A few weeks ago one of my dearest “blogger friends” announced the end of her blog. At first I was incredulous, then a little angry, then after some thought  finding myself saying “Good for you,….fly free and enjoy life!” Such a range and compressed time span of emotions and thoughts for someone I have never met, never shook hands with, never ever uttered a single verbal word too,… yet that range of emotion was HUGE!!

“Lucy”, (whose real name I think was Eve) was both a good writer, and a good friend, but it happens to all of us at some point. Writing becomes a “chore” rather than a “love”,….alas I am fast reaching that same point. It was always a great psychological experience to just sit down and “pound the keys” an out would come thoughts, emotions, feelings and every other “element” of the human condition. Some times it was purely a “neutral” form of escape and a “nameless” way of being me,…without the repercussions of friends, and others knowing it was me and either commenting personally or by e-mail. No there is nothing “wrong” with me, I’m just being human,…in a real sense of the word.

As time goes on, and over 500+ blogs you all of a sudden get the realization that things are changing. What started out as a “lark” has become a “Dear Diary” mode,…but then you realize there are so many people, so many “search engines” and whatever other technological wonders out there literally stalking a word, a phrase, a single thought and pumping it back to faceless “users”. That is when it becomes really mind boggling. To think that hitherto unknown human beings, AND computer programs were watching and looking at everything you said, or better said,”wrote”.

Now do I really care? Most assuredly not,…but am I getting concerned at those who read, or try and know the real me somewhat! I am a human, my emotions, my surroundings, my friends, acquaintances, business relationships and all other form of ”ME”,…well they change constantly, not just day to day or week to week,…but minute to minute. And if I am open enough to “share” that I fully understand some criticism, some ”Go Guy” and some serious judgements will be leveled at me and on me.

But you know what? It’s only a “BLOG”! I write is to show the world who I am, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health (literally). I am married not only to my wife,but an entire universe of “bloggers” and folks who just hit the “bookmark” button.

But that’s ok, I can live with it,…but at this point in my life it is getting a little “old,used, and abused” so I’m thinking of taking a little “hiatus” and just living, breathing, and enjoying my life,….such as it is,…or what you think it may be.

Let me know what you think,……please!

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One of the “oldie” channels was running a re-run of “The Pirate of Silicon Valley” last night and though I’ve seen it a couple of times I watched and remembered good friends, good times, and all brought to me by Steve Jobs. I go way back with Apple. In fact the very first “personal computer” I owned was an Apple. A good friend back in the early 80′s was a graduate of the Air Force Academy and was in Data Processing (hows that for a dated term?) and had an Apple II with no cover and he tinkered with it, a clunky old 3″ floppy disk drive and an old beat up dot matrix printer (look it up under ancient and indestructible). I used to get a kick out of the fact that he wrote little programs for it, played so stupid little games and otherwise loved it. He told me about a brand new model about to come out, the “Apple IIe”, so in the best interests of getting my young children something useful and productive, he and I went about 75 miles to a new Apple Dealer one Saturday afternoon, and left with big clunky white boxes with little apples on them. I took it home set it up and ,….well the kids were really too young for this new fangled techno stuff, so even though it was in our 7 year olds room for “justification purposes” that became my first “computer pit”. I bought two floppy drives so it could run a bigger program and save data to the other, and of course the clunky old dot matrix printer. I was truly in awe because my past twenty years or so had been working in business, starting with the old “wire’em yourself” board that went into a machine as big as two refrigerators, you loaded “punch cards” into it and it would sort and print them IF you wired it correctly. Then I got into the “Monsters” from IBM, the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of these new fangled computers. Sterile computer rooms, raised floors with miles of wire underneath the removable floor panels, magnetic tape drives as big as a 30 cubic foot refrigerator, rooms with ten to twelve “keypunchers” just sitting there eight hours a day pounding keyboards and creating fodder for the “mainframe”.

I actually have a picture of me at my desk in 1974 with only an adding machine on it. And I was the  Accounting Manager of a pretty big company with seventy some odd retail department stores. We worked for the computer, every month when it came time to do the financials I would take home a big briefcase full of pages of analysis paper and calculations and Journal Entries, eat supper, watch a little TV and go to bed, waiting for the phone to ring,..and ring it would, as soon as the computer started to print the financial reports. The Computer Manager would call me whenever that was, 1am 3 am it didn’t matter. He would start reading the financials to me, I would compare them to my hand written entries and pencil statements and if all was correct  I got to go back to bed. If not we burned hours at time trying to find out what went wrong and correct them because in the morning at 9 am my phone at the office would ring and I would hear “Do you have the new statements?” It got hairy sometimes  believe me. I’d be shaving for work with the phone on the counter by the sink and waiting for the computer guy to let me know if the correction we did worked.

