Lost

I really really hope that there is another show as awesome as Lost before I die.

Editor's note: I wrote this while watching a rerun of an episode and also to verify that I can post an entry from my cell phone.

Hateful

There's a great song by Lorenzo, an Ohio-based rock band, that has a song called "Hateful" and I thought of that song when I saw the Facebook postings (linked to from this article) on Rob Zombie's Facebook page. Disheartening to have "fans" not realize that Rob Zombie is a human, not some robot. If the guy says he can't sing, then he can't sing. If he would have sang and if he would have struggled through the show, the same fans that are complaining about him not finishing the concert would be complaining about the quality of his vocals. Some people in this world cannot be made happy. Kevin Holmes said it best:
"People are so rude. Apparently the man was really under the weather. I guess they think rock stars are impervious to getting sick. Shit happens, and I am sure he will make it up. Get better soon Rob Zombie and don't sweat the negativity..."

Lists Suck

Loudwire's 10 Best American Metal Bands list is missing a few entries. First, how is System of a Down on the list but Testament is not? Second, each of the "Big Four" bands (Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth) are a given so how about the 10 Best American Metal Bands without 40% being no surprise whatsoever. Third, and finally, if Pantera is on this list because their beginnings as a hair metal band are being ignored, why in the world would KISS not be included on this list? They are metal to me!

Off-Season Drama

The Iowa Hawkeyes don't begin practice for the 2014-15 season for a while (October) but that doesn't mean there hasn't been news surrounding the team. First, Peter Jok has had another issue with the law and not all of the media is sympathetic to the sophomore to be. Second, Zach McCabe has had his assault charge dropped so the controversial senior no longer has that to contend with. You remember McCabe, right? He was the one that did the WWE takedown on the player and had to have Coach Fran ban Twitter.

Third, there is some good news - not all news has "run-in with the law" as a generic grouping of the stories about the team. Obviously, the biggest story has to be Devyn Marble being drafted to a NBA team. That is awesome and I wish him much success in the NBA. I hope he has a long career and a productive career as well as far as being able to play during the game and not ride the bench. Second, as far as this year's team, there are multiple bright spots. The biggest has to be Aaron White's senior season. To me, he is the default leader of the team this upcoming season following the graduation of a strong senior class. Working hard during the off-season by attending two prestigious basketball camps, puts him in a great position to be a player in the NBA. All he needs to do is play well during the season. Yeah, I wrote "all he needs to do."

Enough Politics

Sorry for being so political the last few posts. This is not a political blog.

It's more about Star Wars! Yeah! There's a leak about the plot and it sounds so fake that it can't be true. Please, do not let the plot to be about finding Luke Skywalker's hand! It sounds like something from Spaceballs.

What's the Punchline

A 15 year-old girl walks into Planned Parenthood and is told about sex stores she can't enter, bondage, and pooping on your sex partner.

I'm still waiting for the punchline, but there isn't one.

Bi-Partisan but Not

Once upon a time, someone said, "We should have national standards for education." Democrats and Republicans got together and said, "Here, this is what we think should be standards." Now, all of a sudden, Common Core has become a politically hot issue. Republicans are stepping over each other to withdraw support. Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin is the latest to back away from this idea of a national standard in education.

Standing While the President Sits

For weeks, Bill O'Reilly has been calling for the action that Governor Rick Perry (Texas) is going to make: sending the National Guard to deal with the border between Mexico and the United States. It's a touchy situation and there are all sorts of dimensions.

There's the dimension that the majority of people crossing the border are children.

There's the dimension that once the people cross the border, they are putting a burden on social service resources.

There's the dimension that this country was built upon immigrants.

There's the dimension that some of the people crossing are not good people and could result in higher crime rates.

The way I see it, from up here in Iowa, is that when President Obama asks for 4 billion dollars to deal with the issue, it is money being flushed down the drain. Who did the analysis to figure out that was how much money is needed? No one knows if it's too much or not enough.

I think throwing money at the issue is not enough. I do not believe that people, even if they are children, should be granted the honor of being a United States citizen just because they showed up at the border. There are laws. Those laws need to be followed. If the law is not helpful at the moment, then change the law. This does not mean an executive order to by-pass Congress. It means working together.

