Fifty Six Points
PG put the final touches on fifty six points today. This was the picture project that ran in conjunction with nanowrimo. The month of November is over. This is not a minute too soon for the Republican party and the Georgia Bulldogs. Fifty six points is a lot to give up in a football game. Georgia needs to learn how to play defense. The idea that this team was considered a national championship contender shows how useless pre season predictions are.
Double Barrel Claims Form
This marriage thing is getting complicated.
Father Tony has a story posted today. FT is a retired employee of the state of Connecticut. His buddy of 25 years is registered as his domestic partner, and receives benefits as a result. Recently, same sex marriage became legal up there. It seems that the benefits deal was a union negotiated thing. This is some of the fine print:
A couple shall be eligible for domestic partner status only if the couple is unable to marry in Connecticut because Connecticut’s marriage provision’s distinguish between same sex and opposite sex couples. Should eligibility to marry in Connecticut no longer be precluded on the basis of this distinction, the following provision shall cease to be effective on that date, except that coverage for couples having already achieved domestic partner status under the terms of this provision shall cease one year from that date
In other words, if the partner of FT wants to keep the pension, they MUST get married.
Father Tony is a treasure. He wrote this recently about the ins and outs of being a Catholic Priest.
There was a comment somewhere recently….maybe it was Peach Pundit, and please don’t ask for a link…but the commenter was discussing domestic partner benefits. The commenter made a point that this really wasn’t a bad idea, but that maybe there should be a live in requirement…say two years…of the couple being a declared d.p. item, before the partner would be eligible for benefits.
PG saw this, and thought that this would be a good idea for old fashioned marriages as well. Many straight marriages are more business arrangements than love matches. The shotgun has been replaced with a claims form. If a man gets his sweetie in the family way, he often has to marry her to get insurance to cover the bundle of joy. There are many other “violations of the sanctity of traditional marriage”.
And then PG realized why this is not going to happen, and one more reason why people don’t like gay marriage. There are all sorts of legal goodies for a straight married couple. The idea that this might be compromised by the same sex couples is distressing.
Spell check suggestions for this feature:
dp-dip
boi- boil, boa, boo, bod, bop, bob, bow
Nomonano Day
Today is the last day of nanowrimo and nablopomo. It is hereby known as nomonano day. PG finished his novel, the confessions of gnarlene widget. His final word count was 58,141. With this post, he will have posted all thirty days in November. He will “win” nablopomo. PG finished his novel at the same time he read the last chapter of “Trout Fishing in America” The last word of TFIA is mayonnaise. PG now knows how to spell this word. It has two ns and only one s. Football season is roaring along. As this is written, channel forty six has the colts and the browns. Channel five has “COPS”, and tacky commercials. The pictures illustrating this nomonano day post were taken at a house on Hosea Williams Boulevard. The owner of the house does not read blogs. The truck commercial showed a pickup towing a freight container over the side of a cliff. With advertising like that, it is no wonder that the truck maker is about to go bankrupt.
Junk Food Tunnel
PG suspects that the nanwrimo word count is not going much further. The month has two more days. He fully intends to get something up on the blog for two more days, and maybe, just maybe, take monday off. Sooner or later, he is going to miss a day.
There were signs advertising a neighborhood yard sale today. Then it rained, more like a drizzle really, but still wet stuff was coming out of the sky. PG went for a walk, and found no merchandise in any front yards.
On the tv set, tech is playing georgia in athens. The stadium is athens is called “between the hedges”. There are big, well maintained, hedges on both sides of the field. The hedges are a plant known as privet. Privet is a force of nature, like fire. Used and controlled, it can do nice things. However, it needs constant attention. When it is no longer useful, it does not go away easily. Privet is a bargain with the devil.
In addition to nanowrimo, this is also the month of nablopomo. PG has indeed posted something every day this month. Sometimes it was worthwhile, sometimes it was a space filler.
Today PG is going to change the routine a bit. Before, he wrote the text first, then picked out the pictures. Throughout the month, PG has gone down the list of folders with pictures, and tried to get as much variety as possible . Today, the pictures are graffiti from the train tunnel behind the waffle house.
There is a train tunnel that goes under Peachtree Industrial. It is between the waffle house and the wal mart. Thousands of cars drive over it every day that don’t know it is there. There used to be a big Frito Lay plant on Peachtree Industrial, where the Lowe’s is now. The trains that brought supplies to this plant went through this tunnel.
The graffiti performers have found the tunnel in recent years. Neither Lowe’s nor Walmart will admit to selling the spraypaint.
