My Life

Playlists…

Leave a comment

Well…as you know, I joined the digital music age with the purchase of an 8 gig mp-3 player a couple of years ago…and I still marvel at the fact that I have my entire music collection stored on the thing and still have about 3 gigs of space left…all that for 79 bucks…oh, nope, not an Apple..it’s a Sony. But that’s not the topic that I wanted to deal with here, this hit me while I was out on the bike..the place that these things usually float into my consciousness…and that is the playlists I have on the player and how it appears that the lists reflect the mood I was in when I made them. That’s not the whole story, though, the other part is the name of these lists; I’ll bet mine are weirder than yours….well…some of them are…the others are kind of self-explanatory..

1. 4Way Street album two…had to make this one since WMP decided to break up the album into chunks…
2. 56 Miles….made this one for the 56 mile ride I did on my 56th birthday last year…
3. Led Zeppelin….pretty much what it says…
4. Lee Michaels….and obscure performer from the 60′s that was part of my growing up…
5. Mixed songs…the first one I made that was not one performer or group..
6. More other songs….just another mix but of second tier songs that didn’t make the first list…
7. More songs….this one was really done before the last one….but alphabetically, the machine put it here…
8. Mountain….another one group list by what I consider one of the best bands of the 70′s…
9. Newest one….I did this one after being in Chicago and getting a bunch of music from my daughter…
10. Obscure….started this one with some David Bowie and then went deep into some less known artists..
11. Others…was just bored and getting bored with the other lists so I made this new one…
12. Steely Dan….if you’ve been here before….you know how I feel about the Dan….

Without breaking them down to further the point…I’ll just give one example of the mood thing I talked about earlier…there are some of these lists that most of the songs are played in a minor key, what I call “lonely music” like “Doctor Wu” and “Black” by Pearl Jam, and I know that I favor this type of music when I’m at one of the low points that hit occasionally….

See…I told you I was trying to lower the outrage quotient some….but don’t let this fool you…it’s still there and bubbling and I know it will come out later today or tomorrow…

My Life

September 29th

Leave a comment

Well…did the Ada thing with Tom yesterday…it was okay to change up the schedule and it works out well for me since I have lunch with T today and it will be nice to not be rushed….and I think it is just too hard to get started before Tom…puts me at a disadvantage shooting pool…well…still win a lot but I just can’t go from 1 in the aft until after 6…just too much like work. Oh, I did win at pool but my Keno ticket was screwed up and I won’t know if I won until next week. Not a lot to do today, as always, but I think I have a couple of topics that I want to deal with but the ideas are still forming right now…and who knows, they may be pushed aside by something new in the newspapers…

So, that’s about it for now…more later….

My Life

Let’s lighten the mood a little…

Leave a comment

Well….I do recognize I’ve begun to slide back to a certain stridency that I have been trying to overcome for some time now…but I think there is a place for outrage and I’m going to keep some of it since people are just not paying attention to what is going on. But, right now…let’s take it down a notch, to borrow from Jon Stewart. I was going to issue a caterpillar alert from observations on the ride today but the density was just not there yet…only 18 per hundred feet when the acceptable national standard for an alert is 20. But, stay ready for tomorrow since the trend over the past week has been upward….should I include the graphs here? Probably not….

Oh, did the math wrong and, in the interest of accuracy, need to report that I haven’t equaled last years’ record of 1700 miles on the bike….about a hundred miles short as of today…but I do get to celebrate again later this week when I really get there so that is something to look forward to…and I know you are waiting and holding your breath for the milestone to be reached…don’t worry, I’ll let you know…you can go back to work now…more later…

Misc

Okay, a little outrage…

Leave a comment

Well…there is this cloud of things that are in my head that I’m going to try to make sense of in a kind of stream-of-consciousness post that I really don’t know will work. It strikes me as stunning the complete abdication of a large part of our society to the cause of the know nothings who are still advocating “going by the gut” and ignoring the math of income inequality; preferring to continue the attack on the census that they believe is a political tool and as such, is not to be believed. This was not the case when they were in power in congress for the last census..at that time it was your civic duty to fill it out accurately and the data derived from it were important tools for governance, but the ignorance of the current leaders on the right and their concerted effort to make ignorance a political litmus test has resulted in a new generation that facts don’t mean anything to. This is a breathtaking cynicism whose only purpose is to regain political power on the backs of their followers who wear their ignorance and bigotry as a proud badge of “real Americans”.

What this allows the right to do is to discount any poll, study, or even peer-reviewed research that doesn’t agree with their ideology and is manifest in the “belief” that any and all scientific theory has an opposite belief system that has just as much validity. I blame a lot of this nonsense with the strange propensity of modern media give time and space to the opposition of settled science…it would be the same if the righties started to question gravity as a construct of the left and have the media treat these nuts the same as true scientists. When I was growing up, stupid ideas were painted as stupid ideas and were never given the validity they get today in the guise of “fairness”; back then, the cause of the truth was paramount and people died for it…today the truth has lost it’s value and we are the worse for it….geez…

My Life

No outrage today…

Leave a comment

Well…I have really been trying to work up some outrage today but I’ve covered a lot of what is bugging me and I don’t want to be seen as a one dimensional writer..that’s not quite true….there are days when I AM one dimensional and if you’ve read any of these you’ve seen that. All I can do is try to make these interesting so you’ll come back….but I don’t write for that reason either…I really don’t know why I write other than I feel better when I do. I did submit a new one to the Washington Post today for the competition they are having to find the next great American pundit…don’t have any illusions that I’ll be selected but it did brighten my day some when I hit the submit button….

