Crossing the Country

Well Door Dyke and Spouse A are almost across the country.  Moving into a new home and starting a new phase of their live.  They are finally moving into the house they bought a few years ago in anticipation of this day.  I am so happy for them, but we will miss them.  I have called every day they have been on the road, and been updated on their progress.  The biggest challenge was two cats in the back seat.  How does one travel with cats?  They had little tents that they stayed in while in the car, little litter boxes, little bowls of water.

They are almost there. 

Smarty Pants Girl

My little sister is moving to Chili.  One might ask why, well this is why.  I mean I do not understand one thing they say Professor Nancy researches.  I just know that I am very proud of her and am so excited about this new adventure she and Suzie No No are going on.

Of course I do look at it from a purely selfish view - a new place to visit!!!

Go and discover some new galaxy things and have fun!

Thinking or not?

In the current age of easy communication, some people either just forget they are in public or they are just stupid.  I was out to lunch yesterday with a friend from work.  We were sitting at a booth when a young man and his mother or grandmother sat at the booth next to us.

He pulled out his laptop and wireless card and got on line.  He then pulled out his cell phone and made a call to his credit card company.  How do I know this, I could hear his entire conversation.  There was a charge on his credit card for Geigo insurance, which he does not have.  This was the second charge from Geigo, he reported the first a couple of months ago.

Now, I'm sitting there thinking ok, at some point he is going to have to give his social security number, his address and his date of birth to someone at the other end of the phone.  And sure enough in a public place he rattles off this information without even lowering his voice.  I thought, how stupid, how really really stupid.  Here he is talking about suspected fraud on his credit card and he has now potentially given his most private info out to a roomful of strangers.  I could have had a recorder and recorded all this info.  I could have been a person that trolls places just waiting for someone to say something that I can use.  

Just remember, when using your cell phone in a public place, you are not alone.  You are not in your own home with a reasonable expectation of privacy.  You are talking to everyone in the room.

La La Land

It is a weird place.  There was the Accounting Firm of:

Kim, Chin and Lin - I think it is funny.

Then an only in LA moment - a big beautiful church with a sign on "Available for Filming"

Then there is my cab driver back to LAX.  On his right hand he had a thumb and two fingers.  One finger looked like two fingers had fused together, it was big and the knuckle was huge.  The remaining finger was kind of like half a finger.  I was mezmorized and stared at it on the wheel, stared at it while he honked the horn at the car in front of him the second the light turned green.  I will admit that Lobster Boy ran thru my head.

I was then perplexed by the astounding number of self storage places.  They are everywhere.  Makes me wonder how many are rented and then abandoned.  Think of all that stuff.  Who puts it in there?  Why?

Shut the fuck up!

Have you ever wanted to scream that at someone?  I was travelling today and when I went to catch my plane home at the gate they had one of those charging stations for cell phones.  There was a woman standing there charging her phone and talking on it.  She talked the entire time I was waiting for the plane (about an hour).  Then lucky me, she sat in the row behind me and talked until she had to turn off her phone.  Then as soon as we landed she was back on the phone.  Once we got off the plane we both headed to the bathroom, she talking the entire time.  She even kept talking while she was in the stall!  And to top it all off, she had a voice that sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

I wanted to run up to her and scream shut up, shut up, shut up!  Then I would take her fucking I-phone and throw it on the floor and jump on it.

Bonus Outrage?

AIG has given out millions in bonuses that they were legally obligated to pay out.  I'd like to know what kind of contract that is - we lose billions, but you still get your bonus - SWEET!!!

When I worked at a large law firm that traditionally gave out a "holiday" bonus decided to change the way they give out bonuses, they called the entire staff into the a conference room to tell us about it.  The managing partner stood up in front of the crowd telling us that the bonus this year was going to be given early, because they wanted to move it away from the holiday season, so we would be getting it the week before Thanksgiving this year.  The following year we would be getting our bonuses in March and that the way they were awared would also be changing.  They would no longer be a "given" they would be based on merit (what a concept), the harder and better you worked, the larger your bonus would be.

At this point he opened the floor for questions.  I still remember one woman (a secretary) stood up and actually said -

"Well, I certainly wished you had told us earlier that our bonuses would be based on merit, I might have worked harder."

I think at this point I actually thought could any statement be stupider?  Well, I think AIG saying they are "contractually obligated" to give out millions of dollars in bonuses to the same exact people that got them and us into this fucking mess certainly beats it.

I kind of think that the rest of us that live in the real world might have had our asses fired for losing our companies billions rather than getting a bonus.  It does also make me wonder if you get 3 million for leading your company into such a state, what would your bonus have been if the company had not fallen apart.

Cute

This afternoon on the way back from lunch, my friend Mary and I saw the cutest thing.  At first I thought i might be seeing things, but when she started laughing I knew I wasn't.

There was a old couple walking down the street, the man had his hand on the womans butt and was kind of rubbing it.  Two or three fingers doing a scratching motion on her butt.  It was really cute.