Then I moved up to a MacIntosh, and then a Macintosh SE, by now they were writing programs for them commercially My first major computer program purchase was an accounting program for my business. I had taken some classes and could write a few rudimentary programs. I started to design a program to route the drivers of my little medical supply company, then the BIG fork in the road occurred LISA versus the PC I was going to get the Lisa next, and in fact probably two or three of them and this new thing called “networking” was just beginning.  I could see it going bigtime eventually, imagine hooking two or three computers together and let them share information! But LISA quickly turned into a high priced boat anchor, and the pundit were touting IBM as THE machine for business with this great new DOS operating system made for business. At about the same time Apple began to focus on the education market. Probably Steve Jobs biggest mistake. The logic must have been something like get’em when they are young hook’em on Apple and when they graduate THEY will demand Apple in the business place and we will win,….but it didn’t work that way.

I still believed in Apple and kept my Mac SE but had to concede the business to IBM and the PC. I never did like them, and frankly still don’t compared to the Apple. But it’s like trying to buy a special type of lead for your mechanical pencil that is made by one little Tibetan Monk in Nepal and sold out 16 years in advance. If you want to get along in business you gotta “go along” with the prevailing thought,…hence IBM PC and DOS.

But I was a hold out in some respects. I tried to run my entire Country Western Club/Irish Pub and restaurant all on my Mac SE, and it worked. One of my soon to be good friends was a “Apple head” as well, and he and I used to play with my SE and try different things. We found this newly announced thing called “BBS” or Bulletin Boards, and from there into the Internet. BUT since there were not any real “civilian hookups” yet, we lavished pints of Guinness and fries on a girl who frequented the Pub and worked at a Major local University, and “voila” we had an in, a user name and password to get on this new fangled thing Al Gore claimed to have invented.

Meanwhile Mr. Jobs was cranking out bigger better, faster, etc. my friend (an alien from Zenon) got into programming, self taught I might add, for his Mac. For several years we had a ball them my businesses went South, as did I and went to work for my friend cleaning buildings at night. One of those buildings was a new Apple Computer dealer in the next City over. One thing led to another and one night about 1 a.m. as I went in to clean the place I noticed someone working upstairs so I stopped in just to say “Hi, Just the cleaner, don’t shoot me or call the cops”, and again here was another guy I knew from seven years before that and another business that was successful for me. He was trying to start a company, needed some equipment to comply with the State Laws and I sold him all he needed, (in the back of my mind it was a “flyer” and I really did not expect to see the money anytime soon from him.) I was right, he went under, and now here he was the manager of this new Apple Store. We got to chatting and about a week later he offered me a job selling Apples. I of course LEAPED at the chance. I was going to get paid to play,….YEA!!!

About six or eight months later he got promoted and I was made manager of the store. We were doing quite well and things were growing, and Apple just kept sending bigger better and I wound up becoming an Apple Certified Technician on the side. Meanwhile as the small Apple community was growing with us “crazies” I was loving it. then I was asked to go to MacWorld in San Francisco with several other employees to man a booth for our company. Again I leaped at it and had a four day whirlwind “all things Apple”. One of the best experiences of my business life. I knew despite all that was being gossiped and rumored around that Apple was here to stay,….then the unthinkable Steve Jobs was dumped (actually a Palace coup by the typical American CEO type named Scully that Steve brought in to Apple.

I wound up leaving the Apple store, starting my own business AGAIN, and moving on and eventually here to Florida. My trusty Mac 9600 with all parts tweaked and maxed out three hard drives, etc still sits below my desk, and occasionally I will play with it and wallow in the ease of use, the lack of the traditional “blue screen of death” and permanent flaws and shortcomings of every Windows product introduced since Bill Gates and company coughed up It’s first Hairball (Windows).

As time progressed I bought and iPod nano, eventually an iBook from e-bay, another Ipod for my wife, and am now in deep plotting trying to figure out what I have to do to get an iPad! (Oh yeah, bought the wife an iPhone a year or so ago, and she, (Miss non-tech) loved it. SOoooo I got myself one, and love it.

My old hacker buddy is still writing “apps” for the iPhone, moved to Malta and last I heard was in Ireland, ALL my Apples still run great, and I just can’t bear to part with them. I may be getting too old to become “more techie”, but if I could put together an all Apple Network, with server and communication properly, I’d do the deal like Faust.

Long way around, but Steve Jobs was a real power and model in my mind, had vision I never seen in anyone else, and had his finger on the real pulse of design, simplicity, and the forward thinking that has marked America for the past three hundred years of entrepreneurial zeal and growth.

Rest in Peace Steve,…somewhere out there there will be others who will move forward and build on your example and share their life with the world as you did.