Negotiating a Deal

As it has been reported previously on this blog, Uncle Rico the Band has a poolside gig at the Elk's Club in Iowa City on Saturday, August 23rd. We are playing from 7 - 10. There was a successful negotiation with Alex so that I can use his Yamaha electronic kit at the gig which will make the sound easier to control for Randy, who does our sound. I am going to be working on first, creating a couple of custom drum kits and second, practicing the songs in our three sets between now and 8/11, which is our next rehearsal.

Now

What I noticed on this video is the way the drummer is really fluid with his pattern. He's not really playing a complicated pattern, but he adds a visual element with the way he hits the snare.

Marriage is Going to Be Hard

It was difficult to keep the Mountain Dew Live Wire in my mouth within my mouth when I saw this article.

Please, no Photos

http://chicksontheright.com/posts/item/26121-he-s-not-interested-in-photo-ops-y-all

Elephants Everywhere

I blurted out the phrase "Elephants Everywhere" over the weekend. What a cool name for a band!

What? Did I Comprehend the Lunacy?

So, when I see a headline that declares, "DHS Asks Catholic Churches to Feed & House Illegals After Obama Admin Declares Them Terrorists," the editor or writer or the person responsible for the assembly of those words in that order should get a bonus. That is brilliant. I love it. Of course, I have to click the link to the article.

So should you. It's lunacy.

It's Been Awhile

I'm updating the page that tracks the CD reconversion project with 57668 File(s) as the number for between 7/1 & 7/15. I think I made a mess out of the conversion in the sense that I took a lot of CDs out of their case in order to put them on a spindle in order to bring 100 CDs from the den to the living room in order to rip CDs while sitting on the couch and watching television in the same room as Karen. Unfortunately, I didn't mark which CDs were done and which ones were not so I have around 100 CDs that I *think* are done, but I have to audit them to be sure. Yeah. In my spare time.

Easing back In

What a vacation!

Alex and I went up Thursday, 7/10, to Elkader and got the camper set up. The only mishap was when the camper was lowered with a sway bar leaned against the camper, which resulted in a hole in the front of our camper and a kicked table by the person who lowered the camper by depressing the lever. Other than that, things went rather smoothly. Sure, the water hookup took some work and the water heater plug took some work and there were issues with the back lock not wanting to open. Those were all things that were quickly resolved, either by me or by Mark, my brother-in-law, or by Lou, my father-in-law. It worked out fine.

On Friday, Mark, Lou, Jonathan, Tyler, Alex, and I played 9 holes of golf at Clermont. I played reasonably well. I had par on one of the holes. After playing golf, we went to Gunder to have lunch. I had a Gunderburger, which is a pound of hamburger. I ate the entire thing, which is okay since I didn't eat breakfast.

On Saturday, we played 6 handed Euchre before going to 5:30 PM Mass, followed by pizza at J&J's. At 8:30ish, Mark, Jonathan, Tyler, Susie, Alex, and I went to a "review" show at the Elkader Opera House. It was really funny and I laughed. Susie said she liked to listen to me laugh.

On Sunday, we played 4 handed Euchre while Mark and Susie packed up.

On Monday, Louis, Alex, and I played 18 holes of golf at Luana. I was playing out of my mind good golf. I was ready to play another 9. I was the most consistent I've been all season.

On Tuesday, we packed up and came home. I drove the Ford home and listened to Uncle Rico rehearsals in an effort to prepare for tonight's rehearsal. I haven't touched a stick since last week's rehearsal. When I got home, I mowed the front and then helped Alex finish mowing the back.

Today, it's back to work and going through the pile at work. We have a department meeting today at 2.

I want to write about what's been going on in my life, but cannot do so at the moment. Thus, I leave this:

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Bloopers from Above

The Knack

At Uncle Rico rehearsal last night, Gary and I talked about a couple of songs by The Knack. The tune that every cover band seems to always do is, of course, "My Sharona". Gary mentioned a second tune called "Good Girls Don't (But I Do)" which, somewhere in the deep depths of my mind, I think I had heard previously.

