maybachs. They sell for as much as $375,000—even though they look like Chrysler 300s—and nobody will ever know how to pronounce them, much less fix them.

4) Buy a jet. They burn money like the Pentagon. Do you realize it costs $50,000 just to fix the windshield on one? Scottie Pippen borrowed $4.375 million to buy some wings and spent God knows how much more for insurance, pilots and fuel. Finally, his wallet cried uncle. The courts say he still owes $5 million, including interest. See you in coach, Scottie! (For that matter, why not a yacht? Latrell Sprewell kept his 70-foot Italian-made yacht tied up in storage until the bank repossessed it, in August 2007. He probably sat at home and cried about that—until the bank foreclosed on his house, this past May.)

5) Spend stupid money on other really stupid stuff. In going from $300 million up to $27 million down, Mike Tyson once spent $9,180 in two months to care for his white tiger. That’s why Iron Mike’s picture is on our logo!

6) Hire an agent who sniffs a lot and/or is constantly checking the scores on his BlackBerry. Those are the kinds of guys who will suck up your dough like a street-sweeper. Ex-Knick Mark Jackson once had a business manager he thought he could trust. Turned out the guy was forging Jackson’s signature on checks—an estimated $2.6 million worth—to feed a gambling jones. “And it wasn’t like I was a rookie—I was a veteran,” Jackson says. The only reason he says he’s getting some money back is because he didn’t …

7) Sign over power of attorney. What’s it mean? Who cares? Just sign! The guy you’re signing it over to knows. And while you play Xbox, he’ll be buying large portions of Switzerland for himself. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar let an agent named Tom Collins have power of attorney once, and it cost Kareem $9 million before he figured it out.

8) Spend like the checks will never stop. Also known as the Darren McCarty method. Despite earning $2.1 million a year, Red Wing McCarty, who started a rock band called Grinder, went splat by investing in everything but fur socks ($490,000 in unlikely-to-be-repaid loans) and gambling large ($185,000 in casino markers). In other words, a Tuesday for John Daly.

9) Just ball. Don’t write your own checks. Don’t drive your own car. Don’t raise your own kids. Just be a tall slab of skilled meat for others to feast on. Not to worry. It’ll be over before you know it.

10) Most of all, set up a huge support system around you. It’ll be years before you’ll realize they call it a support system because you’re the only one supporting it. They’re all on full-ride scholarships at the University of You. “Guys go broke because they surround themselves with people who help them go broke,” says ex-NBA center Danny Schayes, who now runs No Limits Investing in Phoenix. “I know all-time NBA, top-50 guys who sold their trophies to recover.”
________________

#10 I have seen too many times with my own eyes… Sadly…

How Do I Feel?: contemplative contemplativeI be jammin to: Elvis – Suspicious Minds

Door to Door Bullies?

Torn_Rose

A few months ago we saw a story on the local news about how 8 solicitors in the Hillsboro area (I think) were arrested after making threats to people who said “no” to them so that story was on my mind from the start as I go over this.

We have had solicitors come to our door many times over the years, mostly in Florida where we actually had a woman barge her way past me into our house when I opened the door to see who it was, I mean quite literally she pushed past me and walked 5’ to Pauline and handed Pauline her card as I stood there thinking “What the fuck just happened?”, of course when we told her we wasn’t interested in her wares she gave us attitude but whatever.

The vast majority of the solicitors in Florida were Mormons who I got to deal with too many times since I worked from home and Pauline didn’t, so I would guess at least once a month I got a new Mormon coming to my door which after 4 or 5 times I just ended up yelling at them from my office to go away and leave me alone.

We currently live on the very Eastern edge of Gresham in the Powell Valley area, it’s a fairly nice area, new homes etc, but it’s sort of in middle of “nowhere” as homes go since the city boundaries end less than a block from us, so I wouldn’t expect having many solicitors coming to us. How wrong I was.

About 2 months ago some dude rings our bell and starts off with “Hey dude, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I would stop by yadda yadda yadda…” in a tone that made me think I know this guy, or at least he knows me so I am trying to think who is this guy talking to me like he’s my buddy until I look behind him and see a “meat wagon” so I cut him off from his babbling and asked “What do you want” which he says he has some meat to sell.

Ok, honestly, I have never heard of a door to door meat salesman before so this was new and kinda weird but that is what Portland (area) is about isn’t it?