-30-

         A little while ago I wrote a piece on the legal interpretations of a simple song like
“Walking in a Winter Wonderland” in today’s society, and sent it to a few
friends for the season. So many of them got a kick out of it I decided to see
if I could expand it a bit more and poke a little fun at our dysfunctional
society,….tongue in cheek of course. So here is installment #1

Songs, Statutes, Sanity, and Common Sense

       Let me set the  stage a bit for you.  Since my mother
wanted me to be a lawyer, and I just didn’t have the money, time, or inkling
back then, …I didn’t become one. But as life progressed it seemed like there
were more than enough folks becoming lawyers and I felt relieved. (My mom
didn’t but, hey,…stuff happens.) I developed a bit of an acerbic sense of
humor, and was reputed to be a sort of “wise-ass”, but I kept going.

       Finally one day I passed the Bar, a local bar with a varied clientele, good camaraderie, and
good conversation. I developed a number of concepts, one being the existence of
a “door-frame brain emulsifier”, which maintained that by and large everyone
coming through the door was there to relax and just be themselves, not the
Doctor, the Lawyer, or the occasional Indian Chief, but everyone stepping
through the door, bar none.  (Not to make
a pun but,…it happens!)

       I further enhanced that concept into an additional concept relative to the  super-growth rate of the “real people” gene (bet you didn’t even know you had those kind of genes), while one was inside the
local establishment. People all got a long, all chatted cordially, and truth be
known a lot of the problems of the world, the country, and the local area were
solved with great discussions. The down side was that as you stepped through
that door to go home, back to the office, or whatever your brain was
“reconstituted”, your real people gene began to shrink, and your evil
“politically correct” self once again took over your body.

        Most songs that have become popular, have made it strictly because of the “real people”
genes, and emulsified brains. We like what we like, and we are what we are,
…real people.

       Let’s take our first example, “I got friends in low places” by Garth
Brooks. A platinum hit for sure, but let’s have an Attorney look at this
song and all the legal implications. I’ve asked the distinguished and highly
educated legal expert, Arnold J. “Better be Right” Goldsmith to review this
song with us as to it’s legal and political nuances and overt dangers.

       “Blame it all on
my roots, I showed up in boots, and ruined your black tie affair”
What do you make of that Counselor Goldsmith?

       “Well, obviously this is a ploy to set up a defense for any subsequent actions as
being caused by the direct result of the socio-economic shortcomings of the
alleged defendants childhood, hence he should not be expected to know any
better at the time of any alleged infractions. The mere fact that he showed up
at an obviously self admitted black tie event with “boots” on is grounds for a
fashionista arrest by itself. Unless of course we were in Dallas, or Houston.”

        “The last one to know, the last one to show, I was the last
one you thought you’d see there.” Am I wrong or is this perhaps an overt
manifestation of deep seated anger issues?”

       “Absolutely, but more importantly the implied threat of obvious retribution, ‘the last one
you thought you’d see there’ to me is far more disturbing. There is an aura of
real ominous depth there for sure.”

      “The defendant , excuse me the alleged defendant, goes on to say “And I
saw surprise, and the fear in his eyes, when I took his glass of champagne”,….quite
apparently  a very threatening gesture which had a desired effect of placing the plaintiff in a position of fearing
for his life.”

      “You sure you’re not a lawyer son?”

     “ My mom wanted me to be, but,…well I turned out different,…you know?”

     “Yeah I see, but if you look at the next several remarks you will find the obvious crux of the
entire case, the flagrant attempt at the alienation of affections intended to
cast doubt into an otherwise picture book perfect wedding and reception party. ‘I toasted you,
said honey we may be trough, but you’ll never hear me complain’,  then he boldly bares the full
brunt of the threat, ‘Cause I got friends in low places where the whiskey drowns
and the beer chases, my blues away, But I’ll be okay. Now I’m not big on social
graces, think I’ll slip on down to the Oasis, Oh I got friends in low places.’  The jury will
have a field day with this admission, it might even be enough to offset the
victim of my environment defense.”

        So next time
you go stop and have a drink in a Pub remember,…”you better ghave friends in
low places, ‘cause sometimes they are the best ones,….emulsified brains and
all!  

-30-

Parents Of The
Year

Anyway, with most things I attempt I try and learn every single thing I can about the business or field I am in and thereby better understand it, hence can do a far better job. My ‘compatriots’ used to go to the local restaurants to eat, then lounge outside in the park across the street or play in the local pinball arcade,…but not mt. I would tak a sandwich and go sit in the gallery area of the old Boston Stock Exchange and study what was going on. I took courses in investing, in market strategy, entire series of banking course from the American Institute of Banking, and read my little brains out. Now here we are coming up on 50 years later and it’s like “dumped” in some little third world jungle with only an Audubon handbook and no matches!

