Cold Hearted Orracle

The local news is all a-buzz with the rising Red River. 1997 was catastrophic with the river hitting 37.1 feet. I think flood stage is something like 10 feet given the god-forsaken-flat-ass-barren land that it is surrounded by. With the rain this week, extra snow and fairly quick rise in temps to melt the snowbase, it is predicted to crest at or above 40 feet.

So now, we mobilize the National Guard. We close schools so kids can help sandbag. We all go into "caring and giving" mode to help those that are "victims". Are they really victims though?

A tornado? Hit or miss. Could be here or there. Might be big or small.

A blizzard? Hit or miss. Might be Southern, might be Northern. Might cause damage, might not.

An ice storm? Oh, hell - you get the idea.

A flood does not randomly drop itself unsuspectingly on people. It tends to follow the same path. In fact, the Red River Valley is a natural flood plain. It is designed to FLOOD!

Call it a "one in 100 years flood" if you want but it can happen every year....especially to a river that flows NORTH into still frozen waters.

I have the same (lack of) sympathy for those in New Orleans. Hurricanes will come again. You live at and/or below sea level. DON'T BUILD FRIGGIN HOUSES THERE.

Tragedies are sad. I do feel bad for people going though them. There is a demoitvator at www.despair.com that says "Quitters never win, winners never quit, but those who never win AND never quit are idiots!" Then again, there is a poster on that site that says, "BLOGGING: Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few."

Farewell from your heartless Orracle.

RSS - My "NEW" Obsession

I guess I have always spotted the RSS symbol and even knew what it was. I have not taken the time to use it until messing with sharepoint at work and getting issues logs setup for cross team use. RSS feeds are great because it takes the risk of apathetic people out of projects to a degree by bring the new information to them vs them having to take the time to look at it.

Now, I am obsessed. RSS is the coolest thing ever. It brings the internet to you.

I realize that me coming to realize this on March 19, 2009 is kind of like someone finally moving from VHS to DVD. I am loving this especially with the Outlook 2007 RSS functionality.

OK, geekiness be gone now. I just have to learn now if people can use RSS on my blog or if I have to physically add it to the page. Let's enjoy this much for now.

I Need Some New Websites....

My weblife has become routine, predictable and somewhat boring. I am in a rut! How many MILLION websites are there and I hit the same handful without any idea where to go next?

My Staples...

• Startribune.com or wcco.com for the local news
• Woot.com to see what the deal of the day is
• Facebook.com - many times a day for updates and to see who might be out there now only to be dissapointed that Al has not joined yet
• Yahoo mail - I get lots of travel emails there.
• Sirius.com (on workdays) to listen to Howard

Most of the time...

• USATODAY.com - I always like to see what McPaper has going on - especially the travel section
• CNN.com - no idea why - kind of a last resort to find something interesting
• videopoker.com - this goes in spurts like recently for the tournament that was held. I like this site - great videopoker. I pay the $5 a month to get access to all of the functionality
• EVERY SUNDAY - www.postsecret.blogspot.com - this is good but only once a week
• YouTube just to try to find something entertaining

That is about it! I might hit Tripadvisor.com when planning a trip but other than that, I can never think of where to go next.

I need for you, my readers to be the Viagra to my Weblife and spice it up for me! Show me what I have been missing (closed circuit to The Rube - I don't mean porn sites!!).

Old Money....You Don't Know Me!

An intriguing thing happened to someone I might know. This person, we'll call him "Spiffy", showed me a fistful of sequential, crisp, freshly printed-smelling old-style $20 bills. Innocent enough I guess.

These bills were from 1969.

Alegedly, Spiffy received them from a Wells Fargo cash machine.

Now, I have a few theories about the source of this old money. Let's just hope this guy is on the level and not some 2009 Bonnie and Clyde.

1) We'll go with his thoughts first. Someone found a stack in grandma's sewing machine and brought them to the bank. I guess that is possible but would they still have that freshly printed smell?