I POLITELY tell him no thanks and please don’t come back, he utters something I didn’t really hear so whatever, I close the door and go back to my business.

About a month later the door bell rings  and I open the door expecting to see a friend of ours a 6’4” 220 lb black man and instead I see a 5’8” 200 lb white guy…. So imagine my surprise as I stood there thinking “WTF”…

Than I have the biggest case of déjà vu ever, so I am standing there “stunned” for a few seconds since I was expecting someone else, and I was in such a deep sense of déjà vu I wasn’t sure what was happing, I hear this dude who looked all too familiar tell me… “Hey dude, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I would stop by yadda yadda yadda…”

It took about 10 seconds to realize this is the same guy who I just told last month not to come back, and he was giving me the exact same speech he gave me last time. So I again cut him off and said “Dude, stop, you was just here a few weeks ago and I am still not interested and I said do not come back, so stop coming here.

He gets all sarcastic with me and goes off with “oh I was here before was I? When?” which I told him a few weeks ago and again to stop coming and I close the door rather irritated and turn around to go upstairs and I hear him talking shit to me through a closed door.

I open the door and asked him to repeat what he said and all he says “Have a nice day sir” which I tell him that is not what he said and we exchange words for a few minutes and it gets rather heated. I asked him “YOU COME TO MY HOME UNINVITED AND GIVE ME ATTITUDE????” And it got even more heated which I just told him if he wanted to make a move, I am right here, that is when he realized my button has been pushed as far as it will be pushed and started to walk away, I was pretty pissed.

He’s walking away, still talking shit to me when I notice his driver trying to stare me down so I asked him “Would you like to join this conversation?” and he flips me some shit and the other guy gets in and they start to leave when I tell them “why don’t you get a real job and stop bothering people at home” which causes the driver to get out and he pops off “I make $1000 a week, what do you make?” at which I laugh at him and they go away.

So I think this time, they will remember me and will not want to come back and I won’t be bothered by them again….

Again, how wrong I was.

Today, the doorbell rings, I go down and answer it and it’s a different dude with a different truck, but same BS line “Hey dude, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I would stop by yadda yadda yadda…”

WTF? Is this the company policy to say this to everyone?

I cut him off and being polite but stern and I tell him he is the 3rd person in less than 2 months to come here and I’m sick of it, take us off your route. He gets all pissed off and starts giving me attitude which I laugh and said “yeah, that’s the same BS the last guy tried, that won’t work with me, so go away and don’t ever come back and tell all your buddies to leave us alone.” I close the door as he talks more shit to me.

I get upstairs and realize this is bullshit, so fuck it, I grab my phone and wallet and I call the police to report this and I jump in my jeep and I track them down a block away as they was bothering another house, I give the description of the van, of the guys, tell them the past problems, the name of the company “4 seasons food” (nothing shows up on Google) and license plate number, since I parked right next to them I’m sure they know who I was talking to as I was letting them flip me off and try and stare me down as I laugh and tell the dispatcher what they are doing, I tell them where we was and fallowed them to the next house where they was clearly very pissed and talking to each other on what they should do now.

The dispatcher takes my report and tells me they have had an increase of complaints over aggressive solicitors so they will be sending a patrol car out to look into this. I hang up and come home and immediately Google “No Solicitors” signs, I find a nice red and white one for $8.99 and start to buy it when I get to the shipping which is $9.99….. Um…. it’s 3″x6″ and flat…

Fuck That… I made my own and hung it next to the doorbell.

Sheesh….

How Do I Feel?: bitchy bitchy

Cooled Down & Powell Butte

It has cooled down nicely.  It didn’t get nearly as hot as it did yesterday.  Yesterday we got up to 100degrees and today about 87….so much better. And it didn’t last, it started to cool down around 6pm.  Yesterday it was getting hotter at that time…icks.

The clouds moved in and it started to rumbled.  But since it was finally nice, I went for a walk which meant of course that it started to rain.  On the way back there was a huge clap of thunder.  Next thing I know my hubby was calling me to make sure I was on the way home.  I just heard it, but he saw the lightening.  I felt perfectly safe and not worried, but some folks south of us got hit :  Two men struck by lightning while standing under trees in Damascus =(

We got through this heat a lot better then last time.  But we were better prepared…we had our 2 fans and got air moving, then spent the hottest part of the day downstairs.  That was a pain, because I can do some work but the work that I needed to do is a hard to do down there…..I need my desk and chair, a proper set up.