It’s called the “Stock Market” because it’s purpose was to raise capital for businesses through the exchange of capital from the investor for stock or “shares” in their company. Not a difficult concept to master, and one that ever since they started doing it under a Buttonwood tree in lower Manhattan decades and decades ago has been the gasoline that has fueled the Great American Economy. Later on they got into a new market called “Bonds” which were more sophisticated  little jewels that were basically IOU’s with a guaranteed payback PLUS a fixed dividend and rate of interest until it was all paid off at a date down the road a few years or a decade. This enabled Cities and other non-”business” entities to grow and expand as well. (Was never too appealing to me as the element of risk did not really exist, at least not back then. I always felt if a company really “put the pedal to the metal” and outdid itself hence increasing my “stake” in it that was far more appealing.)

Well before cascading into today’s “Circus Maximus” of finance it’s time for one of Mr. Guinness’s copyrighted “Laws of Reality”. Law number 658.6/b. We ran out of money decades ago, actually almost a century ago,….so we created “credit”. Intrinsically not a bad thing, but considerably less stable than cold hard cash. We allowed some folks with ,….ahem,…perhaps less scruples and integrity than we suspected to buy stock in companies without or with a fractional portion of the money. The Company worked hard, the stock rose, the owner sold it, paid off that which he never paid for originally and kept the profit over and above. (Not bad work if you can get it.)

Then the Great Depression hit, the “crash” of the stock market in 19289 when everyone realized it was all “blue smoke and mirrors”, credit and greed gutted this country to the bone. But we recovered, the Government took unprecedented steps and as I like to imagine it, “put it all on the line and called for the dice”. Heady with the accomplishments, and wealthy as well, it began the “democratic process” of “helping everyone with others money”. Well that’s for another day,…back to the stocks and all.

Somewhere in the process, perhaps after WWII or so the “American Dream” of owning a home was rapidly becoming a reality. The “middle class” was trading boring dull labor and service and manufacturing positions into “tolerable” simply because it “paid the mortgage” had some “fringe benefits”, some promises of pensions and retirements, some ,….well let’s call a spade a spade,….some HOPE for their families based on their sacrifices and “punching the clock”.

But alas the greed and “What’s in it for me” mongers started looking for more ways to get more for less. Hence we started finding “new” stocks if you will. They weren’t necessarily new companies making new widgets, after all we sold all that to China and Japan and Malaysia,” let them make it cheaper and we can make more profit”. It was slowly becoming nothing more than Vegas with more “snake-oil” salesmen and thieves, (oops! Sorry “professional investors and traders’.)

The advent of computers and technology became a stronger weapon than any Nuclear Device or Bio-weapon ever developed by man. Computers had gone from “1+1=2″ to millions if not billions of calculations a second, with the simple “on/off” logic programmed to make money quickly and efficiently. Not to be outdone new “pseudo investments” like ETF’s, Futures, volatility indexes, and hundreds of things became available and because they could be so profitable greed and ignorance once again led the charge.

Push paper, create wealth, create investment, claim it’s worth something, and challenge anyone who says otherwise (Gee remember the Emperors New Clothes?) soon it begins to swell and the emotional rush to be part of this “great new wealth” turns into a plague amongst people. Pretty soon we begin to rationalize the absolute need, right and essential demand to make a fortune,…regardless of ethics, right and wrong, or ethics, fairness, reality or common sense.

Computers have been designed to be “soul less” executioners of numbers and orders, ethically and common sense devoid little black boxes just doing what they were ordered to do.

Guess what? They can keep it up, have a few “chips” replaced, a bigger storage area installed, a faster computational paradigm incorporated, but humans can’t!

Eventually someone slows down a bit and says “Wait a minute,…I can’t put volatility indexes in an envelope as my payment to American Express, or a “Financial SPYDR” in an envelope to Mastercard, or several ETF’s for my electric company, or ……..” Then the system does what it is currently doing. It begins to crash.

Unfortunately in the past 100 years we have become far to dependant on the Government to save us, and it from the inevitable, and as fast as we scrambled in the 80′s  with the Savings and Loan debacle, and the “High Tech” explosion of the 90′s, and the “Housing Boom” of the early 2000′s, we are fast running out of miracles and “new things”. The “financial penicillin shots” we been getting are not working any more.

What is the solution? I don’t know. But what I do know is as long as greed, lack of common sense and the mentality of “YOU OWE ME” is out there,…well,…we’re along way from getting better, regardless of who is President, House Majority or Minority leader, or head dishwasher at the local Mexican Restaurant.

-30-

“Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong. “     -Thomas Jefferson

As most of you know I had triple Bypass surgery two and a half years ago and that’s all doing much better,…..BUT I am slipping back into my old habits and watching the scale groan a little louder every time I step on it. Sometimes it’s response leaves me wanting to “stomp the s**T out of it”,..just for self satisfaction and then the little voices start with the old, “Well it is over two years old now and you know how prone equipment is to not be calibrated properly or work right after a year,…so go buy a new one it will probably show you weigh about ten or more pounds less than that old piece of junk you’re looking at now.” But that is a form of delusional thinking because the damn scale is right!