2) Maybe this is bailout money from the Feds. Could it be that the bank bailout money sent to the banks was just old cash that the Reserve had in the back corners of the warehouse?

3) Recently, I received some crisp, smelly $20 bills (legitimately of course) from a Wells Fargo machine but they were 1989. A mere 20 years old vs Spiffy's bills that are 40 years old. I am almost 40 and while I have not been circulated or washed, I don't smell very new. Perhaps Wells Fargo found them in an old Stagecoach somewhere and decided to put them into circulation.

4) Maybe Wachovia is the culprit. Wells Fargo after all did just acquire them. Perhaps Wachovia had the old money stashed.

5) Lastly, and I did not want to go here....maybe our guy Spiffy is up to no good.

Closed circuit to Spiffy....you don't know me when they strap you to the polygraph machine and make you explain yourself. Hopefully, you have spent them. Perhaps you'll finally get the flat screen you have been longing for. No matter what, get rid of those bills. I think they are highly suspect.

Making People Happy

I was listening to the cockpit to tower audio of the USAir flight that ditched in the Hudson today. Sully was so calm. I was pretty surprised at how he sounded. It reminded me of something that kind of made me think a week ago.

The passengers of flight 1549 wee given $5,000 immediately for personal belongings that were lost in the ditching of the aircraft. Then, they were given the highest elite status for a year. Now they are crying that it is not enough.

What in the hell do these people want? They survived. Why do they feel they need more than that? I think USAirways offered more than enough to cover their losses. I know that when I travel for business or even for pleasure when I have WAY too much crap along with me that the total value of our items probably does not exceed $5,000 for all four of us let alone 5K each.

If USAir was negligent in any way, I might see it a little different. Say someone forgot to fuel the plane. Maybe a pilot lands long and goes off the runway into the river. Different story to a degree.

Blame the geese. Blame anyone, but you cannot blame USAir. You should thank them for their generosity and for their highly trained staff of pilots and flight attendants that did absolutely everything correct to save every life on that plane. Some of these rubes did not even get wet!

It's probably pretty easy for me to sit here in my chair and judge them. I imagine it was a sickening feeling. I bet they were filling their drawers thinking of what was to come. You can't sue for soiled panties though. I am sure they will continue to push and some judge will conceed that they suffered or had hardship or some weak-ass excuse enough to give them many thousands more.

I think they have been compensated plentifully and most of that is in the form of life.

Lots On My Mind....But Nothing Big

I've had a ton of things on my mind lately but none big enough for their own post.

First off - the woman with octuplets. I know - Keep your laws off my body. But seriously - she has 6, lives at home and needs 8 more? I don't think it is a good situation for the kids. Her mom insists she is obsessed with having kids. Wow....I have 2 and feel like we cannot give them enough. Not just material things but time. She is a single parent. I guess I really only think in the long run she is short changing these kids' chances. Even the whack pack family that is always on TV with the 18 "J" kids...Jedediah, Jessie, Joshua, Jeez, etc - they are freaks too. China is not the answer with a 1 kid limit but maybe we need to draw the line at a dozen. In that family's defense, they are (supposedly) debt free and do take care of them although all the bonus freebies from being on the TV show sure did not hurt.

Next up - this frigging weather. I know this is closer to normal than we have been in a while but how many damn days do I have to see the temp in the range of -10 to +9? This is getting rediculous! Global warming....whatta joke! I see some old friends on Facebook living in Hawaii, Florida (hmmmm, both from Palisade...must have been some smart juice in the water up there). At least some of us had the sense to get out of this godforsaken land. I love my house. I love this town. When the kids are gone...all bets are off on whether we stay or not!

Lastly - Christian Bale. On one hand, I think this guy is a jackass. On the other - take out the references to "the set" or "Director of Photography" and this rant could be applied in ANY work setting. We all have our favorite people we work with that do nothing but get in the way and cause a distraction. A word to the millions of Orracle readers out there, this clip has a few F-bombs in it.



