Back To My Usual Ranting And Raving

I just learned that the Federal Trade Commission requires a warning in front of videos of model building and if this title screen is to be believed you can't watch the video if you are under 13. I just assumed it was another country but, nope, it's here. 13 was the age I was building models and I had a dad that bought me the safe model glue. 

Here's a link to the awesome submarine model build.  Go check it out unless you are 13 (just kidding definitely check it out if you are 13)

And here is the legislation that the nanny state is so proud of.  I get the feeling that not one kid has been saved from the evils of huffing by this stupid rule.  It looks like this one specific section is just part of the bigger regulation. COPPA

One Last Coronavirus Post For Now

I'm sure that everybody is tired of hearing about the Coronavirus but seeing as no one reads this blog I'm going to do one more.

Between 1998 and 1999 (literally, this happened over Christmas and New Years week) I came down with a flu.  I'm not sure if it was a seasonal flu or what, I just remember hearing the usual anecdotal stories about everyone catching it.

I was visiting my Mom and Dad and spent the next week immobilized in my old bedroom while Dad poked his head in occasionally to check on me.  Although, the condition I was in he could have just as easily sat right next to me and I never would have known.  I remember there was talk of going to an emergency room but I can't remember if I went or not and if I did it didn't help.  I think I was too sick to go.

One thing I do remember is that I have never been in such pain.  I've never experienced such a searing fever followed instantaneously by bone aching chills as I had that week.  It sounds very similar to the tales survivors of Coronavirus are telling now.  All I know is I don't want to experience that ever again.  In my 30's and in much better shape than I'm in now it was no joke.

Take this shit serious.

Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things

Turns out drinking Old Fashioneds and getting fired up about starting blogging again doesn't necessarily lead to actually blogging again.  I'm not really enthused about anything right now.  I think maybe writing about what's going may be interesting.  I'm not sure people want to hear about the Coronavirus but I've always looked at this blog like Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House On The Prairie books (at the risk of sounding pretentious).  I would like to think a historian would look at this in a hundred years and extract something useful about life in 2020.

I would say that the social distancing and self-quarantining hasn't been going on for a full month yet and already everywhere you look you can see the veneer of social self-discipline breaking down.  The governor of Colorado issued a statewide shelter in place order that just started yesterday morning.  I saw more people outside at the apartment complex than I've seen, well since I moved in.  I would attribute that to people who have already been cramped up for a month realizing that it could be another month or longer and finally needed some fresh air.  The one's that really annoy me are the people on Facebook and Twitter that start going on about the Constitution.  There are enough articles about what the Federal and state governments can and can't constitutionally do during national emergencies that I'll just let you Google it.  And God knows probably four or five years ago it's possible I would have been yammering like one of those self-appointed Constitutional lawyers myself.  The thing is, the other side of this take is the very annoying "Stay the F**k Home!" crowd.  They are just as omnipresent and in my mind just as scary.  As this goes on I feel like these people will take the policing of quarantine "breakers" into their own hands.  There was a video Michael Rapaport posted on Twitter that I wanted to share.  It was him slowly driving past a farmer's market in L.A. cussing out the people there for being outside.  It was creepy in a stalker fashion and this was before the mayor of L.A. put in the shelter in place order.  I'm not sure where farmer markets come down on the list of essential businesses but I'll guarantee super markets are more packed than that place was just judging by his video.  Anyway, I was going to share it but going back through his scuzzy timeline left me feeling like I needed a shower so I stopped looking.

I think the two extremes or just fringe groups though.  It seems like society is pulling together pretty well all things considered.  The results are varied, the CEO of Texas Roadhouse is suspending his own salary, Ford and other auto manufacturers are building parts for ventilators and private citizens are sewing masks.  That's good.  Celebrities with their hearts in the right place singing Imagine.  Not great.

I remain optimistic that the world will come out of this stronger than we went in.  Time will tell I guess.   

Love In The Time Of Coronavirus

Four long years.  It's been four long years since my last post.  A lot has happened since then.  My last post was about my father and how I miss him.

Now we are going through an unprecedented event that I've not seen in my lifetime.  And bare in mind that my lifetime has included the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of Soviet Communism and also 9/11.  I'm not here to go on at length about Coronavirus right now.  I have been wanting to restart writing on the blog for quit some time and for quite a few different reasons.  My divorce and boredom being two.  My ex-wife starting her own blog and my recent new found love of camping being two more.  And finally the last straw is probably the state of the world right now (and a few too many old fashioneds).  I'm going to try to get back into this blogging thing again.  Vloging isn't for me as I'm way too ugly for that but I'm hoping to include videos from time to time.

