McGuffin Online

What is wrong with our country?

I am not as good at prose as I would like to be, but hopefully I can convey a message that people will somewhat agree with.

Political debate has always been a needed element in our society. Without debate and compromise you cannot effectively run a nation. You especially cannot run a super power with 300 million people in it. I enjoy debate, I am rather good at it as well, I can understand the subtle nuances and deflections that occur in a debate fairly easily. Sometimes I will take the bait and then the debate goes in favor of my opponent. The idea of staying on subject and confusing the other is something that I still have not been able to master on a regular basis.

In the 80′s when Reagan was in office, a lot of policy was set, with one of the most liberal Speaker’s of the House. Government was not perfect, but it ran, with a lot of compromise. You had the leader of the Conservative party and the leader of the Liberals work together on policy that put us in a position to eliminate the Soviet Union’s threat, effectively ending the cold war. This was done through debate and compromise. I have learned that if one party is happy, the other is not, the best way to gauge if something is effective is if both parties sit there and agree on something, but neither of them are really happy about it. That is how you keep things in the middle, balanced, and in essence moving the government right along.
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Tags: politics as usual

Sad day in

San Diego… I had to wear socks today because the temperature had dropped to the high 50′s this morning.

Tags: cold, San Diego, socks

Spice it up: But How?

I am 38, going on 39 in three months. I am married, have a daughter and two little dogs. I am pretty much mr. home body. I enjoy watching my daughter in martial arts, in dance, at school, singing, playing. I enjoy the dogs sleeping and playing. I enjoy talking with my wife and watching her have fun as well. I am not mr. entertainment from what you would imagine.

How does one spice that up? How does one do something that nobody would imagine, what can one do that will enrich their life?

For me, it is easy. I laugh at other people. It truely makes my day when I can find a Strange News section, or a site with a really funny name, or even a site that you can send someone to check out… of the lemon party variety…. and wait in juvenial snickering until the person comes running back with an AHHHHHHHH!!!!
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Tags: Fuck You, Lemon Party, Yahoo

2011: The Addiction Must End

Ok, I just spat out the last plug that I took from 2010, literally with 7 seconds left on the clock before 2011 started.

I have had a love affair with Mint Skoal for probably 15 years. It started casually in 1996 at work, just using on my drive home from Cloud 9 Interactive. The 2 hour drive in traffic was horrendous and it gave me something to do while I literally went 10 mph on the freeway. It really kicked into high gear when I was in Jacksonville, I found that I could do it at my desk while working without anyone knowing. Then of course with my troll like status at my current office, nobody interacts with me, so hiding my addiction was very easy to do and also since others in the office were dipping as well, I was not a social pariah.

But I cannot continue this. I think the worst thing is that I don’t dislike it. I am addicted to it, but I am not sure if I am addicted to the act, or if I am addicted to the use of it. It confuses me. This really sucks since I know what it has done to my body, I know that it has ravaged my lungs. My voice has changed, my breath stinks, my body is not what it was and is not in the shape that it could be in.

I need to stop, for myself, for my family, for my life. I want to grow up and see my daughter get married, I want to sit there and bounce a little McGuffin on my knee and tell them stories of their grandfather as a child. I want to grow old and see the future. It is about living clean.

Maybe I will just start drinking.

Tags: Addiction, Cloud 9 Interactive, cold turkey, Jocelyn, Mint Skoal, Molly, Skoal

2011… huh?

1990, 2000, 2010… I like numbers like that…. numbers like 1993, 1997, 2003, 2007, 2011 look… weird… I mean at least 1991 has two 1′s and 2 9′s, 2001 had a movie named after it… 2011? I could not find anything in IMDB.. maybe there is a book called 2011? Yeah plenty of those.. but still.. looks strange.

This will be the first year since it turned 2007 that I had a full head of hair. I actually have a really full head of hair to say the least, I mean we are talking Afrolicious to say the least….
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Tags: 2011

San Francisco

I love San Francisco, if I had the money to live up here, I would move here in a heartbeat. The last four days have been amazing. I have enjoyed walking to Moscone Center, seeing the traffic, seeing the lights, the high buildings, the people. Everything about this place just makes me feel comfortable.

