Posted 22:22 by Grote 0 comments

Random Thought #234054

I was in the Super Wal-Mart near my new home today, with some friends of mine, and I noticed that they were selling the "We support our troops" magnet that you can buy and put on your car. I got to thinking, isn't this technically war profiteering? Now, don't get me wrong, I support our troops whenever I can. I donate items to soldiers' CARE packages and don't wish them any ill-will because they're protecting our freedoms. Here are companies (I know there are more than one) that sell these things that pull at our patriotic heart-strings to make a buck. Now, I would probably buy one if some or all of the proceeds went to needy military families but, I doubt it. These companies are making money because of the war and not helping the war effort (obviously some companies like Boeing and our armament manufacturers are making money as well, but it's helping the effort by giving our soldiers planes and bullets). It's just wrong.

Rant over. I close on the house on Tuesday at Ten A.M.

Posted 09:04 by Grote 0 comments

Changes

I'm proud to announce that not only am I moving to a new house, but I'm also adding my good friend Mike Addison to my little blog. If you recall, I helped move him out to Connecticut last month. Anyway, since he's near New York City, and other cool places, I suggested that it would be a cool way for him to keep us updated on what's going on. So let's give other Mike a big welcome (We'll figure out how to differentiate us in posts and e-mail).

Also, sometime after I move I'm going to redesign the title page a bit. I've had it for a while and it needs some work. So keep checking back for the changes!

Posted 17:21 by Grote 0 comments

Good Lord...

I've been mentally exhausted before, but never this exhausted. Buying a home is a *lot* of work. Trying to arrange insurance (especially flood insurance because I live in a flood plane, even though I'd need an ark before the waters would get to my house), going through inspections, meeting with the bank, over and over. Thankfully, I'm in the home stretch before closing, just a few things the sellers need to fix and we should be all through. Thankfully, also, I shouldn't have to go through this for the next 5-10 years at the very least. I'll keep my loyal readers posted, up until the day I move. ;)

Posted 15:48 by Grote 0 comments

WAHOOO!

Well, I'm buying a house. Or at least moving towards buying a house. They've accepted my offer and now we've got to do inspections and then close. Hopefully it won't take too long. I'm hoping to begin moving into my new house by early December. I haven't sent out a mass e-mail yet, because it isn't for certain, but the way I look at it is, if you take the time to check my blog you get "scoop" rights. At least until I know when closing date is. I'll keep you posted.

Posted 15:24 by Grote 0 comments

I can admit when I'm wrong

Last night at about 7:00pm I gave my good friend Jim Spurrier, blogger of Strange Interlude and predicted a 50 electoral vote Kerry victory. I was going on the enormous turn out, which usually dictates that the incumbent is doomed. I even voted for Kerry, I wasn't happy with Bush, the handling of Iraq, the lack of fiscal responsibility, this dumb defense of marriage amendment (which passed in all 11 states that it was on the ballot).

Let me jump off track, for a second. I voted against the amendment in Ohio, and while it still passed, I have no huge issues with it. The people have spoken, and while I feel they are wrong. The law is the law. However, rather than have a National Amendment, I think this should be a STATE decision. If California wants to recognize it, that's up to California, but Ohio should also be allowed to not recognize it.

I think Kerry lost because he didn't show that he was that different than Bush. Everyone knew that we were going to stay the course, at least generally. Kerry's double speak didn't help in the long run (I voted for, before I voted against, et al). I believe Bush won because people knew where he stood I things, regardless whether or not they agreed with him.

Now let me address a couple things that fear mongers are spreading. First, there is NOT going to be a draft. The pentagon doesn't want it, it's political suicide for the party, and anyone in Congress who votes for said measure. Second, Bush will probably appoint one or two SCOTUS justices. But I doubt they'll be the neo-cons everyone is panicking about. Remember you need a 60 vote count to break a filibuster in the Senate. That means 5 Democrats and all of the Republicans (including moderates like McCain) need to vote to break the filibuster.

In closing, 3 years from now is going to be reall exciting. For the first time in almost 60 years we will not have the incumbent or his Vice President running for the Presidency. So we'll have a whole new cast of characters on the national scene. Neat. However, I'm thankful that it's over. I wanted a clean election (check), a clear winner(most likely check) and a change in the oval office (not so much).