Oh and 4 years later I still miss my dad.

Memories

Is today the day my father passed away 2 years ago, or is it three?  I've always been bad on dates and times but the one thing that stays with me is his memory.  I've been thinking a lot about him lately but didn't put two and two together until my brother mentioned it.  I miss him.  He was a good dad.

The Lessons of 1912

This is why I'll never vote for either.  An article from the Weekly Standard.

The Lessons of 1912: With Donald Trump the presumptive nominee of the Republican party, conservatives face their biggest crisis in generations. Professional Republicans are mostly boarding the “Trump Train, convinced their self-interest requires party unity, but principled conservatives find the choice between the dissolute, erratic Trump and the liberal, corrupt Clinton unacceptable. What comes next for them?
This insurgency should field a candidate for the White House in 2016, which would require a leader to offer him or herself to the voters on the November ballot. Trump and Clinton are the most unpopular nominees in the history of polling, so why can't the people elect a fresh face or a trusted elder statesman over these unsavory characters? Moreover, the danger for down-ballot carnage with Trump as the nominee is substantial, and an independent may provide electoral cover for vulnerable conservative officeholders.

WOW!

So, nearly 3 years since the last post.  I haven't gone back to check what was on my mind.  I know I was probably in a dark place back then.  I've not been happy the last few years but some things have changed so I thought I'd check in.  I just did not want to turn this blog into a bitchfest.

I've been driving the wife's car with the XM Sirius radio so I'm on a musical renaissance the past few weeks.  I'm digging the crap out of B.B. King's Bluesville.  I'm listening to The Cannonball Adderly song "Mercy Mercy Mercy" which is some kind of miracle song.  It's deceptive in it's simplicity.  I'm no music scholar, I love AC/DC for crying out loud, but this song affects me on some crazy primal level.  You'll know the song when you here it.

On to Walter Trout and the radical's (their captilization, not mine) "The Best You Got".  It's a decent rocking blues tune.

Peter Wolf has always been a favorite of mine and he's aging gracefully.  I loved his album Restless and it appears looking at iTunes that he's had a few more since then.  The song "How Do You Know" seems to be off of his latest album.  It's pretty funny has a catchy beat and includes some goob-a-lator on it.

With a name like Guitar Slim you better bring it especially if you name your song after yourself.  On "Guitar Slim" he does (bring it that is).

More up my traditional alley, if you know my tastes, is "Blue Jean Blues" from ZZ Top.  I came late to ZZ Top, late being Tube Snake Boogie and LaGrange.  As I get older I appreciate that the current music isn't the only music (obviously because God knows I'm not listening to Justin Bieber) which leads me to ...

Dion.  Up until the other day I had no idea he was still around then I heard "Ride With You" off of his 2012 blues album.  I always loved "Run Around Sue" and "The Wanderer".  "The Wanderer" always seemed to be something more than a simple 50's pop/rock tune to me.

Then over on Willy Nelson's Outlaw Country I heard a fellow named Chris Knight.  The song "Jack Blue" sounds a lot like an old Steve Earle song back when I still enjoyed Steve Earle.  I know nothing of Chris Knight but the few songs I sampled on iTunes were pretty decent.

I also downloaded Ugly Kid Joe's "Everything About You" because why not?  And Uncle Ted's cover of Areosmith's "Ragdoll".  I know Ted has seemed to have lost his every lovin' mind the last few years but he's still the guy that brought the world the solo from "The Journey To The Center Of Your Mind".  Groovy.

And finally can someone tell me if Soundgarden and Rod Stewert pulled a U2 promotional stunt?  I have "Silent Night" from Rod and "Halfway There" from Soundgarden which I apparently downloaded on December 11th, 2012.  I have no recollection of where they came from.

The proceeding post has been brought to you by Jack Daniel's Fire, which tastes like sugar ass sweat but is irresistible.  Go figure.

Not Feeling It

So the Government has shut down.  Now what?  As some of you know I work for the G'mint.  I'm considered essential and what this means is if the budget thing isn't settled by the next pay period I'm working for an IOU from Uncle Sam.  That's reassuring.  I'm also not allowed to take leave which is convenient since we were leaving for Ohio this Saturday (or I should say we were leaving for Ohio).  Every day in every way I can't believe people want more government involvement in their lives.  And to the people that voted for Obama again, I would like to say thanks.