Much like the stockmarket ”trending” is a big part of health, and I’m saying I’m trying,….but I really think I may not be. Oh I’m not pigging out on ice cream, cookies, candy, soda and all the other “bad things” , but I most assuredly could be doing a lot better, but then there is me and my foibles, eccentricities, or just plain “pain in the a**” attitude!

….and then there is “the nectar of the Gods”,…beer and wine. I think that may, and I really mean may be part of the problem. All the books, all the science, and all the practical part of knowledge,…even discounting the tea-totaling, anti-drinking nazis,…alcohol converts into sugar…….SUGAR BAD!! One of the three white poisons, salt, sugar, and bleached flour. (But I do so love them all! Logical argument number one: Would God have made them that good tasting if they were that bad for us, afterall we know rat poison is bitter as is cyanide and other poisons, but how can a agreat big cake with layers of frosting and covered with globs of Ice Cream be suicidal?…sigh.)

There are only two beers with less alcohol in them that I know of than the one I drink now, that  Miller 64, and non-alchoholic beer. And same thing with wine. Ever see a low calorie wine? It’s a pure product, at least the really good wines are I used to make my own and it was wonderful  even if I say so myself. But back on point.

I have learned to eat salads, albeit not the “purist” salad preference, so slivered almonds, dried cranberries and blueberries, and occasionally raspberries, artificially flavored croutons of garlic and onion, …I mean just vegetables on a plate, and I really don’t care which ones, (well not true, but more in a minute on that subject), it is obscene. Sort of like slopping mud on a ’55 Corvette, or wiping your nose on your sleeve at the symphony, or (don’t gag on this one) making “mashed potatoes” out of cauliflower. (South Beach Diet actually has a recipe for it,…YUK!! Gag a maggot!)

And none of the books allow for “taste” in a salad, just freaking calorie numbers and grass like stuff. I also consider myself an Islamic Salad eater, in other words “there is but one green and iceberg is it’s name”. In my entire life, well up til about ten or twenty years ago that was the basis for salad, not this other “stuff” they call “greens” , and while we are on it spinach is green yes, but who ever decided raw spinach was a good ‘salad green’?  Boil it, a few drops of vinegar on it and it ain’t bad, but to just graze on it,….DUH!

But I’m ranting. So I try another approach, if you don’t eat and you exercise a lot your weight should decrease as your body burns the calories and that evil “fat” which hides everywhere on your body. But NOOooo! According to my local health nazis and the books if you don;t eat then your body says “Uh Oh we are being starved, conserve, shut down systems and minimize metabolism, save what we’ve got boys or we’re all gonna die!”

If God thought Chicken was the way to go then why did he make them so small and ugly and not majestic and powerful, exuding awesomeness like a cow? There has to be a finite number of ways you can make that little sucker, but I think his cruel joke was making more of them than we could possibly consume in three life times.  (Choice here, a big red sizzling juicy 2″ steak on the grill, or that pale whimpy looking chicken brest?)

I guess as we get older it is the other systems that start breaking down on us and limiting what we can ingest without paying big time for it, one way or the other (literally). I have a very difficult time raving over “non-descript” taste, like fish, plain old chicken (because obviously the herbs spices, marinades and other stuff that makes it taste better ”aren’t really good for you) The only fish I like is the Tuna that comes from a can. When we go out and I eat fish I am a really waiters nightmare. When I say “well done” on a fish I mean “WELL F*****G DONE!!  That’s totally dried out, nothing ”translucent” or slimy looking, you can coat it, you can color it, but God help you if when I put my fork to it and anything “leaks” or “oozes” out,…it’s going back to be COOKED!)

One would think I am a picky eater, but I’m not. If asked how something is and I don;t care for it the term used by me is “It’s ok” (translation; do you have an old sweaty sock I can chew on to get flavor?” And if you ever hear me raving about how really good something tastes and how flavorful it is, well pay attention this must be on the “Food Police’s” list of bad things for you. Fattening, artery clogging, “gas” creating, “may cause vomiting or other unwanted side effects”, just like our prescription labels say today as well.

Same damn thinking behind it, sometime the pleasure ain’t worth the pain.

Ever meet a totally well adjusted pleasant and have vegetarian?

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest before I go back to my twigs and berries for breakfast. (No wonder I don’t eat breakfast until 10 -10:30 in the morning, I have to work up the courage to do it!)

Now if I could get a semi-annual liposuction rate and get rid of about 25 lbs at each session,…well what’s wrong with that. I don’t mind watching my cholesterol, cutting back my sugar to nothing, not using salt on my stuff, eating “whole grain” breads,…but (sigh) I like beer, and wine.  And we all know you can’t just have one beer and enjoy an hour of two of good conversation with friends. I’ve always admired those folks who go to the three hour ”cocktail party” and don’t drink anything, wave off the h’or deurves smile and look like they are scared to death to get a drop of anything on their $500 blazer or tie.  A pair of shorts, a polo shirt and sandals and a comfy barstool, that’s what makes for conversation.

