Man this labor day is cold.

I woke up this morning and the sun had failed to warm the day, Labor day and its not much above 50 degrees here in Central Ohio! I must admit I never bought into this global cooling stuff and here it is making me wish I had paid more attention. Just last year I took the family out and pulled them around the lake on a tube tied to my boat, it was at least 90 degrees out, this year with the global cooling its way too cold to get on the lake, let alone in the water!

Just last week it was 101 degrees and bam, this global cooling sets in and its half that temperature now. Talk about a contrast, from bright sun to cool and cloudy overnight. I have tried my best to fight global cooling, I use as much petroleum based fuels as possible, I drive a diesel truck as often as I can and we leave the lights on to help use as much coal as possible and still global cooling rises its ugly head. I was listening to the weather radio and it said the record high for today 102 back in 1954 so if thats not proof enough for you global cooling doubters i dont know what it would take to convince you, maybe someone could skew the data and that would do it.

Global cooling aside, the football season is coming up and soon it will be time to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers dominate the AFC again. Yeah there are those other teams ? such as the New English Pattycakes and the Indianapolis Lil' ponies and the Cleveland Brownstains but who cares about them anyway? Pittsburgh will rule this year, thats my story and I am sticking too it.

ed

Weddings, hurricanes and earthquakes !

Well, I traveled this week to Florida for my sisters wedding. We decided to drive down and save on the plane tickets, forget the fact that I hate flying anyway, we were to start our 987 mile trip no later than noon on Tuesday. Plans made are soon forgotten or just ignored, at least in my house. We left at 5 pm and drove to about 2 in the morning looking for a motel when the road came to a complete stop. It seems a semi truck hit a small truck and the semi burned to the ground, after a mind numbing 2 hour and 45 minute delay we were able to resume the trip, now known as the trip through hell and at that time of the morning there are no rooms to be had so we ended up stopping in a truck stop and closing our eyes for an hour until the sun burned through the windows and ushered us along our way.

We arrived in Orlando around 4 the next day, its all a blur as my mind was not functioning correctly then. We went into our room and everyone went to sleep, except me, I was still driving in my head watching the mile markers and trying to stay awake. It seems that after driving forever it takes the old gray matter a few hours to realize its no longer operating a vehicle.

The trip down had a lot of stress associated with it, we were heading down into the path of Hurricane Irene, at the time they were not certain if it was going to hit central Florida or not. There was also the matter of the earthquake, two happenings that had my wife talking about the end times again. I assured her that it most likely was going to be someones end times, but we will have no idea when the end times are happening so no need to worry about it as all we can do is be prepared each day for our personal end times.

Well after my sleeping most the following day we went to rehearsals for the wedding, a complete waste of time as far as I am concerned. I would assume everyone knows how to walk down the aisle and as I was chosen to read a scripture passage, the first reading of the mass, one which I have heard and read many sundays since childhood as I am Catholic and we have 3 scripture readings every mass, I knew I could handle it just fine.

The next day of the weding everything came off just fine, my neice and her man got married without a hitch. The only problem was had by lucky old me, somebody decided to slam bothe their front door and rear door into the side of my Ford escape and put a large dunder on each door. Some guys get all the luck. The wedding reception was beautiful as was my neice. She was beaming and danced all night with that youthful vigor that makes me wonder when I became so old.

Now as I am writing this we are approaching the deadline for the late checkout and I am waiting for my little missus to get out of the batroom so we can start the trip home. My neice and her husband are flying to Dubai for their homeymoon and life goes on for us. I only pray that everyone who is affected by Hurrican Irene has the same luck. So if you are a praying person say a prayer for my neice, her marriage as well as her trip and pray that the storm hurts no one, property can be repaired but life is fleeting.

ed

Never take your eyes off children near the water.

My mother, God rest her soul, used to always tell me "Never take yours eyes off of children when they are near water, not even for a second." I thought of this twice this week while watching the local news. The first time was when I read a story about a young couple who went kayaking on a swollen stream with their 18 month old baby. Their kayak tipped over and the baby, who was in a lifevest , although they admitted it was improperly secured, was swept away. They found the lifevest the first day and the childs body was found two days later. I know this was not an incident of taking your eyes off of children, rather a tragedy opportuned by recklessness, or perhaps just youthful ignorance. Either way its a terrible tragedy and the authorities are considering filing charges against the couple.