What a gem this guy is! You can hear his director even cowering at his feet. Who does he think he is?

I guess that is it. Here is hoping that we see some double digits sometime soon.

The Orracle

A Picture Perfect Story!

Today I had one of those truly amazing things happen to me. By amazing, I mean something that you could never predict and only see on those last minute "feel good" news stories they play as the newscast ends.

I went to work and before I could be properly motivated to dig in for the day, I decided to check my Facebook account. I saw something in my inbox from a person I do not know. Unlike other social networking sites, I have never received spam on Facebook from people trying to get me to go to their site so I felt it was OK to read and respond.

The e-mail said:

"hi Lyle, You dont know me but im trying to locate someone with you name who i beleive is a wedding dj/entertainer?? and that visited las vegas in 07... trying to contact a Mr lyle o urgently but not sure his full surname.Please let me know if this is youmany thanks alex"

I responded that I do have a DJ business and was in Vegas in November of 07.

He came back with:

"oh my god, Its taken me a while to track you down.....i found something that may belong to you...Did you lose anything on that trip? "

Well, yes we did! We lost a camera.

Once I said that, he actually called me on my cell phone. This gentleman has been looking for me for 14 months only by my first name and last initial. How many Lyle Os could there be? I think he emailed many of them. That clue was only possible because of a picture of me in my tux and name tag on while DJing a wedding. He originally took it to lost and found but when they told him if not claimed, it would be auctioned off, he felt that he could do better.

He said he had given up on the big search process but would think of other ways to search from time to time and this time he tried Facebook and thought I looked like the guy he remembered in the pictures that he saw back in '07.

This story would be amazing enough without the next fact. Alex lives in London, England. I guess the WWW has made this a smaller world for a task like this but still, it adds challenges (thanks Al Gore).

I want to say thank you to Alex L. You truly represent all that is good and honest and would fall into a very small percentage of people in this world and for that, I cannot thank you enough.

We cannot wait to get this camera back and relive the vacation. I am only hoping that the same will happen with the camera we lost at Disney in May 08!

The End Is Coming and I Could Not Be Happier!

At first glance, one might assume this will be my inauguation blog....how Obama won't change much, how it is a false sense of hope. No, I am gonna let that one cook. My benchmar has been set as I received my 401K statement for July 1-December 31 today and it was only down 30.1%. That is the benchmark I will use to evaluate change.

This post is about radio. Today, Clear Channel cut their workforce by 9% nationwide including some semi-popular talk show hosts and inconsequential jocks at Kool 108 and other stations. The fact that they cut from multiple stations in one town is part of the problem. Any given company should only be allowed one AM and one FM station in a market. But I digress.

This is not about the Chad Hartmans or Doogies or any other half-assed radio personality. The cuts came at WCCO, the juggernaut and at KSTP AM recently. You see, local commercial filled radio is dying. Talk still has some edge but the music side is REALLY dying.

Stations locally like KQRS which advertises "their vault of albums" only plays about .0029% of it. According to them, the Eagles only recorded Witchy Woman and Hotel California. Don't get me started on the copycat morning show idiots such as Tom Barnyard. I am pretty sure his following includes a long list of people without any other exposure to other forms of entertainment and they are convinced HE is it. HE...is a fraud along with every other yuckster on his show.

Yes, the end is coming. It is time for everyone to realize it and make the move to satellite radio. Want top 40 (repeated over and over)? Channel 1. Want 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s deep cuts (seriously deep cuts), alternative country, songs like the Rodeo Song (unedited)? Go to satellite. Want sports? They are all there. Want sports talk, left wing talk, right wing talk, CNN, MSNBC, Gay talk or Oprah (please don't say yes to Oprah Al) - it is there too. Want comedy, playboy talk, or the original, King of all Media Howard Stern? That is there too.

I cannot feel bad for the locals. As the conglomerates continued to buy up every station in every major market, the quality went exponentially downward. I won't even rent a car without satellite anymore.