It is not just that the city seems to have things going on, it is a city filled with smart, cultured people. It reminds me of an image that I have created in my mind of what New York would be like, but on a much smaller scale. The people here can talk about anything, they have knowledge, I understand why things are a buzz here, I understand why 50 cents of every venture capitalist dollar is spent in California, specifically in the bay area. San Francisco is a wonderful city.
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Tags: Chicago, DreamForce, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Smart People

Tuesday: How I see it shaking out

Being someone with a lot of moderate tendencies with a strong liberal bias when it comes to social issues. I am not going to sit here and say that Tuesday is going to be a good day for the Democrats. I think this will actually be a good thing too. I have never been a big fan of the congress and the president being of the same ilk. Clinton did a great job when the Republicans swept into office. Bush tended to do well with a Democratic controlled congress.

Tuesday the senate will still remain with the Democrats, I just do not see enough seats changing hands. They will lose a few seats, but I still think the Democrats will have a slim majority. The house, that is another story, I think that will see a massive purge of Democrats, possibly in the 50 seat range. Some are saying 60ish, I think it will be more around 50.

Specific races:
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Tags: Barbara Boxer, Christine O'Donnell, congress, Conservatives, Democrats, Election, Fox News, Harry Reid, Jerry Brown, Kentucky, Liberals, Meg Whitman, Obama, Rand Paul, Republicans, Sharon Angel, Tuesday

Baumholder High School Reunion Day 2

After a week or so, I finally have gotten around to day 2.

Day 2 started out interestingly enough. I woke up feeling ill from obviously drinking way to much the night previously. I was up at I believe 730am, I was amazed that I had not thrown up, felt like it though, but I kept it down. Took a quick shower and was going out to find something to eat. Staggered downstairs, still feeling hung over and decided that I should find something to eat that was not going to cost me much. I decided, with great failure, to choose the breakfast buffet at TI. Yes, cheap it was not, $27 later I was sitting down with George and his fiance.
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Tags: Baumholder, Baumholder American High School, Darrell Nesbit, George Alsobrooks, Ken Shields, Reunion, Ron Lundy

4th grade

My little girl goes to her first day of 4th grade tomorrow morning. I am not sure if I am more excited, or if she is.

4th grade for me was Smith Elementary in Baumholder, Germany. My first teacher in Baumholder was an older lady, she reminded me a lot of Mrs. Garret from Facts of Life. Her name was Mrs. Howlett, in all honesty, she is really the first teacher that I remember a lot about. My third grade teacher in Incirlik, Ms. Snyder I vaguely remember, only because I learned Algebra under her and hated it. But Mrs. Howlett really had an affect on me.

I was a horrific student in elementary school. I mean they would hand out report cards based on your grades, if you did well you got your report card handed to you first. Without exception every year I would be getting my report card last. I did not care much about school obviously, but I did learn a lot of things. I absorbed information, i just did not know how to use it, which was my problem.

4th grade was also the year that I met my best friend in Mike Diclementi. We met while playing football down the hill from the school right next to a housing building. We were basically inseparable from that day forward. 4th grade was the year that I joined the Baumholder Bullets PeeWee soccer league. We went undefeated.
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Tags: 4th grade, Baumholder, Baumholder Bullets, Howlett, Mike Diclementi, Molly, Smith Elementary School, Wetzel

Where are all the moderates?

People want to be identified something. “Conservative”, “Independent”, “Progressive”, “Libertarian”, “Wiccan”, “Catholic”, “Methodist”.. you name it and there is a group out there for you. People love labels, they love labeling someone something and they love labeling themselves something. It is how we are made up, we want to be able to put people into little boxes and slap a stamp on them. That way we can discount what they say if we disagree with them, or we can say that is a great idea because we agree with them.

This is also why are country is so screwed up at the moment. I spent four amazing days two weeks ago at ComicCon, yes, you could label us as “Dorks”, “Nerds”, “Fanboys”, “Trekkies”, or what ever you want to. At the convention, we were all people, we enjoyed what we were around and had a good time. Last weekend I spent 4 days at my High School Reunion. I knew a lot of them would call themselves “Conservatives” and some of them were “Progressives” but all in all, we were “Baumholder Bucs” and we were people that had a good time with each other. In both cases, religion was never interjected, politics were not interjected, we were a group of individuals, enjoying ourselves.

I listen to the news and without a doubt you hear the term “Conservative” and depending on your flavor, it is either used in a negative or positive tone. The issue here is not the terminology, it is the fact that we have created buckets for people to discount others. Conservatives HATE Obama, Conservatives HATE anything that does not fit into the Conservative ideology which is pretty laid out and easy to follow. Progressives LOVE Obama. Progressives HATE anything that would even come close to being considered Conservative Ideology.
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Tags: Conservative, liberal, moderate, Politics, Progressive, USA