Scott is going to confirm our gig today. For the third summer in a row, Uncle Rico the Band is going to be playing on Saturday, August 23, 2014, at the Elk's Club in Iowa City. We are playing from 6 - 10 by the pool. The date is meaningful to me. It is a year to the day since the last time I played drums at a rock gig setting. This will be the third summer in a row that the band has played a poolside gig.


Good Girls Don't (But I Do)

Prepare for Missing a Goal

My reality is that I am going to Elkader tomorrow after work with Alex to set up the camper. Karen is coming up after work on Friday. When I am in Elkader, generally, I assume I will be offline and not writing posts for this blog. Why does this matter? With the way my busy life seems to be heading, I have 11 days, including today, to reach my goal of 1750 posts by the end of the month. I will be in Elkader until Tuesday, 7/15. Thus, I am looking at writing 38 posts in 11 days which comes out to just under 4 posts a day. That will take a dedicated effort. If I were to write another 4 posts and drop my number to 33 posts in 11 days, that would be an even 3 posts / day.

Whatever ends up happening with this blog and my effort to make 2000 posts by the end of 2014, I firmly resolve to not post miniscule nuggets of content.

Alcohol got Him into Too Much Trouble

Somewhere, in an alternate reality, former Skid Row vocalist Sebastian Bach is still putting on legendary shows with Skid Row and the fact that Skid Row has a different vocalist has never been a reality. Also, in that alternate reality, Bach continues to drink like a fish. As he describes in both this article and the embedded video below, Sebastian Bach is sober.

From the article, I've snipped some quotes that I feel are applicable to my own sobriety and, quite possibly, the following quotes are out of context as he was talking about being a lead singer in the music business and I am talking about my current life.

Quotes:

• You know the game Monopoly? Do not pass 'go' – do not collect $200, go straight to jail? That's what drinking is for me. I just get pretty crazy on it, and I don't know when to stop. Some people can be social and have a drink now and then. When I start drinking, I don't know when to stop.
• I drank .... for [roughly, 22 years]. And I loved it. But you have to make a choice of whether you wanna be .... your best.
• So I just wanna be the best I can be. That's pretty much it. I just feel physically better, and I look physically better. When I [got messed] up every night, I look[ed] like pure hell, like anybody else does.

Tentative Details

At least among the band members, we have a selected a date from the three options presented to us. I won't reveal more details until they are finalized. We have rehearsal tonight at 6:30.

Two-Minute Hates

This article about the Supreme Court decision in favor of Hobby Lobby is interesting. It quotes another article by Megan McArdle. In *that* article, McArdle makes the suggestion "that the Left and the Right “misunderstood each other so profoundly — and continue to do so even after all the screaming.” I agree with the author of the first cited article when he writes, "That’s not even remotely true: I (and most of the rest of the Right) understood the Left’s position on the case from the beginning. I just rejected it, because it was stupid; simplistic; and frankly designed to produce Two-Minute Hates on cue."

There! That's the phrase for politics in America 2014: "Two-Minute Hates".

The article goes on to quote McArdle's article, which includes this text:

Still, Megan’s article is in itself of interest:
"…while the religious right views religion as a fundamental, and indeed essential, part of the human experience, the secular left views it as something more like a hobby, so for them it’s as if a major administrative rule was struck down because it unduly burdened model-train enthusiasts. That emotional disconnect makes it hard for the two sides to even debate; the emotional tenor quickly spirals into hysteria as one side says “Sacred!” and the other side says, essentially, “Seriously? Model trains?”"

And, if that's really true, if someone can put religion on the same pedestal, the same level, as a hobby, they do not understand faith in God.

Local Headlines

Though the specifics are not ironed out yet, there is a gig in the future for Uncle Rico the Band! When I can reveal more, I will.