Good bye Clear Channel, AM/FM inc and all of you other giant medium killers.
Rodger Wilcox....Over and Out.

My Wish For Washington 2009

I don't think any of us should ever be surprised at the continuous scandal and garbage that happens in Washington. I once heard the statistics of offenses, bankruptcy ocurrences and overall scum committed between the members of the House and Senate in DC and it was apalling. If I could make one wish for the new empire of people designated to "protect" us, it would be that they simply work a little harder on picking low hanging and seemingly more obvious fruit.

You may remember a while ago when I was going on at my disgust for the lengthy process of confirming the Sirius-XM Merger. Stern said this week that he even had to do depositions as did his security guard, Ronnie the Limo Driver. They went through their appointment and notebooks looking for clues to confirm that Stern and others were only planning to railroad the public people and buy short or some stupid stuff like that. It was a total witch hunt.

We also all remember one of our better presidents, Bill Clinton was found guilty of getting a hummer from Monica BlewClinsky. At what cost?

Yet while they were protecting us from the Sirius-XM merger and making sure our president got in trouble for having his pole smoked, Bernard Madoff ripped off tons of people and charities of $50 billion. Simultaneously, Tom Petter did the same to many in Minnesota and elsewhere also in a Ponzi scheme. The totals for Petter are not out yet but numbers in the billions are floating for his scheme as well. I am not a Rhode Scholar but I am pretty sure Ponzi is derrived from the latin for "Invisible to the people set out to protect us".

I met a guy on a flight that is a truck driver. He said he had to go through 7 types of testing and validation to haul hazardous materials. We're not talking Plutonium and TNT....just corrosives and your run of the mill HAZMAT stuff.

So maybe someone will get a clue in Washington or wherever these geniuses reside that make the rules we need to follow and police the system to protect us. Until then, my suggestion is to sell the waterbed and buy a good old-fashioned mattress to put your money under until the Ponzis and Wall Street shenanigans are over.

Happy New Year.....Finally!

Here we are with 2009. I'll say it again....FINALLY! I like the holidays. Ah, let me adjust, I like most things about the holidays. It comes down to gifts. It is not the financial "hit" you take.....that does not bother me. It is the simple act of going, finding, thinking and buying what you think is a good thing for person "X" but really they could do without. You know this because they get you the same thing. Not the same thing - but just another thing that is nice but you could do without.

I love buying the kids - mine and others tons of things. That is what I love most. For adults, I think it is time for our families to do the name drawing thing and buy one big gift for one person.....from a LIST! It would be so much simpler! We live in a day and age where for the most part, most people but what they want for themselves.

Hey, I **LIKE** that.

And then you go buy it.

Somehow we get through these holidays every year. Maybe someday we'll get to just do the get together....the dinner (I'll even cook again)....and just celebrate not being at work and watching the kids have fun. Don't buy me anything. I really don't need it anyway.

Happy New Year to everyone.

iCannot Stand the iPenetration into the iMarketplace

Ashlie wanted a new mp3 player. First stop, Best Buy. They carry Sansa and crapple. No Creative Zen. Sansas are not too bad but I see them on woot about 2x a week selling refurbs so I assume they have a high rate of defective units. Best Buy has a deal with Sansa and their eMusic site hence the reason they carry them.

We wanted a Creative because we have had several previous Creative models and have liked them alot! Plus, the Zen has an SD slot to expand the size of the storage. This way - we can buy a 4 GB and add an 8 GB SD card for $20 more. She can use that for the thousands of pictures she wants to put on her mp3 player without eating up all of the music space.

Our second stop was Ultimate Electronics. For those of you that are familiar with the Twin Cities, Ultimate Electronics is the new name (for the last 3-4 years) of the old local Audio King stores. They changed the name so people would assume they did not carry just audio products. UE is a nice store - and carries both low and high end. Their high end is better priced and better displayed than Best Buys Magnolia store within the Best Buy stores. All they carry is crapple!! I could not believe it!

