TV pitchman Billy Mays has died

Billy Mays, best known for his high-energy infomercials, has died at the age of 50. He may have been one of the most known faces in infomercials out there. And he and another pitchman had just started their own tv show. Full story can be found here.

It just goes to show you, you can go at any time. All you have to do is read or watch the news lately. Maybe it is just me, maybe it isn't. But between the motor vehicle deaths, the increasing rate of homicides, drug related deaths, and all the other "accidental" deaths, there seems to be a whole lot more people dying lately. Maybe the news is just putting more emphasis on them than they usually do. It just appears to me to be more than normal.

Hug your family, call your friends. Make the most of every single day you have on this piece of rock. You may not have tomorrow.

United States financial standing

What more could I possibly add.

Update: Hammer has a great one over at his site also.

gorgeous day

It's a beautiful day here in northern Wisconsin. Sunny and 70 at 09:30. Looking for a high of maybe 85. I plan on getting some errands done this morning, then some spring cleaning this afternoon. One of these days I might even get the bedroom closets organized. (maybe tomorrow, maybe next month) I might pick up a new kiddie pool for the dogs, their last one sprung several leaks over the winter. Here's a video of two of the horses, taken by my daughter, for your enjoyment.

loldog

After my other 2 posts I wandered over to loldogs and happen to see this one. I felt the need to poke fun at my LEO buddies share :D

heat and bosses

Today was the first really HOT day for us here in the North. We hit 96 before any heat index. (may lose a bet yet, if this keeps up) A couple sections of highway buckled, thankfully I don't drive those particular ones. The plant where I work does not have air conditioning, most plants don't. The good thing about the overly hot conditions inside, means the boss stays in her little office :D So we went about our business, stopping for two separate safety meetings, you just have to love those. At the end of the day, the boss ventured out long enough to drop off tomorrow's schedule. The first words out of her mouth when she got to our little enclosed section was "God is it HOT back here, you really should have more fans." Yep, you think we didn't notice that all day? We are stuck in a side area with no direct ventilation, which she should know by now, considering she has been with the company 8 years. The aisle that runs along side of us has a lot of air movement. The only problem with that is we can only get some of that "cooler" air by sticking a huge barn fan in our doorway. Which violates a chitload of rules ten ways to Sunday. So we do what we are paid to do, although at a slower rate.

Sen Diane Black’s "racist email"

Sorry folks, but I find it extremely hilarious. When I saw the poster of presidents I darn near choked on my soda. Maybe that makes me a bad person. I prefer to think I just have a dry sense of humor.
Whole story is here. But the best part is the actual poster :D I won't "borrow" it and post it , after all I didn't think of it. (dayem it anyway)

I'm still waiting..........

Waiting for this economy to pick up. Waiting for all those billions of dollars our govt spent to do Something, Anything, to help the economy.

General Motors is closing jobs left and right, and they received how much money??

The banks also got a good chunk of our change and what have they done with it? Some gave it to their CEO's, or used it as bonuses or God knows what else, because loans sure haven't increased anywhere that I can see. Forget about mortgage help, they can't keep up with all the requests, and people are still losing their homes. Homes they should NEVER have been allowed to buy in the first place. They knew it, the loan companies knew it.

Now they are talking about this health care plan that will cost more than I want to think about. And for what? So those without coverage can abuse it as fast as those on govt sponsored health care already do??

When will it stop?

When will accountability come into play. How much more money, that we as a country, do NOT have, has to be spent, before people rise up and say NO MORE! Do the citizens no longer care that we, as a nation, are BROKE? Actually, we are past broke.

4 killed in wrong way crash

And yet more senseless deaths, with a strong possibility of alcohol playing in to it. How many more will have to die needlessly?? If you are traveling a four lane highway, and traffic is coming directly at you, YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!!!!