The second time I thought about my mothers words was this Sunday when on the news was the report of a young family who went camping along the banks of a central Ohio river and their two toddler boys wandered out of the tent and were swept away in the river. The body of one child was found and the search called off for the other child as the river is so high and the water fast, they feel the body may be in the turbulent waters of a nearby dam.

I am happy that I am not a judge, in a case such as the first I related here I would find it impossible to be impartial hearing the case. I would be heartbroken for the couple, but I would be predisposed to finding this couple guilty of neglect and child endangerment. I would never take a child, or my wife on a swollen river and not consider at any time not having a baby well secured in a proper floatation vest.

The second family I would look at it like a tragic accident and feel they had already been punished far worse than any human could deserve.

Remember, NEVER take your eyes off of a child near water ! The water can be a lake , a pool, a stream or river, its even dangerous for toddlers to be left alone near buckets of water, cleaning solutions, the bathtub and even the toilet.

It would be a blessing for anyone who would pray for these couples who lost their children, their lives are forever changed now. Ask Jesus to fulfill his promise from the Beatitudes, " Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." These people need comforting, please dear God help them in this their time of tragedy.

ed

Hey its a new record !!

I just noticed that if I post another blog entry for the month of may it will be a personal record for monthly output! This is a great achievement and should thrill the throngs of followers I have waiting for my next posting. Well maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, my followers number -4, do not ask me how you get a minus statistic in the category of followers, but I have it, trust me.

If someone actually left a comment, I would be so shocked I would think that I was a date in the Mayan calendar! I even invited friends and family to read my blog and none bothered to use the bandwidth to see what I have to say. I mean can I actually be that bad a writer, am I that uninteresting that no one on the entire internet would bother to read my output? I probably should have named my blog, Naked pictures here! then maybe I would get some comments like, "Wheres the naked pictures dude", and " No fair man, you said there was naked pictures here", and "False advertising you jerk!" it may not be much but at least I would not be so lonely.

Then again perhaps my offerings are so profound, so interesting and thought provoking that once read, people go away to a distant mountain top secluded from all distractions, to contemplate what they have just ingested and try to formulate their lives according to what they have read here.  They were probably so enraptured with what they gathered here that they lost all will to live amongst anything that would distract them form my message, then again, maybe not.

 On the odd chance that you happen upon my blog and see anything that you like, or maybe that entertains you, heck even if it annoys you leave a comment and tell me how you feel. Just FYI, I feel with my finfertips, it works for me.

ed

Rain, rain go away...

Working outdoors is an honorable profession. It is the staple of progress, building new structures, laying roads, clearing lands etc. are all undertakings of those who work outdoors. I am a coatings contractor, most of my work is exterior and this rain is killing me, even worse than the poor economy has been killing me. I use the term " killing me " not lightly, rather its an accurate description of the process that occurs when one is robbed of his livelihood by either an inept (hopefully) President or an occurence of nature such as this miserable rain we have endured for the past month here in central Ohio. For example, I get no exercise setting home and due to limited funds I wind up eating cheap fast foods, clogging up whatever remaining arterial pathways I have left to ferry needed blood to my various extremities.

Then there is the worry about how I am going to pay my bills, to provide for my family, to put food on the table, and the worry about how this is affecting their health. Worry is a killer by itself, I am a Catholic christian and I know I should trust in God and beleive that He will see me through these hard times, yet I think of how long it took his chosen people to be set free, and the years they spent wandering the desert and realize that I am not that patient. Thank you God for being merciful as I fail in every test that is set before me. I guess if were not to worry about such things I would, in my mind, be a bad parent afterall God gave me this family along with freewill and I choose to try to be the best parent/provider that I can be and this combo of economy and weather are just killing me.

Although there is a bright side, pretty soon the stress and the bad diet and my advancing age will catch up with me and I will die (hopefully) because if I get some protracted illness that costs me money or further burdens my family I would rather be dead. Nobody ever promised that life was fair and I have made many bad choices so I am not blaming God, I know its my fault and if I were God I would ignore my prayers too, although I would probably smite a few people in charge of things at this time.

I would look at the world and say, America is in awful shape financially and their President wants to spend $ 1.7 trillion dollars? smite time for you. There is a religion that is killing people who do not convert to their beliefs in how I should be worshipped knowing that I allow them freewill, smite time for all of you! There are dictators getting fat off of the produce of those who they rule while those very producers suffer from starvation, smite time. People are killing my creations through many avenues such as abortion of the yet born, wars and genocide, conversely the same thing, fools its smite time.