This shopping happened on 12/22. Best Buy had an overflowing parking lot. UE had 5 cars. When the salesgeek said they only had crapple, I asked if he was aware that there is a large contingent of people out there that hate crapple. He said yes but they still decided to go with the single brand. Unable to hold back, I said, "And clearly the store is thriving!". His answer was that they had $40K in sales that day. OK....40K a few days before x-mas....in electronics? Best Buy did 40K in the Oakdale store between 5 PM and 7 PM and it was probably the 4th 40K of the day.

As we walked out, Jess reprimanded me for being an asshole to the salesgeek. "Why do you have to do that?"

The answer is....I don't know. I love to harasss salesgeeks. In Best Buy, I purposely go over to the cables area to listen to their pitches on why you need an $80, 6 foot HDMI cable and then tell their customers that the same cable is available online for $10. I get such personal enjoyment from this side of myself....but it is bad, I know. I have always been this way. In college, I'd go to Sam Goody just to ask why their CD prices were $4-6 higher.

In the end, we found the Creative 4 GB unit at Target. We bought two....one for Ashlie and I went back to get one for Jessa. They earned my business by carrying more than just crapple.

Freshly Blown, Flown and Poked!

Stormy sent me an email pointing out that the cruise has been over for a long time and insinuated that I have not posted much. She was right. In thinking about a title for this post, I think I nailed it!

Now before you all jump to conclusions, you better read on!

I had to go to Indiana last week one more time this year. That, believe it or not is NOT the flown part. It does have relevance to the story. Bored out of my mind, I went for a drive since I had a car this time by myself (usually we rent together which ties you down more). I found a casino named Indiana Live! Casino. It is actally more of a circus tent until their new, permanent building is done. Still, it was nice. I played some video poker and somewhere in the second $20, I hit a royal flush for $1000 followed by countless quads (four of a kinds). I left the machine up a ton and went to get a burger. Enroute, I played a dollar slot, something the Orracle rarely does and hit another $720.00.

I did proceed to spend back around $800.00 of my winnings playing dollar video poker which is something I have wanted to do but could not because of the steep $5 per play cost. I felt like a whale! I left up $1200 which was less than I could have but I had a great time so no regrets.

Upon getting back home, I decided to buy a snowblower. I have wanted one for 15 years and somehow end up not getting one. Nothing fancy - 2 stage, 6 HP, MTD brand....nice enough. Needless to say, I love it. I have used it 2 times. I think the neighbors are expecting me to blow the entire yard out eventually! I have a wide path for the mailman (even if he is an old, crotchety bastard), paths around every tree and shrubbery for the dogs to run on, and have blown out a major opening to every sidewalk and fire hydrant. I LOVE....that thing.

Then for Christmas, I received Flight Simulator X. I have not had FS since they still had the program on 3.5" disks and I loved it then. I can tell you that having not flown on FS in a long time, not reading many directions and jumping immediately into a 747, I have flown 4 flights and there have been NO survivors. I made it almost out of the metro on my last flight though- so I must be improving. I really need to buy a good joystick to handle the planes better.

Today, I slept in after staying up with the kids until almost 3. I love watching them have fun with their new games and other presents. I slept until 1, cooked a major breakfast complete with Vennie Sausage, eggs, hashbrowns and the secret onion/portabella concoction for over the egg. WOW! Other than that, I have been playing VP on video poker.com which is really fun and costs NOTHING compared to the real casinos which rarely offer up those beautiful royals like I found in Indianapolis!

That is it! I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I hope all is well with everyone as we close out the 2008 and move to 2009.

Closed circuit to Al - I ran into Stacy Voracek in the mall last week (she was Kirt's admin that Crazy Roger fired). She said to tell you hello and that she still listens to Charlie Robison!

Until next time,
The Ho Ho Horracle!

I'm Never Flying Air France Again!

Just a quickie from the ship since it is .55 per minute online. I was on checking email and bank accounts and thought I'd drop this quickie in.