This week I have to go get blood work done for my semi-annual visit with my Doctor,…and I got a hunch I’m going to get the “high blood sugar” Yellow card, (hopefully not the Red card) but if that happens my hardest thing in life is going to be sitting in my favorite Pub sucking on an O’Douls non-alchoholic beer.

My Presidential Candidacy blog will be later this week after I eat a boatload of twigs and berries, afterall I exercise 6 days a week at the gym, walk my ass off, and really am sorta trying to be part of the program, ….but remember waterboarding was also a program !

“What is food to one man is bitteer poison to others. “    – Lucretius

“Most vegetarians look so much like the food they eat that they can be classified as cannibals.

- Finley Peter Dunne

-30-

So what do I do???

It’s not like I want to be a big bad biker dude, but years ago I had a Honda and loved the open road and the wind blowing in your face. After work each day I’d jump on and just go for a ride for a half hour or an hour and I was a new guy. It “blew all my worries away,…poof!”

Well I got a Harley Shirt, and if I don’t get to many folks rolling on the floor choking and laughing at me then I may do some “prowling” around here and see what’s available, afterall we can ride year round in Florida.

Speaking of strolling down memory lane,….My wife and I were generously flown up to our old stomping grounds by our daughter and her husband to visit for a week and see our grand-daughter. We had a ball. I got to go back to twenty-five yeas ago and roam around my favorite all time town, Portsmouth New Hampshire. Some things change others never change, but talk about funky contrasts.

For example I used to love cruising on the old Piscataqua River and in particular the little 50 foot tour boat. In fact I loved it so much I used to rent it year after year and take all my employees and their families out for a Sunday afternoon cruise, open bar, and snacks,…great memories, and then across the parking lot at the dock was one of out favorite Restaurants, “The Oar House” owned by dear friends Dick and Jill, and then across the other side of the parking lot a small shop called the “Ceres Street Wine Shop” that Dick started and when his girl friday bailed for a new job I had just sold one of my companies and had time so I took it over for him and managed it until he found a replacement. Lo and behold a mutual friend of both Dick and myself wanted to buy it so Dick sold it to him, and here we are 20 + years later and David is still running it, (and he immediately remembered me when I walked in the door!). Went to lunch at one of our old favorites, a cellar place called the “Brick Oven Pizza” where designer pizza’s started in the mid-80′s, and all named after local landmarks and characters, like another old friend Mayor Eileen Foley. It was her to a tee, “..made with extra sweet sauce and topped with sautéed spinach, mushrooms, carmelized onions and mozzarella cheese.” (Damn, just drooled on the keyboard,AGAIN!) Or how about “The Salt Pile”, named after the monster piles of slat at the docks for all the roads in the entire New Hanpshire, Maine and Massachusetts area. Brought in by huge cargo ships, piled at least a hundred feet high and waiting in mid – July for the first snowfall of November. Anyway it is a “white” pizza, no sauce “ loaded with garlic and topped with swiss, ricotta, romano and mozzarella cheese”.

Then just on a lark I said to my daughter. “Let’s run over to the Dolphin Striker, another fabulous restaurant we frequented, I want to see if my little plaque is still there.” Back in 1982-1984 I was the Chairman of the Portsmouth Maritime Heritage Committee and we strove to bring at least one international tall ship to the City each year, and the round of tours, diplomatic lunches, cocktail parties etc. It was really a fun thing. But my friend Peter, who owned the Dolphin Striker and the tavern below it called the Spring Hill Tavern, one evening called me to come with him after we finished eating dinner and we went down to the Tavern. Traditionally there were two booths at each end of the Tavern, each would seat at least twelve people. The “Capt’n's Booth at one end had a little 2″ x 4″ brass plaque with the name of each tall ship we brought in to the City and it’s Captain’s name and the date. At the other end was “The Directors Booth” this was one of the most sought after places in the Tavern as Peter, and ONLY Peter would periodically have the same small brass plaques placed on the booth and you were then a “Director”. Now Peter was a feisty old marine who lived life his way and there was no way anyone could get their name on there if the Lord High Owner, Peter said no. (And trust me there were many who would have killed to be on it but were never granted that privilege) but there I was my name on a little brass plaque dated 2-14-1984. It was still there. Since it was early afternoon there was only a bartender and two tourists at the bar and the bartender came over to see what this old loony and young woman were doing crawling around the Directors booth with a penlight. I turned and said I’m just looking to see if I am still here on the Board of Directors. His face lit up and he said, “Tom?”, I said yes, and come to find out he had been an old bartender friend from the twenty years ago as well.