One thing that has been bouncing around in my head lately (or should I say again) is the fact that the huge world that I used to inhabit is steadily shrinking as time goes on. I used to have something to do every day; someone to hang out with every day…but lately that has been reduced to Mondays and Wednesdays and even those days are becoming intermittent. I know some of you that read this stuff are around my age…what do you do to keep the shrinkage at bay? There is a seductive component to spending more and more time alone..it allows the ultimate in freedom if you have no plans for a day, but it also makes it easier to allow yourself to fall deeper into the trap of being alone. I guess this whole bout of introspection was triggered by getting my hair cut this morning, looking into the mirror and seeing an old guy sitting there that I almost don’t recognize anymore…where did I go?

My Life

September 28th

Leave a comment

Well…it’s strange how 5 o’clock has a different feel than 6 or 8…the exterior noise from M-6 hasn’t ramped up to where it becomes overwhelming and the construction equipment hasn’t started beeping and banging yet. Stayed in last night since G had a long day at work and hasn’t been feeling well so she needed a night off…which was really okay since I saved some cash and rested the liver. Don’t know if I’m coming down with something but I have been really worn out over the past few days…It could be that I’m back in the cycle of not eating enough but I think part of it is still not getting enough good sleep…I can remember what sleep is like but can’t remember the last time I didn’t toss and turn all night….

Not much to do today…as always…I need to try to spread the few things that I have to do out longer than 6 am…more later…

Politics

Let’s blow up some myths…

Leave a comment

Well…an interesting article in the times this morning by Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economist, addressing the myth of structural unemployment in regards to the current recession. Before you righties start bitching that Krugman is liberal leaning so his ideas are not credible…let’s see your Nobel prize winner who disagrees with J. M. Keynes (hey, this could be the Keynes one that I promised you) and who has a credible history of being right…..ok, still waiting…..still waiting…yep, thought so…you don’t have one.

In an economy with structural employment driven by a lack of skills, you would have at least a few industries who would be running ads looking for workers; looking to expand but not being able to because of the shortage of skilled workers. But, that is not the case in this economy, there is no demand for labor since the demand for goods and services is not rising. No matter what their skill level. Can the right truly believe that an industrial worker trained in Kaizen, The Toyota Production System, or JIT, no longer has a use and that is why they are out of work. If that is the case, then the billions and billions of dollars spent on training and equipment for these programs by management was one of the greatest scams ever perpetrated on American industry. When did managing an American company change completely so that someone with a Masters degree in Management and 30 years in industry no longer is qualified to manage? The skill deficit of the American worker is a myth that needs to be exploded and not used by the right as an excuse to do nothing to get people back to work…but, that’s what they want…they don’t care about workers; only their rich buddies that can reward them with enough money to get re-elected so they can maintain their income redistribution scheme that will take 3.7 trillion dollars over 10 years from you and me and give it to the rich. That’s the first one…going to look at some news and come back for the others…

Okay…had lunch and wanted to get back to one other thing…the complete disdain that the right has for conventional economic thought that traces itself back to Reagan and his embrace of Arthur Laffer and his “Laffer curve theory” that cutting taxes will increase government revenue by stimulating growth in the economy. This kind of baloney has been discredited long ago by the CBO and other economic organizations and analysts that have shown that all the cuts did was to explode the deficit. Something that is conveniently forgotten, or deliberately forgotten so the right can pursue the radical agenda of giving away America to the rich. But the point I wanted to make was that while the repubs are railing against government intervention in the economy and discounting Keynesian theory, they propose an even larger government intervention by the continuation of the Bush tax cuts that would dwarf the 800 billion stimulus program of the Obama administration. Again, intellectual dishonesty disguised as cutting edge political thought…geez…

My Life

September 27th

Leave a comment

Well…it was an okay day yesterday…didn’t do too much…watched the Lions lose again and then out to Vinnies for a couple of beers with C…but took it easy so I feel okay today. It looks like kind of a boring week, again, but the weather looks like it’s going to be okay so I won’t have any days off from riding…oh, I did make it 1700 miles yesterday which is my record from last year and I have about 2 months to get to the goal of 2000 miles….might even make 2500 if I work at it but I’m not sure if I can do it..we’ll see. Yep, boring life, but you guys know that already….I’ll try to make it more interesting…but that takes money and I really don’t want to spend too much cash right now…I do want to go out today and find the new Neil Young album, though…so that is something to look forward to…more later…

I will have some topics for later today but you know I take Sundays off usually so I hope you’re not disappointed..

My Life

September 26th

Leave a comment

Well…the day didn’t work out as I expected yesterday…G didn’t feel well so I stayed home last night and just took it easy…got started pretty early today…got the slow cooker started at 6 am since I was up and bored…I may be going out to watch the Wings game later on but who knows? Not much else to do today…I might get a couple of posts out today but I’m not sure about it…I am just so disappointed with the political life in the US that I can’t muster up the energy to comment much right now…

The F1 race from Singapore is coming on tv in a few minutes so I’m gong to get a cup of coffee, read a little more online, and then settle in to watch the race….but the problem with F1 is that there is very little real racing or passing that goes on so it lends itself to doing other things while you just listen. I do want to take the bike out later this morning to burn of some of the caffeine but we’re getting to that time of the year where you have to wait for the temp to come up some…not going to wear gloves yet…more later…

What you never want to be….