Although, we will have four more years wondering if the curse is really broken. Attn Secret Service: Not a threat, just saying.

Posted 20:51 by Grote 0 comments

There and back again

This past weekend I helped my good friend Mike Addison move from Bowling Green, Ohio to Stamford, Connecticut. So, Mike made a small detour Friday night and then we left Dayton for an 11 and half hour journey. I made notes in my trusty notebook (and of the flight back) so, let's ignore this presidential mess for a couple days and Wednesday, I'll break down why they're suing each other again. God, I hope I'm wrong about that last statement.

Saturday, October 30th 2004
8:40 am We're on the road.

9:06 I've driven this road (I-70) many a time between here and Columbus visiting family. God this road is boring. Nothing but farms. Although, in hindsight this is nothing of what is to come.

9:43 We enter Columbus city limits. Making good time.

10:25 We're listening to Tenacious D in the CD player. I got to say "Tribute" isn't the greatest song in the world, but it's pretty damn good.

10:38 Outside of Columbus, on I-71 the only road signs we see are for Cleveland and for various State and U.S. routes. Wow, all of the sudden I-70 seems down right exciting.

10:48 We pass a sign that reads "Ashland, OH. World Headquarters for nice people." No, I didn't make that up. Now we know where nice people come from.

11:00-12:30 pm I guess now would be a good time to mention that I had originally planned to list when and what CDs we were listening to, but I decided that would be too detailed but since there's really nothing to write about here's what we listened to in order:

"Get Symphonic with the Simpsons"
"Blues Brothers Original Soundtrack"
"Tenacious D"
"Empire Strikes Back Soundtrack Disk 1"
"Lock n Load -- Dennis Leary"
"Blues Brothers 2000 Sountrack"
after then I stopped writing what we listened to, because I stopped caring.

12:20 Stop for lunch at Burger King.

1:00 We got food in our bellies, gas in our car and we've got some blue skies for the first time.

1:07 We're in Pennsylvania. The first sign we see is, "This stretch of road kept beautiful by the crew of the USS Wolf NCC-XXXX (we drove by too fast for me to write it down) Starfleet." Classic.

1:49 Clouds take over the blue skies. PDOT, has taken the liberty of posting every 10 to 15 miles (give or take) reminding us to drive safe or do not tailgate or "buckle up next million miles". No I didn't make that up either.

2:10 We pass Puxatawney, home of Phil, the famous groundhog. We discuss, briefly, whether or not we should stop. We decide to press on, due to the fact we're not sure where it is, and Phil probably isn't home and it's probably not that exciting.

2:24 We're not lost, but we're convinced that we won't see another town we recognize until we hit Jersey.

2:30 We're about 6 hours into our trip, we think we're about halfway there. Anyone who wants to buy me a GPS device for Christmas is more than welcome to. Mr. Sun makes his first of few appearances today. We are also entering the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

2:41 We are now at the "Highest point on I-80 east of the Mississippi." Well it does break the monotony.

3:20 We've been going downhill for the last 15 to 20 minutes. In the rain. There are tree covered mountains literally all around us. I find a map of the state, and we're almost halfway through it. No big cities, no small cities either. Mostly towns and villages if anything. It's really surreal, I mean, I'm a city boy and yet you expect to see a town or a city every 10 to 15 minutes (if that) on the highway, not... this. Also I feel like I'm moving through a giant Escher Painting. We keep going downhill. I don't remember even the slightest incline going through the mountains. Mike does point out that the Eastern Seaboard is much lower than Ohio. Yeah, yeah ruin my fun :P.

3:40 "Falling Rocks Next Two Miles" Fun Times. No rocks falling today. The cliffs are the about 500 to 600 feet up though.

4:32 Somewhere in Pennsylvania, there are these large white dots painted on the road. They're about 5' in diameter. The signs say we should keep 1 dot in between us and the vehicle in front of us. We do it because the signs told us to.

4:50 Not many times in life will you hear this phrase uttered: "I can't wait until we get to New Jersey."

4:51 A SUV that was going westbound is on it's roof. Surprise = 0.

5:00 We stop at a rest stop for a bathroom break and soda. And in the bathroom is a Jack Chick Comic! Specifically this one. Wow, if this trip needed a highlight, this was it. Who believes this crap?