That is exactly why I am not God, by the time I finished smiting all the scum most of my creation would be , well, smited. I would smite those who buy fancy jewelry while there is still one person who wants for food or shelter, that would be the end of my people.

Perhaps its a good thing I am an exterior contractor, all I can do is smite my self and my family. So here I sit singing to myself , rain, rain go away, little eddie wants to work today, you see he has loads of bills to pay! , over and over again, reminiscent of Jack Nicholson in the movie The Shining. Its a good thing I do not have access to an axe......

ed

The loneliest blog on the internet.

I always believed if you are going to do something do it well! When I decided to write a blog I hoped for about 2.6 million followers waiting on pins and needles for the next ramblings to spurt forth from my troubled mind. Now as I realize that I am about the only one to read my blog, seriously, I believe I have a -4 in the follower column statistic I have come to embrace the fact that I have the worst blog on the entire internet!

That has to be worth something, if you think about it there are at least seventy kajillion users of the worldwide net, amazingly thats the same number that President Obama wants to spend in U.S. dollars in the next budget, but with that many people on the net and who knows for sure how many have had or currently do have blogs right now that means I am the best at being the worst blogger in the entire world.

Taken at face value this may not seem like much of an accomplishment, but in these days of less than stellar accomplishments being awarded,  I should get a four foot tall solid platinum gold plated trophy encrusted with precious gemstones. I mean if the loser baseball team gets a participation trophy for just losing, being the worst in the whole world is a rare and commendable feat only reachable by one person, and that person is me.

So eat your heart out all you entrepreneurs and sports figures who have reached the pinnacle of your chosen endeavors through hard work and dedication, hell I am the worst in the whole world and I only blog about once a month and put no real thought into what I am going to write until I set in front of the old puter and bring up this site. Hows that for talent, makes you wish you set back and took it easy, suckers.

ed

Going Fishing Tomorrow !!

Yup, I am going fishing tomorrow. I am taking the boat to the Inter Coastal waterway just out of Melbourne Fl. and I am getting some live shrimp and going to catch a boat load of fish and keep the good ones and kill them , cut them into fillets and feed my family. This is the manly way of getting a meal for the table. I wish I could say it was cheaper, even if you do not count the boat payments its still very pricey to go fishing.

If you discount the cost of gas pulling the boat over to the water, and forget about the cost of fish hooks, bait and license fees its still a bit dear. When you do a little Presidential budgetary fudging and do not include the cost of snacks such as coke and bottles of water and the ice for the cooler, it becomes a little more reasonable.


What sane fisherman would even consider the cost of fishing poles and fishing lines, they are a part of life such as the air one breaths to survive. Speaking of air, the air smells better on the water, even at low tide! There is nothing better than being out on the water, fishing pole in hand, your mind formulating theories on fish behavior and eating habits, the deep recesses of your mind considering tales such as the one that got away, and why the fish were not biting that day, just in case!

Let me see, Gas, snacks, tackle, bait, ramp fees, maybe a tad expensive, but not when compared to the excitement of pulling in a fish or the experience of being out on the water with a friend or family member and having a great time! Sure I could get a good meal with all the trimmings at Fred Slobster for about half the price of one fish I catch, but fishing engages my hunter gatherer nature and, dammit, its fun!

ed

What to write about?

I usually have so much to say so its odd I have no idea what to write about lately. I was going to write about tax time, but I have a sneaky feeling that has been well written about this time of year. I was also considering writing about some of my worries or needs, but who wants to hear of another problems, we all have plenty of our own to deal with. So I decided to write about nothing at all, perhaps my ramblings may amuse any who stumble on this blog by accident, I still have no followers, so it would have to be an accident.

Nothing to worry about, well not really but in comparison with what the Japanese people have been going through lately it sure puts my problems into perspective. I would like to ask anybody possibly reading this to take a minute and offer a prayer for those poor people affected by the disaster they have suffered. Talk about a one-two punch, earthquake/tsunami and then nuclear radiation poisoning the very water they drink and the air they breath! How much can one people take?

Nothing to lose, well definitely if you are talking money. I have been so hard pressed to find work as a contractor lately that I am basically unemployed, bills are piling up and getting later and later, at least I will not have to worry about my credit rating, I guess its as bad as it could possibly get right now. Again this does not really set me apart these days, I guess there are those who are even worse off than my family, although its hard to imagine. 