Things I hate,…Yuppies on Segways ”touring” with those “smirks” as they wheel by looking down on everyone. And trendy little boutiques who are so proud of their merchandise the price is multi syllabic and you immediately think “Not on your life am I paying that for a shirt”, and Ice Cream shops who keep the ice cream at just above freezing so the minute they hand you the cone it starts melting all over your hand and face and inevitably the clothes,….regardless of how fast you eat it or try and keep up with the drips with the napkins.

Things I love,…..being able to go back in time to twenty years ago and finding so many great people and places are still the same great, friendly memorable and warm fuzzy feeling as they were back then. People whose lives you have crossed and they still recognize you and know you by name, twenty six years later,….New England Pubs with the widest range of local “craft beers” that all taste fantastic, ….the look of pain as the temperature hits 80 degrees there, and knowing where I live now the temp was 99 to 104 today.

Things that piss me off? Not many that are other than Politics and ignorant idiots,…but that’s for another day.

One last note. I mentioned Dick and Jill earlier, …my wife and I and another couple used to go with them and we all had seasons tickets to the Boston Symphony Orchestra and went every Tuesday evening, so needless to say a get together was in order. Well Dick passed away perhaps 15 years ago, and the other couple sold everything and bought a big RV and just roam around the North American Continent. But Jill and Barbara, my wife, and I got together on Sunday afternoon at a pub overlooking the old Cocheco River in Dover and had some wine and chatted, it’s like I told her not getting together for 15 years and despite all the time that went by it was like we just saw her yesterday,…well that’s what makes for good friends, it is not the time we see each other, but the quality of the time we have together that matters.

So truly, the old 67 is now the new 47,….and I love it!

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In the last few years as I “age out” I have become very captivated by Thomas Jefferson, the “bad boy” of American history. But you can go read all about that on google if you want, but let’s see what he had to say in the mid 1700′s which rings true today.

” If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” -Thomas Jefferson

Have we slowly fallen into that morass already perhaps? Logic may dictate that “Well someone has to do it. Look at how obese Americans have become, they don’t have any self-discipline anymore, everything is too easy to come by, and “Big Business” is exploiting that, so someone has to do it, why not the government?”

“Sure my Doctor would rather I take a specific drug or pharmaceutical that HE has more confidence in, that has withstood the scrutiny of the world and been amply tested,….but the insurance plan or medicare won’t cover it, and the prices I can’t afford.”

Maybe we have lost a majority of our personal discipline and will power, maybe we can’t think for ourselves, maybe we have made the decision to let others think for us because they constantly tell us we aren’t “sharp enough” to really understand it or make our own decisions. We reinforce that every week with all these dumb reality shows, and three judge panels whose expertise is far superior to ours so they decide and just like real life we are allowed a “token” call in vote but who really knows how or whom the tabulators really are and are there any checks and balances on the process?

Sure big business has a vested interest, just walk into any supermarket and wander down the aisles. Pretty soon it would be feasible to have restrictions on purchases of certain “restricted purchase right” items. after all how much would it cost to put a scale in the floor at the check out counter and imagine as you check out and the item is scanned a bell rings and a red light flashes and the check out clerk simply puts the object down a hole and you are denied because you have a body mass index based on your weight which exceeds the purchase level for that candy bar, and that sugar filled cola. (Pretty cool idea if I do say so myself) So when all is said and done you leave with the two tomatoes and head of lettuce, and that’s it. The twinkies, the ice cream, the big fat roast, the candy and the high calorie drinks and high sodium level products are all “down the hole” ,…but look on the bright side, you’ll at least be a little thinner next week and you will then buy four tomatoes and two heads of lettuce!

So why are all the check out lines full of, excuse the term, crap? All the candy is thee, the trashy mind anesthetic tabloid magazines, etc.? Guess someone knows how to make the money. Hell even I’m guilty sometimes. Getting a quart of skim fat free milk, low cal chocolate pudding and a head of lettuce and since there is someone in front of me, and it is getting close to the supper hour,…..well damn if that 3 Musketeers candy bar doesn’t just jump into my hand.

Now about the medication, I’ll make this short and sweet. My wife has Rheumatoid arthritis and as she gets older it bothers her more. Well her Doctor has recommended she take new “biologic” drug called Embrel. It is a “T-cell” blocker. (T-cells are that specific part of the immune system that fight off bugs, infection, etc.) Consequently a body is more prone to infection disease, etc., but the arthritis is much better. Well that is just the beginning!

She gets a package of four (4) self injectors which look like cigar tubes every month, they are live so they are delivered by Federal Express overnight in a styrofoam cooler with insulation, etc. etc. etc. Obviously they must be kept refrigerated, and every Friday she “shoots up” with one shot. Since it can’t “cure” arthritis it’s a ”forever” fix.