Full story can be found here

pet peeves - parking lots

I ran to the store on my home from work tonight. Small town grocery store, in a small town setting. And in the parking lot I saw not one, but three of my pet peeves. Number one is leaving small children alone in the car, with "big brother/big sister" watching them. I saw three kids alone in this minivan. The oldest sibling being around nine, the youngest looked to be about 3. Don't you people realize how quickly your children can get hurt, or worse, disappear??? Small town or not! The next pet peeve of mine is parking in the handicap parking with NO special plate or placard hanging from the rear view mirror. This same minivan was in said spot. My third one is leaving pets of any kind in a vehicle while shopping. It was high 70's today (I know, real heatwave), they had each of the front windows cracked about an inch. This little Schnauzer looking dog did not seem real happy. In a car with little or no ventilation, in high 70's temperatures, the interior of a vehicle can become unbelievably HOT.
Do me a big favor people, get a sitter for the kids, if you don't want to bring them in. Leave the dog at home. And stay the heck out of the handicap spots, unless you truly need them.

loldog

chuckles

A friend sent me this link. It is tooooooo funny. Check out the stupidity here.

cost of food

A few days ago a friend of ours sent a couple steers to auction. These were between 700-900 pounds each. He got a lousy $0.55/pound. That barely covers what was put into them in feed. We sold one of ours by halves, and got $1.50/pound hanging weight. Each half averaged just over 350 pounds. Think about that the next time you go to the grocery/butcher and complain about the high cost of beef. None of the growers up here are making crap for a profit, but someone sure is. If you are looking to save money on meat, and have the option, go directly to someone who raises them and buy a quarter/half.
The dairy farmer lost almost 50% of their income. Have milk prices dropped by that much in the stores? I think not. Unfortunately it is not quite as easy to buy milk directly from the farmer. Unless you are lucky enough to know one, and haven't been scared away by all the dire consequences the FDA talks about. How the milk hasn't been pasteurized yet, and what all kinds of bacteria are in there before hand. Folks, back in our parents and grandparents day, they would grab a jug of milk straight from the bulk tanks, and it didn't hurt them any.
I'm not sure how the produce farmers are doing right now, only because I don't know any. But I would bet they are in the same boat as milk and beef. Someone out there is getting plenty rich, and it isn't the little guys.

Save a steer, eat a PETA member.

under attack

I had the dogs out for their early morning session of fetch today, and Stan, the older yellow lab, went nuts and tried to climb this big maple tree we have in the front yard. I couldn't figure out why, until I went out later and saw a squatter hiding up there. It appears we are being invaded by furry masked bandits.

blah blah blah

That is exactly what I got out of his speech today. Blah blah blah. Yes, when he has a speech written out for him, that all he has to do is read, he does very well.
When it came to the question and answer segment of the meeting........not so much. In fact, in some parts he sputtered worse then a car running out of gas. Forget coherent clear thoughts. It really does make me glad I didn't bother going. Leader or not. He sounded like a kid trying to give his first oral presentation and not doing a very good job of it. I finally gave up trying to listen, because it was making my teeth hurt. I'm not sure how much of the q&a they will have around the net, but if you get a chance to listen, let me know how long you held out, before saying enough.
Here is a copy of the prepared speech.

Here comes the Pres.

Well it looks like the big guy himself, Mr. President, will be gracing our fair city with his presence on Thursday. I thought about trying to get tickets, but then I realized, it wasn't worth what I would have to shell out in bond money afterward. They are unclear as to what President O will be speaking about, although health care has been mentioned. Either way, they are going to stream the meeting live (if they get White House approval) on www.wfrv.com . So instead of taking the chance of marring my purrrrrrfectly clean record, I will just watch it online.

I just happen to have Thursday off this week. Yet another four day weekend. Don't you just love them :D
(and Mother Nature, if you are listening, you better NOT screw with my weekend!!!)

The RPG Class Test

I haven't posted a quiz in quite a while, so I thought I'd do one today.

Your result for The RPG Class Test...