5:05 As we leave the rest stop and drive down the highway, we become enveloped in this Ravenloft-like fog. Visibility is about 50 to 60 feet. For those of you who don't speak geek, Ravenloft is a Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting, ruled by a vampire lord named Strahd. Most player-characters enter the realm through a dense white fog, usually against their will.

5:07 "Lake Harmony, that sounds like a good place to go get stabbed by a serial killer."-- Mike as we pass the sign for said lake.

5:12 Density of fog increases, visibility decreases to about 20 feet. Another unsettling thing, the road is this shade of red, maroon perhaps. At first I thought it was a spill or something, but no the road is this red shade. Weird.

5:15 Road has stopped being red, and now is the normal concrete white, and it blends in with the fog. I think I liked it better red. Visibility is about 15 to 20 feet with no sign of vehicles to the front or rear.

5:17 We pass a sign reading 15 miles to Strahdsbourg. I uh mean Stroudsbourg. I promise the Ravenloft jokes will end soon. By the way visibility is about 10 feet.

5:42 We are in New Jersey. "Who'd have guessed New Jersey would look like Ravenloft."--Mike A "I'd rather be in Ravenloft."--Mike G Thanks folks, we'll be here all week, tip your waitstaff. We also see a mountain that it's peak disappeared into the fog.

6:08 We stop to get gas, and the strangest thing happened, a teenager walks up to Mike as he swipes his Credit Card. They kinda stare at each other before the guy asks if Mike is going to pump his own gas. (I honestly thought he was going to sell us a dime bag). Apparently most of NJ gas stations are full serve at no charge. So he looked at us like we were really strange. Well we are but not for that reason.

6:10 Another thing you'd think you'd never say on a trip like this: "Gosh New Jersey is pretty."

7:00 We enter New York State.

7:30 We enter Connecticut (it's dark so I'm not writing much).

8:00 and the rest of Saturday After Eleven and a half hours on the road, we arrive in Stamford, Connecticut. We eat dinner and drive to Wal-Mart to pick up Hero Scape (a miniature game that I highly recommend). On the way to Wally World we pass the WW building. Yup the home Of the World Wrestling... thing.

Sunday, October 31st 2004.
6:22 pm After a tragedy of errors that I will never discuss here, I barely make my flight out of LaGuardia Int'l Airport. I even get pulled aside for "secondary screening". Figures. It probably was because I bought a one-way ticket, online, with no bags to check. Anyway, I'm now in my window seat preparing to take off. Someone at work asked me if I like to fly. To quote Indiana Jones, "Fly? Yes. Land? No." The bad news is I haven't eaten since 11 am and that was two doughnuts and a bottle of juice.

7:00 Take-off. This is the first time flying at night. It's absolutely gorgeous. All the lights down below, looks like billions of stars. Unfortunately New York City is on the left side of the plane so I can't see it. I'm also a little disappointed that I can't see stars outside my window, but that maybe because of the glare from inside the plane and the light that's on the wing that is in my field of view. The stewardesses offer us headphones for $2. I pass, and this seems like a wise decision when on the TV screens is The Donald.

7:28 "Roker on the Road" is now in the TV. Al has lost a lot of weight since I've seen him last. Apparently he did it so he can gain it all back by eating all this food on this show.

7:55 I keep seeing large cities down below but I couldn't identify them for the life of me. Seriously need a GPS device, although I doubt they'd let me use it on the plane.

8:11The last show of the night is Andy Griffith. Insert witty joke here.

9:34(8:34 Chicago) The flight to Dayton is delayed. The boarding should be now, but it'll probably be 9:30 Chicago time. The plane is coming out of Flint, MI, so I blame Michael Moore.

10:50(9:50 Chicago) I take a bus ride out to our plane. A propeller plane. Guess there won't be meals or movies on this flight. I look at the sky-mall catalog a la Tim Bedore

"The Canopy Trike." If you wanted your 3 to 4 year old to get beat up other kids already.

"Twin beds become a King... Forever or just a night." Perfect for dorms while the roomie is away and the s.o. is over.

"Get a summer glow all year long with the face tanner." Why pay for skin cancer when you can get it in the privacy of your own home?

11:24 got a whole can of Pepsi! Woot!

12:00Touchdown! So good to be home. It was a fun trip, even if it got hairy at the last minute. Wednesday. Big Day. See you then.