So today we are at St. Maarten. Island is half French and half Dutch. The local airport is SXM. Search for it on YouTube and you will find amazing vids of large planes landing right over the little beach. There was no question that I had to see it. The plans are 100-150 feet over the beach as they land.

We hired a taxi for an island tour. Saw everything including some things we'd hoped not to on Orient Beach (partly a nude beach and not Hugh Hefner types either). The kids got to hold live urchins which was cool.

After visiting Marigot, the French side capital, we headed for the beach by the airport. We saw a 757 but knew that Air France had an A340 landing at 3:30 local time. Since we were nearly all the way around the island and only about 5 miles from the cruise port, leaving immediately after should not have been an issue. We watched the A340 skim out heads and blow our hats off and left.

1 mile down the road, we hit a dead stop. We sat there. And sat there. Finally, the cabbie (in a Cadillac Escalade) asked an approaching cab what the delay was.

"Accident on the hill."

We waited some more and then I asked for alternate routes since it was now 4 and "All aboard" was at 5. He decided to go back around the island the opposite way. Not a long way - but there is just one road. That road is two lanes. Bad Bad Bad.

We drove in a manner that if I had eaten anytime recently, it would have been on the floor of the Escalade. I was completely panicked since A) my bank account is getting low and B) our passports were on the ship as an oversight for the day's excursion.

We finally made it back to the ship to the jeering of the 1,000 or so people watching from the starboard side of the ship. We were scolded by the crew awaiting us, the last people to board. Another 5 minutes and we'd have been screwed and finding our own way to St. Thomas without passports.

Needless to say, several people tonight recognized us. The "but there was an accident on the hill" story did nothing to convince them.

I think tomorrow, we'll leave for the ship at about 1:00 for a 5:00 curtain call!

Talk to you all soon!
The Orracle - headed back to stateroom 1392 as we sail the Carribbean blue!

What is the Delta Between NWA and the New NWA?

Today was my first ever flight on Delta. I actually said to the attendant that checked our bags that it was my first flight on the "New NWA". She very quickly scolded me with "NOT EVEN CLOSE!". Apparently Delta employees are convinced they have a far superior product.

So how was my first experience? Not great.

The inbound flight from ATL was late. The pilot told us that there was a major headwind that made the inbound late but I know from watching the flight on www.flightaware.com that it simply left ATL late. Strike 1.

We made up a little time and had plenty of time for our connection. That is until we landed. No gates. We sat for over 1 hour on the tarmac waiting for a gate. I have never had the pilot open the door, shut off the engines and say "feel free to move about the cabin....we're on an active taxiway but we're not going anywhere soon". HOLY SHIT! He was not lying. The issue is that with it being a hub and so many flights terminating there with the holiday, there were no outbounds to open gates. The old addage, "A lack of planning on your part should not constitute an extra hour + on the tarmac for me!". Could someone not have figured this out before today? Strike 2.

We then hiked it through ATL to gate B30 like their website told my blackberry. Nope, that is Chicago bound. We needed gate A30. Long hike again, take a train, long hike again. No moving sidewalks, etc to get from a-z quicker at ATL. Strike 3.

Fortunately, the flight to San Juan also was late getting into the gate so despite the fact that we deplaned our first leg 10 minutes after the scheduled departure of our second, we made the flight. The gate attendant was telling everyone that wanted seats together that the back was oversold. I said I was elite and asked how many seats were open in first. She said 7. I offered our coach seats that were together for her to use for a family if we could get upgraded. She nearly bit my head off! Beeeotch! I am sure she hated life for working on Thanksgiving and having all of the flight issues piling up but I was trying to help. A polite "no" would have done OK. Strike 3 1/2 (1/2 point since we still made our flight).

Then, I had to force down a Diet Coke. Just a cup too....not a whole can like NWA gives. On a 3 1/2 hour flight, I think I can handle a can. Strike 4 1/2.