World and National Headlines

• Republican Rob Astorino launches new anti-Common Core ballot line
• Muslim Kills Teacher in Front of Class

Busy Week

I practiced drums for a long time last night, but didn't actually *play* drums the entire time I was in the den. Instead, there are some songs in the Uncle Rico list of songs that we are playing that are "failing" because I'm not able to play the pattern I need to play. I focused on "Johnny B. Goode" and "Two Princes." These tunes have very different feels.

First, "Two Princes" with its modern feel. Here's a drum lesson I watched to try to learn the opening fill.



But I really wanted to hear another drummer playing the "main" pattern of the tune. That's when I found this:



What's kind of funny is that the parts of the song that I have to really concentrate to play correctly are the same parts of the song that, in my opinion, he doesn't nail.

Moving on to "Johnny B Good", I found quite a few videos to watch.

This is simply a drummer playing the tune:


This is a very good cover of the tune:

This is NOT a very good cover of the tune:


If time permits, I plan to go through these two tunes again.

The Rumors Swirl

I'm amused by the way the Internet puts news in front of numerous people quickly. The sequel to "The Avengers" is being filmed. There are all sorts of rumors about who is in the movie and who is not as well as plot details. This article reminded me of the dangers of trusting the Internet for every thing. The rumor was that Spider-Man was going to be in the movie and, as evidence, there's this photo:

But, unfortunately, the above picture was modified. Here's the original picture:

Heaven

Without a doubt, the ad on Craigslist from the Minneapolis page will not exist at some point in the future so, in order to preserve the awesomeness of the item for sale, I've copied / pasted the text of the ad here:

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Here's the deal: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire a combination of state-of-the-art technology combined with old-school media in the form of a truly massive CD collection.

First, the CD's. You are purchasing a painstakingly curated collection of pristine CD's that have been accumulated over a lifetime, going back to the very beginning. There are roughly 8,700 titles comprising over 11,000 actual discs (many multi-disc collections). Many, many rarities and one-offs. Except for a few hundred recent purchases, every single CD has been carefully stored in a padded, archival sleeve and ALL the original artwork has been preserved without any folding or cutting. Read more about these sleeves here: http://jewelsleeve.com. These CD's are in truly mint condition. Due to a limitation of my system I CANNOT provide a list sorted by genre (don't even ask) but a full artist/titlelisting is provided here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6gwow7kjin09dsq/FinalAlbums.txt Editor's note: this link doesn't work

Next, these sleeved discs will come with four custom-made oak chests that store the entire collection in a very small footprint. Attached is a pic showing the concept (pic 1), a pic of the actual CD's in a different chest (pic 2), and finally a pic of two of the actual chests themselves (you will get FOUR). These chests will come with upper cabinets for additional storage (shown). This is a link to the pics:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a2deurvsr8rz1x8/MyJewelChests.jpg  Editor's note: this link doesn't work

But wait, there's more. About 98% of these discs have been ripped to four first-generation 2TB Sooloos servers. You will get these servers, a Sooloos Control One that only needs a new disk drive (easy to fix) and a Sooloos Source Five that seems to have a bad ethernet port (could probably be easily fixed by any hardware geek).

Finally, you will get several thousand extra blank Jewelsleeves so your collection can continue to grow.

The original value of everything offered here: 8,700 titles stored in sleeves, four custom oak storage chests with uppers, a complete Sooloos system, and extra sleeves, is over $160,000.

Offered for $50,000.

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That Bitch Irony

Around 12:30 yesterday, I got an email from my manager that said that we could get an early start on our holiday weekend and leave at 2. Of course, that's about the time that an issue with work that had to be done came up. Basically, help text in HTML gets routed to a queue and the web application pulls the help text from that queue, except, for the help text I was concerned about, it displayed "null" instead. This turned into a "not my job" merry-go-round that I finally jumped off of at 2:45.

The ultimate issue that caused "null" instead of the help text was not my issue. I couldn't have fixed it.

I just checked a bit ago and the defect I had created for the issue was routed to Development and four hours after submitting it, the issue has been resolved. Yeah!

