Friday, Saturday and Sunday
I know what you're thinking. "Why hasn't Stu updated his blog the past few days?" Well, it wasn't for lack of trying. The innarweb has been out here at the hotel since Friday afternoon sometime.
Friday- We got a late start but ended up in Lubbock by early afternoon. We went to the Silent Wings Museum (a museum dedicated to the gliders and glider pilots of WWII).
After that it was lunch at the Triple J Chophouse and Brew Company. Good food, good beer. Then it was off to the Buddy Holly Center and Museum. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed in the exhibit halls. Michael was a bit frustrated by that fact. Then we drove back to Canyon and rested our (read "my") weary feet.
Saturday- First stop: Walmart. "Huh, walmart?" Yes, Walmart... to buy spray paint. Because our second stop was the Cadillac Ranch. So we painted 4 cans worth of spray paint on just about each car there. This is the one attraction that literaly changes by the minute. You can spray something, move to the next car and then move back to the one you just did and someone else has gone over what you just did. So, after painting and picture taking we had to go back to the hotel because someone forgot the NPS Passport books.
Back on the road, we headed to Fritch. But stopped on the way to see the Ozymandias Legs.
North of Fritch is Lake Meredith and South of Fritch is Alibates National Monument. Lunch was picked up at Dairy Queen. The boys ate on the way back to Alibates and then Tab and I ate while waiting for the Park Ranger to arrive for our guided tour of the Flint Quarries. Once we got to the top, my feet were starting to swell up. Soooo, a nice-gingerly-walk back down and it was time for Tab to drop off a copy of Free Texas with the ranger to see about their carrying it at the gift/book store.
From there it was back to Amarillo and to the Panhandle Plains War Memorial and to Walmart. I had to get out of my boots so, I bought some flip-flops. We then drove down Route 66 a bit. We took some pictures and visited Seven Brothers Mercantile. It should have been called "Seven Brothers If-You-Can't-Find-It-Here-You-Won't-Find-It-Anywhere Junk Store." Geez, that place was hard to move around in. If Moiless Fontenot owned a store... it would have been this place. From there it was over to the Big Texan Steak Ranch, "home of the 72oz steak." I had high hopes. The place is famous, it looks really cool and the homemade bleu cheese dressing was awesome. I ordered the 36oz ribeye. I was not impressed. More to the point I was very, very unimpressed. I had to ask for A1... Unimpressed. The A1 was either watered down or some sort of homemade knockoff. Still unimpressed. I left there with a bad taste in my mouth, figuratively and literaly. Back to the hotel.
Sunday- Hey look! We've got internet. We're packing up and getting ready to head back to Nolanville. We should be home sometime between 1700-1900hrs. Depending of course upon how many stops we make.
Hebrews 1:14
Posted by Stu
at 9:04 AM CDT
What a Friggin Idiot...
The first appearance by a sitting president on "The Tonight Show" may well end up being the last.
President Obama, in his taping with Jay Leno Thursday afternoon, attempted to yuk it up with the funnyman, and ended up insulting the disabled.
Towards the end of his approximately 40-minute appearance, the president talked about how he's gotten better at bowling and has been practicing in the White House bowling alley.
He bowled a 129, the president said.
"That's very good, Mr. President," Leno said sarcastically.
It's "like the Special Olympics or something," the president said.
___________________________________________________________
Hey! Here's an idea!! Let's insult kids with disabilities!
What a friggin idiot. One more reason to absolutely hate this jackass of a president. As God is my witness, I simply cannot fathom how he was elected.
Posted by Stu
at 11:25 PM CDT
Updated: Thursday, 19 March 2009 11:28 PM CDT
Star Trek 90210
This is from John Nolte's blog:
What to resent more? The fact that they’re raping my childhood or that they’re forcing me to use the term, “raping my childhood?”
Here you have these larger-than-life, legendary characters to work with and what are they doing? Making the Starship Enterprise look like a casting session for “High School Musical: The Pouty Prom.”