Lastly, for everyone in Minneapolis that posts comments about "Northworst" having dirty planes, bad service, etc. Delta was no cleaner. Same peanuts on the floor as NWA. I had rude service at the gate. The flight attendants did seem to work a little harder even after the beverage service. Still, you have to pay for everything extra on Delta which we were forced to do with no chance to eat between flights. The Delta movie was on old TVs that probably would have been more in-focus had I taken my contacts out. All in all, I don't see the angst against NWA. My flights are almost always on time. The planes are good and safe. I might not have a movie but whatever.

I know Al will have some constructive criticism. I don't mind the merger. I just hope I don't have to get routed through ATL for more flights after the merger is done. I don't see it as a happy place to travel through.

From humid San Juan....goodnight!

Catch You Later....

Well, this will be the end of posts for a short while assuming I have no connectivity on vacation. We leave Thursday for Puerto Rico. Staying there for a few days prior to embarking on the Adventure of the Seas. 7 days onboard with stops in Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten and St. Thomas. We arrive back in PR on 12/7 and will fly home on 12/8.

Hopefully I get some connectivity and can post a picture or 2 from our new camera (Canon Digital SLR - Rebel XS).

Until then, I'll be somewhere on here. The arrow points to our stateroom!

SAT Question of the Day

Alright - time to put your thinking caps on. This is your SAT question of the day. Educational AND informative!! No thanks are necessary, I am just here to serve you.

Here it goes.

Northwest Airlines is to Pepsi as Delta is to _____________.

Maybe that is a little too challenging. Let's add some visuals....

IS TO

As......

IS TO......

Yep! You heard it here first. Well, Al probably KNEW this was coming since he is a "Delta from Salt Lake City" guy. A flight attendant told the guy next to me this when he asked for a Diet Coke. I have to say, I am a Pepsi guy. I am dissapointed that I cannot get a Diet Pepsi for very much longer on NWA (now a part of Delta as the flight attendants say).

There could be an upside to this. Perhaps some of those old, jaded, crusty flight attendants on NWA will have a Coke (and finally) a smile!

Flatline....

All the last week plus, I have had items drifting into my mind that I wanted to post. Sitting in the deer stand (no, Al, I was not a Bambi Killer this year)...driving to and from my dad's....flying today to Richmond. And then....I sit here looking at a blank screen. I cannot remember anything.

What the hell is wrong with me? Certainly something must be bothering me. Something must have sparked my interest enough to post about it.

I KNOW there was something I wanted to post. I am pretty sure it had to do with something Al would relate to. But it is gone. Welcome to old age Lyle....oops, I revealed my true name....take 2....Welcome to old age Orracle.

I guess I will just move on. I will go to my meetings tomorrow. Perhaps then I will have that spark back to come to my room and post the post that everyone has been waiting for. Yep. It's coming. I can feel it.

Living Live! with Smokey!

Driving by myself usually results in diverse music in the CD player once the replays of Howard Stern on Sirius are done. Last week to go up hunting, I found all kinds of music in the player. Robert Earl Keen, Charlie Robison, Disney Theme Park music, Choral and lastly a couple of Rat Pack CDs. One is from the Sands hotel and the other from "The Summit" in Chicago supposedly tied to mob favors and elections.

Here is the least likely Rat Packer to get my nod, Sammy Davis, Jr. I read a book on the crew once that said it best and if I had read it first, I could have skipped the rest of all of the books I have read on the Rat Pack....

"Sammy wanted to be Frank, Frank wanted to be Dean and Dean just did not give a damn!"

Sammy had the most talent in the group hands down. I think this is true vocally as well in dance, performance and overal ability. Sammy could do impersonations, sang beautifully and could dance like few others.

Here is Sammy doing some impersonations in song. Fun stuff!

I Don't Know What To Think...

Throughout the campaign, I have had the feeling like neither candidate was worthy. Today, I made an unpopular choice. Yeah, that means I did not vote for Obama. I still don't know what this guy stands for.