Christmas Holidays
The day after thanksgiving is the official start of the christmas season. The last few years, PG has been weary of the turf fighting of the Jesus worshipers The jws like to think that they are the only ones entitled to a holiday celebration. It gets nasty.
The truth is, as long as PG remembers, Christmas has been a secular holiday with a religious element. The parties and gift giving are a great way to wind up the year. The so called birth of Jesus really has very little to do with it.
In the early days of christianism, the pagan romans had a major celebration around the winter solstice. This is the longest night, and the end of the annual cycle of birth, death, and revival. The early Jesus worshipers decided to have a comparable celebration. It is uncertain when Jesus was technically born, and many scholars today believe that it was sometime in the spring.
For a long time, PG was able to ignore the religious hoopla, and focus on the joy of the season. In recent years, the Jesus Worshipers have made more of an issue out of the “War on Christmas”. Bill O’Reilly, with his instinct for a divisive issue, has been a ringleader. Where once the secular and religious people could celebrate a happy season together…and, truth be told, many still do… there is a now a conflict. The Jesus worshipers make an exclusive claim to the festivities, and those who don’t agree with them are out of luck. It has become a fighting issue whether to say happy holidays or merry christmas.
PG would like to get back to peace on earth, and good will towards men.
Gratitude
I was in a hostel, in Brunswick GA. Before dinner, everyone had to say something they were thankful for. I was ready to eat. When it was my turn, I said “I would like to thank all of you at this meeting who keep their comments down to a short sentence.”
Muskrat has suggested that people say five things they are grateful for. That sounds fair enough.
I am grateful for good health, at least below the neck. I have had a few close calls over the years,but somehow made it to 54.
I am grateful for the ability to think. Some things I believe, some I don’t. I try not to be a sheep.
I am grateful that America is going to have a change in leadership at the top. I am not optimistic that much will change, at least not right away. Nonetheless, the fact that we can have this change through a peaceful election instead of a bloody revolution says good things about America.
I am grateful for the advances in technology that allow me to share this gratitude with the world. I am also glad that the world has the freedom to ignore this if they choose.
I am grateful for the fine lady in Acworth Georgia who invited me to a thanksgiving day dinner at her home. I enjoyed the company of good people, and ate too much. This is a good way to spend thanksgiving.
I am grateful for the six basic colors. This allows me to make this post in a rainbow.
Almost Marathon
Being slack sometimes comes at a cost.
PG just did not want to get going thanksgiving morning. Finally, he roused himself, got breakfast, and put his coat on. The marathon was being run on Peachtree Road. This is about two hundred yards as the mosquito buzzes, but PG walks, and Marta is in the way. The underpass at Redding Road is about a third of a mile.
At first, PG thought he had missed it. Then, he saw the flashing blue lights, and some sweat suits moving slowly towards buckhead. PG got across the street in time to see a few runners, and the phalanx of police cars, trucks, and ambulance that marks the end of the marathon. A few runners continued on the sidewalk behind the end of the parade.
Are Conservatives Patriotic?
JoeMyG-d posted a story yesterday where he poo pooed the controversy about BHO’s birth certificate. A site called Free Republic critiqued his story. When they did so, they listed keywords in the story. The keywords they listed were: antichristian; bigot; birthcertificate; celebratesin; certifigate; conspiracytheory; crackpot; dnctalkingpoints; gaystapotactics; hedonist; homosexualagenda; ifitfeelsgooddohim; larrysinclairslover; lavendermafia; liberalbigot; missingbirthcert; moonbat; obama; religiousintolerance; sodomite; woowoo.
Thats quite a collection. When PG went to FreeRepublic to see for himself, the site was down. There is something called a 502 proxy error in the works now. Or maybe the thesaurus at Free Republic went into hyperdrive, and took down everything in site.
Free Republic is back up now. Maybe this was a coincidence. This post had 64 comments when PG looked through. Many of them are wigged out about the word “christianist”. Very few of these people call a student of Buddha a Buddhian.
On a lighter note, it seems like the right wing is not giving up the fight. They seem determined to make as much trouble for BHO as they can. This is consistent with the reception the Clintons got in 1993.
BHO is going to have his hands full when he comes into office. The patriotic thing to do would be to support him, and try to help solve some of the problems he is going to be facing. The right wing seems determined to look for anything they can to fuss about. PG questions the patriotism of people who would undermine the president like that.
Perfect Country Western Song
PG walked down New Peachtree Road. This is Atlanta, where there are a couple of hundred roads named Peachtree. No one seems to mind that most of the peach farms are south of Macon. The peaches grow a lot better there. They fuzz comes in heavier, and the pits are pittier. One time Dagwood Bumstead asked why peaches have fuzz. His wife Blondie said, if they has arms they could shave. PG was walking down the road in the rain, with a freight train going down the tracks in a southern direction. This is forty percent of the ingredients for the perfect country and western song.