The original “Star Trek” is iconic and timeless because of the characters. Yes, there was some great storytelling involved, but the best stories always involved the characters — those actors in those roles and the warm, real, complicated relationship that existed between them. No operatic nonsense, no hyper-effects, and no WB Channel-ing can tart its way through that.
And they’re messing with the mythology. In the first trailer, looking for Emo thrills, young Kirk expertly handles a sports car. But if you remember the episode, “A Piece of the Action,” Kirk can’t drive. (This matters) And how do you do Kirk without William Shatner? Shatner is Kirk. Kirk is Shatner. Why not just ask someone to do Rooster Cogburn or Will Kane or Jim Rockford or Fred Sanford? Not to take anything away from the creators, writers or directors, but iconic characters are the creation of the actor. And there’s a reason Shatner’s a legend. There’s a reason he’s been in four hit television shows, written a number of best sellers, and won two Emmys. He’s an honest to goodness star, and the people who laugh at him are generally those whose careers haven’t lasted a quarter as long as his.
To end on a positive note, I see Bruce Greenwood’s been cast as Christopher Pike. Greenwood’s a marvelous and under-appreciated actor.
Other than that, I got nothing.
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I completely agree with what John says.
On a different note I got my brand-spankin'-new National Geographic Photography Backpack today. Check it out.
Pretty friggin' sweet, huh?
Job 19:25
Posted by Stu
at 6:59 PM CDT
Gary Graham should run for office
The President is a great orator. That doesn’t make him a great leader. I know, I know - give him a chance. But if you were able to glimpse into the future and could glean important information, vital information that a nation’s leader was actually unknowingly leading his people over a cliff; wouldn’t you…want to tell someone about it?
I am no genius. I’m a pretty average, normal guy…but a guy who has been paying attention. I remember the past, as it helps me extrapolate into the future and make better decisions for myself and my family. Avoid the pitfalls. Swerve around the danger. I don’t doubt President Obama is a smart man, loves his family and truly wants what he considers to be the best for America.
But obviously, he hasn’t been paying attention.
The President said today, following up on his speech before the joint session of Congress: “…because we know that business, not government, is the engine of growth in this country. It is entrepreneurship and industry that are the well-springs of an economy that has been the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history.”
Huh? Did these words actually emanate from the mouth of one Barrack Obama today? One week after he signed a bill that evidences a completely opposite point of view? “Business, not government, is the engine of growth”?? Then why, may I ask, are we not letting business grow, instead of government?
Wow, I’m jolted into a major communication disconnect. Whiplash neck spasms in tag team Wrestlemania, C-6 and C-7 locked in a smackdown. Calls are going out to my chiropractor and my accountant, in that order.
The President’s words today sound awfully familiar; don’t they to you? The President almost sounded like …Ronald Reagan for a second. Almost sounds like his statement was cut-and-pasted from a previous Reagan speech. But after last light, RR must be rolling over in his grave. And President Bush doesn’t get a pass. As was pounded in last night, the Obama administration ‘inherited’ this deficit, this debt, this crisis. (Nevermind the whole Freddie Mac, Fanny Mae fiasco and the Democrat’s mishandling that lead to the mortgage meltdown…are you listening Dodd, Frank, and Pelosi?) President Bush acted like no Conservative I’ve ever known when he okay’ed the TARP legislation. And by the way…where is that $700B and why did it not accomplish what it was supposed to? So here’s a bent twist to syllogistic reasoning (If A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C): Now we have, If A equals B and B equals C, then O equals S, unless M doesn’t do what we want it to, and we have to tap G to T the R and then ZZ equals Top.
So problem solved — Let’s throw more money at the problem, smile and declare it a Success. I feel good now.
The truth is often found in the simplest of answers: Socialism does not work. Scream it from the rooftops to all the dumbed down voters who didn’t pay attention to world events the past 50 years.