Tomorrow and the next day will be nothing but focus on work…..icks.

Bizarre origins of wedding traditions

Talk about your runaway brides — the original duty of a “Best Man” was to serve as armed backup for the groom in case he had to resort to kidnapping his intended bride away from disapproving parents. The “best” part of that title refers to his skill with a sword, should the need arise. (You wouldn’t want to take the “just okay” member of your weapon-wielding posse with you to steal yourself a wife, would you?)

The best man stands guard next to the groom right up through the exchange of vows (and later, outside the newlyweds’ bedroom door), just in case anyone should attack or if a non-acquiescent bride should try to make a run for it.

It’s said that feisty groups like the Huns, Goths and Visigoths took so many brides by force that they kept a cache of weapons stored beneath the floorboards of churches for convenience.

**That is kind of whacked.  I’m so glad that the meaning of the best man as changed…..

This are pictures that we took while at Powell Butte I think most of them are Harold’s work, I’ve put the our pictures together and have lost track.

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Mt St Helens

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Daisy Field

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 Mt Adams Hiding in the background.

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 Mt Hood through meadow grass.

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 More daisies

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 Mt Hood

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 Meadow Field

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 Mt Hood zoomed in.

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 Mt Jefferson

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 A young buck with velvet antlers

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Wooded area of Powell Butte.

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Self portrait.  =)

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How can you not fall in love with this scencery?  And we are just addicted of trying to get that perfect picture of Mt Hood.

Babble & Politics

Some of my muscles are feeling a little better.  My ass and thigh muscles still hurt, then my trainer worked out my arms today…..so I bet I’ll be feeling them tomorrow.  That is ok, my trainer spent most of the time laughing at me as I winced to move around…..lol

It was cool this morning, but you could feel it warming up.  My browser weather add on is saying it is 87 degrees…suppose to hit 100 tomorrow, the record for this date is 95…not fun, without air.  =(

I got some work done today, not as much as I needed to do.  I may do some tonight, not sure.  I have a bunch of pictures that I want to edit from the park we went to the other day.   Either way, I do have to get some work taken care of this weekend since payroll will need to be ordered Monday night.

I kind of want to go downstairs and kind of don’t.  Uphere is it a little warmer, but you get some sun and the fact that starting tomorrow we will be downstairs for the weekend due to the heat.

My mom called yesterday to chat and say hi.  =)  But then she had to rub in my face that she has lost more weight….meanie….lol

Clinton barbs resonate among working women

 Gatta, of Rutgers, thinks one very positive thing to come from Clinton’s campaign is that working women saw that the kind of things they experience in the workplace — whether it is overtly sexist jokes or more subtle barbs — are also experienced even by a woman at the highest career levels.

“I think women related to Hillary on that, that in their own lives they’ve experienced different degrees of sexism,” she said.

Similarly, if a woman can rise as high in her career as Callan and still find her appearance being discussed, it resonates with working women who face similar issues in their own jobs, Gatta says.

The days when women were routinely called derogatory names or overtly denied promotions because of their gender are largely over, and women now enjoy more protection from discrimination in the workplace.

Still, Gatta thinks Clinton’s campaign highlighted the more subtle ways in which women are undermined in the workplace. For example, Clinton was often referred to by her first, rather than her last, name — the same thing that often happened to Carly Fiorina during her tumultuous tenure as head of Hewlett-Packard. Gatta, who has the same experience herself sometimes, thinks that can be a way of taking a woman less seriously.

**Maybe with this campaign younger women will finally start to be able to see that sexism still exists and it effects them.  Many of this generation of women take it for grant how far we have come, but don’t seem to see that there is still so much farther we need to go for true equality.

Is media skewering badly behaved female stars?

But Negra said the coverage of women is more judgmental, casting wayward female celebrities as “cautionary tales.” She said coverage of female celebs is less likely to celebrate a troubled star’s triumphant comeback, the way Downey has been lauded for “Iron Man” or Owen Wilson has been shown returning to work after a reported suicide attempt.

“We seem to have a lot more fixed ideas about what women’s lives should be like than we do of men,” she said.