Too Many Catholics

I am Catholic. I am fully indoctrinated (ooo - big word!) in the Catholic beliefs. I could list the reasons I feel this way but my point is to provide context about this idea, not list milestones in my life that coincide with my faith in God and Jesus Christ. Yes, I would say that when anyone proclaims negative ideas about the Catholic church, I feel hairs on the back of my neck raise up a bit. I am biased in the belief that Catholicism is the set of beliefs I attempt to use to direct my life choices. Am I always successful in that? Of course not - read any post on this blog where I have captured my mistakes and failings as a husband, father, and son as evidence.

That's the reaction I have when I consider the thesis that "there are "too many Catholics" on the United States Supreme Court." That thesis, put forth by the Huffington Post, a liberal website, is within an article which was written as a reaction to the Supreme Court ruling about Hobby Lobby. Had it not been for my daily newsletter from Red State leading me to their article http://www.redstate.com/2014/07/02/huffington-post-many-catholics-supreme-court/ which is a rebuttal to that Huffington Post article, I might have never conceived this idea.

All that said, here's a link to the article for your amusement.

One thing I really enjoy about politics is the way "everyone else" is wrong. Look at this set of comments from the above article:

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David Willingham · Top Commenter · Works at Retired
I have no opinion on whether a catholic or 7 should be on the court, but I have a concern when the Churches argument is presented as justification for this decision, when all of us know that nearly everyone in the Catholic Church do not practice the Church's teaching on birth control.
Dorothy Madigan · Top Commenter · Works at Retired
Have you read the lawsuit? It's not about contraception, but about the four forms of contraception that Hobby Lobby objected to as abortifacients out of the 20 which were presented. They had no objection to the others. It wasn't about preventing conception, but about continuing life after conception.

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Gerald Allen · Top Commenter · Works at Living with Parkinson's and fighting everyday.
Not real oppression if they made the Supreme Court bench. Sounds like this paper is the one that wants to oppress Catholics.
But then they are the liberal news and liberals just got handed 3 blocks to there God obama.
Lars Taylor · Top Commenter · UC Berkeley
You are delusional.
Ray McGaughey · Associate Research Scientist at I can't tell you that
Lars Taylor Like so many others. They live in a different world, somehow.
Scott Randall · Top Commenter
Gerald is not only delusional, he is very under educated; you can tell by his spelling and punctuation. He is typical of so called conservatives: knows hardly anything about history, and most of what he thinks he knows he is wrong about. That goes for political theory, economics and science. He gets all his information from FOX and Limpbaugh and truly believes opinion and ideology are worth more than facts and reality. He has been religiously indoctrinated to worship the rich and have nothing but contempt for everybody not as gullible as himself. Like I said, typical conservative religious republican.

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It sounds to me like Scott Randall is the one that is delusional. Is there one fact in his response? No. Where does Gerald Allen state that "he gets all his information from FOX and Limbaugh"? How does he know that? He doesn't. There's no evidence whatsoever. And to conclude that Gerald Allen is "very under educated" because of his "spelling and punctuation" seems to be trying to discredit ideas by pointing out the delivery of the idea, not have a discussion about the idea. By the way, the last I knew "republican" when referring to a proper noun ("the Republican Party") in Scott Randall's reply should be capitalized. I guess I can tell Scott Randall is "very under educated" because he doesn't capitalize a proper noun.

Doggy Tired

I was exhausted last night after mowing the yard. I don't think it was especially hot or weather-related but I sat down on the couch and I could barely keep my eyes awake. Karen and Alex wanted to look at the spillway by the Coralville reservoir, but I stayed home. There was no way I would stay awake just riding in the van. Instead, I put the supper dishes away, put the dangerous junk down the upstairs bathroom tub, cleaned the tub, and with CDs ripping and "Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter" on the television, I folded the laundry. By the time 10:15ish hit, I was cashed out. I didn't even have the energy to comment upon the fact that liberals are in a serious tizzy about Hobby Lobby. There is a link to this article in that article that is interesting.

Even more interesting is to read another article by Jessica Valenti thesis about the other Supreme Court ruling. She leads off with this whopper of a "Abortion clinics are not safe places - anti-choicers have ensured that - and if women are going to be free from harassment, the fight must go on."

No.

No freaking no.