But how does Obama’s Conservative words square with his recent actions? Does it sound to you like he truly believes that “business, not government, is the engine of growth in this country”? Oh, wait - I forgot to translate the statement. Sorry, my bad. I, being a formal college-indoctrinated liberal, actually speak fluent Lefty. And since you, the reader, deserve the truth, I shall now provide for you that valuable service.
“…business, not government, is the engine of growth in this country.” Translation: “Business is a slave of my newly re-imagined government. Yes, it is the engine, and yes I will have my hands firmly on the steering wheel, it will go when I stomp the accelerator and not before, and it will be fueled by the incredible debt I am now piling onto your future generations.”
And moving on to the rest: “…it is entrepreneurship and industry that are the well-springs of an economy that has been the greatest force of prosperity in human history”. Translation: While all that sounds really neat and noble and all that…what I really mean to do is shackle entrepreneurship and industry with carefully tightened regulation, restriction, taxation, marching orders, and constraints, forcing business and industry to produce products nobody wants to buy but that I think we really, really need to make, in order to save the planet for the children and for working families…until innovation is frustrated, incentive is exhausted, and once and for all, the beast that is Capitalism is sucked completely dry.”
Any questions?
I mean… What sort of flim-flam, talking-out-of-both-sides-of-his-mouth, snake-oil salesman, con artist are we dealing with here? And I thought Bill Clinton was slick!
And the sums involved! Can any of us actually contemplate how much a trillion dollars is? Sure, we say, flippantly - it’s a thousand billion. Big deal. But really, it’s a number so big, we can’t even picture it. Grains of sand on the beach, number of stars in the sky type of thing. A few hundred million we can maybe picture. But a trillion or two, or three? It ceases to hold any meaning to us.
So he’s able to slip that on to our tab. Megamyopia - it’s so big we can’t even see it.
But! Tell ya what I’m gonna do…come closer little lady, that’s right, step right up, here’s what I’m gonna do. If you act today, I am including in your purchase of Dr. Barry’s Magic Elixir Stimulus Package, an absolute free no-cost-to-you TAX REBATE! No, don’t look over there behind that curtain, look here, see, it’s MONEY! Free MONEY! Just don’t save any of it, SPEND IT NOW, hurry, run off and spend all of your fee money!
I got a headache.
There it is. To lighten the sting, to lessen the blow, we get a payoff. Tax breaks for everyone earning less than $250K. And why that arbitrary cutoff? Because the number of voters earning over 250K is so small as compared to those earning less. (The Dems play the numbers game dontcha know…but we mustn’t call it pandering, lest we be ‘haters’.)
So, even though, according to President Obama, “entrepreneurship and industry that are the well-springs” of the economy…we are going to punish achievers earning more than 250K with higher taxation. Everyone else gets a pass, in fact, “the checks are in the mail.” Now…not everyone in the upper income bracket is a heartless, shiftless and arrogant, extravagance-addled, cruel and selfish jerk. (Though you wouldn’t know it to listen to the class-warfare spewing mainstream media.)
Many of my good friends are quite affluent. They are decent people who work hard, love their families, live life with vigor and vitality and love America. Aren’t theirs ‘working families’ as well? Gary Sinise is a friend of mine. He earns, I’m guessing well over the $250K line. But his is a ‘working family’. He loves his wife, his kids, his country. Yet, he is in the earning class that is daily maligned by public sentiment as ‘rich guys’… ‘wealthy, greedy bastards’ who don’t care about the ‘little people’. So let’s get even with them. The party’s over, dudes…time to pony up. You wanna dance, ya gotta pay the band. Cough up, tightwad, The One told us you’re not paying enough (even though your relatively small group is paying well over 50% of the taxes) so it’s time to get out the checkbook. Because you ‘can afford it’.
And that’s another thing. How do we know what someone else ‘can afford’? And what business is it of ours anyway? Only the truly greedy and envious can make the claim that they know what somebody else can or cannot afford. Isn’t it ironic that those who decry the rich as ‘greedy’ …are they themselves the truly greedy; as it is they who covet something to which they have no rightful claim.