When PG was younger and drunker, there was a place on Clairmont Road called the watering hole. He would go there, drink beer, play pool, and have a good old time. As was the custom in such facilities, there was a jukebox. The patrons put money in the box and played the songs that they wanted to hear. A favorite was “you never even called me by my name” There is a little spoken part, where David Allan Coe talks about the perfect country and western song. This song must talk about rain, Momma, trains, trucks, prison, and gettin’ drunk.
New Peachtree Road has this gravel yard where the eighteen wheelers come and go. There was a big rig backing into place when PG walked by, and he may have heard the truck bump into a trailer. PG walked in the rain, between the train, and a big rig going bump against the trailer. The problem was, Momma’s gone, PG doesn’t get drunk, and prison is too much work. So much for the perfect country western song.
The songwriter is Steve Goodman. He gave a show at the Last Resort in Athens GA, that a friend of PG attended. Mr. Goodman tells a story about performing on a train, during a series of concerts supporting Hubert Humphrey. It seems like Mr. Goodman had to use the restroom on the train. Now, in those days, the trains did not use holding tanks, but just ejected the matter by the tracks as they rode by. Mr. Goodman was told, do not flush the commode while the train is in the station. Mr. Goodman forgot the instructions. Mr. Humphrey said ” I am going to give the people of this country what they deserve”, Mr. Goodman flushed the commode, and sprayed the crowd. PG is not sure if he believes this, but it is a good story.
Pre Mortem Cremation
This being sunday, PG and Uzi went walking. Today the scene was the Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve, near Decatur. The land is not a virgin forest. It looks like it was cultivated land until a few years ago. The most aggressive weeds took command at this time. Do not come here if privet makes you nervous.
PG and Uzi came to the end of a trail, and saw that the car was a hundred yards down a road. They went back into the forest, hoping to find a path running parallel to the road. Instead, they went back around a swamp, which was dried by the drought. There were a couple of observation overlooks, including a lifeguard chair. Finally, they made it back to the vehicle.
It was a bit after 4 at this point, which is too early for dinner, but not enough time to go home and then meet for dinner. PG took a variety of back roads, and came out by the S&S cafeteria. After dinner, the cashier was talking to a man about cremation. The lady started to talk to PG about cremation. ” I talked to Charles Stanley about it, I asked him if there was anything in the bible about it, it just doesn’t seem right”. PG thinks that cremation would be a good idea for Charles Stanley.
W is for Whiskey
There is an official word for every letter in the alphabet. It is part of the NATO phonetic alphabet.
The words are:Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu
The current President is often called by his middle initial, W. He is known to have had a drinking problem, and is rumored to be hitting the bottle these days. How ironic that W means whiskey.
In Vietnam, the vietcong were called victor charlie. This was shortened to charlie. Thus an enemy was given the same first name as Charlie Brown.
Foxtrot and November give new meaning to the f word and the n word.
There are also code names for numbers. These are: 0 Nadazero 1 Unaone 2 Bissotwo 3 Terrathree 4 Kartefour 5 Pantafive 6 Soxisix 7 Setteseven 8 Oktoeight 9 Novenine
HT to Puntabulous.
November 22,1963
When PG typed in the title of this segment, he was reminded what day this was. This was the day John Kennedy went to the oval office in the sky. The legend is that Marilyn Monroe greeted him. It was forty five years ago.
The bullets hit Mr.Kennedy at 12:30. He arrived at the hospital at 12:37. He had a faint heartbeat on arrival, but quickly succumbed to his wound.
In Georgia, PG was nine years old. He was in Miss Mckenzie’s fourth grade class. There was going to be an assembly soon, and the class was going to perform. There was a rehearsal in the cafetorium, and some of the kids were acting up. They went back to the class, and PG thought they were going to be chewed out about the misbehavior in the cafetorium. Instead, Miss Mckenzie came into the room, and told the kids that President Kennedy had been shot during a parade in Dallas Texas. She did not say anything about his condition. One kid cheered the news.
School let out at the regular time, and PG walked home. His mother and brother were crying. He was told that the president had died. The cub scouts were going to meet that afternoon, but the meeting was canceled.
Later that night, a plane arrived in Washington. The tv cameras showed a gruesome looking man walk up to a microphone. He was introduced as President Lyndon Johnson. This may have been the worst moment of that day.
spell check suggestions for this feature:
cafetorium…crematorium, sanatorium, auditorium, moratorium, cafeteria
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