McGuffin Online

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

Baumholder High School Reunion Day 1

After a 4 hour drive from LA to Las Vegas, we checked into our room at Treasure Island and within 10 minutes I was downstairs at a place called Isla ordering a double Jack Straight up. Due to a problem with the register the lady only charged me for a single, so the day was starting out very well to say the least. Listened to stories about how the bartender dropped a nickel into her seat belt latch and could not get the seat belt to latch. Then ordered a second double. After more stories from the bartender I decided to go upstairs and relax a bit.

Got online catted around a bit, then got a call from Marie to come by her room and hang out. Met Marie finally, Jenny and Sheila, drank rum straight and then after 20 years, there was a knock on the door. The minute it opened up, I saw someone that I honestly recognized right off. Megan Fletcher walked in. Last time I saw Megan was outside of the bookstore in Baumholder, December 29, 1993. She looked almost the same, it was really nice to see her again. After talking with her for about an hour or so I headed back downstairs to meet up with another old friend.

Went downstairs and got together with Ivan Maxfield and his wife Kim. From there it was pretty much a blur. I remember seeing people Like Amy Mason, Ken Shields and a slew of others at Kahunaville, but names and faces were lost. Apparently, I am a hugger, I hugged everyone from what people have told me. I do recall leaving Kahunaville after the bartender told me that I had been cut off. I wandered around looking for the elevator that would take me to my floor. Somehow I ended up on I want to say the 32nd floor (My room was on 14), four guys in suits stopped me and asked me I was a guest on that floor. Since all of the rooms and hallways look alike I said yes and pointed down the hall to where I thought my room was.
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Tags: Baumholder, Drunk, Isla, Ivan Maxfield, Jocelyn, Joe McGuffin, Kahunaville, Ken Shields, Kim Maxfield, Las Vegas, Megan Fletcher, Security, Treasure Island

Best In Show – Comiccon 2010

Well best in show from my pics that I took. I have broken it up into 6 categories. First being the Booth Babe category, then hottest chick, followed by the ever popular Really you dressed like that?, followed by the WTF?!?! category, the final two categories being most creative and then overall Best. I chose a number of pics but boiled them down tot he top three in each category. So lets get on with it!
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Tags: Booth Babes, Comicon, Hot babes, Vader, WTF

Comiccon 2010 Preview Night

I must say that Preview night was nice, but I think the organizers could have handled it better. Three years ago when i went to preview night, I got my registration and walked into the convention hall and was able to do what I needed. This year after getting my pass, along with my daughter, I got corralled into this massive line that literally encompassed the entire outer rim of the upper level. I had to go down this huge hall and sit and wait for twenty minutes, move 6 feet then wait another 15, then slowly but surely we followed a path all the way back to where the registration area was before we were ushered towards the escalators to the main convention floor. Why this was needed was beyond me. It cut into our time at the preview night tremendously and did nothing but irritate the fuck out of me.

Once on the floor we searched out the TokiDoki booth and bought some stuff for Molly and also for Jocelyn. I headed over to the COH booth and got my Ghoul card and then wandered around the rest of the convention floor as time was passing by too quickly. Molly and I left shortly after that.
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Tags: 2010, Brent Spiner, City of Heroes, COH, Comiccon, Jocelyn, Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, Molly, Preview Night, SDCC, Star Trek, Tokidoki

My .02 cents on Lebron

Ok, I will preface this by saying that I work for One Reverse Mortgage, a Quicken Loans Company. Yes, the same Quicken Loans that is owned by Dan Gilbert, who also owns the Cleveland Cavaliers.

I do not know Dan Gilbert personally, I have met him a grand total of one time while he was out here in San Diego a year or so ago. He talked to me directly, seemed like a really nice guy. He had a charisma about him that I would assume billionaires would have. After his “letter” yesterday after Lebron decided to trash the city of Cleveland in a prime time hour long train wreck. I have gained much more respect for the man. I am proud to work for someone that has the fire and the passion that he exhibited in the “letter.” I am use to the comic sans emails that he sends out every now and then to the family of companies, he is a solid motivational writer and I must admit, I have drank the Kool Aid. I am fired up by it. It almost makes me want to shed the Clipper fan moniker and jump over to be a Cavs fan.

What was Lebron thinking? Actually, what was anyone thinking in regards to this live one hour special? ESPN loved it, they were not going to get much bad press (even though they basically mortgaged their credibility) over it. This was all going to be on Lebron and his marketing group. How can one of the most likable guys in the NBA fall so flat on his face. He fell so hard that his face went through the ground and he buried himself. This had nothing but bad written all over it.
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Tags: Cleveland, Dan Gilbert, Dwayne Wade, Junior Seau, Lebron James, Miami, One Reverse Mortgage, Quicken Loans, San Diego

Jun 28

2.9 miles
550 calories
334 lbs

Jun 27

740 cal
3.4 miles
238 lbs

We are… USA

It is no secret that I love South Korea. There is no secret that I follow South Korean sports internationally. But I am an American through and through. After watching the Landon Donovan reaction video below, it just shows you that no matter where you are, no matter what your background is, Americans stand by one another, when it comes to the red, white and blue, national pride is probably why the rest of the world hates us. Sometimes we can be arrogant, I can attest to that, but sometimes like in the video above, it just shows you that we care about the stars and stripes and this great country.

As I write this, Ghana is up 1:0, but I know, we’ll be back. USA, USA, USA, USA!

Enjoy the video
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Tags: South Korea, USA USA USA, World Cup

Whitman : I just can’t vote for her

Over the last 6-8 weeks I have wrestled with whom I would vote for today. It really came down to Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman on the Republican side of things. These were the two most viable candidates being forced down our throats on the Republican ticket.

On one side, you have the former eBay CEO and the other side is another multi millionaire. Both are using a huge amount of their own money to campaign, and I mean an obscene amount of money to possibly become the Golden States next Governor. I am not even joking in regards to how much of their own money we are talking about. I think Whitman spent like 70+ million of her own money and Poizner something a little less than that. That is obscene and almost makes me want to vomit right there. I mean really, who would spend that amount of money to take a public service job, unless they know for a fact that they will recoup that amount of money and even more in the long run. That right there makes me highly suspicious.

These two have been going at each other almost non stop, trying basically to out Conservative each other, when in fact they are both fairly moderate. This turns me off as well. Why not just go out and say, hey, I am a moderate, I am not some right wing lunatic? No, both of them are grabbing on to the reigns of being a “conservative” and that makes me sick as well. We do not need conservatives, me need moderates, we need people that will reach across the aisle and make compromises. Conservatives will not do it, nor will Liberals. We do not NEED more gridlock, the California government is almost as bad as the 405 freeway at the peak of rush hour right now. By filling our government with more people on the opposite ends of the spectrum, the less and less will get done. So already, there are two strikes against both of the candidates.
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Tags: Al Gore, Boxer, No Vote, Poizner, Vote, Whitman