Oh, the cost you ask? How about $1875 a month. Yep, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS! Well as you already know I am far from “rolling in dough”, but have no fear the drug company to the rescue. Since her Doctor has recommended it they will underwrite all but $10 (that is TEN DOLLARS) a month of it,….until she reaches Medicare age (65) and she is 63 now so the next two years are covered, after that if Medicare won’t cover the cost she is screwed, or I have to get a new set of panty hose and start learning to disguise my voice and practice saying, “Just put the money in the bag and shut up or I’ll drop a dime on you to the IRS for fraud. They’ll make you life miserable for the rest of you r days,trust me”

And if, and I mean a BIG IF generics are the exact same thing, then tell me why Simvastatin, a generic cholesterol lowering medication is now getting warning labels yet Plavix, and Zocor, the mirror image “name brands” are not? I guess my feeble mind would have to say ,…”guess equal is not always equal”

Well so much for thought provokings from a single quote, let me know your comments.

Later this week how about we look at one of my other favorite all time quotes by Henry Ford, the inventor of the assembly line and the “Model T” Ford car. (Incidentally the only automaker who did not take money from the U.S. Government in this bailout fiasco and first to make a good and sizeable profit the good old way, hard work, cutbacks and attention to detail)

Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t,….you are right.”

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Anyway, season, summer time family vacations, are picking up, the idiots are all over the road. (If it’s tourist season how many can I bag?) Sorry, gut instinct, like finishing your beer!

Friend Sims, (sims) Where are you? Drop a line.

Well I’ve been putting it off major league, but last night before we packed it in my wife turned on that series “Hoarders” on the TV, gross, but the comment that my office (“the pit”) was fast becoming and “on-screen opportunity” was offensive and my feelings were hurt. So this morning I came upstairs and “objectively” looked around and tacitly agreed with her premise, and have vowed to work on the place this weekend. (Might need a large man and a small boy to haul the stuff to Goodwill!)

It’s my “stuff”, maybe because I was not from a wealthy  family and everything we have I bought and paid for and why not “hold on to it”. I mean really red and white plaid slacks will come back,…..eventually! But I have to agree I am a “techno-junkie” and if it is electronic and has come out in the last twenty years,….it’s in “the pit”,…..somewhere!

Well it’s not that bad, but I did register as a “seller” on e-Bay, as opposed to just a “buyer” (It’s a philosophical argument, “time to give back” sort of thing. It will take a couple days b ut anyone looking for an “original” Palm Pilot I, or the first “non-obese” Blackberry, or one of the very 1st Sprint EVO Droids (personally it sucks, if you are fifteen, addicted to facebook and twitter, maybe you’ll like it,.. I ran so freaking fast back to B’berry and then to Apple for the I-4 you would not believe, Guinness is still seeing if it is a world record.)

Plus the Computer “stuff”, three archive boxes of cables and connectors,…hell, my computer guru calls me when he needs a cable ….for other customers!

BUT, if you “live on your computer” for business or whatever,…check out Pandora. It is the best site in the world for music. I love basic “ambient” music as background when I’m working, like now, (well not really working but “soothing the savage beast” as they say) and you can chose just about any genre you want, and it randomly plays them. If you don’t like a selection you just click the thumbs down icon in the small window in the corner of the screen and you will NEVER hear that song, and most like it again. It’s part of what Pandora calls the “Human genome Project” (Could make a great suspense novel where the evil software firm is determining the deep music levels of it’s customers and planting subliminal subconscious thought in their minds and waiting for a level to call for a complete overthrow of the world governments and the automatic installation of “Ford” as the supreme leader.) The way the US is going it might already be time to flip the switch,…but that’s political BS and I’m not going there today,….tomorrow maybe, but not today.

Anyway, got to go get ready for dinner, have a glass of “water” (I understand  that is the stuff that comes from the kitchen faucet, sort of like the stuff that washes dishes, but “better” according to my wife,…..better than BEER!!!! No way!)

Have a great weekend and stay tuned for the next entry to this “compendium of deep philosophical thought and other trivial BS” written for the ages. God help the poor archeologist who recovers my hard drive and postulates I am “typical” of 21st century Homo Sapiens.

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“There is only one happiness in life,…to love and be loved.”   - George Sand

(sigh) Alas another time, another world,..(but I am personally still damn proud to have served my country. I figured it out, 7 1/2% of my entire life on earth so far was given freely to that cause,…and aside from my wife and parents there were very few who ever understood or even muttered a “thank you”.

That is the beauty of generations, they do learn, they can change, and they do evolve to a higher level. (They may lose a lot of common sense from time to time, they may not be as deeply rooted in a faith of a Higher authority, but it appears they love parenting, love sharing, and who knows they may just surprise us all and be a better generation than we were.

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“Youth is easily decieved because it is quick to hope. — Aristotle