But back to my evil and greedy rich friend Gary Sinise. Nevermind the tremendous contributions he makes towards the Arts. Nevermind the community events he volunteers to organize each month. Nevermind the exhaustive effort, time and sacrifice Gary expends selflessly year-in and year-out flying to the Middle East to entertain and uplift our troops; the men and women who lay their lives on the line daily to preserve our freedoms. But…he achieved more than the average Joe, so he must be punished.
For the rest of us… Oh joy, we get money back! (Even though some will get checks who paid no taxes, maybe aren’t even legal citizens, but…are prospective Democrat voters, hint hint.) “The check’s are in the mail,” said the President last night. Hmmm…tempt millions of people with immediate gratification, even though we are going further and further into astronomical debt. Does this sound at all familiar? As in…the very thinking that lead to our economic catastrophe? There is another phrase for attempting to mollify people from looking too closely at your actions - Hush Money.
But oh we all feel good about it…because we’re doing it for ‘Working Families’, dontcha know. This is the new feelgood buzz word, replacing the former Lefty fave, ‘for the children’. If you are jamming it to the citizen taxpayer, (er, I mean asking the people for more patriotic sacrifice)…you can’t do any better than to do it ‘for the children and working families.’ Cue music, We Are The World. Pass the Kleenex box, please.
And since, sniff sniff, everything Bigger Government is doing to us is being done For the Children and Working Families, who can oppose it with impunity? What, do you want to be a child-abuser, a hater of families, a bigot, tightwad homophobe, misogynist, creepazoid from hell? Well…but I just wanted…to hang on to my business… Ha! You selfish bastard! Where’s your patriotism! Give peace a chance for the change and hope we need, you asshole!
Nope, we have to go along with this. And we have to feel good about it. (hey, buddy, at least use some K-Y, huh? Maybe slip on a Sinatra record first?)
It is now considered patriotic to celebrate our own evisceration.
Many a runaway train has been jammed into the tunnel of ‘crisis’. What has emerged from the other side has rarely been desirable, or even recognizable. I am disparaged constantly for being a ‘doom and gloomer’…a sour-grapes pessimist…a hater. “Give the man a chance, my god!” they scream at me. “It’s only been a month! Don’t you want us to succeed, don’t you want America to recover??”
Well…yes and no. I love America…just not the concept of America the Lefties envision. Ameroeurope holds no appeal to me. Nor does Ameranada. Or Amerexico. And Ameranistan is right out.
Every time I see Mr. Obama’s big charming smile I am reminded of the famous bump-and-run technique of an expert pickpocket. They casually bump into you (crisis), then quickly put hands on you asking if you’re all right (caring concern), then touching you further ask if you’re sure, they bumped you pretty hard (offer to make things better), then smile and quickly leave - with your watch and wallet (taxation).
But, the Stimulus Package is officially enacted. It’s done, it’s happened. We don’t get a do-over if God-forbid, this thing doesn’t work. If this old hackneyed Keynesian socialist experiment in futility doesn’t defy the historically consistent pattern of results that have thwarted collectivists since the beginning of time… if the arrogance of its invention is not charismatic enough to lift the mechanism of the physical universe from its hinges…and the President’s plan actually works? I will tear off my clothes and dance in the street. Because everything I know will be wrong. And I will be ready for the dudes in the white coats. Please take me to my padded cell, sirs, and be quick about it. Martinis and Zoloft and please turn the TV to either The WWF or CNN, makes no difference.
Reversing this rape that has begun on our nation will take ten generations to reverse - if it can be reversed at all. America as we knew it is gone. A memory. A story to tell our grandchildren.
I’d love to believe in this monstrous spending plan. But even if you dressed up a turd… it would still be a turd.
Posted by Stu
at 8:18 AM CST