The reason why abortion clinics are not safe places is not because of "anti-choicers" at all. The reason they are not safe places is because when a woman enters that clinic, she is intent upon murdering a baby. Nowhere in the article does Valenti confront that fact. It is a fact. Who is talking about abortion with honesty? Who is thinking about the child that is feeling and breathing? In general, there is hypocrisy when a liberal gets into an uproar about owning guns and about guns killing people (not the person pulling the trigger) but in the same breath, a woman should have the right to choose if they want to kill their baby. How is that right? It's not right. It's wrong.

Two Sides of the Coin

People don't speak the same language when it comes to politics. The "We are the United States of America and we stand together as one nation" theme that came out of the horrific 9/11/2001 attacks is over. The great KISS song, on their underrated "Unmasked" release called "Two Sides of the Coin" summarizes this. For never before has Ace Frehley singing, "There's two sides of the coin to choose from" been more true in America. When I read the reactions from Republicans and Democrats to the Supreme Court ruling about Hobby Lobby, I wonder what people really think is going on in this world.

First, on the Conservative side, I read this: http://www.redstate.com/2014/06/30/hobby-lobby-decision-misleading-language-left/ which says, in part, this:


There is legal precedent for for-profit companies promoting religious values.  So yes, Hobby Lobby is promoting religious values.  That’s legal.  And employees, if you don’t like it, don’t work there.  No one is forcing you to work for Hobby Lobby.  After all, it’s not like this was a secret – they are one of many Christian-owned companies who recognize the Sabbath and close on Sundays.
I went on to read  this article: http://www.redstate.com/2014/06/30/white-house-understand-happened-hobby-lobby-case/

Based upon the two links above, I know where Republicans seem to be heading on this issue.

On the Democrat side of the aisle, I read this in my First Read from NBC News daily email:
Contraception as a Democratic wedge issue
Turning from the White House and Congress to yesterday's big Hobby Lobby decision at the Supreme Court, we observed that Democratic candidates seemed more excited to talk about the Hobby Lobby case than immigration. Of course, one of main reasons is that the Latino vote will only be a factor in one Senate contest THIS November: Colorado's. But women -- whether they live in Arkansas, Iowa, Michigan, or Oregon -- are going to be the key voting bloc this year, and Democrats see the Hobby Lobby case and contraception in general as wedge issues with female voters. Indeed, back in our March 2014 NBC/WSJ poll, 48% of men said that employers should be able to be exempt from covering birth control on religious grounds, while 46% of them said they should NOT be exempt. By comparison, nearly six-in-10 women -- 59% -- said employers should NOT be exempt, versus 35% who said they should. Overall in that NBC/WSJ poll, 53% of all respondents said employers should not be exempt, and 41% said they should be exempt. It was in 2012 that Democrats first started capitalizing on the politics of contraception, and they continued that in last year's gubernatorial contest in Virginia. If Democrats hold the Senate -- and we stress the word "IF" -- yesterday's court decision could end up being one of the more important turning points. The party has been looking for a reason to rationalize a focus on contraception during this campaign year, the Supreme Court's conservative majority gave it to them. Spend any time with your nose buried in crosstabs from today and 2010, and it is crystal clear this contraception issue has had a negative impact among women for the GOP.
 
Which leads me back to the first link and this text:

This is not an anti-woman ruling.  It is anti-religious discrimination.  Post-Hobby Lobby, women still have access to contraceptives.  They still (unfortunately) have access to abortiofacient drugs.  They can pay for them out of their own pockets.  Companies have had, and thanks to this ruling, still DO have the ability to “practice what they preach” with respect to their religious beliefs.  They are not forcing their religion down the throats of employees or customers.  If the employees don’t like it, they can quit, and customers can go elsewhere.  The irony of this is that the vast majority of Hobby Lobby’s customers are: women.  If this ruling has a profound impact on women, the best thing that women can do is not shop there.  Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Then, to counter that, Rachel Maddow, my favorite liberal loon, used this misleading subject in the daily email I receive: The GOP's takes a risk celebrating contraception ruling. No one ever said, "Women, you can't have contraception." It doesn't say that!