Nothing to complain about, yeah that's a joke. I have so much to complain about, this change we received as American citizens is nothing at all which I care for. being broke, losing hope, panicking every day over what I can do about it. At least I have not lost hope.

Hope is actually all I have left, one should never lose hope. What a sad thought, to lose hope. I hope the economy gets better, I hope my finances get better, I hope my family and I stays healthy. I hope we get a new President who seems interested in doing what is in the best interest of America and American citizens. I hope Japan gets some relief. I hope the war we illegally entered in with Libya sees a peaceful resolution. I hope the rest of the world can come to peace, I hope there is no more wars for U.S. troops, brave selfless heroes that they are, have to risk their lives to engage in. I hope our politicians would appreciate and follow The U.S. Constitution for the benefit of our country. I hope that none lose hope, hope is the spark of faith that leads men to greatness, to allow them the inspiration to acheive, the fuel which drives innovation. Hope is eternal, I heard this once and never paid it no heed, now I know what it means and happy that with all that has been taken from me in the past two years that at least no one can ever take hope from me. Hope is truly a gift from God, we should never lose hope.

ed

Heart attacks and other stuff.

I labor for a living and am self employed and like everyone else these days it has been tough. This year I have heard of many customers of mine who have died of a heart attack. Some were friends and others were decent people, none deserved to go so suddenly. Life is fleeting, yesterday I was a kid, today I am an old fart, tommorrow.....

What is really bothering me now is the amount of people who have seem to lost hope, hope in the country I call home, America. This is especially disturbing to me as I am above all a patriot and I beleive in the goodness of America and Americans in general. We are a collection of souls, of races and ideals, sure we may not always be perfect but who or what is. The worse part is that the youth are attacking America on grounds of past mistakes instead of focusing of the good we have done and the good we are capable of doing.

Look what America has brought to the world, the overwhelming majority of it has been good. We have had missteps and have stumbled along the way, but the way has been a light to the rest of the world. Perhaps it is our current President and his policy of apologizing for America that has influenced the youth here. Where was China's apology for human rights violations? For that matter where have been the apologies of any dictator run country's apology for anything they have done to either the world or their own people? In America you do not become disappeared for speaking out against the government.

These youth should be called the " Gullible Generation ". Its fitting for a group who has been taught what to think, not how to think, they are influenced by movie stars, athletes  and musicians, people who have in many cases not even completed basic education, yet their word is golden as they " have money and access to truths we do not " I actually heard this point several times. I heard on the radio the other day that there is much interest in George Clooney running for President, besides being a womanizer what other presidential qualities does he posess? Mr. Clooney said in an interview he was not interested, but then stated that if he did he would first admit to all his past mistakes and the female who interviewed him gushed how he would be an honest politician.

Having the " Indifferent Generation " replaced by the " Gullible Generation " for shaping the future of the country does leave me with much trepidation. I have faith in America, the idea of America and American values but I am teetering on the brink of panic over the youth I see these days and the nonsense they spout. I listen to Sean Hannity occasionally and he has a man on the street type of segment where his staff interviews young people on the street, 95% of them do not know anything about their leaders or their political views or policies, yet they voted for them.  They say ignorance is bliss, maybe to the ignorant but to any who are capable of rational thought, ignorance on this level is horrifying.

ed

New Years, again.

Wow, its a New Year, yippee. This is the time of the year one is supposed to aspire to begin new challenges, weight loss, career change, self improvement etc. I think it may be easier and maybe even more realistic to promise just to do the best you can at everything you do. No half hearted attempts at some grandiose lifestyle change, just do the best at what you you do regularly. Be the best parent you can be, do the best at your job whatever that is, try to be happy with what you do.

Do you think the world would be a far better place if we all just did what we do the best we can? I am not asking for anyone to settle for less than what the feel they can accomplish, just do what you do and do it well. When one gives their best at any undertaking, whether it is their job or sports or even video games they have the comfort of knowing that they did not settle for any less than they could personally muster. What else is there in life?

I am going to do my best this year to be the best at everything I do, I will not worry if I am the best at everything I do but as long as I put the effort forth to be the best that I can possibly be I will know deep inside that I have tried.

Good luck to all this New Year, be the best that you can be and you will not let yourself down.

ed