He talks nice. He speaks well. He says the right things. His grandma died. He still told me nothing.

This may seem a little obvious, but I think this. It will either be the best thing to happen to America in a long time or the worst....no gray area here. If he can do what he eludes to in "change" and so many supporters think he can do as proven by the most financially rich campaign ever, it would be great.

As I gaze at the local and national crowds gathered to support, I saw some trends.

Young people. Why? They just want to buck the current status - no matter what it is and by that I mean even if Bush was not a dork and no matter if this country was not in the financial crapper, they would buck that system too.

Black people. Dancing, singing.....for a while, the scene was reminiscient of a House of Blues Gospell Brunch I went to in Vegas once (which sucked by the way).

Old people. (no comment)

Urban centers of people. This includes many of my categories above. I have news for you...America was built in the country - not in urban centers filled with college students and minorities.

The resounding image and theme is one that The Rube might be responsible for making me recognize. Largely....BUT NOT ENTIRELY...this group represents the lowest wages, people with the least to lose type of people. If Obama wants to tax the living hell out of us, it is US not THEM that take it in the shorts.

I found myself at odds with this crew. I am not rich but we do make a nice living. I do not relate myself with that crowd. I don't really want to support those that don't work. There is a resounding difference between don't and can't. If you are disabled as my father is, I will be the first to throw my tax money to you. That is a bit of a misstatement by me though as my dad, although a parapalegic, worked his ass off all of his life until retirement. He did NOT just take was was offered to him. Others, well - I think they see this time in our country as a time for entitlement to them.

I heard comments tonight on TV of groups of african-americans saying how this will change things for their kids. Perhaps. I hope they realize that Obama being president will not suddenly stop the gang bangers from gang banging, drive bys from killing others and illicit activity that plagues that community.

Let's hope these few things. A) Hussein is just bad luck in naming convention (geek speak) for him and not a sign of his true roots. B) the white minority does not really become a white minority C) he really is a true American despite his lack of flags on lapels and airplanes

Tonight was historic. Let's hope the historic is not just based on rhetoric.

My New Favorite Site(s)

Aside from my newfound enjoyment of finding old high school and college friends on Facebook thanks to Sabrina telling me I should try it, I have another new favorite website.


I have always liked aviation. I probably should have gone into it as a career. Even though I used to be scared to death as a child of flying, I love it. I think because of my fear, I immersed myself in it as much as possible. Using a scanner at the airport to watch planes and listen to the communication. Reading a blog of a former United captain. Understanding the elements of flight iteself.


I have long enjoyed looking at pictures on http://www.airliners.net/ When I am at the airport and I see a couple or a small group of people traveling together and they say their connecting gate, i.e. "F12", I find myself guessing where they are going and looking at the monitors to see how close I was. There is logic in this of course...time of day (dictates where remaining flights might be going), age, how they are dressed, etc. Of course, in the MSP terminal where I am so often, I kind of have figured out NWA (read: Delta) has arranged their gate patterns. Indianapolis mostly goes from the low C gates. Omaha, the low F gates (unless it is a CRJ or Embraer). West coast flights from the high Gs.


OK, not done with the story and just reread to this point. My geekiness is even scaring ME a little.


My new favorite site out of all of this is http://www.flightaware.com/ I find myself looking up all kinds of flights to see where they are, how much time they have left, etc. I look at airplanes going to busy places to see if they are doing loops to get in line for landing. On their home page, they have a time lapse quicktime of every flight over the US for 24 hours. I could watch it loop forever I think. The patters of east to west, flights incoming from Europe and then Europe bound is so neat to me. Quite possibly just to me.


Here are some images of my flight from Indy last night and then one from 10/9 from DTW to LGA with some holding circles in it. At least I think it is cool.

Detroit to LaGuardia with 2 loops to await congestion

Nice flight from Indianapolis to Minneapolis - had a great view of Chicago out my window and you can see why! Big turns going into MSP to come in from the west!