“When we use female celebrities this way, we see them failing and struggling, they serve as proof that for women the work-life balance is impossible. Can you have it all? The answer these stories give again and again is ‘absolutely not.”’

**More on sexism in the media and society.  As far as I’m concerned people enjoy seeing women brought down.  Because it enforces the culture that women shouldn’t want it all and shouldn’t put themselves higher then men.  They aren’t suppose to be to have ambition or success….that is a “man’s” place.   Heaven forbid if a woman doesn’t stay in the kitchen and make babies.

Now I sure in hell don’t care of the Paris Hiltons and Spears, they totally push feminism back.  But the gossip feeding public loves to tear women down….they barely touched on men when they screw up.

Supreme Court Shoots Down D.C. Gun Ban

Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to keep and carry a gun. The decision will affect gun control laws across the country.

“We hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violated the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.”

He addressed the “problem of handgun violence” by saying there are a “variety of tools” such as “measures regulating handguns” available. But he said that the “enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table,” which includes measures such as an “absolute prohibition of handguns.”

**This does not surprise me.  Absolute prohibition of handguns never seem like it would hold up…..but they have stated that measure regulating handguns as a tool for the problem of violence.

Now I firmly believe in the right to own a REASONABLE gun/rifle.  I do not believe in the right for everyone to own a frigging AK-47….that is nuts.  That is not for self-defense and that is not of hunting.  Unless you are a collector that has had a background check and mental evaluation….you shouldn’t own one. Which brings up something I do believe in, background checks with waiting periods, and mental evaluations (within reason…nothing way out there).  Things within reason.

I also believe in gun education and handling.  To me, there is no issue in families to raise their kids with guns if they teach responsible handling.  And many families that grew up with them usually do.  It has been the right of passage for many generations in families to teach the kids how to hunt.

John Roberts’ Favor To Obama

It’s still too early to judge Roberts’s tenure, but it seems increasingly clear that liberals dodged a bullet when President Bush nominated him to be chief justice. Instead of siding with conservative extremists like Clarence Thomas, who are eager to press the limits of the so-called Constitution in Exile, resurrecting limits on federal power whenever possible, Roberts prefers narrow opinions that can attract support from the center. Liberals ought to applaud this instinct because, even if Barack Obama gets to appoint the next justice or two, it’s the only thing standing between them and a Court eager to roll back progressive reforms.

Why was Roberts successful in uniting the Court this year? Part of the reason, as Orin Kerr of George Washington University recently observed, is that he has done exactly what he said he would do in 2006: namely, convince moderate liberals and conservatives that unanimity is in their interest. In particular, Roberts has been more willing than his predecessor to assign plurality (rather than majority) opinions. In these cases, Roberts begins with the three center-right conservatives (himself, Anthony Kennedy, and Samuel Alito) and tries to attract liberal justices to a narrowly reasoned decision, while letting the hard-line conservatives (Thomas and Antonin Scalia) write separate, more extreme concurrences. In cases with no majority opinion, the narrowest opinion for the winning side has to be followed as if it were the majority opinion. Roberts has followed this strategy–finding a “sweet spot,” as Kerr puts it, by “aiming toward the middle”–in the recent 7-2 and 6-3 cases upholding lethal injections and voter ID requirements. In both cases, the Court issued a moderately conservative controlling opinion joined by one or two liberal justices, followed by more extreme concurrences by Scalia and Thomas. In general, Roberts was willing to trade a slight decline in fully unanimous opinions without dissenting votes (30 percent this term, as opposed to 38 percent last term) for a dramatic decline in polarized 5-4 splits. And a mark of his success is that he voted with the majority in 90 percent of the cases – more frequently than any other justice.

Roberts has also promoted unity by encouraging the Court to hear more business cases, in which the justices tend not to divide along ideological lines. Roberts told me that unanimity in less high-profile cases could promote “a culture and an ethos that says, ‘It’s good when we’re all together,'” and that’s exactly what the business cases–which represent about 45 percent of the court’s docket this year–have achieved. 

**I love to read things about the Supreme Court.  Even though a huge amount of everyday Americans don’t give them a second thought, they really do effect our everyday lives.  And I really wish more people would care and really take more interest in it.

This article was interesting in that it seems that Roberts is trying more for the center then down partisan thinking.  Which seems to give the impression that both sides will be given more thought.  We will see.

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