Mystic Theurge

44% Combativeness, 23% Sneakiness, 88% Intellect, 58% Spirituality

Brilliant and spiritual! You are a Mystic Theurge!


Score! You have a prestige class. A prestige class can only be taken after you've fulfilled certain requirements. This may mean that you're an exceptionally talented person, but it probably doesn't.


The Mystic Theurge is a combination of a cleric and a mage. They can cast both arcane and divine spells, and are good at both, making them pretty terrifying on the battlefield. They have more raw spellpower than just about any other class.


You're both intelligent and faithful, but not violent or deceitful. I guess that makes you a pretty good person.

Take The RPG Class Test at HelloQuizzy

TGIF

It's Friday, and it's been a long week. We finally had some overtime at work , so I grabbed what they would let me. Ended up working 54 hours this week. The paycheck will be nice, but I forgot how hard it is on the body. (guess I might actually be getting o l d) Of course today the weather was absolutely gorgeous out. Never fails, you pick up hours and mother nature has to taunt you the whole dayem day. Starting tomorrow they are calling for highs in the mid 50's! So much for summer weather.

giggles

This particular post over at LawDog's had me chuckling the whole way through. Some of the comments, added by readers, definitely matched what I was thinking. I'll refrain from saying which ones. Wanders off whistling innocently...................

fuel prices and the economy

This was written by a friend of mine. It's well worth reading.

The country doesn’t run on Wall Street or government…. It runs on all of the micro economies across the country. I’m not talking about the big metropolises; I am talking about all of the areas across the country that are similar to the Mississippi pine belt. These micro economies are very fragile and can be easily upset by as little as a 25 cent increase in the price of fuels.

A personal observation if you will…. Mid June 2008 when the price of oil and fuels peaked, there were almost no vehicles on the road, and nobody in the stores. They had no money to spend….it was all going to fuel their vehicles so they could get back and forth to work. Within a week or so after the price of fuels dropped in the fall, there was traffic on the roads again, and people were in the stores spending money again, because every dime didn’t have to go in the gas tank.

Fast forward to February 2009…. People had gotten some “breathing room” in their finances, and were getting caught up so they had more money to spend….This is what was stimulating the local economy. People were on the roads and in the stores because they had disposable income again. Now in the last month, the price of gasoline has come real close to doubling again because the speculators have seen the national economy start to rebound, and the price of oil and fuels have jumped by leaps and bounds again. Plain old working folks can’t afford to take vacations, and are having a hard time making ends meet again…. All because of the increased price of fuels. Now in May 2009, fuel prices are on the rise again, traffic on the roads is disappearing again, money flow has all but come to a screeching halt again, and retail businesses are already feeling it in reduced revenue. This is just the beginning… the trickledown effect is that there is a reduced demand for goods and services, retailers and manufacturers will have to lay off even more people, or close. The costs for transporting products and materials will rise even more.

If the economy is to truly rebound and recover, the price gouging by big oil and speculators MUST stop, the refineries must be brought back up to normal production levels again as well as opening back up all the platforms and production facilities. As I recall, the refineries have cut their production capacity down by 80% or more, as well as shutting down enough platforms and facilities to have to lay off thousands of workers…. All for the purpose of artificially increasing the price of oil and fuels.

Here’s a news flash… there is no more “travel season” because people can’t afford it. People don’t have the disposable income to spend. If the oil companies want to make more money, they can increase production, to lower the price of gasoline and fuels to where they *should* be, and keep it that way. For that matter, instead of raising the price of fuels in summer, the prices need to drop so people can afford to take their vacations, and can afford to travel, and be able to spend more money.

Want to raise gas and fuel prices?? Just remember that to raise gasoline and fuel prices comes at a great cost , and not just to the oil companies profits…. It will do more to destroy the entire country and the national economy, and is counterproductive to making money flow and “stimulating” the economy than anything else.

Steve Nunes@ Noon-Air Heating & A/C
Noon-Air@comcast.net